Evening was drawing in by the time the four ponies flying along the line of the river Flank that bisected the city of Bitmark reached their destination, and a silent pall had fallen over the group, mostly through a lack of noise from one particular pony.

"You're being uncharacteristically quiet Trixie," said Twilight in the hopes of ending said quiet.

"Not my fault I don't know what might set you off."

Twilight sagged in the harness, the cart dipping slightly. "I said I'm sorry. You try coming back from the dead Trixie, and see how well you handle it!"

"Damn it Trixie!" Thorn huffed. "You set her off!"

"My sincerest apologies, but I didn't realise telling her that would set her off either. In Trixie's defence, Twilight is rather tetchy these days."

"These days? What days would those be? The entire two days since I came back from the dead? That doesn't exactly qualify to be as long as you're making out!"

Trixie rolled her eyes, "Are you still going on about that?"

"I- Urrgh! You pick the topic if you're so worried about 'setting me off.'"

Spitfire cleared her throat, "How about the topic that we're almost there?"

"Huh?" Twilight focused ahead, seeing a mass of lights in the distance that more than likely had to be the place they were looking for.

"Oh goody, that place we should have been at hours ago," Trixie snarked.

"It's not my fault I'm getting tired easily, y'know, considering recent events that you're all very aware of by now."

"You were dead Twilight, famously a time for resting." Trixie smiled sweetly at Twilight who was looking back in an attempt to murder Trixie through the power of glaring. "Hadn't you better set this cart down now?"

"You could just drop them," Twilight said to herself. "Use the amnesia spell on Spitfire and nopony would be any the wiser. Daybreak would probably understand that accidents can, and do happen."

She dove down, adding a totally unnecessary burst of speed that left the cart's inhabitants screaming, even after she had gently landed. "Oh look, we're down. That was fast."

"I'd murder you if there was any point," Trixie panted as she crawled out of the cart, her legs like jelly. "Sweet sweet ground, how I've missed you."

Spitfire gently spiralled in to land beside them, "I guess we're walking the rest of the way then?" Twilight nodded, "Figures. I guess it's cloak time for me."

"I'm reasonably sure I could hide your wings if you want?" Twilight cast the spell to hide her own wings for emphasis.

"You could, but the cloak constricting my wings is going to work a lot better at reminding me not to fly." Spitfire reached into the cart and pulled the cloak out with her teeth, throwing it over her back.

"As long as you're sure," said Twilight.

"Are we going to have to leave this cart here?" asked Trixie. She ran a hoof over it, "I've become rather attached to this thing."

Twilight rolled her eyes and pulled their belongings out of the cart before picking it up in her magic and wedging it onto the branches of an oak tree. "There, if somepony wants to steal it, at least they'll have a challenge doing so. Now come on, we're way overdue as it is." They made their way towards the city, keeping to what cover the trees provided as best they could.

They stopped and watched as a quartet of soldiers made their way around the outer wall of the city, none of them paying particular attention to their surroundings as they chatted amongst themselves.

"Why would they be patrolling outside the city?" Trixie asked. "Surely they should be more concerned about what's going on inside? And what's with this country and building giant walls around everything?"

"Ancient design philosophy that never got phased out since the cities here haven't changed all that much," Twilight said absentmindedly. She pointed over to the right at a crumbled down section of the wall. "I really don't think they use it much if that's how well they keep it."

"Actually they don't use the wall," Thorn told them. "There's parts of the city built outside it and everything. Heck, the wall's occasionally raided for stone to build with."

"So sneaking in should be easy then?" Trixie said hopefully.

"Depends where we sneak in," said Thorn. "You know how Prance has an upper and lower city?" The others said they did, "Well Bitmark has a left and a right. The left side of the river is the poor part, and the right, which is the far side, is the richer side."

"You say rich and poor sides," said Trixie, "but why do I get the feeling you mean earth pony side, and non earth pony side."

"Yeah, kinda," Thorn admitted, "but the poor side has a fairly even mix of unicorns and earth ponies, and is also like twice the size of the rich side, and has all the industry and stuff. That's also where we're headed, so come on."

They dashed across the open ground and in through the ruined gap in the wall, sticking to the shadows as they tried to judge just how well patrolled the city was. From simple observation, it was easy to tell that it was very well patrolled, but the soldiers clustered together in groups larger than what would be typically used for a simple patrol.

"Is it just me, or do these soldiers seem a bit scared?" Trixie pouted, "Looks like somepony's doing my job for me."

"Seeker did say that the city was ready to rebel." Twilight fell quiet as another patrol passed. "I wasn't really sure what she meant by that, but I guess attacks on the soldiers here would be a pretty good clue."

"Shhh." Thorn pointed a hoof between two buildings, "We need to go up there without being seen. Any ideas?" There was a blinding purple flash, and they appeared to have moved to between the two buildings once it had faded. "Yeah, that works. Come on."

They followed up through the gap, and stopped outside a building with boarded up windows, giving Trixie a chance to scrape the mud off her hooves and complain. "Why does everything in this place feel damp and sticky? It's like the entire place is permanently moist."

"The innuendos that could probably be made from that sentence alone," Spitfire said quietly. She sighed, "I Soarin was here."

Thorn studied the building they had stopped in front of. "I think this is the right place. I better use the secret knock." She raised her hoof and gave the door a single knock.

"That's the secret knock?" Trixie blurted out.

"Sure. How many ponies do you know that only knock once when knocking on a door."

"Trixie isn't sure whether that's so stupid it's brilliant, or just regular stupid."

The door creaked open a crack, the chain stopping it from opening further, and a single eye gazed out at them. "What walks through the night?" asked the mysterious eye's mysterious owner.

"Whatever damn well pleases to, you plonker."

"Welcome, friend." The door closed again, and something rattled on the other side before it opened fully, showing a bluish grey earth pony stallion with brown and white striped hair. "Please, come in before you're seen."

"Wait..." Trixie squinted suspiciously at Thorn and the stallion as she entered, "You mean that 'whatever damn well pleases to,' is the password?"

"Oh no," said Thorn, "There is no password. The point is to not get caught trying to guess what it might be, but you have to add an insult somewhere. That's essential."

"Diabolical." Trixie looked around the interior of the building, "So, this dump looks cozy. Where are we exactly?"

"This is our headquarters in Bitmark," Thorn told her, "and this is Carter."

Trixie cocked her head slightly to look at his cutie mark. It was a cart, much to her lack of surprise. "Fitting."

"I was expecting to see more ponies here though..." Thorn wandered over to a door to another room and stuck her head through, finding only four other ponies, all of which waved genially at her. "Carter, what's going on? We sent you to start a rebel cell here, not sit back and shoot the breeze."

"Well that's the thing. We started off by stirring up a bit of trouble to get the Duke to send some troops here, but that's when things went a bit wrong. The Duke sent loads of soldiers here, and then the ponies here started resisting without us."

"Why not convince them to join us?"

"Because... it's complicated. It doesn't help that there's two groups trying to resist the occupation."

"Who are they?" Twilight asked.

"Well, there's the big one led by a mare call Vines. They have a lot of numbers, but don't really have the gear to do more than throw rocks in hit and run attacks-"

"Define 'big one,'" interrupted Trixie.

"Uh, there's maybe a thousand of them, but the soldiers still outnumber them by at least three to one, so, as I was saying, they stick mainly to hit and run attacks that are slowly whittling the soldiers down. Really, really, slowly."

"And the other group?" Twilight asked.

"They're... a bit harder to describe. They're rather secretive, and we only know their leader. We do know that they have a lot of decent equipment to use, but most of it is wasted because they don't have the numbers."

"Who's the leader?"

Carter glanced back over his shoulder, his stance becoming awkward. "He's-uh... He's the... mayor, pleasedon'thurtme!"

"What!?" Thorn burst out while Trixie grinned happily. "Why would the mayor be- What?"

Trixie rubbed her hooves together, "The plot thickens."

Carter sighed and rubbed his forelegs together, "As I said, complicated."

"Okay, okay..." Twilight waited until she had their full attention. "These two groups, why aren't they working together?"

"Don't know," Carter admitted.

"Right, and you haven't tried to join them because?"

"Because they don't want to join us. We haven't been sat here doing diddlysquat you know. We did try to approach both groups, but they don't care about what we're trying to do when Bitmark is still under threat by the Duke."

"So you gave up," Trixie said flatly.

"We haven't given up. What we're doing is observing both groups, and the soldiers, until we have a better idea of what to do. Now you're here though, we might get somewhere."

Spitfire stepped forward, "It's pretty obvious what we have to do." She pulled her cloak off and threw it aside, "We have to get these ponies working together. Even if they don't want to join us, whatever they do to the soldiers benefits us."

"Yeah," Thorn said slowly, "but something tells me it's not going to be that easy."

Twilight agreed with them, although she didn't say it. She wasn't about to throw away the potential for new allies though. "We need to talk to the leaders of these groups, try to convince them that while working together would be good, working with us as well would be better. Carter, can you get us a meeting with these ponies."

"Sure, I think, but it'd have to be tomorrow."

"Good. Thorn, you and Trixie can go and talk to this 'Vines,' while Spitfire and I go and talk with the major."

Trixie folded her legs and raised an eyebrow, "And why do you get to meet the mayor while we have to go meet the uncouth proponent? Why can't I meet the mayor?"

"Because I want you acting as muscle for Thorn while she does the talking, and because I can pass for an earth pony if I hide my horn. So can Spitfire if she wears her cloak. I imagine that earth ponies get a lot less attention walking around the rich part of town."

"Screw you and your superior reasoning," Trixie grumbled. "And why does Thorn get to do the talking?"

"Because join us or I'll hurt you isn't a good way to make friends," said Thorn.

"Everypony's a critic."

"Are you okay Spitfire?"

Spitfire rolled her neck and subtly tried to stretch her wings. "My wings are sweating. I didn't even think wings could sweat." She pushed Twilight aside into the entrance of an alley. "I've changed my mind, hide my wings. Please, before I end up a roast turkey."

Twilight giggled, "Alright, hold still." She cast the spell, her mind working to make the spell effective on another pony instead of herself. "There, that, uh... might have worked."

Spitfire shrugged the cloak off, and much to the relief of both ponies, her wings were wholly invisible. "Thank Celestia for that. Now I just have to remember to not fly." She balled the cloak up and held it, unsure what to do with it until Twilight teleported it back to the hideout.

"I think Fleur might get annoyed if we lost that, now come on." The walked out of the alley and over the bridge that would take them to the wealthy part of town. The difference between the two sides was instantly noticeable as muddy streets gave way to tiled stone. By the sides of the bridge were little troughs of running water that Twilight saw another pony using to wash the mud off her hooves, so she nudged Spitfire over to it. "Gotta fit in," she reasoned.

The differences didn't end with the roads either. The buildings were better built, better maintained, and just better all round, and the ponies wore at least one item of clothing, leaving Twilight thinking that they still stuck out due to being totally undressed.

"Is that the place?" Twilight looked at what Spitfire was pointing at, seeing a large structure not unlike the city hall in Neigh Orleans, but segregated from the rest of the city by a well defended wall with a big iron gate that aptly defined which side of it the guards thought you should be on. "That wall looks new," Spitfire observed. "I mean, new compared to everything else around here."

"It could've been built when the army last occupied this place." Twilight tried to remember how long ago that was, but couldn't. "It doesn't matter. The problem is we can't get in with those soldiers guarding it."

Spitfire squinted at the ponies guarding the wall, "Are you sure those are soldiers? Their uniforms are different."

Twilight paid more attention to the guards, noticing small differences in the armour they wore compared to the soldiers, as well as the colours. "You could be right. City guard perhaps? Let's just go and ask. The worst they can do is say no."

"The worst they can do to you perhaps," Spitfire said in a voice low enough for Twilight to miss. She let Twilight lead the way to the gate, stopping behind her when a guard lowered his spear to block her way.

"State your business."

"We'd like to see the mayor please," Twilight said as pleasantly as she could.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"I... don't know. Carter sent us if it helps." Twilight smiled nervously.

The guard leaned forward to look Twilight in the eye. "Who?"

"Carter. He's a friend of the mayor."

The guard leaned a little closer, "Never heard of him." He waved a hoof vaguely, "Stop wasting my time."

"What if we told you we had news about the rebels?" said Spitfire. "Surely that's worth letting us see him."

"The entire city is full of rebels if you haven't noticed. Soldiers too. Now how about you take a walk down there and leave me alone." He pointed along the wall to his left.

"But we need to see the mayor!" Twilight argued, totally oblivious to what the guard was hinting at.

"And I'm telling you to take a walk down there."

"But the mayor isn't down there," she pointed at the building on the other side of the gate, "he's in there!"

Spitfire facehoofed, "Twilight..."

"What?"

"How about we just do what the nice guard is telling us, and leave him to his duties."

"B-but we have to get in there!"

Spitfire butted Twilight in the direction the guard had pointed along the wall, "And we will." Twilight glanced back at the gate, unsure of what was going on, but followed Spitfire.

"What are you doing?"

"That guard was telling us to go down here. Not to go away, but to come down here. Clearly he had a reason to do so. If not we just go somewhere quiet and you can teleport us in, okay?"

"Fine..." Twilight increased her pace and followed Spitfire around the edge of the wall until they found a small recessed door guarded by a single pony smoking a cigarette.

"What you want?" he asked, not bothering to straighten up or even attempt to look like he cared.

"We want to see the mayor."

"Oh yeah? Who sent ya?"

"Uh... Carter did?" Twilight said hopefully.

"Carter huh? I might've heard of him." The guard roughly kicked the door open. "Stay off the grass."

"Right, uh, thank you." They hurried through the door, the guard yanking it shut behind them. "That was weird. Why couldn't they have let us in through the front gate?"

"I don't know ma'am. Appearances probably. Now let's go before somepony tries to stop us." They hurried up through the gardens, taking care to not walk on the manicured grass as they made their way up to the front doors of the building.

Two guards stood there, neither of them moving as Twilight and Spitfire nervously trotted up the stairs, a slight movement of their eyes letting the pair know that the guards were well aware of their presence. "So, do we just go in?" Twilight asked the one on the right. He didn't show that he even acknowledged the question, let alone tried to answer it. "Okay then, I guess we just go in."

They pushed the door open and slipped inside, closing it behind them. In front of them was a desk, manned by a peach mare with her blond mane done up in a rough bun that screamed overworked and underpaid assistant. Rather pointless seeing as how they weren't letting anypony in.

"Can I help you?" she said in a dull, bored tone of voice, not bothering to look at them.

"We want to see the mayor."

"Of course you do. Why else would you be here?"

"Uh..."

"You're Carter's friend, correct?"

"Yes?"

"Up the stairs and straight in front of you. The mayor's expecting you."

"Right! Of course he is! Why wouldn't he be? Ahahahaha-ergh..." Twilight walked past the desk and up the stairs, not even bothering to check if Spitfire was following her. "Is being rude a pastime here or something? Absolutely ridiculous!"

At the top of the stairs was a double door, and Twilight stopped to gather her wits before pushing through them. "Are you the mayor?" she said to the brown coated stallion she found within, sat behind his desk. "Please be the mayor."

The stallion chuckled, "Yes I'm the mayor. You'll have to excuse me for the roundabout way to get in here, but since the Duke's illustrious Grand Army came to visit, things have to be that way. I'm assuming you're Carter's friends."

"You know Carter?"

"Well he did set this meeting up. He came in here a while ago after finding out about my efforts to remove the soldiers from my city. Said he was part of a body known as the Mareitanian Liberation Front, and was hoping we would join forces. I refused."

"We're aware of your refusal, but I would like to know why."

The mayor stood and trotted over to a table with some cups and a coffee pot. "Coffee?" Spitfire shook her head while Twilight nodded vigorously, "My assistant does make fine coffee," he said while pouring two cups. "One of her two talents; coffee, and appearing to be permanently disinterested in everything, including her job." He placed the cups on a tray and returned to his desk, allowing Twilight to take her cup in her hooves.

"You were saying why you refused to join us?" Spitfire reminded him.

"Ah yes. The point is, why should I bother joining you until my city is free? I'm sure you're all good intentioned in wanting to overthrow the Duke, but until the soldiers are gone we're stuck in a bind."

"But helping to overthrow the Duke would help free your city," Twilight pointed out, placing her cup back on the desk.

"True, but five ponies hiding in an abandoned building doesn't make much difference to me here. Then there's also the issue in that I have very little to offer you to make joining you worth your while if what I've heard about your group is true."

"Offer us? What do you mean?"

"Did you know I was mayor here during the last occupation?" They both shook their heads. "Thought not. I was a lot younger then, and a lot stupider. I let the soldiers into my city and sat back as they did terrible things to the ponies under my protection, and by the time I realised my mistake, I was far too late. After that I vowed to never let that happen again and started building up supplies and weapons and suchlike, that would help rid us of the soldiers should they return. But while I could do that, there's one thing I failed to procure. Ponies."

Spitfire crossed her legs and regarded the mayor coolly, "I'm guessing nopony wanted to listen to you after you let the soldiers run roughshod over their lives."

Twilight was aghast, "Spitfire!"

"Actually, she's not wrong. Instead of listening to me, they listened to ponies like Vines, who wants the same things I do, but through different methods."

Twilight frowned, "Then why don't you make an alliance with her?"

"I would, gladly, if not for one sticky little detail."

"What would that be?"

"She wants me dead."

"I can't believe I got stuck in the crappy part of town," Trixie grumbled to herself as she and Thorn followed Carter through the poorer part of town through to a even poorer part of town known as the dregs. "Are we almost there yet?"

"Almost," said Carter. He led the around the corner and stopped in front of a door guarded by a massive off-white unicorn, his face a patchwork of scars, some old, some new. He plucked a toothpick from between his teeth using his magic before speaking.

"What d' you want Carter?"

"My companions and I want to see Vines."

"Uh-huh..." The stallion spat between Carter's hooves and replaced his toothpick. "And what exactly makes ya think she wants to see you?"

"She might not want to see me, but she might want to see the ponies with me."

"There's two more of you now?" The unicorns eyes lit up, "Praise be to the Lady! Now there's seven ponies here to save us from the evil Duke!" The stallion fell back into his disinterested stance, "Get the fuck outta here Carter, before I break your legs."

Trixie pushed Carter aside, "What do we have to do to get in there?"

"The only way you're getting in there is through me."

Trixie smiled nastily, "Well why didn't you say so." He horn bubbled with magic, and before the massive stallion could react she encased his entire body in crystal apart from the end of his muzzle which she proceeded to boop. "Is this enough to get us in? Just wrinkle your nose if it is." The stallion quickly wrinkled his nose, and Trixie patted his cheek, a spider web of cracks spreading from the contact. "Good boy."

She swept past him, followed reluctantly by the other two, and entered the building while the guard slowly cracked his way out of the crystal. Inside the building was a few dozen ponies, both unicorns and earth ponies, and Trixie walked into the middle of them, clearing her throat to declare "I'm looking for Vines."

The ponies parted to make way for an earth pony mare with a ruddy pink coat and grass green hair. "And who might you be?" She cocked her head to the side as she spotted Carter, "Well if it isn't my favourite freedom fighter! Patches must be in a good mood to let you in."

"Actually, I had to persuade him," Trixie said smugly.

"Oh? A quickie somewhere was it? He does have a soft spot for the pretty ones."

"Au contraire, I encased his entire body in crystal."

Vines raised her eyebrows, clearly surprised that somepony might have bested the massive stallion so easily. "Somepony go check on him." She waited for somepony to go before giving Trixie an appraising look, "You have my attention. I'm just going to assume that you're with Carter's little group."

"Actually, we number in the thousands," Thorn said. "But that doesn't matter," she added quickly, seeing how unimpressed Vines was by that. "The point is that we want to help you get the soldiers out of Bitmark, and in exchange you help us defeat the Duke."

"Right, right... And why would I do that exactly?"

"Because freeing the city is pointless while the Duke is still in power. He'll just come and take it back, or, if you fight hard enough, burn it to the ground." Thorn could tell by the way that Vines' eyebrow twitched that she'd struck a nerve. "You know I'm right."

"Alright, fine, but I'm still not going to join you unless you have something to give us."

"We can provide military aid to help you take back the city."

"That's good and all, but we can't really fight back until we have better weapons and more ponies, unless you're offering to do all the work."

Thorn shook her head, "That's not up to me, but I don't think you want to wait that long for us to come here with an entire army. We'll help, but we won't do your fighting for you."

"So you're more or less useless to us then." Vines sighed and laughed bitterly, "No surprise there."

"Look, you can fight this battle, and you might win, but without us to stop the Duke you will never win the war. If you won't consider joining for the right reasons, maybe I had better ask what we could do to convince you to join us instead."

The corner of Vines' mouth twitched up, "Oh that's easy, kill the mayor. Do that, and maybe I'll seriously consider joining you."

Trixie rolled her eyes, "Pfft, please, give us a challenge."

Thorn ignored her, "Isn't he also trying to fight the soldiers?"

"Don't care. I'm sure you've heard about what the soldiers did here a while ago?" Thorn said she had. "He's the one that let them do it. He claims to regret his actions or whatever, but I don't care. Because of him a lot of ponies are dead, including my parents. Bring me his head and we'll have an agreement."

Twilight took a moment to process that, "Why would she want you dead?"

"Because she blames me for her parents death, like I could've actually have prevented it from happening. Realistically, even if I knew from the beginning what the soldiers were going to do I still wouldn't have been able to do much beyond hide a few ponies."

"And she's unwilling to see past that even if it helps her cause?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Why don't you just give them the weapons?" asked Spitfire.

"Because I suspect that as soon as those soldiers are taken care of, those weapons would be turned against me, and I'm rather attached to this mortal coil of mine. Frankly I'm surprised that she hasn't tried something already."

"Oookay," Twilight said thoughtfully, "What's stopping them from taking your supplies."

"Not knowing where they are. They're spread around different places, and I'm the only pony that knows where all those places are. Even if they found one weapons cache it wouldn't do them much good."

"So if you die they're no better off," Twilight said quietly.

"Apart from sating her desire for vengeance, no."

Spitfire looked to Twilight, hoping the alicorn might have an idea on what to do. Twilight did have an idea, but its chances of success were reasonably low in her opinion.

"So, if I formed an alliance between you and Vines' group, would that be enough for you to release those weapons and provide your city's assistance to our cause?"

"Certainly. There's no point in pretending that the city is going to be free forever if the Duke is still around to take that freedom away."

"Right." Twilight nodded to herself, "Okay, I'm going to have to sort out some kind of meeting here between you and them. Do you mind if we have it here?"

"Only if you can guarantee my safety."

"I think we can do that. Come on Spitfire, let's go see what the others have to say. Thank you for your time," she said to the mayor before turning and leaving with Spitfire in tow.

Twilight facehoofed, "You said you'd kill the mayor? Really Thorn, really?"

"No, but I didn't say it was off the table either. I wanted to see what you had to say on the matter before committing to something like that."

"Okay, well the answer is that we can't kill the mayor. If we do that then his help evaporates for reasons I hope I really don't need to explain."

"So?" Trixie said dismissively, "He's only providing some weapons and stuff. Big deal."

"It's more than that Trixie. He's run this town for years, so he knows its ins and outs like nopony else. If we want this city's support in our fight against the Duke he needs to stay in charge. He's not a bad pony Trixie, and I'd rather keep him in charge if possible."

"Alright, so what are you suggesting?"

"We need to set up a meeting between the two groups so they can hopefully reach an agreement where they'll at least cooperate to fight the soldiers. If we can get that then we can work on them helping us later, although the mayor was more than happy to help us anyway, so long as we helped free his city."

"I don't think Vines is going to like that," Thorn said uneasily.

"We'll... get round to that. For starters, let's just get them to meet, even if we have to trick her into it. We'll tell her that the mayor's dead as per her request, and ask her to come to the mayor's office because we want her to replace him. Then we can force her to negotiate."

"And if she doesn't want to?"

"In that case, it depends on how her followers see it, because I really hope they don't all have a vendetta against the mayor. Hopefully the others will see the wisdom in what we're asking of them."

Trixie leant back like she was thinking about something, "Are you sure we should keep the mayor in charge? There's bound to be some way to get him to tell us where his stuff is."

Twilight groaned and ran a hoof down her face, "No Trixie, we need him. As I said, he can run this city better than anypony else right now, so we need him."

"Just because he wants to help us doesn't mean it's a good idea! What if he hates pegasi or something, and refuses to free them?"

"Then we free the pegasi anyway, and tell him to shove it if he doesn't like it." Twilight smirked at Trixie, "Good enough?"

Trixie smirked back, "Nice to know you're not being a total soft touch."

"I'm not quite that naïve Trixie. You and Thorn head back to Vines and tell her to come to the mayor's office somehow, and tell her to bring small numbers with her so we don't make the soldiers suspicious. We'll be waiting."

Vines watched Trixie, Thorn, and Carter with an expression somewhere between disdain and disappointment, while beside her Patches and some of others tried to look menacing. If Patches could bring himself to face Trixie it probably would've worked better.

"You must think I'm stupid. Going to the mayor's office sounds like a trap if ever I heard one."

A bead of nervous sweat dripped down Thorn's cheek, "What makes you think that?"

"You really think I believe you killed the mayor in the three hours since I last saw you, and supplanted him with your own pony? Even a foal would have to be pretty stupid to trust that. When I said to bring me his head, I meant it."

Trixie stomped a hoof, "Look, we hadn't planned on our friends killing the mayor, and if we'd had the chance I would've asked her to save his head for you!"

"You're telling me she destroyed his body? What, did she burn it? Seems like a good way to draw attention to yourself."

"She destroyed it with her magic."

"Pfft, no unicorn can do that."

"I could," Trixie said smugly, sticking her chest out slightly.

Vines crossed her forelegs, "I don't believe you. Even if your horn's freaky lookin'."

Trixie threw her legs up in exasperation. "Then you're never going to, unless you want me to kill one of your ponies and show you. Tell her Thorn!"

"Uh..." Thorn wasn't expecting to be put on the spot like that, and panicked. "I don't know, you've never done it." Trixie face went slack as she tried to convey how much of an idiot she thought Thorn was. "But," Thorn recovered, "I have seen her take on dozens of the Duke's soldiers and barely take a scratch, so she probably could."

"She did get past me without even trying," Patches added, still not meeting Trixie's eyes. "I say we give them the benefit of the doubt."

Vines' head lolled back so her nose was pointing at the ceiling, "Arrgh, fine. Let's just walk into what is highly likely to be a trap shall we? Patches, Sharp, you're coming with me."

"Where are the guards?" Vines asked as they made their way up to the mayors office. "You can't seriously be telling me your friends killed all the guards too."

Trixie shrugged, "We don't know, we weren't here." She pushed the doors into the building open with her magic, and shut them after they had entered. "We're here," she said to the pony sat behind the reception, which so happened to be Spitfire.

"About time! No wonder the mare that usually does this looked so bored all the time." She stood and shook a bit of life back into her legs, "Follow me, Twilight's waiting for you."

"And this Twilight's the pony in charge?" Vines asked as they followed Spitfire up the stairs. "Is she the one that apparently killed the mayor?"

"Sure, why not." Spitfire pulled the doors open and led them into the office where Twilight was sat behind the mayor's desk, still in her earth pony guise, with her hooves pressed together. Spitfire stopped Trixie as the others entered and whispered something into her ear. Trixie seemed confused for a second, but nodded and shut the door with both of them still outside it.

Twilight stood and smiled warmly at the newcomers, "Hi. I'm assuming one of you must be Vines."

Vines stepped forward, "I'm Vines. Who are you?"

"My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I'm the leader of the Mareitania Liberation Front. I'm here to help you take your city back, and to do that we need to reach an agreement."

Vines squinted slightly with suspicion, "You're Twilight Sparkle?"

"Yes, that's right."

"I was given the impression that you were a unicorn, and had used your magic to kill the mayor. It appears as though you're an earth pony..." Vines searched about the room, "Where's the unicorn that killed the mayor? Because I would really like to shake them by the hoof."

Twilight relaxed slightly, but not enough to stop the nervous laughter she burst out with, "Right, funny story. The mayor isn't dead. In fact he's right here. Hard Pick, you can come in now!"

A door to the side of the room opened and the mayor entered to retake his seat from Twilight. "Hello Vines, nice to see you," he said politely.

Vines and her two companions backed away and dropped into fighting stances, "What's going on here?" Vines demanded to know. She rounded on Thorn threateningly, "You said he was dead!"

Thorn retreated back to the safety of behind the mayor's desk, "Yeah... we lied."

"The fact is," Twilight cut in, "we need you and him to work together."

"Work toge- Are you serious? Work with him? Do you have any idea what he's done!? No! No way! We are leaving!" She pushed the door but it didn't move in the slightest. "Open this door!"

"No, not until we've had a chance to talk."

"Oh I'll give you something to talk about!" Vines sprang at the mayor, her eyes filled with murderous rage. She never made it though, as Twilight caught her in mid leap using her magic. "What the fuck!? You're an earth pony!"

"Not quite." Twilight removed her disguise, her horn and wings coming into sight, making both Vines', her companions, and the mayor's eyes go wide with surprise. "I'm an alicorn, and if you try to attack him again I have the ability to make you forget you have legs, so sit down and let's talk." She placed Vines back between Patches and Sharp.

"Fine," Vines grumbled, clearly seeing how outmatched she was. "What do you want?"

"The same as you I hope. A free Bitmark, and by extension, a free Mareitania. For you though I just want a free Bitmark, and to do that I need you and him to work together."

"No, no way! I'm never going to work with that arsehole, even if my life depended on it! My whole family is dead because of him!"

"Your whole family is dead because of the Duke and his soldiers!" Twilight shouted back before the mayor could defend himself. "If you think that he could have prevented that, then you're only kidding yourself. Yes he made mistakes, but he is trying to make up for them, and he needs your help to do that."

"And what help could he possibly need?"

"I need ponies," the mayor spoke up. "If you agree to this, I will give you and your ponies the weapons and supplies you need to effectively fight the soldiers here. Or you can refuse and go back to throwing stones and snappy slogans."

"As for me," Twilight added, "I'll give you extra fighters to help you, then in return you help us once Bitmark is free. What do you say?" Vines went quiet, looking at the floor as she thought about it. Twilight smiled at Thorn, thinking that they had gotten through the mare.

"Let me get this straight, you'll give us weapons and supplies to do your fighting for you, then expect us to go and fight the Duke while that arsehole sits here and lords over Bitmark while we're gone?" Twilight's mouth fell open, her whole body going slack. "No way. If you want this to happen, he dies."

"And what about the rest of you?" the mayor asked Patches and Sharp. "Do all of you have an issue with me?"

Patches, and the cool blue unicorn mare Sharp, huddled up for a moment, leaving Vines out of it to fret. They broke apart, and Patches looked to Vines, "This does seem like the best chance we're going to have to get the soldiers out of our city. Come on Vines, let it go."

Vines pointed accusingly at the mayor, "But that bastard killed my family! He killed your little brother Patches! Your brother!"

"No, he didn't, the soldiers did. If the mayor had fought back he'd have been right there on the gallows with him. We're in Vines, and the others will be too, even if you're not."

Vines mouthed silently, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "Y-you can't do this... He's the enemy..."

Sharp pressed a hoof to Vines shoulder, "I hate to say it boss, but right now you're the one getting in the way of us finally kicking those soldiers out of here. If joining the mayor is what we gotta do, then we gotta do it. I'm sorry."

Vines smacked her hoof away, "You fucking traitors. You two can join him if you want, but the rest still follow me!" Vines marched up to Twilight and jabbed a hoof in her chest, "And you, you have two enemies here now!"

Twilight sighed, "I'm sorry to hear that, but it's up to your ponies to decide who they follow, not you." She stepped around Vines to talk to Patches and Sharp, "Would your ponies follow you if you took command?"

"What!?" Vines screeched.

"Sure," said Patches. "They want the same things we do." Patches cocked his head slightly, "Are you saying you want us to kick Vines out?"

"Only if you think it's the right thing to do."

Patches shared a look with Sharp who nodded at him, "Alright. Sorry Vines, but your problem with the mayor just isn't important compared to everything else."

"Fuck you all. I hope the soldiers kill every last one of you for this!" She walked to the door and pushed against it, but it still didn't move. "Let me out," she growled.

"Very well, Trixie and Spitfire will escort you out."

"Well this is dramatic," Trixie quipped as she and Spitfire pressed their ears up against the door.

"Shh." They sat there listening, waiting for their cue in case Vines decided to be difficult, and eventually they got it when Twilight said those magic words offering for them to escort her out. "That's our cue. Open the door."

Trixie removed the crystals she was using to hold the door shut, and swung it open to allow Vines to exit, "Follow us please."

"I know where I'm going," Vines snarled at her and they had to hurry to keep up with her as she made her way out of the office and down the stairs. "Stop following me!"

"I'm afraid we can't do that," Spitfire said as neutrally as possible. "Twilight asked us to have a little talk with you in case this happened."

"In case what happened? My friends betraying me and everything we stand for?" Vines stopped and pressed her face up against Spitfire's, "She wanted this to happen?"

"Twilight's pretty smart about things sometimes," said Trixie. "And yes she wanted us to have a little talk with you in this situation, so if you'll come quietly that'll save us all a lot of effort."

"Let me out. Now!"

"Oh come on, we only want a few minutes of your 'incredibly valuable' time."

Spitfire rolled her eyes, "Don't antagonise her Trixie."

Vines stomped a hoof and breathed deeply, "Fine." Spitfire started walking in a direction towards the back of the walled of gardens, and Vines fell in behind her as Trixie brought up the rear. "What do you want to 'talk' about?"

"You," said Trixie. "Twilight wanted us to make sure you're not going to be a threat after what happened in there. Y'know, just to make sure you're not feeling particularly revenge-y, or planning to tell the soldiers what we're up to here." Vines suddenly looked thoughtful, and Trixie had to sigh in annoyance, "Hadn't thought of that one yet?"

Spitfire slowed to draw level with them, "Look, we're still going to try and liberate the city, which I hope is something you still want, right? I know this isn't what you thought would happen, but all you had to do was accept working with the mayor and things would've been fine."

"This doesn't make up for what he did. It never will."

Trixie laughed, "I really think you're giving him too much credit. He couldn't stop what happened any more than you could."

"I was a kid back then!"

"So? My point still stands."

"You don't get it do you?" Vines stopped and faced Trixie, her stance low like she was ready to attack. "What you've done here has ruined everything I've worked for! You've just given the city to that bastard on a silver platter! He lets his enemies kill each other off and in the end the only pony left standing is him!"

Trixie raised an eyebrow as she tried not to laugh, "Wow, you really are obsessed with him aren't you? Seriously."

Spitfire looked sideways at Trixie, "What are you thinking Trixie?"

Trixie walked a circle around Vines, stopping again by Spitfire. "I don't trust her." Her horn flashed black and a thin spear of crystal shot out of the ground and lanced up through Vines' chest, piercing her heart before disappearing back into the ground.

"No!" Spitfire dashed forward to catch Vines' body before she hit the ground. The mare pawed weakly at her, but she quickly stopped, dying in Spitfire's legs. "W-w-what the fuck Trixie!? Twilight never said to kill her!"

"So? I thought killing her was implied, and as I said, I don't trust her, so now there's no way for her to fuck this up for us." Trixie turned and walked away a few steps before turning back to Spitfire who was still holding the body. "Do you have any idea how bad things could become if she told the enemy what we plan to do? If I've stopped her from doing that, I've saved lives, and that makes it worth it. You know I'm right."

Spitfire closed Vines' eyes and gently lay the body on the ground. "I don't know what you are Trixie," she said coldly, although she couldn't deny that Trixie might not have been as wrong as she would've liked. "So now what? Are you planning on throwing her body down a well or something?"

"Watch." Trixie's horn glowed for a moment before her dark magic smothered it. She pointed it at the corpse and shot a swirling beam of dark energy at it. At first nothing appeared to happen, but it soon became obvious something was happening as the body started to decay at a rapid pace, ichor dripping off it and sinking into the ground, the bones blowing away as dust.

"There. Not quite what I expected, but it's gone." Spitfire said nothing due to having a hoof clamped over her mouth in an attempt to keep her last meal where it should be. "Ya big baby."

"You are one seriously fucked up mare Trixie."

"Yeah yeah, whatever. Now for your part." Trixie marched up to Spitfire, "Twilight never finds out about this. Ever."

"I'm sorry you had to do that," Twilight said sympathetically. "It couldn't have been easy."

"It was the only way to get this done." Patches shook his head, "She's always been a stubborn mare. Some of us have been thinking this for a while, and you've given us the chance to finally get this fight going. Hopefully one day she'll understand that this was the best way." He blew out through his nose, the decision clearly not made lightly, but after a few seconds he straightened up, "What's the plan?"

"First I'll have my guards distribute the weapons we've stockpiled to your ponies," the mayor said gently, not wanting to seem like he was taking charge. "That'll take a few days though, in which time we'll have to make a strategy." He looked to Twilight, the alicorn nodding in agreement.

"Yes. For now though you should go and tell your ponies what's happening, and get them ready. We'll be in touch."

"Are you sure you don't want us to help you plan the attack? We've been doing this for a while now."

"Sorry, I'm not trying to cut you out of planning, and we'll definitely go over it with you for suggestions, but there are some things we need to do first that'll take a few days."

"Right... so we just go now?"

Twilight smiled lopsidedly, "As I said, we'll be in touch."

"Okay, come on Sharp." The two unicorns left, allowing Twilight to fall to her haunches and breathe a sigh of relief.

"That could've gone better."

The mayor shrugged, "It could've gone worse too."

"You will be keeping your side of the bargain?"

"Of course. I'll have my guards bring the weapons out of storage to distribute, and assuming things go well you'll have my full support in your fight against the Duke." He steepled his hooves, "I am curious though, when were you planning on telling me you're an... ollicorn, was it?"

"Alicorn actually, and I would have told you eventually. Why? Do you have a problem with it?" She wriggled her wings for emphasis.

"No no, nothing like that. I just didn't think that was something you could hide."

"I have to hide the wings in places controlled by the Duke for my own safety. Hiding the horn is just to avoid discrimination. Anyway, speaking of wings, we're going to free the pegasi once this is over, just so you know."

"You are? But we need them to control the weather and-"

"Non negotiable."

"I- I see. Very well, I won't try to stop you."

"Good, because that would have not ended well." The doors to the office swung open to let Spitfire and Trixie in, and straight away Twilight could tell something was up. "How'd it go?"

"She won't be a problem," said Trixie, a smug little smile on her face.

"Is that true Spitfire?"

The mare seemed unwilling to meet Twilight in the eye, "Uh... it's true. Naturally she was upset, but I don't think it'll be a problem. Chances are we probably won't see her again."

"I see." Twilight knew something was being left unsaid, but she never could've imagined what the truth was. "It's not important right now. For now we need to get things ready, so for starters Spitfire, you need to get back to Puddingarde to get the pegasi ready to fight."

"Yes ma'am." Spitfire seemed far too eager to depart for Twilight's taste, but again she decided to leave it.

"And while she's doing that we need to get those weapons distributed and this place scouted out to work out how to best attack." She smiled at Trixie and the Mayor, " All the same, not bad for a day's work."

Author's Notes:

KInda lost interest in this chapter towards the end, so...sorry about that.