"If it was coming from anyone other than you Tia, I wouldn't believe it." Princess Luna said as she looked up at the night sky through one of the palace windows. When her sister didn't respond Luna shifted her gaze to the white alicorn. Celestia was deep in thought as she sat at the royal dining table, holding a mug in front of her with her hooves instead of magic. It was a quirk Celestia had when something was troubling her.
"How long have you been pursuing him?" Luna asked a little louder, breaking her sister away from her thoughts.
"Since I discovered that he existed." Celestia replied as she put her mug on the table in front of her.
"Well, what do you know about him?" The moon princess asked. "I've read the materials you keep locked away in the palace basement, but I'm not sure how much of it I should believe."
"Sadly, not very much."Celestia replied "The organization that made him worked very hard to keep his existence a secret from me, and for good reason. If I had known what they were doing I would have charged them all with high crimes. What little I do know about him comes from wasn't destroyed in the incident where he escaped from their grasp. "
"But is it true? This organization designed him at the genetic level? With our. . ." Luna asked quietly before trailing off, still not entirely sure if she should believe what she had been told. She definitely didn't want to. Before her banishment, such a thing would have never been considered possible.
"Yes," came Celestia's solemn reply."I don't know how they managed to do it, but they used both of our genes as genetic templates when they engineered him. Both yours, mine, and maybe some genes belonging to a few others."
Luna's gaze shifted back toward the window, she was trying to think of the right words to say. She felt violated, as if something had been stolen from her.
"Why would these ponies, our own subjects, do this?" Luna asked.
"They refer to him as subject seven." Celestia began to explained "He was a research experiment. They were looking for ways to improve health and extend their own lives, as well create a pony better suited for fighting."
There was another pause as the moon princess looked around the dining room, no one other than her sister was present.
"That explains why they would want to use our genes, as immortal alicorns we're gifted with youth, strength, and power. . . but is he?"
"No, he's not an alicorn," Celestia responded, already knowing her sisters question before she voiced it. "That would make tracking him down way too easy. Alicorns are very rare, and making him an alicorn would draw a lot of attention. Attention is something his designers wanted to avoid."
"But it doesn't make sense Tia. I was on the moon, how could they-" Luna began a question.
"Get your genes?" Celestia finished for her. "During your. . . 'tantrum' a thousand years ago, one of my solar guards grazed you with an enchanted arrow."
Luna nodded in response. "I remember"
"And although you healed instantly from that attack" Celestia continued "The arrow did draw some blood, and it carried that blood on its tip. The guard who shot it kept it as a trophy of sorts. One of his descendants still has it the last time I checked."
"I see. . . remind me to retrieve that arrow" Luna replied.
"As for me, they could have gotten my genes from anywhere, even from the saliva left on a tea cup." Celestia motioned toward the mug she had put down on the table.
It took Luna a second to process the information before moving on to her next question.
"The materials I read indicated that he is trying to destroy that organization which made him, why is he enemies with them now?" Luna asked as she sat down next to her sister.
"I don't know. I know less about them than I do about him. I don't even know their actual name, just that they are sometimes referred to as 'The Order.' But, I do know that this organization has deep ties to our government. " Celestia replied deep in thought. "And that's probably why he hasn't come forward with what has happened to him. He's probably afraid our government would just send him back to The Order."
"Understandable I guess." Luna nodded in response. However, she knew there was no way to know that was the reason for sure.
"It was his falling out with the order that drew my attention for the first time." Celestia explained. "The facility they kept in him, a small fort hidden in the northern mountains, was found by one of my patrols. Everypony inside, somewhere around 40 ponies, were killed. The only ponies to survive appeared to be victims of some grotesque experimentation, and the facility itself was set on fire. It turns out he was responsible for the deaths, something caused him to kill his handlers and escape."
"Well, what do we know about subject seven specifically?" Luna asked.
"Since he became an enemy of The Order, he's been hunting them down ruthlessly." Celestia began to explain. "It appears that he is trying to destroy them by killing them off or dismantling their assets."
"Well, that explains why you're trying to catch him." Luna replied. "We can't have vigilante pony running around killing others."
There was another reason for finding subject seven, but Luna could tell that her sister had the same feelings. But given the personal nature of the topic, she decided that it could be addressed later.
"Nor can we exactly involve the public either." Celestia replied softly before shifting her gaze back to Luna. "We can't exactly let everypony that somepony, who is genetically enhanced by the blood of their immortal alicorn princesses, is running around killing government officials who are members of a shadow organization."
"Which is why I need your help Luna." The white alicorn continued. "I haven't told very many others about this, and my job doesn't allow me to go looking for him. . ."
"However, because my night court isn't frequented as often as your day court, I've got more time to spend on finding him." Luna finished for her sister. "I guess it is ultimately better that I take the lead on finding him, I was always better at the hooves-on stuff than you were Tia. What information do we have that might help in finding him?"
"Well," Celestia began. "A psychology profile I managed to recover revealed a few interesting things about him."
Luna motioned for Celestia to continue.
"Apparently he doesn't like to talk and prefers silence, and was considered slightly anti-social at the time of the report. However, the psychological profile indicated that he has does posses good social skills which he exhibits when needed. He is highly intelligent, and sometimes exhibits sociopathic tendencies despite strong moral inclinations."
" Anything else?" Luna asked. 'Great, there's a chance this pony is a sociopath who knows the difference between right and wrong'
"Not that I could recover. As for physical description, all I could retrieve is that he is larger than the average pony and well built. But that's to be expected given his genetic parentage." Celestia answered. "It would also be safe to assume that he has a job or occupation that allows him to travel all around Equestria without drawing attention."
"Well, it looks like I have some work to do." The princess of the night said as she stood up. She turned to leave before pausing and gazed back at her older sister. "and Tia, You should have told me sooner."
"Hey Twilight?" Spike called up the staircase, "I've finished everything on the checklist and I'm going to the boutique, Rarity said she could use my help with an order."
"Alright Spike, but remember to be back before late." Twilight responded from somewhere upstairs.
Spike was nearing the library door when he heard loud knocking. Opening the door revealed a stallion in a courier's uniform. The stallion Looked around for a brief second, searching for whoever opened the door, before finally noticing the short individual in front of him. He tilted his head in curiosity as he stared at Spike with piercing cobalt blue eyes, surprised that a baby dragon answered the door.
The stallion was a pegasus. He had a silver-grey coat, and an unkempt dark blue mane. He was also notably larger than the average pony, and wore a courier's uniform with two packages strapped to his sides on saddlebags.
"Oh, a delivery? Twilight is the one to sign for those, just put it on the table over there" Spike said as he pointed a claw at a table in the center of the library. "Hey Twilight! Somepony's here to see you." Spike called out as he sidestepped the stallion and proceeded out the door.
"Welcome, What brings you to the Ponyville library?" Twilight asked.
"Twilight Sparkle? Packages for you." He lifted one of the packages from his saddle bag and placed it on the table in front of him.
"Oh," Twilight replied. "Why didn't they just try to send this with magic like my other mail?"
The stallion opted to say nothing, instead he rotated the package on the table so that the side marked 'Magically Volatile' in big red letters was clearly visible to the unicorn.
"Oh, now I remember! This must be the magical ether I ordered." Twilight said as she read the warning label. "Probably a good idea sending this using pegasi or earth ponies, there's no chance of them using magic and accidently igniting the ether."
'Yes, that's great and all. Now just take your canisters and sign the delivery form.' At least that is what he wanted to say, but again chose to remain silent as he pulled out a delivery receipt. It's not that he had anything against Twilight, he was just looking forward to making a side trip to Canterlot on his flight home.
"hmm…" Twilight opened the package on the table with her hooves and lifted out the bottle within. The bottle housed a blue glowing liquid.
"Follow me, I am going to need some help with this." She said as she turned away from the stallion and walked into one of the library's back rooms.
The stallion sighed before slowly following, still holding the unsigned form.
"I almost forgot, this stuff is really volatile." The mare continued as she struggled to open what appeared to be a heavily armored floor safe. "It has to be stored in a shielded container, otherwise ambient magical energy may ignite it. Can you lend me a hoof? I normally open this thing with magic but seeing how-"
Before Twilight could finish, the pegasus reached down and pulled the safe open.
"Hmph, you make it look easy." She said as she placed the canister inside. Finding the stallion's continued silence slightly awkward, she attempted to make conversation. "You know, making this stuff is expensive and time consuming. I ordered it so long ago that I almost forgot I did."
The stallion just tapped the delivery form in response.
"Oh right," She said as she kicked the floor safe shut. Convinced that the bottle of ether was now adequately shielded from magic, she lit up her horn and grabbed the form with her magic.
The moment she grabbed the form in her magical aura, the stallion froze like a statue. He was stunned at the unicorns abrupt use of magic. It's not that he was particularly untrusting of unicorn magic, it was the fact that he was still carrying the mare's second canister of magical ether.
To his misfortunate, magical ether is the nitroglycerin of magical substances. It doesn't explode when shaken or jostled, but is incredible sensitive to magical energy given off by magical spells.
Now, the second canister in the courier's saddle wouldn't have ignited had the unicorn only signed the form with magic. However, she didn't only sign it.
In an effort to be polite, since unicorns have an easier time at manipulating objects, she rolled the form up and stuffed it back into the courier's saddle bags, close enough to graze the second canister with her magic aura.
"Thanks for the help, I hope you have a nice trip back to-" Twilight began before being interrupted.
"You Bucking Idiot!" The stallion shouted.
"W-What?" Twilight was taken aback by the sudden outburst.
"You ordered two canisters, remember!?" He said motioning to the second package still strapped to his side, which was now humming and beginning to glow purple.
"oh yeah. . ." Twilight squeaked, Her brain momentarily frozen.
The courier however seemed to be thinking much faster than the deer-in-headlights unicorn. By the humming and purple glow coming from his saddlebag, he could tell the second canister's ether was already reacting. He also knew that the mare couldn't teleport away, even if she had the idea to do so, summoning the magical energy to do it would cause the canister to explode immediately.
With agility that would impress Rainbow Dash, the large stallion pulled a one-eighty and bucked Twilight firmly in the chest. The sudden, and rather powerful, kick launched her out one of the library's windows and placed her well outside her library home.
Within a second of her landing, the humming coming from inside the library intensified. As she picked herself up, she saw a purple glow flooding out through the windows of her library home.
She could tell that she wasn't far enough from the library to be safe, instinctively she cast a shield spell.
Not a moment before she finished casting the shield did the library explode in a brilliant display of purple and orange fire, sending flaming debris everywhere. The explosion completely decimated the library house, causing it to collapse.
Twilight sat in shocked at the scene that had unfolded before her. Thirty seconds ago she was talking to somepony in her own home, now she was watching it burn down. If it wasn't for the intense heat that was getting through her shield, she would have guessed it was all a dream. It took her a few moments to fully comprehend what happened. But as the books burned, her thoughts focused on the pony that was still inside.
"Oh No. . . I've k-killed somepony . . ."
-A/N-
Well, that's the first chapter. This is my attempt to add something interesting to my little (probably unnoticed) corner of fan fiction. I won't pretend that I've got either the best grammar or best story, so feel free to lend helpful advice.
I tried a different style with this story than my previous work, instead of revealing information about the character slowly I put it front and center (conversation between Luna and Celestia.) With that said, I don't know how long I'm going to make this. I'll make this a longer one if people think this story has potential. I feel as if the story is going too slowly, as I try to explain things too much. Do people want more or less explanation?
Oh, for those who are wondering, I deleted by previous work.