Chapter 23

Rule Zero

Pinkie Pie stared at her character sheet. "So, I don't have control of Pin anymore?" she asked. The pink pony wasn't sure if she should feel confused or frustrated.

"Until further notice, not really," Roller explained, "But, I'll make saving rolls periodically to see if you're able to throw off the effects of Faust's magic."

Concerto cleared his throat and said, "She should have gotten a saving throw when she first ate the soup. You didn't have Pinkie roll or anything."

"I rolled for her," Roller replied, "She failed. If I had her roll, that would have been a dead giveaway that something was odd about the soup and Rarity would've known immediately to stay away."

Rarity spoke up, "I knew to stay away anyway. Besides, acknowledging that I saw the die roll would have been breaking character. That's something a good thespian would never do."

Roller stared at Rarity for a few seconds before cracking a smile. He sounded pleasantly surprised when he said, "Well, it's nice that I don't have to explain metagaming to everypony. Sorry for underestimating you."

Concerto chuckled a little, "Roller, you haven't changed a bit."

The author smiled and nodded, "Neither have you, PC. It's good to have you back in the party."

"Um, guys?" Pinkie butted in, "What's metagaming?"

"I'll explain later," Concerto and Roller answered in unison. The Horse Master looked at his friend and arched an eyebrow, causing the portly pony to shrink away. "PC, am I really that predictable?" Roller smirked, "Should I throw you guys some... surprises?"

"Uh-Oh."

Beopony stopped in his tracks as he and Styles got close to the town that not too long ago had been sitting on the horizon. Ahead of them was a group of four guard dogs wearing armor and large cage on wheels with four ponies inside. "My lady," He addressed Lady Styles, "this looks serious. Better let me handle it."

The thief turned up her nose, insulted. "Please, Sir Beopony," she said haughtily, "I know how to handle these brutes," she then approached the guards.

"Stop!" commanded on of the guards, "Nopony goes in or out of Colony without..."

"How DARE you address me in such a way!" the thief interrupted, "Is this how you treat all of Lord Faust's inspectors?"

The guards looked to each other in confusion. One of them scratched his head and asked, "Um, inspectors? What is pony talking about?"

Styles rolled her eyes and proceeded to lie through her teeth, "Lord Faust sent out a memo last night about this. Didn't you hear? Due to the security risks that his new house guests may pose, all guards and prisoners have to pass random inspections. These inspections are to be carried out by me. Is that understood?"

The dogs looked at one another again and then back to Styles. Another one of them tried to speak, "We not get..."

"Oh, don't tell me you didn't get the memo!" Styles recoiled in false shock, "Oh my. That's not good. The only other guards that didn't receive that message got stuck with latrine duty."

"Latrine?" The dogs all cried out in fear before one of them asked, "What is latrine?"

Styles interrupted again, "Listen, how about we just do the inspection and I give you and your prisoners passing grades. Then you don't have to wash out the restrooms for the rest of your days."

The guards all nodded, "Thank you, pretty pony! We not want do stinky job!"

"Of course," she continued, "This means you'll have to let us into town. My escort and I will need to examine..."

This time the dogs interrupted, "Sure! Anything! Just don't tell boss pony we not get message."

Lady Styles entered the town with Beopony following close behind. As they passed the cage, the knight told them, "We'll be needing this," and started pushing it along with them.

"I can't believe that worked."

Concerto was barely able to breathe in between fits of laughter. Pinkie joined in and soon, everyone in the room was either laughing outright or quietly snickering. "So, CR," Concerto was finally able to speak, "What happens now?"

The author kept laughing, his cheerful chortle slowly shifting into something much more malevolent. Soon, everyone at the table realized that he was laughing for a much different reason and they didn't make a sound. Roller looked at Rarity and Concerto with a mischievous smile and stated...

"Now it's time for your surprise."

As the knight and the thief wandered through the town, they got an uneasy feeling. Something about this place wasn't right and it was more than simply the dim streetlamps and the vacant streets that was wrong. Before either of them could say what it was for certain, they heard a high whistle from a nearby alley and white smoke suddenly clouded their vision!

Amidst the confusion, Lady Styles could see figures darting around her. She tried to run, but something hard and heavy struck her in the back of the head and she fell to the ground unconscious. Beopony steadied himself for a brawl, only to meet a similar fate.

As the two faded from the conscious world, they heard the voice of a colt telling them, "Welcome to the Colony, traitors."

"Hm... Now we should probably wait for Twilight and AJ."

Roller tapped a hoof against his chin, "Yeah, I can make this work."

Pinkie smiled as she stepped away from the table. "Okie-dokie-lokie!" she nodded, "I'll get the others together to meet tonight."

The author was shaken from his thoughts. "Wait, really?" he was surprised, "You can do that at the last minute?"

"Sure!" she cheered. "I wanna know how this story ends!"

"Indeed," Rarity agreed, "This keeps sounding more and more like one of your novels, Mr. Roller."

Roller smiled and started picking up the pieces of the game. Concerto started helping as Rarity and Pinkie bother left. X put her figurine in her saddle bag and told the colts, "I'll try to get another pony to show up this evening. I think you both know who."

The author and his friend were now alone in the Hobby Horse. Cleaning up their game didn't take very long with the two of them working on it. In almost no time at all, Roller reopened the Hobby Horse and Concerto was looking over the contents of the store's shelves.

"Wow, you've got a lot of stuff," Concerto commented, "I bet everypony comes here to buy toys, games and all sorts of things. You must be one of the most popular ponies in Ponyville!"

Roller looked down and away. "Come on, PC," he blushed, "You know that's not true. It wasn't true in school, it wasn't true after I got published. You're just trying to make me feel better."

"Yeah, I know," Concerto replied, "No offense, CR, but you can be kind of a downer," he saw Roller frown a little when he said that and then asked, "That hasn't changed much, has it?"

The author sighed and shook his head, "Having my three best friends leave town didn't help matters. Still, you guys have your own careers to work on."

"You know you can always write to us, right?" the yellow colt asked with a reassuring softness in his voice, "I mean, we're practically brothers."

Something in Roller's demeanor changed. It was like Concerto had insulted him somehow. The gray stallion looked his friend in the eye and scolded, "I DID write to you guys! You never wrote me back!"

"Really?" Concerto tilted his head to one side in confusion, "I didn't get any letters," then he looked like he realized something, "Oh, I get it. What? Am I not cool enough for you to write to?"

"Of course you're not!" Roller said, "But I did it anyway because we're supposed to be friends. Remember?"

Concerto was completely befuddled as he restated, "I never got any letters. Are you sure you got the right address?"

"Pretty sure," Roller stated, but he didn't look like it, "When I couldn't reach you there, I just started sending it to the fan mailing address you guys gave in one of those pop culture magazines. You seriously didn't get a single letter?"

Concerto only shook his head. The two sat in quiet thought for what felt like a long time. "Maybe," the portly pony suggested, "your letters were intercepted by aliens."

"What?" The author said flatly, "That makes no sense."

"It makes perfect sense!" Concerto exclaimed, "Maybe your letters would have revealed some kind of plot by evil trashcan aliens. If your letters somehow held clues to, like, weird things happening around Ponyville then it might have been bad for their plans. The only question is..."

"How many bad sci-fi comics you've been reading lately?" Roller queried, "Not joking. Honest question. Tell me exactly how many."

Another long silence eventually gave way to Concerto's answer, "I lost track at around fifty," then he suggested, "Hey, you wanna play Big Eyes Small Snouts until the others come back for H and H?"

"That RPG based on those Japonies cartoons?" Roller asked to clarify, "I don't know enough about Neighpon to run something like that."

"No problem," Concerto smiled, "I've been practicing my Game Mastering skills."

Roller blinked a few times and a smile formed across his features, "Oh, I've got to see this."