Celestia stood outside the gambling den, mentally preparing herself for the debauchery that was undoubtedly going on inside. Checking her disguised pink fur, and altered cutie mark walked in bravely.
Inside the bar was very crowded, and the shadows on the walls danced as the slowly flickering lights on the cieling swiveled, no doubt due to lack of proper care. At every table sat a pony, some alone probably looking for a "nice" girl, others already sitting with friends or dates. Most of the ponies in here were drinking some awful swill that they passed off as beer, just looking at the closest mug she could see it was both barely cleaned by ANY standerds, and had various scraps of kitchen waste floating in it.
Celestia swallowed her pride, and the thoughts of how many showers she would need after coming here and walked up to the dirty bartender. The stallion was a failry normal stallions outwardly, a bit dirty though as was pretty much expected given his job.
"What will ye 'ave miss-?" he trailed off, expecting a name.
"uhm...i-i'm sunny..." She muttered, disgusted by the awful yellow color of his teeth and the various holes riddle in them.
This just made the barkeep smile even more, showing even more grotesque butter colored teeth. "And what will ye 'ave sunny?"
She paused, in truth she wanted none of this awfull swill, she swore she saw a hoof clipping and some fur in one of the mugs she passed on her way here!"Got any water?" "sunny" asked in a subdued tone.
The barkeep went silent for a moment, before bursting out into raoucous laugh, making Celestia blush at what she had though was a decent question worth of respect respect...
she was in a seedy bar in the back alleyways of canterlot! What respect was there here? she berated herself.
The barkeep eventually stopped laughing as it lost humor for him. "Ah... a girl like you thinkin' she can best my "water". Ahhh...tell you what, if you can drink my "water"
i'll give you a favor, i warn ye though, hardly anybody finished 'er!"
Celestia paused, well he could probably tell her if he knew where philistine was... but she didn't want to ruin the royal colon... but her sister was in trouble! But the royal colon...
"I'll do it!" she proclaimed.A hush fell over the whole joint as they all hear her take the "water challenge"
Ol' butter teeth behind the bar just smiled as he slinked into the shadow to prepare the drink. She was suddenly aware of the mob gathered around her. She blinked, disconcerted as to why the patrons had decided she was so interesting all the sudden. "Uhmmm..."
"So you're taking the "water" challenge, are you?"
"Well, yes. But why does everbody keep saying the word "water" strangely? What can he possibly do to water to make it this bad?" Celestia asked.
The crowd just laughed as butter teeth came out of the back rooms carrying an enermous mug, filled to the brim with an opaque murky mug. She could not tell what was in it but it had a faint white tinge to it that somehow concerned Celestia more then anything else in the entire bar had.
"'ere my "water", te rule are t'at ye 'ave to finish it wit'in 5 minutes, and you can't throw any of it up for a minute after finishing. Bon appetit madam!" He squealed with delight as he looked at Celestia with a very patronizing look.
She gulped and picked up the mug, taking a cautionary sniff, it smelled like something you would find in the sewers below a public outhouse after it was used by an elephant. She started to have second thoughts right before a mental image of her sister in a small chained room came to her mind.
Swallowing what pride she had left after coming here she gulped down some of the concocton, on the gulp alone she tasted what she imagined was 20 years of collective bar muck, and what very possibly could be rotton fly meat based off the taste. She gasped for air as she finished just the first try of many to drink this foul, odorous liquid. Small globules of the substance sliding off her chin as she sat there panting. Suddenly she noticed the lack of conversation, surely this wasn't that interesting...was it?
Well, that said a lot of the poorer classes she guessed. Steeling herself for another sip she hefted the mug up to her lips, this time she tasted some hair, some small hoof clippings, and some things she hadn't tasted since her back alley days. Why was this place even still open! She looked down at her mug, it was still one third full, oh god somebody upstairs hated her...
She readied herself for the final chug, she trepidantly lifted the mug up to her muzzle and began to drink it, nothing new was in this round as far as she could tell, but she didn't want to speculate about what could be in here either.
The whole room waited with baited breath to see if she would throw up, the anticaption was steadilly rising as they counted to a minute in one disharmonous chorus. Each second brought a slowly rising wave of bile up her through another centimeter. "..55..." Almost! "...56..." Oh no it was almost at the top! "...58..." Two more second come on! wait...did they miss '57'? "...60..."
The whole room stood in an omnipresent silent standstill, none believing a giril such as this beat the challenge. However as soon as the clock reached a minute and a second Celestia ran from the room, a mixture of vomit and "water" trailing down her muzzle.
Celestia returned a couple minutes later, pale as a sheet and shakilly standing. "I-I'm done..."
Butter teeth just smiled at her and asked 'what do ye want to know?"
Celestia managed a small half smile, "do you know where philistine is?"
the bar went silent at the mention of that mare. The barkeep stood on shaky legs as the name was uttered. "wh-wh-what d-d'ya want that devil bitch for!" He asked. The crowd around her parroted the question as they waited for an answer.
Celestia stood there for a moment, before lowering her head and saying "She stole someone of great value to me... and i won't let her keep her..." She replied with just enough menace to make sure nobody would interfere with her search.
"RIGHT HERE HUN!" shouted a voice from the rafters as soon as the statement was out there. Celestia looked up as a blast of magic hit her and a bright glow enveloped her.
~~~~~~ returned ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luna awoke to the rattle of chains and hoof clops as Philistine returned. She was vigorously scubbing her teeth with a toothbrush she had obtained somewhere and carrying...no...couldn't be...
"I found her lurking upstairs" The assassin claimed as she noticed her captive's inquisitive glance. "And she had ordered the most horrid drink you could ever imagine. Trust me, never ask for water at a bar..." Philistine trailed off as she chained Celestia up next to luna and sat down on a chair to sulk to ruination of her gums.
Luna glanced at her sister, her regularly alabaster white coat was dyed pink and had what looked to be the collective grease of two bars, an alleyway, and a few caves caked into it,if they ever got out of here she had a good feeling her sister would spend the months after scrubbing herself clean with purified water blessed by the pope himself. That thought almost made her chuckle. Before the gravity of the situation led her to be quiet.
The room stayed in a rather morose silece until the second captive started to stir. And when her eyes finally opened she looked around at her surroundings, from the dripping stalactites, to the puddles of water littering the cave. "Oh my god it's everywhere! She shouted, thinking it to be the foul concotion upstairs.
"yeah yeah in the cave, i know" Replied Philistine, clearly annoyed at the prissy atitude her second captive had so far displayed.
"Where's my sister you monster!" Asked Celestia, completely missing the blue princess chained up next to her due to the slight stupor she was still in. Only noticing her when she released a rather annoyed 'he-hem'.
"Luna!"Celestia shouted with pure joy as she noticed her younger sibling.
"touching, very very touching! Almost brings a tear to my eye i tell you. Oh well i can make up for it, i know one way to make somebody weep" their capturer stated drawing out her knife, intending to make at least one of their bodies shed blood come just a few hours.
Both captives glanced at the knife with trepidation, they knew they were walking on a fine point now. Luna looked around quickly, trying to find a way out, before noticing her sister lacked the magic supressions ring she sported herself. "Sister you don't have a supression ring!"
Philistene realized her mistake, and rushed at the mares, intent on stabbing the white one at least into unconciousness. But seconds before connecting the alabaster mare dissappeared in a bright solar flash. When it dissapated philistine could not be seen. As for Celestia she stood in the middle of the cave looking for her opponent. walking around the water covered floor in search.
"I know you're there, give up and maybe i won't hang you for treason!"
A regular knife flying out from a corner of the room was her answer. "I don't need your absolution. I've lived off my job long enough!"
"But i know you must need somebody! You can't be a terribly bad pony if you at least gave me a chance to save Luna!"
Silence was her answer, did Philistine really care for Luna at all? No...couldn't be...
"If you give up maybe i can let you keep your job working for Luna! Maybe i can even make use of your talents if need be!" She shouted, grasping at straws.
"I DON'T THINK SO!" screamed the mare as she rushed foward and stabbed the solar goddess in her spine. But quickly gasped in horror as she burst into a swarm of flickering light motes. She spun around, trying to catch sight of her target. And as the solar mare appeared from a dark corner she bum rushed at her, trying to use her small lithe body to quikcly gain momentum for her knife to do some real damage. As she neared the alabastor mare she swung her knife with all the force she could, Celestia responded with a backflip which allowed her to connect her backhooves to Philistines jaw, giving the room a rather gut wrenching cracking noise.
As Celestia landed globs of blob were already coming from the mare's mouth, where she had undoubedtly broken something. She seemed to shirk the pain however and came in for round two, this time advancing slowly, careful not to let her rage consume her. As she got close she leapt in and delivered a quick scrape to celestia's shoulder, drawing a tiny river down her shoulder.
Philistine sensed a opening and threw a volley of knives, the target saw this coming however and directed them back towards philistine, whom ducked and weaved to avoid them. "Don't you dare use my weapons against me!" philistine screeched in butween her ducks and weaves. Unexpectedly two knives were throw at Luna's chains and the iron links snapped under the force.
"NOOOOOO!" shouted Philistine as she noticed her captive breaking free. only to have her face meet a hoof as soon as her attention wavered, staggering her and dividng her attention. That was all Celestia needed.
She pressed her advantage, deliving blow after blow to philistine as she meekly tried to block. However she was too slow and a good deal of the blows still got in, bloodying her face as innumerable blows beat her. Eventually her form crumpled into a heap on the ground.
"Sister i won we can leave now-" She trailed off as she glanced around. Where was Luna?
"right here..."sister" came her sister's voice, and out from the shadows crawled her sister.
"wait...why the inflection on sister?" Celestia quipped muttered.
The midnight alicorn just laughed as ephemereal fire crawled across her features. "'tis a dream", spoke the not-Luna. "And i am in control!" Shouted the voice of philistine.
Celestia just shuddered, alone in the dark, cold chamber of dreams.
in the real world Philistine smiled, her plan worked well, one sibling was asleep and the other was captive nothing could ruin the moment!
~~~~~~ returned ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Celestia gazed down at the Philistine, she had managed to override the spell about halfway through and turn it against the assassin. She picked up the mare with her magic and went downstairs.
A/N
Dun dun dun? So yeah this chapter is kind of disgusting but believe me i enjoyed the "water" scene. I'll probably be called a sick basterd for this one but eh whatever, theres a thin line between insanity and genious.
Loook foward to feedback, and hope ya'll enjoyed the inception-esque ending.
Oh and quick note here, when Celestia said about somebody upstairs hating her? Yea, i didn't mean me if you're thinking i put in the bar section to torture her.
Adieu