"Remind me again why we're not in Equestria right now?" Slam asked.
"The mayor of Milagro told the mayor of Slenderleaf about your bravery and then Slenderleaf City requested to borrow our services to help deal with the smuggling problem. I guess capies like pony guards," Griddy replied.
There they were, fresh out of hospital – complete with a residual whiff of disinfectant alcohol on their hides – taking a stroll through the docks of one of the capybaras' main trading hubs. Dusk had settled in, casting a red shine over the premises.
On their left, there was the water. On their right, a row of hangars, and all over the place, there was a quiet mess of crates and cranes awaiting the next undoubtedly busy day of transport.
"Of course they do. What contraband are you betting on this time? Dragon whiskers, dragon toes? Dragon's teeth? Maybe dragon noses, this time?"
Once they got to the first of the long line of hangars, Griddy cast her detection spell. Closing her eyes, her horn started flickering in green and tugging her along. "Dragon something, that's for sure. I'm getting a signal down that way, about five hundred paces. Might be part of what Flash Sentry was tracking back in Manehattan."
Slam grumbled. "So... not harvested from a dead one, then?"
Gridlock shook her head. "No, this feels... fresher. And more plentiful. It's hard to tell at this distance, but it feels like something they got off a live one, or several live ones."
"How many are we talking here? Two, three?"
"At least fifty."
Slam's ears fell back against his head. "Oh, geez. Who in their right mind even goes towards fifty dragons, let alone try to cut them?"
"Who can even manage to cut them, that's what I'd like to know. Is your arm okay? That shot you took-"
"Has healed, the doctors said. Besides, we're not expecting too much resistance here, are we? There aren't even any capies around."
"No, but it's a big place to patrol, and capies don't exactly chuck out archmages like we do in Canterlot."
"Point taken. Shall we, then?"
Griddy sighed. "You're absolutely sure you're okay?"
The Earth pony stallion chuckled. "I'm sure. Nothing's going to happen to my 'corn while I'm around."
"Good. I mean, not that I can't fend for myself, but-"
"I know. Come on, let's just get this over with, and report it once we have proof. Who knows, maybe they were kind enough to leave their stuff unguarded."
Up above, on the roof of hangar 11, three dark shapes huddled together closely.
"Poniesss," one hissed. "Why are there ponies here?"
"They have a unicorn," another remarked. "How delightful. And only one block of meat to guard her? She must be suicidal, poor thing."
"We can deal with them, Master," the third one said. "We are stronger than they are, faster."
"Yes, and we don't burst out into song every five minutes, thank goodness. You two deal with the ponies, I'll guard the cargo. Can't have our client sneak off with the merchandise before our transaction is complete."
"I mean, really, don't you think the nurses were just a little bit racist?"
"Let it go, Slam. Let it go."
"No, really. Every single time one of the guys asked for some music, the nurses were all 'Week! Week! You ponies and your singing all the time!' I mean come on!"
Griddy smiled. "Some of us do like to burst into song at random, you know. And some other species remark on that. It's not like it's a habit. Some of us find that reputation quite cool."
"Yeah, yeah, everyone's a little bit racist, okay. I'm just saying, if we had to get racial sensitivity training about their squeakiness-"
A loud crash to their right cut him off halfway a sentence.
Something rushed at them from just in front of hangar 11. Something metal. Something big.
"Griddy, get down!" Slam shoved her aside before the thing could connect with her.
Unfortunately, that didn't stop it from connecting with him. Gridlock gasped as a forklift mashed into her bodyguard at full speed and dragged him off, leaving her exposed.
"Slam!" She hopped back onto her hooves and started to run after him.
"No time to be turning your back, little pony."
"Oh, shoot." Gridlock turned just in time to duck under a slash from a most peculiar weapon. "A tessen? A blade fan?" She looked up and tilted her head in confusion at the sight of her opponent. It was definitely a capy, judging from the hips and claws, but this one was covered snout to toes in dark fabric. "A ninja? Out here? I didn't think capybaras had ninjas."
The slender black-clad, masked figure, a female from the sound of it, chuckled. "Clearly you misunderstand the concept of 'ninja'."
Gridlock growled.
"Don't worry about your friend. My colleague is a professional." The big rodent brandished her sharp fan and got out a second one from her belt. "As am I."
"Good. I'd hate to beat up someone who's not getting paid for it."
Slam Tilt had seen a lot of things in his time on the Royal Guard, and he'd been through the wringer on most of those occasions. Changeling patrols, escort duties, Timberwolf attacks, Coalwolf attacks, Cotton Candy Wolf attacks, standard stuff.
Getting hit by a forklift, though, that was new. He idly wondered if his insurance would cover that.
The Earth pony dug his hind hooves into the ground and, true to his name, slammed a front hoof down onto the forklift's prongs. In his long and constructive – or rather, destructive – career, he'd learned a good punch was usually enough to make something stop moving. He wasn't a biologist, but he knew that much about living things. He also wasn't a mechanic, but he was very happy to see some rules were universal. The forklift ground to a screeching halt in the middle of a pair of containers, clearly this whole forklift business was a set-up for some sort of bottleneck ambush.
"Ssssilly pony. Ssstupid pony."
A big, black shape dashed out of the driver's seat, before scurrying about in between the metal containers he'd been dragged towards.
Slam snorted. "And you must be a capy with a speech impediment."
"Ninja capiesss! Warp voice, conceal identity."
Slam tilted his head. "Huh. Ninja capy. You know, it's weird, I'm not even surprised. Must be Button rubbing off on me."
"You come to ssstop cargo. I come to ssstop you."
Slam stretched out his neck left and right. "Yeah, yeah, can we get this over with? I've got a unicorn I'm supposed to be covering."
The black capy jumped. "Ssstupid poniesss, always sssinging. Not martial artses."
"Oh, we have a few."
The thing rolled in mid-air and somehow managed to dash forward without any grip or wings. "Black Rat Style Thousand Kicks!"
He smirked. "Black Rat, huh? Good to know."
The stallion rose up on his hind hooves and spun, winding up the punch.
Griddy ducked under a cutting gust aimed at her head, sidestepped the one aimed at her hooves, and blocked the last one with a shielding barrier. Standard three-point combo, this girl was probably just a subordinate. "Roc feathers on your fans, huh? Do you have a permit for those?"
A whirlwind roared in reply. Griddy was already ducking behind a crane by the time it reached her. It didn't take a genius to see what the plan was: she was being herded away from Hangar 11. There was definitely something there that needed protecting.
"I'm afraid you'll just have to add that to my rap sheet, officer. Now, are you going to stop moving? I can knock you out quietly, you know. No need for any nastiness."
Gridlock concentrated. Okay, think. Roc feathers, ninja style, chances are she's a sniper type of fighter. Meaning whoever is dealing with Slam is her meat shield.
So where's the third one? Ninjas never come in twos, only threes and fives.
And why wouldn't the third one show up already?
She peeked out from behind her shelter. Her opponent was taking a low stance, a variant of Turtle Stance, from the looks of it. Going by how she moved, arms stretched out wide and her hind paws light on the ground, this was a weapons specialist, most likely Four Winds Style, maybe a little panda fighting thrown in for good measure. Nothing Griddy couldn't handle on the short range.
Actually getting into that short range without getting cut to ribbons, now that was the challenge.
She got a good look at the capy as it wound up another cutting gale.
Griddy was gone before the attack was even launched.
"What the-" The capy did a backflip to dodge the retaliation: homing pink energy bolts that exploded harmlessly on the ground.
The capy chuckled. "Not bad, not bad. And here I thought unicorns went down easy once you got their meat shield out of the way."
"I wouldn't count on that, missy. I've gone up against bigger stuff than you."
"I can imagine. That friend of yours, he's not up to full strength, though, is he? I saw him limping a little on the way here. Took a shot to the chest recently?"
Griddy growled. "Don't talk ill of him. Officer Pounder is made of sturdier stuff than you might think."
"Pounder, is it? My, such an uncharacteristically violent name. I suppose you must, with those silly pony names. Names like 'Sugarplum' don't exactly inspire fear." She spun around, flapping her fans, and Griddy had to duck and dash to evade another pair of gusts. The fans were the problem here. They both had a single red feather attached to them, bleeding a constant stream of magic into the object itself. And this girl clearly knew enough magic to use it for cutting, even if she didn't have any spells of her own. That meant Griddy couldn't afford to take a hit, and if she tried to concentrate to fire a more complicated spell, that's exactly what would happen.
"Oh, I don't know. I went to school with a Sugarplum once. Awful girl, terrifying tantrums."
The capy hissed and flung another blast at her.
Griddy wasn't too worried. The upside to that cutting wind technique? The cuts were made by air pressure, which could only be done on a small area, making it somewhat easier to dodge.
Now if she'll just stop dancing around so I can shoot her...
Slam was driven back against a container wall by the impact.
"Ssstupid pony. No sssongs now?"
"What is it with you capies and our songs?" Slam asked. "We do not break out into song that often. But if you insist, I'm more than willing to provide. Fair warning, though: my friends are into hip hop, but I'm into folk. Personal taste, what can I say?"
The capy leaped and tumbled to wind up another kick.
"So predictable," Slam said, scanning his surroundings.
The kick landed on his arm, and he had to crouch to weather the impact.
"What?" The capy managed to utter before realising its mistake.
Slam bounced back up and flung his opponent back, wasting no time in getting the airborne rodent into pummeling range. A firm hook sent the guy flying towards another metal wall, the follow-up uppercut sent him flying straight up. Slam braced himself and leaped up with a force that would have made his pegasus colleagues flinch, leaving him right above the big capybara.
"A little word of advice, Mister ninja: next time you go up against us singing ponies?"
The capy was still dazed from the impact. "G-guh..."
"Don't tryyy to kill us with a forklift~" A double-hooved hammer blow knocked the air out of the ninja. If that wasn't enough, the harsh landing on concrete finished it.
And if that didn't finish it, a hind hoof to the gut with some Earth pony weight and a good amount of gravity behind it would. The thing spat out a mix of blood and other bodily fluids, including what Slam presumed was a herbal pastille to suck on. That explained the size and strength; this guy was doped up on ninja medicine. The ninja was still breathing even after that onslaught, but without a continuing dose of those herbs, he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.
"Well, that was entertaining. Now, where's Griddy?"
"Aren't you going to try and hit me?"
Griddy smiled and galloped to the next pile of crates for cover.
A firm gust finally connected, sending her sprawling.
The capy rushed her, going into frontal flips to close the distance. "Gotcha."
She raised her arms up as Griddy fired off one last shot, dodging it easily. "Too slow."
The fans came down. Then they dropped. "Eh?"
Gridlock grinned. "Not the brightest tool in the shed, are you?"
The capy reached for her weapons, but found them stuck to the ground, along with her feet, and then her hands. She pulled up, something pulled down. She fell, and the red light of the sunset finally revealed a pinkish red substance coating the ground, almost invisible but becoming more material now.
Gridlock slowly walked over to her and lifted the fans in her magic.
"What is this stuff?" The ninja struggled against the sticky material, but it only stuck to her more.
Griddy stopped at six paces distance. "A little traffic control trick, most Royal Guards wouldn't know it. Very handy when you need to catch a hit and run culprit; even if they can get out, you can track them by the stuff on their wheels. Don't worry, it's not poisonous. It's like cotton candy, mostly, or caramel. Quite harmless. This, however, is not." She lowered her horn, took a long, deep, and undisturbed breath, and let loose.
One shot, and the ninja capy was down for the count. Griddy sighed and lifted the girl's snout, so she wouldn't choke.
"Don't tryyy to kill us with a forklift~" came a voice in the distance.
Gridlock smiled. Always the reliable one, that Slam. Clever, too, to signal her like that. If any enemies were still around, they'd think it mere taunting.
And they'd be drawn to the noise. Drawn to him. Slam Tilt was probably done with the forklift driver. If he wanted to draw fire away from Gridlock, he'd done all he could.
Nothing for it; she'd have to check the hangar. "Now, what is so important that you ninjas have to show for it?”
She went in, into the dark, and looked around. Just the usual standard crates, from the looks of it.
"Impressive."
Griddy's body tensed. "And there's number three."
She turned, and sure enough, there was another capy sitting on a beam overhead. She scanned her surroundings to try and assess the situation: crates, support beams, smaller area to work with, less room to dodge.
"Who are you?" Gridlock asked.
"A shinobi, the master of the two who attacked you. And you?"
"You can call me 'officer'. If you want a name, my handle is Traffic Control."
He rose up on his hind paws. "Traffic Control? An alias to remember. Not a lot of ponies can outdo one of my students."
"And I'm guessing you have a substantial sample size backing up that extensive research?"
The ninja capy grumbled something under his breath. "I suppose that's a fair point. May I ask, do you have any relatives?"
"We make it a point to be unrecognisable when we can, sir. Wouldn't want any unsavoury characters going after our kin."
"Of course not. I only ask because I'd send them a card, as a small post-murder courtesy."
Gridlock braced herself. He hadn't moved yet, she didn't sense any magic projecting out from him, so whatever this guy was going to do, it'd be in melee range or require him drawing his weapons first. But in a place like this, long weapons would be clumsy, and against a pony like Griddy, short weapons were risky. He must have known that much if he saw that cotton candy tar trap.
So why would he stay in here for so long? Why is he stalling? What's his angle?
With hardly time to blink, he was down. She barely managed to duck away from the impact of him slamming into the ground before he bounced back up and hit the ceiling. He was curled up into a ball, and his whole body seemed to squash and stretch like it was one soft mass, rather than a living creature with bones.
That answers that question, then. Armadillo-style fighting, probably on a steady diet of devilfruits, too.
The ball of rodent ninja master bounced and dashed across the hangar.
He's using the walls to keep his speed up. If I can get him outside-
A hard impact to her face stopped her train of thought. One second he was in the back of the hangar, the next he had his whole body slamming into her.
The capy rolled over the wall on her left and leaped for another attack. Griddy jumped aside just in time to stop her head from being splattered all over the floor.
"You'll have to pardon me if I try to finish this quickly, my dear. It's not that I don't appreciate the company, it's just that I don't have time for your pony songs."
Again with the songs. These capies really were racist.
Griddy fired a bolt at him, one that bored straight through the roof. He never stayed still long enough for her to get a shot, but that didn't stop her. She tried to run towards the exit, but he herded her away with one bounce on the floor and another on a nearby beam.
As he came in over the floor, rolling towards her in a straight line, she cast her traffic control spell again. He went over it, got covered in the pink stuff. And then he shook it off like water and mashed into her.
She had the air knocked out of her, but she was still standing. She could still shoot.
A Royal Guard unicorn has one duty and one duty alone: cast the spell to save the day.
"Rrraaah!" She let fly a furry of bolts, all homing, all missing.
When the dust settled, she panted with exertion.
The capy chuckled. "Goodness. And here I thought I was dealing with a challenge. You ponies are terrible shots. No wonder the changelings beat you."
Griddy's ears twitched. She smirked. "I wasn't trying to hit you."
Another jump, another attack.
Thump.
Right on cue, a massive Earth pony hoof went into that black ball of ninja fluff and sent it flying.
"I was signalling my partner."
The capy unfurled from his protective ball and hissed. "You think an Earth pony can stop me? Please. I'm immune to your tricks, unicorn, and my technique renders me invincible in melee combat. I can move faster than the naked eye and bring my whole body to bear against you. I can crush you from angles you don't even realise are there, let alone defend against. What hope do you have?"
"A bouncing capy, huh?" Slam asked. "This should be interesting."
The capy lunged, only to be met with a straight jab from Slam. A quick retreat and a bounce off a nearby support beam, and Slam swatted the guy out of thin air. Another bounce straight up, some quick dashes to pick up speed, and down he went again, fast enough to blur.
Thunk!
A double hammer blow to the head finished it. The capy stumbled back on all fours. "H-how... my technique... no one can see through my motions..."
Slam Tilt smirked. "What can I say? I may not be a unicorn, but I am a bit of a pinball wizard. I can read you like a shiny box."
"I-I'm not... done..."
Slam rolled his eyes, calmly walked up to ninja master and kicked him in the gut. After a brief flight across the hangar, the last of the ninja capies went still. "Okay, now you're done. You okay, Griddy?"
"I'm fine, thank you. What did you do with the forklift driver?"
"Tied him up, knocked him into next Tuesday. Well, not in that order. That girl come after you?"
Gridlock nodded. "Yup. Carrying roc feathers on her fans, too. These are definitely our smugglers."
Slam gestured to the boxes in the hangar. "Shall we see what they are smuggling, then?"
Griddy cast her detection spell again and followed the pull to a box marked 'Acme Pharma.'
"Well, that's not suspicious at all," Slam remarked, before opening the thing up. "And today's contraband is... dragon skin?"
The contents of the box were an odd sight: tiny little snippets of what looked like smooth pink fabric, each no bigger than a child’s tooth.
Griddy blinked, just as confused as Slam was. "I don't get it. My spell is clearly detecting dragon material. This is dragon skin. But it's... pink." She picked some up in her magic. "And in very small pieces, too."
Slam sat back. "Where do you suppose they got this?"
Griddy shrugged. "I have no idea. I didn't know dragons even had skin like this."
"Did they peel the scales off, maybe?"
"No, there'd be bigger pieces, then. And if they could do that, they wouldn’t need to get it off so many of them. Could be from a breed we don't know about." She shuddered. "Let's just report this, get the authorities in here, get the ninjas to jail. Let the experts figure out which dragon parts these are. I'm sure someone's willing to pay good money for whatever this is, and they should answer for it."
"So, now we can go back to Equestria?" Slam cringed as a wave of pain shot through him. He clutched at his chest and let his left arm hang limp.
"Careful, Slam. You're still not back to your old self."
"Maybe I should put some dragon skin on, see if that helps."
"Eww, Slam. You don't know where that stuff's been."