Midnight Dasher paced back and forth along the far wall of the parlor, listening to the old cuckoo clock ticking away from its perch on the wall. The fire roaring in the hearth cast the sitting room in luminous warmth and the heady scent of burning wood. Fleethoof took a deep breath, inhaling the smell while staring down the flickering flames. Across the room, Bentgrass sat in an armchair, sipping at a glass of some liquor much too weak for his liking. His eyes were focused intensely on the carpet beneath his hooves. Fleethoof could see the cogwheels in the stallion’s brain churning behind his gaze.
The clock ticked on. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Midnight stopped at the bay window. Her golden eyes stared out into the pale blue night, her nocturnal vision easily spying everything in the darkness and pallid moonlight. The rain outside had stopped, but the chill still clung to the air, making her hair stand on end. Her breath fogged up the glass with each exhale before vanishing into thin droplets of condensation.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
“Is this really all we can do?” she asked after a while.
“We have to wait for Dandridge to finish his check on your alias,” Bentgrass explained without looking up at her, pausing to sip at his drink. “It’s been two days now. He’ll have done his homework by now, so we’ll put you back into the lion’s den tomorrow.”
“Can we please not call it that?” grumbled Fleethoof and covered his face with his hooves.
Midnight rolled her eyes and resumed her pacing. “I don’t wanna wait anymore. I wanna get this guy! I wanna do something!”
Bentgrass uttered a low chuckle beneath his breath and set his drink down. “I admire your spirit, Miss Dasher.” He leaned up in his seat, tapping his hooves together on his lap. “But we must be patient. This pony is crafty. We can’t afford even the slightest mistake this time.”
Midnight groaned and collapsed across the couch next to where Fleethoof was sitting. She rolled over onto her belly and crawled over across the armrest, her body slinking like a feline closer to the pegasus till she was leaning across it, eyeing him like a cat ready to pounce. Fleethoof stared at the dancing shadows on the ground until he felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. He could feel that unconscious sensation of somepony’s eyes on him. It took him a moment before he turned to Midnight, hesitating to make eye contact. His brow narrowed and forehead creased.
“…What?”
Midnight shrugged her shoulders. “Just thinking.”
“Thinking by watching me…?”
“I’m trying to figure out why you haven’t just shot the bastard yet.”
Fleethoof gave Bentgrass a smirk and a tip of his head. “That is a very good question.”
“Your personalities match beautifully.” Bentgrass chuckled to himself.
“So what about you, Mister Secret Agent?” Midnight asked, flopping over to dangle her front half off the couch in a lazy fashion and turn the focus of her interest on him. “What’s your story? How’d you get an eye like mine? Are you part bat? A weird science experiment gone wrong?”
“Midnight—“
“It’s okay, Fleethoof. Sooner or later, it always comes back to the eye,” interjected the special agent as he leaned forward on the edge of his seat. “One of my earlier cases when I joined the RIS was observing and reporting on purported hotbeds of illicit activity. I would go undercover and watch the behavior of the locals to assess if any threats from the areas were substantiated. One such place was the Hollow Shades.”
A look crossed between shock and flattery crossed Midnight’s face. “You were spying on us?”
“I prefer the term ‘studying’, but yes. I was spying on the Lunar Guard under the new commander’s lead. We had to ensure that no further incidents like the Solar-Lunar Civil War would ever occur.”
“Oh gee, thanks for the trust… But how could you spy on us without getting caught? You’re an Earth pony,” Midnight pressed on.
“Very observant, Miss Dasher. Back when the task fell to me, they were investigating ways to enhance the cover of covert agents in dangerous territory. They had an experimental process that transformed the physical anatomy of ponies to that of other creatures, including Thestrals. I volunteered for it.”
Midnight just stared wide-eyed at Bentgrass from across the room. She had fallen silent, her mouth opened in a silent ‘O’ as she listened with genuine intrigue and fascination. “So what happened to your eye?”
Bentgrass licked his dry lips and downed the rest of his alcohol in one swallow. “When my time in the Shades was up, there was a… complication removing the enchantment on my body.”
“And your eye stayed that way.”
“Precisely.”
“Wow…” Midnight murmured.
“What about you, Miss Dasher?” Bentgrass inquired, a curious inflection to his tone. He tipped his head to the side and locked gazes with her. “Why the Lunar Guard?”
Midnight averted his gaze, unable to maintain eye contact as she gave a simple shrug. “Lack of enthusiasm to do anything else with my life, I guess.”
Bentgrass snickered and cocked a crooked smirk. “Sounds like the anthem of the military brat.”
“No. Growing up without a parent will do that to you.”
Fleethoof’s head lifted a fraction of an inch at the revelation. His ear flicked in Midnight’s direction, but he gave no reaction beyond that.
“Ah. I’m sorry,” Bentgrass said, his flat tone almost sounding insincere.
“Not your fault.” Midnight sighed, crossing her hooves over her belly in her upside-down state.
“Who?”
“My dad… He walked out on our family when I was a baby. It’s all right, I suppose. I never really knew him, so I can’t regret what I never had, right?”
“That is a very bleak, albeit logical way of looking at it,” Bentgrass murmured.
“Plus growing up in the Shades as a mare means one of two things: you either join the Guard or work the streets,” explained Midnight with solemn severity. Her expression was completely invasive, her emotion blank and unmoved. She had long-since taught herself to feel nothing when it came to her home. “Bat pony society is very patriarchal. Mares aren’t exactly lower class citizens, but stallions are held in higher regard. The stallions join the military, run the businesses, and so on, and so on. Mares are supposed to be good for breeding and being homemakers and that’s it. Beyond that, everything else is sort of supposed to be a hobby to us.”
Bentgrass brought his hooves up beneath his chin, lost deep in pensive thought. “Fascinating… I have heard rumors that many bat ponies are infertile. This is true?”
Midnight smirked, but her eyes seemed to shrink away a little. “I’m surprised you didn’t find this out on your own when you were spying on us.”
“Learning the reproductive processes of Thestrals wasn’t in my mission statement.”
“Fair enough, I guess,” Midnight answered with a pop of her lips. “Eeyup, it’s true.”
“How did that come to pass?”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure. Something to do with the way we evolved or something like that. I never cared to learn the how or why of it.” Her eyes stayed on the floor above her head now, following the fabric of the carpet with indifferent callousness. But despite how cold she tried to appear, Fleethoof could see the worry behind her eyes. “It’s sad but true. One out of every three bat fillies can’t have foals. It’s a heartbreaking fact to deal with, knowing that you’ll never one day hold your own flesh and blood in your hooves… It feels like somepony has physically reached into your soul and taken a part of you away before you could even get to know it…”
“Sounds like you know the feeling all too well…” Fleethoof spoke softly under his breath. Midnight didn’t respond right away. The quiet struck Fleethoof. It was very uncharacteristic of the extroversive bat. “Sometimes I forget you’re a regular filly as well as a half-decent soldier, Midnight.”
“That’s okay. Sometimes I forget you’re a normal stallion too as well as an okay leader, Fleety.”
“Fleethoof. My name is Fleethoof.”
Midnight snickered. “That never gets old. But for real, do you ever do normal pony stuff? Do you go grocery shopping and pay bills and flirt with mares? Do you even like mares? Have you ever been out on a date?”
“That,” Fleethoof cast a hard gaze at Midnight, the irked glint in his eyes making her titter again, “is none of your business, Middy.”
“Hey, wait! You can’t call me Middy if I can’t call you Fleety!”
“I outrank you. I can call you whatever I like.”
“No fair!”
“The fair’s not in town today. Just me.”
“You two make a cute couple,” Bentgrass remarked while filling his glass from a bottle of light amber liquid again. “I’ve never seen anypony tweak the captain quite like this before.”
Fleethoof rolled his eyes. He caught a glimpse of a smug Midnight blowing him a raspberry from her lopsided position on the couch. If professionalism had a picture next to the definition, it certainly wasn’t of Midnight.
“This undercover stuff counts as my final test, right, Fleety?” Midnight asked after a couple minutes had passed.
Fleethoof grumbled but gave a gruff, “Yes.”
Midnight nodded, pleased. “Good! Totally worth dealing with that scumbag then.”
“Midnight, if that scumbag tries anything, don’t hesitate to take him down.” Fleethoof’s expression was deathly serious.
“But let’s wait until we have enough to charge him first,” Bentgrass interrupted swiftly.
“I won’t risk the life of somepony else for a conviction, Agrostis.”
“And I promise you that she won’t be in any danger so long as we keep an eye on her. Once we get confirmation of Dandridge’s record book, I’ll bring my agents in, pull Midnight out, and make the arrest. It’s a textbook walk in the park for us in law enforcement.”
“Yeah, don’t worry, Fleety. I’ll be all right,” Midnight said to try and reassure her commanding officer. The sour grimace on Fleethoof’s face looked like he had just bitten his tongue. She sat up then, leaning across the arm of the couch to rest a foreleg across his. “I’m a big girl. I can handle myself. Trust me.”
Fleethoof glanced down at the mare’s hoof over his and made the mistake of looking up. She was giving him the best puppy-dog face he had ever seen, even better than Cadance’s. Her honey-gold eyes were just the right size of big to melt his hardened heart. She even added the batting eyelashes and a slight quiver to her lip to sell the point. He bought it.
“I know you can,” he muttered with a heavy sigh. “Celestia dammit all…”
Fleethoof kicked himself away from the chair then, his hooves stomping on the floor as he marched out of the parlor. He couldn’t stand the waiting. Waiting felt wrong. Waiting felt useless. By turn, he felt useless. Minutes seemed to dredge by like sand running slowly through an hourglass, each grain pulling another short sliver of time away. The sun couldn’t rise fast enough for his liking.
“Hey.” Fleethoof turned around as Midnight called to him. She was standing in the doorway of the parlor, looking at him through worried eyes. “You okay?”
Fleethoof decided not to lie this time. “I’ll be fine when this is all over.”
“Is it that bad?”
“If Dandridge is guilty of the crimes we’re accusing him of, then he’s already got a half dozen bodies to his name at the least. I don’t want to think of how many more have died in his little web that we can’t account for.”
Fleethoof huffed and stomped his hooves to release the pent up agitation. Midnight took a couple steps closer, dipping her head to gaze into his eyes, even as he tried to look away. “…You’re still worrying about me.” It wasn’t a question, and she wasn’t wrong. “Why? I can handle myself.”
“It’s nothing—“
“Don’t lie to me. You haven’t been the same since I joined the team. I see it in your face every day. Why? Why are you so upset that I’m getting involved?”
“Let it go, Midnight.”
“Did you not want me on your team?”
“Midnight—“
“Tell me!”
“Because this is all my fault!”
He finally met her gaze, and for the first time since she had met him years ago, Midnight saw heartfelt vulnerability in the captain’s blue eyes. Not just the sympathy or understanding he passed when talking about his life, or passing life values to her and Echo. It was a complete bearing of his fear. The defensive façade was gone. It took her aback, paralyzing her in place. He sucked in a couple deep breaths in an attempt to calm his frantic mind before daring to speak.
“I’ve seen so much darkness in this world, Midnight—more than you can possibly understand. I’ve seen war and unspeakable horrors. I know there are monsters lurking in the shadows and I know there is danger everywhere in this life. But it always seems to come back to ponies I care about. I’ve lost friends, loved ones… ponies that matter to me. I was reluctant to bring you into this world because I knew what that meant exposing you to. But I had no choice. After what happened in the Everfree, I knew that this darkness had ruined your life. But if I couldn’t prevent it from taking away what meant the most to you, I was at least going to keep you under my wing and look after you. But now… now I’m putting you in the hooves of a deranged psychopath and walking away like I’m just dropping a foal off at daycare. I know very well what could happen at a moment’s notice, but I still do it.”
Midnight had been unprepared for his confession. Each word was profound and fervent. She could see the effort it took on the cool, level headed pony to admit. He cared, even if he put on a brave face and acted calm, cool, and collected every second of the day. Every pony mattered to him. The thought of losing one of his own was something the captain feared more than anything.
“Tell me why I do it…” he growled through clenched teeth, more upset at himself than anything. His teeth ground hard together until it hurt, the dry enamel clicking in the quiet darkness. “Tell me why.”
Midnight swallowed back the frog in her throat and closed the distance between them. She maneuvered her head beneath his, pressing against his chest and nuzzling him with such tender care. The contact must have been unexpected, as she felt Fleethoof’s muscles tense up all of a sudden. She looked up at him with that same wide-eyed look and halfcocked smile.
“Because you make us the best we can be, and deep down you know we’re good enough to stand up against the bad guys with you.”
Fleethoof stared down at her, his mind trying to wrap itself around her response. She giggled at his adorable look of bewilderment and nuzzled his chest again.
“I’m gonna go get some sleep. Big day tomorrow and all. See you in the morning, Fleety.” Midnight turned for the stairs, making it about halfway up before casting a wry grin backwards at him. “And if it’s any consolation, you’re the best leader I’ve had.”
For the longest time after she had left him, Fleethoof stood at the bottom of the stairs. He stared up at the empty space she had occupied just moments before while her words rang in his ears like bells. A thick lump had formed in the base of his throat, making it difficult to swallow. The stuffy air in the room felt that much more constricting around him. It felt like the air itself was trying to smother him. He saw Bentgrass emerge in the doorway, but didn’t register his presence until the agent cleared his throat.
“She’s right. You train some of the finest warriors in Equestria, Fleethoof. And like a good leader, you concern yourself with their well-being,” he said once he had his friend’s attention. “Trust her. Let her show you how effective your guidance is outside of the obstacle courses and battlefields.”
Fleethoof nodded his head once. He was right. But there was also nothing he could do to stop Midnight from going back to that house tomorrow. They had no other option, and all he had was a sinking feeling.
“I do trust her,” he muttered. “It’s that prick on the hill I don’t trust…”
Dandridge hurried down the long hallways of his family home, his hoofsteps echoing around the otherwise silent corridors with heavy thuds. His housekeeper had come barging into his bedchambers before he had even woken, rambling about an incident that required his immediate attention. The stallion grumbled, still shaking free from the grip of groggy sleep. He was dragging his rear leg, still tingly and numb, and his mouth had the dry taste of sleep in it. He made a mental note to reprimand her for disturbing his slumber. And he had been having such good dreams about a certain filly…
Rushing to the front doors, Dandridge grasped the cold metal of the handles and flung the doors open wide. The cool air of the dewy morning hit him in the face like a slap and the gray light of the sun filtering through low clouds stung his eyes. But what instantly made the morning all the better was the mare from his dreams standing there on his porch, seeming to sparkle in the misty air.
“I told you to leave me alone!” she shouted backwards at somepony.
“Miss, please, if I could just have a word with you—” It was that white pony, the RIS agent, Bentgrass. He was standing just past the base of his porch, imploring to her.
“For the last time, I said piss off before I break your leg, creep!”
“Excuse me,” Dandridge stepped in, walking past her to place himself between her and the agent. “What do you think you’re doing, Special Agent? Harassing my guests again?”
Bentgrass leered at the stallion and braced his stance on the damp earth. “I was interviewing a potential lead, Mister Clydesdale. I would appreciate it if you stopped shoving your muzzle into police business and impeding an investigation.”
“And I would appreciate it if you stayed away from my friends,” he snapped with a harsh bite in his voice. His eyes narrowed to glower across the space at Bentgrass. “I told you to stay off my property. Now remove yourself before I contact the RIS and have your badge mounted above my fireplace.”
Bentgrass snorted and turned tail, beginning to trudge back toward town, giving him a look of ‘this isn’t over’. Dandridge watched him storm off down the path until he was out of sight behind the hills. He snorted to release his mounting frustration in a cloud of humid breath and turned to Midnight. Her scent of jasmine and vanilla greeted him along with her inviting smile.
“Please disregard that. I’ve been meaning to deal with him…” he grumbled as he ushered her into his manor.
Midnight followed him in and down the halls. “A friend of yours?”
Dandridge gave a deep guffaw. “A pest is more his type. Bloody RIS cockroaches…”
“RIS agents hounding ponies at your door… Should I be concerned?” Midnight raised a brow and smirked at him. “That can’t be good for your image.”
“No, it isn’t. And no, you needn’t worry. He’s a minor inconvenience at the worst—nothing more.” The two ponies rounded a corner, Dandridge leading her back to his office. “It is a pleasure to see you again, Miss Aurora. How was your midnight escapade the other night?”
“Productive,” she replied with a wicked gleam in her eyes. “Our money was well earned.”
“That is good. I like to hear good news, especially in times such as these.”
The two ponies trotted through the open doorway into his waiting office. Dandridge glided with practiced grace across the floor to sit at his desk. Midnight took to her usual habit of wandering around the edges of the room, looking over every random item and messing around with them, unable to keep her hooves to herself. Dandridge pulled a folder out of the locked drawer in his desk and opened it with a flick of a hoof across his desk.
“I must say, your background was quite an enjoyable read, my dear,” Dandridge cooed while flipping through her background report again.
Midnight giggled and gave him her best bedroom eyes, topped off with a convincing bat of her long eyelashes. “Like what you see, Danny?”
“Oh, you’d best believe it…” he murmured in a hushed whisper. Taking a moment to skim over her rap sheet again, he continued. “It seems like you’ve had your fair share of run-ins with the authorities yourself. Breaking and entering, stalking, trespassing… You’re quite the naughty little filly, aren’t you?”
“Occupational hazards,” she replied with a rehearsed tone. She sniffed indignantly at the allegations. “The Guard just doesn’t understand how legitimate my business is.”
Dandridge chuckled. “I can sympathize… And the public display of lewdness was an occupational hazard as well, hmm?”
“Oh no, that one was strictly my pleasure,” Midnight purred and began to slink her way over to Dandridge’s desk. She grinned, flashing every perfect white tooth in her mouth at him. She could see the way he eyed her fangs. He wasn’t the first stallion to do that. By now, she had manipulating her prey down to an art. A few double entendres, a seductive smile coupled with a shy look, and they were putty in her hooves.
“Lucky stallion,” he mused with a lecherous smirk.
Midnight’s grin widened and she leaned her svelte body across his desk, inclining her head in towards him. “Who said it was a stallion?”
Dandridge could feel his breath catch in his windpipe while alluring visions played in the theater of his mind. The voluptuous mare was so close to him now, just asking for it. It took all of his self control to remain in his seat and not pounce on her like a tiger. He had a persona to maintain. Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t enjoy their little game of cat and mouse. But still, she was fast becoming impossible to resist! Her natural flowery scent, those alluring gold eyes that beckoned him in, her curvaceous body… His eyes had wandered down to her collar before he was able to catch himself.
“Should I be apprehensive about how many times you and the law have crossed paths…?”
Midnight shrugged her shoulders coolly. “Not unless you wanna be. You’re a smart pony, Danny. If you really thought I was a rat, nothing I could say would change your mind.”
“You are something else, mon cheri…” Dandridge laughed again and reclined in his chair with a subdued squeak, the soft leather straining against the pressure. He folded his hooves across his chest and locked gazes with her. “Then I do believe we are in business, Aurora.”
Midnight’s smile was so wide it hurt her cheeks. Relying on past lessons of lying and acting, she drew on the one rule she lived by: treat every lie as if it were life and death. “Great! So how are we gonna do this, Danny?”
“With professionalism and mutuality, my dear,” said Dandridge. His lustful eyes lifted to her face for a second and her supple flank for a while. “You wanted several low caliber firearms, correct?”
“Twelve .22s with threaded barrels and suppressors, factory condition, all serial numbers removed and off the records,” Midnight recited from memory, bobbing her head from side-to-side with each syllable. “Think that’ll be possible, handsome?”
Dandridge laughed. “It’d be more difficult getting rid of that bothersome mule on my front lawn. A dozen small weapons is a cakewalk.”
“Great. And you know, I could take care of that little problem on your hooves… for the right price, of course.”
“I think I can handle him on my own. No need to implicate yourself in something so messy.”
“Oh, Danny baby, messy is how I like to live.”
Dandridge smiled and leaned down to unlock the bottom drawer in his desk. He withdrew the ledger from within, tossing it on his desk with a loud thud. Midnight eyed the book with curiosity while he flipped through page after page of detailed accounts and previous transactions until he found where he had left off.
“Twelve custom firearms will be ten thousand bits each, plus an extra grand for each silencer.” Dandridge looked up with a smirk at Midnight’s shocked and soured expression. “Sorry, my dear. These have to be specially made and shipped all the way from overseas. They will come with a hefty fee.”
Midnight tossed her mane back with a shake of her head. “It’s cool. Do whatever you have to do and I’ll have the money.”
He nodded, and then grabbed a quill between his teeth and took down the order. He tallied up the quantity, the price… Once he had finished, he set the quill down and pushed the book and pen towards her. “Sign here, mon cheri. It’s simply accepting the arrangement we’ve discussed in a more physical form. A terms and conditions, if you will.”
Midnight couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she took the quill between her teeth. With a quick scribble, she scrawled her signature down beside the transaction, finalizing their deal. Satisfied, Dandridge closed the book and secured it away from the world once more.
“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Aurora,” said Dandridge, all smiles and charm. He stood up and shook Midnight’s hoof vigorously. “It will take me some time to acquire what you need, and I must be off to Canterlot this evening to meet with my fellow congressponies and a few other clients as well. I anticipate a week, two tops. Have the money for me by the time I get your product in.”
“Not a problem, Danny boy.”
Dandridge paused, mulling an idea over in his head. “Why don’t you accompany me tonight, my darling mare? I would love having somepony with such color and character on my hoof. I could introduce you to the finest things life has to offer. What say you?”
“Thank you, but I’m not one for the hoity-toity life of a politician,” Midnight confessed with a look of disdain. “There’s never enough room for me and their egos.”
“You’re breaking my heart, Aurora. Truly, you are… Then how can I go about reaching you, my ravishing associate?”
“Send somepony to the Shades. Go to the club The Forbidden Fruit, ask for Moon Drop. She’ll get in touch with me.”
Dandridge pursed his lips together, seeming to think over her instructions, or to memorize them. “Not one for direct contact, are you, my dear?”
“I’ve learned the only sure-fire safety measure in life is to cover your own flank,” Midnight said with a laugh, batting her eyelashes at him again. “Not that I don’t trust you, Danny. I’ve just had a gun pressed to my backside a few too many times.”
“Amongst other things, I’m sure,” Dandridge rasped beneath his breath, then continued, “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again, my dear.”
“Likewise, Danny.” Midnight sauntered up next to the stallion, watching the vein in his neck pulse as his heart rate accelerated. She stopped only once they were a hair away, lifted her muzzle to his neck, and left him with a delicate kiss to his tender throat. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s an art collector in Baltimare I need to talk turkey with.”
Dandridge shuddered and watched as Midnight winked and walked back out the door, taking the opportunity to watch her supple hips sway with each gliding step. He loathed and loved when she walked away from him. But before she could leave him, she had to pass the test. The same test he put every one of his clients through. He had to know if he could trust her.
“Why do you do what you do, Aurora?” he called out to her from across his office. His words stopped her, froze her in place like a sudden blast of arctic air. She lingered by the door, her hoof already pulling it open to take her leave. He saw her tail swish and flick in the air—a sign of anxiousness. She let her hoof fall from the door and turned to face him.
“If I said to make a quick bit, would you believe me?” Her question was rhetorical, but he shook his head all the same. She giggled at that. “I didn’t think so. I’ll keep it vanilla then. I was a lost child. Never good at anything, but I was headstrong with an unwavering drive to make something of myself.” Midnight shrugged and gestured to all of herself. “Here I am. I dunno, maybe I wasn’t hugged enough as a foal or something.”
Dandridge pondered her response for a moment. “I find it difficult to believe that you chose a life of crime for the infamy. That sounds more foolhardy than headstrong.”
“I’m a rough and tumble kinda filly. My options were either criminal or cop. You’ve seen my record, so you know there was no way in Tartarus or Elysium I was gonna be in the Guard.”
Another laugh came from the stallion. “Daddy never taught you to play nice with others, hmm?”
“Daddy was gone before I could walk.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not.”
Dandridge nodded his head in slow dips. He had gotten his answers and was satisfied for the time.
“What about you?” Midnight abruptly asked, taking a few strides back towards him. “Why does the rich politician run a secret crime ring as a side business? For the money? For the thrill? Do you just get off on breaking laws in between voting on them?”
A sound crossed between a laugh and an amused hum left Dandridge. The stallion averted his gaze down to the floor and held it there for a long time. His sudden introversion took Midnight by surprise.
“Would you believe me if I told you it was a matter of principles?”
“You have principles?”
Dandridge smirked in silent amusement. “I half expected something like that. Everypony has principles, my dear.”
“I don’t,” said Midnight, shaking her head with absolute certainty.
“Oh do you not? Tell me, do you ever take hits out on mares or the invalid?”
“If the pay is good enough, sure.”
“How about foals? What of collateral damage? Would you kill an innocent to complete a job?”
Midnight’s face soured into a revolted grimace. “Never!”
“Then you have principles.” Set in his diagnosis, Dandridge leaned back in his chair and stared up at the chandelier overhead with glazed and distant eyes. “My principle is a simple one: get back at any pony that has wronged you.”
“Who’s wronged you?” asked Midnight.
“The entire government of Equestria, for starters. Did you know my family is the only Earth pony family to have a seat in congress in the last century? Oh, it was humiliating. We were always the pity party, the outcasts. My father spent his entire life currying favor with those muckrakers only to die a miserable death and leave the once-proud name of my family tarnished.” Dandridge paused long enough to scoff, scorn heavy in his rich voice. Midnight watched his eyes narrow to a vicious glower. “The entire political scene is one big joke, my dear. The alicorns have all the real power, and even they have become feeble over time. Congress is merely for show, and the courts obey their masters like whipped dogs. Equestria is a weak nation. We’re all under the impression we live in this glorious system where we have a say as a birthright, when in actuality, our social status determines what rights we have. So I decided to break that mold and make my own way, separate from the flank kissing my father did, and his father did before him.”
“So you went into organized crime because…?” Midnight prompted.
“I went into organized crime because criminals are some of the most honest individuals you will ever meet. How many ponies do you know will judge you solely by your ability to get a job done? No questions asked, no prejudices assumed or stereotypes attached? Plus it allows me to become a part of a great revolution and take cracks at the crumbling foundation of Equestria’s house of cards.”
To say Midnight was thoroughly confused would have been a gross understatement. “Wait… You want to destroy Equestria’s government?” Dandridge nodded his head. “Why? Aren’t you a part of them?”
“Only in so much as I use my power to better the lives of my Manehattan and out of country friends, yes,” Dandridge said, sitting upright again. “But pretty soon, it won’t matter. The old Equestria doesn’t have much sand left in its hourglass if everything goes according to plan. But don’t you worry, my dear. There will be no impact on you or any normal pony. Just the faux bureaucrats that pretend they still matter up in Canterlot. It will be a good change for the nation. And my family’s name will finally carry some weight again.”
“If you say so, Danny,” Midnight replied with an indifferent shrug. Politics had always bored her to tears.
Dandridge slid up to his hooves with a glide, moving like a figure skater across a frozen lake as he made his way around the front of the desk towards her. Midnight eyed him the entire way, keeping her guard up the closer he came. He looked her over with those conniving eyes. He reminded Midnight of a Timberwolf stalking its prey, waiting for the right moment to strike. His hoof came up, catching her chin with lightning-fast reflexes. She gasped beneath her breath, turning her dilated pupils to stare straight back into those cold eyes.
A smile touched Dandridge’s lips, but where a settling calmness should have been, Midnight only saw hunger and anger in that grin. “Such a beautiful creature, you are… You are far too graceful for this world, my dear.”
Midnight couldn’t think of anything else to say other than a murmured, “Thank you.”
She went to move away, but felt Dandridge’s hoof hold her firmly in place. He jerked her head to the side until she was staring back at him again. That smile had vanished, transformed into a scowl of suspicion.
“You know, I’ve let you into my world without so much as a trace of doubt,” he spoke in a dark husk. “Tell me why I should trust you as much as I am and why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”
Midnight swallowed back the clump of fear knotting in her windpipe. Though the inner worry clawed at her insides, her eyes reflected nothing but calmness. She acted on pure instinct alone, going right for the kill shot. Midnight pushed Dandridge’s hoof away from her and caught his face with her own, pulling him in close until her lips pressed flush to his in a heated kiss. Though the gesture had no effect on her, she felt Dandridge tense beneath her mouth, too shocked to reciprocate her enthusiasm until she had pulled away a moment later. A fiery gleam burned behind her eyes, a wry smirk on her muzzle.
“That’s not my call. You don’t need me to tell you a reason. I’ll keep giving you as many as you need,” she purred, slinking away while rubbing the side of her lithe body against his. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Danny.”
Not waiting for the macabre mastermind to snap out of his stupor, Midnight hurried out of Dandridge’s office and cantered with memorized steps down the winding halls. As she neared the foyer, she spat in disgust in a vain attempt to rid her mouth of the taste of lowlife. The worst part was that she had sprung to the idea of her own volition, right in front of her own commanding officer.
“Sorry you had to see that, boys…” she whispered into her necklace. Bursting out into the damp air of Thatchholm again, Midnight set a course back to the bed and breakfast. The trap was set. It was time to prepare their next move.
Bentgrass couldn’t fight the swell of accomplishment when he tapped the emerald on the table, turning off the recording and the live feed. It was over. Dandridge had made his bed.
“We’ve got the bastard.”
“About damn time too,” Fleethoof said, his voice husky as he spoke. He wasn’t watching the recording anymore. He hadn’t been focused on it for some time, not since Dandridge had revealed his motives to Midnight. It was wrong. Something felt very wrong.
Bentgrass didn’t hide the faint smile that turned his lips. “Now we put the final nail in his proverbial coffin. There’s no way he could worm his way out of this.”
“Maybe not so proverbial if we can get him for murder…”
“We still haven’t found Agents Glimmer and Eye yet, and murder charges need bodies,” Bentgrass reminded him, a sour note in his tone. He flinched as if he had just tasted something foul. “They may still be alive.”
Fleethoof didn’t respond to that. He was staring down into space, his mind far away. Not a single muscle in his body so much as twitched. Dandridge’s words just kept playing in his head over and over again. Conspiracies against the crown… A destruction and rebirth of Equestria… The last time he had heard all of that, it all linked back to…
“Are you okay, Captain?” Fleethoof was subconsciously aware of Bentgrass’ hoof on his shoulder. Still, he did not move. “We’ve got him! I expected some celebration from you, of all ponies. By this time tomorrow, Dandridge will be pacing his cell like a wild animal, awaiting his trial.”
“Agrostis, I don’t think—”
The door slammed shut all of a sudden as Midnight walked in, tossing her mane behind her ear with a flick of her head. “Oh, would you two just fuck and get it out of your systems already? Jeez, I could choke on the sexual tension in here.”
“Captain, kindly control your soldier,” Bentgrass murmured in between jotting down notes. “I need to make a call to headquarters befor the arrest.”
Smiling from ear to ear, Midnight bounced up beside Fleethoof like a giddy foal, her leathery wings flapping behind her. “Yay, I’m helping! Now, if you boys will excuse me, I need to go see if the bathroom has any mouthwash I can drown myself in. You know, he might taste like a cheap cigar, but he’s actually not that bad a kisser.”
“Thank you for that pleasant image, Miss Dasher,” Bentgrass quipped with a deadpan roll of his eyes. “While you’re busy washing away the past thirty minutes, I’ll get started on the warrant. We’ll have Clydesdale within the hour.”
“Agrostis, wait…”
Bentgrass looked up at Fleethoof with a start, confusion coloring his narrowed eyes. “Wait? What do you mean ‘wait’?”
“I think we should hold off on arresting Dandridge,” Fleethoof said.
The look on Bentgrass’ face shifted from bewilderment to shocked disbelief. “Fleethoof, I can have Clydesdale sitting in a prison cell by the end of the day! Why in the wide world of Equestria would you want to put that off?!”
“Bent, you heard what he said to Midnight. There’s something bigger than just being a bookkeeper for the Mob. We need to wait so Midnight can press him for more intel.”
“Captain, what you’re saying is insane!” Bentgrass remarked with a curt laugh. “The next time Miss Dasher will be in that house is next week. You want to give Clydesdale even more breathing room? Need I remind you that we still have two missing agents that may be inside that house?”
Fleethoof’s eyes darkened, but he refused to budge. “I know that—”
“Oh, you do know! Good, because I was beginning to think you’d lost sight of what we’ve been doing out here.” Bentgrass closed the distance between himself and Fleethoof, standing a foot apart. “Dandridge has offered his flank to us on a silver platter and you want to let him go while my agents remain in peril?!”
“I’m not saying we let him go. But there is something else there that we need to know, and once he’s in custody, he isn’t going to be saying anything. Please, Agrostis. We need to be smart about this.”
“Being smart is exactly what I’m doing,” Bentgrass interjected abruptly, stomping back towards the door. “I will not sit by while that monster sits in his lap of luxury and does Celestia knows what to them. I’m sorry, Captain, but I am in charge of this investigation. We’re arresting Clydesdale.”
“No, you’re not.”
Fleethoof’s sharp refutal stopped Bentgrass dead in his tracks halfway to the door. The agent’s hackles raised with agitation the likes Fleethoof had never seen run through the stalwart pony before. But where he expected some sharp retort, Bentgrass was dead silent.
He continued, “If Dandridge’s threat is real, then Equestria is in very real danger. That makes it my jurisdiction, and my decision.”
“Jurisdiction?!” Bentgrass shouted and stormed back across the floor, stopping once he was close enough to Fleethoof to feel his breath on his face. “We have everything we need to stop him! My agents are dying and you want me to wait based on the ravings of a mentally deficient psychopath?!”
“This is beyond your understanding, Special Agent,” snapped Fleethoof. He stood his ground before the pallid pony looming over him, his blue eyes steeled and focused. “You don’t know the kind of danger this conspiracy could mean. If this is what I think it is, this could lead to a plot centuries in the making.”
“And if you’re wrong, Agents Glimmer and Eye will have suffered for nothing because you held off on a hunch!”
“You don’t even know if they’re still alive! For all you know, your agents are gone!”
Bentgrass snorted and set his jaw tight, tearing his glare from Fleethoof with an abrupt snap of his head. “Don’t you ever say that again…”
“This is the last time I’m saying this. Back down, Special Agent. I don’t want to pull rank, but if I have to have you benched, I will.”
Fleethoof’s threat struck a nerve within the agent. “You wouldn’t dare…”
“Try me,” the captain growled under his husky breath.
“Don’t make the mistake thinking you can impede my investigation that, as far as the bureaucrats are concerned, you aren’t even a part of! Perhaps I should make a call to Her Majesty, Princess Celestia and let her know that you’ve been gallivanting around like a vigilante and have you desked.” A cold rage passed across Bentgrass’ face for a fleeting moment. “Or maybe such a threat would hold more weight in the mind of Her Majesty, Princess Cadance…”
Fleethoof could feel the blood drain from his face. He had kept every trace of any darkness since the Everfree Incident under wraps to protect her from it. He could only imagine the verbal lashing and looks of disappointment he would receive from her if she ever found out. He blinked, stunned momentarily by the ferocity of the threat.
“What—?”
“Eyes forward, soldier. Focus on your mission.”
A series of staccato hoofsteps on the floor by the door brought both stallions out of their private feud. From the doorway, Midnight groaned and rolled her eyes.
“Sheesh, I leave you two alone for five minutes and you’re already moving to making out? I didn’t literally mean for you two to screw, but hey, whatever makes you happy,” she teased. “For Luna’s sakes, you two are acting like foals. I could hear you shouting from all the way downstairs.”
Bentgrass dipped his head, breaking eye contact with Fleethoof, but didn’t move a muscle otherwise. Fleethoof felt the warmth of his dying frustration flush across his cheeks.
“Midnight, listen—”
“No, now it’s your turn to listen, Fleet. You too, Special Agent Creepy. You’re both on the same side. If you’re gonna go after somepony’s throat, go for Danny’s.” Silence took the room after Midnight had finished speaking. She turned to Bentgrass first, stepping up beside him with gentle eyes and a calmer demeanor. “I get it, Special Agent. Your ponies are in trouble. I get nervous whenever my friends get deployed anywhere too. But they knew what they were signing up for. They were trained to handle situations like this. You told Fleet to trust me, now you have to trust them. How would they feel if there was some big evil plan or something going on and we let it go?”
Bentgrass said nothing. His impassive eyes hardened while staring down through the floor and into an empty void. He finally turned, trotting away to face the far wall without a word. Midnight then turned on Fleethoof with the same approach.
“You need to take a chill pill, sir. You don’t make rational decisions when you’re panicking. And I know that look in your eye anywhere. What’s up, Fleet? What are you not telling us?”
Fleethoof tightened his lips into a fine line and turned his head away. “It’s probably nothing… But I need to be sure.”
“Then tell me what you need me to do, Cap’n.”