Equestria Delivery

by JLB

PART 2 - COMMUNICATION. Chapter 6: Double Time

May 7th, 1013 AN - 06:55 AM

Carol City, Equestria

Ditzy sat under a parasol by the living room balcony, one of her hooves keeping the pages of her book from being flipped over by the breeze, while the other kept her head straight. Faint remains of a strong early morning rain popped against her snout, and the wind blew some of her blonde mane over the bad eye. Her skin shivered from the constant, minor abuse by the elements, but at least the book was kept dry by the parasol.

...and validating multiple, previously controversial, scientific theories on the inner workings of a changeling 'hive mind',, in particular ones proposed by the scholar Coalescence in the late IXth century, who split changeling creatures into non-sentient drones, sentient synapse potent changelings and…

...most impressive of all, it would allow a different species to enter the intrinsic neural communication web of the changelings, although research into the field is rather slow and difficult due to the ethical implications of the process. Contemporary findings have been rising in number since the signing of the Prejudice Rock Pact in early 1004…

...as additional research was protested by multiple organizations fighting for the rights of sentient creatures, disputing many points of argument, with resulting lawsuits leading to the highly limited number of publications on the topic…

Next to her, placed inside a school lunch box, were several pages of roughly scribbled notes. The pegasus looked at a passage from the book, then at the piece of paper lying at the very top. For a few seconds, she glanced up at the sun’s rays that had begun to pierce the shroud of fading rainstorm clouds. The mare then grabbed the note, balled it up with her hooves, got up from the chair and tossed it over the balcony.

The wad of paper flew in a straight arc just a little shy of a bin on the sidewalk, a few meters from a pedestrian crossing and a row of palmtrees. Halfway through its flight, the slight northeastern breeze corrected it so that it landed in the half-open bin. A purple, blonde unicorn mare wearing a waste collector outfit stood next to it, yelping and jumping away her head twisting back and forth until she noticed the grey mare sitting on the fifth story balcony. The unicorn retreated.

For a few minutes, the pegasus continued to stare towards the sun, breathing heavily. A gentle fit of coughing came over her, following which she scooped up the books and the notes from the table before retreating to her room. Once inside, Ditzy left the tomes and the papers on a bookshelf and emptied the lunchbox inside a tin can with several smokestick butts in it.

Having returned to the kitchen, she locked the door to the balcony and quickly washed the lunchbox in the sink. The mare then opened the fridge and took out a loaf of bread, followed by some tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and cheese. She lay them out on a cutting board on the kitchen table and began to slice.

“Mom?..” came a soft, groggy voice from the hallway. Ditzy turned her head toward the voice and sighed. “I’m not late… yet… Uuugh, the weather’s so nasty… I don’t wanna go anywhere.”

The pegasus said nothing, merely shook her head and kept slicing. The tiny unicorn scrunched her snout and trudged up to the kitchen table, her head low. She leaned on a chair and stared at the meal being prepared.

“I… I dunno if it’s too late to ask, but could you make it just lettuce and cheese, please? Or… maybe just cheese?”

Ditzy glanced at the filly. Her hooves kept working the knife and holding the vegetables.

“I know, I know, I should eat my greens… though… Hmph! Tomatoes aren’t even green… And they’re messy. I get them all over my uniform every time I try to eat them. It’s icky.”

The mare frowned, closed her eye and pointed at the thin slices of tomato on the board.

“Hey, I still manage, you know!”

The mare sighed again and turned back to the fridge, placing the tomato slices onto an empty plate inside.

“And maybe—”

Ditzy shot a rather piercing glare at the little unicorn, who looked away and grumbled to herself.

“Fine, fine, vegetables-schmegetables, I know... “

With that out of the way, the mare nodded and went back to slicing up lunch for her daughter. They were silent for a while, the sharp blade noiselessly cutting the soft foodstuffs. Ditzy stared at the well-crafted metal for a moment, exmining the elegant shape and the small curve at the end, as well as the row of teeth on its top edge. She then froze, eyes widening, bringing the knife in her hoof closer to her face. A rapid pounding started in her chest, her face flushing. Ditzy trembled while turning to look at the kitchen knife holder next to the sink. Her jaw hung a little when she found all the kitchen knives inside.

“Uh… Mom? Is something wrong?”

The mare glanced at Dinky, then back at the knife. She hastily retracted it into the holder and raised a hoof to tell the filly to stay put, rushing to her room immediately afterwards Moments later, she returned empty hooved and took a knife out of the knife holder.

“Aaah, I didn’t know you bought one of those fancy sharpy-sharp knives that dull as soon as you cut something with them. One of my classmates says his dad bought one of those, and then it dulled right away. He says they're real good for dough though, they used it for his birthday cake.” She paused and gave a loud gasp. “Wait, are you gonna make me a cake?!”

The two stared at each other until the mare burst into quiet gasps, grinning and covering up her face. The filly giggled a little too, continuing to look at her mother hopefully. Eventually, once Ditzy quieted down too, she smiled and nodded. The sandwiches were ready soon afterward, and she saw Dinky off to school.

Once the mare returned, she locked the door and retrieved an envelope from under a one of the cushions of the sofa. Her smile faded into a neutral expression as she began to read.

Dear Ditzy,

I hope your vacation is going well. You have more than earned your rest after bearing the burden of the company business all on your own for this long. It goes without saying, but you are a credit to the team. It would be uncouth of me to get to the point without having reminded you that you are a wonderful asset and a great mare all in your own right.

Unfortunately, it seems that I have to interrupt your peaceful vacation, if only for a bit. You’ll need to return to the office - at Tejuano Heights 16th, in case you had forgotten (I am being silly, of course) - where there will be some unpleasantness to take care of. Nothing out of the ordinary, but quite dense, quite dense indeed this time around. Not to fear, however! For one thing, you should not expect to be… expected. As soon as you show up before four o’clock, naturally. Still, discretion is of utmost importance.

Also, while your performance has been flawless so far, I believe it is best that you don’t go out alone this time. A direct colleague of yours will meet you on site and assist you. I, for one, have reason to believe that you will get along perfectly. Try to hit it off sharp and don’t worry about collateral damage.

Back to work, and knock em all dead, like you always do!
Filthy Rich.

Ditzy remained at home until two in the afternoon.

---

***

The sun was low enough enough in the sky for the large mansion to cast a shadow over the rows of palm trees in its vicinity. The oceanside cliff it stood on was devoid of activity, save for the parking lot with a small number of recently parked expensive motor carriages. A large fountain stood close by, with the statue of a hydra gorging water out of its heads. Benches and trimmed hedges lined a paved leading up to the mansion grounds. On a neighboring cliff, a tennis court and a golf course were placed next to each other, a corridor with plenty of shade connecting them to the mansion itself.

The pegasus, dressed in postal service clothes, walked up the steep road and looked over the mansion grounds. Shielding her eye from the sun, she squinted at the front gates, inspecting them before stepping off the road. She moved onto the grass and quickly took to the air after a few steps, only having left a few hoofprints.

After circling around the cliff, she landed at the very edge of the tennis court, near the tall fence that separated it from the steep drop into the ocean. Carefully, she slid along the thin ledge between the two, utilizing her wings to get across any gaps. The shaded path to the mansion was just around the corner from where she landed.

When the mare was halfway to her destination, loud music started up from the direction of the mansion proper. Flashing lights could be seen through a window on the second floor. Moments later, a tall, rectangular object with sparkling wires dangling from its back crashed through the glass, and the music was cut off, replaced by loud shouting and bickering.

She narrowed her eyes at the source of the commotion while turning the last corner, only to walk face first into the muzzle of a large gun, which was held up by a light green magic aura. From behind the trigger, the pink and grey visage of a vulture stared back at her. Underneath the eyeholes, two unnaturally widened, bleak, bloodshot green eyes jittered in place, neither of them blinking.

The pigeon and the vulture stared each other down for close to a minute, both of them staying perfectly still. The pigeon’s bad eye twitched in place, forcefully guided to try looking forward. The vulture’s green eyes shook in place with the figure’s incoherent breaths. They wore the same postal outfit as the pigeon, though it was much more tattered, with several patches of clumsily repaired fabric. It looked off on its owner, whose muscular legs stretched the fabric in one place, while their sunken in stomach left parts hanging in that area.

“Hey, asshole.” The vulture’s voice was raspy, it spoke with constant small stutters. It resembled either a stallion with a very high pitched tone, or a chain smoking mare.

Eventually, Ditzy blinked, the noxious vapors coming from the muzzle having irritated her eyes to the point of tearing up. An audible, gravelly sigh came from the vulture.

“You what?”

The mare raised a foreleg, which made the vulture twitch and stuff their gun even closer into the pigeon’s beak. Ditzy reacted by poking her throat with a hoof. For a few seconds longer, the muzzle choked her with its vapors, until it was finally lowered, and the vulture blinked for the first time since they made eye contact.

“Yeah. I get it. Damaged goods. We all lost something,” the other killer said. They then coughed a few times and shook their masked head. Their eyes finally opened, now looking even more bloodshot, and even less controlled. “Or someone. Fuck them all to fucking hell.”

The vulture slung their weapon over their back, turned around and approached the path between the courts and the mansion, lined by tall rare oak trees on either side. Ditzy glanced at the vulture’s gun, which had everything but the trigger and barrel removed, the stock replaced instead by a massive cleaver sticking out the back.

The other masked killer walked with an inconsistent pace, constantly changing their posture, sometimes letting out short growls. They had no tail, the tail hole of their suit sewn shut. Fresh rips and stains of mud covered the ragged postal outfit. The tall, scarred, partially chipped horn and small pieces of coat visible through some of the tears suggested the unicorn was white.

“They’re high, drunk, all sorts of fucked up. I’m going in hot, you do whatever the fuck you want. I'm gonna be killing for two today, creep.”

The unicorn approached the path, which was fenced off from the edge of the cliff, a thin wooden door at the center. Instead of bothering with the lock, she lodged the blade into the wood, ripping out entire chunks, repeating the process until a kick with her hind leg made the whole thing crumble. The pigeon stayed behind and watched her companion enter, glancing momentarily at the small patch of untouched, ignored ground left between the court and the mansion proper.

Nodding, she went into a short start and took to the air, aiming herself at the still open window on the second floor. Gliding toward it with a few careful flaps of her wings, the pegasus slipped through without a sound.

Down below, a shrill scream erupted, along with a much deeper masculine one, followed by a loud crash.

16 Tejuano Heights - 3:12 PM

“YOU’VE GOT FUCKING MAIL!”

A rapid jerk gave away the inhabitant of the dim room she landed in, as her eyes still took time to adjust to the sudden change in illumination. A bulky earth pony with a brown coat and a rough goatee rested on a sofa to her right, wearing a pink a purple shirt with palmtrees on it. He spilled his drink and rolled off sofa, bumping against the expensive audio equipment stacked around it.

Massive speakers took up most of the big room, with an expensive crystal device at the center, all the wires connected to it. The pigeon quickly yanked one of the wires out of its socket and lunged at the stallion, punching him in the head and quickly wrapping the wire around his neck before he could make another sound. He groaned desperately, his hooves flailing under her, trying to grab at his throat. The mare gritted her teeth and pulled the makeshift garotte tighter, drawing blood where it tore into the skin, but she could still hear small gasps of breath from her victim.

Glancing up for a moment, she let go with one hoof and punched the pony in the stomach before dragging his body a few inches closer to the speakers. He gasped for breath, but only had a moment to look up in confusion before a large black wall filled his vision.

The mare was already facing away when the stallion’s cry was cut short by a wet crunch. Loud noises and frantic screams came from downstairs, which alerted the occupants on Ditzy’s floor. Two more similarly dressed ponies stumbled into the chamber, one of them looking exactly like the one whose skull was liquefying under the toppled speaker.

“I’LL COOK YOU, THE FUCK, ALIVE!” a guttural shriek sounded from downstairs, followed by a dull bang and an even more piercing scream. More voices cried out down below, growing more panicked as time went on.

The ones in front of the pegasus were taken aback for a second, giving her just enough time to launch herself toward them. The changeling from the duo took a masked forehead to the throat and fell to the floor, while the other was tossed to the side and into the wall, knocking over several shelves’ worth of valuables. Neither could get back up, as the changeling got jabbed with an outstretched wing, poking right through an eye, which drew a spray of steaming green liquid and a distorted screech. The other, almost having recovered, had a forehoof land straight on his throat, not stopping until it ground his spine against the floor.

The mare listened to the audible banging and clanging downstairs, as well as multiple sobbing, demented, shrieking cries. Hastily, she looked at the hooves of the two that lay on the floor, but both were empty, so instead she picked up an oval statuette that remained intact on the shelves. Holding it under a wing, she galloped down the hall.

A door flung open, nearly slamming into her face, and another stallion emerged. The mare skidded to a halt, dragging the rug along with her, and rammed the door as soon as the stallion was halfway out. The door swung and halted with a fleshy thud, only to throw itself back at her, knocking the pegasus onto her back, straightening the rug as she slid on the floor.

A tall, light brown unicorn in a soft purple suit emerged, wearing sunglasses on his forehead above the horn, blood trickling from his right temple. He stared at her for a second and glanced to his side, then returned his eyes to the mare, eyes narrowing. Grimacing, he huffed and looked back into the room he came out of. A feminine yelp came from there, and an oblong object flew into the unicorn’s telekinetic grip. He barked something at the occupant, only to yell in pain when the pegasus kicked his foreleg, causing him to swivel in place, growling something in a foreign language. The mare was on top of him right away, pushing her forehooves into the eyes. The levitated object - a long, polished wooden bat - narrowly missed her skull as it swung wildly.

With a roar, the unicorn snapped his head forward, butting the mare in the snout and driving her back for a second. The sparkly aura flared around the bat, and it swung right in the pigeon’s direction, threatening to hit her in the side. She grunted and quickly spread her wing, nudging the bat near the grip to disrupt its motion and avoid the hit. However, the next swing followed close behind, forcing her to leap forward, stretching out the other wing as well.

She bent into an almost feline stance, avoiding the blow, and pounced at the unicorn once more, tossing them both further down the corridor, where an ornate set of marble stairs led to the ground and second floors. Her forehead slammed into the stallion’s nose, and while he was dazed, she stabbed him in the gut repeatedly with the knife at the end of her outstretched wing. A faint wisp of magic lingered around the bat, which still hovered beside them. The mare’s hooves returned to his eyes, and his pained coughs and groans were replaced by a terrified shriek, not unlike the ones that came from downstairs.

The pigeon looped the string on the hilt of the bat around her hoof, getting herself upright using her wings. Her hind leg came down on the unicorn’s face, bludgeoning it multiple times until a loud crack rang out.

“YOU'LL FUCKING WISH YOU WERE DEAD,” the familiar roar came again. It was far further inside the mansion than before. A piercing, high-pitched gurgle followed it, followed by a series of mushy, wet noises.

The mare peeked at the portion of the ground floor visible to her, where she saw two black, jagged bodies twitching on a burnt up rug, the puddles of green blood around them boiling. One of them was completely missing its head, the other had half of the face and most of the right foreleg destroyed. Jagged, craggy blisters erupted and bubbled on their bodies. The strong smell emitted by the vulture’s blunderbuss lingered in the air, even more thick and unpleasant now.

Standing upright, the mare advanced further into the mansion, casting one last glance behind her back. The door that the unicorn emerged from was shut tight. A series of voices came from the rooms ahead, and the mare’s head lowered as she approached them. Her hind legs kicked one of the doors in, and she found four palm tree shirt-wearing thugs who bickered in their rapid, singsong foreign tongue. They waved their guns at each other for emphasis, a mess of banknotes surrounding them. An odd scent of burned paper and ink lingered in the room.

The loud entry made one of the stallions’ fire their weapon in shock, blowing a large hole in the ceiling. This stunned the others, allowing the postal mare to knock them down with a powerful gust of wind from her wings, while the bat in her grip swung at the clumsy thug. The pony - another identical copy of her first kill - staggered back as his head snapped up, the bat cracking his jaw and breaking his nose, sending a spray of hot, steaming green blood at the ceiling. Barely avoiding the stream, she rushed in and brought the bat down on the legs of the nearest of his companions.

After a pair of wet cracks and a loud scream, she turned around to catch the next one, who was already squinting and pointing his gun at her. The pegasus’ body twisted, and one of her wings lashed out, unleashing the knives lodged between the now spread feathers. Two out of four went wide, embedding in the floor and the wall respectively, but two more found their way into the moustached stallion’s neck, making him gurgle as his body was drenched in steaming blood.

More rabid roaring came from below, almost inaudible from inside the room. The mare bashed apart the head of another stallion that had gotten back to his hooves, his blood spraying onto the piles of money, this time leaving red stains that did not sizzle. The last occupant nursed a wound caused by one of the weapons firing wildly, his disguise already distorting. The pigeon threw down her bat and grabbed him by the face. The changeling coughed and screamed, already thrashing in pain from the friendly fire, but he began to shriek proper when his face was shoved into the fireplace that decorated the far end of the room. Not too long after, he went still, surrounded by the charred remains of several hooffuls of banknotes.

The scream he had made nearly drowned out a much louder, much lower, wall-shuddering wail. Moments later, three more figures entered the room, just as the postal pony turned her head toward the door. She saw two unicorn stallions wearing purple suits with bent knives attached to their forehooves, followed by a large black griffon towering over them. They stared at the mess of bodies in the room, and the mare stared back at them.

“I’M FUCKING INVINCIBLE!” came an especially loud growl from downstairs. The griffon narrowed his eyes, grabbed the two stallions by their necks and tossed them back through the doorway, his talon pointing down while his raven beak, adorned with a thin pencil moustache, twisted into a frown. He then unsheathed a long, thick fencing sword from a thin sheath hanging from his dark leather belt. The multiple zippers on his jacket jangling were the only other sound as he went into a low stance and pounced at the mare.

Having missed her chance to strike first, the pigeon stared at the charging griffon for a moment, then stomped as hard as she could on the outstretched gun leg of the thug she stood over. It fired from the impact, sending a crystalline slug right at the sword-bearing raven.

Despite his towering, bulky physique, the griffon proved to be quite nimble as he leapt into the air, dodging the shot. His sword arm coiled back, ready to strike as soon as he landed. She charged forward, slipping under him, her ears brushing against his feline legs. He cursed and skidded to a halt, and by the time the pigeon turned around, he was already almost on top of her.

Just as he lashed out, the mare rushed in to avoid the blade, and her wing snapped forward. The blades inside pierced the raven’s own wing, causing him to tense up and give a loud cry. The next moment, she thrust her entire weight against him, sending them both to the floor. Her forehooves pressed together and came down on his throat repeatedly until it cracked. Steaming green blood oozed from the wounds, and the body soon morphed into a distorted, black, jagged creature with its beaked mouth gaping open.

The mare took a peek out the door, still hearing noises from below. After managing to catch her breath, she rushed to the windows that opened to the balcony outside the room, where she leaped over the edge and used her wings to soften her landing. Immediately after hitting the ground, she turned around and vaulted through a ground floor window.

Her forelegs slammed right into a palm tree shirt-wearing stallion who stood with his back against an oven, pointing a shaky foreleg at the entrance to the kitchen. As soon as the mare got a good grip, she bashed the thug’s gun leg against his face, leaving it a mangled clump of black mush. The bits of green blood that hit her clothes burned unpleasantly for a few seconds before evaporating.

The kitchen was full of other thugs - all of them already on the floor, soaked red or steaming green. Some had their limbs chopped off, some had half their faces split open, some barely resembled equines, left curled up with blisters covering their partly molten features. The noxious smell from the blunderbuss and the corpses mixed itself with the food being overcooked in the pans and ovens of the expansive kitchen, as well as the confections laid out on a separate table. As the pegasus hurried through the chamber, she nearly stumbled over the mangled corpse of a mare in a maid’s outfit. She paused over the body for a second, then rushed onward toward the source of the noises.

A string of dark, bloody hoofprints led her down several corridors, a room with a pool table, and even a library. Around every corner there was at least one body, some chopped up and bashed into a pulp, some burnt and molten. Another griffon changeling was propped up against a wall, its misshapen, beaked head nowhere to be found. Stretched out across the next hallway was another maid, missing nearly the entire left half of her body, the rest of it covered in blisters. The pegasus had to leap over the scrunched, blistering mess that took up the space where the rest of her body should have been.

“MORE! I WANT FUCKING MORE! DON’T YOU MOTHERFUCKERS HAVE FUCKING MORE?!” That scream came from the far end of the room she approaching - a large room with a swimming pool, jacuzzi, and an enchanted roof, which turned the hot sun beams into neon pinks and purples.

She was about to enter the pool room when another thug backpedaled slowly out of the doorway. The light brown unicorn, an identical copy of one previously killed, had a large knife attached to his foreleg, which he held out while taking shaky steps backwards. His well-groomed tail shook as he whispered to himself, teeth clattering.

“Ya… vali… madre…” were his last words. The pegasus vaulted right on top of him, mounting the thug and bringing his head down onto the pool room’s tiled floor. After about four bashes, he stopped moving, and she sped onward.

The vulture stood at the far end of the pool, in front of a doorway. In front of her, lying on his back, was another thug - a magenta pegasus with a blonde mane, multiple earrings and aviator shades covering up most of his clean shaved face. He was missing a foreleg, which lay right next to him, covered in the redblood gushing from the stump. He screamed in a drained, hoarse voice as his face was being bashed in and sliced by the butt of the vulture’s gun. Bits of glass from the shades were lodged into the cut up mess that his snout had become, and a few hits later, the rims fell off. The foreleg that remained attached was barely intact, burnt up and covered in blisters, curled up against his torn up purple jacket. The hind leg joints were burned and molten, causing the hind legs themselves to bend at unnatural angles.

The vulture continued to shriek over the thug, repeatedly hitting him with the butt of the gun.

“FUCKING- USELESS- PIECE- OF- SHIT- DO- YOU- HAVE- ANY- MORE!” they spat barely coherent words at the body. By the end, they had begun to tremble in place, their head twisting, agitated huffs coming out of their mouth instead of words. “YOU- HAVEN’T- DIED- E- FUCKING- NOUGH!”

Inside the pool itself floated a massive, badly warped changeling body. It was bipedal, thick horns adorning its head. Next to it were several more bodies, including the other one of the two unicorns the pigeon saw accompanying the griffon upstairs.

The vulture gave small, odd noises while still mutilating the corpse in front of them. The sound bordered between sobbing, laughing and hiccuping. The pigeon tilted her head. Staring at the scene with both eyes for a few seconds, she eventually blinked and turned back to where she came from. Along the way, she could faintly hear the vulture start wailing, wheezing and hooting, their screams filling the blood-splattered halls.

Galloping and speeding herself up with her wings, the pegasus raced up the stairs, dodging piles of corpses, all the way to the one door that was locked. It took several heavy kicks with her hind legs until the frame gave and the door flew off the hinges. The masked mare trudged into the room, finding an office with a desk, several bookshelves, a manticore’s head on the wall and a safe lying on its side on the floor.

A group of maids were huddled together in the corner of the office. One jumped back with a screech, her hooves dropping the cutlery she was using as tools to pry the safe open.

The pegasus took a deep breath, walked up to the safe, picked it up with her forehooves, struggling to stay afloat, and heaved it into the panicked maids before they could scatter. Screams and wet squashing noises filled the room, the screams going silent one by one. Eventually, the pegasus calmly descended to the first floor. Her face and chest were covered in blood and bone, while her forelegs shook from the effort of lifting the safe.

At the front doors, she came across the vulture, who stared at her with blank eyes. The mutilated blonde body from the room with the pool was dragged by in the unicorn's telekinetic aura. The two masked ponies looked at each other for a while, Ditzy’s bad eye jittering as it looked forward, while her good eye eventually looked away from the unblinking, muddled green eyes. Her gaze wandered to a large hall lined with statues of ponies in armor, filled with half-finished decorations, stacked boxes of fireworks, a table left empty and a large banner hanging over it. On it was a painted picture of a smug, grinning blonde stallion with multiple piercings, and written above was “¡Feliz cumpleaños!”.

They stood silently for a minute, the pegasus escaping the vulture’s stare, neither of them moving. Then, abruptly, the vulture dropped the body from their magical grip and began to shake all over.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU STARING AT?!”

They then stormed out through the double doors, breaking them open. Ditzy galloped over to the parking lot, took an empty bag from one of the vehicles, filled it with her blood and synapse-stained clothes, and took off.

***

”Following the pleasant trend of Carol City’s successful war on crime, the CCPD has confirmed that the reports of violence at an estate located at Tejuano Heights were, in fact, a police raid on the headquarters of the infamous Galiceno criminal organization known as “Los Caballeros Invencibles”. The estate was already notorious in the local area for multiple instances of fighting and unrest, as well as for suspicions caused by several visitors claiming the presence of numerous maintenance workers and servants without any having been officially registered for work. Its affiliation with the organization that ruled Carol City's underbelly in the years preceding the Wedding War confirms multiple suspicions. Cross-Continental Solutions, the security company assigned to the estate, have declined to comment in light of personnel and leadership issues...”

...

“...of the 26 deceased gangsters have so far been denied seeing the bodies. The involvement of numerous Prejudice Rock Pact individuals had given the investigation cause for concern with regards to the rivalry between Los Caballeros and the other currently active criminal organizations. Some family members of the deceased criminals have been taken in for questioning due to suspicion of ties with the illegal activities.”

...

“Commissioner Vice Point had this to say: 'It’s long past time that we stopped taking the drastic increase in crime lying down. We’re making it official - this is only the beginning. There will be no mercy, no reprieve. We are enforcing the law and bringing these offenders to justice. Carol City has always been Equestria's sore spot when it came to crime, and we're starting right there at the root. Los Caballeros' previous Dons have outright controlled this place decades before, when the Mare in the Moon was still there. The rest of the criminal scum plaguing this city will want to look at this and know that unless they come clean, this is what is waiting for them.' As for the unusually high casualty rate among the criminals...”

...

“...the estate where the operation was carried out is currently under renovation by mandate of the mayor as part of this decade’s housing plan for Carol City. Majority Solutions representative Gaur clarified...”

---

Carol City Elementary - 5:20 PM

Ditzy hurried toward the tall metal fence of the school. The bag, filled with clothes, thudded against her flanks repeatedly. She frowned, shaking a bit of sweat off her forehead. Her eye caught on the empty yard in front of the elementary school, and she bit her tongue. Having crossed the road, she leaned against the fence to catch her breath. She then proceeded to pace back and forth, squinting with her good eye and letting her bad eye relax for the time being, as it still twitched in place.

The school grounds seemed almost entirely empty. She caught glimpses of teachers and maintenance workers through the windows, but no children. Huffing and puffing her nostrils, she stomped her hoof on the pavement. Her brow furrowed as her legs and wings flexed, aching from the lengthy gallop and flight from the far end of the city.

There was a glimpse of an equine figure off to the side, behind the fence. Ditzy narrowed her eyes and leaned in, only to give a small groan when she saw it was an adult as well. The mare stood in place for a bit before heading toward the gates. Her eyes widened when she prodded them with a forehoof and found them locked. She rushed back along the fence to the figure, and it took several loud rattles before the pony noticed her.

The other adult was the groundskeeper, a ragged dim purple mare with an unkempt blonde mane under a hat too big for her head. She stared at Ditzy with baggy eyes and frowned.

“What do you need?” she growled.

Ditzy bit her lip and lifted one of her forehooves, then gently flapped her wings to keep herself in the air, allowing her to point at a joint near her hoof.

“The time?”

The pegasus nodded.

“Like a quarter past five.”

She sighed, planting a hoof on her face and shaking her head. The groundskeeper, however, leaned in, squinting at her.

“Have I seen you before?”

Ditzy lowered the hoof she was covering her face with, revealing her good eye to look at the groundskeeper. After a few blinks, she nodded and shrugged.

“...right… Just… go, would you? Nothing to see here. You’re creeping me the fuck out, lady.”

The pegasus bit her lip and frowned, lowering her head. Slowly, she turned away and sighed, going into a sluggish trot back home, where her daughter was no doubt waiting for her for at least three hours now. One last time, the mare glanced back and found the groundskeeper’s stare drilling right through her. Ditzy upped her pace, shaking her head, ears flicking as she went.