Waking up for the Equestrian dream

by Jack Kellar

Chapter 4

“Sir?”

“At ease, Corporal. That's the minotaurs' gesture of peace. Keep sharp, but don't rile him up.”

“Oh, so that's what he's doing!”

“Why is it all clothed?”

“It's a 'he', you dodo! Captain Shining Armor just said that!”

The road map was the blueprint of a roundabout. I ended up exactly where I started, surrounded and out of breath – a mouse played with by a cat, given the false hope of freedom only to have it broken one second later by a bite to the head.

“Why were you running away?”

There wasn't any need for introductions. Just from the voice, I knew who was running the show. Something rounded the corner of a pearly white wall – half a dozen blurs of color, magnified by the lens of adrenaline, each sporting a bit of gold. “Wait, Princess!”

One of them strayed from the flock with the speed of a jet. I made to dodge the yellow blur, and the decelerating pegasus embraced air. “So, here's damage control.”

Over ten mouths sang together, an incoherent set of questioning words spilling forth. One spoke louder than the rest. “Damage control? What do you mean?”

“Why don't you ask them? Or Luna, for that matter? Speaking of which, where is she? Doesn't she want to play the devil's advocate herself?”

“What?”

“'Devil's advocate'? What's that?”

“Please, you're not making any sense.”

I turned to the apparent leader of the bunch, the purple unicorn with a tiara. “You're one explosion too late to play the innocent card, you know. Or are you gonna say whatever you did was an accident that just happened to coincide with you saying 'now, girls' when you stormed my bedroom?”

The whole sextet recoiled from the question. Her mouth opened in a stutter for an answer. The pressure piled up even more when Princess decided to speak, “Twilight Sparkle. I believe an explanation is in order.”

Mi Amore Cadenza, Shining Armor, Twilight Sparkle. As odd as it was, it all seemed to fit, in a picture book-like sort of way.

Twilight scraped the ground. “Princess, please, it's not like that...”

No answer came forth.

“Princess Luna told us that he was a Nightmare, and that we had to use the Elements to expunge him.”

“We all remembered Nightmare Moon, and all that 'eternal night' mumbo-jumbo, and how good things never come from that kinda stuff.”

“So we barged in, but them Elements didn't exactly work like we thought.”

“Instead, we had a most horrible experience. After we came to, he was gone...”

“... and we've been looking for the poor thing ever since.”

Half of the explanation went over my head, but given the setting, it didn't seem to be much of a tall tale. Still, I had learned my lesson. Trusting Mona the first time had left me stone-cold on the floor of a dead nightclub, just like trusting B.B. had cost me Alex's life. They completed each other's sentences far too naturally for people not neck-deep into the art of deception.

“Girls, that is a very grave accusation.”

The world spun around, and in half a second, I went to being stared at by a white giant, two black holes with purple rims boring a hole deep into my brain.

The clock hands scrubbed off the hard lines on the face before me as they ticked by – by the end of it, her composure was a façade, hiding a train wreck of vague recognition, sorrow and regret. I don't know what answers she was looking for, but what she did find hit a sore spot.

She took a long, deep breath. And then, she did something I didn't expect.

After New Jersey, I had changed. It got worse after Alex died and didn't stop there. The interactions I started were always professional, always with suspects, witnesses or colleagues, and always as short as possible. The time I didn't spend at the precinct, talking as little as possible, I spent at home, alone in the silence of the television's banter and my own breathing. All physical contact had two goals, subdue or kill. It was what led me to back away from the alien version of a surprise hug.

She hid it well, bringing her wing back to her side as if nothing had happened, but it's hard to lie with your eyes – the look of pining was still there, mixed with pity. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you.”

I just nodded. There was nothing to be said.

“It seems we got off on the wrong hoof here. Allow me to introduce myself: I am Princess Celestia, diarch of the Kingdom of Equestria.” Her voice was sweet, but not the syrupy kind drenched in the honey of a crook's throat. It was honest, warm, like a mother gossiping on the school playgrounds about her kids as she watches them play. It was the final period written on a long list of proofs of how far off the mark my first assumption about her had been.

She made a pause, waiting for an answer. “Detective Max Payne, NYPD.” Formalities had never been my forte.

The equines behind us exploded in murmurs. She winced like the words stung her ears, but concealed it behind a white smile. “It's a pleasure, Detective Max.”

“Princess?”

My stint with Celestia must have been enough reassurance for the others to make their approach, but one look I gave them was enough to stop them in their tracks. The same pegasus from before was the most agitated of the bunch – her tail whipped the air like a loose wire, and her head decorated Twilight's shoulder. She refused to look up, probably because of my first reaction, but the only thing stopping her from coming closer was Twilight's body.

“Yes, my student?”

“If it serves for anything... we think Princess Luna was mistaken.”

*click*

“Max?”

The sun decided it had had enough of the show in the courtyard, dunking the land in a cauldron of golden light as it crawled towards the horizon. The sunset reflected off the black metal of the gun, my fingers dancing across the sinister glint. I didn't see when it came back to my hand, but now it was there, safety disengaged and ready to fire. Celestia stepped closer, giving me the curious eye. “Are you okay?”

Fate found this a good opportunity to gift me with a second gut punch. “SISTER! THOU HATH FOUND HIM!”

Flying out of the creeping night like a ghost come out of a nightmare, Luna appeared, flanked by a batallion of wings and black armors. An all-too-familiar appearance, full of nostalgia-less deja-vu. I gripped my weapon tighter. My enemy was right in front of me. There was no holding back this time.

“LUNA! WE NEED TO TALK!”

She landed with four distinctive clops on the soft earth. “Yes, sister, I know. How fortunate that you have him rounded up as well! Now, Bearers of the Elements, this is your chance! Expunge this fell monster from Equestria forever!”

Nothing was said or done by anyone. My finger was itching, but I wasn't tempted to set off the bomb.

Celestia sighed. “Actually, Luna, this is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Huh? About what?”

“Max, come here for a second. Please.”

I obliged with some hesitation. When I was close enough, a white leg wrapped around my waist, and I understood. It was a show of good faith.

The female in blue watched, surprised. “Sister? Hath thou... have you tamed him?”

“Tell me, Luna, how do you know he is a Nightmare?”

“'Tis easy! His eyes don't lie!” Then, she added, almost in a whisper, “Those are the same eyes I once looked back into...”

“I undestand. But what exactly did you see in his eyes?”

Luna took a moment to digest the question. Her mouth opened a few times, as she stumbled with her words. “I saw... I saw bad things, sister. Anger, hatred, resentment...”

“Is that all?”

Luna reared up and slammed her hooves on the ground. It was a reaction I'd seen coming a mile away: she was squirming hard, the typical behavior of a suspect under questioning, cornered by undisputable evidence. “It was enough! I didn't have to see any more than that to know what he is!”

Her sister knew exactly what buttons to press, though, and wasn't gonna get off the steamroller that easily. “Like Ponyville's behavior last Nightmare Night was enough for you to cancel the celebration forever?”

“THAT WAS DIFFERENT!” The explosion of sound was backed by a crack of thunder, as if on command. Her breath was heavy, and the veins in her eyes started to make themselves known, in a contest of visibility against the spiderweb of cracks in her composure. “IT ALL WAS NOTHING MORE THAN A MISUNDERSTANDING!”

“Luna...”

All of a sudden, the other princess stopped arching like an attack dog. She took a deep breath, and the stress signals in her body disappeared, her muzzle arched back into a smile. The calm before the storm. “No, my dear sister, I understand now. He has brainwashed you, ordering you to do his bidding.” The hoof lazily pointed at me would have looked less dangerous if it was replaced by the muzzle of an assault rifle. “Well then, if you are unable to deal with the problems presented, it is my responsibility as Princess of Equestria to assume control. Night Watch!”

“Remember Nightmare Moon.”

These three words could've been mistaken for a time-freezing incantation. As it was, they stopped the advance of the dark armors, their shot caller, and the trigger behind my finger, dead in their tracks, all at once.

“... what?”

The warmth behind me disappeared, replaced by a huge white mass on the corner of my eye. “One thousand years ago, you let your emotions cloud your judgement. You didn't want to face the facts then, just like you are denying to do now. Do you remember what happened then?”

No verbal answer came forth. Instead of that, Luna slouched, and the grass became very worthy of her attention. “... I do.”

“I'm not doing this to aggravate you or challenge your authority, my dear sister. I'm only doing so to stop you from committing an injustice. You said yourself that Ponyville was a misunderstanding, and I can assure you that our old dispute was one as well. Who can grant you that, as it is, you're not unwittingly doing the wrong thing again?”

Going by the previous demonstrations, it was surprising how fragile Luna looked. “But, sister, the Elements...”

A mass of purple emerged from behind one of the guards, capitalizing on the crowd's disarray to reach the middle of the circle they formed. “Pardon me, Your Majesties, but... I don't think the elements failed.”

“Excuse me?”

Twilight didn't answer; instead of that, she made her way into the huddle. The exchange of whispers was punctuated sometimes by a raised head pinpointing me like a periscope with living lenses, full of sadness. I barely noticed, too busy sorting out my own thoughts.

My judgement had been turned on its head for the third time that day – the dark diarch wasn't anything close to the shady backstabber I thought her to be. Instead, I was faced with was a cut-and-paste of Bravura, someone passionate for doing the right thing, but too one-track-minded to accept tenuous facts even when they could steer the course of events onto the right track. I knew. It was a behavior I'd been exposed to, from both sides of the line.

In the end, it all boiled down to a rainstorm atop a water glass.

And just like water, something was draining the warmth of my hands. The submachine gun was a memento of a harder time, cold and hard in its purely practical design.

*click*

The safety went back on, and I sighed to stifle a yawn. It had been two nights on the run, four days without rest. And now, with the adrenaline that kept me nailed to the saddle going down the drain, I was losing steam fast.

By the time my hand came down from my eye, Luna was there. Her figure was different, nervous, but still trying to front. “Our sister vouches for thee, as does her student. Why?”

I knew what she wanted.

And then, what Celestia had done before made sense. It's much more than a stare down when the other can see past the skin of your corneas, into the blood and bone marrow hiding the ghost in the machine. The part of you that you keep locked away in a cage after banishing it somewhere far away, storing the truths you don't want to face.

Kindred souls do share a bond. I might not know exactly what had happened in the incident Celestia mentioned, but I understood nonetheless. It was a non-rational and non-verbal conversation, but it conveyed a lot more than any logical means of talking.

Without the surprise factor counting, the old news parted ways for the more hidden pages. And one of them, the sheer innocence behind Luna's gaze, was enough evidence that our understanding was as mutual as a one-way lane going her way. The taint her soul carried had taken its toll on her, but not one big enough to break the same purity her niece had.

It all came down with the tear that rolled off her eye, ripping a hole in the silence big enough for a whisper to creep into the screen. “What... what is it that hurts you so much?”

“It doesn't anymore.”

For all of her naïveté, Luna was sharp enough to see through the half-lie. Or maybe it was compassion, it doesn't really matter. Either way, the outcome would have been the same.

The thick neck wrapped over my shoulder and the lack of hands on my back made for an unusual embrace. The liquid warmth on the other side of the leather, riding along with choked sobs as relieving for you to let out as they are painful for others to hear, guided my own arms around her. The twinkly wave of hair on the back of her head was soft velvet under my fingers.

What else can you do when your comforter-to-be is the one that ends up in need of emotional shelter?

Author's Note:

Celestia: Set phasers to HUG!
Payne: NOPE

I don't think I've ever seen someone back off from the rare shows of affection Celestia has under her belt. That's important.

Comments

[Jack Kellar]

Yay, two chapters in one month's time!

Now, boys and girls, this baby here may be going on a slight hiatus. I have another story I write that I haven't updated for many months. I'm even thinking of bringing it here to this site, since FanFiction started acting like a bunch of assholes a while back.

This is it, if you're interested. It's a crossover with Left 4 Dead, so it may not be exactly your cup of tea. You have been warned.

[Mr Aquila]

Nice

[89ingenting]

In my opinion, the best MP/MLP crossover I've read. Great portrayal of Max, and love the interactions so far.
Can't wait for the next chapter, hiatus or not!

[Jack Kellar]

1017864 Well, it wouldn't be Max Payne if the character wasn't Max, now would it?

Glad to hear you like it so much, I pour effort into writing this!

[DustTraveller]

I like this Max Payne. You know, the Max Payne before 3, when he kinda became a parody of himself. Now don't get me wrong, that game is fun, but damn, I really started to hate Max.

What can I say? Max Payne is pretty well in character, although the rigid attempts to keep the narrative in Max's voice sometimes occludes what's going on to the point where I get a little confused as to what is actually happening.

For a little while there, i wasn't sure I got it, so let me see if I get this straight. Luna saw what she thought was the Nightmare in Max's eyes, so she called out the Elements to blast him. The Elements failed, or did not work as intended, placing the Bearers in some kind of horrific vision, during which Max made a break for it. He was stopped by the guards and Celestia...

Is this right, or am I confused?

I want you to understand that I DO like this story, I think you're doing an excellent job. The problem is, Max's particular style of narrative works in conjunction with a visual of some sort. In the game, while Max is going off on his pain and drug induced rambling tangents about the soul and the nature of evil, we can plainly see what is actually happening in the comic style panels or the action itself. This is a stylistic choice by the game developers, because what Max narrates is muddy and full of emotional jagged edges, whereas what is happening on screen is crystal razor clear. That dichotomy is what makes the game work.

In a story, we only have Max's narrative voice, so when it's done RIGHT, as you have, the result is... a little unclear. Does that makes sense? I'm not trying to bring you down, I'm just trying to explore why I am confused, at times.

Of course, there's always the possibility that the problem is on my end. Either way, this deserves way more attention than it is getting.

[Jack Kellar]

1162953 That's why I promised myself not to touch 3, and started this right at the end of 2. I really don't like how they wrote my favorite detective, way too vulgar and shallow for a guy that's inherently introspective. Sure, there are good things in it (including a bit that will come up soon), but I'm not buying a questionable CD just because of a good track.

You nailed the current events down to a T. Luna saw what she thought was the Nightmare in Max, the same way he saw himself in her. With her character development in the series, she understood that something so similar to Nightmare Moon can hardly be anything but a threat, so she called the elements against him. As for the Elements of Harmony, refer to the scene at the end of the second chapter, the one in italics. And yes, it was Celestia who grabbed him mid-jump.

About the style needing a visual aid, that's exactly why it takes me so long to release these chapters even with this meager length: it's really hard to write the story without being overly descriptive, something that Max wouldn't be. I try to maintain that 'comic book narrative' feel, only explaining the very least necessary while still being clear enough to understand.
In fact, I'm surprised you're the first one that asked about the development.

As a final note, thank you for the kind words and posting an actual intelligent comment!

[The Rogue Wolf]

There a chance this might see more work done on it in the near future? Because I'm kinda diggin' it.

[Jack Kellar]

1683746 The next chapter is a bit over 1,000 words in, JSYK I just gotta break my little writing funk for the moment, and get done with an RL issue or two

[kildeez]

638400 Holy crap, I hate it when people do that!

Also, as for the idea behind this fic,

I GOTTA FOLLOW THIS!

[Butanon]

This story is really interesting. I hope it gets finished soon.