Act 3 Chapter 60 : Death Takes A Coffee Break
"Before every battle I would sit down with Luna and take tea. Some might call this callous behavior, but when you reach the age we have, it helps to have reminders of all the great things ponykind has accomplished and wherefor they should be fought for. We have the crumpet, fine ceramics, artful decoration, butter, and fortifying caffeine. The dragons offered only death and enslavement.
While being yoked and used might have been a temporarily interesting change of pace, I believe I prefer to change up my normal strawberry jam for a bit of blackberry and call it even.
- Princess Celestia in "On The Crusades", Interview 16.
I doubt anypony would begrudge Quickie for being a tad overwhelmed. Tourniquet hadn’t so much ‘grown’ as ‘ascended to a higher plane of manifestation’, becoming something out of a comic book written by a fetishistic mechanist with a god-complex. Granted, knowing that ahead of time probably wouldn’t have helped much. Short of sitting down and drawing Quickie a picture, that particular band-aid wasn’t coming off easy.
Swift had rushed over the second her mom passed out, fanning her face with one hoof. Up close, the wires running through my partner’s cheek weren’t any less disturbing, nor was the unsettlingly lifelike way the cable adjusted itself to be most conveniently out of the way as she moved. Some of those fibers even seemed to have crawled into her eye sockets; I could make out several wrapped around her right eyeball like tiny hairs, though they didn’t seem to be causing her any discomfort.
“Kid, can I convince you to step back before we wake your mom up?” I asked, softly.
“Sir?”
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out an old, badly beaten hoof-mirror and held it up for her. She blinked at her own image for a second, then took several steps back.
“Right. I thought I looked scary with just the teeth,” she muttered.
“I think you look awesome,” Tourniquet giggled, reaching out to ruffle my partner’s mane.
Swift flailed a wing at her friend’s hoof and jumped sideways. “You would! You’re the one who decided she needed to be on stilts!”
“That wasn’t my idea!” Tourniquet protested, her slightly deeper voice still tinged with a filly-ish lilt, “I was digging through my spell system and found protocols for me to ‘grow up’. I figured it would be neat! I didn’t know they’d make me quite this tall. Besides, the extra power reserves probably sped it up.”
“And you ended up looking like a princess because...” I prompted.
The mechanical pony shot me a withering glare. “My mother had high aspirations for me, okay? I went through puberty in six hours. Do you want me to describe that to you, Mister Hard Boiled?”
“No, I’m good, thanks,” I said, then turned to Grimble Shanks and Derida, who were both standing there with their beaks hanging around their knees, staring at Tourniquet. Not that I could blame them a bit. “May I introduce—”
“Lady Derida and War Leader Grimble Shanks!” Tourniquet squeaked, sitting and clapping her metal hooves together. “I’m so glad you made it! I almost didn’t get word to Doctor Slip Stitch until it was too late, but thankfully the Morgue is closer to where the monsters were moving than Skytown!”
Derida didn’t take her eyes off Tourniquet as she carefully pulled her claw away from her axe and addressed me. “High Justice, this is the being who saved us from the horde?”
“She is,” I replied, tugging my hat off and setting it on the conference table. “She’s one of those ‘strange allies’ I’ve picked up since this debacle began. If you want her background, feel free to find a moment we’re not all about to die to ask her for it. Right now, the most you need to know is that I trust her with my life and she saved yours.”
With a soft sigh, Derida reached into the top of her dress and plucked out a thin vial full of red liquid. Holding it up to the light, she studied the fluid for a moment, then set it on the conference table and stepped back.
“Never let it be said a Tokan doesn’t pay her debts,” she muttered.
Flipping his bandolier to one side, Grimble pulled out an identical vial and set it beside Derida’s.
“Aye. Nor any Hitlan,” he added.
Simultaneously, they dropped to one foreleg, spreading their wings right out to their tips in the sort of formal bow that I’d only ever seen in movies.
For several long seconds, nopony said anything.
Tourniquet slowly reached out and picked up one of the vials on the table, turning it end over end.
“Is...is this blood?” she squeaked, carefully setting the amulet back down.
“Yep. If you get a chance, find a griffin named ‘Sykes’ upstairs and have him explain the finer points of griffin finance to you,” I said, nodding at the other vial.
“Aye, lass. Ye’ve saved griffin loives,” Grimble murmured, rising from his bow. “Our troibes oh ye a foine debt, Miss.”
“It is also one we cannot repay except with our lives and loyalty,” Derida put in.
“S-so you give me s-some of your blood?” Tourniquet whimpered. “That is—”
“—something we are going to be real tactful about,” I snapped, giving her a sharp look.
Tourniquet’s eyes glittered as she studied them. Straightening to her full, not-unimpressive height, the mechanical mare gave them a little bow of her own, and a coil of cable dropped from the ceiling onto the table; it carefully cradled the vials before disappearing back into the darkness. “Right. Sorry. Thank you. I...I will do my best to deserve this.”
There was a stirring from Quickie and Swift danced back, covering the heavily wired side of her face with one wing.
“Sir, w-what do we say? She’s waking up!” my partner whimpered.
“Scone! Stat!”
Swift nodded and pushed the plate over to my side of the conference table. I snatched a raspberry scone and carefully waved it under Quickie’s nose. A slow smile spread across her face. Without opening her eyes, she leaned forward and bit the scone off my hoof, chewing contentedly for several seconds.
“Mmm...honey, I love it when you bring me breakfast in bed,” Quickie murmured, throwing one leg around my neck and going in for what would have been the world’s most awkward kiss.
“Sorry, Ma’am. I’m afraid I’m not your husband,” I replied, carefully putting a hoof on her chest.
Quickie’s eyes shot open. Her horn lit. I was shoved backwards with all the force of a grenade going off in my lap. The air rushing right out of my lungs.
I saw ground, darkness, ground, then something like a hundred snakes all lashed out and snagged my flailing body out of mid-air with far more gentility than recent events suggested I’d receive from the world’s capricious karmic powers-that-be.
Looking up, I found myself wrapped tightly in several of Tourniquet’s larger cables. They pulsed around me, warm as flesh and far too much like something alive for comfort. My breath wouldn’t quite settle in my lungs.
“Mom, you can’t throw ponies!” Swift yelped from somewhere below me.
“If somepony wakes me up like that, he damn well gets a chuck!”
I gulped a couple of times until my diaphram stopped seizing.
“T-Tourniquet, could you put me down?” I managed.
The cables started to unwind around me and I couldn’t help a slight flail at the sensation of being dropped, though with infinite care they set me right back on my hooves in the circle of light around the conference table.
“It’s fine, kid,” I said, waving a hoof to show I was alright. Grabbing one of the chairs, I pulled it out and collapsed into the seat.
Quickie was on her hooves, her eyes darting back and forth between me, Tourniquet, and Swift. The anger seemed to be quickly fading as she realized exactly what’d happened, replaced with a look of genuine contrition. Pulling out one of the chairs, she sat down heavily and put her face in her hooves.
“I...Detective...I’m sorry that—” she started, but I tapped the table, cutting her off.
“Like I said, it’s fine. You’re not the first unicorn I’ve had pitch me. Miss Cuddles, can I introduce you to Tourniquet?”
“If I look up, is there still going to be a mare made of metal standing there?” Quickie asked, “And is my daughter’s face still going to be full of wires?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She blew a strand of magenta mane out of her face, crossing her forelegs and putting her forehead on them. “Then do you mind if I keep my head down for a few more seconds? I need to process this.”
One of Tourniquet’s cords dropped from overhead, tentatively nudged a scone close enough to be in Quickie’s line of sight, then retracted. Sighing, Swift’s mother picked up the pastry, bit a piece off, and silently chewed, very carefully not looking at anyone. I waited for her to be finished, then leaned forward.
“Miss Cuddles?”
“Yes, Detective,” she muttered, lifting her head to glance over at her daughter. “I’m aware I’m being rude. This is a great deal to take in. How did you find this...this pony?”
“The short story is that she was very nearly killed during the war,” I explained. “Her mother built the prison and used the collected magic of the prisoners to keep her child alive.”
Swift’s mother’s eyes softened a little and she peered at Tourniquet, who ducked her head under the close scrutiny, letting several strands of her technicolor fiber-optic mane fall over her face. “A mother doing something crazy to keep her daughter from dying. That is something I can understand, I guess. It’s still very strange.”
“It’s nothing next to what is coming during this meeting we’ll be having in an hour or so,” I said. “Part of why I asked you here is because you know the Vivarium and the Heights. You know its ponies, its defenses, and its capabilities.”
Quickie shook her head a little helplessly. “My mother is the one—”
“—who is injured. She’s also as friendly as a tiger passing an especially spicy burrito full of pinecones,” I interrupted. “I need you here to be the voice of the Vivarium and the Heights.”
Her dainty eyebrows drew together. “Me?”
“Mom?” Swift trotted around the table and laid her legs around Quickie’s shoulders. Her mother looked up into her pleading face for a moment and, despite the strangeness of the machinery in her cheeks, pulled her daughter into a tight embrace. “Gran and Stella would trust you to help us with this. You were going to be Gran’s successor before you met Dad. I know you kept up with your Stiletto training.”
“To keep my figure!” Quickie moaned, “I didn’t do it to help this...this deranged stallion fight a battle! That’s what he’s about to do! I know it is! He doesn’t even have a plan, yet! He’s just hoping somepony smarter than he is will come up with something!”
I gulped as I felt all of those different gazes drift in my direction. Public speaking was not one of my strong suits, but then nor was being killed in horrific fashion and I’d done that successfully on a number of occasions. I deserved a second cutie-mark in improvisation.
“She’s right,” I said, at last, then stood before anypony could really process the implications of that statement and planted my hooves on the table. “Right now, we don’t have a plan.”
I expected a few shocked exclamations, but there weren’t any.
“Hrmph. Are we meant to be surprised, High Justice?” Derida chuckled, pulling a seat and settling her dress around herself. “Do you ever have a plan? This time, I suppose you must make one…and you’re hating it. So, do please, tell us what we are here for?”
I scrubbed at my face with both hooves and tried to order my mind. “This isn’t everyone who will be here, but...the situation is that we’ve got resources, but I don’t know how many or where we’ll be deploying them. We’ve got bodies, but only a few hours to arm and train them. We have a goal, which is to take back the city and disable the Shield...but I don’t know how we’ll do that...yet.”
“Aye, sounds loike a pickle, says me,” Grimble added, casually pulling his axe off his back and a rag out of his belt, going about the process of cleaning the gore off it.
“I...phew. I keep expecting ponies to beat me with sticks whenever they realize I have no idea what I’m doing,” I muttered, sinking back into my chair.
“For having no idea what you are doing, you have an alarmingly high success rate,” Derida commented. “It matters not. We are at your disposal.”
“Alright, then. Miss Cuddles, are you on board?” I asked.
Swift’s mother slumped on the conference table, her cheek flat on the surface. “Do you even have to ask? I can’t stop Swift from fighting to save the world and I’d be a terrible mother if I didn’t help defend my own child, much less my husband and home.”
“Then I think we’re ready. Tourniquet, can you get everyone here?”
“Swift and I made a list of everyone we thought should be here and they’re already on the way,” she replied, waving a metal hoof at the conference table and the nametags.
I turned to my partner, then picked up the tag in front of me. It read, ‘Dragon Lord Firebrand’.
“Who all is on this list?” I inquired, tapping the nametag on one edge.
“Everypony we thought you’d want here, Sir,” Swift answered. “All of the craziest, most dangerous people in Detrot.”
‘Goodie,’ I thought, then began removing my coat. “Are Queenie and Gypsy on the list?”
Tourniquet grinned and the circle of light surrounding us spread outwards a few meters, revealing a cushy looking dog pillow with a dozing giant insect flopped on its overfed belly. The remains of a jelly donut sat on a plate of what was probably a few dozen before the ravenous essy had gotten to it. Several smaller versions of the breed sat around Queenie’s legs, buzzing sleepily to one another.
Quickie’s horn sparked dangerously as she leaned as far from Queenie as she could without getting up. “Is that a g-giant—”
“Yes, it’s a giant bug,” I grumbled, getting up and heading over to give the pillow a nudge. “Unfortunately, a giant bug we’re going to need awake.”
“If history is any indicator, it should sleep off the sugar in an hour or so.” Tourniquet explained. “Gypsy will be here soon, but she’s been working with Queenie to get all the remaining Ladybugs in the city to safety. Their network broke down during the attack and most are operating off something only a little stronger than instinct.”
“What happened to the communications systems, by the way?”
Swift shook her head. “We don’t know, Sir. Gypsy said it was some kind of broadband interference across all magical spectrums, whatever that means. It’s like an enchanted thunderstorm, but ten times stronger.”
“Is that what happened in the Vivarium, little bird?” Quickie asked. “Our communications systems all suddenly went from a range of a mile down to maybe a hundred feet.”
My partner ducked her head. “Mom, could you not call me little bird in front of everybody? Sheesh!”
A tiny smile threatened to break through Miss Cuddles’s gloomy expression. “I am going to embarrass you forever, little bird. You best not forget it! Now, answer the question.”
Blushing and with a half-hearted glare at her mother, Swift said, “W-with enough broadcast power, we can still punch through, but...most of the civilian systems aren’t working more than a mile or so. Even the Ladybugs can only transmit to each other when we’re giving them extra energy.”
Derida looked concerned as she asked, “Do we have a plan for keeping communications open while we try to take the center of the city? Even we griffins must maintain contact to keep discipline over a battle.”
Tourniquet reached over and touched the crescent on Swift’s chest. “The Marked can speak to each other, so long as I have enough power to send to them. It will put a time limit on our fight, though. The city power system will break down very, very quickly under that kind of strain even with me stabilizing it. That’s not to mention the physical costs on all those who I’m pushing that much magic through.”
“Estimate it for me,” I said. “How long will we have?”
Tourniquet gathered a half dozen loops of cord under herself and used them for a makeshift seat. “Maybe an hour and a half before ponies start dying, with luck? I can try to vary the loads, but even I can’t pay attention to more than a few dozen things at a time.”
“That...is going to complicate things.”
A warm croissant lifted out of the heap and floated over to Quickie’s forelegs. “What else is new?” she asked, tucking into the pastry. “Do we even know where in Uptown our final destination is? Even if we could get past the shield, do we have a direction?”
Swift grinned and looked toward the ceiling as several smaller cables descended with a rolled up parchment twice her height. Setting the paper on the table, she unrolled it into a giant map of the city, then set a couple small objects on each corner to keep it pinned down. I noticed one of them was a tiny figure of me that somepony had carved out of what looked like a bar of soap.
“You’re never going to stop being smug about this whole ‘magical powers’ thing, are you, kid?” I asked.
“No, Sir!” She blinked and glanced toward the chamber door. “Oh...it looks like the rest of everyone on the list is coming down. Do you want to wait for them to get here before we finish figuring things out?”
I shrugged and put my hooves up on the conference table beside my hat. “Pass the butter and find me a power cord that isn’t being used to keep somepony alive.”
----
Limerence was the first in, a fresh bandage around his head and a cardboard box of some kind balanced on his back. He wore a new vest that didn’t quite fit him, but it was cleaner than the bloodsoaked mess he’d worn out of the Office. The harness of knives across his chest had a few new additions, as well.
“Slip Stitch will be joining us momentarily, but he is still shaking hooves and making merry with the Aroyo children,” he murmured, taking the seat across from me. “Best mentally prepare yourselves. He’s in a rare form, even for him.”
A moment later, a swirling tornado of confetti blew through the chamber door, followed closely by an explosion of cheery fanfare. It died down to silence almost immediately, then the city coroner calmly strolled in like he’d just come off the bus. His white mane was, if anything, more wild than it was on most days and a trail of glitter seemed to be shedding from his tail.
He spotted me and smiled brightly. “Ah! Detective! Your heart is running in good order, I see! I would have been terribly upset if you’d died somewhere I couldn’t dissect you!”
“Good morning, Stitch,” I replied, adjusting the cord sticking out of my chest. “You managed to get the Morgue evacuated before the attack?”
Stitch took a bounding leap into the chair beside me. “Nope! I simply moved everyone inside and activated the old defenses. You’d think somepony would have removed those after the war, wouldn’t you?”
“So...why are you here instead of there?” I asked.
Pulling a pristine cupcake from somewhere in his coat pocket, he carefully flicked a speck of something that looked distressingly like blood off the tip, then stuffed it into his mouth whole. It was gone in half a second. “Mmmm, lovely, lovely, and the fondant isn’t even stale! I must get Miss Frosting’s recipe before her brain decomposes too badly. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes! Our sweet host appeared in our midst and offered safety, should we be able to get to the sewers. It took most of my remaining party poppers, but Celestia smiled upon us!”
“He blew a hole in a foot thick, reinforced concrete wall with something like dynamite,” Tourniquet grumbled. “I still can’t figure out how.”
“Never underestimate the power of sugar copiously applied, my dear!” Stitch chirped, then gathered his coat around himself. “Since we’d neither the resources nor the weapons to defend ourselves in a long siege, I decided it would be expedient to make our way here. Besides, with all those bodies packed down below, I was quite running out of squeezable cheese and the ice-cream had gone a tad melty.”
“And...that’s when you went to warn the griffins?” I asked.
“Indeed! It seemed the neighborly thing to do, considering they’d been without power!”
Propping himself back in his chair, he pulled a packet of papers out of another pocket and snatched a crayon from behind his ear, then went about furiously scribbling at the sheets of paper.
“What are those, bone cutter?” Derida asked, sliding her chair over to peer over his shoulder.
“Party plans!” he replied, flicking a page around so she could see it. “So many dead who need to be celebrated! I’ve gone for the ‘massive’ extravaganza, rather than individual events, so I must get ahead!”
The griffin banker slowly scooted her chair back to where it’d been.
“I must stop asking what goes on in pony minds,” she mumbled to herself.
A few minutes later, Taxi and one of the few ponies I hadn’t expected to see trotted in, side-by-side. Precious, the Prince of Detrot, had one foreleg resting on my driver’s neck, ears twitching this way and that. He looked as close to exhausted as I’d ever seen him.
His spangled jumpsuit was still perfectly pristine, though there were a few fresh grey hairs in his mane and a strange, metallic guitar was strapped across his back; it looked as though somepony had embedded an axe-blade into the side of the body and added enough strengthening to maybe make it an actual weapon. While he was still smiling like he always was, something in his posture suggested a weariness that went right to the heart. As the city ached and bled, so too did its prince.
Stopping in the door, he raised his nose and sniffed at the air.
“Mmm...Mah, mah, mah, what a gatherin’ Ah have come unto! Lord Grimble Shanks and Lady Derida come down from tha Highlands and...might that be two of the Cuddles mares? Ah would know the smell of Hard Boiled anywhere...and Tome’s son if Ah do not mistake mahself,” His milky eyes darted to the other side of the table and his smiled widened. “Is that Mister Slip Stitch and the Ladybug Queen?”
“On the money, Prince,” I said, tapping the table. “I’m glad to see you. I take it you came with Slip Stitch?”
“Ah go where the city needs, young’un,” he replied, then paused as his smile slipped into a perplexed frown for an instant. “Ah smell another pony, but...burnin’ electronic gizmos, too.”
“I’m...I’m Tourniquet, Sir,” the mechanized mare replied, trotting around the conference table. She slid onto one knee in front of him, bowing her head. “It’s an honor to meet you. I listened to the stories ponies told about you. I especially liked the one about how you beat the Siren Battle Band during the Sand Stone Hall campaign in the hippogriff lands.”
“Aheh! Pleased to be heard of, Miss Tourniquet!” Precious replied, still looking perplexed. He half raised one hoof, then hesitated, “May Ah touch you, child? Ah’m afraid mah ears do not see as well in this big room and mah nose is strong, but doesn’t get much detail.”
Tourniquet’s ears lay back. “I’m...I’m not a pony, b-but you can touch me.”
Reaching out, Precious held his hoof toward her. Tourniquet carefully pressed her cheek against it, and he ran his toe through the thin fur that remained, up to where it became metal over her cheeks, then across to the gently pulsating fiber-optic strands that made up her mane. His expression didn’t change as he tenderly ran the tip of his toe over her ears, then down to her jaw.
“Feels pony enough to me,” he said, then stepped back, picking up one of her hooves and pressing a gentlecoltly kiss to it. “And a lovely mare at that. It’s good to meet you, Miss. Ah am Precious. Ah am most pleased to make the acquaintance!”
A shock of red light throbbed through Tourniquet’s glittering eyes and flowed down her mane into the tangle of cords on her back; it took me a second to realize she’d just managed the machine equivalent of flushed cheeks.
“T-thank you,” she whispered.
“So!” The Prince raised his nose, then took a few steps closer to the conference table and grabbed a chair, hoisting himself into it. “Ah take it mah expertise in plumbin’ is called upon?”
“I wish it were,” I replied.
“Ye saved many loives in the war, Prince,” Grimble said, respectfully tilting his head, though Precious couldn’t see it. “Oi know no griff heard o’ ye what would no stand at yer soide wi’ a heart unfearful.”
“Ah remained neutral in the Crusades,” Precious objected, putting his hooves together in front of me. “Ah only took sides today because these crazy fellas don’t seem to mind killin’ anypony who is anywhere in their way.”
“Pardon me saying, but you stayed neutral against gangs, dragons, and all other manner of Tartarus spawned nasty creatures. You kept a part of this city safe and the Burning Love is still standing because nopony dares loot it,” Taxi said, taking her seat beside me opposite Slip Stitch. She shot him a funny look, unconsciously touching her own lips before shaking off whatever thought was going through her mind. Stitch didn’t notice; he was still enmeshed in his funerary plans.
Precious sank back in his chair, swinging the guitar free with one quick motion and leaning it against the table. “One last trick, Ah guess. Ah’m old, Miss Shine, but...Ah figure Ah’ve got that much in me. Ah’ll sit in.”
A rattling and clanking tred heralded our next guest: Scootaloo tromped out of the antechamber like a tank rolling over some begonias. She looked like somepony looking for somepony to kick in the face. Her prosthetics were coated in a thick layer of gun grease and she wore a battle saddle mounted with what looked like an oversized P.A.C.T.-style lightning cannon. Every inch of her was dusty.
Stopping in the door, she snarled, “Does somepony want to tell me why I’m here instead of teaching those poor civilians upstairs which end of the magazine goes in the gun?”
Her gaze swiveled around the room and her stance slowly tensed as she saw the odd collection of creatures gathered for the meeting.
Rising from my seat, I walked around to hers and pulled it back.
“You’re here to help me plan an attack on Uptown,” I said.
Scootaloo jerked her head at Tourniquet. “You have the ‘Lady of Shadows’, plus the whole of the griffin delegation, my Aroyos, the Police Department, and Stella’s people. What do you need from me?”
“I don’t know much about large scale combat operations and you do,” I explained, “I could get my grandfather, but I’d frankly rather have ‘The Demolisher’ than ‘Egghead’. He’s spent thirty years in a hole and you’ve spent thirty years keeping one of the most dangerous gangs in Detrot from going under with the police, the Family, and the Jewelers working against you. You know the city of today. He doesn’t.”
“Nopony has called me Demolisher in thirty years, Detective,” she replied, pointing to the word ‘Everfree’ carved into the shoulder of her prosthetic. “I’m a ganger. That suits me better than soldiering ever did and I’d rather die in the gutter than wearing medals or sitting on a hill directing a battle.”
“Then, if I have taken my measure of this pony accurately, Demolisher...he will soon give you that chance,” a voice purred from somewhere in the shadows near the door.
Firebrand stepped out of the darkness like a puff of mist resolving into a ghostly figure. The young dragoness was wearing a set of heavily worn metallic armor which was either gold or painted very convincingly. She carried a matching helmet under one foreleg, and her knives were back in their sheathes.
She smelled fresher than I tended to expect from dragons, and her brown scales shone like they’d had a layer of polish applied.
Scootaloo took three quick steps back, her rear end bumping into the conference table. “Whoo, I have obviously not been informed on some things. You made friends with some dragon royals?!”
The she-dragon frowned, flicking her tongue at the air. “Do you know me?”
“I knew a lizard who’d have a fit if she saw anyone besides one of her direct relations wearing her armor,” Scootaloo replied, nodding at Firebrand’s helm. “That makes you Firebrand. You’re Dragon Lord Ember’s get, aren’tcha?”
“You knew my mother?!” Firebrand rose up onto the tips of her claws. “She never said she knew any Crusaders!”
“She didn’t,” Scootaloo replied, shoving the chair I held out for her back out of the circle of light and standing instead; considering how much her legs must have weighed, that made sense. “She was in Ponyville once in a while. I was a little filly then.”
“Then I hope you can meet her again, one day, when the sun is back,” Firebrand murmured. “Dragonkind will always tell stories of the Demolisher. You were one of the many deaths.”
“I was working, then, and I’m working now,” the elderly mare said, pulling the plate of scones to her side of the table. “So, ‘Crusada’, I don’t buy this being ‘just a planning session’. Half of the ponies in this room don’t know what is going on in the city...but you’ve been the one with all the answers so far. I think it’s about time we had the truth.”
I shrugged and got to my hooves, doing a quick mental count of the nametags on the table, then the persons in the room.
“Does anyone have to piss?”
There was a general uncomfortable shuffling around the table, but it was met with silence.
“No? Last chance for at least an hour?”
Silence.
“Tourniquet? Close the door. None of what I’m about to say leaves this room. It’s storytime. I hope none of you were planning on sleeping tonight, because this one’s a doozy.”
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And the reaction to storytime could easily go two chapters by itself, if you wanted. It's a reallllllllllllly big story after all.
Of all the cliffhangers in all of the chapters of this story, I think this one might be the cruelest of them all.
So any idea on when we'll get to sit in on the story time? If it's not soon then I'm going to have to bring out the secret weapon.
So please don't make me bring it out. 
It's highly unstable and prone to causing diabetes.
Stage is set. Very nicely done.
And oofle, the rollercoaster is starting ladies and not-so gentlefolk. Please keep all limbs inside the cart until the bullets start flying. Your nearest exists are non-existent and if you want off the wild ride. Slip Stich will be happy to apply his fun time measurements.
Looks like The Crazy Gangs all here.
How many are going to be left to pull The Last Trigger?
Pull up a chair and grab some popcorn cause it be storytime all y'all.
A bit of a disappointment that our old police chief did not make the cut, but Jade is likely training ponies and playing traffic control by putting ponies to work. Just think, 63 more chapters!
What's a battle down?
She's the Princess of Magitec, just like you're going to be the Alicorn of Justice, Alcoholism, and Bagels.
Maybe Hardy can take a casual retirement as the Equestrian Ambassador to Griffin territory.
And everything else that's happened in the last month has been perfectly normal.
As strategies go, it has the benefit of having worked before.
I'm betting most of them will consider it a worthwhile risk ... at the time.
By which he means, he gave himself a sugar high and bucked the wall down?
Kinda surprised the PACT monsters haven't burned it down in spite.
Not a lot of action, but the characterization present in this chapter is masterful. If I had the ability i’d hand you another upvote. I feel like I really know all of these characters and some of them have only been in five chapters tops. Thank you once again for the bountiful and well written words of fiction that you have gifted us with.
Hardy, sometimes you get what comes around, and sometimes you are what comes around.
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Even D.W. has a certain admiration for Precious.
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Getting all the character's personalities right with so many on screen was a giant challenge during this chapter.
9562850 That sentence made my grammar skills ache.
-Chessie
Thanks for the chapter! I think I might've forgotten who most of the characters are - might have to go read through again
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For what it's worth, with sufficient oxygen you can sort of launch rockets with oreo filling....
https://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2006-05/rocket-food
Paper (aka cellulose) is just a bunch of glucose stuck together and a perfect combustion would leave you with carbon dioxide, water, and released energy...
Gasoline is a hydrocarbon and if it weren't for the oxygen atoms Glucose would be too....
http://herbzinser17.com/organic/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/gasoline-3.jpg
http://tpe1s1sport.e-monsite.com/medias/images/glucose-molecule-thumb11063520-1.jpg
It does seem plausbile that he might have just eaten the sugar and kicked the wall in, though. Especially as the general consensus being that earth ponies are pretty strong.
...In the immortal words of Airn Hanson:
i.ytimg.com/vi/yF_pM4vcW8s/maxresdefault.jpg
Another well done chapter