Act 2, Chapter 21: The Big House
Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 21: The Big House
While the documents presented here have mostly focused on equicides and the justice related thereto, for which harsh penalties are appropriate, the Equestrian justice system overall is actually quite lenient. Most crimes - such as petty book theft from hospitals, love poisoning, barnslaughter, all the way through destroying a small town via omnivorous parasprites - go unprosecuted with a sincere apology and an effort to make amends or return the stolen items. Even when prosecuted, many crimes go right down to community service, usually set to work fixing the damage caused.
Princess Celestia believes that all ponies are basically good, and thus believes in a justice system that puts reconciliation and rehabilitation before immediate public safety, and well before any kind of punitive justice. This is not an indictment of her strategy; In Equestria, harmony has to be maintained by whatever means necessary, because disharmony invites disaster. Punitive justice in particular doesn't undo the damage caused by the crime, and invokes permanent feelings of bitterness and recrimination.
With that said... what do you do with ponies who just won't behave? Who spread disharmony wherever they go, and who repeatedly commit terrible acts that no amount of barn-raising will undo?
Equestria has no official death penalty, of course. But it has plenty of precedents for millenia-long sentences (see the oft-cited, if rather extemporaneously judged and sentenced case of Princess Celestia v. Nightmare Moon, BLR 1000) and some ponies just have to be put in the deepest, darkest holes Equestria has.
-The Scholar
This is your Queen on the scene, ladies and gentlecolts! Gypsy calling to you from the highest mountain and the lowest sea on Detrot Free Radio!
Now, yours truly has had to be careful these last few years. There’s plenty of very low ponies in very high places who’d love to play lots of despicable games with my organs, but I’ve kept ahead of them every step of the way! It’s a tough time in Detrot for those who want to speak truth to power. The Detrot Police Department, fine ponies that they are, seem not to know just who the good guys are anymore.
I’m here, today, to tell you that there’s one cop out there you can always count on. He’s the tip of the iceberg, friends, but he’s a face I can point to.
If you meet him, shake his hoof! He may not be popular with the Detrot Establishment right now, but he’s your friend and he will fight for you!
His name is Detective Hard Boiled!
Recently, the good Detective was seen tromping head-first into the Monte Cheval! Soon thereafter, the Jeweler Kingpin, King Cosmo, who has been spilling Ace from one end of this city to the other, decided he should take an ‘extended vacation’! Next, the Detective was seen at the home of another well known scum-bag, the information broker known as ‘Reginald Bari’, alias ‘The Drum Beat’.
****
Taxi hit the brakes so hard I flew forwards into the footwell as Swift smacked into the back of her seat. Thankfully, there was nopony behind us or we’d have probably have another vehicle wedged up our back bumper.
“Jeez, Sweets! You trying to get us killed?!” I shouted.
“Hardy, did you hear the damn radio?!”
“I heard! What’s the problem? I didn’t think I could stay completely out of the news forever. Not after that last stunt.”
“But… but why!? How’d she find out about what we’ve been doing?” she sputtered.
“I don’t know! Maybe if we could listen, we’d find out!”
****
-Drum Beat is currently in police custody, pending investigation for charges of rape, drug running, fraud, and a laundry list of other crimes. The story goes, he was found with Detective Hard Boiled’s knife pinning his head to a dictionary! The Drum Beat’s lawyers jumped ship earlier today after it was revealed that the Detective himself rescued the girl who, just after midday, came forward to offer her testimony against this miscreant!
Thereafter, we got to see the spectacular havoc he caused for both the Church of the Lunar Passage and Chief Iris Jade! If there’s one pony who needs a fire lit under her backside, it’s that one. Iris Jade is still pursuing the Detective regarding those events, though some of my ‘secret sources’ say he may not be her highest priority at the moment.
Detective, we’re rooting for you here at Detrot Free Radio! Me, the parakeet, and the poor fool who gets me the coffee. If you ever need a friendly ear or information on the goings on in your city, we’re here for you!
****
“What...the...hay…?” Taxi was still sitting on the side of the road, her eyes locked on the radio. We were on a backcountry road, paved but still desolate. Stands of old, tall trees blotted out the remains of the evening sun on either side of the road.
“Well, you said she was a pirate radio station and she’s pegged the police on things before, right?” I murmured.
“Yeah, but the police wouldn’t have released that detail about the knife, would they? They wouldn’t have even wanted to show you were involved!”
“Sir, is...this bad for us?” Swift asked.
“Right now? I don’t know. I wish we hadn’t left Limerence back at the Archive."
"Well, he... wasn't wrong when he said that one of his goals, as an heir to a major 'extralegal' organization, was to stay out of prison? I mean, I could… kinda see where he was coming from on that-"
"Still, I’d kind of like to quiz him on what he knows about this ‘Gypsy’ pony and particularly how she keeps managing to broadcast without the police finding her,” I replied. “I’m… definitely going to be looking into this. There’s a... poker game that happens fairly regularly that might account for her advanced knowledge, but I don’t think that’s the case.”
“What about that thing about the girl from the sex mine?” Taxi asked, turning the volume on the radio down as a commercial for cigarettes came on.
“Stella doesn’t much care for rapists of drug runners. Did you tell him to hide her?”
“No… I’m afraid that slipped my mind,” my driver answered. “I was sort of focused on the fact that the police bands were all screaming about getting hooves on the ground in diamond dog territory and capturing your ass so Chief Jade could mount bits of you over her desk. I dropped her off and made a beeline for The Nest.”
“I kind of like being on the radio,” Swift said, very softly.
“You weren’t on the radio, kid, and be glad. Taxi and I have no immediate family for our targets to threaten, but you’ve got your parents, and your grandmare-”
My partner sniggered and put one hoof on my muzzle, “Sir, my grandmare’s probably the most dangerous... anything you know, maybe excepting our boss. Do you really think she hasn’t had my parents and me under constant observation for like, the last twenty years?”
I sat back from her, dubiously. “Are… we being followed right now?”
“Maybe. I dunno. When Chief Jade made you my partner, did Gran make some kind of really nasty threat?” Swift asked, spreading one wing out the window to catch the breeze in the tips of her feathers.
“Errr… something like that, yes.”
Swift nodded. “I… ugh. I wish she wouldn’t do stuff like that. Scarlet was the only pony I’ve ever been friends with that she didn’t, and that was only because it would have been like kicking a bunny...”
“What’s the threat got to do with whether or not we’re being followed?” I asked.
“It means we’re not being followed, Sir,” she answered, then added by way of explanation, “She only makes those threats if she’s gonna turn responsibility for my safety over to somepony for awhile.”
“Oh. Good to know, I suppose.”
Swift turned in a circle like a puppy looking for a place to lay down and stretched real big, wiggling her hips in the air before sliding back onto her belly. I tilted my head to one side to get another look at her cutie-mark as she tugged a notepad out of her combat jacket’s front pocket along with a pencil and began jotting something on the paper.
“Kid, I’m feeling a touch guilty here because I never did ask this. What’s your special talent? I know you’re a mean shot with that leg cannon, and you’re a pretty spectacular flier, but what does that even out to?”
My partner stretched out her rear leg and peered at the short sword and pen on her flank. “I...yeah, I guess I never asked you either, Sir. Things have just been so crazy. My talent is that I fight like I write.”
“And...what’s that mean, precisely?”
Swift flipped the pencil she had around in her teeth and jabbed it at the air like a knife before spitting it back on her notebook and puffing out her chest, proudly, “I...well, I write my stories about ponies fighting for what’s right. Heroes! I read all these comic books Gran got me when I was a foal - The Power Ponies, Batmare, you know the stuff - and it just sort of… stuck. I wanted to be one of those heroes!”
“Mmm… makes sense I guess,” I said, noncommittally.
Taxi had one ear tilted towards the back seat and said, “Well, we’ve got at least another hour before we hit Tartarus. How’d you get it?”
“Oh! Um… I got it one day when I was at the Vivarium, playing in the creche.”
“That’s your cue to tell us a story, kid. We’re about to be out of range of the radio stations,” I explained.
Swift’s salmon colored ears settled down on either side of her head. “Sorry, sir. I… it’s just a little embarrassing.”
“Believe me, kid, as cutie-mark stories go I don’t think you’re likely to top Sweets or me for ‘awkward.' Lay it on us.”
The little pegasus held one hoof to her chest and sighed, dramatically, “Well, if you insist, sir. I guess I was… maybe eight? The other kids were always making fun of me and Scarlet. Me for my… errr…-” She raised her wings, spreading them out so the tops of her flight joints smacked against the ceiling. “-and Scarlet because… um...” She paused, as though hunting for some words to fully encapsulate the experience that was her red friend. Finally she settled on, “... because Scarlet. He’s been like that since we were small. He’d get into Auntie Stella’s make-up and paint himself from nose to tailtip.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” I chuckled.
“It was one day just after snack period and one of the big colts was bothering Scarlet. His name was ‘Target Practice.' Guess what his talent was? Too bad he always used it to find just how to hurt somepony. He was calling Scarlet prissy and pushing him around. I mean, I know Scarlet’s fussy, but Target said some really mean things, like that nopony would love a colt who was such a filly and stuff like that. I started to get angry, but I’d gotten in trouble the week before for fighting. Dad… said I should write my feelings out, rather than acting on them and he gave me my first notebook.”
“Sensible of him,” Taxi murmured. “I wish my dad had been like that.”
“Speaking of… him… Sweets, you been awful quiet on that topic since I told you where we were going,” I said, in a low voice, “Are we going to discuss that particular situation at any point?”
“No, Hardy. No we’re not,” my driver replied, firmly.
“Alright, just thought I’d ask.”
Swift, who’d been very caught up in her story, kept going, “-I pulled my notebook out and started writing about my favourite hero, trying to ignore what was going on. I’ve written a bunch of stories about her. Her name is Quick Strike! She’s a rogue journalist, afraid of nopony, fast on her hooves and good in a round of hoofticuffs!” Her expression drooped. “But… I was so angry, I only got five words down…”
“Which five words?” I asked, curious.
My partner rolled her pencil back and forth across the paper and replied, “Quick Strike would stop him.”
Rising to her hooves, she trotted back and forth in the tiny space. It was more of a walk for her than it would have been for just about anypony else I know.
“I’ve never been so mad, but after I wrote that, I knew what was right, and I knew I had to fight them whether or not I got hurt, because once those words were on paper, they were real.” Swift grinned, throwing one hoof over her heart. “I went right up to Target and put one hoof on his chest and said ‘You leave my friend alone!’”
“That’s...very brave of you,” I murmured.
“Yeah, well, like you say, Sir... brave and stupid can come in the same package.” She smiled, with a wistful air, as she recounted her tale. “Target smacked me right between the eyes so hard I hit the ground before I could blink.”
“What? Was nopony watching the foals?” Taxi asked, sounding a bit shocked.
“Oh, Target would always find some way of cornering us where nopony else could see. He was really good at stuff like that. He was a bully, you know?” She shivered a little and leaned towards the window. “Anyway, I was laying there, and my head hurt, and my ears were ringing.” Swift put her hooves on either side of her head. “I don’t remember it perfectly, but Scarlet was trying to get me up and Target just shoved him away, then put his hoof between my shoulders and grabbed my flight feathers in his teeth.”
“That’s… a pegasus submission position they teach us in the Academy. You should have been half blind with pain,” I murmured.
Swift grinned. “I know! My wings are so big, though! The joints twist further than most ponies. That’s when Target said -- I’ll never forget this -- that’s when he said, ‘Birdy needs her wings clipped’. I’d written one of my villains saying just that to Quick Strike a few days ago, and I remembered what she did. So I reared back, twisted on my side, and smacked him with my other wing. I smacked him as hard as I could!”
Taxi and I both winced and let out a mutual, “Oooh... ouch!”
She nodded vigorously. “You bet your tail, ouch!... um… Sir! Target flew all the way across the room! I’d never seriously hurt a pony before that, and I felt terrible right away, but I knew if somepony were to hurt my loved ones, I could. I… well, I guess after I saw Target with his rear legs all bandaged up, I might have thrown up a little, but from then on, I wanted to fight for my city! I wanted to write what’s right, and inspires ponies to do what’s right… and then fight for it!”
“Hence, joining the P.A.C.T.?”
“Yes, sir! What’s more right than stopping ponies from being eaten by monsters?”
I made a mock indignant noise in the back of my throat and touched my badge where it rested against my chest. “Hey, I think stopping city-wide conspiracies that have led to multiple deaths is pretty good!”
Swift’s ears pinkened and she ducked her head behind one wing, muttering, “I… didn’t mean it like that, sir.”
I nickered and poked her in the side. “I know, kid… heh.” I watched the trees whipping by the car so fast they might as well have been a picket fence. Despite the roughness of the road, it was reasonably comfortable in the Night Trotter. I eased up to the edge of my seat so I could put my hoof on Taxi’s shoulder. “Hey, Sweets? What’s our ETA to Tartarus?”
“Mmm… maybe an hour, at speed, assuming we beat the rain,” she replied, pointing out the window in the direction we were headed. Feral clouds darkened the sky in the distance. “Why?”
“Nothing. I just hate getting there around feeding time for the big guy,” I sighed.
“The big guy, Sir?” Swift asked.
“You’ll see if he’s someplace nearby. He’s tough to miss, unless he’s trying to be sneaky.”
My partner nodded, then dug into one of her pockets until she came up with a small paper package that smelled strongly of teriyaki. Tearing it open, she picked up a strip of something unmistakably meaty and ripped a chunk off with her razor-like teeth, chewing noisily.
“Swift, do you have to eat that now?” Taxi’s whole muzzle scrunched up as she looked in the rear view mirror.
The pegasus looked down at her snack then made a rude noise. “It’s medicine. I’ve got a unique metabolism. Are you going to tell a pony she can’t have her medically necessary meals?”
“Oh pish posh, I know for a fact you went out and hit that griffin eatery on the edge of the Heights an hour before we left!” my driver countered.
“And you don’t have to run wings all the time! Especially when your stupid brain is all magicked up to make anything flying that’s smaller than you are look like food. I had to chase that stupid sparrow from one end of Capriole Street to the other right before we left, remember?” Swift replied, fluffing her feathers out. “Besides, Rocky’s Bar-B-Que had already served lunch and they only had rabbit left. After you’ve had chicken or some turkey, that’s so boring.”
“I… cannot believe I am having this conversation. Hardy, could you tell your partner-”
“Oh, no, Sweets.” I held up both forelegs. “You want to try to pull her food away from her, it’s your hoof to lose.”
Swift gnashed her teeth appreciatively, then tore off another piece of seasoned meat. By way of reply, a package of napkins flew over the seat and smacked my partner in the muzzle.
****
We didn’t beat the rain, which slowed our progress considerably. Driving in feral rainclouds is always a little risky, and Swift didn’t feel like getting out to go shoo them off, so we were stuck under a downpour. On such poor roads, it made driving like Taxi usually did treacherous.
“We’re almost there,” my driver called back. “Get the bullets out of your guns and get them ready. Are you sure Chief Jade called ahead to let them know we were coming?”
“I’m fairly certain she didn’t, but she’ll have bribed or intimidated someone to do the deed,” I answered, pushing the cartridge out of the side of my gun. “I left the note where she said to, in the grate by the sewer exit. I’m pretty sure we’re good to go.”
Swift worked the clip release on her pistol, then ratcheted the slide to release the last bullet, deftly catching it with one hoof. “Sir, I’ve never been to Tartarus Correctional. I mean, I saw a little movie about it during training, but I’ve never actually gone there. Is it really as bad as everypony says?”
“Honestly?” I considered her question, then answered as I stared out the windshield, trying to see our destination over the high trees, “It’s a prison. You can’t really make a prison ‘nice.' It’s as nice as it could be, given its purpose. Princess Celestia doesn’t want her subjects -- even the wayward ones -- to suffer. But if you’re asking is it as bad as you’ve probably heard? You’d have to ask the few there who remember Supermax. I think ‘therapy’ is probably preferable to having some awful bastards rooting around in your head with spells.”
“I think I’d rather have more dunkings in Miss Stella’s lake if it’s all the same to you, Sir, especially if the alternative is magic messing about in my mind ever again,” Swift mused, then her ears twitched. “Wasn’t there another Tartarus prison, before this one?”
“If you mean the original, I don’t think that was a prison in the traditional sense.” I replied, thinking. “As far as I know, Princess Celestia, or maybe even somepony before her, needed some place to stuff a bunch of the nastier beasties Equestria tends to spew out. They did the smart thing and dug a big hole, found a big guard dog, and stuck all the uglies at the bottom to fight it out. As far as I know, more ‘efficient’ methods than a huge, immortal rottweiler have been found since then.”
“More ‘efficient’, Sir?”
“Back during the Crusades, the dragons made a play for Tartarus,” I explained, tapping back into my school years. “They tried to free some big, ugly, elder lizard. Celestia wanted to negotiate his release in exchange for a cessation of hostilities. I suppose we should all be grateful Princess Luna was from… an older school.”
Swift frowned. “Wouldn’t a truce have been… you know… better?”
“Dragons don’t get weaker as they get older, kid. They get bigger, and stronger. You think those lizards, with one of their most ancient, powerful warriors leading them, would have thought twice about torching some stupid little peace treaty?” I inquired, one eyebrow raised.
“I… I guess not. What did Princess Luna do?”
“Heh… she moved the dog out and had the original Tartarus filled in with concrete.”
My partner’s eyes bugged out. “How come I never heard about that!?”
“There’s a bunch of things that happened during the war I don’t think most ponies are especially aware of. Princess Luna was mostly in charge of the war effort, while Celestia ran everything else. It was… a really ugly time. My grand-dad fought in the Crusades.” I shifted my leg, showing her my revolver where it hung against my knee. “This was his weapon. The first Hard Boiled. He gave it to my dad, then my dad gave it to me just before he died.”
“So… your family has been defending Equestria for like… ever!” Swift squeaked, eyeing my gun.
“Something like that.” I settled on my side and let my mind drift, remembering my father’s face as he tucked me in one night. It blurred, shifting with the memory, to become Mister Bloom’s face, then flashed back again. I patted my chest, resting my toe on the socket pouch.
Rousing me, again, from my nostalgia, Swift ruffled her mane so the spikes in front stood up properly and asked, “Um...Sir? Why are you ‘Hard Boiled Junior,' instead of ‘Hard Boiled The Third?'”
I rolled my eyes and poked her nose. “How come you’re ‘Swift Cuddles?' I don’t know if you noticed or not, but Equestria doesn’t have especially consistent conventions for naming ponies.”
She screwed up her face, looking perplexed, “I guess. It just seems weird is all.”
“You’ve met our radio pony, right?”
“Miss Telly? Yes, I met her… oh, my. It’s really been more than month, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, yes it has. You ever ask her real name?”
“N… no, I didn’t. For some reason I guess I just thought it was ‘Telly,'” Swift murmured, looking a touch embarrassed.
“It’s Radiophonic Telegraphica.”
“Yikes… that’s a muzzlefull!”
Taxi let out a loud guffaw from the front seat as she added, “I doubt her name has ever been spelt correctly on any piece of official documentation. I once found a copy of her original job application and the secretary had her down as ‘Radiowhatzit’!”
“Really?” Swift snickered.
“Oooh, yes. She’s reeeal sensitive about it, though!” My driver was almost purring with mischief. “You tease her about her name and she’ll show you just how nasty that File Cloud can be! Hardy made a smart remark once and she managed to find and dump copies of his yearbook pictures from second grade all over the Castle! He was dressed up as Spitfire from the old Wonderbolts team!”
I yanked my coat over my head, hiding within my fortress of invisibility.
****
The final approach to the prison was marked out by a chain-link fence almost seven meters high, topped with a row of razor wire. A single guard worked the gate, sitting in a tiny shack that was little more than a lean-to. He glanced at our front license plate, then boredly poked the button on his console. The gate began to slide open with a rattle that silenced all the local wildlife.
There was a sign on the gate itself:
No unauthorized personnel.
No flying vehicles.
Magical scanning is in effect from this point forward.
Keep doors and windows closed until authorized to open them.
Anti-air aggressor enchantments in effect.
If asked for identification, present it promptly.
Follow all orders given by a member of the Tartarus House Guard.
No flying.
No teleporting.
Failure to comply can result in magical nullification, electrocution, digestion, and/or death.
Down below, in sloppy permanent marker, somepony had added the words, ‘Beware Of The Dog.'
“Beware of the dog, Sir?” Swift asked.
“You remember I said Princess Luna moved the guard out of the original Tartarus?”
“Y-yes?”
“Beware of the damn dog, kid...”
Beyond the gate, the road became smooth tarmac that might as well have been freshly laid for how little traffic used it. With a fearful finality, the chain gate began to rattle shut behind us.
Taxi, normally a speed freak, seemed to lose her taste for the right-hoof pedal. Behind the gate, the forest was no different than it had been on the other side, but there was a definite change, like a tension had charged the very air.
We crept along with the engine only slightly more than idling. On the other side of the fence, no birds sang. Swift had both hooves up on her window, trying to catch a glimpse of our destination.
Tall pines lined the unlit road, looming over the vehicle as it inched further into what was feeling increasingly like a gaping maw. On we drove, for what felt like an hour. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes, but during that time, a gradual itch began to build up on the surface of my skin. A significant chunk of it was centered around my heart plug.
I fought the urge to squirm. Squirming tended to only make it worse. Swift, sadly, didn’t have the same knowledge or self restraint. Her wings shifted and stretched, the tips brushing my face as she squirmed in the seat beside me.
“Relax, kid. It’s the scanning fields. They’re looking over the car. Probably checking out our weapons. If there’s anything sketchy-”
“Sir, I’ve been scanned before,” she whined, scratching at the bunny patch on her chest lightly. “This doesn’t feel like that!”
“I know,” I said, putting one hoof across her shoulders to press her back into her seat. “You want thorough, Tartarus is thorough. Whatever pony they’ve got monitoring their security system probably now knows you in ways your mother and doctor don’t right now.”
“Oog, that’s a disturbing thought, sir.”
I reached out and lifted her upper lip with one toe, revealing her frightening back teeth. “How do you think he feels?”
Swift’s eyebrows drew up onto her head and she poked me in the chest. “What about you, Sir?”
I glanced down at the plug in my chest. “Trust me, that’s been foremost in my mind.”
“Are you sure coming out to Equestria’s biggest prison is a good idea, sir? Whether or not Chief Jade is behind us in private, there’s probably somepony in a position of authority, somewhere, who wants us. This feels an awful lot like it would make a really good trap.”
I shrugged and put a hoof behind my neck, rolling onto my side to stare at the cab’s ceiling. “Yes and no. The pony who runs this place is tight with the Chief and thus I believe will be discreet, but let’s be honest, we’re not the easiest group to forget these days. There’s only a very short list of ways of contacting Tartarus, too. We’re in a zone of magical exclusion.”
Swift looked perplexed. “What’s… a zone of magical exclusion?”
Taxi leaned back slightly and said, “Think of it as someplace separated from the rest of the world, magically. Spells that work outside reach a zone of magical exclusion and just kinda… stop. Something to do with disrupting ley lines or something like that. Spells cast entirely inside work fine. With the radio jammers they’ve got, it makes communicating into and out of this area without wires impossible. The only ponies with wired phones are the guards.”
“How does that work?” my partner wanted to know.
“You saw the gates, right? There’s about five layers of those. Look, here-” I pointed out the window. We were just passing another chain-link fence on either side of the road which disappeared between the trees. The top bar of the fence seemed to glitter in the darkness for a moment after the headlamps had passed it. “Those fences are covered in runes to suck directed magic. You try to teleport past them and...well...I once saw what came out the other side of a failed teleport through an unstable spell field.”
Swift’s brows drew together. “W-what was t-that, Sir?”
I shuddered, for effect. “A few of the organs were still recognizable, if you squinted…”
My partner put one hoof to her muzzle and her cheeks puffed out. To her credit, she didn’t actually puke on me, again. A month on and I’d forgotten just how much Swift didn’t care for blood, though to be fair it was easy to forget that given her 'medically necessary' diet.
I had time to grin, then my entire body went stiff and my hackles rose. It was a completely instinctive reaction. Something deep in my little lizard brain was having a panic attack.
The cab slid to a stop.
“Sweets? Why are we stopping?” I forced the fear from my voice, but it didn’t matter. Swift and Taxi were having similar, visible reactions.
“I don’t know! The engine just cut out!” Taxi grumbled, poking at the ignition. The car’s mighty core let out a noise like a deflating dachshund.
“It’s a magical engine! It can’t just cut out!” I snapped.
“If somepony is casting a directed disruption spell, it can!” she snarled, checking a read-out on the dashboard. It was complete gibberish to me, but in the universal language of the Big Red Light, it seemed to indicate a malfunction. “They’re draining the magic out of the core. Dammit, I just had those runes replaced...”
“Sir?” Swift sounded very nervous.
“It’s fine, kid. They probably detected something they don’t like up at the prison. We’ll just sit tight. We’ve got Jade’s permission to be here,” I replied, trying to sound like my heart wasn’t trying to climb up my throat.
Adrenaline demanded I be moving, though it was a bit vague on precisely where and to what purpose. If anything, my lizard brain had been reduced to a hyperventilating sack of nerves hiding in a corner. It all came together to scream those words a pony least wants to hear when they’re stuck in the middle of the woods in an immobile car they can’t get out of: Something is coming.
Being trapped with a pegasus who had a long history of hysterical behavior and a grumpy cabbie wasn’t helping.
“Sir, I s-smell something,” Swift whispered.
“It’s your imagination, kid...”
“No, sir, it’s really not my imagination,” she insisted, inhaling deeply. “It smells like...wet fur.”
I was about to issue some further comforting bit of tripe, when the car shook, as though from some great impact nearby.
Everypony froze, holding our breaths, hoping it was just some collective, temporary spurt of rampant imagination.
Taxi, very slowly, reached over to her door and pressed the ‘lock’ button. All four doors made a soft *snick* as the bolts slid shut.
“S-sir…” Swift whimpered. “My imagination hears something… It’s hearing it right after it felt the car shake!”
“Calm down, kid. We’ll be fine. We’re in the car. They’ve probably sent Cerberus to have a looksee. He’ll sniff around a bit and it’ll be okay,” I tried to reassure her.
Taxi glanced back at my partner, seeing her distress, and added, “I’m sure he’d rather be spending tonight in front of the fire with a few dozen pounds of fresh meat than out in the rain deciding whether or not we’ve brought anything dangerous with us.”
Swift nodded, “Him and me both.”
I tried to make my neck muscles relax but they were having none of it. I shoved one hoof into my pocket and felt around, but sadly, I was out of candy.
There was another thump, this one much more pronounced and very close. The entire vehicle shook with the impact of it and Swift’s wings, never paragons of self-control at the best of times, sprung out so violently I had to duck backwards. The stink of wet dog finally began to seep into my nostrils.
“Siiiirr! I don’t like this!” she cried, picking up her ammunition and trying to push it back into her gun with shaking teeth. I leaned over and I snatched it up before she could get the clip to fit, stuffing it into my coat pocket.
She looked at me, stunned, as though I’d just stolen her baby.
“Kid, the last thing you want to do is shoot Cerberus.”
“No, Sir, I’m pretty sure I really, really, really want to do that!”
I was coming up with some riposte and I’m sure it would have been a brilliant explanation of exactly why that was such a poor idea if the car hadn’t immediately rocked on its wheels. Something massive, pink, and slimy dragged itself up Swift’s window.
My partner pitched onto her back in a dead faint.
****
Nothing really prepares a pony for the experience of truly exceptional mega-fauna up close. Cerberus guarded the gates of one of the nastiest holes in existence for longer than anypony alive except maybe the Princesses can remember.
I’d only been in the presence of the Tartarus guard dog a few times and most often, at a distance great enough to render perspective a bit useless. Stella was, far and away, the largest being of my direct acquaintance and he was, at least, relatively friendly. Swift’s response was, thus, pretty common.
****
I suppose there are few ponies who can say they’ve been licked by something that big and lived to tell the tale. Sadly, I can say I’ve had that experience on multiple occasions.
“Ball licking stupid son of a-” Taxi’s tirade against all things canine was cut short as the tongue returned, running up the windshield and shaking the Night Trotter.
A detached part of my mind that wasn’t completely occupied with the fact that a giant, demonic mutt was tonguing the fragile metal box containing my fleshy bits could hear shouting voices coming from somewhere nearby. Several lights flashed outside, followed by a crash of what felt like thunder.
Outside, the air crackled with energies obscured by a slippery layer of saliva coating the windows The car began to rattle from bonnet to bumper, gradually becoming still over a period of several seconds. The pervasive reek of unwashed, muddy fur finally started to fade.
Taxi and I shared a wide-eyed glance.
“H-Hardy? Can we never be that close to that creature again, please?” she asked, fearfully.
“I’m pretty sure that’s the least of our problems right now, Sweets…”
“How do you mean?”
I gestured to the windshield, where the pounding rain had finally started to clear the glass.
Outside, in the light of the headlamps, no less than six unicorns stood there, horns at the ready. They all wore rain-slickers, but my attention was drawn more immediately to the dozen or so cocked guns, ranging from rifles to revolvers, pointed at us.
For a long moment, nopony moved. Then a voice seemed to fill the car’s cabin.
“This is the Tartarus Correctional Night Watchers. You will disarm yourselves and step out of the vehicle!”
The voice was neither male nor female, but had the quality of one constructed out of pure magic. It was a neat trick for speaking in a space where you didn’t have a physical speaker. Arcane ventriloquism, of a sort.
I looked down at Swift, who was still out cold on the seat, her tongue lolling from one corner of her muzzle. “If you can hear me out there, that’s going to be difficult.”
“You will comply! Disarm or we will open fire!”
“I’m fine with this ‘disarm’ part, but my partner’s passed out and I can’t get her gun off. I’d appreciate if you didn’t shoot us until she’s woken up.”
There was a pause as the unicorns looked at one another, then one of them rolled his eyes and lowered his gun, trotting forward. He rapped on the driver’s side window with his toe.
Taxi rolled it down and glared at him. “I really hope you’re going to pay for my car wash. If that stinking, three headed, hydrant humper licked any paint off…” She let the threat hang in the air. The guard, a stallion a few years my junior with fur the color of mottled stone and a cherry mane, cocked one eyebrow, then peered into the back seat.
“Our detectors register a class four arcane transformation in this vehicle and two occupants.” he asked. “May I ask why there seem to be three of you?”
I decided telling him about the woes of ponies attempting magical tracking upon me was probably unwise.
“No idea, but that transformation is probably my friend here,” I said, hauling Swift upright. Her head swung back as I gave her a light shake. She wasn’t coming around, so I gently tugged her jaw open so he could see the thick rows of dangerous looking teeth. “Your damn dog scared her half to death, by the way.”
“Are you Detective Hard Boiled?” The guard narrowed his eyes at me.
“That’s right. We’re expected?”
“My name is Captain Bramble, and yes, you are expected, which makes me curious as to how you managed to sneak this far into our detection field and still remain invisible to us. Again, I ask, why are our sensors not detecting you?” The stallion’s voice was hard; a no-nonsense sort of voice that I often associate with eventually being shot by one’s subordinates.
“I’m afraid that information is ‘need to know’. We’re here under special dispensation and that’s all you need to know. So do you mind shutting off whatever spell you’re using to drain our engine so we can proceed?” I growled.
Bramble’s sharp eyes flicked towards my partner, then back to me. “Certainly.”
I blinked at him. “Well...err...thank you.”
An irritating smile spread across his face. “Riiight after you give up your weapons and submit to a complete magical nullification.”
I put one hoof over my eyes, then tugged open my chest pouch. “I’ve got a magical organ transplant. You try to nullify me, this visit will be very short.”
Captain Bramble’s gaze flicked at the socket on my breast, then back to my face. “Hard Boiled, you have entered the most secure prison in Equestria without tripping a single sensor. You have two options. One is submit yourself to nullification. The other is immediate sequestration in our holding cells until such time as we can verify your identity and discover how you have managed this.”
The line of unicorns raised their guns. I heard the distinctive ratchet of gun hammers being drawn back.
I slowly, carefully, opened the car door and stepped out onto the paved road. Rain immediately ran down my collar, soaking into the fur on my neck. “Fine. You want to arrest me? Let’s go ahead and see the Warden.”
Bramble shifted his weight, his horn shining as he holstered his pistol. One of the other unicorns who had tiny box with a screen on it in one hoof took a few steps forward and whispered something in the Captain’s ear. He jerked his head up. “What? How can we all be off the sensor net?! Ten minutes ago it was picking up the mares in the car just fine!”
The other guard just shook his head and smacked the box against his knee.
Turning back to us, Bramble had a very angry look on his face.
“I don’t know how you’re doing that little trick, Detective, but you will submit to magical nullification before I let you anywhere near Tartarus! First, however, you and I are going to the cells.” He turned to his companions. “Get the driver and the pegasus in the back seat. Our file indicates both have advanced combat training, so horns only.”
The five remaining guards started towards us.
A flash of eye-scarring luminance exploded between the car, myself, and the six unicorns. Bramble was tossed on his tail, rolling end over end into the mud on the side of the road.
My vision took several seconds to return, but as the dancing lights faded, I made out the shape of something that might have been a pony standing in the road in front of me. I wiped at my eyes with one toe and blinked a few times, trying to make out details.
The being seemed to be on fire.
That was definitely a ‘detail’ and as I realized it, I stumbled back, catching my coat on the Night Trotter’s sideview mirror.
Unable to retreat further, I gawked at the creature; Brightly glowing orange flames curled like affectionate snakes around its fetlocks. Rain flash-vaporized as it tried to land on the creature’s body. It had a spike of fire on its forehead that twitched in Bramble’s direction and he found himself hauled out of the mud and dragged across the pavement by his tail, dropped at the beings hooves.
It had a definite feminine curve to its flank, but that was all I could make out before the crackling, fiery magics winked out, leaving a black blur and my night vision ruined.
Turning, I fought with my coat, freeing it from the mirror.
An imperious female voice almost knocked me off my hooves. I can only imagine what it did to Bramble.
“Captain Bramble!”
I forced my eyes to focus on the spot the fire had come from and the edges of the image began to resolve. For a brief moment, I thought it was Chief Iris Jade standing there, though a more rational part of my mind said that was impossible.
Bramble had managed to drag himself to something resembling attention, ears tight to the sides of his skull and one hoof against his forehead. “Ma’am!”
“Captain Bramble, of the Tartarus Watch! Did I hear that you were about to magically nullify an enchanted transplant organ?” Aside from the volume, the voice was a perfect monotone; unemotional and deafening at the same time. An underlying inflection suggested that the pony might have a chest cold or cough of some kind.
The Captain’s voice shook as he spoke, though there wasn’t enough light to make out more than the scantest details of the creature he was talking to. It was a mare, most definitely, but even in profile, in the indirect light of the headlamps, it was clear there was something very, very wrong with her body. The least of it was that she didn’t appear to have ears.
“N-no Ma’am! Just assessing prisoner threat levels!” Bramble explained, hastily, the hoof he was saluting with shaking visibly.
"Really, Bramble? I would think those assessments would have taken fully into account their special permissions, wouldn’t you? I would think that nullifying an organ transplant would qualify as something you would wish to get my approval on, wouldn’t it?”
“N-no Ma’am! I mean...yes, Ma’am!”
The being regarded Bramble as he shook in front of her. Her voice dropped from the tower of power into a calmer, more even tone. “Bramble… Go clean the pup’s house.”
The unfortunate guard captain tilted his head. “Ma’am?”
She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, “I realize you are new to Tartarus, Captain Bramble, but there is an order of things here. This is not Fillydelphia Penitentiary. Obedience to protocol must come first. If you are, at any point, uncertain of your course of action, you send word to me. I do not abide my guardians acting independently, both for their own sake and that of my prisoners. Nor do I abide them threatening my guests.”
The guard took three steps back, looking sideways at the other unicorns for support. “M-Ma’am?” he repeated, nervously.
Raising one leg, she pointed down the road.
“The dog house. You will not be directed again.”
“B-but Ma’am, Hard Boiled isn’t on our sensor net! He made us all vanish!” Bramble squeaked, waving his hoof at the pony who was holding the box with the read out. Said pony was trying to look very, very small and unimportant.
I couldn’t see the being’s face, but there was a definite sensation of the air becoming much, much thicker.
A gigantic shadow detached itself from the treeline and moved with the sort of speed you expect from freight trains. It was entirely silent, but the ground vibrated under our hooves with its passage. Bramble never was it coming, as he was torn off his hooves into the air, yelping in terror. Six bright red lights seemed to hang high above, two of them directly above the place where Bramble hung by his tail, whimpering fearfully.
The mare addressed the three sets of gleaming eyes.
“Make sure he cleans the pup’s bowls nice and thoroughly. Disobedience and the entitlements of rank do not exist in Tartarus,” she said, her voice unwavering and still lacking any emotional inflection.
Bramble, for his part, must have nodded or made some gesture of understanding, because a second later the shadow took one step; its leg intersected the headlight for just long enough for me to get the impression of something canine, before it was off down the road, bounding along like a puppy with a new toy.
I tugged at my hat brim and began patting water off of my trenchcoat.
The Warden of Tartarus glanced over her shoulder at me, disdainfully, then at the five unicorns who remained around the car.
“Well?” she snarled at the others; “I believe you have work to be done? Or shall we have the prisoners guard themselves?”
They looked at one another, then, in a series of magical bursts, they vanished, leaving us alone with the pony in charge.
“Warden,” I murmured.
She turned, trotting around to my side of the car and opening the back door. “Pardon that ugliness, Hard Boiled. Our newest captain is one of what is becoming an unfortunate trend. I shall accompany you to my office, where we will have tea. Then you will explain why you have permission from a pony who is, ostensibly, attempting to hunt you down and arrest you to be in my prison, and why I should not lock you away.”
“That’s going to be a long explanation, Warden,” I murmured, pulling myself onto the back seat beside my still unconscious partner.
“Long and ridiculous. By the way, good to see you, Warden,” Taxi put in, turning the engine over.
“Of course, Miss Shine. I look forward to this explanation, then. We get so very little in the way of news from the city out here that it is refreshing to have a chat now and then. First, however, we will have tea.”
The Warden’s horn fired, launching a stream of vicious looking red flame that lit up her face. She grasped my partner in that fiery magic and dragged her sideways, like a sack of potatoes, making room for herself; The flame was harmless and did not produce the smell of charred pegasus, but it was impressive; Even ten years on from our first encounter, I had to force myself not to take a step back from the sight she presented in the full light. It was not a pretty one.
Granted, I doubt she’d have objected if I had. After forty odd years, I think most ponies had given up on making a ‘good’ first impression with her. After all, how easy is it to make a good impression when speaking to a pony who looks like she’s taken a bath in acid?
An especially creative journalist once described her as ‘naked in ways nopony has any business being naked.'
The flesh of her face was gone on one side, exposing blackened teeth and bone underneath. The other side was a melted wreck of scarred flesh. One eye was largely gone and the socket had slipped down onto her cheek. Its remains were a distressing pus-yellow, while the other shone with an alarming crimson glow. Her ears had been vaporized, along with all of the fur on her body. What was left were patchy clumps around her rear fetlocks and groin.
Nopony could be blamed for thinking she should be dead. By all rights, anypony in her condition should have been dead many, many years ago.
It should be no surprise, then, that Swift chose that moment to wake up.
`
She screamed and went for her gun, grabbing her bit in her mouth. She yanked on it so hard she unbalanced, pitching into the back seat hoofwell upside down, her rear hooves flailing at the air.
I suppose I had no excuse, given her past behavior when confronted with anything even a little bit outside the ordinary, for being unaware that that would happen. It was damnably awkward.
The Warden studied the undignified sight, then looked up at me. “You have acquired a new partner.” It wasn’t a question.
I sighed, watching Swift tugging futilely on her gun bit, the hammer clicking on an empty chamber, staring with panicked eyes at the scorched being. “I feel like I’m saying this a lot lately, but she’s not as dumb as she looks.”
****
The road up to the prison’s main buildings was a winding affair and Taxi took it slow.
Swift was bundled on the seat under my coat with just her ears and one eye poking out, refusing to take her gaze off of the Warden who sat on the opposite side of the car. I sat between them, my hat on my forelegs along with the clip of Swift’s pistol underneath it. I’d have liked to have the discussion about ‘mind controlling zombie ponies’ someplace besides in front of the Warden, but I’m certain she was used to similar, albeit probably less creative, responses to her condition.
“S-sir… W-why is t-the z-zombie pony s-staring at me?” Swift whimpered.
“Last time I’ll say it, kid, she’s not a zombie. She’s as alive as you or me.” I turned to face the Warden, who was indeed watching Swift with a certain intensity.
The Warden wiggled the muscles above her left eye, which was a gesture I’d come to understand was her version of a smile. “I am merely enjoying the last refuge of those whose dating careers have ended prematurely, Detective. Your partner is not an unattractive mare.”
“Your ‘dating career’ should have ended forty odd years ago anyway and we both know it. Stop trying to freak the kid out,” I growled.
Warden shrugged her boiled shoulders and let her chin rest on one fried hoof; it made a slightly crunchy sound. Her single eye remaining focused squarely on Swift. The tiny pegasus squeaked and yanked my coat over her head.
****
The final gate was five times the height of a pony, topped with metal crenelations. At intervals up and down the walls, magic sigils had been carved into the metal. Powerful spotlights positioned every few meters projected circles of illumination on the treeline. Several of those swung to focus on the car, bathing us in light. Taxi covered her eyes with one hoof and hit the brakes.
Warden rolled down the window and leaned her head out; the spotlights swept away, back to covering the trees.
The towering gate began to edge their way open and we rolled forward into the vast, empty parking lot of Tartarus Correctional. Inside, there was another fence topped with razorwire, guards in full body armor with automatic weapons lining the walls. They were the last defense in the event of a breakout and knew just how badly -- considering some of their prisoners -- a breakout could go. Not that their restrained violence was needed very often.
Even if a prisoner were to make the wall, he or she still had the miles of forest, the magical containment fields, Cerberus, and the greatest terror -- The Warden herself -- to contend with. In all the years of operation, there’d never been a successful escape. Of course, the same could be said of Supermax, though for different reasons.
The Night Trotter rumbled into the parking area, pulling into one of the six ‘visitor only’ stalls. That persistent itch of magical scans was starting to feel like my skin was being scraped off. Taxi hid it well, but that was years of zebra meditation and honed, if intermittently applied, self control, while the Warden seemed entirely at ease, though that might have been that she didn’t have much skin left to scrape. Swift and I, meanwhile, were left scratching furiously at any bit of flesh we could reach.
“Ugh, could you tell them to knock it off?” I groaned, scrubbing at the fur on my neck.
What was left of the Warden’s lip on one side rose an inch, sending Swift piling back under my coat in an itchy, frightened heap.
“They’ll ‘knock it off’ when they’ve figured out why you disappeared from our sensor nets.” The Warden replied. “Unless you wish to be forthcoming, I see no particularly good reason to give that order. However, my room is shielded from such intrusions, as is the prison proper. I won’t begrudge my guards their curiosity, however.”
“You could just ask me, you know!” I snapped.
“Of course.” She opened the cab’s door and stepped onto the pavement. “If you were aware, however, I have little doubt you would have told me simply to make certain nopony else might ever use it to escape from my prison. After all, despite our methodological differences, you and I remain on the same side.”
I snorted and pushed Swift’s clip back towards her. She snatched it up and began to fit it into her gun, then glanced out at the watchtowers, thought better of it, and slipped it into her vest instead.
“To hear Jade tell it, some days I think she wishes that weren’t the case,” I replied.
The Warden made a wet noise in the back of her throat that sounded like a cough. I realized, after a second, that it was her slightly sickening version of laughter. “Oh, Detective… Jade cannot kill you. She hates you too much.”
“How is that a thing?” I asked.
“For ponies like Iris Jade, enough hate can become like love. Believe me, I know.”
With that, she turned towards one of the smaller structures off to one side of the undecorated hulk that represented the main security gate. I started to follow, then realized I was alone. Swift was still in the car, along with Taxi, who hadn’t moved from behind the driver’s seat.
I tapped on the driver’s side window until she rolled it down.
“Sweets? Come on, I need your intuition in here.”
“Yeah, I know.” She looked resigned, and a bit sad. “I hate coming to this place. I was trying to hide it, but dammit…”
“You know he can’t hurt you anymore, right?”
“We’re not discussing him,” Taxi growled, not meeting my eyes. “Just leave it. Go on. Tell the Warden what she wants to know and get us access to the architect. Saura or Sauce or whatever her name is. I want to leave as soon as we can. I’ll join you on the other end of the checkpoints when you’re done in there.”
I tried to think of something to say to convince her, but finally just shook my head and wandered around to the other side of the car. Tugging open the door, I looked down at Swift, who was still just a lump with a few orange feathers poking out of the ends, hiding under my coat.
“Kid, come on. It’s cold and it’s raining. We’ve got things to do here and the Warden wants to have a talk,” I said, trying to sound soothing. I’m not terribly good at ‘soothing’. Shouting, screaming, threatening? I can do those good. Soothing? Not so much.
“If it’s alright s-sir, I think I’ll stay he-here,” Swift whispered.
I put my mouth down next to her ear, where I hoped the Warden couldn’t hear us. “Look, you want to know the Warden’s story, you ask her. She fought in the Crusades and it cost her more than you can imagine. Until then, get up! You’re embarrassing me.”
So much for soothing, but it got the job done.
Swift shifted on the seat, letting one leg slip off. “S-sir...you’re a jerk…”
“I know, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I need you out there.”
She didn’t reply, instead pushing herself backwards out of the car and dumping my coat across my left hoof. I swung it on, adjusting the tails so they fell over my hips.
I turned to go after the Warden who was still standing at the edge of the car park, watching us with an eerie patience.
I got all of two steps before a scream of terror had me diving for the ground. I watched as a three-headed black shape smashed into the side of the Night Trotter, then leapt on Swift, jaws wide to tear her limb from limb.
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...oh you sadistic bastard, leaving it like that. glares with a mixture of impressed merit and malice.
okay, how does someone ctoninue living like that anyway? it makes Ditzy Doo from Fallout Equistrai seem like a more reasonable lifeform. if the flesh is not even healed over........... another strange creature.
..i thought cereberus guarded someplace supernatural.
Good chapter! Keep up the good work.
3984097
He did, the original Tartarus. Then Luna filled all the vacancies with concrete and transferred Cerberus to Tatarus, Detrot.
Also, five bits that Cerberus is going to attempt to lick Swift to death.
3984386 I never said that there were any vacancies when Luna filled Tartarus with concrete...
She only moved the dog.
It was a surprisingly effective method of dealing with an age-old problem.
-Chessie
Seriously, if anything happens to that car, Chief Jade is not going to belong to the land of the living and the Warden is going to find out why fast,
3984443
Of course there were vacancies when it was filled with concrete, otherwise the concrete would have nowhere to go, unless its that special transphasic concrete the can exist at the same time-space coordinates as other matter.
3984476 Heh! Good point.
Luna is, as ever, very practical. If you've ever gotten to sit and read the official Luna micro-series comic (by far the strongest of the bunch), it presents this image of a Princess who is...anachronistic at best.
She is definitely a monarch and not necessarily benevolent. Not precisely evil, but definitely out of date. That's the character I've tried to use for her in Starlight. She's a bit barbaric, but it works for her.
-Chessie
3984097 We'll be going over the Warden's story. She's actually a character I'm somewhat proud of.
3984124 Thanks so much! That makes my day!
3984467 If anything happens to the Night Trotter, Celestia herself should beware...
-Chessie
That damn dog better not hurt Swifty! Seriously I hate dogs, even one with three heads has less intelligence than a boiled cabbage. Sorry for venting there, but Swifty better not get hurt.
There were many interesting parts to this chapter though.
Princess Celestia obviously never visited Detrot.
Go Swifty
I very much liked Swift's backstory.
Uh oh, Gale is trying to escape!
There are other notable moments but you get the idea. Also, what the hell is up with that Warden?! That's some seriously messed up shit right there!
3984673
Re: The Warden...
...You haven't seen half of it.
--CEO Kasen
Wow, much happening here! And it ends in an enormous cliffhanger, of course. :)
Aw . . . Doggie wants to playyyyyyy . . .
I often feel reluctant to comment on here as the other commenters always seem far more eloquent than I and fully able to express what I was thinking. But I know how much comments can mean to authors so hopefully my less verbose expressions will be beneficial.
I..I honestly wish I could express how much I love and am awed by this fic. I always try to pounce on each new chapter and then groan when it's over too soon. I kid myself by thinking I could wait til multiple chapters come out and read them all at once. That only occurs if I'm not able to get on the site sadly.
Amazing as always, I can't wait for more.
3985520 Thank you so much! Your comments are the fuel that drives this!
-Chessie
You...you and your evil cliffhangers...I haet u.
Hmm...does this mean that her father is here at Tartarus, once was, or she's just dealing with some recently surfaced memories?...
Swift is being an idiot now.
3986293 You know what this means, right?
You...will have to read next chapter to find out!
-Chessie
Do you write professionally. If not you should try, you are about as good as any of the "professionals" I read. Dresden rules, and so do you.
3984673 she has lived a millenia and likely spent a large amount of the milllenia kicking ass and taking names. think she would be fairly believable to say that ponies more often than not are good. probably usually when their lives are not forced into deepe desperation.
also she has visited detrot, many times before, and even visited that blind guitar plumber moer than once.
...... i just had a thought................ sealing the original tartarus in cement was a completely stupid idea on luna's part.
basically here is why. if anything in tartarus happens to have sufficient power in their claws, they can break out of the place fairly easily. there was a dragon down there........ if it ever gets enough room to move it will simply dig its way out of there. and thus unleash whatever the hell else is in there.
without a cereberus or equally powerful thing to guard it, there is nothing keeping them there should any of the monsters within breach the concrete.......... considering the likely high amount of immortals amongst that number, that seems to be less a psosiblity and more an inevitability.
3994650 I'm assuming she filled Tartarus the same way she got rid of the dragons in the Nightmare Night side-fic.
Sounds like the "best friend" of one "Deadpool" actually.
Oh, come on, I can take him on in Titan's Quest, how tough can he be?
Unless her doctor is Frankenstein, I suppose. Then he'd literally know everything used to
put her together.
Ah, the old Jurassic Park scene. A true classic.
Missed a period here, unless Hardy just nicknamed flame-boy.
I can't make up my mind if the Warden is British or Japanese.
She's a ghoul, huh? Hope Tartarus has enough radiation for her to get her daily dose.
Totally shipping Jade/Hardy now. It's my OTP.
3995943 its canon is hit or miss..........besides I highly doubt the creaturs of that pit would be so easily disposed of. celestia may be benign but she is no fool. reason why she set up cereberus there was so if anything escaped it would be destroyed to begin with
By the way, I've just been playing with site-lists and Detrot is now just a smidge longer than 'Background Pony'
And we're still clamoring for more!
The Warden is giving me Two-Face-meets-a-Fallout: Equestria ghoul vibe, and it's fairly awesome.
Oh, and you can't fool me—I know that Cerberus is just giving Swift a sloppy canine kiss.
...I have a bad feeling someone's going to draw the Warden, and I'm going to click on the link to that image unintentionally, and I'm going to have nightmares.
4001813
Yay!
Ignore them in the case of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Seriously though, this show just does not deal with trouble makers well.
With the exception of NMM's banishment which was very dramatic.
Dawws happened. many dawws.
It's also nice to learn how Swift earned her mark revealing her love of writing comic stories, which is kinda cool. I'm sure we'll find out a bit more about Taxi's cutie mark story later.
Poor Swift in the prison grounds, she's probably going to have more moments like these.
It's quite an understandable reaction to a zombie pony and a mythological creature.
Soo cute.
I found this exchange interesting, I guessed Hardy wouldn't be detectable as before with the bat ponies having the same issue, but it seems to be affecting an area now?
Maybe it's his magnetic personality.
Looks like the big dog has found a friend in Swift and there's worse friends than powerful multi-headed doggies to be had.
Also
I'm guessing this is meant to be "Bramble never saw it coming".
I hope someone does a comic strip with this scene, the mental image is just too perfect not to.
So I started a piece of fanart several months ago, just barely got around to finishing it.
If anyone's interested, have some Swift Cuddles singing in that one Griffon bar from near the beginning of part 2
31.media.tumblr.com/a192ed3b39efd8d68ffd5abc38d78024/tumblr_n21ywrzGDH1r4rthoo1_1280.png
4046062 Brilliant! Thank you, sir! Always glad to get new fan art!
-Chessie
You forgot the "Hitchhikers may be escaping convicts"...
Now the officials are starting to take notice of Hardy's new found superpowers. This could end really badly.
If Hardy is lucky, they will simply ask him a few questions in a nice office with a glass of apple juice for his head and a soft pillow for his rump. If Hardy is unlucky, they will break out the rubber gloves and interrogate him in an underground cell with a bag over his head and a hosepipe up his bum. If Hardy is really unlucky, they will find a pony with a morally flexible stance towards vivisection (these kinds of ponies typically have names like "Meat Cleaver", Hatchet", and "Bonesaw") and perform a binary search upon his person, progressively bisecting him into smaller portions until the scanning spell nullifier is found.
As the Royal Nutritionist remarked to Celestia after her 3 day cake binge "The plot thickens!"
For some barmy reason 99 Luftballons came to mind reading this chapter...
Chrysalis, in her lair
Saw her cocoons were running bare
"Volunteered" some changeling drones
to gather love and bring it home
The plan was flawed, a quirk of fate
The map they used was out of date
Instead of a stealthy mission
They were flying to a supermax prison
99 changling drones
Foraging far from home
Down below a sensor pings
The scanning spell found something
Back at base, a conclusion reached
Red alert! Perimeter breached!
Weapons begin to sweep the sky
As 99 Changeling drones go by
99 tonnes of demon dog
Come bounding through the evening fog
Pony guards sweep the grounds
Near the prison, all around
Unicorns with spells that scry
Backed by armoured pegasi
The Warden now is on the line
As 99 changeling drones go by
99 swift pegasi
Search the clouds across the sky
Cocky, sure, and very brash
Everyone's a Rainbow Dash
Dreams of glory, fights, and fame
Armed with lightning, hail, and rain
Forming an interdiction zone
For 99 changeling drones
99 minutes have passed
The search is going nowhere fast
Hardy now is feeling miffed
Stuck inside with Taxi and Swift
The guards form a defensive ring
To stop the car escaping
Despite the troops and high-tech gear
The changeling drones all disappeared
Act 2, Chapter 21: "The Big House"- Ah the lockup, the clink, the can, the pen, the slammer, the hole, the coop, tje cage, the... well you get the point.
ITS THE RADIO PERSON! SHES THE EVIL MASTERMIND!THE POKER GAME IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNN!I'M BACK BABY
IT'S MARATHON TIME
Missing genitive.
Best quote ever!
9435387
From read through 4 to read through 5, this is still a good line
thanks. This will only lead to good things *facehoof*
Hahaha
Did this get put in because somepony here asked it?
Does it have 3 heads? Oh yay it does
*giggle*
I kinda want to make a counter on my second read through of how many times he actually says this
I want to point out that ' on my phone it creates a new line
*snort*
4398158
For some reason I'm trying to sing that to the tune of reading rainbow
4013785
Chessie did say that it hid ponies around him sometimes
3995943
That made me ship them too!
I know I'm years behind and have the unfair advantage of being able to stay up all night to read multiple chapters back to back
But if your still reading old comments, I just want to say you are amazing
I almost want to compare your world and culture building to Robert Jordan, you know, the guy who wrote the wheel of time series.
I seriously hope it takes me a long time to catch up because I dont want this story to be over anytime soon
10386350
I read every single comment that comes in. The story is likely to be finished in the next few weeks. You came in at a good time!
-Chessie
10386856
I am curious though, due to the added time, what’s your new ETA?
10526983
Honestly, I'm still plugging away. I open Starlight each day, add a little, then try to add some more.
2020 is the year of Hell. For now, 'finished when I finish'. Should be soon, but who knows?
-Chessie
Road trip time!
Gee a rather specific list there.
Which is pretty much the way we see things play out and what the types bitching about "X redeemed villain needs to be punished more!" (usually Glim Glam) miss. Equestria.... just does not do Punitive punishment. It's pretty much just "Clean up your mess" and lose whatever you might have gained from the crime. "Punishment" of the type they want is only used on those who prove to be a clear and present threat to the safety of others in which the only way to protect Equestria from them is to physically prevent them from being able to do as they wish, generally through some sort of imprisonment.
Yes that is a very idealistic way to treating it but..... what freaking show do the people who can't grasp this concept think they are watching!?
Shouldn't that be Radio Free Detrot?
And just how damn BIG is that poker game with how many ponies show up for it on the regular? Is there a waiting list? Do the ponies showing up group by topic they want info on and rotate through?
My other guess for where she's getting the info is she's got an in on the Ladybug Collective.
Story, stop trying to pretend... that is not puppy behavior, we have established that is she is just more Kitty then the average pony. See also the need to chase around any small, fast flying things she comes across.
And the point I figured that yeah, her dad's in here and she very much knows he did something to deserve it.
HELL YEAH SWIFT! That's the right attitude! Don't let whatever evil miasma has corroded Detrot get to you, that attitude is how Equestria is meant to be!
Awww he's just a big pupper who like belly rubs!
She even passes out cute!
I like her! The right kind of Pony to be in charge here, who gets Celestia's idea for Prisons and the care needed. The focus on helping ponies learn to be better and overcome whatever it was that put them in here.
Also my first thought on her showing up with all the fire was "Ohhhhh Kirin?" Even if yeah, likely a few years early for that to be a thing. Pity, Kirin are awesome. So now, best guess is either she got hit by some very wicked dragon fire and got really, really lucky.. or unlucky...in just the right way. Or some kind of magical experiment gone wrong.
Nice little subtle pony touch of seeing them all as 'stalls'.
.... Yikes..... Yeah, some bits come into focus... poor Taxi
Nah! Puppy just noticed the Kitty and wants to play!