Act 2, Chapter 32: For The Good Of All Of Us, Except The Ones Who Are Dead
Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 32: For The Good Of All Of Us, Except The Ones Who Are Dead
Many academic texts have explored the great threat Equestria might present to the rest of the world, should they ever entertain imperialist ambitions. Among the reasons ponykind has survived the land in which it evolved is that pony foals are incredibly dangerous.
This is no humorous exaggeration. The developing magical channels within the hooves, wings, or horns of foals are subject to very poor modulation, often leading to wild and barely directed spurts of power. Earth ponies can destroy hard structures; pegasi can propel absurd-seeming amounts of material, and unicorns are walking conduits of uncontrolled magic. Dragons attempting to harm or kidnap pony foals during the war soon found themselves given shattered legs, bowled into the sky, or having their digestive tracts magically reversed.
While magical outbursts become rarer as the pony grows into a colt or filly, the hunt for the Cutie Mark begins, and they replace undirected damage with acts of what can only be described as calculated randomness, aimed at hoping to stumble upon their destinies. The damage this can do can be alluded to in a joke told among pony parents: "My kid's cutie mark is gonna be a picture of Equestria with a mushroom cloud on it." The number of times this very occurrence has narrowly been avoided is probably greater than anyone would like to contemplate.
That said, perhaps the greatest danger presented by pony offspring lies in the parents themselves. Those who threaten the children of ponies will find an enemy far more frightening than any dragon, griffin, or beast conjured from the darkness. There is no length most equine parents will not go to to protect their foals.
May Celestia help you if the parent in question is of a vengeful mindset. Suicide may be a less frightening option, and even then, it has not always been a successful means of escaping one's comeuppance.
-The Scholar
If Swift had weighed just thirty pounds more, I’d have broken a few ribs from her wild, headlong charge. As it was, I still crashed over onto my back. My breath rushed out all in one great gasp.
If she’d weighed even fifteen pounds more, I wouldn’t have had time to wrap my forelegs around her, force her head down, and get a good mouthful of her mane before she could use me as springboard to launch herself at Tourniquet.
The smell of bloody hatred surrounded her like a thick fog, stronger even than the scent of decaying dragon which still filled the air despite the best efforts of the ventilation system. She fought me, writhing in my forelegs, snapping at my neck loud enough that I could feel her jaw popping with each bite of air. I ducked and wove back and forth, trying to keep her from chewing my collar bones off with her needle-like canines.
She struggled against my grasp, trying to get enough distance between us for a solid kick, but earth pony strength trumps a pegasus, every time. Even her mighty wings couldn’t get leverage to smack me away. Still, it was no picnic holding off a berzerk filly with well-trained muscles. I held her mane until my jaw hurt and my lungs burned for air.
Nopony can really tell you what ground fighting is like, particularly one on one, until you’ve experienced it. Even the finest martial artists who can to jump around and throw kicks that would bring down a minotaur will go down fast to somepony who knows how to pin an opponent properly. Thankfully, earth pony police combat training is largely equi-jitsu. The governing philosophy is: Fight in close, bring the opponent to the ground, and disable them if you can.
More than a couple of her strikes hit home and my nose was really starting to get resentful.
Still, I held her, fighting for position until I could wrap my rear legs around her middle and lock my back knees together. At that point, it was just a matter of applying pressure. I waited for her to exhale, then squeezed good and hard. Her ribs wouldn’t thank me in the morning, but it was a damn sight better than breaking anything. She gasped, and the scent of blood lust quickly faded, then returned, then faded again as she struggled to breathe.
In a detached, calm way, I felt guilty. Not angry. I thought I should feel angry, but I just couldn’t find it in me. I was calm, and underneath there was the guilt. Funny thing, after a month, to feel guilty for hurting somepony who was trying to rip you apart, however ineffectually.
Strange as it sounded, I had a minute to consider things, and in combat there are moments when your mind is running very quickly, but you’ve nothing in particular to occupy it. Frequently, you hear ponies talk about the ‘heat of battle’ and how you don’t have time to think. It’s not true. You have plenty of time. What I was thinking, just then, was that this attack felt different. Less aggressive. She was struggling, but it was like part of her was fighting back.
I felt a touch on my foreleg, and rolled one eye up, expecting to see Taxi hovering over me. Instead, I saw gleaming eyes.
I still had a muzzle full of Swift’s brilliantly red mane and I damn near choked on it. Swift couldn’t see the filly standing over us, and for that, I’m thankful. She was just as scary up close as she was at a distance; frightening, beautiful, and unearthly. Within her eyes, tiny cogs seemed to shift back and forth. Her expression was sympathetic, wary, and curious all in one.
I caught movement out of my eye and tried to twist so I could see what else was going on. Swift let out a tiny squeak as I tugged her mane, but I felt the information was probably essential.
Taxi had the P.E.A.C.E. cannon leveled at the girl as she stood over us. I didn’t get to see what she’d loaded that beast with, but I’m fairly certain it was something you wouldn’t want to get hit with at close range. Without the drum, she’d only get one shot, but ‘non-lethal’ only means ‘non-lethal within accepted parameters of use’. A spork can be lethal if you put an edge on it or fling it at someone close to the speed of sound.
I took a chance and released my partner’s hair. She wiggled a little, but her breathing was becoming labored as I kept the pressure up. The scent of fury had disappeared almost entirely, though I’d no doubt it could probably return if I freed her.
“What’s wrong with her?” Tourniquet asked, softly. Her voice had the strangest tonal quality. It was like hearing her down a telephone. As she spoke, my partner renewed her struggles, but even muscles powered by a dose of magically programmed adrenaline need air to work and I was pretty sure she’d be unconscious in a minute or so.
“Move and I will scrap you, you hear me?” Taxi growled.
For some reason, Tourniquet wasn’t giving me any vibes of being especially dangerous. My cutie-mark was so far beyond pain in this place that it’d simply gone numb, but whatever intuitive processes it worked off of didn’t seem to have any objection to the odd creature.
“It’s alright, Sweets. At least, I think it is.”
“Hardy, this thing is an Essy. We both know it-”
“I’m not a thing!” Tourniquet butted in, petulantly.
Before the two of them could get into a heated existential argument that might or might not involve gunfire, I snapped, “Taxi, drop the gun, dammit!”
Taxi gave me a defiant glare, then looked at Tourniquet closely, taking in the construction of her face and neck. The filly made no move to turn away or back off, but nor was she being especially aggressive. She did look a little insulted at being called a ‘thing’, though.
The barrel of the cannon wavered, then my driver let it fall and dropped back onto all fours.
I patted Swift’s head, which was now just laying on my chest as she fought for her next breath. My calves hurt from applying constant pressure, but I held on. Her eyes were fluttering. I could feel her lashes against my pelt. “She’s got a… condition… where creatures of living magic are concerned. No help for it, really. I’d hoped we’d managed to get this out of her system when we stripped the nasty magics out of her. Somepony did this to her and… well, we haven’t been able to figure out who.”
I found myself talking to Tourniquet like a child, though considering just how severe the alterations to her body were, getting a fix on her actual age was probably impossible.
Tourniquet’s lips tugged down into a sad little frown. “That’s awful.” Those piercing, crystalline eyes danced in the sharp, white light from above. The filly glanced at Taxi, then back at my partner. “Can I...can I help her?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it, honey. They did something to her brain that makes her crazy-”
The girl blew an impatient breath through her nose. “Just say I can help her, okay? I can’t unless you say I can.”
Swift’s eyes were closed at last, so I released my back legs and gave her a firm push, flopping her onto her back. I quickly checked her pulse, which was steady, then listened to her breath. She inhaled, slowly, but she was definitely out cold.
“Dammit, kid…” I sighed and looked up at Tourniquet. “I don't need to explain the horrible violence that’s probably going to ensue if you hurt my partner, right?”
The metal filly took a couple of steps back. “If you don’t want me to try, you can just say so…”
I brushed Swift’s mane out of her face. She curled up a little, looking for all the world like a sleeping angel with her wings sprawled out against the floor. Breath locks will only put a pony down for a minute or so and I didn’t fancy another brawl.
Something tickled my upper lip and I reached up, wiping at it. My hooftip came away bloody.
Rolling to my hooves, I slid my leg under Swift’s neck, lifting her up. “You think you can help my partner, you’ll have my word we won’t hurt you.”
Tourniquet let her head sink to one side. “You already promised that.”
I rolled my neck on my shoulders, trying to loosen the kinks out of it. “Yeah, well, make it a double. I’ve got some questions, but if my partner’s waking up and trying to eat you every five minutes, that’s going to be really tiring.”
“Questions? I don’t like questions! But... I guess I have to. I mean, it’s not like somepony is just going to ask me questions normally. I wish I had more visitors, but there’s just me and sometimes I talk to myself, so I don’t know what I’d do if somepony did want to ask me...oh-” She cut herself off mid-ramble. “Sorry, it’s...it’s just been so long since I saw somepony besides that… that awful…” Her jaw clenched again. “Sorry.”
“If you’ve got some magic that can stop Swift trying to chew the heads off of every magical sentience we encounter, I’m open to negotiation on just what questions get asked,” I murmured as my partner coughed and her eyelids began to flutter.
“I… I don’t know about everypony magical, but… I can make her calm right now.”
Reaching out her metal leg, Tourniquet laid it across my partner’s forehead. Swift jerked and her tongue fell out of one side of her muzzle as she began to suddenly pant violently, her eyes shooting open. They met the tender, compassionate face of the being touching her and loathing twisted her features, but she didn’t move. A red jewel in the shape of a crescent moon lit up near the mechanical knee. It began to glow from within.
Thick streamers of light pulsed down the wires connecting Tourniquet to whatever was up there above us. She inhaled, seeming to draw it in. Those crystals in her eyes ignited with an inner luminance that set my intestines crawling.
Swift’s shoulders tensed and her wings slapped the floor just once, then she went limp as the rage drained out of her expression. Her eyes lidded and she drew in a deep breath, then sat up.
“Ooof… Sir, what happened?” she asked, feeling around her aching sides.
“As it turns out, our friends at the Vivarium didn’t quite manage to fix your brain,” I replied.
“Fix my…” she turned abruptly and stared at Tourniquet. Her rear legs seemed to fire, throwing her backwards as her wings opened and batted me in the face. She rolled, ass over tea-kettle, into a heap against Taxi’s forelegs. I tensed, ready to tackle her, but her scent didn’t change.
“Um… hi,” Tourniquet whispered, her fiber-optic mane spilling down across one side of her face.
“Swift, may I introduce… Tourniquet,” I said, cordially sweeping one hoof in the direction of the machine pony. “I’ve no idea what she is, where she came from, who she’s working for, or if she means to suffocate all of us alive, but I’m rather hoping she’ll answer a few of those questions, post haste.”
I became gradually aware of somepony standing over my shoulder and looked up to find Limerence staring at Tourniquet with undisguised curiosity. His gaze seemed downright hungry as he traced the wires leading out of her back, then the ones running through her exposed ribcage where part of her fur hung loose.
“Uh… c-could you make your friend stop looking at me like that?” she asked.
If you can believe it, the librarian looked slightly embarrassed and quickly dropped his eyes. His horn glowed and he levitated his glasses off of my nose and back onto his own. They’d somehow managed to survive the tackle and subsequent pummeling by Swift. “Excuse me, miss. Professional interest. I’ve never met a creature quite like you.”
“Ugh, I’m not a creature! Or a thing! I’m a pony, just like you!” Tourniquet insisted.
“I somehow doubt the term ‘just like you’ has ever been more inaccurately applied. You are rather lovely, however, so I will excuse it,” Limerence smiled, trotting toward the girl. Tourniquet backed away a little at the unexpected intrusion of her personal space, but as the stallion simply moved around her in a circle, she didn’t flee into the darkness.
“Lovely?” she asked, sounding like she wasn’t certain she’d heard him correctly. If the underlying nerves in her cheeks still worked, I got the feeling they’d have been bright red.
“Quite. I do appreciate good technology. What, may I ask, did you do to our flying compatriot to cool her dangerous temperament?” Limerence asked, indicating Swift who was still laying on her back, eyes wide.
“Oh… um… Mom wanted me to be able to defend myself in case somepony ever broke in here. She made me able to make ponies calm; I can take away somepony’s anger, if they’re touching my moon.” Lifting her metal leg, she turned the hoof over and revealed the emblem we’d been seeing all day on her toe.
Limerence nodded, contemplatively. “Most... intriguing. If I may ask... who is your mother?”
Tourniquet’s face split into a broad smile. I couldn’t help but note that even a few of her teeth appeared to be some form of metal. “My mom is the boss here!”
“Skylark?” Taxi asked, worriedly.
“What? No! That Skylark pony is awful! Mommy is beautiful! Mommy Saucy!”
I felt the bottom fall out of my stomach and the blood rush into my ears. Swift’s face reflected the shock I’m pretty sure was all over mine.
“Errr… Mommy… Saucy? Your mother’s name is Saussurea?” my partner asked, very quietly.
Tourniquet nodded. “You know her!” she exclaimed, and sparks burst from one of the wires half-way up the left side of her body. She winced and clutched at the connection, but it did nothing to dull her excitement. “I haven’t met anypony who knew her in so long! Nopony I can see on my monitors even talks about her except that nasty Skylark pony and she makes me do things or she says she’ll hurt Mommy and she broke my sensors and I’m not working right! Can you please get my mommy? She knows how to fix me-”
I cut off the girl’s burst of words with a hoof in the air.
“Alright, honey, I think we...I think we may just need some answers.” I looked around the tiny nursery, then reached out and grabbed the rocking chair, dragging it over so I could sit beside Swift, who still hadn’t moved from her spot on the floor. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from Tourniquet, but then, who could blame her?
“My name is Detective Hard Boiled. I came in here to try to find somepony. She’s that girl you have upstairs in one of your cells doing a good impression of a zombie.”
“Oh! Miss Cerise! Yeah, she’s… I… I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do… about… about that…” Tourniquet trailed off.
“You don’t sound like you’re a fan of that ‘Skylark mare,’” I said.
Tourniquet shook her head. “She’s...she’s mean. She woke me up, but she’s...she broke everything! I...I woke up and then she tells me Mommy sent her and I have to do everything she says. I didn’t believe her, but...but she showed me pictures of mommy somewhere in a cabin and said if I didn’t do what she said, she’d have her friends hurt her. Mommy looked really rough, too. Like...old! Nopony would ever tell me why and-”
“Okay, okay...take a deep breath.” I waved my hooves in a conciliatory manner, trying to assemble my thoughts. I didn’t know exactly which questions I should ask first and was trying for a soft-ball start. Tourniquet didn’t appear dangerous, but then, Patter hadn’t either and look how that turned out.
“How long have you been down here?” Taxi asked.
The girl’s eyes drifted off for a moment, then she put a hoof to her forehead. “I...I don’t even know. My chronometer is one of the things that’s broken. It won’t stop saying it’s been fifteen years since I checked it last.”
Limerence began: “But it has been-”
I grabbed Limerence and put my hoof over his mouth before he could dig us an especially deep hole that I wasn’t sure we could climb out of.
“Could you...give my friends and I a moment?” I inquired, subtly jerking my head for my driver to follow me.
Tourniquet looked uncertain, but nodded. “Oh... alright. I can’t... really go anywhere, but I could go sit over there in the corner, if you want.”
I slid off the rocking chair and moved over, gently taking Taxi by the shoulder. Limerence didn’t need to be told to follow. I lead them both a few steps away, leaving Tourniquet and Swift to study one another. My partner pushed herself onto all fours, then the two young fillies began circling one another like a pair of mutts who'd just met. I found myself hoping they didn’t go in for the tail sniff. That’d have been awkward.
Lowering my voice, unsure whether or not Tourniquet could hear me or not, I spoke to Lim and Taxi. “Alright, so...when Saussurea talked about this prison being her child...”
“-she was obviously not exaggerating her affections,” Limerence replied, affirmatively.
My driver rubbed the bridge of her nose and said, “All those years, though. You think she’s been alone the whole time? A filly, in control of a prison? How come nopony noticed?”
“That control room is quite convincing. I only noticed because of the discrepancies in the video surveillance. If...Sausurrea’s information is correct, she must enter some form of… dormant… state when the prison cells upstairs are emptied. Whatever spells it is necessary to cast must bring her out of it. Had she not informed us of her existence...”
“-we’d never have found her,” I finished.
“Quite likely not. I doubt the Academy was much more diligent. Disassembly of a magical construct of this size is extraordinarily dangerous, if it’s even possible. I imagine they simply wished to make sure it was off. They couldn’t foresee somepony like Skylark digging into the history of this place.”
Taxi bit her lip, then tossed her braid back and forth. “No way. Skylark’s charismatic, but she’s not smart enough. Somepony put her onto this place. Somepony told her she should look here.”
“Alright, alright. Histories aside, what is she?” I asked, waving my hooves to dismiss the side-topics.
Limerence drew a little circle in the air above his head with his horn, indicating the building itself. “This is the apex of Saussurea’s talent. A prisoner imprisoning others, taking their magic and willpower to keep herself alive...and thus, also imprisoned.”
“Using her own daughter, though…” Taxi murmured.
“Why would Saussurea expend such efforts on imprisoning dragons, when she so obviously hates them? This is a work of extremely powerful artifice. I suspect... it is also a life support system.”
I turned to examine the wires running out of the girl’s back. She and Swift had stopped circling and were now sitting across from one another, studying each other with intense curiosity. My partner lifted her lip on one side, flashing her fangs. A second later, Tourniquet did the same, showing off her silvery dentistry. Swift stretched out one broad wing, then the mechanical filly sent a tiny pulse of light up the left set of cables running out of her back.
“Saussurea did mention the dragons had...taken...something from her,” I said, shaking my head, sadly. “Damn. A whole city worth of ponies wearing those robes, giving tiny bits of their magic to keep that little girl alive. Who’d have thought?”
Limerence ground his teeth. “I sincerely doubt it is still being done out of the kindness of Skylark’s heart. This is a… a perversion of the artificer’s art of the highest order and as such, is complex. She must have expended a truly mountainous quantity of energy simply to get the system active again.”
“Just how mountainous?” I asked.
“I’ll simplify as much as I can,” The librarian said, with a smirk. “Assume a normal Winkie sandwich bar is an average unicorn’s monthly consumption of magical energy.” He held up his hooves, about six inches apart. “If we scale that to the amount I estimate would be necessary to get this construct working after a total shutdown, it would be a Winkie bar... two meters long, weighing approximately three hundred and sixty pounds.”
I coughed and Taxi’s ears lay flat.
“That’s one big Winkie,” she murmured.
”Quite.”
I settled on my heels, considering our situation.
“Skylark’s using the girl’s magics to control her followers in the Church; ensuring compliance, obedience, and loyalty,” I concluded.
“Very likely, yes. It would also, mayhap, explain why the Church has had difficulty spreading beyond the borders of Detrot. Even the most powerful of magical system can’t defy the laws of thaumatics. As range increases, so too do power requirements, and exponentially with linear distance.”
“She’s a kid, though,” I said. “Why a child? That seems awfully risky, doesn’t it?”
Limerence shook his head. “Not at all. Children are very easy to manipulate. She believes her mother is under threat and there is nopony to tell her she is wrong.”
“And who is to say she’s wrong at all?” Taxi put in.
“Sweets, the girl’s mother is in Tartarus…”
“So was Dad-... my father. Did that stop these ponies who are pulling the strings from getting somepony in to see him, then wiping his memories?”
I sank onto my rear legs and rubbed at my temple with one hoof.
“Celestia save me, this was easier when I just had to arrest ponies and wave my badge or gun at them to get answers. Okay, so, do we tell Tourniquet about the actual situation?”
“I think we have to,” Taxi replied. “She’s completely alone down here.”
“Questions first. Smart ponies know exactly what they’re dealing with before they make presumptions.” I pointed at Tourniquet. “I want her story.”
Swift and Tourniquet were sitting over a stack of those funny cards when we rejoined them. Swift seemed to be trying to explain something about them, and Tourniquet was scratching her head.
“So, if I do the...Giant’s Super Growing on my Cheese Noodle of Doom, then that does double damage, right?” Tourniquet asked.
“Exactly! Now, just-” My partner raised her head. “Oh! Sorry, sir. We were just talking about how stuff’s really boring down here and I had my cards with me so-”
“It’s fine, kid. You really need to teach me to play that one of these days. How is your head? Feeling any...irrationally violent urges?”
Swift rolled her eyes up and to the right, taking a quick internal inventory. “I...I don’t know. I mean, I wasn’t having the weird reactions right after the magic was removed, but then I just saw her and everything sort of exploded. I feel really calm right now. I should be totally freaking out, especially with where we are and stuff, but...I don’t feel anything.”
I turned to Tourniquet. “How long is this going to last?”
The metal filly shook one eartip a little and I heard what I thought must be servos operating under it. “Maybe an hour. I used to be able to do that to the cells and during prisoner transport when they were in their uniforms, or before that, when the dragons had their... their stones, but… but I can’t anymore. I can only control some stuff.”
Every sentence the girl spoke seemed to be raising questions, none of which were doing much for the heartburn that’d been growing ever since dinner. I didn’t know exactly what we’d stumbled into, but the very casual and relaxed way Tourniquet described one of the bleakest periods of Detrot’s history was giving me shivers.
“Do you mind getting on with those ‘questions’ I mentioned earlier? I’m afraid we’ve got quite a few and if you can help us, I think I can promise you a few answers about your mother.”
Her ears perked right up at that. “About… about mom? Please! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!” she answered, rising to her hooves. The wires on her back seemed to shorten as she moved, taking up the slack. “Besides… I don’t really have anything else to do. The cells are shut down for the night and I’d mostly just read some comic books or do some puzzles and crosswords. Miss Skylark has Geranium bring me new ones every week.”
“Geranium?”
“Oh! Yeah, she’s Miss Skylark’s... uh... assistant? She’s... she’s funny. Sometimes I feel like she’s the one in charge, and other times it’s like she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She takes orders from Miss Skylark, and then sometimes she’ll tell her what somepony else wants her to do. Miss Skylark always does it, too.”
I thought back to the small mare we’d seen accompanying Skylark in the cafeteria. I’d dismissed her, briefly, but she did seem to have a more functional knowledge of what was going on than the rest of Skylark’s entourage.
“You sound like you used to run this place, right?” I asked.
The girl seemed eager to have somepony to talk to. I wondered, briefly, just how long it’d been since she’d seen somepony in person. Certainly Geranium or perhaps Skylark on occasion, but they didn’t strike me a wonderful company.
“I used to. Sort of. Mom... mom was somepony important during the war. I don’t know much about that, but after I...after I got hurt, Mom said she started building this place to keep the dragons from hurting anypony else. She said...she said she used all their power to make sure I was okay.”
Taxi took a couple of slow steps closer to the girl. “If you don’t mind, how exactly did you get injured?”
“I don’t really remember much of when it happened, actually.” Her shining eyes drifted off into recollection. “I remember fire. I woke up, crying. I was in my bed, and everything was on fire. The walls. The floor. The bed.” She looked down at her left hoof, where the alloys seemed to grow out of the flesh. “My leg.”
“And... after that?” my driver persisted.
Tourniquet shook her head and picked up one of her stuffed animals. It was a plush cat, with one thready ear. She sat and began stroking its head. “I don’t remember, really. I just remember waking up sometimes. Now and then. I remember everything hurt. Everything. I couldn’t see.” Reaching up, she touched her right eye. It was unsettling to see her actually rest her toe on the crystal iris, though it didn’t seem to hurt her any. “My whole chest felt like it was full of cotton candy and syrup when I tried to breathe. Then, one day, I couldn’t breathe. Then it all sort of...stopped...and I woke up here. Mom said I’d been asleep a really long time. My chronometer - which is like...it’s like a little clock I can see but nopony else can - popped up. It said...two whole years.”
Limerence’s eyes still had that dangerous gleam. I wondered, not for the first time, just what went on in that analytical brain of his.
“Intriguing, Miss Tourniquet. If you don’t mind, may I ask what happened thereafter? Surely it was not simply a matter of ‘waking up’?”
Setting her cat to one side, the filly reached up and tugged at her wire wings, then scratched the base of one. “Heee! As if! Everything itched! It still does, but not as bad.”
She smiled and turned in a little circle. “It didn’t matter, though, because... because I could see again. I could see even better! It wasn’t like it used to be, either. I could see everything in all directions! I could see into other places, where other things were happening. I could see the sky and underground. I could feel places... feel unicorns using magic or pegasi flying or earth ponies moving.” Sadness filled her face and she slumped to the floor on her stomach, drawing her hooves under herself.
“I... take it you’ve lost some of that capacity? You’re using past tense,” Limerence murmured.
Tourniquet bobbed her head. “I can’t see anything above ground anymore. I miss the sky so much...and I miss ponies.”
Swift scooted a little closer and gently touched the girl, comfortingly, with one wingtip. “What was it like here? I mean, I would have lost it if I just woke up with all that stuff inside me…”
The filly snickered and nosed my partner’s feathers. “Well, yeah, I totally did, for a little while. I wasn’t on fire, though, you know? I mean, how did you feel when you got those crazy teeth?”
Swift gave her a toothy grin. “Awesome!... but I guess it is a little weird. Still, I get to eat all the meat I want.”
“Ewww!” Tourniquet drew back a couple of steps. “For real? What does that taste like?”
Before they could get into a drawn out comparison of their experiences, I decided to step in. “Why did you run that ‘Report for Processing’ line on us?”
Tourniquet looked guiltily at her forehooves. “I... I couldn’t think of any other way to get somepony down here.”
Swift tilted her head and sniffed. “You could have just asked, you know.”
The filly gave my partner a look like she’d been speaking a foreign language, then clasped her forehooves together and said, in a voice so saccharine it couldn’t be taken seriously, “Oh, please, please, strange-ponies-who’re-obviously-breaking-in... could you come sneak into my secret hidden room? I know I’m talking through another pony, but I’m really lonely! Just ignore that I’m all metal, please!”
My partner’s cheeks flushed and she ducked her head. “Right, okay, I guess...we might have had a problem with that...”
Tourniquet reached out to touch Swift’s shoulder, then paused and stepped back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be mean. It’s… It’s just that I used to be able to talk to everypony in the whole building. I made sure they went where they needed to go. I kept track of everything. Everypony thought I was just a recording, or a voice in their heads, but I could talk to Mom.” The girl’s voice broke, sounding more like a malfunctioning speaker. “Now… somepony… somepony broke stuff… and I can’t talk to hardly anypony!”
Glancing up at the wires protruding from her back, I nodded in their direction. “I’m assuming you can’t leave this room. Did you ever ask… you know… why Saussurea did what she did?”
She shook her head. “I tried to ask Mom, but she just got really sad.”
“Huh...I’m trying to imagine Saussurea as ‘sad’. It’s not coming to me.”
Tourniquet let out a sharp laugh, but it died just as quickly. “I know Mom wasn’t like she was around everypony else around me. She wasn’t nice. I’m not stupid. But she was my Mom and she loved me. I kept her safe here...just like I kept you safe coming in by not telling anypony when I saw you on the sewer cameras!”
“Thanks for that, by the way,” I said, tipping my hat in her direction. “I did mean to ask. Why did you let us in?”
Her nose twitched a little as she gave me a frightened look. “I was lonely, and there’s nopony I can talk to. I thought if you were breaking in, then maybe you could... tell somepony outside or something. You’re a police pony, right?”
I pulled my coat open and lifted my badge out. “It’s not that simple, but I’m doing my best to make sure ponies are safe.”
A look of relief filled her face. “Oh thank goodness! I need somepony to go talk to Mom and get her to come back! She knows how things work and she can fix me!”
It should be noted that, in a life full of awkward silences, this ranked in at number three.
Thankfully, Limerence’s curiosity came to our rescue.
“Did Warden Saussurea ever explain her reasons for implanting you inside of this system? I don’t know if you’re aware, but this is an extraordinarily complex machine you sit at the center of, Miss Tourniquet,” said Limerence.
“All Mom said was that I wasn’t… I wasn’t going to make it if she hadn’t,” Tourniquet replied, turning away and pawing through her stack of comic books until she found an old issue of Power Ponies. She peered down at the Masked Matterhorn, resting one toe on the mare’s picture. I felt a little pride at remembering that name, then I felt very, very old. “She said, all the bad ponies and dragons deserved what they got and that I should make sure none of them hurt anypony again.”
“This required no...learning process?”
Tourniquet shrugged, pushing her comic away. “I just...I just knew how. I don’t know. How do you know how to breathe?”
Limerence’s eyebrows drew together. “Instinctual, then.”
“That’s how it was for me! When I woke up, I knew all the awful things everypony and every dragon in here had done. I knew each and every one. Even...even Mister Girthranx. He burned down a whole village, once...” Whatever she had that passed for a voice box was letting out an insistent little buzz between words, that I took for stress. “He… he was the only one I had to talk to for the longest time. Now he’s gone, too.”
I realized that, if she was still capable, Tourniquet would probably be on the verge of tears; her shoulders were shaking, and I could hear something in her rear legs that sounded like grinding mechanism. The patchy fur hanging off her sides and the cabling coming out of her back didn’t do much to help the impression of a very tightly controlled marionette having an emotional breakdown.
“Girthranx is a draconic name,” the librarian said, pushing his glasses to the top of his nose. “I can’t conjure where I’ve heard it before, but I believe I have. I wonder, if you don’t mind my asking, where has...Girthranx gone?”
Tourniquet pinched her eyes shut and went back to gently stroking with her stuffed cat. “Can... can we not talk about that for a few more minutes? I promise, I’ll show you, but it’s... I just want to talk like normal ponies a little longer, okay?”
Before the inquisitive stallion could get the girl any more worked up, I asked, “How’d you managed that trick with Cerise?”
A faint smile plucked at the edges of her mouth and she looked over at Swift. “Can... can I do something? I promise it won’t hurt or anything.”
My partner bit her lower lip, then glanced in my direction. “Sir?”
I waved both forehooves. “Hey, she asked you, kid. You want to let the robot filly mess with your body, you be my guest.”
Tourniquet rolled her eyes. “I’m not a robot...and I promise, it won’t hurt or anything, okay? You won’t even remember what happened.”
Swift thought for a long minute, then bit her tongue between her teeth. “You promise it won’t hurt?”
“Totally! Okay, give me a second.” Hopping up, the girl dashed over to a huge, wooden toy chest beside her book-case and tossed it open. She began rooting through it, with just her flanks poking out. She talked as she searched. “I can only take over when somepony has my sigil on them. I think I can divert a little power from upstairs to make this work without them noticing. I hope Miss Skylark isn’t looking at the outputs! Oooh, it’d be bad if she was...but still, I don’t get to do this much and nopony ever wants to see my tricks, although I don’t get to ask many ponies if they want to see my tricks-Aha!”
Tourniquet held a bright red marker in the corner of her mouth. Moving over to Swift, she sat down in front of her. They were about comparable heights, so Tourniquet didn’t have to bend down to look her in the eye.
“Um... do you mind if I draw on your cheek?”
“O-okay.” Swift touched her own face with one toe, then added, worriedly, “So long as you don’t draw something dirty.”
Tourniquet hesitated, then guffawed with a sound like a broken record skipping on a gramophone. “Oooh, yeeeah, because the filly with all the circuits for insides lured you down here so she could draw a penis on your face. I’m not twelve!”
My partner flushed. “Sorry. Scarlet -- he’s my best friend -- would totally draw something dirty on me if he had the chance and he’s not twelve either.”
The metal filly’s eyes lit up. “Does… does that mean we’re friends? If you’ll let me draw on you?”
Swift slid sideways a couple of inches, looking at Tourniquet out of the corner of one eye. She glanced over at where her cards were splayed out on the floor, then back at the girl still holding the marker in her lips.
“Well...I don’t know how often I will be able to visit, and you’re a really weird pony-”
“Look who is talking!” Tourniquet sniped, with a goofy grin.
“-but sure! I mean, seriously, how many ponies can say they’re friends with a whole prison?” Scooting over, my partner turned her cheek towards the other girl and gathered her wings in tight.
“Even if I have to zap you again the next time I see you, I’m really glad we met,” Tourniquet said, pulling the cap off her marker and very carefully drawing a tiny red moon on Swift’s muzzle. As she finished, she stepped back to inspect her hoofwork. “Not bad, not bad...not perfect. If I wanted full control, I’d have to have it under the skin, but this will work for showing off. I need to practice this later on so I can show Mom when she gets back. I’m better than I was. I just wish all the important stuff wasn’t busted.”
I got the distinct feeling she wasn’t talking to us. Granted, if I’d spent a significant part of my life alone then I’d probably have taken to talking to myself, too.
“Alrighty-roo! Here goes!”
Shutting her eyes, Tourniquet breathed slowly in and out a couple of times. Her breaths let out a slight ‘whirring’, which gave the impression of a fan buried somewhere in her anatomy, rather than pumping lungs.
Somewhere above us, something clattered, then let out the sound of twitching machinery. The girl’s wires pulled taut and she was lifted off the floor, dangling limply by them. I stumbled back a couple of steps, fighting the urge to pick up my gun bit.
Limerence was not so trusting. He had his crossbow out, hanging in the air beside him with the nocked bolt just a few inches off of the girl dangling in the air a meter or so above us. Swift gave him a firm glare until he lowered it, then she turned to look back up at her new friend.
For a long, agonizing moment, nothing happened, then a pulse of light shot up the cables and spread out in all directions. I tried to follow it with my eyes, but I still couldn’t make out any details of the source of the illumination in the nursery, much less anything beyond it. However, if the way that light spread out indicated the actual presence of more wire, we were at the center of an electrician’s worse nightmare.
“Mister Hard Boiled?” Swift said. I turned my attention back to my partner.
“Kid? What is it?” I asked, then I noticed that her eyes were blank, and she wasn’t quite looking at me.
“It’s me! Tourniquet!” my partner giggled. Raising her hoof, she looked at her toes, then stretched her enormous wings halfway out from her sides. “I forgot what being in a pegasus is like. They’re so light and fluffy!”
I peered at Tourniquet’s body, which hadn’t moved from where it was.
“That’s... extremely unsettling,” I commented, reaching out and gently touching Swift’s forehead. She didn’t seem to be in any pain, but her pupils were two different sizes. “I take it you can’t control somepony outside this building?”
“Nope! Somepony has to have my sigil inside them to do that. I was born on a harvest moon, so Mom made that my sign. My spells still work, a little bit, but I can’t see out of anypony’s eyes or use their body or anything. At least...that’s how it used to be. All my stupid monitors are broken, so I don’t even know anymore,” Swift explained. Her mouth was open, and her lips moved very slightly with each word, but it was Tourniquet’s voice coming out.
“Kid? You still in there?” I asked, giving my partner a slight shake.
Tourniquet’s body opened her own eyes. The wires on her back went slack and she dropped back to the carpet.
Swift’s pupils grew back to their normal size and she blinked at me. “Oh...Sir? When did you get over...here?” A look of confusion grew on her face. “Wait...did it already happen?”
“Yes, yes it did. That is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.” I sucked on my teeth, thinking a moment before turning back to Tourniquet. “What exactly is going on with Miss Cerise upstairs?”
She lowered her ears and sat. “I...don’t even know. A couple hours ago Miss Skylark made me divert all the power coming in upstairs, except what I need to keep myself awake. When I start getting feedback, I’m supposed to turn it off. I used the excess to talk to you.”
“Ah, that was the ‘hum’?” Limerence asked.
“Yes. I don’t know how it even works,” Tourniquet answered, shuffling her hooves on the well-worn carpet. “I read a little about magical feedback back when Mom was still running things, and it’s like, a whole city worth of magic going up there. It should cook those poor ponies right away from the inside out.”
Taxi’s eyebrows shot right up her forehead. “Those?! As in, plural? You’re saying this has happened more than once?”
Tourniquet bobbed her head. “Every few days. My... my chronometer still keeps time, even though it’s been really stubborn about the fifteen year thing. It’s the same every time she does this to somepony. When whatever she’s doing is... is powered up enough or whatever, Miss Skylark and her friends will take them downstairs and then I don’t see them again.”
If my heart had been the original, I’m sure it would have been thumping like mad.
Murders. Murders like clockwork, or so the girl said.
Every few days? The Church butchering an endless stream of brain-washed ponies?
“She’s... powering this place with death,” I whispered.
“What was that?” Taxi wanted to know.
“Skylark’s murdering ponies. I don’t know why yet, but she... she uses the homeless shelters. She finds ponies nobody will miss. I bet you that’s how she picked up Cerise... and how she picked up Ruby. She’s powered this place with the deaths of all those ponies.”
Taxi barely managed to hide her shock and Tourniquet’s eyes widened until I could see the tiny gears in the corners of her irises. Limerence merely frowned.
“Detective, I do not... believe that to be the case.”
“What?! Didn’t you say this place had huge power requirements? And that necromancy would make lots of power? If she’s not using it to power up the spells so she can control her followers-”
He held up his hoof. “I did not say she is not using Supermax to control her followers, nor did I say she was not murdering ponies. I merely doubt that she is using the power she would derive from whatever she is doing to these poor souls she has captured merely to exert control. Her followers provide quite adequate power to keep operations going, simply by wearing their robes. Sacrifices for power would be... inefficient.”
Tourniquet’s ears pinned to the sides of her head and she slid onto her stomach. The wires stretching from her back to the ceiling unwound until they lay across her like a heavy blanket, spilling over the floor. “I can’t even turn myself off anymore and she’s going to hurt my Mom if I try. I thought it was just...just the bad ponies. I had files on them…” She trailed off into incoherent mumbles, covering her face with both forehooves.
Swift reached over and tentatively laid her hoof across the filly’s shoulders. The girl jumped as she felt the contact, then crawled a little closer to my partner. It was almost pathetic how eager Tourniquet was for equine contact. Sad and pathetic and wrong...and there was nopony to punish.
Saussurea had already lost her daughter, her future, and her legacy. It was all gone and dead to her. She had nothing left to take.
“Inefficient, though?” Taxi said, breaking the momentary silence. “Seriously? We’re sitting in a huge prison! What kind of ‘efficient’ are you talking about, Lim?”
Reaching up, Limerence touched behind his horn, as though adjusting a hat. Realizing his bowler was still back in the Nest, he sighed.
“It is… difficult to convey the differences without some higher math. I will say, however, that the weight of power required to keep this place running once it is already activated pales in comparison to what could be derived from tearing magic out of the dying. It would be like using the breeze from a dynamite explosion to power a windmill or a car engine. She is likely using that power for something else.”
“That leaves us with the question of where all that power is going,” I grumbled.
Limerence waved one hoof. “You’re the detective. I am only providing my opinions on the matter. I will say, however, that whatever they’re doing to these ponies that would cause magical resonance fields strong enough to interact with our brains in the form of that humming sensation is unlikely to be healthy.”
My back knees shook a little as the weight of that statement settled on me.
I’d never personally taken a necromancy case for longer than it took to determine that death magic was involved. They’re extremely rare, and usually handled by the Royal Guard rather than workaday police forces. Most often, they were simply the desperate, stupid, and too heavily informed making a grief-stricken attempt to bring a loved one back just long enough to say goodbye.
Juniper once told me he’d come across a botched attempt at necromancy that ended with the caster being eaten by his own pet turtle. It was only treated as a murder case until they found the happily zombified little amphibian sitting in the perp’s chest cavity.
I’d hoped never to find myself facing down death magics directly. Equestrian homicide detectives dread such things, if for no other reason than determining who is dead and who isn’t should be a very simple thing.
Pushing those thoughts aside, I raised my head and looked over at Tourniquet who was still slouched against Swift, her cheek resting on my partner’s knee. The pegasus looked like she didn’t know whether to feel pity, sadness, or fear, but she was gently brushing her hoof through what was left of the girl’s mane and Tourniquet was making a little buzzing noise that I took for pleasure.
I inhaled and held it, letting my eyelids slide shut, trying to push the stress and fear out of my mind, sinking towards the state of quiet speculation that most inspectors and detectives reserve for moment when nothing is making sense.
Answers were there. They flitted by, like people moving through an enormous crowd. I might touch one, or ten, but I would miss a hundred others. They were like a scent on a busy street.
A scent.
Opening my eyes, I looked out into the darkness surrounding the little island of light that was the nursery.
“Tourniquet. Bring the lights up.”
The girl lifted her eyes. “I don’t… I don’t want to,” she whimpered.
Her voice had a slight tonal whine, like a badly tuned guitar.
I stepped over and sat down in front of her, taking her face in both my hooves. I could feel the hard coolness of the metal under one cheek, while the other was warm and alive. Her prosthetic eyes sparkled and she hooked her hooves over mine, but didn’t pull away.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll tell you what happened to your mother and I will make sure nopony hurts you, but right now, I need you to bring up the lights.”
She tugged at her neck a little, but I held her fast. Slowly, she relented, easing forward and pressing herself against my chest. Age or not, strange body or not, horrifying rebirth or not, she was still a child; afraid of the dark.
“I don’t wanna see him. Him or… or them…” she whispered as she hid against my collar.
I held her head against me. “Raise the lights, Tourniquet. I need to know the truth, if I’m going to make all of this stop. Trust me.”
She moaned, piteously, tossing her forelegs around me.
The wires in her back pulsed.
The circle of light began to expand outwards. As it grew, more toys appeared. Bears. Books. Figures. A set of swings. A school desk, with a stuffed duck sitting on it.
Some of the objects scattered on the floor. Others were arranged neatly, on shelves, or in boxes. There was a table, with a chess set, which seemed to have a few checkers interspersed here and there. There was a baking set for baking plastic goods, and a model train that I’d have envied when I was young, set across several tables.
It was the evidence of a childhood grown all out of proportion. She was too young to be so old. She’d seen the blackest of Detrot’s history, of Equestria’s history, and walked out the other side with not much of her flesh, but some innocence left to keep her sane. I could feel her breath coming faster and faster, the farther the light spread. Whatever she had for lungs was starting to click, softly.
The light stopped, just shy of what I assumed to be the walls. As it was, we were sitting in a huge open space.
“D-do I have to?” she asked, so quiet I was at first uncertain I’d heard.
“Do you want to sit in the dark forever?”
She didn’t reply, but the circle started growing again.
The first sign of something off kilter was the tip of a golden appendage. It was the shape of a spade, but easily two meters across, and covered in brilliant, yellow scales. It sprawled towards the middle of the room, pointed like an accusing finger at the five of us. The fur on my neck started a spirited crawl for my scalp as, inch by inch, the light slid up the shining length. The appendage widened as was revealed, then attached itself to a haunch that was easily four times my height, which led down to a taloned claw that could have squished the lot of us without so much as a ‘by your leave’.
A feeble voice in my mind said ‘time to panic!’, but it was exhausted from a night of overwork; fleeing was miles further down my internal list of priorities than it should have been. For some reason I still didn’t feel unsafe with my forelegs wrapped around Tourniquet. I’d no idea what manner of creature was really under that innocent face, but she wasn’t the beasty making my cutie-mark burn.
The light began to pick out a jaw wider than Swift’s wingspan, and at last, the half-open eyes of a dragon. I didn’t need a degree in xeno-pathology to know it was dead. Its face was slack, half tilted on its side, and the scaled flesh on its neck had torn in places as it dried out in the arid air of the hidden room. No scavengers had picked at the remains as they dried, so it was largely preserved, though as the last of it appeared, I had to cover my mouth to avoid a sudden bout of nausea.
The dragon’s belly appeared to have exploded at some point, though not like a rotting corpse. In the way of dragons, its own enchanted fire had burst through its stomach wall, scorching away its innards and leaving a surprisingly clean hole, with only a few blackened ribs poking down from the edges.
I wondered, distantly, if I’d ever get a good night’s sleep again.
My partner’s shoulders humped like a cat’s, but whatever she had in her stomach wasn’t enough to leave a deposit on the carpet. Even Limerence looked more than a little green. I watched his adam’s apple jump as he forced himself to keep stiff control.
Taxi and I just sat and stared at the horrible tableaux attached to the wall.
They were seven.
Seven ponies.
Five stallions. Two mares.
One unicorn, horn removed a little more than halfway down its length.
Two pegasi, each missing a wing.
Four earth ponies, each missing one right forehoof, hacked off below the knee.
My breath caught as I studied their broken bodies, each one attached to one of the dragon’s exposed ribs. They’d been strapped up there, face first, with their bodies bent at an unnatural angle around the bone. I couldn’t tell exactly what was holding them there, but their back legs dangled free, while their necks seemed to adhere right to the giant rib cage.
They were all grey.
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hooo boy, now it is making some sense. the little cyborg filly is somehow connected to all of this madness............. best i can guess they are somehow taking advantage of that vampiric ability the filly uses to sustain herself to other ends................
we finally have and understanding of how it was done, but we yet to see the full picture nor know how it came to pass.........
dear lord this is gonna be bad.
........hope tourniquet makes it somehow. somehow take her away from this and set her up somewhere else.
kay, got two, but only two, theories of what is going on.
A- they are taking this energy to charge up the moon guns, and some force is intending to try and use them to kill one of the alicorns, presumably celestia since moon beams might not actually hurt luna.
B- they are using it to sustain some entity of some sort, the one that can gaze into the futures yet seems to require a host to survive.
God...every time Tourniquet talks I get really sad.
Poor , poor, lonely baby... I hope Tourniquet can be free some day.
HAH! "Ghostbusters" reference sighted! Are we getting a Stay-Fluffed Marshmallow Mare later on? Or perhaps there is no Cerise, only Zuul?
EUGH!
WHAT THE HELL?! I guess we know where Girthranx went...
I thought the necromancy would be used on the dragon, but... nope nope nope nope nope nope nope
The bodies are all missing pieces that could be combined à la Frankenstein's Monster to make an alicorn sans torso... except the legs are all right forelegs and that doesn't account for the moon guns or the law firm.
We need some answers and soon. I can't even begin to fathom what's going on now.
Lemme stop you right there, Hardy. Take it from me: that is a long road to a far more expensive addiction than alcohol.
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I know, it's wrong, but I love it when I can get that face out of you guys...
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Heeheee...I figured with all the goofy possessions and weirdness going on that it couldn't hurt to toss that in there. I actually, for a minute, wondered if anybody would get it.
-Chessie
Im going to have to reread this, my gut instinct is you dropped more than what you have in first appearances in this.
I liked the chapter title. A nice Portal reference.
4732935 Hoooyes... We drop hints to what's actually going on all throughout. If you miss anything, you will get a reminder later on...but only during reveals.
We do ask, if you think you've got a spoiler, send me a PM. I'll gladly confirm if you got it right or not.
-Chessie
4732967 Chyeeeah, that was sorta obvious, wasn't it?
-Chessie
4733003 heh, still rereading it, but more so that you've dropped something big in here that I think i missed. And I will.
"That's one BIG Winkie!"
4733003 saw some hints but overall it is impossible to realize them overall even during reveals like this one.
we now know that the symbol is actually for this cyborg filly, yet it seems they are using it for something else. we know of at least a couple of dead bodies connected to a dead dragon for an unknown purpose, and that it seems that only certain parts are removed, possibly for the magical channeling. the overall purpose could be nearly anything though. even if one makes a guess there is no certainty till it is revealed.
obnly certainty I have is that they are probably not being used in household furniture by a crazed and overenthusiastic mortician.
Love the Ghostbusters reference, but sunburned snails on toast -
It explains the smell of dragon in the room, that's for certain. And grey? Yikes.
So, turning grey is what happens to you when Tourniquet drains all your life force it seems. Still no explaination of how Ruby knew about the future (from her perspective), though I have my suspicions. I just hope I'm wrong.
Swift and Tourniquet together were sooo cute!
And here I was expecting a zombie-dragon.
Holy crap
Very interesting. I really like Torinquet and the Se7en were really a surprise. The picture is forming, 90% if the parts add up.
4735306 Heeeheeeheeee....
Unfortunately, the actual parts aren't QUITE there yet. So far, I think exactly one person has made even a reasonable guess as to who killed Ruby Blue and NOBODY knows why.
-Chessie
what do you know - I just finished rereading this again, and a new chapter pops up!
anyway - SWEET CELESTIA, and here I though Sauressa was being metaphorical when she called the prison 'her child'. I've given up on trying to figure out the larger web at this point.
Ah yes, as a child of '84, Ghostbusters is literally only a month older than I am, so I love when references to this awesome movie I grew up with are made (rest in peace, Harold Ramis).
Another stellar chapter. Definitely ratcheting up the creepiness and suspense.
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It's too bad this is in Detrot and not Manehatten, or we could get some kind of pilotable giant statue of one of the Princesses.
Poor Tourniquet
Even if she killed those ponies
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I was wondering about that... Something fishy going on. There is a walrus and a carpenter here somewhere. Let us see...
The Detective and the Rookie
Were trotting through the rain.
When he recalled the hotel roof
And tracks made from a cane.
"That crippled zony mob-boss son
Has things he must explain."
"The time has come," the Pony said
"To answer me, Zefu.
Concerning cherry cutie-marks—
And colours red and blue.
And escort mares, and landing strips,
Where PACT patrols once flew."
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Same here Booke.
I also thought Saucy was merely being a sociopathic artiste. I did not realise just how literal she was. (Incidentally, that puts a whole new sad twist to Saucy's desire to "put her back to sleep").
That must be strange trying to raise a daughter who is essentially a sapient prison. I guess if anypony can do it, there is no better pony than Equestria's chief architect (the war crimes might cause a kerfuffle or two though with fellow parents...). I can imagine it would lead to some unique, one of a kind, and utterly barmy parenting situations:
Celebrating her first code inspection passed?
What about telling her about the dangers of unprotected renovations after she has grown older and becomes interested in that cute medium-rise office building colt across the city?
Or talking with her after her first fire alarm?
How about dealing with self-esteem issues leading to the rezoning requests sent to Detrot City hall (who is totally hot by the way!) in order to fit in with all the "popular" buildings?
Or dealing through that "rebellious self discovery" phase where she goes out, gets graffiti on her exterior and begins to inappropriately bare her HVAC units?
Or treating her to a professional landscaping on her birthday?
Sooo many possibilities...
fnarr fnarr
If ever there was an appropriate time for that Sphere quote...
...What happens when Tourniquet gets mad?
I think by this point most (if not all) of the glamour has worn off the cushy "dream job" Hardy was fantasising about earlier...
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I'll say!
It is like a gristly baby mobile designed by Hieronymus Bosch and implemented by H. R. Geiger
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F
ck me I just realised what is going on!
This is Romeo and Juliet! Forget Hardy, Taxi and and Swift; the real characters are Tourniquet and that little dragoness that Saussurea tortured and dumped on the dragon embassy's doorstep.Tourniquet is obviously Juliet and the little dragon is Romeo (there may have been a sex change involved somewhere). Instead of Montagues and Capulets, we have dragons (the ambassador) and ponies (Saucy) and all the historical bad blood from the war. Tourniquet is already a prison building, and it is not stretch to believe that the dragon was integrated into the Embassy at a later date. Prison Juliet and Embassy Romeo fall madly in love with one another, but they have to keep it hidden from their respective families lest their utilities get cut off. They enlist the help of a sympathetic local planning authority to change their zoning so they can live off the grid together, free from their respective family's prejudices and hatred. Unfortunately, everything will go pear-shaped once a civil servant at city hall accidentally shuffles the zoning plans and schedules "Romeo" for demolition to make way for a new express motorway.
IT IS ALL SO OBVIOUS! WHY DID NOT I SEE IT EARLIER?!?!
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Ghostbusters eh?
I present you with... THUNDERBUSTERS!
4737585 Awww, thank you man! Seriously, having more readers would be magical. I've put my heart and soul into this story and Kasen has too.
-Chessie
Sometimes this story really throws stuff at you out of the blue. I wish I had something intelligent to comment on, but I'm stumped for the moment. It's not entirely a surprise that Saussarea should have spoken so literally. In fact, what better prison warden, in some ways at least, than a child who is bound to have a nearly white/black understanding of good/evil.
Honestly, I have to feel bad for Tourniquet. It's difficult to put words on the misery of such an existence as she has. She's alive, but other than that doesn't really have anything like a remotely normal life experience. Also, after re-reading the scene where Hardy and the others visit Saussarea in Tartarus, I think she's been really given a hard lot since her own mother effectively imprisoned her and only lets her be awake some of the time. In other words, she's just an unfortunate tool that doesn't even know she's being used.
Here's to the next chapter. I hate the suspense...
4738785 Unfortunately, the length and regularity of the release schedule has prohibited us from regularly editing chapters near so much as Kasen, CC, or I would like to.
It would probably require at least 4 editor to catch everything.
4738541 PSSSH, you love the suspense and you know it!
Next chapter will be coming soon.
-Chessie
4738843
Somebody needs to teach the jailer how to -free- ponies from chains...
Hmmm, so that begs the question of what they are going to do next. Tourniquet needs the lunar passage in order to remain awake (alive?) and they still need to rescue Jade's daughter. They can't just ask Tourniquet to stop doing things or she'll go to sleep and I have a feeling that a law firm has a lot of pull in Tartarus.
4741101 It is not a nice creek they are in.
-Chessie
4744970 Heh! Yeah, gosh...it's not a short one. I've wondered, frequently, if it would be a good idea to split it into multiple stories just so it's a little less intimidating to people. I love a long story, but I fully understand there are some people who don't want to get involved in a long tale just to have it peter out or have to wait months for updates. Still, two years on and Kasen and I have managed to keep things to twice monthly updates. I'm kinda amazed it settled into that.
With luck, we'll finish Starlight this year. I REEEALLY wanna finish Starlight this year...
A not-small part of me is scared the pony fandom is just going to dissolve the day the show stops getting made. I'd be sadder than Fluttershy dropping her ice-cream.
-Chessie
Bah, you seriously think this is going to get finished this year, in a mere 8-9 more chapters? I think we'll have just about finished Act 2 by then. Buckle up, kitten, because this runaway ferris wheel ain't stopping until it crushes a municipal structure into a fine paste, suitable for pairing with white wine!
--CEO Kasen
4748053
Testicular fortitude, which Hardy has to a degree measured in metric tons, is, like many earth pony qualities, rather underrated. Indeed, those balls may well be the pendulous key to blowing open the whole conspiracy.
Additionally, always happy to have another reader on board, and glad you're enjoying overall.
Welcome to Detrot. Have a hard cider.
--CEO Kasen
4748053 Funnily enough, we wrote Hardy to be an 'everyman' in a world that massively out-classes him. He accomplishes what he accomplishes, but largely by being the only one with the guts to try.
We made him an earth pony pretty much so it would be just his guts that got him through things. He could easily have turned into a Gary Stu, and that was one of our big worries. Heck, any of these characters could have. Taxi and Swift especially.
That they've managed to survive this long is a mix of competence and luck. Hardy does have one major advantage (he's immune to tracking spells) and that's significant, story-wise. We'll get to why here soon.
-Chessie
4753946 I would love to write an M6 story. They're the influence for what might or might not be a series I have in mind to write, albeit about humans.
-Chessie
4749030 Its hard to fault the writers when that is the intended point, which i got the feeling of. Still, i personally love characters who have strengths and flaws in terms of skills, and considering the quality of writing so far, i would have had utmost faith that you wouldn't have made him a gary stu.
Still a minor complaint in a enjoyable story, the more i read, the more i fall in love with the little adorable deviant that is Swift cuddles. Her and Hardy make the most adorable buddy cop trio along with Taxi.
Toobad this is a detective noir. pretty much guarantees that all good characters involve are going to have to face a turd that has long since hit the fan.
I think the lack of oxygen is rattling Hardy's thinking skills here.
... How many times has Hardy seen a spork traveling at Mach?
It would certainly count as one hell of a noodle incident.
But the neighbor kid's pet dog resurrection worked flawlessly, right?
4737794 "And why I can't stay out late with the sports stadium if I want to, mom? He's a nice guy!"
4740313 That's easy. It's called a safe word.
4741101 I do wonder what would happen if, say, Hardy, Swift, and Taxi moved in to the prison permanently. I mean, we already know Hardy needs a new home; Tourniquet needs a new home, and I dare say having them to watch their backs would give even the evil lawyer contingent a moment of pause. Plus, if they could get her external monitors hooked back up again ... I'm picturing her as rather similar to the Dead Man in the Garrett, PI series by Glen Cook; which would of course cast Hardy as Garrett, and Swift into Pular Singe (by far my favorite character from the series).
4745164 Personally, I hope this keeps going for years and turns into a regular series. Because you guys are awesome. Have you considered setting up a print run?
4758265 Heh, but I can't kill Taxi. If I kill her, she can't suffer more.
I worry there may be something wrong with me...
-Chessie
4758410 the Sadism just means you're a good writer
also have a swift sketch, its anthro, so sorry in advance if thats none of your cups of tea.
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edit: couldnt help but do hardy too
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4759640 Those are FANTASTIC! Yes, yes, I think we'll be adding those to the blog. Thank you so much!
We do love getting fan art, incidentally.
-Chessie
Yeah, do not worry for one second if they're anthro; we're both fans of the genre, and those are amazing.
--CEO Kasen
4756616
You may certainly not!
Buildings his age only have eyes for your HVAC ducts and only think on repaving your car park in their hormone addled, one-track minds. What if he has parking metres and does not tell you? What if he leaves you with an unexpected multistorey car park? Do you really think he is the kind of building that will stick around and help manage all those cars?
And cover up your aircons and wipe that silly graffiti off your walls your lady! No daughter of mine is going to be seen in public tarted up like a vulgar council housing slapper!
4758265
That got me sad just thinking about it. Great. I think you have pretty much guaranteed that an awful and tragic and permanent something befall them...
Alternatively, they survive and take time off to go somewhere peaceful and bucolic, away from the chaos and intrigues of the big cities...
Only for Chief Jade to schedule their vacation to Ponyville during the week of Princess Twilight's Want It Need It Parasprite Wrap-Up/Zap-Apple Timberwolf Migration/Running of the Ursas Major/Hyrda Mating Summer Celebration Stampede.
4762118
What happened? Which bit were you reading?! OOOH! Lemme know!
-Chessie
4761603
4758410
To be honest, with where I'm at in the story, Them living at the end would be good.
But them dieing at the end would be great!
I know that sounds bad, but with the over all feel of the story, the characters, and the world itself; It just seems that one big sacrifice of life for the good of the many would be a beautiful and touching end to this epic of story telling.
Now that being said, it doesn't have to be Hardy, Sweets, or even Swift. All it needs to be is the sacrifice of a character worth caring about.
4762545 Believe me...
The body-count is presently on the low side of what we intend it to grow to.
Incidentally, all the stuff you've read so far? That's not even the most horrible, creepy, or bizarre shit that goes on in this story.
-Chessie
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adding taxi to the group
ile have Lim tomorrow, and maybe scarlet.
4762782 Siiigh...yeah, Taxi would dress like that. She's so fuckin' weird. Fifty chapters on and she keeps shocking me. The shit with her dad was hard to write.
I mean, you look at writing as this sort of...I don't know...this sort of 'process', except now and then you're writing something that you have to see through the eyes of your character. Hardy watching Taxi's father beat the hell out of her was...really hard.
-Chessie
4763045 i understand, as anyone telling a story, visual or written, the best tool to use make a character is empathy. when you write, or even draw a character, you aren't just saying "this is what she/he would look like/do" you are saying "i am this character, what would i look like/do."
4763069 Incidentally, you've got a stunning talent there, mate.
-Chessie
4763086 i wouldnt pat my own shoulder too hard, i'd have to do atleast 3 more sketch concept passes before i'd have a design of any of your characters that i was 100% happy with, what you're seeing now is the "wing it" attempt.