Act 2, Chapter 48: Shotgun Diplomacy
Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 48: Shotgun Diplomacy
However dull one might find the particulars of the position of the salad fork or the proper color of the Manehattenite bendy straw at dinner, etiquette as an evolved response is actually a fascinating topic. Selective pressures favor communal species with standards of behavior.
As ponies, we glorify the herd, but it is not without its fundamental risks. Creating a herd affords protection and distribution, but can allow individuals within it to spread disease, harm others within it, or free-ride without contribution – without checks against such issues, the costs of herd life would outweigh its benefits.
Thus, manners serve a dual purpose – it helps identify members of a particular herd through shared commonalities, and prevents the spread of infections through hygienic norms; after all, if a somepony openly wipes herself on a cloud, what’s to say what else they’ll do? Those who display enough of the ‘correct’ behaviors specific to a given herd are much more easily trusted and embraced; those who display strange obsessions with preserves in public are considered avoidable.
The idea of cultural norms is hardly limited to ponies, or even quadrupeds, though when cultural norms from different herds come into contact with one another, there can be misunderstandings ranging from the benign to the catastrophic. Minotaurs, a notoriously boisterous and aggressive species, are known to greet one another by gripping one another by the shoulders and butting heads to indicate respect for one another’s strength and potential as a rival. This did unfortunately lead to something of a situation when the first Equestrian delegation to Minos, unfamiliar with the customs, selected a unicorn for lead diplomat.
Etiquette can be tricky, but thanks to the way civilizations have developed, it can also be the only thing between you and a hole in the head.
-The Scholar
Five people, no matter how small some of them might be, still crowds space in the Night Trotter.
Part of me wanted Limerence on board, but with the recent death of his father I was more inclined to let him take a break from the front line. He’d be happy enough researching our foes and his mental health was worth more to me than an extra few arrows before a griffin war-maker’s axe split our collective skulls.
Unfortunately, Zeta had work to do and, useful as she was, I didn’t feel like walking into the Moonwalk with five heavily armed individuals. Four was company. Five was a posse and likely to raise some eyebrows. We dropped her off the Vivarium on the way back toward Uptown.
That left Edina sprawled in the front passenger seat with a juice box full of Beam and a straw. It was more than a little surreal to sit there watching someone tossing back industrial waste, but she seemed to be relishing the flavor along with her temporary mental health.
Stranger still, I found I kinda liked her like this. I’d stubbed my toe on the way out of the Nest and she spent a full five minutes asking if I was alright and offering me sticking plasters.
While we were gathering up the remainder of our arsenal and getting fitted, Swift had managed to pad the Hailstorm, but it was still ridiculous to ride along with. The boxy saddlebags weren’t very flexible and they barely fit. That said, I didn’t want her approaching the Moonwalk from the sky.
Something in the air around Uptown was making me itch, atop the constant sting in my cutie-mark. I didn’t know whether it was my heart responding to local magical conditions, but I felt more nervous than being in the Night Trotter usually warranted.
****
As we turned onto the pristine Celestia Street, a ladybug suddenly lifted out of Swift’s fur, did a little pirouette, and zipped out the window. We’d been going at a decent clip so it was swept away out of sight within seconds.
“Aaand now, I’m worried. Did we not have a ladybug on us earlier?” I asked.
Swift shook her head. “I don’t know, Sir. They kinda come and go as they please. Unless we’re, like, setting something on fire there’s other stuff to watch, you know? I never saw them just rush off like that, though.” She paused and her eyes lost focus for a second.
“What are you seeing, kid?” I asked.
“I don’t know. The Hailstorm is sending me some more funny lights. There’s lots of runes...and now it says something about ‘localized enchantment interference’ and ‘compensating’.” She paused, squinting at something. “Huh. Now it’s back to normal and the moving target thing. Weird.”
Just then, something chugged in the Night Trotter’s motor. Taxi was so surprised she almost sent us into a fire hydrant.
“Sweets! Mercy, I thought you had this thing serviced a few days ago!” I exclaimed.
“I did! I don’t know what’s wrong with it! The spell core is fully charged! My readouts are acting like we’re tooling through a magical storm or something!”
“Is there something going on?” Edina asked, worriedly.
“I don’t know. Give me a second.”
I glanced at the street signs. We were less than a block from the Moonwalk.
Rolling down the window, I stuck my head out and peered up at the sky. Aside a few low rain-clouds, everything seemed perfectly normal as we sped along between Uptown’s skyscrapers. Ponies seemed to be coming and going relatively normally.
There was a slight, waifish unicorn mare standing in the corner as we pulled up to a stoplight with a well dressed gentlecolt tending her. She was massaging her forehead, like she had a headache. Or a horn ache.
I rested a hoof on my chest and took a few deep breaths. I wasn’t precisely uncomfortable, but something felt out of sorts. I could hear my pulse in my ears.
“Sweets, my heart is acting up, too. Do you know of anything that might cause this?”
“A whole list of things, but most of them involve lots of screaming and panic in the streets,” Taxi replied, flipping her braid into her mouth as she turned us onto the slip road in front of the Moonwalk. “I think the most benign is probably what happens when they maintain the Shield pylons. You remember, five years back they made a big deal on the news about ‘local arcane side effects’ out in the country? They were repairing a pylon that got hit by a tornado.”
“I remember, yeah. I hope they’re not screwing with the local Shield. I sincerely do not want to find myself launched into low orbit because somepony decided my heart was actually a particularly sneaky manticore.”
“Gypsy mentioned the Shield, right? Something about this having something to do with the Shield?”
“Yes, and trust me, my worries about that are simmering. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do until Limerence gets back, so we’re going to handle this situation with the griffins first.”
“Detective, I don’t...really know how to say this, but-” Edina took a slurp out of her juice box and continued, “-I mean, my tribe probably won’t try to kill you outright, but I hope you don’t think you can actually fix the intertribal conflicts. The Arena is closed to us. Without the Blood Bank, the law leaves only direct challenges as a means of settling disputes.”
“You keep mentioning this ‘Arena’ place. What exactly is that?”
Edina sat up and set her Beam in the Night Trotter’s cup holder as she explained, “It’s...well, it’s what it sounds like. It’s a place we handle financial disputes. If there’s a griffin who owes another griffin, they can appeal to the Tokan. If they can prove they’re owed, their account will be credited. If the party who owes cannot or will not pay, the aggrieved individual can demand a lien against future income. That includes the blood in the debtor’s veins. If that happens, they fight in the Arena, either until the debtor has won enough blood to pay their debt...or until they’ve lost enough to pay their debt.”
“That’s...that’s insane,” Taxi said, scratching her mane. “I mean, whoever is strongest could just... not pay their debts!”
Edina shook her head. “They might, or they might find themselves owing so many at once that they’d end up in the Arena with ten griffins they owe, simultaneously. The Arena has kept us from war for decades.”
“So if you think this mess is hopeless, why are you tagging along?” I asked.
“I’m going along because I want to see my family while I’m...I’m still me,” she replied, peeking out the window at the Moonwalk. The light was failing, but I could make out a pair of griffins circling overhead, engaged in a slow, elaborate aerial dance. As we pulled to a halt, they disappeared over the rooftops.
“That’s all well and good, but if you don’t mind sticking with us, I’d appreciate it. Keep us clear on points of etiquette and so on,” I said, stepping out of the car. The attendant and his porters were still there, keeping attentive watch we disembarked.
“I don’t think there’s any points of etiquette I can keep you clear on. I don’t even know who is in what position these days,” Edina answered, uncoiling her whip. “Keep your guns close by and don’t pick up your trigger until somebody else picks up their axe.”
“Is...is that supposed to keep us safe?”
“It might. Maybe,” Edina chirped, hopping out of the car and following me up the steps as Taxi pulled around the side of the building to park in the underground garage. “Come on, I’m looking forward to the look on Derida’s face when I show up with a pony. I think I might see if the hotel has a gift shop where I can get a camera.”
****
Sykes was waiting in the lobby, hunched over the chessboard in one of the high backed chairs. He looked like he’d choked down a toad, but it was an improvement over a few hours ago. I suspected he’d had a few good vomits and most of the gallons of alcohol he’d consumed were out of his system.
The same PACT stallion as before was dutifully watching him, but Sykes was the only griffin in the room. For some reason, I found that a bit worrying. It didn’t help that the second the porter pushed open the door for us and I took my first breath of the sanitized air, my cutie-mark decided it was going to catch fire. I did my best to ignore it.
“Sykes! We’ve got Edina,” I said, gesturing at our guest.
Blearily lifting his head, he took a few seconds for his eyes to focus.
“Oi, ye needn’t play tricks, boyo. Oi’m shited enough as it is.”
I stepped to one side and Edina made a demure little curtsy.
“Good evening, Sykes,” she said in a voice just above a whisper.
Sykes eyes bugged out of his head and he kicked back in his chair. He’d have toppled if the chair weren’t braced against the wall.
“Edina! Moi merciful mum!” He yelped, launching himself to his paws. He looked up at me with wide eyes. “Oi thought ye was joshin’ me, when ye said ye could get’er! Oi was half out of me head! Oi didn’t think she’d actually turn up! Is she still...ye know...mad?”
She crooked one side of her beak in something like a smile, then raised her juice box. “Not for a little while. My friends here got me what I needed. I’d owe them quite the open vein if they were griffins.”
Sykes took a couple of cautious steps forward and carefully took the cup, sniffing it cautiously.
“What be this?” he asked. I grabbed his beak a second before he brought it to his mouth to take a sip.
“Believe me," I explained, "you do not want to drink that. It’d bring back some...flashbacks, yeah? Like, of a particularly explosive time in your life," I said, adding a meaningful nod.
His fluffy brows pinched for a moment then comprehension dawned. “Beam, boyo?!” he hissed. “Ye gave’er Beam?!”
“Hey, you asked for our help. You wanna call me drunk, you get whatever form that help takes. She’s not crazy right now and that’s what matters.”
“Sweet clouds an’ all,” he muttered. Righting his chair, Sykes stepped up and held out his claw. Edina carefully took it and gave it a light shake. “Well, Oi’m roightly pleased to meet ye again. Oi ain’t seen ye since we was chicks.”
“Likewise,” she replied, dipping her chin. “Good to meet you again, Sykes. Five years is a long time to lose your mind, but it doesn’t feel that long. The last time I heard anything about you, the Hitlan were still cursing your name for leaving home.”
“Aye, that they still be. But, what’s this then? Ye don’t speak loike the ol’ country!”
Edina giggled and set her Beam on the chessboard, dropping into a thick brogue. “Moi father taught us to speak proper, ye silly goose!”
She swallowed as though she’d spit up something foul, letting the accent go. “Tokan always were the diplomats,” she explained to the rest of us. “My sire insisted all the members of his family take equine voice lessons after the war. He believed coexistence with ponies was the way of the future. It’s better than sitting on the edges, watching them outpace us technologically and economically.”
Sykes rubbed the back of his neck and managed a small smile. “True it be. Ye ponies have the funniest way of speakin’.”
****
The five of us sat in the bar, crowded into one of the booths on the far side of the room, away from prying ears. The bar was empty, but there’s always a healthy trade in gossip amongst bartenders. Thankfully, they seemed more interested in some conversation regarding an unfaithful coltfriend than in the clandestine meeting taking place.
“Grimble Shanks be comin’ soon. Oi can’t say Oi’ll be surproised if he’s more wantin’ to be wavin’ his axe than talkin’, though,” Sykes muttered, swallowing his fifth cup of industrial strength coffee.
“If I ask him for his help, he’ll say ‘yes’,” Edina said, stirring her Beam with the end of a straw. “He’s been chasing my tail since we were tiny.”
“Moreso since ye went mad, thinks Oi,” Sykes replied, with a dirty grin. Taxi gave him a kick in the shins under the table.
“Well, so long as he keeps his ‘blade’ in its sheath, I think we’ll get along fine,” said Edina, with a prim sniff. “Grimble’s head is for fighting, not for strategy. Against Derida, even with combat strength on his side, he’d have a rough time taking the Hotel. He’s got the power to do it, but the cost in lives would cripple our tribes for decades.”
Looking down at the marbled tabletop, I closed my eyes and tried to assemble the shape of what might be going on. My cutie-mark felt like an alarm bell on my hip, but it was being irritatingly vague about the actual injustice occurring. Cutting off the books was feeling more like a strange act of desperation on the part of the Tokan, but what might they gain from it?
A clatter of metal announced Grimble Shanks at the door of the bar. The gigantic griffin had to duck to push through, casually adjusting his axe so it didn’t catch on the edge. He’d changed into a fresh kilt and ditched the bullet proof vest in favor of a sash that matched the ruddy brown of his chest feathers. His sharp eyes scanned the room for danger, checking corners, checking sight lines. Standard hypervigilant crazy, but a type of crazy I could understand. He must have seen us, but his eyes kept moving.
Pretending you’re not meeting someone or are just passing through is a worthwhile way of keeping your friends from getting shot. For all he might have been a bird mountain, he seemed to know the basics of operating in a dangerous public environment.
Finally satisfied he wasn’t about to be attacked, he made his way to the bar, ordered a drink, then strolled leisurely up to our booth. Unclasping his axe from his back, he dropped it within easy claw reach. I was about to try squeezing in to make room, but he snatched a chair from one of the nearby tables, turned it backwards, straddled it with his rear legs, and propped himself up on his front elbows. I found it a bit odd he’d sit facing the back wall, but realized the mirror behind us gave good vision on the door.
Up close and with time to examine him, Grimble Shanks was even more intimidating. Sykes had a few scars, but on Shanks I could see burns in various flavors that might have been cold, fire, or acid, patches of missing fur, a great gouge down his side that could have been from one of those insane axes, and even a notch out of the top of one wing which looked only recently healed.
He gave me a level stare, his eyes sparking with brutal intelligence.
“Moi brudder says ye be a foine cobber,” Shanks rumbled. “Oi hear of ye, Boiled boy, and moi brudder makes good friends, even damn fool he be. He says ye might be able to foind me blood and help killin’ those what took it.”
I shrugged, doing my best not to let the lizard parts of my brain take over and send me scuttling under the table. They were not happy to be having a conversation with a griffin of his size, particularly since I could smell mead and meat on his breath.
“I’m not here to start an international incident...but, if you name me High Justice between the tribes, I’ll see what I can do about stopping this from becoming a war. You want someone to investigate and I might be able to find your blood. In doing that, I may give you a better target than just ‘all the Tokan’.”
Shanks cocked one eye at his brother. “Ye tells him about our Justices, eh? A pony as Justice. Heh!” He threw his head back and chortled. “Oi loikes that! Me father moight love his traditions, but Oi’d do it just to see the look on his face when he foinds out Oi names a mad little stallion! Still, ye must tell the mad pony, he needs a royal griffin o’both tribes? Who ye gots fer that what bleeds Tokan blood?”
Sykes opened his beak to say something, but Edina beat him to it. She let out a polite cough and leaned forward over the table. I realized from where he’d been sitting, Edina was invisible beside Sykes.
“It’s awfully good to see you, Grimble,” Edina purred.
The Hitlan Egg’s steely composure vanished. He leaned back in his chair so far he almost fell out of it and had to catch himself on the edge of the table, tearing deep talon marks into the surface. He righted himself and stared, open-beaked, at the tiny dominatrix.
“Edina! Moi gods above, ye ken how to give a griff a shock!” he exclaimed, swinging the chair out of the way and reaching across to lift Edina out of her seat. She let out a squawk of protest and swiped at his eyes with one claw, but she couldn’t hardly reach.
He pulled her to his chest in a big, full body hug.
All that cold brutality was gone. For the first time, I could see the sibling resemblance to Sykes.
“How’ve ye been, eh?” he asked, holding her at arms length. “Oi thought sure Oi’d see ye earlier’n this once the Hitlan hit town!”
“Put me down, you ridiculous oaf!” she snapped, snatching her rope from around her neck and cracking it at his cheek.
Shanks grinned and set Edina on the table. “Aye, feisty as ever, moi sweet! Oi’d no idea ye moight be here! Ye be the Tokan they drag in for this madness o’ me brudder’s?”
“That’s right,” she hissed, snatching up her juice box of Beam and taking a quick suck on the straw.
“Funny, eh? Ye don’t sound so gone in the head no more,” he murmured, giving her an appraising look.
“It’s a temporary situation,” she sighed, looking down at her empty drink. “I’m not going to be like this for more than a few days. Then it’s back to feline and fowl. Thankfully, their employer...my employer is very accommodating.”
Shanks chuckled, picking up his chair and setting it upright. “Oi won’t pretend Oi kin what ye talkin’ about, but Oi can say, Oi’m roight glad to see ye, lass.” He turned to me with a fresh gaze of interest. “Now, cobber! Oi believes ye say ye moight be able to foind me blood. Ye wants Hitlan and Tokan to open a vein and name ye High Justice?”
“I’m working a case that’s got ugly implications and you know what pony talents are like. Mine says there might be something related to what I’m looking into here.” I sat back a little in my seat. “If nothing else, your brother is my friend. He’s got family in both the Tokan and the Hitlan tribes. I want to keep as little bloodshed as possible between you two.”
Sykes raised his coffee and gave me a proud smile.
Grimble Shanks seemed to consider this for a long moment, then he let out a great belly laugh and slapped his claw on my back. It felt like being hit by a wrecking ball.
“Moi brudder is a damn fool, and ye ponies be friendship-mad!” he barked, snatching up his axe and swinging it up to his leg. “Honor loike no other, though!”
“So you’ll do it, then?”
“Aye. It be yer funeral, iffen’ ye loikes, but Oi’ll name ye High Justice, boyo. If Edina trusts ye, Oi can do no worse. Foind why the Tokan close the Arena and The Blood. Foind who would dare steal me lifeblood, and Oi swears to ye, Oi’ll draw no more than is owed me.”
With that, he pressed his axe against his foreleg until hot blood began to drip on the table. I cringed a little as he dipped a talon in it, then reached out and wiped it on my cheek. I couldn’t repress a shudder. Edina, reached up and grabbed my jaw, dragging me around to look at her. Her leg was already bleeding as she drew something on my other cheek, then picked up a napkin and held it to her wrist.
“We names ye Justice,” Shanks declared. “Ye be the avatar, that ye may do naught but seek justice in the darkness o’ the world.”
****
I held the mirror up and sighed.
“Hardy, it’s not that bad,” Taxi snickered, covering her muzzle with one foreleg.
“Sweets, I look like I wandered into a children’s face painting booth for psychopaths,” I grumbled. “I don’t even know what these symbols mean. For all I know, Grimble Shanks could have written ‘cock-end’ on my cheek.”
Taxi, Swift and I sat side by side in the bar, whilst Edina, Sykes, and Grimble were off on the other end, jabbering at each other in that demented cockney griffins can fall into when they’re not worrying about their Equestrian counterparts’ ear-drums. I got the impression Grimble was updating Edina on the comings and goings of tribe politics over the last five years, but for all I could understand them, he might have been relating a recipe for shepherd’s pie.
“I don’t know, Sir,” Swift said, cocking her head to one side as she studied my muzzle. “I think the Tokan symbol looks a little bit like a duck foot and the Hitlan symbol is sort like a wheel of cheese with a piece cut out.”
“And if I wipe these off, any griffin who wants to rip all of us to shreds is perfectly entitled to do so once we get upstairs?” I asked.
Taxi nodded and stuck her mirror back in her saddlebag, shifting the P.E.A.C.E. cannon into a more comfortable position between her shoulder-blades. “It’s their embassy. You get in a fight here, you’re legally on their ground. By their laws, your family could claim a blood debt if one of them tore your head off, but I don’t think that would do you any good. Like Sykes said, don’t rub your cheeks and please try not to piss anyone off so bad that they try to murder you outright.”
“Somehow, I expected more of a fight out of Grimble Shanks,” I commented.
“You and he share a couple of personality traits I think you’d find a bit worrying if you could see them from the outside,” Taxi replied. “Not the least of which is a tendency to trust the craziest pony in the room.”
I peered at Taxi. “That’s usually me.”
“Exactly. I’m not surprised Shanks is willing to let you poke around. He looked downright relieved when you volunteered to put us on the firing line.”
“He’s hoping there’s some off chance we actually discover what’s going on,” I replied.
Taxi snorted and poked the air in the general direction of where her cutie-mark should be. “I might not have my mark anymore, but my talent works just fine. You need to know, Shanks is hoping we’ll act like a lightning rod and draw the fire.”
I groaned, rocking my bar stool back on two legs. “The pragmatism of predators. I swear, this would be so much easier if we weren’t trying to keep ourselves from getting wrapped up in international politics and could just treat it like any old investigation.”
“I’m wishing I could sit this out, Sir,” Swift muttered, putting a hoof over her eyes. I realized it was trembling.
I gawked at her. “After the mess at Supermax and the school...and the Monte Cheval, for that matter, you want to sit this one out!?”
“I dunno. Something just feels strange.”
I nodded. “I’ve felt it too, but what specifically is bugging you?”
“I...I’m not sure.” She stared at the backs of her orange hooves, then ran a hoof through her spiked mane. “Can’t you feel it? The air is wrong. Like there’s thermals under my wings that could just vanish and send me into a building. Lots of them are going to want to kill us.”
The Hailstorm’s barrels shifted on her back until they were aimed at our trio of allies. I gave them a firm tap and they quickly swiveled away. I got the strange impression that, if they were capable, they’d be whistling in an especially nonchalant fashion.
“We’ve been in worse situations,” I replied.
She bobbed her head, weakly. “I know. I...I wish I was still that dumb little girl who walked into the Castle a couple months ago. At the same time, I wouldn’t give up what we’ve managed to do, even if...even if I can’t sleep as well as I used to.”
I gave her a pat on the back and grinned. “I’m glad to have you here, kid.”
Swift bit her lower lip. “It would make me feel super-much better if we had a plan.”
I patted my gun and slid off my barstool. “I’ve got a plan. We hunt the blood of the Hitlan Egg. We find out why my talent is telling me this is something important. We survive to tell this story over many, many rounds of drinks one day in the near future.”
“Hardy, I’ve known you since we were foals,” Taxi said, finishing her drink and dropping a tip beside it. “Why is it when you say you have a plan, you always make me feel better and worse?”
“Because none of my plans have ever included a step where we get to sleep soundly thereafter,” I answered, pulling my collar high. “Now, come on. I want to see where they found Grimble Shanks before we go upstairs.”
****
“This is the alley?” I asked, peering into the alleyway behind the Moonwalk. “I thought you said you came back here to piss? I’d sooner eat off pavement this clean.”
The seven of us stood just outside the Moonwalk with the front door attendant giving the lot of us dirty looks as we poked around the alley beside the hotel. Rain threatened, but it hadn’t started up yet. There were only the distant rumblings of thunder.
It wasn’t the sort of alley you have in places for poor people. It was the kind of alley only the rich can afford. The dumpster was a shining, specimen of perfection and every brick looked to have been recently scrubbed with bleach. There wasn’t so much as a scrap of paper or a griffin piss stain to be found.
“Ye ponies ‘ave given us foive good water closets for a hundred and fifty griffins,” Grimble replied. “Even the Prince of Detrot - blessed be he name - could only rig us so many! They was all full!”
I gave him a questioning look. Taxi leaned up to my ear to whisper, “High protein diet.”
“Ah. Right,” I shut my eyes for a moment and forced out all thoughts that might be related to the movement of griffin bowls. “Sweets, forensics? Anything?”
Taxi shook her head, picking at the ground with one toe. “The cleaning staff have been out here with ammonia and scouring tools. If there was a crime scene here, it’s gone now.”
“Alright, so...they found you here?” I asked, turning to Grimble. He nodded towards the dumpster.
“Over by yon dumper,” he replied. “Oi come to wi’ a needle in moi backsoide. Funny thing...bastards could have taken moi amulet or moi coin purse. Oi ‘ad both when Oi woke.”
Taxi trotted over to the dumpster and began poking around, chewing on her lower lip.
“Did someone give you a toxicology test?” I asked.
“Now ye mentions it...Oi had one of the doc boys upstairs give me a look over,” Shanks said, with a chuckle. “They says Oi musta drank som’tin funny. Loike...herb drink or some shite. Oi were pretty mouldy by the toime Oi come down fer a slash.”
Swift blinked a little, then asked, “Herb drink. Wait, like…zebra herbs?”
Grimbles eyebrows rose onto his forehead. “Aye...odd thing. Oi don’t remember no-one passin’ me any but griff drink, but Oi figured pony waiters moight ‘ave give me som’tin. Not the first toime Oi drinks whatever be in moi claw. It weren’t nothin’ dangerous, though.”
Swift and I exchanged a look. “Maybe not to you,” I murmured.
“Hardy, I’ve got something here,” Taxi called.
“What? This place has been scrubbed within an inch of its life.”
“I know, but there’s something under the dumpster,” she replied, giving it a shove. It didn’t budge. She pressed her shoulder against it and applied a bit more strength. Still, nothing. “What’d they put in here? Bricks?”
I moved over to her side and peered into the dumpster. Reaching in, I laid one hoof on a layer of concrete that was just under the top.
“It’s...a fake,” I muttered. “They’ve got a take-away service for their garbage so they can make it look like even their dumpsters are spotless. If they were really this clean, though, they’d have an issue with vagrants sleeping in them. They’ve filled the damn thing in with plaster. I hate Uptown…”
“Mmm, no wonder my family insisted on staying here,” Edina commented, fluffing her wings out. “Derida loves her pomp and circumstance. If she had her way, the Tokan would be using their positions as the Blood Bank to control all of the griffin tribes within a thousand miles.”
“Aye, moi aunt loves her shine, she does,” Sykes concurred.
“Sykes. Grimble. Gimme a hoof...err...claw...here,” I directed them, pressing my shoulder against the dumpster. The two griffins lined up beside me and, together, we heaved against it with all of our might. Being an Earth pony has certain physical advantages, but even accounting for those, I was nothing like strong enough to heave the concrete-filled dumpster out of the way. Still, between the three of us, we managed to shove it inch by inch away from the wall.
Taxi jammed her hoof into the hole and fished around behind the dumpster, then yanked something on a shiny chain out and held it up. It glittered in the light from the street lamps.
I leaned forward a little to get a good look. “Is that...a vial of…”
“My blood!” Edina squeaked. She darted forward and snatching the amulet from Taxi, holding it up to the light. The amulet was a pretty thing, shaped like an anatomically correct heart of crystal and metal constructed by a skilled jeweler. It was half the size of my hoof, but seemed designed to lay flat. A little rubber button or stopper capped the top.
“Wait...that’s your...blood?” I stammered.
Grimble leaned down and peered at the amulet. “Aye, that be the blood of a Tokan Royal.” Reaching up to his throat, he rustled his feathers a little and pulled out a similar amulet in the shape of a halberd, very similar to his axe. The ‘handle’ was clear and full of red liquid. “How ye blood come to be here, wonders Oi?”
Edina looked a bit mystified herself. She shook her head and held up the chain, peering at it this way and that. “I’ve no idea. The bird and the cat don’t tend to talk to me, except to scream. I spent most of the last few months in this lovely dream of the highlands.”
I shut my eyes for a moment, then let out a breath. It wasn’t a great leap of deductive reasoning to figure out why Edina’s blood was in the alley.
“This...be what ye ponies call a ‘set up’, aye?” Grimble asked, carefully. “We foinds a Tokan Royal’s blood here, wi’ no Tokan willin’ to claim it…”
“-because they think Edina is mad as a March hare,” Taxi murmured.
“That’s really cute,” I growled. “Incredibly hamfisted, for these characters we’ve been dealing with, but cute. Someone really wanted a rumble between the Hitlan and the Tokan. I don’t know if this was the best way to go about it mind you. It also leaves the question of why the Tokan closed the books...”
I glanced sideways at Swift, who was looking a little pensive. “Sir...um...can I ask something?”
“Yeah?”
“What if that zebra herbal whatever it is...erm…” she scratched her mane a little. “What if it was the same stuff they injected Ruby Blue and Cerise with?”
“Uhh...it…huh.” My brain took a full minute to sort the implications of that possibility. “Wouldn’t it have...killed Grimble if they injected him with it?”
The giant war-maker snorted. “Poisons? Boyo, no poisons works on griffin flesh!”
“He’s right!” Taxi exclaimed. “If what I watched Edina do to that Beam is any indication, he’d have metabolized it in a few hours!”
Swift shook one feathertip at the dumpster. “What if...I mean, what if we found Grimble Shanks dead here, full of that poison, with a Tokan Royal’s symbol of office and a needle in him?”
My mouth felt very suddenly dry. “Yikes, kid, you gotta stop asking those questions. The Hitlan would probably believe the Tokan had killed their Egg. They’re off the embassy grounds, so the D.P.D. would have to investigate. They’d find the poison in his system and link it up to the death of Ruby Blue-”
“-and then we’d have the Tokan accused of both a griffin and a pony murder,” Taxi finished, looking momentarily sick to herself.
Sykes heaved a great sigh and sat, folding his claws over his chest. “Moi kin would foight the D.P.D. investigation. Griffins don’t loike no other species messin’ about in our business.”
“Wi’ me dead...moi war-makers ‘ave no-one to tell’em not to take the Tokan soide of this Hotel,” Shanks said, quietly. “It’d ‘ave been a suproise attack, too.”
“It’s worse,” Edina muttered, pulling her wings in tight against herself. “My father wouldn’t approve it, but he’s not here. With the Blood Bank under threat, Derida could supercede his authority. She could...she would use blood magic against the Hitlan.”
“Using blood magic on Equestrian soil would require the P.A.C.T. to intervene,” Taxi added. “Without Princess Celestia to keep tensions calm, they couldn’t let this spill into the streets.”
Grimble Shanks had a deeply disturbed expression on his face. “If ye army uses dragon-killer guns near our eggs under whoite-flag toimes-”
I screwed my eyes shut. “-we could end up in a war with the Hitlan, too,” I finished. I clapped my hooves to the sides of my head as the implications sank in. “I take back anything I said about this being hamfisted. This was one wrinkle short of a masterwork.”
“Aye, cobber,” Shanks rumbled. “What point, though? Ye ponies earn nothin’ makin’ war wi’ griffs.”
I gave my mane a shake, trying to get my brain back on track. It was quite the difficult thing to do. “The ponies I’m hunting seem to be intent on burning this city to the ground. I don’t know why, yet, but I’m going to find out. I need you to keep the Hitlan from setting fire to this powder keg.”
Sykes, Edina, and Shanks all looked back and forth at one another.
It was Edina who finally shared whatever mutual thought they’d been having.
“Detective...we have another problem.”
“Nooo, no we don’t have another problem,” I snapped, turning and banging my head against the brick wall hard enough that I felt momentarily dizzy. “Please, I can’t take an additional bomb in the middle of this insane mess!”
She hesitated, her snowy wings dangling so that the tips of her feathers dragged the pavement. “I haven’t been around for almost five years. I don’t have the power to override my aunt’s decision to close the Blood Bank. Every griffin within five hundred miles who isn’t fighting will be coming here to find out why their accounts are suddenly closed. Unless we find Grimble’s blood and whoever took it, we’re at war anyway, unless we can open the Blood Bank. We might not be at war with the Hitlan, but those other tribes are practically guaranteed to be less self-restrained. They’ll take sides. They’ll call in old favors.”
“Which means the Hitlan will have to pick sides,” Taxi said, worriedly.
Edina nodded her agreement. “Grimble’s father hasn’t sent orders yet because it takes time to talk to the homeland and Sykes tells me one of the first things this stupid band of dragons set fire to was our telephone lines, but messengers are flying out that way right now. There will be griffins who will want to take advantage of the closure of the Blood Bank to settle old grudges for which they could not pay. Many of them will be coming here. They’ll find their old enemies here.”
I slammed my hoof against the wall. Kicking this wall was surprisingly therapeutic. I kinda wanted to cut it down and take it home with me.
“Arg...so we’ve got to open the Blood Bank...essentially now?! Before orders get back?!”
“Eh...um...yes,” she replied.
I glanced at Grimble Shanks. “Can’t we just...put a hold on any murdering for a couple of days?” I asked.
“Oi love me brudder, and Oi honor the office of High Justice, but there be no magic in this world that changes moi sire’s moind. If Hitlan blood be spilled, Oi must think of me troibe. Oi must secure the eggs, the treasury, and...if Oi can foind it...the ledgers of the Blood Bank. I’ll give ye the day, but if the order comes, Oi must obey, unless the situation be changed in a way Oi can report to me tribe-lord. Foind why the Blood Bank be closed, or the griffins be goin’ to war.”
I’m in my mid-thirties. A pony of my age has access to a spectacular repertoire of foul language. Myself, more than most. Taxi can cuss a person out in at least three languages I know of. Juniper could make a criminal stop dead in their tracks and throw themselves at his hooves, begging forgiveness if he’d just stop making snide comments about their choice of clothing.
It’s a sign of how bad the situation had become that the only pejoratives I could think of just then were:
“Oh...ponyfeathers.”
****
There’s never been a more awkward elevator ride in the whole of Equine history.
Seven beings, some of them quite large, mashed into an elevator by a door-pony who had the haggard look of a person who’d never been tipped enough in his life.
On the fourth floor, we had to disembark and switch elevators. None of us felt much like conversing. Screaming and hiding, yes. Conversing, not so much.
How’d I gotten myself into this? Ambassadorial work was the purview of royals.
Granted, I wasn’t going in as an ambassador. If Edina was to be believed, I was going in to ask questions. I’m good at asking questions. Taxi would say that any question to which gunfire is the answer is a bad question, but those kinds of answers do give me the opportunity to retort in similar fashion.
Taxi was by my side to the end and Swift had what I could only describe as ‘loyalty issues’. Namely, she was too loyal for her own good. True, we climbed out of Supermax. Were it not for the body-count, I’d have called that a win.
****
The elevator doors dinged on the top floor. The door-pony, a pretty mare in the same ridiculous red vest and circular hat as the desk clerk, bowed and held out her hat. Taxi dropped a couple bits in it and she bowed again as the doors opened for us.
Ahhh, the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
Thick carpets. Gold and marble everything. Red velvet for a dash of drama, with comforting greens strategically placed for a sense of security. The smell of velour and fresh flowers.
I half expected a grand approach with a sweet little mare in a cocktail dress to greet us with margaritas and a butler holding warm tea towels.
If only.
As it turns out, occupancy by two bands of griffins can do a number on the grandeur of event the most opulent of residences. Whereas hooves tend to leave - at worst - scuff-marks, griffins are in the habit of wearing all manner of sharp jewelry on their claws. Claws being what they are, they’re not gentle on the carpets. Nor are they gentle on the tapestries, or the walls, or the furniture.
A wooden table lay broken against the wall across from the elevator doors. It looked like someone had landed on it with considerable force. A vase with some slightly wilted flowers in it had been hastily set upright in the wreckage and was surrounded by a spreading puddle. The two suites were at opposite ends of the long hall, each one taking up one entire half of the top of the floor.
Two griffins in full battle regalia stood on either side of the elevator door. The one on the left might as well have been a slightly smaller carbon copy of Grimble Shanks, scarred and heavily muscled, with plaid kilt and monstrous war-axe propped leisurely across his neck. He acknowledged Shanks with a tilt of his head and didn’t seem the least bit interested in the rest of us.
The other griffin was a strange looking character. He was only a head taller than I was, and his pale mane of white feathers looked preened within an inch of its life. His combat vest was similar to his companion’s, but with the addition of a tie and black fedora. Some sort of shiny, straight blade was tucked under each wing and what looked like an especially ornate checkbook dangled from a golden chain around his neck alongside another of those heart-shaped blood containers.
His eyes quickly scanned over us, coming to a stop on my face before dropping to my side. As he caught sight of Edina, comprehension blossomed on his features and he took an involuntary step to one side.
“Oh sweet Egg and sky! Lady Edina!” he gasped. His voice was a few octaves short of masculine and nothing at all like I tend to expect from a battle hardened griffin. “No-one told us you were coming!”
“Bernard,” she replied, strutting out of the elevator with the air of a princess, or possibly an especially dangerous dominatrix.
“I mean...My Lady, I am so glad you are back! I...I must inform your step-mother-” the guard started to say, but Edina locked him with a furious look that rooted him to the spot. His front knees were shaking as she approached, stepping up close and jamming her beak into his face. He glanced sideways at his companion, but the Hitlan guard was aggressively ignoring his fellow’s distress.
“Bernard,” Edina said, with quiet menace in her tone. “I’m going to ask you a question and...I do want you to answer it for me.”
“Y-yes, Lady Edina?” he choked out.
“Do you like being male?”
Bernard couldn’t take his eyes off his superior as he slowly nodded.
Unlooping the rope from around her neck, Edina flicked it out on the carpet and gave it a light snap.
“Would you like to continue being male?”
He nodded so hard I thought he might pass out.
“Then you aren’t going to be informing my stepmother I’m here just yet,” she purred. “Clear?”
His beak chattered as he backed up against the wall. “B-begging pardon, my lady, but Lady Derida will have my bits if I don’t.”
“I wouldn’t let her geld you, Bernard,” she giggled. It wasn’t the giggle of a completely sane being. I couldn’t tell how much of that was an act. “Believe me. You’ve kissed my family’s flanks since you dodged war service to stand outside my nursery room. A sycophant who can breed little sycophants will always have a place when it comes time for me to take my aunt’s place as head of this household.”
Bernard stepped back into place beside the door, his eyes still darting nervously towards Edina, then the rest of us. He hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Again, your pardons begged, Lady, but...are you alright?”
Edina begin re-looping her makeshift whip. “Are you referring to my health or to my company?”
His gaze had already taken in the sheer weight of armament our party was carrying, but it was when it stopped on me again, that I got the sensation he wanted to bolt.
“Erm...Both.”
“I am fine, for now,” she replied, gesturing for us to get out of the elevator. She turned to Grimble Shanks. “Shanks, order your guard to go downstairs and take Bernard here with him. I think it best they both get extremely drunk.”
He gave her a puzzled look as the Hitlan guard shifted from talon to talon.
“Oi moight. Why?”
“I don’t want ears on what I have to say to our friends,” she said, gesturing at me. “Your people’s ears or mine.”
Shanks gave her an offended scowl. “Oi trusts any Hitlan!”
“But I don’t,” Edina hissed, flapping her wings and lifting off until she was on the same height with Grimble. “I’m helping you, remember? I want a clear line of retreat if we need to scarper. That and...Bernard is probably best watched. He is loyal to whoever holds power. At the moment, that is my stepmother.”
The big griffin war-maker gave Bernard a look of disgust and the smaller griffin quailed, crouching low to the floor with one claw on that funny book on a chain.
“Do ye thinks that be necessary? Derida be power mad, but even she wouldn’t have done wi’ ye just loike that, roight?”
Edina bunched her eyebrows together, meaningfully, and she jerked her head at the guards. Frowning, Grimble snapped a claw. The Hitlan guard grinned and snatched Bernard around the neck and dragged him into the elevator.
Once we were alone, Sykes said, “She were ready to have done wi’ me when Oi showed up. Ye talked to her much, besoides to yell and be thrown out the Tokan embassy?”
“Eh...well-” Shanks scratched at the feathers on the back of his head, self-consciously. “-no...”
Edina shook her head and added, “Father was almost to the age of doddering when I left. I don’t know what changes my aunt has made to the court. If she hasn’t attempted a board of directors vote to shift the guardianship of the family to her bloodline, it’s because she hasn’t been in the right political position to do it. That might have changed with Father at the plateaus. If it has, even appointing a High Justice might not save us.”
“Ach, lass, ye must be tellin’ us these things sooner!” Sykes groaned, sweeping his tufted tail around his ankles.
“I’m telling you now!” she snapped, then turned to me and gave me a firm poke. “Detective, when you ask your questions, keep them brief and to the point. Whatever you do, you must keep in mind one thing. It is vital to your survival.”
I perked an ear. “I’m listening.”
Edina pressed one claw against my chest, digging it in lightly for emphasis. “Whatever she does and whatever she says, you must remember; my stepmother is not insane...and she never lies.”
“Wait a second. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Swift asked.
“Kid, we’ve watched ponies who were out of their minds almost tear this city apart,” I replied, twirling my hoof in the air to indicate our little group. “You wanna underestimate someone who isn’t and might try to kill us anyway? And never lying? Saussurea told us the absolute truth. Maybe not all of it, but enough, and not one word that wasn’t true.”
“Oh...um...right. Eesh...”
“Either way, Edina, you’re with us, right? I need you behind me. Sykes and Grimble are going to have to wait outside.”
“Now just a damn minute, boyo!”
“Oi! Loike Tartarus Oi am!”
I held up my hooves for silence. “You two are going to wait, because if I can go in here and not have Derida try to kill me, I’d like to go that route first.”
The brothers looked extremely unhappy at the notion of letting an ally go into enemy territory unattended, but I was in no mood to argue. It was odd how two so different creatures could somehow also be so similar. Sykes wasn’t a coward, but nor was he the bravest cop I’d ever met. Shanks seemed to live and breathe bravery. Still, neither wanted to let me walk into the lion’s den alone.
I smoothed the collar of my coat and started back towards the elevator. “Look, I can happily go back down to the bar, wipe my face off, and get a drink. You two want to make this a blood bath, you’ll do it without me.”
Sykes and Grimble exchanged a glance, then Shanks reached out and snatched at my tail, catching it in his claw. I glared at his talons until he released them.
Finally, the larger of the two took a step back. “Foine, cobber. Oi shan’t stop ye, but Oi know these Tokan. Excepting present company, they be a slippery bunch,” Grimble said, tipping his head towards Edina.
I trotted back and snatched up Edina, throwing one leg around her neck and the other around Swift’s, pulling them against my side. “Well, I’m not going in alone!”
The brothers looked a bit dubious as Edina, with all the dignity she could muster, extracted herself from my leg.
Turning to the set of double doors at the far end of the hall, I studied the icons woven into the tapestries draped over them that I assumed were something important to the Tokan. One did look very slightly like the emblem Edina had painted on my face, if you stood back a bit and squinted.
“Alright, what is the protocol on entering this embassy?” I asked.
Edina clicked her tongue and replied, “Don’t wander in looking like something griffins have been known to eat. Don’t go in looking to disrupt internal politics. Don’t stumble about heavily armed and start making demands. Don’t stick your muzzle where it doesn’t belong. Don’t start trouble.”
I winced as my brain seized. I threw up my hooves.
“Well, that’s plan A out the window, then. On to plan B.”
Taxi shut her eyes and asked, with great trepidation, “What’s plan B?”
“It’s the same as plan A, except you have permission to cause an international incident if things start to go badly.”
I marched down to the door and paused with one hoof resting on it. After a moment, I heard the sound of claws on carpet, then hooves as my companions followed me, once again, into the dark.
****
I opened the door of the suite and stepped carefully inside. The little foyer was barely more than a coat closet, but there was another of those strange guards, this one with a bowler hat on. He sat beside the door leisurely sipping something from a snifter that smelled like fuel oil and clutching a book of poetry between two claws. Glancing up as I opened the door, he jerked his head over his shoulder then he went back to his book.
“Room service? Good, good. I was wondering when you’d get here. We need fresh towels in the baths and there’s a spill in the kitchenette that could use doing away with.”
Edina strutted in beside me and glared at the guard until he lowered his book again. When his eyes settled on the little griffin, he very nearly fainted. Scrambling out of his chair, he set it to one side and saluted with one claw, then the other, knocking his bowler hat on the carpet behind himself.
“Lady Edina! Oi didn’t see ye...Oi mean...I didn’t see you there!” he gasped.
“I see my stepmother hasn’t been keeping up regular guard drills,” she grumbled. “Not surprising, since she spends half her time in Manehattan, trying on those silly pony costumes. Granted, I don’t doubt father kept all of our competent fighters in the highlands.” Taking a deep breath, Edina addressed the guard. “Fauntleroy, where is my stepmother?”
The guard, Fauntleroy, frowned down at her. “I...I’m under instructions to allow no-one into the tribe-hall, Lady Edina.”
“No, you’re under instructions to get permission to let someone into the tribe-hall. That means to deliver a warning to Derida that I’m coming with the High Justice,” she growled. “This is my tribe, too, you ridiculous old coot. She’ll want us to wait a half hour while she throws on her make-up and composes some convincing story to put me off. I know my stepmother’s ways.”
Fauntleroy’s beak sagged open and he took a step back as he finally realized what was painted on my cheeks. “Wait...did you say... H-High Justice? You made a pony the High Justice?!”
“Hey,” I snapped. “High Justice here. A little respect, please.”
The guard scowled at me, momentarily, then turned his attention back to Edina. “Please, you must understand...things have been very tense since Lady Derida closed access to the Blood Bank. Your father’s position is very weak. He’s old and most of his allies are with him at the plateaus. Your stepmother wishes to issue the Hitlan an ultimatum with our blood magic and bring them to heel before they can attack us, then clean up the external political situation later, once we have their warriors at our beck and call. Bringing a High Justice here, pony or not, might be just the thing she needs to convince the Council of Lymphatic Accounting to vote against his wishes that we remain neutral...”
“Why would Derida put herself in this position in the first place? Shutting off access sounds like an obscenely risky play, even for the most ambitious player,” I asked, edging in a little closer.
“You wouldn’t understand, pony,” he sniffed. “Be glad I am bound by the accords of Justice, or I would see you thrown out a window simply for setting hoof in our embassy uninvited!”
“That’s flapper speak for ‘I don’t know’,” I replied, letting out a long-suffering breath. “I see there’s a lack of communication here. Edina, what was it you said about castrating Bernard? I’m thinking we might need to actually give it a go with this gent.”
Fauntleroy’s beak twitched at the word ‘castrate’, leaving me wondering a little about how serious Edina had been in that threat, and whether it was the first time she'd made it.
“Pony, whether or not you are intelligent enough to realize it, I am looking out for your wellbeing as well. You need to leave. Both of you.”
“Believe me, my wellbeing is paramount in my mind, but this crap on my face means I’m entitled to ask questions and if I don’t ask the right ones, my best friend ends up saddled with this job,” I said, tapping my jaw to indicate the symbols on my face. “The individual with the answers I’m looking for is Derida. You’re between me and her.”
“Lady Edina, would you please explain to this pony-” he started with that haughty tone of voice that just screams ‘please interrupt me with pain’. I was only too happy to oblige.
“Taxi? Swift?” I stepped to one side so my driver and partner could squeeze through. Swift grinned at the griffin and his eyes fixed on her frightening canines. “I want a few warm feathers to line my trenchcoat. His look nice.”
The guard took a second to realize violence had ensued and, rather than pulling his sword, he made to snatch for his jeweled checkbook. He didn’t even have time to get his claws around it before Taxi took a flying leap onto his head, pinning it to the ground between her rear legs. Swift leapt onto his back and took one wing in her sharp teeth, using her free hoof to gently press at the joint. He didn’t even have time to squawk as his rear legs scraped at the carpet.
Trotting over to the guard, I leaned down, just out of range of his beak. The one eye that wasn’t pressed against the floor by my driver’s plot rolled back and he tried to say something. Taxi gave his head a light squeeze with her thighs.
“You got him, Sweets?” I asked, grinning.
“We’ve got him,” Taxi giggled, giving Swift a high hoof. My partner kept her teeth firmly around that wing, ready to do horrible, carnivorous things to it the guard proved uncooperative.
“Now then, Mister...Fauntleroy. My driver has been known to have congress with minotaurs. Unless you want to find out whether or not she can crack your skull from this position, I heartily suggest you ramp down the pompousness.”
The guard let out a sound something like a strangled sob and Swift’s jaw tightened.
“I’ll take whatever you just whimpered as total submission. Excellent. Now that we’ve established a more respectful relationship, I think it’s time we work on our communication skills. Namely, me communicating with Derida, right now. Where is she?”
He made another squeaky noise and I waved at my driver to move her backside enough that he could speak.
“I-In the jacuzzi. Two halls down, on your l-left!” he gasped.
“Good! Taxi, brain him and lets go see the goose holding his leash.”
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Hehehe! A lovely update, and oooh, i sorta feel bad for many of these guys. I mean sure, they're well, suck ups, but dang, do they get emasculated something fierce.
5942709 Well, that one griffin got to be between Taxi's legs. Granted, she was in 'skull crushing' position, but...whatever.
-Chessie
5942735 Given taxi... well.. minimum safe distance is something very much in demand here. What that distance is, out of the country begins to get a good rough start.
God I love this story, it never gets stagnant and always finds a way to make me think ".... well damn." Thank you again for bringing us all another great chapter to this awesome story.
Wow. Such a headlong gallop of a story
Holy crap. They really dodged a bullet there, but they're still on extremely limited time.
Crazy how closely-related all these incidents are getting.
Now to see what the power-mad griffin is up to. Imagining interruption featuring a face-mask and cucumber slices. Calling it: she has a relation to the lawyer firm. Apparently everything does.
Do ponies have toes to stub? I guess the hoof technically counts as a single toe, but I'm not sure on the general toe-ness of hooves and how stubbable they are.
Really well tought out plot, and very well written. And I really like your worldbuilding. Vendetta blood bank griffons armed with katanas and death notes. Awesome!
5943194
Technically, the hoof surrounds the toe on equines, but it's the same effective bit- as much as you whacking your shoe against something unyielding would stub yours.
5943306 We actually just made it up as we went along. Seriously, the 'thinking' is mostly just making connections. I've frequently felt like this is WAAAY out of my control.
-Chessie
5944038 I know that feeling, especially when drawing pictures - lines go that way, associations turn it that way, background fluff grows from the images like trees from seeds - but it really takes ingenuity and talent to then weave it all into one complete story instead to three half-finished different ones.
5944132 Aye, it's true. I have been amazed, week by week, at how this all became interconnected. We had lots of ideas, but it all really started as a sort of world building effort. I knew I wanted *something* with the griffins, but I had no idea what.
-Chessie
Im curious as to how the Gryphons tie into this, and I cant wait to figure out the reasoning as to why this party wants to bring Detrot to the ground. This was an interesting chapter and I like Edina's character now that shes temporarily sane. I do believe Hardy may have missed a clue. Why would the guard go for the checkbook instead of his weapon when taxi went to get him. Ne thinks their may be some clues in there.
5944602
I'm think it was more like a different kind of weapon. Remember that the Tokan run the blood Bank and have been confirmed to use blood Magic. Though I'm not sure what he could have done against ponies, I am sure that it would be something that they didn't like.
Now for everyone else, I just had a very nasty thought. We still don't know how they got hold of Edina's Blood, but it had to have come from somewhere, and it looks like Grimble was almost poisoned with Zebra alchemy, which again had to come from somewhere. Now given the Firms stellar record of corrupting people and for causing betrayal, we do know of one Zebra which would have easy access to the Blood, not sure about the alchemy though. I don't think it's true, and I really hope it isn't as well, but I'm starting to get worried about Mistress Zeta. She would have had easy means and opportunity, and I'm sure the Firm could have easily supplied a motive. Time will have to tell.
Now it's time to look forward to a more normal scene of enjoyment, family feuds with the real possibility of violence. Starting to wonder if Swift will ever get the chance to try out her new toy.
5942901 I don't know that I can ever call 600,000, verging on 700,000 words in length a 'headlong gallop', but apparently people seem to feel this story is fast-paced somehow.
-Chessie
Act 2, Chapter 48: "Shotgun Diplomacy"- well I can think of a few things but ill just go with "Fuck it, we will just see what happens"
The plot thickens yet more!
Somebody wants that city gone and it involves a lot of people who have had a lot of time...
A storm is coming...
Yeeeeeeeeessssssssss
Have we considered the possibility that Sykes is bent? He fed Swift her first bite of 'foine Griffin cuisine', he claims not to remember calling Hardy down here, Swift's lightning cannon was targeting him until Hardy poked it...
IDK, I hope he's not, Hardy has few enough friends as it is, but it's a vibe I keep getting the last couple chapters.
I am starting to think Hardy is LIKING using violence more then ever before. He just pulled a mob boss by 'sic'ing taxi and swift on that griffon. Also I would agree with Sykes being possibly crooked but we currently dont know just WHAT THE BUCK the "HAILSTORM" can actually do. For all we know it could just be an overly developed snowcone maker that detects beings who need some cheering up
5953563 Hardy is at a point where I think his desire not to use violence is being superseded by his desire to actually accomplish things in a timely manner.
-Chessie
(0:16)
5944038
Speaking of connections, when they have to deal with the SCs and the weird magic bullshit happening throughout the city, I fully expect a "Sie Sind Das Esseys" chapter title.
5953676 he is operating outside of parameters, least compared to the time he didn't have a shapehsifting fiend's severed organ keeping him alive.
This reminds me of a quote from Heinlein's Lazarus Long:
"Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best. "
All she needs now is a hoodie and some fuzzy striped socks on her hind paws. Mental psychosis and Superfund never looked so cute.
I hope that pony maintaining the shield grid Hardy was musing about earlier is OK. She has one bad day, or sneezes, or gets up to go to the loo and suddenly all ponies the wrong shade of chartreuse find themselves in a ballistic arc Team Rocket style...
If not, I would imagine there would be stacks of bits to be made back at the Vivarium. International, inter-tribal diplomacy in it's truest form: two groups f
ing each other in Realpolitik and literal sense...
Hardy, Hardy, Hardy...
You are quite remiss in your Griffon slang. With Sykes as your best mate, you of all ponies should know that the proper term is "bell-end" and that is is best applied after passing out on the sofa after an all-night bender that comes dangerously close to depressing the levels of blood in your alcohol system to the point of pickling your liver.
Applying the Traditional Griffin Wake-Up Call shortly thereafter is optional...
Whoah...
Has it really been that long?
I know there was a bit of a gap while Hardy, Gale, and Slip Stitch's ice cream stash got acquainted in the morgue, but I did not realise that much time had elapsed...
Surely you meant "bowels"? Or have the Tokan and Hitlan started using the hotels flower vases and china as chamber pots? Either way, eeeeww!
Or for ultimate snobbery, turning them into a sort of rentable tenements
Flashbacks to Swift's first meeting with Sykes. I guess she's a natural-born Griffin-Pony ambassador...
Horrible things.. Carnivorous things... Tasty things involving spicy Teriyaki and honey mustard sauce and herb seasoned panko....
5942735
I am sure there are plenty of ponies/griffins/dogs/minotaurs patrons of the Mud Pie who would pay stacks of bits for such an experience...
5948936
I was wondering that myself...
5943155
Or finding that they have torn out one of the penthouse rooms and filled it with dirt for a royal dust bath...
5945193
Heh heh
I am now imagining this barmy picture where young, male griffins are fetishising their weaponised cheques with long, interminable, armchair analysis of various paper weights (80gsm? Spit-balls! Clearly 120gsm has far superior enchanting power!), the thaumoturgical merits of black versus blue ink, the legality of the fully automatic signature ban of '37, and general wankery over "tactical" cheque-books with spare pen holders, 3-point quick-write carrying lanyards, and "tactical grade" carbons...
Do you ever go back and add clues, or have you been leading up to different things the entire time? I ask as someone who's been rereading Freon the beginning.
5964903 To be honest, the clues actually assemble *themselves*. It's got to be understood that my actual participation in this story has been minimal. The characters are moving largely without my input much of the time and I just sorta give them a nudge or set something on fire, then watch'em go.
-Chessie
5965279 I mean, there's stuff scattered all through it, if you look properly. Like how there's someone with a staff at the murder scene of Ruby Blue. Little hints all over.
5965316 Well...yes and no.
Without spoiling anything, a number of the characters that later became 'plot important' were made up for the chapter they were introduced. Edina certainly was. I didn't know she had ANY connection with the griffins who'd shown up in the second chapter radio broadcast until well after she'd come into the story. In fact, we didn't know she was part of this mess until chapter before last. Up to that point, she'd just been an interesting one-off.
-Chessie
I just realized! hardboiled has not given much note it seems to his family firearm being the and I am not joking when I say this. LITERAL HOOF OF DEATH!
This weapon was used by an assassin to Kill dragons.... yeah I am still having trouble letting this sink in... So This awesome detective is a great grandson of a wartime assassin?
This story just got....... 20% COOLER!
Also come clean! Edina was a one off till you saw how much us fans fell in love with the crazy little featherhead!
As I reread the chapter I heard the theme to the sopranos playing in my head thinking of how far hardboiled has come.
5972120 It's true. I've had several characters I only brought back because the fans like them. I've altered the story a few times just to get a character some screen time. Edina was adorably horrible, and I like her crazy.
-Chessie
5967686 So were all the various clues there, or did you go back and add them as they became relevant? I won't be offended.
5976599 Surprisingly enough, all the various clues were there. I didn't have to add any of them. Characters just kinda...came into being which fit them.
-Chessie
5978027 That is kind of awesome.
You know, you should publish. Everyone here would buy them, and you have several good breaking points in the series. You could make a handful of books out of this, be a book series.
5983634 Heh, I promised myself I wouldn't publish this one, actually. This is for free, for the world. The NEXT book will be published for money. This one is just to learn to write. I was a rubbish writer when this started and I think I might only be middlin' to decent by now. I've improved considerably, but I want to finish something where I can make as many mistakes as I like before I start trying to make money.
-chessie
And thus the princess was blamed for causing an ambassador to commit suicide.
5986557 Kasen's sense of humor is endlessly morbid, but it's one of the things I like about him.
-Chessie
I read the first few chapters with this soundtrack:
I felt completely immersed by your story telling. Great work!
5991460 Hah! There's a certain pleasing irony there.
The original idea for this story was conceived by Kasen during a weekend marathon play session of L.A. Noir during which he watched the entirety of My Little Pony:Friendship Is Magic while playing. He came to me with the idea of this pony detective standing in an alleyway over a dead girl.
That became Hard Boiled and Ruby Blue.
-Chessie
5992501 Wow, ideas certainly do come to us in the strangest of ways.
5983873 But we all love it so much.. It's pretty much perfect, except for your early misuse of "lead" as its own past tense. ( It's "led" in past tense."
5998942 I got over that, dammit!...ugh. Seriously, though, going back and reading that early stuff is embarrassing.
-Chessie
6000871 Seriously, though, it's genius, at least separate it into books and make them an epub series.
6002456 That's the hope, once it's finished.
-Chessie
6003623 Without being incredibly ride, would I be correct in noticing that your update schedule became a little disjointed?
6008071 Sadly, yes. There SHOULD be a chapter coming today or tomorrow.
-Chessie
5992501 lol. there are far stranger origin stories.
5991460
Heh...
I guess that is quite apropos given what 5992501 said about this story's origin. That OST certainly creates the appropriate atmosphere.
Me? I was reading about our plucky heroes' excursion to Monte Cheval while Significant Other was listening to Drip Fed Fred by Madness. King Cosmo and Ian Drury are now inextricably linked in my mind.
6010226
I await that with baited breath.
(Literally; I just had a late-night snack of smoked kippers and onions, much to the olfactory dismay of everyone in smelling distance.)
6014125 Heh... you don't say. Life works in mysterious ways.