Act 3 Chapter 2: Best Laid Plans Of Stallions And Hamsters
Starlight Over Detrot.
Act 3, Chapter 2 Best Laid Plans Of Stallions And Hamsters
It is considered a cause for much celebration among ponies that there have been few calls in Equestrian history to make use of the Royal Guard against ponies themselves. This is in stark contrast to griffin civilization, which has required their the army be called to a number of family reunions. For the most part, being a herd species and tending towards collectivization rather than internal strife, ponies would rather settle their serious disagreements with a pie fight than swords or guns.
That said, the conflict later known as the Cutie-Mark Crusades taught ponies many hard lessons, not the least of them ‘Walk loudly and carry a stick you can beat the world to death with’.
For most of the last century, the stick of choice has been the Royal Guard. Most cities have at least a tiny guard presence alongside their own enforcement efforts. Stalliongrad has the Spurtsnas, special operations units. Trottingham has the Commando herds, most notably the Dirty Baker’s Dozen. Detrot has the Royal Detachment.
While each operates independently based upon the needs of the local populace, they all may call upon the Guard proper should ever a real problem arise. From there, a mighty force may swoop in from Canterlot and the border stations to enforce stability and save the locals from whatever horrible menace may have arisen (See Spontaneous Chicken Detonations of L.R. 34, The Sunflower Rebellion of B.L.R. 884)
The Royal Detachment is one of the smallest groups still technically attached to the Guard itself. They have fluctuated through the years from a massive force that controlled the mighty Summer Castle, to what eventually became an office on Pole Street. While the power of Miss Bandolier's coffee is never to be underestimated, she is a secretary and most major policing efforts in Detrot were long ago taken over by groups with more than a receptionist, an administrator, and just enough actual guards to keep the front door safe and sound (except on weekends or during tea-time, when it is stalwartly protected by an 'out to lunch' sign).
This suits most of those transferred to the post just fine. After all, Detrot is a city operating the most successful anti-mega-fauna brigade outside of Cloudsdale and Canterlot herself alongside one of the largest police departments in all of Equestria.
What possible situation might arise that they couldn’t handle?
-The Scholar
Today
****
“I don’t know why I bother having expectations. The world doesn’t often sync up with them and when it does, it’s never in ways I’m happy with. Finding Slip Stitch, the most immovable being I’d ever met, covered in frosting and tears was off my intellectual map and well into ‘Here there be dragons’ territory,” I said, staring at the stark, concrete ceiling of the Warehouse.
“Strange. He seemed so...unshakeable,” Cereus murmured. “Like some sort of wacky super-pony who never let anything get to him.”
“Yeah, well, he’s got more layers than a whole bushel of onions," I replied. "If he'd been any other pony, I'd have been inclined to get him drunk, but the thought of Stitch on alcohol frightens me."
****
One week ago
****
We stood there for a solid five minutes, me gently patting my friend’s back while he bawled like a teenager off a bad breakup before I carefully lead him back around to his chair. The balloons squeaked as I gently pushed him back into the seat, sitting myself beside him. He took my hoof in his and held it, eyes closed, until he seemed a little calmer.
“I’m no good with this ‘nurturing’ thing,” I said, trying a smile. He mirrored it, weakly, but it didn’t reach his bloodshot eyes.
Picking a kerchief decorated with cakes out of his pocket, he dabbed a bit of frosting off of his muzzle. “I know, Detective. Soon, I’ll smile and celebrate the dead. I just needed a moment. I had a number of friends in Canterlot and the party this will require to make things right may go on all year. I don’t have enough streamers or hats.”
I held up my hooves. “Stitch, I’m going to do what I can to figure out what happened to Canterlot. Celestia help me if I know how, but my partner seems to think whatever it was began here, in Detrot. In the meantime, I’ve got a friend upstairs.”
“Yes, a body—”
“Not a body. He’s alive.”
Stitch raised his eyes. “The living are not my area of expertise, Detective…”
“He’s as close to dead as one can get without being on his way. Apparently a fair number of other unicorns in town are, too. You heard that noise when the eclipse started?”
Slip Stitch lifted an eyebrow, a couple of his white curls rising to attention.
"I...did. That was a magical resonance. Every diagnostic tool in my laboratory went wild."
"Well, I need you to figure out what is wrong with Limerence—"
His expression didn't change, but a few more hairs flicked back into place. "That poor boy whose father we have? My, my, he really does have the worst of luck."
"I think that's just a side effect of following me around. Regardless, he and...well, lots of unicorns all across this city are in some kind of weird coma. It looks like magical burn out.”
All at once Stitch’s mane sprung up from his shoulders into its usual floofy profusion and he stood.
“Magical burn out, Detective? From a spell cast by someone else?” he asked, the fires of curiosity lighting in his eyes.
“That’s what it looks like. An acquaintance of mine gave him a once over, but it was nothing comprehensive.” I brushed the lapels of his labcoat back, straightened his name-tag, then picked up his kazoo from the desk and tucked it into his front pocket. “There’s only one pony in this city who knows unusual diseases and conditions like you do who I can guarantee wasn’t affected as well. I need you, Stitch. The city needs you. Equestria needs you.”
Despite the side of ham and eggs I gave that speech, Slip Stitch drew himself up, patted his pockets and a slow smile spread across his cheeks. “I do suppose, in those circumstances, that I could be convinced to have a look. Lead on.”
“Good stallion. Come on.”
****
Cereus held up his hoof for me to stop for a moment, then pointed at my forelegs.
Pausing, I noticed Mags was asleep. Her wings flopped out on either side of her body and she was gently kneading the air with her back legs as she snuggled up to my knees.
“Pardon me, but that doesn’t explain why you’re still carting this kid around,” Lace murmured, trotting back to her bed and retrieving her blanket. She returned after a minute and held it out. I took it and wrapped it around Mags, tucking it under her chin. “When you showed up here with her clinging to your head, I thought you’d lost your mind. Okay, well, I thought you’d lost more of your mind.”
“I’m getting to that. Am I getting my hat back this month?”
Sugar snickered at me. “If I don’t decide to eat it. Now make with the story, before I turn gray as you.”
****
I pushed open the door of the lobby and caught a glob of projectile ice-cream with my forehead. Stumbling sideways, I caught the edge of the elevator and began furiously scrabbling at my eyes as chilly dessert dribbled down my face.
“Oh...s-sorry, D-d-detective!” Thalassemia squeaked as I managed to clear my vision. The waiting room was a disaster, but I’d seen it worse on occasion.
Swift and Mags were hunkered down behind the reception desk with a whole carton of rocky road between them, both spattered in ice-cream, while Thalassemia crouched behind the bench where Limerence lay. My librarian had been used for cover during what was surely an epic food fight. A full scoop was quickly melting on his chest, while the hamster was covered in a thick layer of gooey treat that dripped off her whiskers.
Dipping my toe in the mess on my muzzle, I stuck it in my mouth.
“Mmm...somepony mind explaining what exactly is going on here,” I grumbled.
“T-that’s my fault, D-detective,” Thal murmured, rising from her spot behind the bench. “I n-n-needed something to t-take my mind off of what is g-going on so I didn’t start c-c-crying in front of...you know…” She wiggled her paw in Mags’ general direction, then ducked as the griffin chick pulled back her spoon and launched a shot just over her head.
“Yeah, I get it.” Taking a proffered paper towel from Slip Stitch, I wiped my face off. “Believe me, we’re all trying not to go crazy just now. Swift, how about you?”
“Gone crazy, Sir. Ask me again later,” Swift replied, giggling and digging out a spoonful of ice-cream to stuff in her mouth. Her expression was a tad manic as she lay back against the counter, chewing her snack. As an after thought she added, “You two wanna join, Sir? I have an extra couple of spoons and Thalassemia needs a team-mate. It’s not like we can stop any of the stuff out there anyway, right?”
“I’m not giving up hope yet. Lets call a cease-fire on the war, though.” I turned to the coroner. “Stitch? You’re up.”
Slip Stitch cast a conflicted look towards where Thalassemia crouched, and the bucket of double-mint fudge she’d positioned in easy reach, then let out a long suffering sigh and trotted towards where Limerence lay. “I suppose catastrophes must come before pleasure sometimes. Ah, well. Let us see the shape of this one, shall we?”
Thal edged over beside him, ready for orders. Plucking his assistant’s spoon out of her muzzle, he stuck it into the lump of ice-cream on my friend’s chest and downed a big bite before getting on to a general inspection, taking Lim’s pulse and prying open his eyelids to peer into his irises with a tiny pocket light.
I moved over to my partner and settled down between her and the brown griffin chick. I didn’t have to ask how Swift was doing. Now that the ice-cream battle was over, I could see her expression starting to falter. She was keeping up a brave face, but nopony who wears that mask holds out for long. It was the face of someone on the edge of a cliff, feeling the stones start to shift under their hooves. Worry had etched a few deep lines into her young forehead. She looked too old for somepony her age. Much, much too old.
Worst of all, she looked a bit like me.
I shoved those thoughts to one side and turned to Mags, who was happily burying her entire face in the vat of rocky road, seemingly oblivious to the moods of everypony around her.
“How you doin’, honey?” I asked.
She held up one talon, then tilted her head back to swallow in that unsettling way birds of prey have. “Mmm, sorry pony. My Daddy be teaching me not to talk with my beak full. It gets blood everywhere if the meat be fresh.”
I blanched as my brain assembled an altogether unappetizing image.
My tongue seemed to tie itself in a knot as I tried to figure out how to ask if she was minutes from climbing the walls and needing a straitjacket.
How do you ask a child a question like that?
“Ugh...Stitch, can I speak to you for a moment?”
Slip Stitch glanced at Mags, then at me. I could almost see his grey matter ticking as he put together the odd narrative that must have occurred for me to find myself in possession of a griffin verging on puberty. Tucking his little pen light away he held out his hoof towards the other end of the lobby and I trotted into the corner with him.
In a low voice I murmured, “Stitch, you’re good with kids, yeah?”
“That’s what my cutie-mark says, yes,” he replied, giving his hip a little shake.
I flipped my tail in Mags direction. “I...uh...this isn’t the time for this, but I don’t know what to do.”
“A situation that children will put you in frequently,” Stitch said, with a crooked smile. “If I may postulate?” I shrugged and indicated he should continue. “I hear this morning of an extremely violent action taking place at the Moonwalk Hotel and then you arrive here smelling of soap, guilt, and blood, with a female chick in tow. Griffins are extremely protective of their young, which would indicate the child’s parents either entrusted you with her care...or they are dead. You were there, yes? Tell me if I am off base?”
I scooted my rear legs under myself and grimaced. Stitch’s intuition was downright scary on his good days, and borderline omniscient on a day where it looked like the world might conceivably be coming to an end.
“You’re not. I can’t go into everything that happened, but...that girl’s father died this morning. I’ve got nowhere to put her and according to the laws of her tribe, I’m supposed to take care of her or my...erm...certain important bits of my anatomy might be forfeit...but she doesn’t even act like it happened. I’ve got nothing. She hasn’t said one word about it. I’ve had more demanding house plants.”
Slip Stitch slid his front hooves into the pockets of his lab coat and rocked back and forth.
“Hrm...Was her father’s death extremely violent and was she witness to it? And were you the first being she saw after that?”
I nodded, slowly.
Reaching out, he put his hoof on my shoulder and his normally soft eyes bored into mine with an intensity that almost made me draw back.
“Then, Detective...I can tell you what you must do if you want her to have any hope of avoiding damage so permanent it may
leave her incapable of interacting with the outside world.” I leaned in and he continued. “You must...under no circumstances...leave her with somepony else. Not until she cries.”
My eyebrows drew together. “This is me we’re talking about. I’ll be lucky to last the afternoon. Anypony around me is risking a bullet.”
Stitch let his hoof drop from my leg. “You asked for my advice. This is it. My talent is telling me that you mustn’t abandon her. Until she starts crying, you keep her with you. She may not cry for weeks, but if you tuck her away or leave her with someone before she begins to mourn, her mind is going to hide in a place deep, dark, and full of vipers.”
The way he said that made me shiver and I had the irrational urge to run over, snatch Mags up and hide with her somewhere. Let someone else be the hero.
Of course, I’d had those same impulses with Swift. Trying to shelter her hadn’t done either of us any good. She still had that slightly haggard look in her eye. Granted, she’d also had the worst first month on the job of anypony I’d ever met or heard of.
I opened my mouth to respond, when the front door of the Morgue exploded inward, followed by a spray of glass as something moving roughly the speed of sound shot into the room and embedded itself in the magically hardened concrete above and between my eartips. I kicked my trigger so hard I almost cracked my front teeth catching it. Grabbing Stitch with both forelegs, I rolled sideways, slinging him behind me into the wall. Swift grabbed Mags’ scruff in her teeth and blasted back behind the reception desk on a gust from her wings. She’d left the Hailstorm in the carriage, but the booth was a pretty safe place to be.
Thalassemia hadn’t moved, her eyes wide as she stared at the spot I’d just been standing. I gestured frantically for her to get down, but she just stood there like a deer in the headlight of an oncoming train, pointing at the wall.
I followed her finger up to the spot and it took me several seconds to figure out exactly what had managed to burrow into the concrete. When I did, I leaped backwards, tumbling over Stitch as he was getting back to his hooves, falling into a pile against a potted plant just inside the door.
“I-is that a...carrot peeler?” Thal asked, softly as Stitch and I struggled to right ourselves.
Pulling myself up, I helped the coroner to his hooves and took a deep breath. “Yeah, that’s a carrot peeler.”
The kitchen implement in question was buried halfway to the hilt, still glowing weakly with whatever magic had given it super-sonic speed. Stitch pulled a pair of joke spectacles with a funny nose and a huge bushy mustache out of his pocket, popped them on his nose, and carefully approached.
Swift was peering over the reception desk. I motioned for her to keep down as I scooted over to peer out at the parking lot; there didn’t seem to be anypony out there. It looked like our peeler had somehow delivered itself.
“Interesting. Most interesting. This is a strange modification of a ‘come-to-life’ spell,” Stitch muttered, reaching out. Before I could stop him, his toe brushed against the handle.
“Stitch, wait, that’s from—”
I was drowned out by the booming voice of a creature some ponies have been known to see in their nightmares; Police Chief Iris Jade. She was loud enough to shake the remaining glass in the door almost out of its hinges. I clapped my hooves over my ears, but I could still hear her clearly.
“Slip Stitch! This is Chief Jade! If Hard Boiled makes an appearance, give this to him, immediately!” There was a long pause, then the voice added, “You can tell him that I am not claiming his genitals today.”
My eardrums ached as I cautiously pulled my hooves away from the sides of my head.
Stitch hummed to himself as he peered at the carrot peeler, gingerly tugging it out of the wall.
“Detective, while I recognize your completely understandable reluctance, I believe...you have mail.”
****
“She sent you a carrot peeler?!” Sugar guffawed, rocking off the cot and trotting over to the bars. “Is that some kind of in-joke between the two of you or something?”
I shuddered from ears to tail-tip.
“Joke? No, I know jokes. Jokes are things that make a pony go ‘haha’. Ballistic, enchanted carrot peelers delivered by your boss are not ‘haha’ material. They’re the kind of thing where you wake up in a puddle of sweat the next time you try to sleep.”
The reporter snorted and pulled my hat off, holding it to her chest. I went to reach for it and she pulled it out of reach.
“You know I’m trained in police takedown techniques, right? I don’t want to have to use any of them to get my hat back.”
Sugar stuck her tongue out. “Come try it, big boy! I took eight years of Mare-Jitsu. I can bend you into pretzels!”
I glanced at Cereus and he shrugged. “I can gas her later if it’s a really big deal…”
“You can gas me anytime,” Sugar murmured, giving Cereus a dreamy eyed look.
If there’s such thing as a shudder-seizure, I had one just then. Every muscle in my back locked up for about five seconds as a violent fit of the shakes spread down my spine. Cereus had the good grace to blush, pulling one of his huge, veiny wings over his face. I recomposed myself and continued.
“At any rate, while I wasn’t inclined to take any gifts Chief Jade delivered by carrot peeler, she was also not the sort of pony to waste time on pranks.”
****
“Sir, how did Chief Jade know to find you here?” Swift asked.
I thought for a moment then said, “I doubt she did. I expect Stella and the Prince of Detrot are also going to be wanting to know why the Chief of Police is sending her messages via kitchen utensil.”
“Sooo...how do we find out what the message is?”
My muzzle was suddenly very dry. While I doubted Jade would do something permanent, I couldn’t really put it past her to enchant cutlery to carve information into my forehead.
Nothing for it. Reaching out, I rested my toe on the peeler as it lay across Stitch’s hooves.
The feeble glow intensified and it zipped into mid-air, dangling in front of me. It spun in a slow circle, as though studying me, then Chief Jade’s voice rang out at a volume usually associated with passing Wonderbolts.
“Hard Boiled! This is The Chief.” She paused for what I’m sure was ‘effect’. “Within forty minutes of the events in Canterlot, I received orders from Mayor Snifter’s Office. I’ve got a list of ponies, griffins, and ‘miscellaneous’ that I’m supposed to arrest on sight who may or may not know something about what’s happened in Canterlot.”
I tilted my head at the floating peeler.
‘Forty minutes?!’ I thought.
Before I had time to go further with that line of consideration, the Chief continued.
“You’re on that list, Hardy. You are being targeted as a ‘person of interest to the crown’, whatever that means. You’re the first name, your driver, as well as Officer Cuddles and, below them, a known member of the Archivists. The rest of the list is everything from known political dissidents to criminals to ponies I’ve never even heard of. I’m willing to bet every other agency is watching for you, PACT included. I can run interference until things calm down enough that I can pull resources from the pony-hunts back toward general peace-keeping efforts, but you need to be invisible. I need an asset I can count on to investigate independently. In the meantime...get out of the city.”
The carrot peeler flashed, then clattered to the floor at my hooves, its magic spent.
Silence owned the room as everypony gave me wide-eyed, frightened looks. Mags had even abandoned her bucket of ice-cream.
I turned towards where Limerence lay. Trotting over to him, I set my hoof on his chest, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest and the thump of his heart.
So many ponies. So many people relying on me. The griffins. The Aroyos. The Vivarium. The police. The dead Archivists, wherever they might be. Juniper. My friends.
I sat down, quietly examining the golden scales on my hip. They seemed so bright and perfect, just like the day I’d gotten them for bashing in my best friend’s father’s head with a bat. I’d listened to the dead and the living. I’d watched my city descend into darkness. I’d thought that little breakdown in the tub yesterday was somewhere in the vicinity of rock bottom only to find out within a matter of hours that someone had left an industrial digger beside my hole and a Canterlot-sized note that said ‘Keep Looking, Dumbass’.
“Ah...Detective?” Stitch started, nervously. “If I might ask—”
“No, Stitch,” I said, cutting him off without looking up. “Nobody gets to ask me anything right now. No, Swift, put your leg down. No, Thal, you’re sweet, but shut up. No, Limerence, you just lay there unconscious and useless. Yes, Mags, you can have some more ice cream.”
Happy munching, slurping noises followed for a few minutes as I meditated on the situation.
Forty minutes. That number stuck out in my head. Somepony, somewhere, had compiled a list of dangerous, interested individuals in less than forty minutes...or they’d had the list well before the activity in Canterlot. I couldn’t imagine using the disappearance of the Princesses as an excuse for a political coup, but there must have been someone out there willing to try something that mad.
Snifter had always been ambitious, corrupt, easily manipulated, and scandal ridden, but he’d never struck me as insane. That said, the list had come from his office. Either he or somepony with a long reach was willing to cast a very dangerous net to see me captured. That fit with everything else I knew about our opponents.
Mayor or not, he was playing with fire. Unfortunately, any sort of response was going to take me some time and there was nothing I could do at that given moment. However much I might hate it, Chief Jade was right. I needed to get out of the city and get the heat off. That and I needed a rest.
Damn.
My breath felt like I was inhaling a chest full of lead as I tried to get myself together.
“Swift,” I began, turning to my partner. She raised her chin into an approximation of attention.
“Sir?”
“Chief Jade has given me a warning. It’s about as fair a warning as I think a pony will get. That said, I’m about to give you one of the toughest orders you’ve ever undertaken. You listening?”
I’d expected her usual immediate ‘ten-hut’ and ‘Yes, Sir’. Instead, she looked a bit suspicious.
Good kid.
“Sir, is this going to be one of those orders that makes me defy my sense of loyalty and morality, then when you explain it I go and do it and feel guilty the whole time even though you’re probably right?”
I smiled and poked the tip of her nose. “I’m glad you’re catching on to how all this works.”
Shutting her eyes, Swift turned her back on me and sat down, staring at the linoleum between her front hooves. “I’m starting to understand a little bit why Taxi punches you so much, Sir.”
“And that’s good, too, because I want you to spend the next few days eating chicken salads, reading poetry, and being hit on by horny bird cats until I come get you. Clear?”
Her ears twitched, then she glanced over her shoulder. “You want me to go to Sky Town? Back to the Plot Hole?”
“Exactly. The griffin tribes are in Sky Town. I need you to go find the Tokan and the Hitlan. You tell’em their leadership is alive and recovering from their injuries and will rejoin them soon. Tell them their eggs are safe and will be returned to them. You tell them their High Justice is alive, and that he’s still finding out who tried to kill them, and if they lay a claw on you, the location of their eggs dies with you. Then you hide. I’m pretty sure two tribes of griffins can protect you.”
Swift’s nose wrinkled. “What makes you think the...whoever it was who attacked the embassy...what makes you think they won’t just bomb the griffins again?”
“Because the griffins weren’t their target. They gain nothing by attacking them again. The target was the ledgers, the treasuries, and the shoes of Nightmare Moon. Nothing will stop the other tribes coming here and causing chaos, but we can save the Hitlan from massacring the Tokan.” I reached out and put my hoof on her back, resting it between her wings. “It’s up to you, kid.”
Gulping, Swift got to her hooves. “Sir, I am so many kinds of not qualified for this.”
“You signed on as my diplomatic emissary the second you signed the last employment paper with Chief Jade,” I replied, chuckling at her discontented expression. “You think she gave you to me because she thought I actually needed a partner? No, I know Jade. She wanted somepony with some actual tact as the golden face of the Detrot Police Department. She wanted a young, smart, obedient little pony with the brass balls of a veteran making her look more capable than she actually was until she learned the ropes. She wanted a copper she could trot in front of cameras without blanching every time they opened their mouth for a microphone. That was never going to be me. You can do this. There are lives that need saving. Are you going to let them die because you think you’re not qualified?”
Crossing her hooves, Swift gave me a level glare. “Sir, I’ll do this, but you better promise me you aren’t about to go die again doing something crazy.”
“This time? Absolutely. My plan is completely non-crazy for at least the next few days.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That means you’re planning on doing something crazy after that, Sir…”
Instead of answering, I reached out and offered Mags my hoof. She grabbed it and swung herself deftly up onto my back, wiggling about until she got comfortable between my shoulder blades. Her beak was still an ice-cream covered mess, but she seemed pleasantly sated for the moment. “We going someplace, pony?”
“A place full of the best toys in the world,” I replied and her eyes lit up. “That said, Swift...you need to go now, before whoever is hunting us gets organized. Get your guns on, stay high, keep to the clouds if you can—”
“Sir, pegasus stealth tactics are part of basic training,” she grumbled, glancing out towards the carriage in the parking lot.
Her eyes were full of reluctance, but I knew she’d do what was necessary. I could hate myself for sending her away again later, but the griffins needed to know what was going on.
“Then go. I’ll come get you in a week and we’ll get back to the front lines,” I said. As she rose, I took two steps forward and slid my forelegs around her neck, hugging her to my chest. She was so surprised she froze, her breath catching in her throat. Pushing my muzzle against her ear, I whispered, “Please...be safe. I’ve lost enough ponies lately. I don’t want to lose my partner, too.”
Her ears turned back and she very slowly put her legs around me as well, replying in a voice soft enough that only I could hear it, “I’ll try, Sir. If you do the same.”
After a moment she stepped back. I shut my eyes, unable to watch her go.
The bell above the door rang, then once again, and it was done.
“Luna bang me on the moon,” I muttered, then swiped a hoof across my forehead and turned to Thal and Slip Stitch. Stitch had a spoonful of ice-cream half the way to his mouth. He quickly put it back in the vat.
“Pardon, I find a bit of grief does wonders for the appetite. May I assume you would like the two of us to discover what is wrong with your friend,” he asked, waving a hoof at where Limerence lay, “and perhaps fix it?”
“You read my mind. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Take care of him...and take care of yourself. You need me to go get you a gun or something? I know a guy up the street who is probably—”
Stitch let out a noise that was almost a giggle and exchanged a tiny smile with Thalassemia.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
“Detective, this building was constructed to ward off dragons. Angry dragons. The superstructure comprises a bunker built to shrug off direct spell-fire, and the exterior contains an array of late-Crusades weaponry in plenty of delicious flavors. While most are not functional any longer, I do believe I can jury rig something to keep my little plot safe. Go on. We’ll be fine.”
Turning my neck as far as I could, I peered at Mags. “I’m gonna ask this, even though Stitch told me what you’d say. You wanna stay here, with these ponies? Slip Stitch would take you in. He’s a decent sort. You can have all the ice-cream you like and probably food fights every day.”
The tiny griffin rolled her eyes at me and gave me a little swat on the back of the head with her wing. “Nooo, silly egg pony! I be staying with you. Duh! That’s how things be!”
I exhaled and lifted my leg to pet her tail as it spilled down my side. “That’s what I figured. It’s your funeral.”
Stitch held out his leg and I bumped it. “Your friend will be in safe hooves, Detective.”
“Assuming you don’t try p-performing surgery wh-while you’re sleep-walking again,” Thalassemia added, then gave me a tentative smile, “Don’t worry, Detective. I’ll t-tie his l-leg to the bed. You go s-save the world.”
Grabbing my coat from under Lim’s head, I headed for the door.
----
Back in the parking lot, I crawled into the back of the carriage and set Mags beside me, casually snapping the head off one of the flowers planted in the bottom to munch on. Sifting through my pockets until I found the M6 walkie-talkie, I flicked the toggle and said, “Breaker, breaker, this is Detective Egg For Brains, calling Master Of Hay Fries, Master Of Hay Fries, are you there?”
The box barked static, then Agent Bloom’s raspy voice came down the line. “Wha’d ya want? Everythin’...hic...everything gonna…gonna go to the damn pit and...and I gotta piss. I’mma piss on this jerk on this here walkie...walkie thing—”
There was a wet, splashy sound, followed by a brief scuffle and then Cereus came on. “Sorry, sorry, Detective! Give me a second...to...clean this...”
I heard the sound of running water, followed by sudsy scrubbing noises, then he returned.
“Detective! Are you there?”
“I’m here, Cereus. You see the news?”
“We did! We’ve been trying...okay, well I’ve been trying to get in touch with anypony—”
“Canterlot’s gone, Cereus. Better use our time finding out how. Look, I need a place to lie low for a few days. The Chief of Police just clued me into...well, I’m being targeted by City Hall. I’m at the Morgue. You think you can get to my location in reasonable time?”
“I don’t know how. I mean, I was just in Survey. They’ve got everypony out there trying to keep order. P.A.C.T., police, even what little Royal Guard are in town. By all rights, Agent Bloom and I should be helping...”
“I just stole a carriage, sent my best friend to a whore house, my partner to a tribal dive bar, and my librarian over to a maniac who is entirely likely to experiment on him or possibly use him for spares. I’m exhausted, emotional, and I have a griffin chick with me who has eaten more ice-cream than should fit in something her size and she’s crashing as we speak. Find a way!”
I ruffled Mags as she slumped against the side of the carriage, snoring softly.
There was a very, very long pause, punctuated by a sobbing Agent Bloom peeing into what sounded like a bucket.
“I’ll...I’ll put Agent Bloom in one of the cells and...um...I’ll be there in an hour.”
****
“So? How’d he do it?”
“Huh?”
Sugar blew a breath out of the corner of her muzzle, displacing a couple of hairs on her cheek. “How’d he get from this...wherever it is...to the Morgue with traffic like that?”
I held out my leg to Cereus. “You wanna tell her?”
Agent Cereus swallowed, his wings clenched to his sides as he blushed like a nun who’d accidentally strolled into the Vivarium. “I...eheh...I…stole a police vehicle...”
I couldn’t hold in a derisive snort as I said, “What Mister Modesty here means is he stole a police riot truck from the armory on Vale Street. He somehow broke into a guarded station in high alert conditions and ripped off a secured, locked armored assault motor under the noses of Detrot P.D. I half wish I’d thought to call him first, although I suppose it wouldn’t really have changed anything.” Reaching down, I lifted Mags off the floor, twisting my neck around so I could settle her on my shoulders. She wrapped her claws in my mane, cooing dreamily. “Still, I need to get to Taxi and my friends. A week off the grid is a long time. You got any idea what the actual state of the city is right now?”
Cereus shook his head, getting back to his hooves as he peeked in at Sugar Lace. She was chewing on a stray bit of breakfast, listening to the two of us intently. “There’s too much. Even if I’d finished training, I’m supposed to be a bookkeeper. I don’t do analysis. That’s Agent Bloom’s thing and she’s been...she’s not okay, Detective. I found her crying in her bed last night. She’s been having really bad nightmares.”
“Just give me what you can.”
“Well...I mean, it’s what you expected,” he replied, waving towards the Survey room. “Everything out there is nuts. There’s whole parts of the city I couldn’t find a single police car within an eight block radius. I’ve got some mentions of griffins all over, and...I don’t know how much stock to put in this, but I saw a couple P.A.C.T. teams moving around inside the Shield in full anti-Mega-Fauna gear. Not one non-lethal piece of kit amongst them. There haven’t been any attacks, though. At least, not yet.”
Getting off her cot, Sugar came back to the bars, holding out my hat with her teeth. I took it from between the bars and plopped it back between my ears. It smelled an awful lot like mare, which was a nice change from worn out cop. “Thanks, sweetheart.”
“I don’t feel like being gassed again. I was just curious.” Sugar hesitated for a minute, then asked, “Look, I...I know I’ve said an awful lot of mean things in the past about your heritage...intelligence...competence...erm—”
“My hygiene, masculinity, sexual prowess, social standing, eyebrows—”
“Yes, all those things...but I have a worry you might be the pony most able to figure out what happened to Canterlot and the Princesses. Do you have a plan, Hard Boiled? Anything?”
“Friends of mine need retrieving and I’ve got to check on Limerence. It’ll give me a chance to see what’s actually going on out there, too.”
----
Mags was still asleep as the Warehouse’s underground tram pulled into its secret station on the edge of Detrot. Cereus and I had managed to dodge Agent Night Bloom, but just barely. I didn’t want to have any sort of heart to heart with that poor mare if I could avoid it without something better to give her than the notion that I might have a plan at some point.
The tram brought us out behind the little junk shop and I drew in a deep breath of the stale air in the darkened tunnel full of windblown litter. I could feel the kinks in my shoulders unwinding as I slid out of the mine-cart and shouldered Mags. Cereus stood there in the cart, awkwardly staring at me out of those big, sad slitted yellow eyes. He’d never make the kind of agent the service demanded with those eyes. They gave away everything.
“Detective...Can I say something, please? Just between you and me?” he asked, shuffling his hooves.
“I assume it’s something you didn’t want to say where Bloom might overhear?”
He nodded, fiddling with the controls of the tram. “Yes. I’m trying to keep her from losing it completely, but...I’m really, really scared. I mean, I’ve been scared before. I was scared during exams. I was frightened I might fail and I haven’t even finished all of those. I was terrified during firearms training; scared I’d be called on to kill somepony. I pushed through because...because I believed...”
Letting my head fall to one side, I pursed my lips. “Believed in what? The Princesses?”
He threw his hooves up and huffed, “I don’t know! I believed that there was going to be a happy ending to everything. I mean, I’ve seen Princess Luna in person! I didn’t talk to her or anything, but she’s amazing. She’s still just a pony, though, just like you and me. The Princesses have done incredible things and...and it’s just down to you and me and whoever else to try to save them. Mortals. You know what I mean? We’re little ponies, scrabbling in the dirt for answers. Not Princesses. Not alicorns. Not gods. Just us.”
Studying his dark grey face for a moment, I flicked my eyes at the stairs. “Cereus, whatever is up there...whatever is going on, I’m facing it because if I don’t, my friends die. Two months ago, I was ready to go in the ground myself. Whatever you choose to believe, I’ve seen the other side and if someone, somehow managed to kill Celestia and Luna, I promise you...this isn’t the end. We raised the moon and lowered the sun before them. We’ll do it long after they’re gone. Whatever you want to believe, it’s none of my business. Today is my business. Today, you’re alive and you can fight and if I can bring them back...I will.”
The big stallion bit his tongue between his front teeth, then nodded, still looking disturbed by whatever thoughts were running through his mind.
I let out a short, sharp laugh. “Look, go take care of Agent Bloom for me, would you? Buy her a package of MRE’s and a non-alcoholic beverage on me, yeah? There’s one pony who hasn’t had anything to believe in for a very, very long time. She might not act like it, sometimes, but she does actually care about you.”
“How can I tell?” he sighed.
“Well, she whispered, ‘Oh, Cereus, take me now’ when she got drunk and crawled into my cot a few nights ago...”
Cereus finally cracked a grin, his cheeks coloring slightly. “I...um...okay…”
I winked and headed for the stairs.
----
I don’t know what I thought I’d find when I finally got the pavement under my hooves. Maybe bodies in the streets, screaming children clinging to dead parents, or monsters roaming the alleyways. What I didn’t expect was any semblance of normalcy.
Pushing open the door tucked away from the street, peering out around a dumpster as I stepped into the half-light of the eclipse. If one didn’t look at the sky, you could almost believe it was just any other evening.
I tugged my hat low, wishing I could tell what time it was. The clock said after midnight when I left the Warehouse.
The street beside the dumpster was as empty as ever; the only sign something might be wrong in the city was a few streetlights which seemed to have been knocked out and not repaired. I tried to remember where I’d seen that payphone the last time I’d been to the Warehouse and back, but the nearest I could place it was somewhere due east, so I set off in that direction.
The sounds of the city were muted, and I realized for the first time in a long time, that I could see the clear sky in the direction of city center. That meant the weather factories were off. Stars shone in the half-light of the eclipse. No traffic rolled the late night streets, and no sirens sang in the darkness. It was all eerily quiet, particularly for a city that’d been very recently on the verge of madness.
Pulling the map I’d gotten from Cereus before we left the Warehouse out of my pocket, I checked it for a moment, then tried to look casual as I turned it right side up for whoever might be watching.
----
It took a half hour of wandering to find the diner I’d met Taxi at, not for the least reason that their sign was out and the windows were boarded. A splash of paint across the plywood read ‘Looters will be shot, fried, and served’.
The payphone out front had been vandalized, the book torn out, and the glass on one side cracked, but when I picked up the phone I got a dial tone. Sorting through my pockets, I found a couple spare bits and fed them into the slot, dialing the first number I could remember. Hoping against hope, I shut my eyes and waited. The line began to ring.
“T-t-this is the C-c-city M-Morgue...Y-your place for fun, fu-funerals, and family—”
“Thalassemia, it’s me. Don’t say my name. You know who this is. Say yes, if you understand.”
“I...um...y-yes…”
“Is Stitch there?”
“H-he’s o-out on a pick up ri-right now, but—”
“Good. Get him on the radio and tell him he needs to make another ‘pick up’.”
----
Big Betty is probably in the top three least discreet methods of getting from place to place in Detrot. Me—being wanted by basically everyone with a badge or a government pension within city—I’d have chosen something stealthier, like riding Cerberus covered in Hearth’s Warming Eve lights while a rock band gave a carol concert at five hundred decibels on his back.
Still, when that giant pink monstrosity nosed its way around the end of the street I couldn’t help but smile. Her headlights were like two tiny suns in jam jars, designed for piercing magical darkness, but I didn’t mind a little blindness for the familiarity it lent me.
Seven days was a long time to be away from my city, particularly being as my best sources of information were a maddeningly over-complicated wartime surveillance map with badly incomplete coverage, a surly, paranoid accountant/secret agent, and her happy-go-lucky intern.
Betty’s loud hailers blared their cheery tune as she tootled down the avenue at about the speed of a city bus with an opiate addiction, steering the gigantic nose of the truck around a parked cab and managing to avoid taking off the side-view mirror by the width of a layer of paint. I stood in the overhang of the closed diner as I flagged him down with my hat.
The truck pulled to a stop in front of me, the brakes letting out a hiss of pneumatics as the music cut out.
Slip Stitch stuck his head out of the window and grinned maniacally at me. His mane was wilder than I’d ever seen it.
“Detective! I shouldn’t be surprised to see you alive, and yet I always am! I’d have been disappointed if you managed to die somewhere I couldn’t collect you!”
“No such luck, I’m afraid,” I replied, trotting around to the other side of the truck. I stared at the door for a moment, trying to figure out how to get up to it. It was higher than my head.
“One moment, Detective. It’s been such a busy week I’ve barely had time for coffee, donuts, and cheese cake! I see you’re still carrying our dear sweet little griffin girl, yes?”
I peered back at Mags, who wiggled in her sleep and let out a tiny yawn.
“Sweet? Sometimes. Griffin? Very much. She’s a right hoof full. Still, we’ll catch up on the way. I want to get off the street.”
“Rightly so, I shouldn’t wonder. Up you go!”
The door popped open and a row of folding metal stairs clattered into place on a mechanical hinge. Pulling myself in beside Stitch, I swung Mags down into my forelegs and settled back into the leopard print passenger seat. She nestled closer and I gathered my coat in on either side, giving her a warm place to rest.
“My, my, Detective. A week and you’re already making a decent foalsitter,” Stitch commented. I glared at him.
“This wasn’t exactly my choice, now is it? She’s the one who didn’t want to spend her week eating ice-cream and playing with dead bodies. Speaking of that...how is Limerence?”
Stitch’s brow wrinkled and he began the laborious process of turning Big Betty around. It was roughly a thirty seven point turn. “Largely unchanged, I’m afraid. I have an experiment prepared, but I have been busy in a way I think you would find most depressing and I am reluctant to attempt it without family present.”
“Busy…” I turned towards the back of the truck and peered into the compartment. Of the three dozen freezer boxes lining the walls, floor to ceiling, the lights were on beside more than half of them. “Merciful skies, Stitch...What’s been going on out here?”
“The mortality rate amongst the old and infirm was very high after what is being called ‘The Darkening of Equestria’ by the papers. I am given to go where I will, because few want bodies moldering in the streets, but...Detective, the city is under siege…”
I blinked at him as Betty passed between two cars that’d been turned sideways into the road to form a make-shift check-point in the middle of the street. We weren’t in one of the best neighborhoods, but by no means in one of the worst. In the alleys beside the road, I could see groups of four or five ponies standing, just watching us pass through. I couldn’t be sure with the low light, but I thought most of them were armed.
“I’m seeing something bad, but...under siege?”
“You don’t know, do you? Dragons have appeared to the north and south of the city.”
“Dragons?!” I barked, then quieted as Mags let out an unhappy noise and dug her claws into my fetlock gently. “W-what are they doing?”
He tapped his horn, which let out a cheerful blast loud enough to deafen ponies in the next county, gently encouraging a cabbage vendor to get out of the street. As we rolled by, the merchant glared up at us. More particularly he glared at me. Huh. Funny thing.
“It’s a deliciously maddening little mystery, no?” Stitch replied, grinning. “Dragons! As to their aims, I am afraid no one knows. They seem content to simply wait, but it has been enough to disincline anypony from attempting to leave the city. No one has an exact count, but it was enough to set off the dragon sirens last week, if you’ll remember. At least four to the north and six to the south, though I have heard accounts of as many as ten on either side. Telegraph and phone lines with greater Equestria have been down since a day after the Darkening. Courier services won’t send their ponies into the jaws of the dragons.”
“We’re cut off, then,” I muttered.
“That isn’t the most fun part, Detective! Are you aware that our dear mayor has actually imposed Martial Law?”
I sagged a little bit in my chair. “That blithering idiot tried to push Jade to enforce it, you mean. She knows the laws. Only the Princesses or a regional governor can enforce martial law and only the Royal Guard can execute it. To my knowledge, there isn’t enough Royal Guard presence in Detrot to fill a phone booth.”
Stitch shook his head. “Perhaps a few more than that, but...the point remains. Still, it wasn’t Jade he tapped for that particular mission. It was Broadside and the P.A.C.T.”
My eyes almost popped out of my head at that.
I couldn’t keep my voice down at that. “Snifter put those psychotic gun jockeys in charge of keeping peace in the city?!”
Mag’s eyes slowly opened and she groaned, pushing herself up. “Mmm, Har’dy...I be tryna sleep...”
“Sorry, honey. Stitch and I—”
At the coroner’s name, her head shot up so quick she almost beaned me in the chin. “Stitchy? Oh! Ice-cream pony! I didn’t be seeing you there!”
“I’m here, my dear. Is this pony taking good care of you?” Stitch asked, giving her a smile that would have melted a heart of solid diamond. It radiated care and affection, safety and kindness.
Mags bobbed like a pigeon, purring loudly. “He don’t be letting me have ice-cream for breakfast, but Har’dy be the best egg pony. He take me strange places, but I get to meet bat pony Cer’eus and grumpy Bl’oom! Then we be making snow flowers out of ‘tax wreckers’, whatever those be, and play board games and chase Cer’eus all around the Warehouse and eat ‘Emm’arr’eees’. Those be having the funny bubble gums in them.”
“Bat ponies, you say? I haven’t met a dusk pony in a few years,” Stitch chuckled, pulling something out of his pocket and passing it to her. It was a little package wrapped in brown paper. Mags sniffed it for a half second, then let out a happy squeal and tore it open with her talons, revealing a chunk of raw, bloody meat.
“Oh Stitchy be best pony there ever be!”
I rolled my eyes as my ward started into her little meal. “Stitch, I hope you didn’t just get her something out of one of your freezers…”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Detective. I haven’t had an actual cannibalism accident in months!”
----
Miles rolled by as Big Betty navigated block after fortified block.
I wanted to grill Stitch about the condition of the city, but it was quickly becoming evident. We passed through a half dozen more of those strange checkpoints, built of various flavors of junk or vehicles, manned by ponies, griffins, and even once a group of zebra. I noticed lines of ponies at some of the stops, waiting to get through, while others were little more than two individuals with guns standing on either side of a fence. Once, what I thought was a P.A.C.T. patrol flew by overhead and everypony on the street scattered into nearby buildings and tenements.
As we neared the Morgue, the checkpoints stopped and the city became more like its old self. Buildings had their bottom floors boarded and lined with barbed wire. Windows were barred and weapons seemed to be everywhere,from makeshift clubs to hoof guns, but ponies were on the street, conducting business at market stalls and conversing with their neighbors. It was almost normal, if anything could be called ‘normal’ under the unblinking eye of the eclipse.
When we turned the final corner onto the Morgue, I couldn’t hold in a gasp of astonishment.
In the vast, normally empty parking lot out front of the Morgue, a huge ‘tent city’ had sprung up. There were row upon row of dark green Royal Guard issue medical tents set up with a wide avenue between them leading right up to the front doors of the factory itself. Hundreds of ponies were there, moving in and out of the tents, carting great pallets of supplies, levitating boxes of food and pulling gurneys with unconscious unicorns laid out on them. It was a truly breathtaking sight; at once, heartwarming and horrifying.
What had happened to my city?
As Big Betty turned onto the open space that lead to the Morgue, a whole herd of children peeked out of several of the tents and let out whoops of excitement. There were kids of every species Detrot had ever known; ponies, zebras, griffons, a few yaks, young deer, and even a trio of bright blue dragonlings. I hadn’t seen young dragons in years, though a few of the smaller dragon species had apparently taken up residence in Detrot while I wasn’t looking.
The group rushed up to the truck like a multi-colored riot and stood on either side, looking up expectantly. Stitch slowed down and turned to me.
“Detective, would you object to walking? I must do...ahem...a thing, as it were.”
I shrugged and pulled my hat brim down, sliding out from behind the passenger console. The door popped open and the stairs rattled down, but the kids didn’t even bat an eyelash as I stepped down amongst them. It took me a second to realize Mags wasn’t behind me.
I turned to see her sitting on the bottom step, peering up at the truck then at the gaggle of children.
“Don’t ruin your dinner, kiddo,” I chuckled, then pointed toward the big pink building in the middle of it all. “Meet me up there, alright?”
Mags nodded and bounced down beside another griffin chick who grinned and made a bit of room for her. They started whispering back and forth as I waded through the kids in the direction of the Morgue.
Behind me, a cheer went up, along with what sounded like some fireworks and a happy jingle. Smiling to myself, I trotted a little quicker.
Death and ice-cream had saved the day, once again.
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Mags is perhaps one of the greatest morbid comedic relief's ive seen in ages. Bravo! Bravo!
Hoping that crown command is a fake, else its worse than i thought.
Then again there are likely ponies left in equestria with the authority to try and keep things together, and the power ot make them very difficult to kill. They better tread carefully.
Hope jade has the mind to try and protect most of th craeturse on that list. She is probably along the lines of difficult to kill, hopefully.
6345958 She's a giggle to write, because for all the shit going on around her, she's still a griffin and she's still a kid. She's seen awful things, but so long as she's got somebody there who will tell her it's alright, she's okay.
-Chessie
Depending on when the dragons showed up, they are either opportunistic beings, or sent by whoever is pulling the strings. I'm leading towards the latter, as that wouldn't be the first time the Enemy has done something like that.
PACT's takeover is coming closer. With the whole organization probably compromised, this is really not good. At least the general population doesn't seem to like them. Also, this is oddly giving me B5 flashbacks. Keep up the good work.
I knew it! This whole thing is the Scholars fault! He junxed the entire damn city!
On another note, I think if Hardy ever meets Snifter, he'll probably punch his lights out.
Got any horse puns for Alaska?
6346079 its so great to see a well done blue and orange morality here. And that mindset just is so great to see. So few write creatures like griffons how they should be. And you've been spot on with so many.
6346087 Oooh, I hadn't thought about B5, but yeah, your right, a bunch of corrupt folks back home, and a massive bit that keeps on piling up. Until, the whole kettle goes skyhigh.
It just keeps getting better for us, and worse for them!
Rumour has it that the Equestrian Chemical Society has even issued her coffee its very own MSDS. There was even a case where an OPCW delegation meeting in Detrot for the annual Seven Sapient Species Summit determined that Major Bandoleer's "ultra dark roast" Zebrican blend violated the 100 gramme maximum limit of Schedule 2 chemical substances under the Equus Chemical Weapons Convention. Fortunately for the peace process (and residents of Pole Street who were becoming understandably skittish about living next to a declared chemical weapons depot), Major Bandoleer switched to decaf before a war crimes tribunal could investigate.
Sometimes a pony has to call in the heavy artillery. Sometimes you need to deploy HARMONY Team 6.
t Up)
(To the tune of Voltaire's USS Make sh
Well Ponyville is quite grim
For a show for kids.
With ravenous little parasprites
And stampeding leporids,
And monstrous Ursas Major,
Timberwolves, and basilisks,
And cockatrice, and hydras
All thrown into the mix.
And now then there was Twilight's
Purple lizard son
He wasn't a meanie dragon
But his greed made him one.
The efforts of the Wonderebolts
He easily ignored
As he rampaged through Ponyville
To add it to his horde.
And I said,
"Send a scroll to Celestia!
Everypony run and flee!
The situation's going south,
We need the help of Harmony!"
I know that I'm a grown mare,
And I must do my part
But this is way
Above my pay
Please save us Purple Smart!
The chaos trickster god Discord
was locked up all in stone
'Till he was freed by fillies who
Di'nt leave well enough alone
He cackled with a flourish,
Snapped the talons on his hand
And then set about to spreading
Chaos magic 'cross the land.
And then there was the wedding,
All Equestria was in bliss
'Till it was crashed by changelings
And their bug-queen Chrysalis
She took out all the Royal Guard
And mind-controlled the groom
Then captured all of Canterlot
And stuffed them cocoons.
And I said,
"Send a scroll to Celestia!
Everypony run and flee!
The situation's going south,
We need the help of Harmony!"
I know that I'm a grown mare,
And I must do my part
But this is way
Above my pay
Please save us Purple Smart!
The boastful showmare Trixie
Challenged Twilight on a dare
Wreaking havoc on the town
With a stellar bear.
Twilight sent her packing,
But she was not finished yet
She returned and enslaved the town
With the Amulet.
Well Cerebus was distracted
Now Tirek's on the loose
He's scooping up the unicorns
And draining all their juice.
Nopony could hope stop him,
Their plans were doomed to fail
It has been exacerbated
By Discord's betrayal
And I said,
"Send a scroll to Celestia!
Everypony run and flee!
The situation's going south,
We need the help of Harmony!"
I know that I'm a grown mare,
And I must do my part
But this is way
Above my pay
Please save us Purple Smart!
Well there's no shortage of things
That threaten pretty pony plots
It happens every week
It's never gonna stop
There's invasions and there's prophecies
And the monster attack de jour
They happen oh so often
It's almost de rigueur
Now currently in the present
With lawyers in Detrot
They're practising necromancy
And zapping Canterlot.
The saga's still ongoing,
So only time will tell
But given recent history,
This bucking won't end well.
And I said,
"Send a scroll to Celestia!
Everypony run and flee!
The situation's going south,
We need the help of Harmony!"
I know that I'm a grown mare,
And I must do my part
But this is way
Above my pay
There's a bucking disaster every day!
I really don't know what to saaaay!
Please save us Purple Smart!
6345958
6346079
If they ever survive long enough, I would imagine Mags would make good friends with Tourniquet and all the little Aroyo colts and fillies. They have all undoubtedly lost friends and family from "regular" gang-land violence.
6346711 Here's hoping. Though, griffon culture wouldn't shock me to have fluff ball sized vests, with the nature of their legacy being so protracted. Doubly so if a loss of an heir might be massive economic sabotage along with the pool.
I would have been nice of Chief Jade to tie a copy of that list to the carrot peeler. Seems to me the individuals the powers that be consider 'of interest' would also be the ones Hardy needs to retrieve, round up, or otherwise rescue to have a hope of getting a handle on... w/e is going on.
P.A.C.T.'s command structure is doubtless hopelessly compromised, and even if the rank and file aren't, it won't matter when most of them sprout fangs and start nomming on the citizenry.
Also, that cabbage merchant seemed to recognize Hardy. Either that was our mysterious Gypsy, or badness is about to descend. More badness, anyway.
6347000 Naaah, just referencing a thing that happened a few chapters ago.
-Chessie
6347736 Raaage Cop! I had missed that.
Act 3 Chapter 2: "Best Laid Plans Of Stallions And Hamsters" -The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
my cabbages!
Wow. I've notcing something: each act has a completely diiferent tone, the first was seeing all the places and meeting all the faces, where they had some idea that things were going down but they had no idea what
the second had them putting all the pieces together and solidifying their allies and forces
and the third act? crisis, confusion, and fear
and I bucking love it
mags is a doll. I think the command sent out is probably targeting all of Hardy's associates who the conspirators think are privy to their actions and is working against them. Im surprised Jade is helping him out but then again maybe she got off the drugs and started thinking clearly and knows something is up. The dragons are an interesting development. Maybe pawns of the conspiracy?
6350541 Jade is well aware something is up. She just doesn't want their opponents to know she knows something is up. I mean, what better place to get additional information than as the head of the enemy investigations?
-Chessie
6349947 Tone has always been a big part of Starlight. Scary, funny, sad, happy, quiet. It's one of the major defining features. We try to keep things moving as quickly as possible, being as it's a LONG story.
-Chessie
A wonderful return to form. The story hasn't lost its charm or its tact love it still!
My bet is on the dragons being pissed about something and not sure themselves exactly what is going on. Perhaps they've pinned Detrot as the source of the problems somehow. Could be a case of revenge, but I doubt it.
6347000
Given how Hardy et al. have made an absolute nuisance of themselves to the UAA, I bet Hardy could easily deduce the contents of said list:
Ponies Of Interest To Be Detained Immediately:
1. Hardy "Hard Boiled"
2. Hardy "Hard Boiled"
3. Hardy "Hard Boiled"
4.
The LarchTaxi "Sweet Shine"5. Hardy "Hard Boiled"
6. Swift Nimbus Sweetie Rainbow Misty Snuggle Drops Typhoon de Featherfall Cuddles
7. Hardy "Hard Boiled"
8.
Don "Bwana Mkubwa" Tome(Deceased)9.
Zefu "Bwana Ndogo" Tome(Deceased)10. Limerance "Bwana Kitabu" Tome
6386962 There are so many typos in the earlier parts of this story it makes me ache inside. One day, after everything is said and done, I'll go back and fix the whole bloody mess.
-Chessie
6389400 He's a cool character. I like writing him every time I get the chance. He's such a big pussy-cat.
-Chessie
It seems like detrot has become alot like the the city depicted in fallout4 since the "darkening" Atleast at the core. Ponies armed but doing there thing... and the relief effort being that fast? yep.. Hardy said it right... at once, heartwarming and horrifying.
But something tells me hardy is gonna need ALOT more shells for his revolver before this ends.
Lace, I'm surprised you still think Hardy has enough mind left to lose.
She'll be in good company with Edina, I suppose.
Pretty sure that kind of thinking is what caused the vanishing.
"Then after that, we'll need twelve hundred gallons of liquid cheese."
Holy carp. Who was Cereus in his part life, Corvo Attano?
"- elementary school grades, silly walks, eating habits, sexual proclivities, -"
I know, who wouldn't want to spend all week playing with dead bodies?
Well, technically a griffin eating pony isn't cannibalism ...
I thought I could finish Act 2 and then take the rest of this at an easier pace. Noooope.
But Hardy said last chapter the whole country was under martial law... or was that just an educated guess?
I watched most of the Die Hard series again last week, and it dawned on me that Hardy is really just a pony John McClane- defender of the law, but ultimately just an ordinary schmo who's trying to keep his head above water and make things a little less catastrophic for those around him. Even while things seem to get more catastrophic around him instead. And as he screws with both authorities and uber-baddies alike. And Bruce Willis even has the right voice.
The forever twilight.... Is Twilight possessed by a Nightmare?
Ha!
Oh swift, this is only part of it
Watch mags not cry until a few years after this book ends, or when hardy dies
And then she becomes a vigilante until she can become a cop
And so Hardy starts to get the gang back together after we see why they split up. I am sure this will go so well and he will have no issues with this at all.
For the truly egregious offenses to personal dignity, they break out the foam swords and nerf guns.
He would either go fully and completely off the deep end of party Pony-ness and half of Detrot would wake up wearing party hats inside of body bags full of frosting, or it would render him so maudlin and serious that everypony in a ten block radius gets depressed and has an existential crisis.
Gee, ya THINK!? A long string of very suspicious actions, most involving some for trying to acquire the armor of NMM, with those actions become more reckless, desperate, and sloppy as the big eclipse neared,followed by an unprecedented magical surge in the city at the same time the Canterhorn disappeared? All while you have your dead partner telling you there are forces at work beyond mortal ken and they have very big, and very scary plans? Oh and let us not forget, the universe hates you personally and what better way to make you suffer then to end up putting the whole fate of Equestria on your back while it keeps trying to kick you in the nuts?
There we go, get him interested in something!
You know what, that is fair enough right now, you just enjoy a bit more crazy time and polish off that 473 ccs of medication! (Assuming they are dishing out the ice cream by the pint)
It's been a rough few weeks and she's been through a hell of a lot the last two months. But..... she still has you and her trust that you will make this okay in the end.
Really, how was it this morning when Hardy had that whole, several hours of nap time, plus the hour or so breakdown in the shower, on top of all the shit they dealt with before the bomb went off and getting everypony else secured? When by the sounds of it the Ecplise was taking place around noon?
Also pretty sure at another point he mentions the shower breakdown as being yesterday.
I read that more as a pre-req before you could be allowed to take care of them. But given how out of the ordinary everything is right now, you should be fine..... for now.
So would protecting ALL Griffon eggs and chicks for the rest of eternity via preventing the literal end of the world be good enough to get him out of the doing anything more?
Yup, she doesn't know how to process this at all, and right now is just latching onto Hardy as something normal and safe to keep her focused and functional till she is finally able to deal with things and let the emotions flow and face that pain. Party Ponies are insane, and 90% of what they say should be ignored for your own sanity.... but that other 10% you freaking LISTEN to.
You..... are not wrong....
She knows hardy, she knows who he's likely to go to ground with, and she also knows he's pretty much her best hope of actually getting shit done to improve this cluster fuck.
Down filly! Don't make us get the hose!
Gee, almost like he had this ready to go and knew both who he wanted an excuse to take out, as well as had a list that some other beings wanted taken out while they had the chance to not worry about these pesky legal processes.
Yeah he is not a mastermind of this, but he is very much a likely very willing pawn of TPTS, simply for his own feeling of power.
Hence the going to ground for a week while this settled down, alright.
One more reason why you are clearly not a politician.
Sit down, relax, and be bored for a few days,that's an order!
yeah he's not wrong, but she's going to hate this. Right now, just relaxing taking time to process this all, think, and let the initial reactions work themselves out as ell as time to figure out how to avoid being the most wanted ponies in the city. As much as she wants to DO SOMETHING! Right now...what can they do?
"Join the club kid!"
Look.... do you think there is any sane plan that could deal with something of this magnitude? Also I love this all the more becuase I've been getting so much of "This plan is too insane to not work" from the aforementioned Expeditionary Force where the only reason humanity holds out against a galaxy full of far more advanced species that have been fighting wars among themselves for longer then Humanity has existed, is being both so lacking in basic knowledge of how things are supposed to function, and so damn desperate, that they can go"Hey, can we do this insanely stupid thing that no one else would even think of trying?"
hardy is at that level, he is facing something so far above him, and that is working on levels he can't even begin to comprehend. There is no sane way to beat that, you gotta be so insane that they never see it coming, because who would possibly do something that insane?
D'aaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwww
So.... when did he slip her his end of the quantum planet exploder.... I mean walkie talkie that he said last chapter he had given her while looking at the one in The Warehouse that he kept near his bed?
1, You really need to talk to Littlepip if you want to get some really worthwhile Royal Sister involved swears. That one was just lame.
2. Soooooo about that..........
But not ballistic carrot peelers?Or, just haven't actually activated the defenses?
1.
2. Yeah, this thing, that again last chapter
Reaching over, I prodded the quantum walkie-talkie sitting on a couple of milk crates which was I using for an end table. I’d given the other one to Swift when the decision was made to split up and get everypony somewhere safe.
Truly the most important bit of what is going on.
He just, has such a chill, friendly vibe to him that everypony simply assumes they know him and it's perfectly fine for him to be in the secured area messing with this stuff, cause he alright.
So..... a result of whatever psychic vibe has been hitting Hardy getting stronger, side effect of Best Princess not being around to do her dream patrol, and/or just general plain, that chick has been through a LOT of trauma that she is still unable to consciously process so of course she is going to have nightmares as her subconscious tries to deal with it?
It's happened before.... plenty of times.
Which you would know and have as stories to help comfort you and give you hope for this, but as established, it's far, far more vital for the safety of the planet that ponies stop bothering Twilight's precious multi-decade long, mountain hermit 'me time' then have those important and could possibly be of great comfort and help to know stories floating around.
Making it the best way for you to get around, since everypony knows who is driving it, and why would the most wanted pony in the city ride around in something so noticeable?
Okay, that would actually make you less likely to be stopped....because everypony who came to try would just be struck senseless by the shear raw epicness of what they were seeing and not dare to violate something so METAL
Just general shock.... or a side effect of whatever is going on?
So, they showed up RIIIIIIGHT as TPTS put this phase of their plans in motion.....
How are TPTS linked to The Dragons? Clearly they are, since they arranged to have them attack the Griffons to get NMM Hoofie Slippers into town. And let's face it there is no way they weren't behind The Crusades in some way, if not starting them, at least making them worse then they would otherwise be. But, the law firm showed up long before that,and while they like to plan big and long term.... it doesn't feel like this is like... some Dragon Dieties or something that are working for the Dragons. So, are they? Or, are the dragons just another tool for TPTS to use, preying on their ire over getting their scaly butts kicked by Ponies?
But.... being lithovores.... Dragons are one of the few races that could be perfectly fine surviving Endless Night... so yeah, just what level of cooperation is there between the two?
Plot Twist! The wanted poster and the press to have him arrested is actually totally unrelated to TPTS,it's just the Cabbage Merchant union going after him before he can become a menace to cabbage Merchant Kind... they've learned their lesson and want to nob potential threats early now!
He's clearly in TPTS pocket, but also by all accounts is just a puppet they can manipulate by playing to his greed and ego and just general, being a political douchebag. Now, just how far up the ladder does their hold on the PACT run? Is this them getting their loyal soldiers into place, or just, tacking advantage of them being a bunch of hyper macho assholes that love the idea of being able to bully anyone without consequence?
See! Perfectly fine! Nothing could go wrong!
There are not many problems a proper application of one of those two things can not solve.
So,time to get the gang back together, see how fucked the city is, and for Hardy to start disastering is way into fixing it!
Himbo with the hooves of a sneak and the sharps of god, apparently. Damn.