Act 3 Chapter 9: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
It is an accepted fact of Equestrian living - though little scientific research has been done on the matter - that there is a place ‘beyond’ angry that a person can reach during which unparalleled feats of strength and violence are possible. Thankfully, not many ponies will ever find themselves in a position to be that mad.
The term coined for this unusual condition was ‘Zen Angry’.
It was named after the famous Zenzibar World Stomper. Zenzibar was largely known for his later life explorations of far-flung places where he could 'get some damn quiet', but he began life as a low-level functionary of the zebra Office of Revenue. After ten years sitting at a desk, filling out meaningless paperwork and answering the complaints of rich, entitled, or stupid individuals day in and day out, Zenzibar is said to have reached ‘Zen Angry’.
Upon being presented with a demand that he work a week solid worth of overtime and already having missed three days off, Zenzibar burst into a righteous fury so powerful that every inbox in the building simultaneously exploded. So the legend goes, he got up from behind his desk, stomped out of that office, stomped down the stairs, stomped out of the city, then stomped right off the Zebrican continent grumbling the whole way. Tales of the exploits that followed him reach across many lands, such as the dragon migration that supposedly changed direction when they saw him coming and the Minotaur Chieftans, Cocus and Romular, who decided they’d actually rather sit down and discuss things rationally after he stomped through the middle of their war.
In his later years, Zenzibar was credited with the writing of a series of scrolls to the editor of a local magazine regarding both his experiences and the idea that one could actually live their entire life furious. While the original titles, ‘You People Suck!’, ‘I Hope You Get A Debilitating Disease’ and ‘Did You Spill My Drink?’ were changed by the editors, the content remained largely unaltered. These scrolls were gathered together into the comprehensive ‘Zen And The Art Of Fury’.
To this day, it is a rare pony who finds something worth being so peeved that they actually change the shape of the world, but it can’t hurt to be polite should you ever find yourself in your local tax office with a form 1049-E that needs correction.
-The Scholar
I hadn’t really noticed I was crying. I just kept talking and the weeping started somewhere along the way. My eyes burned and yet I wanted nothing more than to have it all out. At a point, I stopped caring what Swift was doing. I assumed she was just sitting there, listening.
“They found me curled up under the chamber,” I explained, wiping the trickle of a tear off my cheek. “I couldn’t get into the airlock, but there wouldn’t have been much left for me to save, even if I had. There wasn’t even enough left to bury. The coffin down in the Police Cemetery is empty.”
I felt something very soft brush my face and looked up. Swift was gently cleaning my muzzle with a wash-cloth over the tip of her hoof. Her baby-blue eyes were full of quiet compassion.
Leaning forward over her parent’s kitchen table, I crossed my forelegs, laying my cheek on them and shutting my eyes on them as I continued. “I was catatonic for about two days. When I recovered enough to talk, the police psychologists recommended immediate retirement with full pension.”
“Why?” Swift asked, quietly.
“Eh...I wouldn’t tell them what actually happened, but they pieced enough of it together. I fought it and Iris Jade was short-hooved. I spent two months on leave, then five months behind a desk and every weekend sitting in a headshrinker’s office before they cleared me for beat work. That was when the drinking really started. Taxi finally pulled me out of it, but it took two years.”
My partner’s lip quivered, but her expression was wavering between shock, pity, and curiosity.
“Why...why didn’t you tell them what happened?”
I chuckled, but there was no mirth in it.
“Because I didn’t want to give the bastard what he wanted. I was his perfect canvas, after all.”
She looked a little confused. “What do you mean, Sir?”
Pushing my chair back, I swung my legs down and trotted over to the cabinet, fetching down a glass. After all that talking, my throat was parched. I took the time to peer up at the clock on the wall as I filled my cup from the sink. We’d been there almost two hours.
Swift hadn’t moved. She was still sitting there at the table as I turned back, her lower lip hooked by one of her long canines, as she waited for me to answer.
“The Stained Glass Killer wanted to etch what happened to my partner into something they couldn’t bury or hide. He wanted a living, breathing pony to remember his death every day, forever. Jade and I managed to keep the worst of it out of the papers, but...he wanted every psychologist I told this to to remember. He wanted every newspony to remember.” Moving to her side, I reached out and stroked my partner’s soft, orange muzzle. I couldn’t hide the sadness in my voice. “He wanted every cop...to remember.”
She drew back a little, then stared down at her hooves, as though seeing them for the first time. “T-that...that’s...why you l-lie…”
I turned my hip, flashing the golden scales on my thigh. “My talent is justice, Swift. Not kindness. Not even truth. That was Juniper’s thing.”
Her rear legs slid out from under her and I caught her before she could fall.
“Sir... I think y-you can call me ‘kid’ if you want to,” she muttered, then hiccuped, holding tight to my neck as I settled on the floor of the kitchen with her. “It just sounds weird hearing you c-call me ‘Swift’.”
“Alright,” I replied, glancing towards the living room. A pair of yellow eyes were watching from the door. “How much of that did you hear?”
Mags silently padded over and Swift made room for her to climb up into my lap. She was just as teary eyed as my partner. My heart felt like it was moments from a total breakdown, pitter pattering in my chest as I held two of the beings who’d somehow become dear to me. I’d promised myself awhile ago I wouldn’t let ponies get so close. Of course, I’d broken that promise a dozen times in the intervening period. Still, with the tiny griffin and my partner there, the pain felt just a little lighter, the darkness a little brighter.
Damn me for an old nag.
----
A half hour later, we unwound from one another. It was... better than nice. I’d lost track of the years it’d been since somepony’d held me like that. Lily Blue was one thing, but she wasn’t my partner.
Swift took the time as I gathered my wits and had a few glasses of water to drag Mags to her parent’s couch for a preening. There were a few objections and a bit of grumbling, but in the end my ward surrendered to the inevitable, sitting there sullenly trying not to coo every time Swift found a feather out of place.
Stepping out of the front door, I shut it behind me, inhaling the clean evening air to cleanse my sinuses of the memory of the weathervane. Years had gone by, and still I sometimes woke to the smell of that deathly fog.
I leaned against the door frame, watching my driver’s back legs sticking out of the hood of the Night Trotter. I’m sure she knew I was there, but I suspect she had some idea of what I’d been discussing with Swift and was waiting for me to make the first move.
“Our next stop is the Castle and I suspect a twenty or thirty minute stint in the dungeons just to drive home how pissed off Jade is likely to be. You want to talk or maybe beat the crap out of me again?” I asked, pushing off the door and strolling down the porch steps. The empty street was peaceful, but far away to the east I could hear the crack-crack of gunfire. “I could use a beating about now.”
Pushing herself back from the car, she dropped a socket wrench out of her teeth into a pile of tools beside the front tire and replied, “While you and Swift were having your little ‘conversation’, I tried to make some calls. Most of the lines were down, but a few are still up. I rang the Prince. He was still at his place, along with Lily Blue. Half their neighborhood is staying with him. Got his own little commune, with nightly shows.”
I rested my hip on the Night Trotter and scratched at my chest. “How are they doing?”
“Truth be, I’ve never heard him happier. Precious is...what can I say? He’s Precious. He’s not going anywhere. The end of ponykind comes and he’ll sell toilets to whatever lives after us. Might be sooner rather than later, actually,” she said, tilting her head towards the sky where the darkened sun hung like a black hole punched in the heavens.
“I know parts of the world survive a fair length of time without seeing the sun, but I’m going to call that a bad thing if we end up playing the long game,” I commented, staring up at the burning hole in the sky.
“I agree. What are you doing with Mags? We can’t possibly take her to the Castle.”
“You want to tie her up and leave her here?” I asked, kicking a bolt that’d rolled towards the gutter back over to Taxi. “Maybe stuff her in a closet for good measure? That’s not happening. I’ll tell her to wait with the car.”
“The most obvious, dangerous vehicle in all of Detrot to potentially wait with, yes?”
“Sweets, there are still a million cabs out there…”
“Yes, but—”
I held up a hoof to forestall any further argument. “No. Look, I drop her anywhere out of my sight and she’s in more danger than if she was in it. She’s got four of the most capable ponies in Detrot guarding her. Her father saw fit to take her into the Nursemaid Guild. Esmeralda might be alive, but I’ve got no way of finding out and I suspect Mags would run off the second we did, then come find us again. I’m the last egg keeper I know of. That makes me responsible for her.”
My driver glared daggers at me. “You’re not a griffin, Hardy...and we both know that’s not why you’re taking care of her.”
“I made a promise, to her, if no-one else. She’s got nobody besides us. We’ll figure something out, but I will keep her safe and sound.”
Snatching up a wrench, Taxi went back to work. “I’ll hold you to that, Hardy. Swift is already picking up too many of your mannerisms for my taste, but I guess she’s rubbed off on you a little, too, so things could be worse. Maybe Mags will give you some of her charm, tact, and self restraint.”
“Her charm and self—Sweets, you saw her eat that fish!”
“Exactly.”
“Cute. When are you going to have the car assembled enough for us to get out of here?”
Taxi jabbed her wrench at the top floor of the house. “After we’ve all had some sleep. Go rest, before you keel over.”
----
Five hours had passed and the healing power of sleep was not to be underestimated. I was feeling almost equine after spending four or five hours under the covers of Swift’s bed in her old room. I’d been too tired to dream terribly much, which helped considerably.
Mags and Swift were curled up together in the back seat, reading a comic book from my partner’s personal stash while Limerence pored over Taxi’s map trying to get a feel for the new political geography of the city. I was left to keep watch out the windows as buildings flew by. Few ponies were on the streets, most moving cautiously or in groups.
Taxi had fiddled with something under the hood that corralled the car’s incessant lightning discharges a little bit, but it was still the only cab on the road and most assuredly the only one being driven by a pony who considered posted speeds to be lower limits.
I thought I caught a few shadows moving against the sky, but might have imagined them. There was no ‘sign’ as such that we’d moved into police territory, but there was a definite change in the air. I felt my shoulders tense up and the road, while as deserted as every other, had been cleared of anything that might impede a vehicle or a line of fire between the rows of buildings. Another mile closer to the Castle, and a siren went up from somewhere nearby.
Swift and Mags sat up and I rolled my window down, trying to get a bead on where the noise was coming from It was followed, moments later, by a second one.
Red and blue lights flashed on as four separate patrol cruisers zipped out of nearby alleys on the four lane road leading up to the Castle, pulling in behind us and alongside. The officer in the car off to our left was a sweet-faced mare whose name I couldn’t remember. She signaled they were an escort with one hoof, then chopped at the air twice to indicate we should proceed. A few seconds later, another cruiser pulled in and tried to get ahead for a box-in, but Taxi snarled and booted the engine, peeling off around him before he could close it. He fell back as a crackle of magical energy from the Night Trotter’s rear exhaust splashed his front bumper.
We sped on ahead, taking the lead.
While a direct attack from the P.A.C.T. was a possibility, I didn’t count it as particularly likely with my fellow officers alongside us. I still wasn’t feeling especially relaxed. Jade might no longer be quite so medicated, but she hadn’t needed medication to be one of the single most dangerous unicorns in Detrot.
Our friends seemed content to follow, but there was a certain jerky wariness in their actions. I couldn’t tell if they were afraid of us or of something else, but peering out the window, every one of them had a grimly determined expression.
“Har’dy...be it just me or be we like bugs between claws?” Mags asked, quietly as she peeked over the edge of the window.
“We’re safe enough, I think,” I replied, glancing at the rooftops. There were quite a few ponies up there, watching as our little parade passed by. Most were in uniform. I glanced down as a light on my heart flicked on. "I could use a charge at a point soon. Wish I'd thought to do that. Eh, remind me when I get to Supermax."
Swift touched my shoulder, then pointed at a nearby building. “Sir, that’s an anti-dragon cannon up there...”
“I’ll have to take your word for it, kid. Earth pony eyesight, remember?”
“Oh...right. It only has a partial crew. Like, there’s supposed to be four ponies for one of those, but I only saw two.”
I shrugged, watching as eyes followed us from the windows of a small apartment complex. “Probably just a precaution. Jade is trying to guard a pretty sizeable area here. I wonder why. Her forces would probably be better off withdrawing and shoring up at home. This is awfully spread out.”
“I concur,” Limerence added. He shut his eyes and his horn sparked for a moment, then he shook his head. “I’m afraid I still have no magic should Jade prove hostile…”
“That’s fine. You wouldn’t have a prayer against her in a direct confrontation, anyway,” I replied, making sure the straps on my gun harness were nice and tight and the safety was on. “She’s probably got some strategic reason for it, either way. Never knew Jade to waste resources in a pinch.”
“It’s the civilians,” Taxi murmured, easing off the power a little as the highest spires of the Castle appeared over the building tops. “She’s keeping civilians safe. You and she have an awful lot in common.”
“Like what?” I grunted, a little offended at the notion.
“She’s out there fighting, even though the odds are completely against her. She got into the job to save lives and right wrongs. She knew things were corrupt and she’s been trying to make them better. Sound familiar?” Taxi rolled one eye back to look at me. “Since you’ve known her, she’s been stressed beyond words, drugged, or in withdrawal. You probably don’t remember what you were like when you were mixing all that drink with a head full of whatever crap Juniper left behind when he died, but you were about as friendly as a dragon passing a porcupine during that first week off of it.”
“That’s because you knocked me unconscious in the shower, told Jade I was on vacation, and dragged me to a cabin in the woods in the trunk of what would later become this cab,” I muttered.
“Yes...well...it worked,” she replied, dismissing the point with a flick of her mane. Leaning forward, she peered out at the sky. There were several pegasi in uniforms keeping pace with us up there. “I’m just saying that you saved her daughter. She’s not going to kill you for disappearing and she does care about what happens to the city, above and beyond her own survival.”
“She might kill me when I tell her what I know and have been keeping from her…”
Taxi brought her hoof off the gas for only an instant, but I’d caught the hesitation.
“You wearing that special armor you got from Slip Stitch?” she asked, quietly.
I opened my coat and stroked the anti-magic armor wrapped around my barrel. “Yep. I don’t know what good it’ll do if she throws her desk, mind you.”
Mags’ eyes widened a little. “Crazy pony throws desks?!”
“Typically? No. She much prefers throwing people. I’m doing my best to limit her options.”
----
In all my years on the Detrot Police Department, the Castle had never really looked like the fortress that it was. The silly alabaster walls and ridiculous onion-shaped roof badly undermined the idea that it had once been the most formidable building on this end of the continent.
The P.A.C.T. was meant to keep the dragons out of the area around the city, but when they weren’t available the Department had their own defenses. Sadly, most of those defenses were stored in the Department itself and moving them about wasn’t an option. That said, Chief Jade really had done a number. If I were a dragon or a looter, I’d have thought twice, three times, four times, and right on around to the mid-twenties before going home with my tail between my legs, sitting under my bed, and rocking back and forth at the mere notion that I might try to invade that building.
There were no less than four anti-dragon guns set up on the bailey walls surrounding the main Castle building, pointing in each of the cardinal directions. The giant cannons jutted up from the old stone towers like ugly claws, each one fully crewed by four alert officers of the Detrot Police Department. Small flights of pegasi winged back and forth around the building, while others sat on the great dome, field binoculars at the ready, scanning the city for trouble.
It was a pretty impressive sight as we pulled around the last corner and onto the cobbled drive heading up to the gate.
“Sir, there are snipers in those windows,” Swift murmured, pointing towards one of the buildings across the street.
“Jade’s not taking any chances,” I said. “I wonder why the dragon guns. She’s not expecting to get hit, is she?”
“Considering the P.A.C.T. doesn’t seem inclined to make any effort to shoo those dragons away from the edges of the city, I think she’s probably making sure,” Taxi replied, quietly.
I blinked at her as what she’d just said sank in. “Wait...Yeeeah...okay, now there’s a question. Why? I mean, even without the Shield, the P.A.C.T. has enough firepower to drive off a few dragons, right?”
Swift nodded, watching as a few ponies on the roofs followed our progress with interest. At street level, nopony was on the roads or sidewalks. “Just the stuff at the training facility could have driven off two or three.”
“It does suggest the dragons are either heavily armed or more plentiful than what those reports from the Stilettos would seem to indicate, or that someone in a position of power has a vested interest in keeping ponies from leaving the city,” Limerence added, contemplatively.
With that hideous thought sending shivers up everyone’s tails, silence fell over the car. Our escort pulled ahead a little and waved to Taxi, pointing towards the gate.
Taxi pulled underneath the great portcullis as rows of uniformed, heavily armed officers watched us from the walls. Not sure where to park, she pulled to one side of the cobbled road and killed the engine. While none of the officers above us were pointing weapons, none of them had put their guns down and lined up for hugs, either.
“Har’dy,” Mags murmured, “I be scared...”
“Want to say in the car with Taxi?” I asked.
She nodded, picking up Swift’s comic book and clutching it to her chest. “You be coming back, yeah? I be not wanting to be around crazy pony throwing desks. Is safer in car that just throws lightning.”
“I’ll be back quick as I can.” I turned to Limerence and added, “Lim, you stay here with Mags. I’d rather answer as few questions as possible. The ones I suspect Jade’s going to ask will be bad enough.”
“Certainly, Detective. I shall bother one of those ponies over there for a cup of tea if I become bored,” he answered, dipping his horn in the direction of two officers who appeared to be standing guard on either side of the Castle’s front doors. They were watching us along with everypony else, but seemed content to stand there, waiting.
I opened the passenger door and stepped out into the cool, clean air of the twilit evening. Without the weather factories chugging along and with huge sections of the city unpowered or abandoned, the sky was littered with stars. A soft murmur went up from the walls, but was quickly quieted by a few shouts from superior officers up and down the line. They were civilian officers, but the whole business was giving me a very military vibe.
While I was getting used to having lots of eyes on me, these were other cops, colleagues, and ponies I’d worked alongside for years. I counted a few of them as friends.
Leaning down to the window, I muttered, “Sweets, keep the engine running…”
“What good is that going to do?” she said, with an incredulous snort. “It’s not like my hack is bullet proofed.”
“Next time we find a garage, I expect you to correct that,” I grumbled. Taxi looked thoughtful, then a slow smile spread across her muzzle.
“Can I—”
“Yes, you can put whatever weapons you want on it on the sole condition that you’re not required to aim any of them.”
My driver’s grin was so big it threatened to split her head in half. I stepped back, pulled my collar up, adjusted my body-armor, and straightened my coat tails. Ready to face the music.
Swift, meanwhile, was getting out of her side of the car, dragging the Hailstorm along behind her. I shook my head and she looked down at Masamane on her leg, then sighed and began stuffing the cannon back in the car.
Side by side, we approached the guards at the door.
“Hiyo gents!” I greeted them, with a bit of mock joviality. “Brilliant evening for it. Either of you happen to know where I might find Chief Constable Iris Jade?”
The officer on the left was a little earth pony whose name I seemed to remember as ‘Cherry Jam’, while her partner was a dull yellow stallion with an unruly tuft on his upper lip that might one day be a mustache. I couldn’t remember his name.
Cherry swallowed, glancing back and forth between Swift and I. “Detective Hard Boiled...under...under the laws of Equestria and the City of Detrot I...I must p-place you and Officer Swift Cuddles under ar-arrest. Y-you are both suspected of high t-t-t-treason!”
She’d almost choked on the word ‘treason’ and as she said it, both she and her partner took a cautious step back.
“You hear that, Swift?” I chuckled, casually tugging my badge out of my armor so it hung in front of my chest. Cherry’s eyes were drawn to it and her ears laid flat. “She wants to arrest us! You think we should surrender, or should we just call down meteors from the sky to level this place like we did with Canterlot?”
At that, Cherry let out a whimper and her back knees sagged. She’d have fallen over were it not for the building itself against her flank. She hadn’t so much as twitched a hoof in the direction of her gun.
Swift rolled her eyes, trotting up the steps passed the guards and pushing open the door. Turning back, she bowed, holding the door with her flank. “Should I get a red carpet, Sir?”
“No, kid, I think I’ll rough it today.”
Still snickering, I strolled past a pair of Detrot’s finest, pushed open the double doors and entered the heavily conditioned air of the Castle.
----
There was such a flurry of activity going on that nopony even noticed us for a few minutes as we stood there in the main office. The cubicle farm was gone, replaced by what resembled an open-air flea-market. I could smell cooking food, gunpowder, and the sweat of many hundreds of ponies.
I couldn’t see any bits being exchanged, but there were lean-to stalls made from fold out tables and bits of wood in long rows up and down the room. They were manned by both ponies in uniform and civilians, and seemed to be offering everything from gun maintenance to food service. My stomach grumbled as I caught a whiff of fresh baked bread.
High above, the File Cloud spun lazily, as quiet as I’d ever seen it. The rolling thunderhead was a sullen grey and barely moving.
A mare with a stack of papers balanced carefully on her back rushed by us and Swift held the door open for her. She didn’t even notice us, aside a quietly muttered ‘thank you’ as she stepped outside.
I glanced over at the radio station to find ten headsets hanging in mid-air and Telly talking into three different ones at once. She was swaying on her hooves, but her voice was steady as I edged along the wall to her console. Frowning at the headset she was nearest to she gave it a shake.
“—did you say? I told you to let me know if that mad bastard reappeared! I don’t care if the car radio is on the fritz! You send a damn pegasus to let me know! Ugh, no, I know there’s nothing faster than that ridiculous cab...sorry. Wait, what do you mean ‘he’s there’? He’s…”
Telly paused and slowly turned around. Her eyes alighted on Swift and I. She let out strangled cough, then her horn flickered out and all ten headsets dropped out of mid-air, crashing down on her console with a clatter that brought the attention of almost everypony nearby.
Silence gradually descended as neighbors elbowed neighbors, pointing to where my partner and I stood.
“Sir—” Swift whispered out of the corner of her muzzle, “—do you think we should just get you a sign that says ‘Yes, I’m the most wanted pony in the entire city, if not the whole world. Please move along’?”
“If this keeps up, I’m going to need it,” I murmured.
Telly’s lower lip quaked as she took three steps back from the console. Her knees had started to shake and it looked like however many nights of coffee and anti-sleep spells she was running on might catch up with her all at once. Her teal face had all the hallmarks of somepony being kept awake exclusively by magic and willpower. As her spell winked out, her shoulders began to droop.
“Hardy,” she hissed. “You...you can’t really…be here.” She put her hooves on either side of her face, shaking her head violently. Her horn spat a thin string of sparks, then went out again. “I’m hallucinating again. Please, please let me be hallucinating...”
“I’m here, Telly,” I replied picking up one of the headsets that’d fallen on the opposite side of the console and setting it on the counter. “How is Iris Jade? She never writes, she never calls…”
A flash of lightning from the File Cloud brought everyone’s eyes skyward. A shadow had appeared in the window of Jade’s office, standing behind the stained glass image of the Lady Justice.
For the second time in my life, I was standing there ready to beard the dragon. There was some muttering amongst the crowd and somepony shouted, ‘Arrest him!’ but they were immediately shushed. No-one else seemed much inclined to make a move.
“Sir, I think we’re like...two seconds from an actual riot in here,” Swift whispered in my ear.
“Agreed. Telly, before you go have a psychotic break...could you call Jade? Let her know I’m coming up,” I said, still watching the cloud.
When she didn’t respond, I turned back to find Telly slumped over her desk, snoring softly. Sighing, I leaned over and checked her pulse, just to be sure she wasn’t actually dying. There are some dangers to keeping a pony awake for long periods of time with spellwork. I suspected Telly had been abusing it pretty badly of late.
Trotting around her console, I opened one of the bottom drawers of her desk where I knew she kept some essentials of late night police work. I gently draped her ridiculous pink rubber-ducky blanket over her shoulders and patted her mane.
The crowd was still sitting down there, watching me like I was a hundred headed hydra with rabies and paint stripper daubed on my nipples. I did my best to ignore them.
“Kid, you want to lead the way?” I asked, flicking my tail at the stairs up to Jade’s office.
Swift bit her lip, her eyes darting from one face to another. “Shouldn’t we...I don’t know...say something to them? Preferably not stuff like you said at the Vivarium.”
“If you can think of something, be my guest. ‘We’re not the bad guys’? ‘I’m not actually here to destroy you all’?...take your pick.”
She looked like she almost might for a moment, then harrumphed, turning her nose up. “Sir, I don’t like it when you’re right. You’re never right about stuff that I’m happy about.”
“When I start being right about stuff that makes you happy, kid, this city will be a decent place to live.”
----
Leaving the stunned crowd—who’d just stood there was we walked right by them—Swift and I ascended the wide staircase into the hall outside Jade’s office. The ancient armors were gone, replaced by a row of short desks with a pony behind each one. Not one of them looked up, all too absorbed in shuffling papers and jotting notes.
Between each desk was a stack of papers that came up to my knees. Pens scratched at parchment or paper and hooves tapped on typewriters, but those were the only sounds coming from the small herd of pencil pushers who seemed entirely oblivious to what’d just happened downstairs.
“Sir, what’s the point of all this?” Swift asked, softly, inclining her head towards the secretaries.
“Somepony needs to keep track of the world, else it all might come crashing down around our ears,” I murmured, watching as a young mare finished a piece of paperwork and dropped it into her ‘out’ box without so much as a smile of satisfaction.
“It feels like it already has,” she muttered, shuffling her hooves in the thick carpet.
“I know,” I replied, patting her shoulder. “Still, it wouldn’t be an apocalypse without a bureaucracy somewhere. When the fires are out, you need someone to count the ashes.”
As we moved toward the giant doors of Jade’s office, Swift extended one wing across my back momentarily and pulled me against her side. I glanced at her, a little surprised by the gesture, but she seemed not to notice.
We paused again at the doors. At the far end of the hall, I caught sight of a couple of heads peering around the corner, probably waiting to see what was going to happen.
Swift saw them too, and a mischievous grin spread across her face. “Sir...can I do this one?”
I raised a questioning eyebrow. “You sure?”
“Sir, I listened to the worst story of my life just a few hours ago. The worst ever! And yesterday, I beat up a griffin for fun!” Her smile faltered, then she laid her forehead against my neck as she went on, “I...I realized a little while ago that I’ll never be a cop again. How could I? I’ve broken so many laws I should probably just arrest myself. I’ll never be a P.A.C.T. officer, either. I’ll probably go to jail forever and forever might just be long enough to watch everyone I love freeze to death.”
She pushed away for a moment so she could look me in the eyes. I was distantly aware that the pencil pushers had finally realized we were there and the sound of shuffling paper was gone. A few mutterings were going back and forth, but none of them seemed to have twigged to exactly who we were yet.
“The part that really gets me is I think...I think I’m doing the right thing,” Swift continued, “Even when my dreams are dying around me, there’s only one place I should be. It’s right here, beside you, fighting to keep the world alive. I think I...I might even understand you a little bit better.”
I mussed her mane with both hooves and she giggled. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, kid.”
“What matters most is that I’m not scared anymore,” she replied, and that big, beaming smile was back. “So...can I do this one, Sir?”
I took three steps back to give her some room.
Bracing herself, Swift swung around and bucked the doors of Jade’s office hard enough that the sound of cracking wood reverberated through the building like a bomb. One of the secretaries let out a frightened shriek and several chairs were tipped, followed by the sound of scattering files.
Inhaling, my partner shouted at the top of her deceptively tiny lungs.
“This is the police! The jig is up! Hooves in the air everypony!”
----
What can I say? These are the moments you treasure in life. I really ought to start carrying a camera.
----
In all the years we’d worked together, I don’t think I’d ever managed to shake the Chief’s composure quite like watching that crazed, neon pegasus bang down her door. The noise she made could never have been called a ‘squeak’, because creatures like her don’t squeak, but it was still a sound I will remember unto my dying day, however soon that might be.
I ducked to one side as a blast of high powered telekinesis threw the Chief’s desk across the room, smacking the door-frame a solid meter above my head. I covered my face with one leg as a spray of wooden shrapnel showered my side. Swift had thrown herself against the opposite wall of the hallway, kicking her trigger up into her teeth in one smooth motion.
Very carefully, we both peered around the corner.
There, in the center of the room stood Iris Jade, her eyes wide and three shotguns levitating beside her in halos of green magic. A few bits of paper were slowly drifting to the carpet. She was breathing heavily and had developed a slightly worrying twitch in her left eye.
I shared a look with Swift, then stepped out of cover and brushed some splinters out of my mane, dusted off my body armor, and edged over to help my partner back to her hooves. She had a borderline blissful expression on her face as she shook her wings out.
“I think I’m totally beginning to understand why you do that at every opportunity, Sir,” she murmured, picking a stray bit of wood off my muzzle and flicking it away.
“...Hard...Boiled…?” Jade said, in a voice barely loud enough to be heard. The shotguns wavered, then slowly dropped until all three were pointing at my chest. She stalked forward and I sat down, wiggling one ear as she loomed in front of me. Her horn was casting little sparks and arcs of energy and her expression was so full of fury that it had stretched her already skeletal face into a deathly mask.
One of the shotguns drifted forward until it poked me in the nose.
“Give...me...one...good...reason...why I shouldn’t?” Jade growled. I expected Swift to be getting a bit nervous, but if anything, she looked serene.
“Because it was her idea?” I chuckled, jerking my head at my partner. Jade’s eyes swung in her direction for a moment, then back to me.
Another flicker of magic spilled from her horn and she glared a little harder. I felt something in my new armor hum for a second, but nothing else happened. A note of confusion entered her expression and she blinked a couple times.
Reaching up, I grabbed one of the floating shotguns and pretended to pick my teeth with the iron sight. “Pardon, should I writhe about on the ground a little?”
Yanking the shotguns away from me, she shut her eyes. The shattered remains of her desk rose into the air, reassembling themselves with unerring precision into shape, then she slammed it down in its previous position in front of the stained glass window. It was followed by her chair and all three shotguns, which lined themselves up against the wall in within easy reach.
A soft voice behind us asked, “Ch-chief? Should...should we arrest them?”
I looked over my shoulder to find a gaggle of officers, their guns drawn, standing just outside. The one who’d spoken was a little pale-faced colt whose badge paint was probably still wet.
The double doors of her office glowed green, then slammed shut, almost taking off the rookie’s nose. It left the three of us alone.
Jade’s shoulders sagged a little and she opened her eyes. The anger was still there, but it was wrapped in a blanket of resignation.
“Killing you two would be merciful, wouldn’t it?” she muttered, trotting back around her desk and sitting down amongst the mess of papers. The debris left by the flying desk began to reassemble itself, rising and stacking up in neat little piles. A cracked candy jar lifted out of one of her drawers, filled to the top with licorice sticks. Selecting one, she tore off the paper and stuck it in the side of her mouth. “I can’t say as I expected to see either of you alive again, but some part of me knew you wouldn’t just die and leave me in peace. I am wondering why you didn’t feel the need to let me know you were alive.”
““We’ve been really, really busy,” Swift repled, reaching out and picking a licorice from the dish. She held out a second one to me and I shook my head. She shrugged, peeled them open, and jammed both candies into her mouth.
Jade just watched us for a moment, disbelief written all over her face.
“Do you...do you have any concept of what is going on out there? You two are my only lead on what might have happened to the Princesses and you’re flaming busy?!” she barked, suddenly, slapping a hoof down on her desk, making everything on it jump. “I’m patrolling a twenty block radius with a force designed to cover an entire city, because if my people go any further than that some...thing swoops out of the bleeding sky and rips them into tiny pieces and you two ingrates have been busy?! The capital has disappeared and the entire center of the city is cut off and...you’ve been busy?!” Her voice became low and dangerous. “What pray-tell, has had you so involved that you couldn’t drop me an FYI?”
I drew in a breath and shrugged. “I was hiding out with a pair of bat pony secret agents in a warehouse of magical artifacts somewhere in the Wilds. Swift was beating griffins unconscious at the Pit. Taxi was organizing an army of hookers while her legs healed after the Moonwalk incident. Oh, and by the way, we were at the Moonwalk when it exploded. Anything else?”
Jade’s frown deepened as she considered the two of us for a moment. “You’re only telling me all of that because it’s completely immaterial to what is going on...and you know what is going on, don’t you? The Darkening. That garbage from City Hall about you somehow being involved. That dead girl in the alleyway. It’s all connected, isn’t it?”
“And we played right into their hooves, Chief. You and me and everypony trying to keep their heads low. You know what this was all about? That damn armor.”
Jade chewed the licorice stick in the side of her muzzle for a moment, then almost spat it out. “Nightmare Moon’s armor?!”
I nodded. “The mess was about getting the entire set of armor here in Detrot; all three pieces. The griffins had one in their treasury. Astral Skylark had one, taken from Canterlot’s Vaults. The dead girl in the alleyway somehow managed to get it from her. The chest-plate was on tour. All of them came together, right here, and somepony stole them, or at least, stole two of them. I have the helm, hidden, somewhere safe.”
Jade sagged in her chair, rubbing her forehead with one toe. Her suit was rumpled from lack of care and her mane hadn’t been brushed in a couple of days. The wrinkles in her forehead were more like chasms, leaving her looking much older than I knew she was. I wondered whether or not she’d even managed to get a bath lately. Probably not.
“I just had to quit doing drugs in time for the end of the world, didn’t I?” she muttered, dryly, rolling a paperweight back and forth between her hooves.
“Ma’am...if you don’t mind, what’s been going on Uptown?” Swift asked, a bit tentatively. “We haven’t been able to get any information to speak of.”
“Then you’re in good company,” Jade replied, rising from her desk and trotting to the window overlooking the throne room. “A week ago, the day after the Darkening started, some kind of general order went out to the wealthy of the city. Somepony, somewhere, had a nice long list. They all piled into Uptown. Two thirds of the Jeweler territories are now empty, too. Roads were packed, but it sounds like this plan was in the works for a long time. There are mansions on the outskirts that’re flat out abandoned; all the furniture gone. Fifteen hours later, a shield went up around Uptown like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“On orders from the Mayor, delivered via courier, I was told to draw my forces back and let the P.A.C.T. idiots handle enforcement in the city after the Darkening. I, naturally, sent back that he could stuff his orders up his back passage, but then…” A heavy weight seemed to fall over the Chief and if I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn there were a few tears at the corners of her eyes. “Sons of whores never even gave us a chance. One minute somepony would be on the radio, then there would be a scream or a whimper and...then we’d find the remains. I can’t prove it was Snifter, but the result was the same. These Biters...”
“Did you double up the patrols? Heavier equipment and so on?” I asked.
Jade gave a derisive snort. “You think I’m stupid, Hardy? Of course I did. They just busted the equipment, real methodical like, once they’d torn our people apart. If only we knew who these bastards really were...”
Before I could come up with a reply to that, Swift gulped and sat forward. “Ma’am? I...I think there’s something you should see.”
The Chief cocked her head. “What’ve you got? If it’s something that’ll help me catch those beasts, I’ll make sure your next of kin gets your pension before I arrest you when all of this is over.”
I realized suddenly what she was about to do. “Kid...you sure this is a good idea?”
“If bucking down the door was a good idea, this is a brilliant one, Sir,” she replied, then took a deep breath, returning her attention to Jade. “Ma’am, if you remember...I was a P.A.C.T. trainee. When Detective Hard Boiled and I went to the Monte Cheval, I chased down a pony. He was the one who shot Hard Boiled. I...I killed him, but not before I saw his face.”
Jade’s horn sparked and three glass meditation balls lifted out of her drawer, rolling in circles over one another in mid-air. “Leaving aside the subject of how Hard Boiled survived, since I suspect I don’t want to know...what was special about this pony?”
“He was Grape Shot, Ma’am,” Swift answered.
The Chief shook her head. “Should that name mean something to me?”
Reaching into the front pocket of her combat vest, Swift pulled out a much worn piece of paper and pushed it across the desk. Jade lifted and unfolded it, then quickly scanned the letter of recommendation. Her eyes almost popped out of her skull and the meditation balls hit the ground beside her. “He was P.A.C.T.?!”
“It’s worse than that,” I added. “Kid...show her.”
Swift opened her muzzle as wide as she could and leaned towards the Chief. There was no mistaking those rows of ugly, rending teeth on either side of her mouth for anything but the bite of a predator. Jade didn’t gasp or shriek or anything of that sort, but nothing could disguise the way her pupils contracted or her hooves tightened on her chair rests.
“Explain...now,” she growled.
“I wish I could,” I answered, gesturing for Swift to shut her mouth, since it was giving me the heebie jeebies. “Sykes fed the kid some meat two months ago. Stupid little prank, you know? Mess with the rookie and so on. She...liked it. After my injury, I came to and found her teeth like that. We took her to Stella who said somepony had implanted a...what did he call it again?”
“An arcane conservancy, Sir.”
“Yes, that. Somepony had implanted an arcane conservancy in her body.” I looked over at Swift to see how she was handling this discussion. She looked distinctly uncomfortable. “It was changing her; making her susceptible to suggestion, giving her violent impulses, and turning her into a meat eater. Stella’s unicorns managed to remove it, but some of the changes were more permanent than others.”
The Chief held a breath for a moment, staring at the ceiling, seemingly lost in thought. She blew it out between clenched teeth. “What does that have to do with the ‘Biters’?”
“Well, Ma’am... before I sh... before I killed Grape Shot, I got a look at him remember? His jaw was like mine.”
A severed half of Jade’s licorice stick fell out the side of her muzzle. She caught it with magic before it hit the carpet, but I could hear the sound of her teeth grinding against one another. When she spoke it was with barely suppressed rage. “So it’s the P.A.C.T. then? That whoreson Broadside is controlling these ‘Biters’?”
“We tried to track down Grapeshot and he’d apparently ‘quit’ the P.A.C.T. a couple of weeks before the attack,” I said, shaking my head. “That said, yeah, probably. If they’ve been enchanting ponies with these ‘conservancies’, they take awhile to kick in once they’re activated. Swift took more than a month...”
“A month…” Jade’s eyes narrowed. “You knew about this when I captured her. You knew and felt no need to inform me?”
I raised my hooves defensively. “Hey, I wasn’t sure you weren’t just going to lock us in a hole. You want me to apologize? Besides, it doesn’t matter. I came to inform you now. I need you coordinating with the other militias in the city. Send somepony to talk to Stella at the Vivarium. Maybe some of the friendlier Cyclone groups, like the Aroyos out in the Skids. Start figuring a way to deal with the dragons and get ponies out of Detrot.”
“Get them out?” she scoffed. “You...you really haven’t thought this out, have you?”
I blinked a few times. “Come again?”
Jade yanked a map out of her drawers and spread it on the table. “Hard Boiled, we have an entire city of ponies you’re talking about turning into refugees. Even if I were inclined to coordinate with that draconic pervert or the gangers, they don’t have anything like the number we’d need for an evacuation. Unless the Princesses are restored, my best predictions are widespread starvation within a month and a half. Maybe the rest of Equestria isn’t so affected, but I don’t think they have dragons sitting between them and their major farmlands.”
I squinted at the map which had a series of hash marks at points to the north and south of the valley, above the bay and farther south. The hashes went in both directions.
“Are those...dragon sightings?” Swift asked.
“Yes, they are, and far more than the department could handle alone. The Shield is down, Hard Boiled,” she said, tapping the map for emphasis.
Swift gasped, wings popping out from her back as I almost pitched out of my seat.
“Down as in...down down?!” I exclaimed. “I knew the P.A.C.T. wasn’t driving off the dragons, but without the Shield…”
“Yes. There’s no way for us to move so many ponies—or even a fraction of that many—through lands held by dragons and who knows what else. We attempted to get into one of the pylons, but they’re in some form of ‘lock down’ mode. Nopony has come in and nopony has left. The doors are sealed with spells my unicorns can’t even begin to counteract.” Jade shoved the map at me and dropped into her chair, propping her chin on her hoof. “That leaves me with you. You, Hard Boiled, who stroll in a week late to tell me somepony has two parts of the most dangerous armor the world has ever seen; an armor with a very lunar history to it in the middle of an eclipse that won’t end!”
I swallowed, trying to clear my thoughts. The idea that the Shield might be simply off was unfathomable. The Shield didn’t turn off. That was one of the first things you learned in school. The Shield protects. The Shield is safety. The monsters outside are outside and they don’t come inside because the Shield is there.
“Alright...Chief, I’m going to fix this. I need to get to Canterlot, though.”
Jade’s lips thinned to a line. “You are not the only fool in my office who has suggested such a venture this week. We dispatched six messenger pegasi towards nearby cities during the first two days of the Darkening. None of them have come back. What makes you think you’ve got a chance?”
I tucked my tail under myself. “There’s a kind of ugly tracking magic called ‘The Scry’. Whoever is behind all of this has been using it against...well, everyone. Mix it into a drink and you can find someone pretty much anywhere. I’d be willing to bet the department is saturated in it by now. Probably the punch at one of our ‘privately funded parties’.”
Her frown morphed into an expression of shock. “How long have you known about this?!” she demanded.
“A month or so,” I replied, calmly.
Jade’s horn snapped to life and my armor let out a soft whine. I’m glad I never got to find out what she was trying to do to me. She gritted her teeth, pouring more energy into her magic, but all I felt was a gentle warmth before it flickered out and she sagged against her desk. “Could you stop whatever is doing that so I can bash your head against the wall a few times? I could really use the stress relief.”
Swift covered her muzzle with a hoof, trying to hide a smile. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. Miss Taxi already gave him a traumatic brain injury today, if that makes you feel better.”
She scowled at me. “It does, but I’d like to add my own.”
“Sorry to disappoint, Chief,” I replied. “Look, I’m probably going to have to turn myself in as soon as all this is over for...basically everything I’ve done since the day you assigned Swift and I to work together. You can have your lumps then. Either way, like you say, we’re short of time. The Scry doesn’t work on me. Just trust that I can get out.”
“I suppose it’s also a futile gesture asking why this magic hasn’t affected you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, a bit. I’ve got a method of getting to Canterlot, but I can’t leave the city without handling a few things first. I need you to take some ponies...err...a lot of ponies...and go make sure Precious and Lily Blue are safe. I may have an...acquaintance who can get us into uptown, but I’ll do that after Canterlot.”
She cocked her head. “You’re hoping to run into somepony out there?”
“I’m hoping there’s someone who we can still tell what’s going on in Detrot. Someone who’ll care. The Royal Guard wasn’t all stationed in Canterlot.”
“If I’m to ‘trust’ you, I would like to know how are you planning on getting out? Even without the Scry, I’m betting the bastards who chewed my officers are monitoring roads. Not to mention the dragons.”
I felt a smirk coming on. I tried not to, but it’s awful hard when you’re feeling clever.
“We’re taking the Bull,” I said.
She was silent for a moment, then threw her hooves in the air, and moved back to her chair, dropping into it with a resigned groan. “Yet again, I am reminded why the notion that you could ever have a sane, functional plan is hopelessly naive.”
“Trust me, not my favorite plan, either. Still, the Bull is in town and I doubt they’ll be leaving without a very good reason. You know what the conductor is like.”
Jade took a moment to vigorously scratch her mane with both hooves so it stuck out in all directions. She let out a frustrated growl and kicked her chair back from the desk, spinning it around to sit staring through the glass.
At last, she said, “I expect you to call Telly the moment you get back in the city, Hardy. This is not a request. No games, no shenanigans. Understood?”
“Fair enough,” I answered. “She and I need to have a protracted conversation anyway, but I interrupted whatever spell she’s been using to keep herself awake. Poor filly is sleeping it off downstairs.”
Jade waved a hoof, dismissively from behind her chair. “I’ll have somepony go tuck her in a closet somewhere for a few hours. You want some guns?”
“I think we’re good, for the moment. Taxi needs a new—”
She swung around and gave me a look that could have peeled paint. “I didn’t ask if Taxi wants some guns. Heavens above, I need you to actually come back, you righteous crap stain. Arming her is like giving you a set of wheels.”
I tried to think of a counterpoint, but it was essentially true.
“Alright then. You...um...you mind letting your people know to let us leave? I’d rather not try to sneak out.”
“Oh...you’re going to have to sneak out,” Iris Jade grumbled, getting up from her seat. “In fact, if you were anything like as blunt coming in as you were the last time, I suspect she’s already on the—”
Whatever she was about to say was cut short as my chair was torn out from under me by a blast of magic. I yelped and collapsed on my back, only to feel something very warm, very soft, and more than a little heavy land on my chest. A hot pair of lips were jammed against my own, followed by an extremely inquisitive tongue. I tasted bubble-gum chapstick.
I’d shut my eyes as I fell, but at the sensation of somepony kissing me, I opened them again to find myself staring into an olive face with thin, pretty cheekbones.
The pony pulled back and I let out a faint cough. She had one hoof and a fair bit of her body-weight resting on my solar plexus.
My first rational thought was ‘Oh Celestia...That’s Cerise,’’ followed closely by ‘Cerise just kissed me.’
That was also the last rational thought I had for about twelve seconds until my body-armor started to make a noise like a crowbar being fed into an industrial grinder.
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"but you were about as friendly as a dragon passing a porcupine during that first week off of it.” Thank you mind for that lovely image that I could use right about now. The smile and laugh im in sore need of.
This chapter, bravo. I needed this laugh. But dear lord was this such a bright spell that ended on one hell of a bang.
That ending...it was glorious!
It's great to see an actual chapter I could laugh to, a pleasing respite from all the real troubles going down. And it was good to finally see Mags get some much needed tears out of her system. Celestia knows she needed to. Hopefully Canterlot will help shed some light on all of this, or at least enough to get to the next bit of craziness. Either way, I can't wait!
6777742 Yeah, that was a giggle.
Honestly, Kasen and I had a discussion and he told me I had better make this chapter a giggle else I might lose some readers after that last one. I don't want everything to be dark and despairing all the time.
-Chessie
Wow. Always masterful, Chessie
O.O
I love you Swift
6777772 Awww, thanks. I had a giggle with this one. I hope you guys laughed. You really needed a laugh after that last chapter.
6777784 Heh...yeah, Swift needed her moment when she finally realized how little obeying authority had done to make her life better.
-Chessie
6777769 its more that I have a 5' by 4' hole in my ceiling and a basement full of standing water about 4 inches deep atm to muck through. My outlook for today was what else is getting dumped on me. Thank you for changing that in part.
Hmm. I have the feeling you might want to reupload the story cover image. The medium version is completely bollocksed.
Well Slip Stitch will be happy that his armour's get a good stress test.
That was amazing, thank you again.
Oh ho! I wonder if Hardy is going to hook up with Cerise when this is all over. It won't be a good Noir set if the detective didn't get a Dame or two. Better yet it would be funny if he became Jade's son-in-law.
I could see it now, their foals would have an interesting story on how their parents met.
6777897 Jade would kill him before the wedding. They'd find parts of him strewn across the whole of Equestria. People would be picking bits of him out of their fur for years.
-Chessie
6777984 Er... Never mind then, I can't picture what awful spell Jade knows that can both tear someone to shreds and keep those pieces from decaying for years..
Jade should really relax more. If she continues doing that, she's going to burn out her horn.
So many laughs in this chapter! I particularly liked that moment of Swift's: that little pegasus has grown up so fast!
6777984 And then, then she'll get started on him!
I just find it amazing that Luna managed to ruin the ponies' pacifistic society in only 60 years.
It took progressives an entire century!
Luna is truly Worst Princess!
*cackles wickedly and dances away from the torch-wielding mob*
I am from Detroit aka Detrot so I am a bit offended.
6778090
*Wields torch*
¨You´ll NEVER GET AWAY¨
Admit it! Celestia is best Princess!
6778242 By what? You can't pretend that Detroit isn't a corrupt, broken city. The only difference between Detrot and Detroit is that Detroit everyone already left.
And besides, unlike the majority of your fellow Americans, I (not American) actually like Detroit. I think it has a lot of potential and the core of its remaining populace are loyal to their home. But you can't pretend that its democrat governing body hasn't absolutely shafted it over the past few decades. You'd only be fooling yourself if you said different.
Definitely a lot more ligthearted than before, but still soem darkness to it. Like cerise kissing hardy right in front of her mom. Ooooh jade bout to have a corinary.
There has got to be a way to destroy the scry though. Get rid of that and the assholes lose a major advantage. Honestly should be a priority right now. Still getting to canterlot could help with something at least. Even if Canterlot is gone, the regal sisters would not leave equestria without defense. We still ahve an alicorn and a draconequs out and about, and that is only for starters. Though i suppose the point of the armor of nightmare moon, and perhaps the missing moongun, is to try and match their power...
.... A thought just occurred to me. In the history of equestria, there was only one being who caused the entirety of a city to vanish instantly... And that one would benefit more from a armor with dark magic than anything else. Yet he had perished decades ago... Or did he?
6778242 Not enough abandoned buildings?
The part I don't like about this story is the progress bar I see at the top of the page. It keeps moving further to the right as I read through the chapter and when it gets to the end, the chapter's over. I don't like when the chapter's over
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OH SWEET LUNA'S LEFT ARSE CHEEK THAT ENDING WAS BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!! But 5/10 mildly ship
Huh. Bubblegum? Cerise always struck me as a more cherry-chapstick kind of girl. :V
My biggest regret is that I can't upvote this story more than once.
Go Cerise! I know Jade is probably trying to kill him there at the end, unless it's Cerise trying to get his armor off.
However if she's half as bull-headed as her mother she'll probably date (and protect) Hardy despite her mothers objections.
Also, Swift is now awesome and cute! Go Swifty!
6778730
I wish people would stop seeing it as a bad place.I grew up playing th esnow,making snow men,and fighting cancer with my aunt.
Cerise was Jade's kid, right? It's been a bit.
Anyway, always a joy getting an e-mail telling me this had an update.
"““We"
Extra quotation mark?
6780643 It's the only city in America where suburbs are being turned back into farmland because they've been utterly abandoned...
That's a pretty bad sign..
6782516
As always great chapter
One question though, I live in the Flint area and have been trying to find out who mayor Snifter is based on. The best I can come up with is a pun on Rick Snyder the governor. Is that right or did you just make up a name?
I smell a dead pony walking!
Actually, he's not walking. He's crawling.
That's a better term for it.
Poor Hard Boiled.
Also, great chapter, especially the end.
Another great work Chessie!
awesome chapter!
Cerise is Jade's daughter aint it? And if it is that makes it even better. Poor jade. she never can win when it comes to hardy.
6795082 Heh...I quite like that, actually.
-Chessie
6798312 That relationship was downright disturbing to write. I enjoyed her, though.
-Chessie
At least it's getting a good trial run before something that wants him dead more than Jade does right now.
6798915 There are few things in the universe that have ever wanted him dead more than Iris Jade at the end of this chapter.
There's at least one Elder God who he annoyed by accidentally peeing into their dimension during an especially deep alcoholic binge some years ago, a professional murderer who he caught and jailed after accidentally shooting in the groin four times, and Taxi when she hasn't had her morning coffee.
-Chessie
6782516
....No it's not...
Dude, that's been happening all over the country since the crash began in the early 2000s. Detroit has never been that bad, and is only in trouble right now because they're a manufacturing capital in the middle of a depression where there's not enough money to buy the things they make.
6780643
Having grown up in a city, I think this is a pretty accurate portrayal of a Detroit-like city: there's good parts and bad parts, rich areas and poor areas, and a criminal culture that, while present, stays relatively unseen. There are areas like the Skids in big cities where the police just don't go, and there are areas where the police have a heavy presence. Keep in mind that Hardy has a similar view to you, having grown up on a relatively nice street, but this isn't a story about the places he goes to relax on his weekends. This is a story about a series of bad things happening in an otherwise decent place, culminating with a disaster. It's not supposed to be a complete picture of Detrot, just what a highly-proactive homicide detective sees on a particularly long and violent case.
Also, both of you need to keep in mind that this story is set during something analogous to the Great Depression.
6802953 Not even when it had one of the highest murder rates in the country... until 1/3 of the population left.
And there are no other places turning entire suburbs of MAJOR CITIES back into farmland in the USA due to depopulation. Not even in Camden, NJ (a mid-size city) which also experienced about a 1/3 population loss. I wouldn't object to Camden being turned to farmland, since it's such a filthy, decrepit cesspool I have to look at every day on the train; but the fact remains it's not happening... nor would anyone eat anything out of the soil in that area anyway, given the entire city's ground could be classified as a giant Superfund site.
The only other place where land has been de-populated in large sections for the express purpose of letting nature reclaim it is in New Orleans, and they had to after Katrina made it clear that buffer zones were desperately needed.
6804698 6783052 Guys, Please take it to mail or something. If you want to talk about Detrot, please, do talk about Detrot. Detroit is a city on some other planet and that planet is generally agreed upon to be a bit shite sometimes.
I picked the name 'Detrot' out of a hat to represent a city who'd experienced a major economic recession. I couldn't make a horse pun out of Chicago or Los Vegas. I've never been to Detroit and I have no idea what it's actually like. I looked at a map for about ten seconds, then threw my hands in the air and said 'fuck it, it's a city full of ninja hookers and dragons'.
-Chessie
Spurred by the lack of scientific knowledge and greatly alarmed by the sudden uptick of cases of "Zen Anger", Sly Chair, spokespony and head of Council for Holistic Amoury, Niceness, and General Equine Love; Id Neurological General Specialists, the governing body over all Equestria's marriage counsellors, relationship counsellors, and psychologists conveined an international symposium in the Hockerfeller Plaza in Manehattan to discuss matters. The symposium was well into its third day, the members present wrapping up a spirited but friendly, debate regarding regarding the use of colour on form 1049-E to sooth the nerves and tempers of civil-servants, when the whole schedule was suddenly interrupted and turned on end.
A police-pony, Leaf Grass from Neigh Orleans, stepped forward during a Q&A session open to the general public seeking information. Heproduced a small, mysterious statuette that he had captured during a raid of a suspected Nightmare Moon cult in the swamps and bayous south of the city. Mr Leaf Grass knew that the council consisted not of archeologists, but the sheer anger and disharmonous power eminating from the statuette alarmed him sufficiently to make the trip to Manehattan to seek the aid of the pop professionals in Equestria. So fearsome and malign was the aura given off by the figure that many of the Council's members were taken physically ill and all conversation and attention immeadiately gravitated towards it.
The figure, which was passed around eager hands, hoofs, and talons, consisted of a monster of vaguely diamond-dog outline, but with longer, narrower, almost simian features. Atop its head rested a headset, vaguely similar in appearance to those used by Equestrian communication officers, but of an unknown make and model. The figure's eyes where the most striking feature. The unknown artisan who carved the object displayed considerable skill, embuing them with frightenly life-like qualities, and a look of such unmigitated rage and frustration and loathing that all who beheld them shied back in fear.
The statuette also came with a ritualistic chant, carefully transscribed by Leaf Grass after interviewing and questioning the cultists he and his fellow officer-ponies captured, the word-divisions being guessed at from traditional breaks in the phrase as chanted aloud:
A translation was provided by senior members of the cult once Leaf Grass "asked to speak with a manager":
6780643
6802953
NatGeo had an interesting article last year about Detroit's status
Something a little bit more upbeat for their entrance and planning montage.
6804728
Chicoltgo and Las Pegasus
6807935 Eh, Las Vegas had never been through a recession, didn't have sections of blight, and didn't have a large body of water for the sea serpent. I don't like Chicoltgo as a name. Detrot just rolls off the tongue.
-Chessie
6808796
fair enough, if I was the annoying type I'd keep spitballing names till it got on your nerves, but it is what it is
(but seriously las pegasus sounds better than detrot)
Poor Hardy, always getting the mares he doesn't want or at least the ones who are complicated. He just never gets to catch a break. There's something humorous about Jade wanting to kill him and really not having much in the way of a justifiable reason other than that he's downright infuriating and he can't help but get away with it.
6812220 I've been in the BDSM community for years, though less active recently. I decided to use a few of the people I actually know as inspiration for the characters. There's this guy at one of our local meet-ups whose back looks like a crossword puzzle and his domme loved to show up to events dressed in nothing but rat-tail whips (she's really cool). They inspired the Twins and Edina.
-Chessie
6812791 Exactly! A wonderful kind of mare.
Do let me sit in silence for a moment while my rather shocked and arcing brain tries to put together what exactly just happend in those last few lines...
processing....
processing...
Ding
Hardy is going to be up to his eyeballs in shit again