Corvus

by Delerious

Chapter I

Part I: The Stable that Never Sleeps

I

The skies above Manehattan were as thick as old porridge—and arguably the same color—and seemed to hang barely inches above everypony’s heads. It had been expected, of course—for the better part of this week, the Manehattan weather teams had been preparing this snowstorm. What had not been expected, though, was the time and circumstances of the event.

There had admittedly been a number of neighsayers about the new mayor’s decision to have a snowstorm only a week before the city’s annual Nightmare Night festival, of all days, an event so large that quite a bit of Manehattan’s revenue came from that one huge spike in tourism every year that coincided with ponies, griffons, and many other denizens of Equestria journeying to Manehattan for the sole purpose of celebrating Nightmare Night as only this city could. A snowstorm, they had said, would likely turn away many of these tourists, and deprive the city coffers of the money needed for other, more crucial needs of the city—especially since the mayor had himself spent a sizable sum on building up hype for the festival, which he never ceased to remind everypony who would listen was going to be Manehattan’s most memorable Nightmare Night ever.

But the mayor had disagreed, and told them all a story of how, as a foal, it had snowed during the first Nightmare Night he could remember. He had told them of the amazement he had felt when he saw the snowflakes falling from the sky, the awe he had experienced when he looked at the mounds of white that grew to be bigger than his house by the time the first foals came to the door for the candy his parents had put in their biggest mixing bowl. And even a few of the neighsayers had chuckled when he told them of the snowball fight he’d put together that night—still in his Blackmane the Pirate costume—and how one snowball had hit him so hard, he’d flown right out of his fake pegleg and landed in a snow drift.

The snowstorm over Manehattan, the mayor had said, was an opportunity for everypony—foal, filly, colt, mare and stallion alike—to share in the experience he’d had that Nightmare Night. Also, he’d added as an afterthought, to create a bit of an atmosphere.

Again, the neighsayers had laughed; if there was one thing that ponies across Equestria appreciated, it was puns in every shape and form.

Even so, the mare that was currently crossing Blinker Street couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed. The storm was a far cry from an honest-to-Celestia blizzard, true, and the lights that made the Manehattan skyline glow like Luna’s full moon were so luminous that any snowflakes touching the damp streets were melted in seconds. This didn’t change the fact that the cold wind and snow had been blowing in her face ever since she had stepped out from her apartment.

A unicorn walked past her, his horn glowing faintly. The mare could barely make out a faint shimmer in front of him that shielded his face and mane from the weather. She turned away from him, and narrowly missed receiving a concussion by way of the pegasus that zoomed past her. She noted how low to the ground the pegasus was flying, and glanced up at the sky, eyebrows raised.

As if waiting on her cue, a low grumbling noise stirred in the clouds, echoing across the sky and startling the mare. Thunder! In a snowstorm! She shook her head and smiled—no doubt somepony on the weather team was just itching for a chance to add a few personal touches to tonight’s already crazy weather.

After another look at the sky, she continued on, though at a slightly faster pace than before; after all, she was neither unicorn nor pegasus, and all she had to rely on to cover her face at the moment were her two front hooves.

The wind died down slightly, and she chanced lowering her hoof from her eyes. Her heart rose as she saw the faint glow of windows from a squat building squashed in between two apartment complexes.

Not a moment too soon.

The weather forgotten, she made for the door at a gallop, reaching the threshold just as the wind picked up again. The mare exhaled loudly, shaking the melted snow off her coat before trotting inside.

The wooden floor was losing its finish in a few places, and half of the raised cushions at the counter looked like they had some stuffing missing. The tune that blared throughout the room sounded as old as the record player it was coming from; most ponies the mare knew had no interest in jazz, Buddy Trot or otherwise.

The Waterhole had seen better days. But she and the other dozen or so ponies inside could agree that right now, it was heaven.

“What can I get ya?” grunted the bartender in the mare’s general direction as she sat down at the counter. He had the look of a strongpony gone slightly to seed; his dirty white apron looked a little tight around the barrel.

“Sweet Apple reserve,” she responded, her voice measured and cool. “Just a bit on the hard side, thank you.”

“Ten bits,” the bartender said, a tankard already in hoof. While he poured out her drink, the mare promptly reached into her left saddlebag and pulled out a drawstring purse. After a few seconds of digging around, she fished out a few coins from inside and placed them on the counter. The bartender scooped them into his apron without a word and set her foaming mug on the counter. “Enjoy.”

After thanking the bartender, the mare wasted no time in taking a quick sip. She immediately felt the warming effects of the cider inside her. She sighed as she continued drinking, a rare feeling of contentment washing over her like the waves at Miamare Beach. But the feeling quickly passed as she finished her tankard; as much as she desperately wished to think otherwise, she was here on business.

Unofficial business, but still.

“‘Nother round?”

She started in her cushion—so absorbed had she been in her drink that she hadn’t heard the bartender come up. “Oh! T-that’d be fine,” she said, nodding.

“Second round’s another six.”

The mare laughed. “Oh, you don’t need to lower the price just for me.”

The way the bartender chuckled told the mare it wasn’t something he did very often. “Filly, please. Nights like these, ain’t nothin’ warms a pony up like Apple family tradition,” he said. “And lemme tell ya, that’s somethin’ everypony in here could use right now.” He pointed a hoof out the window; the wind looked like it had intensified, and some of the awnings across the street were starting to collect the blowing snow.

“Point taken,” smiled the mare, hoofing over another six bits as another tankard was set before her. “To supply and demand,” she added, raising the mug in her hoof to a mutual laugh.

As she put the cider to her muzzle, she went to work.

---

The mare knew many ponies would have relished the opportunity to do what she did for a living—especially those colts and fillies whose idea of a role model was a mishmash of every comic book known to ponykind—but she knew few among them would have genuinely enjoyed it.

What was often an unglamorous job often began in places like these: establishments with a less-than-savory reputation often had just the right mix of clientele and background noise to avoid suspicion. The Waterhole was her favorite place for this very reason—though their Sweet Apple reserve wasn’t too far behind, a small part of her admitted. It attracted ponies from just about every walk of life Manehattan had to offer. And Manehattan was a big city; she had once seen a mare that looked pretentious enough to be Canterlot nobility rubbing shoulders with a unicorn she’d bet her bottom bit was a regular at every rave club from Central Park to Bucklyn as though they were old friends. With diversity like that, there had to be some interesting conversation among everypony inside the bar. Conversation that could conceivably be used to drown out ponies who wished to speak more discreetly than others.

Ponies that, if he had been telling the truth, could be right beside her.

She closed her eyes and took another sip, pretending to enjoy the cider as it worked its unique magic. She scrunched up her brow a little, concentrating as much as she could without potentially giving herself away.

As the cider’s warmth dissipated, the mare allowed the world to shrink around her, mentally reducing all of existence as she knew it to the half-full tankard in front of her, the slice of wooden counter on which it stood, and the stool on which she lay. Everything and everypony around her disappeared into the closing blackness, the only hint of their existence being the snippets of voices that continued to echo in her ears.

Now.

—did you see that one hoof-off in the Baltimare game—

—that internship with Carousel Boutique could finally get us the bits we need—

—total manure, ain’t that right, Tackle—

—marriage is in trouble, which is not helping Down Feather at all—

—never seen a filly put away a drink so quick—

—But Ponyville’s so far away, Violet—

—could lose that scholarship to Canterlot University—

—had his hour, Digger. He ain’t comin’—

—never seen many fillies then, have you?—

—if they start Flanko against the Manticores, my fantasy team is bucked—

—least your husband doesn’t think with his loins. You know what Drill Bit suggested we do the other night?—

—been farther apart than that before, Spark, and for much longer than—

—none of ‘em looked like you, sweet flanks—

—wring his buckin’ neck myself, Trinny—

—spit your bit? Detrot’s pee-eff-pee-ay’s less than point six—

—is that even possible with a saddle on?—

—Vy, I need to think about this—

—last chance, Hay Bale!—

—Get the hay away from—

—Bucklyn Bridge, half an hour, alone. Be—

“—there.”

The instant the mare had murmured the word, her eyes had snapped open. Without turning, she looked off to her left, at the booth nearest the door, where the faint sound of hooves hitting wood told her their occupants were ready to leave. She instantly downed the rest of her cider, taking the opportunity to chance a look at the ponies as she did so. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw them: a unicorn with a fiery red coat and tan mane, and a large brown pony in an overcoat who filled the door completely with his bulk. She allowed herself a smile—it seemed her informant had been telling the truth after all.

Just as Cracker described.

The door to the Waterhole opened, and the hoofsteps were lost in the continuing snowstorm; then that, too, fad-ed
into silence as the door slowly slid closed.

The mare quickly downed the last of her cider, and slid from her stool in one smooth motion. She hefted her
saddlebags over her barrel as her hooves touched the ground, and as she made for the exit, she began counting down.

Five … four … three … two … one.

By the time she reached one, she was back in the storm—but the two ponies were already gone.

What?

The mare surveyed the street, confused. She was certain she’d timed everything perfectly—those five seconds were always enough time for her to begin shadowing her targets. One second less and she was likely to be spotted, and all her work would be for nothing; one second more could be enough for her to lose sight of them.

She put a hoof to her muzzle, and began to think. She hadn’t remembered seeing any carriages on the curb on her way inside. And she doubted the taxi coaches would be out for a while; the weather was far from dangerous, but any passengers were likely to get an uncomfortable ride until the coaches were properly outfitted for cold weather.

But it wasn’t long before she forced it into the back of her mind. Where they had disappeared to didn’t matter. She now knew where and when they were bound to turn up. She also had a legitimate physical description.

Now, it was time to do what she loved to do best.

She ducked into a nearby alleyway, a tight squeeze of a space that was barely three ponies wall to wall, then quickly looked around to make sure nopony saw her. Only when she was sure her only company was the duo of rats in the nearby dumpster did she unclasp her right saddlebag.

She had practiced this routine hundreds of times during her morning exercises. She had to—when it came to jobs like these, one wasted effort could decide the lives of ponies both innocent and guilty.

The mare began counting under her breath again.

—five—

With a flick of her hoof, the contents of her saddlebag spilled into the air. She crouched to the pavement, like a cat before a buzzing fly—

—four—

—and leaped into the air, forelegs outstretched as the first two “Horseshoes,” thick, navy blue hoofwear wrapped over specially made metal cleats and worn as boots, slid effortlessly onto her hooves—

—three—

—a cowl, cape and bodice draped as one over her form with ease as they met at the apex of her leap; she tugged the mask over her head with her teeth, then coiled her back legs, bracing her forelegs as she prepared to meet the cracked asphalt—

—two—

—and bucked hard, fitting her back hooves into her other pair of Horseshoes at exactly the same moment as her front hooves met the ground, pushing her off into a handspring and all but into the rest of her form-fitting suit—

—one—

—which she quickly sealed shut with a zipper, well-concealed against any clinging obstacles like television an-tennas or stray hooves as she landed cleanly on all fours.

She shook her head. Olympia would have me running laps if she saw that, she thought, memories both fond and not-so-fond of her gymnastics tutor rushing through her mind for the briefest moment. I still need to practice.

I still need to be quicker.

She craned her neck upward, gauging the height of the alleyway. Twenty … thirty … forty feet, give or take. Easy enough for a mare of her build to scale. Just in case, though … She tapped her back hooves together, then her front ones. A couple slight jumps from under her hooves, like the ground had suddenly decided to give a tiny hiccup, told her that all four horseshoes were in good working order.

They were not ordinary horseshoes; these horseshoes were lighter and more durable. They’d also originally belonged to a noble of Canterlot who apparently spent his teatime designing these sorts of things for the Royal Guard of all things, and had practically foisted them on her after she’d returned a marble bust of his ancestor from somepony who’d broken into his mansion a few months ago. “Something that ought to put a little more umph in your step,” the mare remembered him saying.

It had only taken one leap to know he wasn’t kidding.

She pounced for the brick wall, and for a moment it was like her first time all over again: as the hidden springs sandwiched into the apparatus catapulted her ears-over-tail towards the wall, the familiar surge of adrenaline spread throughout her body, and though she knew it was hard to see under her violet cowl, the biggest smile imaginable was plastered all over her face. She barely resisted the urge to cheer.

She willed herself back to reality just in time to stretch out her hooves and connect with the wall. A quick contortion of her body put her rear hooves a few feet above where her front hooves had just been. She bounced off the wall like a foal on a sugar-high; another tuck into her barrel propelled her back legs toward the wall that had been behind her …

“Buck! Tuck! Catch!” she imagined Olympia bellowing at her, slamming one hoof into the other with every word—a mantra she’d heard at least a thousand times while practicing her acrobatics. She coiled her back legs—

—buck—

—lunging upward once more, hooves stretched out before her, she curled up into a ball—

—tuck—

—letting her momentum carry her up and over until her back legs connected with the wall again—

—catch!—

—four down, plenty more to go, she thought—

—“buck … tuck … catch! Buck … tuck … catch! Buck … tuck … CATCH!”—

—until where the wall had once been, there was now empty air, and a final somersault readied her for a dis-mount. And when she felt all four hooves land solidly on the roof of the apartment, the mare imagined Olympia standing right before her, wearing that little half-smile she’d come to associate with a job well done.

But this job was far from done.

Turning to the south now, her destination a little more than a mile in the distance, the mare applied the final piece of her costume—a large fedora, the same shade of purple as the rest of her bodysuit and billowing cape—and placed it upon her head with a flourish.

Now came her favorite part.

“Ponies of Manehattan, never fear,” she said to nopony in particular, striking an elegant pose. “The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well is here.”

A bolt of lightning—too far into the clouds to be seen as more than a flickering glow—split the sky in two, fol-lowed swiftly by a rumble of thunder overhead.

The dramatics concluded, the Mare-Do-Well set off for the Bucklyn Bridge at a gallop, her powerful earth-pony legs carrying her from one rooftop to the next with purpose in every leap and step, occasionally punctuated by a low boom from the sky. The buildings of Manehattan were so close together that, in any other situation, her spring-loaded horseshoes were not all that necessary; her natural, earth-pony strength was often all she needed. But the Mare-Do-Well had been called upon to save lives in the past—and she had learned the hard way that time was not something she could afford to waste.

So focused was the Mare-Do-Well in getting to the bridge on time that she didn’t pay any more heed to why exactly a pegasus would need to put thunderclouds in a snowstorm.

As a result, she completely neglected to consider the slight possibility that this thunder and lightning might not be completely natural.

---

To see Princess Luna’s night sky as it was meant to be seen was a very rare treat in Manehattan; there were so many lights in the sprawling metropolis below that the only object in the heavens not drowned out by the artificial illumination of the skyline was the moon that had once held Luna prisoner for a thousand years. Tonight’s storm, however, blocked out even that. But the same clouds that obscured the sky from the city also concealed the city from the sky, allowing the many thousands of stars of Luna’s heavens to shine almost as brightly as the moon itself. It was a gift enjoyable by very few, and for very little time; at this altitude, the air was so freezing that even the most adventurous of pegasi would find herself a ponysicle inside of a minute. But even then, everypony agreed that seeing those myriads of twinkling pinpoints of light was worth nearly freezing to death.

Those same pinpoints of light suddenly reflected off the dark shape hurtling towards Manehattan.

---

Lightning flashed in every direction. Not lightning as anypony had ever known it—natural lightning could reduce the strongest of trees to smoking hulks of matchwood in the time it took to blink an eye. This lightning, while nowhere near the destructive power of its counterpart, was also as destructive as its unseen master wished it to be—which was far from a comforting thought for the airborne object.

The pegasus was entirely clad in heavy black armor from muzzle to tail. His abnormally large wings were similarly protected—even the individual feathers appeared to have sharp-looking shards of dark ebony shielding them—and were swept behind him like a peregrine falcon in free-fall. His streamlined helm might have resembled the curved beak of any predatory bird in Equestria, with fiery streaks of yellowish-orange energy where its eyes ought to be. Contrails of a similar color trailed behind his wingtips like the flames of twin candles.

The source of the lightning suddenly burst into view—another armor-clad pegasus much like himself, but larger and of a light shade of grey. Wisps of a periwinkle-blue color tried in vain to keep pace with the new arrival, but there was nothing faster in the Manehattan skies right now. And both pegasi knew it.

The gray pegasus abruptly executed a barrel roll, dropping in on the other pegasus from above. His wingtips seemed to flare a deep blue for only an instant before they released another miniature magical storm, every single bolt zooming straight for the black flyer like parasprites to an apple. It accelerated, decelerated, and rolled continuously, somehow managing to narrowly avoid the lightning’s assault.

But not the gray pegasus.

Exactly one barrel roll later, the two were wingtip to wingtip.

One barrel roll after that, a burst of sparks bloomed from their wingtips as they collided, and the black pegasus had sent his attacker spinning like a windmill through the clouds. He immediately adjusted his course downward.

Only seconds later, however, there was a flash of blue-white, and a peal of thunder from somewhere above him. The pegasus looked upward to see his assailant falling towards him—but the pony was not a pegasus anymore; those armor-clad wings were nowhere to be seen, and there were several other key differences.

Namely, the lethal-looking blade that was swinging in the general direction of his neck.

In a split second, the pegasus executed a quick snap-roll, bringing himself to rest above the silver pony as the sword passed harmlessly through the air.

Change.

Like the drip of water in a silent cave, the word echoed in his mind as the bright flash of light surrounded him. There was another loud crack of thunder, and the black pegasus had disappeared. In his place was a near-perfect copy of the gray pony, even down to the sword in his hooves.

Deflect.

Their blades crossed, and shrieked like banshees in their masters’ freefall. Swarms of sparks darted across their armored faces like dozens of glowing gnats, illuminating their helms for the tiniest fraction of moments. Both ponies were less than a hoof away from each other, and each of their slices, stabs, thrusts, and parries was so fast that a normal pony’s eye would never have been able to see anything beyond a blur.

Up.

The thought had crossed his mind long before he’d actually heard the command. He knew he and his opponent were too evenly matched in their swordsponyship; close combat was out of the question, and air-to-air combat was even worse so long as he was on the defensive.

He had to get to higher ground, or otherwise he would almost certainly die.

The word hadn’t even faded from his brain when he kicked himself away from the gray pony. A moment later, he was encased in blazing light once more, and there was the black pegasus again, streaking skyward like a fleeting shadow. It didn’t take long for the other pony to copy him; within seconds, an azure streak of light was in hot pursuit, and cobalt-tinted lightning stitched the night sky once again.

The black pegasus did not stop accelerating until he had broken through the topmost layer of cloud, Luna’s gigantic moon filling his vision completely. He threw himself into a controlled stall, now; at the exact moment he felt the grip of gravity begin to tug him downward, he vanished in a burst of orange flame, and the earth pony was back in his place, sword in hooves. He streamlined his body as he fell faster, turning himself into an equine bullet.

He would only get one shot at this.

The pony twisted his body to avoid the bursts of magical flak; any one of them could peel his armor like an orange if it so much as grazed him. But still he kept on falling, falling towards the gray pegasus that was just beginning to emerge from the storm clouds—

Finish.

He raised his blade, ready to channel every last bit of his strength into this one blow. As an added bonus, the friction of the atmosphere against his sword had turned it red-hot. It didn’t matter how protected the grey pegasus was now—even his armor had a weak spot, and right now, the black pony was just about to burn right through it.

He swung his sizzling blade downward with a roar—

—which promptly choked in his throat as his glowing blade met the grey pony’s own sword, which itself was glowing faintly—but not with heat. A quick look at his opponent’s helm told him everything—the curved, metal-plated horn that had certainly not been there before was glowing the same shade of pale blue as the sword.

The sparks from the blow hadn’t even dissipated when the black pony quickly kicked himself away from the silver unicorn, quickly vanishing from view in the clouds as if the failure of his attack had settled the matter. A faint flash and a barely audible grumbling was all the unicorn needed to determine that the pegasus was fleeing.

He hovered aloft for a few seconds longer, levitating himself mere inches above the storm as he watched the ebony missile streak away. Beneath his armor, his lips curled in a disdainful sneer.

Weak.

One flash of sapphire later, the pegasus had resumed his pursuit, flirting with the sound barrier for much of the near-vertical descent, even as the retreating pony slowly expanded into view.

Then, without warning, they broke through the clouds, the sudden and unexpected brilliance of the skyline below distracting them both. The grey flyer had largely remained unshaken, as most of his concentration was focused on the dark form mere feet ahead of him. But the black pegasus had not adjusted to the abrupt change of light in time; he bobbled slightly, and his velocity dropped noticeably to compensate.

That was all the opportunity the grey pegasus needed.

As the dark thread of the river directly below slowly became larger and larger before his eyes, the gray pegasus opened fire—and this time his aim was true. One well-placed bolt to the withers was all it took to send his challenger out of control, dropping like a rock toward the water. Another withering volley of transient sky-blue fire ravaged the black form of the crippled pegasus as they plummeted towards one of the city’s most recognizable icons …

---

It was not the longest bridge in Manehattan, nor was it the oldest—and a number of bureaucrats maintained that it wasn’t even the safest, either. But the sheer presence of the Bucklyn Bridge over the East River was so imposing that many ponies, both inside the city and out, still considered it the crowning achievement of equine architecture.

And in an ordinary situation, the Mare-Do-Well would be among them. But most “ordinary situations” didn’t require her to travel the Bucklyn Bridge in ways that only a madmare would ever have dreamed! Granted, that was what the Times called her half the times they managed to catch a blurred picture of her, but still—she was a smart pony. Surely there were other ways for her to sneak up onto her two targets without herself being seen!

She heaved a long sigh that went unheard in the screaming wind as she slowly crawled her way down the suspension cables of the bridge. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure what to make of her occupation. Most of the time, all she did was menial work—jobs that she could easily have left to anypony on the fire brigade or the authorities. In the past week, she had stopped three fights before they’d had a chance to start, rescued two cats, three dogs, a family of finches, and a turtle, and helped to find four lost fillies and colts. The euphoria of having done something good for somepony else had lasted her this long, just like all those other times, but eventually—inevitably—the same thing would always happen.

Every night, as she lay in bed after her regular workout, she would think about that burglary in Canterlot. It had been the one job she had genuinely liked—and not just for the fringe benefits, she consoled herself. No—she had accepted that stallion’s offer because she had seen it as an opportunity, a chance to catapult herself onto a bigger stage, to become the one thing she had dreamed about ever since she had been a filly. She had tracked down the burglar, recovered everything he had stolen, and received a reward, all in the span of three days.

And then, the following morning … it was back to lost-and-found fliers.

From one extreme to the other.

“Would a little balance be too much to ask?” the Mare-Do-Well grumbled out loud, at exactly the same moment that one of her back hooves decided to slip. She sucked air through her teeth, grasping the safety cables as tightly as she could to keep her from falling over a hundred feet into the East River.

Before beginning her trek over the thick cables that supported the Bucklyn Bridge, she’d swapped out her spring-loaded Horseshoes for something more suited to climbs like these. These Horseshoes, unlike the generous gifts from last month, were something she’d made herself, in her apartment. They were simpler than they looked—all she had done was take an older set of shoes from her costume and coat the bottoms in layer after layer of rubber. Several days of meticulous whittling later, the remodeled shoes could not only offer her better grip and control in treacherous conditions, but could also muffle her hoofsteps for the odd jobs that required some snooping around.

But even her change of gear did not change the fact that the suspension cables of the bridge were thinner around than the Mare-Do-Well was tall, and the weather was making them next to impassable. She had to pick up the pace right now—she was a third of the way past the bridge; this high up, there would be ice on the cables within the hour—and even with her special gripping shoes, that was a situation she wanted to avoid. Not only that, but she had left her watch back at her apartment. She had no way of knowing whether or not that half-hour was already up.

And her keen eyes still had not picked up any trace of the ponies she’d been tailing.
She fished out a small spyglass from her saddlebags and brought it up to the left lens of her costume. When she peered through it, she was offered a better view of the bridge she had still yet to cover. There was very little traffic through the six-lane highway, and the hoofbridge above it—a thin stripe of wood barely five ponies wide—was completely deserted.
Except for two silhouetted forms in the exact center of the bridge.

The Mare-Do-Well’s brow furrowed underneath her mask as she adjusted her spyglass. Two—no, wait—three ponies. The largest of them looked like he’d played a lot of hoofball in his time. She had a feeling that on another of the ponies would be—There! For the smallest moment, one of the ponies had turned his head, and his shadowed form had betrayed the slightest protrusion of a unicorn’s horn.

Between them was a mare, and instantly the Mare-Do-Well had an idea of what this entire business at the bridge was about. The dim streetlights on the bridge illuminated her face enough to where she could see a faint tinge of white on the mare’s face—or at least, the parts of her face that weren’t concealed by the strips of cloth over her eyes and mouth. And she didn’t need the spyglass to see that she was scared out of her wits.

Now there was a fourth pony arriving on the scene; the Mare-Do-Well had seen him come up out of the edge of her vision. His face was turned away from him, but there was no mistaking those hoofsteps. They were the hoof-steps of many a pony who had done everything in their power—and often their bank account—to rescue something or somepony very special to them.

This, then, had to be “Hay Bale.”

As quickly as she could, she replaced her spyglass in her bags, and tugged on what appeared to be a loose, but rather thick thread on her left front hoofwrap. The Mare-Do-Well let it unravel, the tip of the would-be thread unwinding further and further away from her hoof until it whipped around in the wind, twenty feet or so behind and to the left of her. After several seconds, she carefully wrapped the stray filament around a padded fetlock; it briefly glinted in the glare from the streetlights. The cord was nylon wrapped around a metal wire, and strong enough to support her weight—for a time. It was only good for one use, maybe two, before it would break, which suited the Mare-Do-Well just fine; it was often a matter of timing the break and the leap right, her body and momentum could do the rest.

Plus, she knew she wouldn’t be getting any second chances tonight.

She crept further down the cable now, analyzing the four ponies before her. She could see hooves waving animatedly in the air, pointing from one pony to the next. She already knew what they were talking about, and she already knew how both parties were going to react. But she did not concentrate on trying to hear them—she was still trying to stay out of sight.

The Mare-Do-Well quickened her pace, muttering a few calculations under her breath as she did so. She need-ed to find the right angle to time her attack, and the right speed at which to do it. She hoped those few physics lectures she’d slept through in college wouldn’t work against her. She quickly spied a point on the cable, perhaps fifteen feet away, that looked promising.

A hostage situation—especially where a ransom was involved—could be difficult to resolve. The Mare-Do-Well didn’t need all her hooves to count the hostage situations she’d been involved in, but each time, she had preferred to use a more … aggressive approach to diplomacy. It had worked out fairly well so far, she thought. And as long as she kept up the element of surprise, she saw no reason to change her tactics tonight.

In hindsight, she ought not to have thought about that so soon.

---

“So where is it?” rumbled the large brown pony.

“W-what are you talking about?” stammered the unicorn across from him. His coat was a chalky off-white, which was not entirely because of his natural coloration, and his emerald-green eyes shivered with fear.

“You told us you would be delivering the money right here, right now, Bale!” said the other unicorn, next to his giant of a partner. “And in return, we’d make sure dear ole wifey over here found her way home!” He shoved the mare in question—not lightly; the gesture sent sprawling on the wooden hoofpath.

“I went to your friend, Digger—I swear!” shouted Hay Bale in the direction of the giant. “I contacted Cracker, told him we’d meet at the alleyway behind the Marecy’s store, I’d hoof him the money there, and that would be that! He should’ve given you everything hours ago! I should have had Amber back before the storm hit!”

“Well, that’s a shame,” said the unicorn in a falsely consoling voice. His demeanor was not improved by a grin that would not have looked out of place on a Timberwolf. “Manehattan’s a big place, you know. Easy for somepony to get lost in this city. And lots of ponies tend to go missing here. Lots of ‘em don’t even come back.”

“L-l-let me call Cracker again,” Hay Bale shivered. “Th-there’s a t-telephone … at the other end of the bridge. I-if you can just let me—”

“I told you this was your last chance!” growled the huge pony. “So Cracker took the money and ran? That’s his problem, now.”

“As for your problem,” said the unicorn, his horn beginning to glow a pale reddish-pink, “ … well, that depends on just how faithful you are to your precious Amber.”

“Trinny, what the hay’re you thinkin’?” The unicorn’s compatriot backed away from him, a note of panic suddenly creeping into his deep voice as he looked at the glowing appendage like it was a bomb.

“Do you, Hay Bale, take Amber Bale to be your lawful wedded wife?” Trinny somberly intoned, his grin be-coming even wider. “Will you love her, respect her, care for her and comfort her, in life and in death, so long as you both shall live?”

Hay Bale tilted his head, confusion taking over in spite of his fear. “I … do?”

Trinny’s face was that of Tartarus itself. “Then by the power vested in me, I pronounce you both”—his horn flashed a brilliant scarlet—“dead, dead, dead.”

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something on the bridge, illuminated with the miniature light show his horn was producing. It looked like—a pony?

“Horse—”