> Pirene's Well: Three Nights in Manehattan
>  by Ether Echoes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The First Night - Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The First Night - Part 1



The Wistful Heart


Once, someone told me that a city is a living being.

Cities grow and change, they go through cycles of life, death, and rebirth, self-repairing with new parts that change the details but leave the fundamental whole intact. It’s a challenge everyone in Manehattan has had to deal with over the last few years, watching as the neighborhoods, the little cells they live in, move and warp, but somehow it’s still the same old city you grew up in. Parts may die and new ones may arise in their places, but the animal lives on.

And like any animal, it has its savage moments and its pathologies. Plagues, parasites, and vermin thrive in the dark, grimy corners of any city, and in this town I’m the mare whose job it is to step in and clean up the mess.

“You got lucky, kid,” Gerry says as he walks up, his clawed feet clicking on the stained concrete. The reflected glare of the flood lamps cast three shadows off the griffon, one for each of his vices, and the sharp, predatory scent of one of them precedes him. I hated the smell of cooked meat, but it was one of a hundred things I’d needed to get used to in my line of work. “We’d never have made this bust without the tipoff.”

We look down together to where seven figures are lined up and cuffed. Four ponies, three natural-born as near as anyone could figure, and one that is decidedly not, with her tangled mane snarled with leafy branches. The remaining three are something else entirely, and they seethe on their two legs with their arms bound behind them and glare impotently up at me against the lamps’ blinding light – their first taste of justice.

“We’re lucky I’d been doing my legwork in tracking these guys the way I was supposed to, Lieutenant, or the first responders would have been a pair of beat cops instead of a full platoon,” I counter. “The tip was a good break, but it wasn’t enough on its own. They’d have packed up and beat it before backup could put their horseshoes on.”

Gerry grunts noncommittally, which was about as close as he ever got to acknowledging a point. He turns and I follow him to the open shipping container, still attached to its crane, with forensics still crawling all over it. In their white suits and masks I might have thought them ghosts. Strange little poltergeists who are there to clean up the city’s mess right after I kick over the rock covering it, and the docks are as good a place as any to start. Cranes march up and down the riverfront like skeletal steel sentinels, a force of hundreds minding the shore, far from the city lights that had only just begun to shine with the first stars. The only thing that makes this crane special is the contents of its lone passenger.

“Estimates are in,” Gerry announces. “On the import side, we’ve got half a ton of product. Fourteen cases of banned potions. Five crates of firearms, no ammo. For the export stuff we found in the cart, there’s the usual run of stolen radios and jewelry and the like.” He nods over towards an old-fashioned pony-drawn cart that had seen better days, probably once even pulled paying customers before folk had standards. “We found enough fenced watches to start your very own timepiece store—”

“Rather give them to transit authority.” I bump my hat up with a hoof to look into the confines of the crate. “Might be able to keep the elevated trains on time. Not that anypony uses watches these days anyway.”

“Hush up, they’re a classic. You kids could stand a little class. Anyway, that’s not the whole of it. Girls?” He gestures with a wing and a pair of forensic ghosts levitate a box over delicately. They needn’t have bothered; the inside is lined with purple felt, keeping a number of very choice artifacts safe and snug.

I don’t recognize anything off the top of my head, but with stuff like obsidian daggers and lacquered masks and strange flat-bottomed vases it’s not hard to guess what the pattern is. “What, did these guys knock over a museum?”

“You might say that.” Gerry snorts and ruffles his wings. “Them, or someone looking to fence it through them. The folks over at Burglary confirm the pieces match a set of high-profile heists performed on private collections in the past two weeks.” He turns his head to look at me with his beak set in a firm fashion. “Looks like you’re the department hero. First big win for smuggling and organized crime in a while.”

Few things provoke the Lieutenant like gloating – at least when he wasn’t the one doing it – so I keep a lid on. “Yeah, well, there’s a lot of work to be done. I don’t think our friends down there had it in them to pull multiple major-league robberies.”

He glances away towards the smugglers and I grin tightly behind his back. Salary hike, here I come.

“Sir?” one of the mares steps up and pulls her mask down to reveal a pair of pretty blue eyes framed by golden curls. There were always stallions lining up down by Lab Work’s lab at the station, which is good, because she couldn’t keep a steady relationship if her life depended on it. Gerry turns to face her and she lifts a dark wooden crate out of the back in a haze of sparkling blue magic. Half of it is missing, the wood splintered, and inside the packing material is all torn up and deposited over the floor of the shipping container. It was like a foal had gotten too impatient with his ice cream cake and shoved his head in to suck out the innards, leaving a trail of crumbs in his wake.

Gerry scratched at his chin with a claw. “I take it some of the reported stolen goods are still missing, Lab?”

“Yes.” She nods and pulls a durable tablet from the supplies left by the door. I peek over her shoulder to have a look. “There’s a piece that remains unaccounted for.” She pokes the tip of her hoof up, scrolling past color-tagged images of creepy figurines, a horn ring, a necklace with a yellow jewel, a beaten-gold sun, and other sundry items ‘till she gets to the bottom. There lies a polished, black jar with its end capped in a lead seal stamped with some emblem I can’t place.

I don’t normally put much stock in intuition, but looking at that jar gives me the jitters. Looking away quickly, I turn and walk over to the crate, careful not to disturb any of the evidence. The inside definitely could have fit the jar nice and snug inside.

“I thought you’d accounted for all the members of the gang?” Gerry says with a little bite of triumph. It isn’t a malicious thing, but he does like to keep ponies humble.

“I did. Doesn’t mean they didn’t add someone new overnight.” I frown down at the gang. Their eyes follow me wherever I go, and if looks could kill they’d at least have scorched my tail off by now. “More likely there was a third party. Maybe one of the burglars changed her mind.”

“That’s pointless speculation.” Not that Gerry needed to say it, but stating the obvious is a lesser vice of his, unworthy of its own shadow.

A gesture to Lab Work gets her attention. “You found this near the back, right? Buried behind the other stuff? And the packing debris was there when you found it?”

“We’re not that sloppy,” she says with a note of professional pride. “The crime scene is as good as we can make it after checking the contents of the boxes.”

“So it happened after they’d already packed everything in,” I muse. “They weren’t likely to stick an empty crate in there for the heck of it. Somepony had to have phased or teleported in. The question is if it’s one of the burglars pulling a last-minute heist or something else.”

Gerry weighs me for a moment before shrugging. “Still sounds like speculation to me. We can always ask the smugglers what they saw. Let’s get the down to the station and you can question them to your little pony heart’s content.”

My tail flicks from side-to-side as I consider the Manehattan skyline again. It’s amazing how much taller Downtown has gotten in just the few years since I got on the force – the world is changing right under my hooves. It’s a shame that I’m always getting exposed to the changes for the worse. “I’ll have to catch up later. I want to have a chat with the tipper. He still at the dock office?”

“I have a guy in there taking his statement.” Gerry ruffles his wings with an agitated eagerness. “You aren’t likely to get much else out of him.”

“Call it a hunch.”

He snorts and gives me a wry look. “I thought you hated intuition, kid?”

“I do. Call it a hunch that my hunch will work out.” I give him an equally wry grin back.

“Suit yourself. Just make sure you get your tail back into the station to file your reports later, or the Captain’ll have your hide.”

“You’ll be there to back me up, won’t you, LT?” I ask with a winsome smile.

“Oh, sure. I’ll hold your hide for you when the Captain’s done with it.”

I roll my eyes. “Mon héro.”

“Again with the fancy talk.” As I begin to trot away, he calls. “Oh, Tracy? One more thing. Stop ditching your partner.”

The urge to spit back a classic “I work alone” is strong, but somehow I beat it back. “Tell her to keep up next time. If she wants to play it slow, you can’t blame me if I leave her in the dust.” That’s going to cost me later, but Gerry doesn’t stop me as I trot off.

Dockside Manehattan, the capillaries of our fair city’s beating heart. Just about as clogged as you might expect, but I’m not here to perform a coronary. I wind my way past steel boxes carrying the freight of three worlds towards a tower looming over the dark waters. Far across the bay to the south, the river flickers with the flash and spark of silent lightning as they reflect the giant atmospheric collectors. From this distance, they look like little plasma globes, a beautiful synthesis of pegasus magic and the best Equestrian technology has to offer, and one of the few things we could say is indisputably our own in this age of cultural exchange.

The beat cops near the ground floor wave at me and usher me into the elevator. The dockmaster has an office overstuffed with shipping manifests and sounding equipment six floors up, appropriate for a pegasus. Grizzled and bulky, he stands large and gray beside the outdoors balcony, as if waiting for a ship to come take him out to sea. An ear quirks as I open the door and he turns to look at me. The uniformed officer taking his statement pauses with the pencil in her mouth and glances back.

“Detective?” She spits out the pencil. “We’re almost done here. I was just wrapping up.”

“That’s all right.” My hat rises as I light my horn and levitate her notes over and flip through them quickly. The shorthand reveals nothing that I hadn’t already heard, but then I didn’t expect it to. Normal cops ask all the right questions, but they tended to be limited to the matter at hand. My job was to ask the wrong questions. “Everything looks good here. Go on with the questioning.”

“Ah… yes, ma’am,” she says and looks back at the dockmaster. “Just one more question, sir: did you notice any other suspicious activity tonight?”

“Nothing unusual.”

“Ah, if you don’t mind, I’d actually like to follow up on a few of those questions,” I say as I put myself forward and barely wait for the acceding nod before continuing on. “You say nothing unusual. Is there any suspicious activity that happens more regularly around here?”

The older pegasus glances back at me. “There’s always some kids who trespass around sunset. Pretty harmless bunch. Their idea of being edgy is flying over the fence and seeing how long it takes for someone to yell at them.”

“Someone” isn’t an entirely unusual choice of words, but there was something about this guy that set off all sorts of bells in my head. Just the way he stood up seemed wrong; all stiff, as if he isn’t quite sure how. A quick glance around the room yields a nameplate and I smile. “I guess you’re used to much worse, Mister Frank Napolitano.”

He turns away from the balcony to look at me more fully now. He doesn’t look taken aback – after all, he isn’t making even the basest effort to hide his origins – but my tone set him on the defensive. “May be that I am.”

“Pardon,” I say with a smile, “don’t take it badly, I’m just making an observation. I can’t say I’ve had the opportunity to meet many humans who went native – well, any humans at all, but still. There must be an extraordinary story behind that.”

Frank – it’s hard not adding his last name automatically – shrugs. “I’m not sure you’d call it that. Ten years logistics experience, five at the Port of New York and New Jersey. Then comes the market crash of ’23 and I’m out of work with no one hiring from one end of the country to the other – except this one offer out of Boston. I don’t even remember sending my resume their way, but they swooped in out of nowhere with a train ticket and a guaranteed posting updating and managing their ‘foreign’ supply network. All I had to do was come down to their offices and hear the boss lady’s pitch.”

“I take it Miss Quinn was suitably convincing?”

“Let’s just say that I sat up and listened when the flying pony princess came to the meeting.” He snorted. “Honestly? I think the bigger shock was finding a mirror copy of my home city here. You know the first thing I did on arriving in the city?”

“Oh?” My ears perk forward.

“See if you horse folk could make a decent pizza pie.”

I grin. “How’s it compare?”

“Fantastic. I couldn’t believe it until I tried it, but it’s like being back home again.” A wistful look enters his eyes. “Let me tell you, though, sometimes I really miss a few slices of pepperoni, and anchovies don’t cut it.”

I try not to gag too visibly – the beat cop fails. “You ever find yourself pining for home, Mister Napolitano? No one left behind?”

“Eh, sometimes. I’ve got an ex-wife that I don’t regret being a planet away from, but we never had kids and I didn’t have much tying me down. I suspect that’s part of why the Hippocrene folks singled me out. Still, though, this place has its charms…”

As if on cue, a feathery shape swoops in from the balcony and plows into the stallion, knocking him back a few paces. My heart tries to jump into my throat as I automatically throw a shield up. Through the azure haze of my defensive bubble, I see that the assailant is, in fact, hugging Frank in an affectionate manner rather than strangling him.

“Honey! I was so worried!” the somewhat pudgy pegasus mare says as she squeezes ever more tightly, her short golden mane tousled by the wind and her speckled wings wrapping around him. “The guys said there were cops crawling all over the docks, and I didn’t know if you were dead or alive or stolen or something! Why didn’t you call? I was worried sick!”

Frank gags and tries to loosen her grip to little avail. He settled for smoothing her coat and trying to soothe her. “Fairweather, I was about to call, but the cops had questions. I’m fine, really, just called in about a—”

“I was going to call but the service is always so spotty around here,” she says, the two talking over one another. “You’d think they’d do something about those generators if they’re going to play havoc with the signal all over the southern part of the island!”

Deciding to take mercy on the poor newly-minted stallion, I step forward. “It’s all right, ma’am. Mister Napolitano here wasn’t in any danger; actually, he helped us uncover a smuggling ring operating right out of this very port.”

Judging from the look in her eyes, I don’t think informing her about a smuggling ring allayed her fears significantly, but she slackens her grip and moves a hoof protectively to her side regardless. A glance down reveals another little tidbit: what I’d first taken for pudge is concentrated solely around her midsection. Evidently, Frank had gone a lot more native than I’d first imagined.

“I’m glad to hear he was all right,” she concedes. “Are you done with him? He hasn’t been home since this morning…”

“I just have a few more questions for him, ma’am, if you can spare him for a bit.” I tilt my hat to her. “Detective Trace Prints. Organized Crime division at the MPD.”

Fairweather’s eyes widen further, but it’s Frank who answers for them. “Organized crime?” He frowned, and I could imagine his mind racing back to dark places.

“There’s always been an element of organized crime,” I say, always pleased to be able to justify my existence to the skeptical public, “but even in Manehattan, which has had the worst crime problem in Equestria since its founding, it’s never been so pronounced as to demand its own division until a few years back.” I nod towards Frank. “It’s nothing like what you’d be familiar with back on your side of Earth, but you can already imagine.”

If anything, that only makes Fairweather tighten her grip on her husband further. She looks to her husband with him the saddest puppy eyes I’ve ever seen and he sighs. “Are further questions really necessary, Detective?”

I regard him for a moment. “Do you have any idea what it’s been like here in Manehattan recently?

“Fifteen years ago, we discovered that we weren’t alone in this universe, and that not only was our Earth not alone, but there was another Earth we’d recognize just within reach, and other worlds, too. Everypony by now has heard of the goblin city Mag Mell and the branching Ways that lead beyond. You’re bringing in goods from them every day, after all, and where would we be without goblin-made steel?” Everypony automatically glances out the balcony towards the skyline. There, limned in star-like electrical lamps, the new spires gleam as they tower over the more sedate. squat constructions of old Downtown. “With goblin trade comes the goblins themselves. I’ll bet you a fourth of the performers on Bridleway are goblins or goblins pretending to be ponies, and there’s literally no way for us to keep track of them. Oh, sure, most of them are benign, and I’d say they’ve made a positive balance to the city thus far. We’re all proud of Manehattan as the cultural gateway of Equestria and all… but they brought their crime, too, and our underworld is ripe for the picking.” I laugh, low and unamused. “It’s funny, actually, Mister Napolitano – the fact that your world remains unaware of ours is probably one of the few blessings we can count on at the precinct. We’re having trouble enough keeping tabs on the elements we do have without adding a third set into the mix.”

Their attention is rapt on me, now. Even the beat cop salivates a bit. I always love this part; the lighting from the one hanging office lamp is perfect, too, for casting just the right shadows off my hat and coat. “It’s my job to keep tabs on that criminal element, to put out the little fires and make sure that those little sparks don’t turn into one big blaze that burns through the beating heart of the city.”

The silence that follows is golden, and I soak it for all its worth. Sadly, though, I have to get back to my actual job. “A few questions answered would go a long way toward that duty. You’ve already done your adopted city a service, Mister Napolitano, so I won’t begrudge you if you feel you need to put your family first.”

“Oh, no no,” Fairweather protests and pushes her beau forward. “Frank would love to help, really!”

Works like a charm every time.

“Of course,” Frank agrees, brushing his significant other’s hoof off with a fond sort of exasperation. “What do you need to know, Detective?”

“I’ve already accounted for every known member of the smuggling ring I’ve been tracking here,” I say, ticking items off a mental list, “and you say you haven’t noticed anything particularly unusual tonight. You mentioned earlier that kids sometimes like to test the boundaries of the more restricted areas; how well-surveilled would you say this place is at any given time?”

“Pretty well,” he says, going over to rustle at the papers on his desk automatically, “we have on-site security, including a unicorn trained in magic countermeasures. The kids still get in, though; the dumb ones try flying over, but anyone flying is usually spotted pretty immediately. Sometimes they work holes in the fences, though, enough to get through if you’re okay with leaving a bit of your coat behind. We’ve got trucks coming in all the time, too.”

“But you noticed something off with one of the truck deliveries? The call you made mentioned that.”

“Yeah. Well, one of the boys, actually. He said a cart had come in loaded past the safety regs. That’s not unusual by itself, but I like to check things like that out. I get a kick out of dressing down ponies; you people squeal and squirm like your mothers were about to tan your hides.” He pauses and grins slightly at his girlfriend. “No offense.”

“We’ll talk later, dear,” the gravid mare promises ominously.

That concerns me. The part about security, not the dressing down. It’s more-or-less what I expect; the port is too large to adequately cover with even a reasonable level of security, and a determined thief who can demonstrably penetrate closed containers would have little difficulty sneaking in and out. Their on-site unicorn would rule out the most obvious forms of entry, but that wouldn’t stop every spell – or spells from foreign worlds and goblin illusions, for that matter. “Have you or anypony else noticed other unauthorized entry or personnel in restricted areas?” I ask. It’s a long shot, but those are sometimes the ones that pan out.

“Not that I can recall.”

I bite back a sigh and gesture for the beat cop to pack up. So much for my big speech – it may have been emotionally gratifying at the time, but few things kill a buzz faster than plowing into a dead end. “Well, thank you for your time. I’m sure you and your wife need to get home; safe trip.” I follow the cop out and watch her flutter down to ground level while I stay on the stairs and think.

The sky over downtown Manehattan often seems so empty and lonesome at this time of night, a velvet haze dotted with only the very brightest of stars and the ever-present glow of the moon. Even as we ponies try so hard to keep our earth unspoiled, it seems as though we’re always losing on one front or another. Today it’s just light pollution; tomorrow it may be something else.

I often find myself wondering if someone on the other side is looking up at the same sky I am right now. We share the very same stars, our earth and theirs, the same hopes and dreams. Is there a detective with her feet shifting out from under her right this instant, wondering when her next big break is going to be? Does she, too, long for something that she’s never seen with her own eyes?

“Detective?” Frank’s voice came from behind me, and the door creaks open again on squeaky hinges. I turn from my contemplation back to the dockmaster. His wife stood anxiously behind him, clearly ready to go, but he didn’t take off quite yet. “I’m not sure how important this might be, but it seems that I do remember someone odd.”

“Somepony suspicious?” I ask, and immediately mentally kick myself for asking a leading question. It’s always better to let the subject answer on their own before trying to dig in.

“No,” he says, shaking his head, “not as such. Honestly, I didn’t even think twice about it until now, but you got me to thinking…” He hesitates. The instinct not to sound foolish, particularly to a figure of authority, is just as strong in humans, but his wife urges him on before I could prompt him by laying a hoof on his side. “There was a pony, a stallion, on one of the harbor tours. I know it’s not that strange for the city ponies to wear clothing, but he had some gaudy jewelry, too; a wide, flat bronze amulet with a gold-colored stone.”

“But he wasn’t acting suspiciously?”

“Just taking pictures.”

My mind, though, flashes back to another picture, one I’d glimpsed on Lab Work’s tablet. “Taking pictures of what?”

“Wasn’t paying that much attention,” Frank admits. “I guess the docks? But that’s over a mile of shoreline as the pegasus flies.”

“I might send some officers around to ask your dock workers some questions tomorrow. Maybe schedule it around a morning break if we can.”

“I’m sure the union will love that.” He groans. “You keep safe, officer. I’ve worked gigs like this for a lot of years, and you get to know a lot of people you’d rather not. If your criminals here are anything like the ones back home, you’re a mare who needs to watch her back.”

“I always do.”

With the interview concluded, the beat cop dips her cap and steps out. I join her, but wait on top of the stairs, hesitating. Frank is getting the keys to lock up, and his wife is dancing from one side to the other with eagerness to go. “Ah… this is an odd question I know, Mister Napolitano, but have you ever been to Paris?”

He glances at me in surprise as he reaches the door, a hoof on the handle. “Well, actually, yeah. I have. The ex-wife and I went on honeymoon a year before the crash.”

“Sorry,” I say, with a respectful nod towards Fairweather, “didn’t mean to open any old wounds.”

“Nah. Actually, that’s really the last untainted happy memory. We went south after that, she and I, when she started drinking when the firm canned her, but that ain’t a reason to sour something bright, you know?”

“Yeah. How would you describe it, if you don’t mind the asking?”

“Paris?” He whistles. “I’m not a real fancy fella, you may have guessed, but make all the post-World War II jokes about the French you like, the city still knows how to take your breath away. I still think back on the food, and maybe all the culture was lost on me, but even a sour salt like me felt it. And the lights – you ain’t never seen a city that looked like that at night.” He looks back at his wife, who’d been looking a little uncertain as he spoke about his previous honeymoon, and smiles. “Maybe we could make a trip sometime after the baby’s born, if the Hippocrene Society lets us.”

She melts into a warm smile and nuzzles at him lovingly. I tilt my hat down. “Thank you. Have a nice night, Mister Napolitano, Fairweather. You take care of your husband now,” I say, and make my way down the stairs.

From the balcony above, I watch him take off into the sky as he blunders along with the awkward gait of a stallion who doesn’t quite have the finer points of flying down. His wife, however gravid, leaps after him gracefully and catches up without much difficulty. They stretch hooves out to one another, and fade into the night sky side-by-side.

It wasn’t much of a lead, but it was a lead, and sometimes even a thin thread can be enough to tie a case together. Of course, I’ve never been very good at sewing so maybe my analogy needed a little work. Lighting my horn, I take my phone from a pocket. “Lab Work, you go home yet?” I say as the call goes through. The picture I have of her is of a blonde mare passed out under a bar table while another mare – me – ties her tail to the chair leg.

“Still cleaning up. What’s shaking?”

“May have some OT for you. The case just expanded.”

“Oh. Joy.” The phone warbled as she sighed. “Guess we’re not making it for drinks, later?”

“Nah, just bring your work tablet.”

“Tracy? Seriously.”

“What?” I say, putting on an aggrieved air. “It’s fine! No one really minds.”

Her hoof stamp is clearly audible. “Yes, they do, and even if it weren’t for the regs, I don’t like mixing business and pleasure.”

“That’s all right,” I say, “you can do the pleasure and I’ll do the business. I just need to check the forensics computer; it’s going to be a busy night and if I go into the station Gerry’s going to keep me there.”

“Call in your partner or no deal.”

“You evil mare, no way.”

Stony silence.

I sigh and push my hat back to look back up at the city lights. “Ugh. All right. I’ll call her. I make no promises about her showing up.”

“And I have no sympathy. See you in a bit.”

We disconnect and I go back to stargazing, or the lack thereof. I imagine I can still see Frank and Fairweather, the couple winging off to their apartment, probably some nice little bohemian downtown flat since they’re newly coupled, or maybe one of the nice townhouses a little further up if they were already planning to build up their little family.

The lack of stars over the city used to bother me more – call it a nascent unicorn instinct; my ancestors are probably spinning in their graves – but as I grew from a filly into a mare I learned to appreciate another kind of star, the kind that ponies light every day without thinking about them. Every glowing window is a family relishing the end of a long day, or the pulsing sign of commerce and enterprise or ward of a hospital and the like. A sea of stars to ward.

Hopes and dreams. A city is full of stars, you just need to know where to look.


* * * * * * *

> The First Night - Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Reluctant Pilgrim


The golden hour of dusk is always one of the best times to fly, and if there’s one thing in this life that I can’t help but take full and unadulterated pleasure in, it’s the grace of flying under my own power.

The last updraft of day sends me spiraling higher into the sun-kissed clouds, three miles over the gleaming citadel of Equestrian capitalism. Sitting over two rivers and a lot of very valuable property, it’s my favorite town on this side of the divide: Manehattan. People know how to live around here.

I’m high enough now that I get a pretty good look at an air ball game in the stadium floating over the south bank on a cloud of its own, the howl of cheering fans echoing even from here, but I’m not here to catch a game. I tuck my wings in and dive, picking up speed as I plummet past the airborne suburbs where pegasi and griffons and whatever raise their flocks and down, faster and faster, until the air is screaming past my ears and the buildings below charge up to meet me.

Then I snap my wings open and whoop as the air hammers into my sides, whooping where no one can hear as white moisture trails off my tips. Still way too fast, I plummet straight down to street level before the air slows me just enough to plant my hooves on the grass of a great green field, Central Park’s well-kept cousin. An older stallion glances over from his chess game and snorts and ruffles his dusty feathers. “Young’n. Gonna be feelin’ that in the morning.”

“Hell, I’m feeling it now,” I say with a grin, adjusting my jacket and stretching my wings. Flippant or not, the stallion’s right, and I might need them later. I look up at the sky, where a curious green star glimmers faintly on the horizon above a glitzy hotel. “What? Don’t look at me that way. I’ll be fine.”

“What, are you talking to me?” the stallion asks, him and his buddy turning to look.

“Just thinking outloud.” I smirk and take off, trotting off the grass and out to the sidewalk along the main street. Funny pony cars, their cabins long and flat, glide along with the gentle hum of electric engines. The onset of night is making the place more crowded than usual, if that were possible, but I walked anyway. After a long flight, I always want to feel the earth under my hooves, and flying from Ponyville to Manehattan is a heck of a hop.

My wing joints ache quietly, refusing to bounce back quite as well as they had even five years ago.

In a few minutes, I’m surrounded by the glittering edifice of the newest buildings in downtown.

Resisting the urge to hit up the griffon selling artificial meat dogs in the center divider, I pass through a revolving door and into the foyer of a shiny downtown skyscraper, Elusive scrawled across its windows.

“Excuse me, sir?” one of the receptionists calls, her piercing voice singling me out. “Can I help you?” Her eyes suggest she already thinks she knows everything about me, taking in the battered old jacket, the scruffy mane and tail, and the questionably groomed wings.

To be fair, she’s probably not that far off, as I’m often reminded.

“Evenin’,” I say, flashing a wide smile. “I’m here to see Rarity.”

Her brows threaten to climb into her beret. “Rarity? Do you have an appointment, sir?”

“Nope. I’m an old friend, though. She’ll want to see me.”

She flares her nostrils and presses her manicured hooves onto the desk. “I’m afraid no one gets to see Rarity without an appointment, sir.”

I pull my jacket back and take out a card of a leaping alicorn, presenting it to her. “Oh? Not even an officer of the Hippocrene Society?”

Her eyes widen, but then narrow suspiciously as she looks me over. “Anyone could have one of those printed and forged.”

“Uh huh. Could I leave a message for her secretary, then?” I ask as I tuck the card away.

The mare hesitates, then nods. She turns towards her computer. “Yes, of course, could I get your–hey!”

Too late for her. I already craned my neck over, saw that Rarity was scheduled for a shoot, and zipped off out the door and then up the wall. Knew I’d need my wings soon.

A balcony fifty stories up provides my entrance, and I scoot past a pair of spangled models with an apologetic grin and gallop down the hall into a studio – just in time for a burly minotaur to plow into me and slam me against the floor with a beefy arm.

“Hey, yo, whoa.” I hold my hooves up. “Take it easy there, champ.”

Before the snorting black bull answers, a voice cuts through the started gaggle of models and photographers. “Excuse me! What is going on here?” Everyone, even the minotaur, turns to look.

Fifteen years and she’s as beautiful as ever, with her glistening alabaster coat and vividly amethyst mane. Really, she hasn’t aged a day, but that’s readily explained by what is probably her most salient and impressive feature: a pair of immaculate white wings held loosely at her sides.

“Rarity! Hey there. You’re looking gr-ack.” I squeak as the minotaur applies pressure.

“...Marcus?” She puts a hoof to her lips. “What in the blazes is going on here?”

I wheeze around the arm. “I thought I’d drop in.”

“Why in the blazes didn’t you call first?” She shoos the security guard off with a bat of her wings and helps me up with a hoof. “Look at you, you’re a state. I can see Leit Motif isn’t taking care of you, because Celestia knows you never have yourself.”

With a rueful grin I fix my jacket and sketch her a teasing bow. “Well, Princess, I do apologize for not presenting myself adequately. As for the calling thing, your phone’s been off literally all day.”

“Oh. Oh, of course. I’ve taken to turning my cell off when I’m on a shoot. I do so detest interruptions when I’m creating, and my family has my secretary’s number in case of emergencies.” She rolls her eyes. “And remember, I’m not officially sanctioned as a Princess of Equestria.” She pauses. “Yet.”

“Constitutions are a hell of a thing, aren’t they?”

She giggles and wraps her wings and hooves around me in a friendly hug. “Oh, Marcus, it is nice to see you again. How is Leit Motif?”

I give her a squeeze in return. “Oh, she’s great. She’s traveling right now, but we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”

“Ah, the longing of a long-distance relationship, how I miss it. Come, let’s talk somewhere less public.” She glides off gracefully.

“And you?” I ask as I join her. “How’s the family?”

“Entirely too splendid to be real.” She sighs wistfully. “Ah, would that dear Talon would fall upon hard times, or sweet Luster would come home in tears from a bully or with something less than perfect grades, that we might have some drama in the household.”

“Hah, hah. You know you love it.”

“I do indeed.” Rarity laughs and steps inside her office, a glass-walled thing with a full view of Manehattan and the ocean beyond. The sun is setting, making mountains of her coffee mug and the many photos of her husband and colt. “And?”

“And what?” I ask, going to plop into one of the elevated cushions near the coffee.

“You and Leit Motif.” She settles languidly into one of her own. "Surely you’ve at least discussed a family by now?”

“Well. I can certainly say it’s crossed my mother’s lips a time or ten. Rarity, I’m barely past thirty; it’s a little early to think about settling down.”

She smiles and flicks her tail. “You will laugh, Marcus, but you are exactly the sort of young stallion to complain that you don’t want a family while secretly hoping you do get one, eventually.”

“Well, eventually isn’t today.” I grin disarmingly, but I don’t think she buys it. Darned perceptive mares, I’m perpetually surrounded by them.

“What of Daphne?” she presses. “It’s been years.”

At that, my grin fades, and I rub my hoof into the cushion. I nod my head out the window. Together, the two of us look out at the green star, unmoved on the horizon.

“Ah,” she says. “Is she all right, though? She seemed so sad, last we met.”

“Whether she is or isn’t, she doesn’t tell me, and Leit Motif won’t tell me one way or another. I dunno, Rarity. As far as I’ve seen, she’s only gotten more melancholy as time’s gone on. They’re together, right now – in the flesh, that is. I’m hoping I can get her and Amy back together sometime.”

“Now there are a pair who need to learn to let go,” Rarity says with a sigh. “I suppose that’s why you’re here, then, isn’t it?”

“Not that I don’t love to catch up with you and the others, but, yeah.” I look out at the star that’s guided me here, wondering where it’s going to take me next. “There’s something going on, Rarity, and I might need your help.”

“Of course,” she says, ruffling her wings eagerly. “How can I help?” Little bit of pegasus in her now, that one.

“Easy there, cowgirl.” I grin. “I don’t need firepower yet, and I certainly don’t want to pull you away from your work and family until I know more. Daphne sent me a vision.”

“Well, don’t keep me waiting. What do you know?”

I settled back, pulling up the memory. “I was in a burnt out house, digging with my hooves. Funny how often I dream as a stallion these days, though with Daphne involved that might not be my fault this time. I found half of a plush dragon, the rest of it cooked. I held it in my legs and found myself somewhere else again, looking down at a scared little filly, her hoof bleeding as she limped away from a shadow sliding down the alley. It was cast by a pony – can’t say if it’s a stallion or a mare in the silhouette, but I could tell it was an earth pony – and around his or her neck was a very familiar looking amulet.”

“You don’t mean…?”

“Yeah. Another alicorn amulet.”

“They’re popping up all over the place these days, aren’t they?” She sighs. “I remember quite well when we thought there was just one of them, and that it was securely locked up in Canterlot. Is it one of the ones we’ve found?”

I shake my head. “Nope. Bronze with a yellow stone. It wasn’t what was causing the shadow, though. I felt like it was something else… maybe a titanspawn.”

“Maybe an actual titan?” She shivers at my shrug. “Stars. Does Celestia know, or Luna, or Twilight? Even Discord, if it’s that serious.”

“We’re getting in touch with them. I hope they’ll be able to pull something together.” I nod, glancing out the window. “For now, I’m here to find that little girl. Daphne made that very clear. If some hulking titanspawn or whatever wants her, and it’s being backed up by someone in the grip of an alicorn amulet, it can’t possibly be a good thing.” I set my jaw. “Besides, I don’t like it when people threaten kids like that.”

Rarity puts her hoof over mine and smiles. “I remember you as a somewhat flippant boy, hiding his feelings under a mask of irreverence.”

“Still do.”

“Yes, but I am glad to have watched you grow into something more. This is the real you.”

“I better have.” I grin ruefully. “I’m not getting any younger.”

“I did. Maybe you have a chance.” She give my hoof a rub. “Now, is there anything I can do to help?”

“Yes, actually.” I pat her hoof and pull back. “Naomi doesn’t have a whole lot of tendrils in the city yet, and the Hippocrene office here won’t be opening for months yet. She’s got her hands – or hooves, depending on the day – pretty damned full with setting things up on the human side of things, not to mention her kids. I’m not sure which is the bigger job, raising a pack or raising a company. You’re pretty plugged in around here, though. Anything you can find on the amulet or the kid would be helpful.”

She beams. “Naturally. Do you know her name? You didn’t describe her.”

“No, unfortunately. I think the chaos rolling off that titanspawn is obscuring Daphne’s senses here.” I turn my hoof and Produce a paper from thin air – or, more accurately, the hidden space I keep my crap in. On it is a pair of fuzzy spheres blended in the middle, like a diagram. “This is her mark. She’s maybe eight to ten, sort of a grey coat and pink mane. Cute kid, unicorn.”

“What is it?” She takes it in her magic, floating it for a closer look. “Incidentally, when did you take the opportunity to learn goblin magic?”

“Learned it from zebras, actually; there were a few on the crew when we set off to explore the other worlds. And Naomi’s kid Valence thinks it’s a pair of electron clouds bonding, which, hey, I guess he’s an expert on.”

Rarity laughs quietly. “The world changes, and with it our children. Very well. I’ll run this through the police. If she’s not already missing, though, I’m not sure how much help it’ll be. They’ll talk to the school systems, but that could take days.”

“Dunno if I have days.” I shake my head.

“You’ll find her. I have faith. How do you intend to look?”

“A few years gallivanting around the worlds and Mag Mell have given me some skills worth mentioning.” I rise to my feet. “I’m really sorry about having to run so soon.”

“Quite all right, dear. You’ll just have to make up for it later.” She pulls me in for another hug and goes to open the window. “We can have the guest room made up for you, if you’d like? And don’t hesitate to call on me. I’m a fair sight stronger than I used to be.”

“I’d like that, and I won’t,” I say, walking onto the balcony and grinning. “Besides, you were always strong as hell. My jaw still smarts from ten years ago.”

“Have Leit kiss it better, and teach you how to dodge while you’re at it. Now… ” She waves a wing. “Au revoir. You’d best show up, Luster will never forgive you if he misses a chance to hear your stories.”

I toss her a playful salute, flare my wings open, and take off into the dark as the city lights begin to come on all around, lighting my way.

It’s gonna be a long night.


* * *


“You don’t look like you belong around here, Bub,” the goblin says, leaning over me in his monkey suit. Eminently appropriate attire for a gorilla, I’d say.

“Oh, yeah?” I ask. “What sort of people do look like they belong around here?” I bite back a sigh. These games are getting extremely old.

The gorilla-form goblin curls up a lip, showing a hint of yellowed fangs. “Not the kind like you.” He looms huge beneath a purple awning in the Fish Packing district. Where fifteen years ago this street had been lined with brick factories pumping out the pet chow and carnivore-feed of a nation, now it’s largely the abode of artists, goblins, and other foreigners, who’ve turned the decaying factories into equally-distressed housing projects and studios.

“Give it ten or twenty years, the yuppies’ll drive prices sky-high and this’ll be every bit as upscale as Platinum Hill or Trotsville, and then your clientele won’t belong at all. Of course, I won’t belong there either, will I?”

He grunts in confusion. Confusion makes his head hurt, and his head hurting makes him angry, so he tightens his knuckles.

“But, hey, I get you. You want some credentials, to see if I’m the sort of clientele that meets the rigorous high standards of your fine establishment, huh? Can’t walk into a nice club without meeting the dress code, am I right?”

“Yeah?” the gorilla grunts, still internally debating as to whether or not to try bashing my head in if his furrowed brows are any indication.

“Well, how about a magic trick?” I flick my hoof and a pony-made pistol snaps out of the air. It’s got a brace for a shoulder holster, but I’m holding it by the chromed handle in my hoof grip.

The gorilla jerks back so hard he bangs his head on the door and bounces. “E-easy there!”

“So. Do you think I’m the sort of person who belongs here after all?”

He nods vigorously. “I’m real sorry, sir, really. I didn’t realize you was a goblin.”

The poor guy can be forgiven for that mistake. I keep my back end covered for a reason. “Apology accepted,” I Vanish the pistol with another flick. “Now, be a gent and hold the door.”

He does so, and I make sure to produce a small stack of brass bits to ease his headache and tuck them into his vest on the way in – and make sure he doesn’t decide he’d rather go for backup as soon as my back is turned. Goblins respect strength, but they’re quick to turn advantage. Thankfully, they respect a little grease in the gears quite a bit more, and someone who bribes once is likely to bribe again. No idiot who gets far kills a goose that lays golden eggs.

The inside of the bar is smoky, both with the odor of Mag Mell cuisine and the incense-like hookahs that are all the rage there. If I were a city inspector, the owner would be cited so hard his scaly head would spin. Piercework screens evoke the ambiance of Mag Mell’s Sword quarter, albeit not quite as much as the arabesque music played by the languid band in the corner. Goblins both bipedal or not lounge about in divans, cushions, and on chairs around little tables in the cafe with a scattering of pony guests – of course, who can tell how many of the last group are actually what they seem to be.

Remembering Lightning Dust, I couldn’t really blame them if they forgot themselves.

This isn’t my first dance, and so my first move is to get a drink and find a table. There’s a handful of people playing backgammon, chess, and other games in one of the wings, so I sit in until it’s my turn to play. I win a few, I lose a few more, and I’m a few hundred bits poorer.

That’s just phase one, and I’m expecting my wallet to get a lot lighter before I’m done. Again, these games are exhausting, but they get results.

It’s hard not to get impatient, but as in any dance with more than one person, you have to let your other partner have a turn, or else your night’s going to be terribly one-sided.

Phase two begins when a turtle-man with rings sewn into his jacket sits across from me. “Namaste,” he greets me, putting his leathery, blunt hands together. He pronounces it in a native accent, not the hippie yoga way.

I return the gesture to the Ring goblin with my hooves together, repeating his little bow. “Namaste.”

Then, we settle down to play.

So, while I was never a chess player as a teen, long nights with Naomi while the facilities in Boston and Ponyville were being built gave me ample opportunity to pick up the basics while she fake complained about her various pregnancies, and the eternal love goblins have for this game beat me into something resembling competency. I’d been casual earlier, but now I was going to give the tortoise whatever I could get.

The pieces had all been carved according to goblin politics, naturally, with different colors depending on whether or not you pick Wand, Ring, Sword, or Cup, and I was pleased to see that it’s a recent set, since the Wand King is none other than a thin, pretty girl with an elegant staff. My queen is Stylus, an older, bird-like woman sitting on a book – we’ve never met, but she kept the damned court running through Nessus’ rein. For knights, we have Marble Stone twice over, looking as grumpy as ever, though the Page – bishop, in human parlance – is still the last one, who Nessus murdered. That’s a vacancy they’ve yet to fill. The rooks are replicas of the airship Fortress, which so boldly fell in battle, while the pawns are all numbered goblins of various sorts.

King Amelia and I go way back, so naturally I’m not going to disappoint her with a poor showing. I play a slow-boiling strategy meant to lure him into a false sense of security and cut him down in the height of his aggression.

“You are quite good at wearing faces,” the tortoise says, moving his Ring Court-themed set with surety in his claws. He doesn’t really have fingers, just suggestions of them, but, then, I’m the guy using a flat surface for a grasping limb.

“I don’t really put on faces. There’s just me.” I tap one of his knights out with one of my pages, a miscalculation if I weren’t playing a longer game.

He obliges by taking it. “Then you are a seeker. A traveler in search of some great mystery.”

“Curious deduction. What leads you to that conclusion?” I ask as I take a sip, considering the board.

“You are worn, honored sir. You look young, but your eyes betray your age. Your jacket has seen more dusty vistas and strange horizons than many greyhairs.”

“Oh, you flatter me,” I scoop up a pawn. He’s penetrating, time to shift tactics. “I’ve been here and there. Who wouldn’t take the chance to travel?”

“Some, but few without a home.”

I wobble my hoof on a knight, then change direction. “Maybe my home moves with me.”

“Perhaps.”

He’s silent for the rest of the match, which is good, because I’m sweating buckets. Pretty sure tortoises don’t sweat, but I think I’m giving him a run. The sound of each of us declaring “check” in turn three times over signals the end of our silence, and then he plants his knight exactly where I knew he would.

End phase two.

“Check, and mate, honored sir.” He closes his hands together again, and once again I mirror him. “A good match.” He reaches forward and, rather than knocking her down, picks King Amelia up and presents her to me, nestled on his two claws. “Here. It is clear that you care for her very deeply.”

I accept her, gently Vanishing her with a flick. “We go back.”

“Then you are the one who sailed beyond the mists of Svartalfheim.” He chuckles at my slight wince. “Worry not. I suspect I am the only one here to have recognized you. There were other brokers of information you might have attracted, but I made my interest clear.”

“I suppose I should be grateful, if you can help me.” I say, leaning back and settling on my forelegs.

“Stars willing. Or, perhaps, star.” He smiles. “No need for bits, honored sir, in return for what I know, if I can help you, I would ask only information in return. I would hear of Alfheim.”

“Ah.” I rub a hoof along my chest thoughtfully. “If that’s the case, I’m going to have to disappoint you. I did sail from Svartalfheim in an airship in the direction Alfheim is supposed to be, but I never found it. The winds and mists turned us aside.”

“But, you did see something.”

I hesitate, considering. I could count the number of people I’ve intimated the full story to on my human fingers. “Before I give you my story, do I have it on your word that you can help me? I seek an amulet, a bronze one with a yellow stone, and a little girl who may be in danger.”

“On the Ring, do I swear.”

I sigh and kick back the rest of my drink, looking up at the pierced metal lamp hanging above us. “I set neither hoof nor foot on it, but I did see the shore. It was white, not in the way a white beach is white, but white in the way the sun shimmers off marble on a clear day. It was like the horizon had lit on fire, and it was almost impossible to look. What I did see, though, was a piece of something enormous. I thought it was a mountain at first, but as we got closer we realized it was a solid block of something a lot like stone, but not. Maybe a composite, or something we have no name for. It towered at least half a mile into the sky, dwarfing everything around it, and on its face were carved angular signs in a language I’ve only seen a few times, all of them on stuff older than ten thousand years. I, and everyone else on board, felt it as much as we saw it, like it pressed the air out from it the same way it bent the land under it, and the sense of loss was so profound there wasn’t a dry eye on board that whole damned ship.

“After that, the gale struck again, and all hands had to fight for our lives to keep from being blasted down to Niefelheim, or, worse, losing our envelope and landing the fast way.”

He takes that in quietly, as languid as the smoke. After a time, he nods. “You know what it was, of course?”

“A piece of the Tower,” I say. “There’s really no doubt. A chunk of the thing that made the Bridle, and ruined the world.”

“It was meant, first, as a beacon of hope. Harmony, even.”

“Now it isn’t,” I say, perhaps a little shorter than I meant. He bows his head to apologize, but I wave a hoof. “No, it’s fine. I understand what you mean – I shouldn’t let what one prick did soil the memory of a whole people. I still find it a bit hard to believe that there was this whole magical society that thrived who knows how many thousands of years ago. The cataclysm burned deep.”

“And yet, honored sir, you are among the privileged few to know how true it is. Are you ready to hear what I have to say?”

I nod.

“I cannot help you locate any girls, but the amulet you seek is known. It was not in Equestria until very recently – in fact, all my best information indicates it was found on your side of Midgard and smuggled out.”

I prick my ears. “By whom?”

“Goblins, of course. They did not know what it is they’d found, for it lay dormant at first, but where it went after they handled it is unknown to me, save that some weeks later it turned up back here. Regrettably, I do not know around whose neck it is, but it is said to be an earth stallion with a yellow, dusty coat.”

“Now, that is good information.”

The tortoise holds up a hand. “There is more. You must be wary, for he is said to be channeling its power in the manner of earth ponies. He surely has vast strength, and it is said that his words are very persuasive to the weak-willed.”

“I’ll watch out. Do you know where I might meet this stallion?”

“Not exactly, honored sir, but you may want to know that he is said to be seeking some unknown artifact here. Perhaps the police know more, for there was a string of high-profile heists of wealthy homes, taking only objects of great antiquity. I can give you the names and locations of people who would be connected with that sort of trade.”

“Thank you. I can make use of that.” I nod. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes.” He leans in. “This is a kind city. A good city. But its shadows have grown teeth. There are a pair of men who have been watching you since we started talking.”

“The tall one and the short one, right?” I say, not looking. I saw them just fine out of the corner of my eye earlier – a skinny little weasel, literally, and his hulking ogre friend, both in bowler hats.

“They are enforcers who work for a criminal lord from Mag Mell, before your King Amelia chased him off. Ferro Quicklime.”

“What a nice name.”

“If you survive the night, return to me tomorrow with what you know. I may be able to provide more aid, in return for a game.”

I grin. “Count on it. Catch you later.” I leave my drink and head away from the table. I make it casual, but Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber are going to follow me no matter what I do. I head out onto the alley I came in and, sure enough, they follow a few minutes later.

They have to have some sort of flying backup to keep me from just spreading my wings and leaving them to wallow on the dirt, but it’s hard to tell. The lights become too dim above a certain height to see clearly if the target isn’t bright enough, and anything could be hiding among the gargoyles and signposts. I start heading for the open street, but a pair of built earth ponies move to talk in front of the alley. Their eyes glance towards me as they move into place. No point in turning back, they’d just box me in tighter.

And now begins Phase Four: dealing with the trash that builds up.

“Hey,” I say as I approach the two. “Got a light?”

One of them, a blunt-nosed sort with a boxing mark, instinctively reaches for his belt, and I spin and crack him on the face with a hoof. He spins, down but not out, while I snap my wings and rise into the air for better maneuvering.

With flicks of my hooves I pull out a harness with a heavy pistol attached and fit my hoof into the trigger lock. “All right, folks. Want to play? Let’s play.”

Really, it’s so nice of them to spare me the trouble of looking for them.


* * * * * * *


> The First Night - Part 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Wistful Heart


“You know, Tracy,” Lab Work says, sipping at the strawberry margarita some poor, besotted mare had bought her, “you’ve always been like this.”

“Uh huh,” I say as I scroll through her tablet, my own glass untouched. The dim little bar is quiet but for the hum of soft conversation and the occasional clack of a pool cue. It’s broken a moment later by a cheer from the crowd in the other room, watching the airball game. Truly, the last vestige of tribal identification left in our world. Just another low-rent bar full of low-rent ponies.

“‘Bluh, I’m Trace Prints, and I’m way too intense. Look at me as I solve school mysteries and brood about the meaning of the world.’”

“Mmhmm. Sure.”

“Would it kill you to take it easy for a day?” She brushes at her golden curls and smiles at a good-looking young stallion at one of the pool tables. He misses his shot by a mile and the barkeep chews him out for scratching the felt. “You do have vacation stored up, don’t you?”

“Mm.”

“Whatever happened to that nice stallion from Los Pegasus? He was cute. Totally into you, too. Did he just fall off the face of the planet after academy or something?”

“Ah.”

She scrunches her face up. “Are you listening at all?”

“Yeah, I’ve always been like this, I know I’m moody, it might kill me to take it easy, I do have vacation days stored up, you really ought to be more discreet with your flirting, he didn’t click, and no he moved back to Los Pegasus to get a job in traffic management,” I say without looking up. “I didn’t make detective by being oblivious.”

“It’s your main redeeming trait, really,” another mare says as she takes the stool on my other side. “You’re perceptive, Prints, I’ll give you that, but your people skills need a lot of work. Hey, Bar – make it a bloody mary, add a squirt of real red if you’ve got any.”

“Thank Celestia, Vi.” Lab Work rattles her glass and another margarita appears before her as if by magic. “Tracy here was killing the vibe. Going easy tonight?”

“Apparently, we’re still on duty,” Violet Rose says, shuffling her velvet wings across her back into a comfortable posture. The bartender slides a crimson drink in front of her on the notched varnish of the counter. She takes a deep sniff, and the hazel slits of her eyes dilate. “Lion seal, really? Wow. Where’d you dig this up?”

“Imports,” the bartender grunts. He starts cleaning a glass he’s already cleaned before. Quiet type, deep in thought. Probably doesn’t own the place, but he’s thinking about putting his own bar together. Things like that are easy to read if you follow someone’s eyes.

“And here I thought this was a dive. You’ve got your stuff together.” She takes a sip, letting it linger on her tongue, and sighs lustily. Blood’s a greater addiction than any product, to the right client. “You know I could be properly enjoying this drink if you’d call it a rest for tonight.”

“No one ever said you had to come,” I say.

Lab Work clears her throat. “I did.”

“No one who should have had a say said you had to come.”

Violet tosses back her mane, purple strands falling neatly into place along the back of her neck. More than a few heads turn, a few even stopping. Some mares, like Lab Work, need to work at being alluring. Some don’t. “I’ll take it all back if you actually have something, and you’re not just chasing shadows again.”

“Again? You wound me.”

She snorts. “Not that hard.”

I spin Lab’s tablet around to show her. “Take a look.”

Violet Rose looks over the images as she sips, using her hooftip to scroll up and down through captioned photos of museum pieces. “Fillydelphia PD. Vanhoover PD. Griffonstone Constabulary. Raiding the national database, huh? All stolen within the last month.” She examines the images more closely, her eyes narrowing. “They have a few things in common. They’re all containers, for one. All sealed with a similar mark.”

“Got your attention yet?”

“Consider it mildly piqued. Connected to tonight’s raid, I’d imagine.”

I light my horn and flip to the next page, showing the jar as it had last been seen, waiting at auction. Lab Work purses her lips, interested in spite of an earlier promise to put work aside for the day.

Violet Rose works a tooth around a fang. “Okay. So we have a series of antiquities thefts over several cities with a very specific genre of target. You question the smugglers, yet? If it wasn’t one of them, they’ll know who hired them.”

“Gerry’s got Stencil and Tape working on it. Early word is that they’re clamming, holding out for reduced sentencing.” I shrug. “Even if they do talk, though, I suspect we won’t learn anything new.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” I take her to the reports. “In the earliest job, the Vanhoover one, no suspect was identified. The jar was simply there one evening and gone the next morning. Still, I trawled through the security footage for the day anyway.”

“Luna’s shiny tail, did you stop to breathe at any point?”

“No. I ran it on thirty-two speed and kept my eyes open. At around three in the afternoon, this guy shows up.” I point to a scarred, older earth pony with a dark gold coat and a wide medallion hanging from his neck, the green jewel glittering even against the footage as he stares at the soon-to-be-stolen jar. “See that bling? Bronze with an emerald stone. There was a stallion with that exact same jewelry here at the docks earlier today.”

“Never say ‘bling’ again, please.” Violet leans back, swirling the dregs of her bloody mary. “You report this yet? This isn’t enough for an arrest, but it’s more than sufficient for an APB, and if he has what he wants he might already have fled the city. Not to mention, this is a federal case, so we have to kick it up. You aren’t gunning for a promotion to the service, are you?”

“Just doing my job, and we can still investigate a local crime and save the poor special agents some time. Besides, I just now put it together. I’ll shoot my findings off to Gerry, but I have more work to do tonight.”

“What, more?” Lab Work groans. “Tracy, you’re murdering my buzz by proxy. And here, let me send it, you’ll mess something up.” She yanks the tablet from my grip.

“Or see your personal emails on a work device,” I say, reaching for my hat on the bar. “Actually, Violet Rose, now that I’m stuck with you again, I could use your help.”

“What are nocturnal friends for, Prints?” She drains the last of her beverage and pushes back, leaving a neat stack of bits on the bar. “Also, you’re stuck with me? As I recall, you’re the junior partner here, partner. What are you thinking?”

“The guy avoided directly exposing himself to security on the subsequent hits. Instead, it’s believed different groups of local crooks carried it out.” I say, tossing the bartender a few bits as I start out. “They caught one of them in Fillydelphia, but he didn’t know who the job was for. The group that hit Griffonstone were definitely griffons, and one of them was reportedly bragging about it yesterday.”

“So we’re dealing with proxies, not shapeshifters, meaning he wised up about potentially being caught.” She raises an eyebrow. “So why don’t you figure he’s skipped town already? I’m not sure what you hope to gain tonight.”

“The black vase here was the last of them, as far as the feds know. The first thing I want to know is what the symbol means, the second thing is who the last owners were and what they know about it, and the third thing is that I want to question around the underworld. The smugglers can’t be the only people he approached for the job. Someone is bound to have noticed him, and maybe had him followed.”

Lab Work glares down at the bar for a moment before giving a great huff, paying her tab, and racing after us. “This bar sucked anyway. Could one of you drop me off back home?”

“We should be able to detour,” Violet says, chuckling. She holds the door open, admitting us to the steamy air of a midsummer night near the docks. “You won’t be able to do the second thing tonight, Prints, unless you want a complaint filed. First one might be tricky, too.”

“Luckily,” I say, “the criminal element usually keeps hours similar to yours.”

“Oh? So it’s an all-nighter, huh?”

“What can I say?” I don my hat. “If the city never sleeps, why should I?”

The two of us take off at a walk, passing red and brown brick buildings that have stood on this ground for at least fifty years. A mare can’t swing a dead cat in this neighborhood without hitting a historical placard, and even as much of the rest of Manehattan morphs into its new, ultramodern vitalism, somehow I get the impression that this part of town will be just as bricked over as ever fifty years hence. Maybe there’ll be a new splash of paint here and there, or some moodier lighting, but ponies can be as nostalgic as they are creative with the right impulse.

At this hour, there’s the usual mishmash of goblin street vendors, tired ponies returning from work, the occasional griffon, and even a pair of startled buffalo. It’s ripe for a situation comedy, but I’m just passing through their picture.

In a way, that’s a succinct description of my life. When I show up, it’s to pass briefly through another person’s story. Back when I worked the crime scene unit, it’d usually be in the very worst moment of their lives, assuming there was anyone living to talk to at all. To the people of this city, I’m that cameo actor you always see in a film, but whose name never you never quite know. You may wonder who she is, and if she’s done anything else in her life, but your attention’s all on the main cast, and if you’re most people you won’t even give her a passing thought.

I glance up at the sky, glad to see the stars. It won’t be long until the marine layer moves in and darkens the sky completely. As we pass by an alley, though, I stop and rock back a couple paces to look up again at the stars. At first, I think it’s a plane, but as stationary as it is, it would have to be a blimp, yet I’ve never seen a navigation light with quite that piercing shade of green. Were it not for the color and hour, it could have been Venus, for it’s as bright as any planet.

As I watch, it twinkles.

“What’s up?” Violet Rose asks, walking back with a muttering Lab Work in tow..

“I dunno.” I turn and march down the alley. They glance at one another and follow. Together, we pass between the buildings over moldy newspapers to the street on the other side, and then a block further until a gunshot splits the night – then another – echoing from an alley directly beneath the star relative us. More follow swiftly, including the bark of an automatic.

“Got your sidearm?” I ask Violet, but she’s already clenching her hoof into the trigger guard from under her jacket and moving forward. I float my radio out and toss it to Lab Work. “Call it in.”

One has to give credit where it’s due. Lab Work’s a solid forensic investigator, and in spite of her hard drinking her voice is clear as she turns on the radio. “Trak, this is Lab Work. 10-71 in progress on West Bridleway and Reed. 11-99. Repeat, 11-99.”

Not waiting around to hear the rest, Violet Rose and I gallop forward. She takes to the air with a graceful beat of her wings while my horn lights with azure fire. Running behind a parked car, I find two brutish goblins slumped against a wall howling, one from what looks like a shattered arm and the other pressing meaty hands to a bullet wound in his side. A griffon and a pegasus in a black jacket come tumbling through the air, the former trying to rake the latter with her hind claws while the other holds a hoof tight against its gut to keep it at bay. “We’ve got him!” a weasel shouts, charging forward, only to slam back as I bring up a heavy blue bubble.

“This is the police! Throw down your weapons and put your hooves on the ground!” Violet Rose shouts from her rooftop perch.

A scattering of bullets hammers into my shield, the bullets embedding in the surface with little dimples to show for it. “Tch,” I grunt and my horn shines brighter. Takes more than a couple low-velocity rounds to threaten my spells. I fire stunning bolts into the alleyway, knocking aside a rhino-horned goblin and a grizzled pony, but then they start ricocheting off something big and heavy. An enormous ogre thumps out of the shadows, clutching a sledgehammer in one scaly hand.

“And that’ll do it,” I leap back as it swings, shattering the bubble into shards of blue glass that hiss and fade into mist, while the spent bullets clatter on the pavement.

Violet Rose takes the shot, plugging the big guy in the back, but if it even penetrated he doesn’t show it except to grunt and come at me harder. Thinking fast, I call up another shell, but this time leave its slick surface flat on the street. The oncoming goblin plants a hoof and slips, but rather than tumble he just dances on one foot, balance recovering as he comes on towards me. Just then, the pegasus completes a turn in midair, spinning fast enough that the heavier griffon loses control and is flung straight into the big goblin’s face. Overbalanced, he falls on his back thunderously, and to top that off for him the griffon claws at him in order to get back up and at the pegasus’s soft underbelly..

Before he can take to the air, I cast another spell and sling a blue chain at him, catching him off-guard and snapping it around his body so that he can’t take off, then I clamp more blue bands about his forelegs. For the ogre, I do the same, slamming his arms and legs down with four glowing bands. The magic of mechanical leverage keeps him down, though the strain of holding the two makes my head ache something fierce. Above, the pegasus dives and slams into the fleeing weasel before he can disappear, just as the sirens split the air.

Violet flaps down, hovering between us with her pistol held at the ready. “Freeze and drop it, pal! Hooves flat on the ground and wings tight!” The remaining goblins and ponies all plant their hands and hooves on the ground.

“Whoa, whoa. Take it easy,” the stallion says, dropping his own pistol and planting all four hooves where we can see them, then folding his wings across his back. Conveniently, he’s stomped on the weasel’s pants. “I’m a federal agent.”

“Yeah? What’s a federal agent doing shooting up a back alley?” I ask.

“Let’s see some ID. No sudden movements.”

“Well, one, they shot first, and two, I didn’t miss what I aimed at.” He raises a hoof and slowly puts it into his jacket.

With the cops showing up and taking up positions, Violet hovers close enough to take the offered badge. “Is that actually leather?” she asks. I sigh in relief as a burly unicorn and her earth pony partner take my two off my hooves.

“Got it a long time ago.”

Violet lands and looks over the identification in the strobing red and blue lights of the cop cars and gives a low whistle. “Well, well, ladies and gents. Looks like we have a celebrity here.” A few of them laugh grimly as they lower their weapons, moving to take the remaining assailants hostage. “Say hello to one Marcus Flores. What’s a Hippocrene ranger doing in our little neck of the woods, and a famous one at that?”

She passes the ID on to me and I flash it with a spell. Sure enough, it resonates with the proper magical signature. There’s two pictures of him side-by-side, one the dark-haired stallion before us and the other a dark-haired man.

He reaches down and picks up his pistol, then gives it a flick as he passes it behind his hoof, making it disappear without a sound. Identity verified or no, I watch him – shapeshifters have made the job a lot more paranoid than it used to be, at least until we can have a specialist vet him. “I’m here on behalf of my organization to track down a dangerous artifact and the kid that artifact is going to hurt.”

“What sort of artifact?” Violet Rose asks. If she were a pegasus, her feathers would be ruffled. She can be a mite territorial. “You’re required to report to local authorities while in Equestrian jurisdiction. We don’t appreciate people cowboying up in our town.”

“Relax, I followed channels. Or, more accurately, my organization did. I didn’t feel the need to stop by for coffee and donuts.” He glances up at the sky briefly. “My sources were pretty clear on time sensitivity. Speaking of sensitivity, might not be the best idea to discuss this in the open. I need to question tiny over there, so your place is as good as any.”

I don’t look up to follow his gaze. I don’t need to. “Let’s take him back to the station and hear what he has to say, Violet.” I step forward, stilling her with a hoof.

She purses her lips, having no doubt prepared a cutting attack on his jurisdictional authority, and nods. “All right. Let’s go, hero guy.”

Lab Work groans and slumps against a squad car. “Won’t somebody take me home, please?”

Instantly, ten hooves go up. Some of them in pairs.


* * *


Point in fact, our celebrity guest star does very little questioning. That’s the job of an interrogator trained specifically not to intimidate false stories out of people, essentially through a series of questions designed to pry apart prepared lies. He does sit in the room, though, which makes the seedy little goblin weasel decidedly nervous. The rodent’s going to ruin his tailored suit if he doesn’t calm down a notch. Marcus, for his part, just sits and waits with his jacket on his chair and his wings folded along his sides. They’re the only part of him that are immaculate, the rest could do with a brushup for sure.

“So, Prints,” Violet says as the two of us sit in the darkened observation room, watching them through the double-sided window, “what do you think?”

“That the coffee is horrible. Whoever made it last should be prosecuted.” I take another sip and grimace, then dump more sugar in. Most people around the station assume that I take it black, but I’m not quite that bitter.

“I could have told you that the minute we walked in the door.” She snorts and leans over. “I mean our cowboy.”

“I seem to recall both that you don’t like him being here and that he so isn’t your type.” I take another sip and scrunch my face up. “This is really wretched. I don’t know why I keep drinking it.”

“Both true.” She swishes her tail. “I like ‘em pretty. Also young. And yes, I’m not fond of how he gets to waltz in here all over our turf, licensed agent or no. But that’s me – what do you think of him?”

“I think that he’s committed.”

Violet stares at him more closely, lips pursed in appraisal. “Ignoring how that was a complete evasion, how can you tell?”

Shrugging, I gesture towards him with the mug. “Vi, just as you can pick out a bad batch of coffee from twenty paces with a whiff, I can tell if someone’s in a committed, serious relationship at a glance.” It’s in the eyes. It’s always in the eyes.

“Well, don’t tell that to Lab Work. It’d only encourage her.”

I grin tightly. “Poor girl, she’s not even here and we’re ragging on her.”

“She brings it on herself most of the time, and dishes well enough.” She leans on the table loosening her wings. “Speaking of, she intimated to me that you absolutely have a thing for the roguish type.”

Marcus’ ear twitches, and he turns his head towards the window, as if he can tell he’s being discussed.

“Loose lips sink ships.” I glance at her. “Assuming for a moment that were true, he’s still not my type. He smiles too much. He’s playing the devil-may-care, and most people are buying. I don’t think I could stand that level of duplicity in a relationship, even if he weren’t ten years older.”

I reach back and brush my hair where it falls straight and dark along my chin, thinking.

Marcus does have the right combination of colors, with the tan coat and dark hair, but everything else is wrong. The jaw would need to be more square, and he’d need to be taller and not quite so skinny. His taste in clothing should run to longer jackets and a complementary hat, and his voice should be deeper, a voice people pay attention to. So, combine that with the demeanor, and even if he wasn’t taken Marcus is pretty much the exact opposite of the ideal stallion.

No one is, though. You don’t really find a guy like that in this life.

Violet waves a hoof in front of my face and I jerk up. “Dreaming already? I think you need to get to bed, Prints.”

“Gneh,” I protest, waving her off. Giving my mug a rueful glance, I slam down the remainder and beat my chest to make sure it stays down. “I’ll be fine. I’m still good for the night.”

“Uh huh. Well, since you were staring at the ceiling the entire time I suppose I can safely say that I misjudged your interest.” Watching me steadily, her pupils wide in the dim room, she smiles almost sadly. “You know, Prints, dreams don’t do people much good if you don’t chase them.”

“If you chase a dream, they stop being dreams.” I return my attention to Marcus. “My interest, Violet, and the reason I’m backing him over your initial objections, has nothing to do with him at all.”

I hadn’t mentioned the green star, and I didn’t intend to. If she’d wanted to reveal herself to everyone, she would have. Inside, he perks an ear suddenly.

Violet’s ear twitches, and she leans forward to press the microphone button. “Marcus? A word.” He lifts his head, nods, and grabs his jacket, going to the door.

“Did you hear something?” I ask.

She lifts a brow. “The amazing detective Trace Prints wasn’t listening? What happened to that display back at the bar?”

“She’s rebooting.”

Marcus steps into the observation room while Violet pulls up my report on the station computer. “Well, Mister Flores, I think you heard what I heard. Maybe now’s a good time to fill us in on the details.”

“The lazy man’s version, Purple,” he says as he flops into a chair, sprawling his legs, “is that I’m here trying to keep a little girl from coming to harm, while also hunting down a rogue alicorn amulet.”

“Luna!” Violet swears. “That certainly explains what his jewelry is. No wonder you didn’t want that spreading around – the last thing we need is for people to panic like in Los Pegasus.”

“Yeah. I was there.” He rubs at a chipped scar on his forehoof. “Not an experience I want to repeat. That marks the second time I had my–” he reconsiders his words “–rear handed to me in LP.”

Even my lips dry at the news. “Three new amulets in less than a decade, and only fifteen years after the first. That’s not coincidence.”

“No, that’s a new Age,” he nods over at the screen. The only real change is that the techies ran the images through processing, so the stallion’s grizzled face stands out clearer. With a dark gold coat marked with scars and a heavy, grizzled jaw and a nose that looks like it’s been broken a time or two, he isn’t exactly ugly, but he isn’t handsome either. “So, yeah. That guy you’re all chasing? He’s my quarry, and our little friend just confirmed what I thought. He and his friends jumped me because our friend here was forewarned about my coming. He saw the guy yesterday, and his boss directed him and his friends to wait for my arrival.”

“That could be a lot of things,” I muse. “Leak at the national enforcement offices. Radio intercept.”

“Rival diviners, so on.” Marcus grinds his teeth. “He’s backed up by something. I’ll bet gold bits to brass that it’s a titanspawn, and it’s the main reason I didn’t just show up at his doorstep with an engraved arrest warrant and a bouquet of firearms.”

I sway my tail. “She can’t see everything, huh?”

He snaps his head up, looking at me more closely, then smiles tightly. “No, but she tries.”

“She who?” Violet groans. “I take it back, you two were clearly meant for each other.”

“Huh?” Marcus blinks.

“So,” she says, clicking through menus until she locates a map of the lower west side, “I am reluctantly forced to work with you on this. Our next logical step is to question Ferro Quicklime, which will be… fun.”

“I’m told he’s something of a kingpin,” Marcus says, spinning his chair slowly.

I roll my eyes. “Nothing so grandiose. He’s a mid-level pusher, fence, and broker. Runs a racket on some of the low-level dealers. We’re building a case on him so we can convince him to turn states’ evidence and crack his operation. He’s been pretty good at not crossing the lines we don’t like crossed.”

“That doesn’t normally include sending gangs to beat up folk,” Violet mutters.

Shrugging, I waggle my hoof. “It’d still be premature to serve him. Even if he gave the order personally, he might have been pressured, and that’ll give the feds more heat. All we want is information, so it’d be best if we didn’t go in with our big guns. Of course, by the same token, the feds won’t appreciate us meddling with their case.”

She brightens. “How convenient that we have a fed with us here right now.”

“So your brilliant plan is to get me in trouble with an entirely different branch of law enforcement?” Marcus grins. “I like your style, Purple. Unless the two of you have pressing engagements, I see no reason not to go knock on his door. Can you pull him up on a minor charge, something we can ‘neglect’ if he’s willing to spill.”

“I’m sure there’s a judge who’s still out drinking at this hour.” I nod my head towards the screen. “One last thing before I pester Gerry: do you recognize the symbols on those vases?”

Violet obligingly brings up the enhanced photos, revealing a series of curious stars inscribed with odd writing. He cocks his head thoughtfully. “Looks almost Jewish, like a Star of David I guess? I don’t think that’s quite right, though. It’s all complicated and weird. Shoot an email to the ranger’s office in Ponyville, we have a fairly crack team of scholars.” He chuckles. “You won’t believe how much of our job involves cracking open ancient tombs.”

“I can imagine,” Violet says, getting to her feet. I join her, donning my hat and coat, and together the three of us step into the station.

It is among my top five disappointments in life that there is nothing really classic about my precinct. There are stations around the city that were built decades ago that look perfect, with just the right level of old-fashioned atmosphere to belong in a period piece. Heck, there’s a precinct out by Grand Central that was converted out of an old library after a fire, leaving all the original limestone in place. The only movies they film at our station are depressingly modern or, worse, science fiction, with its sleek lines, full-flat-screens, and decent lighting.

Gerry’s as sour as ever as Violet and I file into his office and present our case. He looks up at us with his beady eyes narrowed over his beak. He’s only got one shadow tonight, which is fitting because after a long day, a fellow like Gerry needs a few stiff drinks. “You know, if it weren’t for the star-crossed miracle which is you two showing up in my office without bickering, I’d wonder if this ain’t a prank. As it is, I think you’re both insane.”

“Come now,” I say, “we’re not that bad, LT. Why, we’re practically sisters.”

“Damned right you are. My sisters spent half their lives trying to claw each others’ eyes out.”

“Did they ever grow out of it?”

“Grow out of it?” He barks a laugh. “They grew into it. And quit trying to change the subject, kid. I’m not letting you spin me around this time. If there’s an alicorn amulet on the loose, the very last thing I want is for you to go poking anthills. I’ll need everyone on the force to deal with the fallout, and I’m sure the Captain – not to mention the Commissioner and, stars forbid, the Mayor – will agree.”

Violet pressed forward, putting her hooves on his desk. “We’re not crazy, Gerry, and this isn’t stupid. If we can crack Ferro, he could lead us right to the amulet’s bearer.”

“It’s the ‘if’ that bothers me. You and what army, that cowboy back there? If you’re not going to bust him with a full squad and helicopter backup, what do you hope to do?”

I shrug. “I was thinking we’d try talking to him and see where that gets us.”

Gerry fumes, but Violet jumps in and derails him. “If we’re bunkering down, Ger, the two of us won’t be missed. We could gain a lot, and all Prints and I have to lose are our dignity. Me? I have a damned good feeling about this.”

“Or your hides.” He shakes his head and heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Violet Rose, if it weren’t for you, I’d not be in this chair. If your instincts are telling you to go for it, fine. I’ll have the warrant sent to your phone within the hour.” He points a claw at me. “You ditch her, kid, and I’m busting you back to the academy. You left too soon and it shows.”

“I’ve always wanted to graduate twice.” Still, I tip my hat. “You have my word, LT.”

“And watch the cowboy!” he shouts after us as we leave. “The last thing I want is some famous twerp going rogue on the streets!”

Marcus stretches his wings languidly, meeting us in the hall. “Always glad to meet fans. Did he want an autograph?”

“Oh yeah. Wants you to come to his hatchling’s birthday party and everything,” I say on our way to the door. I watch his cadence for a while, noting the tension in his feet as his hooves strike the floor. “So, you know you don’t have to be a pegasus for our sake, right? It isn’t a crime, and if you’re not comfortable. The only reason we prefer humans come as ponies is because we don’t really have the facilities set up for it and want to help them integrate.”

“Ah… I know.” He shifts his wings, glancing at me curiously. “I’m fine. Hell, I’ve gotten pretty used to hooves over the years.”

“Really? Because you’re still doing the ‘uh oh, my bare hands are touching the ground’ thing that new folk do.”

He glances down at his feet. “Tch. Yeah, well. I suppose I was thinking about when I first came here again.”

“To Equestria?” Velvet asks as she holds the door open.

“Yeah.” He looks up at the sky. The marine layer has turned it as black as pitch and right on schedule, but he seems hopeful regardless. Maybe he’ll radio someone to clear a patch of cloud if he needs guidance. “Seems the only times I get to really get around these days is when there’s trouble.”

When we pile into her car and he sprawls out in the back, I regard him through the mirror. His demeanor hasn’t changed one iota, but as he watches out the window, it’s as if the mask has slipped just a bit. His smile is as carefree as ever, but his eyes are worn, and tired.


* * *


We pull up a couple blocks away. If we need a quick getaway, we’re already in deep trouble, and this part of town is just seedy enough that we can’t be sure what’ll happen to it when the locals find out we’re cops.

Now, Ferro Quicklime knows just the right aesthetic to please me. His headquarters is a converted warehouse down a grimy street. He’s cleared the area of vendors, and its pristine walls are a challenge to graffiti artists. The minute a splash of paint touches it, I’ll know he’s lost his touch. Out in front is a club, with teenage ponies trying not to giggle too much at the traditional experience of slumming. Actually, now that I see the posters on the entryway, it seems there’s actually a decent band tonight.

“Prints?” Violet calls, tugging me forward with her voice. “Remember, your word. No running off on your own.”

“Yes, Sis,” I say, trotting back over. “Just absorbing details.”

“You know, it’s funny, everyone seemed to think you two hated each others’ guts at the station,” Marcus says as he brings up the rear. “You two seem to have decent chemistry, honestly.”

“Professional pride, cowboy,” Violet says, “so much it threatens to overbalance her head.”

“Pot, this is kettle.” I take out my radio, not turning it on and adding a crackle of my own. “We’ve got a 245 on 10th and Greenvale. Some overweening busybody is bludgeoning me with irony.”

She rolls her eyes. “We work together fine, when we do. We like to fight over what we’re doing, though, and have trouble taking no for an answer, so Prints will ditch me to get her way.”

I crackle again. “Yes, confirmed, largest stick of irony I ever saw.”

Marcus flicks his tail, looking at us wryly. “Why don’t you just swap partners with someone more compatible?”

“Gerry and the Captain want all of critical sass in one area, where it can be conveniently disposed of.” I surmount the steps around back, then pause to regard a nearby wall. Someone’s tagged it in three places with crosses.

Taking her phone out and loading the search warrant, Violet takes a deep breath. She bangs on the door with her hoof at the top of the stairs. “Hey! Open up!”

Silence.

“This is the police!” She bangs again. “Open the door!”

“Violet?” I say. “Does anything seem odd, beyond the silence?”

She frowns and considers. Her tongue comes out, tasting the air. She nods to me, and I light up the faint glimmers of a shield for the three of us. Then she turns, bucks the door, and comes back up with her pistol in its hoof harness.

We needn’t have bothered, really. There isn’t much left on the other side. Still, I keep the barrier ready; you never know when someone may have left a present.

Marcus trots in after Violet and before me, taking the overturned and smashed furniture in. He pauses as he notices the red seeping into the wall and floor. “Eugh. Someone was thorough.”

We pick our way past the broken bodies of several ponies and goblins to reach an elevated office overlooking the club through its shades. A huge, iron-horned ram goblin lies face down on the desk – said face having been buried several inches into the wood.

“And so passes Ferro Quicklime,” I intone.

“We hardly knew ye.” Marcus puts a hoof to his chest and bows his head.

Violet Rose rolls her eyes so hard they threaten to move to the cloud suburbs. “And here I thought I was the thestral. No, it’s okay, you two chuckleheads can laugh at some nine dead people.”

I reach into my coat for my radio. “Laughter is the spice of life, or something.”

“And here I thought it was an Element of Harmony,” Marcus riffs.

“Just get out of the way,” she says, and then sets her hooves wide apart. Taking deep breaths of the blood and worse, until her breathing becomes deep and steady, her long tail still. If I were to touch her chest, I’d barely feel her heart. When she opens her eyes, they’re fully dilated. She takes long, slow whiffs of the room, and then begins to pick her way across it. Little evidence bags and a tweezer come out of her coat, and she starts labeling bits and pieces all around. It’s like an elegant little dance. Maybe my intuition and powers of perception are a little keener than her, but no one is more methodical. No one lives a scene like she does.

“Trak, this is Prints,” I say into the radio, for real this time. “Multiple 187s on 10th and Greenvale, looks like red-on-red. Rose is on forensics already, but send a team down ASAP.”

“Roger Prints,” Trak replies. “Van is on route. Need backup?”

“Doesn’t look like it, but send a squad car down anyway. We’re going to need to clear the area.”

Marcus gestures with a hoof. “You guys are qualified to do this? I thought you did high profile theft and the like.”

“I started in the crime scene unit out of the academy, but they transferred me out after a year.” I start my own breakdown of the scene. “I requested a transfer. Was getting to be a bit much. Rose, now, well – people say I have talent, but she’s got the experience to back it. Spent six years there, taught courses on forensics at the academy, and word is she was up for promotion to the national service.”

“What changed?”

“She requested a transfer, too.” I shrug. “I’m good at reading people, but she keeps that one close to the chest.”

He looks down at the dead ram, one of the horns half-broken, with the spare piece lying next to him. “Hope this doesn’t bring back bad memories for either of you.”

Floating the pusher’s cell phone up, I click my tongue. “You know, we’ve always had stuff like this in Equestria, much as some folks want to pretend that we don’t. It’s different than where you’re from, sure, and not as frequent or intense, but every society has its ailments. Used to be the newspapers wouldn’t even mention it, but they’re starting to bow to consumer whims, but still most ponies have no idea. Me, I’ve always known.” I start scrolling through his recent calls and jotting the numbers down. “My parents served on the force for decades before they had me, and I’d read through all of their magazines. They even let me help with their paperwork.”

That done, I return it to its place and start sweeping my eyes over the room. “Coming out of the academy as a fresh-faced kid, I thought I could handle anything. I graduated second in my class, solid recommendations. I was partnered with a legendary homicide detective.”

He purses his lips.

“He didn’t die or anything. He retired, actually.” I shake my head. “I couldn’t take it. I thought I was all that, but seeing that sort of misery…” I pause near the window and bend down. Grains of sand have been ground into the cheap carpet. I pluck a few up and bag them.

“You seem to be handling it all right.” He keeps a weather eye out, ready in case someone tries to get the drop on us.

“Yeah, well, maybe I’ve grown up. Or maybe I’m just jaded.” I head for the front with Marcus, joining Rose in the main room. “What’s the word?”

“They started the fight,” she indicates the torn flooring near the door, and a pair of bulky, lumpy goblins in tight suits. They’ve been driven into the wall so hard it splintered. “He got about five feet in before these two guys came in and started bludgeoning him.”

“How can you tell they started it?” Marcus asks, tilting his head.

“Injuries are consistent with a strike from a rear hoof of an adult male earth pony, one apiece, so he bucked them as they came up from behind. Completely caved their chests in, they likely died within seconds. Further, there’s hairs caught in their clubs, so they got some hits in first.”

He grits his teeth, then rubs his jaw and relaxes it. “I shouldn’t be surprised he killed them in one blow. That mare in Los Pegasus threatened to sink the whole damned town into the sea.”

“Gunfire here, here, and here,” she says, indicating flash burns and discarded shells behind a sofa cracked in half. “The gunmen were, ah, disposed of over there,” she points to a corner, where three battered bodies, two female goblins and a stallion, have been dumped. Spent bullets litter the floor.

“Great. Why is it they’re always immune to standard ammunition?” He groans. “Please tell me I won’t need tungsten rounds.”

“Let’s try to avoid that in general,” I say, “but noted. What then?”

Violet Rose purses her lips. “Obviously, he plowed through the door…” She walks past the empty frame with its torn hinges, nodding towards an iron door that had once been covered in a wood facade.

“Ferro Quicklime kept his seat,” I go on as we join her in the office again. “He could have gone for the shotty under his desk, but he could see there was no point then. I noticed he dialed a number and left it on for about twenty minutes before the other side hung up.”

“So, that one was pretty much in cold blood.” Marcus regards the dead man quietly. “Who did he call?”

“He didn’t label.” I shrug. “We’ll find out. My hunch says it’s his boss, and right now our friend has one hell of a hit on him right now.”

“Aside from learning that he’s not shy about putting people in the grave, did we learn anything of value here?” He asks, agitated with the world. I can sympathize.

“The hairs will let us identify him if he shows up somewhere else,” Violet says. “The phone records might pop something up. We know he’s wanted by the mob, now, so we can put eyes on the street and follow them.”

He grunts. “In short, a dead end for tonight.” Marcus lifts a hoof, like he might strike something in rage, and slowly lets his breath out. “Look, starting right away tomorrow morning, I need to find my other target. Thanks for bailing me out of that jam earlier, and keep me apprised of future developments.” He reaches into a jacket pocket and takes out a slim cellphone.

“So long as it’s vice versa,” I say, tapping it to mine to share contacts.

“Can do.” He inclines his head, turns, and leaves, taking off as soon as he’s out the door. The coroner isn’t long after him, and soon the place fills up with white-bagged ponies.

“It’s not–” I yawn into a hoof “–quite a dead end. You see the sand?”

Violet twitches an ear and glances over. “In a few places. Why?”

“I didn’t want to mention it to Marcus, since it’s not even a hunch, but would you say our friend brought it in?”

“I’d need to check all the bodies again, but…” She nods towards one of the fallen goblins. “She had some sand on her.”

Stepping over, I check her shoes and sure enough, white grains cling between the soles. Poor girl, must have liked the beaches up around Coneigh Island. I lift the evidence bag and check. “Yellow.”

“Yellow?” Rose lays her ears back. “There’s no yellow beaches for miles. Everything around here is white.”

“Nearest one is over on the mainland, yeah. Worth putting a patrol out, but nothing to get excited about yet.” I yawn so loudly the stallion scraping samples off the couch looks at me funny.

Rolling her eyes, Violet nudges me along towards the door with her snout. “All right, day pony, you’re going to bed.”

“Vi-i-i, there’s tons more perps to question. I have to shake down Quicklime’s dealers.”

“The night shift can handle it. Besides, most of them are collapsing into bed soon, anyway.” She pushes me out the door and catches me before I can stumble. “I’ll be up at the station all night, so I’ll catch anything that comes through. Now, let me take you home, or I’ll have these fine gentlecolts bring you in, cuff you in the mares’ locker room, and make sure you sleep that way.”

“Eugh,” I shiver. “The floors are as grimy as the city’s writhing underbelly. The stains are silent witnesses, the only ones remaining to the acts of filth and depravity–”

“Shut the hell up.” She grins and props me with her shoulder. I grumble, but walk off.

I’m a little more mobile by the time we end up at my apartment, enough that I can slide the keycard into the slot and push the door open. “You want, like, a coffee or anything?” I ask.

“Only if you go right to bed.” She steps inside, and I flick on a lamp. She wriggles her nose a bit as she takes it in. “An Eiffel Tower lamp, really?”

“You can jump right out the window if you’re going to be snide.” I head into the kitchen and slide a cup into the coffee maker, then pour in some beans. It clicks, whirrs, hums, and then dispenses sweet, cinnamon-flavored joy. It’s so good I nearly take it, but reluctantly I have the wisdom to acknowledge that it’ll just keep me up.

“No, no. It just seemed a little, uh, kitschy for your tastes.” While she starts sipping, I check the messages on my phone. I don’t even turn my personal smartphone on until the work day is done. Dad’s sent a message congratulating me on my bust, and Mom a series of photos of their vacation on the sunny Searstone Islands. One of the few places in Equestria that has exactly two seasons: dry and wet.

“Mom got it for me when I was sixteen.” I open the door just enough to toss the phone into my bedroom. “It’s nice to have in the living area. Makes it feel a little more like home.” I shut it quickly, nervous that her keen eyes will see what lies beyond.

“All right. and, hey?”

I glance up at her.

She finishes her coffee and steps over, takes my hat, tosses it off to the rack, and brushes at my mussed mane to settle it. “You did good tonight, kid. I know you don’t hear enough.” She smiles warmly. “We really were partners back there.”

My mouth works uselessly a bit, and I shuffle my hooves. I try to speak, but my tightening throat betrays me.

With that, she leaves, closing the door behind her. A moment later, I find the wherewithal to turn off the light in the front room, open my door, and turn on its own light.

On the other side, Paris greets me – or, at least, the still photo blown up against my far wall. A night photo, naturally, it was taken from the balcony of a ritzy hotel. Once I saw it, I knew it was perfect. It overlooks the entire inner city, from the cathedral to the tower and everything along the Seine in between, all of it aglow in a river of pearls and stars.

I kick my coat off, tossing it on the couch outside, then unclip my badge from my shirt. I look at it for a while, running a hoof across the star and shield of Manehattan’s finest, before sighing and tossing that as well, and step into my cloister. The baroque lamps cast just the right amount of warm light, and the only concessions to the modernity of the last hundred years are a flat-screen TV propped up by the bed and my phone, the latter a sad necessity in my line of work. Nothing else from my life outside is allowed in.

It’d have been mortifying if Violet Rose had caught so much of a whiff of this room. I can be as tough as I like out on the streets, I can take a bullet I still carry the scar for, I can weather Gerry’s abuse and the fury of a burgeoning criminal element, but a remark here would have cut deep. Not even my mother could understand why, exactly, and maybe I don’t, either. It’s not like the rest of my life, it’s not something rational that I picked and decided. There’s no way Violet Rose, knowing the mare who works outside these walls, understand what goes on inside them.

Yet, she was so kind in those last moments…

I shake my head and climb onto my bed, settling my long tail across the down-filled comforter. Rose was right about the lamp, it doesn’t quite fit the decor. With a flick of my horn, I turn the TV on, playing from where I left off. I’ve considered saving up for a flat-screen so I can animate, but, really, the still is fine for my needs. Greater verisimilitude would only be torture.

“If you chase a dream…” I whisper, but find I can’t finish.

Settling the headphones over my ears, I prop my chin on a pillow and turn the volume way down, until it’s just enough to filter in – an old French romance about four guys chasing a chilly woman. It gets me every time. I watch the skyline, and in my mind’s eye it shifts and changes, almost as if it really were a wall-screen, or, perhaps, a balcony on another world.

As I drift to sleep, lulled by the music and liquid tones, I could swear I see a green star picked out among the others on my wall, bidding me good night.


* * * * * * *

> The First Night - Interlude
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Old Warhorse


Manehattan. Summer.

Ocean or no, you can’t beat the heat. I’ve been in this town on three separate occasions in my life, and it was either too hot, too bright, or too noisy.

They’re all jumbled together these days. You can’t escape it.

Everywhere you look in this town, people pack it like the mulched fish crap they feed their pets. Thirty years ago it was a big town, but a quiet one. Too sophisticated for my tastes, but it functioned. Fifteen years ago it was raucous, but it knew order.

Now? Now it’s just chaos.

I stare down at a hoof, regarding the blood dried in the cracks that never healed right. I’ll need to wash that off soon, but really it’s nothing new. Even the Guards they churn out today – too many – learn the old ways. You never know when someone’ll come along who can shed those fancy new bullets like rain. Ponies think the Guard only found meaning after the Changeling attack. They forget that, even in the fairy tale days, there was always a job that needed someone willing to do it.

It’s late, but who can tell? They never turn the lights off around here. A mare in a nice dress is walking her daughter home, the filly bouncing along at her heels. They’re chatting, probably about the concert at the music hall down the street, its maws disgorging ponies by the dozen.

When the filly runs ahead, the mare calls out to her in a note of worry, and my eyes tighten as I see the faint hesitance in the girl’s legs, the way her ears lower just so towards her head. Even her tail threatens to tuck in under her legs as she scampers back to her mother’s side.

Once, not so long ago, a kid could wander from here to Vanhoover at any hour and never fear anything worse than a scrape, so long as they kept to the path. Strangers would give them rides and there’d be no question of safety. Their eyes would never be shadowed by worry.

But that’s the sick world we’ve come to.

The world they made.

I grind my hoof against the pavement, the sallow, smug face of the ram swimming up. He thought he could reason with me. Thought he could appeal to my basic equinity and respect for fellow sapients if he just didn’t fight.

Someone should have told him that for some of us, the battle never ended. He was at war, whether he knew it or not.

I turn and march into downtown, making sure my amulet is tucked into my camo jacket. Past sloppiness is no excuse for future laxity.

Regarding the enormous towers in the most exclusive part of Manehattan, I tighten my jaw. I respect the Princesses’ decision to open the borders, but they always taught us to disagree if we felt the need.

Stars, do I feel the need.


* * *


Why are we here? a voice asks from the darkened corner of the elevator. Normally, an elevator corner wouldn’t be darkened, but then I did just slam a goblin into the ceiling and leave him groaning beside me. You are wasting time. This is not where the girl is.

“Funny,” I wipe my hooves on the mook’s shirt, “I remember you saying you couldn’t see her.”

The green witch blocks my sight.

“And you hers.”

She is not here. This, I know.

“No, but I sure as hell ain’t going to find her on time on my own.” I watch numbers tick up. “That’s why we’re here.”

If you insist.

I don’t dignify that with a response. The elevator dings, and I step out to find a forest of automatic and semi-automatic weapons pointed my way. I come to a stop, casually, and reach into my jacket to pull out the amulet. Only a very creative mind could consider the shape of it to be in any way evocative of an alicorn, with four points representing hooves pounded into its bronze surface and a horn curved like a sword across the top. I don’t need anyone to tell me what it is, though. The burning heat radiating from the jewel and through my bones does that for me.

I can feel what’s left of him in there. He doesn’t talk like the other guy.

He seethes.

“You here to sign your death warrant?” a mare – woman, gotta be precise the these days – asks, and they part enough to reveal a stony woman. She’s probably attractive by human standards, but I couldn’t tell. Long black hair cascades to her hips, and she wears an amulet of a spider embraced by a silver and gold ring on her chest. Perhaps more notable is the goblin steel blade she’s tapping against her leg – that, now, might actually be a threat.

“Funny. I thought I already had one,” I walk forward, and the nervous mass of goblins moves with me, but apart. They flank me on all sides, though frankly they’re more liable to hurt each other than me. “I walk into Quicklime’s place, and they see fit to jump me.”

“You got an entire ring of his best people captured. Did you expect a parade? They were sending a message.”

Polished black mirrors space the doors along the hall. I pause to look into one, touching a hoof to a fresh scar. I don’t remember that one, maybe one of his men gave it to me. “I had nothing to do with it. It’s not my fault they were sloppy.”

“Well. As my mother would say, no spinning silk back into the spinnerets.” She smiles coldly. “Quicklime’s dead, and you owe me a great deal of blood money.”

“How much?”

They always said the Ring types were level-headed, and she doesn’t disappoint. “Five hundred thousand bits. Gold.”

“Pricy blood,” I say skeptically.

“Factor in the cost of lost opportunity costs, the need to find and train a replacement. It adds up.”

“Hmph.” Not that I actually care. These chaos-born scum get suspicious if you don’t offer up a token effort. “Fine, but only because I need another job.”

There’s a scattering of rough laughter, and the crime lord shows her teeth. “Why should we deal with you again after tonight, soldier?”

“Because one, I have a lot more in stolen goods that I don’t particularly care for, and two…”

I don’t really need to do anything. I just reach in with my mind and let the gem do its thing. It’s a subtle thing, as I seem to swell without really growing, as if the room were shrinking around me. The heat is especially real, though, and it pours off me in waves as the cracks in my hooves fill with a dull red light. A corona of burning fire dims the lamps, and when I speak again, my voice is heavy with ash.

“Call it an apology for the hastiness of Quicklime’s men. I’m a forgiving type, properly motivated.”

People like her, the parasitic rats scurrying in the floorboards of the universe, are used to making quick calculations. She weighs me, weighs her men, and comes to a sensible conclusion.


* * *


The amulet doesn’t want to shut up on the way back. I massage my temples with a hoof, not for the first time wondering how quickly it’s getting to my head. The mare in Los Pegasus had only had it for three days at most, and that Trixie kid not even one. No one knows what happened at the last one except for top clearance, which hasn’t been me for a long time now. Maybe the damned thing’s already got a hold of me.

You are sane enough. For now.

“Charming, thanks,” I tell the darkness as I stomp in to clear the earth from my hooves and then flick a switch. The lights in the old house flicker terribly, but they do turn on, revealing crates packed with artifacts labeled from a dozen museums. It’s hard work, covering your tracks. Best way to hide something is often in plain sight.

Right now, they’re not so much hidden as they are stacked against the kitchen wall – seven jars in seven colors, each with a lead seal across the top, and all, and to a one only remarkable to history buffs and their ilk.

That, and a very nosy monster.

It is unlikely, of course, that you will significantly outlast the ceremony.

“You sound almost concerned,” I say, grabbing a jug of orange juice from the fridge and pouring a glass. “That seems unlike you.”

The fullness of your cooperation has always been a vital part of this endeavor. If you are experiencing doubts or worries about your security, now is the time to clear them.

I walk up to the window and peer through the blinds at the city lights. They shimmer across the water, rippling like strings of pearl. I wish I had some sort of story to go with that, some marefriend who lifted pearls to her side and laughed for me, or a brother who’d play in the surf with his wings shining with droplets of seawater, or a picture of a foal with my nose, but the truth is that I don’t have anything like that. All I have are a chest of medals, an old uniform, a shiny piece of jewelry with a serious attitude problem, a host of unpleasant memories, and a voice to keep me company. Dawn's first light touches the horizon.

“I’ve made my share of sacrifices to the crown. Since no one else is stepping up to the plate and protecting it from itself, though, I can stand to make a few more.”

If nothing else, I can respect that.

I grunt. At least we have that.

“Cheers.”


* * * * * * *


> The Second Night - Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Reluctant Pilgrim


Soaring over Coneigh Island on your way back to your kip is a good way to test your resistance to temptation. If you stop for a savory dog, a basket of fried fish and chips, any one of ten kinds of cotton candy, or queue into a ride, you’ve failed. Really, if it weren’t for what’s waiting for me at Rarity’s, I probably would have soaked that temptation right up into my veins, maybe played in the white sand and surf for the hell of it.

After making fun of the name, of course. Fifteen years, and I still can’t get over the horse puns. Daphne can talk about how we influenced each other all she likes, but we aren’t the ones who wound up with punned cities.

“C’mon.” I say towards the green star ahead as it hangs in the twilit sky. “Just one kebob. I’m not a vegetarian you know. Call it an appetizer.”

The star twinkles merrily. Tauntingly, more like.

I sigh dramatically and wing my way past the vast dark blue canvas that is Luna Park, which is without a doubt the best series of themed attractions in the whole of Coneigh Island. On another time, I’d take Leit here. She’d love the cool darkness inside, with its stars and looming moon, not to mention the attractions. A line heavily peppered with thestrals wraps around it twice in anticipation of nightfall, but even that would be worth it.

This time, my sigh is entirely real as I pick up speed and race north along the Manehattan shoreline until I come to a collection of large, well-kept houses on a hill near the north river. Rarity could easily have afforded the gaudy, extravagant mansions along the central park, but apparently some things are too big even for her pretty head. Tucking my wings in, I land with a graceful clatter in the garden. It’s a vast collection of flowing bushes and vines. Most of the work of maintaining it is done by an elderly zebra who manages the entire neighborhood the backyards as if they were his grandchildren, though a bed of well-tended orchids testifies to Talon’s careful, keen hoof. I trot along the stones and slide the rear door open to step in.

Perhaps for the sake of her husband, Rarity had toned down her baroque tendencies too, leaving only a few plus-sized gems to glitter here and there in the kitchen. That and a few touches of rose marble here and there. I trot up, sniffing at the oven. “Smell that, Daph? Seems I spoke too soon. You know, I swear that artificial meat didn’t smell this good last year.”

Another twinkle.

“Seems to me there’s another goody nearby, too,” I sniff along the counter, passing a covered bowl of roasted eggplant blended with tomato and spices and a baking dish filled with assorted vegetables, and stop at a glass lid covering the most exquisite apple pie I’ve seen in years, and that’s saying something with the company I keep. “Jackpot.” I lick my lips and reach for the lid, before a blue teleportation flash erupts at my side and an alabaster wing swats my hoof. It keeps swatting until I back up, grinning as I fend Rarity off. “Easy there! I give, I give.” I peek at her through my warding wings. “You didn’t seriously alarm the pie, did you?”

Rarity sniffs and lifts a hoof disdainfully. “With my husband? I set alarms on the entire kitchen.”

“Yeah, he always did have an appetite.” I swish my short tail. “Seriously, though, it looks great. Totally worth bypassing a rich, juicy bratwurst for.”

“It’d better,” she warns, but her own pleased smile betrays her. She laughs and leads me into the living room. “How’d your search go?”

“I’m pretty sure my badge has been rubbed to nothing by now,” I groan. “Not that I can really blame elementary school administrators for being suspicious of some random stallion asking after their student body.”

“Didn’t the police already check their databases this morning?” she asks.

I shrug. “Yeah, but most schools in town don’t actually keep databases on that stuff. Privacy and all. Makes my job harder, but I can’t really object.” I perk my ears at the sound of a television running in the family room, and a foal’s squeal of glee. “I thought Luster was going to some sort of concert thing?”

“A gaming tournament, actually, and yes.” She nods. “Talon will be along to take him after dinner.”

“That’s cute,” I smile. “Any word from Fluttershy yet, by the way?”

Rarity shakes her head. “No. I’m not surprised. Even getting a message that far south is difficult. Applejack called me, though. Three times.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. Hope they don’t have to sedate her.”

“Oh, she certainly looked it in her last call. Not to mention puffy.” Rarity giggles. “Really, is there any mare as bad at giving birth as her?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard about how Luster came out smooth as silk.” I chew on my cheek. “Celestia’s still on her vacation on the human side, but Luna can get in touch with her. Even then, teleporting over there can be tricky without knowing the land well enough. Twilight’s in Saddle Arabia, so she won’t be able to get here before the week’s out. Princess Rainbowbutt the First is also on my Earth, with Daphne and Leit.”

“Does she know you call her that?” Rarity raises a brow.

“What? I’m surprised you haven’t heard.” I smirk. “She coined it herself.”

“You are pulling my tail.”

“Oh no.” I lift a hoof defensively. “Not with your husband.”

She laughs, but it’s a brief one as she considers the situation soberly. “It is rather as if this is happening rather coincidentally when everypony we know is incapacitated or apart, isn’t it?”

I stamp a hoof. “Coincidence nothing. Still, worst case scenario, there’s an airship standing by.” Tilting my head, I reconsider. “Well, no. Worst case scenario is Luna drops her vigilance and teleports halfway across the country, and maybe Daphne pulls her iris trick and crosses the dimensions herself.”

“You’d rather she not, wouldn’t you?” Rarity asks quietly.

“What she’s doing is important.” I shake my head. “Daph and Naomi rely on me, Rarity. I go where I’m needed. If she needed to come, she’d have come.”

She considers me. “You aren’t an errand boy. You mean a great deal more to them than that.”

“No. I’m a troubleshooter, and trouble is what I shoot.” I start towards the family room.

“You know well that’s not what I mean,” she says. “You’re making it sound like you’re the last filly picked at recess. I don’t believe you were sent here because all the ponies who could handle it are doing more important things.”

I stop, laying my ears back. “That’s not how I intended it.”

“Well!” She ruffles her wings. “It’s how it came across.”

Resisting the urge to sigh for a third time tonight, I half-turn towards her. “You know, when Los Pegasus was getting sucked down that storm cell, it was all I could do to keep airborne. I managed to struggle through to the eye, eventually, but when I confronted Tattered Sail, I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. Maybe I could have made headway, but I was ripped away back into the storm. Rainbow’s the one who blew through it and talked her out of sinking the city, not me.”

Rarity touches my side with her wing and a hoof. “I didn’t know, actually. Rainbow never talks about it. Even so, we all have our talents. Rainbow’s the strongest flier to ever live. You tried, though, you had a shot. Maybe if she hadn’t of been there, you could have pulled back.”

“Well, speaking as the guy who tries, knowing that maybe if the stars are right I’ll be first rate doesn’t really help.” I bump my shoulder against hers. “Look, it’s selfish meanderings anyway. Yeah, maybe it bothers me, but what I really care about is seeing a job completed by any means, and I’m not going to let pride get in the way of doing what needs to be done. If things start looking bad, I’ll call in the cavalry. You’re all horses anyway, so you count.”

She rolls her eyes amusedly and gives me a nudge. “Very well, Marcus, but you do matter, and you do have skills that make you unique.”

I glance back at my sides. Under my jacket, a thunder cloud with two striking bolts lurks. It takes up pretty much my entire back when I’m on two legs, so I can’t miss it. “We’ll have to see if that’s enough, then.”

In the family room, Luster is sprawled on a cushion near his laptop screen, rather than using the wall one. More personal, really. Smooth as silk or not, the very pretty Rarity gave birth to a very pretty son, with fine dark purple hair and a well-groomed silver coat. Like his dad, his feathers are tinged in black.

“I swear, he’s gonna kill the ladies when he’s a little older,” I whisper to Rarity, who giggles. Luster flicks an ear back, but doesn’t seem to have really noticed. He clutches his hooves around a golden-haired plush and turns the volume up a hair.

“Queen Honeycomb,” a little filly asks a mare dressed in black and yellow stripes, “can you wish upon a star?”

“Yes! But only very special stars,” the mare answers, booping the filly on the nose with a cheerful smile. “There’s a star out there just for you, I’ll bet, but so you get some good practice in, why don’t you tell me what you’d ask for?”

“Really,” I say. “I’m surprised they run this in the evening, too. Oh, right, nocturnal kids.” I glance at Rarity. “Didn’t you and the others bust her for being a changeling a few years back?”

“Yes, and our children forgave us eventually.” She pats at her mane embarrassedly. “That’s the last time I invade a television studio without checking to see if we’re on air.”

“Also not assuming every changeling is evil?”

“Oh, she’s certainly supping on their love,” Rarity protests. “We just didn’t realize that foals provided a renewable method of feeding.”

“So not evil.”

“No.” She groans. “And even behind the scenes she’s terribly chipper. When we dropped the charges she even apologized, as if we were the ones inconvenienced.”

I snigger, and Luster shoots a furious look our way and turns the volume higher still. Rarity trots off to the kitchen again, and I mosey over to glimpse past the kid’s shoulder. It’s an awfully saccharine show, intended more for very young children, and I open my mouth to ask if he’s a little old for it.

Hesitating, I take in the warm joy on his face and the way he holds the plush doll so tenderly between his hooves. It’s hard not to be reminded of my own kid siblings – or, more directly, when I was still watching Sesame Street and other shows like it into elementary. Someone, an uncle or a cousin or the like, opened their mouth and asked that very same question. It wasn’t really the same after that.

Instead, I settle down beside him. We’d gotten to know one another pretty well over his visits to Ponyville, and he glances my way briefly with a welcoming smile. After a bit, he even shifts a bit to settle in between my legs and rests his chin against a hoof, and I was pretty much paralyzed from then on.

“Is Auntie Leit visiting, too, Uncle Marcus?” he asks during a commercial, his tail wagging hopefully.

“Nope, but she said she’ll have another figurine for you next time she visits.”

“Aww,” he lowers his ears. “We’ll go flying though, right?”

“Sure thing.” I ruffle his mane. “I know an actual pirate cave I can take you and your Dad to, once I’m done here.”

“That’d be a trick,” Talon himself says as he alights on the window, “I didn’t think there were pirates in Equestrian history.”

“Give or take a few thousand years, you’d be surprised. Hey Talon.”

“Marcus.” He brushes himself off outside before coming in. “See you’ve arrived in time for dinner.”

“Speak for yourself. I’d greet you properly, but your son has me pinned.”

“Just like his old man.” Talon ruffles Luster’s mane as well, and the colt makes a little noise of protest and starts patting it back down. In many ways, they look almost nothing alike, but there’s similarities in the shape of their hooves and the turn of their legs, not to mention the black tips of their feathers. Talon’s are a grey green, and his cropped mane is a two-toned green, but his eyes are his oddest feature. They’re always a little lidded, as if he’s sleepy or disinterested, but I’d never seen quite that striking a yellow in other Equestrians.

“Do you think Daddy’ll help you with your mission?” Luster asks excitedly as the program ends.

“He might.” I glance up at him. “Were you called into duty?”

“No, but the night’s still young. Seems unlikely, my unit’s halfway across Equestria right now.” He smiles his slow smile. “Not that it’ll stop me once Rarity’s involved. Orders or no orders.”

“That’s the spirit.” I nudge Luster. “Why don’t you go ask your mom when dinner’ll be ready?”

“I never get to hear the big pony talk,” he grumbles, but pauses to give me a quick nuzzle before racing off regardless.

“Still cute.” I chuckle as I get to my feet. “Gods, feels like he’s grown five inches since last time.”

“Not quite, but close,” Talon takes a seat on the couch, regarding me in his inscrutable way. “How bad is it? Wait – check the door first.”

“Way ahead of you,” I kick the wall lightly a couple times. There’s a squeak, and then the sound of tiny hooves racing off. “I did have five siblings, you know. Anyway, how bad? Amulet bad. Nothing on our radar yet, aside from him demolishing a small crime ring with extreme prejudice. Actually, if it weren’t for a detective in the MPD I wouldn’t know as much as I already do.”

“What do you know, then?” He folds his powerful legs. I don’t know if I’ve seen them that wiry and strong on a pegasus before.

“Earth pony.” I go to sit on the opposite side. “Looks ex-military, which, combined with knowing his coat and mane combination narrows the suspects considerably.”

Talon shifts. “No one I’m likely to know, I hope?”

“The guy could be fifty, sixty, maybe older.” I shrug. “It’s possible he’s been active recently.”

“Old school, huh?” Talon narrows his eyes further. “The Guard was largely ceremonial when he started, if so, and that didn’t really change until the changeling invasion, and then the military reforms. Even so, there was a core of careerists who pulled the really serious duties.”

“Then we probably already know who he is, and no one’s seen fit to tell me.” I ruffle my wings in annoyance.

“I might recognize him if I saw a picture. I wasn’t with the old Guard, but I knew a lot of the hardcore group.” He sets his jaw. “Though, I’m not sure I’d be happy knowing.”

I Produce one of the copies of the museum stills by miming reaching into my coat, and hand it over. He takes a look and frowns. “No. He’s old, too. Retired before my time, probably.”

“Shame. Still, if it comes to it, I have your spear?” I ask.

He looks up at me, almost surprised, and smiles again in his way. “You know just how to ask.” When Rarity returns with Luster on his back, he gives a firm nod and goes to meet his wife.

“Dinner’ll be ready in twenty minutes, dear,” she informs him, the two sharing an affectionate nuzzle. In spite of myself, I glance away and wonder what Leit’s up to. Most likely chilling on a Pacific beach with Daphne. It’d be around sunrise where they’re supposed to be. Not that you can find many beaches in what’s left of southeast China, unless the government's seen fit to import sand to the new ones.

The gentle chimes of the doorbell draws everyone’s attention, and Rarity tilts her head. “Now, who could that be?”

“Were you expecting someone?” I ask.

“Not really.” She shuttles Luster to my back and trots over to the front room.

Talon watches her go and gives me a conspiratorial look. “Think you can watch her while I sneak a bite? There’s one in it for you.”

“Go for it.” I grin and trot off after Rarity.

As she starts to open the door in the entryway, her eyes narrow. “Mind the door for me, Marcus?” she asks, and vanishes in a flash of blue light. A series of muffled “Ow”s echoes back, and Luster giggles into his hoof while I smirk and finish opening the door.

“Well, well. Look who I wasn’t expecting,” I say, leaning against the door frame. “My two favorite detectives.”

Violet Rose smiles and fans herself with a hoof. “Aww, that’d be sweet, but we’re probably the only detectives you know.”

“Well, yes.”

“Mind if we step in, Mister Flores?” Trace Prints asks, as sedate and focused as she was last night. Have to wonder if she ever takes a break.

“I ain’t in trouble, am I?” I step aside to let them into the foyer. “Also, it’s Marcus. My Dad is Mister Flores, and even then not very often.”

“Depends how you define ‘trouble’,” she says, walking in and looking around, as if anticipating yet another kind of trouble. “We could all be up a creek without a river right now, depending.”

Nodding, Violet joins her. “Yeah. Have you found anything new about last night? We’ve spent pretty much all of last night and today questioning street thugs, but they’re in short supply. That in itself is a clue – means they’re up to something.”

“What, you haven’t slept?” I give her a skeptical look. “You look great for someone who’s been up for forty-eight hours.”

“Oh, don’t make me blush,” she waves a hoof and grins. “Besides, thestrals can store sleep. Once this mess is over, I’m going to collapse onto a cloud and sleep like the dead.”

Trace sniffs the air. “Wow. Is that curry?”

“I’m expecting a call back pretty much any minute.” I gesture to the coat tracks by the door. “And yes. there’s some curries on tonight’s menu. You girls eat yet?”

“We couldn’t intrude. The night’s just getting started, and duty calls,” Trace says in a tragic, yet determined tone.

“Like hell we can’t.” Violet takes her coat off and hangs it up. Only in Equestria do people get naked to have a casual dinner party. “The lady of the house won’t mind?”

“Mom loves company,” Luster pipes up from my back, standing on all fours. I’ve decided that foals riding on people’s backs are among the cutest things.

The three of us stare at Trace until she sighs and floats her own long coat and hat up. A trail of hoofprints mark her flank like ink, and her long tail and chin-length mane are inky black as well. She’s actually rather cute, though a bit young for me now, even if I weren’t taken.

Bit young? Isn’t that a tragic thought.

Talon is just answering a call on the wall screen as we enter the living room, and it smoothly lights up and colorizes to reveal a pretty young human woman in casual business attire, freshly loosened for the day. A number of pregnancies, including the one she’s smuggling in under her shirt now, have done wonders at filling her skinny frame out, and her shock of red hair is still vibrant and full down her back. She smiles and waves. “Talon! Luster! It’s evening over there already, isn’t it? I hope I didn’t interrupt dinner.”

“I have been judiciously informed that it will be ready in ‘just a little while, and not a moment sooner’,” Talon says in his languid way. Luster hops over to nuzzle his dad and wave at the screen. “Hi, Auntie Naomi!” he calls.

“And there’s Marcus,” she says, glancing over as I step into view, “and friends.”

“Detectives Violet Rose and Trace Prints of the MPD. How’s tricks, Naomi?” I rub a hoof on the carpet. “Any word from Leit Motif?”

“Yes, actually. She says she’s doing fine, they’re in Hong Kong right now and Rainbow Dash is about ready to burst out of her skin.” She grins. “Though I wonder how much that has to do with all the numbers she’s getting. She makes for an extremely cute human.”

“Really?” I snort. “I’d expect the opposite; she thrives on that sort of attention.”

A teenage filly, a match for her mother right down to the gold coat and explosively red hair, trots into view. She’s followed shortly by a red-headed human boy and girl, about seven and six respectively. The latter two go and hop up on their mother’s legs, cuddling in, while the filly pauses hesitantly before hurrying over to stand beside her mother and lay her chin on her side.

“And hello, too, Ethan, Shanna, and Copper Kettle,” I grin. “Helping Mommy with work again, Kettle?”

She glances up at Naomi, her eyes momentarily sad. “Yeah. I’m trying to learn the ropes, Uncle Marcus.”

Naomi smiles, one filled with almost overwhelming love, as she strokes her eldest daughter’s ear with one hand and tucks the others close with the other. “She’s very good, and that’s not just pride talking.” She glances up. “Unfortunately, this isn’t a social call. I just found out that we hadn’t gotten the information you asked for last night. I’ve had it sent to the house’s computer.”

Talon obligingly touches the on-screen keys near the side, accepting a transfer and popping up a series of photos and documents. The symbol, in all its variations, are shown from different sources. All of them incorporate at their core a Star of David inscribed in a circle with at least six dots, with different lettering in different languages or other symbols.

“What you’re looking at are versions of the Seal of Solomon, also called the Great Pentacle,” Naomi says in a more serious tone. “Legendarily, they were used to imprison, command, or control demons, jinn, or whatever the spiritual heritage of the teller referred to.”

“The he-” I glance at the various children watching. “What exactly are they doing in Equestria?”

“It’s the researchers’ belief, and I’m inclined to agree with them, that they were made before the split, and wound up on the Earth B side of the barrier.” Naomi’s face twists into annoyance. Were she in her pony form, she’d be scrunching it. “It’s a pointed reminder that we need to have stuff like this catalogued and contained, before situations like this arise right under our noses.”

“Make a memo, you’re good at memos. Shoot it off to the Royal Antiquities thingajig.”

“Royal Academy of Archaeology and Antiquities,” Trace corrects absently, laying on the couch.

“Yeah that one.”

Naomi rolls her eyes. “I’ll get right on that, thanks. Someone’s coming soon to deliver you a dossier on the Guardspony you’re after, by-the-way. Oh, and I’m sending you backup. I’ve recalled two rangers from Mag Mell, they should be there tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”

I grunt in acknowledgement. Among other things, I trust Naomi’s sense of a situation, and she’s right to think this may be in over our heads. “Fair enough. I won’t lie, we’ve been pretty stumped. Last night was basically a wash.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no.” She smiles. “We’ve come a long way from being Daphne’s hanger-ons, Marcus, and she chose you for this for a reason.”

“Mmhmm.” I nod. “She likes watching me squirm.”

“Well.” She considers. “Yes, but also other reasons.”

Rarity pops in. “Dinner’s ready, everypony, and – oh! Naomi! Why didn’t anyone tell me you were on?”

“Hey Rares.” Naomi waves. “Sorry, was a business call. I have to go anyway, but I’ll call back tomorrow morning and we can talk, mare-to-mare.”

“Is all that transformation really good for your foal?” I ask skeptically. “Err. Baby. At the moment.”

“Psh.” She waves me off. “Daphne told me they’re just fine. Worry about yourself!”

“I’ll try. Good night. We’ll catch up,” I say.

“Good luck.”

Copper Kettle lifts her head and swishes her bushy tail slowly. “Be careful Uncle Marcus. Please?”

Giving the filly my most confident grin, cocked on one side, I salute her. “You can count on me, kid.”

With that, we hang up and wander into the kitchen, eschewing the dining room in favor of the less formal atmosphere of the kitchen table. A bay window looks out over Rarity’s garden and the stars of evening that are rising over the garden wall to the east, including Daphne’s own vibrant green one. I feel a pang at that, and step outside long enough to pour a little wine out for her. It’s hard, watching someone you were close to become distanced from everything around her. If it weren’t for Leit Motif, I wonder if she’d be tethered to the physical world at all, or if she’d become just like Pirene on her island. A daemon, watching over us all.

With the addition of Trace Prints and Violet Rose, the dinner has almost a raucous air that reminds me of home with my folks. Not quite as insane as having all my siblings, aunts, and uncles in one place, but Violet and Talon trading jokes, Rarity telling about her adventures and treating Violet to illusionary displays of her clothing lines, and my own contributions help drive the atmosphere. Heck, even Trace Prints loosens up as she tells a story about one of her cases, a smile touching her face. She’s stolen most of the curry for herself, and seems to have an unlimited tolerance for spice. Me, I dig quite heavily into the white wine chicken. My nose hadn’t deceived me – it’s loads better than the stuff they were making last year.

Before Trace can finish her story, there’s another chime at the door. “I swear,” Rarity says, rising to her hooves, “I feel like I’m running an inn.” She trots off and the door creaks open. “My goodness!” she calls, stunned.

We four adults tense, but Rarity returns with a vast smile on her face. On her heels is a middle-aged mare with a rich brown mane, dark hooves, and a roan coat, while a tough mare and stallion follow in her wake, wearing suits, ties, sunglasses, and earpieces. Trace, Talon, and Rose all get to their feet. “Consul Loam!” the last says in surprise. “We didn’t hear that you were coming to town.”

“I’m here on behalf of my co-consuls and the Senate to establish a diplomatic headquarters for all the nations of this earth,” the mare says in a clipped, formal tone. “I have not yet seen fit to announce the date. Particularly,” she says, with a stony look in my direction, “with what appears to be both a titanspawn and an alicorn amulet on the loose in the city of choice.”

I cough delicately. “We’re working on it.”

Luster tugs on Talon’s wing with mouth. “Dad, can we go to the tournament now?”

His father nods, passing a salute to the one-third of the nation’s executive branch and a kiss to his wife’s cheek, though not in that order, before collecting his son on his back and flying out.

Loam watches silently, and steps over to the table. “I’ve also come to personally deliver certain classified material, to aid with your efforts, Ranger Marcus Flores.”

“And here I thought Mister Marcus was a mouthful.” I watch as she places a folder filled with papers and a weird rod on the table. It’s an elegantly twisted thing of silver and gold wire, with a six-color jewel in the center. It looks so delicate I’m worried I’ll bend it at once, but when I pick the thing up it’s ridiculously solid. Naturally, I start to play with it, looking for an on-switch. “The hell is this?”

“Something our archaeologists dug up in the Crystal Mountains. It dates back at least ten thousand years.” The mare narrows her eyes at my irreverent attitude, but her voice remains steady. “It’s an anti-chaos weapon, we’re fairly sure.”

“How sure?”

“On investing it, we had it brought to an infestation of titanspawn insects. It transformed them into clumps of clay and poison.” She purses her lips thoughtfully. “Our scientists believe it to be a sort of harmonic weapon, one that imposes order on chaos through a sort of magical musical action, like some sort of Elements of Harmony precursor. We doubt it could bring down a powerful monster, but it will probably be more effective than your current arsenal. It may even help if our criminal is under the influence of dark magic, though no promises in that regard.”

“Oh, I bet Discord just loves that.”

Loam smiles tightly. “Not even a little. Rest assured, I doubt he’ll come anywhere near it.” She nods towards it. “Take care of it. If we’re sure of one thing, it’s that it’s far in advance of anything our two worlds can replicate. Without more alicorns of the right speciality, I’m not sure we ever will.”

I flick my hoof, and she grits her teeth as I Vanish it. “Straight into Gunspace. It’ll stay nice and sound right there.”

“Gunspace?” Trace mutters.

Rarity ruffles her wings, drawing attention to herself. “Consul, dear – why don’t you stay for dinner?”

Loam frowns, but Rarity insists, and celebrity has its advantages. While she shepherds the Consul and her bodyguards to their seats, I head off to the bar with Trace and Rose, laying out the folder. It becomes immediately apparent why it took so long to peg this guy.

“Holy hell, he’s a cripple,” Rose mutters as we look over the photographs. It’s our stallion all right – all four legs immobilized while a doting younger mare stands by. Celestia herself is pinning medals to his crisp uniform. “I’m surprised the folks back in Canterlot even looked at the file of a paraplegic.”

“Not to be obvious, Purple, but he was a cripple.” I lean back. “He could dance with the legs he has now.”

Trace reads off the page, her eyes flicking “Redbud, rank: Centurion. Considered for Legatus, possibly on track for Primus, until he was severely injured in the line of duty. That was eight years ago, a couple years after the army reforms. He was a Lieutenant in the old Guard. Fought with distinction against the Changelings, in the Bridle incident, the Black Swarm, and during the Winter Wolf Invasion.”

“What got him in the end?” I ask. “Goblins? He sure seems to have a grudge there.”

“No. He was in a disaster relief mission at Dodge City, when a sandworm emerged from tunnels under the Everfree and attacked. Most of his squad – and a fair chunk of the town – would have died if he hadn’t of thrown himself on the beast and redirected it. He rode it for ten miles while they called in an airship. When they plugged it full of holes, they found him under it, with a broken spine from the neck down.”

“Aren’t there treatments for that?”

Rose shrugs. “Nerve regeneration and reconnection is still a new field. We can repair recent breaks, but after a few years the nerves start to atrophy. Full denervation is irreversible with existing techniques, though I know there’s some stuff with stem cells in the pipeline.”

“He was also exposed to some of its poison, since he broke through the shell to get to it,” Trace says, tapping the page. “That would have inhibited healing. Any grace window would have been lost. I think we can safely assume that either the amulet or the titanspawn he’s with healed him with their magic.”

“So he’s a hero,” Rose says, exasperated. “Where does that get us? What’s he doing? Is he under control?”

“He’s a soldier,” Trace and I say at once, talking over one another. I smirk. “You go first.”

“He’s not a hero,” Trace says, shuffling through the photos and pages, sifting through it like a prospector. “He’s a soldier. A consummate soldier. He did what he did not because it would reward him or glorify him, but because it was his duty.”

“How do you get that from this?” Violet asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Commendations. Service record. Test scores. Virtually every duty request he made was in search of the most unwanted, dirty, dangerous assignments a career soldier could hope for.” She shrugs. “You read between the lines.”

“What about killing Quicklime?” she crosses her legs on the counter. “Equestrians soldiers and service personnel of any stripe are sworn not to cause harm unless it is absolutely necessary.”

Trace Prints meets my eyes. “I think Marcus knows.”

I quirk another small smile and look down at the photos. The stills from the museum leap back at me as well. For a moment, it’s like they really have captured a slice of his soul, and I’m looking into it. “He’s still at war. When Celestia pinned those medals on him, he was still fighting. He had the same look in the museum, and I’ll bet the dock workers who saw him on the tour told you he had a weird intensity about him.”

They glance at one another. “You actually read my report from this morning?” Trace asks. “I’m not sure if I should be surprised you did or offended that they gave you access without telling us.”

“I’m not the kid I used to be.” I grimace. “He’s someone who believes. Really, that’s the worst sort of enemy. A monster will rampage through your town, sure, but it rarely thinks about what it’s doing and why that’s a bad thing. A person who thinks that by doing bad things he’ll achieve a greater one…” I look at them thoughtfully. “Can we use this to find him?”

“Maybe,” Prints murmurs, her eyes soaking in the reading material.

“I think we can,” Rose says more confidently. “With personal information we can develop a more solid profile. Lab Work promised us test results soon from the stuff we recovered at the crime scene yesterday, too.”

“Let me call the lab,” Prints says, floating her phone out and dialing. “See if I can’t get an ETA.”

Behind us, Loam chats with Rarity. “Really, I will see what I can do in the Senate. Ever since Princess Celestia passed over the reins of government to the people, it’s been the right of the people to decide who will represent them, even in a ceremonial capacity – though few would have the heart to refuse the Princesses anything.”

Rarity’s eyes shine. “So, say, if I had public sanction from all of them…”

“Hey,” Trace says into her phone quietly, “Dusty? Yeah, it’s Trace. What’s the progress on last night’s homicide tests? Uh huh. Great.”

She clicks it off while the two of us wait, then she floats the dossier up and neatly packs them together. She rises to her hooves. “Well? What are you all waiting for?”

“The lab results are done?” Rose asks hopefully.

“They will be by the time we get there. Let’s go.”


* * * * * * *


> The Second Night - Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Wistful Heart


Street lights ripple by as we drive back to the station, pools of revelation in a sea of uncertainty. Briefly, I try to imagine what it would be like riding in a human car as I am, without the low, broad seats we enjoy. I’d probably have to ride in the back without a seatbelt, like a family dog. In Rose’s own backseat, Marcus watches the sky, quiet.

“So, I really have to ask.” I turn around. “If your green friend is the spirit of Aquarius, traditional astrology dictates that we just passed through Pisces back during the Bridle incident. Who was that, then?”

He smiles wryly, breaking out of his fugue – much as I’d intended. “After Daphne told me, I kicked myself because it was so obvious. Celestia and Luna were Pisces together. They didn’t know it, of course.”

“Huh.” I chew on that. “Yeah, okay, that actually does make a great deal of sense.”

Rose rolls her eyes. “Not being a bottomless well of trivia, I may need the primer.”

“Essentially, the earth – and apparently the Tree – rotates on a slight tilt that completes itself every 26,000 years, and when it’s pointing at one of the twelve cardinal constellations we’re in its Age, so there’s about a two-thousand year gap between each one. Equestria’s exact date of formation is unclear,” I say, “partially because it cannot be made clear, since when it happened it was in a different frame of reference. Still, Celestia thinks it was about two thousand years ago that she got her wings, and Luna got her horn not too long after that. No one shaped our world quite so prominently as they did over that time. They brought Equestria out of violent, fractious chaos and into the modern, comfortable era we know today.”

She tilts an ear back, stopping behind a food truck. A shame, I’m stuffed. “So, what about the human Earth? Or the other worlds? They didn’t benefit from our having Pisces at all.”

“I’m not sure I’d call saving Equestria from dissolving into violence and madness no benefit to Creation at large. Y’all have a lot of apocalyptic monsters here.” Marcus stretches his wings and hooves, joints popping. “Still, I suppose that’s the cost we’re all still living with.”

“You know,” Rose grumbles, “I can’t wait for the day when we’ve paid that down.”

It’s a nice dream, but can it ever really be anything but? I look out at the artificial stars of the city. By now, most ponies have at least heard about the mighty golden age where the races lived in Harmony. Thanks to Celestia, a lot of them can even believe that it’s possible it’ll happen again, without the mistakes of the past. I’m not so sure, though – some stains, you just can’t wash out.

We pull into the station’s underground lot twenty minutes after leaving Rarity’s, which is a miracle in early evening traffic and still too long by half for my tastes. Marcus barely has time to step out of the car before we drag him off to the stairs, taking them three steps at a time.

While I may find ample reason to complain about the sorry state of our precinct’s dramatic character, I can at least appreciate the benefits of a fully-equipped forensics department. Here, the white tile, smooth glass walls, and pristine operating rooms fit exactly the right aesthetic. Speaking of, Lab Work trots up to meet us in her white coat, looking none the worse for wear after last night. Some mares get all the luck.

“There you girls are, and – hey, you brought back the cute ranger, too.” She grins.

“I’m taken,” he says steadily. “Also, like, eight years your senior.”

“Don’t encourage her,” I say, pushing Lab Work back to the evidence table. “For what it’s worth, Ranger, most of the girls in the precinct think you’re okay at best.”

He works his mouth at that, but decides to let it go.

“What did you find?” Rose asks, looking over the neatly categorized bags.

She swishes her curly golden tail, excited to share. “Blood work corresponds to all people known to be at the scene. We can’t use military DNA for criminal investigation purposes, but Consul Loam’s aid dropped off a copy of a dossier that indicates–”

“We know,” I say, raising a hoof. “She came to deliver it to Rarity’s herself.”

Lab Work puffs her cheeks out. “Well! We still managed to identify the blood type of at least some of it as belonging to him, since it’s unlikely another male earth pony wandered in there and bled on the carpet.”

“Thorough, but it’s nothing Violet hadn’t picked up by scent.” I glance back at Violet, and she nods.

“He can bleed, good to know,” Marcus says, chipper. “Immune to bullets though he may be.”

Miffed, Lab Work goes back to her samples. “We’ve ruled that the sand Tracy bagged has been identified as local. There’s only a handful of beaches in the area that have yellow sand, and only two of them with these trace minerals. One of them is a protected beach, and there’s a fair number of caves in the area. The other is Whiskerson Beach, a residential area.”

“Expensive?” Marcus asks.

“Upper mid,” Violet Rose says. “I’ve got an uncle who retired down there. Nice place.”

“We can have Diamond Dogs search the caves,” Tracy says. “What else do you have?”

She taps a vial. “Hair samples, just confirming the DNA evidence from the blood, at least where we got the follicles. You can download it to your field kit. We also have impressions of his prints from, ah – the damage he did to the goblins. Oh, you’ll like this, too.” She picks up a report. “Officers interviewing nearby witnesses did get a description of the suspect, and one person a block away said he got into a car and described it as a blue Fairmotor Allara.”

I consider the evidence thoughtfully. A lot of it is just reconstructing the scene at the melee, but the useful tidbits will have to be enough. “Do you have any more cases tonight, Lab?”

“A few. Why?”

“Grab your kit. We’re going to the beach.”

“What, really?” She frowns. “You don’t think he’s in the caves?”

“Caves are easy to search, and we’re not well-suited for it anyway. We’ll need some print-outs of Redbud’s face and photos of that car. If we find it, we can check for hairs on the driver’s seat; even if they don’t have the follicles attached, you’re qualified to check them.” I turn for the door. “I’m going to see Gerry and get a plainclothes detail and an entry team ready. Be ready to leave in ten minutes.”

Marcus looks at the clock with a slightly frown. “I’m supposed to be meeting a weird turtle tonight, but I guess it can wait if we find this guy. We’ll be there.”


* * *


Pits burn like watchfires on the beach against the black current of the ocean. Families and friends, gathered for late-night parties, huddle together on a warm night. The morning’s rainstorm had left sea-smelling piles of kelp where adventurous terns – and no small number of griffins – hunt for crabs and crayfish.

I walk along the boardwalk, where the wind has blown yellow sand across the fronts of pleasantly lit stores, floating a paper up with Redbud’s unsmiling face and asking passerby if they’d seen him. Violet’s doing the same in the big plaza a couple hundred feet away, and Marcus is going down to each of the fire pits as well. Here and there among the evening crowds are sharp-eyed officers in street clothes, several streets back to watch the main thoroughfares.

“Gerry must be warming up to you; he turned out like a quarter of the precinct,” Lab Work says, her winsome smile attracting far more interest than my photos.

“It’s the best lead we have,” I say, “He needs to do something.” We pause as our radios squawk.

Lab Work listens and sighs, hitching her back up a bit higher. “Another blue Allara spotted. Parked. We’ll have to pop the door. You know we’re on the verge of a major civil rights violation, right? We can't use anything we find as evidence.”

“So if it's not his pretend you don't see anything else that isn't in plain sight. Besides, we already have enough to convict him ten times over.”

“Fine, fine.” She swishes her tail. “I will admit, being a proper detective can be fun.”

“Try not to get too excited.” I turn back to the pedestrians as she trots off.

It's like fishing in a school of trout. You can bag a few, but the greater mass is going to swim right by you in a torrent. Any one of these people could have chanced to see Redbud, but would they remember him even if they had? How many hundreds are just here for the weekend?

I watch a pretty unicorn around my age in a nice little dress, leaning against a pegasus with his wing wrapped around her. They’re laughing, smiling; they couldn’t be more happy. I watch them go, feeling an empty pang every time my heart beats.

Marcus flaps up and lands beside me. “I've been asking around some of the people who look like regulars. A couple have seen our guy, and more than once.”

“I take it from your lack of excitement that they couldn't tell much else.”

He shakes his head. “Not really. Still, it’s proof that he’s here somewhere.”

“That it is.” I rock on my hooves thoughtfully, scanning the shops. I hadn’t bothered checking them – they’re tourist traps for the most part, and I don’t really see Redbud buying something chintzy. The clerks at the grocer didn’t recognize him, but then they go through dozens of customers a day themselves.

Rose hurries over, wings spread slightly. “I think we have a lead.”

My ears perk. “Yeah?”

“There’s someone who says a goblin friend of hers was threatened when she approached a scarred soldier.”

“Can she reach her friend by phone?”

“Even better – she works around here. Come along.”

Rose leads the two of us back a bit, to an elegant building in smooth, dark red wood. Marcus checks the sign out as we make the entrance. “Oh, you shouldn’t have. It’s not even my birthday.”

“Quiet, you.” I push the door open and step inside.

The lobby is very brief and tasteful, with bamboo and a quiet fountain, and in the subdued lighting it has a definite intimacy to it. An absolutely stunning thestral mare with a slim body and blue hair in a bun smiles warmly from behind the counter, and a framed and signed photo of herself with Princess Cadance adorns the wall beside her. “Hello, sir and madams. Welcome to Via Eros. Would you like a room, or may I introduce you to one of our stunning companions for the evening?”

Blushing right down to my hooves, I cough delicately and open my coat, revealing my badge. It’s not like it is on other worlds, the people of her profession are clean, professional, and respected, but even so, it can make a mare uncomfortable. “Sorry, ma’am, we’re here on a different sort of business. We’d like to ask a few questions.”

“If it’s about my clients, I’m afraid we’re strictly confidential,” she says, with a faintly disapproving note. “Unless you have a warrant.”

“Actually, I don’t think he’d have frequented your business. We received a report that one of your employees, a goblin, was nearly assaulted recently.”

“Indeed? This is the first I’ve heard of it.” Her face hardens. “I don’t appreciate people ill-treating my boys and girls. Some of the tourists from outside Equestria get the wrong idea about our profession. While I can assure you no incidents have happened here, it might have been on their own time. Who was it?”

Rose steps forward, lifting her notepad. “We received the tip from Sangria. She says the goblin’s name is Pella Whiplash?”

She nods, getting to her hooves. “You can wait in my office. I’ll be right back.”

We file into the little room she indicates, and a few minutes later make more room as the matron squeezes back in with a small, cute little goblin pony with purple scales and feathered wings. She looks decidedly nervous at the sight of my still-open badge, which I should have expected. Until King Amelia reformed the justice system there, a goblin had significant reason to fear the authorities in Mag Mell.

“Hello Pella,” Rose greets her. “Could you tell us about the incident you had?”

“Well, it weren’t much,” she says, relaxing a little. “Just a black-hearted cythraul of a stallion getting nasty. Nothing I ain’t dealed with before. I didn’t even think of reportin’ it.” She purses her lips. “I ain’t in trouble for that, am I? I’m not too familiar with your laws here, yet.”

“No,” Marcus reassures her. “We’d just like to hear what happened and where.”

“Oh, well!” She brightens. “There I was last night after work with Sangria. It was pretty late, and most folks had gone home, but we keep long hours, y’know? We’d gone to this thestral place, see, a right tidy little bar near, and there was this earth stallion at the bar, barely touching his drink and staring off at the water like he had a lot of thinking to do. He was handsome, and I like ‘em a little older, so I approached him as he was leaving.” She ruffles her wings, annoyed. “He went and said he’d break my leg if I came anywhere near him! And here I was thinking I’d offer him a little comfort for his troubles, that’s a right improper way to treat a gal, don’t you think?”

“Sure is,” Rose says. “You wouldn’t happen to have seen anything identifying? License plate, maybe?”

“Nah, he didn’t have a car, but he went into the neighborhood nearby on hoof. I was gonna follow him, tell my cousins where he lived, but Sangria told me to let it go and so I did.”

The three of us exchange a glance. Shame she hadn’t – then again, her cousins would probably all be dead by now if she had.

“Which neighborhood?” I ask intently.

“Just a sec,” she says, and plucks her phone out from her dress.

Marcus, Rose, and she squeeze back out to look. I start to join them, but the madam puts a hoof to my side. “A moment, miss.” She gives a warm, almost sad little smile. “I don’t usually do this, but when you’re off duty, maybe you could stop by and I could introduce you to one of our stallions? He’s a little older, very tender and experienced. He’s very good with mares who have a lot of hurt and tension, and I think he’d waive his fee if you talked to him after hours.”

I stare at her, my mouth opened slightly. At first, I’m not even sure what to say – it’s just not often that people get to read me, let alone with the subject matter. I take my hat off and rub at my mane. “Ah… th-thanks, but… I appreciate it, really, but that’s… th-that’s not how I want my first time to be, you know? I have something… a lot different in mind.”

“Mm. He’s very romantic, but I understand, and I apologize if you feel pressured.” She opens the door. “If you change your mind, swing by near closing. Have a nice evening, Detective, and good luck.”

Putting a hard face on after that is tricky, but the time it takes for me to fix my mane and don my hat gives me time. When I rejoin the others on the boardwalk, Rose looks my way. “Pella can’t say for certain which house, but she’s sure he went into the neighborhood on Board and Atalanta.”

“Good,” I gaze out at the night sky, scanning the houses as they curve along the beach. It’s a sad fact that even in Equestria, the walls of a home can conceal all manner of unsavory activities. Taking my phone out, I call Gerry’s desk directly.

“What?” he demands, surlier than usual. “You’ve been out there for over an hour already, Prints. Do you have anything yet?”

“Yeah, we do. We need the property records of every building between Atalanta and Merope on Broad, LT. Better push it back a street or so, too.”

“What the hell for? He’s not going to put his damned name on a rental title, we already checked that.”

I nod, not that he can see it. “Yeah, I know, but I want them to cross-reference it with all the members of his family by a few degrees, even by marriage, and, more importantly, everyone who served in the original Royal Guard.”

Gerry grumbles, but I hear claws tapping on a keyboard. “Fine. Get your flanks over there. I’ll have it in ten or twenty – if this is a hit, I want Rose to be the one who calls in the entry team, got it?”

“Got it. Call me.” I click off and tuck it away. “Let’s go.”


* * *


Because it’s just my lot in life, the analysts back in Canterlot call back personally to give me no less than three addresses, all separated by about a dozen or so homes along the same street, and three more back along the streets inland. “Apparently,” I inform Marcus, “a few retiring members of the Guard all bought houses here when prices were still rock-bottom, before the big construction boom.”

I can see why. It’s a nice place, a quiet, well-kept little street, directly across from the beach. The lights of downtown ripple in the current as a wind picks up.

“We going to knock on all of them?” he asks.

Rose shakes her head. “We will, but unfortunately, that’s probably not going to work. If our guy’s stupid enough to answer the door, sure, or if there’s only one out of the six who doesn’t respond…”

“I’m not sure we’ll need to.” I say, pointing down the way. Along the tree-lined street are no less than two Allaras, of slightly different years and shades of blue.

Lab Work springs along. “I’m on it!”

Grabbing her tail in my magic, I yank her to a stop. “Careful!” I hiss.

Her eyes widen and she nods. She takes a quick swallow and starts forward more cautiously. She forms a tool out of her magic and slots it into the window of one. A silence spell to cover the vehicle would have made the whole thing glow, but we have access to the closely-guarded sequences to suppress auto-alarms. It’s a complicated sequence of telekinetic taps, different for every make and model, and even when you’ve practiced them they’re tricky to pull off, but years of delicate forensics work has given Lab Work a light touch, and she pops open the lock with barely a click. Really, I should be suspicious of her facility with them.

She forms tweezers and plucks a few samples of hair off the seat. She checks a few against the sample, then locks the door and shakes her head as she closes it. “No dice.”

“Next one, then,” Marcus says, eyes scanning the neighborhood. Lights are on in different family homes, but there’s no one out on this street yet.

We pass an open garage and watch from a distance as Lab Work repeats her feat, popping open the blue door and checking the hairs. Part of me wonders if he actually did have a car, though if he stooped to stealing artifacts, he could have stolen a car, too, or at least paid for one in cash and neglected to transfer the title properly.

Lab Work holds her breath, checking again. I put a hoof to Rose’s side. Even from here, when Lab Work raises her head, I can see that her pupils have completely shrunk.

Turning, the three of us look at the nearest marked house. A two-story with a slate roof, its lawn slightly overgrown. Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but it seems that a distinct unhappiness lurks over it.

Maybe that’s a fancy, but the most alarming thing of all is that when I search the sky, there’s no green star watching over us.

“This is it.”

“Are we sure?” Rose asks. She’s calm, her gaze steady as she regards the house with me. “We could send someone to knock. He could have parked here and gone anywhere else.”

“No. Even overlooking that it’s the most likely possibility, I know. We’re here on our own.”

Rose nods, and cups her hoof around a flashlight as she flicks it three times into the sky. Seconds later, a troop of thestrals and pegasi in heavy black armor descend from on high, not quite landing on the roof, ready near the windows. A team of three move to cover the front door, starting to pick the lock, while two more descend towards the back. They’re armed with firearms, but it’s the goblin steel claws that might have a chance at penetrating Redbud’s hide.

We all pull up our ear comms as a cool mare’s voice clicks over. “Rose, this is Entry. Awaiting orders.”

Rose pulls her own gun out and snaps it around her hock, then pulls a gas mask over her muzzle. I follow suit, and float one over to Marcus. We leave Lab Work to watch our backs at the fence as we stack up on the front door behind the entry team, crouched and ready. Rose nods. “Engage. Flash and gas.”

Glass cracks as loud bangs echo through the neighborhood, with the assault team not far on their heels with cries of “Police! Hooves on the floor!” joining them. They’re taking no chances, not with someone this dangerous, and smoke pours out and into the air. Marcus leads the way, flicking out the weird crystal wand from the empty air.

Over the comm, we hear each team as they clear different rooms, moving down to the basement. “Green, kitchen clear. You’ll want to look at this, detectives.” At the last call of, “Blue, basement clear,” I feel a creeping sense of disappointment.

“He’s not here,” Rose growls, sharing my irritation.

“Take it easy. Might be there’s a hidden entrance,” I say. “Let’s check out the kitchen.”

Marcus hasn’t moved, his ears alert, wings stiff.

Pausing by his side, I look up to him. “What is it?”

“Something’s funny here.” He shakes his head. “I’m not sure what.”

Rose nods, touching her ear. “All teams, remain on alert.”

Together, the three of us join Green in the kitchen and dining area. They’re spaced apart, their nanofiber armor padded with bulky trauma plates and weapons. The reason they called us in is immediately apparent, as an entire wealth of boxes overflowing with jewel-encrusted artifacts, statues, idols, and more fills half the kitchen.

“All the loot from the museums and collections, huh?” Rose asks, peering at a brooch with a reclining dragon engraved on its surface.

“Not all of it,” I say, glancing around. Stepping over to a wall, I note where the carpet’s been depressed. “I’ll bet gold to brass bits that he’s left with the jars.”

“Damn it!” Rose bangs her hooves on the floor. “Where did he go, then? Wait – why did he leave the car?”

“Might not need it anymore,” I say, keeping my voice even in spite of my own vivid disappointment. “I’ve suspected that he can teleport, or otherwise move quickly. Even if he hasn’t gotten better control over his powers, he’s not going to come back now that we’ve blown up his house.” Shaking my head, I turn back towards her. “Even if he did, though, we can search the house, catalogue the artifacts, or find something that’ll–”

Rose watches me, a shadow moving behind her.

“Down!” I shout, and fire a stream of blue light to blast it away.

“Contact!” the radio shouts several times over, and suddenly we’re in a fight for our lives. They worm out of the woodwork, mockeries of ponies cut from darkness with twisting horns, and leap at us.

With assault members rolling with their assailants and gunfire and slashing blades and flashing claws, even I swiftly lose track of what’s going on. The demonic shadows lift tables and chairs with their magic, trying to batter us down, and I do my best to struggle with them while holding onto a shield. The dining room table slams into the side, knocking me back several feet and rolling me.

Then, music fills the air. Marcus advances, leaping from room to room with his wings, the weapon ablaze in the crook of his leg as multi-colored light ripples from it.

The demons scream, covering their ears, and those caught in its immediate path dissolve into smoke and spiders. A few stagger out, fleeing into the night. There’s the stomp of heavy feet, and a huge pony shape shoulders apart the lintel to the downstairs hall. It winces at the weapon’s light, but holds together as it slams a hoof forward, trying to flatten Marcus. The ranger dodges nimbly to the side and whacks it, which sends a wave of dissolution up its side, but it holds on and smacks him back. He dodges, but it clips him and sends him spinning to only barely catch himself on the counter.

Dropping my shield, I throw all my power into a chain and yank back its neck. Then Rose runs up and empties the rest of her clip directly into its face. While it slumps, still holding on, Marcus charges up and jams the weapon into the hole in his face. The waves rush through it and split it into other shadow ponies who all dissolve, bar one, who cowers up against the bathroom door. Marcus advances, holding the harmonic weapon low. “Where is he?” he demands in a low, dangerous voice.

“We… we don’t know!” the titanspawn rasps.

He flicks the weapon and it flares up. The titanspawn shrieks, as much out of fear as anything. “It’s true, it’s true! We came to feed, off his hatred, and then you came and we couldn’t resist. Let us go, we’ll never trouble Equestria again.”

“I’ll consider it, if you tell us everything you saw about what he did and where he went.”

“Yes, yes!” The shadow whimpers. “Anything.”

“And you’ll swear on your parent that you’ll never harm another being. If you have to feed, feed marginally.”

The creature trembles, but Marcus is twirling the rod, leaving trails of color in the air, and its shining half-moon eyes follow it. “Done! I swear it on the Breath of Night’s Clarion.”

“Done and done,” Marcus answers, twisting his hock and vanishing the rod.. “Three times done. Now start talking.”

The creatures, many of whom had been slain or subdued by the assault team, slump and moan pitiably. The leader prostrates itself. “We came because we felt the power. So much ancient hatred, it still lingers, even after we’ve had our fill and multiplied.”

“Ew.” Rose scrunches her face.

“The stallion, the green one, he spoke to the air, though we could not hear it, and sometimes he spoke to his jewelry, which shone like the sun.”

“Plans,” I say, re-affixing my lost hat. “Specific plans. What did he say?”

“We do not know all that he planned, but he was searching for someone. A foal, a girl! And he was angry because it was getting late, and he couldn’t put the things in the jars together without her.”

“What is in the jars?” I ask.

It shakes its head. “The stallion did not look or say. But he called the medallion by a name! He said it was Helios.”

“The sun, huh?” Marcus murmurs.

Rose prods the demon. “Keep talking, or the glowy stick is coming out again.”

“There’s a place!” it squeaks. “A sacred place, where he could work! When the full moon is at its peak, it will awaken the power within the stone! I do not know where it is, I swear!”

“Anything about the girl?”

“Only that he was looking for her, and could not find her.” It quivers, staring at Marcus as if it could see through to where he keeps the rod. “That is all, I swear it!”

“All right,” Marcus says. “Git.”

The creature shudders and slinks into the shadow with the rest of its kin, hopefully never to be seen again. "It's a start. Is anyone hurt, sergeant?" I ask Green leader.

The mare puts a hoof to her ear. "Minor injuries, except down in the basement. Stocks and Tao have broken legs. Could have been worse. Ambulance on route."

I nod. "Thanks. We’ll have a forensics team in here shortly, but Celestia only knows what’s going to show up next, are you all okay with overtime?”

“Those of us who can still stand.” She grins through her mask. “We’ll keep the little lab ponies safe and sound for you.”

“Great.” I head outside, to where Marcus is checking his cell phone.

“The moon waxes to full tomorrow.” He says, not looking up. “You know that’s the only time when both of our moons are in the exact same position relative the sun?”

“I do, in fact.” The two of us look up, and a little part of me thrills to see the green star shining clear on the horizon. The moon, near its own zenith, is technically full but for the tiniest sliver of darkness at its edge. “You could ask Princess Luna to do something about that.”

“That might not help, or even if it does, it might cause some damage of its own. I’ll ask.” He raises his voice. “Hey, Daph? Do you think that’s a good idea?”

No answer. Honestly, I was kind of anticipating one.

“She’ll get back to me about that, or tell Luna herself.” He spreads his wings thoughtfully, looking around. Lab Work is getting suited up now that the forensics van has arrived, and a few of our plainclothes are busy keeping onlookers at bay. Half the neighborhood turned out at our blitz, it seems. “I should get going. Not much more I can do here.”

“The turtle? At the bar from last night, I’m guessing?” I nod towards Rose. “We could drop you off. We have to get back to the station. Besides, I had a few more questions.”

“Sure thing, Trace. I suppose I could use some company anyway. Been a rough few nights.”

“Tell me about it,” I mutter. “Think you can lend a hoof? Rose and I are going to do a quick rundown of the place, won’t be long.”

He nods, and we step back inside.


* * *


Not much revealed itself to the three of us, though it certainly made for quite a sight. Redbud kept the one guest room he’d taken as clean as a barracks, with the pressed sheets to prove it. All of his recyclables were stacked and sorted neatly – at least until we flashbanged them – and what limited parts of the house he did use were in good order. The only reading material we found was a battered copy of the Iliad and the Odyssey – apparently not everything from outside Equestria sat poorly with him. Whatever he is, whoever he’s killed, he’s another lost soul adrift in this sea we call life.

“‘Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.’” I whisper, taking my own turn staring out the window from the back seat.

“What’s that?” Rose asks.

“It’s a line he marked in that book, among a few others,” I say. “I flipped through it while you were cataloguing the pieces.”

“Just a few missing. Some probably sold off for funds,” she says thoughtfully. “And others…”

“We’ll need to put together the list and look at them,” Marcus says.

“‘We’?” I ask, amused.

“Well, apparently you two are in this together with me.” He looks down at his hock, stretching it back and forth. “I’m probably going to burn through tonight, anyway. We’re running out of time.” There’s a buzzing from within his jacket and he pulls his phone out. He reddens a little, and puts it to his ear. “Hey, Mom.”

I share a grin with Rose in the rearview mirror and she covers her mouth to muffle a laugh. He flips up his hoof as if trying to make a very different gesture. “No, sorry, I was working. I haven’t checked my messages in a while. Yes, magánda.” He follows with a long string of words in a different language. “Seriously, I’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse.” He sighs, evidently that had been the wrong thing to say. “Mom… yes, I promise I’ll be careful. How’s the house in Ponyville? Yes, I am trying to change the subject.” He chuckles. “Okay, I love you, too. Paalam, Mom.”

“You moved them here?” I ask as he clicks off.

“Jokes about giant monsters aside, Equestria’s going to be a lot more secure than home for a while.”

We chat for a while, before Rose slows and perks her ears as we drive by the convention center. It’s hard to miss on the Bridleway thoroughfare. Three-dimensional ponies pound each other with lightning kicks and fire blasts on the big screen. “Oh, hey. Looks like that video game tournament.”

“Mind if you let me out here?” Marcus pokes his head out. “I’ll say hi and run off. I’m not going to see them at Rarity’s tonight anyway.”

“I could stand to rewind a bit,” Rose says, pulling into a spot along the road. “Don’t mind if we join you, do we?”

“Suit yourselves.” He climbs out, though he does slot a few bits in for her before heading in.

“I’m not abundantly fond of video games, Vi,” I say as I join her. “Also the whole ‘getting back to the station’ part of the evening.”

“Oh, lighten up.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “Speaking of, our cowboy is going to get himself killed at this rate. I want to at least try and badger him into bed.”

“No wonder everyone in CSI called you the den mother.”

Inside, the place is packed with foals and young adults, all of them rapt on the center screen. Luster gleams beside his father with the other defeated challengers, and it seems we’ve come to the last few minutes of the final round. The fighters flash in full grainy holograms above the center arena, while high definition screens wrap all around it. A grown mare worries at her tongue as she hammers at the buttons in front of her, but bit-by-bit she’s being whittled down to nothing, with her life bar turning yellow, then red. Across from her, a tiny filly who couldn’t be older than Luster smoothly punishes her, in full costume. I haven’t the faintest idea who she’s meant to be, but she’s wearing a spiky wig and has a futuristic gun on her back, so she may just be the silliest thing I’ve ever seen.

Even as we watch, the filly completes a combination and the room fills with bright light as her attack animation blots out the screens. “The victor is… Wave Form!” The crowd erupts, and I instantly regret entering as I ram my ears against my head with my hat. They don’t stop ringing until we catch up with Talon in the crush to exit.

“Hey,” Marcus says with his cocked grin, “how’d the little squirt do?”

“Pretty well, but he didn’t place.” Talon shrugs. “Mostly because he choked. He’ll do better next time. Just needs some confidence, and I think this could help. I was a lot like that at his age, just needed to prove to myself I had it in me. How was the bust?”

“What, you heard?”

“I’ve got a police blotter app. Figured it was you across the water there.”

Rose smiles. “Yes, that was probably us. We didn’t find much, but we got some answers from a titanspawn. The search is still going.”

“Between us,” Marcus says with a note of irritation, “we only have about twenty-four hours even. I just came to let you know I wouldn’t be staying tonight. Also, to see how the kid’s doing.”

Talon nods, rubbing his chin with a hoof. “Sorry to hear it didn’t go better. I called a few friends, but no one I knew really knew that Redbud guy. Luster’s over there, by the way, with his friends.” Talon nods to where Luster is hanging out with a group of chattering young foals. We swim through the crowd, just as the costumed victor bounds up with a giant grin on her face and a trophy balanced on her back.

“Did you see that, Luster?” she asks, wagging her tail in its own wig.

“Did I? You were amazing!” He bumps her and the two circle, laughing. “I always knew you were that good!”

“Yeah, tidy, Wave,” another colt says, a little less enthused. Sore loser, no doubt.

“Thanks for letting me practice with you!” she says, hugging Luster and bringing a blush to his fine features.

Marcus scoops Luster up with a wing as he pulls back, depositing him onto his back. “Hey, tiger. Shame I didn’t see you fight back there.”

“Got a permit for that, Space Ranger?” I ask the filly with a grin, and she blushes and laughs.

“It’s not a space thing! I made it, and it’s from Ignition EQS! I’m Sakura.” She holds a hoof up proudly, and glances around when no one reacts. “Anyone? Aww, come on, it’s a great show!”

“I haven’t seen much Equestrian anime,” Luster confesses. “Maybe we can watch it sometime?”

“It’s not anime, it’s Equestrian animation!” She wags her tail faster, beaming. “But, yeah, I’d love to. Anyway! See you, I hear Mom calling I think!” Then she gallops away.

“Cute kid.” Marcus chuckles. “I think someone has a fillyfriend.”

Luster’s blush shines right through his coat. “No way! Wave and I are just besties.”

“Got that right.” Talon chuckles. “They’re pretty inseparable.”

“Maybe next time you can place with her, too, huh?” Marcus says, batting him with a wing playfully. “Your dad says you kicked some tail in there, too.”

He fends it off, shielding himself with a wing. “Uncle Ma-a-arcus sto-o-p! I just placed sixth.”

“Sixth out of, what, twenty?” Marcus asks, and Talon nods. “That’s pretty good. All the bookies in town’ll mark you up for next time.”

“Bookie?” Luster blinks, and shakes his head, smiling in spite of himself. He nestles down on Marcus’ back and yawns. “I guess I did okay, though Wave Form’s the one who killed it. I thought her cutie mark was supposed to be in music, not in fighting games. She’s good at everything.”

I pause, considering him for a moment as the others pass me by. “Luster, out of curiosity, what does her cutie mark look like?”

“Oh, it’s, like.” He rubs his chin in a manner reminiscent of his father. “I guess you’d say it’s two sets of sound waves that kind of intersect? It makes a really cool interference pattern.”

Marcus and Rose stop, and Talon gazes between us as the blood runs from our faces. “What’s this?”

“I was looking for a science cutie mark,” Marcus hisses. “Covalent bonding? I’m such an idiot. She was right under my nose, literally!”

I float Luster off his back and deliver him to his father. “Go.”

Needing no encouragement, Marcus leaps off as soon as he can spread his wings, hunting through the crowd. Rose follows suit, her own velvety wings gliding her in a graceful search. I turn back to Talon. “Do you have a phone number? Address?”

Luster pulls his phone out trembling. “Is she going to be okay?” he asks, half-burying himself in his father’s mane..

Taking a look after Marcus, I nod. “Yeah, kid. She’s got someone real good watching out for her.”


* * * * * * *


> The Second Night - Part 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Reluctant Pilgrim


My wings strain as I race across the city, pushed to the limits as I fly as fast as I can. City lights and stars above blur into a corridor of light. Rose and Talon fall behind, the latter carrying Luster as he is, and soon I’m all alone, struggling on just as I had been the day I came to this town.

I won’t be late. Not again.

When I get to the right neighborhood, I spiral down towards the earth, the wind whipping at my face and tail with the ferocity of my passage, and only stop to check directions again when I’ve almost landed. The map on my phone tells me I’m almost spot on, and I charge over the townhomes and dive. Ducking the branches of a tree in its planters, I land, panting, just as the family car pulls up in front of their warm brownstone. I’d managed to beat both traffic and my usual fate.

Wave Form’s wigs and props poke out of her saddlebags, leaving an unkempt hot pink mane with white streaks and a long matching tail to bounce in the breeze, just as they had in my vision of her. She stops, staring at me, as do her parents. The short, blunt-nosed stallion clears his throat. “Can I help you?” he asks with a sort of dubious politeness.

I actually have to take a moment to catch my breath, both from the hard flight and the shock of finding her at last. The parents are polite enough to wait, though Wave Form dashes inside, opening and shutting the door with a flash of her horn. I watch after for a moment, worried the building might get attacked while I wait, but I force myself to calm down and address them.

“I’m a Hippocrene Ranger,” I say, turning my coat out to show my badge. “Your daughter is in danger. If you come with me, we can discuss it on the way.”

“What?” he demands.

The mother, a tall unicorn with pink highlights the same hue as her daughter’s in her mane, shakes her head. “I think you’d better explain now, officer.”

An exhausted Rose drops to the street nearby. “He’s… right…” she pants and lifts her own badge. “Manehattan PD. Phew.”

They stare, and jump back when Talon lands with Luster on his back. For all that his eyes are lidded, Talon cuts an imposing figure when he’s serious. “I’m afraid they’re right, Pen, Ballast. There’s a dangerous stallion on the loose, and he’s looking for your daughter.”

“Talon!” the father says. “By Luna, what’s all this about? I don’t understand – Wave Form hasn’t done anything. You didn’t mention this back at the tournament.”

Rose glances towards the lit second story and nods at me, speaking in a low voice. “We’ll take care of the parents. Go on, Cowboy.”

“I’m coming, too,” Luster insists, hopping off his father’s back and leading the way. While the others move into the family room to explain the situation, the kid and I advance up the stairs and turn towards the partially-opened door there. I feel chills as I remember how I climbed up here in Daphne’s vision, only last time the hard wood of the stairs had been one of the only things to survive in the ashes. He knocks his pearly hoof on the door and pushes it the rest of the way open, spilling light and upbeat music into the hall. “Wave? It’s Luster.”

Her room is a study in organized chaos. Every available shelf space has been lined with action figures and memorabilia, running the gamut of science fiction, fantasy, and anime of both Earth and Equestria, most of whom I only have a passing familiarity with, though thanks to Copper Kettle I recognize a series of colorful alicorns from Emerald Star Princesses. There’s even a few pieces I tentatively recognize from Mag Mell’s entertainment industry. Plush animals pile on her bed over cloud sheets, and the filly herself is ensconced at a desk where on one screen, a recent Equestrian anime plays, and on another she studies a schematic. Over the desk, a block of plastic and gears twirls as she rapidly melts powder into a resin to coat its surfaces with her magic.

The show is bombastic, with a heroic young mare challenging a stadium of uniformed foes led by outrageously designed alicorns. Neoclassic movement, great.

Wave Form turns around, the toy in her magic slowing as she blushes. “Oh, hey. I wasn’t expecting you, Luster.” She rubs a hoof through the soft ash grey hairs on her cheek, as if checking her makeup. Now that she’s discarded her coat, I can make her mark out more clearly, too. Like Luster said, it’s two radiating circles of sound waves, but I can see where I made my error, too. Where they interact they fade in complicated patterns that blend and shift, which is what I’d seen in my visionary glimpse of her. Honestly, it can be interpreted both as a sound thing and as a science thing, but I’d only had pieces of the puzzle before.

It’s a funny thing. As I finally get a good look at her, I swear I can hear a faint ringing sound, like a clear bell.

“There’s someone in town who’s hunting for you, Wave Form,” I say; some people say you shouldn’t try to explain things like that to young kids, but she reminds me of Amelia far too much for me to dissemble. “I’m here to rescue you.”

She chews her lip uncertainly. Her attention shifts back to the block, and she starts pulling more resin from the hoppers by her desk. “I don’t know. Do I have to leave with you?”

“Probably. It’d be safer.” I consider telling her that there’s a small army of cops on their way right now, but instead I step closer as Luster does. “You have hella good control with your horn.”

“Especially for my age?” she shoots back. Yeah, definitely a little Amy in her.

“For a lot of people, honestly.” I look around at her shelves. “Did you make most of this stuff? I don’t think you can even order half of it.”

“I started with a 3D printer,” she says, “but that got too slow for me. Besides, no one at school wants to share.”

Luster shuffles his hooves and lowers his ears. “I do…”

“Except Luster,” she says, her face warming. “And I guess a few other people. Most everyone doesn’t care, though. That’s fine – more for me, right?”

Doesn’t sound fine at all, but I consider the shelf instead. “Let’s see – ah hah, now here’s the ones I know about. There’s Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, with Ed and – that may be the cutest little Ein ever. Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars. Ed and Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist. Nice Gurren Lagann Kamina. Oh, and of course…” I take down a figurine with my wing gently, examining him. “Gene Starwind. You know, he’s kind of a big deal to me. Outlaw Star is what really got me into anime, back in the mid-2000s when they started airing that stuff on TV in the States. Naomi would download a lot of them and we’d watch it together.”

“You watched Sailor Moon?” she asks skeptically, but the light in her eyes tells me I’m on the right track.

“Sure did.” I put the figure back gently, hoping they don’t get destroyed. I glance around, looking for the particular plush I’d seen in the vision. “I’ll admit, I don’t think it was a great show, but it was entertaining enough. Naomi’s eldest, Copper Kettle, was huge into that Emerald Star Princesses one – which, to be fair, her mother did produce. And write. Based on her own fiction. I don’t think Daphne approved, but Naomi sure did.

The part about her shattered hoof in the vision is something else I probably shouldn’t mention.

“What’s your name?” she asks, turning in her chair to look at me more fully.

“This is my Uncle Marcus!” Luster says, interjecting cheerfully. “He’s a hero!”

Her eyes widen. “Oh! I’ve heard about you! You were in that documentary about the Bridle.”

I wince. “I think I know the one you mean. It wasn’t all that favorable.”

“I’ve heard that you’re an adventurer, too! You’ve gone further into the Nine Worlds than anypony in centuries!”

“Well.” I buff a hoof against my coat. “I had a crew with me for most of that. Yes, though.”

Her ears fall and she looks around her room, rubbing a hoof along the cracks in the wood of her desk. “Why is someone bad looking for me, then? I don’t understand.”

With a considering glance, I decide that hedging or deception at this point would only turn her against me. I’m not here to win points, but somehow I get the feeling that doing this the right way is the only way to do it. Stepping forward, I sit on the corner of the bed and tug Luster over with a hoof. “Your friend here tells me that you’re a very gifted filly. I’d imagine that you’re good at pretty much anything you put your hoof to if you really try, aren’t you?”

She smiles and blushes at Luster a little, before glancing away. Her tail wags a little. “I mean… not everything. Kind of, I guess. Dad says I’m a quick learner.”

“I’d say you were probably among the first in your class to learn magic – and the only one who does it with any real skill. You probably have really intense dreams – dreams so strong they feel like they’re real. Maybe you’ve even visited a barge in a sea of stars.”

She rubs her hooves together nervously, staring at me with some alarm. “I’ve never told anyone that.”

“What’re you talking about, Uncle Marcus?” Luster asks, his bright blue eyes wide.

I rub his back. “I’ve suspected for a while. I just had to see her to know for certain. Hey?”

Wave meets my gaze, her attention rapt.

“In the new Age, there are people on every world who have been or will be born with certain special gifts. You are one of them.” I smile. “You’re an alicorn, Wave Form.”

She gasps, covering her mouth. “B-but I don’t have wings!”

“That comes later.” I wave it off. “It starts with a spark. Taking on the aspects of the other races comes with time and effort.”

“But. I mean…” She stares down at her hooves. “I’m a princess?” she asks in a small voice, almost terrified. “But I haven’t even done anything…”

“A princess has to be ratified by the Senate,” Luster supplies with a faintly irritated note. He definitely has opinions. His eyes shine with delight and he leaps over and hugs Wave Form. “Congratulations!”

“Some alicorns are made, others are born.” I rub a hoof through my coat thoughtfully. “I can kind of tell. I’ve been around a lot of them in my life. Pretty much all of the known ones are either close friends or acquaintances of mine, really.”

“What about you?” She wraps her hooves around Luster and looks at me over his shoulder.

“Me?” I laugh. “No. Besides, I’m probably more human than pony, appearances aside. I’m just a guy with a mission.”

“No way, you gotta be!” She brightens again. “Maybe you’re on your hero’s journey, so you’re going to become one eventually?”

I chuckle again, flicking her ear with a primary feather. “Let’s worry less about me and more about you, all right? Though if you’d like to hear some stories, I’d be more than happy to oblige when we’re somewhere secure.”

“Would I ever!” She beams and bounces off her chair. “Woohoo! I’m magic! And I’ve got a heroic knight to protect me! It’s just like a story!”

“Ranger,” Luster corrects.

“Different character class, same idea! He’s a warrior with a mysterious past who watches out for me.” She giggles, then dims a little as her ears lay back again. “Well. If my parents say so, I guess.”

I shuffle back to my hooves. “Let’s go take care of that right now.”

The three of us make our way downstairs and into the family room, where Consul Loam’s stern face has made her presence known on the big screen. Her parents look terrified as they meet their bounding filly, holding her close and nuzzling her. Outside, the flashing lights of what must be half the precinct are outside, along with its assault team.

“Sweetheart?” The mother tucks her under her legs protectively. “We’re going into protective custody with the police. In Canterlot.”

“Canterlot?” Wave Form’s eyes widen. “I can meet Princess Luna and Princess Celestia!”

“Well, I don’t know about that…” her father hedges.

Trace Prints clears her throat. She adjusts her hat and steps into the light so that it casts just the right level of dramatic shadowing. “I hate to hurry this along, folks, but we have a long way to go, and the sooner we start, the better.”

Consul Loam nods from the screen. “Indeed. I have authorized the usage of the Bright Blade’s VTOL coverage. May the stars watch over you.” She clicks off

The parents swallow in fear, but Wave Form is irrepressible. She bounds over to my side. “That is so cool! And I’m ready to go! Wait! No I’m not!” She scrambles into the next room and I go after to make sure nothing jumps out in surprise. She stops only long enough to pick up some saddlebags and stuff a laptop into its case. Then she turns to the couch there and picks up a plush dragon.

“Wait.” I say, frowning. “Could I see that quick?”

She blinks, then holds it out dutifully.

I take it between my hooves, half expecting to be sucked away in a vision. I do have an odd sense of foreboding, but the dragon itself feels innocent enough. I pass it back to her and nod. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Wave Form bounces out, grinning. “Mom? Dad? I have something amazing to tell you guys once we’re on the way!”

They nod in the distracted manner of parents who have heard all sorts of “amazing” things from their ambitious, excitable daughter. That’s a little depressing, actually – if she were my kid, I’d never get tired of her. They’re just going to blunt her enthusiasm.

Then again, she is a little demigoddess. Maybe she can handle it. Still, even for a god, parents are a part of you. I’ve seen that first hand.

Hand. I turn a hoof up to look at the frog. It’s such an alien body, and no matter how often I wear it, there’s always little slip-ups that serve to remind me that I’m not one of them, not exactly. I can love one, I can be one, but it isn’t the same. In some ways, I wonder how human I am now, either, when I can wander in and among them so effortlessly. If it weren’t for the mark that shined itself into being on my rear, I’d wonder if maybe I’d become a goblin somewhere along the line without quite noticing.

Wave’s question about whether or not I’m an alicorn stung more than I’d care to admit to her or anyone, even Leit Motif. Daphne, Amelia, Rarity, Twilight, Rainbow, Wave – all of them will endure for centuries, while I grow steadily more purposeless. When my reflexes slow to the point where I can’t get the jump in a gunfight, will I take a step back? Train my replacements? What about when I start forgetting my own arsenal, leaving them adrift in the void and unreachable?

When I retire to some nice house in the woods somewhere, maybe with Leit if I’m lucky, will they be able to visit me and smile without pity?

Prints is watching me, but then I’ve given up on hiding my moods from her. Way too sharp for her own good, but, then, it did get us here. I glance at Wave Form, who’s looking at me with all the trust and confidence owed a great, world-hopping hero. She’ll have to make do with the stallion she’s got, though.

Putting my hoof down, I face the door and take a breath. “Let’s go.” With that, we head outside to meet the waiting officers. As we make for the armored transport van, though, Prints stops, staring intently at the windows and rooftops along the street.

They should have been, and are, cleared by pegasi and griffons to make room for police snipers and jump teams, but, as I examine them myself, I notice that there’s quite a lot of them, even for this group – nearly half again as many as those on the ground, which, even in a society where a bit more than a third of the inhabitants can fly, seems a bit unbalanced.

“8 o’clock,” I say in a low voice. “Roof. Shifty group in uniform, don’t quite fit well. 4 o’clock, too. Probably others.”

“I see them,” Talon affirms, not looking up. “Take care of Luster.” He pulls a metal rod from his bags, holding it in the crook of his legs with a practiced walk. The level of dexterity we have with these things is insane, but that’s what being magic gets you.

Word quickly spreads through the assembled cops on the street, and they maintain radio silence, but it’s too late. The goblins posing as officers take up positions, breaking out mixed guns.

“On the roofs!” I shout, and bowl over Wave Form’s parents, knocking them to the ground and covering Wave Form just as the shooting starts.

With the forewarning, the cops have time to duck into cover, and to their credit the rooftop officers do the same just a hair later, but there’s shouts as a stallion and a mare go down, bleeding. Unicorns start to erect a theater shield and its bubble begins to rise to cover us all.

“You got left, I got right?” Talon asks, snapping his rod. It turns into a long shaft with a wicked blade at the end – not his proper spear, but it’ll do.

“Assuming I leave you that many,” I joke, and launch into the air, escaping the bubble before it closes.

As fast as I am, I’ve never seen anyone move through the air quite like Talon. Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo are faster normally, but even as I leap, he’s cleared the bubble, flashing so high into the air that he’s a blur. With a snap of his wings he turns in midair like an Olympic high jumper and comes down with terrific force. He spares the building, but only just, as the bricks buckle and shake, knocking goblins loose and discarding their disguises as I panic.

Swooping high to begin, I make a motion as if I’m reaching into my jacket and yank a combat shotgun out of my arsenal.

Truly, there’s nothing I hate more than killing a fellow sapient, and even when I have to I’ll try for a wound. These guys, though – firing live rounds on my friends isn’t cool. Sometimes, you just need to put someone down to keep others from being hurt.

I come over the lid of the roof and blast a huge goblin wearing a ripped police uniform center mass. He falls back, and I keep moving, running along the rail as I sent scattered fire along the roof. I see a barrel turn my way in the hands of a fierce rodent, and leap – a couple pieces of buckshot pop off my enchanted jacket, and another punches into my side, but I can’t worry about that now. I barely feel it. I spin down and send him flying with a hoof and raise my gun.

For the most part, though, they’re fleeing, either taking off at full speed if they have wings or else leaping off the other side of the building. I get the distinct impression that they really don’t want to be here. Well, neither do I.

I fire once over their heads to speed them on their way and then charge back. Talon, continuing to take advantage of his lightning fast attacks, is sending the other rooftop assailants into a rout, and he flies after me as I return to land on top of a lamppost. I switch weapons, Vanishing the shotgun and producing a rifle. With a crack I put a round into the leg of a faux dragon, then pivot and drop a pair of alligators with shoulder shots. As I suspected, even minor casualties quickly convince them to break. As they return fire I swing down so that I’m hanging and put a shot right down a giant spider’s midsection – only to groan when it ripples a hidden shield.

The lamppost sways between my legs, and then the earth rumbles. The shooting slows and stops in surprise. “There’s no earthquakes in Manehattan,” I mutter, my heart pounding with the adrenaline. There’s only one thing that could be.

Dropping from the light, I spread my wings and dive back to join the others as the earth quakes again. The shooting starts again, but not very effectively. Someone wants to keep us busy.

“That was amazing!” Wave Form says, her eyes shining as she crouches between her cowering parents, her voice echoing from behind Trace’s shield.

“Let’s not celebrate yet.” I shoulder my rifle, looking around, trying to figure out where it’s going to come out. The last time I’d felt something like this was on the sands of Asgard, and then we were attacked by a wyrm.

The earth bulges below the armored car, and I kick the shield, bouncing them along like a hamster ball as the street erupts in a shower of asphalt and water. A shattered main sprays into the air as Redbud himself, glowing with a searing corona, emerges from the depths. His amulet glows like molten metal, and his scarred face is set in absolute determination as he fixes his gaze on the bouncing Wave Form.

There’s no way in hell my guns can touch him. Thankfully, that’s not all I keep.

“Nice meeting you. I’m Marcus.” I swap my rifle for a pair of grenades, yank the pins off each, and dive away.

The flashbang deafens me and everyone nearby, and the smoke grenade fills the air with stinging, concealing gas. “Talon!” I shout. “Get down here!”

Whether he can hear me or not – I sure can’t, not with my ears ringing – a flash of metal signals a descending spear as he punches through the smoke. Then he comes flying out again, thrown with incredible force, and bounces off a roof. His spear is broken, and when Redbud emerges with his eyes watering I can see the other half broken off into the stallion’s side. Good shot.

“Daddy!” Luster cries, and I grab him and turf him to Violet Rose like a little football.

“Get him and Wave Form the hell out of here!” I shout, before turning back.

Redbud stops as the thestral mare throws Luster on her back, then leaps over and collects the dazed Wave Form by the scruff and takes off. He gathers his legs to leap after them, but then Lieutenant Gerry and half the force is on him, screeching with an eagle’s cry as they try and take him down, beating him with truncheons. I don’t like their chances, but that’s our duty.

There’s only one loose end left.

Springing into the air after Rose, I Produce the harmonic rod and race up into the sky after her. Clouds scuttle across the stars, and I spy her as a shadow among shadows, twisting and dodging. Racing up after her, I channel the weapon and send out waves of force. The goblins harassing her have little to fear from it, but that’s something I know and they don’t, and they scatter and run rather than face it, a few limping in the air from being shot with her pistol. That, though, isn’t what I feared.

It begins as a flame. White, yellow, and red, it races down from the clouds, straight for Violet Rose.

“Dive!” I shout, and she tilts, the kids screaming on her back as they cling to her desperately. The fireball passes them by, and then turns with stunning acceleration as it reverses course and rises ahead of us, keeping pace.

“Give me the child,” it demands, its voice that of a woman heard as if through a long tunnel. It’s formed of spinning, interlocking rings of fire, and then resolves into a burning mare, her eyes white light.

I answer with bullets, as is my usual course.

A sword of solid light leaps between us, turning with no visible support to rapidly bounce the rounds off. So guns worry her, enough that she needs to block them, so I whip out my shotgun and fire a spread of buckshot. While she backs off, I charge, and brandish the rod.

I manage to get right up to her and slam it into almost into her face. Waves of rainbow light wash over her form, rippling and enveloping her in their power.

And do absolutely nothing.

“I am no spawn,” she says coolly, and her sword flashes at me so fast I lose the tip of an ear before I can drop fast enough. The rod is severed in two, sparkling as shards of gold atomize and glowing blue gas pops and sparks from it.

Then, with me gone, she wheels on Violet Rose and stabs her straight through the barrel.

“No!” I shout, desperately trying to control my fall as I see her cough up blood. She tries to struggle on, but the monster flings her away, grabbing the two foals in an aura of light, before shooting off.

I pull out of my dive and grab Violet Rose, but I only have eyes for the retreating fireball.

“Go,” she whimpers, spreading her wings and catching the air. “I’ll… glide…”

With a furious whimper, I do, leaving her to sink or swim as I charge. I’ve never flown so fast in my life. It’s like my tail is on fire, leaving a streak of sunset red in my wake.

It’s like the mountain all over again. It’s the god-damned Canterhorn. Amelia wasn’t even a mile away and I lost her.

I failed.

The fireball descends towards the center pylon of the main bridge heading out of town and I follow. A sun-like glow on top confirms Trace Prints’ suspicions – the only way Redbud could have made it there ahead of us is if he teleported. He’s been battered and the wound in his side still bleeds, but looks none the worse for wear as his pet creature lands beside him with the crying foals in tow.

I slam down ten paces away, so hard the stone cracks under my hooves, while cars flash by a hundred feet below. “Give me those kids!”

Tall, broad, and strong, Redbud stands staring at me, as if he can’t quite puzzle me out. He is, of course, entirely unfazed, and even I know in some part of my brain how insane and futile this is.

I can’t let it go, though. I didn’t even reach Amelia when I had the chance. I can’t give up on them.

“Uncle Marcus!” Luster wails, struggling hopelessly. Wave Form looks at me, her eyes wide with hope and red with tears.

“Marcus Flores,” Redbud says at last, his deep voice heavy. He isn’t gloating, or even pleased. “This isn’t your fight.”

“Like hell it isn’t, you sick bastard.” I catch my breath, spitting to the side. “What are you even trying to accomplish? What soldier kidnaps children?”

“Any soldier dedicated to his cause and to his people. I’m doing what I have to do to keep Equestria safe, even though it damns me.” He weighs me more seriously. “I’ve heard about you, Ranger. They say you don’t care about anything. I’m glad to see they were wrong.”

“Yeah? I’m happy for you.” I stomp up. “I’m either leaving with those kids or in pieces. If I have to, I’m walking over you to get to them.”

Redbud smiles tightly. “Good. Let’s go, then.”

“This is foolish.” The fiery being watches, her expression as flat and disinterested as ever, though she sure keeps a good grip on the foals.

“Sure it is.” He cracks his neck. Behind him, or perhaps overlaid on him, is the form of a powerfully-built alicorn stallion.

“So that’s it,” I say. “You’re not going insane because you’re in accord. He healed you, and now you’re fighting together.”

“Pretty much.” The soldier pulls off his coat and tosses it to the side, leaving him in a white undershirt that shows tightly against his muscles. “I could feel Helios in there when she brought it to me, calling to me. He felt every violation of the health and security of his kind. He lived and died trying to protect them in his day, and now, after millennia of safety, it’s happening again. You’re destroying us.”

“Yeah, you are totally sick.”

He grunts, considering me. “Well, perhaps not you. You aren’t like the goblins, or the rest of your kind. If everyone was like you, I wouldn’t need to do this. But they aren’t.” He grins. “So let’s have it. You and me, kid – no magic, just the two of us. That’s the only way Helios would settle this, and I’m in agreement.”

I look up at the sky, but can’t see anything for the clouds. “Done.”

“Done and done. Three times done.”

I take off my jacket, and he takes off the amulet, and then it begins.

Rather than leap at one another like idiots, we begin to circle slowly, weighing each other. My wings are spread as I crouch low, more or less recovered from my hard flight. He favors the side Talon wounded, though it’s already stopped bleeding of its own accord thanks to his alicorn magic. Thunder rolls over the bridge, lightning searing the sky where the clouds meet the far shore and dry air.

Luster starts crying, hiding his face behind his wings, and Wave Form shouts, “You can do it!”

Redbud takes a step, and I leap forward. He’s fast – not as fast as me, but fast enough – and I have to dodge as he swings a huge forehoof. Lightning crashes again, illuminating him in black and white as he swings a hoof down and I spin. The impact shatters the rock, and he’s already charging, trying to bear me down with his superior reach and height.

Before he can quite reach me, I leap into the air and turn, cracking him on the back of the head and sending him stumbling forward – sadly, not over the edge. I could grab the amulet at this range, but I don’t care to; even if it weren’t for the agreement, I don’t think it’d be a good idea to touch it.

“Damn!” he says, but with a pleased laugh. “I was right, kid. Not just a human after all.” He rips up a piece of masonry and flings it at me – I dodge to the side, but it clips me anyway, hitting near the spot where the buckshot winged me and eliciting a wince.

“The princesses don’t give a damn about that.” I test him, feinting. He doesn’t bait, protecting his weakened left as he circles back towards the center. I feint again, then again, and then throw a jab to try and get him off balance, but he meets my hoof with his own in a block and I move back.

“Yeah. They’re good mares, all of them. Too good to see what needs to be done.”

“Come on! The world’s changed, it’s changing!” I move faster, faster than I thought I could, zipping up and then slamming down like Talon. He growls with the pain as I hit near his own wound, but even as I get it in he strikes me with a forehoof and knocks me back.

“I don’t care that it’s changing! Luna’s tail, kid, do you think I’m mad about the fact that we can heal the sorts of injuries I had now?” He charges and I leap up again, but he rolls and I don’t get the cheap shot this time. I knew that wouldn’t work a second time, but it lets me keep behind him as I move with him, keeping him from wheeling on me. “They’re letting everyone in, no matter who they are! Do you want Equestria to look like Mag Mell in thirty years, or your Earth? How’s that going, huh? Climate change, markets collapsing? And you want us to come back?”

I watch out for his rear legs, remembering well what he did to those goblins, and sure enough he’s twitching them, ready to buck. I come in high, trying to get at his wound again, but he wards it too fast. “So, what, your solution is to kill everyone who doesn’t fit in? No humans, no goblins?”

“Hell no! But we’d do a damned sight better by starting there!” He throws another stone, and I shoot up, catch on, and spin, flinging it back at him. Now it’s his turn to dodge, bouncing away as it shatters into powder. “I’m going to make sure nothing can threaten us ever again! No more Discords, no more Sombras, no more Amelias, no more threat of nuclear weapons or the combined armies of your psychotic, bloodthirsty human kin!”

“You can’t abandon your principles! How the hell do you expect to maintain harmony like that? That’s the one thing keeping you safe! It’s what makes you what you are!”

I swoop in as he throws another stone, slamming hard into his wound. He cries out, but rather than strike, he reaches around and grabs hold of me. I hit him, craning up with a rear leg and slamming into him again and again with my hooves, cutting it open and spilling blood, but he doesn’t let go.

“You don’t understand sacrifice.”

He slams me into the roof. I keep hammering him, but his blood is up. Lightning strikes a nearby pole.

“Harmony is a paper shield. It works right up until it doesn’t. We need something stronger.”

He headbutts me and I reel, but somehow manage to slip free. I go around his other side, sliding between his legs, but he has my number. I’m faster than him, but now he just takes it. Everytime I punch or kick him, he gives back twice as much, until I’m staggering and bruised. He’s in a bad way, but not nearly as much as me.

I can’t give up, though.

Beating my wings, I send powdered stone up and into his face, making him snort and squeeze his eyes shut, then race forward and kick him in the head. I wail on him, beating him back to the edge, but as I prepare to buck him off he surges forward, grabs me, and hauls me with him over the side.

“You have to be willing to die for what you believe in, to damn your own soul, to promise yourself that you won’t see the sun rise if that’s what it takes to make a better world!”

And then stars fill my vision. We’ve landed, somewhere, somehow.

I try to move, but can barely twitch.

He gets to his feet, panting, half-dead, but the only one of us standing.

“You’re a hero, kid. But not every hero gets to win.”

The amulet falls to his side, and he picks it up, his eyes filling with burning zeal as its light washes over him, returning his strength. “I failed Equestria once. I never will again.”

Then there’s a flash of azure light, and Trace Prints and an upright tortoise appear above me. Redbud wheels and bucks, only to bounce back as the tortoise lifts a shield, repelling his force in a wave of crystalline energy. The magic of the Ring.

“We must go,” the tortoise says. “I cannot hold him.”

“Sure thing, sir Knight. Come on, Cowboy,” she says to me, more gently, and then we’re away in another flash of blue magic. The scenary around us has changed, to…

“…Paris…?” I rasp, my broken ribs biting into me with excruciating pain. I turn my head to look out the window at the city skyline. It’s like we’ve ported into a fancy hotel or something.

“Not quite.” She takes her hat off and her horn lights, popping a first aid kit next to her with a little blue flash. “Just… just relax, okay? I’m not a good teleporter. I could barely get to you even with the Knight’s help, but we’ll get you to a hospital as soon as we can. Hold on.”

“Just going to… take a nap…” My eyes find the green star, twinkling in the skyline.

“Marcus? Marcus!”

I don’t want to go away. I don’t want to fail. But I did. I failed again, just like always. Wave Form’s voice fades along with Trace Prints, and even the sting of a needle is like something happening to another man’s body.

The green star grows in my vision as I begin to fade, and soon, it’s all I see.


* * * * * * *


> The Second Night - Interlude
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Old Warhorse


The boy is crying again. He hasn’t really stopped since we landed. Even in the next room, it’s impossible to tune him out.

I am not unaware of the irony in my actions. Unlike Amelia, I am no innocent thrown into a situation I cannot understand, nor am I a monster of the likes of Discord who acts because that is how he was made. It is, then, with full knowledge that I have become the very creature whom I would have destroyed in my day that I enter the chamber.

“It’s okay, Luster,” Wave Form whispers, nosing at the sobbing pegasus. “We’ll be okay. You’ll see.” Her ear turns at the sound of my hooves and she wheels about, putting herself protectively between us.

Coming up to her, I gaze down at the two of them with some measure of regret. I keep it from my voice – they would not much appreciate it, nor should they. “It’s time you got to work, Wave Form.”

“Work?” Her ears lay back in anger. “What do you want? I’m not doing anything you want me to do! Let us go!”

I ignore her request and go to the jars where they’ve been lined up. My hoof turns red, then white, and the lead seal begins to melt away. It resists far more than lead should, and it glows angrily with ancient magic.

“Are you an alicorn?” she asks, tense. “Or a titan-thingie?”

“Helios is with me. He’s the alicorn, or what’s left of one. Whatever they shoved into the amulet to preserve him after he died.” He’s never far as he whispers into my ear, weeping for all of his lost kin, raging against fate.

Her ears fall. “Is that what they’re for?”

“I suppose.” The first one pops, bubble, and sears open, letting me pull up the rest of it and expose the inside.

The room warms further as the mare forged of fire steps into the room, her blazing eyes fixing on the jars with something akin to hunger. The jar is emptied by the simple expedient of my smashing it into the floor, revealing a set of wings made out of slats of gold or bronze or some metal we’ve entirely forgotten. They glow as if fresh from the forge.

“Wh-what are those for?” Wave Form asks, swallowing her fear with some effort. Jasper whimpers and presses against her side, trying to stifle his tears.

“They are my body.”

“Your body?” She stares at the mare. “Who… who are you? Are you a robot?”

The mare turns to them while I continue to work. She regards them, unmoving.

“I am the first born mortal.”

“What do you mean?” Wave Form asks, curious in spite of herself.

“Child, you shall never suffer the tyranny of time. Unlike the very mountains, you will endure for ages unless struck down, never eroding, never aging. In this, you are unusual, special – divine.”

I crack the next one open with my hooves, revealing a set of plates surrounding a series of crystalline cores.

“When my mother bore me, though, there was no spark of immortality. No stars heralded my birth. No mountains trembled. While you consider mortality normal, in the time of my birth I was considered the exception. I was the unknown. I could not keep up with the others, and as I grew I didn’t stop growing, but began to age like any tree or stone or crawling thing. In the blink of my mother’s eye, I went from being her foal to her invalid. Where others had no fear of death save violence or error, I felt myself hurtling towards it.”

The next two are the legs, each set preserved separately.

“In time, they even grew to fear me. And so they left.”

“Even your mother?” Wave Form asked, her throat tight and eyes red.

“Especially her. How could she bear to watch me die by inches, to become withered while she remained as hale and hearty and beautiful as the day she bore me?”

“She should have… she…” Wave Form sniffs, glancing away from that dispassionate face. The pain in the ancient mare’s voice belied it. “But… you have to have changed. Can’t people become alicorns?”

“Yes. But I did not.” She steps to the pile, now augmented with the head and neck, the horn, and parts I can’t possibly identify that must belong on the inside, like mechanical hearts. “My Master came to me then, when I lay at the very brink of death. He was one of the great Gods, though not of my kind. He told me that my mortality, and that of all the others born after me, was the result of my parents’ transgressions, their flawed morality. They’d welcomed decay into the world, he said, and I was their reward.”

Wave Form shakes her head. “That… that’s disgusting! Why should that matter? Even if your parents were the most horrible people ever, why should that affect you?”

“I do not know. I did not care whether he spoke truth or lies. He offered me an immortal body, one forged of magic and technology fused with divine essence, if I would but serve at his side. I accepted. When I rose with my brethren and followed him into battle to take the Tower and end the age of Gods… I remember the thrill of victory at having overcome those who’d shunned me, of surpassing them. Even when the counterattack shattered it and ended my Master’s ambitions, even when the remaining gods chased him out of the cosmos and sailed in pursuit, even when the demigods cornered me and tore me piece from piece, still I exulted in the memory of that moment.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, sinking to the floor.

The nameless mare looks at her. “You needn’t be. You were not responsible. No more than I am for my parents’ actions, whether their sins created me or in their abandoning of me.”

Clearing my throat, I grab their attention. Her monologue was going on too long anyway. “Could we get to the part where she’s involved, then?”

“Very well.” She pushes the wings and the body towards Wave Form. “You will repair my body.”

“What? But I don’t know how!”

“Your mark speaks otherwise. The technology used in the civilization that built the Tower relied heavily upon music and harmonics.”

Tentatively, Wave Form touch a wing, and her horn lit softly. It hummed up and down the length of the wing, producing a stunningly beautiful ringing that rippled through the air. She snatches her hoof back, shaking her head. “Even if I can, why would I? You’re just another monster.”

“Hardly,” I grunt. “You’re looking at the greatest hope for Equestria since Celestia, kid. She’s going to be the protector we need.”

“Now I know you’re crazy!” She shakes her head vigorously. “We already have great protectors! Rainbow Dash, and Celestia, and Twilight Sparkle, and Luster’s mom, and a whole bunch of others! I mean, even if they weren’t, she was happy over having gotten revenge, and she’s partly responsible for why everything is so messed up now! No offense. Well, some offense.”

“True, on both counts. Yet the people who wounded me are gone, and my Master was routed in defeat. All that remains are countless victims.”

“Our protectors fail, Wave Form. They fail a lot.” I sigh, shaking my head. “Even Princess Celestia, stars save her. I remember when the Changelings attacked, when I had no choice but to stand and watch as they sealed her up in slime and brought the Elements before us, beaten. I was there when Nightmare Moon sealed her sister in the sun and threatened to douse the whole planet in darkness. When Amelia just about broke the whole damned world, all I could do was watch the peak, helpless.”

“But they saved the day!” she protests. “We always came through!”

“By the skin of our teeth.” I shake my head. “All it takes is one, kid. Just one time where the heroes don’t pull through, and we’re done. You, your friends, your family, all the friends and family they have, everyone on this world and every other world. We’re fragile. Most of the adults left and it’s just us kids minding the store while all the dangers and threats of the nine worlds gather to knock them down.

“Her though?” I nod my head towards her. “She’s just the start. She’s tireless, as powerful as an alicorn with none of their faults, and there’s more where she came from. They need a purpose, and she’ll give it to them. They aren’t titanspawn, they’re the antithesis; the heavenly army that will finally keep us safe. All we need… is for you to put her together.”

In tears, she stares between the two of us, uncertain. Terrified.

The thought had occurred that I may be wrong. It’s possible that Helios’ madness has clouded my judgement. To stand by and watch as my Equestria dies by inches, though, would have been too much. Really, though it doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to justify my actions to avoid punishment, only seek the best way to accomplish my goals, no matter what it costs me, because in the grand scheme of things I matter very little, while the world and the people on it matter a great deal. What matters to me isn’t important, and I have no expectation that I deserve to live in the better world I create.

All I have to do is look at these foals to know that I am damned.

The Princesses think that they’ll be safe with their green star watcher and their Elements of Harmony, but every new vista has only served to change and degrade us. I’ll give them a sword and shield with which to maintain our purity forever more.


* * *



The Reluctant Pilgrim


Darkness gives way to sudden heat and sensation, and I find myself shading my face with a wing. I’m standing, somehow, and it’s only when I look around do I realize that I’m having another green vision. The verdant aurora touching the sky is proof enough, along with the fact that I can breathe without pain.

Light shines through my feathers on a distant peak, bathing the scorched and seared landscape of the city. Where buildings stand, they burn, and the streets are empty but for the searing, sirocco winds emanating from the light.

“I had to save them,” a little girl’s voice says, her voice dull. She lays next to the half-burned dragon plush in the ruins of the house. It’s not Wave Form, but some filly I’ve never seen before, her mane limp and red, her coat a spotted grey.

“Save them from what?” I ask, shouting to be heard over the wind.

“The coming darkness. The return.” She looks to me, her eyes sad. “They were all so fragile.”

“You didn’t…” I shake my head. “Does anyone survive?”

“A remnant of a remnant. Those who could be saved. Those whose hearts were pure.”

“How did it start?”

She plays with the polyester toy, brushing ash from it. “Long ago, when there were more mortals, when this place was filled with life. I tried to save them all, but you can’t save everyone, no matter how hard you try.”

The girl pauses, hugging the ruined dragon close.

“Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am my parents’ sin.”

“Gods…” I push through the wind, touching her side. “Hey, kid… look. What’s your name?”

“I don’t remember. He took it away.”

“Well, you’re Fire Wheel now,” I say, not knowing quite where the name came from as I wrap her up in my wings. “You’re just a kid. You shouldn’t be responsible for this, and you sure as heck aren’t responsible for whatever your parents did. If, if… assume this hasn’t happened yet. How could I stop it?”

“I don’t think you can.” Her eyes well up and she tucks herself under my chin. “I wish you were real, but you’re just another shadow.”

The wind picks up, and the light shines brighter still. I feel myself stretching out, as if I were indeed a shadow, and the kid’s eyes turn white.

“Wait! I’ll find you, I’ll…!”

And then I’m gone, surrounded by darkness and numb to the world. Again.

“Marcus…?” Pain. A voice. A face swimming into view. Trace? But then I’m fading for a third time.

“Marcus? Marcus. Ma-a-arcus.”

Groaning faintly, I shift my head. Someone’s leg or arm is under it, supporting me.

“Come on, sleepy. How did I fall in love with such a lazy pegasus?”

My eyes snap open, and it isn’t Trace, Paris, or even a hospital I find myself in. Outside, stars flow by in streams and rivers, while inside it’s all warm cushions, books and shelves of figurines, artfully arranged. I turn my head and find myself looking into the perfect green eyes of the love of my life, her thick dark hair falling across the bed and me as I lay next to her.

Naturally, I kiss her at once. She gives a muffled giggle and then an appreciative little noise as I rub her side, before pulling back slowly.

“Leit,” I whisper. “I didn’t die, did I? Or become an alicorn.” I glance around again. “I don’t think I’ve earned it.”

Glancing down past the open windows I see that we’re on a little vessel as it sails through the astral seas. Another mare sits at the prow, thousands of windows opened for her to watch through as her blond hair blows in the cool, strange breeze.

“Not quite.” She rubs my side. “This is Daphne’s barque. We’re recovering from a bit of a setback of our own.”

My ears lower and I glance her over. Of course, by rights, I should be broken and immobile, so I’m not sure what I’m looking for. “Are you two okay? What about Rainbow Dash? Hong Kong isn’t on fire, is it?”

She laughs and nuzzles at my neck, making my hooves curl up. “We’re all right, and Hong Kong is as inundated today as it was last week, so it certainly hasn’t gotten worse. It’s a long story.” She lays her hoof against my side and looks at me in concern. “You, though…” She shakes her head. “It’s bad, Marcus, but… you’ll be all right. There’s help coming, and you’re tough. I’ve seen you pull through worse.”

“I don’t know about that.” I look down at my hooves and sigh, sinking into the cushions. Against my will, my eyes well up. “I think this is it, Leit. This is the one where I drop the ball, and there’s no one around to pick it up and score for me this time.”

“Marcus…” she murmurs, but thinks better of it, letting me vent as she holds me close.

“I’ve already screwed up so much. I couldn’t find anything on the first night, then on the second I had Wave Form in my hands and let her slip away, along with Rarity’s son. I got stomped on in my one chance to win them back – well, hey, I shouldn’t worry about aging then, huh? That guy was twice my age and he batted me around like a chew toy. Now I’m getting horrific visions of the post-apocalypse.”

I bury my face in my hooves. “I can’t do it, Leit. I can’t be responsible for them dying. Send someone else.”

Leit Motif says nothing at first, she just pulls my head to her and runs her hoof through my mane and along my neck. Pressed into her side and breathing in her warm scent, I find myself relaxing in spite of myself.

“You know I don’t really do the supportive girlfriend thing very well,” she says with a slight smile. “Why don’t you start?”

“Could have fooled me,” I mumble into her side and sigh. “Yeah… you can’t send someone else because no one else can make it. I’m not alone, either. I’ve got Rarity, Talon, Trace Prints, a small army…”

She noses at my ear. “You’re still putting yourself down, Marcus.”

“I’m not an alicorn or a demigod.”

“You don’t need to be. You’ve always known that.” She laughs. “Marcus, you’ve already done so much in your life. You’ve never once looked back before and said ‘Gosh, nothing I’ve ever done has been meaningful because I’m hella mortal.’”

“That was awful. I don’t sound like that and you used hella weird.”

“But you’re smiling.” She giggles. “Come on, big boy.”

Rolling my eyes, I sit up, hooves under me on one side while I lean on her with the other. “You’re right, much as I hate to admit it. You’re plenty mortal, and you saved the world once yourself. Maybe I will get old and die, but that’s no reason to lie down and accept it.”

“Maybe one day you’ll stop blaming yourself for that.” She rubs her hoof in circles around one of my more recent scars, this one from a piece of shrapnel received in Los Pegasus.

“Maybe.”

She turns my head up towards her. “Marcus… listen to me. Yes, you’ve fallen behind in the past, but you never stopped trying. You’ve never stopped making your dumb jokes or grinning your stupid grin or doing everything you possibly can to help the people around you. Maybe you didn’t succeed in getting Amelia to turn around on your own, but, you know what? You helped me realize that I could, that I had it in me to try and stop her. You helped Daphne and me get there in the first place. Even in Los Pegasus, you helped them warn the city so they could evacuate, and you helped Rainbow Dash reach that mare before she could destroy it.” She kisses my cheek and holds me close. “You do make a difference.”

“I mean… yeah, I know you’re right. But if I were better, if I could just…”

“If wishes were wings, we’d both of us be alicorns.” She laughs softly. “I know it isn’t a pride thing, Marcus. I know you want to help others. And you do, and you are. Tell me, if you want to make a difference and stop your vision from happening, do you think this is going to help?”

“No.” I shake my head slowly. “No. It’s hard, though, Leit. It’s hard to… believe in myself. A lot of those jokes are just to cover up how… how lost I feel. Redbud is right. I don’t really know how to sacrifice for what I believe in, even me.”

“Yeah. He is.” She purses her lips, sober. “What are you going to do?”

“Honestly?” I roll both sets of shoulders, listening to the imaginary pops. “Even as I am, I’d still fight. Maybe I’d find some other way to go about it, but giving up… No. It was kind of nice to think about retiring, but I don’t think I can.”

“Good boy.” She smiles. “And believing in yourself?”

“Don’t hold your breath.” I grin. “Tell you what. You start remembering that you’re a big shot magic hero and I’ll see if I can’t try myself.”

She buries her face in my side and laughs. “Fine. Fine. You win.”

I look out of the cabin again as we quiet down, just soaking in the sights and the presence of the person I love. “I wish this moment could go on forever.”

“Well.” Leit Motif tilts her head thoughtfully. “I don’t know about forever, but…”

Her horn glows with a soft green light. She describes a circle with it, a seconds and minutes hand appearing in the center. The seconds hand slows, until each beat stretches to a minute or more. Outside, the stars have stilled in their courses, and Leit Motif leans in and nuzzles at my side.

“Nice trick,” I chuckle and wrap my wing about her, using the other to pull our blankets up around us. “I love you, Leit. I can never say it enough.”

“I know.” She kisses me, and I kiss her back.

Our moment didn’t last forever, but it didn’t have to be to be perfect.


* * * * * * *

> The Third Night - Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Wistful Heart


Rain pelts the windows and cascades down its eaves, splashing off the gargoyles and running in waterfalls down its eaves to turn the streets into rivers. It’s a baptism, a scrubbing of the city’s soul in preparation for the harrowing to come.

“City officials are asking all citizens to remain calm as the hunt for Centurion Redbud continues,” the TV in the corner of the room declares, with a mare standing outside city hall. "Consul Loam urges everyone to go about their business, but remind the citizens of the city that a curfew will be in effect tonight, and all outbound traffic will be stopped and searched. By no means has a general evacuation been called, and they ask our patience and cooperation as the military conducts their search. And now, a word from Mayor Sugarcoat.”

“Yeah. We’re up against an alicorn amulet, so we’re in pretty deep trouble. There’s really no point in panicking at this stage, you’ll just make everything worse than it already is.”

There’s a noise from behind the curtains and I perk my ears, hoping it isn’t just the bed settling. I push the curtain open and stare with quiet regret at Marcus’ supine form. Sometime while I wasn’t looking, he’d managed to kick off his blankets, revealing the whole of his very human form, the one he’d reverted to after finally collapsing last night. I try to think of a joke, something to reach him in his comatose state, but I can’t. Not that he looks like he needs cheering up – he’s got a dumb smile on his face, at least the part of it that isn’t bruised purple.

I glance over at Violet Rose in the next bed and sigh, going to nuzzle at her comatose side and lay my head on my hooves beside her. “Je suis vraiment désolée, veuillez m'excuser,” I whisper, my breath falling on her like petals in the wind. “If only I hadn’t abandoned you all those times, maybe I’d… well, I guess I can’t fly. But if I’d been watching your back like I should have…”

Maybe if I could have done more than teleport away like a coward, Luster and Wave Form would be safe at home with their families. Maybe if I’d found that damned tortoise sooner, I could have shown up in time to back him up. Now both of them are broken, and Violet Rose is only breathing with the help of the enchanted steel rig making her barrel swell and fall. Their snapped bones have been set, nerves treated with stem cells, and wounds sewn up, but they’re done. They’re out.

Sleeping, rather than in a coma, but that’s hardly consolation. Their part in this mission is over – and so is mine. I can see Gerry almost as if he were here, his words like the slamming of a tomb.

Psychological leave. The department is grateful. We’ll take it from here.

I cover my head with my hooves. “Some great detective I turned out to be.”

“Shush… kid…”

I lift my ears, and look to see Violet Rose’s slit eyes open just a hair. She makes a soft grunt as the machine continues its work.

“Hey. Hey.” I brush my hoof on her forehead. “You’re okay.”

“Don’t… feel okay…”

“Amendment: you’re stable. Your lungs collapsed, though – that sword went clean through them, seared the edges. You’re healing, but…”

“But that… could take months.” She wheezes softly, staring at the ceiling and rolling her eyes shut. “Did they… make it?”

Sighing, I shake my head. “No.”

“Marcus…?”

“Right next to you. He’s in bad shape, too. He went stallion-to-stallion with Redbud, and, well, he didn’t win.”

“Ah… had a funny dream about that… he should have believed.”

I frown at that, but Marcus’ own sharper groans pull me back. His lungs are intact, so he’s much more vocal about it, swearing.

“Gah. Living hurts. I liked it better on the boat,” he groans, rubbing his head where a purple bruise spreads.

“Careful,” I roll my eyes and yank his hand back in a magical aura. “You don’t want to split any of your stitches.”

He grumbles, complying as he turns his head to the window. “Where’d Paris go?”

My cheeks redden, particularly when Violet Rose starts giggling, however weakly. “Where’d you see Paris?”

“It was like a hotel or something. The god-damned Eiffel Tower was right outside. Trace teleported me there. There were antique lights and furniture and all these girly clothes.”

Violet starts laughing so much it makes her cough and groan as she bends. “Oooh… oof... I just… can’t believe it. Is that the mystery you’ve been… hiding in your room? I thought it was just mildly embarrassing, but whoa.”

I cover my face with my hat. “You can kill me now. I’d prefer it at this point.”

“Am I missing something?” Marcus asks.

“Our sweet little Prints is a massive Francophile.” Violet Rose settles back, chuckling with a raspy edge. “I don’t really get it myself. She tries not to let people from work notice, but she’s pretty obvious. You were in her bedroom – I’d guess she needed a secure place she knew well to teleport you.”

I nod, not that anyone probably notices.

Marcus is quiet, and I hear him shifting around. I tilt my hat enough to see him looking at me with a sort of quiet curiosity. Yeah, stare and mock all you like. I resolve not to let them see how much it stings.

“For someone hooked up to a magical iron lung, you sure do gab a lot.”

“Yeah, it relaxes my entire…” She huffs for breath. “Upper chest, I couldn’t move it if I tried. It’s killing my throat… though, I can’t control my own… breath.”

“Well, stop,” I say, and concern leaks through. “I don’t want you hurting things because you think you know better than the doctors.”

She smiles, pressing her hoof against mine weakly. “Okay.”

Marcus sighs, settling higher on his pillows as he tests his broken ribs, left arm, and both legs. “Thank you, Tracy. I would probably be dead if it weren’t for you. What’s going on?”

I sigh and shake my head. “Couldn’t tell you. I’ve been relieved?”

“What? Why?” Violet asks, and I have to push her down again.

“When they wheeled you in…” I duck my head and sigh. “Gerry said I needed to step back. He got relieved, too, after that, and the Chief forced him to admit himself for his own injuries. Me? I’m just… I fell apart, Rose.”

“You’ve… seen worse,” she murmurs, her throat raspier than before.

“It’s my fault. I should have prepared…”

“Prints…” she wheezes, shutting her eyes.

“What about the rangers?” Marcus asks.

It gives me something to focus on aside from my own problems – his intention, no doubt – and I lift my head. “There’s a group of them here, with a couple fleets on top of them. They’ve ringed the whole city, no one can teleport in or out either.”

“He isn’t trying to leave.” Marcus winces as he presses a call button. “You need to tell them something from me. I had another vision from Daphne. Redbud thinks he’s doing a good turn – he believes it hard – but he’s going to destroy everything in his search.”

“I can do that, at least. I’ll get someone in here and notify your organization.” Squeezing Violet’s hoof a last time, I rise to my feet and adjust my coat, heading outside. Finding the nurse station, I park myself there. “Where’s the officer on duty?”

She floats a pencil, pointing towards the door, and I head over to find a weird collection of people there, the uniformed cops trying to stop them from coming in. One of them, a humanoid cat, opens her cloak and flicks her wrist, sending a rush of air forward. The tops of the cops’ caps fall off, and they stare for a moment. “You will be letting us pass, now, or we will be making you let us pass, no?”

“Everyone chill,” I call, barking with authority. I may be relieved, but the cops, eyes wide and terrified, lower their hooves from weapons. To their credit, they weren’t backing down. I turn to face the goblins. Aside from the catwoman with the wild mane of tawny hair, there’s the tortoise from last night, a mare, and a tall, imposing woman with long black hair and white, feathered wings. I focus on the tortoise. “I know you’re the Ring Knight. Who’re these other clowns?”

The mare, beautiful but with an impression of weight about her, snorts indelicately and steps into the intensive care unit. “Marble Stone. Knight of Wands.”

“Saria,” the cat says, hand on the hilt of a blade. “Knight of Swords, and also being an old friend of Marcus’.”

The tall woman sighs, ruffling her feathers. “I am the Knight of Cups.”

“Priyana, right,” I fill the blanks in for her, looking to the tortoise.

He smiles across his broad face. “I, the Adherent, and my fellow Knights are here by order of our courts to present a unified front against the threat presented by Redbud and his allies. An ancient force is rising in this land, and we would cut it off before it can find its footing and threaten all worlds.”

I stare at each of them. “Okay. Well. I’m grateful. Marcus is in pretty bad shape, though – you’ll want to try his replacement. They’re coordinating the search now.”

Priyana tsks and pushes past, heading for his room. “We are wasting time, on that note.”

I head after her, annoyed but curious.

“Hey,” Marcus says, “look, a party! And everyone is invited, even some people I’d rather not see. Priyana.”

Saria beams and goes to his side, kissing his cheek. “How is Leit?”

“Just saw her, she’s doing great.”

The Knight of Cups looks at him stonily, and takes out her sign of office, an ornate golden goblet. “Well do I remember your visit to the Las Vegas Palace, Marcus Flores. King Indra will not shut up about you. He knew you would find yourself in these straits and bid me deliver unto you the magic of the Cup, that you might sup its power and be made whole, with his blessing and affection.”

“What’s this?” I ask, gazing at Marcus.

He coughs, turning red. “Yes. Well. Tell him I’m taken and thank you, in that order.”

Priyana purses her lips in a hard line, but duty if nothing else compels her to lift her hand. Violet perks as well, watching intently. “Know,” the Knight says, “that the Cup is the vessel of desire, and know that you must focus intently on that which you need when its blessing comes upon you.”

I watch as the lights dim as a shimmering liquid of pure light rises from the top of the cup. It seems to swallow the light in its own soft radiance, until it becomes the only source of it, and she lowers the rim to Marcus’ lips. He drinks, and she splashes it onto his body a bit, so that it soaks through his gown.

He goes into a fit of coughing, but manages to utter a few words. “Her, too. The thestral.”

Priyana considers Violet, then nods and goes to her. With a bit more tenderness she smooths the mare’s mane as she feeds her the magic. “Here, sister. Peace be upon you, maven of battle.” She splashes a little onto her immobile form as well.

Even I feel a little awe as I watch the bruises fade from Violet’s body. No amount of Equestrian magic or human technology can pull that off, restoring damaged cells to good health.

By the time the light returns, a hale Marcus is already rising to his feet. He takes a few breaths, then falls forward, shifting in mid-motion to hooves and wings and all the rest. Saria rubs one of his ears and he stretches with his joints cracking. “Back in the game. Not that I’m all that important to this affair.”

“More than you know,” the Adherent says quietly, rubbing his shield.

After a moment, I frown and go to prod Violet Rose, who hasn’t budged. Her eyes are closed, and she looks peaceful. “Hey. What’s up?” I look to Priyana. “Did the magic not take?”

The tall woman bristles, but Violet puts a hoof to my cheek and tugs me back. “No. It’s okay. The Cup did exactly what… it was supposed to do.” She coughs and I stare at her.

“What do you mean? Your damned lungs are still shredded!”

“Yeah. You remember what she said?” She smiles. “What we desire most, we should keep in mind. I don’t want to be healed, Tracy… well, I do, but not as much as I want something else. What we both need.”

Fully healed or no, she is moving a little more easily, but her lungs will keep her here for weeks still, if not months. “Yeah?” I ask, at a loss.

“We need a break in the case, Tracy.” She squeezes my hooves between hers. “We need a break. We’re lost, we’ll never find them without clues. And I have them. I wanted to find the kids.”

“Rose, stars, you could have let me do that.” I look up at Priyana. “I could have taken the sip, anyone could. Can’t you heal her?”

Priyana crosses her arms. “I will not defile the blessing of the Cup by spreading it hither and yon, but yes, conceivably you could have. As for healing, no – she’s made her deepest desire clear. People don’t change those on a whim, and the Cup would only serve to reinforce it at this point. I can tilt the results, but not that much.”

Rose hisses as I try to pull back and shakes her head. “Trace, you and I… both know that isn’t your deepest desire. Listen to me – you can put this together.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You. That tortoise has one of the–” she wheezes, her voice strained “–Rings, he can help, but there’s a reason I… recommended you to Homicide right out of school – you’re the most talented detective I know. If Gerry benched you, he’s an idiot. Go with Marcus and the… Knights.”

“But with what? What do you have?”

She pulls me closer, bites her tongue, and breathes out. Luminous vapor emerges and I sniff it in before I can recoil. It uptakes at once, and I’m thrust somewhere else, looking into a chamber beneath the earth, where a small pegasus colt, Luster, huddles under a workbench whose leg he’s been chained to while instruments fly about the room. It’s filled with sound, humming and clicking and warbling, modulating and whining, all coming from the thing Wave Form is working on, a nearly-completed mare in bronze. Redbud watches from next to Luster, his eyes flickering with the flashes of light from her work.

In spite of myself, I start taking in details, noting the rough construction of the cut timbers, cypress, doubtless to resist the dampness that seems omnipresent here. The floors and ceiling have been roughly shaped out of white stone and tunnels head off this way and that. A shaft features a hoof-cranked elevator with shiny new gears and modern synthetic rope.

As I continue to take in details, a shape enters the room, a mare wreathed in flames, and her eyes turn towards my perspective and blaze a brilliant white. I feel myself growing long, stretching until I fade and vanish.

Gasping, I find myself held up by Saria and Marcus. Fetching my hat from where it’s fallen, I look towards Violet Rose, who has passed out from her exertion, and squeeze her limp hoof once.

“What was that?” the cat woman asks.

I float my coat off my chair and turn the collar up. “Thestral magic is in the blood. She shared the vision she’d had off the Cup. Let’s go,” I say, and pass the Knights into the corridor beyond.

“What do you have?” Marcus asks, joining me. The passing nurses stare at him in quiet amazement, and we make our way out to the elevators.

“Not a lot. I know one fact right off the bat – they’re in a limestone quarry. That in itself isn’t enough to pinpoint them, because there’s quite a few of those in the area. I’d have to check a map, but there’s even a few over the island from the early days of the city. I’ll need to talk to the folks back at the precinct.”

“I shall be pleased to lend my assistance to this endeavor,” the Adherent says as we crowd in. “With the Ring we can scry many places without having to go to them first.”

Marcus rubs his wing shoulder under his jacket, his eyes distant. “Are the kids all right?”

“They are. I think Redbud is threatening Luster to make Wave Form cooperate, but I don’t know for sure, and neither of them are hurt.”

“Doesn’t seem his way – then again…” Marcus shakes his head, sighing. “He said he would damn himself if that’s what it took.”

Priyana looks down at us as we pass through the lobby. “What is it that he wants, then?”

Marcus stares out into the street. “To protect Equestria from all evil, even if he has to scour it clean to do so.” He glances at me. “I may have some useful information from a vision Daphne gave me, too. There was a mountain west of town that isn’t there now, within a couple miles.”

We all turn to look west down the street, as if expecting to see one rising on the horizon where the buildings converge beyond. The air is crisp and clear after the cleansing rain, and droplets patter down into the street to join little rivers on their way to sea, but no such structure mars the night air.

I close my eyes and imagine that I can see the city as Daphne does, with my vision penetrating stone and metal to the layers beneath, to stallions, mares, griffins, goblins, and all the other weird cells that circulate through the city like drops of blood. Cars honk, trains rumble on their tracks above and below ground, and ships sit idle at harbor waiting for the blockade to clear. Everywhere I look is some new smell, from the stink of fish along the docks to the fresh paint on a new apartment to the savory street vendors by Central Station. Everywhere you turn, from parks to brownstones to gleaming skyscrapers to art galleries to public sanitation, you’ll see something different. Ugly and beautiful, ancient and new, profane and profound – I observed once that it was a vast, complicated organism, and that I was the antibody clearing up its infections.

What an arrogant thought. I’m just another mare, trying to make her way in a city of dreams she doesn’t share, where her dream can never come true. If someone’s got to watch out for everyone else so they can go about their lives, it might as well be me.

Marcus walks alongside me down the shiny downtown sidewalk, withers still heavy with the weight of his troubles, but there’s a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there yesterday. Our eyes meet, and he offers a cocky grin. It’s good that he’s found his spirit, he’s going to need it. I hope he’s found his purpose, too – Celestia knows I’ve struggled with that.

Pausing under a restaurant awning, I float my cellphone out and dial. I have to try twice before I get an answer.

“Tracy?” Lab Work hisses. “I can’t talk. The whole department’s been called in.”

“I’m going to need you to do some research, Lab.” I watch as the Knights mill about on the sidewalk while the citizens give them odd looks. Even in Manehattan, it’s a weird gathering. “I need to know about every limestone quarry, historical or otherwise, west of the island.”

“Trace, you know I’d help you, but it’s all hooves over here. Did you find something? You can pass it on, I’ll take it to the chief, or call yourself.”

Marcus clears his throat and gestures at me.

“What?” I ask, lowering the phone.

He rolls his eyes. “Put it on speaker.”

I tap the screen with a hoof and he steps up. “Lab Work?” he says. “This is Marcus. I’m deputizing Trace Prints as a Ranger. Don’t worry about your superiors, I’ll make some calls.”

“Marcus?” she asks. “You got better? Wow. I should listen to office rumors more; you are an alicorn.”

He snorts. “No, just a lucky guy with a lot of good friends.”

I pull the phone back. “Get whatever you can together and I’ll tell you how to find me. Give me a call if you run into any trouble.”

“Okay, see you,” she says, hanging up.

Turning back to the Knights, I clear my throat. “You four are nominally leaders of your people, right?”

“We have no legal authority, yeah,” Marble Stone says, “but when we talk, they listen.”

“More importantly, we have the sanction of our respective Kings,” Priyana adds.

“Good. So, despite being guilty of repeated hate crimes against goblins, Redbud tends to use them in his plans. I need to talk to the boss of the goblin underworld, whoever happens to still be alive or in charge. Last week it was the Spider, but I can’t be sure she’s still alive.”

“Why do they call her the Spider?” Saria asks.

“Because she’s a spider.”

The Adherent nods thoughtfully. “That sounds worrisomely like one of the Weaver’s daughters. Our Queen has sometimes dipped her pedipalps into darker ambitions, so it is rumored.”

“Whoever it is, they’ll have information that we can make use of.” I look between them. “We have the full resources of the city and whatever military and government forces are in the area.”

Saria snorts, stroking the hilt of her blade. “We will find this Spider, or whoever it is that has occupied her nest. Fear not.”

“I don’t fear much, Saria. Bitter coffee, existential doubt, and what’ll happen to Equestria if we all fail are about it.” I glance to Marcus. “Marcus? I’ll want you to catch up in a bit, but for now, you should go see Rarity and Talon.”

He nods. “Keep me apprised. I’ll see you soon.”

I watch as he spreads his wings and retreats into the sky, then turn towards the street. “Right, let’s go. And there’s something else I want you guys to do, too.”

“And what is that, Trace Prints?” Priyana asks as she walks alongside.

“I need you to get the word out to the goblin community.”

“What word?”

“I’ll explain on the way.”


* * *


Over the course of the next hour, we stalked through the razor-edged shadows cast by shady dens and kicked over cans to see what vermin scurried free. We cornered bookies in their dingy offices and shook them down while smoke curled in the air and long bars of light cast through the slats of their blinds. We overturned a drug dealer’s car and beat his goons into submission.

But while that’s great and all and the information we gather takes us steps closer to the Spider – and, I hope, Redbud – it’s nothing compared to the effect it has on Manehattan’s goblin population.

We pull up to the station and find it abuzz, with long lines of military vehicles and barricades around every corner. There are long lines of angry goblins and ponies cuffed together awaiting processing, and ten times as many cheering as another is shoved into line.

A wheelchair screeches and Gerry swings into view, veins popping under his feathers. “Trace Prints! The hell is going on here?”

“How’d you get out of the hospital, LT?” I ask.

“Screw protocol is how. The Chief reactivated everyone who can count to ten and go from point A to point B with all this madness. Even your parents are out there. You’d be back if you weren’t already with the thrice-damned Rangers. Now what the hell is going on? Every goblin ghetto, dive bar, embassy, tenement, flophouse, and steakhouse in the whole damned city is boiling over! We’ve got people fighting in the streets! Every pimp, thug, pusher, and pit boss in the whole damned city is being scooped up! And somehow, just somehow, I know you’re responsible!”

“All I did was ask my new friends here to put the word out that their Kings declared war against the Underworld. Really, Gerry, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. We’ve known for a long time that that city’s goblins are sick of being identified with their worst elements, but at the same time they’ve backed them because they feel like it’s us against them, too afraid to turn them in.” I buff a hoof against my coat. “Really, you should be throwing me a parade.”

“A parade–!” He sputters and surges forward to dig his claws into my collar. “Mass vigilantism isn’t a solution! Worse, all this chaos is making it impossible to find any trace of Redbud! He could be anywhere in the city, laughing his alicorn-powered head off! It’s interfering with police business, obstruction of justice, inciting riots!”

I extract him firmly. “Legally speaking, all I did was ask the Knights to enlist community support; honestly, I’m stunned at the scale this has escalated to. Second, Redbud isn’t in the city. He’s under it, or near enough.”

He breathes hard through his beak, his apoplexy fading somewhat. “Talk fast.”

“He’s in an abandoned limestone mine, and if you weren’t aware, there’s shafts that were bricked up all over the city as growth radiated out into the hills. I will guarantee the Spider put a tail on him, and we can use that to track him down and find out exactly which one. Have we captured any of her lieutenants?”

“Oh no. No no no.” He wags a digit. “You’ve already made enough of a mess. I’m already going to have your badge for this no matter what excuses you cook up, Trace, and if you were in the department I’d thank you for your services and kick you to the bench so hard I’d break my legs again. Interrogation of the people you dropped in our laps is our business. If you’re going to hide behind a legal shield, then you can wait for stars-damned legal channels.”

“Fair enough,” I nod, glancing up at the precinct. Catching sight of Lab Work’s blond curls, I tilt my hat to Gerry. “Lieutenant. Until next time, which may or may not be my disciplinary hearing.”

I wonder, as I head away from the station and pull out my phone to text Marcus, how the vigor with which the city’s foreign community took to shaking off its fleas would have come across to Redbud. Even their jubilation demands riot guards to contain them and push them off the streets, and a forest of homemade “I <3 Manehattan” signs wave in the night air.

Maybe he’d be proud that his actions have brought a community together against its own diseases. I don’t know if he could ever accept that the goblins aren’t the parasites he seems to think they are, but part of being an Equestrian is having hope for even the worst villains.

Lab Work trots up, her steps nervous. “I’ve got the files you asked for. You sure I won’t get in trouble here?” She glances back towards the station.

“Positive, I formally requisitioned you. Probably. Assuming Marcus processed my appointment.”

“Oh, I’m so relieved.” She looks at me, her eyes thoughtful. “You know, they’ll probably just give you a slap on the hock and welcome you back after a few months leave. Are you coming back?”

“Coming back to what?” Marcus asks as he lands nearby, making Lab Work jump in fear of Gerry’s retribution.

“To work at the department.” I look up the street to find a VTOL holding station, its sides emblazoned with the flying alicorn of the Hippocrene. “That ours?”

“Yup. Got what you need?”

“I will soon.”


* * *


For somepony whose son was recently kidnapped by a murderer, Rarity holds up well. She paces before the vast window looking out on the city, back and forth. Intercept fighters flash by every so often, alert for anything, their passage vibrating the airship’s hull. The look in her eyes is the same hard, determined one that graces Marcus. It’s a damned good thing, since she’s without question the most powerful single person in the city aside from Redbud.

I hope for his sake that she isn’t the one who catches him.

Not that Talon would treat him any better. His goblin steel lance delivered the only real wound, though if Violet’s vision was clear, then he’s already recovered. He sharpens the edges with a diamond file, the whisper a rhythmic accompaniment to Rarity’s hooves.

Lab Work’s files lay before me, but I have little more to pick up from them. Geological surveys going back nearly a thousand years, assays of mineral content, recent Diamond Dog surveys – I’ve narrowed them to a range, and all we need now is a direction.

Marcus returns through one of the doorways, his face damp. Rarity looks up and he shakes his head. She doesn’t say anything, but Talon looks up and gestures to his wife. Together, the two of them take off wordlessly the way Marcus came. He touches their sides in sympathy and they share a friendly nuzzle before leaving.

“What’s eating you, kid?” he asks as he joins me at the table.

“Frustration at repeated needle-in-haystack searches.” I tilt my head towards the window. “That’s bothering me far more, though.”

“How do you mean?” he asks, looking out at the city below.

“You’d be the one to tell me. That hill you saw isn’t there, is it?”

“No.” His ears twitch. “It was pretty close to the city, just across the water I think.”

I move to join him, not seeing the city, not really. Two days ago, even a few hours ago, I would have made some clever comparisons, but I just don’t seem to have my heart in it anymore. I turn my head up to look for the green star – hoping for hope.

Marcus starts to rub at his hock, lifting one hoof to knead his joints with the tip before raising it to massage at the calf. Then he shifts his weight and does it again on the other side. Each foot in turn he treats so, working away unseen tension.

“You’ve never really been comfortable as a stallion, have you?” I ask. Why not – we might all be dead by sunup.

“No,” he says. “Not entirely. It comes over me sometimes, more and more as I keep going.”

“Why, then? No one’s making you do it.”

“I don’t hate it. I actually kind of like it.” He stretches his wings with a forest of little pops. “Especially flying – there’s really nothing that liberating. And I’ve got my family out here now, my lover, pretty much all of my closest friends. I’ve lived as one, slept as one, made love as one.”

“But it’s not that easy, is it?”

 He turns to look at me a little more, his typical shield of mirth lowered and his dark eyes serious. “Do you know how I got my mark?” He follows my glance to his flank, to the twin striking lightning bolts. “Humans can’t get them, even if they follow you into being human. I wasn’t even on Equestria. I was back home, in my world, fighting demons on an abandoned ski resort with Leit and Daphne. They’d cornered me on a freezing cold platform, and it was so cloudy that day I couldn’t see anything, just white. Today, that sort of thing isn’t scary at all, but back then I was still new to goblin magic. I came by shapeshifting slowly.

“So, with ice demons bearing down on me on one side and the abyss on the other, I put my back against the rail and kept fighting. I expected to die.”

“I’d imagine something heroic happened,” I deadpan.

He smiles. “No, actually. I ran out of bullets. Daphne and Leit were fighting far enough away that I couldn’t even hear them. It came down to survival, really… I had to believe that I could change into my pegasus form before I hit the ground.”

“And you did.”

“And I did. I pulled myself up onto the rail and leapt just as the demons reached me. I figured that, even if I failed, I’d at least die on my own terms. I just… let go. I let go and stopped worrying, just let the freezing air numb me. The next thing I knew, I had my wings, and I was flying. I turned the clouds against the demons, raining lightning bolt after lightning bolt on them, like I never had before.”

I look at him for a while as he finishes and stares out at the sky again. “So what changed?” I ask quietly.

“I got older.”

“While everyone else around you didn’t.”

“I thought, for a few months, that I’d found my place,” he says. “I felt alive, I felt special. I am alive and special – but I’ve had to fight in a way others don’t. I don’t settle. I don’t get to be happy and content with who I am like they are.”

“I can’t imagine it’s hopeless, then, if you haven’t left to go be a human again.” I frown thoughtfully, then reach out and touch his side. “You’re leaping into the abyss again, aren’t you? You’re doing it even if you think you can’t make it.”

He smiles slightly. “I spoke to Leit Motif while I was out. It’s a thing we can do in our little friendship circle. Her point came down to whether or not I could believe in myself. She believes in me, so why won’t I? So, yeah. I’m taking the leap, because those kids need me – and because I need it for myself, to know who I really am.”

We share that in silence. After a while, he turns his head to me. “And what about you? Because I think we both know that it isn’t really about Paris.”

“I do love Paris,” I say, looking over the city lights. “It’s nothing like this city. Have you ever been?”

“I have. Few times. Would you like to hear about it?”

“Maybe later. I’ve heard everything there is to hear about it, or just about.” I take my hat off and comb my hoof through my mane to settle it. “There isn’t a street I haven’t visited in my dreams. I even keep up with local news, just so I can feel what’s going on there.”

Looking down at my hat, I sigh and place it on the table nearby. “So I know that if I do go, I can only be disappointed. That’s how the world works. That’s reality. We live in a marvelous age, we’ve come to understand that the heavens are filled with worlds and beautiful, incredible things the likes of which we couldn’t have imagined. But it isn’t a dream. It’s nothing like a dream. It’s not like a movie, where things get wrapped up neatly. Even a story that tries to capture the messiness of it only reflects the truth dimly. Because we don’t want the truth. Because we can’t have the truth.”

I throw my coat off, letting it skid nearby.

“Trace…” He puts a hoof against my shoulder gently.

“That’s all I want,” I whisper. “I want my dreams and I try to make them real, but every time I try to capture them they fall short. I play at being a hard-boiled detective, and I’m good at it, but the affectations are just… I see so many awful things, and if I write it in my head so that it’s a story it isn’t so bad. I can get through it, catch the bad guys, and make the world a better place. I really can. I’ve really made a difference. But it isn’t a dream, it isn’t a story. In a story you don’t get to see the hero comforting a murder victim’s family unless it’s to tug at the reader’s heart strings.”

A loud sniff escapes, and I rub at my nose stubbornly. “In a story I’d write, I’d run into the stallion of my dreams and we’d track Redbud down and go to a nice little flat together at the end. There’d be mysterious pasts and dark secrets and the careful interplay of light and shadow. If there’s a sequel we’d be called out of retirement and there’d be challenges that question our very existence, but we’d pull through them because that’s what we do. But you aren’t that stallion, even if you weren’t taken, and we could all die tonight and be forgotten.

“All seeing the real Paris would do is disappoint me, like everything else in my life has. I want it to remain like it is, I want it to stay a story in my head, so that I can always dream.”

Marcus is quiet for a while, and I let myself lean against him, just a bit. I don’t cry, but he’s already seen my heart once before already. There’s not much shame in him seeing the real me at this point.

“It’s the most beautiful city in the worlds.” His voice barely carries to my ear, barely more than a stirring of the air. “You know it. You can see it, you can walk its streets. You hear the voices of its people, you smell the bread baking in the morning and in the evening you curl on a bench before the river with a bottle of wine and watch as the city turns into a sea of stars.”

He nuzzles at my mane and pulls me close. “No one can ever take that away from you, not if you don’t let them. They can try, they can try to tarnish it by making fun of you, or trying to pull you down by telling you all the terrible things about it that they know or have heard. The whole world will try to shrink and diminish it, but the only person who can change it is you. Maybe life can’t be a story, but it’s beautiful stories like yours that make it worth living for, because even if we can’t make it as beautiful or as purposeful as our imaginations would like it, we can draw them closer together and fill the world with little sparks of perfection.”

I look up, and his eyes are filled with tears, swimming with the lights of Manehattan far below. “That’s real divinity. That’s what being an alicorn is, or a god. It’s rising above the pettiness and the shadows and embracing those dreams, even if the whole world tells you it’s impossible.”

Gently, I nuzzle up at him, and brush his lips with mine. Just a little, until my heart starts to flutter and I put my hoof to his chest and feel his own beat steadily, even as we draw apart. He smiles and, bless him, doesn’t ruin the moment by talking. It’s not a very long one, but it is our moment.

A flickering out of the corner of my eye draws my attention, and I look to see the green star shining like a tiny sun. Daphne’s sign floats west over the city. At the same time, the interceptors rattle the deck as fighters move north, and the whole ship begins to turn. I move to collect my hat and my coat and don them, shrouding my beating heart in layers of shadow and meaning.

“Trace here,” I say in a clipped, precise fashion as I tap the intercom. “Deck officer, what’s the situation?”

“Titanspawn, ma’am. They’re flooding in from the sea. It’s pandaemonium – literally.”

My ear twitches as a thought occurs to me, and though it isn’t an idea born of rational process, I embrace it nonetheless. “They’re coming to stop Redbud. What he’s doing is an existential threat to them, too, if it’s anything like your vision. A force of Order so unforgiving it can’t tolerate even the least amount of chaos.”

“And damn the whole city in the process,” Marcus says darkly. “They won’t discriminate, either.”

Floating my radio over, I click the police frequency. “Lab Work, doll for the love of Celestia and double whiskey shots, please tell me you have something.”

“I do!” her voice crackles back. “You’d better get down here, with whatever you can spare.”

“I don’t know how much that is. You’ve probably heard the chatter.”

“Yeah, just hurry. And Trace?”

“What?” I ask, heading for the launch bay.

“It’s good to hear the real you again.”

I smile warmly. “Lab Work, if we make it through this, I promise you’ll see the real me for the first time.”

Marcus must have made a call ahead, because there’s a black VTOL waiting for us, its four engines whirring as the pilots start the pre-flight check. Armed soldiers from the Hippocrene of every race, even a couple humans, pile into the back.

I step up to the ramp and turn when I notice that Marcus isn’t behind me. Instead, he’s standing before the open bay doors, looking down at the city as it rotates below.

“What is it?” I call, shouting over the wind.

He looks up, his mane and tail blown by the breeze and his jacket pressed tight. “Trace?”

“Marcus?”

His face splits in a wide smile, and for just a moment he’s the most handsome stallion in the world. Maybe I can’t have him, but for the first time in a long time, I’m looking.

“We’ll always have Paris.”

Then he leaps, spreads his wing, and vanishes.

Grumbling, I walk up the ramp with my cheeks glowing hot. “Damn it. That’s my line.”


* * * * * * *

> The Third Night - Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Reluctant Pilgrim


The shooting starts before I so much as reach the clouds. Artillery’s come a long way in Equestria, and so too do its shells, casting shooting stars across the night to brighten the eastern horizon with fire and smoke. With the wind filling my winds and my heart racing with anticipation, I drive towards the earth.

Low chatter fills my left ear from the Hippocrene forces tracking developments. Not only across the sea, but up from the sewers, from the cold north, from every inhospitable place have the forces of chaos disgorged themselves. It’s a party in Manehattan and everyone is invited.

My flight carries me north of the atmospheric collectors and into the suburbs west of the city, landing down among subway lines where they emerge from the earth after crossing under water and land. Colorful concrete walls cheerfully muraled over would have been pleasant in the daylight, but under the harsh light of police floodlights and hover vehicles that emphasize every water stain and flaw, it gives off a depressingly dystopian vibe. Saria hops on a police car to wave me down and I flap my wings, hovering nearby.

“Good! You are here, my blood.” She smiles, flashing sharp teeth. “The Adherent and your blonde friend have found the mine.”

“Have we opened it yet?” I ask, looking around.

“Marble insisted on–” She flattens her ears as a thunderous report sounds through the street. An entire section of subway flashes into steam, transmuted instantly from stone to water vapor in a brilliant flash. There, buried beneath the subway tunnel’s remaining struts, is a long shaft sinking diagonally into the soil.

I land nearby, my wings aching from three days of hard work, and after a moment’s indecision select my heavy revolver. If Redbud shows up, nothing heavier I have will hurt him, and if something ambushes us I don’t want to be caught swinging a longarm in a tight space. Lab Work remains at the entrance as Saria and I descend with the Adherent, Marble Stone, Priyana, and a contingent of nervous officers ready for anything.

Priyana lifts her hand and light pours from her Cup, illuminating the tunnels and heartening the ponies. White with traces of limestone, the caverns are large and branching, with dampness and pools of cold water seeped in through the porous rock. As ever in Equestria, crystals sprout everywhere, with beds of aragonite and fields of calcite glittering at every turn in reds and blues and pale milk hues. Our downward progress is halted when we hit the water table, and we spread out, looking for the remains of the quarry. At an officer’s shout we find a section of tunnel that has clear signs of being worked, following what must have been mineral veins and pockets of high quality limestone for use in the city. The wood supports flash by overhead as we race along, looking for the chamber Trace Prints described.

“Whoa!” I shout as we turn a bend, nearly skidding right into Redbud’s corona in the following tunnel. In six squeezes I unload my entire revolver into his face, stunning him with the flash and noise for a moment. “Back!”

We dive back en masse, sheltering behind the Adherent’s crystalline magic as Redbud unleashes an angry wave of heat that sizzles the stone around us.

After the initial wave, Saria snaps her sword free, answering formless heat with lightning. “Charge!”

And, driven by the winds of her magic, we do.

Pelted by dozens of rays from unicorn magic and faced with the combined magical fury of all four Knights, even Redbud is forced to retreat, his tail singed and his coat stained with narrowly-dodged flicks of lightning. He body-checks a pillar and the earth above us buckles, but Marble Stone fires ahead of us and blasts the ground, making a pillar of hexagonal crystal slam back into the ceiling and spread out roots to hold it together.

In a wave, we wash into the chamber, and a red-eyed Luster lifts his head. “Uncle Marcus!” he calls. Behind him, Wave Form’s horn hums and sings as it works at the form of a large winged figure in glowing bronze-colored metal.

“Weapons up!” I shout, not wanting the officers to accidentally hit a kid. Saria, of course, ignores that order, but then she knows how to cut without collateral damage.

“So you’re up, boy,” Redbud says, grinning tightly. “Good.”

“No delays. He won’t accept quarter.” I snap out a claw-blade of black goblin steel onto my hoof and advance cautiously, letting Saria take point. Wave Form looks so terrified, I can’t blame her for acceding to their demands. It’s not something I’d wish on any kid. She’s actually trembling.

He laughs. “And you’re learning!” Then he turns and darts over to Wave Form. “Finish it!” he demands, grabbing Luster in one hoof. I swear and charge forward with Saria. I can’t bring myself to ask her to stop.

Wave Form whimpers, her eyes filled with Luster’s terrified form, and shoves a crystal into the machine’s back.

Clockwork whirls into gear and fire fills the workings of the creature, filling the air with a deceptively elegant ticking. It raises its horned head and spreads its golden wings. The mask of its face shifts until the metal reveals that of a very real, very living mare’s, and her eyes sear with brilliant light.

“Begone!”

Fire fills the room, leaping from cracks in the earth or spinning out of the air in hideous pyrotechnics. The mare raises a hoof, and the room begins to quake.

“Retreat!” I shout, buffeted by the flames, and we race back for the entrance at a full gallop. Even with the Adherent covering our back, many officers have to be carried out as they’re burned across their sides, backs, legs, anything. When we reach the tunnel mouth, a blast of superheated air blows the rest of us out. Dazed, I look around, stunned to find myself intact, but then see the Adherent, curled up in his shell. Fearing his death, I wobble over to check on him and am relieved to hear him breathing. Overhead, Rarity and Talon descend from a Hippocrene VTOL, and Trace’s coat flaps in the hot breeze.

The earth continues to quake more fiercely than ever, and we barely have time to clear the officers before it buckles. A water main snaps and cascades into the air, and the subway cables shriek and snap with blue electrical fires as the ground splits and rises before our eyes. When the dust clears, the clockwork alicorn, Redbud, Wave Form, and Luster ascend with the swelling earth. A pillar of light and fire pierces the clouds above, exactly as in my vision.

“Of course,” I mutter. “Because it would be nice not to have to go through it. Can’t have nice things, can I?”

My earpiece crackles. “Ranger Flores! Blind Chance on station. We are prepared to level that hill on your order.”

The airship, two kilometers away, is a long dark splinter. I look around at the officers, the homes nearby already cracking under the stress of the earth, and, most importantly, Wave Form and Luster on the hill. Titanspawn wing through the air, close enough to smell, and teams of pegasi and fighter jets zip through the sky after them.

“Negative,” I say. “Civilian casualties.”

“Sir, there’s going to be an awful lot of casualties of every kind if we don’t avert what’s coming to pass here.”

I look down at my hoof, examining the little microfractures and scuff marks and the soft frog on the underside. Normally, this is the part where I curl my hock in and long for the sensation of fingers closing. I look up at Trace and smile.

“Yeah, Captain, I know. I’ll take care of it.”

I snap the earpiece out and crack the joints in my wing-shoulders. With a running start, I leap into the air and beat my way up the growing pillar of earth and fire.

The angel turns, plates glittering in its own light. Just for the hell of it I whip my trusty Winchester bolt-action out and unload a clip, only to see the shells disappear in puffs of superheated copper that scatter off her. Was worth a shot.

“Marcus Flores!” she says, her voice echoing across the land while white static accumulates around her open wings. “Pure though your heart may be, you stand in the path of light! Turn aside and live!”

“Screw you!” I shout back.

“Then be judged.”

Power arcs along her wingtips and gears as white light accumulates and concentrates up her body to her horn. At the tip, it is far too bright to look at, turning the hill from night into day.

Undaunted, I race up. If I’m good, I can dodge, I can get through enough to save the kids or knock her off her pretty perch.

Frankly, though, I’m probably going to die, but at least it’ll be quick.

Then the sound of a loose, rattling gear fills the air and the mechanical alicorn vibrates sparks flying off in all directions. The light at its forehead shivers and scintillates, scattering in all directions as bright, colorful, but ultimately harmless light that rains down along the city. I yelp as a spark sizzles into my coat, but somehow I don’t think that’s what was intended.

Finally free, a gear in her body richochets off to bounce down the hill, and the energy accumulating about her wings fizzles and dies. Her eyes flare and she wheels Wave Form, whose face is split ear-to-ear. She stops grinning and leaps back as the flaming sword returns, arcing in front of her.

“No!” I shout, but it’s too late. Bright blood gushes in the air, and Wave Form falls back.

She stumbles, still alive for the moment, but screams in agony as she tries to cover her severed right foreleg.

That’s the thing about visions sometimes. Even from Daphne, they aren’t always perfect. And here I am, still at least twenty meters away and closing fast.

As the mare moves to finish her with a thrust, though, Luster leaps between them and flares his wings. “You leave her alone!” he shouts, and punctuates it with a sudden gout of intense, sooty fire.

Largely made of fire and carrying a flaming sword or not, the unexpected blast knocks the alicorn back, and, reaching the edge of the pillar, the two of them tumble end-over-end until they land on a large spit of calcite that had once been Marble Stone’s pillar. I drop next to them, just as stunned as Redbud and the mare as I check for signs of life.

“How’d I do, Mister Marcus?” Wave Form whimpers, her pink hair smoking and her eyes bleary with pain and tears. I don’t know where she finds the strength to smile. “I included a flaw. Did you see?” Luster, whimpering, nuzzles at her while I whip out some gauze and quickly wrap it around the stub of her leg.

“I did, and you did great, kid,” I murmur, and lift my dangling earpiece. “Sure could use some air support right now.”

“We’re here, Marcus,” Rarity’s voice says over the radio. “Was that my baby? How did he do that?”

“I’ll explain later, love,” Talon answers.

All around the pillar rise my friends and allies, angry and armed. Atop the pillar, the mare stamps a hoof and sets herself. “So be it then, children of Rhea and Cronos. I will do what I must, e’en unto severing the part to save the whole.”

Rarity’s own horn burns with power, and she soars up ahead of the others. “I’m sorry, Miss, but I cannot allow you to harm my little ponies any further. You will have to do so over my dead body.”

“As you wish.”

Their magic meets in a ball of incandescent light, and everyone with a weapon opens fire. The alicorn fights back, leaping into the air, gusts of flame from her wings slicing through a helicopter’s tail and sending it wildly spinning, while the other pegasi try to bail out the crew.

Gathering myself, I leap up into the air, and turn barely in time to catch a dark red blur streaking at my left. Redbud, his eyes filled with zeal, bears me down towards the earth. Twisting in his grip, I manage to rotate and leap off him seconds before impact, enough to slow me to a tumble while dust and pavement bursts into the air around him.

He pulls himself from the hole, and I make to leave him behind, but his corona flares and I have to duck down as a sheet of fire erupts above me.

Landing, I face him across the broken street, civilian cars parked to either side. “Well, I won’t say I wasn’t looking forward to a rematch, but there’s more important people you could be sidelining right now.”

The wrecked helicopter slams into the earth behind him and its batteries erupt into flame, framing him in red and gold. “No, boy, I think not. I may not be a high-flying adventurer like you, but I know destiny when I see it.” He smiles again as he looks me over, his scarred face quietly approving. “Maybe you’re not 'boy' anymore, either. There’s something different about you. Just makes it more clear – you are the number one threat to my vision.”

“Yeah? That’s awful complimentary.”

“Take it as it is.” The amulet wavers as the air around it heats up. “There’s no holding back this time. You missed your chance last time.”

Stars, I feel insane. There’s simply no getting around the fact that he’s stronger, tougher, more experienced, and loaded with more potent magic than I. Even without the amulet, he handily beat me.

Strangely, though? This feels more honest. This feels more real.

I look up, searching the smoky sky. There, glimpsed in a brief parting of the smoke, is the green star, the one lost, troubled people the Nine Worlds over can look to and find hope. My friend.

Are you ready? Daphne whispers.

I square both sets of shoulders and spread my wings. “I’m ready.”

The light in his eyes intensifies. “You are. You’re ready to die, if that’s what it takes. You’re ready to kill. You’re ready to damn yourself, to save the people you love. Come on, then. We’ll see just how ready you are.”

“I don’t know about damning myself. I’m pretty sure taking you out will be perfectly just. Helios was a god of justice, wasn’t he? Not just the sun.” I grin. “Looked him up before I came around. Not very just to threaten an innocent kid, is it?”

Redbud’s eyes and the jewel flicker with just a moment of internal indecision, and I snap my wings and spring forward ten feet to crack him in the face with a rear hoof and somersault backwards off it. He reels back, dazed, and feels at his bleeding nose. I should be as surprised as he is that I actually hurt him in his present state, even if it was only sensitive cartilage, but I’m not.

His smile widens into a grin and he snaps the crick out of his neck. “Let’s go!”

If he was fast before, he’s terrifying with magic. He slams into me in a flash and I only barely spring back in time to avoid getting plastered right there. He keeps going, his leap carrying us up and over the nearby fences. Once again, I twist around, getting behind him as we crash through the living room of a startled family, roll past where they’re watching the battle on their wall screen, and out through the screen door into the backyard, where the dog barks at us as we tussle.

Flinging myself back, I land on my rear hooves and flick out a shotgun. He advances, unafraid, and I grin as a tongue of flame erupts right into him. Dragonfire rounds, beautiful stuff. Quickly, I launch into the air, getting some distance before he inevitably leaps after me. If I’d hoped to just dance out of his way I was mistaken, as bright wings erupt from his sides for a moment, just long enough to change his direction in mid-flight.

Clipped, I yelp and spin out, plummeting for the west bridge down below. With effort I snap my wings out and recover in a glide, while Redbud charges after me from where he lands. Burning bright, he plows through police barricades and cars alike. I dart past him, throwing a chain of grenades in front of him and yanking the pins in a rush. He flies forward and skids, but rolls back to his feet and comes on, faster than ever.

We meet again at the island in the center, a brief strip of road with a slight detour to a recharge spot and green park in either direction, as I dive down to collide with him and knock him spinning before pulling up again. I hit him again, quicker than I could have believed I was capable of, building up momentum as I go. Then I stop, diverting in anticipation of a counter. Sure enough, I dive to the side just before he can snap me out of the air with a buck and shatter every damned bone in my body.

“Hah!” He laughs as his eyes turn into incandescent torches. “You are learning!”

Beams sizzle at me, scorching the air and earth, setting fires wherever they go and blowing up great clods of dirt. I dance and weave and duck behind a huge pylon. The beams blast smoking holes into the pylon and the steel groans as it weakens. I look up at the column to where it attaches to the suspension pylon and hope it isn’t a critical element as I fly up, drawing his fire.

I feel the air sizzle and my teeth rattle as a huge ball strikes the column at its highest point, sending hot shards of concrete and still through the air and biting into my flesh. The whole piece groans again, and I fight through the burning pain in my side to slam into the top and push. It takes everything I have just to budge the top an inch to the left before gravity asserts itself, and watch as it tumbles to the ground.

The dust is prodigious, and the air is filled with it as I circle slowly, looking for any signs of life. Unless Redbud has learned to disappear, there’s no where he could have gone – he’s definitely right under the pillar. Above, the pitched battle moves closer to the city as the aerial defenders give ground to the horde.

I look back and groan as I see the center section of the fallen pillar glow a dull, angry red, progressing steadily up. It erupts, and a battered, bloodied Redbud leaps out, tackling me while I dodge debris and bearing me to the ground. His first punch cracks a rib, his second threatens to dislocate a shoulder. He’s locking me down again, and once he does it’s all over.

“I knew you had it in you!” he shouts as we tussle for advantage, rolling along the burning island. “Not just a human mongrel, are you? Not just pretending like you’re one of us?” He barks a laugh and tries to headbutt me, shattering a rock as I slip down, trying to slip under him and push off. We both roll again, with me on top flapping my wings to batter at him and get free. “You’re good, kid! I admit it, but we both know who’s the better stallion here.”

“I’m not a gods damned traitor!” I shout back, slamming a hoof into his face and pushing it up and away as he tries to bite me, pressing at his throat. If I hadn’t of lost my claw in the retreat from the mine, this might have been over already. He slackens his forelegs to shove me off, but his hind legs remain tight and we twist again. “I didn’t betray my princesses, my oaths, everything I love on a stupid gamble!”

“You can’t have it all!” He slams his hooves into me and I fly back, gasping. “You can’t be a lily white protector with your armor all shining and just trust the stars to never let you face a real threat, one that tests you, tests everything you believe in! I have, time and again. You may be a pegasus, kid, but you’re not a soldier.”

“No, and thank Luna for that,” I rasp and leap back to my feet, narrowly avoiding him as he slams into the ground where I was. “But if I am challenged like you were, you can bet I won’t blow it like you did.”

“This world is doomed! Look at it! Look at the blackness closing in on this little cove. Don’t you see that they’re afraid, that the titans are trembling in their chains?” He snarls and his eyes begin to glow again. “First them, then the other worlds! We will be free of monsters for the first time since Mother Rhea spoke the word that made the world!”

“I sense I’m talking to Helios, then, assuming there’s any difference between you two anymore.” I roll to the side as a solar bolt blasts beside me. “You should know better! You were there, or part of you was. It wasn’t one god who made the world, it was all of them, separately and together at the same time! This world isn’t worse off for its diversity, it’s better, and it’s sick to see you turn your back on what made our species great to begin with! We reached out, we made friends, we brokered the peace between nations.”

“And then it was shattered!” he roars with an alicorn’s voice, thundering across the water. “Everything we worked for and loved was broken by humans and their damned Bridle! My friends, my family, my life! Pallas watched as her girls were beheaded in front of her! Even Mother Rhea, the greatest of us all, was butchered trying to broker peace, and she had borne some of their daughters and sons of her own body!” He’s so angry he’s trembling, and the rocks around him vitrify in the heat. His tears boil off before they even form.

“Not all of the humans, not all of the time.” I shake my head. “Most weren’t on board. You can’t destroy whole societies because of the actions of a few. You’re better than this, both of you are. Well, you are, being one person now. It doesn’t have to end like this!”

“Yes it does,” Redbud says, his voice lowering just a tad below deafening. “Like you pointed out, kid, I threatened an innocent colt, and now I’m threatening everyone else. I’ve already damned myself, and I will secure the future for the generations to come with the Guardians, so that people like me will have no place in it. People like you do, and it’s for that reason you have to do what you have to do.” His corona shimmers into view and the earth blackens around him. It grows, larger and larger. “Fight, then, Marcus. Fight, and bring your vision forth with blood.”

Worrying about how I have no chance against Redbud hasn’t gotten me anywhere yet, so I push the voice of doubt away and rise into the air, flinging cannisters at his feet that hiss and fill the air with acrid red smoke. Rather than escape, I start to circle him, but I don’t attack, either. I’d be fried if I got anywhere close.

“It’s over!” The smoke billows away as the air superheats and expands around him. Flares lick at me, but I dance around them, continuing to spin. “The hell are you doing?”

“Being a pegasus,” I say, and fly faster.

The air, responding to my magic, begins to stir. It’s a little breeze at first, and then more, and more. The fires whip up into burning columns of flame before snuffing out. Redbud’s power grows, and the ground around him melts as he lashes at me.

But I can’t be touched. I shift up and down and side to side and twist this way and that, keeping my momentum up even as I dodge. The water around the island whips up, lapping against the shores, then crashing into it.

Faster, faster. The world blurs, and then I can barely see anything at all as water is sucked up into the growing vortex.

Making a tornado is a bit like I’d imagine being trapped in a centrifuge is like. It’s not unlike those astronaut training rigs that spin you around with faster and faster acceleration until you pass out. I feel my fears, my doubts, my hard-earned insecurity slip away.

For the first time in my life, I feel clear.

As the brief tornado turns into a raging storm, a howling eye that rips trees off the island and pushes cars to the the side of the bridge, spots form at the edge of my vision, and I begin to trend inward, buffeting the moisture until it puffs under my magic, forming thick clouds that spread out and surround it.

At last, unable to resist and cling to the earth any longer, I see the bright ember that is Redbud ascend through the eye, spinning round and around as he tries to summon up his magic to pull him out.

Then I hit him.

I don’t hit him with my hooves, no, that hurts and doesn’t do very much.

I hit him with lightning.

Spinning in the opposite direction, I agitate every scrap of cloud I can, striking sparks as I go, and columns of light flash through the eye. Again and again, each time connecting with Redbud. The roll of thunder is a continuous peal, a roar of vengeance.

By now, I’ve created a beast too strong even for myself, and feel darkness slipping over me as I’m launched out of the storm. Instinct holds me into a glide, enough to see that I’m trending towards the water, and I manage to weakly beat myself up and away, heading west, where the battle with the Guardian is going. I can’t really tell how well it’s going, but going it is.

When I do land, it’s with an ungraceful flop into the yard of the very family who just received a new entryway courtesy of Redbud. They watch uncertainly at the ruined screen door, at least until their sheltie cautiously sniffs at me and licks at my side, where the shards from the pillar embedded themselves bloodily.

The mare gallops to my side with a first aid kid in her teeth. “Emergency services should be on the way. Just lie still.”

“Mommy, isn’t that Marcus Flores?” a colt asks, tugging at his mother’s hair.

She frowns and looks at me more closely. “That’s right, from…”

“The documentary. I know.” I groan and push myself up. The mare and her stallion try to push me back, but it takes one look at the hill not a mile distant to stiffen my resolve again. “One last ride, folks. One last ride.”

“Are you a prince?” the foal asks, his eyes wide. “You made that storm just now, didn’t you?”

I grin and ruffle his mane. “Nah, kid. I’m just a stallion.”

He floats up his phone and instantly starts tweeting excitedly. I laugh and nod to the parents before getting a running start and lifting back into the air.

The Guardian flying about the peak has been in better shape. Talon’s spear has broken off inside her, and plates are missing, exposing her gears. The wings have been tangled up with Trace’s magic, magic she’s broken and is dangling in ethereal tatters. None of the vehicles remain, and I can’t see my friends on the ground, except for Rarity, whose battered body has tumbled near Wave Form and Luster. She has strength enough to curl around them protectively, but not much else.

“You lived?” the Guardian calls. “I would not have called that.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame you for that,” I say, drifting in the updrafts.

“Your friends served to delay me. Even without my light of judgement, I have battled true gods before, men and alicorns who stood before there was a cosmos to stand in. While they could shatter us by the dozen, mortals and childlike alicorns stand no chance.”

“Fair enough. Look, I could mock you and challenge you like I did Redbud, but there’s something else that’s kind of nagging at me.”

That catches her attention enough that she slows in her circling, hovering near the peak. Out of surprise if nothing else.

“I had a vision while I was out; a green dream, courtesy of Aquarius.” I gesture towards the city. “The place was in ruins. Burn the part to save the whole, right? But among the wreckage, there was this sad little filly, and she was depressed because she couldn’t save as many people as she’d hoped and wasn’t content with the few she had. She said that she might well be her parents’ sin after all.”

The mare dimmed, her fire retreating into herself, to a little burning coal deep in the workings.

“She regretted what she’d done. Can’t you?”

No answer.

“I called you Fire Wheel. Do you remember that? Did you dream at all?”

“No,” she says at last, her voice a carrying whisper. “I do not remember. I cannot regret, I cannot dream.” The fire builds, filling her steadily. The wind picks up. “And if I am my parents’ sin, then it is just that I be the one to cleanse this world of it.”

“I figured as much. The Adversary stripped out all the little bits that might keep you from turning from your course, I’d wager.”

“And now I will use it to save your kind instead of destroying it, you brave, foolish stallion.”

Like Redbud, her heart didn’t seem to be quite in it, but there she goes. Sometimes, reason isn’t enough. Even making an emotional connection isn’t enough.

A beam of azure light scatters off the Guardian from below, and we look down to see Trace Prints clinging to the side of the hill, hat and coat discarded somewhere below but her determination undimmed. Saria, bruised and battered, moves up the side of the cliff face with her. Even Rarity pulls her head up, limping as she gathers her magic.

“Brave to the end, just like your ancestors.” The Guardian lights up her eyes and horn, and the winds pick up again, burning around her. There’s not a chance in hell that my meager pegasus magic is turning that against her.

I have to do something, though. I fly closer in, pulling my Winchester out and firing again and again, putting shots into her gears, but to no avail. They melt and are crushed by the deceptively delicate clockwork, divine artifacts unto themselves. The last round of the clip pings against her face and she turns towards me.

Well, at least I got her attention.

White light sears around me as I dodge, but her aim is far better than Redbud’s. She sears the tip of an ear, the heel of a hoof, the skin on my back, my wings. She stops as lightning crackles harmlessly off her and I begin to tumble, while she sends a few bolts down to answer Saria.

“Mister Marcus!” Wave Form shouts, waving for my attention, the sound hard to hear in the increasing racket.

“Uncle Marcus!” Luster calls, adding his voice to hers.

I blink down at them. To my great alarm, they’ve climbed back up, unable to advance further with the Guardian’s winds but still way too high for comfort.

“The hell are you two doing! Get out of there!”

“No! You can do this, Mister Marcus!” Wave Form calls, and Luster holds up something shiny for her. The gear she sabotaged, in fact. Luster blows on it with little licks of fire until it starts to melt under his magical breath, and Wave’s horn thrums like an instrument as she molds and shapes it like she did her resin toys. “Remember, truth, love, and justice always win out in the end if you believe in yourself!”

I stare at her, unable to believe what I’m hearing at first, but the weirdest thing is that, after a night like this, after these last three nights, I find myself believing her.

“Hey, Wave? I do. I really do believe. I believe in you, too.”

She beams, and the reforged gear gleams in her magic. She launches it up, and I see it for what it is – a bullet as bright as a star. It flies above me and I launch up, hoof stretched out.

The Guardian’s ear flicks. It turns, ignoring a leaping attack from Talon, eyes turning to track the bullet and me as I near one another. Her horn glows. Her first shot goes wide as he slams into her side, blasting far to the left.

I beat my wings harder, every muscle in my body straining, every joint prone to failing. Darkness edges in at my eyes once again. The bullet and the stars are all I can see now, just a tunnel connecting me to heaven.

Come on, Marcus, Daphne whispers. You can’t give up now.

I hired you for a reason, Naomi says, her voice echoing from far off. You really are the best.

Hey. If you screw up now, I’ll never forgive you, Amelia adds tartly.

We are as blood, forged in battle! You shall not fail! Saria crows.

As my vision shrinks, I hear one last voice, and Leit Motif’s face swims into view.

I love you, my stallion. She reaches down for my hoof. It’s your time.

With a final beat of my wings, I take her hoof, and seize the bullet. As I complete my arc and begin to fall towards my back, I throw the bolt back, ejecting the last clip. With a smooth motion I slot the bullet in, not daring to wonder what propellant it could have, and ram the bolt home.

My Winchester, the rifle I first took with me into Equestria fifteen years ago, the rifle I learned to shoot with, glows and hums, scouring itself of dirt and grime and wear, until only the most-loved scratches remain. All in slow motion, I aim from my shoulder as I fall and past my hind legs, right into the ivory beam of death heading my way.

This is where I belong.

The bullet blossoms from the barrel in cascading arcs of brilliant purple light. It cuts through the Guardian’s spell, breaking through it with hardly a beat, before penetrating her mask and burying itself deep in her casing.

Then it explodes.

I look away, stars of a different sort in my eyes as I blink away the blast. Shards of ancient metal rain down all around, scattering into particles of golden dust that blow away in the fading wind.

Much to the offense of my dignity, I bounce once, then twice on the hill’s face before catching myself. My head is spinning, the world is spinning. Everything is spinning. I focus on my rifle, still clutched in a leg. It no longer glows, but parts of the mechanism have been somehow replaced by the same material as the Guardian’s body. Slowly, I slide it into my coat and out of sight and Vanish it.

Above me, the gentle flap of wings signals Priyana’s arrival from below. Her armor has been wrecked and her skin shows in places from where it’s been healed of blasts, and she tucks her hair back from her face as she looks down at me with a weighing gaze.

“It seems you have exceeded my expectations, Marcus Flores.” She kneels, presenting the Cup. “Drink, and rest. You have earned it. We will pick up the pieces.”

Oh, how I long to take a sip of that and to go visit Leit again, but there’s one thing I need more right now and I don’t want to waste it. “One piece is mine, first,” I mutter, pushing up. Priyana frowns and helps me to stand, then flaps her wings to aid me in my descent as I scan along the wreckage.

It could be anywhere, but a quick glance at the sky tells me all I need. The green star glitters over the house I’d trashed, and I limp along the slate until I find what I’m looking for. There, lodged in the rain gutter, lies a smoldering lump of something that looks like coal but isn’t. Testingly, I touch it with a hoof tip, then pick it up when I find that it’s merely unpleasantly warm.

“The nitor,” Priyana murmurs. “Legends speak of it as the ever-burning core of the Adversary’s legionnaires, forged from the heart of a living mortal consumed by their own need for revenge.”

“Well. Legends can be right sometimes.” I regard it for a bit, looking at it this way and that. After a moment’s consideration, after plumbing my feelings to see what intuition tells me the best choice is, I lift it up and swallow it.

“What are you doing?” Priyana demands, horrified.

I cough, tapping my throat and helping the lump down until it settles or breaks up. A gentle warmth suffuses my body, settling after a moment or two. “Preparing for the future,” I wheeze. “Cup, please?”

She rolls her eyes and sits next to me on the rooftop. I tilt my head back obligingly, and she pours the sacred water into me. It splashes over my face and body, swallowing me up, until I find myself drifting away in a current.

Aware, I think back on the last few evenings as I drift along the starry sea. Quite a few people died that shouldn’t. Wave Form’s leg was probably incinerated and there’s no way we could grow her a new one, maybe not even with the Cup or the Wand, lacking some divine healer. A whole lot of people got hurt, just because of a stubborn old soldier.

Yet, somehow, I find myself smiling. Maybe I could have done more, but I’d done the best I could.

And, finally, after so much hope lost, my best was just good enough.


* * * * * * *


> The Third Night - Part 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Wistful Heart


For a minute or two after the explosion, I can’t see a damned thing. I squeeze my eyes shut against and gaze at fulminating darkness until the spots start to fade, and then open my eyes to gaze out onto a blurry night filled with golden dust that slowly billows away. There’s no sign of Marcus, who until a minute ago had been a dark shape against the impossible brightness of the Guardian.

As my hearing returns, I can hear the distant thunder of the battle above the city, but even if I weren’t flat on my side I couldn’t do much to help them. My job here is done.

No, I remind myself, forcing my legs to work, pushing myself to roll to my belly. You’re not done until you see to those kids.

And so, favoring a hind leg, I carefully pick myself down the hill until I reach the spur where Rarity had fallen. Even as I do, Luster slides down and presses into his mother’s side, crying in mingled terror and relief.

“Shh… I’m okay, honey,” Rarity whispers soothingly, and begins to stroke her son’s side as he buries his face into her mane. “Look at you… a regular hero, just like your mom.”

“I was so scared. I’m not a hero, I’m not…”

“Yes you are, sweetheart.” She pulls him up and kisses his poll, then tucks him against her again. “You saved Wave Form. Speaking of… how did you do that? With the fire.”

“I-I don’t know,” he looks up, sparing a glance for me as I watch quietly. “Wave Form was in danger, and I just got so mad at being pushed around by that thing and the bad guy…”

“I think,” Talon says, gliding back and scooping his family up into his wings, “that I owe you an explanation.”

“You certainly do, Mister,” Rarity grumbles into his barrel. “Is your grandfather a dragon and you never told me?”

“Teensy bit.” He laughs. “My family’s lived on the coast of the dragon lands for ages. We picked up a few tricks, may have indulged in a little dragon blood now and again through the centuries.”

Luster’s yellow eyes glitter. “You mean, I really am a hero with a mysterious heritage, Dad?”

“Please, son, as if being the child of a princess isn’t enough.” He grins and ruffles Luster’s mane. “Let’s see the Senate deny our application now.”

“C’mere you,” Rarity grins and kisses him passionately, while trails of smoke rise into the sky from the many fires.

I clear my throat, and they don’t separate, but it’s Luster’s attention I wanted anyway. “Hey kid. Good job, but where’s Wave Form now?” I ask.

He blinks up at me uncomprehendingly, then looks around. “She was right here with me a moment ago!”

“She didn’t come down with you, I saw.” I glance up the way he came, seeing nothing but the scars on the limestone edifice.

“We have to find her!” he says, snapping his wings open and flying off.

Talon moves to follow, but Rarity traps him with her legs and shakes her head. “Let him have this one. He’s never been this brave before.”

He smiles and nestles right back down with her.

I set off on my own, returning to the top of the tower and looking for scratches or spots of blood. Just how far can a three-legged filly get on her own?

After ten minutes of following her trail, the answer is apparently “pretty damned far.” There’s no blood, but she leaves a scrape that suggests she’s dragging a bit, and wherever she stops there’s bits of glittering dust that puts me in mind of pyrite. By the time I find her, dragging a bag behind her by her teeth, she’s already at street level. I catch up to her while fire engines rush by overhead. “Hey. Wave,” I say and sweep her up in my magic. “Let’s get you to an ambulance. You shouldn’t be walking around with your injury.”

She yelps, flailing her legs and stump in the grip of my magic. “No, no, it’s okay! I’ve got it handled.”

I quirk a brow and push the bag open with a hoof, revealing a whole mess of glowing parts. Pieces of the Guardian that had fallen. Slowly, I set her down. “Where’d you get the bag?”

She blows hair out of her face, heavy with sweat and limestone dust. “I patched it together from my saddlebags.”

“Uh huh.” I pull out my radio. “Emergency services, I have an injured filly here with me. Her leg’s been amputated; I’ve staunched the bleeding, but she needs help right now.”

“No, no, it’s okay!” she says, waving her stump at me automatically. Right foreleg, of course.

Luster flashes down as a dispatcher responds in the positive, plowing into Wave Form. “I was so worried!” he cries, wrapping his wings around her. “Ah! Your leg! I’m so sorry!”

“Ugh! Would someone just… actually, Luster! It’s good that you’re here.” She squirms free and limps over to the bag, grabbing the bottom in her teeth to shake out the pieces. “I need your flame.”

“Wh-what?” he asks, eyes wide.

“Start melting!” she insists, then adds in a warmer tone, “Oh and thank you for saving me, you’re a real hero.”

She pecks him on the cheek and he reddens right down his neck. Then he reddens further as he draws fire up from himself. Fire gathers in his mouth and he spews a steady stream onto the gears, plates, wires, and little struts that had once made up the Guardian. One of the crystals bursts with a shower of multicolored sparks and I leap back with a startled “Holy Hel!” yanked from my lips. When it softens and begins to drip, Wave Form lights her horn and draws it out, shaping it before my eyes with a humming sound like a tuning fork. The young alicorn works on dozens of pieces independently, slotting in crystals.

Then she sits down, puts her left hoof to her wound, and rips the bandages off.

Really, I could intervene at any point, but I’ve learned a thing or two hanging around these people.

She screams, gasping and sucking in breath, before biting her lip and watching carefully as she lifts her bleeding stump. Slowly, carefully, the metal pieces begin to assemble, forming wires on one end before she slots it onto her arm and caps it, then building down from there, constructing a frame, then arraying it with actuators and a layer of thin plates that cover it without quite hiding the structure underneath. Finally, she tops it with a hoof, and ever so carefully leans forward, putting her weight on it. The gears within shift and turn slightly to adjust, and then she stands on all fours, beaming with immense pride.

“Just as I thought! It’s a living metal.” She lifts it up, sliding plates back and extending diamond-tipped tools from her calf. Against a streetlight, I can just make out a minuscule vascular system. “See? It has pseudo-organic properties. It might even grow with me!”

“You… you didn’t know for sure that would work?” Luster asks, turning pale, which with his coloring makes him look rather like a yellow-eyed ghost.

A little pale herself from blood loss, but certainly pleased with herself, Wave Form grins. “Well, yeah, a little! But I’d worked with it while I was reconstructing her, so I had a fair idea of what it could do.”

“Wouldn’t you have to eat that metal to get it to grow with you?” I ask skeptically.

“Nah, just its constituent elements. I think my body can do the rest.”

“Yeah, okay, sure, we’re going to get a second opinion on that.” My mane and tail stir as a white hospital VTOL lowers nearby. “For now, though… I’m impressed, squirt. You’re going to be something, I can tell. I don’t know if that’s going to be ‘mad scientist’ or ‘genius inventor’ just yet. Maybe a mix of both.”

She giggles and charges forward suddenly, thudding into my side and wrapping her limbs about me. I yelp, and Luster’s charge knocks me over. “Sto-o-op!” I protest as they nuzzle me aggressively, then sigh dramatically and wrap my own legs around the foals. I nuzzle at each of them and smile. “Okay… I give up. You two are awesome. Now… go get patched up, okay? You’ve lost a lot of blood if nothing else.”

They hug me one last time and submit to the attention of the paramedics as they arrive. One lays a blanket across my and I toss it back into his face. “I’m not in shock. I’m fine.”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he says through the blanket, “but you’re cut up and your leg needs looking at.”

“I’ll turn myself in soon,” I say, limping off. “I need to find something first.”

Walking through the street, I have to dredge at my memory considerably to remember where they’d blown. My coat I find flapping in the breeze on a community post board by a park, and the hat takes me back to a busted up house. The lady of the house is out sweeping up broken glass, and she smiles at me with a strained little look. “Are you here for your friend?” she asks.

“Which friend?” I ask.

“Marcus. He’s on the roof, I think.”

I glance up. “Yes, yes I am.”

“There’s a ladder propped up against the back. My husband gave up trying to board up the holes.” She tilts her ears forward. “Do you need help?”

“Nope. Thank you, citizen.” I make my way over and laboriously pull my way up the ladder, wincing whenever I have to lean on my strained thigh. Finally, I haul myself up to the top and find Marcus sleeping peacefully, while Priyana prays quietly over her Cup. Her eyes snap open at my approach and she flares her wings warningly, though once she sees it’s me she relaxes a bit.

“How’s he doing?” I ask, scanning the rooftop. Spying a dark shape in a tree, I reach out with my magic and yank my hat free from the branches, floating it over.

“Crazy. He ate the spirit of the angel.”

I fix it back on my head where it belongs, at least for now. “Why would he do that?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

I find myself smiling as I look down at him, for the first time in a while. “Well, on a night like this, we’re all a little crazy.”

“Indeed.” Her head tilts up. “The sky.”

“What about it?” I look up.

Above the city, a great hole opens in the swirling clouds to reveal a radiant mare of darkness. “Hark, people of Manehattan! Your Princess has arrived, and with her your salvation!”

Then the stars begin to fall. Revealed from behind the clouds, they twinkle brighter and brighter until streaks of scarlet, azure, gold, and silver fire descends like so much rain. It washes harmlessly against the shells of the airships and high rises, but where it touches chaos it tears through their bodies, enveloping them in pyrophoric destruction. Shrieking, burning, those who aren’t slain on the spot limp back to the sea, and only a few slip away or vanish into the clouds before Luna’s stern judgement finds and finishes them.

Even from here I can see the city’s defenders dancing in the streets. I wonder if Frank Napolitano is out there with his wife Fairweather, their unborn child kicking as it feels its mother’s excitement. I wonder if Violet Rose is throwing a party in her hospital bed, while Gerry mutters a grumpy hurrah. Someone went and turned the lights on at Coneigh Island; for a night like this, everyone will probably get to ride free.

Here and there, someone will be crying. There will be loss. There will be sorrow.

But the city lives, the peculiar creature that is our home keeps on another day.

I nestle down near Marcus’ unconscious form, the lights reflecting in my eyes. “Look what we did. Isn’t it beautiful?”

And maybe it’s a trick of light and shadow, but as I glance down at him again, I swear I see his lips quirk into a smile.


* * *


“Trace?” Violet Rose calls. “Could you fetch me… some more wine?”

I twitch an ear and leave the window behind. The streets far below are still packed and it isn’t even daybreak yet. The city that never sleeps isn’t ready to stop celebrating. I can’t help but marvel again at the size of Violet’s suite, passing by her living room furniture and going to the kitchen. There isn’t a chance in Helheim that she’s affording it on her salary alone. “Are you sure you should be having alcohol?”

“I’m sure I’ll do worse without it,” she calls, and beams as I return with a glass of red. Even with the enchanted harness helping her breathe, she seems perfectly comfortable. Painkillers are a hell of a thing. “There we go. Grab one for yourself… Luna knows I have plenty.”

“She well might, since she’s in town.” The door buzzes and I make my way over, pressing the handle. The door flies open and Lab Work pounces at me, her curls bouncing.

“Trace! You were wonderful out there!” she says, her tail wagging fiercely.

“See you got a badge of honor yourself,” I say, tapping the wrapping around her head.

She winces, rubbing it. “Yeah. Loose stone. I couldn’t walk for like an hour, but I got patched up all right. Speaking of, Gerry sends his love.”

“Does he really?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Yes, actually! Well, not love so much as grudging respect, but he says he’s still having you suspended.”

“That’s fine,” I say, leading her back to join Violet Rose. “I was thinking of leaving the force anyway.”

She gasps, but Violet smiles. “Guess who got offers from the Hippocrene?”

“And guess who just spoiled my surprise?” I shoot back tartly.

“Wait, what?” Lab Work looks at me incredulously. “Are you really?”

“Maybe.” I quirk a small smile. “That’s why I said I was thinking about it.”

We’re interrupted by another ring at the doorbell, and soon the guests begin to pile in. Friends of Violet’s, friends from the force. My own mother and father, who I can’t help but charge into and embrace. Rarity is radiant as she steps into the apartment with a gorgeous dress that catches the lights in its gemstones, her beauty marred not at all by a wing in a splint, and Talon is handsomely cut wearing nothing at all. Luster enters with Wave Form, and literally glows as the assembled adults marvel at her prosthetic.

Violet Rose smiles as I finally accept a glass of wine from her and brush my hoof through my hair, feeling painfully exposed in public without my hat and coat. Still, I’d resolved not to hide behind my shell, not after what I’ve been through.

“I’ll miss you, you know,” she says, sliding her hock around mine.

I glance down and smile wanly. “I haven’t made up my mind, yet.”

“Mm…” She searches my eyes. “No, not yet. You’re almost there, though. You know, ever since you entered Homicide, I’d been wondering when I’d see the real you again.”

“Oh? How is she?”

“Teetering.” She giggles and pulls me in for a nuzzle. “You were a good partner.”

“No I wasn’t,” I laugh, sipping my wine as I watch the others have their fun. “How many times did I ditch you or ignore you?”

“Sometimes you made the right decision in ignoring me, but, yes, you actually were pretty terrible as a partner.”

“What about you, then?” I lean against the side of the chair.

“I’ve still got good years left in me, but I think I’ll go back to teaching eventually.” She nestles deeper into her pillows. “We’ll see. And don’t worry, he’ll show up.”

I glower down at her. “Don’t you get any ideas.”

“Who, me? Perish the thought.”

Still, I can’t help but remain unsettled as I sit and watch the celebration. It’s not that I’m tired, either. This is how I always feel, a little alone, a little lost. My parents never understood it, Violet only glimpsed it, but…

“Excuse me,” a new voice says from the balcony. She towers over the gathered ponies, and smiles shyly as they all start to bow, all but for Rarity and little Wave Form. “Is this the apartment of Violet Rose? I received an invitation.”

“Come right in, Princess,” Violet calls, doing a good job of keeping her raw reverence out of her voice. “Help yourself to some wine. Food’s along the back table.”

“Oh, I don’t drink. I couldn’t possibly…” Princess Luna murmurs as she steps in. She looks around at the smiling party-goers and her own widens a little bit more. “Maybe just a little.”

She makes her way over to Wave Form first, though, offering a hoof. The filly extends her mechanical leg out and takes it in quiet wonder.

“So this is the little one about whom so much sound and thunder has been made of. I welcome you to your destiny, my young friend.”

Wave Form’s face splits in a grin. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Princess.”

Her parents cry silent tears of pride, then blanch in horror as she boldly pushes forward and nuzzles up at Luna affectionately. The Princess laughs and sweeps her midnight wings about her, holding her close.

And if Marcus thought he could sneak in with goblin magic while everyone was paying attention to the Princess without anyone noticing, he’s clearly forgotten what an excellent detective I am; when you’re always paying attention, it’s easy to spot someone pushing through a solid wall. I pad up to him while he helps himself to the salmon salad.

“Still playing it cool, cowboy?”

He jumps in a wholly satisfactory way, and cranes his neck to grin at me. “I didn’t want to make a big scene. There’s a lot of people who deserve a spotlight here besides me.”

“So share it.” I shrug. “Or don’t. I don’t really care. All I know is that you have a lot of friends over there, many of whom would like to thank you personally.”

He looks up. A different Marcus from a world away – otherwise known as a day ago – would have hesitated, maybe felt a tremor in his limbs, but this Marcus, the one who saved the day, offers an embarrassed grin and passes me his plate. “Hold onto this.”

I do, watching him go as he intermingles. He cracks jokes, embraces his friends, carries Wave Form and Luster.

He’s happy, without reservation.

Like me, though, he eventually filters off, not quite saying goodbye, but definitely parting from the herd. He makes his way back over to my side and I return his plate as we head out to the balcony.

This high up, it’s bitingly cold, but neither of us particularly mind. I lean up against the rail and watch the city. Neither of us speak for a while, either; we just enjoy the view and the food and the wine.

“So,” I say at last, “I heard you ate the Guardian.”

“Yeah.”

“Seems a little weird.”

He grins sheepishly and rubs one foreleg against the other. “I had the strangest feeling that I should do it.”

“Is that it? A feeling?” I glance at him.

“I felt like she deserved a chance to live a life of her own,” he says in a quiet voice, looking over the left rail at the pillar she’d made on the other side of the river, then forward to look at the ocean to the east. “One where people loved her instead of feared her.”

“Is Leit Motif going to be okay with that?”

“I think so.” He smiles. “It may take us a while to be ready for it, but yeah, I think so.”

I can’t help it. I slide off the rail and press into his side. Wordlessly, he wraps his wing around me.

“Thank you,” I murmur. “For everything.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” He noses at his mane. “Thank me when you’re free.”

“Free?”

“Yeah. Free.” He smiles. “Go on, Trace. You have a whole world out there waiting for you. You’ve outgrown this place – and your apartment. You know what you want, so go get it.”

I take a deep breath and slide back. I toss my mane and look out at the horizon. “I’m still not sure I can do it like you said. Keep things pure in my heart, even when I see the real thing. People or places, whatever.”

“You saw into my heart. The hearts of a lot of people. Do you feel any lesser for it?”

I smile wanly. “Just… one question, then.”

“Shoot.”

I look up at him. “Did you make it? Are you an alicorn?”

“Heh,” he turns back to the city, looking up at the clear sky, where the green star shines down watchfully. “You know the term magnum opus?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“It’s not just a literary thing; it’s the story of your life. It’s your own legend, the thing that makes you, just you, unique among all the others in the world, and for some people it’s a harder thing to follow than it is for others. For some, the whole universe throws itself against you, and after you take enough good, hard hits to the face with a brick wall, you find yourself wanting to back down, to take it easy for a few years and tell yourself that you’ll climb that mountain one day. For some people, grasping divinity is the hardest thing in the world, and it isn’t always a rewarding journey.

“But I’m walking it. No… I’m flying it.”

He spreads his wings and steps out onto the rail, perched there over the dizzying drop to the concrete canyon blow. His mane and tail whip in the wind, and I swear for an instant I see his eyes gleam in return.

“I don’t know what I am yet, but I’m not giving up. Not anymore. I’m going to see my legend through no matter what it takes.”

I hold my hoof up to keep my hair back as I gaze at him quietly. “Me too,” I whisper. My heart swells, beating furiously.

He smiles, brushes his lips against mine once, and leaps off into the sky.

“Goodbye,” I say, the wind carrying my words. Then I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, turn, and walk back inside.

I head right for the couch where the Knights gather. The Adherent is in awful shape, with patched burn marks and a broken leg, and Saria is missing a chip in one of her ears, while Marble Stone and Priyana are remarkably unscathed. It’s weird seeing the Cup Knight out of armor. She looks entirely uncomfortable with it, but is doing her best to relax in a cotton shirt with holes cut for her wings. She looks up at my intent stare and nods.

“I see your heart, Trace Prints. Are you ready?”

I nod. “Now or never.”

She rises while the other three quiet, and moves to kneel before me. I lower myself as well, in honor of the gift she’s offering.

“Drink deep,” she says, “and embrace your desires.”

I stare into the glowing water for a while. Instead of my reflection, I see everything holding me back, chaining my heart to this place. I see my own fears. But if I look deeper, far, far below the surface, I see a city gleaming up at me.

Reaching forward, I tilt the Cup forward and place my lips to the lid. I sip, then tilt it further and drink full-throatedly, more and more.

Behind Priyana, peeking over the horizon on a beautiful green ocean, the sun dawns on a new day.


* * * * * * *

> Dawn of the Fourth Day - Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Old Warhorse


I don’t know where I am.

It doesn’t matter, really. One place is as good as another at this point. Any patch of land or water can serve as a shallow grave in a pinch. There’s good, muddy earth under my back and I can taste the sea on the breeze. Leaves rustle at the corners of my vision, and all the world is the starry night.

Before I can die, though, light touches the horizon, chasing away the stars, and in a ray that pierces the trees she arrives, fading in as if from a dream.

“All I want to know is why, Redbud,” she says, her voice low, hurt.

“For love of you, Celestia, and of this country.”

She lowers her head, for once seeming her age in a way she hadn’t since the Bridle first left her brow. To be a part of that pain is to die just a little inside. No mare can be as beautiful as she, as noble and pure.

“You know what has to happen.”

Without really being able to nod, I pull my head up slightly and let it fall in silent acknowledgement.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” she says, almost pleading. “You could have worked with us. The world isn’t as hopeless as you seem to feel. Think of everything you’ve seen in the past few days. Can’t you see?”

I watch as the sky continues to brighten. Birds wing boldly overhead, wheeling in swirls of bright color before moving on.

“Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. “Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.”

She steps forward, her eyes questioning.

“It’s from the Iliad,” I say. “I was thinking about the boy. Marcus.”

“What of him?” She settles beside me. “A brave and heroic young man, to be sure, but why do you think of him in such a way?”

“No man. Not anymore.” I sigh and close my eyes. “Him, and Wave Form, and your students, and so many others. The old clears away, so that the new might meet the sun and thrive. They will protect the world, where I could not. I’m too prejudiced, too hateful and cruel. Too covered in blood. You need them, Celestia.”

Her wing settles around me and she pulls me up against her barrel.

“Yes, I do…” She brushes at my side. “Maybe it’s not too late for you.”

“Eternal optimism, my Princess.”

Green light fills the clearing, and Daphne Ocean steps out, coming to my opposite side.

“Where will you take him?” Celestia asks.

“Away. He will learn, or he won’t.” Daphne smiles sadly. “Even I can’t see that. But he at least has a chance.”

Celestia nods and looks back to me. “Whether you like it or not, Redbud – Helios – you’re part of that world, too. Maybe as a mortal you had nowhere left to grow, but as an alicorn you can be young again. You can change. Come back to me, if you do.”

I don’t answer. I can’t answer. What could I say to convince her to let me die?

Nothing. She’s Celestia.

She never quits on her little ponies.

“All right.” Celestia nods, stepping aside. “Take him.”

Green light swallows me, tunneling through space. I glimpse the Tree, a radiant bole of light supporting a canopy of stars and rooted in the black ocean of the tabula rasa.

I don’t know where I’m going, but as I close my eyes and wait, I see Marcus again. For just a moment, I remember what it’s like to be young, to know in your heart that you can do anything.

He even thought he could save me. He pleaded with me to see his way, right to the end.

What happens to me doesn’t really matter. All that does matter is that the world I leave behind has someone who can do what I couldn’t, that it has a whole class of people who can do what I thought was impossible, all because I didn’t have it in me anymore to believe.

They can change the world.


THE END