//------------------------------// // Act 3 Chapter 34: Those Are Brave Ponies Knocking At Our Door // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------// "It is war, Prime Minister. I have fought many and this will not be the last before our species grow enough within themselves that war is unnecessary. I sincerely believe that time is coming, but until it has arrived, I will not lay down and let my people be devoured by the tides of misfortune, nor hamstring our military because your masters find this method too effective. When you wish to see the Crusaders rest their armaments, you will end this war and accept that I have already sued for peace four times. I would prefer not to see a world without dragons. -Princess Celestia, during the Mount Firehorn conference, to the draconic delegate, Blade Fist. Unfortunately, Blade Fist died during his return trip to the Firelands and failed to deliver the Princess' warning, further escalating the Crusades How much can a pony take before they curl up in a catatonic ball and wait for the nice doctors to bring their happy pills? No idea. I’m sure I was close to the limit. I could definitely hear screaming coming from somewhere inside my head, but knowing it was coming from my own brain probably counted as a good sign. That old saw about ‘crazy ponies don’t know they’re crazy’ was somewhat comforting, especially to one who was certain he was insane, but the contradictions were a little exhausting to navigate. For instance, my demented psychology was telling me that by some hideously unlikely chain of events I’d found myself in the bottom-most basement of an age-old house of horrors with an animated skeleton—who claimed to be the original owner of the Crusader—chained to an altar. Of course, only a mad pony could believe something like that and as we all know the easiest way of restarting a broken psyche is percussive maintenance. ---- Lily regained consciousness sometime around the eighth or ninth time my head hit the altar. The pain wasn’t improving the hideous collection of coincidences my life had become, but watching me try to bash my own brain out did, at least, seem to calm her down enough to just sit and stare. “Lady, your colt is bleeding,” the skeleton said, setting itself down on its haunches with a clank of twisted chain. “Y-yes,” Lily mumbled, carefully keeping the creature in the edge of her vision and not looking directly at him as she watched me slam my head against the side of the altar over and over again. “He do this often?” “I...I don’t know,’ she replied, backing away slowly as she levitated her shotgun. “W-why do...why am I talking to you?! Swift, why are you not shooting it?! Why am I not shooting it!?” “It’s a skeleton!” Swift squeaked. “I have bullets and ice! What’re those gonna do?!” She paused for a minute, then took a step closer. “Sir? Could you stop h-hurting yourself for a minute? I’m sort of freaking out here and you’re not h-helping.” Maybe it was the hysteria in their voices, or maybe I’d finally found the particular neuron that was misfiring and jolted it back to life. Wrenching my head up, I sat down hard, wiping blood out of my eyes with the back of my leg. “Right! You! Dead pony! Why are you dead?! Answer or be annihilated by my weapon designed for annihilating dead things!” I demanded, pointing my leg at him. Unfortunately, it was the leg without my revolver on it. I had the feeling that, if the skeleton still had eyebrows, he’d have lifted one at me. Leaning to one side, he peered at the side of my revolver. “You’ve got that in stealth mode, colt. That means forty-fives only. If you think that will break whatever magic is binding me in these bones, go right ahead,” he rumbled, gesturing at himself with one chained leg. “It can’t be any worse than being stuck here.” Slowly, my mind was starting to take stock. The stock it was taking was mostly rubber ducks and whoopie cushions, but it was a sort of stock and better than gibbering in a corner. That said, for a talking skeleton, he didn’t seem especially threatening, though that might have been the chains which wound around his ankles and sank into the altar itself. He was wearing the remains of an ancient sports jacket and gun harness. No wings, no horn. Earth pony then. Maybe zebra. It was hard to tell. “Look, I’ve had a really rough day already,” I said, unable to keep a hint of desperation out of my voice. “A hydra attacked the truck and a crazy mare tore its genitalia off and mounted them on the roof. That was after the police department was attacked by demons. Could you just not?” “Not what, colt?” “Not...not whatever you’re going to do to scare the pants off me!” I threw my hooves in the air and turned around, marching over and sitting down beside Swift. The skeleton reached up as though to scratch his mane, then stared at his own leg-bone as he remembered his mane was long gone, before letting it drop. “If you already came down here without the pants scared off you, there’s nothing I can do for your sense of self-preservation, colt. What I do need to know is if you can get back to the city of Detrot. You need to take an air chariot to Canterlot, then request an audience with Princess Luna. Give my access codes to the guards and tell them—” “Canterlot’s gone, the sun is gone, the Princesses are trapped on the moon, we live under an eternal eclipse that will kill everyone, and you did not answer my question!” I snapped, stomping on the stone floor. “I’ve had enough for one day, and I would like a simple, reasoned explanation for why you are dead. Or undead. Whatever! Who are you? You can’t be who I’m thinking you are, because then I have gone well and truly nutbar!” “Sir...you’re ranting,” Swift muttered. “Of course I’m ranting!” I snarled, rounding on her. “Do you have any idea who this is?!” She slowly nodded while Lily just looked back and forth between us. “Um...c-could s-somepony clue me in please, because I’m...I’m pretty sure I wet my tail...” I sniffed at the air, then shut my eyes. “There’s a bathroom upstairs. If we survive the next twenty minutes, you can wash off. Just...sit tight.” Hugging herself, she lowered her ears and sat down. “Are...are we likely to survive? It’d make me feel better if you just said it...” “I have no idea! We’re off-playbook here! Hey! Undead pony. Are you planning on killing us?” “I hadn’t thought about it, no, but then you haven’t told me who you are. Don’t know if that crap about the ‘Princesses gone’ is a screw popping loose in your brain box, but I know for damn sure I haven’t seen a raggedy little stallion like you in the last however many years they’ve had me locked up down here,” the skeleton said. “Only thing familiar about you is that...that…eh...huh...” He trailed off and leaned away from the three of us. He didn’t have an expression to read, but his body language still spoke volumes. “Say it, dammit!” I barked. “We’ve both been thinking it, so just say it!” “Well, don’t that just beat all,” he said, softly, his fleshless tail slapping the altar. “I was about to say ‘that voice’. Sounded just the same when I was young. Strange thing, hearing somepony else speaking it, but...no question. You wouldn’t happen to be related to a ‘Hard Boiled’ would you?’ “Of course I am!” I snarled, pacing in little circles in front of the altar. “Who else would I be related to?! Pissing flank monkey cheese bastard son of a whoring—” Something that was somehow very fluffy and incredibly hard clipped me across the side of the head, and I momentarily lost track of up and down. Wind whistled through my ears briefly, before I found ‘down’ again, sprawling face first on the stinking stone floor. Lying there, I felt the madness recede a little, clinging to the sharp pain in my muzzle like a life raft in a wild ocean. “W-why did you do that?” a kindly voice stammered from somewhere nearby. “Is he okay?” “Miss Taxi told me I should do this if he flips out like that,” another voice replied. “I thought it was weird, too, but it actually works.” “Harumph. Must run in the family,” a third commented. “Had a fillyfriend in the war who used to kick the crap out of me when I’d have one of my ‘episodes’. Ended up marrying her. Probably the best decision I ever made. Speaking of cute fillies, never did get your names, Miss?” “I...um...I’m Swift, Sir. Officer Swift, of the Detrot Police Department. This is Mister Hard Boiled, and that’s Lily Blue. Who are you?” I shoved myself up on my knees and flopped over onto my side, bopping myself on the side of the head a few times until my eyes refocused. “He’s Hard Boiled,” I grumbled, before the skeleton could reply. “The first one. He’s my grandfather.” Swift’s muzzle wrinkled as she scratched the side of her head. “I don’t think I hit you that hard, Sir. I thought your grandfather was dead.” “He is dead! He’s just talking to us!” I replied. The skeleton’s gaze followed me as I got to my hooves, stuffing a hoof in my pocket and retrieving one of the stolen liquors. “Hrmph. Junior. That’s what your daddy called you, wasn’t it? Same as I called him when he was just a little thing,” the undead pony mused. “Surprise, grandpa! Turns out the whole family is as dumb and crazy as you are. Were. Speaking of that, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle say ‘Hello’.” I lifted my mask an inch so I could pull the bottle’s cork with my teeth and then take a deep draught. It was a sweet whiskey that would have cost me two legs on a good day, but I couldn’t make myself care just then. “I’m not surprised those three are still alive. Or maybe real surprised. Depends on the day of the week. Well, if you’re not going to shoot me a few times to make yourself feel better, could I convince you to bust these chains?” he said, giving the metal links around all four of his legs a good shake. “I don’t imagine my soul has much juice left in it, and even without a nose, this place still smells like a grave. The Family aren’t much for conversation, and I imagine they’re looking to stick me in the wall with those other poor fools pretty soon.” Walls. Right. All those skeletons Swift said were showing up as targets. Melted skeletons, with souls trapped inside them. Mercy, that was a thought I didn’t need to have just then. It was one big, ugly puzzle piece, though. The silence became quickly pregnant until I heard a soft click. Yanking my head up, I found Swift standing beside the altar, slotting one of the keys from the key ring into the shackles around the corpse’s legs. “You could have waited for me to make that decision, kid,” I muttered as the skeleton shook off the chains, rubbing one deeply-rutted leg with the other as though he could still feel something like pain. Swift rolled her eyes and moved on to the next shackle. “Sir, I’m just saving us some time. We both know what you were going to do. I hate being down here, and Lily is covered in pee. You can brood later, okay?” That got a weak smile out of me as I popped the cork back into the bottle. “I’m telling your grandmother that I’m rubbing off on you.” “Then she’ll just kill both of us.” As the last of the manacles came loose, Hard Boiled Senior shook a thick layer of dust from his ruined sports jacket and took a shaky step down from the altar. Stopping there, he glanced down at himself, then let out a breathy sigh that kicked up a cloud of dirt around his hooves. “Huh. Part of me hoped the magic might break as soon as I got off that thing. Damn.” Touching his chest with one toe, he took a couple of hobbling steps. “You never realize how much you miss a walk until you can’t have one. First thing I’m doing once I’m out of here is finding a nice garden and having a good roll in the grass.” “You’ll find the grass out there a little grey at the moment,” I grumbled. “Well, pardon me if I’m a tad pleased to be off that rock. Not exactly the finest accommodations, if you get my meaning. Might have spent most of the last however many decades asleep, but that doesn’t mean I happen to enjoy waking up with a cramp.” Stretching his non-existent muscles, he extended one skinless back leg, then the other, before rearing back and shadowboxing the air a bit. As he dropped back onto all fours, he turned to me. “So! Can’t exactly call you ‘Junior’, though I bet your father loved to lay that one on you, same as I laid it on him. I doubt your friends would take kindly to calling both of us ‘Hard Boiled’ or ‘Hardy’. Egg Head’s been dead for thirty years. Heh! Why don’t you call me ‘Bones’?” Swift snorted, fluffing her wings out from her sides. “Bones? Really?” “If you think of a better one, you be sure to let me know, Miss Swift,” he answered, spinning in a little circle as he inspected the walls. “Mind you, I’m still waiting for a party cannon to go off and one of the Family to pop out with a ‘You’re still screwed!’ sign. Never thought it’d be my own grandson pulling me out. The Crusaders sent you?” “Oh, no, we are not doing question and answer time in this pit full of dead bodies with souls trapped in them!” I cut in. After about three seconds, my own words played back through my head, and I gave myself a solid mental kicking. I didn’t have to turn around to know who owned that gradually-building hysterical whimper. I wheeled in place, catching Lily as she started to slowly back toward the door, her eyes darting left and right like a wild animal looking for an easy escape route. “Okay, sweetheart...be calm. Take a breath. Nothing dangerous in here.” “T-there’s a living skeleton down here!” she squeaked. “How is that not dangerous?!” “Yes, but he’s friendly, so we’re going to be very, very calm, not turn around, and take a couple of steps away from that wall…” No, I wasn’t thinking when I opened my big, fat muzzle. Yes, I did actually say those words out loud and to a pony on the verge of a panic attack. No, I didn’t think it through any more thoroughly than I did the earlier statement about a pit full of bodies. Yes, I really am that thick. Before I could stop her, Lily’s horn lit up, and she shined it across the nearest wall. I followed her eyes as the circle of light projected from her forehead centered on the first definable shape sprouting from the horrific mess of hardened bone: a tiny skull and four little legs melted into the surface. One of the poor unfortunate’s forelegs seemed to be reaching out for us, as though asking to be pulled from the mass of decayed bodies. The shotgun dropped onto the ground as her magic flickered out, leaving us with only the disturbing red glow “Swift, grab her!” I shouted, but it was too late. Swift lunged, but Lily—sweet little farm girl that she is—had quite the set of legs on her when she was of a mind and my partner’s wings were too large to get any lift in a space that small. My partner hit the wall beside the door and flopped nose over flank onto the ground. In three seconds, Lily had vanished into the pylon’s tunnel and around the curve. A terrified whinny echoed back down as the enchanted fear crashed down on her. We all stood there stupidly for about ten seconds, looking back and forth at one another before Bones smacked his hoof against his forehead with a soft *clunk* noise. “Well, might as well go get her. You cleared the building, right, colt? Don’t remember much of what’s up there, but it can’t have changed much since I found this sky-forsaken pit.” “Dammit, Lily,” I cursed, then made for the tunnel, pausing to help Swift to her hooves and sling the shotgun onto my back. “Bones, or whatever we’re calling you. You want out, watch our tails and don’t do anything disturbing.” My grandfather looked down at himself, running a toe down his own rib-cage and producing a noise like a xylophone being played with a steel pipe. “You mean besides being a member of the living dead?” he asked. “Including reminding me of that!”          ---- The second time through the dark hole was, if anything, even worse. It was as though the fear didn’t really want to let us go. My heart beat in my ears like it was going to pop at any second and sweat poured off my sides, but I forced myself to keep to an even trot. Swift grabbed my tail in her teeth, which can’t have been especially delicious, but it was enough to keep her moving. Bones seemed unaffected, humming a merry little tune that instantly found my last nerve and started doing a jig on it. Every now and again I’d make out some sound from far ahead of us that might have been my imagination, or just the building shifting, or the terrified shrieks of a mare being devoured by an evil house. Hard to say. When the end of the tunnel came into view, I couldn’t help picking up speed, and the instant we were out of the pylon, the door slid silently shut, cutting off the blinding stink. The fear went with it, and it was as though a fifty ton weight had lifted off my lungs. I ripped off the camphor and mint oil mask. “Phew!” Swift wheezed as she wadded her own up. “Sir, could I convince you to shoot me in the nose? Just the nose. I think it’d make our jobs much easier if we never smelled anything ever again…” “Only if you’ll do it for me, too, kid,” I replied, wiping sweat from my eyes. Lily wasn’t in the tunnel, but now that we were out of the muffling effect of the pylon, I could hear weeping from somewhere ahead. “Is...is there anything we can do for all those poor souls, Sir?” Swift asked. I glanced at Bones, who was toying with one of the supports as though he’d never seen something quite so interesting in all his life. He saw me from the corner of what amounted to his eye and lifted his head. “It it’s answers you want, you’ll have to find the chickenshit necromancer who did this to me,” he said, “I still don’t know how I’m talking. but if this body lasts any length of time, I’ll be heading out to the zebra lands for a question and answer session with one of their tribe leaders. Probably at gunpoint.” “Then until we can do something intelligent about this, I’m leaving well enough alone,” I replied, moving off toward the other end of the passage. “We don’t need an army of pissed off skeletons chasing us. Where’s Lily, kid?” Swift lifted her head and flicked her eyes back and forth at the ceiling. “She’s above-—” She hesitated, then took a few steps back and looked again. The Hailstorm’s turrets let out an eager little purr and began spinning in their housings. “Oh ponyfeathers! Sir, I have...at least twelve targets, not including Lily.” My ears laid back against my head. “Twelve?” “Standard size for a PACT unit,” Swift added, biting her lower lip. “They’re not moving. At least four of them are far enough above us I’d say they’re either in the trees or on the roof. It’s...it’s an ambush formation.” Her nose wrinkled, and then she drooped a little. “Sir...I...I think one of them has Lily.” For a moment, it felt like an icy wind had blown right up my tail. I’d promised to protect her. Of course, they’d want a hostage if the goal was to take us alive. More than anything, they’d want me. I gnawed on my lower lip, considering our options. “Problem, colt?” Bones asked, trotting a little closer to hear our exchange. “Only insofar as we have some company and I’m pretty sure they just snatched our driver,” I grunted, unlimbering the shotgun and making sure it was loaded. “Hrmph. Can’t say as I expect the Family to take too kindly to you being here,” he mused, peering at the gun with what might have been amusement. “If the last time is any indication, I tripped something on the way in. There were six big’uns waiting for me. Might have handled that number with yon Crusader, but...wasn’t exactly an option. Doubt it’ll be an option even with a shiny piece like that.” “You’re going to tell me about this ‘Family’ when we get out of here, but first I want to know who sent these apes,” I replied, shoving the shotgun in his direction. “I don’t know if you’ve ever fought PACT troopers before, but they’re a tough bunch. We need one alive and eleven dead or incapacitated. You remember how a trigger works?” Bones took the shotgun and expertly flipped it around, checked the action, then flicked the safety off. “Killed plenty of griffin monster hunters in my day. Twelve against three in a firefight on enemy ground while they’ve got a civilian hostage. Been there, done that. At the time, though, my backup was a little more capable than a dead soldier who hasn’t held a gun since you were in diapers and a filly who looks like she just got home from her cute-ceañera.” Swift frowned at him, and he added, “No offense, sweetheart.” Swift flashed her sharp canines at Bones and replied in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “None taken, Sir.” “One day, you’ll have to tell me the story of those teeth, missy,” he said, eyeing her teeth. “Still, it’s a moot point. Crusader won’t work without rounds—” I tugged the crystal cartridge out of my pocket, letting it dangle by its lanyard. “You mean a few of these?” “Hot damn! Now there’s a thing! Thought I buried the last of those in Junior’s backyard! Scoots try to show you how to use it? Mine has a few extra settings, mind you—” I popped my gun’s breech open and tipped out the forty-fives into my hoof, then pocketed them. “Nope. She mostly tried to convince me I shouldn’t. Never a better time to learn, though.” Bones drew back a little. “You wanna give yourself a brain aneurysm, colt?! That thing’ll kill you dead if you go into a fight without knowing the ins and outs! If you met Scootaloo, I know she at least told you that!” I looked down at the switch on the side and sighed. “Look, grandpa, you know that girl? The scared little farm filly who just got captured? Her sister died leading us out here. There are twelve sons of whores upstairs who are going to kill us, then kill her, then kill the entire world, and I don’t have time to explain what I mean by that to you. I’ve got a very, very dangerous unicorn sitting in a truck up the road, but I’ve no idea if they managed to kill her and these police walkie-talkies never work underground. You can either show me how this gun operates, then we go upstairs, or you can go get back on your rock. Which do you want to do?” Sweeping his stubby remains of a tail under himself, my grandfather sat and looked me up and down. “You know, I didn’t wake up this morning expecting to be rescued, then immediately get into a firefight, colt. I assume there’s a reason you’re fighting them, and I expect to be filled in at some point, but I’d like to think the universe isn’t quite that malicious.” I swept a leg sideways in the direction of the pylon. “Surprise, surprise! It’s precisely that malicious, and if I told you half of what I’ve done just today, you might crawl your bony backside right back in there with your friends. Now, are you coming?” His chin dipped a little, and I got the feeling he was frowning at me, or would if his jaw worked. “Hrmph! Suppose I can’t stop you from using that thing, and I’d hate to think how a Crusader might mix with necromancy. Not too complicated, really. Pop the breech, load it, turn the switch to the ‘sun’ setting, and try not to hate whoever you’re killing. Oh, and don’t eat anything while it’s loaded, or you’ll regret it.” “That’s the least helpful set of instructions I think I’ve ever received,” I groused. “Probably the dumbest thing you’ve ever done, too.” Swift opened her muzzle, but I reached over and pushed it shut before she could argue the point. Time, then, to see the shape of our enemy. ---- It should be noted that Grandpa Boiled was correct.