The three of us flew Tin Mare towards the forest where Flurry Heart’s kidnapper had vanished.
“Cadance, I need you on the FLIR. Shining, get on that door gun. We’re going in hot and fast - not a sex pun - and we’re going to murder that asshole - also not a sex pun.”
“Why did you even assume we thought they were sex puns?” Candance demanded.
“I just figured, since you were the Princess of Love. At any rate, I’m sure you’ll agree that this is a very delicate mission with no room for error, so I wanted to be as clear as possible.”
“Why did you even assume I know how to use this?” Shining demanded, gesturing to the machine gun mounted on a pintle at Tin Mare’s side door.
“I just thought that you’d been with us enough to have picked it up.” I shrugged. “Pardon me for assuming your competence.”
He grumbled, and I said, “Just pull the bolt back. It’s already belted up.” Shining did, surprising us both that he managed it.
“Ten seconds until overhead,” Tin Mare intoned.
She flared and we came into a hover over the trees.
“I have heat on the monitor,” Cadance called. “Don’t shoot! That could be Flurry!”
It looked like we would have to do this the hard way. I clipped into the fast rope and went out the door. After zipping to the ground, I found a rather deranged stallion tied up with black rope and Flurry sitting nearby.
Cadance landed just behind me and instantly scooped up Flurry. “There you are! I’ve been so worried!”
Shining awkwardly fast roped down beside me. He saw that Flurry was safe, and then looked at the tied up pony. “Who’s this?”
I pulled the gag out of his mouth. “You saved me!” he gasped. “That monster-”
Cadance looked like she wanted to say that Flurry was a perfect little angel, but we all knew that wasn’t true.
Shining said to the pony on the ground, “How did you get here?”
“I was just minding my own business, and there was this guy. He beat me up and tied up the ropes. He left the baby.”
“What did he look like?” Shining asked, untying him.
The stallion got up. “This is going to sound crazy.”
“Try us,” I said.
“He looked like a horse.”
I cracked up laughing.
“We should be going,” said Cadance.
“Hey wait,” said the stallion. He pointed. “Are you going to eat that?”
There was a moment of silence as the rest of us stared at him.
“The baby,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Did you take the baby?” I pressed. “And only then did the guy beat you up?”
“Right. Can I have her?”
Shining slugged him across the face, knocking him clear off his hooves. “You want to eat my daughter?!”
“Oh, she’s yours? Oops.” He looked as sheepish as possible while bleeding profusely.
“Why?” Shining demanded, threatening him with his hoof.
“Well, the virgins taste the best.”
Shining and Cadance looked sick. Cadance said, “Are you some sort of vampire?”
“No.”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “I see your point, but just...well, Jesus Christ.”
“What do you mean you see his point?” Shining demanded.
“Well, I see why he wanted virgins. Don’t get me wrong, it’s horrible and disgusting-” if he wasn’t a vampire, and even if he was it kind of still was “-but I know why he wanted a virgin. It’s like a sandwich. You will probably like eating it better if someone hasn’t had sex with it.”
“Right, see, this guy gets it,” the cannibal pedo said.
“Tin Mare, fire.”
There was the report of a 30mm gatling gun and the guy turned into pink mist.
“Let’s go,” Cadance insisted forcefully. She flapped her wings and flew back up towards Tin Mare, her horn glowing to pull Shining along.
I stood there for a moment more. Who had tied up the virgin-muncher before we arrived? He’d said it was some guy who looked like a horse.
As I stood there in the darkening forest, a jolt of realization came to me. When trying to catch evildoers, specifically the serial killer running loose, I’d caught glimpses of a mysterious pony wearing a cape. What if there was someone else out there also hunting the killer? A masked vigilante?
Batman? Er, Horse Stallion?
What a fascinating theory.
I was kind of pissed it wasn’t me, actually, but I was pretty sure Santa wouldn’t approve.
I grabbed the rope. “Lift.” Tin Mare winched me back up.
We flew back to Ponyville. Upon arrival, Cadance and Shining thrust Flurry into Twilight’s hooves. “Here, you’re probably the safest to leave her with. We need some quiet time.” They left.
Twilight looked at me. “What was that all about?”
“Some guy tried to eat her. We took care of him.”
Twilight looked like she wanted to ask, but then Flurry puked.
I quietly slipped away to avoid any responsibility of cleanup. The flight back hadn’t been that rough.
I encountered Bible on the way out of the library. He was a bible.
“Working hard or hardly working?” I said. I hoped dad jokes weren’t part of my new repertoire as a supposed nice guy.
“Twilight’s give me a job around here, though I think you knew that already,” he said. He was organizing the shelves.
Bible paused. “Oh, a griffon was in here earlier asking about you. I gave her your card.”
I’d left a small stack of my business cards on the front table in the library. Twilight kept trying to throw them away, so I kept leaving them.
“Did this griffon say what she wanted?” I asked.
“No.” Bible shrugged.
I said goodbye and went outside. The local mobile farmers’ market was in town. Well, I guess if it was mobile it wasn’t really local. Anyway, it was a train. It had a lot of fruits and vegetables, natural stuff, but a few home-crafted items and goodies as well. Lots of grapes, for some reason.
I went over and picked up a bunch. I’d never had grape tequila before. It was probably terrible, but you don’t know until you try.
Or I could get some help from an outside source. I walked into my command center and picked up the phone. “Hey Wachowski, how is grape tequila?”
Wachowski, Santa Claus’ secretary, said, “How should I know?”
“I just thought with the eggnog mixed drinks, and the fruitcake, and the general merriment, you would be the expert. Don’t tell me you’re not fun.”
“I’m not fun.”
“No, seriously.”
“I don’t know anything about tequila, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you! When are you going to figure out that this is not a phone number you can call whenever you feel like it?!”
“The big guy literally told me to call whenever I feel like it.”
“He was being nice. It’s his job.”
“Maybe if you help me drink tequila you’ll be nice. It’s good. I make it myself.”
There was a click as Wachowski hung up.
Wachowski was going to get coal if the snideness kept up. And anyway, insulting my homemade tequila was a low blow.
Sunset came into the room, spotting the look on my face. I could tell her unspoken question, and said, “Work stuff.”
“Can I help?” she asked, wrapping herself around me in a hug.
“Probably, but then I’d be unemployed.” Sunset was, perhaps even more than me, known for exercising permanent solutions to temporary problems.
Cordoba walked in. She was happily swinging the new cutlass I had made for her. The old one had gotten broken while fighting a hostile killbot. The new one was reinforced and just as sharp.
“What are you doing back so early?” asked Sunset. “I thought you went to the art show with your friends.”
“Somebody told me I was wrong about what was going on in a painting.” She shrugged.
Cordoba was, perhaps even more than Sunset, known for straight-up murdering people over trivialities.
“I’d probably better go down there,” I allowed.
When I arrived at the art gallery, it was a mess. The problem was, I couldn’t tell if that was art or, well, mess.
To my relief, it didn’t seem that anyone else could, either.
Still, while I was there, I might as well take a look around. Point and laugh, or something. Stepping around the pool of blood on the floor, I made my way over to a plain black canvas.
A big pegasus said, “What do you think?”
“It looks low effort.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I call it ‘A Thousand Nights in a Hallway.’”
Come to think of it, the guy looked fit enough to be a royal guard. That was probably it. Standing guard duty was probably the lowest effort job there was - or at least until something happened. I’d single-handedly made a lot of the guard obsolete.
“So what does it remind you of?” he said.
I stared at the plain black canvas. “A lot of tequila nights.”
“Oh, wow. Art is so evocative. I wasn’t even going for a memory like that.”
It had occurred to me that this guy was a little more in touch with his feelings than the average stallion.
Turning, I happened to spot Sir Win across the room. Sir Winifred Condemnation Inferno was Ponyville’s resident demon and also pretty gay. Flaming and on fire.
I went over to where he seemed to be enjoying ponies trying to analyze the headless body on the floor. “Hey, I think that guy over there is gay.”
He looked where I pointed. “No, Spearhead isn’t gay, just very in touch with his feelings. He’s going to make some mare very happy someday.”
“You know I’m not very good at spotting these kinds of things. Aside from personal experience, how do you know somebody’s sexual preference at a glance?”
“Gaydar.”
I should have seen that coming.
One thing I wished I hadn’t seen coming was Pinkie Pie. She was at the art show. Ponies thought that was part of it, too.
“Hey Valiant!” she said as I averted my eyes. “I heard you talking about gaydar.”
I sighed. “For the sake of conversation, how does it work?”
“I don’t know. I don’t use it anyway because I don’t care if ponies are gay.”
“She doesn’t,” muttered Fluttershy, from under Pinkie.
“Quiet, you. Back to work,” Pinkie admonished.
I went back to the command center. Sunset was there, and once again interpreted the look on my face. “What are you thinking about?”
“What if...we found a way to weaponize gaydar?”
“Gaydar-guided missiles?” said Sunset. “How would that even work? Would it aim for gays? Would it aim for everyone but gays?”
“Maybe we could set it to pick out a specific amount of gay. Better yet, homosexuals tend to be very in touch with their feelings, and perhaps that could be used to get a really good sense of a target’s personality. We could get the weapons to home in on their unique signature.”
A sudden thought struck me. “Weapons that go after a target’s unique signature, like a fingerprint. It would be absolutely specific to that one, single person. It would literally be a bullet with your name on it. Hell, we could manufacture them ahead of time and have one ready to go for everyone, just in case.”
I then physically took a step back. It helped remind me that holy shit, that’s a genocide waiting to happen. Remember, you’re trying to be a nice guy, Valiant.
“Or not,” I said. “We don’t have to stockpile enough ammo to end the world. Twilight’s already suspicious enough about the fluctuations in Valiantco® stock because I’ve been spending it on satellites for recon and prompt global strike.”
“I don’t know why, but that reminds me,” said Sunset, “I intercepted some comms the other day. Maude Pie is about to finish school. She’ll probably stop by. You know she likes you.”
“I do have that going for me,” I acknowledged. “Also, now that Cordoba being a robot is kind of public knowledge, Maud will be happy to hear that she called it back when we went to the Pie family farm for Hearthswarming.”
“I am happy to hear that,” said Maud, coming in just then. “Also, did you know that somepony dumped a ritually-sacrificed corpse on your doorstep?”