Together, They Fight Crime

by kudzuhaiku


Chapter 7

The only sign of Yam’s compulsion was a determined smirk that was smeared across his muzzle. His magic was different now, stronger, there was more to it that he couldn’t even begin to explain. Not only could he feel his magic, but he could feel the magic of another working against him. There was something here in hiding that didn’t want to be found. Yam pushed: this was difficult for him to comprehend, but it was a lot like yawning to get one’s ears to pop when changing altitude. It was troublesome and tricky, like learning how to stand balanced on a ball without falling over onto your face.

While his head turned from side to side, his ears swayed like dowsing rods. He took a step closer to the bed and continued to scan the tiny bedroom, knowing that something was here, something important, something that had been tucked away and didn’t want to be found. Warden Owleye stood in the door, sniffing, which distracted Yam a bit, but he knew that the big brute of a mare could smell magic.

“The closet,” Yam said as his ears rose into a standing position.

“We’ve checked that,” Warden Owleye said in return and she let out a dainty, almost feminine snort of punctuation.

Yam’s nostrils flared and he pushed even harder: this time, something broke and he saw squiggles of light in the corners of his vision. “Pull up the carpet from the floor and yank up the floorboards.”

“Officer Cricket, please do as Yam suggests,” Warden Owleye commanded and the ever so helpful unicorn officer rushed to do as he was bid.

Remaining near the bed, Yam watched as the carpet was pulled back, but he had trouble looking at the closet floor. Something compelled his eyes to look away, to look elsewhere, and he had to push past it. The officer seemed to be having some trouble too, which only made the location all the more promising. The closet was small, narrow, and only held a light overcoat for the rare rainy day in Las Pegasus.

“Definitely a bit of a glam here.” Warden Owleye sniffed again and her heavy gaze fell upon Yam. “How did you manage to circumvent the protective magic that is present, Mister Spade?”

“Burro drugs,” was Yam’s casual reply. “I drank some funky concoction that some old shaman mare gave me and went on a long strange trip.”

“Neat.” The word was spoken in such a way that it placed an unusual hardness on the final consonant, and Warden Owleye’s massive bulk remained huddled in the doorway. “Your commitment to your job is astounding, Mister Spade. Real shame about what they did to you.”

“Eh, I still have friends—” Yam’s response was cut off by the squealing sound of wood rubbing against itself as Officer Cricket pulled away floorboards to reveal a hidden cache. He whistled, nodded, and gestured with his hoof. “Will you look at that. The therapist was keeping a whole slew of diaries.”

“There’s a lot of books here.” Officer Cricket’s statement of the obvious made Warden Owleye snort again. “The spell, whatever it was, seems to be broken now. There is quite a stash hidden under the floor.”

“Burro drugs, you say.” Warden Owleye turned her stern, goggled gaze upon Yam and stared at the back of his head with a fierce intensity. “Quite an upgrade, Mister Spade. To be able to defeat low grade privacy wards… that makes you an asset.”

“I can be hired and my usual rates apply,” Yam replied, unconcerned. He was too focused on what was hidden under the floor in the closet. “It’s gonna take a while to sort through all that information. I’m not sure that any of it helps me now..”

“There’s a lot of uh, pharmaceuticals hidden here too.” Officer Cricket backed away from the stash, reached up, and rubbed his eyes. “Excuse me, I have a bit of a brain ache from dealing with that glam.”

“Go take a breather, Officer Cricket,” commanded Warden Owleye in a harsh tone. “I wish to speak to Mister Spade. Alone.” She stepped out of the doorway so the unicorn officer could pass. “Sorry Mister Spade, but you and I need to have a bit of a talk about what you do in your off-hours.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, read me the riot act and let’s get this over with…”


It was so hot in the cafe that the glasses of iced tea on the table were sweating. The air conditioner was running, but it was either broken or the owner was too cheap to turn it up to a meaningful level. Yam sipped at the cooling drink, glad to have it, but sitting on the hot vinyl of the seat was a miserable experience. Beside him, Azure had her eyes closed and her cheek rested against the red tiled wall.

Warden Owleye stood beside the table, because she was too big to fit on the bench. Furniture just wasn’t big enough for the nocturnal pegasus ponies, but even if there was a seat, Yam doubted that she would sit down while on duty. Was there ever a time when she wasn’t on duty?

Much to his relief, Warden Owleye had not spoke to him as a Warden, but rather as a friend, though she was quite concerned about how he took risks. It was funny, because in general, Yam avoided risks—he avoided anything that might do harm to his tender skin. Something in the vents rattled and wheezed, and then, by some miracle, something that was almost—but not quite—a cool breeze began to blow.

“Yam, what if you’d drunk that concoction and it had scrambled whatever is left of your brain?” Warden Owleye shook her head, snorted in disgust, and then focused her stern, matronly gaze upon Yam, peering through the thick, mirrored glass of her protective goggles. “You’ve stepped in it now, you know. Your little spot on the wall talent isn’t so spot on the wall. They’ll put you on a registry, Yam—”

“Only if you rat me out, babe.”

“Mister Spade, do keep your charms to yourself,” Warden Owleye demanded, and Azure began to chortle. “Regulations state that I have to make a report about this. Regulations also state that I cannot defy regulations. There are regulations against that. The regulatory commission for us Wardens just re-regulated the regulations and gave them a good regulating… some of them had wiggle room… ambiguous language that had to be regulated… and purged.”

Rolling his eyes, Yam lipped his straw and took a drink, unwilling to reply. Discussing regulations with Warden Owleye was one of his least favourite activities: indeed, any sort of conversation involving the many directives that Wardens lived by was a real snore-fest. This didn’t feel very fair, this whole being put on a registry. All of the really dangerous ponies lived outside of registries, and ponies like himself ended up on registries because he knew the good guys.

“You know, Warden Owleye, in Ogres and Oubliettes, the lawfully, awfully good types are called ‘lawful stupid’ for a reason.” Yam knew that he was treading on dangerous territory, but he didn’t care. “If something becomes too rigid, it has no flexibility and has no choice but to break when pressure is applied.”

Before the Warden could respond, Azure asked, “What happens now? With Tweedy Penny, I mean. Her apartment. Any chance that Yammy and I could get a bit of help with finding Honey Dew?”

“There seems be a bigger crime at work here and this has become official Warden business.” Warden Owleye’s voice dropped down low and her ears angled out over her face. “Hoarding all those pills is a crime in and of itself. She’s a therapist, not a doctor, and she shouldn’t’ve had those. It is just what we needed to cement our involvement in this case. If there is anything useful in those journals, I’ll make sure that you know about it.”

Unable to stop himself from being a wise-donkey, Yam asked, “Is that allowed by regulations?”

“You’ve been conscripted, so yes.” Warden Owleye nodded, looking somehow smug and satisfied. “The nefarious rogue that skirts regulations, the chaotic good type that thinks he is so clever, is really just a useful asset for the lawful good types, because it allows us to skirt regulations without breaking them. We get to maintain our control, our order, and keep the chaotic rogue in line, doing beneficial acts for society.”

Touché.” Ears drooping from the sounds of Azure’s braying laughter, Yam scowled. Clever Wardens were the absolute worst and anypony who claimed that the big brutes had no sense of humour were just flat out wrong. Their humour, probably like everything else, was no doubt controlled by regulation.

The air conditioning, what little bit of it there was, strained to push any sort of meaningful breeze out of the vents. Perhaps it too, was overcome by the oppressive heat. The diner was nothing like the cool, almost chilly cellar where Yam and Azure were staying. This diner was all modern, super-futuristic, surrounded on all sides by glass. The sun, a ruthless burning orb, blazed in through the windows without mercy, shining on the tile floor and the many steel surfaces. This place was an oven, a place where ponies cooked. No wonder the air conditioning struggled the way it did.

Resting his front hooves on the speckled formica surface of the table, Yam squirmed on the vinyl bench and wished his shirt wasn’t clinging to his body in such an uncomfortable way. He regretted his touristy camouflage and wished he had left it at home. Something rattled in the overhead ductwork and then there was an enormous bang that came rattling out of every vent, followed by the stench of burning rubber and plastic.

“Something died,” Warden Owleye said, stating the obvious with a casual disregard.

“Son of a bitch,” a greasy looking pegasus wearing an even greasier looking apron muttered from behind the counter where he stood. “Stupid brownouts short out the cooling unit and then when the temps really soar, it just dies. Somepony should do something about the power problems!”

“So what do we do now, Yammy?” Azure pulled her cheek away from the tile as there was no coolness to be had, and she looked at her husband with an almost sleepy, heat-stricken gaze.

“Our job,” he replied. “We start canvassing the city. You and I, we’ll split up. You go and talk to your fellow burros. See what they know. Check the local gossip. Hit up the labour pools and the day worker outlets. Me, I’ll try to use my finding magic. Even if I can’t quite seem to get a fix on Honey Dew directly, I’ll do my best to come up with some creative, clever solution that might allow me to get around whatever is blocking me. Something clearly doesn’t want her to be found.”

“That concerns me.” Warden Owleye shuffled on her hooves. “Why would somepony expend the magical resources to try and conceal a rank and file biotech worker? Yam, I want you to find something compelling that will give us a reason to get involved. We’re stretched thin, there is just too much crime and not enough Wardens, but if you can find something that can’t be ignored… we’ll have no choice but to get involved.”

“Gotcha.” Dripping sweat, Yam once more took a long pull through his straw and sucked down some of his refreshing cold drink.

“I’ll make sure that you get some bits.” The hardness of Warden Owleye’s face softened a bit and her ears splayed out to the sides. “It isn’t right what they did to you, Yam Spade. You’re a brilliant detective and for one such as you to be blacklisted all because of whom you love, that’s just… just—”

“Stupid?” Azure let out a half-hearted chuckle and nudged her husband. “And how do you feel about us, Owleye?”

“Tribalism is against regulation, and so is prejudice based on species.”

“Well, that’s just great, but that’s the rules and regulations.” Slobber glistened on the end of Yam’s straw as he pulled away and he gave the Warden a bold look. “But how do you feel about us?”

Taking a deep, sulphurous, smoky breath, Warden Owleye leaned in and looked Yam right in the eye. “My mother is a dragon and my father is a nocturnal pegasus. After they fulfilled their obligations to the breeding program, they remained together due to a sense of affection that slowly turned into love. Over twenty years later, they are still together, and during their long, fruitful union, they have given me seven beloved brothers and sisters. I was there for each and every hatching. If somepony was to disparage this love that I hold so dear, the regulations would be ignored and I would unscrew their head from their neck. I would then find some way to defecate down their neck-stump.”

“I am positive that a neck-stump is not a regulation latrine,” Yam deadpanned and he fought back a sneeze from the smoke that tickled his nose. Having served in the Fancy Foreign Legion, he had a little bit of knowledge of regulation latrines, having spent so many hours both digging and guarding them.

Warden Owleye grinned, a truly terrifying sight. She had a smile like a bear trap, with big, pointy, triangular teeth that had serrated edges. Smoke pungent with the stench of rotten eggs came curling out in little wisps from the gaps between her teeth, and her eyes were completely unknowable behind her mirrored goggles. Yam had a terrifying revelation that the entirety of his head would fit between her jaws.

“We live in dreadful times, Mister Spade… love, no matter what form it takes, is something I value a great deal. I try to live by my parent’s example, but they have set very lofty standards for me to live up to. Love is a cause I have chosen to champion. I honestly do believe that it is love and friendship that makes Equestria great. I’ve been to other parts of the world… I’ve been outside of Equestria, and I know that you have too. We have something special here, and I aim to keep it safe.”

“As always, Warden Owleye, talking to you has been a pleasure.” Yam fanned the Warden’s smoky breath out of his face with a hoof and smiled at her. “My partner and I really need to get to work. Let me know if anything useful comes out of those journals I found.”

“Where are you staying?” Warden Owleye asked.

Taking a deep breath, Yam readied himself to give her an answer…