//------------------------------//
// Epilogue: Small Potatoes Goes to Ground 
// Story: Putting Out a Hit on Harmony 
// by Wanderling 
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If all things were to be said and done, Dirty Work would have admitted that it was a relief to be handed over to the Guard. The two unicorn mares that had escorted him from the throne room had frankly rather terrified him. The white one had explained exactly how one of her deftly moved needles could kill him in a variety of creative and painful ways. The pink one had interjected at various points to explain how she could achieve similar effects magically. Then there were Berry Blade's darts being waved all over the place. Dirty didn't know if his unicorn underling was even still alive, which was a little disheartening.

By the way the white mare's blue eyes were flashing, that confrontation had likely not gone well for poor Berry. Given the presence of the pink and orange earth ponies as well, he was inclined to assume that Cloudy Crosshair and Melonie had also fallen afoul of the Guardians' skills. The lack of pegasi meant nothing, but he had hoped that Grimoire and Crash Sentinel had found their targets more agreeably killable. 

The pink earth pony had bounced into the room at one point, carrying of all things, a fridge. She had told the unicorns that the Princess was still alive and not to worry too much. Dirty Work had been rather skeptical of that, but the pink pony was grinning with a radiant look that he was pretty sure couldn't be faked by anypony mourning a friend. Apparently the Princess just wanted to eat and then would have the dragon send a letter to the other Princesses, and at that point Dirty had decided that he wasn't going to get out of this one.

Then there had been Discord. The less spoken about that particular experience, the better, but he had found out that exactly none of his team had succeeded either.

So it was that when a small contingent of guardsponies arrived - some in the armour of the Crystal Empire - he found himself relaxing somewhat under the quiet scrutiny of a tall, muscled unicorn with a dark blue mane and a white coat. The absence of a wall of glittering needles was of great benefit to his state of mind, although the pony who had held it up was still staring daggers at him from the door of the castle. 

All six of the Guardians of Friendship were there, crowded in tight around the now much cleaner Princess Twilight Sparkle, and none of them looked particularly friendly. The other scary unicorn, the baby dragon, and Equestria's only draconequus were also present, and also glaring.

The white unicorn from the Guard surveyed the rest of Dirty Work's crew. They had all been hobbled. Dirty, Crosshair, Crash and Grimoire had all had their wings bound, and Grimoire had also had his claws capped and his beak wrapped. Berry had the base of her horn fitted with an aura disruptor. They weren't going anywhere.

The unicorn returned his stare to Dirty Work. That was when the green pegasus noticed the stallion's cutie mark and the rather familiar star shape on the shield. At that moment, Dirty would say later to his dungeon-mates, he could have sworn he could feel his glands pouring the stress hormones into his blood vessels. He had gulped. 

Dirty Work thought about the part of the contract with Small Potatoes that indicated he was to keep his mouth shut about who hired him. He weighed it up in his mind. Mentally tore it in two.





Shining Armor looked around the dingy little office with his lip peeled back in disgust. Some tacky potato-shaped ornaments were standing on a set of shelves to the left of where he had flung open the door with a blast of magenta aura. Some of the solanius tat had fallen over, one or two had fallen to the floor, but Shining's eyes were drawn towards the ones still standing. 

His crashing entrance into the mostly empty room hadn't been enough to knock over those potato-shaped knick-knacks.

Small Potatoes wasn't there, but the receptionist at the desk said that she hadn't seen him leave - nor had she had any idea that the boss of an otherwise well-respected crisp-producing company moonlighted as a villain.

The pair of armored guards behind Shining Armor - one in Princess Celestia's royal gold, and one in his wife's glittering blue crystal - stepped gingerly after the now irate white stallion. Shining squinted at the ornaments and reached out his aura to tug. Sure enough, one of the small sculptures - a crudely carved mare draped alluringly over a potato - didn't smash to the floor. Instead, Shining found that it twisted with a click.

He cursed as a panel in the plush floor twinkled and faded, revealing an opening. Shining Armor's tail lashed as he stared down into the hole. It was a tunnel. The walls were tiled in slick black squares of glass, and as Shining cast a light down the opening, he could see that the floor of the tunnel was dark, hard-packed dirt. From the way his light threw shadows against the polished walls, Shining reckoned that the tunnel branched in several directions. He cursed again.

Shining looked up at the guard in blue. "Get the tracking team up here. He's gone to ground."

The guard rushed off in a flurry of feathers, not having enough space to really take off in a corridor built for groundbound ponies, but using what beats he could manage to speed up his galloping steps. There wasn't much point in hurrying now - Shining had a gut feeling that the pony who had tried to have his sister killed had gotten away. 

The hard earth below wouldn't have caught any of Small Potatoes' hoofprints, but Shining Armor had enough approximate knowledge to know that the floor of the escape tunnels had been left uncovered for a reason. To draw magic from the ground as he ran and increase his speed and endurance. Hopefully the earth ponies of the tracking team could tell which direction the villain had taken by reading his trace. 

Shining cursed once more.





"Sorry I'm late," said Fluttershy, slipping into the hot water. "I had to convince Angel and Harry to wait outside for me. The poor dears are still worried about letting me go off on my own."

"Oh no, darling, you're only just a few minutes out from all the rest of us," said Rarity, cracking open one of her eyes. "We've all been dealing with clingy families since the incidents, as it were."

Fluttershy smiled. "Well I'm glad you finally finished your dresses. Any longer and I might have just booked myself in at the spa!"

Fluttershy giggled and put a hoof over her mouth. Rarity let out a mild snort.

"Anyway," Fluttershy said, stretching her wings beneath the surface of the giant tub and turning towards Twilight. "How've you been?"

Twilight was leaning with her head on the rim of the tub, the rest of her body mostly underwater. "Well, it's only been two days and already you can barely tell anything happened to my chest. Alicorn self-healing magic is fascinating." 

"That's great! But I meant, um," Fluttershy wrung her hooves. "Mentally?"

"Oh, that," Twilight sat up and water streamed from her mane. "I've been a little jumpy, I guess? But now I know I can't really die... I'm more concerned that that assassin pony was in the castle where Spike and Starlight were, and that all those other ponies went after you girls. It's been worrying me."

Twilight bit her lip. "Who's to say somepony won't follow Small Potatoes' example? What if he tries again? What if-"

Pinkie Pie stuck her hoof into Twilight's mouth. "The spa is for letting all your brain wobblies melt away, Twilight. You can panic about that afterwards and then come up with some super-smart solution. Stop stewing on the scary things and stew yourself here."

"Mm, quite," murmured Rarity, who had shut her eyes again.

"Don't you think talking about these things will help, though?" Fluttershy asked, frowning slightly and touching one hoof to her chest.

"Talking? Yepperdoodle," Pinkie said. "Letting the wobblies take over? Uh-uh, no way, po-neigh."

"Okay," said Twilight, taking in a deep breath. "No brain wobblies."

"What about the rest of you?" Fluttershy asked, turning her head to look over all of her friends with wide eyes. "I didn't know anything had happened until Discord said he'd caught somepony, but you all had to deal with these ponies yourselves."

Fluttershy closed her eyes and shuddered. "I just couldn't imagine it."

"Well for starters," Rainbow stuck one hoof up with a ripple of water. "My assassin was a griffon, and he wasn't very good at it. Tank knocked him out, and his traps? I didn't notice them until like, the last one, but they were like, meh. I've been trapped in better. You remember the slime pit in Somnambula, Pinkie? Way better, and I was just blindfolded and tied to a statue."

"A statue that was sinking into hot, bubbling, lime-flavoured slime, Rainbow," Pinkie said. "In a room where pegasus magic had been nullified so you couldn't just fly out. It was a bit of a sticky situation."

"Yeah, yeah, point is that the griffon who came after me wasn't that scary," The pegasus pony stretched her wings up out of the water, and then folded them back down again. "I mean, flying in to see Twilight all shaken up and a giant pool of blood like that? Yeah, that wasn't cool. But me? I'm fine, Fluttershy."

Rainbow stopped, blinked, and then turned to Pinkie. "What do you mean lime-flavoured?"

Pinkie shrugged. "Somnambula's blindfold tasted kinda limey when I found it."

Rainbow frowned, sighed and leant back to submerge herself a little more. 

Pinkie reached over to boop Fluttershy on the nose. "I got a little spooked 'cause my meanie-mare could've hit Mr and Mrs Cake by accident. Or the twins! But my Pinkie-sense has got my back. Tingling spine, left ear flop, stiff right leg and swishy-swashy tail means a hitpony was hired to pop my balloons permanently, so I can let you all know if it happens again."

Twilight tilted her head. "You can feel that? That's- that's useful, Pinkie Pie."

"Ah, put your thinky-face away, Twilight!" Pinkie scolded the alicorn. "Thinky-face leads to thinky-frights and those pesky brain wobblies."

Twilight pouted. "Fine, but I want to ask you about it after the spa."

"Sure!" Pinkie chirped, and then nudged Rarity in the ribs. "Hey, Fluttershy wants to know if you've been horribly traumatised."

"I don't-" began Fluttershy, but she was interrupted by Rarity's scoff.

"Traumatised? No. Offended? Completely," Rarity tossed her damp mane and stuck her muzzle up. "I was considered the most powerful unicorn in Ponyville until Twilight showed up - no no, do not apologise, darling, I absolutely did not mind being upstaged in that particular area - and I cannot believe that they underestimated me so dreadfully. It's like they saw 'fashion designer' on my resumé and read no further. I'm not saying I would have wanted them to try harder to kill me, but, well. I suppose I am just a little bit vain."

Rarity brought her nose down and stared into the middle distance. Her gaze went hard. "I'm more worried about how much I enjoyed myself when I saw that mare realise that she was the one in danger. I'm afraid I rather relished it. I went into some rather disturbing details about the damage I could do with but one of my sewing needles, and I watched the look in her eyes as I brought out my entire stock of them with... pleasure. And then I did it a second time with that green fellow."

"Oh my," Fluttershy said, bringing both hooves to her mouth. 

"Quite," Rarity agreed. "I am currently arranging some things to see a therapist about it. If any of you girls would like me to put you in touch with the ponies I've been speaking to I can provide their details."

"I might take you up on that," Applejack said. She'd been pretty quiet so far. "I ain't been sleepin' right since it went down. It ain't that my hitmare was all that scary, I mashed her up pretty good after all. But seein' Twilight get got an' thinkin' she was gonna..."

Twilight reached out with a wing and pulled Applejack into a light hug. "I'm okay, Applejack! One good thing we've learned from all this is that it's impossible to get rid of me."

"Aw, yeah, I know that, in my head," Applejack said, leaning into the hug and pulling the next-closest pony (Rainbow Dash) in to start an impromptu Friendship Pile. Applejack gave a watery laugh. "But I keep seein' the scene over 'n' over and it ain't budgin'."

Fluttershy's ears drooped, and she made sure to squeeze the Frienship Pile extra hard. "I'm sorry to hear that. Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Nah, jus' keep yerselves safe," Applejack said, pushing them all gently back and waving a hoof around. "An' I guess Rarity's therapy ponies couldn't hurt."

Rarity nodded. "I'll draw you up a list as soon as I get home."

"Just remember, if you do need any help-"

"I know, Twilight," Applejack shot her friend a light grin. "I'll ask for help."

"Okay, that's enough dwelling, girls!" Pinkie piped. "Topic change! If you were a type of cheese, what do you think you would be? I'd have to go with mozzarella for myself, or maybe gorgonzola? Both of 'em have that funky 'z' action going on and I am All. About. The funky."

Pinkie continued her musing, and the six ponies in the tub settled into a lively conversation.





Elsewhere, in a hastily-decorated new lair nestled somewhere undisclosed...

A pale-maned pony sat, scowling, and schemed.