//------------------------------//
// Inferno 
// Story: The Pony Of Vengeance 
// by BradyBunch 
//------------------------------//

"All right, ma'am, just start over from the beginning. Tell us exactly what happened."

The mare with the cherry-colored tail took a shuddered breath and said, "Okay, I was... Yesterday I was heading to work. I work in the accounting business at Jay's Economic Emporium. You've heard of it, right? Okay, so... as I went past an alley on my way, all of a sudden there were three ponies that jumped out. They...they grabbed me, and they...they dragged me into the alley, and they...tried to get me to, um..." The mare shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. "I didn't want to! I asked them to stop, but they didn't!"

"We already know that part," Flitter Gust said, scribbling something on a notepad. "And you're safe now. You have nothing to fear. You've done nothing wrong. Whenever you feel like it, just go on."

"Oh, okay..." the mare with the cherry tail said. She took fifteen seconds to take a few labored breaths before going on. "So, um... just before they could actually, um... do it, I saw something big land behind them."

"Something big," Flitter Gust murmured, making a note. "Anything else to describe him?"

"Well, It was black. Black and with wings. And it had something sharp out of his forehead."

"His?" Flitter Gust asked. "Are you certain that it was male?"

The mare with the cherry tail nodded. "Yes. When he talked, he had a really, um... really soft voice. It was almost compassionate. He was male, I know it."

Flitter Gust shrugged. "All right, then..." she said, writing down something on her paper. She flipped to a new page and adjusted her position on her chair. "Now, can you continue from the time this... black thing with wings landed?"

"Well, he landed. And as he did, he flicked his wings, and some things flew out and hit the ponies in the legs. I think they were like feathers. They let me go after that."

"Then did you come to the police station?" Flitter Gust asked.

"Well, yeah. The big shape talked to me. He told me to go and run to the police station."

"He told you to?" Flitter Gust asked in surprise.

"Well, yeah."

"And yesterday you followed his instructions?"

"To the letter."

"I don't know how else to phrase this sensitively, Miss..." Flitter Gust checked her name on a previous page. "Cherry Blossom, but you encountered the Night Terror yesterday."

Cherry Blossom reared her head. "I did? I thought he was only a pony trying to help!"

"Do you read the newspapers, Miss Cherry Blossom?"

Cherry Blossom shifted. "Only for the recipes at the back."

"In-depth studies are currently underway for the most wanted pony in the city, ma'am. That's who your assailant- "

"Savior," Cherry Blossom cut her off abruptly. "If he saved my life, then he's my hero."

Flitter Gust looked at her for a moment over her thick red glasses before jotting down the quote on the paper. It was indeed disturbing that the Night Terror was now attacking in broad daylight, but he had so far not begun killing indiscriminately. But when would he?

Suddenly a bell on the wall started to ring, and Flitter Gust jerked her head up. She knew what that bell meant. It meant somepony in danger was calling the station, and police forces were moving out to apprehend the force. Heaven forbid, if it was the Night Terror...





The police carriages thundered down the cobblestone road in backstreet Bronclyn. Ponies in the way of the carriage hurriedly jumped aside and other carriages pulled over to allow them passage. Nopony was in the mood to deny them their passage through the grimy city anymore, after the recent and deadly attacks made by the Night Terror. Ahead, a column of billowing, coiling smoke reached towards the skies.

In the front carriage, leaning out of the window, was the large and in charge police commissioner, searching with his eyes along the street. A bank robbery was in process in that part of the massive island-city. The entire city was so large that it could theoretically take forever to get to where the police were needed. But thanks to a recent invention of Positioning Points--a device installed in every building that pinged the exact location of a crime to the police station--police could arrive with complete certainty at the place they wanted to, at a speed unprecedented before.

The police commissioner felt doubt and fear gnaw at his insides. How many times did the Night Terror attack, again? What if he was the one robbing the bank? How would the police stop that? They had almost no way to stop him; they hadn't even properly seen him before in broad daylight. He had powerful weapons. He was elusive. He was fast, and destructive, and willing to hurt others. How could they apprehend him?

They rounded a corner and the police commissioner gulped. It was the midtown city bank, containing over half a million bits in citizen's money--and it was burning.

The snapping, coiling flame was reaching out of windows to flicker in the wind. The top of the bank was obscured by the dark plumes of smoke, and several dozen citizens were standing around the perimeter of the building. The fire department was already there, fortunately, to block off the surrounding area, pumping streams of opaque blue water into the open windows from their water carriages.

The police carriages wheeled to the side, stopping abruptly, and the oversize police commissioner hopped out, yelling to the other police officers, "Set up a perimeter around the bank! Nopony leaves the area!" and ran to the nearest firepony. "Sir! What's the situation here?" he asked, wheezing for breath.

"The bank caught on fire twenty minutes ago, sir," the pony told him. "We arrived on the scene ten minutes before you did and we've been trying our best, but so far the fire's only seeming to spread."

The police commissioner turned his attention to the snapping, angry flames. "Is anypony still in there?" he asked with concern.

"We sent a team in there not too long ago," the firefighter said. "Hopefully they'll find someth-"

BABOOM!

Burning hunks of debris showered out of the building, accompanied by a massive sound that rocked the earth. The police commissioner and the firefighter he was talking to suddenly fell to the earth, cowering and holding their hooves above their heads. The crowd surrounding the burning building gave a collective scream and scurried away as one body as the burning building's top blasted open.

The police commissioner took his hooves away from his face to see the front of the building, which was blasted open from the explosion. Silhouetted against the flames were the dark figures of over a dozen griffons and ponies alike.  The ponies clutched sacks of bits in their mouths while the griffons held some strange objects the police commissioner had never seen before shaped like a capital letter L. Several loud bangs rang out of the inferno, and buckets of water some firefighters were carrying in their mouths suddenly sprouted holes that the water instantly ran out of in thin streams. The firefighters abruptly dropped their buckets, and the water spilled on the cobblestone road.

The griffons and ponies alike materialized out of the snapping fire and spread in a circle, aiming their weapons at anyone close by. The perimeter immediately expanded in size. Their faces couldn't be seen, but everyone could hear their whoops and cheers as they started to hold up everyone at the perimeter. A griffon aimed his weapon at the police commissioner and the firefighter he had been talking to. The police commissioner froze upon seeing it.

"Now, just back away real slow now, and we might not have ta harm ya," the griffon pointing his weapon slavered. His other hand clutched a huge brown sack of jingling bits. "We've got a job to do, and bein' here's bad for your health." He spun the weapon in his claws. "Ya might end up with lead poisoning."

"The bullet's made of brass, you idiot," a pony next to him whispered furiously.

The griffon cleared his throat, more than a little embarrassment in the action. "Uh, anyway, just don't move," he ordered the police commissioner.

And suddenly there came a small pop as a teleportation spell was activated and there stood six ponies right behind the police commissioner. The lead pony activated her horn and a purple shield was activated around the police commissioner and the firefighter he'd been talking to. "Stop this right now!" Twilight Sparkle ordered the griffon, sweating from the heat of the fire and the strain of the spell.

The griffon, however, did not move. "Princess Twilight," he replied with a hint of contempt in his voice.

"Stop this!" Twilight repeated. "What if the Night Terror shows up?"

The griffon gave her a smile. "That's the idea," he said with a hint of satisfaction. "If he does show his ugly face around here, I'll kill him." He jingled the bag of bits he had. "I'm planning on having him reveal himself. Make it so he has to decide to go after me now, in broad daylight, in front of dozens of witnesses, or during the night like the coward he is. He needs to choose. Choose if he wants to risk his exposure, or let me get away scot free with what I'm going to do to all of you."

"That's just a stupid decision!" Rainbow Dash put in, flapping in the air. "What do you get out of it, huh?"

"The satisfaction that I win," the griffon said. "That I made him come out and show himself against his will. That I made him come to me. That I had the power to make him play on my field." He pointed his gun suddenly at a small colt in the crowd, and the crowd surrounding him immediately backed away, leaving the shiny-eyed colt looking down the barrel of the gun in sudden abject terror.

BANG!

The colt fell backwards to the ground, bleeding between the eyes, and did not move again.

"NO!" Twilight cried. She rushed in between the dead colt and the griffon, flaring her wings. "S-stop it!" she said brokenly. "You don't... you didn't have to kill him!"

"Now he's certain to come," the griffon gloated. "He can't resist it when we go and kill for no reason, can he?"

Thump thump

The air, once almost unbearably hot from the fires flickering out of the massive bank, now inexplicably dropped twenty degrees in only a few seconds.

"How right you are," came a soft, soft voice that somehow permeated and chilled the insides of everyone nearby.

And all heads, good and bad, criminal and police, civilian and firefighter, snapped towards the source.

Standing in front of the blazing conflagration that was once the city bank was a dark silhouette of complete black, its wings extended and drooping. The bipedal shape stood on two clawed feet, designed to crush and grab like the talons of an eagle, and it was pointing one arm that ended in a long, stunted barrel. A single long, shining horn jutted out of his forehead.

"What's up?" the upright griffon cried, gesticulating wildly with his gun. "Come to enjoy our performance?"

"I'm not much in the mood to talk, filth," Ironheart whispered calmly. He did not move from his spot in front of the coiling flames. "Except, of course, if it eases your departure into heaven... or Tartarus, more likely."

The griffon grinned wildly at him. "It's you that'll go to Tartarus," he spat.

"How presumptuous to assume I will die at your hands," Ironheart swiftly replied. He aimed his arm at the griffon's thick neck.

But before he could, a whistling shriek tore through the air and a concealed pony, lying in wait with a rocket launcher near the blazing building, had fired a missile at the Night Terror from the side.

Ironheart's reflexes responded at lightspeed. He grabbed the missile as it came close, spun around, and hurled the missile back at the launcher like he was throwing a ball. It detonated upon impact with the street, and the pony disappeared in the smoke that followed.

But Ironheart didn't notice the grenades rolled at his feet from the other side.

BOOM!

Now Ironheart disappeared in the column of thick smoke that billowed upwards. The griffon in charge was looking upon him with obvious satisfaction written all over his face. He hadn't been there for the attack on the docks, but upon learning of it, he knew that if the Night Terror had needed to use his wings to shield himself from the missiles, then he needed to naturally be afraid of having explosive devices detonate on him.

As the fiery, rippling smoke dissipated, however, his expression turned to one of absolute fear upon seeing the Night Terror. He was still there, albeit flaming like an ancient deity come to conquer the earth the mere mortals stood upon, with nothing and no one to stand in his way.

The Night Terror looked at his burning, fiery hand in front of him, then shook off a few flecks of flame. "In retrospect, that was probably very stupid," he commented softly.

The griffons and ponies in the area screamed collectively and fired their weapons at the Night Terror. The impacts of the brass going at the speed of sound clattered harmlessly off of the Night Terror's Infinisteel body for the space of thirty seconds, allowing enough time for the assembled crowd to move out of the way and clear a space for the Night Terror to work with. But he didn't move. He simply stood there, presenting himself to all assembled as a pony that couldn't be hurt.

Twilight didn't know what to do. Should she attack Ironheart? Attack the robbers? Should she put up a shield of protection? Not to protect Ironheart, but to prevent Ironheart from attacking back?

When the barrage stopped, it was because the griffons had realized he couldn't be hurt by the bullets, and not because they had ran out of ammunition like in times past. When the griffons realized this, they turned their weapons upon the crowd and begun to fire at random into the crowd, killing without regard. The crowd collectively scattered.

Twilight's magic activated. A pink shield formed around the perimeter, quickly absorbing most of the bullets.

The Night Terror roared and flexed his wings. Shards of metal shot out with a symphony of sinister whistles and embedded themselves into the bodies of griffons and ponies alike. They fell, clutching their legs and dropping what they held.

Ironheart suddenly raced forward, whipping out his electric sword with a jagged hum, and without even stopping cut down three ponies lying on the ground in quick succession. Some of the griffons had grabbed their guns again and begun to aim at anything they thought was a weak spot--his wings, his crotch, his eyes... his wide, hating eyes that hurt anyone just to look at them...

One of them was lying cowering in his path. "P-please!" he cried, holding up his hands, free of weapons. "Have mercy!"

Ironheart swiftly sliced his head off with a hum of his sword. It bounced away.

"Consider that a quick death," he whispered.

A rapid succession of pings emanated from behind his head, and he turned around leisurely. Three griffons were trying to aim for the back of his neck from behind a piece of fallen rubble from the bank. Ironheart jerked his arm and the tip of a flamethrower poked itself out with a shudder. He aimed it at the three griffons and released the will holding it in. A bright stream of flame shot forward like water from a hose and enveloped the three of them. They ran out from their cover, burning and screaming and leaping in the air. The smell of cooked flesh and feathers filled the air. Ironheart kept his flamethrower trained on them, switching from target to target, not caring about the attacks levied against him from all other directions by the desperate criminals. Stones popped off his back. Bullets pinged off of him. A grenade blew itself at his feet.

Finally, once the griffons had all been turned into burning, unmoving corpses, Ironheart turned around and flicked his flaming feathers at his attackers. They impacted into them all over their bodies, and they collapsed into heaps.

It had gone on too long. Twilight jumped into Ironheart's view, next to a piece of marble as big as she was and right behind a piece of burning debris. "Stop it!" she commanded him. She coughed. "Stop it, Ironheart! They've had enough!"

Ironheart, with the piece of burning rubble in between them, looked at her with an indistinguishable glance. "Twilight," the burning figure said to her softly, softly, softly. "Step aside. You have no business in this."

"Neither do you!" Twilight yelled at him back. "Let the police deal with this!"

"But the police have no business in their happenings either," Ironheart pointed out, still with the fire between them.

"Yes they do, because they need to stop them!"

"And what," he asked softly, "do you think I'm doing now?"

Before Twilight could answer, she was suddenly silenced with a hoof over her mouth as a particularly filthy pony grasped her from behind, a bald, gruff pony with only one ear and a ring in his nose and missing teeth. He ran his tongue along the side of her neck, and Twilight nearly fainted in horror.

"Oh, you're going to be nice for me tonight," he whispered in her ear.

There came a harsh crackling noise as Ironheart wheeled his sword, stepping forward until he stood atop the piece of rubble between him and Twilight. He almost casually said to the pony holding her, "I swear to the heavens above, I'm going to tear you to pieces and feed you to the worms."

The pony holding her apparently had a significantly larger amount of bravery than the others. He only laughed and said, "You want her? Come and get her!" He held her in front of him, using Twilight as a shield.

From the side, Rainbow cried, "Twilight!" She flapped into the air, her wrath focused on him and him alone, determined to hurt and punish and kill the pony using Twilight as a shield from the end he deserved.

"No!" Pinkie cried, jumping into the air and pulling her down by the tail. "What if somepony else hurts you when you try to help Twilight?"

Rainbow looked around and realized she was right. There were still criminals that were trying to escape, but the crowd around them held them back, with the police running after them and engaging them in individual fights themselves in the remains of the street in front of the burning bank. It would be too risky.

"No," Rainbow said with a fresh wave of determination. "I won't fail Twilight when she needs me!"

And she sped into the action.

Flying into the air, gaining altitude, she flew back around behind the pony holding Twilight, sped close to the ground, and slammed into the back of the one-eared pony with all the might she could muster.

He had a lot more mass to him than met the eye. He didn't go flying ahead nearly as far as she had intended, but it was far enough, and Twilight, once held in his disgusting grip, was now free. Twilight hurriedly retreated backwards, Rainbow at her side. They were both looking at the disgusting bald pony with piercings that was lying on the ground a few feet away.

He struggled to get to all fours, but he heard a snapping sound of a gun in his direction and looked up. He saw in front of him a long, long tunnel. And it was attached to a barrel, and the barrel was attached to something attached to--

--to the Night Terror!

Biting back his initial jolt, he scrambled upwards and faced him. The Night Terror was on all fours now, his electric sword put away, and looked like not a demon, not a bipedal devil, but as a normal pony.

This gave him confidence. The bald, pierced pony fixed a boxing position. He could do this. He had forced others to give him what he himself had wanted just because he had been able to prove to them that he was the most powerful. So he had given himself a reputation as a burly, brawny street fighter to increase his power, his station, his influence. He knew better than anyone else how to end a fight quickly.

So he beckoned the still-burning Night Terror forward. "Come on!" he cried triumphantly. "Come here and prove yourself! Prove that you're on my level! You're nothing without your weapons, you coward!"

That definitely struck a nerve with Ironheart. He froze in his advance, the flames on his body dying.

"Yeah! You don't like that, do you? You don't like it when I do that to you, do you? So face me! Put away your little toys and face me like a real pony, you coward!"

And a cruel, brief, dark chuckle came out of the dark angel that chilled the blood of everyone nearby. Even the bald street fighter faltered for an instant.

"Oh, I am no real pony," the manifestation whispered in a much more malevolent voice than before. He shook himself like a dog drying himself after going in a lake, and the last remnants of flame and darkness flew off his body in all directions, landing and sputtering on the dry ground all around him. After the last of the flame had been shaken off, he straightened.

And the bald street fighter turned pale and felt like an ice cube had slipped into his lungs, like he would never be warm and happy again. The Night Terror...was a machine? A terrifying, awe-inspiring, fear-inducing abomination of nature? And holy Celestia... that Cutie Mark painted on his flank... was that a peace symbol?

Around him all activity stopped and every pony nearby stared at him. In the crowd clicks of camera shutters and the mutter of video cameras were heard going off alongside the gasps and screams of horror.

Ironheart folded his gun back into a normal arm and smiled gleefully. "But to face you down... oh, it would be my pleasure," he snarled almost eagerly, and ran forward. The bald street fighter, not expecting anything like a machine to be the Night Terror, was off guard, and that was exactly what Ironheart wanted. With only a few mighty blows to his blocked face, Ironheart had thrown down even the heavily muscled fighter and had gotten atop him and was even now hitting him deeper into the pavement with blows that felt like meteor strikes.

The bald street fighter weakly slid a back leg under the Night Terror's body and lifted suddenly with all of his strength, pushing him off of him. The street fighter got back up as quickly as he could, feeling light in the head and dizzy and hurting in places he couldn't remember being hurt before. But before he could regain a solid balance the metal abomination was already flying back at him and he instinctively threw wild punches. He felt two of them impact on something that gave off a hard ring and a feeling of pain. While it hurt, it meant that he had at least hit him.

But he was then knocked back down on his back and saw the metal pony above him reach his arm upwards and slam it down as hard as he could between his own rear legs.

It was an unfair move, and the street fighter knew it. He had used it before on others. But never before had he felt it happen to him. He scrunched in half, he widened his eyes, he let out a groan. Oh goodness, the pain in his groin was too much! He felt a tear wet itself at the corner of his eye instinctively, and he was instantly ashamed of himself for letting his humiliation show itself like this.

Ironheart unfortunately noticed, however. In a mocking, derisive voice reminiscent of a little bully on the school playground, he whined, "Look at him cry! Look at thiiis! Stop being weak! Stop your crying, because no one wants to see that! Look at him, everyone! He's weak! Get a load of him!"

Ironheart knew perfectly well the rules of civilized combat. To never, ever, strike a defenseless pony lying on the ground.

So he came over next to his face and stomped down on it, making a loud ugly cracking sound. Because there was no such thing as civilized combat. Combat by its nature is uncivilized.

He stomped on his broken nose again.

And again.

And again. The crunching sounds were getting louder and louder, and more and more sickening.

Off to the side, Fluttershy began to sob and turned her head away from his view. Rarity and Pinkie noticed and propped her up, steadying her and rubbing her back and cooing soft words to her to drown out the awful sounds coming from Ironheart's victim.

Twilight and Rainbow were still in the enclosed area made by the interested crowd, among the police officers leading away the now-captured criminals. They looked upon Ironheart beating down the street fighter with a savage, primal manner, and felt sick to their stomachs. And both of them, after a brief look at each other, knew what they needed to do.

With Rainbow to one side and Twilight on the other, they came to the right and left of Ironheart, in his view. Ironheart noticed and paused his attacks upon the inert figure lying on the ground. He stepped off of him and stepped backwards, and Twilight and Rainbow moved in front of him now.

"Your work's done here," Twilight told him in an almost pleading manner. "Go away! They've had enough here!"

"Don't you know you're being caught on camera?" Rainbow demanded indignantly. And she was right. All over the circled crowd were cameras and video recorders on tripods, clicking away. Rainbow was subconsciously aware of the fact that she was also likely to be seen on camera, talking to Ironheart and making him stand down. How would they interpret it? That she was in cahoots with him, or that she was a hero for making him back away from his prey? A glance to Twilight confirmed the thought that she wasn't the only one thinking it; she could see it in Twilight's face as well. But she shook the offending thoughts out of her head. They didn't matter now.

Ironheart nodded expressionlessly. "Of course I know I'm being caught on camera."

"Then what's your deal?" she asked shrewdly, flapping in close to his face. He looked terrifying close up, but she did it to display her own bravado.

Ironheart suddenly turned around, to she shock of the recorders in the crowd, and fired a harpoon launcher at something in the debris scattered all over the streets. The impact was a squelchy, sick noise, and a cry was heard. Ironheart reeled him in fast, and a griffon was seen being dragged along the ground like a caught fish, kicking and screaming, a jagged harpoon blade in his thigh. It was the same griffon that had threatened the police commissioner and shot the young colt in the crowd. Ironheart drew him in close, reached down, and picked him up by his neck, digging an extended thumb into the bottom of his chin. He had transformed into his bipedal mode.

"I know for a fact you didn't think of this pathetic attempt of a robbery yourself," he said to him, loud enough for the camera recorders to pick it up. "You took orders from someone else. Who was it?"

"Ironheart!" Twilight cried, trying to get in his eyesight again, but Ironheart was circling around, preventing him from looking her in the face. "Ironheart, let us do this!"

Ironheart ignored her. "TELL ME!" he suddenly roared at the griffon, shaking him. The camera ponies in the crowd were more engaged in this event than they had ever been before. They saw Ironheart change his other arm into the tip of a flamethrower and ignite the tip of it. He put it ever so close to the scalp of his head, and the griffon widened his eyes and struggled some more. "TELL ME NOW OR I SWEAR YOU WILL DIE, RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW!"

The griffon gasped for breath and wheezed, "I...I'll t-tell y-you... please... let me go!"

"NO!" he screamed to him, and put the flamethrower even close to his skin. "YOU WILL TELL ME, RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE! I WILL NOT WARN YOU A SECOND TIME, FILTH!"

"IT WAS COUNT PRIVILEGE!" the griffon screamed suddenly, thrashing in his grip.

The reporters in the crowd felt a jolt run through their bodies. They all now knew that one of the biggest headlines in the history of the city was underway. The pony in charge of the internal affairs of Manehatten was the one that had ordered a robbery upon the city bank? The scandal it would cause! The papers it would sell!

Ironheart had dropped the griffon. He pawed around the griffon struggling for breath like an animal circling its prey. Once the griffon had regained his breath he put his hands around the wound in his thigh and gasped, "It... it was Count Privilege. He... ordered us to... to come here and-and take w-what we wanted. He said he had lost a lot of, " he took a few deep breaths. "A lot of income. Our weapon shipments kept on getting destroyed... by-by you, you know? And... he wanted more money to make up for that. So he ordered us to do this. He'd share fifteen percent of what we stole with us. That's what he said. He said it was called forceful reimbursement."

"Count Privilege can fart out of his nose and call it a whistle," Ironheart snarled. "But he never, ever keeps his promises to the ponies under his control. You would've gotten nothing from him. Why has he decided to be so open with the robbery?" Ironheart demanded, knowing fully well the presence of the cameras in the crowd. "If he wanted money, why hasn't he been discreetly snuffing money with false transactions and deposits? Is he just stupid?"

The griffon looked thoughtful, rubbing his sore throat. "He has been doing that," the griffon said to him after a moment of indecision. "For the longest time now. That's how he managed to rise to his current spot in the government. So... why'd he send us here if he could just get the money he wanted himself?"

"Because he wanted you dead," Ironheart bluntly told him, making sure the cameras were on him and listening. The griffon looked into Ironheart's terrible face in a state of shock. "Because Count Privilege decided now was the time and place for your usefulness to end. You serve a harsh master. One that would prefer to stuff his own fat, filthy face with the fruit of your labors. You'd do better off not being near him at all."

The griffon's face stayed on the expression of shock for a few more seconds. Then it twisted into a face of absolute rage. "He's been playing us!" he roared. "All this time he's been living off our deaths he's been sending us into for no reason!"

Ironheart nodded, a grin crossing his face. He pointed at the griffon. "I have a job for you."

The griffon waited patiently.

"I'm going to allow you to go free. But I want you to deliver a message to Count Privilege first." Ironheart loomed over the wounded griffon unpleasantly. "Tell him that if he wants to wage open warfare in Manehatten... then I am ready for his game. Tell him to hit me with his best. Shot." He leaned back to an upright position. "And keep in mind that if I ever catch you committing another felony, I'll stretch your remains from here to Canterlot."

The griffon got up slowly, keeping both of his hands over the harpoon mark in his thigh and keeping a perpetual wince on his face. "But... but what about my leg?" he asked, on the verge of collapse.

"You don't need your leg to deliver a message," Ironheart pointed out in his ever-so-soft tone of voice.

Seeing he would not help him, the griffon flapped his wings painfully and lifted off into the air. After his confession, and the stare Ironheart was giving everyone else, no one stopped the griffon from flying off.

The police commissioner had overheard everything that had gone on and he was stunned. Count Privilege was the one responsible for everything that had happened here? It was a widely-known fact that nopony really liked him, but he hadn't expected him to dabble in crime as well! What was the police commissioner going to do?

Ironheart slowly rotated. He was the only one in the area of the explosion from the bank, whose flickering fires were finally dying out. He looked at the crowd at face value, his face unreadable. Then he suddenly drew his sword from off his hip and ignited it so the tip scorched the earth three inches deep into the asphalt. He swept it in a swift circle around him, stepped out of the circle, and drew a vertical line down the middle. He finished by swiping two fast strikes from the line to the perimeter of the circle. Once he was done with the symbol, he extended his wings with a chatter and fired himself into the air. The crowd collectively turned their heads up to watch him fly with a roar of engines into the sky and disappear from sight.

Twilight and the rest of the girls only saw what he had drawn on the ground.

It was a peace symbol, scorched permanently into the pavement, juxtaposed by the sword that had created it.

Victory for Ironheart.