The gaming floor looked like a gaming floor. Off to the right was a roulette table. Over there was a craps table, or at least something that involved throwing dice. Along the back were tables featuring card-based gambling. Even after a year of occasionally possessing hooves, Meg still felt surprise at the ease with which ponies held and manipulated a hand of cards with nothing but hooves. Even unicorns did not use their telekinesis, as far as she could tell. Was it forbidden?
And to the left were rows and rows of slot machines. “Why don’t we try those first,” she said, pointing at the slots.
“Too boring,” Dash said. “I’m going to the craps table.”
“Suit yourself,” Steve said.
Dash took off, banking around one of the ubiquitous pillars of stacked stone blocks supporting the ceiling.
Meg headed to the nearest slot machine. “She called it craps.”
Steve sighed. “And let’s just assume the card games are called blackjack or twenty-one, and there are poker tables somewhere, and these slots use symbols like sevens, bars, and cherries. There really is no need to obsess over every similarity.”
They walked on, the sounds of slots being played growing steadily louder.
The first row they reached was devoid of players. All the slots in the row seemed to be of the same type of machine. They went to one in the middle.
It looked rather old-fashioned. There was nowhere to insert a membership card. No slot to insert paper currency, which Equestria lacked anyway. No LCD display, just mechanical reels—three of them. The symbols on them did indeed include sevens, cherries, and bars, along with a pith helmet, and probably others not currently visible. You couldn’t choose how many rows were active—there was just one—and there was no display of your current balance. You had to insert a coin each time, and your winnings—if any—dropped into a metallic bowl below. Machines like this went out of style a quarter century ago back on Earth.
But there were differences. For one thing, there was no handle to pull, nor any button to push. Rainbow Dash had given them them a quick rundown on how they operated. The act of inserting a coin triggered the spinning of the reels. Nor was the coin, in fact, a coin; in another coincidence, each casino had its own set of “chips” of various denominations, used in slots as well as at table games. And while they were called “chips,” they were actually crystalline discs. You could play any denomination you wanted; the machine paid out in the same denomination as was played.
Don’t even think about using magic to examine the workings of the slot machines, much less manipulate them.
Dash had been quite clear on that point.
“Well, here goes nothing…” Steve levitated a red chip out of a bag—the lowest denomination, worth a tenth of a bit—and put it in the machine.
The reels spun. After a few seconds, the first reel stopped on a triple bar. A few seconds later, the second reel stopped on a blank. Finally, the last reel stopped on a compass rose. The payout: zero.
“I wonder what the payouts are.” He looked at the payout table, located below the reels in small print. “Cherries are the lowest, big surprise, and the jackpot is three compass roses, with a ten thousand multiplier.”
He inserted another coin. The reels stopped on cherry, double bar, and single bar. Two red chips dropped into the bowl with loud clangs.
“I wonder if there’re any progressives?” Meg asked.
“Without computers to network them? How could the jackpots go up on all of them as any of the slots are played?” He levitated a coin from the bowl and inserted it. “Then again, with magic, who knows what they could do.”
The reels spun. Compass rose… Compass rose… The third reel took seemingly forever to stop. Cherries.
“Yup, just like Vegas,” Meg said.
Twilight crossed over to Meg’s home. It was the only place they could’ve gotten that key card. She had no idea where it’d be located, but then neither would the thieves. They would have torn the place up searching for it, like they had done to her office at work.
She wandered about the apartment. Nothing had been disturbed.
The magic generators were in place, too, as her magic bubble was off.
The front door was closed, intact, and locked.
None of the windows were open or broken.
She ended up in the home office, under the watchful eyes of the autographed Pinkie Pie doll.
It didn’t make any sense.
How did they get that key card?
As much as she didn’t want to spoil her vacation, she might have to get in touch with Meg and ask her where she’d left it. But why would it be anywhere but here?
The Royal Guards would be arriving from Canterlot any minute now. Twilight invoked the return spell.
Steve put what was left of their chips back into the bag. “Let’s go watch Dash play craps.”
Las Pegasus casinos were huge, but not as huge as their human counterparts. There weren’t that many craps tables to search, and it hadn’t taken them long to find the one Rainbow Dash was playing. They approached the table while a griffon was throwing the dice.
The dice bounced off the far end and came to a rest. “Eight,” the stickman—stickpony?—announced. A quick check of the table showed that the point was currently nine.
“Yes!” Dash exclaimed with a hoof thrust, as one of the dealers payed out her come bet. She repeated the bet.
Meg wasn’t that familiar with craps, having never actually played it, but it sure looked like the human version to her.
Once all the relevant chips had been removed or added, the dice were returned to the griffon. He tossed them again.
“Seven.”
Nearly all the chips on the table returned to the house, including Dash’s. The round having ended, she finally noticed their arrival. “Hey, guys. Come for some action? Lady Luck is smiling on this table.” She waved a hoof at a nice pile of chips.
Steve shook his head. “We don’t play craps. We’re just passing by.”
The pegasus shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She placed a new bet on the pass line.
Meg wandered off in the direction of the blackjack tables. They looked frustratingly familiar. One table had a group of unicorns—all, again, holding cards with their hooves. Are they warded against most magic to prevent cheating?
She reached the edge of the gaming area, where a steady stream of ponies and other sapient beings were making their way from one place to another. As she waited for Steve to catch up to her, she wondered what to do next. Directions to various destinations hung from the ceiling. The front desk and elevators to the rooms were to the right, and to the left were everything else: restaurants, shopping, theaters, etc.
Steve caught up to her. “Okay,” he said, “I have to admit it’s a bit scary how similar the table games are.”
“I’m sure Twilight has a book on the history of Equestrian gambling we can borrow,” she said without enthusiasm. That mare had a book for everything, or knew where to find one.
“But you want to know what’s different?” He had a knowing smile on his muzzle.
“No,” she replied, somewhat annoyed. “Indulge me.”
“Take a deep breath.” He showed by example.
She did. “Yeah, so?”
“You can’t tell?”
Meg started walking in the direction of the points of interest. “I’m really not in the mood for games.”
“There’s no cigarette smoke. Ponies don’t smoke.”
That made her stop and look back at him. It was true. The air was clean. If there was one thing all casinos back on Earth had in common, it was air saturated with second-hand smoke. Sure, even Sin City was not immune to the spread of non-smoking areas, but where gambling took place? Smoking and gambling went hand-and-hand, for whatever reason, and casinos knew it.
It was also true she had never seen a cigarette anywhere in Equestria.
“The princesses need to come up with a smoking policy before allowing human tourism,” she said.
“Can’t imagine they’d allow it.”
“Yeah.” She started walking again. “Can’t wait to see the reaction to that.”
They continued down the path, bordered by the gaming area to their left and the occasional overpriced coffee shop to their right. Apart from the carpet and the faux-stone support columns, not much effort had been put into the theme.
Most of the “people” they saw milling about, or seated at the ever-present slots, were ponies. The remainder were griffons and minotaurs. Admittedly, there wouldn’t be multiple sapient species in Vegas—well, not yet. No cows, though; Meg could believe they didn’t care for gambling, from the few she had met. Nor were there any diamond dogs, dragons, or buffalo. Whatever that meant.
Once they’d reached the end of the casino floor, the path bifurcated. One way led to the all-you-can-eat buffet—no self-respecting casino would lack one—and several fancy restaurants, all competing to be the most expensive. The other way led to a curved escalator that turned a half-circle as it went up, where according to a sign the “Temple Shops” were to be found.
They already had an early dinner on the train. “Check out the stores?” Meg asked.
“Might as well,” Steve replied.
Twilight flew around the office building. Night had fallen, but artificial lighting was abundant. In the back, against a fence, was an unmarked delivery van. The back doors were open, with somepony sitting on the exposed floor. Another car was parked beside it. No others were back here.
I’m an idiot, she thought as she went down to investigate. I should’ve come back here first. There were others to apprehend and the Feds had yet to arrive. She had no idea when they’d show up.
She hovered a few feet away, invisible to the man. Inside were many boxes, similar to the ones their accomplices leaving the vault had been carrying, but no Meg. Either the man she had captured had been lying—almost certainly, though she couldn’t image what the point would have been—or another vehicle had already taken her away. The magic generators were obviously not here, so there was that evidence for a departed vehicle.
She resisted the urge to capture the man and the vehicles. Others were obviously inside, continuing their looting. She drifted backwards a dozen feet, touched down, and patiently waited.
A few minutes later, a pair of men exited the building, each carrying a full box. They walked towards the van.
“Has Jackson showed up yet?” one of them asked.
The man at the van got up and stood aside. “Nope.”
“I don’t like it,” the other one said. “He couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air.”
The two men added their boxes to those already in the van. Twilight approached them, unseen.
“Something’s obviously gone wrong,” the van man said as he closed the doors. “I say we cut our losses and get lost.”
“We can’t leave all this stuff here.”
“Jackson has the keys to this van, or did you forget?”
Twilight had heard enough. She expanded her magic bubble, grabbed all three men and the van, and invoked the return spell.
They all returned to an unused room near her residence, big enough to hold any vehicles she might have found. “You’ll be able to ask Jackson for the keys soon enough,” she said.
They hoofed it over to the escalator and got on. Slowly it ascended. It wasn’t all that different from the circular escalators found in several Vegas casinos.
As the top approached, the reverberations of voices and hooves on stone got louder. The view expanded to reveal the inside of an immense stone temple, the walls lined with shops on multiple levels. They left the escalator and entered the voluminous interior, with space enough to fly around in. A few pegasi or griffons took advantage of it, flying from level to level or from one side to the other. More circular escalators accommodated the flightless.
“Wow.” Steve trotted to the closer end of the “temple,” where larger-than-life statues of Daring Do and Ahuizotl were glaring at each other from within a temple setting of their own.
Meg found a sign nearby. “Performances every hour at the top of the hour,” she read. “I guess those statues are animatronic or something?” There was a clock below the sign. “Looks like we just missed it.” Nor was there a crowd of ponies waiting for the next show to begin, not yet anyway.
Steve got within whispering distance of her. “I wonder how Ahuizotl feels about this.”
“Or being considered as fictional as Daring Do herself,” she replied in an equally low voice. “It’d be so easy for him to prove otherwise.”
He pondered the motionless mechanisms. “Something doesn’t add up.”
“I know, but Twilight did confirm the events of Daring Don’t happened.”
“Too bad you didn’t ask her when you had the chance.”
She gave him a flat look. “I had other things on my mind at the time.”
“I know, I know… just saying, that’s all.”
“Besides, I’m not sure she’d give a straight answer.”
Steve began walking down the middle of the themed mall, taking in the stores on either side. “Whatever is actually going on, there’s no denying she’s done well by it.”
Shops catering to tourists with too much money to spend were the same in any universe or realm, with a heavy emphasis on fashion accessories if not so much on actual clothing. Rounding that out were the gift shops, more often than not featuring Daring Do stuff, and the ubiquitous fast food eateries. Maybe they could find something Daring Do themed for Susie.
Meg suddenly stopped, staring at a particularly wide storefront. “A Barnyard Bargains? Here?”
There was no shortage of ponies entering and leaving the store. “Why not?” Steve said. “It’s not like Filthy Rich to leave a source of profits untapped.”
A mint green unicorn left the store.
Meg squinted, trying to make out the mare’s cutie mark. “Is that…”
The mare spotted them. As if to answer her question, she made a beeline towards them. They stood their ground, waiting for her to reach them.
“Hi…” Lyra said. “Funny bumping into you, here of all places.”
“It’s a small world,” Meg said. “We just got here ourselves.”
“Yeah, look, I’m sorry about intruding on your vacation…” She nervously looked around. “But Twilight said I could talk to you about visiting the human world.”
Meg exchanged glances with Steve. It was news to her. “Uh, sure, I can spare a few minutes. Should we wait for Bon Bon?”
“She’s not here,” Lyra replied a little too quickly.
That was unusual; the two were usually inseparable. “Okay… What questions do you have?” Twilight was more than capable of giving an overview of the human world, so what was it that only she could answer?
Lyra looked around once more, and got closer. “Twilight said that humans already know about me, somehow.”
Meg also kept her voice down. “I assume you were told that the nature of that knowledge is a royal secret.”
“Yeah, I know.” Her eyes flicked around. “Here’s the thing, that whole obsessed-with-hands deal.”
Meg wanted to groan. “I wish that wasn’t—”
“No, no, it’s okay,” she said, waving a hoof. “In fact, I was wondering if I should play that up.”
“Play it up,” Meg slowly repeated.
“Sure, if it’ll help draw larger audiences, and that’s good for business.”
“I’m… not sure how good an idea that is. I mean, it probably would draw larger audiences, but…” She took another breath. “But humans will always think of you that way, and you’ll have to live with that.”
“Don’t they already?”
“Well, yeah, but they haven’t met you, yet, and when they do… you’ll get only one chance to correct that.”
Lyra nodded. “I see.”
“And don’t forget that humans will be coming here to Equestria some day.”
“Yeah,” Lyra said. “That’s why Twilight chose to tell me.”
That was news too. How many have been told? Were they all being told the same thing?
“But she also said they’d be kept out of Ponyville, with few exceptions, for just that reason, so…” Lyra shrugged.
The unicorn seemed oblivious that two of those exceptions was standing in front of her.
“It’s your decision,” Meg said. “Not like you have to make it right now.”
“And I need to talk it over with Bon Bon.” Her eyes drifted elsewhere for a moment. “I should be on my way—I’m… attending a reunion later—but I’m sure I’ll have more questions once we’re all back in Ponyville.”
“Uh, sure, if I’m not around, just leave word with Twilight or Spike.”
Princess Twilight Sparkle, in full regalia, accompanied her mentor into the Canterlot throne room. Everypony stood at attention as they made their way to the thrones. Celestia took her throne, while Twilight borrowed Luna’s.
Princess Celestia spoke. “You may show them in.”
Massive marble doors eased open, revealing five humans accompanied by as many Royal Guards. None of the prisoners wore cuffs. Partially that was because cuffs designed for minotaurs were too large for humans. It also made a point: they weren’t dangerous enough to need cuffing. No human was going to win a battle with a trained unicorn guard.
Twilight was ready. The goal was to acquire information, specifically information on who they worked for or with. The human authorities did not particularly mind what was said to persuade them, but they had laid out clear guidelines on what they could do.
“You may approach the throne,” Celestia commanded.
After a little prodding, the humans began walking. One had a pronounced limp, a limp that hadn’t been there when Twilight had last seen them. “Why are you limping?” she asked.
A guard answered for him. “They tried to escape, Your Highness. The injury happened when they were subdued.”
The marble doors closed behind them with a decisive thud.
“I’m genuinely curious,” Celestia said. “Where did you think you could go? You don’t exactly blend in.”
The ringleader, Jackson, the one who had pointed a gun at Twilight, stepped forward. “You expect us to just wait around like cows waiting to be slaughtered?”
“I personally know a few cows who’d be offended by that,” Twilight said. “And we don’t kill criminals.”
“Fine. You’ll use us as guinea pi—excuse me, test subjects—for your ponification serum.”
“Why would I help you blend in?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow. “It would only make it easier for you to escape. Besides, trust me, plenty of humans would volunteer if such a serum existed—which it doesn’t—so your services as test subjects are not required.”
He clasped his hands behind his back, defiant. “Whatever it is, we won’t cooperate. Sooner or later, you’ll have no choice but to return us.”
Ironically, he wasn’t wrong. Not that they’d be going free. If they refused to cooperate here, the hope was that they’d happily cooperate with the Feds in exchange for being returned to their own realm.
“I think you’ll find it in your interests to answer our questions,” Celestia said.
“I demand a lawyer.”
“Request denied.”
“You can’t do that,” he calmly stated. “I have my rights.”
Celestia tilted her head. “You seemed to be under the impression this is a trial. It is not. In her sovereign capacity as judge and jury, Princess Twilight Sparkle has already found you guilty of attempting to kidnap her at gunpoint. You are being questioned.”
His jaw worked silently for several seconds. “You can’t do that!”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “You keep saying that,” she droned.
“Aren’t we allowed to defend ourselves?”
“Do you deny trying to kidnap me at gunpoint?”
He opened his mouth, but then thought better of it. After a few seconds of silence, he finally said, “If we’ve been convicted, why are we only finding out about it now. What’s the sentence?”
“Your sentence depends on how cooperative you are,” Twilight replied. “A cell next to Tirek is still an option.”
They allowed the implication of her words to sink in. That some familiar human agents would be arriving to question them, ideally to take custody of them… well, if they were told that, they might not find their current circumstances that unpleasant.
Twilight wasn’t really comfortable with the strategy, but Celestia had no problems with it, and Luna wished she could be there to participate.
Celestia teleported Meg’s key card into the air in front of her. “How did you acquire this?”
He glared at her. “And how many times do I have to repeat myself?”
“You could try giving us the truth for once,” Twilight said.
“And what makes you so damn sure I’m not?!”
A guard telekinetically yanked him down to his knees.
“We ask the questions here,” Celestia calmly reminded him.
The guard released him, and he stood back up. “Then I have nothing to say.” He looked around at his fellow prisoners. “None of us do.”
“I see,” she said. “Perhaps a different approach is called for.”
One of the men tried to bolt, but was instantly restrained by a guard.
Celestia ignored that, turning her head to the wall on her right. “I have a small favor to ask of you, if you don’t mind.”
Twilight wondered who she could be talking to.
A fly departed that wall, drifted through the air towards them, and in a flash of light turned into a draconequus.
Discord folded his arms, pouting. “And I was so sure you didn’t notice me.”
“We’ll discuss that later, but since you happen to be here…”
He looked hungrily at the suddenly nervous prisoners. “I’m listening…”
“I feel that matters would be expedited if you could bring to us the human, Meg.”
His face fell. He picked it up off the floor. “She wouldn’t like me interrupting her vacation.”
“I’ll take full responsibility. It’d only be for a few minutes, I’d expect.”
Discord stroked his goatee. “Just to be clear, the human Meg.”
Celestia nodded. “That is correct.”
A grin, that in a different time might have been described as evil, spread across his face. “I can’t wait to see what happens.”
He snapped his talons.
Meg appeared in front of him, as human as she was when Twilight had picked up her and her husband for their vacation.
She did a double take. “Discord! What’s the—”
“It was at my request,” Celestia interrupted. “There has been a development that requires your presence, hopefully for just a few minutes.”
Meg spun around to face the thrones. Her key card was already floating towards her. She plucked it out of the air with a hand—noticed that she had a hand.
Before she could ask about that, Celestia spoke: “The gentlemen behind you claim to have taken it from you when they kidnapped you from your office earlier today.”
“Huh?” Slowly she turned around to face her alleged kidnappers. Her eyes went wide in recognition. “Eric?”
“You know one of them?”
Meg’s eyes remained on Eric. “Eric Tanner. A co-worker.” She turned around to face the alicorns once more. “Why is he here?”
“These men were ransacking the offices,” Twilight said, “including, with the help of your key card, the vault. Tanner was aiding them.”
She closely inspected the card, both front and back. “This is my key card,” she confirmed. She slowly turned around. “Ransacking the office?”
“You were supposed to be on vacation,” Eric grunted.
“I was, until a few minutes ago.”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “Do you always spend your vacations at work?”
“What the hell are you talking about? I was in Las Pegasus!”
“We know that,” Twilight said, “but we seem to be having some difficulty convincing them of that. Where did you leave your key card?”
“It ought to be in my purse, which I left at home.” She looked back at the men. “Did they break into my apartment?”
“I already checked. There’s no evidence of breaking and entering.”
Meg looked at the popcorn-munching Discord, back at Eric and company, then once more at the princesses. “Could somepony clue me in on what’s going on?”
Jackson broke down in uncontrollable laughter. “Oh this is rich…”
Celestia quirked a royal eyebrow. “Care to enlighten us?”
It took a few moments for him to get his breathing back under control. “Isn’t it obvious? That’s a changeling!”
Meg threw up her hands. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
“I do,” Celestia said. “This chamber has been warded against changelings. Any that enter are compelled to revert to their true form.”
“Then obviously, Your Highness, it isn’t working, because I know who I captured, and she can’t possibly be standing in front of me right now. And if you ever want to see her again, you’ll let us go.”
Discord put his snacking on hold. He got up, pulled out of thin air a bizarre-looking device, something with lots of flashing lights and antennas and making a lot of annoying pinging sounds, and walked around taking measurements. He stopped and pushed up a pair of nerdy glasses. “The wards are present and operational.”
He disappeared and reappeared in front of the prisoners, bearing no props other than a hungry smile. “Did you ever consider the possibility you kidnapped a changeling?”
A pin drop could have been heard.
Please just be messing with them, Twilight thought. Even if she had accidentally brought a changeling to their world, their transformation magic would violate that realm’s conservation laws. It’d have to have taken on her form before leaving Equestria. Yet it was so rare for Meg to depart this realm as a human. And there was still the key card. But they were so insistent they had her…
It was a conversation they needed to have, but this was neither the time nor place.
“What if we did?” the ringleader asked, all pretense of confidence evaporated.
“Tell us where she is being held, and I promise we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
He looked up at the solar diarch. “No. You’re messing with me. Fine, that thing isn’t a changeling. It’s one of Discord’s sock puppets. Same difference. We have her, and you won’t see her again unless you release us.”