The streets were bustling and cramped. Even after nightfall, the market still continued, although its more unsavory aspects had come to be displayed far more earnestly. This was not a place that was normally accessible to tourists- -those that came to visit the city-state of Signapone would invariably return with tales of a beautiful city of almost excessively stringent unicorn cleanliness. It was modern, sleek, fashionable, and rich- -but no city anywhere in Equestria, save for perhaps Canterlot itself- -could boast all of those things.
This was a place that few non-locals ventured to- -and those non-locals that did were certainly not tourists. Dilapidated, dirty buildings loomed over the crooked streets, leaning outward over them and blocking what little light came from the moon above. Instead, torches of every kind had been lit amongst the nocturnal shop stalls: decorative lamps lit by candles, brilliant but ominous magical crystals, and, in a few cases, outright torches.
Caballeron moved through these streets with ease and familiarity- -but with no lack of disgust. This was the sort of place he tended to frequent in his line of work, but it was by no means one he enjoyed. It was no place for a pony of high birth and higher education; the world was indeed in a sad state when a pony such as himself was relegated to such dirty and unpleasant territories. Yet, in the name of profit, there was nothing that he would not do- -a fact that Caballeron reflected on with great pride.
And this market was by no means the worst. It was a den of strange thieves and every manner of debauchery conceivable from ponies, from the consumption of excessive quantities of purified, high-grade salt to for-profit snuggling, but at least the majority of the occupants were ponies. Far stranger and more unpleasant things could be witnessed during the sleepiest daytime hours in the mutant-infested markets of the Badlands, a place that even Caballeron would not approach for any less than his weight in Canterlot bits.
At his side walked a tall and slender earth-mare. Her entire body was ochre in color, and her mane and tail were both raven black and perfectly straight. She wore an ornate dress in shades of black and white, complete with a number of well-placed metallic buckles. She would have been quite beautiful, save for her large and strange blue-green eyes.
“Herr doktor,” she whined, rubbing against him in the process. Caballeron winced. He did not like her touching him. “You look so very tired! You should not be out here at this hour. You should be in bed! In fact, both of us should be…” She pushed her snout against Caballeron’s neck, and he gently pushed her away.
“I am aware of what I look like,” snapped Caballeron. He was all-too familiar with the deep bags that had formed under his eyes, and the stubble on his chin that had grown even longer than usual. “But if I have time to sleep, then I have time to work!”
“I don’t think I mentioned sleep, herr doktor.”
“Regardless,” he grunted, “time is of the essence, Argiopé. And translating Exmoori is hardly a simple task. Whoever devised it was clearly a moron or a poet.” Caballeron laughed humorlessly. “Although I suppose the two are the same, no? It requires the greatest precision and concentration! I cannot allow myself to be distracted.”
“Not even by me, I suppose?” she growled.
“Not by anything- -and yet here I am, having to do work that was SUPPOSED to be done for me!” He stamped his hoof in anger. Argiopé stared at him, seeming mildly amused. She appreciated his passion; it was in fact one of the reasons why she had accepted her position.
Caballeron continued to grumble. “Of course! They claim to pay me upfront, and what do they give me? Crystals!”
“Extremely valuable crystals,” noted Argiopé. With her accent, she pronounced “crystals” as “crEE-stahls”.
“Indeed! Extremely valuable crystals I have no way to liquidate! So now I have to fund all of this out of pocket, and do the work myself!”
“You would not have to do the work, herr doktor, if you hadn’t sent Biff and his grunts to track down Daring Do.” She growled with contempt at the name, her face contorting violently before she was able to restore control over her countenance. “If you had them, you would not need to hire this filthy ‘local muscle’, as Rogue so eloquently describes it. We could be back on a silk bed, and you could be counting these adorable buckles on my dress. One. By. One.”
Caballeron did his best not to wince. Argiopé was demanding, but valuable. “As I said,” he explained, “if we succeed at recovering this task, we will have more money than we can ever dream about.”
“So you can be attended by well-formed zebra maidens?”
Caballeron smiled. Had Argiopé been a normal pony, she would have blushed. “I think I have one particular zebra in mind, perhaps?”
“Oh, well, herr doktor…”
“But this job, it is far too important to allow HER to interfere! With the cost I’ve spent funding this? It would ruin me!”
“I’ve tried to track her. It is not possible. Let alone for Biff. He access in, more of, how do you say? Hitting things.”
“We cannot find Daring Do herself, no. She is too well hidden.” A sly and vicious smile crossed Caballeron’s face. “But the rainbow pony, the Rainbow-Dash. I believe her to be Daring Do’s daughter. The resemblance is uncanny. And even if she is not, Daring Do clearly cares deeply for her.”
“So you remove this Rainbow Dash…”
“And send Daring Do on a wild-goose chase to get her back, while we snatch our goal without interference!” He laughed manically.
“And you trusted this to Biff?”
Caballeron suddenly stopped laughing. “My darling, my dearest Argiopé,” he said, “do not underestimate those in my employ. Biff is brutish and cruel, but those are both excellent qualities. And he has excellent taste in facial hair.”
“I wish I could shave you.”
“Don’t be vulgar. And don’t disparage Biff. Or the value of ‘local muscle’.”
Argiopé looked up and saw that they had reached the front of a garishly adorned bar. The smell of salt was thick, as well as pony sweat and stale, poor quality perfume that Argiopé herself would never dream of allowing near her perfectly formed body. Caballeron immediately put a hoof against her chest- -causing her to greedily embrace him- -only for her to be gently pushed out of the way as a badly bruised stallion was thrown out of the bar with enough force to upset a nearby street vendor’s cart. Illegal cabbages rolled into the street as the old mare who had been hawking them began to berate the heavily salted stallion lying in the street.
“Charming,” groaned Argiopé.
“Indeed,” muttered Caballeron. Still, he took a deep breath and pushed his way into the establishment.
Light surrounded him. It was not bright and artificial, but came from a substantial number of candles and fireplaces that had been lit despite the warmth. The place was cavernous, although mostly windowless, as if several of the looming dark buildings had been hollowed out and linked to make it. The reason was quite obvious: it was popular. Harsh-looking ponies were cavorting throughout, many of them prancing and frolicking with reckless opinions, or drinking cider with at least one heavily made up mare- -or stallion- -at their sides.
Argiopé wrinkled her nose. “Who would have thought the great Doctor Caballeron would be seen in such a tasteless and filthy place.”
A passing mare- -a tiny kiso girl in a fluffy pink dress- -perked up at hearing his name.
“A doctor?” she said, her eyes widening. “Oh, my! We rarely have such learned stallions here! Or so handsome! Are you a MD or DVM?”
The mare approached Caballeron to hold onto his leg, but was frozen in her tracks by an icy gaze from Argiopé. When the poor kiso girl did not immediately retreat, Argiopé suddenly leaned forward, opening her mouth far wider than any pony’s mouth would be able to separate, revealing a mouth full of needle-like fangs and a long, forked tongue. She hissed aggressively.
The girl immediately screamed and burst into tears, running away and trailing a surprisingly extensive pool of liquid behind her. Caballeron laughed at her. “PhD, actually,” he said. As tired as he was, Argiopé’s antics had made him just slightly happier. That was quite unusual for her.
Despite her outburst, Argiopé quickly regained her composure. Caballeron found that second aspect of her personality particularly useful: despite her strange appetites, she was a fervent professional.
“My apologies, herr doktor,” she muttered, although she was clearly not remotely apologetic. Her hazy blue-green eyes suddenly turned upward as she looked across the room. “Ah. Here is Rogue.”
“I see him,” said Caballeron. He pushed his way through the crowd toward his employee, and saw that Rogue was not alone- -although much to his dismay, the stallion beside him did not look nearly like he had envisioned he would.
Mainly because he was not a stallion at all- -or at least not a pony stallion. He was a zebra. Not an especially large one, either, although he was quite well dressed: he wore a rather expensive suit jacket left open near the top to reveal the fact that it was lined with leopard-print silk. Like most of his people, he also wore an abundance of gold bands. His suit seemed to have been selected to match them.
“Rogue,” said Caballeron, not taking his eyes off the zebra. “I certainly hope you did not spend all of my discretionary funds on snuggling sessions.”
Rogue appeared mildly shocked but took the insult with professionalism that nearly rivaled Argiopé’s. “No, boss,” he said, trying his best to ablate his thick accent. “I’ve been interviewing. Just as you asked. And this bloke topped the list.”
“This one? Really?”
The zebra laughed. “Ah! From my expensive clothing, you cannot tell/ that I am not a zebra stallion with that type of services to sell?”
“Ah,” said Caballeron. “A couplet. Am I to assume you are Zebabwean, then?”
The zebra raised a striped eyebrow. “It seems you have met some of my kin/ to so astutely guess my origin. Though I must admit, my homeland I do spurn/ as I have been forbidden to ever return.” He laughed again before his yellow eyes stopped on Argiopé. A strange expression came over his face. “I see you have strange choices in protection/ as this one is quite an unusual selection.” He bowed deeply. “But a mare of such beauty is indeed a rare find.” He grinned as he allowed his leopard-print jacket to fall open slightly, and Argiopé’s face contorted in hatred when she saw a small, leaf-wrapped package of mud in one of his inner pockets. “But do not think that this zebra is blind,” he chuckled.
“Well you’re certainly observant,” said Caballeron, his confidence in Rogue at least partially restored. “But I didn’t ask for just one zebra.”
“Of course you did not!” laughed the zebra. “Just one zebra would not be a lot!”
“Does he have to rhyme?” growled Argiopé through gritted teeth. “It is infuriating.”
“I like it,” said Rogue, attempting to be diplomatic. “So, Zel, do you think we can give my boss a peep in the back?”
“If you have the bits to pay/ I think I’m about to make your day.”
He turned quickly and, with Rogue standing beside him, led them through the establishment toward one of the doors in the rear, past the salt-strewn bar.
The door led to a system of poorly-lit corridors. In some of them, ponies lay collapsed, dehydrated from far too much salt-licking. From above, the cooing and giggling of snuggling and cuddling could be heard, which drew Argiopé’s intense attention. The whole place smelled of mold and damp, and it was clear that it had not been washed in months- -or perhaps ever. It was a smell Caballeron had become familiar with, and it was one that had come to saturate many of those lower in the hierarchy of his organization.
“I market mercenaries, soldiers, rogues, and the occasional patsy,” said Zel. “Come, come! Take a look and see!”
Zel opened a larger, heavier door, and a blast of cooler air wafted out. The room was larger and almost entirely empty; the sounds of the rowdy front of the building died away as Caballeron entered what he immediately perceived to be a storage room. The room was not empty, though- -and it held more than boxes of produce and packs of low-cost salt licks.
A number of individuals suddenly stood up, rising from a table where they had been playing cards or sitting by, watching. When they saw Zel, though, they immediately calmed down, if only partially.
“Whose this, Zel?” asked a grizzled Pegasus mare with a Mohawk. “You’ve got us a job?”
“This is a famous doctor of archeology/ looking to do some deeds unsavory. My new friend Rogue claims the pay will be a lot/ so I chose to let his boss see what we have got.”
Caballeron stepped forward and looked through the various ponies who sat throughout the room. The majority of them looked like the normal sorts of rogues and miscreants he tended to hire, the only difference being that the loyalty of these workers would be far less assured- -and they would be more disposable. The only individuals of note were a female minotaur who was sitting near the table and curling a large dumbbell vigorously, a scrawny but harsh looking unicorn who bore a tattoo of the crest of a famous Bittish magic school, and a pair of individuals sitting apart from the rest in the rear. One was a griffon, and the other an earth-pony; both were pure black, with only their bright yellow- -and seemingly unblinking- -eyes standing out against their shadow-like bodies.
“Who are those two?” asked Caballeron.
“Those two are newer to my team than the others/ and though it may seem quite strange, they claim that they are brothers.”
“A pony and a griffon,” sneered Argiopé. “I would hate to see their mother.”
“Yo!” called the grizzled Pegasus. “Hey, doctor whatever the heck your name is.”
“Caballeron.”
“Sure. Zel says you’re an archeologist? Then what do you need us for. Are we going to be digging holes or something? Because I don’t do dirt. Unless I’m shoving some fat nub’s face into it!”
“YEAH!” cried the female minotaur. “Shove his FACE in it! DO IT! DO IT NOW!”
The grizzled Pegasus took a step toward Caballeron, and Argiopé began to bristle at the thought of another female approaching him. Caballeron, however, turned to Zel. “I see you have problems controlling them, perhaps?”
“Not even slightly/ as those who CONTINUE to work for me behave quite rightly.”
He glared, and the Mohawk-Pegasus winced. “Sorry, Zel,” she said. She turned toward Caballeron. “Doctor Caballeron, is it?”
“Indeed. That is my name. You may have heard of me. I’m quite famous.”
“I haven’t.” Before Zel could glare again, she interrupted him. “Not that that’s a problem. But we’re good to go. Doesn’t matter what it is. I’ve got grandkids that need to eat, and Dropoff over there has to pay for his braces. We’ll do whatever you need.”
“Don’t be so rash,” said Zel. “I will make the contract, but only if he has the cash.”
Caballeron paused, staring at the “local muscle”. Then he smiled. “This will do.” He turned to Zel. “I think we can come to an agreement. Perhaps over some fine cider?”
Zell smiled. It was a cruel smile. “My mercenaries will pass any test/ come to a deal with me, and we’ll drink my very best.”
The two of them departed toward a more private- -and more civilized- -office. Neither could have known that both of them had already been betrayed, and actions had already been set into motions. Actions that were precisely calculated to better distribute the balance of power, and not at all for the sake of fairness.