The Tirek Who Tolerated Me

by Kotatsu Neko


We still have a problem. (And a pony.)

"There's still a few things I don't really understand," Cozy Glow said finally. She was reclining on the floor of her cage, having been listening to Spy's tales of bloodshed and mayhem for the past... who knew how long in this wretched place.

For his part, Spy was walking the circumference of his own cage, using the bars as support. He was barely stumbling at all now. "Understandable. It's a completely different world from yours. Ask away."

"So... you work with all these creatures..."

"Men," he corrected. "Male humans are men, females are women. Remember?"

"Right. Men. And they're all basically no good because they're... um..."

"An obese giant, an insane doctor, a hillbilly, an idiot, a smaller idiot, a drunken vandal, a disgusting bushman, and a mumbling abomination against nature itself. Correct."

"So, if you're so much better than them... why do you still work with them?"

He paused and looked down at her. "I'm sorry, does this world not have the concept of money? I thought I'd explained this."

She shook her head. "No, no, I get that part... I guess. But I mean... wouldn't you make more money somewhere else? If you're really the best, you should be able to name your price!"

"Hm. A fair question. In fact, there are very few positions available to one such as I that pay as well and as regularly as the Mann account. Redmond and Blutarch were both insanely wealthy, and never really came to grips with the concept of money themselves. They spent their fortunes like water in their endless competition, and their estates continue those exorbitant payments. Besides," Spy added, "I find my current duties... satisfying."

"But you could get a better job if you wanted, right?" Cozy Glow pressed.

"Well... naturally, if I-"

"But you don't. Why? Is there something stopping you?"

Again, Spy was forced to re-evaluate the filly. She seemed innocent enough, yet her questions kept slipping in where he didn't want them to go. Sharp indeed. "No. Next question."

"Are you sure?" she asked teasingly. "It couldn't be because you're closer to your team than you want to admit, could it?"

"No!" he said, perhaps too quickly. "I have no social or familial ties to those cretins whatsoever! Next question!"

"Huh? I didn't say anything about fam-"

Damn! She had him off-balance and he didn't like it. "Next. Question."

"All right, all right. Golly, you sure are touchy." Cozy Glow thought for a moment, ignoring his sour look. "Tell me more about this... Aw-stray-lee-um stuff. You said there wasn't much magic in your world, but that sounded super magical!"

"Ah, yes. Australium," Spy said, calming down a bit. "Hah. It may as well be magic. A golden metal that turned a continent of swaggering hooligans into mustachioed geniuses overnight... yes, very nearly magical, if not a deal with the Devil himself. There are trace amounts of it in some of the more fantastical tools in my arsenal, but I don't have the slightest idea how it works. Which is probably best for my sanity."

"But, gosh! If it's so powerful..."

"Then why don't I use it myself?" Power, eh? He made a mental note and continued. "Even if I knew how, gathering a supply wouldn't be the same as, say, going to the local convenience store, or robbing the local convenience bank. Every last gram of Australium is ferociously guarded; if not by the government of Australia, then by my own employers."

"You could get some, though, couldn't you?"

He suppressed a smile. At the very least, she was perceptive. "Technically speaking? Of course. Realistically..." He shook his head. "Not from my employers. They know me too well. And if I were to steal from the source on my own initiative, why, it could cause an international incident, perhaps start a war between Australia and France itself! I do have some standards."

"France?"

"Oh. Yes. My home country."

She thought about this. "Oh! You mean Prance!"

"What? No. France."

"Are you sure? That sounds made-up."

"Yes, I am quite confident I know the name of my place of birth! I was born in France, I grew up in France, I am a Frenchman! Next question, pl-"

"Prenchman."

He glowered at her. "I'm going back to sleep."

Cozy Glow pouted as if he was taking away a favorite toy, and clutched desperately at the bars of her cage. With hooves. Somehow. "Nooooo! I'll be good, I promise!"

"...very well. Next question." Spy wanted to keep this going, regardless. He felt he needed only one more angle...

"You're doing great with the whole walking thing, by the way! Just pick up your hooves a bit more." As he grudgingly took her advice (which did seem to help) , she added, "That reminds me. It's not really about your other world, but you kind of freaked out when you first woke up in that body, and now you're coping really well! How did you manage to adapt to a strange situation so fast?"

He paused and stared at her blankly, considering her question.

(...there he was, preparing to defend a rustic Bavarian village against a relentless tide of robot mercenaries literally fueled by money...)

(...there he was, helping the Scout court his would-be girlfriend in the middle of a battle against a giant bread monster...)

(...there he was, pushing the corpse of an old man into a gateway to Hell as spells flew through the air, skeleton armies advanced and pumpkins exploded...)

(...there he was, sharing a locker room with a Pyro...)

"...practice," he said finally.

"Oh. Okay." Cozy Glow looked puzzled, but let it go. "Just one more question, then. What was that whole thing last night about me being sent to..." She hesitated, then forced herself to say the word. "...kill you?"

Spy hesitated as well. It was theoretically a risk, but only theoretically. The deed was done, and the chance of a pony from another dimension making it worse was barely worth considering.

And... yes. He could use this, couldn't he...?

"Well..." he began, his mind racing, "...I... suppose I can tell you. But it's... embarrassing. Shameful, in fact."

This perked her ears up, literally. "Really? Coming from you, that sounds..."

"Yes, yes, I know. What use has an assassin for shame? But what I have done sickens even me! It was..." He looked away, the picture of regret. "...inexcusable."

Curiosity and dread waged war in Cozy Glow's mind. "Wh... what did you do?"

He released the bars of his cage and stood unsupported. He swayed and wobbled, but remained standing, then raised one hand dramatically to the sky, or at least the ceiling. "I did the one thing I was never to do! A sin against team and employer! For I..." And he clutched his hands to his chest, curling them into anguished fists. "...opened a briefcase!"

Spy held this pose for a few moments, then risked a glance at the pegasus. He may have overacted a bit there, but... no, Cozy Glow seemed to have taken his performance at face value. Either she wasn't old enough to tell the difference, or that kind of histrionics was par for the course in this ridiculous world. "You opened a briefcase?!" she asked, utterly flabbergasted (a word that Spy was genuinely embarrassed to even think of.) "That's the big secret that-"

"Ah, but this was no ordinary briefcase. It was filled to overflowing with valuable intelligence." He raised a finger as she opened her mouth. "And by that I mean gathered information of a sensitive or classified nature. Documents, schematics, photographs, recordings. that sort of thing. We were often sent to take one from our enemies, or protect ours from them." His brow furrowed briefly. "...Usually both at the same time, now that I think of it."

The flabber of Cozy Glow remained gasted. "Golly, Mister Spy, I still don't understand! What could possibly be in them that was so valuable?"

He dearly wished he had a smoke. It would look so wonderfully noir to take a drag before responding. "Secrets to die for. Secrets to kill for. Like a beautiful woman, the briefcases were mysterious... enticing... and always the center of attention. Those who possess her would do anything to keep her, and those who do not would move the heavens themselves to steal her away!"

"...her?" The pegasus was giving him an odd look.

Spy suddenly realized he'd gotten caught up in the moment, and coughed awkwardly. "It. But yes, that was my question as well. How could one piece of business accoutrement be worth the lives of so many? The mystery gnawed at my very soul for years, until I finally gave in to its siren call. I had to find out! So last night..." He looked around at the perpetually lit cavern. "...probably last night... I did the unthinkable: while my team was otherwise occupied, I took the briefcase from our own intelligence room and stole away with it, sneaking it into an area beyond the battlefield where my employer's watchful eyes could not follow."

He waited, but there was no response. Good. He had her rapt attention. "It was a matter of moments to remove the various security measures on the briefcase... though it would seem I missed at least one of them. At any rate, I opened the case, and was free to examine its contents. And oh, what treasures I found within!" He turned away from Cozy Glow and gripped the bars of his cage, appearing to be lost in reminiscence.

"What, um... what did you find?" Her tone of voice was that of honest and polite curiosity, but again there was an edge to it, an eagerness. Spy had no experience with the alleged sport known as 'fishing', but he felt he could imagine himself as an angler, watching the still surface of a pond and occasionally seeing a flash of movement below. That eagerness was a ripple on the surface.

What are you hiding, Miss Glow? Spy needed to break through her childish facade, but what would interest Cozy Glow enough to do the job? Power, yes, and she was keenly interested in reward... but any two-bit thug wanted power and reward, and he felt that the child's ambitions ran deeper than that. He didn't know her past, and anything she told him would be suspect, so no help guessing at motives there. Even so... from her telling of it, the world beyond Tartarus was full of light and hope and other saccharine nonsense; a storybook world. Why would a place like that condemn a child to a maximum security prison?

...why indeed, if not because she had threatened the very foundation of their innocence? And she had been nattering on about it, hadn't she?

He had his bait.

"The documents on top represented a staggering amount of valuable information," he began, still turned away from her, "but I knew they had to be just a distraction from something far greater. Military secrets? So much dross. Blackmail material on a world leader? Laughable. Plans for a weapon of international destruction?" He snorted. "Not even worth my time."

"Gosh," she said, and sounded like she meant it. "Those all sound super important." Another ripple; larger this time, but still just a ripple.

"Indeed, but there had to be something more. And in a hidden compartment, I found it: a fortified case containing a single tiny vial of one of the most precious substances on my world, one that could topple kingdoms and sway entire civilizations, known as..." He paused for effect. "...amitiƩ liquide."

"Ooooooh." An even larger ripple, with a suggestion of fin. "If I remember my filly school lessons on Prench-"

"French."

"-then that translates to..."

"Precisely. Liquid friendship. A pheromonic compound with frightening coercive powers, each drop the concentrated life essence of a single confidence trickster, demagouge or boy band member, ground upon the Blarney Stone itself. Drinking it would bestow the ability to utterly convince anyone you spoke to that you were now - and had always been, and would always be - their friend."

Before she managed to stifle it, the sound Cozy Glow made was one of indescribable glee. The ripples were moving swiftly toward his lure.

"Just think of it," Spy said, pretending to be unaware of her outburst. "One sip, and you could convert thousands - millions - to your cause. You would be the boss of your own private army, all of them absolutely loyal and incorruptible. Your every wish... no, your every whim would be granted!"

"Oh," she said, and he imagined he could hear the sound of hooves being rubbed together, "I'm thinking of it."

"I knew immediately that this was a prize worth more than any amount of money. It could make one a senator... a president! A monarch!"

"An Empress!"

...really, now? "An Empress," he agreed. "So I took the vial..."

"Yes..."

"...raised it high..."

"Yes..."

"...and put it back in the briefcase," Spy concluded, turning back toward her and giving the metaphorical fishing rod a good hard yank.

"YEEESSS-" She halted, her jaw dropping open. "Wait, what?"

"I put it back."

"...you what?!"

He tilted his head slightly and wore an expression of artfully crafted puzzlement. "I'm sorry, do I need to speak more loudly, or...?"

"But, but, but..." It took a moment for Cozy Glow to regain the power of coherent speech. "...but you had it! The key to, to everything! Anything you could have ever wanted! And you put it BACK?!"

He shrugged. "The only reason I stole the briefcase was to find out what it contained. My curiosity was sated, so I planned to return it. I was never going to use the contents for personal gain. That would be highly dishonorable. Not to mention gauche."

"Dishonorable?!" He could hear the fury rising in her voice. "What is wrong with you?! Who cares about honor when you could have it all?!"

"Why, Miss Glow," Spy said in a hurt tone, placing a hand over his heart... or where his own heart should have been; who knew where a centaur's heart was kept? "What kind of man do you take me for?"

"I TAKE YOU FOR AN IDIOT! Do you have any idea what I could have done with something like that?!"

"...do tell," he murmured, leaning closer.

She wasn't even listening, having slipped into full monologue. "Forget the School of Friendship! Forget pandering to Twilight Sparkle and all the little brats she teaches! I could have gone straight to Canterlot itself and made the Princesses into my closest friends and servants! With their help, I could have extended my reach to every corner of Equestria, maybe even beyond! I could have made every creature in the world MY BEST FRIEND! And then nobody could stop me! AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!"

Spy said nothing, simply waiting through the laughter.

"You know," Cozy Glow said finally, a sneer in her voice, "it's funny! For a minute there I was starting to think you had an actual brain! That you were this smooth operator that did whatever it took to get ahead. But now it turns out that you're... just... another...?"

Her words trailed off as she noticed a shadow being cast upon her. She looked up, and recoiled in surprise at the sight of...

"Another what?" Spy asked, in a soft, low voice dripping with menace.

...the all-too familiar - and far too close - face of Tirek, which was now, she suddenly realized, inhabited by an otherworldly creature that bragged about its love of bloody violence... and that could easily reach her through the bars of her cage.

She clapped her hooves to her mouth in shock. Even worse, she had shown him her real self...

He stared down at her for long seconds... and then he smiled a wicked smile, and somehow the prospect of violence was less frightening than the gleam of razor-sharp intellect behind Tirek's normally brutish eyes. "Ah," he breathed. "There you are." He extended a clawed hand toward her, and she flinched... but it stopped just outside her cage. "So pleased to finally meet you... Miss. Cozy. Glow."

She tried her best to salvage the situation, but every 'Gosh!' and 'Golly!' withered to dust before that knowing gaze. There was no escape, no chance for recovery. Finally she gave up and, with bad grace, shook his hand. "Likewise, I'm sure," she grumbled.

He chuckled and returned to his own cage, pulling his upper body back through the bars.

"There's no such thing as liquid friendship, is there?" she asked dully.

"Not in the slightest," he confirmed, still smiling.

"You lied to me. You made the whole thing up just to string me along and get me to show my true colors." Cozy Glow deflated a bit. "And I fell for it."

"Oh, don't feel too bad," Spy said. "I admit, you are a talented amateur in the art of deception; extremely talented, I should say, and I can't imagine you've had much in the way of skilled opposition to hone your natural guile. I, on the other hand, have been at this for decades, and being able to deceive my enemies is literally the difference between life and death. Theirs, as well as mine." The smugness redoubled. "You never stood a chance."

"Well, aren't you just so smart, tricking a poor innocent filly!" she snapped, stung by embarrassment.

"Yes, I am, but that's not the point here." He sat, the movements coming easier now. "Because you aren't just a poor innocent filly, are you? Poor innocent fillies don't talk about world domination and end up in cages, Miss Glow."

She whirled around, refusing to look at him. "Hmph! I don't have to explain myself to you!"

"Of course not," he said soothingly. "But since we don't have much else to do at the moment, I would like to hear about how you ended up in here. More to the point, I want to know what you had planned, and where you think it went wrong."

Cozy Glow continued to look away for several seconds... then turned her head slightly. "You... want to hear about my plan?"

"Well. I could do without the broader picture. I'm not very interested in the part where you found the secret MacGuffin Muffin, boarded the Happiness Schooner and took a magical trip to the Land of Candyfloss, or something equally inane. Just tell me the... technical details."

She hesitated, hoof poised to continue her turn... then abruptly looked away again. "Oh, no! You're just trying to trick me again! You want me to give away all my secrets!"

"...yes, that is literally what I just asked you to do."

"You're just a big ol' phony!"

"Again, yes, I have already admitted to this. Why is this all coming as a surprise to you?" He paused, then changed tactics. It was an obvious ploy, but sometimes the obvious ones worked best. "Of course, if you don't think your plan was interesting enough to talk about..."

She stopped in mid-pout, and actually quivered in place as spite was put under siege by pride. Spy didn't worry about the outcome; this one was a talker. "Well..." she said finally, "...if you really want to know..."

"I await your tale with bated breath," he assured her.

Cozy Glow turned, and was actually blushing slightly. "Gosh... Tirek never wanted to hear about my plan." The blush faded, and her expression turned to one of sharp-edged smugness. "I'll tell you one thing up front, Mister Spy: my plan was perfect."

He slowly looked around, taking in the whole of Tartarus. "Really."

"No. You don't get it, Spy." She took to the air, hovering as close to him as her cage would allow. "I had everything covered. I had been putting it into action for moons.

"And I was winning.

"You want the short version? Fine. All you need to know is that I had to get my hooves on six historical relics to complete the ritual Tirek gave me. Each of them was held by a different creature race, and none of them trust each other all that much. I'm really good at convincing people to help me, but not even ponies would let some kid walk away with a national treasure, much less dragons or griffons. To get away with something like that, you'd have to be someone super important, like a hero... or a Princess. And it just so happened that Princess Twilight Sparkle had just opened her School of Friendship, and even admitted non-pony races as students.

"I knew exactly what I needed to do."

"After getting myself enrolled, I got into Twilight's good graces by pretending to be some dumb filly with really bad judgement. I played on her sympathies, getting her to trust me by working so hard to make up for my mistakes, until I had the run of her office. I still couldn't ask for the relics myself, though, so I had to somehow make her do it. Unfortunately she's a huge book nerd, and thinks that an encyclopedia entry is as good as the real thing! I had to convince her that requesting the relics themselves were in her best interest. But why would she need them? What could they give a brand-new facility that the school board had already tried to shut down, and that the non-pony leaders still didn't fully trust?"

Despite himself, Spy was caught up in Cozy Glow's explanation, and considered the situation for a moment before snapping his fingers. "Legitimacy."

"Exactly!" she replied with a smirk. "So I sent a copy of the school's coursebook to the EEA - the Equestria Education Association - with an anonymous suggestion that maybe they could use it to start a competing school." Cozy Glow sniffed. "Their school bombed because they let a couple of two-bit grifters run it, but that didn't matter. Twilight now realized her students could be lured away, and after I dropped a few innocent suggestions, she asked to host the relics at the School, to provide a better learning experience while showing respect to the various leaders at the same time. Then she had a... scavenger hunt, for some reason, but after that I could grab them whenever I wanted.

"All that was left was to find a hidden place where nopony would go so I could set up the ritual, and surprise, there were massive caves and tunnels under the school! I just had to convince the students who found them not to tell the faculty about them, and then I was all set."

Spy was impressed. The filly could be exaggerating and he couldn't know all the details, but even so this sounded like a long and nuanced plan that she had executed with remarkable patience and precision for someone her age. "Fascinating. So... what went wrong?"

"NOTHING!" She gripped the bars of her cell in a sudden rage. "Didn't you hear me? My plan was perfect! Once I started the ritual, magic began to drain from Equestria, and they only had three days to stop it! I sent Twilight and her friends on a wild goose chase here to Tartarus, so they were out of the picture. Celestia and Luna? Powerless! I kicked Starlight Glimmer into the ritual when she would have gotten in my way, and even deposed the head of the EEA when he tried to do the same! Every student at the school was either locked up, trapped, or under my control! I was within seconds of seeing every last drop of magic vanish from Equestria forever! I had won!"

"So... what happened?" he asked softly.

She bowed her head for a moment, motionless, then threw her head back and screamed to the heavens: "I WAS BLOCKED AT THE LAST MOMENT BY THE STUPID TREEEEEE!"

Spy had no idea what she was talking about, but watching her try to catch her breath, tears of frustration in her eyes, perhaps he didn't need to. "Ah. Defeated by a deus ex machina. I know that feeling well."

Cozy Glow looked up at him, blinking. "You... you do?" she quavered.

"Oh, yes," he said, with heartfelt bitterness. "I couldn't even begin to tell you how many times my own plans have been foiled by sheer happenstance. An accidental jostle in a corridor... a target turning to the side at the last moment... a completely accidental and unnecessary puff of flame..." Again, he felt the deep and desperate need for a smoke. "One of the least pleasant parts of my job is the realization that dumb luck can counter any amount of skill and foresight."

She sniffled, once. "How do you deal with it?"

Spy shrugged. "You take your lumps, and learn from them. As long as you still draw breath, you can resolve to do even better the next time. It's a bit trite, but when luck is your enemy, keep in mind that your target has to be lucky every time you strike, while you only have to be lucky once."

"Y... yeah. Thanks, Mister Spy." She rubbed at her eyes with a foreleg, then landed. "Anyway. That's my big embarrassing plan. I failed miserably and ended up in here." Cozy Glow sniffled again. "Hope you're happy."

"Hm. I have little use for happiness, but I am... satisfied, yes."

She frowned, suddenly annoyed. "Well, good for you."

Spy chuckled. "Oh, no, Miss Glow. Good... for us."

The pegasus stared at him. "...huh?"

He stood and started pacing his cage again, without aid or support. "If you had just been the feckless child you had pretended to be, I would have had to come up with a plan all by myself. If you were an unthinking megalomaniac, I would have just left you here. But I am impressed by your mind, Miss Glow, and would appreciate your assistance."

Cozy Glow continued to stare. "What assistance? What plan? What are you talking about?"

"Isn't it obvious? An escape plan! You and I are going to break out of this dreary nightmare of a prison."

The stare turned into a gape. "Escape from Tartarus?! That's impossible!"

"Nonsense. You said yourself this 'Tirek' escaped not long ago."

"Yeah, after being trapped for a thousand years!"

"Well, I don't have that much time," Spy said dismissively, "so we'll just have to be a bit faster. Besides, wasn't an escape attempt the reason I'm here in the first place?"

"And look how that turned out! Tirek only tried it because they added a bunch more security measures since the last time he got out; he couldn't figure out a way past them!"

"Ah," Spy said, leaning down toward her with a broad smile, "but he is not us. Those defenses were put in place to keep in one senile centaur, not a pair of exceptional minds like ours. I am fully confident we can work out a way past, around, or simply through them... if I have your support." He held out his hand again. "What do you say, Miss Glow? Partners?"

She sat down and crossed her forelegs in thought. Spy could all but see the wheels turning in her head as she considered all the options. Finally she looked up at him, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. "You really think we can do it?"

"Two people like us stuck in separate cages, without tools or supplies, against ill-defined magical defenses? How could we lose?" Seeing her expression, he toned down the gallows humor. "From what you've told me, Miss Glow," he said, adding 'and my own experience' in the silence of his mind, "I am not particularly worried about being able to out-think the people... that is, ponies of this world. And even if we fail, what harm could it do?" He gestured at the cavern around them. "How much worse could it get?"

"That's... a good point," she admitted. She regarded his hand for a long moment, then placed her hoof in it. "Partners, Mister Spy. Though I'd rather think of us as friends!"

He made a face. "Friendship is... not encouraged in my line of work. Partners will do." He shook her hoof.

"Oh. Okay, then. Still, this may all be for nothing. I bet Tirek will open that rift right back up any time now!"

"Ah. Yes. Well. Perhaps we shouldn't... rely on that possibility too much."

She tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

Spy hesitated, then sighed. "I suppose I should tell you... you see, my tale from earlier was only slightly false. I didn't find the amitiƩ liquide, but I did open the briefcase, and the consequences for that are exactly as dire as I suggested. I was knocked out by a trap, then found myself here; it follows logically that Tirek projected himself into my unconscious body, lying next to an opened case. Anyone who found him would surely put two and two together, and there would definitely be someone looking for him."

She covered her mouth. "You mean...?"

"I'm afraid so. There will be no help coming from that quarter. Your Tirek is almost certainly dead."


On the outskirts of the city of Teufort, there were two buildings of suspiciously similar design. One was red, built primarily of weathered wood, the other blue and built of concrete and corrugated steel. The two buildings were separated by little more than a pit filled partly with stagnant water; this was spanned by a too-narrow covered bridge. A distinctive odor hung over the place, of gunpowder, cheap whiskey, machine oil, cigarette smoke, and a not insignificant trace of urine... but mostly of blood. So, so much blood.

The air was silent for once, and there was no sign of the usual combatants... except one.

Lean, athletic, and dapperly dressed in a custom tailored suit of washed-out red (the technical name for the color was Copper Rose), he stood near one end of the covered bridge and stared at the blue base on the other side.

He had his target, and he would acquire it, no matter the cost. Nothing would get in his way.

He took one step forward, forgot how many legs he had, tripped, and fell in the moat.