At two floors tall, the Manehattan East police station was a low building for the big city, but an imposing one nonetheless. Wide and elaborately designed to intimidate criminals and provide a symbol of protection for the more upstanding citizens, it sat at a street corner and loomed over everything despite its size. An alleyway on the right of the station separated it from the rest of the buildings on its street.
It was one of the last places Gena wanted to be right then. But Frons, Mandible and Labrum were all convinced Clypeus was in there, so she had no choice.
At least everypony had agreed that Proboscis couldn't be part of the jail break. Since she had spent the chase unable to shift, the police probably thought she was a pony accomplice. Her description would have reached every officer in eastern Manehattan by now, surely, not to mention the station. It didn't help that she seemed unable to remove her distinctive hat.
As much as she disliked the pink gumball, Gena wished she could have switched places with Mandible. But Frons had quietly asked Mandible to keep an eye on Proboscis and make sure she didn't cause trouble, giving Gena no chance to volunteer. Asking after Frons had already assigned the job would've gone poorly.
The fact remained that she would rather spend time alone with a potential lying traitor than go right into the bufogren's den. That way, if things went wrong for the squad, Gena was mostly in the clear.
Of course, Mandible was right. If she ever did leave the squad behind like that, she'd never be able to show her face in the hive again. The Queen's temper towards traitors was legendary, after all. But what did it matter? Gena had never felt at home in the hive. And at the end of the day, the Queen was just another basic buzzhole like the rest of them, but with a crown. She could make that sacrifice without regretting a thing.
Maybe when Gena finally left everything behind, she would settle down as a pegasus. Find a nice mare or stallion to feed off of for the rest of her life, and perhaps even love in return, if changelings were truly capable of it. They would get married and build a home, fill it with a family of little half-breeds… She would sooner die than let it show in front of the others, but she had always had a soft spot for all the sappy, romantic nonsense ponies went through when they loved each other.
That was why she preferred to take the places of little fillies rather than of lovers. She didn't want to inadvertently ruin her victims' love lives the way it seemed Clypeus might have.
Back in the present, however, she found herself sneaking into the alleyway next to the police station, alongside Frons and Labrum. It had only taken Frons a few minutes of carefully talking to ponies on the street to learn that the holding cells were in the basement towards the back. Supposedly, you could talk to the prisoners through the basement windows facing the alleyway, though most ponies avoided them. It seemed like poor security to Gena, but ponies were never much good at that.
Thankfully, nopony was standing guard outside the station, so getting into the alleyway giving themselves away was fairly easy. Near the end of the alley, as the ponies on the street had said, a series of windows lined the base of the building. They were all thin and wide, too thin for even a changeling to get out through – there were limits to how small they could become, which Gena brushed against daily with her filly forms – and barred up for good measure. At least the ponies did that much right.
Through the fifth window, a familiar golden earth pony caught Gena's attention. He had a green mane and a carrot for a cutie mark, and he looked like he'd never been sadder in his life. Gena knew that he had.
"Found him," she alerted the others, who began moving over to her. "Psst, Clype!"
The changeling in Golden Carrot's guise looked around as though uncertain where the sound had come from.
"Clypeus, over here," Labrum said, successfully drawing Clypeus' attention to the window. Gena thought the sight of the squad almost drew a smile to Clypeus' mouth, but she dismissed it as a trick of the mind.
"Oh, hey, everypony. Are you here to get me out of this cell?" Clypeus' voice betrayed no joy at the prospect.
"We are," Labrum answered simply.
"What happened?" Frons asked. "We heard you were arrested for breaking into a jewelry store, but I didn't really believe it until I saw you here. Since when do you steal jewelry?"
"Yeah, Clype," Labrum said with a soft laugh, "I'd expect that from Frons, not you." That earned him a glare from Frons. It was true, though – when the mission allowed it, Frons had been known to bring along… souvenirs, especially of the shiny variety.
"I just wanted to get a gift for Noble Gas… that's this stallion's coltfriend," Clypeus explained, then hesitated. "Uh, because, you know, gifts bring the love to the forefront so it's easier to drain." Despite the faltering, something about that last sentence made it sound practiced.
"But you got caught," Gena said, more harshly than she meant to, "and now the only gift you've given Noble Gas is relationship trouble! We found out you were here because he and the real Golden Carrot were arguing about you. Did you even think about what your failure might do to them? To us? No, no you didn't, because you just wanted to bring a wimpy pegasus a gift."
Clypeus lowered his head in shame. Gena looked at Frons and Labrum and realized they were both giving her odd looks. "What?"
"Just didn't think you'd care, is all," Frons said. He looked amused.
"I don't!" Another thing that came out more forcefully than intended. That happened far too often for her liking.
Labrum was outright laughing now. Laughing! At her!
"Let's just get this moper out of the cell already," she grumbled. The bufogren's den would be much better than this.
Elsewhere, Mandible cursed the need to blink.
On Frons' instruction, Gena took the form of a pegasus police officer she'd seen earlier. Labrum and Frons followed suit. The plan was to sneak in through a window, but if they happened to be seen by anypony inside, they would look like they belonged there.
The tactic was a gamble – while Frons had wrung out every potentially important bit of information about the inside of the station that Clypeus could share, Clypeus hadn't known which officers were currently at the station. If the officers they'd picked were in the building, or returned while they were, it could ruin everything.
The first step was finding an unguarded window that was open enough that they could open it the rest of the way from the outside. It was a quick, painless process, and less than half a minute after they began looking, Labrum was swinging open a perfectly sized second-floor window. He waved for Gena and Frons to go through ahead of him.
The room was a simple office, divided into six cubicles – it was empty of ponies at the moment, but most of the cubicles showed signs of recent use. Papers were strewn everywhere, and from what little Gena managed to read in the short time she had in the room, she could tell they were chock full of confidential information about local ponies.
We didn't even need to shapeshift to break in here, Gena mused. Any mischievous pegasus filly could get in and read this stuff if she wanted.
When she left the swarm, maybe Gena could earn some bits by teaching ponies about security?
Her thoughts were interrupted by Frons. "Gena, come on," he said from the door, motioning for her to follow with his hoof.
The hallway was just as empty as the office had been. Gena's ears twitched as she realized there was no sound to be heard from any of the nearby rooms either. Was the whole floor empty of ponies?
Frons led the squad towards the staircase that led down to the ground floor, then stopped, holding out a hoof to make Gena and Labrum do the same. After a moment, she realized why.
From below, she could hear muffled voices, though she couldn't make out the words. Both were feminine, she thought, even if one was deep and monotonous. The other voice, by contrast, sounded shrill and excitable.
The squad waited until the voices stilled and what Gena assumed to be the front door opened and closed. Seemingly confident that they could handle any ponies remaining on the ground floor now, Frons led the way down the stairs.
The staircase led down to a short hallway that was just as boring as the one they had just been in. A closed door to the right was labeled as leading towards the reception, where the voices seemed to have come from, while a perpendicular hallway to the left promised more offices. Gena had never realized how literal the word "officer" could be.
The squad continued straight ahead. Frons almost made it look like he knew what he was doing, until he stopped right in front of the staircase down to the cells. "Buzz, the keys!" he exclaimed in a low voice.
"Aren't they going to be down there?" Labrum asked.
"This place needs to contain unicorns," Frons pointed out, "so they can't have the keys within line of sight, or any unicorn or changeling with levitation skills worth anything would be able to escape easily."
"It wouldn't surprise me," Gena muttered.
"Maybe Clypeus knows where they keep them," Labrum suggested, "and, uh, didn't think to tell us that."
Frons considered it. "Maybe. We might as well go and talk to him before taking any risks up here."
Gena couldn't help but laugh as the three of them trotted down the stairs and she immediately spotted a hook on the wall to their right. Clearly meant to hang the keys on, it would be within line of sight and magic from each of the seven cells along the left wall. The hook was empty now – had they already run into the unicorn problem and learned from their mistake?
Her mirth was cut short as Frons reached their destination and gaped.
"What?" Labrum said and flew ahead, joining Frons in staring at Clypeus' cell. Gena had already pieced together what they were gaping at by the time she caught up, but she still felt her jaw drop when she saw it. Her ears twitched at the rumble of hooves on wood in the reception above them, but she barely registered the sound in her surprise.
The cell was empty, and the missing police officers had just come home.
It all really had been too easy.