//------------------------------// // Chapter Three: The Baby // Story: Iota Force Issue #3: The Treachery of Images // by The Iguana Man //------------------------------// “Diamond Tiara?!” Icy exclaimed. It was recess on the following day. Icy had, of course, intended to get to school early to collaborate with the others before school started, as she'd done the day before. Unfortunately, after two very late nights in a row, she was far too exhausted for that and had barely managed to get there before the bell rang and the school day began. As they'd gone in, though, Scootaloo had assured her that it was okay, as she was pretty sure of the answer to this one. To her credit, she did indeed sound sure when she told Icy and the others who she thought the next target would be. However, Icy was less that thrilled, both with the answer and with the implications behind it and what it would mean for them that night. “Yeah,” Scootaloo said, sounding more than a little depressed at the prospect herself, “Can't think of who else it could mean. Looks like we're gonna have to... protect her.” She swallowed audibly, as if to prevent herself from spitting at the prospect. Not that Icy could really blame her. Although she hadn't been on the receiving end of her and her crony's torments that often after the first day, they did target her occasionally – when their bully-senses detected that she would be vulnerable, Icy assumed. Even when they didn't, they made very few attempts to hide what they did to others, at least for their classmates. To say that Diamond Tiara was not well-liked would be like saying Nightmare Moon had a couple of anger issues.. Icy looked around at the faces of her teammates and none of them looked happy at the idea. Dinky was looking at the ground, a hint of fear on her face as she glanced across the playground and Icy didn't have to turn around to guess who she was looking at. Pip was tapping his hooves together nervously, looking a little ashamed – though he wasn't technically a part of the team, at least in the field, he took his role as liaison and, as he put it, "mission control" very seriously and didn't seem to like the idea of sending them to protect someone so... Diamond Tiara. Archer, though her posture was as relaxed as ever, was looking away, her mouth pulled to the side slightly. Even Lance was looking rather hesitant, his expression one of deep thought as he pored over the latest letter, as if looking for an alternative solution. Though that did lead Icy to question things as well. “You sure?” She asked, trotting up beside Lance and looking over the message. “How do you figure?” Scootaloo breathed out slowly, calming herself down. “See, the first family's the apples – they founded Ponyville, can't think of any other first family, flamboyant fruit's gotta be the zap apples, first one to distribute them was Stinkin' Rich, who's Diamond Tiara's Grandpa... no wait, he's Filthy Rich's grandpa, who's Diamond Tiara's dad, who...” she paused as she tried to line things up into a coherent sentence, “Point is, Diamond Tiara's three children away for Stinkin', the letter goes three children down, so, yeah, gotta be her.” She paused, suddenly a little hesitant. “You know, now I say it out loud, 'sa little too obvious, isn't it? Kinda straightforward for him.” There was a murmur of assent before Icy could respond. “Are you kidding me? How is that obvious? How do you know all this stuff?” “Hey,” Scootaloo replied, “I pay attention in class sometimes, you know? And Granny Smith came in one time and gave us all a talk about it. It was really cool.” “Okay,” Icy nodded, “and if you hadn't had that talk? Would you know about it then?” Scootaloo paused. “I guess not, but why...?” “Cause I didn't know any of that stuff, I didn't know about that talk, so how could he know?” Icy asked. She was honestly a little annoyed, although, when she thought about it, she wasn't sure why. Something about how Scootaloo dismissed her knowledge as obvious. “And if you didn't, we'd have had to look things up and research them. I think he just didn't know you were so good at local history, Scootaloo.” Scootaloo waved a hoof. “Eh, I wouldn't say that. Anyway, point is, we know who he's going after next.” Icy winced as she was brought back to the main point of the conversation. “Yeah. Like, I know we're the heroes and the ones who're trying to stop him, but, do you think we could maybe, I dunno, just let him...” she trailed off. Despite the temptation of just letting Magic Eye do what he wanted to Diamond Tiara, perhaps in the hopes that two wrongs could make a right, saying it out loud just made it more clear with every word how bad it would be to do that. Dinky put a hoof on Icy's. “You know we can't.” She told her, gently but firmly. Icy nodded, accepting Dinky's mild admonishment, partly because she was right and partially Icy had noticed that hers was the only face that hadn't considered the idea for a split second. “I guess.” Icy sighed and looked at Dinky. “Sorry, that was...” At this point, the hug was not unexpected, but it still interrupted her. “It's okay,” Dinky assured her, “don't feel too bad.” “Anyway, that's not the only reason.” Scootaloo added as the hug ended. “See, if we stop Magic Eye and protect Diamond,” she gave a small shudder before continuing, “she won't know about it and wouldn't believe it if she did, so she ain't gonna be any worse than usual. If we don't, he's gonna think we couldn't figure it out. And I ain't gonna let that happen.” She scuffed a hoof against the ground at the mere thought. “Even Diamond ain't as smug as he'll be. So, yeah, we gotta stop him from robbing her. Even if she is a bit-... rich.” She finished lamely. Dinky tilted her head in confusion. “No, that's her grandpa.” “He is?” Pip asked, having wisely decided to remain silent until this point. “How did you know that?” Dinky smiled. “Cause Mommy delivers the mail – she told me Filthy Rich gets a lot of letters from his dad Bit and his little sister Get.” “Get Rich?” Icy asked. “Well, not anymore,” Dinky explained, “Mommy says she married a racer called Lightning Quick and they put their last names together. “Right, that makes sense.” Icy nodded before pulling her thoughts back to the matter at hoof. “So, guess we're protecting Diamond Tiara, then.” “Well, about that,” Archer piped up, having had a half-whispered, half-silent conversation with Lance, “we are, but you're not.” “What? Why not?” Icy certainly wasn't relishing the prospect, but being told she wasn't coming like that still hurt a little. Did they think she wasn't capable of helping or that she wasn't willing to? Lance waved a hoof at Icy, indicating her body and her general state. “Exactly, you're been up late two nights in a row, Icy. And, if you don't mind me saying, you didn't look too fresh Monday Morning, either.” Archer explained. Oh. Icy thought, a slight blush coming to her cheeks at her presumption. That makes more sense. “Yeah, you get some sleep tonight, Icy.” Scootaloo smiled encouragingly. “Don't worry, we'll be sure to give him one for you when we catch him.” “You're not coming either, Scoots.” Archer said bluntly. “WHAT?!” Scootaloo whirled around and fixed Archer with a glare. “Whaddaya mean I'm not coming? I mean, yeah, I don't like Diamond, but I'm not gonna miss a chance to...” “It's not that you don't like Diamond,” Archer cut in without raising her voice, “it's that Diamond doesn't like you. We're gonna have to camp out on the grounds of her place if we're gonna keep an eye on it. Gonna have to ask her dad about that.” She looked to the side for a second, as if making a mental note. “And I hope we won't run into her, but if we do and you're there, she's gonna run us outta there faster than you can scoot.” Scootaloo snorted but didn't argue. “Just don't let him get away, kay?” That night, Icy did get to sleep earlier than she had the previous two nights, but not by much. Most of the night was spent worrying. She had no illusions this it was rational, of course. If she was totally honest, she knew the others were right and she'd be better off rested, but that didn't make her feel much better. Having the others put themselves at risk while she lay comfortably in her bed did not, ironically, make for the most comfortable of nights. Although, now that she thought about it, “risk” was kind of a strong word. In fact, thinking more about it, it was an outright lie. When they'd first met Magic Eye this week, he had done literally nothing to threaten or hurt any of them. The most he'd done was blow some smoke at them and throw a dummy at them. Not exactly polite, but not dangerous. It barely even counted as aggressive, particular since it been entirely a matter of distraction rather than attack. As he had said, his priority had been escape. Though, really, the simplest way to make sure he escaped was by restraining them or hurting them. After all, if your opponents are trapped, incapacitated by pain or... well, then escape's kind of a formality. And yet, he'd decided to get away without doing anything to them. Normally, that sort of thing could be attributed to a conscience, but Magic Eye was still an unrepentant thief and certainly didn't seem to be bothered by such things. Of course, she'd only met him once, so it was possible that that encounter was an exception, but the others hadn't been surprised at his lack of aggression, so it was probably the norm. In fact, Icy could say she encountered him twice, just not in person the second time. And that, judging from the others' reaction, was unusual and Icy could understand why – he'd certainly seemed the type to grandstand and gloat, so not turning up felt a little off. And, what's more, he clearly planned not to come but to still give them the puzzle, so... Icy snorted and flipped over in her bed. This colt was a puzzle on top of his puzzle and she was far too tired to think about it. Maybe things'll make a bit more sense in the morning. She thought as she finally managed to drift off. The next morning, Icy felt a good deal more refreshed than she would have expected. She wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because she'd been thinking so hard before going to bed, she'd tired her brain out so she slept deeper and rested more efficiently. Maybe it was because she had such confidence in her teammates to put an end to this problem that she was able to sleep more peacefully. Or maybe she was just at that point of sleep deprivation where she felt totally fine and energized, she'd felt that one before. Oh boy, had she felt that one before. In actual fact, the reason was that the clocks had gone back the previous night, so she'd had an extra hour of sleep. They usually went back a couple of weeks earlier, but the local expert and coordinator of time, clocks and schedules (well, the official one, at any rate – Princess Twilight's position as one was mostly honorary and she had other things to worry about anyway) had been called away from the town for a while and forgotten to set things up to go to Daylight Savings time without him. This was something of a recurring problem and it had been suggested that this kind of absent-mindedness in an administrator was unacceptable. However, it had generally been agreed that, in a town as insane as Ponyville, a little eccentricity in the management was quite forgivable, if not occasionally advantageous. There was also the fact that anyone who tried to remove the good Mr Time Turner from his position as the local temporal expert would have to overcome an absolutely furious mailmare with something of a gift for making things break and a young filly with her own particular talent with time. So no one had tried. Icy knew nothing of this, of course, despite knowing the filly in question, since the filly had not a single bad word to say about her “kinda-Daddy” or, indeed, about most ponies. All she knew was that she was rested, energized and had an overall good feeling about the coming day. This feeling was somewhat lessened when she saw the first group of policeponies rushing across town. Icy gulped. She knew that policeponies rushing about generally implied that there had been a crime committed – it was just one of those little things one picked up as a crime fighter. And it being a crime unrelated to the crime spree her team was dealing with seemed like a little bit of a stretch. But, at the same time, if the crime had actually been committed and reported despite her teammates' presence, that implied some worrying things. “Excuse me!” She called to the next policepony she saw. The big mare stopped and looked down, giving a strained but genuine smile. “Can I help you, Miss?” Icy nodded. “What's going on? Why is everyone running around like this?” The mare sighed and looked in the direction she'd been running. “Ah, nothing for you to worry about, Miss. There was a robbery last night, that's all.” Of course there was. Icy thought. I already knew that, why did I ask? Well, I guess I just needed confirmation, but still, this means that the others didn't stop him from robbing Diamond's house but they were camping right near it so they should have seen him except it is a big house so they probably couldn't see all of it so maybe they missed him except they were still near the house when it happened so the police would have to take them in and question them but that should be okay because the police know about us but they might be angry we didn't tell them and what if they did try to catch Magic Eye but he escaped and they were caught and everyone thought they were trying to rob the place and Diamond would accuse them and everyone would believe her and... “Don't worry,” the policemare said, noticing Icy's panicked expression but oblivious to how her thought process was hurtling out of control with the speed of a freight train and, in terms of her mood, causing roughly the same amount of damage, “wasn't breaking into anypony's house or anything. Someone just broke into Barnyard Bargains and took some money. Lot of money, actually, but more than he could get from a house. ...and then we'd have to confront him in his mountain lair but he'd have a trap door that'd lead to... wait what? “Huh? Barnyard Bargains? The big superstore? Why would he...?” “Well, we don't know it's a he,” the mare interjected, unaware Icy knew a bit more about the perpetrator than she did, “and, well, like I said, lot of money in that place. Anyway, really wish I could tell you more, but I gotta be there. Have a good day!” The mare waved before she resumed her journey. Icy sat there for a moment, thinking. He robbed a supermarket. How does that fit in with what he told us? After a few more moments' thought got her nowhere, she got up and trotted after the policemare. It didn't take long to get to Barnyard Bargains – one of the reasons it was so successful was that it was close enough to the centre of town to be convenient to get to, but not so close as to be an eyesore. As she got closer, she began to hear the sounds of an argument. At first, she assumed it was the owner yelling at a security guard, but when she turned the corner and saw the crime scene (such as it was – there was no damage, no signs of forced entry and very little sign from the outside that a break-in had occurred), it turned out to be a somewhat more domestic affair. “I know, Honey, but that's no reason to fire him.” The stallion Icy recognized as Filthy Rich said to the mare, his voice clearly struggling to both keep her calm and stay calm itself. To his credit, it was mostly managing the latter. “Why not?” The mare shrieked. It took Icy a moment longer to place her, but she did vaguely remember seeing her with Diamond Tiara in town once or twice, so she was presumably his wife. “He let someone break in and steal our money, it's only fair he should pay for it with his job!” Filthy Rich slicked his hair back in agitation. “He didn't “let” them do anything – you heard what the police say happened. He didn't know to check the crawlspace of the bathroom or...” “Well, he should have!” The mare answered glaring at her husband. “If he's going to have the privilege of working for his betters, I don't think it's too much to ask for him to put every ounce of his pathetic being to work in that service. And was it his idea to buy burglar alarms that couldn't distinguish between guards and intruders?” "No, that was the previous head of security. So, it wasn't his fault he had to turn them off to do his patrol, so-" "Wrong!" The mare screeched. "He may not have bought them, but he did continue to use them rather than changing them." She gave an imperious sniff. "I've half a mind to sue him for the money to buy new alarms." Filthy sighed, closing his eyes for a moment before trying a different tactic. “Look, honey, even if I wanted to fire him over this, I couldn't – the union'd be all over me for wrongful dismissal.” The mare opened her mouth to respond, but Filthy held up a hoof and continued. “And even if he lost the case, that'd still mean paying court costs and lawyers and we'd lose even more money.” That shut the mare up. Filthy put a hoof on the bridge of his nose. “Listen, I'll dock his pay, but that's honestly all I can and should do.” The mare snorted and turned away, her tail smacking Filthy's face lightly. “Fine, I guess that'll do.” And with that, she flounced away, nose so high in the air it was probably a danger to low-flying pegasi. Shaking his head, Filthy walked over to an older stallion dressed in a security guard's uniform. “So, how much am I losing, Mr Rich?” The stallion asked morosely. Filthy looked over his shoulder to check that his wife had gone (meaning Icy had to duck around the corner – she didn't want to get caught snooping) and gave a thin smile. “I was thinking around one tenth-bit. Per Annum, of course.” The stallion's eyes widened. “Really, Mr Rich? I mean, I... you did lose an awful lot in...” “Yes, but the insurance should cover it.” The business-stallion assured him. “And it was hardly your fault that the security procedures didn't cover what happened.” “Well, if you're sure, I... Thank you, Mr Rich!” The stallion sighed in relief, looking on his employer as if he was his saviour. “However,” Filthy Rich continued, his smile dampening just a touch, “we are going to have to make sure this doesn't happen again – we'll have to review the procedures and add new ones to cover events such as this. And that means you're going to have a lot more work from now on. Do you think you can handle it?” The stallion stood up straighter, nodding resolutely, still buoyed up and now motivated by his gratitude. “Absolutely, Mr Rich - I've already got some ideas about that. You can count on me!” “Glad to hear it!” Filthy Rich said as he lead the stallion inside and out of Icy's earshot. Huh. Icy thought as she turned and trotted to school, picking up the pace a little so as not to be too late to check in with the others. Turns out the master business-stallion is actually kind of good at employing ponies. Who'd have guessed? *** When she reached the schoolyard, she didn't have to look hard to see the team. The group of colts and fillies gathered around a tree in various states of glumness and irritation were kind of hard to miss. “So, you guys heard?” Icy asked as she trotted up to them. Scootaloo's wings buzzed as she glared up at Icy. “Yeah. We heard. We got it wrong.” “Did we?” Icy asked. “I mean, the riddle said...” “His “first baby”” Archer quoted in a tone of mild exasperation. “He built that place way before Diamond was born, and you could say it was his baby.” “If you wanted to be really flowery about it.” Scootaloo muttered. “And it’s got a longer history of exploiting and undermining the competition than even Diamond.” Archer finished. “Yeah, but... how were we supposed to get that?” Icy asked. “I mean, you could maybe get that he meant either, but how...?” “The picture.” Dinky pointed out, a hoof on the photo lying in front of her. Icy looked down, having forgotten about the picture, since the first two puzzles were mostly doable without it. Sure enough, Dinky's hoof was placed next to the bottom-left picture. “Oh, I get it.” Icy said after a moment. “That's supposed to be a barnyard.” A collective sigh came up from the group. Lance nodded. “Well,” Dinky suggested quietly, “at least we got a nice night of camping out of it.” “So, if you didn't get to him,” Icy asked, too caught up in the problem to hear Dinky, “how are we gonna get his next letter?” “Swung by the post office this morning.” Archer said, hoofing over a piece of paper. “Had this in the P.O. Box. We've all read it.” Icy took the letter and started reading aloud, despite not needing to. Iota Force 2 – Magic Eye 1 Sorry I didn't see you last night. I was worried this one might be too easy for you, but I suppose you can't be blamed for not knowing as much as I thought about local history. “I did know!” Scootaloo growled, interrupting Icy's reading. “I figured it out, I just didn't know he meant... ARRRRGH!” She turned around and punched the tree hard, sending shards of bark flying off of it. Icy stared for a moment, concerned, before she continued reading. But do not be disheartened, there are still a few more rounds to go. But at the same time, do not get complacent either, as I do not intend to go easy on you. Nor should I need to. As such, let's continue with the next puzzle, shall we? “I leap from the edge, Plummet without start or end, Fall into myself.” Icy stared for a moment in confusion, being unfamiliar with the kind of verse he had used. “Well,” She said finally, “At least he's got some variety.”