One of this one’s greatest fears had come to pass: its lieutenants were fighting and tearing this one’s organization apart. To make matters worse, this one was almost completely in the dark about what happened. Why were they fighting? Was there a clash of personalities? Had one of them launched a coup to try and take over the organization? Where were they? Were any of them dead or disabled? What resources did they have? Were any of them winning this street war?
This one could sense that things were about to become very complicated. While this one was currently in the dark, there were things it could do to change that. But first this one wanted to put one ball down before it ended up with more in the air than it could juggle. Time was ticking; it would only be a matter of time until this one’s lieutenants learned this one had returned to Freeport and acted in response, but there was a matter this one didn’t want to delay. Not when it tied into one of this one’s most critical long term plans.
This one transformed into a nondescript pegasus as it left the Council’s Palace and made its way onto Freeport’s streets. The rain had lightened considerably, but didn’t seem to be in any kind of rush to stop. It felt like the storm was saving its strength for later. This one was particularly mindful of being followed. Naturally this one always watched for tails, but while this one normally tolerated a certain degree of surveillance on itself, this was not one of those times.
After wandering randomly for a couple of blocks, this one discovered that it was indeed being followed by at least two agents. They were good; they worked in tandem, occasionally moving into alleys and shops to change disguises, and even their very forms. Changelings then, little surprise. But the rain worked against them, for there was only so much they could do about their cloaks protecting them from the rain. They could turn them inside out, but that only really worked a couple of times, and to abandon them would make them stand out even more. If this one had to guess, based on their skill and the fact that they'd been following this one out of the Palace, they probably belonged to the Masks—the Council’s intelligence agency. Now as to what they were up to, and for whom...?
This one decided not to take chances. This one ducked down an alley, flew over the roof of a building to land in another alley and changed to another disguise. Then more flying, cutting through alleys, a couple more disguise changes, and walking right through a restaurant and going out the back before anyone inside really noticed anything was amiss. This one even bought a new cloak and ditched its slightly damaged cloak. After this one was done and had walked a couple of city blocks, this one was reasonably confident it had lost its tails.
That done, this one made its way to its destination. The neighborhood this one entered was filled with office buildings for professionals such as lawyers, merchants, and even a mercenary company. The structure that concerned this one was an old abandoned holding that used to hold an office for a private investigator before this one bought the whole building. Some would claim this one was overly sentimental for buying up a piece of property where its dad used to work and then not do anything with it, but the fact that this building had seemingly been forgotten by this one was but the first layer of deception this one had set up.
This one headed to the back of the office and double checked to see if anyone was around. This one saw nothing, so it pulled out the key and unlocked the door. This one headed inside and closed the door. As was this one’s custom, it carefully looked around the office. It was a relatively simple affair; a simple, sturdy desk dominated the room, as well as a couple file cabinets, a bookshelf covered with reference materials and some other reading material.
This had been where this one’s dad met with his clients back when he had still been working as a private investigator, as well as reviewed files and anything else he needed to do when he wasn’t in the field. This one had spent hours here as a grub, learning and watching him at work. While many people had a romanticised image of the job, the reality of being a private investigator was that it was a lot of paperwork and waiting around on stakeouts. Most of the time Dad was hired to try and catch a spouse cheating on their significant other. Often the couples would be in the process of divorcing, and a few photographs of the ex kissing another person who wasn’t their spouse played nicely for the court. That was usually quite important to wealthy clients where fortunes in ducats and assets were on the line.
Every once in a while though, Dad would get an interesting case like trying to find a missing person, find evidence for a lawyer, or even the odd job from the Masks when the spy agency couldn’t risk having their involvement made public. It was during one of those jobs for the Masks that this one had caught the attention of Double Dilemma and been recruited to work for them.
That seemed like an age ago; the dust gathering in the office only made it seem more so, and this one’s life had taken a great many unexpected turns since then. Some positive, some not. Seeing where this one’s life was now... This one wished some things had gone differently, even if it had ultimately landed on its hooves.
But this one didn’t have time to ruminate on the past, there was work to be done. This one double-checked the wards on the building. They were basic things really, just alarms set to call the condottieri in the event someone tried to break in. Everything seemed alright—except something that caught this one’s eye. Something seemed off about the chalk rune by the back entrance, and it took this one a few moments to figure out what was wrong. There were chalk smears around it. Someone had disabled the ward and then fixed the damage they had caused so that no one would notice—but whoever had been here hadn’t done a perfect job of cleaning up after themselves. Or, as the more paranoid part of this one’s mind thought, they had done this so many times the chalk had stained the wood around the rune.
This one’s body stiffened in reaction to one of its sanctuaries being violated. Why had someone come here? This one had checked this place thoroughly before leaving for Northmarch and nothing had been amiss, so this happened while this one was away. Why? Was this related to this one’s lieutenants fighting one another? Had one of them hoped to find something here, or had it been another opportunistic party that had come into Dad’s office? Had they suspected something was here, or merely been checking to see if there was?
Nothing had been stolen as far as this one could see. This one even kept an old envelope with some ducats in it inside the desk in the event some thief did come in here, but a quick check showed it hadn’t been touched. Some thief just looking for an easy mark should have taken something, but someone with other goals wouldn’t want to risk anything being out of place out of fear this one would notice they had been here.
This one’s guard was fully up now, and it started triple-checking for anything out of place. Nothing stood out, which only served to make this one even more paranoid. But there wasn’t anything it could do yet, not with things as they were with its organization, and this one still had to do what it came here for.
This one headed to a corner of the office and pulled aside a rug to reveal a steel door in the floor. Unlocking it, this one climbed down a steep set of stairs into the basement. The basement was pretty utilitarian as well; there were several file cabinets filled with Dad’s old case files and other paperwork, a large board on the wall was covered by a map of the city and several notes held up by pushpins, a small table with all the instruments to make coffee, a small shelf with expired cans of food, and an old cot for when Dad had to pull all-nighters. The alarm and paralysis wards here hadn’t been triggered either, though this one wasn’t sure if that was a good sign.
The basement had been Dad’s old hidey-hole if he had absolutely needed to hide himself or someone else, though this one had repurposed it as yet another layer of deception. This one lifted up the board and placed it to the side. Some careful probing of the wall let this one pull away a solid sheet of wood. Behind all of that was a solid steel door with several fine stones built into it. Anyone that tried to break down this door was going to profoundly regret it.
This one inserted its horn into a slot in the door, and after it read this one’s magic, there was a click and the clatter of mechanisms moving as the door opened. Within was one of the boltholes this one had set up in the city. It had everything this one needed to survive for a few months if absolutely necessary. There was a small bed, shelves covered with canned and non-perishable food, a small shelf with books and some other items for entertainment, a tall safe full of potions and weapons, a rack where a set of armor sat, and a few other necessities. This particular bolthole had been a pain to set up, considering it wanted to keep it as much of a secret as possible. This one had been forced to build much of this place itself, which had required reading several do-it-yourself books and carefully asking experts how to do specific tasks. The magical side had been even more difficult to hide; this one had been forced to contract several individuals for the help, and as part of the agreement they had the memories of their work erased. Well, this one hadn’t dared to ask Argentium to erase her memory after she’d created several runes for this one, but her word of secrecy was as good as sacred, and in the end it had been worth the trouble and significant expense.
But even the bolthole was yet another layer of deception. Sure, this one could use this place to rest and plan if necessary, but it was intended to trick anyone into thinking that this is what Dad’s old office hid. After all, a bolthole hidden behind another old hiding hole was already pretty elaborate, but tricking someone into believing they knew the hidden truth had its advantages, especially when it kept them from digging for what you actually didn’t want them to know.
This one cleared its throat before it spoke loud and clear. “Those of talent should seek to do more.”
After speaking the passphrase, there was an audible grinding of gears, and a door revealed itself as it pushed aside a shelf. Though the door opened, this one didn’t immediately step through; instead it sat down and took several deep breaths as it meditated, clearing its mind of any distractions. This one really, really didn’t want to mess up this next part.
Once this one was sure it was centered, it strode into the next room. The door immediately slammed shut behind this one and it found itself in a room about the size of a particularly large closet; the entire floor was covered by tiles that each had a seemingly random sigil on them. The walls and ceilings were covered by blocks that each possessed arcane runes with only some small holes and slots in spaces between them. On the far side was another reinforced metal door with its own runes.
This one promptly stepped onto four specific tiles and waited until each of them began to glow. Then this one’s hooves moved in a specific pattern to hit each of the other tiles on the floor, lighting them all up except for one. That done, there was a click and the door opened. This one let out the breath it hadn’t realized it had been holding. This part always made this one nervous; during its time with the Do-mare, we sometimes spent time coming up with ideas for traps to fit a multitude of scenarios, one of which involved not letting any unauthorized visitors into the room beyond. The room this one exited was nothing less than a guaranteed death trap.
Anyone who stepped into the chamber and didn’t do what they were supposed to would find themselves instantly hit with an absolute barrage of spells, ranging from fireballs, lightning bolts, freezing spells, and acid. Mechanical traps would also trigger, resulting in an equal variety and abundance of death dealt with spikes and blades made from a variety of materials to deal with all sorts of invading creatures. It was all intended to make sure anything that wasn’t this one, whatever it was, ended up very dead. This one wasn’t sure what, if anything, could survive such a barrage, but if something like that did exist this one also hoped to never, ever meet it.
Exiting the trap room brought this one to the heart of it all: The Vault. It was here that this one was bringing everything together for one of its two great plans. The chamber held objects that this one had been gathering for years: against the far wall were glass-sealed bookcases enchanted to preserve the sometimes ancient books within. Among the titles were the only surviving volumes of Invasions of the Black Swarm, Physiology of Monsters, and The Calamity of Hoogistan. To the left were shelves and stands for a hooffull of artifacts both magical and mundane. An old beetle-like shaped helmet used by one of the Old Mind’s drones, a shard of black rock that prevented the use of magic around it, and a broken log were but some of the things collected here.
On the right side of the room was a more grisly collection. Stone sarcophagi lined the wall, each enchanted with stasis and preservation magic to keep the corpses inside perfectly preserved, or at least as much as they could be given the conditions they died in. Within the many sarcophagi lay an example of one of the Old Mind’s latest drones, the remains of an earlier drone she had possessed back at Sweetashe Isle, and even what little remained of the proto-changeling the Shimmer-mare had fought and killed. Also lining the walls were numerous paintings and drawings, each showing changeling anatomy or changelings and portrayals of the Old Mind during historical events. Many of them were centuries old, and in multiple cases they were the only copies known to exist.
Seeing that everything was where it should be, this one sat down on a cushion in the center of the room. A small living room-like arrangement had been made for those times this one wanted to spend some time and review the materials it had gathered here. This one took off its saddlebags and opened them up to pull out what it had gotten from Argentium. Thankfully, the interdimensional holding space within the bags had kept the books inside from getting wet or otherwise damaged during the adventure in Northmarch.
The first book this one retrieved was Great Threats to Equestria by Starswirl the Bearded. It was a massive tome that Argentium had copied for this one, and it was but one of only three copies in all the world. One was stored somewhere deep within Canterlot’s Secret Royal Library and the other within Argentium’s personal collection. Written in Unicornian, most copies of the book had disappeared over the centuries, despite the fact that most of Starswirl’s books had been preserved and reprinted over and over again since the famous magus’ disappearance. The last attempt to print the book had been stopped when the whole printing shop burned down. Not an unusual occurrence for the time it had happened, but this one had its suspicions considering how most of the books in the Vault had similar stories for why they were so rare.
The other book this one pulled out, The Black Scourge of Dream Valley, was even rarer, and this one hadn’t even known it’d even existed before Argentium had been kind enough to bring it to this one’s attention. It was a copy of sorts of the original. Argentium’s copy was so ancient and rare that it was within the section of the wyrm’s collection that she didn’t let anyone see for fear that her tomes might be damaged or destroyed. In any event, the original was in a language so ancient and dead that this one wouldn’t have been able to read it anyway, despite being a polyglot. Even the Do-mare would have been hard-pressed to read such a long dead language. Thankfully, Argentium had done all the translating for this one, with plenty of notes for what the most literal translation would be for the most important passages.
This one had read each carefully on the way back to Freeport and absorbed the information within, as it had done with all the books within this most private and special collection. As was the way of things, this one grabbed a catalogue and carefully recorded what it was adding to the collection, and then placed the books on the shelves along with the others. That done, this one returned to its saddlebags and withdrew a metal suitcase from within.
This one carefully opened the suitcase to look at the object within. The books had been valuable, but what this one saw now was even moreso. Commissioning Argentium to build this magical artifact hadn’t come cheaply or easily, but hopefully it would be worth the considerable cost. This one slowly ran its hoof over the potent runes of the magical item and felt the latent magical energies within.
This one closed the suitcase back up, and after cataloguing it as well, placed it on the shelf along with several other artifacts. This one might have had big plans for the future, but first it needed to survive the next few days and regain control of its organization.
This one made sure to take advantage of the supplies available in the bolthole. It might have been a decoy, but the closer it appeared and functioned like the real thing the better, both to serve as a distraction but also in case this one did need a safe place. Such as now. So this one availed itself of several daggers, a pair of batons nearly as long as this one’s legs, most of the available potions, a couple packets of dried fruit, several fresh talismans, multiple types of enchanted gems, a fresh cloak, spare ducats, and the set of scale-mail armor. This one stored some of the weapons, gems, and potions in the numerous pockets in the cloak, but the majority of everything went into the saddlebags, including the armor. There was plenty of space in the enchanted saddlebags, and this one didn’t want to appear like it was ready to fight a war while walking down the street.
This one examined its battered old shock gauntlet. It had served this one well for many years, but it was really starting to show its age. Worse still for right now, it was too recognizable when this one needed to be unnoticed, so into the bags it went.
That left the question of where this one was going to head next. Gathering information seemed the most pressing issue at the moment. There were far too many things this one didn’t know thanks to its long time away from Freeport, and that needed to be fixed. This one transformed into a unicorn disguise and headed out of Dad’s PI office, careful to make sure no one was paying it any kind of attention.
This one had one good place that could help this one figure out what was going on: the office. With any luck, there should be some kind of intel to go through at Puzzle Piece’s Problem Solvers. Better yet if the Penny-mare was there, since she should know something helpful assuming she hadn’t been dragged into this mess...
But when this one reached the street of its office it found itself stopping and staring.
This one’s office had been burned to the ground. All that remained were burnt and shattered timbers, now damp in the rain. The ruins had collapsed into the basement, and it didn’t look like anything had survived the fire. Even the neighboring buildings had been damaged by the blaze.
It ... hurt to see this. Objectively, it was nothing but wood, stone, and other building materials, but it had belonged to this one. All the time this one had spent at Puzzle Piece’s Problem Solvers—work done, clients met, investments made—was now only a burned out ruin. Gone. This one severely doubted it was an accident. This was a direct attack against this one, and it didn’t suffer injuries lightly.
But first this one needed to figure out what happened. By now the weather was merely drizzling, and there were a few people on the streets now. Mostly people walking along on business or taking breaks from work, but there were a few standing around and talking. This one took note of them all.
This one headed to the building on the other side of the street from what had once been this one’s place of business. It belonged to a reasonably successful law practice focusing on business law, and perhaps someone there had seen something, or heard news or at least rumors about what had happened. This one needed something to follow up on.
Going through the entrance, this one found itself in the law practice’s lobby. Sitting behind a large desk was the secretary. She was a zebra mare with a chubby smile that radiated good cheer. Esin, according to her name plate. “Good day, sir!” she said as this one reached the desk. “How can I help you?”
This one put on the mask of an apologetic stallion who was sorry to disturb the busy mare, it smiled unnaturally and spoke with a degree of hesitation. “Um, hello? I’m sorry for bothering you, but I just got into port and I was looking for Puzzle’s Problem Solvers.” This one grimaced as it glanced back at the door. “But I have a bad feeling that building that was burned down was where I was going.”
Esin let out a long sigh. “I’m afraid you’re right. Puzzle’s office burned down a few months ago.”
“What happened?”
The secretary shifted in her seat. “I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to be honest. I was just sitting here doing my job when suddenly there was a scream and some commotion coming from across the street. Curious, I looked outside and saw a dreadful sight. Merry Penny, that’s Puzzle’s secretary, was being dragged out by some nasty-looking thugs. They were in the middle of pushing her into a carriage when I’d gotten outside, and the top floor of Problem Solvers was already on fire.”
This one’s chest tightened. “So they were kidnapping Merry?”
“Looked like it,” Esin confirmed. “She didn’t look like she wanted to go with them, and those thugs got out of there like a bat out of Tartarus once they had her shoved into their carriage. Everything was already over by the time the condottieri and fire brigade showed up.”
“Any idea why all of that happened?” This one already had some pretty good guesses, but it was best not to assume anything when questioning someone.
Esin shook her head. “I could only imagine. Rumors are that there’s some sort of street war going on between Puzzle’s employees, but it’s hard to say; the rumors are all over the place these days. Everyone says that Puzzle left town before all this mess started and hasn’t come back. I really wish he’d come back already. Things were quieter when he was around.”
“Hopefully he comes back soon, then.” This one rubbed its chin as a barrage of questions came to it. Who had kidnapped the Penny-mare, and why? Likely it was because she knew things about this one’s business. This one kept a great many secrets about its business from the Penny-mare, such as how to access this one’s bank accounts, but no one else knew that. Though this one had to ask why the Penny-mare hadn’t gone underground when everything started to go wrong. A safehouse had been set up just for her in case things got hairy, and this one had firm instructions for her to go to it in the event she thought she might be in danger. Such as if this one’s lieutenants started fighting one another. Even in a worst case scenario, there were arrangements for the Penny-mare to take a ticket to Manehattan to go to this one’s safehouse there.
So why hadn’t she? Could it be that she was among the first targets for this one’s lieutenants when everything started? Why had this one’s office been set on fire? Was it an accident, or had it been done intentionally? Was there a purpose to destroying the office, or had it simply been an act of destruction intended more to wound an opponent than achieve an actual objective?
Whatever happened, if whoever had happened to kidnap the Penny-mare had hurt her then they were profoundly going to regret it. This one already owed them for what happened to its office.
But first this one needed to figure out who’d done it. “Any idea who kidnapped her?” this one asked. “Any details, symbols, ways to identify them?”
Esin shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no. That happened months ago, and I’ve done my best to put that whole nasty business out of my mind. They were all cloaked, so I couldn’t identify any of them. I don’t even remember the carriage having a plate on it.”
This one frowned as it hit the deadend. “Anything else you can tell me? It’s important.”
“Afraid I can’t,” she said. “It all happened so quickly, and everything else is just wild rumor by this point.”
Sensing that this one wasn’t going to get anything more of value from the secretary, this one gave her a smile. “It’s okay. And thank you. I’ll let you get back to work now.”
“It’s no problem at all.” Esin waved as this one started going. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
This one existed the practice and let out a sigh. It shook its head and started down the street towards the nearby cafe this one liked to frequent during better days.
Things were bad, and probably about to get worse. The office had been burned to the ground; the Penny-mare had been kidnapped by unknown assailants, probably to get at this one; at least one of this one’s lieutenants was most likely involved, though it didn’t know which one and there was the possibility that kidnapping had been done by a third party. There were still too many unknowns to allow this one to act decisively.
Worse still, this one had just picked up another couple of tails.
They were competent at the job, doing all the right things to remain unnoticed, but this one had been in this business for years. This one had taken note of them near the office, and as this one exited the cafe with a cup of coffee it noticed them just mulling about. The rain worked against them; even if it wasn’t as heavy now, very few people would just mill about the street waiting to get drenched. There were at least two of them—a tall zebra stallion with a pair of scars running along his cheek, and a female gryphon more wide than tall with a twitchiness about her. The zebra had taken a seat at one of the cafe’s patio tables, looking slightly ridiculous reading a wet newspaper while trying to stay dry under an umbrella more intended to protect people from the sun than the rain.
Their presence left this one with one of three options: one, ignore them and continue with its business as normal. Something about them and the way they glanced at this one made its carapace itch, so not likely.
Two, get away from them. Not a bad idea, but where would that leave this one? About where it’d been before heading into the cafe: with a whole lot of nothing but questions.
That left option three, confrontation. It was dangerous, but this one wasn’t going to get anywhere without taking some risks. At least not without running out of time with the Council.
Besides, this one wanted to know who was following it this time, and whoever it was might be able to give this one a tidbit or two of information. While some seemed to think this one could produce intel magically out of the aether, the truth was that investigating usually involved a lot of work going around asking people questions, waiting in the right places, and looking through documents until you got the answers you needed. It could often be tedious work, but it sometimes posed a degree of risk all the same.
This one took its coffee and sat down opposite of the zebra. “Why, hello there. Nice to meet you.”
The zebra glanced over the top of his newspaper and grunted in reply, pointedly turning the page to his paper.
While this one could have continued to be coy, after finding out what happened with the Penny-mare and its office this one wasn’t feeling particularly patient. “You know, your act would be more convincing if you went inside to read. Someone being unlucky and getting soaked alongside their newspaper I can buy—but that person continuing to stay outside, getting wet and ruining their paper? No, that’s just strange and too noticeable.”
The zebra brought his paper down and glowered. “Maybe I just like the rain.”
“There’s liking the rain, and then there’s asking to catch a cold.” This one leaned forward in its seat as it pressed the issue. “You’re caught. The fact I’m talking with you is proof of that, so how about we drop the pretenses?”
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” the zebra insisted.
“No?” This one shrugged. “Then I have no reason to let you follow me. It would be simple enough for me to lose you, and then you can go explain to your boss why you had me tailed only to lose me in town.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
To add to this one’s frustrations of the zebra being uncooperative, the gryphon approached us alongside a thin earth pony stallion this one hadn’t initially noticed. They stopped around the table, and the gryphon spoke in a low growl. “He the one?”
The zebra hesitated before answering. “Yeah, it’s him.”
The gryphon nodded jerikly. “Lets just take him.”
“Those weren’t our orders,” said the earth pony. “We were told—”
The gryphon cut him off with a slash of her claw. “No, screw all this running around in the rain. We’re ending this now.”
This one out let out a long sigh. “You’re going to regret that.”
“Shut up,” the gryphon snapped. “We didn’t ask you, Puzzle.”
So they were definitely looking for this one. Troublesome, but potentially useful if this one played things right. Of course, there was the fact that they wanted to inflict violence on this one that it had to deal with first.
This one tried sipping its coffee, but found it too hot to drink and removed the lid. “So who is it you’re working for that’s hired such a delightful group such as yourselves to follow me?”
“You’re not the one asking questions here,” the gryphon sneered. “You’re a has-been and everyone knows it. You’ve been gone for too long. It’ll be easy to grab you and take you to the boss.” The gryphon smirked. “Bet he’d give us a big bonus if we did.”
The zebra’s eyes flicked between this one and his compatriots, his body language indicating he wasn’t so confident. The earth pony on the other hoof grinned as he was psyched up by his compatriot’s boldness. “Yeah! We’re not scared of you.”
“This one’s only been gone for a few months. How quickly people forget about the past.” This one let out a melodramatic sigh. “But one final question before you do whatever it is you have planned.” This one pointed to behind them. “Who are your friends over there?”
The zebra and earth pony turned their heads only to see no one coming. Whether out of diligence or confusion, the gryphon didn’t turn her head.
Either way, this one rewarded her with a cup of scalding hot coffee to the face. The gryphon shrieked in pain and stumbled back. Before the other two could recover, this one flipped the table right onto the zebra, knocking him over. The earth pony tried grabbing for this one, but it leapt to its hooves and grabbed an outreaching leg, twisting and slamming him face-first into a nearby table with enough force to knock the table over.
To his credit, the zebra was quick to get back to his hooves and pulled out a knife as he got up. But this one was also moving, and before the zebra could regain his balance this one snatched him by the pastern. With a twist, this one forced the knife from his hoof and snatched the weapon before it hit the ground. This one brought the knife up diagonally and slammed the hilt end into the side of his head, sending him sprawling to the ground.
The gryphon recovered from the coffee and charged this one, her talons outstretched with the intention of shredding it. Not wanting to deal with those claws, this one tossed the knife and its blade sank into her hindleg. She screamed in pain and fell to the ground. Having a moment to breathe, this one pulled out a baton from its bags. It only took a few swift blows from the weapon before the fight was out of its assailants.
And just like that, it was over.
After a quick examination of this one’s attackers, this one determined the earth pony was the most capable of answering this one’s questions. This one used its baton to lift his chin as it addressed them. “What did this one tell you would happen if you tried attacking this one?”
The earth pony tried to scoot away from this one. Blood ran from his nose from when this one had rammed it into the table, and his eyes were wide with fear. “Please don’t hurt me!”
This one shook its head and clicked its tongue. “No, this one said you’d regret it. Now do you regret trying to capture this one?” He nodded shakily. “Well, the good news is that there’s an out to all this trouble. You see, this one doesn’t actually care about you. What this one really wants is to know who your boss is and what he’s up to. Give this one some good reasons to walk away happy and you’ll get to live, understand?”
“Don’t tell that bastard anything!” The gryphon tried to stand, but her wounded leg refused to cooperate. A quick hit to one of her forward legs with the baton put her back down again.
This one returned its focus to the earth pony, speaking in a slow, bored tone to make it sound like it was capable of inflicting all sorts of miseries without batting an eye. “Where were we? Oh yes—who are you working for?”
The earth pony drew in on himself, trying to create as much space as he could between this one and him. “I c-can’t tell y-you that. He’ll kill us for that!”
This one lowered its head so we were face to face as this one flashed him a fang-filled grin. “Let this one put it this way: whoever it is you’re employed by might kill you later, but this one is right here right now, and has you at its mercy. What’s more, if this one gets to your boss before he finds out what happened and finds you ... well, what he thinks will become rather irrelevant after that.” This one tapped his shoulder with the baton. “Don’t you think?”
The earth pony swallowed. “B-Blackwing. But he didn’t order us to do anything to you! That was all Gemma’s idea! All we were told to do was follow you, and report back where you went. That’s all, I swear.”
Interesting. So Blackwing was looking for this one. But for what purpose?
“So, where is Blackwing these days?”
The earth pony opened his mouth but was cut off by a shrill whistle. A squad of pegasi forming a condottieri patrol landed next to us, weapons at the ready and their sergeant with a whistle now hanging around his neck. He was a solidly built individual with an iron-grey coat, who looked like he knew how to carry his spear. “Stop right there!”
This one really didn’t need this right now. Once again the condottieri had managed to show up just in time to be late for the action. This one had hoped to get at least a few minutes to interrogate, but that was going to be complicated. Still, this one had dealt with Freeport’s guards enough times to know how to deal with them.
“These people attacked this one while it was going about its business,” this one said as it put away its baton.
The sergeant’s spear didn’t waver, though this one was pretty sure it recognized his face. “Yeah, and who are you?”
Thinking the truth would work best here, this one transformed into its natural form. “Puzzle Piece.”
“Mr. Puzzle? What’s going on here?”
“As this one said, these individuals attacked this one,” it said. “And this one vehemently objected.”
The sergeant pressed his lips together before motioning at this one’s assailants. “Put them in chains, we’ll sort them out in the barracks. I’ll talk with Puzzle.” He stepped closer to this one, and spoke in a quieter voice. “Quite the mess you’ve gotten yourself into, isn’t it?”
If only he knew … which, apparently, he did. “You could say that.” This one checked the name on his badge and smiled. “Sergeant Tin Striker, is it? This one believes you attended the last cookout it had for the condottieri. How’s the wife doing?”
This one made an effort to be on the good side of the condottieri whenever possible. There were plenty of ways the condottieri could make life difficult for this one if they wanted to, so the bits this one spent on bribes and a few other treats were a wise investment.
The sergeant smiled widely. “Really good. Our foal was born just a couple of months ago.”
“Congratulations.” Speaking of bribes, this one pulled out a fair number of ducats for the young stallion. “Here’s a birthday gift for the new kid. This one is sure you’ll find something to spend it on.”
He took the ducats with a smile almost as wide as his previous one. “That we will, Mr. Puzzle.”
“Though back to business.” This one pointed at Blackwing’s agents. “This one would like to interrogate them if possible. They have information that would be helpful to this one.”
The sergeant’s mouth quirked with a grimace. “I’m not sure that would be the best idea at the moment.”
This one raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
The Striker-stallion nodded towards several patrons at the cafe. “Because people are a mite upset over the fight here.” He leaned in to whisper. “If I may be frank, there’s a whole lot of people upset about the fighting in the streets as of late. People asking that the condottieri stomp their hoof down and put an end to it, if you get my meaning.” His eyes flicked to his fellow guards. “And more than a few of the condottieri are thinking we should do just that and bring peace back to the streets. If people aren’t happy then our payments go down, so everyone starts hurting.”
That was indeed a problem. The condottieri depended on the public goodwill for a lot of their income, and if enough people didn’t feel like they were doing a good enough job of keeping the peace... “So what’s been holding you back?”
“Word is that the Powers That Be have told us to back off for now. We’re to leave your organization alone and keep any damages contained and off the street, though it’s all rumors as to why thus far.” He shrugged. “Some guess it’s because they want you to deal with it and save the condottieri the trouble, or because the Council’s got some big scheme going. From there the rumors just get wilder and wilder. You’d probably know better than me, sir.”
“Indeed.” This one frowned. “So in other words, you want to get these prisoners back to the barracks and peace back on the streets so you don’t look bad? Fair enough. Though could I interrogate them in the barracks?”
The sergeant frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe, but you’ll probably have to take it up with the captain. I’m going to warn you right now, you’re not everyone’s favorite changeling right now. Not to mention it’s going to take time to process these three, and whoever ends up in charge of this case is probably going to want to interrogate them first.”
“Understood.” This one was irritated by its investigation being blocked, but taking that irritation out on the sergeant wasn’t going to accomplish anything. “Any idea how long before this one might be able to see them?”
The sergeant shrugged. “Maybe a few hours, maybe more. Could be a whole day if the detective finds anything juicy.”
“This one sees.” It seemed that there was little this one could accomplish here. The condottieri was going to take Blackwing’s agents for now, and pushing them too hard about it would only alienate them. Well, this one had friends within the condottieri, and with time this one could get to its assailants. In the meantime this one would deal with other matters. “If this one is free to go…?”
“You can, though it might be best if you turned in a statement to the barracks when you get a moment,” he said. “I realize you might be really busy right now, but there’s always paperwork to fill out.”
“As this one is all too aware.” This one inclined its head to the sergeant and turned to go.
This little incident, as well as the assassination attempt earlier, had made a particular problem very apparent: this one was alone and vulnerable. That was a huge issue. Even if any of this one’s lieutenants might be inclined to fall back in line, this one’s authority would be badly undercut by a perceived lack of muscle. During times like these, strength was everything. Blackwing’s agents had felt confident in attacking this one because they outnumbered it three to one, and those odds were not likely to get better in future encounters. This one needed friends or allies.
Thankfully, this was Freeport, and in Freeport you could buy some very good friends for the right price.