Hard Head stared at the list as his conversation with Happy Day replayed in his head over and over again. Surely they wouldn't all be that weepy. Maybe there were even some ponies who deserved it. He'd be... using their ill-gotten gains for better things. He wished that he could also get the names and information of the ponies he was about to call. Then he'd know who actually deserved it. Kindly old grandmothers didn't deserve it. Not at all.
"I don't know how I can pay. I'm on a fixed income, and I need that money for things like medication and doctor's appointments. If I pay the full amount, I won't be able to afford things like that."
Definitely not.
Nothing else for it. He'd find somepony. He'd be able to tell who was an old pony and give up on them instantly. No need to ruin lives. He just needed to type in the next number. 814-555-1974. Easy. He slowly reached his hoof toward the dial pad.
Six.
Two.
Nine.
No, that was a Ponyville area code. He meant to type in the Baltimare area code on his list.
Eight.
Six.
Seven.
Five.
No, this wasn't right!
Three.
Oh.
Nine.
Hard Head gulped as the phone began ringing. Maybe nopony would pick up.
"Hello, this is Twilight Sparkle. To whom am I speaking?"
"Uh..." He grimaced. He hadn't meant to answer before he had built up the nerve. There was no going back now.
"Hello? Who is this? Can I help you?"
Nothing for it.
"Er... hello, Princess Sparkle."
"Hard Head? are you okay? I haven't heard from you for a while." A brief pause. "Why are you calling from Baltimare? Is everything alright?"
"No, Princess Sparkle. Things are not alright. I..." Hard Head poked is head over his cubicle wall to make sure nopony was listening. Everypony seemed to be engrossed in their own calls. He likely wouldn't be heard. He sat back down and leaned in closer to his desk. "I received a call from a scammer--"
Twilight snorted. What was that like, I wonder?"
"Oh, go put your head in a vice. Anyway, I traced the number and I found a huge scamming ring." He leaned in farther and his voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm at their location now. There have to be a hundred ponies here. I infiltrated, so I know what kind of ponies they are. They're not like me. They're..." He growled quietly to himself and said his next word through gritted teeth. "Competent."
Twilight didn't speak for a few moments after that. Hard Head heard her breathing, so he knew she was still on the line. Doubtless she was trying to figure out the next step. Both of them knew that this ring needed to be brought down. Hard Head couldn't fool himself about that anymore. Finally, Twilight spoke up.
"Okay. I guess we'd better do something about that. Yeah, definitely. So you say you're in their office now?"
"Yes, I've seen them doing everything. They're at 4385 E Celestial St in Baltimare. So, I guess we need to... I dunno. What do you want to do?"
"I'm on my way."
"Oh, well that's good," Hard Head said with a slight smile. "When?"
"Now. I'll be there in an hour or two. You call the castle if you have any updates. Spike will be here and he'll get any relevant information to me."
"Roger. I'll be sure to do that. They're mostly just sitting around and calling ponies."
"Alright. Keep note of anything else they're doing, and I'll be right over."
With that, Twilight hung up the call, leaving Hard Head to his thoughts. He looked back down at his list. There were probably close to a hundred numbers on them. Each one of his soon-to-be-ex-coworkers had similar lists in front of them. Thousands of ponies that they were trying to scam the money from. Every success brought a little more misery to Equestria, and for what? Just a few bits. For the first time, Hard Head felt the small ball of pressure in his chest slowly start to fade away. Maybe, for the first time in who knew how long, he could do something... positive for Equestria.
With that, he typed in the next number, but before actually calling it, he pressed the number to block it. Maybe something would go wrong and they'd just bring their lists and equipment to other buildings, allowing them to keep calling. If so, then then blocking the numbers of these ponies would help them out. Maybe it wouldn't. Maybe if they moved locations then they would just use different systems, but if not... if that wasn't the case, then he'd be helping. It felt good to do, at any rate.
Maybe bringing something positive to the world wasn't such a bad thing after all. It certainly felt better than scamming. Even the moment when Prince Blueblood had fallen for his scheme didn't feel this good.
Although, that might have been because he didn't actually get any of the money. Draining Blueblood's accounts would probably feel better. He'd never know now.
He was about three-quarters of the way through the list before he heard it. The doors to the call center broke down and royal guards began flooding through, yelling at everypony to stay in their seats and to not try anything funny. All around him ponies were laughing and muttering with each other, this was a stupid prank, that was for sure. Unfortunately for them, it wasn't, and the mildly amused laughter turned into panic as the scammers fully realized that they were toast. A second door broke down, fully preventing anypony from leaving the room. Hard Head slowly stood up, and a quick glance at the windows showed dozens of guards flying outside to prevent any pegasi from escaping.
He swiveled his ears when he heard Twilight Sparkle's voice, followed by that of Fast Talker. Might as well see what that was all about. He pushed past a few of the trapped scammers to an emptier spot on the floor where Fast Talker was backing away toward the window, a group of guards, Princess Sparkle, and, of all ponies, Tempest Shadow were closing in.
"I don't know what this is all about, but you have the wrong ponies!" Fast Talker snarled. "You stay away from me! This is a legitimate business! You don't have a warrant!"
Twilight smirked and lit her horn, sliding a piece of paper out of a thin saddlebag at her side and showing it to him. "Don't I? Look, this doesn't need to get violent, sir. Just come quietly and we can sort this all out."
"Don't listen to her," Tempest said with a chilling grin, electricity crackling around her horn. "Resist arrest! Resist arrest!"
"Tempest, we talked about this," Twilight said, putting a hoof on Tempest's shoulder. "If you're going to be in my personal guard, you need to calm down and do things by the book."
"Yes, yes, that's true!" Fast Talker said. "By the book is the best. And since the book says that you don't have any grounds to do that, that warrant is probably a fake anyway, I'll just be heading on out of here." Fast Talker inched toward two of the guards, trying to slip between them to escape. "Nothing to see here. I don't even work here. Just came to drop off a package."
"So you're resisting arrest?" Tempest replied, her grin widening.
"Tempest, by the book!" Twilight growled.
Tempest scoffed and wheeled around to face Twilight. "Oh? And when has the book truly helped anypony?"
It was right then that two things happened.
Fast Talker, seeing that everypony was distracted by this madmare, pushed past the two guards before anypony could stop him. He was moving at a fairly impressive speed, actually. However, before he made it more than five steps, a book smashed through the large window and slammed into Fast Talker's head. He instantly collapsed in a heap on the ground.
"Huh," Hard Head muttered to himself.
"That doesn't count," Tempest said through gritted teeth.
Twilight scoffed and rolled her eyes before walking up to Fast Talker and picking the book up in her magic.
"Interesting. Complex Theories on the Nature of Ballistic Literature. Cadance has been looking for this." She flipped it open to the first page and frowned. "Wait... this is Cadance's copy. What in the...?" She shook her head and turned around, finally spotting Hard Head behind her officers. "Oh, you're still here, good."
"Yeah, I figured that I could... I dunno. Help somehow?"
"You've been a wonderful help already," Twilight said with a smile as the guards got to work securing the other scammers. "Without your help, these ponies would still be scamming innocent ponies out of their bits."
"Like he tried to do," Tempest growled. "How can we be certain that he didn't come here to join them, then grew a conscience?"
"Uh, yeah, that's totally what happened!" Sweet Nothings called out from behind the guards. "Plus, he stole somepony's doughnuts and ate all of them!"
"No, that was you!" Charming Words yelled out.
"We'll get all of that sorted out later." Twilight took to the air and began directing the guards and the scammers out the door where several dozen police wagons were waiting for them. Tempest gave Hard Head an "I'm watching you" sign with her hoof, then followed the guards out of the room. After fifteen minutes, only Twilight and Hard Head remained. Hard Head didn't make eye contact with Twilight, and flinched when he heard her coming up.
"So, is Tempest right? I mean, I've had similar thoughts myself."
"I, uh... well I mean..." Hard Head sighed and rubbed his temple. "I guess so. I guess I got caught up in the idea of success at this, but I didn't make it more than a few calls before I called you. I didn't actually succeed in getting any money from anypony, though."
"Hm." Twilight pursed her lips in thought. "Well, can't exactly say that there isn't going to be some kind of repercussion for that. You did technically participate in an illegal activity. I'll have to talk to the other princesses and get their opinion on it."
"So are you going to load me into one of the police wagons, then?" Hard Head said glumly. "I guess I do technically deserve it."
"Well, we'll talk about that later. I..." Twilight motioned outside. "Have a lot going on right now. We have to figure out everything that they've been up to, what exactly to do about it, do a lot of paperwork..." Hard Head saw Twilight's wings flutter happily at that last one.
"So should I just go back to Ponyville or should I follow you?"
"I guess Ponyville for the moment. I'll have one of my guards escort you. We still have some stuff to talk about."
"Yeah..."
* * * *
The next day found Hard Head laying on his bed in his home. The morning paper had mentioned something about a huge ERS scammer bust, with an interview with Twilight about how it was one of the biggest scammer busts in years. Hard Head only skimmed it for any interesting details. As far as he could see, his name had been kept out of it, but there was no reason for it to be there anyway, unless Twilight had deliberately brought it up.
Hard Head stood up and was just about to start boiling some water for lunch when he heard a knock on the door. He sighed and turned the stove off before walking over to the door. Opening it up, he saw Princess Sparkle standing on the other side. He grimaced and beckoned her inside. As he stepped aside, he heard Twilight say something to the guard next to the door, but couldn't make out what it was.
"Hey there, Hard Head," Twilight said as she walked in. "How are you today?"
"Chugging along," he replied, going back to the stove and turning it on. "How are things on your end?"
"Well, it was a pretty successful bust," Twilight said with a smile. "All told we arrested eighty-nine ponies who had scammed over ten million bits out of ponies over the course of the last three or four years. You did a lot of good by bringing it to our attention."
Hard Head gave Twilight a weak smile. "Well, I'm happy to help. So I'm not going to be thrown in jail with them, right? I mean, I didn't actually ever scam anypony, uh... ever."
"Well, you still did join a criminal organization with the intention of joining them in their operations," Twilight replied with a small frown. "That's still a crime, Hard Head. Princess Celestia and I had a long talk about what to do about that."
Hard Head groaned and sat down on a nearby chair, putting his head in his hooves. "Ugh. I know I shouldn't have done it. I know. Do I at least get a few years off since I blew the lid off of it?"
Twilight used her magic to pull up another chair and sit across from him. "Well, we're not going to do it that way, but you are going to make some restitution." Hard Head looked up at Twilight with cautious optimism. "You first got tangled up with them because you traced their call back to their headquarters. That's actually pretty impressive. We have a lot of skilled techs who have problems with that."
"Yeah, it was a lot of trial and error," Hard Head admitted, waving a hoof in the direction of his computer. "When you know how to block or hide a signal, you know how the components work. A little reverse-engineering takes care of the rest."
"Well, in lieu of prison time, we would like you to come work for the Equestrian government to help take these ponies down," Twilight replied. "You and I both know that the group that we got yesterday was just one part of a larger problem. There are groups all across Equestria, and probably in other countries, too. With your help, we could make a big dent in their operations!"
Hard Head raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. "So... you're asking me to help you catch scammers."
"You're absolutely right except for the 'asking' part!" Twilight replied happily. "Given your record, you can pick this or two years of prison time. Considering what the rest of them are getting, I'd pick the one that helps ponies."
Hard Head gulped and scooted his chair a few inches away from Twilight. "So, uh, when do I start, then?"
Twilight opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, the phone rang. Hard Head motioned to it, and Twilight nodded. He stood up from his chair and put the headset on.
"Hello? Who is this?"
"Yes, hello, this is Tax Law from the Equestrian Revenue Service. I am calling to say that a lawsuit has been filed against you for tax evasion."
Hard Head blinked. "Uh... I see."
After pressing the speakerphone button, he walked over to his computer and turned it on as the scammer rambled on about tax evasion penalties. Once he'd fired it up, he plugged a cord from the computer into his phone. He looked back at Twilight, who was grinning at him. He returned it with a weak smile before turning back to his computer.