“I just can’t believe it,” mumbles Excelsus as fresh bandages ease the president’s pain. Rager dabs medicine on more wounds then patches them up while Radiance levitates a few more medicine bottles and several potions to light, some of which Spike recognizes from the Power Ponies’ armory in Issue #74. “I’ve been mugged a few times, held hostage once in this city… it’s peanuts compared to actual supervillain underlings!”
As for the Power Ponies themselves, they’ve donned their disguises again, cleaning up the mess with the help of alerted security guards and on-demand construction workers ready to fix the ransacked office.
“What happened again?” says one of the guards who’s just come in. Thunder punctuates his question; the relentless rain doesn’t let up.
“Ponies teleported in from out of nowhere,” Excelsus sputters. A bandage is gently placed on his leg. “Spike and his new friends here kept them busy before those loons bailed.”
“And they might strike again,” says Rager posing as Fivepoint Tulip. “Do you have a safer place to go to?”
“The basement’s always a good answer.” His out-of-this-world guests fancy a look. “As far as I know, it’s not easy to teleport into the basement. No windows to teleport through, I can assure you.”
“It’s our best shot,” adds another guard, armed with some concealed blades. “Wanna let the press know about the situation?”
“Not until this situation is clear!” shouts Excelsus, still raspy. “I’m more than convinced that this is all related to the whole enchantment fiasco. They may be the very same ponies who went AWOL on us!”
Zapp tells him to calm down, patting him on the withers. “You might get a nerve popped with that attitude.”
Minutes of inspection and cleaning pass by. More workers and guards come up to help, securing the perimeter and relaying information to the right ponies. They see a bruised but bandaged Excelsus before checking out Spike and his six totally-not-the-multiple-time-saviors-of-Equestria pony companions.
“Is it true you were able to fend them off?” one of them asks.
“Pretty much,” Mare-velous replies. “It’s a thing to remember for life, that’s for sure. At least we made it out in one piece. Guess that’s what it feels like to be one of them… whatcha’ call it?”
“Elements of Harmony?”
“Something like that.”
They soon get Excelsus trotting to the hall, leaving the office for repairs. An escort of guards surrounds him, scrutinizing every nook and cranny while silently chanting their mantra of taking no chances.
“So what do you think?” he says to his visitors. “Obviously, they’re up to no good. What exactly are they up to?”
Matter-Horn sighs, walking right beside him. “It’s unclear. He said something about us being the stepping stone to their grand plan, but that’s all. As much as I’d like to have hypotheses here and there, idle theories won’t do us any good.”
“Which means the only ticket we have out of this slump is some proper sleuthing,” adds Fili-Second. “Just one problem: we have no idea what Manehattan is like. The train station gave us maps, but they’re huge.”
Excelsus permits himself a laugh. “Not that I’ve ever needed them. I was born and raised in this impossible maze of a city. You can ask me for directions, though.”
“Maybe not now. We need to assess the building across us.”
“The Easy Keeper Insurance Head Office? We aren’t even in the same industry! Why would they have anything to do with this?”
“I don’t think they do, but hey, security’s only as strong as its weakest link. Leaving behind window-cleaning platforms in the open is a big mistake. A unicorn skilled enough to teleport or any stealthy pegasus can get up there and break in.”
They stop at the elevator. A guard presses the button for the ground floor. Words get trapped in Excelsus’s throat. “You’re….”
She makes eye contact with him, a little forlorn. “Yes, we’re leaving.”
The light turns on above the elevator, the number falling every second. Spike feels the frown on the stallion’s face, a weight heavy on his limber withers.
“I know you would’ve liked to talk to us, Mister President. We could’ve gotten to know each other more, maybe even share a drink. But we have villains on the loose, and your wizards are in on it. Every second we dilly-dally is a second we’ll not forgive ourselves for. I’d hate to say it, but with the power I’ve seen, they could endanger the world… or even worlds.”
Halfway down the building, ground closing in fast. The president taps on the fancy floor with his hoof. He parts his lips for one more smile. “An honor. Yes, it’s an honor to meet such brave… detectives, yes. You’re very heroic detectives, I say. I hope I shall meet you again when this is over—oh, and we can give you anything you need to aid you in your search. With our help, I’m sure you won’t go down without a fight.”
Ping!
“I assure you, Excelsus, justice will be won. We will not go down.”
Pouring rain splashes against the ponies’ thick clothes despite Zapp’s emergency umbrellas. Radiance whines about not using her attack constructs to form a free umbrella out of thin air, but her friends talk some sense into her. As for Spike, his scales make it difficult for him to be truly wet.
Across the narrow road rises the insurance building: a solid rectangle of glass and concrete, a smattering of lights splotched on the surface. Barely past the curtain of rain, a suspended scaffold hangs low enough to level with the comic building’s top floor.
“With enough magic, a unicorn would have no problem teleporting to that platform and teleporting everyone else into the room.” Matter-Horn scratches her chin. “A conspicuous place to be in at night, but the storm provides sufficient cover from ground-level onlookers.”
“Yeah, about that storm.” Zapp follows suit and scratches her head. “That storm was awfully convenient; it came in right before they did! We’ve had clear open skies the whole time. A storm doesn’t just come up behind your back!”
“That is something,” Spike comments, attempting to butt in. “Could it be...?”
“Do you know the weather schedule for Manehattan?” Rager asks the dragon. “They usually don’t publish it on Maretropolis. Weather companies keep it a surprise, you know.“
“Uh, I don’t. That’s… something I didn’t know.”
Mare-velous rolls her eyes. “Yeah, don’t expect us to dispense trivia if that’s gonna keep you up at night.” She inspects the suspended scaffolding from afar. “All I know is either that unicorn has great range or he was there the whole time.”
“Let’s not forget that about the eleven other ponies teleported in as well,” Radiance reminds them. “He couldn’t be the only one there.“
“So they could be in the windows?”
“Most likely,” Fili-Second replies. “The surrounding windows are dark. Add rain to it and that’s zero visibility.”
“What about the rooftop?” Zapp asks, and before anyone answers, she zips up the building. She goes back down after a second. “Eh, got no trace. I thought pegasi could’ve carried the ponies up on the top and waited for the unicorn’s signal, but nah.”
Matter-Horn holds up a hoof, shutting everyone up. “This is a very big maybe, but maybe we’re on the wrong track here.”
All eyes bore into her. Spike himself leans in, straining his ears to listen to one of Matter-Horn’s eureka moments.
“Bear with me here, everyone. What if they want us to try to figure out how the attack happened in the first place so we’d be distracted from looking for them?”
“That’s too paranoid,” Mare-velous chimes in immediately. “We case this building, ask the ponies here, and we could get clues about what they did.”
“True, but let’s not forget that we can take some steps back, even way before the battle, and try to see what started it all—what made them go AWOL in the first place.”
“And what makes you think that’s going to be a leg up over what we’ve got now?” challenges Zapp.
Matter-Horn taps on the wet sidewalk in thought. “We’re pressured for time. Maretropolis is descending into chaos as we speak. As much as I want to investigate everything, we may not have that luxury.”
She clears her throat. “I don’t think the scuffle to end Excelsus’s life is that important in their grand plan. Why would they off him anyway? Surely, taking over Clockwisely isn’t their end goal; any old hack could do that with enough time and effort. However, taking out one past-his-prime pony with twelve highly trained fighters? It’s overkill. With the security they have, they should’ve waited until he was at his most vulnerable, but they didn’t wait, either because they wanted to rush things or because they knew we were here. Either way, Clockwisely wasn’t the end but the means to an end, and what would that end be? Enchantments? Maybe, but didn’t Excelsus say much of the Enchantment Division’s stuff went missing too?
“Which means... girls?” A hardy look befalls her. “We’ve got to put our investigator caps on. It’s the only way we’re getting to the bottom of this.”
Spike lets slip a joyful squee. His heart beats in excitement: here’s where the real fun begins in the comics.
The other ponies gather around her into a huddle. Seeing Spike again, Matter-Horn steps to the side to let him into the secret circle.
Matter-Horn flashes a no-nonsense look at Zapp. “You do whatever it legally takes to check out Manehattan’s weather schedule. See if they planned for a freak storm at two-thirty and ask if they’ve noticed any anomalous activity around that time.”
“Gotcha!”
The unicorn turns to Rager and Radiance. “You’ll go as a pair; try to stay in each other’s range as much as possible. You’ll figure out if there’s been any recent transactions involving dangerous magic items, the kind a black market would love on its hooves without the mass of paperwork needed to obtain them. Rager, that means you go check the magic breweries, the herbalists—all the shops that stack potions, magic plants, and so on. Radiance, go to the jewelry and gemstone retails, see if they had anything resembling the gems on the enchanters’ cloaks. Got it? Got it.
“Mare-velous, two things: check museums and any possible archaeological sites in the city, and explore the city’s underground from subways to sewer tunnels. I trust in your experience with ancient hidden temples and subterranean complexes. Sounds alright?”
“As long as the subway here’s not a doozy like in Maretropolis!”
“Okay. Fili-Second—“
“Yes?!”
“Interview ponies whenever appropriate starting with Clockwisely. Scrounge for as many details as you can. This place has libraries: go check those too especially if they have forbidden sections, see if anypony’s borrowed from there over the past few months. In short, you’re covering everything the others aren’t covering, so get reports, transactions, rumors—anything.”
“Got it, ma’am Horn!”
“And as for me, I’m going to be searching up each enchanter’s house thanks to the list they’ve given us.” She holds up said list, having received it from Excelsus before leaving the building. “It’s very possible that the police have searched them, but it’s also possible that they’ve missed some things. Spike?”
And Spike lights up at that, called out in the sacred huddle. “Y-yes? Anything I can do to help?”
“Yes, there is. You’re coming with me. An extra set of hooves… or a pair of claws, in this case, can prove quite handy. You haven’t garnered us much attention despite your fame across the land, and when you do, no one gets suspicious of you. That’s pretty helpful for when we’re breaking and entering.”
Spike’s eyes glow in wonder. “I’m j-joining you? In a mission? For real?!”
Matter-Horn cannot stifle a cute giggle. “Don’t forget that this isn’t stroking egos or fulfilling fantasies. I believe you can contribute a lot to this mission. We landed in your bedroom and you’ve helped us all the way. With your knowledge and experience in this world, you’re indispensable.”
“Wow, I-I’m just… wow! I-I can’t believe this is actually happening!”
“Sure you can!” and Zapp flies over him in excitement. “Let’s just cut the chit-chat for later though. Villains on the run, remember?” Turning to Matter-Horn, “So where do we regroup? We need a place close enough to Clockwisely so we can be there on short notice.”
Matter-Horn hums and shoots a glance at a pizzeria. “The Pizza Pull?”
Spike pulls out a spare gem from his backpack. “If you wanna chow down, I got you covered.” They reply with laughter. “What? I bet you’re all going to be tired after all this sleuthing. And, well, the inevitable moment when one of you is going to get caught in a snag, gets late, and we all worry that the bad guys got to her—“
“Hey!” Mare-velous stares him down. “Just because your comic books may look predictable doesn’t mean we’re predictable!”
Spike puts his claws up in the air. “Okay, okay! Uh, bad timing?”
Rager massages the Mistress’s tense withers. “What she’s trying to say is we’re not exactly comic book characters bound to some pre-determined storyline. We get unlucky from time to time, but that doesn’t stop us from fighting on.”
Blushes manifest on his scaly cheeks. “Alright, fair enough. But I could still be correct because I’m genre savvy, right?”
“Let’s hope not,” says Fili-Second, “but I know where you’re coming from.” She throws a spare donut into the air and chomps it.
The other Power Ponies look each other in the eye before converging on a determined Matter-Horn. “So are we all set?”
A chorus of yes’s later, the ponies put hooves on top of one another, forming a dripping circle of hooves under the rain. Matter-Horn smirks at Spike, nudging him to put his claw on the hoof pile.
“Alright, girls? Let’s go! Power Ponies forever!”
Under the deafening rain, they reply, “Power Ponies forever!”
Fili-Second dries her clothes by spinning around on the carpet before galloping farther into Clockwisely HQ. She’s fast enough—but not too fast—to catch the president being escorted somewhere. “Hey, uh, Mister President!”
“Oh, um, Fi—Poppy Sizzle!” He stops and so do his guards. “Didn’t know you’d be back so soon! Where’re the others?”
“Doing what we private investigators do,” she says with a suave nod. “Now, where’s the Enchantment Division?”
“It’s up on the third floor. You want to interview some of my employees there? Or what remains of it? I think there’s two working right now. Very early birds, they are. Used to have so many early birds until most of them flew away, you see.”
“That’d be enough. Thanks!”
She races up the stairs and swings through several hallways. Wall signs then lead her to the Enchantment Division.
The division is a laboratory swept by a hurricane with almost everything gone and stolen. Boxes still upturned, shelves and drawers running dry, and spaces formerly full of magic materials and machinery lay empty.
She trots up to the two enchanters there, unicorns fixing up the herculean mess, and takes out a notepad and pencil.
“You two.” They turn around and see the covert hero. “The name’s Poppy Sizzle. I’m investigating this enchantment problem your company’s having. Can you tell me what went wrong?”
The stallion gulps. “Are you sure about this? Lots of this is forbidden info with clearance levels—“
“I know about the rogue Enchantment Division enchanters who may’ve been fired for doing unethical things to Power Ponies comics. If you don’t know that, you’re either born yesterday or it’s something I don’t want to think about.”
The mare hums in denial. “They could be rumors—“
“They enlivened characters from the Power Ponies comics. That’s as forbidden as it gets.”
That clams them up.
“Well, then.” Fili-Second sticks a pencil into her mouth. “Left geth tho cha trooth!”
“What?”
Disappointed, she removes her pencil, spitting away the taste of eraser. “Let’s get to the truth.”
The Manehattan Weather Station lies at the island city’s far west side in the Broncyln region. Its mascot of a huge rooster weather vane easily marks it as the city’s premier weather facility.
Frenzied pegasi fill the lobby, comparing charts and maps while arguing over newfound meteorological reports.
“What’s going on?” asks Zapp, following the coattails of a random weather pony whose plain looks disqualify her from appearing as a Maretropolis newscaster.
The flustered weather worker turns around. “Sorry, ma’am, but I’m on the move. Somepony’s deviated from the early-morning schedule, and they’re gonna pay!”
“Really? If that’s so, can I get some details on that original schedule?”
The worker tries to politely shake off the stranger’s trail. “You’re one of them reporter mares, huh? Early bird, eh? You sound like you flew to the storm zone yourself. How’s the damage there?”
“No damage. Certainly put a damper on ponies, that’s for sure. Not a single umbrella in sight!”
She bites her tongue. “Good thing it’s still too early in the morning. On the other hoof, we’ve lost built-up moisture for tomorrow’s storm.”
“You’ve got a sea and all—“
“Not from here, then? Strange you’d report on a little freak storm outside your area.”
“Oh, I have some experience with freak storms.” She takes a mental note not to show off her lightning bolt pendant. Just in case. Stupid comic fame.
“Okay, okay. Is that all or—“
“Gimmie as big of a scoop as you can. Maybe even some off-the-record stuff for good measure.”
She sucks in one huge breath before almost hitting the wall a few seconds later. The two stop at the corner of a busy hallway, pegasi and reports flying around them.
The weathermare groans as she recovers from her near crash. “You reporters can’t take a break, can you?”
Fortunately for Saddle Rager, a store for sorcerous herbs lay beside a shop for magic gemstones and other geological wizardry. According to a local she asked, the neighborhood of Little Canterlot is famous for its wide variety of thaumaturgical shops from the supermarket variant to the one-mage proprietorship hawking expensive customs for the seriously interested and invested.
Inside, everything smacks of earthy green. Terran smells take Rager home to her greenhouse laboratory where she grows and experiments on exotic magic plants in the pursuit of knowledge and progress.
The shopkeeper wakes up from her snoring nap. “Argh! Sorry for leaving you out in the cold, lassie! Welcome to Keter’s Terrific Kits! We’ve got everything from your bog-standard kindergartner's chemical flowers all the way to the rarest botanical samples that’d make Mage Meadowbrook cry uncle!”
“Really?” Sensing no one else in the shop, she wonders if Keter needed some time for herself to brew a cup of coffee. But first things first. “Anyway, I’d be interested to buy some of your goods.”
”Oh, really!” Keter claps her forehooves in glee. “What can I get you?”
Rager leans a hoof on the wooden counter. “What’s the most dangerous stuff you’ve got here?”
The store owner scrunches up her muzzle. “We’ve got some nasty dagger flowers and hybrid fear ferns, that’s for sure! Why do you ask?”
The hero in disguise makes a sideways glance at more produce. “I’m investigating a case in which certain ponies may be looking for such items.”
“Ah, I see what you mean.” The jeweller/engraver/not-so-amateur mage at the glass counter gives Radiance a knowing expression. Her resting hoof lies over a display of polished gemstones, descriptions of their magic properties written underneath.
More displays of gems, crystals, and even preserved dirt from Earth-pony-magic-imbued rock farm soils—these surround Crazy Cryztal’s lonely customer in this early hour.
Cryztal jangles a ring of keys in her magic field. “I don’t know much. All I did was sell the gems to the pony I told you about. She’s got deep pockets, I tell you. Very deep pockets.”
“If I told you that it may have a connection to unscrupulous enchanters in Clockwisely Comics, would you change your mind?”
Cryztal arches a brow. Her horn glows and the front door locks itself from the inside out. “Miss Soda Light, I’m not so sure about your intentions. You could be an undercover cop pulling a fast one over these ponies, or you could be just one of them.”
Radiance leans over the counter. “Let’s put it this way: if your store faces, say, a ten-percent downturn in sales, then that means I’ve blabbed whatever confidential information you have to the press or your rivals. You’re free to sue me afterwards, but the damage will’ve been done.”
It takes a good half minute for Cryztal to decide. “You seem dreadfully serious about this. Alright, then.”
She floats the key to the backdoor.
“Come. I’ll show you the relevant receipts, what gems they bought… maybe you’ll be able to piece some things together. Of course, I’ve also got a lie-detecting topaz there, so if you say so much as a peep of a lie, I’m calling the cops on you, and I’m not afraid to zap you to pieces.”
Right where I want her. “I’m fully confident in my assertions anyway. Besides, to be honest with you, I am invested in this case myself.”
“Hmm. Personal matter?”
“You could say that.”
Manehattan’s all-day-all-night subways are a real treat for tourists. The trains run like clockwork, running on time all the time. At least not when scores of commuters jam themselves like sardines in cans for seafood-hungry hippogriffs.
But before scouring the subway, Mare-velous may have to contend with the authorities. She lacks any authorization or permission to wander around in those tunnels, and it’ll be difficult to evade the authorities without giving her real identity away. Not to mention that a train may just slam her dead on the tracks.
After fruitless casings of subway stations, she finds herself with the more exciting prospect to look for crime scenes in: the sewers.
When nopony’s looking topside, she dives down a maintenance hole and lands with a dirty splash. Muddy waters defile her clothes and hooves, but the stench is a familiar fragrance. Tunnels in primeval catacombs had worse stinks.
She maneuvers herself through the brick tunnels. A map of Manehattan is her friend, tracking her progress and giving her a heads-up on what lay ahead. Doors and the occasional pump welcome her, but they provide nothing groundbreaking. At times, there are lights; at other times, no lights, which is when she shines her flashlight to navigate the dark tunnels.
Half an hour of dirty trotting later, she tires of the murky water below her. With no maintenance area in sight, she leans on the circular wall of bricks for a five-minute snooze.
Feels something move.
A slip and she’s dirtier still. Nothing a good laundry session can’t fix, though. Still, she turns to the part of the tunnel that’s made her fall.
“Something loose, hm?” and her eyes land on the offending brick. It’s tactically placed: a bit too high for any ordinary pony to just sit down and take a rest there. She jumps and bumps the brick with her head, gripping it with her powerful mouth and her strapping jaws, pulling the brick out inch by inch.
It pops away and more bricks come loose. Another brick falls onto the floor with a splash. A whip of her head lets her inspect it: a normal brick. She picks it up to examine it in closer detail. Jutting out from the brick’s edges: cut wires.
“Huh. Like those movies with a secret bookshelf passage if you pull just the right book, just with bricks instead. Lucky me.”
She takes down more loose bricks.
Despite Fili-Second’s limited experience in Manehattan, the similarities between this city and Maretropolis help her blend in with the fast-moving locals. Fast-moving may not be the right word to describe them for Fili-Second herself: the taxi she rides in torments her with its leisurely pace. She can beat its top speed in a jiffy! She however restrains herself and stays in character with her fake persona.
The next stop is the library. Not the public library like Matter-Horn expected but a private one. From its experience with rampaging city-destroyers, Maretropolis split up their archives between private libraries, sending each one huge sums of money to stay mum about it. If her hunch is correct, Manehattan may have a similar system that the crooks must’ve exploited.
A meager tip to the driver, and she hurries to an out-of-the-way bookstore. She asks the librarian about any suspicious purchase recently. A flash of an official-looking badge is enough to get the proprietor talking. “Within the last few weeks, Miss Poppy Sizzle? Yeah, there were these ponies in coats. Researchers, they said. Most of them unicorns. It’s from three shelves far out in the backroom with half a dozen security cameras—“
“Just get to the point. Any idea what they bought?”
He tells her, and with some note-jotting and assurance to him that the ponies in question may be suspects, she exits the library.
In an alley, a faint flash.
“Hey! Who’s that?” She jumps across the road, gliding over it and dodging taxi traffic—then, the other side.
The mystery pony gallops down the alleys. Hops over fences, drops down stairs, jumps over garbage dumpsters, climbs up ladders. Fili-Second follows close, gaining on him as they run on rooftops and leap across buildings. You’re lucky I’m not using a quarter of my powers, you dingus!
A wall too tall for him to jump over. No ladders or stairs to save him: a dead end. He plants his back against the wall, fumbling around with the gemstone on his neck.
Fili-Second wastes no time using her super-speed, becoming a colorful blur. Now, inches away from his face.
The runner gasps, his eyes shrinking into needles. “I-I knew it! Y-you were… and the others too! They were just so familiar, I—“
She shoots a hoof past his ear, denting the wall. “Spill the beans, mister!” Fili-Second throws down her hat, freeing her signature mane. “You’re spying on us, huh? Mister Meat Shield acting as recon for his cowardly masters, huh?”
He clasps his gemstone, horn’s glow fluctuating. “L-look! I-I… I’m sorry, I—“
A flash. A teleport away.
Spots fly in her blinded vision. Rubs her eyes to find herself alone: a plain rooftop with some air-conditioning vents, the backside of a billboard, and a wooden water tower.
Fili-Second taps on her hooves, taking in the view of Manehattan traffic down below. “Being watched. At least I’m being watched. The others, you said, mister? Watching all of us, hm? That’s… that’s no good. No good at all.”
Without further thought, she zooms down the building and back into the alley.
Glass break sensors only work if somepony breaks the glass.
Geared with a map-and-list-toting dragon, Matter-Horn teleports past the window and into the house, taking advantage of the rain to mask her entry from the locals.
“Anything out of the ordinary?” Spike asks, acting as her point dragon. He outsources the mental drudgery to her; the rooms looks decent enough for him: furniture, shelves, and appliances like microwaves and a food processor.
Matter-Horn scans the room with a spell permeating the vicinity. “Nada. Although I have to ask: are radios and TVs not a thing in your world?”
“Not really.” A shrug accompanies the answer. “Radios are hit and miss, and television… closest thing we got are those massive billboards in Bridleway.”
“But you have microwaves.”
“They’re more of a city thing.”
She sticks her tongue out at Equestria’s technological schizophrenia. “The Power Ponies are science fiction in this world, right?”
“Yup, and—“
Her head goes up; ears swivel like a radar, and her horn continues to glow. Searching mode. As for Spike, small places become his specialty, getting into cabinets to forage for evidence or clues. Findings are fake food cans hiding emergency money and valuable knick-knacks like action figures.
“Cautious if ascetic.” A can levitates in her magic. A shake reveals a couple gemstones; Spike licks his lips at that. “Police weren’t thorough enough. This shows he’s thinking ahead: the police see this, and they’ll charge him for theft at worst. Get them to think he only has a small part in the scheme, and that’d be the end of it.”
“But that’s not all, right?”
Matter-Horn trots in a circle, almost carving a groove in the wooden floor. “Not unless this is the only suspicious thing here. Hidden in plain sight and a distraction: that’s what the food cans are. I’m sure you’ve heard of these before.”
“Um, the concept of hiding in plain sight, yes. Using food cans to hide in plain sight? I don’t think so.”
A couple carriages pass by outside, paying no heed to ponies and dragons they cannot see. “They’re actually Mare-velous’s idea. Perhaps someone else did it before her, but she’s down to earth. Unlike me and Radiance, she can’t rely on raw unicorn power for an invisibility spell, so she thought outside the box: recycle some soda cans into emergency money containers, share them to her neighbors, and next thing you know—“
Creak!
All eyes lock onto the floor. Where the sofa used to be, pushed by Matter-Horn to check for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing last time, but she swears she’s felt the floor sink: a wooden board. She presses it. Feels out the surrounding area with both hoof and magic. “Doesn’t feel hollow to be a trap door or an underground passage. Unless…”
“Unless what?” Spike asks.
A hum leaves her lips. “Unless we chip away at it. It’s worth a shot.”
She taps the floorboard. Keeps tapping it. The spooky creak loses its dread with each tap, changing pitch slightly. It grates at Spike’s ears, but he doesn’t question Matter-Horn’s decisions. She’s made enough decisions in the comics to display her weird side: playing the accordion, sleepwalking every other night, and having an irrational hatred for soup unless it’s ramen.
Then the floorboard doesn’t creak. It rumbles.
Surrounding boards shuffle. The rumbles grow into a minor earthquake, threaten to throw the home invaders off. She activates the glow of her horn and Spike steps back, ready to shoot fire at any living thing that moves.
The boards return to their normal positions.
Spike just sits down. “Well, that was something.”
“And that’s more than enough,” says the unicorn flowing with nervous energy. “No one has floorboards shifting like gears from a clockpunk novel. Genius, aren’t they? It’s a brilliant way of digging an underground passage both hidden and accessible especially in a city where all nearby grasslands are public parks where you can’t have anything like this at all.”
Spike inspects the boring floor. He sees nothing. “So what is it?”
Matter-Horn taps the floorboard once more. It rings hollow. “A password of sorts. No sane pony is expected to move the sofa just to tap on the same creaky floorboard over a hundred times. The only way to find this out is to be in the know or to be insane.”
Her magic pries open the floorboard. Both pony and dragon see the trap door underneath.
The two journey down the stairwell. If anyone comes sneaking back in, they have a short head start to think of an escape plan.
It isn’t long until they reach a crude hatch. They tear it apart to get through, fixing it up once they’re on the other side.
She lights up her horn. It fizzles out before coming back as a blue lantern. “Alright, where are we?”
The answer sends Spike’s jaw off its hinges.
Boxes, mostly empty, litter the floor; their rare left-behind contents include ripped blanked pages, empty flasks with dried puddles of liquid, and traces of crushed gemstones. Food cans lie around, not fresh but not rotten. Weapons hang on the wall: spears, lances, and something else—black and gray, small and portable.
Spike picks it up, treating it with reverent fear, careful to not touch the trigger. “A… a gun?! B-but how?!”
“Guns aren’t a thing in your world too?” asks Matter-Horn. “Then again, they’re in the diffusion phase from where we came from, and it’s a fortune to obtain—“
Spike hastily puts it back on the rack. “Y-yes. It’s a… another one of them sci-fi weapons or the ones set in the future. Sometimes they shoot these things called bullets, other times it’s lasers. Looks like the bullet kind, and, oh boy, oh no.“
Their glances meet: one terrified, one concerned. The same idea passes through their minds. “It couldn’t be, could it?” says the unicorn, dripping fear.
The cool damp air nudges Spike to sit down on the hard floor. “I… I’d really want to believe we’re just dealing with some R&D ponies on the loose. But the enchanters’ list, you coming to life—”
“And you conclude that they might’ve enchanted either one of our comics or another… to get a gun.”
He throws a claw toward the whole room. “For all we know, this is the staging ground for their experiments! At least until they abandoned it, I think.“
“Then why am I still here?” a new voice asks.
Both pony and dragon turn to the stranger among them.
Another light illuminates the room: another unicorn. No cloak to cover him; the gemstone around his neck shines under his magic light. His cutie mark, that of a magic field controlling air. His golden eyes, studying the visitors from afar.
“Hey!” Spike stands up and points a claw at him. “I recognize you!”
“Yes, I was there. No need for the blame game.” He rubs his gemstone: it glows. The discriminating look on Matter-Horn, hard to bear. “Yes, I fought you. Fighting the Power Ponies: it’s a great privilege to say that, isn’t it?”
Matter-Horn doesn’t remove her disguise out of instinct. “Let’s cut to the chase, Lumen Airs. Care to tell us what’s going on?”
He keeps a close eye on his glowing gemstone, his pulse quickening. “I wish I could give you some definite answers. As it is, a-anything I say will be used against me.”
Her ears flatten. A cool breeze rushes past them. “Whatever it is, we won’t punish you as badly as whatever your bosses do to traitors.”
“But loopholes... y-yes, there’s a loophole. I’m t-technically helping him out.”
The two visitors raise their brows at him. “Help who out?” Spike asks.
A rag wipes the sweat on his broad forehead. He throws it off to the weapons rack to stare at them with sunken eyes. “Space B-Beat.”
Lumen’s ears perk at their surprised looks. “H-he was never much a part of us. But he had connections to the Enchantment Division. With everyone. One of the glue guys keeping us together. Socialite. S-social charmer… u-until he sent something out and spilled the beans on us.”
With crossed claws, “That’s the Space Beat I used to know.” Space Beat charming a mare with his looks and his chamber of knowledge—a display of his romantic prowess which Spike could observe, only to be turned away by the mare. A goofy charmer, somepony who didn’t ask much. Now he has no breath with which to ask anything.
“You know him?” He rolls his head, breathing faster and faster with the gemstone’s pulse. “Wh-whatever it is, he sent it out somewhere. An early copy… a prototype of our grand plan, but he doesn’t know. I should know; I was the one who threw it out into the garbage bin, destined for shredding or worse. I didn’t know that fox would pick it up! C-cut me some slack, buddy: I wasn’t in the company half a year; I wouldn’t know Space Beat too well—”
Matter-Horn vibrates with quiet rage. “What made you join the company?”
Fearful, he steps back. “I j-joined for more than the comics. More than the magic and the thrill. I-I wouldn’t have thought of Clockwisely, really… but there was a promise. An offer of something eternal if only I did this, did that. B-but you know, I messed up. I fessed under pressure. I’m on borrowed time.”
A weary laugh turns to a coughing fit. His legs buckle, force him to the floor, spilling some of his blonde mane to the ground.
“Are you alright?!” shouts Spike, getting onto his knees.
Matter-Horn shoots ahead of him, checking for the stallion’s pulse. Faster, faster: a carriage can only go so fast before the wheels fly off.
His blinks, too rapid. “Welcome to my humble abode… both of you. I wish I—“
Blood blasts out of his cough. Matter-Horn wipes it off her clothes before they stain.
“It still knows. They’ve… they really know how to tie up loopholes in this thing.” The gemstone, clutched too hard; it never breaks. “No one else’s died… I’d know. I-I’m… the first to be killed… for them. The grand plan.” Another cough. Another splatter of blood on the concrete floor. “Ma’, I wish… I wish I didn’t listen to th-them… ‘cause now I can’t listen to anyone anymore!”
Spike rushes up to the convulsing pony, terror’s adrenaline numbing his claws. “Wh-what’s happening to you?!”
Lumen looks up, struggling just to keep his eyes open. Blood flows out of his lips and nose: a bloodied blue muzzle. “I… well… i-it’s this th-thing a-around my n-ne—“
A crack. He falls. Falls limp to the side. Gemstone stops glowing. And it’s dark.
Nothing. Matter-Horn checks his neck, checks his hoof, checks his chest. No pulse.
“He’s gone.”
White eyes stare at a dragon’s soul. Blank, lifeless. Noble in his regret, in his death. Then forbidden help, borrowed time. His words a weapon against him.
Thus to Traitors.
“Matter-Horn! Didn’t expect to see you here—wait, you killed him?!”
They turn to Mare-velous who comes in from a now-toppled pile of boxes by the wall. Gunk defiles her clothes, and Spike closes his nose at her putrid stink. “What happened to you?!”
“Sewers.” She points at the wall she entered from. “Saw something suspicious with the tunnel bricks. Turns out there’re shortcuts. It’s a whole other network if you want to move through the walls; they can get to malls and other places in a Maretropolis minute. Underground was my best bet, so I took it first; didn’t hit the museums yet.”
Matter-Horn already pulls up a map of Manehattan from Spike’s backpack, revelation shimmering in her eyes. “Mare-velous, do me a favor. Could you see if the sewer shortcuts cut clear paths to the rest of the enchanters’ homes?”
Mare-velous lights up in understanding. “An underground network for the enchanters so they could do their thing where no one else can see them? And this… this looks like the main meeting place right here. Or looked like it. Yes… yes, I can do that. Will take some time, but if you’re right about this, it shouldn’t take long to get to the pizza place when it’s all over.”
“And be sure to cover up your tracks.” She turns to her dragon assistant. “Spike, are you ready for a couple teleports and some more underground trips?”
As long as the teleport magic won’t burn me in the end. “I’ve been through much worse, so no problem. But that Lumen Airs guy—“ a gulp at the sight of him once again, repulsed “—his corpse...”
“We’ll only call the police when everything’s solved. Having the authorities piled on top of us will only complicate things. On top of that, the enchanters may even have a mole in the force.” To allay Spike’s concerns, however, she casts a spell upon the body, encasing it in ice, radiating cool air. “That should hold him for twenty-four hours. Hopefully we’ll solve things fast enough so we can get him fresh to a morgue.”
Mare-velous knits her brows, taking a step back from the dead stallion. “Uh, what happened to him exactly?”
“I have a hunch, but I need everyone telling me what they know at the pizzeria before I can confirm it.”
Spike stops taking notes. “Have a working hypothesis already?”
Matter-Horn begins walking to the path upstairs. “We aren’t dealing with your average magic school graduate—this I know. However, if we have a good idea on what exactly we’re up against, things won’t get pretty any time soon.”
With no further word, she and Spike go up to investigate the rest of the houses for subterranean passages and bases. This leaves Mare-velous to sleuth through the rest of the underground shortcuts, scurrying back to the rancid sewers.