//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5: Breakout 
// Story: The Blue Knight 
// by The_Darker_Fonts 
//------------------------------//

Brick and Thorn ran down the narrow hallway of the small Canterlot police station, their padded hoofsteps silent on the tiled floor.  Finally the boss had decided to get them out.  They’d been in this stupid jail for just shy of a week before he’d carried through on his promise to bust them out.  There was undoubtedly some sense of shame between the brothers, as they’d been caught not only thieving, but caught by the very stallion they were supposed to avoid.  Wasn’t their fault he had eyes everywhere though!
Still running, they turned a corner, body ramming an approaching police officer.  She flew through the air a few fetlocks before landing with a thud on now-carpeted ground.  Perfect.  Carpet meant ponies, and ponies meant an exit.  Before the mare could cry out, Brick deliberately stepped on her exposed stomach, knocking the wind out of her and crushing her soft parts.  Behind him, he heard a thud, indicating that his brother had either followed through with a kick to the head or another knockout strike to the pegasus mare.  Stupid sky rats couldn’t fight against earth ponies.
The two entered an open room, though it was crammed with paper laden desks and metal filing cabinets.  Three other officers were here, either managing the desk or dealing with the paper stacks.  The one closest to the exit into the visitor area saw the brothers and called out to the other two.  It was too late for a stallion in a desk right beside the hallway, whose head was slammed into the desk he was working at by Thorn.  The other two immediately drew their nightclubs, one magically and the other physically, forcing the brothers to slow down and consider.  With a glance and tail flick to his right, Thorn indicated to single out the one on the right and then deal with the one defending the exit.  
As his brother had ordered, Brick tossed himself at the unicorn mare, dodging under her swing and coming up with a brutal undercut.  This stunned the mare, causing her to drop the club into Thorn’s hooves.  Unsurprised that the mare had already dropped her weapon already, Thorn used it to block a strike from the remaining armed constable while Brick launched himself into the mare.  She slammed into a filing cabinet, struggling to stay standing from the heavy blows.  Grinning viciously, he raised himself up onto his back legs, before kicking out his front in a leap forward.  The move bashed the mare’s face, giving her a bloody nose and bruised eye at the same time.
She fell to the ground, but Brick wasn’t being interrupted, so he didn’t stop.  Going back to all fours, he began kicking her over and over as she attempted to curl up.  If it wasn’t for that damn hero, he wouldn’t be here, kicking a mare over and over again in the side.  He wouldn’t be in such hot water with the boss, he wouldn’t have his neck on the line, he wouldn’t be in this damn police station, kicking a damn police bloody.  If it wasn’t for that half-bred bastard, he wouldn’t be feeling this pain in his jaw, the one that he felt as he growled at his unconscious victim.
“Hey,” a sharp voice shouted, piercing through the red mist filling his head.  “No killing, you idiot!”
Brick forced a final kick into the bleeding mare’s side before turning and facing the voice.  It was the boss, as always, somehow where he needed to be with no explanation on how.  The boss had a name, everypony did, but he hadn’t the courtesy to share it, and Brick the care to ask.  They were getting paid, they got to do what they liked, but most importantly, they weren’t inferior.  The boss was like them, a bloody, but he was a strange one.  His hooves were as clean as his white coat, something neither of the brothers could boast.  In fact, Brick’s were quite literally bloodstained.  Funny how wordplay did that.
Taking a few steps back, he glanced at the constable that Thorn had taken care of.  He wasn’t even bloody, just partially bruised on his cheek and with a swollen eye.  He turned his eyes back to the boss, wincing internally at the glare he was silently giving the younger stallion.  
“Do you know what killing that cop would insinuate, Mr. Bick,” the white unicorn asked coldly.  “It would insinuate that we are not ponies, but some dangerous syndicate of imposters, here to destroy the entirety of Equestria.”
“Uh, sir, I don’t think that’s quite… precise,” his brother objected, before trailing off with a sharp glance from the boss.  
“Exaggeration, my friend.  Quite acute when trying to depict the rather slow mental resilience of our pacifistic kin, as they are rather presumptuous that everything and anything will destroy them.  It’s why the banishing of the Moon Princess was so accepted.  The simple belief that someone with more power than them had rid them of a great menace.  And we don’t want to become the next menace through this reckless act of violence.  We’ll be extremely lucky if this beating is only on the front page of the Canterlot newspapers, and none of the other ones.”
Shuffling uncomfortably, Brick finally grumbled a deflated, “We should get outta here, boss.”  A curt nod from the stallion was the only response he received, though that was a hundred times better than any more chastisement from the wiser pony.  With a short, apologetic glance to his brother, Brick took the lead and left the building through the front.  
At this late in the night, nopony but the beggars were out.  Of course they weren’t real beggars, just ponies vying for an extra bit or small job to finish filling their piggy banks.  Most of them were foals, which meant that the criminals had nothing to fear when one gave them a strange turn of the head.  
“Scram, kid,” Thorn yelled at him.  “I ain’t got any bits for ya.” 
The urchin dashed across the road and down the sidewalk, before turning the corner and leaving the street entirely.  There wasn’t any other soul on the street, or in any of the buildings.  The station they’d been held in was an outlet station, about a third the size of the real ones.  It was situated on a business street, with restaurants, bakeries, and shops of all sorts surrounding it.  It was long past closing hours, and given the fact that their recent activity had been in the area, many ponies wouldn’t dare leave the safety of their houses this late.  It was almost satisfying to know that they were the cause of this emptiness in the streets, the silence across the road.  It was empowering that they had the capability to do this.  It also begged a question: What more could they do?
The thought of it thrilled him, and despite his shame for being arrested, chided, and losing control, he felt as if the whole ordeal was a victory.  They’d proven that they were indeed above the law, and that the only justice that mattered was their justice.  Finally, they weren’t the beaten minority, but the rising minority.  And all it had taken to prove so was a maimed cop.  
Smiling to himself, he rounded the block into one of the less well maintained streets.  Though it was indeed a Canterlot avenue, there were bits of trash scattered here and there, and two of the street side lamps were out.  The houses here were painted a strange creamy yellow, that looked halfway like sour milk.  In spite of this, the residents here seemed relatively proud of their homes, with many freshly painted over, or otherwise in good condition.  Only in Canterlot could the lower middle class be so pompous.  It was as sickening as the colors that their houses were painted.
There was complete silence as they entered the third house down the lane, save for the creaking of the old door hinges.  The inside was homely enough, with a few couches and a fireplace, even a little hoof knit rug.  There wasn’t much else though, so staying in the house was rather boring.  The second story consisted of his room, his brother’s room, his brother’s office, the boss’ room, his office, and a bathroom as well.  Brick didn’t have or need an office.  Offices were for ponies that thought more than they did, and Brick prided himself on the fact that he did both without having to sit at a desk for hours.
“Get some sleep, you two,” the boss instructed, before glancing at Bricks hooves.  With a tight-lipped stare, he added, “Wash yourself off first, though.  We don’t want blood stains all over the place.”
With a curt nod, he complied, leaving the boss and his brother as he reentered the streets.  While they did have a sink in the house, several, in fact, he was smarter than to track blood across the carpet and rugs.  That meant he would have to shampoo them, and he didn’t have the time or effort to follow through with the project.  Instead, he went around the back, turned on the spout that stook out the side of the house, and meticulously removed the crusted blood from his chitinous hooves.  He always did love those big words, the ones taught to him by a too good foster mother.  Unfortunate that life kept hurtling him and his brother through so many cities.
With a sigh, he decided that reminiscing over lost life was only going to damage his mood more, he turned to leave and reenter the home.  Uncomfortably, he felt eyes trained on him as he went about his way.  Tightening his jaw, he glanced up to the rooftops, half expecting there to be the haunting figure of the Blue Knight lurking over him.  There wasn’t, and Brick let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.  With a new feeling of confidence and comfort, he opened the door and ducked into the safehouse.

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Lily River was frozen where he stood.  That had to have been a mistake, right?  There was no way that was the same stallion from only three nights before!  He was locked up with his brother.  That was what the constables had reassured her.  But unmistakable, that was the stallion that had robbed and assaulted her.  
What the hay was he even doing out?  Had he broken out?  And why was he washing his hooves off so thoroughly?  
Too many questions, and not enough answers.  For now, she just stood solidly against the side of the house across from the one he’d entered, heart pounding so loud she was sure it would wake up the whole neighborhood.  The impossibility of the situation was only multiplied by the house that they had entered.  It was good old Trinkle’s house, the old mare that handed out candied fruits to the neighborhood foals on summer days.  Had they taken her hostage?  Had they… done even worse?
Lily shook the thought from her.  No, even for stallions as bad as them, murdering an old mare was impossible.  Murder itself was something heard of once in a hundred year, and it wouldn’t even be on her mind if it weren’t for that wretched stallion.  
Taking a deep breath, she stepped from the alley and speedily trotted down the street to her own house.  She entered it and went straight to her room, past her dozing father and nephew and up the stairs, ignoring the sounds of Liffy whining from her sister’s room.  The dog probably only wanted to say hi, but she was in no mood for fluffy mutts and cute family members.  
Shutting her door, she slumped to the floor hopelessly.  The goon, possibly goons, that had attacked her lived somewhere in her neighborhood, or at least were temporarily residing there.  She could go to the constable and tell them about it.  Maybe if they knew what they were up against, or at least where the criminals were, they could properly contain the villains.  But at the same time, they’d failed already.  What could they do that would successfully contain the stallion?  Nothing that she knew.
Which left only one option.  She needed to take matters into her own hooves.