Train breaks squealed, and we rolled to a stop in the Night District.
"Here's as good a place as any," Ansel declared, leading me off and into a steamy station - we weren't the only ponies who had decided to travel during the rain, and the humidity was as high as it got. "This town's called Blueleaf. You know, like, how the Earth District is generally organized, right?"
"I didn't have a problem with the old names, but keep calling it that and I really am gonna get confused," I warned, following him out into a barrel-vaulted underground station. "But yeah. It's organized into a bunch of cities within a city within a city, right?"
"So you've got the picture," Ansel agreed. "I probably should have asked earlier, but you just want to look around and see what the place is like, right? Or have you got an agenda?"
Knowing my luck with Ironridge, I'd probably have an agenda within five minutes of leaving this station, but for now, blessedly... "The former."
Ansel shook his head. "Just a regular old tourist. Well, like you said, it's pretty varied down here. Move half a mile in any direction, and you'll be somewhere completely different. So don't judge it too harshly by first impression... or do, since it's probably a lot safer literally anywhere else. Come on! Let's go sightsee some old run-down whatchamahoozits."
We strolled through the concrete cavern and up a staircase, the steps all slightly slanted to make water run off into a conduit at the side. If I was the engineer, I would have made them porous instead, maybe metal grates. But I couldn't deny that this way had character.
My ears stayed perked as we climbed a few switchbacks, listening for the sound of rain to tell me how close we were. What would the surface of Blueleaf be like? This district, I knew from the view from above, was largely a tropical forest, but we were under a town... I let my mind wander, dreaming of what trees would look like up close. Had they incorporated them into the architecture, the city planning? Used them as a more impressive alternative to walls, deliberately grown them where they wanted? Ironridge had been around for some eight hundred years. Surely-
We reached the surface. It was nothing like I was expecting.
First, it was dark, lit only in blues and grays. And it was long. We were in an alley of some sort, flanked by high walls of ramshackle wood and metal that looked like generations of ponies had built ill-maintained houses on top of each other, added a few braces for good measure, and then put more on top of those, with no plans and no oversight. The crooked road was bridged many times above us by wide plank bridges, and at places I could see what looked to be more roads coming out of the walls and crossing the canyon formed by this one, only at vastly different elevations. The floor, too, was a mix of wood and scrap metal, and I realized we probably weren't on the ground floor.
Second, it wasn't raining. If I looked up, I couldn't see anything - there was something blocking out the sky, but it was too dim to make out what it was. That didn't mean there was no water, though. Small waterfalls coursed down buildings and drained into and out of crevices, the rainwater all collecting and pooling on its way to the ground. It created a steady rush in my ears that was vaguely intoxicating, in a lonely, impermanent way.
Third, there were pipes. In absence of any sort of planning, whoever installed Blueleaf's utilities had gone with the spirit and put infrastructure anywhere it would fit. Mana conduits were draped up walls and through windows, the insulation damaged on one in a way that caused it to glow blue with leaking power. And bigger pipes, too, ones large enough that I could crawl through, looking more like giant hoses than fixed metal structures. Sometimes the waterfalls bounced off of those, making a hollow, metallic sound.
As for us? We were standing in the entrance to the staircase, a modern-looking, well-lit booth in the middle of the street that was horribly at odds with it surroundings.
It felt like it should have been lonelier than it was, but there were plenty of ponies out and about, all hurrying with their hats down to hide their eyes, taking advantage of the respite in the usual scalding temperatures. It was still uncomfortably hot.
"Well?" Ansel dragged me out of the way as another group of ponies tromped up the stairs behind us. "What do you think?"
He kept his voice down, I noted. And it was surprisingly windy in here, like there was a ventilation system somewhere blowing through this whole corridor.
"Do... ponies live here?" I asked, staring around again. Some of the elevated shacks had light seeping out from cracks between their metal sheets and slabs of plywood. "What is this place?"
"This is the result of a whole bunch of simple needs coupled with not enough foresight," Ansel replied. "Don't worry, it's more sturdy than it looks. Probably. The folks living up top aren't too keen on waking up one morning to find their house at the bottom of a newly-formed hole, and they're the ones with the money."
I looked up again. That ceiling... Was there a giant metal plate up there, with more stuff built on top?
"By the way," Ansel muttered, "you wouldn't happen to be armed to the teeth under that coat, would you?"
I blinked, remembering Elise's advice long ago to go about getting myself more weapons. Well, I had an unfinished magic sledgehammer in my room back at Jamjars' that I had forgotten all about after leaving Icereach, and I had my bracelet. But calling on magical fire in the middle of a blizzard was one thing; using it in heat like this... didn't seem smart. I shook my head.
"Figures." Ansel shrugged. "If anything happens, bluff like crazy and pretend you're a war genie. Most everyone down here will mind their own business in exchange for you minding yours, but this is the kind of place you don't normally live unless you're desperate. And worst comes to worst, I've got your back."
Well, okay then.
Any sane pony would have had their curiosity diluted by Ansel's warnings, but mine was just further aroused. This world was utterly alien, and not in the way I had imagined it. My wings twitched. I needed to explore.
And so explore we did. Ansel led the way for the first few minutes, and then seemed to defer to me, sticking around like a pair of eyes in the back of my head. He knew a rough layout of this city and how to find his way back to a landmark if he got lost, he told me, but far from all of its hidden secrets - though I doubted there was a pony alive who could know it that totally.
I didn't need a reason to slink through the narrow streets, stepping around steaming floor grates and seeing by the light of damaged mana conduits and poorly insulated walls. The streets weren't aligned to any direction, never went straight, never made right angles and never felt quite flat, either, going up or down a single stair step here or there or else outright sloping. My heart ran fast; I was soaked inside my coat from the humidity and was certain my cheeks were flushed from the heat. Being down here... It was exhilarating and oppressive and claustrophobic and solitary all at the same time. This was what I had imagined adventure to be like, in the days before the Aldebaran incident.
"So what do you come down here for?" I asked Ansel as we stopped to catch our breath, finding a metal outcropping that would serve as a bench. A broken sign sparked with light in the distance, a waterfall pouring down on top of it. All the doors across from us were closed.
"Blueleaf in particular?" Ansel shrugged. "Well, it's not a bad place to explore. I've found some pretty interesting forgotten loot down here. Not like anyone tracks who lives where down here, so there's a lot of abandoned property. But I've also made a few..." He hesitated. "Friends, I guess, though they're more like... You know. Ponies I'd like to see succeed."
I tilted my head. "Succeed at what?"
The sign flickered. He laughed. "Succeed at not being down in the dumps over their problems. Most folks, see, don't have the resources to go city-hopping when they need a change of pace, like us. Down here, they have stuff they can spend their whole lives trying to accomplish. Basic stuff, like getting a house where the roof doesn't leak and air conditioning doesn't cost eighty percent of their budget."
"Eighty percent?" My eyes widened. "It's that expensive?"
Ansel shrugged. "When the population can't afford to live without it, you can charge whatever you want as long as it's cheaper than moving up somewhere cooler. Which Cold Karma controls too, given that every district except the Sky District needs air conditioning. Before their time, this was already the place you wound up if you were a rung below the Stone District. Now, they took the status quo and just dug in."
"That must stink," I said. "How do they cope with it? And not, like, explode?"
"And not go crazy?" Ansel shrugged, then pointed at the store with the broken sign. "By making up reasons to let off steam."
I squinted. No Sarosians Allowed, it read.
"What?" I glanced at him for an explanation.
"You've seen the ways ponies look at you, right?" Ansel asked. "I mean, you must have. I have. You remember that scumbag we met in the clothing store on our second day here."
I nodded. No matter how much I tried, I still hadn't figured out why that was... Granted, I was very easily distracted. After a moment's thought, I told him so.
"Heh. Go figure," Ansel chuckled. "That whole movement started down here, you know. Used to be, Ironridge didn't have any batponies, and also didn't much like 'em. Then, some folks decided to change that, even though there wasn't anyone around who would benefit from it. Maybe they did it because it was the right thing to do, but if you ask me, they did it because they were beat down and pent up and wanted to solve a problem that wouldn't do anything. Like, to be passive-aggressive, because they had a whole bunch of problems themselves no one was helping them with."
I tilted my head. "Not like I'd rather they didn't, but how come they didn't just focus on solving their own problems instead?" I pointed at the crumbling chaos around us.
Ansel shrugged. "Odds are, they had tried so much they were tired of failing. Making things better for someone who isn't here to appreciate it... Kind of hard to measure your success, right? By the same token, there's no way to say you've failed. And things have been pretty awful down here for the last thirty, forty years."
I kept listening.
"Eh, just your usual societal decay," he said. "The seat of power shifting up the mountain. Changing economic fortunes. The Steel Revolution ruined the economy even further and displaced thousands of ponies, and now this blasted heat makes everyone dependent on Cold Karma. Point is, that's how they get by. By fighting, even if they need to make up something to fight for because the real battles are too hopeless to even begin."
The sign flickered. Water poured.
"Let's, err... keep moving," I suggested. This was making me feel weird and hollow, and not the kind of hollowness that came from my emptiness. It was like we had stepped into an underworld, the kind that always existed below your hooves but nobody could acknowledge the existence of and still live with themselves.
The biggest pipes, Ansel told me, carried coolant from the Ice District, frozen to incredible temperatures in their facility and then heavily insulated and piped to radiators in homes and buildings, where the chill would be dispersed via fans. My brain wanted to be skeptical, insisting that surely you couldn't just reverse the temperatures used in a conventional heat distribution system and have it work the same. What about convection currents around the radiators, and the friction of coolant against the pipes, and...?
But whether it made sense or not, it worked well enough for Cold Karma to build these giant pipes all throughout the city. They reminded me faintly of blood vessels, organically snaking and curving and branching off into thinner arteries, attached to walls or draped along the ground. Was all this in the Day District, too? I supposed they needed less cooling higher up, but they certainly still needed some. Maybe the pipes there were all underground.
We passed an alleyway, and a touch of cold wind brushed my cheek.
"Hey, do you feel that?" I glanced to the side, looking down the new road.
Ansel sniffed. "...Huh. Let's go check it out?"
We followed the breeze through a very low corridor, several sheets of water pouring from above that we had to walk around, and a grate in the floor that was letting off steam at the same time as it took in water. Once we were past the steam vent, the air got a lot cooler.
"Woah," I whispered, stopping at the edge of a wooden staircase painted with caution stripes. We were at the edge of a square, high-ceilinged room, a dirt floor one story below us. The walls of the room were slightly cleaner than the jagged canyons that made up the alleyways, but still clearly ramshackle, as if sixty-four different architects had agreed upon a general shape first before all going about their own ways. High above, a small, circular hole in the ceiling plate let a single shaft of raindrops through, steadily falling to the ground. On the ground was a sizable bed of flowers, and interspersed throughout it were gravestones.
Ansel said nothing. I noticed one of the coolant pipes wrapping around the interior was damaged, faintly glowing wisps rising from it and dispersing in the air. The source of the cold, probably.
I stepped down the stairs, entering an island of illumination - a lone floodlight high on a wall brightened the flowers, though it was still overwhelmingly blue and gray. This place had a similar energy to the rest of Blueleaf, I could feel. It was definitely part of the same city. And yet, it was special, like an incongruity in a vector field. It pulled at me, whispered to me. I needed to be here.
"Are you sure we should be here?" Ansel whispered, following my lead.
"You're the tour guide," I whispered back, following my heart. "But yeah. I am."
"Really?" he pressed.
I didn't look back. "If this is the first part of this town you have to ask that about, yeah, I'm sure. If we're exploring seedy underworlds with impunity, I'm pretty sure a sacred shrine isn't going to hurt us."
The flowers brushed against my boots as I approached a grave, curious to read the headstone. I tried to step lightly so as to damage as few as possible, but the flowers seemed unusually hardy, and bounced back from my steps without a hint of damage. Far more resilient than the greenhouse flowers Icereach grew as a rare delicacy, or even the fake imported ones made from fabric and used for decoration. They smelled better, too.
"In loving memory," I read. "Dorset. Born 889, died 956. May he find peace in the Seventh District."
I looked up at Ansel. "Seventh District?"
He shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe it's where Ironridge thinks ponies go when they die."
Where ponies went when they died? I... had never thought about that before.
Not that I hadn't thought about death. I had been consumed with it in the days after the avalanche. But my thoughts were always centered on what would happen to me without my friends, not what would happen to my friends without their lives. Now, it was something I didn't have to think about, because everyone I cared about was alive.
Tenuously so. I didn't like to think about it, but I knew that could change in an instant. My side momentarily burned, a memory of a shard of shrapnel ripping through my bags and sending me to the hospital in a coma. I sure would have cared about what came after death if that had struck differently. Or maybe I wouldn't have, if there was just nothing.
"Hey, Ansel," I asked, feeling a faint, itching memory of mother-of-pearl, like a sunspot in my vision. "Where do you think we go when we die? If anywhere?"
"What?" He blinked. "Beats me. Besides, aren't you the scientist?"
"What's that got to do with it?"
Ansel shrugged. "Means you should know a thing or two about answering arcane questions, is what."
That wasn't a question I had ever tried to answer. I wondered if science even could answer it. Now that I thought about it, now that I saw this graveyard and how many ponies the world at large held, it felt statistically impossible that the world could carry on for thousands of years without someone losing someone and then looking for answers. But that wasn't a question I needed answered, because I had never lost anyone. I had the light spirit to thank for that. All my friends were safe and sound, in Ironridge with me. Or else back in Icereach, training in the compound...
Well, actually, that wasn't entirely true. I had lost someone: the original me, the pony who moved aside for my mask. But that was probably a special case. I hoped.
I moved on through the graves, the flowers swishing around me. Seventh District. Seventh District. 'May she find a better place.' Nothing.
'May he rest in Aegis' loving bosom.'
I drew up short, and read the whole thing. "Upopo," I whispered under my breath, this gravestone small and not particularly impressive. "Born 986. Died 994. May he rest in Aegis' loving bosom."
"What?" Ansel was behind me, at the edge of the flowers.
I didn't say anything, bowing to the gravestone. Lalala... I hadn't quite clicked with her, even though we should have had similar interests and should have gotten along great. But the god I was looking for was a physical part of this world, one who could twist fate and save me and rescue my friends within the bounds of reality. The one she told me about, she believed existed purely outside the bounds of reality. I thought that was pointless... but maybe it wasn't, if you were less concerned with why you still existed and more concerned with what happened when someone you cared about suddenly didn't.
My breath misted in front of my face. The damaged coolant pipe was quite near, and it was legitimately cold now. The flowers didn't seem to care.
I... still didn't understand. I tried to emulate what that feeling would be like, but because that position was so foreign to me, I couldn't tell if I was doing it right. I had been close to a loss, pressed right up against the divide, squeezed and twisted against it, but never actually been on the other side. I couldn't tell what it would be like to have a friend that didn't exist.
Halcyon didn't exist, I reminded myself. Not me, the mask, which I had for so long reminded myself was an empty imitation, a set of rules and personality traits worn as a guise. But the pony who had stepped aside to make room for me.
I felt hollowed out, and needed some time to think. "Hey," I told Ansel, stepping back toward the staircase. "You know how to get back to the station, right? Let's get home before the rain stops."
I started to suspect we were being followed.
"You see them?" I whispered to Ansel, him taking the lead now as we navigated back through the maze.
"Yeah," he breathed back. "Trying to get a count without looking like I'm on to them, but I bet there's at least three. Probably here for you."
"You sure?" I hissed. "I thought you said this town was the epicenter of the whole 'tipping your hats to batponies' thing."
"Can't change anything without someone disliking the change," Ansel muttered. "And besides, originally, Ironridge had a pretty good reason to hate batponies. There was this one, Admiral Valey... Ah, I'll tell you later. Remember, if trouble starts, bluff like crazy and get ready to run if they call it."
"Run?" I whispered. "We can't take a few random goons?"
He shook his head. "They're different from fighting yaks. And what would we gain if we won? Not worth the risk. If it comes down to it, do your shadow swimming thing and I'll find my own way out. I've done this before."
But the ponies following us weren't catching up. They seemed to follow at a steady distance, always just out of sight, keeping us on edge but never making a move. For a while, I considered sitting down and stopping and seeing what they'd do, but whatever they were waiting for, giving them more time didn't seem like it would work out in our favor.
I probably should have been scared. I was on unfamiliar ground, and this didn't seem like the kind of place that was watched over by authorities. Moreover, I had a history with criminals taking advantage of me. My heart was certainly pounding. But... I wasn't as scared as I should have been.
Maybe it was all the things I had been through in my past. Maybe it was my buried yearning for a rematch with Aldebaran. I was stronger and better-defined than last time. If I got jumped by common thugs, maybe I was secretly curious to find out if this time, I could use the bracelet without holding myself back.
Bad idea, a part of me warned. Do you see how much wood is in this place? Fire magic here seems like a good way to cause an extinction event.
Yes, but it was also soaked. At the same time, it was quite hot...
We walked past another series of steam vents, letting off more unwelcome heat into the air. Ansel moved to turn us at a minor intersection, then hesitated and went the other way.
"What?" I breathed.
"Loiterers," he explained. "Not sure if being in public right now would be a good thing, or a recipe for double trouble."
We carried on, moving quickly, but not too quickly. Another intersection. Ansel moved to go one way... and blinked.
"Same group of loiterers?" he hissed. "Are they trying to pincer us?"
I tensed. My bracelet itched around my leg.
It was ready to burn, to be used. I was ready to use it. I knew I probably shouldn't, but I wanted a fight, to prove that I had grown since I failed against Aldebaran. But Ansel clearly didn't want it, and I still had reservations about using an artifact with an untested amount of destructive potential when ordinary weapons and skill would suit us just fine. So, I went along with him.
We entered into what seemed to be a better part of town, several levels up from the graveyard at the bottom. The higher you got in Blueleaf, the less metal was used in the construction, save for sporadic support pillars holding the ceiling up, and I began to guess most of what I saw below was after-market braces used to shore construction up. Here, most buildings were all wood, the streets were a little wider, and there were more signs advertising businesses. Several ponies were out and about who didn't look particularly nefarious, and kept their eyes on the ground instead of us.
"Did we lose them?" Ansel breathed, checking around.
I scanned too, but couldn't detect anyone. If they were coordinating their movements with the intent to catch us, I would have expected they'd drive us into the seedier areas, not here. Maybe they were just trying to run us off.
"I think so," I agreed, disappointed and relieved at the same time.
We continued for a bit, then found a bench and sat down. Water rushed, pouring everywhere in rivulets and streams. We were close enough to the surface, now, that the distant roar of rain sounded on the plate above, and beyond that, occasional thunder from the storm surging by.
"...Maybe it's better to explore this place solo," Ansel admitted after a while. "Easier to give trouble the slip when we don't have to worry about sticking to place both of us can go."
I tilted my head at him. "Where are you gonna go that I can't follow?"
He shrugged mysteriously. "I have my ways."
I sighed. "I still think we could have taken them."
"Wouldn't have been worth it," Ansel gently chided. "We probably could have, but plenty ventured and nothing gained. Besides, are you even armed?"
Aside from my bracelet? No, and that's what I spent the last long while thinking about.
I looked up. Across from us was a store advertising itself as Barnabas' Self-Defense Emporium. The pain-on-wood sign depicted a mace, chakrams and a bomb with a sparking fuse.
Ansel followed my gaze and squinted. "Well, that's oddly appropriate."
"I've got money," I volunteered. "Might as well stimulate the local economy?"
Ansel stretched and got up. "If you're going inside, I'll come take a look with you..."
Barnabas' Self-Defense Emporium, I soon discovered, was prettier on the inside.
Not pretty, pretty. But someone had made an effort with the resources they had. A mud-stained red shag throw rug sat inside the door for wiping boots and hooves, welcoming us into a well-lit wooden room full of glass-and-metal display cases. The orange-tinted light was spread out enough that shadows weren't oppressive, a small coolant pipe on the ceiling fed into a radiator with a fan, and in one corner of the room, a tiny, stand-up piano that reminded me of my own was being played by a pegasus mare in a revealing, razor-thin scarlet dress. The cases and the shop counter were packed with dangerous-looking implements, and behind the counter stood a stallion with black shades, a slicked-back mohawk and a toothy grin.
"Welcome, welcome!" He nodded approvingly to me, mostly ignoring Ansel. "Customers of taste tonight, I see! Take a look around. Anything you see can be yours for the right price!"
The weapons twinkled. The ceiling fan spun. The mare at the piano conspicuously brushed back her mane.
I wandered to a case that contained a long halberd, appraising how I might use it. Defensive options? Pretty good at menacing foes from a distance. Ability to walk around with it in public? Rock bottom. I moved on to a sickle. It looked way too easy to wound a pony with in a way much messier than intended. This looked more like an offense emporium than a defense one...
"Do your eyes find themselves entranced by the beauty of the steel?" the piano mare asked as I inadvertently wandered closer, speaking in an overly thick Varsidelian accent, not breaking her song.
"Eh?" I blinked. "Err, I'm looking for stuff that's more useful, not beautiful..."
"Being useful can be a curse," the mare said. "Long have we desired to retire and move to the Day District in peace. We have so much money, we could live out our lives in contentment and happiness. But alas, who can leave when business is booming? Ponies need our products because they are useful, and so our greed keeps us here."
Business was booming, huh? If I was in charge of the city, this was the kind of shop I'd definitely outlaw. All these blades and knives didn't need to be floating around among the populace. But with the rules the way they were, I guessed you'd be a fool not to compete...
"Maybe tomorrow will finally be the day we retire," the piano mare went on. "Or maybe not. But you could be the last one we ever do transactions with. So shop like there is no tomorrow, you beautiful batpony. I could not bear the thought of your heart going unfulfilled."
Okay...
She shifted again on the piano bench, still playing, her feathers brushing across the keyboard. It felt like there was subtext I was missing, and probably not the kind I wanted to stick around for.
I wandered over to the shopkeeper - presumably Barnabas - instead. "Hey," I greeted. "You got anything, like... nonlethal? Good for distractions, bludgeoning, making a getaway? Preferably small enough to conceal?"
Barnabas flashed his teeth in an approving grin, his eyes hidden behind his shades. "You've thought this through, filly! Let's see what I can get you..." He ducked behind his counter, and came up a moment later with a small sack containing five or so egg-shaped devices. "Flashbangs," he said, motioning for me to take one. "Single-use, very small, nonlethal, disorienting... You pull the pin and throw it. Goes boom five seconds later. How's this suit your mood?"
I took one and studied it. Potentially helpful, but I didn't know how I felt about spending my money on consumables, and a bright flash wouldn't be good for me either if I was trying to shadow swim away. "What about, like, a quarterstaff? Something with reach that folds up when not in use?"
Barnabas stroked his chin, leaving the flashbangs on the counter. "Hmm... Might have to look in the back room for something like that, but we could have one laying around. Wait here for a tick."
I stood as he left, the piano mare playing away at a cool, sophisticated tune. Ansel stepped over to me.
"Well?" I whispered, curious on his verdict.
He raised an eyebrow, prompting me to elaborate.
"Well, what do you think of this place?" I whispered. "It feels foreign. Like it doesn't belong in the world I'm used to living in. I'm, err... not sure a lot of this is stuff I want."
"Weapons are like that." Ansel shrugged. "It never really came up because the yaks like playing gentle, but these are for hurting ponies. That's kind of how this works."
"I think I'm more interested in beating ponies than hurting them," I quietly replied. "And mostly the ones who want to hurt us."
"Well, maybe you'll find something good," he whispered back. "I don't doubt this place does all sorts of business with illegitimate characters, but it's probably still legitimate itself. No reason not to make a profit off others' illegal-"
The back room exploded.
I reacted faster than instinct, stepping to shield Ansel as the wall behind the counter bulged outwards, a light spray of splinters and grit bouncing harmlessly off my coat. The ceiling groaned, and a puff of cloudy air mushroomed through the open door.
"Barnabas!" the piano mare gasped, abandoning her music in a heartbeat and jumping the counter, racing through the door. A moment later, I heard her give a strangled cry.
"Not good," Ansel muttered, taking a step back.
"What happened to my Barnabas?" the piano mare sobbed, stepping back into the main room, the wall behind her buckled and ruined but still barely standing. She glared at the sack on the counter, then at us. "You! You primed a bomb and slipped it into his pocket, did not you!"
Uh-oh.
"What? No," I protested, pointing at the sack. "First, there are the same number in there as he started with, second, they're not supposed to be danger-"
"I'm thinking we should bail," Ansel urged, antsy, trying to drag me toward the door. "Like, fast!"
"No!" the piano mare cried. "Criminals! Stop!"
She reached under the desk and pressed something. I felt my legs agreeing with Ansel, and starting to carry me away... and then a circle appeared on the ground, beginning to glow with sinister green flames.
A memory straight out of my past, the flames rose up in a cylinder, and before any time had passed at all, they dissipated, a squad of ponies standing where they had been. Just like before, four of them were armored police and one was an androgynous albino unicorn who didn't seem to care about anything at all.
"What's going on here?" the squad leader asked.
"These customer ponies gave my Barnabas a bomb," the piano mare caterwauled, leaning in the ruined doorway. "They destroyed our shop! He was but a day from retirement! Poor Barnabas! Woe, poor Barnabas..."
The leader looked to me.
"That's crazy!" I insisted. "This place is full of bombs! He probably blew himself up!"
"What would we even gain from a thing like that?" Ansel insisted, no longer looking like he was about to flee.
"Look!" the piano mare insisted. "There are bombs on the counter there! They knew we had money because I foolishly told them..."
I gaped at her. "Are you trying to frame us?"
The police leader sighed. "Right. Conflicting accounts, nobody confessing. I guess we do this the hard way..."
With a pulse of light, the listless unicorn's horn glowed, and a familiar construct materialized. Soon, the hologram was complete.
"Samael, Director of Public Security," the first apparition said flatly, a short unicorn with a long mane that looked like a mare but sounded like a stallion.
"Estael, Director of Public Security," the second added, a short pegasus with a short mane that looked like a stallion but sounded like a mare.
Memories of the clothing store swam back to me, and they clearly did for Ansel, as well. "Err..."
"These ponies are accused of crimes," Estael tonelessly intoned. "The law should determine their guilt."
Samael examined us, emotionless expression almost turning to curiosity. "...No. These are consorts of a privileged citizen. They may be above the law."
My nerves bounced as I remembered something else from that day: Kitty got arrested, and the police were meticulously nice to her because she was related to Jamjars, who held sway with Junior Karma. This police squad could just as easily be our doom as they could be a free, cushy ride home.
"Is this true?" Estael turned mechanically to her other. "Are their names written in the law?"
Samael squinted at me. "...I cannot tell. This one is blank."
What?
"Huh?" Ansel looked at them weirdly.
Estael focused on me as well. "...Neither can I tell. The law is not meant to be imperfect."
"This is an aberration," Samael said.
"This is a problem," Estael agreed.
"What are you saying about?" the piano mare interrupted, languishing in the doorway.
Samael ignored her. "The law is incomplete."
Estael nodded. "We must complete the law. But, what of their crime?"
"She's trying to frame us," I said on instinct, pointing at the piano mare with a wing. "We did nothing wrong!"
Samael nodded. "Show me the dead."
The unicon casting the spell began to walk towards the blown-out back room.
"What?" The piano mare looked up, blocking the way. "You would not desecrate poor Barnabas with... examinations, would you?"
"Justice shall be administered," Estael promised.
"You." A police pony nodded at the piano mare. "Move aside, please."
The mare looked dumbstruck. But, before the police could move her, Samael said, "No need."
Then the spell shifted and, being a hologram, floated right through her, the director stepping into the back room himself.
"I see no cadaver," he said.
"Poor Barnabas," the piano mare wept. "He was blown asunder..."
But the police were all looking at her, now. "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to come with us as well," the leader instructed.
Samael nodded. "Take all of them in. If the law is mistaken, we shall free them and rectify our mistake."
"This is good," Estael agreed. "Above all, we must fix the law."
Ansel glanced at me. "Hallie, I don't like-"
"Shut it, you," I whispered with a wing to his mouth. "The moment Jamjars finds out about it, she'll make trouble for them. And that's assuming they don't figure out we're innocent on their own. Just you watch."
"Nooooooooo!" the piano mare wailed as she was rounded up as well, carried by two of the police. "My father will hear about this!"
The officer watching us noted I wasn't resisting, and nodded. "If you're innocent, we'll get all this cleared up quickly, and you'll be free to go, though we might need you as witnesses after we conduct an investigation. Let's get everyone back to base..."
The green flame circle rose up again, this time with me inside it. The projection spell cut out as the unicorn switched its focus, but before I did, I could see Samael and Estael both staring at me intently.
Their words echoed in my ears. I cannot tell. This one is blank.