Archives of the Friendquisition

by Inquisipony Stallius


Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Eyes and ears no longer accustomed to the dark and quiet of the outdoors, it took Caballus a moment to get his bearings. But once the ringing died a little, he picked out a voice.

“That’s him. That has to be the Inquisipony.”

In the gloom, Caballus could make out a number of figures surrounding himself and Mystic. As his vision adjusted, he could see they were a mismatched group of bandit-types, probably from some local gang. But they aren’t looking at us, he realized. They haven’t even noticed us.

They were all looking at the stranger.

“Inquisipony?” The mysterious orange pony sounded as confused at this as Caballus was. “Now I reckon y’all have the wrong guy. I ain’t-“

“Shut yer trap!” the voice interrupted. It belonged to the apparent leader of the gang, a leathery stallion with a bushy mustache and the largest ten-gallon hat they’d seen yet. It was then that he finally noticed Caballus and Mystic standing in the doorway.

“Who’re they?” asked the desperado next to him.

“Witnesses,” he grinned. “Looks like we can add two more to the tally.”

In an instant, a dozen or so gangsters charged Caballus, Mystic and the stranger all at once. He reached into his greatcoat, but the nearest bandit tackled Caballus to the ground before he could draw a single pie. He bucked the assailant off, but another lifted him up and delivered a punch to his gut. Caballus doubled over, and then pushed back up, using his weight to knock the other pony off balance. The three tumbled to the ground, scuffling while still more closed in.

Only a few of the attackers broke off to surround Mystic, apparently assuming she was the easiest prey. But as they approached, her hood was lifted up by the magical power gathering beneath it, revealing her glowing horn. The bandits hesitated, giving each other reluctant glances.

“What’s the matter?” she mocked. “Never seen magic before? Well then let me show you my favorite trick.” Mystic aimed her horn at the nearest gangster, and a blinding spear of lightning blasted the ground at his feet. It erupted in a geyser of gravel and dirt, throwing the terrified bandit high into the air. His comrades coughed on the dust at first, but they recoiled in horror when he landed in a limp heap in front of them.

“I swear if you yellow-bellies turn tail,” their leader bellowed, before any had a chance to do so, “it’ll be ten times as bad as that! You’ve all seen what happens to job-botchers. Now get in there and grab her!” And to Mystic’s surprise, they gulped down their fear and started advancing again. If that threat was still scarier than her magic, it was her turn to be afraid.

Even though Caballus and Mystic both had their hooves full, the stranger had it worse. Still mistaking him for the Inquisipony, he had gotten most of the gang’s attention, and was bearing the brunt of their attack. And yet somehow he seemed to be faring better than either of them. For every punch and kick thrown at him, there was a bob or weave to dodge it. Every bandit that grabbed him was flung away with ease. The orange pony delivered a sweeping kick, simultaneously ducking under a jab and tripping the pony that threw it. Then he sidestepped a tackle, the counter to which sent its owner stumbling into some of his companions. But this fight wasn’t over yet. There were still plenty of gangsters to take the place of each one he laid out.

By this time, Caballus was in poor shape. Two of the ruffians were pinning him down, while a third repeatedly stomped and kicked him. He flailed out with his legs, and caught the third right in the shin while he was rearing up again, making the pony howl in pain. Grabbing hold of the left bandit’s bandanna, the Inquisipony pulled him down into a solid head-butt, and then kicked the last one off to roll out from under the trio.

He was on his feet again, but he was panting, felt light-headed, and his vision was fuzzy. Caballus saw the bandits regrouping, but his confidence didn’t really sink until a huge brown figure came up from behind to join them. But as he blinked the spots from his eyes, he realized that it was Roughshod, who proceeded to lift two of the bandits by the scruffs of their necks and bash them together.

“Nice of you to join us,” Caballus said.

“Just doing my job,” Roughshod cheerfully replied, picking up the other ganger, striking him senseless, and tossing him away like a sack of oats.

Caballus draped a foreleg around his friend for a moment to recover from his beating. “I didn’t get a chance to call for you. How did you know we needed backup?”

“Just got that feeling, I guess,” the stallion shrugged. “You know how my punching hoof gets a little twitchy whenever there’s a good fight going on without it. I figured you ran into some trouble, so I came looking.”

“Well you’ll have to thank your punching hoof for me,” Caballus laughed. And with that, the two charged back into the fray.

On the far side of the brawl, Mystic had been separated and cornered. Recognizing the threat she posed, more and more of the gangers had turned their attention to her. In an effort to blitz the unicorn before she could use any more magic, one bandit came at her in a screaming lunge. She closed her eyes to concentrate, and her horn flashed with a teleportation spell. But it was neither her, nor her attacker that she transported. It was the dirt in between them, and it reappeared several feet straight up. The bandit clumsily tumbled into the brand new hole, and was instantly buried by the earth that had just occupied it.

Still, the desperadoes closed in from all sides. If they couldn’t rush her, they would surround her, wait for an opening and maybe bring her down through attrition. Mystic recognized this too, and started to backpedal, searching for a weak point in the tightening noose. Instead, she backed too far, right into an enemy. The burly bandit wrapped her in a less-than-friendly bear hug, and seeing their chance, the rest mobbed her.

“No, no, no, no,” Mystic squealed as she thrashed. The pony struggling with her suddenly burst into green flames, letting go of her and screaming just as the rest of the gangers dog-piled her. It was a desperate tactic, but it seemed to be working. Under all the weight, Mystic could barely breathe, let alone focus on a spell. It forcefully reminded her of Roughshod’s similar experience in Tier’s warehouse. And how she saved him.

NO!

A blinding green light presaged the explosion that sent all the bandits flying. The gang’s leader gave an irritated look as he witnessed his cronies flung like twigs in a hurricane. “This ornery little varmint ain’t worth the trouble of takin’ her alive,” he muttered, removing his pie from its holster. “Reckon I have to take care of her myself.”

He took a few steps toward the cloud of dust left by Mystic’s last spell. In the gloomy haze, he made out a tell-tale glow, and readied himself to throw.

Suddenly, the shine intensified tenfold, and the dust was cleared by a furious cyclone. In its center, stood Mystic, eyes closed and breathing deeply. The lead bandit hurled his dessert at her with all his strength.

Mystic faced him and opened her eyes, revealing two radiant beacons of green. The pie halted in midair, and with the slightest glance, Mystic reduced it to ash.

Eyes and mouth wide, the gang leader finally appreciated his peril. “No! Leave me alone, ya horned freak!” he yelled, stumbling over himself trying to put any distance between him and the enraged unicorn, now entirely suffused with an ethereal light and slowly floating toward him.

Before the bandit could scramble very far, he started to feel strange. He looked down and found himself glowing, levitating up into the air as well. Arms and legs flailed wildly, searching for something solid to grab, but came up empty.

Mystic sneered maliciously, and her horn brightened. The helpless stallion noticed a new sensation; his clothes felt tighter. A look down confirmed it; his leather vest and bandanna were magically shrinking. In seconds, the pressure on his chest was excruciating. He couldn’t breathe.

Caballus, Roughshod, and nearly everypony else in the fight had all stopped to gape at the sight unfolding. Most of the henchponies broke into a run, while others cowered in abject terror.

Caballus paled, realizing exactly what he was witnessing. “Oh no.”

The Inquisipony sprinted toward her, desperate to get her attention. “Mystic, stop! You’ve got to get a hold of yourself!” he shouted. If she heard his pleas over the high winds and pitiful screams of the constricted bandit, she ignored them.

Caballus came a few steps closer. It was now hard to stay steady, as the supernatural tornado surrounding Mystic threatened to carry him away. He saw the choking criminal gasp and claw at the bandanna strangling him, his face turning blue. “This isn’t who you are! For Princess’s sake, you’re better than this! Listen to me, dammit! STOP!”

The lead gangster finally drooped lifeless in the air. Seeing his struggles cease, Mystic’s expression suddenly lost its cruel edge and she blinked a few times. She drifted back to the ground, her incandescent aura dimming and her eyes returning to normal, and she collapsed. Once again, all was quiet and all was dark.

Caballus knelt down to his friend. “Mystic? Are you… alright?”

The unicorn lifted her head, looking around. “I… think so…” She didn’t sound very confident in her response. “What… what did I do?” she asked hesitantly, but found her answer in the gang leader’s form lying motionless in the dirt.

Tilting his head, Caballus put his ear to the bandit’s chest. “He’s alive. Barely. Another few seconds, and he might not have been so lucky.”

Unable to bear looking at either her friend or victim any longer, Mystic turned away, quivering. “I… I’m sorry,” was all she would say.

“It’s alright,” he said as supportively as he could. The whole display had left him a lump of concern and unease in his stomach that refused to settle. “We can talk about it later. Right now, we have a more pressing concern to deal with,” said the Inquisipony, glancing back over his shoulder. There stood the stranger, surrounded by a score of unconscious bandits.

“It seems we haven’t been properly introduced,” said Caballus walking up to him. There was no cordiality in the statement, but neither was there hostility. Roughshod fell in behind him to add his intimidating presence, though there had been little evidence all night that anything was capable of intimidating this pony in the slightest.

“And I reckon it’ll stay that way, s’long as I take exception to your own anonymous manner.” The stranger’s reply was equally neutral and matter-of-fact. His stance was almost nonchalant, but poised for action at the drop of a hat.

“Usually when I ask a second time,” Caballus growled, “it’s with an excruciator. So here’s your chance to answer correctly the first time: who are you?”

The stranger tensed, eye narrowing. In the blink of an eye, he flung the poncho off his back, right into Caballus’s face. The Inquisipony quickly swiped the garment away, drawing a pie and training it directly to the spot where the stranger stood. Only he wasn’t standing there anymore.

Caballus looked left and right, but the orange pony was gone. He turned to Roughshod, and found his right-hoof stallion looking up. Following the gaze upward, Caballus finally found his target, hovering in the air above him. The lumps under the poncho had not been saddlebags; they had been wings. The wings of a pegasus aiming a loaded slingshot right at Caballus’s head.

The Inquisipony glowered. I can’t believe I fell for that, he scolded himself. A single wrong move and he would have a face full of cupcake before he could even adjust his aim.

“Say,” said Roughshod curiously, “is that a Truesling Peacekeeper 580?”

The orange pegasus cocked an eyebrow. “Uh… well, it’s actually the 560 model. It’s just got the look of an 80 on account of the extra hickory-carbide reinforcements.

Caballus shot Roughshod a quizzical look, as if to ask just what he thought he was doing. The brown pony just shrugged. “What? They’re easy to mix-up. Especially since he replaced the targeting array with that elastic autoloader.”

“Didn’t need it anymore,” the stranger replied, still holding the weapon taut. “Had the optics fully integrated into the ole peeper here. Multi-spectral scope, automatic rangefinding and reticle compensation. Took ‘till the cows came home to calibrate, but now I can cake a hummingbird at 50 yards.”

Roughshod whistled his amazement. “And the ammo?” he asked with genuine interest.

“Double chocolate, with a caramel swirl-“

“And fragmentary nut-clusters!” the two said in unison. Both burst out laughing.

Caballus looked back and forth at the pair, dumbfounded. Was Roughshod making friends with the pegasus holding them both at slingpoint?

“Come on Cab,” Roughshod grinned, slapping him on the back, “this guy’s got great taste in weapons. How bad could he be?”

“Can’t be too bad, I reckon,” said the stranger, holstering his slingshot, and swooping down, “seein’ as how I’m the ranking officer of the Adequus Arboates in these parts.”

“You? An Arbitrotter?” It finally made sense to Caballus. The disguise, the questions, the getaway; he was working undercover. Indeed, with the poncho gone, Caballus could see his cutie mark: the Scales of the Arboates, overlaid by cross-hairs.

“Name’s Hairtrigger,” he said, shaking both of their hooves firmly, “and I’m Marshall of this here sub-sector.”

“Caballus,” the Inquisipony said, flashing his rosette, “of the Ordo Hereticolt. And these are my companions, Roughshod and Mystic.”

“So you’re the Inquisipony they were after, huh? Been wondering when one of you might show up.”

Caballus frowned. “And why is that?”

The Arbitrotter’s own face turned grim. “On account of our mighty powerful need for one around here, that’s why.”