//------------------------------// // Chapter 18: School Dance // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------// Starlight Over Detrot: Chapter 18: School Dance Early on in their dealings with hostile megafauna and aggressive sentient species, ponykind latched onto the truth that a sufficiently overwhelming display of force applied over a very short period of time and in the right way could end battles with very few actual volleys being fired. This formed the basis for what Equestrian military strategists would term the "Total Surprise Doctrine," or, as pegasi would come to know it, "Shock and Awesome." The Total Surprise Doctrine is as follows: Victory occurs when your opponent has lost the will to fight. That's it. That is the core of the doctrine. The only thing close to revolutionary about this concept in warfare is the realization that this statement is not necessarily followed by corollaries like "Because he has a hole in his torso the size of an infant." It's an idea that remains very popular among Equestrian forces for the simple reason that ponykind, on average, takes very little joy in killing. They appreciate the idea that, instead of simply murdering your foes until the remainder surrender, you scare the manure out of them. You attack from unseen angles, or with blinding and explosive displays of force. You use magic to turn the very environment against your opponents. You confuse their senses, blind them, deafen them, cut off their communications and leave them terrified and alone. You wield weapons like the Cloudhammer Lightning Rifle, whose blinding flash and building-quaking reverberations have easily been responsible for more battlefield accomplishment than the inaccurate voltage it delivers, or the ever-versatile Partytime Grenade Launcher, capable of accepting a wide variety of blinding and debilitating payloads. You create panic and immediate leg-wetting fear without having to create a large number of bodies to go with it. In short, you send the message that fighting is useless, because you have already won. Yet it is only when you have successfully sent that message that you have actually achieved victory.         --The Scholar         I’ve had fifteen years of working with the Detrot Police Department, and after all that time, the oddballs I’m involved with with never cease to amaze me. All things considered, though, I find that complete weirdos provide me with a strange kind of comfort. Most ponies think of themselves and their neighbors as ‘normal’, even under the weight of enormous evidence to the contrary. I was guilty of this when I was younger, but years of prying into the dirty secrets of dead and killer ponies in a corruption-steeped city lends itself to looking at normality with a very different set of eyes. Normal is a facade, a social lubricant intended to make meaningless interactions easier. Those who wear it may indeed simply be boring, they might be repressed, but they might also be sociopaths. Sometimes the most visible deviations you get are little ticks that appear through the cracks. I’ve peeked into the lives of enough snapped accountants and killer clerks to know that behind the dullest visage, there could easily exist a stallion picking his next victim.          Conversely, experience has taught me that when a being happily wears their oddity on their sleeves, no matter how freakish they might seem, they’re usually the ones I can trust when things get wild.          By that logic, I could not have wished for a more trustworthy cohort.          ****          During our trek to the school, Zeta slipped between two buildings into what I was sure was a dead end. As we passed and I stuck my head into the alley, she had, again, vanished. By contrast, as we continued, I came to the quick realization that neither of the Tortellini Twins were especially stealthy. “You two are going to get us all shot. You’re clomping along behind me with all the regard for silence of a passing train.” The two scarred masses of horseflesh managed to look creepily apologetic, while I rubbed my chin, thinking. At last, I shook my head and turned, pointing into the nearest alley. “Taxi, could you peel some of that string off Edina and cover their hooves with a bit of the stuffing from those uniforms?” The griffin shifted on Bake’s back, possessively pulling more yarn around herself, while the twins opened their mouths to argue. Before they could, my driver grabbed the two stallions around the necks, yanking them back into the darkness of the alley. “With pleasure.” “I’m going to check in on Swift and Zeta. Sunshine, sunshine...” ****          Flashing images, pinches of sensation from all directions, and a rush that would have given me a nasty ache in the neck if there’d been any actual motion. This meant that the ladybug network was having a heck of a time processing something. I caught a burst of stripes here and there, then pictures of my apartment with a toilet paper roll spilled across the living room, followed by a snatch of ceiling, then lightning seen the wrong way up.          ‘What’s the issue?’ I thought at the web of eyes. ‘Show me Zeta, already!’ The entire system hiccuped. Every image ran backwards for a half second, then caught up with itself; a psychic shrug.          ‘You can’t be serious. Alright, fine. Show me Queenie!’ My consciousness burst into fragments, oozing backwards some distance until I landed in a mid-town hotel in one of their ‘business’ class rooms, looking at a bed through the eyes of several dozen insects all gathered together atop a lampshade. The clarity was so perfect I could have sworn I saw lint in the carpet even while floating near the ceiling. More ladybugs in one place tend to give a better view of any given location, and that room was absolutely swarming with them. Queenie’s great red and black bulk was tucked underneath the bedcovers while a griffin soap opera played at something near maximum volume on the television in the corner. Every few seconds somepony would bang on the wall, and was studiously ignored in favor of the show. I would have waved my legs for attention, were there any to wave, but as it was. I was stuck waiting for the commercial. It couldn’t come soon enough; I was damned near getting interested in the story. Just when I was starting to wonder who really was the father of Rachel’s egg, it cut to an ad for an ointment to treat ear mites, and the ladybugs’ attention shifted. Stretching her carapaced wings and waving them with a hum that shook the bedposts, Queenie slid from under the covers and crawled to the edge. Shuffling through the junk on the bedside, it pulled out a pack of Canterlot Reds, and shook one out. One of the smaller ladybugs approached with a lit match and it sucked in a deep, healthy drag of blue smoke. “Ahhh, ponies invent the finest things, they do! Too bad my smaller selves cannot enjoy them,” it burbled, rolling the cigarette to one side of its mandibles before shifting its attention to the point near the ceiling from which the most of my psyche was peering down. “Detective! We have found ourselves most entertained and would like to continue our association for many long times! You are having a trouble?”          ‘You’re damn right I am. I can’t see Zeta. The zebra.’ I tried to sound exasperated, but knowing ladybugs, the sentiment was likely lost.          “Oh, yes!” The ladybug cocked an eye at the TV, making sure it was still on commercial before it replied, “The stripy one is most interesting. We are, ourselves, having trouble seeing her! The one who rides with her is feeling somewhat ill.”          ‘Why can’t I see through that one’s eyes?’          “We did try.” Queenie emitted a faint whine. “She moves very quickly and much in darkness.”          ‘Queenie, I need to be able to see her! Can you make it happen or not?’ “Ours cannot keep up, nor can we catch glimpses when she moves in shadow but-.” The giant insect hesitated, then plowed on, “-we might have a thing we can do. We have learned many things of ourselves.”          ‘Well, do it then!’          “We warn you, Detective.” There was a note of uncharacteristic seriousness in the way its lower wings buzzed out each word. “Thiis may be extremely unsettling. Mightn’t we show you your malfunctioning pegasus first?”          ‘Swift?’ “She is less stomach turning.” Queenie whined, rising off the bed a few inches. “We have not done this in some time and would like to get our eye in first, before we show you the fast stripes. There’s only a small chance your mind may become disassociated from your body.”          ‘Go ahead and... wait, what?!’ ****         Rather than the usual sensations of being split into many little chunks, I was formed into a single strand of awareness, stretched along a vast distance. All the other imagery usually characterizing the ladybug network dropped away, until there was only empty space with one brilliantly white line down which I traveled. I shot along that line until I stopped so suddenly it felt like I ought to have had some form of spinal damage. My eyes opened. The panoramic cityscape that greeted me was nothing short of breathtaking. I love my city, though it isn’t a fairytale romance; I love it like one might love a crazy marefriend prone to starting kitchenware-flinging arguments. I don’t trust it. I can’t reason with it. I keep one eye on it in case it becomes the source vector for an incoming crock pot. Often, all I can do is poke around its nooks and crannies and hope to make it a slightly happier place. But I’d never ditch it for another.          And as I looked down upon the sprawling Equestrian hive through surprisingly crystal-clear vision, I remembered why. I was somewhere over the city, looking down from a great height. I felt my heart beat faster as I gazed towards the distance, upon the gleaming spires of glass and concrete downtown, pointing towards the sky like a hundred defiant hooves raised against the daunting forces of physics. A few even had the audacity to insert themselves into the overcast clouds, jamming their way into heaven’s foyer with muddy horseshoes and inquiring brusquely what the heavens intended to do about it. Beneath and between the proud towers were torrents of life and activity. Vehicles coursed along the street grid, brilliant headlamps creating the impression of choreographed fireflies in flowing streams of light. Amidst politicking and corruption and drugs and murder and hungry megafauna and cosmic threats from ancient beings, pony civilization had managed to put aside all of that crap long enough to build this awesome vision of urban beauty that, more than any other sight, filled me with a sense of unreasonable comfort. For just a moment, I thought: We did this. We built this. We can do anything. Everything is going to be alright. Then I realized my tummy was on something soft, that there was a heavy presence on my back and sides, and between my rear legs I had the oddest feeling that important parts were missing. Something wasn’t alright. I tried to will myself to look down at my hooves but my head wouldn’t move. ‘Kid?’           My ears pricked. except they weren’t my ears; whatever I’d been expecting from the ladybugs, it wasn’t to end up tucked behind my partner’s eyes. Her scalp was tingling like mad, which signaled her ladybug was in use. The sensation was about five times as strong as it usually was.          “Sir? Is that you?” She rubbed her head, bumping against the bug which was vibrating with the internal stresses of keeping the link open. ‘Yes! Yes, it is!’ There was no response. I wondered, ‘Can she hear me?’’ Swift continued looking about in all directions, so I took that to mean she couldn’t. That was entirely in keeping with the philosophy of the pony who’d constructed the ladybugs; do one thing extremely well and screw everything else. Ladybugs listen. That’s pretty much what they’re best at. Still, I suppose I should have doubted that ‘brain invasion’ was anywhere in the official documentation. ‘Alright, chirp once for ‘yes’ then.’  The ladybug let out an eardrum busting shriek and Swift gasped and clutched at her ear, scrambling for purchased with her front hooves. “Too loud! Eesh!” Her insect hummed a much quieter apology. “That’s better. Alright, sir, I’m trying to get closer. Give me a few minutes. This thing doesn’t move very fast.” The cloud she’d chosen for her perch was a nice, fluffy little number just a few shades lighter than the sky itself. Her rear legs clamped tightly around it while she used her front legs to steer, beating her wings occasionally to drive herself lower. Sitting on a cloud was a strange experience, but considering my bed at home had often been compared to laying on rocks with nails pounded into them, I could understand the appeal. Being a mare was surprisingly less bizarre than being a pegasus. Her wings kept moving and twitching with the air passing through their feathers. We began a slow coast over a large area which seemed flatter than the rest of the manufacturing district. Several boxy, single story buildings spilled across what I estimated to be about five acres of overgrown grassland, all linked with closed-over halls and corridors. The school was abutted on either side by what I thought might be factories. Their stacks spewed a thick, chemical smoke that made my... no, her lungs ache. “Sir, is that the school?” One chirp.          “Yes, sir. Closing in.” Viewing Sunny Days through pegasus eyes, I could make out innumerable little details that my own relatively weak earth pony vision just wouldn’t pick up at such distance. The pebbles on the rooftop near the rear of the largest building were littered with cigarette butts and empty beer bottles. Drifting a bit closer, I picked up motion behind one of the rooftop heating units. As we eased around the air-conditioner, I felt Swift’s cheeks burn as she realized the two ponies behind it were... otherwise engaged, and not likely to be looking for aerial targets. A heavyset mare and a very lanky stallion were humping their brains out, having a grand old time. Nearby, two light hunting rifles lay propped against the side of the rooftop with a couple of coffee mugs beside them. “Should I take them out, sir?” It was sorely tempting to have her leap out on two ponies screwing, but I decided it wasn’t necessarily the best tactic while our information was incomplete. We needed to know what Zeta could see, whether or not there were others. If we couldn’t take out the exterior guards, we might just settle for sneaking in, knowing they’ll be coming when the alarm is raised. Tell her to wait. The ladybug chirped thrice, then my mind slid back into the interstitial void.          ****          Dropping back into my own body, my nose was assailed by the stink of rotting garbage. I tried to lift myself up only to discover my hooves still flailing in mid-air, dangling off either side of a very wide and muscular back. Raising my head, I caught a glimpse of the oven cutie-mark. I was being carried by Bake.          “Where are we?” The smell was starting to make my nose burn. “Ugh...and could you have picked another place to stop?” I complained, before a hoof was slapped across my mouth. Taxi stepped around Bake, motioning toward the other end of the short alley. I followed her leg with my eyes as she took her toe away from my lips.          We’d moved during my little excursion into pegasushood. While the streetlights on this block all seemed to be out, there was enough light filtering down from the factories to give everything an orange gleam. In the far distance, a single star glared down at me from just above the horizon line. For some reason, my chest tightened for a second before the glittering point of light was lost amid the cloud cover. As my vision adjusted, I made out the twisted shape of a tall, wrought iron fence across the street. Above the arched gates, the words ‘Sunny Days Foster Care’ were spelled out, in what I imagine somepony thought were friendly letters. They looked less so in the sweeping shadows of mid-evening, amidst the smog and filthy decrepitude.          I lowered my voice to just above a whisper, “What is it?”          Taxi raised her knee towards the school’s roof. “Guard passed about five minutes ago.”          “Fat filly or a skinny guy?” I asked, sliding back on Bake’s spine to make myself more comfortable. It might not have been a very dignified position, but I wasn’t done hopping about in pony’s heads just yet.          “Heavy-ish? I didn’t see where she went.”          “She’s humping the other roof guard on the far end. They’ll be awhile. I had no idea pegasus vision was that good. Felt like seeing everything through a telescope,” I mused, shoving my shotgun up a bit so it wasn’t digging into my side. Taxi gave me a curious look so I explained, “Let’s just say we’re going to have to sit down with Queenie when this is over and have a little talk about ‘undocumented features’ on her Essy contract. It doesn’t matter now. Swift has eyes on the guards and will tell us if they move.”          Taxi relaxed visibly, then asked, “What about Zeta?”          I bumped one of the insects clinging to my mane with one ear. It buzzed fitfully. “Not sure. The bugs are having trouble getting any kind of actual picture from her. I spoke to Queenie. It said the one riding her is ‘feeling ill’. Don’t know what that means. I’m going to try that ‘feature’ again here, so just keep us out of sight until I find out if we can move to the gym.”          “Okay. Be safe.”          “Not likely.” I chuckled. “I’ll give it my best shot, though.”          Sunshine, sunshine... **** The second trip through the ladybugs magical matrix seemed to take much longer than the first, like the lot of them were hesitating. I wound through their number, picking up glimpses of what might have been fire and smoke along with angry, upraised voices. These pictures were interspersed now and then with single frames of running stripes. There was a feeling of being tugged towards something, but I pulled against it, forcing myself closer to a single thread of perfect white which seemed closest to the stripes. After a time the others fell away and I was left sailing down that lone thread. It shook and twitched in my grasp, but I held on until, with a sickening jolt, I burst back into the real world. If I’d been able to scream, I’d have given our position away immediately. For the first ten seconds, all I could do was hang there in stunned, tortured agony; every bone and muscle burned with pain of an intensity I’d never considered possible, not even with a career in law enforcement. The sensations coming out of the other end of that psychic tunnel were something akin to being in a tumble-drier full of ball bearings and angry bees. Even those times I’ve been shot simply didn’t compare. Eventually, it all devolved into a haze of fire shooting down my nerve-endings. There were glimpses of striped legs and hooves moving over ducts and clambering through girders. Sometimes my host would leap across distances I’d have judged completely impossible, landing light as a feather but with each touch of wind or pressure causing waves of throbbing discomfort. What I could see was the main school buildings off to her left. In the time we’d made it to the front gates, she was already exploring the back side. When I’d gathered enough wits I managed to beg, ‘Out! Out now! I need out! Out of-!’ My mind was torn out of Zeta’s body so fast I didn’t even have time to think ‘Thank Cel-’ **** Rather than returning to my own body, I was left to hover inside the system of little minds, taking whatever might pass for ‘deep breaths’ in that environment. The path I’d come down seemed to be quivering. Images at one corner of the field seemed to still be of something burning, but knowing the ladybugs, they’d probably just come across an especially entertaining factory fire or something. I gradually sank through the shifting field until I was slipped, almost gingerly, into the bodies of a few who happened to be in the cheap hotel room with the ladybug representative. It was still smoking, now with one cigarette in each side of its mandibled mouth. The soap opera’s credits played in the background as it hunched over the edge of the bed. ‘Queenie. What the hay was that!?’ The giant bug blew a puff of smoke towards the floor and buzzed just loud enough to be heard, “We are uncertain, Detective Hard Boiled. The fast stripes are not injured as we understand it. It simply hurts. It hurts always.” ‘Wait, she didn't take a hit? You’re saying she was in that condition on the way here? In the coffee shop?!’ “Affirmative, Detective.” I thought about this for some time, all the while aware that the others would be waiting on me; time didn’t flow any differently inside ladybugs. Queenie toked its cigarettes, eyes drifting back to the tube and an advertisement for chips.          The conclusion to which I came was that there were probably not many things I could do about the situation from where I was; interrogating the zebra would have to wait. Strange as it was, her ‘condition’ didn’t seem to be inhibiting her any. I still needed to see what was going on, though.          ‘You think we could try looking in on her again except...maybe without the ‘feeling’ of what she’s doing? Cut the sensations down or something?’          Queenie lowered its head and the ladybugs in the room stilled. I realized they were conferring internally with one another. It was odd to see the usually hyperactive creatures sitting completely motionless. They looked like rows of black and red sparrows kipping on telephone lines.          All at once motion resumed. Queenie crawled underneath the covers of the twin bed, pulling them up to the general place its chin would have been on any other creature.          ‘Well?’ “We can very muchly do such a thing, Detective,” The Essy agreed, settling down amongst the pillows. “We have decided, for the sake of entertainment, that this will be most worth it. We will spread the pain amongst our entire cohort.” The creature drew a quick breath. “We think we should tell you of something else, unrelated to-”          ‘Save it for later. We’re short of time and I need to see what Zeta is seeing.’ Queenie shrugged, then swallowed its cigarettes, both still lit, and spat a small heap of ash on the carpet. “Ready, Detective?”          ‘In your own time.’ I exploded into shards of awareness and wound my way down the spider’s web. ****          I thought, upon landing back in Zeta’s body, that I’d developed a pounding headache. It was some seconds before I realize it was the zebra’s skull that was full of screaming banshees. Having spent many a morning with similar feelings, the reduced level of sensation was only miserable rather than crippling. Other than that, being a zebra mare was not so different from being a female pony, except insofar as my face felt like it was the wrong shape. Zeta was halfway through a gut-churning leap between two buildings and weightlessness is not good on top of a headache. She caught the far roof and tumbled with nary a piece of gravel disturbed. Jerking to a stop, her ears twitching back and forth, she lightly touched the side of her head where the ladybug hid. “Detective? Is that you?” she asked. In spite of the run and her heart crashing against her ribs, her voice was perfectly controlled. ‘Sound yes. Quiet as you can.’ The ladybug beeped and Zeta nodded, sliding to the side of the building facing the school’s rear entrance. Her hooves brushing over the gravel still hurt like the dickens, but it was within toleration. “I have seen several guards. Two on the rooftop, armed with guns. I do not wish to fight them directly. It could alert those down below.” There was some motion going on on the ground near where the two guards were enjoying themselves. At least three ponies seemed to be loading boxes into a truck from a covered dock which lead into what, based on my memory of the blueprints, used to be the cafeteria. Swift and I had missed it from above. “I will try to get a bit closer and see what they are transporting.” Zeta murmured, then snatched a rope off of her back and tied it deftly around one of the smaller smokestacks in a very complicated knot which seemed to leave behind a large extra coil to one side. Testing for strength, she threw the end of the rope around her middle then backed up to the edge of the building. Rather than rappelling, she simply threw herself over, running headlong down the brickwork with an absolutely reckless disregard for gravity. I was pretty sure I was about to experience being turned into a zebra pancake when the rope jerked, then jerked again, slowing her descent. I was only taking a tiny fraction of what she must have been feeling, but even then, the bite of the nylon line into my stomach was agonizing. She hit the dirt with a nearly silent bump and dropped to her belly. Creeping through the unmowed grasses almost as fast as a pony could walk, we were soon near the edge of the rear gate. Crouched in the shrubs, Zeta raised her eyes and swiveled her ears towards the truck dock. Four burly earth ponies were doing the unloading work with a fifth stallion in a high visibility orange jacket standing behind them, supervising, although ‘supervision’ seemed to mostly involve cussing at the labor for being slow and sipping from a hip flask with a straw in it. Each box seemed to be marked with either a playing card or a prism. The longer she sat, the more I began to pick up the spicy, pungent aroma of chemical run-off. I’d smelled something very similar some years before, in a hospital room with Sykes while the poor bastard screamed at the ceiling about being pecked to death by chickens. If one hangs a rainbow in the sky, it can be very beautiful and relatively clean. Left unused, they quickly ferment and produce a powerful empathetic hallucinogen. I realized then what the markings meant. ‘Beam and Ace. Those boxes are full of Beam and Ace! We’ve got to-’ I stopped as I remembered Zeta couldn’t hear me. ‘We’ve got to’... what? The truck was nearly full. We could, at best, make sure no more shipments left this facility, but the one sitting there was going out to spread its poison to hundreds, if not thousands. If I were King Cosmo, I’d have bought myself a few pegasi from the police station up the street to tell me if there were to be a raid on the school. We might have called out the alarm, but without some proper chaos inside, the talent behind those drugs would have still walked away. At best, the police might arrive to find an empty drug lab. I had no choice but to sit and watch as they continued their work, consoling myself that the lot of them would soon be unemployed. We had bigger things to worry about. A commotion on the far side of the truck drew my attention. Zeta pulled her nose back into the bush, cautiously peering out of one eye. The four loaders stopped their work to see what was going on as a furious looking mare sporting one of those black tuxedos I was starting to think of as the Red Hoof uniform stormed around the end of the truck with a leash in her teeth. On the other end, dragged along very nearly on his chin, a ragged and extremely thin unicorn colt with a big, idiotic grin on his face, stumbled after her. The leash was connected to a metal ring around the base of his horn that flashed and spat sparks. “Heeey pretty thiiing... not so faaast.” The boy whined drunkenly, trying to pull at the leash, but only earning himself a yank which sent him tumbling onto his muzzle. I didn’t need pegasus vision to see the young stallion was high as a kite. Whatever color he’d originally been was disguised under a thick layer of street dirt that left him a blotchy purple. Through his ragged pelt, he had needle tracks on his front legs you could have driven a train down. The ring was a cheap knockoff horn restrictor, but it did its job; keeping him from launching the angry mare into the next county. The pony leading him was so enraged she was almost vibrating. What I could see of her pelt was spotty pink, and her mane was done up in a severe, business-only style. Charging up to the workers, she barked, “Does one of you idiots want to tell me how this thing got past the perimeter?” Kicking out with her rear hoof, she caught the boy in the chest, bucking him into the side of the truck. He sagged, giggling like she'd given him a playful tap. All of the workers looked at one another blankly, then every eye turned on the manager. He swallowed, then wet his lips from his flask and tried to put on a disarming smile as he replied, "Don' know, Miss Snicket. Dun' heard the 'perimeter' up on the roof havin' theyselves a good ol’ time. We didn’ know you was comin’ down for an in-spec-shun." The mare named Snicket seemed to physically inflate with rage until the valve in her throat gave, her anger coming out in a piercing shriek. "You imbeciles posted two on overlook?! For the whole moon-blasted building?!" “We figgered only two was needed, Miss Snicket,” the supervisor replied, his ears slowly falling against his head as he added, “...ain’t like nopony ever comes here...” This didn’t mollify her in the slightest. Advancing, she reached up and before he could move back, slashed at the manager with her hoof. An ugly hook sticking out from the bottom of her horseshoe caught in his vest; she yanked him down from the dock onto the ground with a thump. “You think this is a joke?! Get those foals down from there! I hope you’ve at least got some ground patrols going!” Snicket growled, pulling his face to hers. He whimpered as the hook dug into his chest. “N-no ma-ma’am Miss ma’am! I mean uh, yes ma’am!” The manager whined. “Rumble Strip and Tussle! They iz on hoof!” “Call two more for the ground and another two for the roof. Two thirds of your force guarding the coffee brewer strikes me as excessive, don’t you think?” Snicket’s breathing evened out, but that didn’t in any way take away from the air of danger around her. “And if I come down here again and there’s anything less than eight, I swear, the police will wonder how a stallion managed to pull his own heart out of his rear end without the benefit of magic!” “Y-yes ma’am!” She released him, giving him a shove back toward the dock. Turning towards the colt, she rubbed her chin. The teen had managed to drag himself into a sitting position and was unabashedly staring at her rear legs. “Hey... hey yo lady... pretty lady.” He drawled, dribbling all over himself. “You got the stuff? My horn always tells me where the stuff is...” Pointing at his forehead he frowned and the restrictor ring sparked again. “It... usually does. Hehe...” Snicket shook her head and shoved the poor wretch onto his back before tying his leash to one of the truck’s door handles. “While you’re at it, handle this mess. I don’t feel like disposing of a corpse tonight; he ain’t worth it. But I never want to see him again, got me?” With that, the enforcer leapt up onto the dock and disappeared inside the school, leaving four dock workers glad not to have been the target of that vicious temper and one dock manager relieved to still have his heart in the right anatomical position. He scowled at Snicket’s departure, then shook himself and tossed a dirty gesture towards her back before turning to his crew to recoup a portion of his masculine pride. “That mare could use a good ride, ya know what I mean? Too bad she puts the hay on the table or bitch’d get one!” The box jockeys snickered back and forth amongst themselves, then one at a time directed their attention the colt who was nosily inspecting their cargo. Whatever sense of self preservation remained in his chemmed-out mind must have finally alerted him that something wasn’t precisely kosher, but it was too late. By the time he looked up, the dock workers had already formed a box around him. “Y-yo guys...I could totally score elsewhere if like, it’s a bad time and-” The boy babbled, tugging at his leash. Zeta happened to glance slightly upwards. Swift’s cloud was parked just above the truck dock. The guards on the roof were peering over the side to see what was going on down below. My partner’s radiantly orange face was there for the whole world to see if they were to look up for even half a second. I felt my stomach turn. It might have been my host’s but the sentiment was mutual. I just knew that Swift was watching the scene with her rear end wiggling like a jungle cat readying for the pounce. She was going to get herself killed. ‘Ladybugs! Tell the pegasus to wait! Now!’ I watched for a tense few seconds, wondering whether or not training would overcome my young partner’s deeply seated hero complex. I couldn’t see her facial expression up amongst the clouds, but my heart, back in my actual body, was probably pounding. If she moved, I doubted even Zeta would be able to stop that lot before somepony caught a bullet. With an internal sigh to relief I saw a puff of cloud as Swift frustratedly slammed her hooves down on her ride, then pulled back out of sight. Zeta exhaled as well, then re-hid herself with greater care. Enormous self-control aside, I could feel her nervously stroking one of the dozen ropes looped around her body. “So, kiddy... yer horn is what leads ya to ‘the stuff,’ is it?” The supervisor’s voice was the sort of mocking friendly only gangsters usually manage, the sort that suggests that you’re alive mostly because they haven’t gotten around to killing you yet, and that if you don’t want to move higher on their ‘to do’ list you had best keep your head down. Being the source of the irritation, the colt had earned himself a very high place on that list indeed, and his mouth wasn’t helping.          “Uh... yeah, dude. It’s keen. You want I could score us both some, right? Lemme go get-” He backed into the wall of workers behind him, one of caught the leash in his teeth and pulled it taut, using it to sling him onto his knees.          “Horn, huh?” The supervisor reached out and gently stroked the boy’s horn, almost sensually, from base to tip. I’d seen a stallion do something similar in a bar once to a mare who’d had a few too many, and she responded by tossing him into a table. But with that restrictor ring on, shabby as it was, the kid couldn’t have lifted a pencil. “Yahknow, boss has a thing he likes. Always wanted to give it the ol’college try on a little spike what couldn’t fight back. Like yerself, fer instance.” He clapped his hooves together and pointed to a box. “Hold ’im.”          Zeta’s lips drew back in a hard grimace, but she held her position. Swift was still up there, her eyes on the sights unfolding down below. If I was considering sodding the plan and telling my partner to rush in, I hated to think what was going through her mind. She held, only by virtue of the fact that it was her family on the line.          The four powerful dock workers tore the colt off his hooves, carrying him over to one of the cardboard boxes and tossing him face up across it. He tried to kick them, but it only earned him a boxed ear. The manager wrapped the leash around his knee, then stepped on it, pinning the boy’s head at a painful looking angle.          “Heh, might give this purty thing to the boss. Gift-like.” The manager purred, stroking the boy’s horn in a way which made my skin crawl. “He might take a bunch of others and make a hat rack or somethin’. Ye prolly be better off wid’out it anyway, right boys?”          Blood beat in my ears. It wasn’t my blood, but I could fully understand the impulse driving it; Zeta wanted to rush out there. I weighed the odds again and again. Swift holding all of them at gunpoint wouldn’t keep them from sending up the alarm. Zeta couldn’t silence all of them before the rest of their coterie came down on their heads. Two against seven was bad odds in a hoof to hoof fight. A couple of those seven had guns. If I’d had more time to come up with a plan, we might have saved the boy. As it was, the best we could do was watch. “Uh, dudes, I’ll go. I swear! I won’t tell nopony! I got warrants on me! Please, don’t hurt me!” The boy begged, pitifully. “Oh, can’t go to the pigs, eh? Good to hear! Won’t squeal for anypony else, then.” The manager gave the leash a hard tug, positioning the poor colt’s head with his horn on the edge of the box. “Look’ey me boys! King of Ace’s right hoof pony, eh?” If I’d been in control of my own body, I’d have shut my eyes. There are some things even I don’t really need to see. Equicide detectives see all sorts of horrors, sure, but only in the aftermath of the deed; we almost never bear witness to the deed itself, and our imaginations only paint a picture so vivid. Unfortunately, Zeta chose to watch everything. Her breathing was rapid, each breath filling her lungs with acid as whatever condition she had seemed to worsen under stress. They boy started to scream for help, but it was muffled by one of the dock workers stuffing a plastic bag into his mouth. Meanwhile, their supervisor reared back and got himself into a good position, using the box to brace one leg. “Shoulda got yer junk someplace else, boy. Leastways, now yer next hit’ll make ye feel awful lot better, won’t it?” With that, he brought his full body weight down on one hoof directly onto the colt’s stubby horn. His scream would ring in my ears for days. Up above, Swift was laying there with her hooves over her ears, shaking her cloud almost to pieces. Zeta was almost hyperventilating, clutching her chest with one hoof to slow her pumping lungs. Mercifully, the poor kid was unconscious after about two seconds. Blood dribbled down his face, running off of his nose and staining the sidewalk but only the top half of his horn was broken; not a killing wound. A detached, clinical part of my mind was analyzing just how I’d prosecute them if he’d died. The four goons, chortling with sadistic glee, yanked the boy upright as their supervisor picked up his snapped horn, tucking it in the front pocket of his vest. “Ehhh, toss him in one of the dumpsters out back. He ain’t gonna die from no busted horn no time soon. He can sign his name on them hospital forms with his mouth.” The manager patted his vest and grinned, “Can see why the boss likes that so much. Good souvenir.” If I’d been there, two of us with guns might have taken all of them. Arrested them. Shot them. Something. Helplessness is antithetical to the cop spirit. We were the help that he was calling for, a mere hundred meters away. But the truth was that succumbing to our better instincts could have gotten everypony killed, and ended our crusade to stop a gang war. Two of the big guys slung the colt between them, one carrying him by his mane and the other by his tail as they hauled him towards the back of the building. I decided it was time to retreat and see if we could effect entry. That’s the police standby, when the horror is too great; procedure and plans. We had the scouting information on the guards on the ground. It was unlikely the thug in charge would be able to get fresh guards in the time it would take us to get into the building. Ladybugs, signal zebra and pegasus to pull back. Lead them towards my position. **** My eyes popped open and I had to suppress a moan. The constant symphony of pain inside Zeta’s head was gone and left me weak with relief. Every muscle in my neck and shoulders still ached with phantom agonies. I’d need a good hour long massage and a weekend at Taxi’s spa once this was all over. Pleasant thoughts, for another time. I was still in the reeking alley, hanging off of Bake's back. The twins stood side by side beside an old refrigerator box while Taxi watched the end of the alley, peering fitfully at the school gate. My cutie-mark was pulsing with tightly wound, but redundant fury. The image of the nameless colt’s face as he pleaded for somepony to save him kept replaying itself in my head, leading me to one simple conclusion; I wanted to punish these ponies. I wanted to make them squirm. First, though, we had to get inside. Sliding down off Bake's back, I pulled my coat straight and began checking my weapons. The simple routine covered the violence roiling in my belly. "Hardy?" Taxi's voice was full of thinly disguised worry. "What?" I asked, perhaps more curtly than I meant to. "What's going on out there? Is Swift alright? Where are the guards?" "The kid is fine," I replied calmly, chambering a shotgun shell. The sound had a note of finality. "We're going in. We have to move within the next few minutes or our window will close. Swift and Zeta will be back in a moment.” My driver’s lips formed a thin line as she stared hard at me, but I just moved past her and stood at the alley’s mouth, just letting the smoky air crawl into my lungs. I laid my head on the brick wall, concentrating on the shaded foster home’s front entry. A flashlight swung back and forth over the grounds as the chunky guard made her rounds, passing by the gates still pulling her thin flannel shirt back into place. After she was gone, a flutter of wings announced my partner returning. Her hooves hit the dirt with none of her customary delicacy, scattering tiny stones all over the backs of my legs. I couldn’t see her face, but I could feel her heated breathing. “Sir.” With one word, she managed to convey everything. Anger at what we’d witnessed. Sadness. Intent. We shared that silence, with my driver eyeing both of us trying to piece together what might have occurred out there. I didn’t feel like telling her. I didn’t turn, but set my jaw and gave the only order I was sure she’d accept just then. “Go. Tell Scarlet to find that dumpster and get the boy an ambulance. Come back, quick as you can. We’ll be going in as soon as you’re back.” Wings beat the air and she was gone again, leaving me with my very confused driver. “What was that all about?” Taxi asked, trotting around my side. “I don’t want to explain right now. Suffice to say, the situation has changed.” I responded, then, before I was cornered into recounting that horrible scene, decided a change of subject would be best. “There are at least eight guards. Two on the roof, two walking the grounds. More inside but they’ll be out soon. I saw one Red Hoof, name of Snicket. Watch out for her.” “Hardy, that didn’t answer my que-” “And I said not now!” I snapped, then bit my tongue as I saw the look of hurt surprise on my driver’s face. I added, more gently, “Really, Sweets. I need to keep a level head. Leave it at ‘bad things.’ I’ll tell you when we get out of here.” Taxi’s gaze took in my expression in an instant and she stepped back, “Sure thing.” Princess bless her, I thought. Sweets might have a hot head you could cook your dinner on when it came to certain things like her cutie-marks, but she knows that fine line between when I’m just being a grump and when I actually need space. I felt, more than heard, Zeta fading out of the darkness beside me. “Detective Pony. I see the flying one is not here.” The Stiletto’s voice was frigid as a bad date. “She is taking care of the unicorn?” “Yes. It’s being handled.” I rounded on her, kicking bits of broken bottle. “That being said, I want to know, right now: why did you volunteer for this mission?” Her face remained devoid of emotion as she replied evenly, “I am protecting my home.” “Bull.” “I see no bull here, Detective.” Taxi’s mouth was drawn down into a frown of uncertainty as she cut in, “Hardy, she’s trying to help. Do you really need to get her personal reasoning down?” “Sweets, ladybugs can tap into a living nervous system. I didn’t know they could do that, but apparently they can.” Taxi’s jaw dropped and she started to say something but I charged on before she could. “That isn’t important right now. Like I said, we’ll be talking to Queenie about it later. What is important is that this mare shouldn’t be anywhere near a police operation.“ I poked Zeta in the breastbone. “I saw through your eyes. I felt through your body. How you’re even standing is nothing short of a miracle. I ask again, why are you with us?” Zeta’s eyes widened ever so slightly, then her gaze hardened into crystal. She brushed my hoof away and stepped back, putting some distance between us. “You know nothing, pony.” “Damn straight I know nothing. That’s the problem.” I nodded towards the school. “I’m not going into a dangerous situation with somepony who could keel over any minute. You should be crippled. So explain it to me.” The zebra smoothed her dress of many ropes. Bake and Boil were still back there somewhere, speaking in low voices to one another and Taxi had on that ‘disapproving school-teacher’ scowl that she reserves for times she thinks I’m being an unnecessary hard-ass.          Zeta let the tension hang until I was ready to throw something at her. When she finally began, it was in a subdued tone.          “I am under a curse.” The zebra murmured, uncoiling and recoiling one section of her clothing for better access and to distract from her obvious discomfort. “The doctors may call it a ‘neurological condition’ but I know what it is. It is a curse.”          “A curse? I thought curses didn’t ex-” I thought better of it and shook my head. “...never mind. Let’s hear it.” Pushing her mohawk back from her face, she smiled in the way I’d seen Taxi smile when she was covering something too painful to let out in polite company and continued, “I have lived with pain since I was a foal.” She stroked the hair on the back of her right foreleg with her left, shuddering slightly, “Our healers wished me to lay abed and plied me with every potion. None did more than make me sleep.” Her lips rose into a proud smile. “It is my curse... but it is my honor as well.” “Your honor? Care to explain that?” I cleared a spot on the dirty ground, using my coat for a seat. “My father was a warrior. He trained our soldiers that fought with you ponies during the dragon contention, the one you call the Cutie Mark Crusades. He stopped the healers. He dragged me out of the temple and taught me... well, the word does not translate well. In the language of the zebra, the word is ‘sisu’.”          Taxi sucked in a breath and murmured, “Ultimate courage.”          “Courage?” I asked, incredulously. “I’ve seen courage. It doesn’t let a pony in your state run straight down a wall or climb a building.”          “As I said, it translates poorly. It is the will to be the stone that stands when the wall has fallen. It is the tenacity of the willow, bending under the wind, but never breaking. In my case, it is the speed of the kestrel, racing for the mouse before it can reach its burrow. The bird pushes itself, faster and faster, against the burn of its muscles, until its goal is achieved or it is dead.” She shook herself, wiggling her rear hoof to get the kinks out of the muscle. “I hurt, yes... but I continue.”          I spent a few seconds absorbing that. “I can’t argue with the results, but I’m curious. Magic has advanced the last few years. I’m sure you could find a unicorn who understands zebra brains well enough to figure something out. Why keep the pain? Why live like that?” I shuffled a half eaten candy bar out of my inner pocket and stuffed it into my cheek as I listened.          “Why any challenge?” Zeta cocked her head towards Taxi. “That one understands. If I give up the forging fire and cease to live at the edge of what is possible for me, I may as well let the healers have me again. If I flinch from this mission today, what will I flinch from tomorrow? Eventually, I will be nothing but bones, skin, and fur set to sleep my life away in oblivion. I am no longer sad for my curse. I suffer. I persist. I do not flinch.” She bowed her head, her explanation finished. “Will that satisfy, Detective?”          I chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then spat a raisin out of the corner of my muzzle. Eventually, I gave the concept a provisionally approving nod. “I think that’s what I needed to hear. I guess that’s why you get along with the winged whackjob, isn’t it? Somepony trying to fix either of you would take away everything else, wouldn’t it?” She gave an acknowledging nod just as my brain caught up to the fact that I hadn’t heard from the vicious little minx since I’d come out of the ladybug network. “Speaking of that mug-tossing molly, where is Edina?”          Boil leaned down behind a garbage can and lifted a cloth sack that seemed to be snoring. He grinned around the bag as his brother said, “Little griffin falls asleep. Coffee makes her portable when it wears off. Less... screechy.”          I gave the bag a light tap and its contents let out a disgruntled snort. I grinned. “I like your thinkin’. Keep an eye on her. We’re heading for the school. Zeta, you have a route for us to the gym entrance?”          “We cannot enter at the back and the way there is patrolled. I could not get clear routes, but I believe they are focused largely towards the western side of the building.” The zebra replied, using her hoof to mark out three interconnected squares in the gravel. She drew a circle and a crude drawing of a child’s slide, then pointed to the playground I could just see poking up through the grass some distance inside the gate. I could make out the three buildings, each larger than the last. The third, in back, was likely the gym. Drawing a line down one side which wound to the end of the playground, then back to the starting point about halfway up the second structure, she laid down the patrol route. “We can pass quickly, if we are quiet. Unfortunately, the door to the locker-rooms is padlocked and opening such things is... well, let it simply be said there is a reason I work with rope.”          Taxi pulled a hair-pin out of her saddlebag, rolling it dexterously between her teeth and tongue. “That’s fine by me. I always welcome the chance to practice the talents of a mis-spent youth.”          I looked around at my small squad and nodded my approval. “That leaves us with one tardy pegasus.”          “Right here, sir!” Swift called as she barreled down from the sky, skidding a few times and dancing to a stop. “I did a flyover on the way back. The fresh guards are all talking at the back of the building, but they haven’t started walking yet!”          “Scarlet is looking for the boy?” I asked.          My partner bobbed her chin, affirmatively. “He called Miss Stella from the corner phone. Miss Stella will be sending some ponies who aren’t working to sift the area.”          “What? Actual back-up? Fantastic!” I beamed, sitting up a little straighter. Swift pursed her lips. “Errr... no, sir... non-combatants.”          “Ahhh...” I couldn’t quite keep my disappointment off my face. “It was a long shot. Either way, most of their guards don’t seem to be armed with anything more than mouth pistols or rifles; nothing fancy or attention getting. They weren’t counting on discovery, much less infiltration. Nopony infiltrates a drug lab.”          Taxi pulled her cannon around her back and secured it for running. “If we’ve got a window, we’d best go now. May the sun be with us and the moon watch our paths.”          “Amen.” Zeta intoned, adding several words in zebra. I took it for a blessing, though I swore I’d heard my driver use something similar when calling me a shit-head. ****          Swift sat atop a nearby building providing lookout as we approached the gate. The chained lock wrapped between the bars took Taxi all of thirty seconds to pop open with her hairpin magic. I was hoping for silence, but my luck is either extremely good or extremely bad with very little in between. Every step of a covert operation is a protracted crap shoot during which you will roll snake-eyes at least once. In our case, that came in the form of hinges that probably hadn’t opened in the last five years making a noise that almost stopped my heart in my chest as they were wrenched open across a thick blanket of rust. Everypony froze in place, then pressed against the hedges on either side of the entry, waiting to see if somepony was coming to investigate. I considered having Bake and Boil toss us over, but their most powerful magic seemed largely limited to their one well practiced spell. Besides, I didn’t want to put myself at the mercy of what two pain enthusiasts might consider a ‘gentle’ ride.          After an eternity listening for my ladybug to signal to us we’d been nicked and being pleasantly disappointed, I waved a hoof for Zeta to move ahead on point. She slid through the gate and leapt into the chest-high grass on either side of the cracking sidewalk leading up to the school’s front doors. Barely a blade was disturbed and she made as much impact as a breath passing between them. Bake and Boil, carrying Edina in her sack, followed Zeta through. The two hoofballers were making a token effort to walk on tippy-toe. In the hazy night, with ground-hugging mist muffling our hoofsteps, they could be mistaken for industrial equipment being used on a late shift. Once they hit the grass, though, the sound dropped to a level I was comfortable moving ahead with. Taxi darted in after them with me bringing up the caboose. Sneakiness isn’t in the same pasture as my special talent, but then, the guards weren’t casting the tightest net. I felt the grass brushing under my belly as I pushed through it, trying not to leave too wide a trail. So focused was I on making as little noise as possible that I almost didn’t hear my ladybug let out a squeak of warning. I barely had time to throw myself onto my stomach. A second later everypony else followed suit. I held my breath as we all did our best ‘stone’ impressions and counted the beats of my heart. At thirty, the beam from a flashlight plied its way over our heads, sweeping towards the street then back around to the wall. Soft hoofsteps followed, crunching along the pebbled walk between the school’s buildings. There was no good frame of reference. The mist made everything sound terribly close and far away at the same time. The guard might have been right in front of me or halfway across the playground. I heard a sound; a faint clicking. It might have been the hammer of a gun being cocked. I picked up my trigger bit, holding it between my teeth lightly. The clicking came again, followed by a long exhalation and a murmur of pleased grunting. My nose wrinkled as I caught a whiff of burnt apples. Zap. The idiot guard was smoking Zap outside in Detrot's perpetual overcast. He was asking for a lightning strike to burn off his cutie marks. While it was true that Cosmo’s Red Hooves might have been an intimidating bunch, it seemed we’d gotten lucky once again. Cosmo was operating under the notion that trained professionals guarding a zone of magical contamination were more likely to invite police interest than a bunch of anonymous hooligans squatting in an abandoned building. I had to give to the King of Ace that he was careful in a whole other league than most criminals. The drug lab wasn’t connected to him in any way that could be proved in a court of law. If I’d been investigating him in the traditional sense of the word, I’d have put myself in a straitjacket trying to draw lines between what cops can use for evidence and what was actually there. The patrolling guard was just finishing his smoke break and it couldn’t end soon enough; there was a sharp rock digging into the back of my knee which was going to give me a royal ache come morning. As he turned back to his route, he spat his cigarette over one shoulder. It pinwheeled end over end, landing in front of me and scattering potentially lightning-attracting embers all over my fetlocks. I scrambled to stub it out with my toe, earning myself a fresh burn and the pleasing odor of my own smouldering fur. I couldn’t even cuss, lest the rat bastard son of a two-bit whore hear me. The flashlight came back on and, whistling to himself, the stallion started back the way he’d come. Cosmo’s taste in security guards left much to be desired, but gangsters need incompetents now and then. I’d seen it a hundred times in the Organized Crime breakroom. They bust some small time operation and the perps swear, up and down, that a mob boss was heading everything. Inevitably, they can’t pick him out of a line-up or describe his cutie mark. If your only need in a security guard is somepony to scream in terror loud enough to be heard before his head gets blown off, it makes little sense to pay for the best. As the ladybug signaled all clear with a two noted burble in my ear, we immediately started forward again, sliding around the outside edge of the building and skirting the playground. It was a longer way than the crow flies but we didn’t have precise locations on the roof guards. All it might have taken was one wandering by at the wrong moment and happening to glance down. Even with Swift feeding us overwatch intel, I didn’t care to be stuck out with naught but thick grass for cover. Intel or not, the creeping about business, especially with two colossal hoofballers in tow, had the flavor of being a big fish in a very small barrel. I couldn’t wait to get inside. Twice more, we had to drop and press ourselves to the ground as somepony wandered by on the roof. A properly interested lawn care specialist might have ended our plans at the outset, but as it was, getting around to the gymnasium was mostly a matter of timing. The rooftop guards were more interested in exchanging sloppy kisses as they passed one another on their patrols than they were in waving their torches around the grass to find a stupid detective and his merry band of nutters. The one on hoof was so high he had to stop once on each trip to make sure the brickwork hadn’t changed since he saw it last. We slowed to a crawl as we reached the gym, which might as well have been one of those huge, warehouse type structures. The grass there was thicker, deeper, and easily concealed even our lumpen duo of muscle bound masochists. I could almost smell the years of congealed sweat off hundreds of young ponies dashing, sprinting, playing soccer and kickball, lifting weights, or cringing as they were ordered to climb a rope without benefit of wings or horns. The gymnasium itself was dead quiet; it’d been some time since we saw a guard, which put all of us on edge. The longer it’s been since you’ve seen a guard, the more likely the second you choose to make your move will be the second one rounds a corner. It was no surprise they didn’t seem to be using the gym but it did confirm my suspicions that the drug lab itself was towards the far side, in the auditorium. The auditorium was likely soundproofed, with a full ventilation system to keep the stage lights from making the room unbearably hot; desirable where one might be working with explosively fuming chemicals. While the patrols seemed largely focused towards the western end of the school, I wasn’t prepared to call us ‘safe’ until we were inside. Flapping wings sent all of us down onto our bellies, but I rose quickly as I saw who it was coming to a landing in the grass. “Swift! What are you doing? Get down!” I hissed at her. She looked both ways then crouched slightly, which did as much for her invisibility as it did for Bake and Boil’s. “Sir, there aren’t any guards on this end.” Using one wingtip she pointed over my shoulder. I turned, just able to make out a very high chain link fence surrounding the baseball pitch. If we’d tried a sneak in through the back, we’d have been stuck hauling ourselves over that. I stood and flicked grass off my coat. “Hmmmph... that was easier than I was thinking it was going to be.” Taxi wiggled up beside us still down low and murmured, “What’s going on?” “We’re clear, apparently.” My driver squinted at me, then at Swift and finally, the building. The look on her face sent a shiver dashing from my tail up my back, dragging with it a fat wad of anxiety. “We’re not clear, are we?” I grumbled, pushing my trigger bit with one toe. “No, no we’re not.” Taxi’s voice was full of trepidation. There it was, once more; Hardy walking into a trap he knew was coming. My driver’s stunning intuition mixed with my own leant itself to a certain awareness of where life’s little pranks are likely to be. My choices were limited, my resources almost nil, and even with the great force multiplier that is surprise, I still counted our chances of achieving all of our goals as low. The thing I needed least of all was my dearly beloved driver’s pseudo-clairvoyance popping up to tell me my strike of luck was a hammerblow to the head. “Let’s get it over with, then. Lead the way, kid.” Bake shifted Edina off onto Boil’s back to get a break whilst we made for the building. My partner’s electrifyingly red mane could be seen even through the deepening dark so I settled for following it and trusting she wouldn’t lead me into any pot-holes. As we neared the edge of the building and stepped out of the foliage onto a concrete walkway that wrapped around the entire structure, I saw our destination. The stairs down into the lockers were worn smooth by the passing of thousands of little hooves. Taxi bounced passed me, her hairpin in her teeth as she raced eagerly down the steps to the locker-room door. “Oooh, lemme see!” I trailed after her as Zeta, Bake, and Boil waited at the top. “Can you do it?” I asked, trying to look around her at the lock. “P’shaw... can I do itsh... shush, lemme worksh.” My driver fiddled the thick lock between both hooves, holding one bit of the pin with the top of her tongue and the other half between her teeth. Thirty seconds may have been a slight exaggeration on her part; the actual break-in took closer to five minutes, and by then every movement or sound from our companions had me ducking slightly into my cover. “Ahhh, there we goesh!” The door clicked with a certain conclusiveness; a sound sweet to my ears. Taxi spit the bent hairpin into her hoof and stowed it in her bag. “Alright, play it careful. Sweets, you’re in first. You got something we can use in small spaces?” She swung her gun down, cocked it with her teeth, then pulled the string around her neck. “Already loaded. Shouldn’t deafen us, but anypony gets hit will definitely want to have a little lay’me’down.” “Good enough. Everypony ready?” Nods all around. I eased the door’s handle open. Taxi stuck her head and the mammoth barrel of her gun around the corner, checking all the corners. Pulling back, she swirled her hoof in the air, then patted her chest: clear. “Huh...” Pushing open the door, I trotted on through. The musty scent of an old locker room hit my nostrils hard, but as long as no bullets came flying out to greet me, I could deal. It wasn’t quite pitch black inside; some persistent emergency lighting, a holdover from the school’s active days, showed me row after row of lockers with wide benches between them. I glanced sideways, then hit the switch beside the door with my elbow. Overhead, old style neon lights burst into life. One or two popped immediately, leaving patches of darkness. There was still enough light to tell us the area did, indeed, seem to be clear. The twins stomped in and began shedding their hoof coverings. “Locker room reminds me of time with Manticores,” Boil said, patting the bench before plonking his rear on it. “Less pain those days, but more head stomping.” “Ahhh, is good to make noise again,” Bake pronounced, kicking off the last of the improvised shoe padding. “You two make enough noise for everypony, toes padded or not.” Zeta humphed and pushed between them. Her eyes roved around the room, seeking danger. “I do not like this.” “Yeah, sir... this feels wrong.” Swift agreed. “Why leave such an obvious entrance unguarded?” “Not sure.” I replied. “Taxi, thoughts?” “You know, as Sunny Zoo once said—” I didn’t get to hear her insightful musings on the art of war, but I imagine that they were much along the same lines as mine when, as if choreographed by an unseen force, every single locker in the room burst open simultaneously with a resounding, choral clang. “Oh, horseappl—” I managed as a ballistic pencil launched itself towards my right eye.