//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 — Mother // Story: Jericho // by Crushric //------------------------------// Chapter 14: Mother “Oh, I’m the one who’s ruining your life?! Really?! Have you looked around this place? I’m the one who’d be better off with no sister!” Trains! Click clack. “We’re on the track,” I singsonged, rocking my head side-to-side. “And that’s a fact. We’re going through the land like a hill of sand—wie Gottes Hand in diesem Land. This is the train song, because trains remind me of a dong. Oh! The train song. Girl, take off that thong!” Yes, I was making it up as I went. No, I couldn’t explain why. Why do you sing so much? Lightning Dust groaned, her eyes fluttering open as the first rays of morning sunlight bathed her face. She smacked her lips and squinted, turning her head away from the sun pouring in through the window. Her amber eyes fixated themselves immediately on me. “Guten Morgen, Fräulein!” I chirped with a smile. “Wie geht’s dir? Mir geht’s übrigens gut.” She blinked. “Wha’?” “I trust that you slept well,” I said, patting Dust on the head before returning back to... uh... what was I doing? Oh yeah, singing about something or other while I looked out the window. The rolling landscapes—okay, just trees—was a sight to behold. Behold, of course, being a pretentious term for ‘pretending to care’. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Cards muttered from across the little alley. I doubted she was speaking to anypony in particular. Dust just stared at me as I replied, “I know. Saturdays are usually karaoke nights for me. I found this neat little Neighponease club where I learned I do a killer rendition of the so-called ‘Smile Song’ by Sapphire Shores and Duke Elkington.” I grinned. “Get it?” I let out a howling laugh. “Wha’?” Dust repeated in a slurred tone. I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Well, sorry I use humor to deflect my insecurities and self-doubts. Plus, I’m hilarious and you totally know it. That first mare I killed with an axe would have known it too, except that I, you know, killed her with an axe.” “What?” “How dare you question me!” I snapped, and she flinched back against the window. “I, the Shogun of Sarcasm, the Sovereign of Snark, the Viscount of Vaudeville, the King of Comedy!” Rubbing the back of my neck, I sighed. “Yeah, that’s all I got.” Dust blinked, her face scrunched up. “Where am I? How did we get here? And... why don’t I have a hangover?” “What? Those are your questions?” I scoffed. “Did you not remember being hungover, me waking you up, giving you some medicine, and then carrying you to the train station? You fell back asleep, like, as soon as we got to the station.” “We’re on a train?” “No. We’re riding a giant worm with a nice cabin stapled vigorously to its back. It just so happened to have been reserved especially for me by Duke Elkington.” I gestured around the car, to the bunk beds built into its walls, one of which was occupied by Dust, the one across harboring Cards. “Incidentally, I learned just how nasty my reputation is in Equestria. Thank God that not a single pony recognizes me while I’m wearing my hat and duster. I think I really need to work on my reputation as a hero, not a mass-murdering psychopath.” It’s true! It’s horrible. I mean, we couldn’t get a date here if we bought a calendar! “Damn, that’s cold,” I said. Then I blinked. “Scheiße. Said that out loud, didn’t I? That was meant to be a thought.” Cards muttered something about hating her life, and I agreed with her: I too hated her life. She herself was fine. But her life was a wench whose gentitals were so festering with all manner of strange diseases and plagues that they had been declared a wildlife sanctuary, who had then been locked inside a room with a lifetime’s supply of alcohol guarded by a moose, only to find out that she had an unconquerable phobia of moose, which was actually a suitable metaphor for most ponies’ lives. The moose part, not the part with the STDs. At least I hoped not the STD part. “You know, I’m a bit vague on this whole plan, too,” Cards said. “You got up to the part where you orally fought Elkington with a sword, then you told me to shut up and shoved me into this train.” I leaned back in my chair, which I’d set in the very middle of the car’s aisle. “Yeah, I figured it’d be more awesome to just not tell you anything at all until the very last, most dramatic second.” “Why?” “Didn’t I already say? For drama! Duh.” I nodded sagely. “The more information I dramatically withhold, the more awesome it is at the end during the big reveal.” She gave me a look that drilled holes into my dramatical resolve. Sighing, I pulled out the Eiserne Kreuz and the Kruzifix from under my shirt—both had been hanging around my neck. “This little Kruzifix is basically some all-powerful nonsense thing that some evil thing wants. Cards, your town is being mentally poisoned by strange magical forces. Dust, you’re a reporter who’s here because I don’t know. We have to go into the swamp, fight some demon, and then be back for dinner. Any questions?” Dust raised her hoof, a blank expression on her face. “Where’s the bathroom?” “Don’t know. Anypony else?” She raised her hoof again. “What’s a demon and why are we fighting it?” “A demon is an evil monster that tastes good when cooked.” I shrugged. “I wasn’t really paying attention, but Elkington appears to be working with it in order to prevent it from going crazy and killing some ponies. The thing lives by Sleepy Oaks, and a byproduct of the things it’s doing happens to involve magically driving the ponies of Sleepy Oaks mad. Anywho, the demon wants this Kruzifix; we’re going to bring it to the beast, and then we’re going to kill him dead, and hopefully have him for dinner.” Cards bolted upwards in her little bunk, banging her head into the bed above her. “Wait, what?!” “Yeah. If you kill it, you shouldn’t let it go to waste. Because if the high-velocity ambush squid is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” “No, no—the other parts!” She crossed her arms. “I could care less for your sick joke.” I shrugged. “Didn’t I tell I wasn’t really paying attention?” I felt the train’s brakes kicking into action, the cars all slowly... er, slowly slowing down. “Some demon wound up in Equestria and is looking for some magical artifact, which I’m now wearing around my neck. The pretentious prick calls himself the ‘Devil’s Backbone’. He’s hiding out in the Acolapissa Swamp; that’s why those government agents were harassing your town; they were trying to, like utterly idiotic fools, keep you from entering the swamp and keep you away from bursts of low-level enervation, I think.” “You... you didn’t pay attention to that part?” Lightning Dust said in a quiet voice. “What?” I chuckled. “It’s only a demon that Elkington’s overreacting to. If it were a proper threat, it would have used his magic to essentially consume his soul or something, as is the fate of most magi. I mean, yeah, it’s a demon; first time he sees you, he’s going to want to rape you to death, eat your internal organs, and sow your flesh and fur into a fine hat—in that order if you’re lucky. Ask Cards; told her all about that. In fact, he’ll probably skin you first, then walk around, asking your screaming, fleshless bodies what you think of his newest hat. Demonic humor, near as I can tell, is very primitive, relies mostly on slapstick. ‘Ach, look at her—she walked into a door and then got brutally raped by seventy-two fat, sweaty, bald guys! This is funny to me!’ And, you know, I just find that boring and tastless. I prefer wit and charm in my humor.” They just stared at me. “So yeah, point is, this shouldn’t be too hard.” I put a hoof to my chin. “Then again, last time I saw a live demon, I was in the Mobile Infantry, wearing a full-body suit of spidersilk combat armor, surrounded by brothers-in-arms, and we were using liquid fire, Giftgas, and all sorts of nastiness against them.” I shook my head. “Eh, we’ll be fine. We’ll save Equestria, then go back and... something... I didn’t really think this through, I admit. My ego wouldn’t let me listen to Elkington. You know, in hindsight, that was a terrible idea.” “We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Cards asked flatly. Now I remember why they’re here—their panicked screams will no-doubt distract the demon while I run up behind him and stab him precisely sixteen times in the liver and spinal regions. “‘We’? No. You? Didn’t I tell you that you were much too pretty to die? You know, back after Glasses?” “Am I too pretty to die?” Dust asked with sparkling eyes. I held my tongue for the longest time. “I cannot tell a lie, Lightning Dust.” Lügen! Alles Lügen! She groaned, her feathers ruffling as she crossed her arms. “Gee. Thanks. You’re so encouraging.” “I try my best.” I glanced out the window. “You know, I hear that if you can’t do long division, bears will mess you up for life.” “What in the...?” Card tried. “Yeah, I suspect that I was bitten by a rude yet radioactive spider when I was a colt.” I shrugged. “Such behavior is a very bad habit of mine, but one I find most hard to break.” There was a moment of silence. There were several more moments of silence as the train slowed to a stop. I took this time to trot over to the front of the train car and open the door. Stepping into the fresh air of the little external place between the two cars, I turned my head to the side. I had the sneaking suspicion that the short train wasn’t docked in a station as I looked out into the little clearing. A small number of ponies in lightly armored barding stood around at little tents, and one of them approached me. “Special Agent Faust, I presume,” she said, squinting her orange eyes. “So you’re here to help us, then?” “In accordance with the prophecy,” I replied, nodding sagely. She let out a breath, rubbing her forehead. “Thank Celestia! After the mess at HQ the other day, I was sure they were just gonna leave us here. When a pegasus flyer showed up last night with the news they were sending you, can’t tell you how happy we were.” I resisted the urge to squint back at her. She pronounced the word ‘can’t’ to rhyme with ‘ain’t’, and something about that made we want to become a teacher of the Equestrian language. I’d be the best teacher ever; the children would all learn, or die trying. In the latter case, I’d be arrested for breaking numerous laws. “Care for a sitrep, sir?” she offered, then blinked. “Oh, uh, I’m Lieutenant Pudge Farks, sir.” It took every ounce of willpower not to giggle at her name. Equestrians did not know how to name children. “Sitrep?” I asked. “What’s that?” She hesitated. “A situational report, sir.” “Can you make it short?” I asked, and Pudge Farks nodded. “Strange magical force hit the town, sir.” She looked over her shoulder. “Folks been staying put in the town, ’cept for one guy. He ran outta town, screaming something about spiders underneath his skin, then he vomited up about of pound of cobwebs that he ate, and he’s been comatose for days since.” “Oh my... Celestia,” I said. “Did you keep the cobwebs?” “Uh, no, sir.” “You fool! I could have knitted that into a nifty scarf.” Lightning Dust came up from behind me. “You can knit?” I turned my head to her and Cards, who was right behind the pegasus. “It’s a hobby of mine, yes.” “Sir, there someone with you?” Pudge Farks asked in hesitant tones. “Yes, two young mares,” I replied. Pudge Farks cocked a brow. “Impressive, sir. I can hardly get one.” “What?” I asked. “Nothing, sir.” A moment of silence. I saw that Cards was hefting her bags, as was Dust. Good. Dust must’ve been given the gist of things from Cards. How handy. I stepped off the train and onto the grass. “So, are we going to get moving or what?” “Or what, I’m afraid.” Pudge Farks forced a smile. “Railroad officially ends here: Elkington’s orders, nopony gets into town via train.” “What if I told you I wasn’t a pony,” I replied, cocking a brow, “but instead a lesbian zebra trapped in a stallion’s body?” “Well, I’d tell you to go see a doctor about that.” “But I don’t want to see a the rapist!” She blinked. “Well, I’d rather remain unraped myself, but sometimes we gotta do what we’re ordered to do. You’ll have to walk into town; we’ve cordoned off every accessway into the town, and I’m just in charge of this checkpoint.” I frowned as I looked out the trees surrounding the little clearing her checkpoint was set-up in. “Do you have any other silly rules, like ‘No using public masturbation to demonstrate a flaw in command logic’ or ‘Liquid fire sticks to kids is not what you put on motivational posters’?” “Pretty sure that public masturbation is illegal,” Lightning Dust offered, hoping out of the car and up next to me. “Kinky, but illegal.” Pudge Farks winked—whether at me or Dust I couldn’t say. “S’pose it could look nice.” “Mmhh,” Cards hummed, hopping up to my other side. I lowered my ears and groaned, “Oh sweet God in Heaven, what is wrong with your girls?” They didn’t reply. “Lieutenant, have you ever met Elkington?” She shook her head. “I have not, no.” Saddling up, I prepared myself to walk down the train tracks. “Well then, I hope you know that you’re working for a giant space ant.” “Wait, what?” all three mares stammered as I walked. There was a town that way, and I’d be damned if I let some stupidly-named Equestrians stop me. Cards and Dust trotted after. “Wait, you met Elkington?” Dust asked, and I nodded. “Yes, and in reality he’s not a pony but a giant space ant.” I flashed back to his giant mandibles and his tentacle-like tongue, which I promptly informed the girls of. “Welcome to the real world, girlfriend—the giant ants have controlled our meek race since we first crawled out of the mud. All aristocrats are secretly giant ants. Their goal is to one day build the greatest picnic that has ever existed and sail it across the cosmos to establish colonies on the shores of other worlds.” “Other worlds?” Dust asked as we passed the front engine. Now it was just us and a railway leading into a town tainted with dark magic. Just looking down the tracks and seeing the distant town made me feel sterile from overexposure. “Yes, planets much like the Earth, except in space.” The oddly alluring thought of giant ant ladies clad in bikinis, sipping alien martinis on a beach beneath a red sun came to mind. Then I was reminded that most all ants were female, and that the males were essentially sex slaves for the queens, and the idea suddenly got terrifying and was going to haunt my nightmares. I had the strange feeling that Cherry Berry would be right at home with ants. “Okay, this is getting really stupid,” Cards said, and Dust nodded. I paused to put a hoof to my jaw. Cherry Berry sure had been popping up in my thoughts a lot recently. You’d think that if she didn’t matter to me, I’d’ve forgotten about her, but instead she just kept popping into my mind. Clearly, something about her had left some long-lasting scar upon me, even if it was just the question over whether Equestria was patriarchal or matriarchal. I should have killed her when I had the chance. With a sword. Like the bad itch she was. Well, not like an itch, because scratching an itch with a sword would be counter-productive to my attempts at living. In fact, why didn’t— “Hey, GB!” Dust yelled, knocking on my head. “GB, where’d ya go? Ya just fazed out on us.” “Huh, what?” I blinked, shaking the thoughts out of my mind. “Sorry, I was having flashbacks to that girl who tried to rape me the other day, just like that time I kept getting flashbacks to wars that I both wasn’t in and occurred long before I was born. And no matter what I told command, it turned out that who I was in my past life had no effect on the command structure.” They both stared at me. “So, yeah, Elkington’s a pony. What of it?” “But...” Dust tried, “then why did you say...?” “I don’t know, I just say things,” I replied, drooping my ears. “How have you not gotten this yet?” |— ☩ —| “So, wait,” Cards said, holding up a hoof. “What do you mean, ‘planets like ours’? There’s only one planet.” Dust chimed in an agreement. “No, there are many.” I perked up a single ear as I looked out at Sleepy Oaks. Here at the train station, I do a sense of déjà vu. “What about, say, Tyr, the red light in the sky?” Dust cocked her head. “Tyr? That’s just a wanderer, since it has that really weird twirly thing as it goes around the sky.” Eye twitch. “According to the standards of my people, Tyr is a planet. The Earth is a planet. The moon is a moon. The sun is a star. And—” The pegasus scoffed. “The sun’s not a star, it’s a sun! If it was a star, then Princess Luna would control it. She controls the stars and the moon, not the sun. Duh.” I let that line hang in the air for a moment like a bad smell before I groused, “Sonnenanbeter,” shaking my head. “So, really,” Dust went on, “you’re just not making any logical sense here, GB.” I sighed. “Look, call them what you will: you stick to your worldview, I’ll stick to mine.” I jerked my head to Cards, and she flinched back. “And while we’re at it, ‘shpadoinkle” is not a word!” “I said it the one time!” she defended, holding up her forehooves and, predictably, falling to the ground. “I think GB’s just having a very shpadoinkle day,” Dust added. I let out a breath, rubbing my nose. “Two drink limit does not mean first and last. Two drink limit does not mean two kinds of drinks. Two drink limit does not mean the drinks can be as large as I like. Because ‘I’m drunk’ is a bad answer to any question posed by my commander.” “What”? Muttering under my breath as I glared at Dust, the voices in my head most certainly not talking to me. You know, I’ve always wanted to be known as “The Strangler”. I mean, I wouldn’t kill anypony just for that title, but if I fail at killing this thing in the swamp, I at least want to come away from this with a title like “The Surreptitious Strangler” added to my already disconcerting repertoire of murder-borne titles. Dust cocked her head. “GB, why are you staring at me like that...?” “Look, can we stop doing whatever we’re doing and get back to the matter at hand?” I asked suddenly. “Namely, getting to the sheriff’s office.” I hopped up onto the train station proper and looked around. I could see that inside the teller’s booth was a Voixson. “Any objections, ladies?” Cards just stared at me as Dust fluttered up onto the platform with me. Oh, wait, now I saw. Cards was too short to easily climb up onto the tall platform. Shaking my head, I went over to the edge and offered her my arm. She hesitated, but accepted it, and I helped her haul her body onto the platform. “Uh, thanks,” she said, and I shrugged. “Listen, you two hang here while I go inside,” I told them, walking for the very plain and obvious door into the teller’s office. Entering the little room and closing the door behind me, I located the Voixson. Looking out the window, I could see Cards and Dust talking, but couldn’t hear them. Odd. The little luggage tag on the Voixson’s handle had a little black-and-white photo of a stallion with what looked like an onyx-black mane. Turning the photo over, I found a single word, “Blackout.” I hit the play button, and the “Blackout” Voixson crackled to life. “Blackout, light of my life, fire of my loins, mother of my daughter,” sounded a stallion’s deep voice. It took me a moment to place the voice to that of Sheriff Strong, Cards’ father. “My sin, my soul. Black-out: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of two steps down the palate to tap, at two, on the teeth. Black. Out. “She was Blackie, plain Blackie, in the mornings when she lived with her mother and father. She’d been simply Black when she was in school, she says. She was Outie on the dotted line. Chief Blackout to most everyone nowadays, even to her... to our daughter. But in my forelegs she was always just Blackout. For every ounce of revulsion I have for her, I only find her more alluring. I knew she had to be mine the moment our eyes met, and I knew I’d be hers the moment she deemed me fit.” He made a noise like a cat relaxing after eating its fill of a particularly plump pheasant. “Then, today, a stranger from the government came. Then, he captured Cards, our daughter, and forced her into his service... Oh Blackout, no sooner had the black light of my life learned of the danger to which our daughter was exposed to than did she lose every consideration for everything besides that of Cards’ safety. The fire behind her pink eyes was one I’d seen time and time before, that lust for violence and action, the same look in her eyes when I lay her down at night. I looked and looked at her, knowing that look to be the death of me, just the same as it was meant to be the death of that government boy.” Sheriff Strong hesitated. “I don’t disbelieve what they told me about you, that you are as manipulative as you are beautiful. That you were a total blacking out of the heart. I am all too keen that you believe that I dismissed them, but secretly the warnings only drew me in. I had something you wanted, something only I could give you. When you told me you were pregnant and that we needed to get married, I knew you were lying. When you used the coercion of your false pregnancy to lure me into making that lie true in the form of our daughter, I kept silent: your every action, your ability to weave webs of lies for the common fly, kept me transfixed with a morbid fascination. But I always saw through your ruses, your batted lashes, that innocent smile. I know you allowed yourself to be made pregnant only because it suited your interests. By marrying me, you decidedly went up in social class, became the envy of your lower-class girlfriends... But now there is another, more important mare in my life, a beautiful young mare I’d do anything for... and her name is Cards.” He took a heavy breath. “Oh Blackout, the in to my external, the white to my darkness... you crossed the line today, and now our daughter is gone with that monster... Black. Out. What you did to our daughter today broke my heart. But you merely broke her life. And the rest is just rust and stardust.” The Voixson crackled out as the recording ended. I just stared there in thought of the message. What was with that strange wording Sheriff Strong used? And how in the nine Hells did this wind up here? Cards might want to hear this... later, of course. Hearing it now would probably demoralize her. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, I figured, putting the Voixson into my bag. Shaking my head, I went back out from the little room. “One time I dreamt that I was dragon but then I got slain,” Cards was saying to Dust, the pegasus nodding. Lightning Dust glanced over and saw me. “Hey there, GB,” she greeted with a wave. “Find anything?” “No,” I said, trying not to look at Cards’ cut ear. It didn’t look at that bad, more like a tiny, tiny landshark had taken a bite out of her ear—because what else did a tiny, tiny landshark have to do for fun but ruin Cards’ life? Even though we all knew that landsharks could swim through water as though it were land. The original reason I conscripted Cards help came to me again: to assist me in her neck of the woods. “Cards, back to what we were doing. Can you lead us to the sheriff’s office from there?” The little mare nodded. “Yeah. Why there?” “The more I withhold, the more completely unnecessary drama there can be.” |— ☩ —| Cards hesitated at the fork in the road. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it,” I heard her mumble. Dust followed her closest, and I always lagged behind the two, which was hard. Having longer legs than either mare made my strides longer. Looking around the street, I couldn’t shake the feeling that bringing the girls was a poor idea. Enervation hadn’t exactly been kind to Dust the other night, and with the levels here in Sleepy Oaks... I didn’t know. They were fine when last they were here, so maybe it was nothing. The town, though, appeared anything but fine. “Reminds me of Midgard,” I said absently. “Hmm?” they both hummed, turning to me. When I didn’t reply and just kept staring at the seemingly abandoned houses, Dust asked, “What’s Midgard?” “It’s a city,” I replied. To me, something about coming to Sleepy Oaks in the day seemed wrong. It felt like the kind of place designed to look spooky at night, but just looked mildly dilapidated at day. It gave me the strange urge to just paint everything with newer, snazzier colors, since it was really all the place needed. Now then, where was I going to get a few hundred liters of hot-pink paint and several kilograms of sexually suggestive stickers at this hour? “That it?” Dust prodded. “Sounded like you had more to say there.” I sighed. “Midgard was a major city in the Reich, the capital of the federal state of Asgard.” A shrug. “Picture a big city, like Songnam. Now picture it swarming with countless legions of the very scum of the Earth, the city’s populace having already evacuated to the north. Now, imagine setting off a massive Gefechtskopf—er, setting off a massive piece of military ordnance, like a huge explosion, only instead of fiery doom, there was lots and lots of Nervengas.” “Uh, this way,” Cards said, pointing to the left. Dust snapped her attention to Cards and quickly followed her. At the other end of this party was me, and I was looking over my shoulder. I had the feeling that I should have had the feeling of being watched; that fact that I didn’t have that sensation was actually troubling. It was too cliché not to happen. I gestured from my eyes to the empty street, letting it know that if it wasn’t going to leer creepily at me, I’d leer creepily at it. Scurrying after the girls, I found them chatting. “So, you actually any good at cards, Cards?” Dust asked. Cards shot the pegasus a look. “Yes, actually. I’m damn good. Challenge me to a game of poker and end up broke at the end of the night.” Lightning Dust tilted her head like a dog you’ve blown a whistle at that doesn’t understand what whistles were and may be looking to bite the tip of your penis off like a snapping turtle. It was hard to tell; dogs had notoriously difficult minds to read. I was sure she’d say “What’s going on here?” from the look on her face, but instead it was: “But your poker face sucks.” “Sh-shut up, it’s great!” Cards snapped. “No, I’ve seen you try to hide your emotions, and you suck at it.” She shrugged her wings. “At best, you look like you’re having the world’s worst or—” “Hey, look, we’re here!” Card interjected, pointing to a concrete building of three stories. She quickly trotted over to the building’s front. In no time at all, we were standing before it. I took back the reigns of the group and entered first. The room I came into was a small sort of waiting room—it smelled of impatience, of course, which was how I knew what it was—with a desk at one end and a hallway leading further into the office. As the girls came in with me, my hoof bumped into an empty bottle. It clanged against the desk. “You know,” I said, “this is a poor start to an open house.” I cupped a hoof to my mouth and called out, “So where do I register with a realtor agent here? I’d like to buy this plot of land.” I went up to the counter and found an ashtray and a packet of cigarettes. With a frown on my face, I picked the packet up and flung it onto the ground. “Smoking kills.” Cards watched the packet bounce across the floor before she raised a brow to me. “What?” I shrugged. “Smoking kills, Miss Cards. Don’t smoke. It’s bad for you.” Now then, where was a soapbox to stand upon and preach when you needed one? “If I were to start a cigarette company, I’d name it ‘Scorpion Smokes’—we market exclusively to foals and guarantee a free live scorpion in every packet.” Dust, who’d been staring at some graffiti on the wall, turned to me. “A scorpions in every packet?” She licked her lips quickly. “If I was a filly, I’d buy them just for the scorpions. Those preppy bitches at school would have liked to find them in their manes.” I frowned. “I find it disconcerting that you didn’t question a brand of cigarettes marketed for small children. You don’t think that maybe the idea of cigarettes marketed for children is sort of morally despicable?” She shrugged. “Well, if I had a daughter, I wouldn’t let her have any. That’s just common sense. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.” Cards chimed in her agreements to Dust. I’m possibly a mass murderer, but even I have higher standards than you! “But if you had a son...?” “Ugh, fine, let’s argue semantics and words.” “Egal,” I sighed, giving a dismissive wave of the hoof. “Hey, what’s that on the wall there?” I walked over to Dust, and she stepped back. The writing on the wall was in black crayon, the penponyship was either hasty or done by a small child upon a step ladder. Either way, they apparently had an irrational phobia of the common comma. “One two she’s gonna get you “Three four better lock your door “Five six she knows your tricks “Seven eight you’ve stayed up too late “Nine ten she’s gonna kill again “SANDMARE” “Sandmare?” I asked. “Uh, a foal’s fairytale,” Cards offered. “She’s this little mare who helps children fall asleep, and she’s the one said to leave those little eye crusties in your eyes. Not sure what this little poem is about; the Sandmare is a nice character. Brings you good dreams if you’ve been a good colt or filly, they say.” “Hmm,” I hummed. “Reminds me of the Sandmann.” “Zahnt-mahn?” Dust asked. “Ja, der Sandmann,” I replied. “He used to be sort of the same thing, a foal’s fairytale, but about two hundred years ago his legend morphed into something of an evil monster. If you’re a bad little boy or girl, our Sandmann will throw a hooffull of sand in your eyes, make them bleed, forcefully tear them out as you beg him not to, then he puts them in a bag and takes them home to feed his monstrous children. Also, his children live on the moon, by the way, because why the hell not?” “The hell kind of fairytale is that?” Cards asked, shaking her head. “Apparently the same one written here on the wall,” I replied, walking over and behind the desk. A part of me was tempted to just stand around idly for the whole day until it was night, because this place’s whole aesthetic was ruined by sunlight, and I didn’t want whoever made this place so horrible to feel bad. A lot of work had been put into making this place look like it hadn’t seen a lot of work in a good many years. “Well, it wasn’t on the wall last time I was here,” she said. I looked at a note on the desk. “Put out an APB on that government boy—we gotta find Cards!” it read. “That bastard isn’t getting away with what he’s done to our town.” “What’s an ‘APB’?” I asked. “It stands for All-Point Bulletin.” Cards frowned. “It’s, like, a thingy that police or guards can put out, giving information on a wanted pony, making it easier for everypony to find that pony. Why do you ask?” “Oh, I just saw the acronym noted here and was curious.” So. Cards. They were looking for her after they ran her out of town? “You Equestrians sure do have the strangest obsession with acronyms. It’s like you’re philic of things you feel like you could shorten. In the Reich, we don’t abuse them anything like you do.” ‘Philic’ sounds a lot like ‘phallic’. Phallicphilic. “So... why are we here, in the sheriff’s office?” Cards asked. “Simple,” I replied: “I’m looking for your father or mother, but hopefully the father. Do they have offices in this building? If so, where?” Cards blinked, then said absently, “Third floor, opposite ends of the hallways. I recall getting reprimanded in Chief Blackout’s office a few times. Dad kept a bottle of whiskey in his desk. Used to sneak sips from it when I was a filly.” I turned to the little hallway. “Hey!” I yelled out. “I’m here to see a mare about a train! Can somepony point me in the direction of the nearest quest-giver? I require a quest to slay a dragon and rescue a maiden.” No response. “Scheiße,” I sighed, trotting into the hallway. I found a clearly marked stairwell and made my way up to the second floor. Why only the second floor? Because some cosmic force had seen it fit to block the stairwell up ahead with all manner of desks and tables. Choo-choo, who was being railroaded by fate? This bucking guy! I opened the door onto the second floor, sure I could find another stairwell or something, and then I paused. There was a large room against a series of glass windows, possibly some sort of break room. But the thing was, there was a carriage in here. As in, the whole thing, turned onto its side, lying on the floor and taking up most of the room, without any obvious sign of how it got here in the first place. Had they constructed it in here? Did the carriage somehow fall through the ceiling in defiance of gravity and end up here? Really, this was just bizarre. I walked over to it and poked it. To my dull surprise, the carriage just flopped over. “Oh,” I said, “it was a horrifically good painting.” I blinked once. “This whole town is stupid. Who the hell would paint a photo-realistic picture in faux-three-dimensions and then just put it here?” From behind me, I heard the girls come out onto the second floor with me. Dust asked a question, but I was too busy being transfixed by a mousehole in the wall. I’d never seen a real one back in the Reich, and I struggled to recall seeing one during my travels. I recall once speculating that if I had an eyeball at the end of my penis, I could jam it into mouseholes and use it to spy on mice. But looking at it, I realized how impossible that would be; there was no way a pony could bend themselves to be able to spy on mice and find out what evil they were up to. Turning to face Cards and Dust, I announced, “I think I figured out what happened to this place after we left.” Card perked her ears. “Really? What?” “They were all too stupid to legally exist and so were consumed by a hole in reality.” I nodded. “It only makes sense.” She just stared at me. “Has anypony ever told you that you’re funny?” “Well, yes.” “They were lying,” she hissed, her eyes like slits. Cards shook her head. “Look, there’s another stairwell over on the other side of the building. Do you wanna get to the third floor or not?” “Wow,” I said, “you’re more upset than those orphans from that one time I tried to build a birdhouse but instead ended up killing an orphanage.” I affixed her a hard look. “Yeah, that’s right: I killed a whole building.” “Wha’...?” “The orphans were fine,” I said with a shrug, “just really confused and then really upset.” After a few awkward moments, I glanced to the side and asked, “What the hell is that?” as I pointed to a rectangular box propped up against the wall. Before anyone could answer, I trotted up to the strange box. The vertical rectangular box was bright red on the front side, a strange logo on it reading “Colta-Cola”. Towards the floor-end of the front was something that looked like a mail-slit you’d find at your front door, and upon a panel on the right were a number of small pictures attached small buttons. The little demon of confusion crawled to the forefront of my mind: his solution, to set everything on fire and let it sort itself out because fire solved everything, though appealing, didn’t strike me as the best idea. I pressed the topmost button, the one with the picture of a normal glass bottle, and nothing happened. Frowning, I asked, “What is this thing and how do I kill it?” “That’s...” Dust offered up, “a vending machine.” “Vending,” I muttered. “Vendor. To vend. To sell. Seller. Selling. This is a selling machine!” I put a hoof to my chin. “But how does that even work? If I know Equestria and its obsession with magic, then I can logically conclude that I must sacrifice a virgin to appease it.” I looked knowingly at Cards. Then it dawned on me that Equestrians seemed super phobic of killing, so there went that theory. I pressed another button to no new effect. “I get the feeling that maybe I have to press these buttons in the right order, thereby completing an incredibly obtuse puzzle which will unlock its reward.” “Or ya just do this,” Dust said, putting a coin into a thin slot upon the machine. She punched a button and, with a rumbling sound of internal machinery, out came a glass bottle from the mail-slit-like thing. She reached down, grabbed the bottle, and offered it to me. “Rather simple.” I looked between her, the bottle, and that infernal contraption. “Uh, no, you can keep the drink, I don’t want it.” “Then why were you trying to get one?” “Why does a guy win a girl random odds and ends at a fair?” I asked with a shrug. I don’t think that comparison works so well, now that I think about it. She shook her head and put the bottle in her bag. “Okay, so... back to finding the other stairwell.” Dust and I followed Cards through the building and to that other stairwell. Cards went in first, then me, then Dust. As the little former deputy ambled slowly up the stairs, Dust tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me aside. “Um, GB?” she said in a quiet voice. Cards didn’t notice we’d stopped and kept heading upwards. “You know,” I said, looking around, “something about this dirty, somewhat ruined building reminds me vaguely of home. Mind you, I come from Hell, so that’s not a compliment, just a thought.” “GB, this is serious.” It took every ounce of my mental fortitude not to say, ‘Pleased to meet you, Frau Serious. This here is Lightning Dust. Have you met?’ Instead, I nodded. She dropped her ears and looked away. “A-about last night... I... didn’t get a chance to say anything earlier, and I know now’s a bad time, but I just gotta say it before I think too much about what I’m gonna say and lose my nerve.” Dust took a breath. “Thanks, GB.” She ran a hoof hoof down her face. “Just... thanks for not taking advantage of... yeah. Moment of weakness... you’re a better stallion than most, probably. Better than any I’ve met for sure.” That last sentence. There’s probably some really deep story about that, one I can’t be bothered to care about right now. I smiled curtly. “No need to thank me, Lightning Dust. I’d never take advantage of you in a moment of weakness.” I wonder if she’s acting like this because she’s convinced that no stallion but me can say no to a sexual proposition. “I’m better than that; I have a sense of respect for mares like you.” Whatever that means. Dust swallowed, looking at her hooves. “Thanks.” She hesitated. “I-it won’t happen again. Me, that is. I won’t do that again. And I’m sorry that I... that I...” I put a hoof on her shoulder and nodded once, a tacit understanding, I hoped. Turning around, I went up the stone stairwell to catch up with Cards. The little mare was gritting her teeth as she tried to force open the door at the top of the stairs, the doorknob refusing to budge. I pushed her gently to the side and tried the knob myself, and found that it was simply locked. Sighing, I brought out my tools. Tick. Tack. Tock. Tools away, door ajar. Ajar is a weird word, I thought, opening the door. ‘The door is ajar.’ Are you stupid? It’s a door, not a jar. God, I hate that pun. “Hello?” I called out. “Olly olly oxen free! Alle, alle auch sind frei! Would it help if I just said ‘the sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick’?” Cards tried to repeat that tongue-twister under her breath, and failed. “How the hell did you even pronounce that?” she asked. I looked at her. “I have the distinct feeling that I had to use the restroom a moment ago but now I don’t and it’s really freaking me out.” Somewhere in the stairwell, a very noisy fly few about, doing whatever it was that noisy flies in a stairwell did so early in the morning. Cards, though, just stared at me. “Y’know, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m so jaded that I’d’ve actually been more baffled by a logical, thoughtful answer than by what you just said. And that scares me.” “I am just a boundless well of terrors for you, aren’t I?” I asked, exiting onto the third floor and looking around the halls. Cards mumbled something I couldn’t make out and I didn’t care to ask her to repeat. “So, where’s your mom, Cards? Well, where is her office? Same for your father’s.” The mare pointed to one end of the hallway, to a closed door. “Dad’s office is there.” She gestured the other way and implied something around a corner. “Chief Blackout’s is over that way. Opposite ends.” Well, whoever’s here will likely be the second pony I look for. I looked at her father’s door. Smart choice: stay together and look for Blackout first. Dumb choice: look for Sheriff Strong first. Suicide: split up and look for both at the same time. But that would be more dramatic. “Hmm,” I hummed, rubbing my chin. “Oh, screw drama. Cards, Dusts, I want to check out Sheriff Strong’s office first. Hopefully, this’ll let me slug Blackout in the face. Lord knows she deserves it.” The door at the end of the hallway was unlocked. We slipped into the fairly clean office, and I closed the door because open doors that were behind me were the devil. There were two bookshelves lined with books that had certainly never been read and, judging by the caked dust, were there to make Sheriff Strong look smarter than he actually was. That was the only reason a pony ever bought a personal bookshelf, after all. “This place brings back memories,” Cards said with a sigh, her ears drooping as she looked around. “Sometimes I’d get in trouble just to be sent here to see Dad. It was sort of the only time I got to see him, since he went to work before I went to school, and got home after Chief Blackout put me to bed.” “Chief Blackout’s your mom, right?” Dust asked, and Cards nodded. I trotted around to the desk in the room. It was nice in an uncool-dad-trying-to-be-cool sort of way, especially the bobblehead on the desk, which depicted a stallion hefting a comically large wrench over his shoulder. I flicked the head and made it bobble, then just pushed it over. Bobbleheads were just tacky and only an idiot would actually have one, and only an embarrassing dad would proudly display one. Looking at the bottom of the fallen stand, I noted a small inscription: “Why buy the new when you can make better the old?” Whatever. Going back to the drawers, I pulled open one and found a handy-dandy Voixson. A part of me wondered about the little record inside it, if they could be removed and put into other Voixsons like normal records into normal record players. It’d probably save a lot of money. This Voixson had a luggage tag with a picture of Cards’ father, the words “The Open Secret” signed at the bottom on the photo. These were so utterly pointless but so interesting; did Equestrians really see such a need to speak their otherwise private thoughts aloud? I put it on top of the desk and hit the play button, and it came to life. “Cards...” he said softly, as if the very words were a curse that he just couldn’t help but speaking. At those words, the named mare froze, her whole attention rapt to the device. “She was a pony born of Punic faith. Yet from the moment her infant eyes first opened up and saw me before seeing anything else, I knew that if pony life was just an series of purposeless dots upon a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece, she was meant to be a purposeful brushstroke. She had my eyes, too... But I failed her, and doomed her to be a footnote like the rest of us. “She was sired under a hectic fever, between that sycophant mare and me; was ushered into this world through Blackout’s horn gate, a gate of dreams which come true; for my daughter was a dream in every sense, and dreams are things. Cards was borne not as a pony, not as a union of love, but as an object, made to serve a purpose. And that purpose was to whatever aims her mother had, aims that most certainly involved manipulating me, aim that used Cards as her coup-de-grâce against me, forcing me into marriage. You can see the evidence of such by the way she treats our daughter: to Blackout, to the light in my darkness, Cards was and is just an object, a pawn, a thing, and she always treated her as such. I think it’s obvious. Her treatment of Cards is an open secret—a secret that lies open to all, but is seen into and understood by only few. “When I look at Cards, I see everything I love about her mother overlayed with that basic instinct every father has to protect his offspring. Yet... she is something terrible to me, a reason to hate the light in my darkness. When the fire of my loins speaks ill of the fruit of her loins, I want to hurt her. I want to grab her by the neck and dare her to say it again. I almost have several times. How dare she insult our daughter! How dare she insist our daughter isn’t good enough! He was silent for several seconds. “And yet I have never... Why? Were I good to the fruit of our union, I could have smacked my love, I could have held Cards in my embrace and told her nopony would ever hurt her again. I should have. Ever fiber of my being wants it, and every fiber within me regrets not doing so... But I think that I just can’t. I do what I can, but it’s either my daughter or the mare I sacrificed everything to have. At the end of the day, I am not stallion enough to choose between them.” His voice shifted to a loud whisper, his tone like a stallion hiding, knowing he is about to die a horrific fate probably involving gingerbread ponies and the letter H. “And Cards has paid the price for my weakness.” The Voixson fell silent. The room fell silent, too. Cards just stared at the Voixson. Her mouth moved, but nothing came out. Lightning Dust looked to Cards, then to me. She was closer, so with an ocular gesture, I somehow convinced her to go over and put a hoof on Cards’ shoulder. If I had tried that same thing, Cards would have probably bitten me; I knew she hadn’t brushed her teeth this morning, unlike me, and I wasn’t about to die from a pony-mouth-borne infection, thank you very much. “Cards,” Dust asked, “are you okay? You seem a bit shaken.” I looked back into the desk drawer and found that the Voixson had been hiding a small object behind it. It was a little silver pocket watch, no doubt here in case Sheriff Strong was ever attacked by werewolves. “Thats... that’s Dad’s pocket watch,” Cards said as I held the watch up. “He always had that on him. What’s it doing there?” I fiddled with the watch until it popped open. The watch was ticking, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. In the watch was a small picture, a black-and-white of a little smiling filly. My eyes took in her sight, the honest smile of a little girl just happy to be alive, both her ears perked up and wholesome. I looked up at the ragged shell of a mare on the other side of the desk, a grown girl who wished to be dead, both ears drooped, a chunk missing from her right ear. “Catch,” I told her softly, and tossed the watch when I was sure she was ready. Cards looked at the watch like it was a holy relic, as if the mere act of contemplating it were a transgression against whatever deity was popular with the foals these days. With all care of a mother holding her newborn for the first time, she opened the watch up and gasped. “This was...” she said with a distant look in her eyes, “this was taken when I was six.” She swallowed. I glanced to the desk and saw a pencil. Narrowing my eyes, I picked it up. Yep, it was a pencil alright. I tossed it casually onto the floor because I could. “Aaaand that’s where that goes,” I said assuredly to myself. When I looked back up at Cards, her eyes were moist. She gritted her teeth as she clutched the watch against her breast. The little mare took a breath and blinked the moisture away. “Lightning Dust, Government Boy, there’s nothing here. Let’s leave and get this damn thing over with.” “Right,” I replied, nodding. “There’s nothing an adventurer can’t overcome with a bunch of derivatives, a diversified employment record, and absolutely no morals whatsoever.” I went over to the door and left the room. At the pace of a brisk jog, I made my way down the hall, humming to myself. I stopped at a little junction, Blackout’s office apparently being somewhere to the left. Looking back, I watched the two mares hesitantly walk down the hallway. I let my jaunty demeanor die out. Just because I was eager to punch Blackout in her stupid face didn’t mean that Cards was, and the little mare’s demeanor was rubbing off on Lightning Dust. Right. I frowned as I looked at Chief Blackout’s door, assuming it was hers. End of the hall, right? So then. We were all assembled and went down the last leg of the trip. Dust was right, Cards was terrible at hiding her emotions. What Cards needed right now was an ice cream cone, coffee flavor, and to be pushed on a swingset. Or maybe she’d like to meet my father. I had the strangest idea that the two of them would have a fun time playing a game of strip poker. The two of them could go on for hours upon how much they hated me, and then the night would end with him giving her a firm hoofshake and a schedule detailing when I was asleep. On an unrelated note, think’st thou that Elkington’s throat would play nice with a piece of garrote wire? We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it. As of now, we should focus on doing this little quest. The walk seemed to last forever. “Quest”? Ha! Have you updated your quest log about this one? I fought to keep down a nostalgic smile. Serious time, Jericho, serious time! Hey, don’t look at me. I only just learned that the “sex” spot on the character sheet was not for keeping score. Besides, it’s not a proper quest log because it’s not filled with every miscellaneous task I have. We stopped in front of the door. Something about it felt wrong, like if I opened it, it would reveal a giant penis poking out of Blackout’s genitals; her lady bits were actually just a sheath for a retractable shaft. Why don’t real people I don’t know randomly ask me to do strange favors for them that often involve murdering other people? Ah, I miss playing tabletop Rollenspiele. “Hey,” I whispered to the mares, “after we save the world or whatever, would you two be up for a game of Dunkelheit und Drachen? What do you say, Paladin Cards?” I could just imagine myself commanding in dark tones, ‘Paladin Cards, put these clothes on—dance for me like the monkey you are.’ Then I forcibly equip the armor onto her character, and say, ‘Oh, you are so ready, Paladin Cards! You are going to smash through, like... a bank vault... made of glass! And start bashing everypony with your warhammer; it’s going to be great.’ And then she doesn’t understand it because she’s never worn clothes in her life. Well, I supposed that her strange deputy vest thing sort of counted, but she certainly didn’t have any other pairs of clothes lying around her house save for those three vests, not even a long and suspiciously scented pair of dirty panties. Though there were socks. If I showed up randomly in her bedroom one night wearing her owns socks and... no, no, no—not continuing that line of thought. “What?” Cards whispered back. “Why are we whispering?” Dust asked. A shrug from me. “I can’t say. I mean, a jid-jid...” I blinked. Well, that was both a stutter and an attempt to combine two words with no business mating. “I just did go it...” No, that sentence structure was way too awkward to make any sense. Sighing, I shook my head, resigning myself to silence. At least there was a doorknob to—aaand it was locked. Okay. Guess I had to pick a lock. Again. Tick. Tack. Tock. There. Done. Scheiße! “I would make a great surgeon,” I muttered, picturing myself picking a lock to someone’s open-to-the-air heart, which somehow solved their sexual impotency. Malpractice? Ha! What was that? We all entered the rather sizable room, and I immediately got the feeling that something was wrong, and I wasn’t even surprised in the slightest. Knowing how my life was going at this stage, this would somehow end with Blackout coming onto me, insisting that stallions couldn’t say no, her overpowering me, then Sheriff Strong coming in and killing me. There was, however, an absolutely lovely desk in the room, all its craftsponyship being clearly of the highest quality. If I had to be violated, at least it’d probably be on a really nice desk that I could appreciate. The large chair behind the distant desk slowly spun around—I rolled my eyes at the cliché. Seriously, what was the point of that?—and there was Blackout. In the shadow of the room, I couldn’t make out most of her face, but I knew it was her because that was how the universe worked. But before I could take my sword out and just get this over with, Cards stepped forwards. “Hello, Chief Blackout.” Cards swallowed. “Where’s Dad?” Blackout cracked a smirk that I certainly could make out. “Well, well, well, the prodigal daughter returns. Welcome home, Deputy Cards.” She looked to me. “I see you’ve brought that thing back with you. As usual. Nothing good ever comes of you.” “Where’s Dad?” Cards repeated. I could see that she wasn’t standing exactly still, slight tremors destroyed her attempted illusion of confidence. She reminded me of a puppy going up against a lion, only it wouldn’t be nearly as hilarious when the lion tore the puppy into blood ribbons. Wait. No. That wasn’t funny and just left a bad taste in your mouth. The older mare chuckled. “You know, Cards, I tried to love you, I really did: you were the culmination of everything I ever worked for, every lie I told, every heart I broke, every buck who entered me. You, Cards. You were to be my special little one, my baby girl, like mother like daughter... Instead, you were you, not the daughter I deserved. I always wondered what I did to warrant you. I worked hard to survive. I struggled and fought for everything I ever had. Your father? Third and youngest son of a wealthy business owner. His father literally owns the lifeblood of this town, and he delegates that all to his son. His life was handed to him on a silver plate. Me? I never even touched real silver until I was seven and stole a fancy fork. My life is the culmination of sin, blood, sweat, and tears.” I really wanted to heckle her with “No more monologues!” and then run up and slap her across the face. Somehow, I didn’t do that. Instead, I looked around the room. Eh, a few odds and ends here and there—like a painting of a younger-looking Blackout with a mane of, oddly, black-with-red-streaks instead of the blonde-with-black-streaks she had now—but nothing worth stealing while she was focused on Cards. “That’s... nice,” Cards said, visibly gritting her teeth. “But where is Dad?” “Strong,” she spat. “You know, at least with him in my life, I was guaranteed a meal every night. He was my Prince Charming, a guarantee of warmth at night, a full belly, a someone to care for me. But the reality about Prince Charming rescuing the mare from the tower is that the ensuing marriage is one born of rash emotions. There is no sadder mare in the world than the girl in the tower; either she’s locked away from the world or she’s trapped in a loveless marriage the rest of her life, and she’s too powerless to leave, and she’s too guilty to leave her hero, and now she has a family and she puts their safety and happiness ahead of her own. That’s what mothers do, Cards. We sacrifice ourselves for our children.” She looked down at her lap. Then, with a horizontal slashing gesture, she glared up at Cards. “And what did you do for me? Your birth destroyed my womb; it caused ovarian cysts which needed to be removed, the entire organs, and now I am barren. But when I know you are the fruit of my womb, I know that your birth didn’t make me barren, I was born barren.” She shook her head. “On the outside, you’re me: pretty, unassuming but far more than you appear. You had so much potential. But on the inside? You’re your father’s daughter. No charisma, no charm, no work ethic, no inner strength, no convictions, no beliefs, no willingness to sacrifice, no will to dominate, no nothing!” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Übermannsk and Eugenik and other stupid things,” I sighed, trotting across the room and past Blackout. They all stared at me as I went up to the windows at the far end of the room and pulled up the blinds, letting the light splash in. “There,” I chirped. “That unnecessary darkness was bothering me.” Then I looked out the window. “Oh, that doesn’t look good. That does not look good at all. I mean, this could very well ruin my d—ach! Scheiße!” I let out a screech as I collapsed to the ground, a howling pain in my leg. “GB!” Dust yelped. Something had popped, something that should never have made a noise had just popped with a decidedly dislocating sound, and Blackout was standing above me with a steel baton. “Autsch! Das war mein Bein, du Hure!” “Insolent fuck,” she hissed, literally spitting on me. I doubted she’d brushed, too! “I did not see this coming and underestimated her!” I shouted. “It has nothing to do with her being better than me, I swear to God!” There. Pride preserved. That’s what you get for not taking the alpha bitch seriously, me. “Can I get a bowl of cereal?” I moaned, because I hadn’t yet learned my lesson. She brought the baton down on my stomach so hard that I gasped and felt like I was going to vomit. “Eat shit and die.” “Can I get milk with that?” I coughed. Stop doing that, Arschloch! She kicked my external sex organs for good measure—ha! Who was wearing a codpiece? This guy!—before turning her attention back to the girls. “Anyone else wanna axe a stupid question?” I weakly raised a hoof, saying in a groaning voice, “It’s pronounced ‘ask’.” Blackout brought the baton down on my ribs. Scheiße! “You know what, keep talking. I’m taking out tons of stress by beating on you—you’re a real blessing in the skies for all intensive purposes.” “Blessing in disguise,” I corrected, and she and the baton met me before I could finish the sentence. “I know,” she said with a sick smile. “Ow, my dick!” I whined. “Because, apparently, my dick is on my shoulder...” I bit back the damn pain. “Blackout, we’re going to kick your ass and teach you a thing or two about love.” Cards stomped a hoof. “Chief Blackout! Where. Is. Dad?” Blackout snapped her attention to Cards, baton raised. “Deputy Cards, is that any way to speak to a superior officer?” “Is that any way to speak to your daughter?” she spat, and Blackout scoffed. “I have no daughter.” And the older mare charged, weapon raised. “So you better learn your place, you little bitch!” “No,” Cards said with a dejected coolness that was, quite frankly, entirely out of character. With a swift motion, she slugged a hoof into her mother’s countenance. Blackout gasped and jumped back. I watched the Chief hold her hoof over her face, then bring it away to reveal a smudge of blood. “You... you just hit me,” Blackout stammered with a look in her eyes like a gopher trying to comprehend the act of a dog and a pony violently rutting each other. “I did... I just... Holy Celestia, Chief Blackout, I’m sorry—” “You bitch!” Blackout roared, swinging at Cards. “I’ll kill you! Kill you like I should have done when you were a baby! I should have smothered you the moment they put you in my forelegs—and they would had lauded me!” Lightning Dust just stood there. Then, with a blink, her eyes went to me. “Shit!” She spread her wings and, even in the confined space of the room, jumped up and flew to me. The mare skidded to a halt by my side. “GB, are you alright?” I gave her the driest look that the eyeball, a naturally wet organ, could muster. “Well, there’s this annoying little itch on my back that my poor, poor pony physiology proper was prepared not for. If you could just get that for me, I’d be golden.” She blinked. “It’s rather low. Like, on my ass. And I can’t really see to it because that bitch dislocated my knee. Now, could you help me find a healing potion in my bags?!” “I hate you!” Blackout barked, swinging at Cards. To Cards’ credit, the little mare was damn agile. “Your pathetic father loved you, and now look where he is! For seventeen years I’ve put up with your shit, but it ends today! I never loved you! Never even cared for you! And today I’m going to finally do what I should have done a long time ago!” Wait. Cards is only seventeen? Card ducked back, impacting a shelf and knocking a framed certificate of some sort onto the ground. “Yeah? Well...” Gritting her teeth and with tears in her eyes, Cards struck her mother across the face. “I loved you!” Without another word, Cards landed blow after blow. This Cards, she was a cross between the Cards I’d first met and the Cards that had beaten Social Grace bloody as her flesh melted from within. But it was a bit like trying to teach a tapeworm how to leave his mother’s basement and become a functioning member of society: the only winning move was not to play. If she defeated her mother, it was still her mother she’d’ve beaten. If her mother won, Cards might very well die. Then Cards let out a loud grunt as a hoof hit her eye. “You love me? Good,” Blackout spat. “It’ll hurt your heart more when I murder you.” She cackled like a banshee and brought her weapon to bear. “Mom,” Cards pleaded, and the older mare froze. “Please... please don’t... please stop...” For a moment, Blackout did stop. But that was the thing, it was just for a moment. Her eye twitched. “Cards,” she said softly, “I couldn’t be fonder of you if I tried; you are the fruit of my womb.” Blackout grit her teeth. “But, well, if you lose a daughter, it’s possible to just get another. But you robbed me of that possibility—and it’s my job as chief of police to persecute thieving scum like you.” With all the fury of a hurricane and the warcry of a demoness, Blackout threw her body against Cards, swinging and beating and bashing and punching. Card screamed as her mother’s blows struck against her, raising her arms in defense, trying to parry and block with her own body. I couldn’t make out the guttural, half-mad shouts and screams Blackout made, only make out their acidic tone. She knocked Cards to the side, the little mare falling onto her back like a turtle flipped by a mare who just wanted to see it squirm and die. And that mare, Blackout, never let up as she threw herself onto her daughter, punching and scratching. Her teeth came down on Cards’ shoulder, drawing blood as Cards shrieked. Then, from the side, a black steel baton struck Blackout upside the head, the blow knocking the mare to the side, a chunk of Cards still in her mouth. Still bleeding from the shoulder, Cards stumbled to her hooves, only to be body-slammed by her mother. Now both mares were screaming in a frenzied mess of arms and limbs and weapons, one screen a primal, murderous, howl-like laughter, the other scream the lung-bursting battlecry of a mare with nothing left to lose. Baton against head. Flailing. Thin mists of spit beaten out. Droplets of crimson sent flying. Blackout stumbled backwards and fell onto the floor, her daughter not giving an inch or a second’s thought as she kept on hitting and hitting and hitting and hitting and hitting. And then it was over. Cards stood over her mother’s body, panting heavily. Drops of blood caked her face, her teeth gritted, crying silently as she looked down at her mother. But Blackout didn’t look back up at her daughter. In fact, Blackout wasn’t looking at all, one of her eyes and part of her skull visibly caved in. She dropped her bloody baton and took a step back, eyes wide as she truly, truly took in the sight of her deed. Her breaths came in quick and shallow as she look at her blood hooves, then looked at the pony who gave birth to her. “M-mom?” Cards said weakly. “Mom...?” Nothing. “Mom?” she asked with tones of desperation in her voice. I leaned myself against the desk, the problem with my leg fixed and everything. Dust stood to my left, watching Cards. I shook my head and said Cards’ name softly. “Mom!” Cards shouted. “Chief Blackout! Oh Celestia, no, no, no!” “She’s gone from us, Cards.” “No, no, no, no!” she just yelled, falling to the ground and sobbing. “Mom!” she cried, like a little filly lost in the woods, wolves hounding her. Cards was just a little girl, tears drowning her eyes as she wailed. I looked to the crying mare, to Dust, then to the bloodied mare on the ground. There were so many things to find sort of funny about this, a long list of wisecracks just dying to be made, and at least three jokes that demeaned Cards. But... those would be the wrong things to say and do. I walked over to her and knelt down. “Cards.” She cried in that pitiful, childish way that a frightened baby might cry. With a sigh, I did the only rational thing a pony could at a time like this. I reached out and wrapped her in my arms. “There there, sweetie, don’t cry,” I cooed. “It’ll be alright, Cards. It’ll be alright.” The mare in my arms protested something, a weak, “Don’t touch me.” But in my embrace, she nuzzled up to my chest and cried her heart out. Blood from her nose and shoulder found its way onto my coat, reminding me to take out a healing potion. I popped a cork off one and, practically holding it like a bottle for her, made Cards drink it and another one just to be safe. I sat back and cradled her upper body in my arms, brushing a hoof through her mane as I tried to calm her down. God, how old was she? Seventeen, her mother had suggested? She was still a child, really. She certainly had no business out here; her business was in finishing up school. How in God’s name had her life screwed up so hard at such a young age? Her damn brain didn’t even finish growing and maturing for nearly a decade at least. Looking up from Cards, I saw Lightning Dust crouching right in front of me, biting her lip. After a roll of the eyes, I said, “Don’t stand there like an idiot, Dust—come here.” She hesitated, but, with a bit of prodding and ocular gesturing, I got her to get in on this business. Now it was a right proper group hug, and Cards was surrounded on one side by Lighting Dust, the other side by me. The warmth must have been nice to Cards; she just felt so cold. God, this was getting cliché as hell. The group hug after a traumatic event, not the generic “murder your mother because she’s a crazy bitch” thing. At least I hoped that wasn’t cliché, because that would mean that having to murder the flesh and blood that bore you was a disturbingly common occurrence, that was an uncomfortable thought. And—hey! Dust, your hoof is a little too close to my genitals for comfort. Stop hugging Cards so tight. I blinked as Cards nearly brought herself under control. When is the appropriate time to stop hugging someone after they were forced to kill their mother? Er... maybe I should say something. I look down at the mare partially cradled in my arms. “Cards,” I said softly, “I...” She sniffled, moving her head out of my chest in order to look me in the eye. I didn’t know if it was possible, but she seemed smaller than ever. If losing Glasses was her breaking point, then what the hell was being forced to murder her mother? “I... I’m sorry, Cards. For everything I’ve done to... done against you, Cards.” There. That was the right thing to say, right? “A-and...” I tried to go for a firm but non-stern tone. “Cards, whatever anyone might say, whatever you might think, whatever impulse or idea takes hold of you, I want you to know something: Cards, you didn’t have a choice; it wasn’t your fault. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. What happened today wasn’t your fault. But by every last scrap of honor and dignity left in my shell of a body, I will make those responsible for this pay. I want you to know that I swear upon the falcon that I will hunt them down for you, Cards. “I know you think I’m a monster, and I couldn’t argue with that. I know I’m the Mephistopheles to your Faust—ignoring how I’m literally Faust—and I know you hate me more than anything else. But they’ve crossed the line, what they did to you. I swear that my every waking hour will be spent finding the bastard who did this, the demon in the swamp, the monster Elkington sent me here to kill... and for every tear you’ve shed since I arrived, I will make him pay a hundredfold in blood.” Cards just looked up at me. Her expression sent chills up my spine; it was unreadable. So many emotions battled for supremacy over her face and eyes. At the end of the climatic battle, she dropped her ears and hung her head. “I... I’d like that,” she uttered as if knowing she was making a blood pact with the Devil, with the Mephistopheles I was. Every muscle along my mouth moved as I bared my teeth and grinned down at her. Cards was onboard with this little quest of mine. That meant there was no longer anything restraining me from having fun with this job. Oh, this was going to be a very good day.