//------------------------------//
// Chapter 18 
// Story: Millie 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

	Getting two concussions in less than a day is never a good idea.  When I awoke, I wanted to just lie there, wherever it was that I had ended up, and quietly deal with the pain.  If I was still in danger, though, then that wasn’t an option.  I had to figure out what had happened to me and what to do about it.
I forced my eyes open, staring at a plain ceiling above me.  It did not look industrial, and I wondered where I could be.  I felt weak, and looked to my right and left instead of trying to get up.  The room was dark, although some illumination slanted through a window from a streetlight outside. There were a few tables around.  I surmised that I was lying on top of one just like them.
I tried to sit up.  My aching head swam, but I pressed on.  Then, I reached the limit of the ropes around my body and couldn’t rise any further.
I lay back, gingerly trying not to knock my head on the table.  I wanted to pound on it until the wood splintered and broke, though.  Caught, again!  Of course this wouldn’t be so easy.  What was with these people and bondage, anyway?  I glanced around again, trying to figure out where I was.  The walls were decorated and a few carved wood columns were spread across the room.  By their thickness, I presumed that they had a secondary load-bearing purpose. 
It took a moment to remember the furnishings, but I slowly realized that this must be the Happy Dragon restaurant.  It just looked a little different without customers and being dimly lit.
A clock on the wall said it was evening.  Wasn’t that the time that most restaurants were occupied?  Maybe they hadn’t opened today in anticipation of me being a special guest.
Okay, now I knew where I was.  How was I supposed to escape?  I craned my neck, able to see a few of the ropes that wrapped my torso.  They were looser than my previous bindings, and lying down helped a lot with the comfort.  I still couldn’t just slip out of them, and the knots were on the underside of the table where I couldn’t see them.
It was then that I realized I hadn’t been hooded again.  Well, I’m not one to look a gift pony in the mouth.  I searched for something nearby I could use to cut myself loose.  Being a Chineighese restaurant, there wasn’t a lot of silverware, just chopsticks.  I saw a drinking glass and thought that maybe I could break it to obtain shards.  That method had worked the last time, and why mess with success?
However as I attempted to grasp it telekinetically, nothing happened.  Huh, maybe I was tired.  Or more likely, getting knocked around had scrambled my brains.  I concentrated harder, my eyes narrowing as I stared at the glass.
I felt a little bit of warmth on my forehead.  I had never known magic to do that before.  Cautiously, I tried again.  This time, there was a definite feeling of heat centered around the base of my horn.  What in the world?  Had they done something to me?  Magic horncuffs?  Or...was I hurt?
I felt slightly panicked at the loss of magical ability.  Not that I’d ever had it before becoming a unicorn, but the feeling of a piece missing was disconcerting.  I can only imagine how something like that must feel to a native who’d had magic since they were born.
At least that explained why there wasn’t a hood over my face; they weren’t worried about my magic.  I was still trying to figure out the reason for the more comfortable bindings, however.  Given enough space and high enough ceilings, they could have strung me up any way they pleased.
While I was trying not to be so morbid, it did occur to me to wonder why I wasn’t dead.  Admittedly, that would have been a lot easier than trying to capture me after I managed to escape the first time.  Was I more important to somepony alive?  Why?  Some sort of revenge scheme on, uh, Miller the Killer?
That thought was terrifying all by itself.  I could think of several characters out there who wouldn’t mind killing me as slowly as possible.  I shuddered and tried to think of other things.
Jenna knew I was missing.  Hopefully she had managed to contact the police.  Would they immediately think to look for me here?  Maybe.  At least she could tell them that Joe was involved.  At least somepony was probably out looking for me.  But will they find me before something bad happens?
I heard a door at the back of the restaurant open and a few quiet voices.  One of them sounded like Gilda and the other sounded like Joe.  A small part of my brain that wasn’t suddenly freaking out noted Well, there’s the answer to my previous question.
Pessimistic as that may have been, it was justified.  The griffon and the dragon did not look particularly benevolent when they stepped into the room. I tried to control my breathing, but it got difficult when my eyes happened to notice that there was still blood on Gilda’s body, particularly her talons.
Joe seemed pleased, regarding me like he might an unopened present.  A present that Gilda had gotten just for him.  He walked closer, although never came within a half dozen feet.  “So, is this the infamous Miller the Killer?”
“The very same,” Gilda confirmed.  “I tied her here myself.”  She was not as cautious, apparently confident in her knots.  She came right up to my side.
“Interesting,” Joe murmured, leaning a few inches closer to the table.  “Tell me, Miller, what was your motivation for attempting to work with us to ‘find’ the killer?  Just trying to get close to me?  Do you get some kind of thrill from doing things up close and personal?”
I considered my options.  I decided to go with the truth, or at least a truth.  “You don’t have the whole story about what is going on here.”  
Joe nodded.  “You’re right.  We haven’t found the stallion who was doing your work for you in Canterlot.  But no matter.  Since you decided to take a more personal touch here in Manehattan, all the better for me to meet you, you sick freak.”
Well, now we were into the insult phase.  I was offended, but there were worse alternatives.  Hopefully we would go through quite a few other phases before we came to the torture one.
I thought about what Joe had just said.  Wait, Gilda knew I was back in Equestria to hunt a killer, not be one.  I’d told her myself.  Why hadn’t she passed that information to Joe? 
Several possibilities went through my head.  Was it possible that Gilda thought I was telling her tall tales in an effort to conceal the fact that I actually was the killer?  Did she believe me but was intentionally throwing Joe off?  And if that was true, then again, why?
Another possibility came to mind: Gilda herself was the killer.  From what I could see, however, there were a lot of flaws in that hypothesis.  The killer we’d been tracking seemed to prefer blunt force attacks, not slashing talons.  Also, said killer was something of a vigilante, murdering criminals and even saving my life in the process.
“I should have known something was wrong with you,” Joe said to me.  He gestured to the walls of the restaurant.  “Not even the police are willing to come here, and you just walk right in and start eating my food.”
“It tasted great,” I muttered before common sense caught up with me.
Joe put on an ugly look, his sharp teeth, or what remained of them, on full display.  As an old dragon, he looked rather less intimidating without a complete set of chompers.  Still didn’t make me feel better.
He continued.  “We still need to catch up with your associate, but you can handle that, right Gilda?”
The griffon nodded.  “Yeah, I’ll find Curtain Call.”
I couldn't help but give a sudden jerk against the ropes.  “I swear to God, if you hurt her…!”
Gilda and Joe both jumped back when I moved, but gained confidence as the ropes held me down.  I didn’t struggle much, channeling my emotion into an scathing expression.  I also felt whatever it was on my horn grow hot.  Apparently I had been subconsciously trying to make their heads explode or something.
Joe put on a contemplative look.  “Hmm, I heard you had a reputation for cold emotion.  Clearly we’ve found something to get to you.”
I swallowed and gritted my teeth.  “I’m tired of talking and playing games with you.  Get on with it.  What do you want from me?”
“I was going to just kill you, but maybe we should wait and get her here so you can watch each other die.”  The line was like something a cartoon villain might say, and Joe punctuated it with a chuckle.
This was perhaps one time in my life that I would prefer to be female, what with the “no hitting girls” rule or whatever the murdering mafia equivalent was.  Clearly, however, being a mare wasn’t going to turn them away from their plans for me.  Stupid pony gender equality.
As Joe quieted his chuckles, the restaurant’s back door opened.  I heard it first.  Gilda saw my ear twitch and looked in the direction of the door.  Joe caught her expression and glanced up.  I twisted as much as I could to see who it was.
Fleur de Lis stumbled into the room.  The skin of her face was shredded and the fact that she was still alive, much less standing, kind of astonished me.  There was a pair of hair cutting scissors in her magical grip.  A long second passed as the four of us traded stares.  Then, Fleur flung the scissors at the table where I lay.
The blades came within a fraction of an inch of stabbing me, but they found their target in the rope wrapped around my body.  Snip, snip, and I was free.
I jumped up, throwing off the ropes, and planted my hooves in a solid stance on top the table.  A quick brush of my foreleg knocked a ring made of some kind of metal off my horn.  
Gilda and Joe retreated, eyes wide.  I lowered my head and fixed my glare on them.  Any lingering cartoonish supervillian humor from the previous situation had bled straight out of their expressions.  Joe in particular looked very uncomfortable with the prospect of facing down a supposed serial killer that he’d just threatened.  I didn’t know how he and Gilda would react to me getting loose, and frankly I wasn’t interested in giving them a chance to make the first move.
Of the floor-to-ceiling columns in the room, I selected one that stood closest to Gilda and Joe.  Remembering what Jenna had speculated about my special talent being applying forces to small areas, I decided that an area the thickness of a sheet of paper and as wide as the column would do.  Basically, I was slicing it finer than an ax could have.
I guess rage must really be good for something, because the effort I put forth split the column neatly in the center and it fell over.  Gilda grabbed Joe and yanked him towards the front door as the ceiling on that half of the room came crashing down.
I stood there on the table as the dust settled, slightly shocked at how things had turned out.  Gilda and Joe had probably escaped, but not without a good scare.  At least they wouldn’t be a problem for a little while.  All the plaster and wood framing that was dumped in the center of the room had created a barrier between me and them.
Us and them, I corrected, turning my head to spot Fleur.  She wobbled where she stood.  A few drops of blood rolled out of the gashes on her face and dripped to the floor.  I jumped off the table and approached, cringing at her wounds.
She collapsed into my hooves as I got close.  Her breath was ragged and there was no telling how much blood she had lost.
“Why?” I stammered.  There was really nothing else I could say.
“At the warehouse, you distracted Gilda from what she was doing to me,” Fleur whispered.  “You saved my life.”
I heard sirens in the distance, coming closer.  One of Fleur’s tattered ears moved a little.  I took it as a good sign.  “Hear that?  Help is on the way.  Just hang in there.”
Her lips pulled back in what might have been a smile.  Honestly, trying to figure out what Fleur’s expressions were with her face so screwed up was giving me fits, not to mention freaking me out.  Her eyelids sliding closed was certainly not what I was hoping to see, however.
“Aw, Christ!  Fleur!”
I heard voices approaching and the back door slammed open.  “Manehattan Police!”
“In here!” I called.  “Get an ambulance!”
A couple of cops came into the room.  Seeing the disaster area that the inside of the restaurant had become, they paused in surprise.  A second passed and the medical ponies entered the building.  They came over to me.
I let them take Fleur.  The cops tried to ask me a few questions, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk.  I took a few steps and found myself near the door.  Getting out of there sounded like a good idea.
Ice was in the crowd of law enforcement ponies outside.  He came over to me.  I didn’t look at him.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Gilda apparently works for Little Puffy Joe.”
There was nothing in his manner that said I told you so, and for that I was grateful.  I asked, “How did you find me?”
“A tip from a concerned citizen.”  Ice shrugged.  “What took place inside the building?”
I told him the story.  He listened well, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.  Also, I didn’t care.  This day had already given me too much else to care about.
After I finished telling Ice what I knew, I asked him what he knew.  “Where’s my wife?”
“She’s safe.”
“That’s not what I asked,” I growled.  Ice probably didn’t deserve the tone I used, but I was so, so done with screwing around.
“I don’t know where she is,” he admitted.  “Maybe at the jazz club.”
“If you don’t know, then why did you tell me she was safe?” I asked, leaning into his face and showing more teeth than was really necessary.
“Because I assigned six agents to follow her for protection.”  Ice frowned.  “I know you don’t like me, but I’m good at what I do, okay?  Now, you’ve been through the wringer today, but I need your help for a few more things.”
I considered that for a moment before reluctantly sighing.  “Like what?”
“You said Joe and Gilda were here, but we didn’t manage to catch them.  You’re arguably the most knowledgeable about those two.  If we’re going to track them down, you would be a big help.”
It wasn’t a true compliment, but I did appreciate that Ice at least acknowledged what I could do.  However, more important things were at stake.  “I can’t go after them.  I still have to find the serial killer so the Lunar Guards will let me off the hook.” 
Ice looked annoyed.  “That again?  Look, the reason I haven’t been enthusiastic about that case is because I was trying to take down Joe’s enterprise; something that could actually be done!  Right now, we have this opportunity to catch Joe and one of his top goons.  You, on the other hand, want to put an entire case together and identify one pony out of this whole city who has been killing crooks.  If I remember correctly, you have a day or less left.”
That was true.  I didn't even know if the Lunar Guards would give me until midnight or just declare times up at an arbitrary point during the day.  Still...
“We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” I muttered.  Ice didn’t get the reference, but I wasn’t expecting him to.  This is what I had to do to get home.  Impossible, but yet I had to do it.
I frowned.  On the other side of that...I painfully admitted that Ice had a point.  I could go on a wild goose chase of some killer that we knew next to nothing about, or I could eliminate the top figure in organized crime and his psycho griffon enforcer.  Heck, maybe the killings would stop when there were no more criminals to kill.
But I couldn’t make that decision without Jenna’s say.  She was just as invested in this as I was.  “I’m going to The Metronome.”
I turned to leave, but paused.  I gritted my teeth and let out a forced sigh.  “Thank you for rescuing me.”
Ice nodded, but said nothing.  I started walking.
Two agents followed me.  I didn’t talk with them, but appreciated that I was finally getting some help.  We headed through the night, straight for the club.
Pushing open the door, I stepped in out of the cold.  Iridium was there.  There were a few ponies around, but not enough for a real crowd.  Considering that they seemed to know the agents that had come in with me, I assumed that they were the ponies Ice had sent with Jenna.  Speaking of her… “Iridium, is my wife here?”
“She came in just a few minutes ago.”  Iridium gestured to the agents sitting there.  “These gentlecolts practically had to drag her.  She was very distraught about you.”
“Well, I’m fine.”  I was still dirty, tired, bloody, and concussed, but in one piece.
Iridium nodded.  “I’ll go find her for you.”
As he exited the room, Octavia came in with the pair of ponies I had run into outside the warehouse.  All three of them locked me in a tight, enthusiastic hug.  
“So glad you’re okay, Millie!”
“We were worried sick.”
“I am glad.”
I appreciated their sentiments, but was a little confused about the newcomers.  Now that I wasn’t running for my life, I suddenly realized that I was looking at a disguised Vinyl and Photo.
Vinyl’s blue mane had easily turned vibrant green with the addition of yellow dye, and a change in sunglasses had altered her appearance significantly.  Her simple cutie mark, drawn on with a permanent marker, had been easy to modify.
She caught me staring and chuckled.  “I guess one good thing about being albino is that it’s easy to change my looks.  Mom used to use me as a blank canvas for modeling all the time.”
Her mother nodded.  It was the first time I had seen Photo without sunglasses or a dress and I barely recognized her.  I frowned in thought as I looked at her cutie mark, shaped like a star with smaller ones around it.  “That’s an interesting mark.  Is it a camera flash or something?”
Vinyl jumped in before Photo spoke.  “That’s probably what it means to her.  Strangely enough, though, it looks almost exactly like Element of Harmony Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark,  so mom likes to joke that she makes ‘ de magicks’ with her work.”
They both chuckled.  I didn’t get the joke.
Octavia broke in.  “From what we heard, you were lucky to get away.”
I nodded.  “It was good that the cops showed up when they did.”
“We did that,” said Vinyl.  “Or rather, mom started it.”
Photo nodded modestly.  “I was following my rival, Fleur de Lis.  Imagine my surprise when I saw you kidnapped.”
While it was creepy that she was so serious about fashion to go to the lengths of stalking her competitors, it was still fortunate for me.
“Photo came to find Vinyl and I and we developed her film here at The Metronome,” Octavia explained.  “Dim lights are good for things besides setting club atmosphere.”
“The police don't really like going into the Chineighese District because it’s so full of hard core criminals,” Vinyl explained.  “They wouldn’t come until we had proof that you had been taken.  Octavia convinced them with the pictures while mom and I got a closer look.”
“What was with the disguises?” I asked.
“Extra security,” Photo replied.  She didn’t elaborate further.
“We didn’t want to be noticed.  Joe had seen me at the restaurant and mom is kind of a celebrity,” Vinyl pointed out.
“And my regular exercise routine to stay in shape made me the fastest runner, so we decided that I should summon the police.”  Octavia rolled her eyes.
“But how did you all find me at the restaurant?  And how did Fleur get there?”
The three of them looked at each other in confusion.  Octavia was the first to speak.  “Fleur?  What do you mean?  We knew she’d slipped out of the warehouse somehow because she wasn’t there when the police entered.”
I blinked.  Fleur, while bleeding to death, had somehow made it several dozen blocks from the warehouse to the restaurant.  How had she even known where Gilda was taking me?  
And where had Ice come from?  Even if Fleur did know about the Happy Dragon, she couldn’t have encountered Ice to tell him because he would have gotten her some medical attention.
I looked up as Iridium came into the room. His face was as flustered and worried as I had ever seen it.  “I’m afraid that I can’t find your wife anywhere.”
My heart skipped a beat.  “What do you mean?”
“I’m terribly sorry.  She’s not in the building.”
The agents that were supposed to be protecting her all jumped up, but the glare I fired in their direction froze every one of them in place.  
“Which one of you do I need to hurt first?”  My teeth slowly clenched.  I had to force them apart to keep speaking.  “I was kidnapped twice today, and all I wanted to do was come back and find that my wife was safe!”
One of them stepped forward.  “It’s not like that.  We didn’t think she would-”
“No, don’t put this on her, you don’t get to make excuses!  You had one simple thing to do; watch her, and now she’s gone!  I don’t care if she left on her own, you shouldn’t have let her out of your sight!”
My muscles twitched and my breath came sharply through my nostrils.  The pony in front of me tried to move forward and appease me.  I stabbed a hoof at him.  “Take one step closer and I’ll break every bone in your body.  Don’t look so surprised; threatening a federal agent is the least dangerous thing I’ve done today.  With my wife missing, I literally have nothing left to lose.”
I had all of the agents so nervous that when the door slammed open they all jumped about a foot in the air, more for the pegasi.  I wasn’t looking at them, though.  Jenna walked through the door.
I rushed forward, meeting her in the center of the room.  We initiated the most appreciated hug I’d ever had the pleasure of partaking in.  It was amazing how my anger could just bleed away like that.  I still wasn’t sorry about making the threats, but I could fake an apology later.
“Where did you go?” I asked.
“I had to get out of here and find you,” Jenna murmured against my neck.  “I waited outside that restaurant for so long.  I was just about to go in all by myself.  When Gilda and Joe ran, I followed.  I’m so sorry that I didn’t wait for you.”
“It’s okay.  I’m okay,” I told her.
“Wait, so you know where Little Puffy Joe and that griffon who works for him are now?” asked one of the agents.
I did not appreciate the interruption, but he had a point.  Jenna nodded in confirmation.  “They’re in a small apartment near the train station.  I think it might be Gilda’s place.”
The room suddenly burst into a flurry of activity.  Octavia, Vinyl, and Photo quickly started developing plans with Jenna and I.  The agents were all creating their own plans and contacting their friends.  Iridium saw that the late night was going to get even later and went to make coffee.
Ice showed up in only a few minutes.  He listened patiently to the information we had gathered.  When he turned for the door to join the agents that were going to head to Gilda’s place, I stopped him.  “We’re going, too.”
He looked at me.  “I thought you had your own case to solve.”
I shrugged.  There were several reasons Jenna and I wanted to go.  Maybe for the satisfaction of seeing those who had wronged me punished.  Maybe because I thought the killer would go after Gilda and Joe and I wanted to be there when that happened.  Regardless, Ice didn’t stop us.
“We’ll keep working from here,” Octavia told me.  Beside her, Vinyl nodded.
“Thank you both.”
“For everything,” Jenna added.  “You’re good friends.”
We left them there.  Jenna and I followed Ice out the door.  We tried to get across town as quickly as possible.  The freezing weather didn’t help, but I barely noticed it.
The apartment building Jenna pointed us towards was not too shabby, but being right next to the railroad tracks probably drove the rent down.  I wasn’t concentrating on the building, though.  If we were going to end this tonight, we had to move quickly.
The crowd of agents, Jenna, and I went through the front door.  The building was four floors tall, and according to the directory posted in the foyer, Gilda lived at the top.
We went up.  I was beside Ice as we came up the final staircase and pushed open the hallway door.  Gilda and Joe were just exiting her apartment.  Her talons were gloved, and she had the dragon in a controlling headlock.
It was a long hallway, giving Gilda more than enough head start.  She dashed for the roof access door, managing to drag Joe along.
The group of us dashed after them.  I actually beat Ice onto the roof, skidding to a halt as I saw Gilda standing over the fetal position of Joe.  Closer now, I saw that his face and body were covered in bruises and a little blood.
Gilda stared us down from across the snow-covered roof.  The wind picked up a little.  Somewhere in the background, I heard a train whistle.
“Stop right there!” ordered Ice.  “You’re both under arrest!”
“Nah,” said Gilda.  “You’re not taking me, not after what I’ve done.”
Her flippant remark to him was so casual, almost like something I would say.  Gilda’s eyes flicked to me, expression softening.  “You’re the real deal, aren’t you, Millie?  I didn’t believe you at first, but I should have.  Sorry I used you to get closer to Joe.”
I shook my head.  “What are you talking about?”
Joe started to get up.  Gilda grabbed him and landed half a dozen hard punches to his gut.  He wheezed in pain and stopped moving again.  Gilda looked up at me again.  “You inspired me, Millie.”
And suddenly, it made sense.  I took a step towards her.  “Are you serious?  You infiltrated Joe’s gang just to take it down from the inside?”
“What can I say?  I’m a fan of your work.”
My mouth opened and closed.  I glanced at Ice.  It was pretty obvious that he’d figured it out, too, and was giving me an unkind look.  Whatever, I could explain later.  
I turned back to Gilda.  “All this time, you were the one we were after.”
She nodded.  “I didn’t realize who I was dealing with.  If I’d only known who you were earlier…”  Gilda shook her head.  “Sorry again.  I didn’t want to fight you, but I had to in order for Joe to be where I wanted him.”
Joe made the mistake of moving again.  Gilda delivered another few hammer blows, this time to his face.  He coughed and spit out blood.
I started forward again.  “You’ve got him now.  The cops are here.  We can put him away for a long time.”
Gilda looked at me for a moment, her expression turning sad.  She glanced over the edge of the building.  The train I’d heard earlier had come into view.  Gilda grabbed Joe by the throat and hauled him up to stand beside her.  She put one foot on the edge of the roof.
“Stop!” I gasped.
She gave me one final look and then went over the side with Joe.  I tried to reach out, to do something, anything, but the two of them were gone.  Four stories below, the train’s brakes started to screech, but it was too late.