Chairs were uncomfortable.
Gander shifted in his seat once more, little more than a plain wooden bench placed along the hallway wall. It was carved from a single block of solid oak, with a high back and thin little armrests that jutted out from the sides, built for function over form and simplicity over stature. While lacking in any sort of padding to protect a delicate posterior from the hardwood, it wasn’t the absence of cushioning that was the source of his discomfort; he’d been raised in rocky roosts, after all. It had more to do with the size and the shape of the seat, and how it was clearly made for smaller hind ends than his own. Equine though his rump may be, he was just slightly too large and too long to truly fit in any manner resembling a seated position.
However, Gander had been ordered to sit and so sit he did, or at least tried to do. As much of his pony form rested on the chair as was physically possible, though his dark hooves still touched the dull green tiles decorating the floor. The rest of him, the aquiline front half of his body that brought to mind a waterfowl, stood at attention jutting out in the middle of the hallway. All in all, he looked as if he was trying to fit in a foal’s chair while attempting to maintain a look of professionalism.
It wasn’t working.
Though he was blocking much of the hallway, it wasn’t likely to cause a problem with any passersby. There was but a single door at the end of this hall, grey like the rest of the walls but with a misted window to hide its contents. The letters ‘CPT GUMSHOE’ were etched prominently on its face, and whatever lay beyond was further blocked from view by shutters of drawn blinds, a sign of one who greatly respected her own privacy. If any of the other officers within the little police station had business with their chief, they would be seated alongside him waiting.
The captain liked to keep ponies waiting for her. Gander assumed it was an intimidation strategy, which given his strict griffon heritage actually improved his view of his commanding officer. He respected ponies with a backbone, and the captain certainly had one of those. Still, the intimidation factor was less than successful on Gander, which meant the wait merely gave him time to think.
It had been three months since he arrived in Equestria, the first time in his sixteen years of life that he’d ventured away from his homeland. Not that this trip was his own decision; he’d been virtually exiled by his kin, forced on a quest he wasn’t entirely sure he was capable of completing. As a rite of passage, his griffon father had determined that the young hybrid must leave the land he’d never quite fit in with, and depart to Equestria to seek out the approval of his pony mother. The very same pony that had died giving birth to him, to be precise.
Gander still was unsure whether this was a cruel barb or an earnest attempt to teach him of his heritage. He was certainly against the idea at the time, as these soft and colorful ponies were the near mirror opposite of the harsh and merciless griffon lifestyle to which he was accustom. Even a comparatively weak hybrid such as himself, always a step behind the rest of his warrior kin, was more than a match for just about any pony in a fight. His childhood had been one constant brawl, pitting himself against youths his age in combat. Battle was what he was raised to do.
Griffons fought for food, or at times fought their food, while ponies on the other claw... Ponies fought with food. Food fights. If he'd not seen with his own eyes ponies engaged in battle with pies as ammunition, Gander would never have believed it. It was unreal.
As physically capable as they could be, and Gander had seen some awe-inspiring acts of strength in his limited time in Equestria, ponies simply were not... predators. They were not accustomed to killing, they were not hardened to death. Even the most vindictive among them, and some ponies were perfectly capable of betrayal, were still not as cutthroat or as brutal as the hatchlings Gander once competed against for breakfast.
Not that his hybrid stomach could handle the bloody slabs of meat the others fought over, but it was more the principal of the battle. Griffons fought. They valued strength and they lauded victory, and these achievements could only be made through ritualistic contests. It was the griffon way, and ponies could not have been any different if they tried.
Which, Gander was starting to learn, wasn’t so bad. Weak though many of them may be, they were not entirely undeserving of respect. It was a radically new worldview for him, and he had this visit to thank for it. He’d found Equestria to be a fascinating place, so much so that he’d decided to stay and live in the port city in which he’d first arrived. Meeting ponies, learning about them and their lives, gaining friends; undeniably, it was changing him.
Though, Gander thought as he sat waiting in that little hallway, perhaps it was not changing him fast enough for some.
The door to the chief’s office opened at last. A pale gold, middle-aged earth pony mare stood within, with a look on her face like she’d bought the bar a drink and, not only had they not thanked her, she’d had to clean up the mess after. Profoundly unhappy with life, Gander would have described it. It matched her personality well, and he had to wonder just how much of that could be attributed to the stress of the job. Perhaps the state of her mane could be blamed on her position, as well. It was prematurely graying, a shade reminiscent of gunmetal, and styled in a way that could only be seen as frazzled. It was heavily braided, with many loose strands breaking free and curling in the humidity. The legend around the office said a new hair went rogue for every disaster she’d had to corral. Judging by the deteriorating state of her hairdo, Gander was the cause of no small amount of those headaches.
The chief waved him in with a hoof and he followed her into her office with a minimal amount of limping. She appraised his stride with raised eyebrow. “I thought I told you to get those injuries looked at, Officer le Gannet.”
“I did this, capitaine.” Gander said as he took a seat. The scales along his left arm sported a new angry red cut down its length, while his ribs were bruised so heavily that he avoided taking any deep breaths. He was missing more than a few feathers, and he sported a collection of various scrapes and scratches that were unavoidable in any good fight. Nothing was bleeding, so he waved away her concern. “The doctors, they say no wounds are deep. I will attend these later.”
Captain Gumshoe only sighed as she moved behind a desk heavily laden with paper strewn about in no particular order. She sat upon a worn office chair of her own, one that creaked as she leaned back with a silver tin between her hooves. She popped a wad of something in her mouth, returned the tin to her desk, and began to chew with a content expression, no doubt having looked forward to that little stress reliever for the entire day. Gander dutifully waited for the chief to get her fix without interrupting. At last, she stared him down, speaking through her chew.
“Another griffon thing, huh? Well, you’d better not end up laid out with an infection just because you’ve got more pride than brains.” She tapped a hoof to her desk in emphasis. “You won’t accept a partner, you never wait for backup, and now you’re refusing to get patched up.”
Gander opened his mouth to justify himself, but she waved it off. “Speaking of backup, last night’s display was the worst case of insanity I’ve seen in twenty years on the force. You charged into a suspected syndicate stronghold.” She chewed furiously, blowing a light pink bubble as a sign of her displeasure. As it popped, she continued. “Alone! You could’ve been killed, and you came darn close to it. What were you even thinking, rookie?”
The griffon rolled his wings back in a shrug. “I was thinking if you chase your prey, it will go to ground. You find its den, you find more prey.” Unsure if the average pony would understand a hunting metaphor, he struggled once more to explain himself. “There were two with the look of lawbreakers. I interrupted this and I thought, where there are two, perhaps there are more. I was right, yes?”
Gumshoe’s bright magenta eyes were locked on a piece of parchment she was holding, and she’d donned a set of thick-rimmed reading glasses as she browsed the page. “Property damage to an establishment. Complaints of terrorizing civilians, some needing therapy. Seven ponies in holding. Among them, five concussions, eight... eight broken legs, three dislocated wings, more busted ribs than I can throw a shoe at, two fractured jaws, a... did you really shatter his horn?!”
“Those grow back, yes?”
The captain returned the page to a similar stack on her desk, rubbing at her temples with her hooves. She blew another bubble, as if exhaling all of her worries away. “You’re a loose cannon, le Gannet.”
“I get a cannon?” An eyelid twitch from his commanding officer told him that perhaps there was a translation error. Or perhaps she was merely imagining the sort of lists that would be added to her desk from a griffon with firepower. Her chewing became just a little more vigorous.
“I... wasn’t even going to dignify that with a response, but then I remembered who I was talking to.” The yellow mare who was anything but mellow shook her head. “No, officer, no you do not. You’re dangerous enough as it is. Do you even know what you’ve done?”
Gander’s eyes narrowed. Even the hint of a suggestion that he was unaware of his duties ruffled his feathers. Upholding the law in Equestria was very similar to following a code of honor in the griffon kingdoms. It suited his sensibilities well, and his skillset seemed to fit the rigors of the position. He took great pride in learning and keeping to the regulations, and for any to assume otherwise was an insult of the highest order.
“Would mon capitaine like to hear of the transgressions by order committed or by length of suggested sentence?” He ran his claws through his feathers to smooth them down, favoring his injured arm. “I subdued and put under arrest breakers of the law. Is this not my duty?”
“Stand down, kid. Not quite what I meant, though some could argue excessive use of force.” Gander had yet to find another phrase in equestrian he disagreed with quite as much as that. No amount of force was too much if it got the job done. The chief pulled another page from the disaster area that was her desk. Finding the one she needed must have been her special talent, even if her cutie mark was a trail of hoofprints. She passed the parchment over to Gander. “Better way of putting it, do you know who exactly it is that’s in my holding pen right now?”
“...Red Leicester, alias of the ‘Big Cheese’.” Gander read from the paper before looking up to his captain in incredulity. “Really?”
“Oh, hush. You don’t hear me complaining that le Gannet’s a weird name. Keep reading.”
The griffon grunted but complied, reading slowly but surely. Equestrian may not have been his native language, but he'd had enough of it beaten into him to get by. As with many griffon expressions, the meaning was literal. “Red and orange coloring. Mark is of a coin. Possible talent in business negotiation. Studied abroad, graduated from Oxenford. Affiliations with the street gang known as ‘Skinflints’.” He did recall one of the pegasi saying something of the sort before being bludgeoned to unconsciousness.
“The Skinflints have been a thorn in our flank for years.” The captain blew another bubble, unable to quite break her chewing habit. “They’re not one of the oldest syndicates in Baltimare, but they’re definitely one of the largest, and recently they’ve been expanding even further. Industrial, commercial, shipping. You name it, they’ve got their hooves in it.”
“Hmm,” Gander murmured thoughtfully. He skimmed down to the bottom of the page. “Suspected in cases of assault, foalnapping, larceny. Currently thought to control criminal activity in as many as twelve of the city’s southwestern districts, up to the inner harbor.”
“Point is," the captain interrupted, "Leicester is one of the head honchos of the Skinflints, maybe even in their boss’s private circle.” Gumshoe saw the griffon’s question coming and shook her head mournfully. “No, we don’t know anything on the boss, except the name ‘Dobber’. And even then, we don’t know if it’s a nickname or an alias or what. The stallion’s a ghost.”
“So... you are saying, maybe this pony in our claws can speak of higher prey?”
“I’m saying,” she paused and spat her wad of gum into a trash can with impressive accuracy, “what we’ve got here is a dangerous pony with dangerous information and dangerous connections. Leicester is too highly placed in their gang for the Skinflints to let this one go. The department is expecting heavy reprisals from this. Increased gang activity, maybe even assaults on officers.”
“You would rather this one walks free?”
The captain scoffed. She might not be quite as unyielding as a griffon, but she still had her morals. “Hay, no. I just need to make sure you’re prepared for what’s coming. That no-good crook is right where he ought to be; behind bars. Which is where we need him to be if we’re going to get information out of him about his boss and what they’re up to.”
Something in the way she spoke piqued Gander’s interest. “What they are up to, you say. Also, that this gang is growing, and this Cheese pony is too important for a little deal." He considered for a moment before adding, "and only seven ponies you mentioned from my arrest, when I remember clearly dragging eight into the station. There is something new here, yes? Something you have yet to be saying.”
“Good eye for details,” Gumshoe said, suitably impressed. She opened a desk drawer and withdrew a small vial, rolling it across the table to Gander’s waiting claws. He peered into the glass vial, which appeared to contain many small chips of what looked to him to be ice, light blue and crystalline in form. The captain explained as she reached for more gum, “The eighth victim of your little mess wasn’t a pony. It was a donkey that we have no records on, and no previous ties to the Skinflints.
“We pulled that off him.” She nodded at the vial. “We figure it to be some kind of new drug, but our chemists can’t make heads or tails of it. Some sort of weird wild magic that interferes with the electro-whatsit devices they use. If the donkey knows anything about it, he isn’t saying. The only words he knows right now are about my mother.”
Gander wasn’t entirely unaware of stimulants, though they were rarely a problem in his experience. Griffons were too proud to want to alter their consciousness, and most ponies’ lives were so bright and happy that few of them had the urge. He turned the vial in his claws, inspecting the unusual substance. “You think perhaps these Skinflints were to use their grown power to spread this?”
“If that’s their plan, then I’m worried this stuff is too dangerous to ignore." The captain eyed the vial warily, as if it were a snake poised to strike. "The Skinflints aren’t in this for fun. Whatever this is, it’s going to make them bits by the barrel.”
“Our choices then are to challenge the strength of this gang...” Gander began.
“Which we don’t have the ponypower or the resources to do,” Gumshoe added in before the griffon continued.
“...or we hunt the source of this drug, and break it there so it can not become a threat.”
“Which we have no information about, and can‘t even make a guess at this time,” the captain clarified. “Donkeys are notoriously tight-lipped. If this one has mob connections, we aren’t going to get much of anything out of him.”
Gander scratched at the white feathers of his chin. There was no delicate way to put this, and he was not delicate by nature, so he merely spoke his mind. “And you have spoken only of this to me because these Skinflints have, as you say, hooves in everything, yes?”
The chief of police regarded him quietly. “There might well be a leak in the department,” she finally admitted. “The corruption in this city is too high to not consider it." She gazed past his shoulder to the blinds blocking the rest of her coworkers from sight. "I want to say I'd trust any of these ponies with my life, but it isn't just my life on the line if this is as big as I'm thinking it is.
"Right now, you’re new in town. I know you’ve got no previous connections, and you’ve got a strong recommendation. I know if I bring this to you, it will stay with you.” She shuffled the few Skinflint papers into some semblance of order, tossing them and the bottle into an unassuming saddlebag she'd taken from the depths of her desk. “And the way I hear you tell it, you’re something of a hunter. Well, here’s your target, le Gannet."
She passed the saddlebag over the desk, meeting Gander's eyes in the process. "You've given me nothing but trouble, but you're a good cop. Now get out there, bag this prey of yours, and try not to get yourself killed in the process.”
Gander hefted the saddlebag into place, snapping a salute as he was dismissed. “Mon capitaine.”
“Yeah, whatever. Get the hay out of my office.” She sighed as the door closed behind the limping griffon, leaving her alone with her paperwork. So many reports. So many forms to fill out and requisitions to make. So many authorities to notify. First things first, she reached for her tin of chewing gum, feeling a decade closer to retirement than she had this morning.
“I’m getting too old for this.”
***
Gander walked through the bustling station, oncoming ponies giving way to his greater bulk as he strode past rows of stall-sized cubicles separated by shoulder-high walls. Most were packed to claustrophobia-forming levels and contained typewriters and cabinets full of case files, pictures of families and word-of-the-day calendars, maps of the city with a veritable explosion of tiny pins marking locations and dry-erase boards with nonsensical theories scribbled in bright colors.
His was spartan at best and contained a small but affordably priced mattress, several high-energy granola bars with raisins, and a length of bandages that seemed to get shorter every week. The griffon found, of all of the office supplies available to him, these were the things he used most often when not in the field. He curled up on the mattress like a cat, making swift use of the long strips of sterile linen to cover his newest marks of honor. They would leave fine scars.
Caring for his injuries took little concentration on his part. Wounds were an everyday occurrence in the life of a griffon, and he’d long grown so accustomed to it that the movements were practically mechanical. It freed up his mind to concentrate on his task. An unknown drug with unknown properties from unknown suppliers, soon to hit the open market and suspected to cause quite a stir. He’d taken down one deal, more than likely a simple test of the product, but Gander doubted he had even slowed the process considerably. His time was limited, and of this he was certain.
But to do what? The captain would extract what information she could from their prisoners, of that he had no doubt, but she expected to gain little that could be of use to his hunt. This meant he was effectively flying blind in a race he could not afford to lose. Perhaps there was some higher purpose to the stronghold or the scene of the deal, Gander mused as he covered a nasty scrape. Some detail or evidence he’d not yet seen. He reached for the notes in his pack, only to pause mid-movement as he felt eyes upon him.
“Hey, hey! Look who survived,” a chestnut unicorn stallion leaned over the wall from the cubicle across from Gander’s own. He cleared the wall easily due to his height, which he used to stretch his way into Gander’s cubicle with far more familiarity than the griffon was comfortable with. He was an older pony with an easy smile, a bald pate, and a four-o’clock shadow, which was odd given that there were still hours before noon.
“Detective Cob, good morning.” He’d been warned to exercise caution. Without knowing who to trust, the office was not the place to be perusing sensitive documents. Gander returned to his self treatment, leaving the saddlebags alone for the moment. The cut along his leg had almost been seen to. It was a quality wrap, which was to be expected given his experience in patching himself back together again, after all. He paused to tear the roll of bandages free with his beak before turning back to his fellow officer. “I lived, yes. Criminals or no, they fought well.”
“I was talking about your meeting with Captain Gummy, but congrats on making it through that, too. She must’ve wanted to tear you a new one after that little stunt you pulled.” Cob laughed heartily before letting out an impressed whistle. “Still, what was it, half a dozen to one? A dozen? The rumors are getting crazier by the telling out here!”
A second unicorn head peered over the wall, though with nowhere near Cob’s level of height, this time from Gander’s left. This stallion was pure white, but the bright contrast of his alternating blue-and-red striped mane more than made up for the dullness of his coat. His youthful face was twisted into an expression that was easily the most dour that Gander had ever seen from a pony.
“Yes,” the pale one said with the flat tone the griffon was finally beginning to associate with sarcasm. “Let’s build this up as much as we can so a whole host of recruits go in trying to play hero. That’s a fantastic idea.”
Cob snorted at the other stallion in Gander’s defense. “Quiet, Rook. The adults are talking, and Gander here just bloodied a whole gang’s nose. He deserves a little recognition, wouldn’t you say?”
The white unicorn gave Gander a long stare with little to no pleasantness in it. Finally, he sighed and disappeared behind the wall, only muttering, “Fisher, my name’s Fisher,” as he returned to work.
“Don’t mind the rookie, Gander,” Cob chuckled dismissively. “He’s just antsy at getting shown up.”
“It is no matter,” Gander returned the roll to his medical kit and pushed it into a corner. “The cadet has a point in the danger of this work. All hunting carries risk, the greatest prizes most of all.”
“Yeah, well, I meant what I said,” the old cop said earnestly. “The rest of us are heading out later on to celebrate finally putting the Big Cheese into the fridge. You know the Watering Hole, right? Stop by and the drinks are on us.”
This pony was too clingy as it was. Gander did not want to see what would happen after he’d been into the wine, salt, cider, or whatever else his poison was. Not to mention the griffon was still new to this ’friendship’ concept, so anything more than polite greetings at the office was pushing it. “Many thanks, Detective Cob, but I am weary from the fight and must rest. Perhaps another time?”
“Ha!” At least nothing seemed to bring his mood down. “Whatever you say, slugger. Just keep us in mind, will you?”
Getting to his feet, Gander began to pad away. “I will do this. A good day to you, Detective.”
A brisk trot saw him out of the station and out into the harsh light of mid-morning. He hadn’t been making up excuses when it came to feeling tired. Stalking criminals took much of his nights, and his mornings were often just as busy fighting paperwork and procedures. Not to mention the wrath of one extremely tightly-wound captain. He held back a yawn, it wouldn’t do to threaten any pedestrians nearby with a show of teeth, and took wing towards his home. A nap before his hunt began would be best. It had been a long day already for Officer Gander.
It was about to get even longer.