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// Meet the Dicks 
// Story: Fillydelphia Confidential 
// by corpDemon 
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	A hard knock on the door. Voice behind it shouts "OPEN UP, F. P. D.!". Rustling is heard in the dark, some hushed arguing voices. Knocking intensifies and the door visibly bends inwards letting rays of light in with every bang, and just as it is about to give in it is wrapped in orange light keeping it in place. Inside the room the voices still argue and something is dragged on the floor and a female whelping is heard that shortly turns to crying as a hard slap resonates through the room. There is a flash of purple light followed by a loud boom, the orange glow around the door disappears and the door itself is sent flying inwards by a powerful shove from a large pony silhouette, that stumbles inward, immediately followed by another rushing inside with a strobe of light flashing from its horn all the while holding a taught slingshot. The light shines on a crying unicorn pony tied to a chair, with long blue tail and mane with a streak of white. The big burly pony runs to her and starts chewing through the ropes, while another runs around the apartment searching for somepony else, its strobe of light shining on various objects, clothes on the floor and a hat stand with one flat orange with red stripes hat still on it. Eventually it gives up and flicks the switch near the bust clean doorway, slowly illuminating the apartment from a single charging up yellow, flickering crystal. The two ponies are now clearly visible. One is an overweight yet obviously well built massive earth stallion reaching well past his mid years, cream colored with short white mane and nonexistent tail in a two piece white and gray vest. The other is a young gray unicorn stallion with dark mane and tail with occasional flashes of silvery white, sporting a fedora. The big stallion unties the mare that immediately drops into his hooves, and he pulls down the piece of cloth, that turns out to be a laced stocking, that was tied around her mouth and she immediately starts weeping and crying, he then with a powerful bite breaks and removes a metallic casing from her horn, which flashed blue. Younger stallion, with obvious pride proclaims:
-"Detectives Coal Helps and Nasty Melloway! You're safe, miss..."
-"Colgate, Missus Colgate Mint. Thank you officers."-Mare wipes her tears with a tissue the big stallion, Nasty, gives her.
-"It's okay, babe, just calm down."- He leads her to sit on the edge of a big messed up double bed.-"You just get yourself together, me and my partner here, we're gonna have a look around."-He walks to his partner standing by the window, looking outside into the night street.-"So, Coalsy, they got aways again, huh?"
-"Look, this is gotta be like a 50 foot drop! No emergency stairs either! They couldn't have gone out through the window!"
-"Well they ain't in the apartment either, unless we're both blind. What do you think of the gal back there?"
-"She's shaken up and hurt, what more do you mean?"
-"Yeah, sure, but I'm saying, what do you think of her...body. Just look at that mane and flank..."
-"Nasty! She's obviously a victim of abduction AND our witness!"
-"Don't get your tail in a knot, Coal! Nothing bad in appreciating a fine mare. Besides, just look! Not a single scratch or bruise on her, apart from that fresh sign on her muzzle, but even it is a light one at that! She's very well maintained, with impeccable hooficure, mane styling and even the way she sits."-Both stallions looked at the way she sat on the bed, slightly leaning back, resting on one of her fetlocks. They scrunch at the unnatural and uncomfortable sight.-"She's no ordinary mare, there's more to her. How in ever did she get to this neighborhood is going to be interesting."
-"So....what, you think Ham and Fam foalnapped her from the Hills? Doesn't make any sense! They're con artists and low bit pushers, moving up to foalnapping is stupid and unnecessary risky even for them. Anyway, why won't you call the station, while I try to piece together how our two friends lived here."

Nasty nodded and went out the doorway. Coal looked at Colgate and smiled sheepishly when he realized she noticed how he was looking her over. He then focused with and charged his horn to summon a pair of small pincers and a bunch of small white bags. Coal went around the apartment picking up various objects in his telekinesis and yellow glow, from table lights to floor carpets, occasionally placing something miscellaneous in the bags. Colgate had stopped crying and just looked at Coal with interest and nervousness. Nasty returned and nodded to Coal, and the two of them, without saying a word, dragged some cushions and sat opposite Colgate. Coal spoke, while Nasty pulled out a flipping notepad and a pencil from his vest and started taking notes by placing the notepad on his hoof's inner angle and pencil in his mouth.
-"Miss...Missus Colgate, we'll need to take your statement. My partner and I are going to ask you a few questions, please answer them as truthfully as possible."
Colgate looked nervous and leaned forward.
-"Can't we do this later? Maybe I'll come later to the station, as you can see, I'm not exactly...calm and collected yet."
-"I'm afraid not, m'am, most statements taken directly after a shocking event are the most helpful, as the mind doesn't have too much time to fill in the blanks and twist the memories to suit its own version of event. Now, please tell us your full name, place of living and occupation."
Colgate looked nervously at Coal, whose face hadn't changed in determination, then Nasty, who was scribbling something at his notepad occasionally glancing at her. She swallowed, took a deep breath and began answering.
-"My name is Mint Veronica Colgate, I live in east Moldingwood, Starbright Lane 12 and I am a musical score director for Legendpony Studio."
-"Mrs. Mint, how have you come to be tied to that chair?"
Colgate shifted her eyes down doing small semicircles with them and spoke softly.
-"I...was taking a walk through town...me and my husband were having our differences. I heard somepony running and when I turned to look...I was literally sacked. Then tied to that chair. And then you fine gentlecolts came and freed me. Never saw the two of them clearly enough, they never turned on the lights. Pretty much that's all that's to it."-She said the last sentences with a look of determination and kept looking straight at Coal's eyes, occasionally turning her eyes to the side for just a moment.
-"When and where have you been taken at, m'am?"
-"It was at The Hill's Park....sometime shortly after the first stars. I don't remember the exact spot, I obviously wasn't paying any attention to my surroundings..."
-"Who is your husband and how do we get in contact with him?"
-"...Jimmy Heartstrings...just look for that bum at the lowliest "exotic dance bar"..."-Colgate was obviously disgusted at the mere mention of the name. Coal looked at Nasty. Colgate noticed and clarified.-"Yes, The JimmyX, best guitar player this side of the Everfree. Also the biggest slime too."
-"I'm sorry for your marital problems, Missus Colgate. Let me ask you about more recent events. Do you remember anything since your abduction? Faces, sounds, smells, anything at all is going to help us get those criminals. Please, m'am."
Colgate shifted from side to side and spoke softly. Nasty's scribbling intensified.
-"Not much. They never spoke. They placed a bag and horn suppressor on my head when I was taken. I think i was brought here directly. No idea what they wanted with me."-Colgate lowers her head and speaks softly.-"Nor really want to know, I'm sure you'll understand. Can we please finish this questioning. I really want to get back home, just lie down on my bed...and pour myself something strong and bitter."
-"Of course m'am, just please sign under my colleague's written statement as being truthful to your words, and if you'd like we'll call in medical and psychological examiners to help you. A cab outside will take you wherever you need."
Nasty passes her his notepad. Colgate takes it in her navy blue telekinesis and makes a questioning grimace at Nasty.
-"Is that...a portrait? Of me?"-She turned the notepad towards the stallions, showing a photographic quality portrait of her on top of a long written statement.
-"I like to document everything, especially beauty such as yourself...m'am."-Nasty kept a self satisfied grin. He noticed Colgate blushing and decided to press on.-"I'd be more than glad to make a full body commission of yourself. If you'd like."-Coal bumped his shoulder at Nasty. 
-"Well, it seems to be correct."-She signed the statement with offered pencil and headed for the exit, turning around for a few farewell word, placing a hoof on the doorway.-"Thank you again officers for rescuing me. I hope you catch those two good for nothing ponies."
Nasty and Coal watched Colgate ride off in a cab into the night from apartment window.
-"What do you think, Nasty?"
-"Bitch be lying, Coal"
-"Tell me something, that isn't painfully obvious. How'd she know it was "two of them"? "-Coal said with a slight grin. He noticed Nasty take a cigarette out of a pack that was in one of the evidence bags Coal collected, that were lying on the windowsill, and light it, and with a flick of his telekinesis threw the cigarette out the window, much to Nasty's anger.-"No messing with the evidence, Melloway!"
-"Not even when that evidence is a walking breathing pony with a fine flank, that likes to lie?"-Nasty cut Coal off and smiled at him.-"Don't give me that look, you were ogling it too. You keep being stiff like that, Coalsy, you're gonna go soft at the moment of truth."-Nasty laughed and shoulder bumped Coal as they headed for the doorway.-"You drive, Coalsy, I'm gonna take a sweet nap."

As Coal stuck the crystal key and turned it in a hole beneath the wheel, waiting for the magic powered engine to spin up the gears he looked up at the already fast asleep Nasty. He sometimes felt envious of his relaxed and no-shame attitude, but most of his raw physical power. That pony, a former underground wrestler, even out of shape, had enough strength to kick down a reinforced door with just a few bucks, something he demonstrated tonight. Coal was also envious of Nasty's intuition, also a result of his experience as a wrestler, able to read facial and body languages with ease, something that took Coal himself much concentration and was a product of years of studies for a Griffon Kingdoms border intelligence officer, his best worthlessly wasted years, as he barely had any real practice apart from the occasional smuggler or a bunch of drunk teenage ponies going on a debauchery spree on the wrong side of the border. All the drive to station, he kept thinking back to Colgate and the anonymous tipper that revealed the location of Fam and Ham. He wondered if the tipper knew about Colgate, and if the tip was even correct about Fam and Ham, as he hadn't spotted them in the apartment. The orange magic field holding the door fit Fam's aura color and strength, but that and even the evidence he found at the apartments was circumstantial at best. He doubted crime scene investigators would find anything useful, even as he filled out a form asking for them to search the apartment and another to close it up as a potential crime scene. 

As he was sitting at his desk, reviewing the evidence in the bags (a chewed and broken run of the mil horn suppressor one can easily get from any black market dealer; female purple stockings used as a gag on Colgate; Ham's signature hat and one of Fam's shirts; a packet of tiny brown bricks, a new popularizing Zebra drug, more commonly know as "brownies", something Fam and Ham have apparently took to distributing lately and the whole reason Cole and Nasty were even given the case; a half empty packet of mint cigarettes; and lastly a small, silver, highly decorated metal tube, typically used for storing scrolls), occasionally having his concentration broken by Nasty's very loud snoring, the door to their office bursts open and a tall Pegasus mare with fiery red with orange streaks mane and tail dressed in white shirt tucked into a light green pants on suspenders, walks in a gives sleeping Nasty a cuff on the neck. Coal puts the bags back on the table, while Nasty rubs his neck looking at the mare and asks:
-"You wanted something, Wallsy?"-She gives him another cuff on the neck.-"Okay! Lieutenant Firewall..."
-"Any progress on that Princess forgotten scum?"
-"I'm afraid not, lieutenant. We did find a supposedly foalnapped mare, one Colgate Heartstrings..."
-"She said she's Colgate Vera Mint!"- Rusty passionately corrected.
-"Yes, her, but no F&H, though. Some generally related evidence, but nothing solid. It will all be on the report."
-"Make sure it's on my desk by sunrise, Coal."- She noticed a thick case file on Coal's desk.-"Didn't I tell you to lay off the 1st Fillydelphia's robbery? Shadowbolts handle it, Coal. They even suspect somepony's still sniffing around, you might wake up without a job!"
After she left, Nasty stood up and stretched his limbs, noding to Coal.
-"My second daughter is in the shadowbolts, she said they're at a dead end with the case. Apparently some noble is trying to cover up the whole fiasco, somepony very close to Princess. Anyway, Coalsy, I'll gonna go follow a lead."- He noticed Coal looking puzzling at him.-"That blue hottie said we should look for her husband at the nearest strip club. Only one fancy place open this time of week is The Flare. So, I'm going to go looking for him to ask why he hasn't filed a missing pony report. And if I happen to not find him immediately I may decide to stake the place. I may also get thirsty. And bored."- he noticed Coal getting up, wearing a fedora and holding a file under his pit.
-"You may also need a designated driver then. I've just have to drop this off at the lieutenant's."
Nasty was leaning against the car, smoking. As soon as he saw Cole he spat out the cigarette and stomped on it, getting into the driver’s seat. Inside he smiled at Coal and spoke with a smirk:
-”Glad you decided to relax once in a while, kid. Let me show you the way to that fine establishment.”-Nasty turned the key and the car came buzzing to life.
-”Actually I simply figured our two friends might want to relax getting away from arrest and maybe push some brownies on the side as well.”
Nasty just frowned, made gurgling noises and drove out the alley to the streets.