Babs hissed and gritted her teeth. Climbing up the stairs was a nightmare. She leaned against the dirty wall next to the door to Nightcap’s place and produced the key from the pocket of her jacket. She opened the door and trotted inside, breathing heavily.
Slowly, Babs got to the closet and opened it. She threw the dresses on the floor and found the gun hidden behind them. She smirked and put it in the inner pocket of her jacket. Then she trotted to the kitchen.
The whole world was spinning around her. She found the kitchen sink, opened the tap and drank some water. Her vision became less blurry. She realised that her fur was drenched in sweat and splashed some water all over it.
She left the flat and trotted down the stairs, almost falling from them. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath and went down the street as quickly as she could.
Her mind was now focused on only one thing – a locker in the restaurant where they’d hidden the ammo after they had buried the griffons. She sped up, ignoring the pain and fever. Some ponies looked at her unsurely when she limped between them, but she didn’t care; they didn’t know what she felt and she hoped for it to stay that way.
Bodyguards, then the boss. It sounded easy, but there were many things about that plan that could go wrong. There could be someone else in the house. Or maybe the boss was away? Babs knew about those possibilities, but she ignored them as well. She wanted revenge and she’d get it, even if she had to wait for him to come back home.
She saw the entrance to the subway station in front of her and trotted to it through the crowd. Just a quick ride and she’d have bullets…
Then, nothing would stop her.
Lightning Dust checked the contents of her saddlebags for the umpteenth time. She shifted on the couch nervously. The Big Guy’s thugs replaced the couch Babs had been raped on with a new one, but still Lightning Dust couldn’t help but shudder when she sat on it.
Lightning started to breathe deeply to calm herself down. The items in her saddlebags clinked against each other, almost making her jump in fear. She heard someone opening the door and quickly moved to the bedroom.
She looked around the room and noticed the camera. They’d sometimes used it to record themselves having sex, but today she was going to find a new purpose for it. She sat on the large bed and threw her saddlebags aside. Hearing someone trotting around the house, she spread her hind legs slightly and rubbed her clit gently with her hoof. Slowly, she started toying with her labia, making a few moans – they seemed silent, but they were loud enough for the other pony to hear her. She sat on the bed and started massaging her clit with her wings, throwing her head backwards and biting her lips.
The door to the bedroom opened. Lightning Dust took her wings away from her nether regions and focused her eyes on the brown unicorn who entered the room.
“Are you bored, or what?” he asked, looking at her with barely hidden disgust. “Really, Dust? Wanking? Are you that unfucked, slut?”
“I was waiting for you…” Lightning Dust replied, prodding her vagina with her hoof absentmindedly. “I need you…” She winked seducingly.
“I don’t have time,” he replied. “Go and fuck your loose cunt with a jackhammer. Maybe this’ll manage to get you off…”
“Pleaseee…” Lightning Dust flew to him and wrapped her hooves around him. “I brought some new toys. You’ll like ‘em…”
A slap to the face threw her on the floor. She rolled on it, whimpering. The unicorn stood above her, shaking his head. “Get up, cunt!” he shouted, pulling her mane.
Lightning Dust looked at him and smiled internally – she could see that beating her excited him. Now he was in her hooves. Instead of standing up, she crawled between his legs and began sucking on his penis. He backpedalled, caught off-guard, but soon he relaxed and even smacked her wings a few times, causing her to groan in pain.
“Shut up,” he muttered. “Wonderbolt, huh? Your wings are useless. The only thing you’re good at is givin’ head…”
Lightning Dust paused and stood up. “I assure you that it’s not the only one…” She pointed at the bed. “Come and see…”
He lay on the bed, while Lightning Dust produced an anti-magic ring from her saddlebags. She stood above him and lowered herself on his penis, feeling it entering her and giving a long moan. She put the ring on his horn and took two pairs of hoofcuffs from her saddlebags, cuffing him to the bed’s frame.
“Not so fast…” he muttered, looking at the hoofcuffs unsurely. “What’s the safeword?”
“We won’t need it,” Lightning Dust replied, moving her hips up and down slowly. “I know your limits…” She placed a kiss on his lips and pulled her saddlebags closer to herself, rummaging through them.
“What else do you have there?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. Something about Lightning Dust seemed off. Usually, she rarely wanted to dominate. He shrugged it off; it was actually a nice change and he didn’t even say anything when Lightning Dust put a ball gag in his mouth.
Lightning Dust smiled triumphantly. Her movements grew faster. She started to rub her clit with her wings quickly, giving out spasmodic groans. It didn’t take long when a wave of her juices seeped into his fur. Her body twitched in orgasm; her hips bucked for the last time and she rolled off him, lying on the bed next to him.
He murmured something through the ball gag, looking at his erect penis. Lightning Dust stood up, took a tissue from the box standing on the nightstand and wiped herself. The Big Guy furrowed his brows and muttered something impatiently.
Lightning Dust shook her head. She stood up and trotted to the door, locking it. “We need to talk,” she said, coming back to him. The smile she had when she was basking in the afterglow of her climax disappeared. “Remember when you told me that you’d rather die than get caught?”
“Mmph?” The boss started to sweat.
“I called the cops,” Lightning Dust said, smirking. “For what you did to young Seed…”
His eyes widened. He struggled against his restraints, but without a result. Lightning Dust watched his efforts with a playful smirk.
“Don’t worry,” Lightning Dust said. “They won’t catch you. I give you an opportunity to get away with this…”
Another muffled groan. His thrashing intensified. Lightning Dust took her saddlebags and produced a pair of shears. “So, I borrowed those from the gardener,” she said. “He said that they’re kinda dull, but it doesn’t matter.” She placed the shears in a strategic position, making him sweat.
“Oh yes,” Lightning Dust said through gritted teeth. The very view of him lying bound and gagged on the bed was making blood flowing faster in her loins. She supressed the urge to use her wings to get herself off again. “The guards won’t get you… alive.” She gave out a short chuckle, but her eyes remained cold, focused on him. “You’ll die… but only when I let you…”
He gave out another incomprehensible sound. Lightning Dust sat on the bed, her hooves still on the shears. “You know, though I didn’t became a Wonderbolt, I have my honour. I don’t like being called a slut and I just can’t stand when someone hurts fillies…” She leaned to him and looked directly into his eyes. “I also like reading about wars…”
He raised his eyebrows unsurely and thrashed, trying to kick her.
Lightning Dust smirked. “The Utulivu Uprising in Zebrica, thirty five years ago. Lots of POWs. The battalions of specially trained mares who… Well, soon you’ll see…”
Still smirking, she slowly closed the shears.
Babs barely got to the station, when she felt that someone was following her. At first she thought that she was wrong – many ponies were giving her weird looks since her limping had gotten worse and she felt that some of her stitches had snapped.
How lame… she thought. To die while shitting blood…
However, there were not only the ponies; she had a nagging feeling that someone was watching her. Babs had once read that a pony carrying a hidden gun tended to imagine that other ponies around them also were armed. She, however, knew that it wasn’t the case. Something in her brain – a sixth sense every kid in Manehattan possessed – was giving her clear warnings.
She decided to ignore them. She only had to get to the train, find the ammo in the restaurant and then nopony would stop her.
“Babs? Babs Seed?” she heard a mare’s voice just above her. She lifted her head.
First thing she saw was a pair of striking, blue eyes looking at her. She stopped, startled. Then she looked at the pegasus above her more carefully and froze. The blue-eyed mare with white coat and light blue mane with darker streaks was wearing an armour and a helmet. Babs rushed forward, but then she bumped into another guard and sat on the ground, rubbing her forehead.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” the mare said, landing next to her. Her companion approached Babs, blocking the way of escape. Babs could only walk away to the social room for the subway employees station with them. They sat at the table, facing each other. Babs thought about a knife in her pocket. The guards had armours, but if she aimed at the eyes…
“My name’s Hope,” said the pegasus mare and pointed at the stallion. “And this is my partner, Tricky Case. We’d like you to empty your pockets…”
Babs shuddered when she felt Tricky Case’s magic levitating the knife and the lighter out of her pockets. “I… I’ll do that myself…” she muttered. She unzipped her jacket and put the gun on the table, raising her head and looking into Hope’s eyes.
“Where did you get it?” Hope asked. Her voice was calm and soft, but for Babs it was like a stab in the heart.
“I think it’s obvious,” Tricky Case said. “I wonder what we’ll find if we do ballistics tests… Or maybe you’ll spare our forensics team work and tell us where have you been and what have you done, Seed?”
Babs looked at him, but said nothing. She only gritted her teeth and lowered her gaze.
“We can talk with the prosecutor,” said Hope. “If you start to talk…”
“Oh, fuck off…” Babs muttered.
“Listen, Babs, we don’t want to put you in prison,” said Hope. “You’re a wise filly. We’ll help you.”
Babs said nothing. Her vision was blurry, there was also something wrong with her ears. She looked down and suddenly noticed that her chair was covered in blood. Its drops were falling on the floor, forming a small, red puddle.
“Babs! Are you okay?” Hope asked, just before Babs passed out and collapsed, caught by gentle wave of Tricky Case’s magic.
Nightcap was just about to leave the hospital when she saw the paramedics running somewhere with a stretcher. She looked at them and noticed a part of familiar mane, visible between them.
“Babs!” she exclaimed, following them. She got past them and hugged Babs, who was lying limply on the stretcher.
Suddenly, Babs opened her eyes. “Fuck off, traitor!” she shouted and hit Nightcap with her hoof.
The blow was weak; Babs, barely conscious because of the blood loss, couldn’t hit her stronger even if she wanted. Nightcap, however stopped and sat on the ground, lowering her head. She remained there, watching the paramedics rushing upstairs.
She didn’t notice the female guard approaching her at first. “I guess it was you who called us?” Hope asked.
Nightcap nodded, still looking at the stretcher, disappearing in the distance.
“You two are friends then?”
“No,” Nightcap replied. “Not anymore. Babs will never forgive me that…”
Hope shook her head. “Maybe one day she’ll understand that it was better for her to–”
Nightcap rolled her eyes. “Excuse me, ma’am, but have ya ever seen how the real world looks like? There’s no such thing as redemption! If she ends up in prison, she’ll only learn how to be a criminal!”
“Resocialization program…”
“It’s bullshit and ya know about it well! She’ll end up in jail, just because she was unlucky to be born as a–”
One look into Hope’s striking blue eyes was enough for Nightcap to shut up. “I grew up in the worst shithole in Cloudsdale,” the guard said coldly. She was calm, but underneath that facade Nightcap could see a raging teenager she used to be. “On my sixteenth birthday I got so high that I fell off the clouds and almost broke my spine. Yet, I managed to change my life and now I’m here, wearing this…” She pointed at her armour. “So don’t fucking tell me that redemption is impossible!”
Nightcap’s head drooped. “Anyway, she’s gonna go to prison…” she muttered. “They’ll kill her there…”
“Well, the system isn’t perfect, but I don’t think she’ll be imprisoned, even though Tricky Case works on it…” Hope said. “It all depends on the gun – where it was, if it was used and if she was the one using it. She looks like a good pony… She’ll be okay…”
Nightcap froze. She knew well what Babs had used the gun for. “W-what if…”
“I’ll fight for her…” Hope said. “She’s been through a lot and even more still awaits for her. I won’t leave her…”
Suddenly, they heard the static coming from Hope’s radio. She lifted it. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“We have a problem… Remember the guy who supposedly raped that girl you caught?” the voice in the radio said. “They found him dead with the biggest–”
“I’ll talk to you in a minute…” Hope muttered, looking at Nightcap unsurely and took off, leaving her alone.
Nightcap stood in the middle of the hall, still unsure what had just happened. Lightning Dust was involved; there was no doubt about that. The letter she’d written was now hidden safely in Babs’ mane; Nightcap had put it there when she’d hugged her. Everything was in its place.
Now all she could do was to wait.
Hope landed in the bedroom and winced at the body lying on the bed. It had been covered, but the blood and feces-soaked bedclothes were giving even too clear clues about what had happened.
“Where’s that filly now?” an older guard called Baton Charge asked. “Is someone with her?”
“Tricky Case,” Hope replied. “She’ll live. What… What happened here?”
“Our little Babs apparently has friends,” the guard replied. “Eye for an eye. Or in that case, arse for–”
“Don’t.” Hope shuddered. “Just… Just don’t.”
“She used garden shears and, umm… toys. And a pipe…” The guard sighed. “She even recorded a message before she left.”
“She?” Hope asked. “It… It was a mare?”
“Sure… A mare scorned…”
Babs woke up and sat on her bed slowly. Just like before, she was immediately overwhelmed by dizziness. Her stomach twisted and turned and she leaned to the side to throw up.
To her surprise, she saw that a bucket was levitated to her. Her vomit splashed into it. She stayed above it, breathing heavily and rubbing her stomach, before finally dropping on the bed limply.
“Thanks…” she whispered.
“You’re welcome.”
She recognised that voice. It was one of the guards that had caught her, the one that told her about the ballistics tests. Her mind still was hazy, but she remembered that his name was Tricky Case.
“I need a lawyer…” she whispered, trying to focus her gaze on him. “And some water…”
“You need to fix your priorities,” Tricky Case muttered. A glass of water appeared on her nightstand. She grabbed it and drank it in one go.
“Can I at least see my parents?” Babs asked, wiping sweat from her forehead.
“Not yet,” Tricky Case replied. “If you didn’t get the last part of our meeting, you’re kinda arrested…”
“For what?” Babs asked. The water didn’t want to settle in her stomach and she felt like vomiting again.
“We hope that you’ll tell us…” Tricky Case smirked. “I’m sure there are a couple of things you’d like to share with us…”
“Fuck off…” Babs groaned. “I’m not tellin’ ya anythin’ without a lawyer… I know my rights...”
“You know many things about your rights for a young filly…” Tricky Case shook his head.
“I wanna know why I’m arrested… And I wanna see my parents…” Babs whispered. Even though she’d drunk a glass of water, her throat was dry again.
Tricky Case said nothing. Babs ran her hoof down her sticky, greasy mane and felt something. A piece of paper. She looked at the guard unsurely – he was sitting on a chair, watching her curiously.
“Hey, ya…” she whispered weakly. “Could ya throw that bucket out? It smells...”
“Not my problem,” Tricky Case replied. “You’re equine and nothing equine should be alien to you… Also, it may come in–”
Babs felt her stomach twist again; she leaned above the bucket and threw up the water along with some remains of food.
“Just what I said…” Tricky Case deadpanned.
Babs touched her mane again. Something definitely was there. It could be some rubbish; but it could also be some message. Babs gave Tricky Case a nasty look. “Can I go to the toilet?” she asked. “I need to take a leak…”
“I can get you a bedpan,” Tricky Case muttered.
“I can walk by myself,” Babs said. “I’m not gonna do that in here with ya watchin’...”
“I won’t be looking. Also, something tells me that you’d try something funny again…”
“Fuck off…” Babs muttered.
“Next time I’ll bring some soap…” Tricky Case said, levitating a bedpan. “Answer the nature call; I’m not watching.”
Babs sighed. She looked at him to ensure that he wasn’t looking and took a piece of paper out of her mane.
She could barely focus her gaze on the text. At first she winced, recognising Nightcap’s elegant hoofwriting. She skimmed the first two paragraphs, focusing on the last one.
Lightning Dust told me that you have to stay quiet. In case someone asked, she killed the griffons. She has a plan – if everything goes right, maybe she’ll be able to get you out of jail.
Destroy this letter. They can’t find it with you.
Babs sighed. As if I didn’t know that I should keep quiet… she thought. Then she started to think how to destroy the letter. If she only had her lighter…
Tricky Case cleared his throat impatiently. Babs quickly tore the letter in half and stuffed the part with the paragraph about Lightning Dust under the mattress and hid the rest in her mane. “I’m done,” she muttered.
“What took you so long?” Tricky Case asked.
“D’ya really wanna know?” Babs asked. “Maybe ya need a sample of my sh–”
“Oh, shut up…” Tricky Case waved his hoof. Babs noticed that he levitated a notebook and started to write something in it.
Probably some notes about how spoiled, uncooperative brat I am… she thought. Fuck him… Lightning will save me…
Hope looked at the mare on the screen. She seemed familiar to her; she wasn’t sure but she thought that she’d seen her in Cloudsdale. She sat in front of the camera, trying not to look at the bloodied corpse lying on the bed; she shifted her legs nervously and cleared her throat.
“My name is Lightning Dust,” she finally spoke. “This gentlecolt here is Caballo Estrangulador, also known as The Boss or The Big Guy. I… I killed him.” She shuddered visibly and Hope thought that she wasn’t, as she’d expected after seeing the corpse, a cold-blooded killer. “I used to be his lover… B-but at the same time I was gathering evidence… I’m not a guard, I just wanted to ensure my own safety… Until…” She wiped her eyes and continued in emotionless tone, “Yesterday he and his two bodyguards brutally raped a sixteen-year-old filly called Babs Seed.”
“Babs Seed?” Hope asked. Baton Charge raised his hoof, silencing her.
Lightning Dust spoke again. “I… I just couldn’t leave it like that… Seed was… Well, she’s a good filly… Just a bit lost… She’s done bad things… But it’s all my fault. I asked her to get rid of my gun… I used it to shoot the griffons… The same who foalnapped that kid, White Dove… I… You know, when I see fillies…” She looked at the window, then at the body. “Anyway, I have to go,” she said. “I have no hopes… If the guards don’t catch me, the members of Estrangulador family will…” She stood on the windowsill. “I’ll try to be faster than them… But I have no hope. Goodbye.” She reached to the camera and the movie ended.
“So, what do you think about that?” Baton Charge asked.
“Well, she was so eager to confess, yet she didn’t tell where are those griffons,” Hope said. “She’s glossing somepony over. Seed was probably doing some small jobs for mafia… And what do you think?”
“I call bullshit and I think Tricky Case will call bullshit too,” Baton Charge replied. “But the judge will believe that. Seed’s gonna get a rap over the hooves, but nothing more…”
Hope shook her head. “At least she won’t be put in jail…”
Baton Charge looked at her and sighed. “You don’t believe in that bullshit about redeeming oneself, do you?”