//------------------------------//
// Chapter 40 — Penrose 
// Story: Jericho 
// by Crushric 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 40: Primrose


“I do not regret the things I have done. My only regret is that I had to do them.”


Average.

It was at that precise moment when I realized that my definition of a ‘fairly average night’ was sitting in my living room, half-naked, with the walls covered by pictures of dead and mutilated girls, and that mayhap there was something wrong therewith. And there was no help to be found in the dull ache in my head, a throbbing as if a tiny gremlin were trying to shag a vagina into my skull.

I took a sip from my glass of iced tea (sans actual ice because I was a rebel) before putting it back on the long table before my couch. Not that I was on my couch, but rather I found it more comfortable to claim the middle of the room as my sovereign territory.

Before the couch I had poster boards with more crime scene photos of the same macabre type, thumbtacks with colored string connecting this clue to that one, and that one to yon clue. The other walls were closer to me, and I could see the photos of faces and hardly identifiable body parts I’d taped to them or the poster boards I’d hung up on the wall and decorated likewise.

As if in a trance, I slowly looked around the room, from photo to photo, drinking in the sight. Both there and absent. Lost in thought. All the girls had been cut up in a similar fashion so precise that it had to have been ritualistic. Nothing a sane pony would do. And being sane included a fearful hatred of magic, as per regime standards. Body parts had been sawn off, likely with the same tool. Most of the girls went so far as to have the exact same expression. The kind that said, “For the love of God, stop sawing my limbs off!”

There’s got to be connections! a voice in my head shouted, upsetting the dull ache attacking my skull.

From what we in the Reichskriminalamt could tell, the earlier vics had belonged to the world’s oldest profession. Later, it seemed to just be attacks of opportunity on random young girls. I looked to the map of Neuorléans, my home city, and to all the dots on the map that marked whence the mares had been abducted and killed, for the two were often one in the same. I’d circled with a marker the local cathedral. It was not equidistant from all the scenes, but I kept coming back thereto.

“Father Müller,” a voice in my mind recounted as I held up in my hoof a necklace, a chain of rosary beads. 

The middle-aged, kindly, bespectacled pony had leaned in. “Ja, I suppose that is one of the necklaces I’d had commissioned for the parish. Well, insofar as we have the children help make some as part of the games and activities of our Sunday school.”

“And where’d you come upon these… stylized and easily identifiable beads in the first place?”

“Hmm?” the stallion had hummed. “Oh, they were donated to the parish by a faithful zebra. A kind old chap and friend of mine. When he died, he left his possessions to us here. And we were sure to make use of them so as to honor his memory. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason, Father. Only curious.” Then, after a timed hesitation: “And to cover all of my bases.”

In truth, it was an object which had been found on all the victims. They’d all been wearing one, and from what we’d gathered interviewing friends of the girls, they’d been wearing them before they were murdered. But the most damningly strange part of the beads had been their centering, the bead whereupon the cross had been hung. Each and every one of those particulars beads, I could tell from a few examinations even before the boys at the lab confirmed it, had been hewn from equine bones.

A sudden knock at my door broke me out of my thoughts. I grit my teeth and looked in the direction of my door, which was around the corner and down a little hall. Ignore it though I tried, the knock came again, this time more hurried.

With a grunt, I downed my iced tea, stood up, and made for the door. My headache got worse and worse with each step, though I kept it from showing on my face.

Trying my best to seem sane and presentable at twenty-two hours, I opened the door. The pegasus standing there immediately fixed upon me her amber eyes. Maiya. Before I could even gasp out her name, she looked down and said, “Hey, Jericho. I know it’s late, but can I come in?”


|— ☩ —|


Blue.

The first thing I thought when I saw those blue eyes was, Ahh, the tiny gremlin’s plunged through and is sodomizing my brain! Because, really, even if the blue-eyed mare was here with me in this too-damn-bright room, it didn’t matter, since my head was sort of in a lot of pain. The thoughts and memories of years past were long gone. There was only the room, the mare, and the agony.

When I tried to move, I screamed as a fresh wave of pain erupted in my head. My vision was blurry as all hell, and when I thought thereabout, I had no idea where I was nor how I’d gotten here. The familiar but unknown mare walked towards the side of my bed, a bed I hoped was the kind endemic to hospitals. But knowing my luck, Snechta had tied me up here and was planning to break all of my bones until I told her I loved her or something. Mares on this side of the world were perfectly sane like that.

“Last time we met,” I half-mumbled, half-screamed, “I ended up listening to a Voixson describing a crazy bitch touching herself vigorously to me. Please don’t have any more of those on hand.” Of course, what came out was a close approximation to the noise of a babbling baby being throttled by a reindeer, so I had no idea how much she understood.

The mare reached me, bearing an expression that reminded me of the look you’d give an upside-down turtle lying on the road. You know, before you ignored it and the wheels of your carriage crushed it into oblivion because you were a busy adult with many important things to do.

She brushed some foam from my mouth, looked thereat, and shrugged. “Sadly for you, we’ve invested far too much into you to just lose out due to the impressive incompetence of Snechta.”

As she raised her hoof and slammed it into my newly reaquired horn, I flinched, closing my eyes. The movements sent the sensation of being hit by ten thousands pounds of force from a rubber hammer through my skull.

The sensation of the room being too bright suddenly ended. For a moment, I wondered if the old cliché of passing out from pain had finally occurred. Only when I realized the pain in my head was rapidly dying away did I hesitantly open my eyes to find a black space. But I could still feel the bed below me.

“What… the…?” I muttered.

A massive clack erupted as the lights flipped back on. I flinched slightly and found no pain in my head. And then came the loud voice. “Okay, folks. That’s a wrap. Great work there, Altair.”

I put a hoof over my eyes—holy shit, having two natural eyes was awesome!—and squinted. The light was coming from my right, the other way from the blue-eyed mare. Looking that way, I saw three ponies sitting in tall folding chairs. Then I noticed the other, less important looking ponies walking about and operating a dizzying array of machinery whose purpose I couldn’t even begin to fathom. The blinding light was coming from two fixtures atop pony-height poles.

“Oh, well. That’s probably not a good sign,” I mumbled to myself, shakily rolling out of bed. I hit the ground hard, but was back on all fours in the blink of an eye. Those three important-looking ponies were talking amongst themselves as folks occasionally stopped back to ask questions and to give them little things.

I nearly stumbled out of the room and past the wall that no longer existed before I realized that the space beyond was neither Heaven nor Hell, but instead a giant warehouse. Spinning around, it appeared to me that the room I stood in was…

“Was that a stage set?” I asked.

“Ah, Mr. Penrose,” a plucky little mare said to me. I continued looking at the stage, as if expecting it to leap up and declare itself the brand new Cherry Berry, now with gold-plated rape boots. “Uh, Penrose.” She poked my shoulder, and I jumped back from her.

“Who are you and what have you done with my…” The words just died as I saw her momentarily look concerned. But that just as soon went back to her previous expression.

“Yeah, yeah, very funny,” she said with a roll of the eyes. “Now come on; we gotta get you all spiffied up before your interview.” The plucky thing grabbed my hoof and tugged.

“What interview?” I asked dumbly, and she gave me an incredulous look.

“You know, the one you and the director scheduled,” she said as if I had just asked her how exactly to eat food. She gestured to one of the ponies in the tall chairs. When I looked that way, said pony—who looked to be a well-off stallion in his fifties—smiled and waved back at me.

While I had more questions, nothing came out of my mouth. So, I just let her lead me through the absurd range of complex equipment, past arrays of wires, and up to a row of chairs before a set of mirrors.

She sat me down, and I looked at myself. In my professional opinion, I was a mess. My face was covered in specs of dirt and blood, the latter from a few nasty cuts on my countenance. There was also the matter of me being naked but for a shoddy hospital gown.

“Here, let’s just clean those cuts off,” she said, grabbing with her unicorn telekinesis a washcloth.

“Wait, but—” The last word never made it out as she just wiped the very deep and nasty looking cuts off my face. I sat in dumb silence as she cleaned the rest of my face. She gave me a skeptical look, then put on some makeup around my eyes, explaining how I looked a bit tired from all the filming, and how I’d thank her later when I see the interview.

She pushed me up, and before I could ask what was going on, she tore off my hospital gown and tossed me my usual threads: my hat, duster, white undershirt, and my incredibly well-worn and faded blue jeans. She even handed me that bandana, the one I’d gotten from Lightning Dust in the mirror world.

“There. Put those on, Altair. Stat. The reporter’s already here and waiting.”

“But I…” I tried, but she grunted and gave me a weak elbowing.

“Oh, you bloody… Fine. Use your dressing room if you really don’t wanna do it here, ya prude.” She smiled at me and pushed me along in the direction of a door with a large gold star.

I went thereinto and found a narrow hallway with doors aplenty. At the end, though, one labeled ‘Altair Penrose’. “Am I… do they think I’m an actor?” The face in the mirror had been mine alright, so… what the hell was going on? I wandered into the room at the end and, sure enough, it was a dressing room. It was cold in here, and I could see bits of outfits and getups that looked familiar. There in the corner, for example, was that poncho I’d worn back on the train to the Crystal Empire, the one whereupon I’d met Octavia.

Regardless, I was naked. And that was weird as hell. I got myself back into my duster and gear almost in an instant, but it all felt wrong. Like, this outfit looked damn near identical in every possible manner, but felt lighter, as if it lacked the protection and armoring my duster had. It was more like wearing a perfect Jericho costume than actually wearing the stuff that I wore on a daily basis.

There was a mirror in the dressing room, and I just kept staring thereat. I continuously poked and prodded my face, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Was I dreaming? Was this another area within that mirror? Had I finally lost it? Who were any of these ponies. And for that matter, what in God’s name was an “Altair Penrose?”

I almost didn’t hear the knock at the door. “Huh?” I called out.

The door opened up, and quickly a pegasus mare holding a microphone and two stallions with large things hefted over their backs entered. “Ah, good. You’re dressed.” She looked me over and cracked a smirk. “Boys, set up the cameras. And, Mr. Penrose, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. May I say that you do look much better in person than on camera?”

“Cameras set,” one of guys said, each of them hefting those lumpy things over their shoulders as though they were flamethrowers. They encircled us, reminding me of lions (my only natural predator, besides the now-extinct Cherry Berry).

“Testing, testing. We coming in good?” she asked as one of the stallions held some sort of thing above us I vaguely recognized it as one hellishly weird version of a boom microphone. “Okay, good. Aaaand rolling.”

“Altair Penrose, thanks for taking time out of your day to meet with us.” She smiled and offered a hoof to shake, but all I was doing was staring at the cameras. “Uh, are you okay?”

“Well,” I said, “you try hopping out of a magic mirror, uncovering details of an evil conspiracy, stabbing a bad mare to death, getting your broken body restored, and then suffering absurd pain all before waking up in whatever fresh hell this is.” I gestured to the room.

“Oh, you mean how the shooting of season  four of Jericho is already well under way? Yes, your fellow crewmembers tell me just how tirelessly you work. Do you even sleep?”

“Sleeping is for the weak,” I replied absently. “I have spent years perfecting the exact amount of sleep I need in order to be just on the cusp of dying, thereby maximizing how much of my day I can spend being unproductive.”

She hummed approvingly. “Well, we can certainly see how much love you have for your job. How do you get into your Jericho character before a recording?”

“Get into character?” I scoffed. “Lady, I am Jericho.”

She turned to her camera. “Ooh, that’s a good line. Keep that one.” Back to me. “Rumors abound that there’s a partially related show also being recorded set in the Jericho universe, one featuring fan-favorite character Cards.”

“Hold up, wait. People actually like Cards?” I laughed at the absurdity. “That’s weird. This place is weird.”

“Well, fan theory states that you, Mr. Penrose, have a role in that story, even though it takes places during the same timeframe as season four of Jericho.”

“I’m still trying to get over the idea that anybody would want to watch Cards in her native habitat,” I said in a dull voice. “I mean, same goes for me. Who in their right mind would want to watch a show about me?”

She never gave me a satisfactory response. Instead, she went, “You said something about Jericho finally getting his body healed. If you don’t mind, what’s next on the agenda for everypony’s favorite psychopath?”

I frowned. “You say ‘psychopath’, I say ‘freelance selfless hero, some collateral damage’.”

“Um… so what do you think of substance abuse, then?” she asked in the way of somepony trying really hard to bring sense back into the story. “Two major characters, Cards and Lightning Dust, have been noted to have been substance abusers, namely alcohol. What’s your stance on this?”

“Lady,” I said plainly, “I used to be a heavy addict myself.”

She leaned in. “Really?”

“Aye, so I was, to the most dangerous substance of all: so-called ‘food’.” At this, she blinked hard. “I was a complete junkie: I was unable to kick the habit, and total withdrawal therefrom is entirely fatal. Worse yet, my abuse sucked in my friends and family, and soon all of them were doing ‘food’ too, at least three times a day. In fact, last time I saw a pony who wasn’t me try to kick the habit, they succumbed, screaming ‘I’m starving’ whilst bleeding profusely from all orifices. But do you wish to know how I kicked the habit?”

The reported mare nodded, as if in a trance.

With telekinesis—having a horn was awesome! Suck it, pegasi!—I lifted up my shirt and duster, exposing my stomach and ribs. “Do you see what happened to me?”

“You got incredibly fit and svelte?”

“I forgot to eat. I haven’t eaten in, like, days.” I leveled her a glare. “This is how I cured my addiction to food: forgetfulness to adhere to the tenants of my addictions. Cures all such conditions.”

She frowned and did a quick glance at her stomach. “How in the hoof do you forget to eat? I think I’m speaking for a lot of us when I say I wish I could forget to eat for a day or two.”

I looked at the reflection in my dressing room mirror. “Oh, don’t say that,” I told her. “You’re a perfectly fit and attractive lady: there’s no need to have self-confidence issues. Take it from me, an arrogant, over-confident fuck-weasel.”

The reporter blinked, then took little looks at her cameras. “We’re going to gave to bleep that out.”

A pause as she gathered herself up. Then: “They say that a lot of Jericho’s character is actually improvised, so in a sense a good deal of Jericho is you,” she said,  evidently trying to move back to topics that at least had a superficial resemblance to reality. “But that begs the question, how does that relate to you and mares? A little birdy told us that the first time a mare was to come on to Jericho, he was to have gone along with her, but for some reason you didn’t like the idea. Why is it that Jericho seems so paranoid about having a girlfriend?”

I sat back and thought.


|— ☩ —|


I didn’t really have a response to Maiya’s sudden appearance at my door and her request to enter. She took my momentary silence as consent and stepped in. Dumbly, I closed the door behind her as she put her coat up on my hanger and a little overnight bag down at its base. Her mid-length black mane seemed ruffled up, as if she’d been in a fight with a particularly vengeful tomcat.

She rubbed her face hard with a hoof and thanked me in a voice like a mare who’d just ran a marathon and was trying to keep cool. Despite how hard she’d rubbed, I noticed no make-up on her hoof. In fact, her face was bare. Not that she wore much besides mascara or the occasional dab of lipstick when she was feeling adventurous, but it was noticeable.

I noted that despite the coat she was wearing, her attire underneath left little to the imagination. The cut was only a few centimeters short of getting her mistaken for a prostitute at this hour.

“Maiya,” I finally managed to spout out, “what are you doing here?”

She smiled. But to me it felt forced. I believe it was the slight quake in her knees that put the final nail in the coffin. “What? A girl not allowed to drop by her boyfriend’s house and stay overnight?” Maiya pouted at me, feigning the picture of purest innocence.

My face betrayed no emotion. “It is at least unorthodox.”

“Really? Nopony ever told me that,” Maiya replied happily with a little sway of her hips as she slowly made her way down the hallway.

It wasn’t hard to suppress a groan of frustration. But on the other hoof, I honestly had no idea if she was being cheeky or was dead-serious about the dating etiquette of the modern mare. Personally, I probably could have done completely without her.

I suspected that she thought I fancied her for her body and series of peculiarities which she passed off as a personality, and such was a reasonable thought. But I could see through her façade and view deeper. It was subtle, but in her own special way, I could tell she was as broken as I was. Well, no, she didn’t have the habit of killing people. Her problems were in other, more wholesome ways.

Lazily, I strolled down the hall to catch up to her.

“What the hell?” Maiya blurted out upon reaching my living room. My glance went from Maiya to the nigh countless pictures of mutilated girls. Somewhere it occurred to me that Maiya was staring and that I was half-naked.

“Can I interest you in a glass of tea?” I nonchalantly offered. When she didn’t reply, I went over to the center of the living room and downed the rest of my drink.

The mare looked at me as though I was a lunatic who’s drawn her into his lair before he chops her up into little pieces and has sex with them all in alphabetical order. “What were you doing?”

“Well, you showed up unannounced,” I said, gesturing my glass-in-hoof at her. “And may I remind you that I’m a somewhat obsessive federal agent with a particular knack for meditatively getting into the minds of deranged psychopaths and ghoulish monsters come to slay good folk?”

“So…” She raised an arm as if trying to lean in for a better look. “This is part of your job?”

“Being really creepy by my lonesome in order to catch a monster? Ja.”

“O…kay.” She glanced around. “I’ll just be in the kitchen. Making myself some tea. And wondering about just what it is I still see in you.”

Maiya went off as I headed back to work. Thinking and piecing things together. Although the priest seemed a plausible suspect, to be perfectly honest, neither Agent Rosen nor I had entirely ruled out a supernatural cause yet. The only problem with the idea of it being a vengeful spirit was that the area surrounding the killings had been spread far too wide apart to have anything to do with a haunting. Ghosts weren’t known to wander around this far.

I almost didn’t notice when my girlfriend came back into the room with a glass of tea. She set herself down on the couched and stretched her tan wings out, fixing her amber eye upon the photos. “Why do you have things circled on some of them?”

“They are important clues.”

“Okay. So why does this old guy here have… are those penises? Did you draw dicks all over his face?”

“Important clues!” I said firmly.

After a moment, Maiya got back up and went over to the kitchen. I could see her rummaging through the cabinets. “Your food is all weird. What’s with all the salt and… is this corn? In the husk? Why are your shelves filled with nothing but corn and salt?”

“Agency discount,” I called out. “Salt is dirt cheap since it’s useful in fighting spirits. And for some reason, demons have a mortal weakness to corn.”

“Yeah, well, why can’t supernatural horrors ever be killed by pies or burgers?”

“I think there’s some eggs in the icebox, in case you want some of those.”

“Uh-huh. gotcha.” As I watched from the couch, she popped the box and rummaged therethrough. When she turned around, it was with a carton of eggs in her hoof and a look of betrayal on her face. “It’s empty! Who puts an empty egg carton back in the icebox?”

“I do, apparently.”

“You’re a monster!”

I cackled like some witch in a bad play. “You’re not the first to tell me that!”

Maiya groaned, threw out the carton, and eventually plopped herself down on the couch. She rolled over onto her stomach. Ddly swaying her legs, she propped her head up on a hoof to watch me. I could see bits of the strapping of her underwear poking out from her shorts. Her eyes followed to where I was looking, and a devilish little look gleamed in her eye. 

“Jericho,” she declared, “I’m bored. As my boyfriend, it’s your job to entertain me.”

I could only snort. Gesturing at the photos, I said in vibrant tones, “It’s my job to hunt serial killers and psychopaths and inequine monsters, like the one who did all this, so that ponies like you can sleep soundly at night.”

With some effort, I pretended not to notice as her ears dropped. Her body seemed to deflate. She very quickly found herself a spot in the couch wherein to hunker down at the very corners of my vision.

I was observing pictures of the rosary bead necklaces when I spoke up for her to hear. “You don’t need to creepily stare at me like that.”

“Well, what should I be staring at?” she inquired.

 I offered her the picture I was studying. Cracking a little smirk, I replied, “Here, look at these wholesome and entirely undisturbing images which I have pinned obsessively to my walls. Tell me what you see. And if you say ‘I see two bears high-fiving,’ I’m going to remind you that despite what it looks like, that’s all blood and gore.”

She looked at me, and after a moment finally took up the picture. I allowed her enough silence to study it. “Why’s that white bead been circled? Is… is that…?”

“The main bead, see, was carved from a pony’s bone,” I finished for her.

There was a bead much therelike in every picture. The carver of the bone beads had done a good, controlled job thereof. It merely looked like a highly stylized ornament rather than a macabre implement. There were only a few mistakes here and there. On this one, there was a cut upwards next to another one, with one slightly wavy cut seeming to connect them.

“I still can’t wrap my head around the idea. Why kind of person would do something like this?” she asked.

“The kind whose minds I specialize at getting into. The ones we burn.” I spoke in a calm and reasonable voice, without any sense of doubt or trepidation. It was a simple fact.

“I can think a few ponies the world would be better off without,” she added quietly. I said nothing. After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “You know, Jericho… I do really like you.”

“This is generally what is implied when we are boyfriend and girlfriend, yes,” I replied, looking at another picture of another necklace. There were likewise were only a few flawed cuts, different and more random than those of the previous.

“But you’re still a federal agent. That means you take cases all over the Reich, right?” she asked, and I wonder where she was going with this.

“Yes, often we agents do get shipped around to lend a hand in other states’ investigations. There’s never enough agents, it seems. Doesn’t help that Mulder, Rosen, and I have a reputation for being good at handling the weird cases, too.”

She sat up sharply and gave me a serious look. “What do you think will happen when you catch this guy?”

“I suppose I’ll be assigned the next strange case the RKA finds. Serial killer if I’m lucky. Supernatural if I’m not. I hear there’s been something up in Esztergom that the RKA wants looked into.”

Maiya took a slow breath and sighed, her ears drooping, her wings with more than a tad of sag to them. “Okay,” she said quietly, laying her head down, like a dog that had accepted it has to die this day.


|— ☩ —|


“Because I once saw a vagina with fangs and now I never trust a strange vagina,” I said absently as I snapped out of the memory.

The interviewer glanced at a camera, rubbing her nose and sighing. “What does Jericho think of Cards? One theme fans have observed in the show is how Jericho’s feelings for Cards change between when they first met and his return from Calêrhos. What is your take on that?”

“Cards is…” My mind’s eye flashed to when I’d killed Glasses, her seething hatred for me; then to the werekind Cards tracing her fingers across my scars, her childlike awe of me. “Complicated. I really don’t know much about her, now do I?” I said, miming my exact thoughts.

She shrugged. “Common fan question number two: can you describe your ideal mare?”

“Alive; does not have penis.”

She turned to the camera. “Well, speaking of which, this should be a good time to take a break. When we return, we have a special cast interview who’ll tell us a little something about Luna and will help us once and for all settle the infamous… ‘clittorcock’ theory. Stay tuned!” And then, in a lower voice, she grumbled, “Sometimes I really hate my job.”

And with that, she went for a coffee break. I, on the other hoof, vamoosed the hell out thereof.


|— ☩ —|


Out the door. Back into the narrow yet strangely lengthy hall. I sighed, rubbing the side of my face as I stumbled down the path, as if in a daze. At the moment I came to an intersection, with the correct direction being to go right and thence to the set, a pony came from my left carting a wagon filled with dark fetishes of the occult.

On a normal day, that would have grounds to summarily execute him for being generically evil. But today, I wasn’t sure what was real or fake. It felt like what I’d always imagined a midlife crisis to be like, except with far less hot young girls surrounding me.

I looked to the right, whence the pony and cart had come, and heard a feminine “ooooh!” My first thought was that since this was theater filled wih no doubt famous ponies, somepony was getting laid in the back, and that I should find that room and then barge in and ruin it for all parties involved. Because being passively inconsiderable seemed like a fun way to get back in the spirit of things. But a momentary thought made me realize that the voice didn’t sound very sexual, just highly intrigued.

Still, mayhap somepony was having fun and I could ruin it. That thought put a smile on my face. I went up that part of the hall and very quickly came to an open door. Inside the room proper was a tall, svelte mare standing before a dressing mirror, playing with an outfit. On the room’s far wall was a poster featuring me at the center, a very sad Cards to my side, and… Huh. It was the very mare in this room, down to the very same outfit.

“Hoodies are awesome!” she said to herself with a giggle. “I should wear these things more often.”

I just stood there with a blank face, staring silently. She spun around in her swivel chair fast, seemingly oblivious to my presence even though I was very slowly waving at her. I had to clear my throat before she noticed me. And when she did, the mare nearly shot up to the ceiling as she yelped out a gibberish mix of what were probably meant to be words. Then, of course, she prompltly landed on the ground.

The girl’s eyes locked with mine. She gave a little grunt of frustration as she leapt back up. Wasn’t her name Selena? At least, it had been in my usual setting. No idea if that applied here.

“Somehow I imagined you as being more mysterious and less goofy,” I said.

She frowned hard. “You can’t expect everypony tove serious all the time, Altair. We’re not you,”  Quickly, she pulled up her hood. It did rather impressively bathe her face in a cloak of shadows, although her clear teal eyes still shone through, breaking the illusion.

She stared at me in silence for a moment or two. Then, in a dark yet almost sultry tone, “You look like something is troubling you.”

While I almost admonished her for trying and failing to act all mysterious, I could at least see how she was trying to act serious. And if she worked here, mayhap she knew a thing or two that could help me. Sure, it was a long shot with little chance for paydirt, but what the hell? “Hey, suppose for a moment that I were Jericho. Actually him. Like, I woke up this one day in Altair’s body. My body. His. Whatever. And say too that I wanted to return to not being in Altair’s body. Any ideas?”

She looked at me as if I had just asked her if she takes her blowjobs with one lump or two. “Excuse me?”

“Look,” I said, “can you just help me out for a second? Please?”

“Uh, sure. But I’ve got an interview in a few minutes, so make it snappy, if you don’t mind.”

I nodded. “Say, for instance, that I were actually Jericho. I woke up one day in Altair’s body. My body. His. Whatever. And I wanted to find a way to return to not being in Altair’s body. Any ideas?”

The mare eyed me. “Of course.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “With you, it’d never being something simple, like ‘so there’s this girl I like’. Honestly, I thought you were gonna be all, ‘Help me! I just had fun for the first time and it was awful’.”

“Answer the question, please!” I insisted. 

“Well,” she said with a sigh, a hoof to her jaw, “what’s the last thing that Jericho—you—did?”

“Snechta did a dark ritual thing to me. Then I punched her. I suffered pain. Now I’m here.”

She nodded, leaning against her dresser. “I’d say, knowing the show’s logic, that there’s the problem. Jericho—the show—is a big fan of convoluted-seeming problems with fairly simple solutions or answers. I think it’s ’cause the writers aren’t smart enough to think up anything too, too clever. But whatever. I’d say Jericho’s still involved with the ritual.”

“That really doesn’t help me out here,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose. 

“Sure it does,” she said with a shrug. “You get home whenever the ritual thing ends.”

“But it did end! And only thereafter did I wind up in this hellhole!” I snapped. Then I recomposed myself and tried to act natural as I said, “Or, well, that’s the plot of the story so far. The writer is, uh, confused. Trying to help him out so the show doesn’t get bogged down.”

She gave me an oblique look. Tjen, with reluctance, she said, “Well, you could always try backtracking and look for clues. The writers all like to interweave seemingly irrelevant things into the plot for whatever reason. So, that’s what I’d guess. Just look back in the scripts, find something interesting, and bullshit something out of it like they always do.”

Suddenly, the interviewer mare called out and entered the room. She gave me a wary look as she and her crew went past me, as if expecting me to douse her in mashed radish in an attempt to please the rabbit gods.

“Oh, don’t go too far, Altair,” the mare formerly in the hoodie called out. I recalled that I hadn’t quite picked up her name. “We still have that train to catch in an hour.”

I quickly slipped out of sight and went back down the hallway, thinking about my next move. At least I had some new semblance of direction to look after.


|— ☩ —|


“Well, this is problematic,” I said in a dull voice. Backtracking, she’d said. Like in a poorly constructed dungeon. The kind with a princess at the end, to whom I ask, “Come here often?” when I rescue her, whereto the answer is always a shameful “yes”.

Head to the set, I’d thought. Sure. Seemed reasonable. Back to whence I’d come. And hey, guess what! Either I was in some hellish haunted house or they’d gone and changed everything. Where once there’d been a dingy little bed in a dark room was now just wooden walls and a door.

I rubbed my forehead and sighed. My movement just so happened to jostle something in one of my many pockets. It took me nearly half of minute of searching to even find the correct pocket. And before anyone asks, tons of pockets were cool. A definite advantage of pocket-obsessed male-centric outfits over pocketless female garbs. Like the symbolism behind military chevrons and their relation with rank, the more pockets I had were directly equated to how masculine I was. Science fact!

Of all things I’d expect to have in my pockets, this was not amongst them, which was an impressive statement if you thought thereabout—it was a list with possibilites from “snozzberry-flavored condoms that doubled as birthday balloons in a pinch” to “a vial of orphan tears” and everything in-between. Yes, those two things were related. No, I won’t go to your birthday party.

It was a packet of cigarettes. I know. After all, to a heroic adventurer such as myself, who regularly gets mutilated in new and exotic ways, what should most concern me is the threat of lung cancer. Although on a list of fears, brain aneurysms are way up there—they’re the silent killer! But yeah, I just didn’t carry cigarettes.

There was a lighter somewhere in the pocket, too. Nifty if I suddenly felt like an arsonist, and believe you me was the temptation there, but otherwise useless. Did Altair smoke? Something about the pack made it looked a little worn and agéd, and opening it up revealed only two smokes gone.

I put the stuff back and sighed. Mayhap if all went terrible, I would succumb to alcoholism and nicotine-ism and resort to being a hot-headed but cool cop who didn’t play by the rules, not even his own.

Seeing no real course of action here, I just went up and opened the door. A bucket fell down and, unfortunately for whomsoever had set it up, did not hit me in the slightest. It reminded me of the time Maiya had entered my house through the opened back door.

“Is… is that a bucket full of corn syrup?” she’d shouted.

“And salt. Just to be safe. Now then,” I had said, ignoring her low growl. “About why I wanted you over.”

Maiya had glared at me in that little way of hers. Equal parts ‘I’m going to bite the head off your dick’ and ‘I’d rather kiss and make-up; my day’s been hell enough’. “Jericho,” she’d slowly enunciated, “either this is the prequel to some outlandishly kinky sex or I’m going home.”

A blank stare had met her.

“I’m going home!”

Chuckling, I kicked the bucket aside and resumed my search for a way out of hell. Of course, then I noted what the room before me was. Were I to describe it, I’d say it was like the ritual room Snechta had used, but now decorated with a menagerie of dark candles and curious fetishes that clearly served no reason but to look dark and mystical. As if your local five-and-dime were having a fire sale on all things dark and spooky.

The room had been built around the vaguely glowing purple pentagram on the floor. At its center lay a pony. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to do. So I sat there and let my eyes adjust until I could better make out the dark fetishes and the pony’s body. Mutilated ritualistically. It was interesting, in its own little way. And it gave me little thoughts back to my days in the RKA

As it happened, I bumped into one of the fetishes and found that it just felt fake. Horrible. Like a… like a stage prop. Yet the whole scene looked so real, as if I were expected to find this place and that Solnyshko mare back for revenge. I was sure that a more introspective pony would have partially broken down and wondered if this meant their whole life was a lie. But I was no super angsty pony. I was Jericho! And that meant I blindly wandered ahead, never learning from my mistakes.

With all the grace I’d picked up from my spare few years in the RKA, I approached the body. There was a lack of a smell, the kind one’s innards tended to have the aroma of. If that wasn’t a red flag for something I didn’t understand, I didn’t know what was. I knelt by the corpse and poked and prodded. Unlike the things around the set, this felt real. Somepony had been murdered.

“Let’s see,” I muttered to myself. “Male. Early-mid twenties. Earther. No apparent birthmarks, but there’s a strange tattoo here on. Hmm. Cause of death: lack of internal organs. And… is that a knife where the heart should be?” I picked up the blade. Its hilt seemed to be ivory at first glance. But from its give, weight, and general feel, I surmised that it was more like a pony’s bones. 

“Right. Duster, packet of cigarettes, and a dead body. All I need now is a damsel in distress who’s hiding altogether too many secrets.” I held the knife in my hoof and thought.  In fact, looking at the body and the way everywhere here had been arranged, it sort of reminded me of the ways wherein those prostitutes—


|— ☩ —|


Maiya just continued to lie there. As aloof as I could sometimes be when it came to mares, even I had to take notice thereof. She didn’t look angry or upset, just tired, almost without hope. I set my eyes went back to the pictures and sighed quietly.

Closing my eyelids, I set the evidence to the ground and thought. Otto, who’d helped me write the Code. What would he say? For one, his advice was why I even allowed myself to enter a romantic relationship. I bet he’d say that as important as it was to save lives, it was more important to ensure your long-term survival in society via social normality. It was easier to be normal if one had friends and lovers.

So, were any other pony to look at Maiya and reflect upon my situation, they would put her first, wouldn’t they? While I’d come to understand that to get emotionally involved could spell doom, so to did the appearances thereof make for a normal functioning member of society. Even if for Maiya I didn’t inexpressibly feel pangs of guilt or sadness or whatever it was that a normal pony might feel in this circumstance—would rage, anger, even annoyance have been appropriate?—normal ponies did.

It all came down to one of the golden principles of life: fake emotions and normality to fit in.

“Hey, Maiya,” I said, standing up and moving towards her.

“Hmm?” she hummed, looking up at me.

I sat down next to her on the couch and ran a hoof through her hair. “Are you hungry? I don’t have much to eat in the house, but there’s a nice place a few blocks over we could go to.”

Her eyes lit up, then dimmed. “Wait, what about the killer?”

“Technically, I’m off duty at the moment. I can finish up in the morning.” I smiled warmly. “You’re more important to me that the job, by far.” I had to stop myself from adding ‘And who cares if this ends up costing somepony her life?’ Even for me, that sounded cruel and petty.

She sat up and pecked me on the cheek. “Thanks, Jericho. I’ll go get my coat. And, uh, I know how much your jobs means to you, and I promise you won’t regret your little sacrifice.” As she left, Maiya poked her tongue into her cheek and winked. But I hardly even noticed, let alone cared.

Sacrifice. Sacrifice! The arrangements of the prostitutes’ corpses, despite being sloppy and never quite the same, fit a specific type of ritual. And there had been only one pony I could think of, the only pony who’d’ve been a position to know about such a ritual and be behind the distribution of the bone-rosaries. Things and ideas were coming to me like lightning, little leaps of thought and intuition painted a picture, not exactly complete nor entirely sound, but enough to make sense.

I had to go—”Jericho, are you coming?”

Solve the case or please the girl.

“Touché, arbitrary universe constantly stacking the deck against me,” I said with a sigh. “Touché.”


|— ☩ —|


“Ritual of sacrifice!” I blurted out, looking at the corpse here on the dark set. The poor buck had been sacrificed; the power of his soul used without his consent. Blood magic was one thing, a mortal sin. But this was beyond that. The killer from Neuorléans had been sloppy and hadn’t known exactly what he was doing, but this looked more… refined. Practiced.

Bitterly, I recalled where I’d become most familiar with these rituals. It had not been a killer or a predatory beast therelike. It had been the symbol of  the army. Carved into the body of each Niedervolk, those ponies who had followed the demons and had invaded during the Dark Crusade, was a small symbol like the one around this corpse. And worse, imprinted into the few landscapes surrounding the proud cities of the Reich, those cities that were little more than empty skeletons when the Mobile Infanterie got there.

But then what did this imply here? What did the ritualist want and to what end? What was it even doing here?”

Before I could think further, I heard somepony whistle. I jerked my head up to see a mare with a hat and t-shirt both labeled ‘crew’. “Oh, come on, Altair,” she said, “we all know how serious you take this stuff, but at least give us a chance to set up before you go traipsing on in here and touching things.”

I thought for a moment. “Translation: hold on, the ritual room will be ready for you soon?”

“Um… yeah, sure, I guess,” she said with a shrug. I noticed then the cart full of occult paraphernalia behind her.

“Hello, darkly ominous foreshadowing,” I replied.

“Cool story,” she grunted. “Now would you just skedaddle? I’ve got work to do here.”

I just started at her.

“Look, please?”

Quickly, I scanned over the scene for anything I was missing. Nothing stood out. But still, the body. Something had to be done thereabout, not that I could do much. And I suspected whatever police they had here would want to detain and question me were they called, which is what would no doubt happen if I pointed out that this was a corpse. I did look rather suspicious, didn’t I?

I had to keep on the move. Try to learn things and whatnots. And also, get a drink: my throat felt like kitty litter left out in a desert that was also on fire and decorated with pictures of squid. All I did was rub a hoof against part of the gore around the body, trying to smudge and ruin  the circle. Not that it likely meant much, but it was a symbolic victory. Take that!

“Right, sure,” I said to the mare. “Just one last thing: where’s the train station?”


|— ☩ —|


As I stepped up the stairs onto the train platform, I held up the packet of cigarettes and read all the words thereupon. Ah, Equestria, where not even the smokes had warning labels. I put the pack back; it had been good food for thought. This was still Equestria, at least according to the nicotine. So I had that for a fact.

Standing far away upon the platform, alongside seemingly hundreds of other ponies, was that mare whose name I hadn’t caught. Selena, as I knew her. “Well, doesn’t this seem familiar?” I said, quietly humming the tune of Non, je ne regrette rien.

I moved towards her, only to stop as I saw a wall with a poster thereupon. All I had to do was maneuver around the thing to get to the station proper. But it held me intrigued. It was a poster of a shadowy face, one filled with a kind of malevolence, as if to say “I’m certainly no monster” in the most subtly monstrous way possible. There was no mistaking that this pony was me. If nothing else said so, it was the way my name had been written across his smiling face in fresh blood.

I found myself stirred out of my thoughts as I heard a train whistle and the telltale steam and clang of a locomotive. Momentarily thoughts of Jayne and how I’d fed Frosty’s arm to her struck me, but I forced myself to brush them off. Dwelling upon things never helped nopony.

“Ah, there you are!” Unlena called out—it was the name I was now calling her in my head. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t show up.”

Nothing came from my lips as I watched the train and the seething masses boarding it.

“Altair,” she said more forcefully with an underlying current of concern.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry; I was just imagining how awesomely dramatic it’d be if I were to wait for the train to start mov—”

“No,” she firmly stated.

“But I want to!” I totally did not whine no matter what Unlena might have said to the contrary.

“Not happening! I am not having a repeat of last time!” Unlena opened the door to the car before her, which oddly nopony else was entering, and grabbed me. “Come on, you.” She pulled me into the car by the collar.

“Help, help!” I shouted. “She’s trying to ruin all of the fun I get out of recklessly endangering myself!”

Once er got in the car, she closed the door behind me. I was hit by a breath of almost frigid air. That gave me enough pause to stop struggling and look around. Seats, windows, and… was that a minibar?

Of course, of more pressing attention were the three ponies in the car besides Unlena and I. The eyes of Lightning Dust, Cards, and Duke Elkington were upon me. I pushed Unlena off and looked at each of them individually. 

“Hey there, Altair,” Elkington said. “Take a seat, why don’tcha?”

I blinked. “Is this some kind of intervention? Because I’ll have you know that murder is not an addiction; it is in fact the solution to a disturbingly vast menagerie of problems.”

Then, of all ponies, Not-Cards spoke up. I noticed that she had a pair of seats all to herself, her only companion being a bottle of wine that had a mustache taped on. “Sorry, Altair. Train ride’s only half an hour. We don’t got time to work through all your issues.”

I sat down in silence at having just been basically talked down to by Cards. Even if it wasn’t her, the image would haunt me for forever. The ponies left me alone for the duration of the trip. Next stop, the station, and then to wherever the train line ended.

It ended, it turned out, with a convention center.


|— ☩ —|


“Look, I didn’t mean it! I can’t tell if you’re a girl or a boy! Really!” I told the long blond-haired pegasus stallion with the elf ears. Here at the convention, I supposed he was another actor or something, especially considering how we were both in some back VIP room before the events began proper.

Unlena had been with me earlier, and in fact had basically had to explain what everything here was. She had noted at some point that it wasn’t her job to “reign me in”, then went to the bathroom alongside Not-Cards—why did girls always go in pairs? Did they need somepony to spot them when they peed?—and never returned. I still wasn’t sure what time it was, and most of the ponies here had nothing to do with my life/TV show, so messing with them was the best thing I could do.

Of course, the major group of other ponies here were super fantasy-prone. Ponies dressed like I would imagine dwarfs and elves and stuff would be. But this one guy, dressed as an elf—complete with a sword and bow—was so damn pretty that I basically had to shield my eyes from him. I say him because using the feminine to his face got him rather peeved.

He and the rest of his crew seemed to take offense to me trying to question whatever generic fantasy land whence they came. Of course, when I had properly gotten to the pretty guy, he turned on me without any humor and did not look very happy.

“Would you cut that out?” he snapped. “I get it; you’re the up-and-coming Altair Penrose, but trust me, arrogance in this business doesn’t do you any good.”

“Arrogant? I’m not arrogant.” I scoffed. “You’re just an androgynous pretty boy who really needs a good smack across the face. Pretty boys suck; they make terrible heroes, and only lesbians like them.”

His eye twitched. “Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t hear you over just how much more money my fantasy movie, Lord of the—” A short, stocky pony with a great big beard put a hoof on his shoulder. “What?”

“Orlando Plume, fellow prestigious actor and star of many hit films,” the dwarf-LARPer said in a calm voice.

“Yes, that is in fact my full name and general synopsis of my career,” the would-be elf replied with befuddlement. “Why do you feel the need to state it?”

“I dunno. I think it’s a nervous tic.” He hook his head, his beard bouncing and swaying. “In any case, let it go, and don’t let him get to you.”

“You know, you’re rather tall for a dwarf,” I added absentmindedly before using my telekinesis to lift Plume’s bow from him. “Dude, this thing is terrible. And are these engraved in a made-up fantasy language? Wow, that’s lame, even for me, and that’s saying something.”

The pegasus actor snatched his bow back with a growl. “Don’t you touch my stuff! I am very proud of it and honored that a fan would make this for me!”

Of course, being that I had nopony to stop me—Unlena was off… somewhere, and I was the only cast member of Jericho here—I took the bow right back and promptly plucked at the strings. “Can this thing even fire? These strings aren’t even of guitar quality. I mean, maybe you could use it to floss, so that it smells bad when you come up from behind somepony and use it to garrote them.”

I looked at him and frowned slightly. “Hey, that tattoo on your chest…” Looks exactly like the one the sacrifice victim from earlier had.

“What of it? I’ve had it for years.”

Probably no coincidence. In my experience, there were no such thing as coincidences. I’d have to keep this little detail in mind.

Anyways, as I reached for one of the arrows in Plume’s quiver, the stallion snarled and tried to ram his shoulder into me. I sidestepped his blow with ease, yawning for effect as I did. But from this angle, it was fairly easy to just snag the whole quiver for myself.

With a giggle, I allowed Plume to grab the quiver back. Yet, with the quiver in hoof, he hit me over the head therewise. It was made of velvet or something soft and so didn’t hurt at all, but he had gone too far.

Mine eyes narrowed as I carefully enunciated, “I fear you are about to meet with a terrible fate.”

His mouth tightened so hard as to become little more than a scar as I dropped his bow to the ground. “You wanna go?” the actor hissed. “Sure—we can go. How about I just go up to your fan Q&A and embarrass the hay out of you? Show your fans who’s the real hero.”

“Oh what, you going to challenge me to a swordfight/rap battle?” I offered up the most belittling laugh I could. “Boy, I bet your swordplay sucks, and your ability to improv a rap battle is nonexistent.”

“Don’t make me come right over there and—!”

“Well, this escalated quickly,” a stallion said from behind me. Whirling around, I saw the poor sod they’d hired to play Duke Elkington. I missed the upper-class Southern accent that I had known him for.

“Gasp,” I exclaimed. No, I did not gasp. I just blurted it out, and did so whilst rushing up to the stallion. I extended an arm and touched his naked chest and I said “Touch” with great wonderment. “What’s good, villain potentate and rapist extradinatore?”

His look was that facial expression with I most often encountered, the one wherewith I was most intimately familiar: confusion. At that moment, I resigned myself to never going through with the ritual and practice of sexual intercourse ever again unless my partner perpetually wore a look of honest confusion. Because, knowing me, that’s how it would be regardless, right?

Ellie gestured around the VIP room and shifted his expression to one of mildly annoyed expectation. When I just stared at him with a dumb little smirk of my face, he only groaned and stated, “Altair, have you seen Holly or Spot?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Holly Woods and Lime Light. Tall lady and the adorable little one, don’tcha know. I can’t find them. Last I heard they were with you, eh?”

“Oh, wow,” I added. “I hate your accent. And also, no, they were with me but got eaten by the infinite expanse of meaninglessness that you call an existence.”

“In other words, you have no idea.”

“They went off to the bathroom and got eaten by a grue,” I replied with conviction.

He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Altair, what’s gotten in to you today? I saw that interview you gave, and you’re not acting right at all.”

“That’s just what you think!” I said, touching his nose with a smile.

Elkington didn’t glare at me, but his look was stern. “Look, could you stop bothering mister Plume there and get to your panel already?”

“Oh yeah, that thing Unlena told me to find eventually before somepony pointed me here.” I paused, looking around as the ponies shuffling out the room, including a glaring Plume. “I don’t know where to go. Presumably, I should follow them?”

“Yeah.”

“Understood.”


|— ☩ —|


I looked out at the rather gigantic crowd and marveled at how well this place’s air conditioning must have been that I still felt all snug and cold. Ponies were asking questions to my fellow panel-mates, which included a wide variety of Orlando Plume associates and other somesuch I didn’t notice. No Duke, Cards, or Selena, but Lightning Dust was sitting by me playing with pencils, so there was that.

My gaze wandered up to one of the foremost rows in the rather alive and moving crowd when I caught sight of a pair of identical twin mares. As if on cue, the bumped their flanks together and looked at me. One of them had “Jeri” on one side of her ass, the other mare had “icho” such that the Is were spread evenly across them both. My name, huh? Across two twins. When will these silly Equestrians learn that incest just wasn’t cool?

So, with a blank face, I almost didn’t note one of the questions posed at my part of the panel. “Mister Penrose,” asked a girl in the audience, “what’s your favorite pastime?”

I hesitated as I had to remember that I was being addressed. In my silence, Orlando Plume stepped up and said, partly under his breath in a tone that was just asking me to reach out and choke a he-bitch, “Sucking dick, most likely.”

This elicited a collection of odd laughs and a few gasps from an over-sensitive audience. For a moment, his face took on an expression that made me think he honestly hadn’t meant to mutter that so closely to his microphone.

Leaning back in my chair, I said with a wiggle of the brows, “Plume says true. I’m like a chupacabra, except with dicks. But in all my years, let me tell you, no one has spit that tastes more like cock than old Orlando Plume’s here. Imagine a rich chicken soup with salt and rice. Now imagine that it’s not chicken, it’s heaping hordes of cock, and that’s basically what his mouth tastes like at any given moment.”

As the crowd laughed, I cast Orlando a devilish little smile and added, “His toothpaste dispenser, for God’s sake, is just a glory hole with a firm cock ever ready to help Blume achieve the whitest, healthiest smile this side of Canterlot.”

A fan raised their hoof and asked, “Is Jericho gay?” It was at this moment that some intrepid filly in the audience raised a sign that read ‘Jericho X Elkington’ with a big heart around the names.

“What,” I deadpanned.

A mare stood up. “Well, all these hot vaginas keep landing on his lap, begging him to teach them a thing or two about the fundamentals of permanent vaginal stretching, yet he refuses them, especially if they’re really hot or adorable. The only girl he’s kissed at all is Dust’s mother, who then shot herself. Yet Jericho insists that he and Elkington had a special connection via ‘the bad touch’. Not to mention Jericho’s narration is, like, ninety-five percent dicks; it’s as if the show would have us believe that most of the time, Jericho is thinking about dicks.”

“Why would you… when do I ever think about dicks?” I inquired, thinking about dicks.

“You?” another pony added. “We’re talking about Jericho himself.”

“Yeah, me, you silly salty ninny.” I scoffed. “Look, Jericho is I and I am Jericho. Never was there an Altair Penrose, and I honestly don’t know who he is or who any of these weirdo ponies are. Yes, I put the Is in insanity. Least I don’t spout no profanity.”

“Oh, would you just shut up!” Plume barked at me, red in the face.

I looked over at Elkington and noticed he had been drinking out of a now-empty mug. I grabbed the ceramic object and tossed it gingerly at Plume’s chest. The stallion flared his wings in panic and threw himself backwards with a yelp to avoid it, tumbling off his chair.

“What the hell, Altair!” Plume spat out at me, rubbing the back of his head. “Were you trying to kill me?”

“I call that a hunch,” I replied blankly. “All you’ve got is circumstantial evidence.”

“Celestia, you’re a right bastard, you know that?!” He gave me with a look that said either ‘I want to sleep with you’ or ‘I’m going to hurt you’. After my experience with Cherry Berry, I wasn’t so sure of the difference anymore. “And weren’t earlier you saying I was going to ‘meet a terrible fate’? Were you threatening me? ”

I walked up to Plume and tightly put my arm around his shoulder as I gestured to the crowd. “Orlando, like Elkington will soon have to learn, Celestia is a mistress who laters turns out to be a mister, and no amount of salt-bathing will ever cleanse you of the shame.”

“Don’t you touch me, you psycho!” Plume barked, batting away my arm. “Gah! I’m going to get security,” he muttered, marching off.

I just stood there. Then it occurred to me that security probably was not what I wanted anybosdy to call upon seeing me, descending from their ant-like hives much the same as termites to an anteater. That probably would have no easy solution other than murder, which was my usual go-to problem solver.

Valor was the better part of discretion. But the point stood. Jericho—exit, stage left.


|— ☩ —|


As it happened, the best way to escape prying eyes at a convention seemingly littered with people who know you was to just calmly stroll around and act interested in the stands and whatnot all scattered around the place. There were enough people here who dressed like me that I didn’t stand out.

I was a seeming nobody in a crowd of ponies trying to look like somebodies. It was like that holiday I’d heard of, Nightmare Night. The one night a year everypony got to don a mask and pretend they were a monster. It was unfortunate that, for the people at the convention, it made them all look like hopeless nerds. Deep down, I wondered if my coolness would give me away as the real Jericho.

A little family went by me, a couple and two kids. The father seemed to be dressed as me, or at least how I was with C’s arm and the eyepatch. The mother, like Cards, but with leather armor and a necklace of whiskey bottles. Very un-Cards. Their son was some kind of farmpony. But the daughter, who ran up to me and said giggled something about how I dressed like her daddy, was some kind of mailmare.

Whatever. And ponies think I’m weird. Had to get back to finding something to do and het me out of here. Or at least find a least a sword. I felt so naked without a weapon. What would I do if I encountered a Cherry Berry cosplayer? I’d be defenseless! Reliant only on prayers and the deep hope that she didn’t carry a strap-on. 

Lightly, I chuckled to myself. Strap-on backwards was no-parts. Fitting.

More to the point, without a weapon, should I have to kill, I’d have to do it by hoof. And I’m not going to lie, a little part of me usually very well-fed by adventuring wanted to kill somebody. A bad pony nobody would truly miss, preferably. Or just a killer. I wasn’t sure if I could handle more innocent deaths on my heart after Sleepy Oaks—a debt still unpaid, whereto the only suitable exchange rates were paid in my blood.

But there I go, monologuing again. I was getting too dramatic and dark, which was never a fun combination. It happened at that moment that I saw a clown in go-go boots and a white mullet making a balloon animal for a little filly. Something about those things always creeped me out.

“Aww, what a nice kitty!” the little filly squealed to the clown.

“Isn’t she?” the clown asked. “And now for the finishing touches!” He twisted his creation’s neck all around and tied it in a knot. But he did it too hard, and the kitty popped. The little girl soon found tears in her eyes as the clown quickly tried to repair the damage with a new animal.

Her father rushed over to comfort her, saying, “It’s okay, sweetie. Kitty’s in balloon heaven now.”

A perfect image of the ideal father-daughter relationship: lies and deceits. The next animal the clown gave to silence her was a turtle.

Distantly, I recollected that as a boy I had owned a pet turtle. I had no idea why Father had given me the thing. I suspected he had been re-gifting it to me, but that raised only further questions. Seriously, who gives someone a turtle as a gift? The thing had taken one look at me before recoiling back into its shell, where it stayed until it starved to death. Good times.

I looked up, into the swarming, chattering crowds of the convention, just wondering what next to do. That’s when I saw the holiest of holies: a ball pit! Why this place had one, I didn’t know, but it had a ball bit and I was going to become its king, just like in all my twelve-year-old fantasies I never got around to because I was too busy killing the neighbor’s dog.

I rushed up to the ball pit and gracefully let myself in, like an alligator in a child-filled kiddy pool. The feel of levitating the ball was a happy one; I had so missed using my horn since I’d lost it. Of course, the first thing I did was hurl it at some stupid kid’s face, thereby challenging him to a duel, as per Ball Pit Code. Rather than accept my challenge like a stallion, he just cried and ran off like a bitch, inasmuch as it’s possible to awkwardly waddle away when you’re up to your neck in multicolored balls. The experience almost made the seeming eternity without my horn seem worthwhile. Almost.

This is about the time it occurred to me that I could levitate more than one ball at a time. “I. Am. A. God!” I declared with maniacal laughter, forcing away the children through force of victorious arms and toy balls.

Not long thereafter, security found me. They didn’t seem to know me, though, so that was a good sign. “Sir,” one of the two, whom I thought of as Luey, started, only to be met by a ball to the face.

“I am your reigning monarch, the grand high once-and-future king of Ball Pitia! You will address me with the respect that title deserves!”

“Let me restate it, then,” the other one, I thought of him as Chuckowitz, said. “Hey, asshole, get out of the ball pit. The children are afraid and all they want to do is play!”

“I’d like to see you try and make me!” I hissed, diving under the balls.

“Shit, he’s gone under!” Chuckowitz yelled.

Luey spat out, “We can’t have another one drown on our watch! Why do we let kids in there without life jackets?!”

They jumped in and the chase—nay—the hunt was on for Red Jericho! This was my new title as King of Ball Pitia, I decided.

It wasn’t long afterwards, somewhere between the arrival of seething masses of people standing at the edge to watch us and when I was punching security that somepony I knew came up. Unkington. I know, how clever of me to hight him so.

When I finally noticed him, he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You know, when I heard that there was some crazy manchild running amok in the ballpit, terrifying children and fighting rent-a-cops, somehow I got the sad feeling in my gut that this is exactly what I would find.”

“Hello,” I said, dropping one of the guards I’d headlock into unconsciousness. He gained it back as soon as I let go, and so just floundered around in the balls for a while.

“Do I have to go and drag you out myself?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t dare,” I hissed. “You just can’t handle the fact that I have an entire pit of balls, and you have but two!”

He sighed. “Altair, it’s time to leave. Your era of ballpit tyranny is over.”

“Just five more minutes, please?”

“Don’t make me come in there!” he threatened threateningly, which was honest-to-God my exact thought at the moment. He threatened threateningly. Like only a crazy pony could.

“Fine. God! Always ruining my fun!”

Grumbling, I crawled out the pit, leaving the two battered and bloodied security pony fighting and drowning beneath the walls of the ball pit. Although, I did think that because of my moment of fun, the universe would probably punish with with a thousands years eternal torment in the violation wells or some other horrific form of retribution, as was its custom.

Out of the crowd came a familiar mare in a starry hoodie. It looked to me as if she were on edge like she wanted to get away from a place she didn’t like, a fact which she tried to hide by feigning a cool countenance. Holly Woods. Was that her name here? Selena sounds better. Holly Woods sounded like fake name you’d use in porn to cover up the shame you felt on the job.

But the thing was, when our eyes met, she had this sudden look of recognition mixed with tinges of revelation. Not normal recognition, either. More like the kind you wear when you meet by total happenstance an old ex whom you still cared for deeply. Holly hadn’t expected to see me here at all, for one thing. Not in the ballpit, but in this entire place in general. As though I were a ghost.

As I climbed out of the pit, she looked between me and Elkington. In a quiet voice, as if she didn’t realize she were speaking aloud, she said, “I always suspected you had some sort of daddy issues, but if this is the sort of thing you dream about…” She shook her head. “It’s much worse than I thought.”

“Wait, you were watching that the whole time?” I asked.

“Hey, Holly,” Unkington said, “have you seen Lime Light?”

Holly gave a quick, clueless look. Did she not kennt UnCards anymore? “Um, no, I have not,” she replied, her eyes flickering to me. Elkington shot her a sour look, whereto she replied with a shrug, saying, “Look, if it’s important, Lime Light will show up. Lime Light couldn’t have gone off too far, right?”

Awkward lack of pronouns. Holly didn’t even know UnCards’ gender. Something about this was really wrong. My muscles tensed for action, but something inside me hesitantly recommended playing this situation out. In the ballpit behind me, I could hear the security trying to find itself and get back to me.

“Look,” Unkington sighed, “we’ve got to do something about all this. Before it gets more out of control. Not really sure what to do when your coworker is probably wanted for crimes relating to a balloit, though.”

“I’ll handle it,” Holly responded in a careful tone.

“But how are—”

“I’ve got it,” she stated with great firmness. In a quick motion she stepped over to me, way too far into my personal bubble, and put her mouth too close to my ear. “Jericho, if you wish to make it out of here alive, I suggest coming along with me. Post-haste.”

“That a threat?” I whispered back.

“A warning,” she affirmed.

I eyed her over, like she was prey. Was she victimizer or victim-to-be? “You’re not Holly Woods, are you?”

“Nor are you Altair Penrose.”

“Fair enough,” I said with a nod, deciding not to question where she’d learnt my name. Then, hanging my head and in a theatrical voice for all in the crowd to hear: “Aww, Holly, do I have to?”

She growled at me. Playing along. Good girl. “Altair, if you keep this up, I’ll… I’ll…!”

“But I don’t want to!”

The mare with no name grabbed me hard. “Come on. We’re getting out of here!” When the mare dragged, she dragged hard and convincingly.

“Hey, no need to drag,” I replied cooly, getting a grip on myself and putting an arm around her. And not the shoulders mind you. But more closely, I whispered, “You lead, I’ll follow.” 

No-name nodded, and we walked together through and out of the crowd. Beyond a little corner, and into one of the doorways that lead to the catacomb-like tunnels meant only for employees and other service personnel here went we. I remained silent, waiting for her to offer the first words. When dealing with mysterious envoys, it was polite to let them speak first. That way you could act all cool and mysterious yourself.

She looked around, found another door, opened it, and promptly dragged me into a closet so claustrophobic it could double as a corpse slide from a morgue. And yes, dragged. I wasn’t about to walk in there, but she was tore me thereinto and slammed the door shut.

“Security won’t find us in here, likely,” she said in a way that made me think she was about to dead-leg me and go for the tried-and-true romantic tactic of ‘surprise sex after I’ve crippled you’.

When I tried to get my arm off her, she frowned. “You know, I didn’t mind that there.”

“If you use threats and tell me to put it back,” I said, trying to back away, only to find out that I couldn’t, “I’ll impale you with my horn.” Honestly, it was like no matter which way I moved, the lack of space made it seem like a cross between an epileptic fit and me trying to dry hump the mare with no name.

She only gave me a confused look. “Look, if you want to be that way, fine. But all I know is that security was looking for ‘Altair Penrose dressed up as Jericho’, but you’re not Altair; you actually are Jericho. I’d remember you anywhere.”

“Well, it’s nice to know I’ve got another stalker. Better add you to my list, right after ‘C the Horse’,” I replied with a shake of the head. “Now, please stop digging through my trash in the hopes of finding a used condom. This is just advice I give to all my stalkers. Especially the mares. Which is most of them, oddly.”

“No, no, no, you misunderstand,” she replied, with no small hint of nervousness. She puffed out her chest, pressing it tightly against mine, and declared, “I am the Mistress of Dreams, Maiden of the Night.”

And self-giver of pretentious titles, I thought, a blank stare on my face.

Her look went from prideful drama to slight anxiousness. “You know; surely you’ve heard of me.”

“The tooth fairy?” I put a hoof to my chin. “Didn’t I tie her up and feed her nothing but stale bread for a month when I caught her trying to steal my teeth as a boy?”

“N-no, no, you know. Uh… Um…” She looked around, as if trying to spot the difference between two seemingly identical photographs of tentacle porn. “Oh, like—the wanderer of the dreamscape, solver of deep-seated psychological issues?” She leaned in towards me and moved her mouth as if you continue trying.


“Oi, stop touching me,” I stated, trying to wiggle in for myself some room.

“It’s not like I can help it! There’s not a lot of room in here.” She pushed back against me. “And as I recall, weren’t you the expert at fitting big things into small spaces?”

I paused. “Wait. Selena? Now I’m confused. That was something only Selena would know, right? So… you are Selena?”

“No, I’m not Selena,” she scoffed, a undercurrent of amusement in her voice. “I’m just…” She looked down at herself, stretching out a leg—insomuch as it was possible here—as if to examine it. “Just borrowing the body.”

“Then who the hell are you, girl?”

A sly little smirk crossed her face. “Well, I’ve been known by a few ought names here and there. I’m only Selena when I choose to be.” She looked around conspiratorially, then beckoned me to get closer. I did no such thing, since this was a goddamn closet with no room to move. I just let her make a stream of various ‘come hither’ gestures until she just groaned with frustration. She took a breath, trying to keep her cool as she resumed a conspiratorial demeanor.

“Well, you might just know me as that dark, mysterious mare of the moonlight.”

“The Sandmare?”

“No,” she said with a grunt. “I mean, that rumored mare. The most beautiful pony in all Canterlot.”

“I thought I was the most beautiful pony in Canterlot.”

“Okay, now you’re just screwing with me.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

She groaned. “Okay, fine. We’ll do it your way. I am the Princess of the Night—Luna!”

I gave her a look that betrayed no emotion. “Funny. I always thought of you as more of a Susan.”

The lady before me deflated like that balloon kitty. Well, that more-or-less exploded into a pile of colorful scraps. Similar enough here, as well. “No, no, no. I’m—y-you know, Princess Luna. Princess of the Night.” Silence. “Princess Celestia’s sister?”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course. Her sister. I didn’t know she had a name,” I said. It wasn’t true, no, but it was funny. “And you know, it occurs to me. You’ve been lying to me this whole time?” I said in a blank, almost completely neutral tone. “All the while you were somepony else?”

She looked as if I’d just gut-punched her. “Well, no… I mean, I, um…”

I couldn’t hold back the stem of laughter. “Yeah, right—you, Princess Luna? Go ahead, now pull the other leg. It’s got bells and far fewer scars.” Then I realized the implications of my attempted dick joke. “On second thought, please don’t grab my penis and pull thereupon violently. In fact, don’t even think of touching it.”

Her ears flopped. “You really don’t believe me?”

“Well, mayhap were you to prove your case.”

Selena stared sullenly at the floor, evidently lost in thought or else really admiring that particular speck of dust in the corner opposite me. “Alright, then stand you back, ye fair denizen of dreamland. I’m going to shed this shell and show you who I really am.”

“I think that phrase was kind of gibberish,” I replied, but pressed myself up to the wall to humor her, not that I went back very far. Something phallic and wooden poked into my back from a shelf.

Selena just stood there for a moment before an odd looked crossed her face. It the was look of a mare who just discovered that her prized sex toy had filed for divorce and was entering witness protection to escape her. The mare slumped back slightly, wearing a mortified countenance. “In this world, it appears I am stuck as a unicorn. That’s-that’s never happened before.”

There was silence for a moment. And then I reached out and booped her on the nose. “There. That’s what you get. Now please don’t pull off any of my metaphorical legs.” She rubbed her nose and glared at me like an angry kitten. “Ergo, you are clearly Luna the Seven-Tentacle’d Anacondom of the Canterlot Savannahs.”

“I… what?”

“Wow. You know,  you sure are perplexed a lot. Oh, and so, tell me, all this ‘Mistress of the Night’ business, does this mean you’re the lady of the night,” I asked, rocking forwards with a smile. “Because a lady of the night is slang for a pros—”

“When we get back to the real world, I am so going to smite you.” When I smiled thereat, she huffed. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

I shrugged. “I try not to fly in the face of public opinion.”

She scrunched up in a pout, still glaring at me. But that didn’t hide the embarrassed red glow from her cheeks. She opened up a saddlebag and pulled out a rolled-up poster, which she promptly unfurled and pointed at. Problem was, what little room there was in the closet was not gone, utterly eaten by a neat poster. “See? It’s a poster for Jericho—your show! See that? On the left? That’s me!”

I examined it closely before saying, “Sure, I suppose there’s a vague resemblance. But that mare is a unicorn. And the tiny filly on the right is a sad-looking Cards. The middle, which takes up most of the shot, is me. Oh, for that matter, why do you have a poster of me? And where can I get one?”

“Shut up! There are wings under her—er, my hoodie!”

“Suuure there are. And I’m the King of Cantaloupes, here to enforce my fruity vengeance upon ponykind. With a vengeance.”

She just continued glaring at me with that scrunchy-face pout.

Then something occurred to me. Ye denizen of dreamland. “Is… is this all just a dream?”

Selena frowned. “Maybe. This whole place is weird and confuses me.”

“Well, some Princess of the Night you are,” I scoffed. “You know, you were much more informative before you got possessed. Now I think I’m stuck in some dark ritual up in the ass-end of the Crystal Empire.”

“Crystal Empire, huh?” she said. “Of course you’d be involved with it. Seems like you’re never too far whenever Equestria’s having a problem as of late.”

I shrugged. “Comes with the territory of being the only one who cares.”

“Still,” she said slowly, putting a hoof to her chin, “if this is being created by some spell or ritual, it might explain why this place is like no dream I’ve ever seen. I was surprised I could even enter it.”

“So, then I am dreaming.”

“No, I don’t think you’re dreaming, but this is a dream.”

“I repeat: I’m dreaming?”

“No, like I said, you are not dreaming,” she replied in the tones of someone trying to explain the color ‘screw you’ to a blind pony. “Your mind is not creating this place. It’s too… concrete. Too much continuity. Too much, dare I say, logic. Dreams are chaotic, illogical series of events, at least to an outside observer. This place doesn’t work anything like that. It’s more like… something trying to simulate life working within a very set series of parameters.”

“You lost me at the first ellipsis,” I told her, feeling the strange urge to light a cigarette just to blow smoke in her face. Of course, that would plant the idea of cancer in my lungs, so I scratched that urge out of my mind. “But the gist is you’re a dream expert. Mayhap the way out is to wake up?”

“Mayhap,” she uttered with a little giggle, a nostalgic smirk. “Stars above, that’s a word whose like I’ve not heard in… gosh, ever.”

“I got brain damaged at some point. I have no idea what the dialect wherein I speak is or even wherefrom it comes.” Get to the point where I can get out of here, do it please ya.” I paused before adding, “Or even if it don’t.”

She hesitated, looking about. “Sometimes, really shocking things can force you awake. So too can doing something so against your nature that your unconscious mind rejects it and forces you awake. Can you think of anything like that?”

Quickly flashed through my mind the image of weaponized Cards-coitus making Stronghold’s head explode. I shook my head, both to clear the image therefrom and to respond. “No, I can’t think of anything. But…” I gave my head a slight tilt. “Wait, what about dying? I seem to recall that dying in a dream causes you to wake up.”

Selena’s eyes widened as she shook her head a little too fast. “Oh, no, no, don’t try that. Please, just don’t. Call it a hunch, but… Let’s just say I don’t put much faith in the idea that this could end with anything but horror and tragedy. For instance, you could—”

An ear-splitting ringing ran out throughout the building. It took me a moment to realize it was some sort of fire alarm. I was actually surprised that Equestria would even have those. They seemed too safe and logical for Equestrians to ever consider.

Funny how things just seemed to jump up on me, even when I’m not doing anything.

Ten Mark said there was no fire, that the alarm had been pulled by some dickish teen. Still, it didn’t take long for me to hear the sound of ponies walking through the back hallways. Fire exits were likely this way. I advised Selena that somepony official would eventually come in here to check on something or other, and that we should probably head outside.

I grabbed her hoof and took her along with me, Selena just slightly behind, as we snuck out of the closet and followed the ponies doubtlessly heading for the exit—most of them grumbling, the gist being they too thought it was a prank.

The sunlight was warm, and I had no idea what season it was in this place. Selena and I were being quiet. We walked through the growing crowd of ponies as they pressed out from the convention center, a veritable sea of geeky ponies who didn’t believe in deodorant.

We went on for a while. So many people. I heard sirens, and soon there were fireponies and then even police officers entering the building. It took a long time for anything to happen; we couldn’t get very far due to all the people and the commotion. The officers looked like more than the run-of-the-mill Joes working the shift. These seemed like proper investigators here by specific call, not just because a fire alarm had been pulled. There was a purpose to their workings. It was a subtle thing hard to put into exact words, but after a few years working cases in the RKA, I sort of just had a feel for this sort of thing.

At some point, Unkington and the ponies who played Cards and Lightning Dust showed up. I had forgotten their names because they weren’t interesting characters worth even mentioning. Although when I saw Not Cards’ strange new black leather suit, I couldn’t help but wonder if she had dressed as a gimp and just gotten out of a broom closet sex meet-up with a lion.

“Wow, girl,” I said. “You look like vomit vomited up its own vomit.”

She glared at me. “My costume got ruined, that’s what happened.”

“And who were you trying to be?” I asked, cocking a brow,

The girl looked away and sighed. “C’mon, Altair, we already went over this a week ago. Y’know? Comic book hero?”

“You can read?” I blurted out, agape. “Holy hell, this is news! You there, guy who is not Elkington. Did you know they were teaching mares to read now? What a travesty!” And then, in a normal voice: “But yeah, no. Who?”

She groaned. “Fire Sex Rider Girl, one of my heroes?”

“What kind of hero is… I’m going to out on a limb here and say he?”

“Y’know? Strong, confident mare who knows what she wants and takes it by force and wit. A hero people look up to. Gets all the sex she wants and nopony calls her a worthless whore because of it?”

“Aw, don’t be like that. Girl, you can have all the sex you want and I’ll approve. Heck, you can have, like, three whole penises in each hole at once and I’ll still approve. I probably wouldn’t shake your hoof, though, because I don’t know where it’s been, but I wouldn’t judge.”

“That’s… good to know. Very liberal and forward thinking, I guess?” She offered me a smile. “You know, you’re a little different today. Still crazy, but…”

“I know, right? Oh, hey, does being literate mean you’re going to demand the right to vote now, too?” I asked with a frown.

“Um…” she droned. After a hefty moment she said, “So. you’re being more… personable and approachable than usual.”

“I blame the Jericho in me. Makes me do strange things.”

“Oh, yeah. I totally know how that feels! Sometimes, I get really into Cards when I try to play her, like… You know that Cards-based spinoff show some of the execs were trying to get, about Cards and her life in Hoofington during season two and stuff? Well, I was so good at thinking and pretty much being Cards that half of the dialog used there is just me rambling on while trying to be in-character.

“So, like, it’s really cool to see you and I are alike on this, kinda sorta. I mean, I know how you do acting and stuff, but it’s not like we’ve ever really talked outside of in-character on the set, y’know?”

I cast her an oblong look. “Are you trying to say you look up to me?”

“Well, uh… I guess? I mean, you’re a pretty cool actor and stuff. And I mean, like…”

“Very incoherent,” I noted. And a thought came to me. “Strange. Just like in Calêrhos. It’s like in every where but home, Cards seems to look up to me, think I’m a hero. In every where wherein I’ve not killed Glasses or the like, that is to say. Does make me wonder what Cards would think of me had I not butchered her only friend in the world.”

“Cards is… complicated, I’d like to say,” the mare offered with a wink. “She’s just like that. Kind of girl that can both hate and love somepony with equal measure, which only makes her hate her lonely self all the more. Sure, Jericho fucked up when he killed Glasses, but if there’s one thing that Cards really gets, it’s fucking up. That’s my interpretation, personally. But being the girl who plays her, I sort of have a big say in all that.”

“How… insightful,” I said, almost not even there. I was phased out, just thinking about the implications of all that regarding Cards.

“Thanks, I try!” she chirped. Not that I was paying attention much anymore.

In truth, I rarely if ever thought of Cards proper as a pony, just a thing: either as obstacle or tool. This mare… I think her name was Lime Light. She suggested that my relationship to the real Cards could be more like how it was to the Cards of Calêrhos or this Lime Light. It was a strange, even stupid proposition. 

But then what? Would Cards actually be my friend? What a strange thought. Friends. Lovely to have, hard to come by when you’re like me. At least, hard to come by ones that last. I let it sink in with a quick flash of an amused grin. That’d surely be the one way to kill her for good: befriend her.

With that little thing out of the way, I noticed Selena just standing there, being irrelevant and pointedly seeming aware thereof. I decided to ask her about what she had in mind to do now, since I was sort of at wit’s very boring end. But that was when I saw the pair of well-dressed ponies who were clearly police officers. Amongst them was a big burly stallion with a face that looked like a leather boot. I could just sit there, idly imagining myself chewing on his face like a dog for hours, utterly content with myself and life in general.

But it was the other one, the mare, who met my eyes and asked, “Mister Penrose?”

“Well, people seem to have taken a shine to calling me that lately, so I guess you can join the crowd too, if you want,” I said. “So then. Either something horrible is about to happen, or you found me because only I can save the President’s daughter.”

They exchanged looks before the mare spoke again. “Nothing of that sort. But we are with Applewood Metro Equicide. May we speak with you?”

“I’m guessing that if equicide is here, then there’s somebody dead in there, right?” I asked in response. “And if you’re talking to me way out here and clearly suspect me of something—don’t bother hiding it. I was special Agent in my day, and I recognize the look in your eyes, however subtle. I’m thinking that mayhap it has something to do with a corpse they found on the set?”

“What are you doing?” Selena whispered rather loudly to me.

“I thought we talked about this? Almost half of all your emotions when around me revolve around confusion. Stop it.” I flashed her a smile. “Probably nothing will go too horribly wrong. I’ll at least have no more than one eye when I get back. Besides. I might learn something here. And I’m also out of other ideas. Like, dead out. So why not?”

“How is this at all a good idea? Are you utterly stupid?” she demanded suddenly.

“If I said yes, you’d be a liar,” I concluded in an expertly clinical voice. Then I turned back to the officers. “Sorry thereabout. Now then. From that stance you’ve both assumed, I presume you want to bring me in for questioning, is that right? Good. I hate being right.”


|— ☩ —|


They pushed me into a dingy chair in a shady room with one-way glass on one wall and hoofcuffed me to a table. “I’ve played nice so far. I’m not even technically under arrest. Need I be cuffed?” I demanded.

“We don’t know, and it’s better to be safe than sorry,” said one of the officers who’d taken me in as they left the room. Lawponies in Equestria didn’t seem to play by the ideas of civil liberty and innocent until proven guilty that we had in the Reich. Or maybe cops just followed no logic here in this place. Who was to say?

I sat there for a minute, thinking about whether it was possible to strangle a snake and how best to hide its body from the snake authorities. I don’t know how long I was stuck in la-la land with that, but when I came to, somepony was walking into the room.

At first glance, she looked like a large kitten dressed up as a police officer. I half expected her to purr and start giving herself a tongue-bath. She lacked cat-like grace, but was sleek, small, and narrow.

“I’m sorry about this little mess, Mister Penrose,” she began, pushing her dark blue hair out of her eyes and flashing me a smile. I wondered when ‘good cop’ had become ‘poor attempts at seduction cop’. “My colleagues can be a little… tough and rough.”

“They weren’t rough on me at all,” I said in a happy tone, “just incompetent. I mean, have you seen how loose these cuffs are? Allfather above, I could probably wiggle out of these. You really need a better budget here in order to hire ponies who don’t suck. Or maybe a zebra with his stripes painted hot pink. That’d be rad!” She almost missed her next step, but caught herself before she tripped. Less than ten seconds in, and I suspected I’d utterly thrown her off her game. Go Team Jericho. “And for the record, since you’re the obvious good cop, where’s the bad cop? I thought bad cop went in first. Or do you guys just suck so much that you forgot how this is supposed to work?”

“He… called in sick today,” she said softly with her ears turning down, like a sad kitten.

“Right. Well. That explains everything,” I said, tilting my head and staring at her. “What, did he come down with a bad case of Vagina Dentata?

She took a seat opposite me and looked me over. From the look in her orange eyes, I could tell she wasn’t actually studying me, just trying to seem competent. And it failed. Silly girl needed to learn how to stare down her suspects.

“Well, seems like they were nice to you, then. Not incompetent. And that’s probably just because we don’t get so many famous, big-named actors in here like yourself.” She flashed me a smile that utterly collapsed under my hard glare. “My name is Meadow, and… You know, Mister Penrose, this might sound odd, but could I get your autograph?”

“Beg pardon?”

She slid a piece of paper in front of me. “See, I’m a fan of your work and all. And personally, there’s no way such a distinguished member of the community—”

“Stop,” I barked. “This is just a piece of paper that says ‘I totally did it’ followed by a dotted line.”

“I thought it was clever,” she muttered, fidgeting with her hooves.

“Know what? You’re right. It’s an excellent plan. Not in this dimension, of course. Not even in this plane of reality. But I’m sure it’s an excellent plan somewhere.” I threw my hooves up in exasperation, or at least as much as I could when I was cuffed to the table. “And, for that matter, did what?”

She slammed down a photo—where was she getting this stuff?—on the desk. “Murdering Orlando Plume!” Meadow declared dramatically as I gave her a nonplussed look. “Give it up, Altair! We already have countless witnesses to your assault on Plume with a coffee mug, a deadly weapon if ever there was! We know exactly where you were when you vanished after that! Being a murderer.”

“Actually, I was conquering a ball pit, then I was in a closet with a silly pony pretending to be Princess Luna. Poorly.”

She rubbed her chin., “Ah, yes. The ball pit We heard of it. Sadly for us, there are no explicit laws forbidding any of what you did, but you are still a murderous criminal.”

“If I was such a criminal, would I be so inclined as to reveal an important clue you’ve clearly missed in this picture of Plume’s corpse? Give me a pen. I’ll highlight it.” She dramatically slammed down a pen with great gusto. I picked it up, played therewith, and scribbled on the photo.

“Did… did you just draw a penis on an important bit of crime scene evidence?”

“What, don’t you see this important clue? Plume’s face and it’s similarity to a penis. Coincidence? I think not!”

“So. Are you saying this vindicates you?”

“Honey, were I to kill Plume, I’d do it with pizzaz and I would have violently resisted arrest. As it stands, he’s dead? Since when?”

“We’re trying to keep that hush-hush to prevent panic and the like. Here.” She tapped at the photo, beyond my elegant artwork. “See these? Do these symbols mean anything to you?”

I shrugged, my eyes wandering about the cold concrete walls of the room. “They’re fake.”

“Excuse me?”

“They’re all just made to look dark and spooky. But from what I know, these have no meaning.”

“Not even this one?” She tapped two pictures, each one a photo of a corpse. One was the the pegasus, Plume. The other an earther, the unnamed first victim.

With a raised eyebrow: “Should I?”

A little smirk danced across her lips as she pulled out a camera. Again, no idea whence it’d come. Was she hiding a bag of holding inside her vagina? “Mister Penrose, would you mind taking off some of your clothes for me?”

I blinked. Then I recalled that in Equestria, this was probably not a question I could press sexual harassment charges over. Because everypony was usually naked. “I’m not going to do that. I have the right to say no as a stallion! This is wrong and I won’t stand therefor anymore!” I tried to stand up, but the cuffs caught my motions and I ended up falling to the ground. Because I wasn’t going to stand for this kind of shit no more.

“All I wanted to do was note you had an incredibly similar tattoo on your chest,” she said. “Land’s sake, I wasn’t about to go all Cherry Berry on you.”

“It’s hard to tell these days,” I replied in a weak voice. “Because if you were, I would’ve found a way to break these cuffs and send you to the graveyard. Where dead people live. Also, you watch that show? I bet it must suck.” Then the implications behind what he said truly occurred to me, and I jumped up. “Wait. I have a tattoo like theirs?”

“Yes. Which is one of the reasons why you’re a suspect here,” she replied, looking over at me, cocking her head a little to the left. “Same unusual tattoo in the same place on the body. It’s just too odd to just be a coincidence. That, and you were seen fighting with Plume. And were near the first corpse found. See what I’m getting at, Mister Penrose?”

What followed was an odd experiment into not being helpful in the least bit. She asked things here and there, but in the end I was pretty sure I’d managed to learn more than she did. Plume was dead like the other one, similarly sacrificed while the fire alarm had been pulled. There was an occult motive suspected, but nopony really knew anything. All their proof was circumstantial. Overall, it was as horrible as having a huge fetish for your own limp penis. But she ran out of questions eventually. At the end, they had no evidence on me nor a reason to legally hold me. I was free.

They walked me outside. Dusk had fallen. It struck me that the length of the interview stood as a testament to this city’s failed excuse for cops. I had expected to meet Selena out here, presuming she knew where to go, and so found myself standing in the empty park next to the police station. At this hour, nobody wanted to see the duck pond or the lovely shadows the trees cast. And due to its proximity to the police station, the place as clean and free of ragamuffins, vagrants, and other types a city government would deem undesirable.

I pulled out a cigarette from Altair’s pack, staring thereat. “Woe betide me,” I muttered at the packet, fishing around for a lighter. Not that I would use them, but I just sort of wanted to hold them and feel cool for a moment. Smoking made people cool because there was nothing cooler than dying of lung cancer. What then followed for me was about three minutes of me stumbling to continue an alliteration, abusing a line or two from Teutsch, before clunkily dropping into a slur of French that made me sound like a pretentious and incoherent twat.

“Altair, have you gone mad?” came a voice.

I turned around slowly. There, standing in the shadow of the nearby tree, was Cards. Lime Light. Whatever. And she wasn’t wearing her ruined gimp suit anymore, which made me frown. “I suspect they will have to conclude as such,” I replied in a sad voice. “What are you doing here, and did you bring tasty, tasty snacks?”

“Um, I did not,” she said, casting me a bemused look.

“Thou ignoble strumpet!” I hissed. “I’ll bash your face in like a bag of carrots for this transgression! Assuming, you know, I get out of this dark ritual alive.”

“Ritual?” she asked in a perfectly innocent tone, like a child asking her father what ‘deepthroat’ is. “You mean those murders? I only heard of them in passing, save for the fact you were involved.” She crept closer towards me. I put my smokes and lighter away.

“Suspicious of you to be here,” I offered. “And I don’t think is a realm of coincidence. I know you for must you must be.”

Before she could do anything, I jumped in her direction. Cards didn’t even react as I shoved her against the tree and pinned her there, a murderous grin on my face. “Know what I think, little lady?” And she whimpered.

“What?” she demanded, shaking hard. Her horn took on an aura of levitation, and I replied kindly by smacking her across the face.

“The cops wanted these murders, especially of Plume, to be on the hush-hush, so there’s no way that if something this big leaked into the press that you’d only hear thereof ‘in passing’. Not to mention how you’re suddenly here out of nowhere in the dark and acting so innocent.” I tsked at her, shaking my head. “A reasonable pony wouldn’t conclude much thereof. Unless you are a red herring. But I’m so tired of this whole shtick that I’ll bark up any tree at this point.”

“You’re insane!” she yelped. “Holly asked me to come pick you up when you got out!”

A bug bit me on the neck as I said, “How would she have known that I’d get out at all? If this were a logical world, she’d’ve been here in your stead, up front. You’re involved with this event, somehow. And you’re going to tell me about the ritual, and about… and about…” My words trailed off. Bug bite? Bullshit. It took me a second to properly register that there was a needle jabbed into my neck. And it was acting fast. Far faster than most. Odds were, I was going to pass out and come to tied up.

I looked back at Cards to see her horn lit up as she mouthed the word “sorry!”

Oddly, my last thought before I fell to the ground, before everything got blurry and incomprehensible, was shit, I forget to hide a knife up my asshole.


|— ☩ —|


“Moon, glorious moon,” came the voice of Lime Light as I groggily found my senses returning to me. I was about to tell her to shut up before I killed her only other surviving male family member with a baseball bat, but that’s when I noticed I was lying on my back, and high above me was the reddish face of the moon.

I tried to move, but apparently Lime Light knew how to tie a stallion down. My eyes fluttered around, rolling and rolling as I tried to get a fix on where I was. Looked dark and dingy, reminding me of a warehouse, the skylight high above me having long ago lost its glass.

“Full, fat, bloody moon,” she went on in a singsong as I heard the sound of sharpening knives. “Night as bright as daylight, moonlight filtering down across the world, bring joy, joy, joy. Don’t you agree, Altair?”

Lime Light’s visage appeared above me, smiling as she held a large knife. “Come now, I know you’re awake. I used smelling salts.” When I tried to speak, only a muffle came out. She blinked, then pulled something out of my mouth. A rag, as it were. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“I could really go for a pork sandwich right about now,” I told her matter-of-factly. Her expression faltered, like I’d entirely thrown her off her game. And thinking thereabout, I probably had. “It’d help me think. Fine bread. Perfect blend of pork and pickle. Can you tell I’m hungry?”

“You’re supposed to be afraid,” she replied with a frown.

“Yeah, mayhap. Sad news for you, I’m not. Like, I feel nothing right save for my hunger. Hey, Lime Light, mind getting me some take-out before you try to murder me? Thankee, sweetie. You’re the best.”

“No, no!” she shouted, stomping her hooves. “This isn’t how this is supposed to work!” Snarling, she pointed her knife between me and herself as she pretty much yelled at me. “You, victim, afraid. Me, the victimizer victorious. You, mark on the chest. Me, created to hunt you and finish the ritual on the marked ones.”

“Ah,” I said in a dull voice. “Me Jericho. You girl. Me big hungry. Zug, zug. Am I speaking your language properly?”

“Gah! Why do I even bother?”

“Because annoying murderers is one of my many illustrious pastimes,” I replied.

“I’m no murderer!” she retorted with an indignant tone, thrust her nose up into the air.

“Deceits! You were saying that you need to kill the ones with the strange tattoos here to perform the ritual? A tattoo I did not have before I fell into his place, mind you. So you know things that implicate you as a murderer. You are a liar!”

“I’m not a liar, either. And for the record, Holly really did ask me to come get you. It was a little too perfect, to be honest,” she finished with a little laugh. “But I’m no murderer. The thing inside me, well, that might be another story. Before it jumped to me a little after you vanished. But before that, it was in two ponies before. One of which was Plume. His was actually a suicide. Fine work, really.”

“Ah. So you’re not Lime Light but a thing inside of her?”

“Again, wrong,” she said, waggling a hoof. “I am Lime Light, but now I know what the thing inside me knows. So, therefore I know what’s best and what I’ve got to do. Simple, really. Gosh I really never did realize how much I wanted to stab you a lot until this little thing found me, too!”

“Huh. You know, I never would’ve guessed. This whole ordeal came straight out of left field.”

“I know, right? Anyways, now that you know that I know eldritch secrets, are you afraid?”

“Neeeemmeehhhrrr…. I’ll think about it,” I replied. “You’re just kind of the least intimidating bad guy ever. Although if you got me that pork sandwich, I might be willing to comply.”

“Shut up!”

“:Lime Light, just because nopony wants to get in your pants because you look like Cards doesn’t mean you should go around murdering ponies! And the sooner you forget about that, the sooner you can realize that murdering me won’t solve your perma-virginity problem.” I tried to raise my head, but I was bound down to whatever surface I was on—a table?—by the forehead. But I got far enough to see that I was naked, and that my limbs had been bound by tape, it seemed. Lots of duct tape.

“And really, Lime Light? Really? I’m naked. What are you going to do, demand that I give you head or you’ll kill me?” I scoffed. She was now slowly grinding her teeth. “You know what, you try that. Just try that. The coroner’s report will read you died from having your labia ripped out by a wild honey badger.” I laughed at her. “If I’m going to die one way or the other, where’s the harm in being belligerent thereabout? So, what’s it—”

She clamped a hoof over my maw and hissed out, “Shut your fucking mouth, Altair!” It was at that moment that I felt her knife slide up again my face, slicing a wound into my cheek. “I’m not going to take any more of your shit.”

“Hey, while you’re really particularly evil, and thus in an expository mood, could you riddle me something?” I asked. “What role was Plume’s and unnamed earther in this whole thing?”

Lime Light sighed hard. “Part of the trifecta; an earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn are needed to finish this business.” She licked the bloody knife, and I found myself deeply hoping she’d cut her tongue and die. “All must be united in death, for they are marked with the symbols.” She pointed to my chest. “See? Only then can this whole ordeal come to an end.”

“And my role in all this?”

Cards sighed and rubbed her forehead. “A construction partially of your mind, partially out of the ritual, Jericho. With your death, your body will be fine, but your mind will be no more.”

“Nifty,” I said, totally unfettered. “So. How’ve you been? And the kids? I see. And your daughter? A raging slut now? I see. Lovely,” I went on, nodding my head as politely as I could.

She put the knife above my heart, holding it there with her telekinesis. “I could end your whole mind right here. Right now,” she threatened, sounding about as dangerous as a kitten with a hangnail. “So stop fucking with me!”

“Yeah, you do that. I’m waiting for my deux ex machina.”

“What?” she asked, one of her ears drooping.

“As soon as you raise your knife to plunge it into me, I guarantee some friend of mine is going to burst hereinto and save me. Ten bits say she’s standing on the other side of whatever door you have in this room, waiting to be an eleventh hour heroine.”

She chuckled. “Unlikely. I made sure I wasn’t followed.”

I groaned, and said back to her, “Moon, glorious moon.”

“You know what, I’m sick of your shit!” she blurted out, and raised her knife high.

I yawned. “See, you say that.”

Out from the darkness of my peripheral vision came a figure cloaked in shadow. She was late, that was for sure. And—“Gotcha,” Lime Light giggled, spinning around and bringing her knife to bear against the figure. “Mister loudmouth here really needs to learn to shut up. Heard you coming from a mile away.”

“Yes, you did,” Selena replied. I wasn’t sure what happened in that next movement, but as it seemed to me, Selena kicked Lime Light in the elbows. As the little mare fell down, my would-be rescuer grabbed the knife and tossed it up at me.

“Danke!” I said as I grabbed the knife in my telekinesis. As I used to cut the bonds holding my head back, it struck me how stupid it was that Lime Light hadn’t done anything to prevent me from using telekinesis. Not even some sort of anti-magic thingy or even one of those drugs that makes unicorn unable to use their namesake for as long as the lasting drug is in effect. Even when she was an evil serial killer in another dimension/dream thing, Cards was incompetent. Yay me.

I sliced off the bonds holding my arms and chest in place, then quickly slid the blade through the ones that held my legs and thighs down tight. The knife was oddly effective at cutting the tape. I pushed myself off the table.

Lime Light and Selena were dueling, hoof-to-hoof. It was actually rather embarrassing for Selena; you’d think that Cards, at least someone with the same body if not name, wouldn’t be any trouble for her, she really sucked. Like, wow, she was terrible. With a casual hop in my step, I went over and got behind Lime Light. I tried to whistle, but being that I couldn’t whistle, all I did was sort of splatter a bit of spit on the little mare’s back.

She turned around, I smiled as I wrapped my arms around her neck and squeezed hard, strangling her in a headlock. The mare tried to struggle, but I very successfully kicked out her legs and threw her to the ground. Still naked, I pounced atop her and slugged her in the jaw.

I raised my knife, meeting her eyes with a grin. “Wait, no, Jericho, don’t!” she pleaded.

“Don’t worry, I’m only kidding,” I replied amicably, before I plunged the massive, serrated knife straight into her wrist, deep enough to penetrate the wooden floor. I hopped up and stomped on the knife, driving the blade up to its hilt down into her flesh and the wooden floor below, pinning her. “I wouldn’t dream of killing you, dear.”

Standing up, I  gave Selena a smile. An honest one, not the murderous ones I’d been giving Lime Light. “See? I knew you’d turn up. Question is, what took you, and why?”

She at first didn’t respond. The mare was too busy wearing a horrified expression and looking down at Lime Light, who herself was screaming as she frantically tried in vain to alternatively pull the knife out and stop the bleeding.

I poked Selena.

“Stars above, Jericho,” she whispered hoarsely. “That’s… that’s…”

“I didn’t want to kill her; she might know something useful,” I said. “And I saw no other immediate options. I did what I had to do.”

“You still have all that tape you’re wearing—you could have tied her down!”

I scoffed. “And go naked? Are you crazy?” I looked over to the table whereto I’d been taped, and next to it was a little table of medical instruments. Including a needle, a spool of thread, and a very convenient syringe. A quick check to make sure it was full later and I injected it into Lime Light’s jugular. She was out cold post haste.

“That…” Selena tried, “was not something I ever wanted to see. So much blood.” She turned her eyes to me. “Honestly, I suspected what this was when I noticed it, and even more so when I entered this… dream-like state. You seemed to constantly be near trouble recently, and I thought at first you were an unwitting victim in this whole matter. A witting pawn at worst.”

I shifted my weight and looked at her. “I’m not sure what point bothers me more: the fact that I don’t know what you’re thinking, or something about how you knew what was going on this whole time and didn’t tell me. Because I think you know a lot more than what you’ve been leading on.”

“You don’t get to where I am without having to learn a thing or two about dark magic, like it or not,” she replied with a hefty sigh. “And so when I found this… thing, I suspected its intents were an obscure take on a summoning ritual. But after all this, and judging from what you know about dark magic already—”

“You now think I’m less victim and more villain?”

“In a matter of speaking.”

There came a pregnant pause. Selena shuffled in place. She looked between me and the knife pinning Lime Light to the floor.

“You seem to be trying to determine if I’m mad or sane,” I offered.

Selena shook her head. And after a moment, she spoke. “No, that much is becoming clear fast.”

“Good,” I told her. “Shows you’re capable of some basic common sense, which is a lot for most ponies.”

“I let you take that book from the Royal Archives because I was curious; I wanted to see where it would lead. And because it was fun, being a bit of a bad girl. I suspected it had something to do with my investigation into Songnam and Sleepy Oaks. Not sure how, and I’m still not, but I had a gut feeling.” She sighed. “Honestly, it’s why I let Lime Light here take you like I did. I needed to investigate what would occur, and it had to play out naturally, with minimal involvement from myself. So that in the end I could understand better what was going on.”

Cocking a brow and leaning against the table, I said, “I resent the idea that I’m a sort of guinea pig for your curiosity.”

Her eyes never left the moon, glorious moon. “Jericho, right now I’m trying to decide if I still think you’re a good person. Just tell me, I prithee, why do all this? Why steal the book? Why get mixed up in these dark rituals in the first place? You’re clearly no hapless victim. You know a lot more than I do here, and that’s both saying something and a rather scary thought.”

I didn’t reply at first; I only licked my gums and thought for a moment. She never once interrupted me. The mare just let me think. “I am a monster, Selena. Don’t let me ever fool you into thinking otherwise.” I gave that a moment to sink in. “But I exist to pay evil unto evil, to purge the wicked. I am he who sells his soul for the innocent, who sacrifices his blood so those without sin may prosper.”

“You’re not answering the question,” she replied forcefully, and I found myself struggling not to grit my teeth.

“Because my last adventure broke me, mind, body, and spirit.” Not to mention the tons of other people I broke. “Back in the real world, there’s a sad little orphan waiting for me—” to screw her life up even more “—to find her and set things right.” Even if the status quo of a perpetually unlaid and miserable Cards is hilarious. Some things I probably just can’t change. Even if I wanted to. I nodded at the unconscious mare. “This monster is wearing her skin, that of the orphan.”

“And if mayhap I can’t set Cards right then… the least I can do is encourage her and see if she can become the true mare she’s meant to be, rather than the poor thing she was when last I saw her. I don’t want to screw up her life more. I really do want to do good. But the universe will probably twist it all around and make it so I ruin her so she’s even worse off than before,” I added with a mirthless chuckle.

Selena said nothing, only looked at me with solemn eyes.

“There was darkness afoot in the Crystal Empire, where I’d gone to restore myself so as to set myself right. I had to get thereinto in order to stop it. I regret nothing, and I know I’ve done bad to get here.” Deep down inside, I really wanted this conversation to just go away so I could get back to being productive. But something told me this was a mare I’d meet again some point, and that she would remember me. And in those cases, it’s best to make a good impression.

“You’re on a quest that can only end in death, Jericho,” she spoke quietly.

“No, I’m not. A quest is righteous, selfless, with heroic aims. They are good; they help people.” I shook my head. “This is an obsession. Those hurt people. It is only by pure coincidence that the people my obsession most often hurts are the wicked, vile, and cruel. I’m no more a hero than a murderer whose victims just so happen to be worse villains than he. And even for those I help, those I call friends, companions, or otherwise, little good lies in store for them.”

“How do you mean?” she asked. It was clear I had her interest at this point. Good. It helped to play up the dark, angsty hero card from time to time. And what I was saying wasn’t exactly false, either.

I took a breath and let it out slowly. “Should you want to stay safe, want to stay alive, I’ll give you some advice: if Death comes knocking on your door and asks if you know Jericho, you tell him you don’t.” I gave her as deep and meaningful a look as I could muster/bullshit. “So, when you ask me if I’m good or bad, that’s not for me to say. In this case, it’s your call.”

Silence reigned. I tried to seem dark and mysterious as I looked down at my hooves or at Cards, as if in deep, meaningful thought. Of course, the only thoughts going through my mind had something to do with tasty pork sandwiches and the clittorcock theory. Don’t ask me how those two ended up in the same thought.

Then, a miracle—the ghost of a smile flittered across Selena’s lips. “I like how you artfully managed to dodge the question again. You’re used to dealing with the hopefully naïve, aren’t you? The kind who just eat up that kind of spiel, right?”

I gave her a little laugh. “I could lie and try to defend myself, but, well…”

She rolled her eyes. “‘Don’t bullshit a bullshiter’, Jericho. I’ll offer you a modicum of trust for the moment. Maybe you can’t explain, maybe it’s too personal. Benefit of the doubt against what might be my better judgement. But if you cross me, so help me, you’ll regret it for the rest of what will become your nasty, brutish, and short existence.” And then, with a cute little smile and a wink, she added, “Are we clear?”

“Aye, ma’am, like crystal.”

“Now then,” she started with renewed energy, “there’s still the matter of how to get you out of this mess.”

“So… back to square one, basically?”

“More or less, yes.”

I looked down at my mostly naked body, to the symbol on my chest. The one I know I hadn’t possessed in the real world. “This symbol. Those wearing it need all be sacrificed to end this whole thing, aye?”

“Yes, it needs to be a part of them. I think. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen something of this like,” she said, a hoof on her chin as she looked around.

“And if there were another pony, another unicorn therewith who was sacrificed…? Speaking hypothetically, of course,” I replied, my eyes drifting to Cards. Lime Light. Whatever. I kept thinking of her as Cards where really I needed to alienate her as Lime Light.

“Well, I guess it would work. I think. I don’t really know.”

I moved over to the little surgical table, scanning over its contents once again. “You may want to look away, ma’am,” I said, picked up Cards’ unconscious form and hoisting her only the table, taking care to keep the knife within her body to prevent too much bleeding.

“What are you doing? Jericho, what are you doing?” she demanded as I fished out a roll of duct tape from under the table and taped Cards down as she had me.

“I’m going to complete the ritual,” I replied calmly, without inflection. Actually, I forgot to add proper tones, but still.

“What do you mean? You can’t draw a new symbol onto her! That won’t work. It has to be attached to the body to the sacrificed ponies, the original symbols, that is.”

“I cry your pardon, ma’am?”

“The goal of this kind of thing—I’ve seen it before, see?” Selena spoke faster now, more worried. “You’re the last victim because you were victim from the real world. The spell is meant to hollow your mind out, and bring forth a powerful being from the other side in its place, wearing your skin!”

“Nifty,” I said, holding up the scalpel. “Which is why I’m going to finish the ritual, and I’m going to break the game in the process.”

“What does tha—” She half-gagged, half-screamed as I jabbed the scalpel straight into my chest. Acting casual, I traced an outline of the tattoo with the blade, cutting and scraping away the flesh deeply. Blood gushed out, but what did it matter? Selena watched with horror as I quickly cut out the skin and held my tattoo up before mine own eyes.

“See?” I said, offering her the flesh. “No big deal. Now I’m no longer a victim to be.”

Then, humming a jaunty tune, I set the gory flesh down on Cards, getting a fix on the dimensions before I jabbed the scalpel into her and cut out a similarly sized chunk of skin. Now it was a race until either I bled out or the wound clotted up. I wasn’t sure which would come first. Worst part was, this was enough to wake her up.

Lime Light/Cards tried to scream, but I shoved a rag into her mouth and went out without a care. Selena went over into the corner and bravely retched. The little mare on the operating table was crying. And by the time I’d removed the chunk of flesh, she’d pissed herself.

Selena dragged herself back over to me, watching with a mix of horror and fascinating as I proceeded to stitch my tattooed flesh to Cards. “Why?” Selena croaked out.

“Because a few things. Cards here is the little girl whose life I have to make right. So, clearly, if I kill her here, the shock and horror might be enough to wake me up. Elsewise, I might have thrown this ritual off so hard that it might just break. Either way, I’m taking a third option. As always.”

“That’s… horrific!”

“I won’t sit here and be some damsel in distress you need to rescue, Selena. I’m being proactive. I’m going to save myself, and them I’m going to save Equestria. Again.”

Now, I admit freely that I am no surgeon. Sure, I was good at hacking apart flesh, but with all this slippery blood, it was hard to keep things nice and clean. Cards’ life leaked onto the floor in spades, filling the air with the metallic smell thereof. It pooled with mine own blood on the ground. There was probably something poetic thereabout, but I didn’t care. It didn’t help that she struggled and trashed, held down and nigh still by the thick straps that were now digging into her flesh. With her agonized ferocity, I half-expected the straps to cut her deeper and faster than I had.

And there. It was a rough, shoddy job, but now Cards was the marked unicorn. With red, pleading eyes, she tried to beg me not to do this as I ripped the serrated knife out of her wrist.

“I… don’t think I want to be here to see this,” Selena said. I watched as she made her way towards the other end of the room. She cast one final, solemn glance at me before heading out a door into whatever other dark corridor there was in this foreboding place.

I took Cards’ large knife and held it high above her heart. Of course, for all I tried to make this seem less horrific than it was, I couldn’t help but think back to Maiya. It seemed to easy to sacrifice Cards, as it were, but now the thought of being forced to do the same to Maiya would have horrified me in some cold, clinical way. Sentiment. That was the word for it.

Maybe it’s because I knew Maiya was real in a way this Cards wasn’t, but as I listened to her muffled screams and watched her thrash helplessly on the table, my excuses found themselves ringing hollower and hollower by the second.

But it was too late to turn back now.

The knife came down harder than hell. I felt it go through bone and into her heart. I even sensed as the heart tried uselessly to pump as the blade tore it in half, each throb ripping the organ asunder even harder.

“Sorry, kid,” I said as I tore the knife out.

Lime Light was dead. This is how it’d look like were I to actually murder Cards. I gazed at the knife, dripping with her blood. It was a strange feeling. Like a bad taste. Only instead of taste, it was the murder of somepony I was, in a weird way, almost fond of. Which was very much unlike taste, come to think. Of course, I knew it wasn’t Cards. Not really. But this image… I’d imagined killing her before, back when I honestly thought we’d been on opposite sides of the fight, with her working for evil masters.

With a weird, twisted species of amusement, it occurred to me that this was the second time I’d sacrificed Cards. Once here with mine own hooves, and once in Calêrhos to C so I could save myself and heal my wounded flesh. A little cold feeling inside me, colder than ice, reminded me of something dark. If given the choice to redo what I’d done in Calêrhos, and likely indeed here, I would sacrifice Cards again and again to suit my interests.

That’s what I told myself, and I struggled not to think any more thereabout. Because I knew if I thought about that too hard, I might reveal it for the lie it was.

I grit my teeth and swore under my breath. Fuck it, I didn’t want to kill her! I didn’t! Sure, she was a screwed-up monster inside a familiar body, but I didn’t want to kill her! I cursed the universe, knowing it’d do no good. From somewhere deep inside, a dark, toothy, and joyless grin spread across my face as a thought came to mind. There awaited me a karmic debt to pay for this and Sleepy Oaks alike. A divine punishment befitting of my sins. Retribution against me. Then I could go back to being a hero. Soon enough; I couldn’t escape it. And I couldn’t fucking wait.

“Kid, huh? How quaint.”

Immediately, I looked up to the table, the wound on my chest oozing blood harder as my heart leapt. I probably didn’t have long till I went into shock. But there was the matter of who had spoken.

The bonds of tape were gone. In fact, all the tape was. Sitting up on the table, legs crossed as she took a large bite out of an apple, was Cards. Except, one look into her red eyes told me this was not Cards, not at all. Not Lime Light. And not even whatever Lime Light became when that thing possessed her. Her eyes glowed with ambition and determination. They held a fire of casual charisma that nearly burned holes in her skull.

“Although,” she went on in the tones of predator who couldn’t decide if she wanted to seduce me or devour me bit-by-living-bit, “did you have to use so much tape? It still smarts.” She laughed and took another huge bite of her red apple. I dimly noted that her chest was not bleeding anymore, unlike mine. “Pretty brutal way to go, I’d say,” the… Cards-thing said through a mouthful of food.

She tossed the half-eaten apple aside and stood up. I stepped back from her, and she shrugged. “What, afraid of little old me? Why… Gunslinger? No, no, your proper name was… it’s Jericho, right?”

“Forgive me for  playing the role of Captain Obvious, but you’re not Cards, are you?” I asked with caution, ready to leap into action in any direction should the need arise.

“There’s a simple answer, but, well, I may as well not tell. Rule of drama, you must understand,” she said with an innocent, even adorable, jostle of her shoulders, as if to say ‘who, me? I didn’t gouge his balls out with that ice-cream scooper. Nope.’ “But I’m not here to do you any harm.”

“Funny,” I said. “Because right now you might as well be holding a sign that says ‘I am new final boss’.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. Sure, I’m not the Cards you know and love, but she seems to hold you in the highest regards. At least, she did before she… well, let’s just say that C’s a liar and a backstabber; even when he does exactly what he says he’ll do, he finds a way to mess you over.”

I leaned away from her. “Who are you?”

“Oh, Jericho, I am hurt. I am Cards, but I am not. This is how she came out when C dragged her through the doorway; it is the flesh he offered unto me in exchange for… something of value, of which we’ll not speak.”

I said nothing more. Since she was clearly some sort of bad guy who had me at a disadvantage, I expected her to pounce and kill me. Honestly, any smart villain would do that; I’d otherwise totally destroy her plans, one way or another.

“Um, are you going to…?” she said, swaying her head as if to prompt me to go on some point. “Come on, questions?”

“Oh,” I said. “I figured you were going to give me some sort of evil monolog wherein you explain to me your whole evil plot and the one thing that can defeat you before trying to kill me, leading to my inevitable escape and vendetta against you. I mean, twenty minutes ago you were trying to kill me.”

She blinked, then offered me a good-natured chuckle. “Oh, no, no, no, that wasn’t me at all. That was the ritual girl. I’m the real McCoy, just like Luna over there in the other room.”

“Wait. You’re saying that’s actually…” I shook my head. “Then who are you?”

“Like I said, I don’t care to answer. But when I found out somepony was using Korweit’s old, incompetent attempt at a ritual to get me into your head, I just had to stop it. C’s production might not have been what I had wanted, but it had what I needed. But then I get here and you’ve already thrown this whole ritual off course, and, Jericho, I just love that! So innovative and fresh and exciting!” she finished with a laugh.

“Honestly,” she went on, “I was just here to stop this charade before it went on. But it’s fun to see you here. Even if your flesh is different since then.” She pointed to the blood-encrusted, but very much still bleeding, wound on my chest. “But, seeing as how I don’t want to have to forcibly merge my mind with another one so soon, I’d think it’s best that I let this thing end before any other unforeseen consequences pop up, hmm?”

“But who are you?” I demanded. “I want out of here, aye—but who or what are you?”

She stepped in close to me. I felt as if I’d have to stoop if she got any closer, but were she to do that, she’d be holding herself against me. “Well, I suspect our paths will cross soon enough that you’ll learn my name.”

I reached out and, hesitantly, grabbed her hoof. “Do not play games with me, ignoble strumpet! I demand you tell it me!” It was a gamble; it felt dangerous, and I couldn’t even say why I was doing. I just needed to know who this monster was. Of course, a name was a powerful thing to kenn, and infinitely helpful when trying to research ways to fight a monster.

The mare was quiet for a moment before her face scrunched up in a species of scowl. “Damn her, this other mare. Cards Greaves. She has—or rather, had—such a soft spot for you.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Oh, just keep thinking me as the dark lady you always have, just as the lovestruck Korweit does. But if you really must know…” She leaned in close, and I did indeed stoop to make sure I heard her better.

“I am the Queen of Graves, but you may call me… Shall we say, Eosphora?”

That was when I gave the single most appropriate response in the history of forever. “Well, fuck.”




Level up!
New Perk: Eosphoric Trauma—Wow. Were you anybody else, you’d probably end up being a catatonic wreck, but because you somehow really screwed things up so hard, you survived with relatively minor mental trauma. You now have a 30% bonus to mental fortitude and gain bonus willpower (is that a thing in this game?), but at the tremendous cost of now almost wondering about the idea of what it might be like to think about feeling bad for Cards, which is enough to shake you to the core. Oh, and you might have a teensey weensy problem with the Queen of Graves being a part of your mind now. We’re not really sure. Cross your fingers and hope not!