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// CH. 6 - Everything Had Started Out As Black And White 
// Story: Beneath the Canon You Settle For 
// by The Amateur 
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“That’s quite the story. I don’t know exactly how to comprehend what you’ve told me.” Deputy Chief Whiplash leaned back into his bolted chair; in the dusk lighting of the lamp, his face looked no different than it had seven years ago, when I first joined the CPD. He was a soot-grey pegasus with a bowed-out, black mustache above his mouth; his eyes sparkled behind his glasses like lime gems behind a jeweler’s loupe.

“So you stormed a hideout of Cloudsdale’s most wanted criminals, simply because you had the ‘feeling’ that your daughter, a mare named ‘Lightning Bolt,’ was being held there?” When it was Whiplash speaking, it was hard to deny the holes in my logic. “That’s a pretty wild guess.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I answered. It was a thin excuse, even for someone who solved cases with a trail of corpses in her wake. The boss was a pony of the law, strictly working within the margins of a manual in criminal justice; he was the best of us all, and so, he could not let my rampage in Caeci District go unpunished.

“I know they’re the scum of the planet, even more so than the changelings… but you can’t just decide to become a vigilante and start striking out at the nearest crime ring.  You’ve injured, what, a dozen ponies in your ‘rescue?’ Luckily enough, they were caught with evidence of their smuggling activities, so they won’t be around long enough to cause any more trouble. But you’re not going scot-free either. Reporters were lining up to know who the ‘hard-boiled cop in the leather coat’ was. Celestia knows what will become of you if they figure out it was you… or if the Wonderbolts find out what you did.”

As though he was mentally overridden by mind-probing aliens, the boss trailed off on an uncertainty for his own words. His eyes, searching for any sort of recognition, moved from the papers on his desk to one of the drawers. In it was his cache of emergency supplies: a loaded gun, duct tape, and painkillers. We would collectively swallow a bottle each on the slower days in the office. Seeing Whiplash look away once he realized he was with a civilian was the nail in the coffin for that life I led.

My detective days were over. To him, I would just be Fleetfoot the deranged Wonderbolt.

Whiplash pressed a hoof to his forehead. He was a powerful stallion consoling two rival loyalties, and all I had done was send a storm to unhinge the roof. The wind picked up outside, carrying a singing northern cardinal on its current. Whiplash leaned forward with a puckered frown. “I’ve done all I can already to cover you, but I can’t help you if you continue following this fantasy of yours–– detective on a vendetta after a daughter you don’t have?”

The fire leapt at the sides of my stomach, trying to burn through flesh to reach the condemning speaker. I had to bite my tongue to stifle any thoughtless curses from taking flight. A pony had to know when to restrain herself.

“Abandon this delusion of yours. If you get in trouble again, I won’t pull any strings for you. Sergeant Milquetoast outside will show you the backdoor. You’re the fastest sprinter I know, so you’ll be able to avoid the press easily. Now go.” Neglecting to say goodbye, Whiplash turned his chair around to face the window.

“Thank you, chief.” I was still angry, firmly entrenched in the “delusion,” but I owed the boss my gratitude. Whiplash was a figure of authority with too much riding on his wings to worry about one pegasus.

I trotted through his door and into the familiar grey-and-blue halls of the police station. Milquetoast was leaning against the wall with a clipboard in one foreleg. The cream-coated, lightweight sergeant had brought me coffee every Saturday morning. He was–– he had been one of my closest friends on the force.

“Miss Fleetfoot?” He stood to attention and pushed a strand of brown hair underneath his cap. It was not unusual to see Milquetoast act professional around strangers. But something was missing… something that left me vulnerable without it.

“Where’s my coat?”

“Sorry, miss. We can’t risk letting one of the reporters identifying you as the vigilante from the hotel raid. Besides, it’s not exactly the season to go wearing cow hide, nor the country. You’ll have to go without it… And, uh––” The sergeant looked aside, smiling sheepishly with no sense of subtlety. “Um, can I get your autograph?”

Oh right. I was still a Wonderbolt. “No.”

Milquetoast put on the facade of dismay, exaggerating in a way that was too easy to see through. “Please? It’s for my younger brother. He’s a big fan of your work.”

I had given up on the merits of fame a long time ago. His asking only brought back memories of suffering near heart attacks from stalking paparazzi. The migraine worsened. “I’m not giving out autographs at this time,” I told him with a bit more vitriol than intended.

Milquetoast dropped the act, putting on his real poker face. “That’s a shame, because it would be terrible if the great Fleetfoot fell through the clouds because some witness proved she was the vigilante at the hotel.” He had my coat; he had the proof. The fact he probably figured out what Whiplash and I were talking about would have sealed both of our careers if it got out to the public.

A pony had to know when to fold. “Alright, give me the clipboard.” Milquetoast was as giddy as a blackmailing cop could get, practically shoving the pen and board into my hoof. A photo was plastered on. The individual shown sported a cocky grin and a devious pair of eyes; everything from the way she spread her wings to the combative stance of her hooves posed a challenge. She was my Wonderbolt doppelgänger, and seeing as I was assuming her life at the moment, I did my best to write my signature the way she would have.

I shoved the clipboard into his waiting foreleg. “There, it’s done. Now, will you hold up your side of the bargain?”

“Sure! Thank you very much for your kindness, Miss Fleetfoot. Exit’s right down this way.” The sergeant began a gallant trot down the station’s west wing. It was hard not to notice the stares I was getting on the way, when so many of the onlookers were my former colleagues. I was not particularly a popular mare in the department, but at least then, they knew well about my special set of skills.

Bribery could make more than a few cops turn, but it couldn’t change the memories of friends and partners. That was a job not even the smuggling ring was capable of pulling off. No, there were forces of great magical power behind this great, big show.

“Miss Fleetfoot? We’re here.” We had come to a stop in front of the fire exit. The sergeant unlocked the door and swung it open, inviting a wall of light into the corridor. Afternoons - the point in the day when you finally realize the morning was not a dream. With the sun directly overhead, the shadows had receded to their tethered bases, leaving behind a flat world that did not deserve to be called real.

The sergeant held out a hoof for my exit. I could have knocked his other foreleg out from under him, but pegasi never landed face–first. Instead, I sprinted past him and off the edge of the cloud. Suspension lasted just a beat, but it lasted long enough to imagine another world–– one where falling really was an inevitability.

And then the rush came. I looked forward, where the horizon and its features lifted like a curtain; I looked downward, where the country, and anything bearing definite reality, steadily approached. But I only had to open my wings to rise back to the clouds. My search would eventually lead down there, I presumed, yet that time would come later.

Planning a mental route back to home, I sprinted through the sky. A few stiff muscles prevented me from going at my top speed, but everything around me still collapsed into a blur. Stuck at maximum velocity, I was disguised and hidden inside a tunnel of light. So long as air passed through my lungs and under my wings, nobody would be able to identify the pegasus racing through downtown Cloudsdale.

That, and if I slowed down, I would come to a stagnant stop. A stop would necessitate the need for another course of action, a plan. Where would I go from here? Where would I find Lightning Bolt if no one could even remember she existed? There were possible options before me, but as my raid on Caeci District had shown, the consequences for rash action were dire. I could not afford making idiotic choices, something I was unfortunately very adept at.

It had been so simple before: go after the biggest fish on my blacklist and find my daughter. Now that the smugglers were dealt with, there were no more suspects to chase, no trails to follow. A case gone cold. So there it is, I was stuck. 

The cloud manor came into view. On its own tier, separated from the other influential neighborhoods by excellent foresight, it was my bastion from attention and suspicion. Gliding reduced my top speed in a matter of seconds, allowing me to pant and drop down to the front door without breaking my muzzle on the one solid part of my house. 

Key beneath the doormat. Insert, turn, and open. It was just my luck that, in the millisecond it took me to see sleep as a viable option, a baseball bat came swinging and filled my vision with stars.