//------------------------------// // 3.9 - Dead Pony's Hoof // Story: Quantum Vault // by WishyWish //------------------------------// April 11-12, 2027 Baltimare Sunday Evening – Monday Morning Quantum let Hole Card lead her to the waterfront. She had been there many times growing up of course, but they didn’t have time for her usual route, and the red light district was hardly a place she knew how to navigate. A quick run down Prattstern street introduced the minty mare to more iniquity than her teenage counterpart of 2027 ever needed to know about. It wasn’t long before the cobbled streets that expanded before the advancing ponies bled out into wooden piers before the harbor. The dreary haze that hung over the city persisted into night; cloying about Quantum’s coat like saltwater tentacles and befuddling the night sky with blotches of moonlit black. “H-hey,” Quantum panted, “Slow down…we can’t just barge out into the open without a plan.” Hole card grinned. “Then fire away, boss. Where do you want me? And don’t try to scare me away with the odds. I got your tail and that’s that.” Quantum smiled genuinely at the red pony with the spiky yellow mane. “…thanks. You’re a good friend.” Hole Card scanned the horizon, refusing to make eye contact. His voice softened. “You’re wasted on mares, buddy.” The mint-coated mare-turned-stallion fell silent for a time. She felt warmth on her cheeks as she considered Hole Card’s stoic posture and upbeat countenance – traits he seemed to be able to maintain despite the situation. He was technically seventeen years older than her, but the longer Quantum spent lost in time and space, the less any of that seemed to matter. She ran the numbers through her head and wondered what he looked like at age forty-two in 2039. He had no interest in mares. Quantum felt herself appreciating the opportunity to wear a stallion coat for a while. When she spoke up to outline her plan, she nearly forgot to deepen her voice as she had been doing the past few days. Two minutes later, Hole Card nodded and disappeared into an alley that opened along a side route to the water. Squaring her shoulders and taking a breath, Quantum produced Draw Out’s body from the darkness and walked him out to the largest pier. Her quarry was easy to find. In plain view under the brightest light waited the creamy, glib countenance of Tilt. Flanked by several of his cronies and sitting at a round card table not dissimilar to those at the Hungry Ursa, he was levitating and shuffling a deck of cards with his horn. A toothy grin spread on his lips as Quantum drew into the light. “Welllll,” Tilt sang, “I honestly didn’t think you’d show. Got some balls after all, huh? Or maybe you just don’t like playing with wilted flowers?” “…don’t talk about her like that.” Quantum threatened. One of Tilt’s thugs pawed the ground, while another emitted a sharp snort. “Don’t bullshit me,” Tilt laughed. “Who was that mare you were playing with before Cozy Hearth came along, huh? Pretty…pratty…ah whatever.” Tilt dropped the cards and let them spill out onto the table in a heap. “Didn’t she have the goods for you? Guess not, since she was barely legal! And how many times have you been slapped for hooves wandering where only eyes are allowed to go?” Quantum made an uncertain face, “L-lies—” Tilt slammed the table so hard a pile of stacked chips collapsed. His grin mutated instantly into a snarl. “They’re NOT lies, and you know it! You think you’re a hero? Yeah, you’re gonna try to save your precious toy, but only because she’ll owe you and won’t be able to say anything the next time you two-time her! You want your mare, you want my mare; and you try to claim they ain’t property? Hah!” Quantum narrowed her eyes. That feeling was welling up in her again. The feeling that made her challenge a group of unicorn thugs that could easily have torn her up the night of her mother’s ‘show’. The feeling that made her split a tree at Sweet Apple Acres clear in half just to try to prove a point. The feeling that made her blow up a heavily-populated portion of Equestria’s capital city, just because her mother wanted her to. The stubborn and thoroughly evil feeling that reduced this two-bit, no good, clueless, mauve-headed bastard’s life into something not worth scraping from her minty hooves. Quantum swallowed the unreasoning rage as best she could and turned to clop away. “Call me again when you have something useful to talk about.” “Siddown,” Tilt commanded. Quantum took another step back in the direction she had come, but three more thugs were suddenly in her path; huffing, puffing, grinning, and desperately waiting for the order to skewer her on their sharply filed horns. “SIDDOWN!” Tilt barked. Quantum sat. Tilt levitated the haphazard stack of playing cards and flug them into the minty mare’s face. “Shuffle,” he ordered flatly. Quantum eyed the cards and the nearby stacks of chips. “What are we playing for? Bits?” With a singsongy clattering noise that made Quantum wince, Tilt stood up long enough to smash every single pile of chips off the table. Quantum could near a number of them splash into the surf below the pier. Tilt then slammed his front hooves down on the table and bore his eyes into Quantum’s; so close she could feel his tobacco-rotten breath wafting by. “Not no more,” Tilt whispered venomously. “It was gonna be that. I was gonna bleed your sorry ass dry and nail your tail to the wall once and for all, but it ain’t gonna be like that no more. You pissed me off for the last time. Now we’re playing for blood. You win, you get to walk out of here on your hooves with the antidote, though my boys here have orders to give ‘on your hooves’ a broad definition. You lose? I’ll make this simple. You’re a DEAD stallion. And I personally guarantee that nopony will ever find the body. You know those apothecaries? They don’t always want to be paid in bits. Sometimes they want cadavers to do all their weird voodoo on. If you believe in an afterlife, you rumsucking punk, imagine what it’s going to be like with a thousand zebra curses on your head. Now shuffle the cards before I get bored and kill you just because.” Quantum swallowed. She felt her rear knees knocking under the table, but she kept her stare firm. “And how do I know you won’t kill me either way?” Tilt sat down, his morbid visage suddenly shifting back to a pleasant grin. “You don’t. And you ain’t got no choice. Take it or leave it. Get out of that seat before we’re done and the next thing that goes bouncing off this table is your head.” Quantum lit her horn. The pile of cards on the table organized itself into a proper stack, and began shuffling itself the way the minty mare was taught. When she finished, she wordlessly passed the deck to Tilt, who cut the cards with his own magic. When Quantum got the deck back, she began dealing. “Stud,” Tilt smiled. Quantum shook her head. “…hold ‘em?” Tilt asked. Quantum shook her head. A look of recognition passed over Tilt’s features, and he grinned. “Draw.” Quantum did her best to return the look. “My name, my deal, my game.” Uncertainly blossomed on Tilt’s features. He scoffed. “Fine. But I ain’t got all night. One hand.” Quantum looked down at the deck. One hand? She was barely more than a novice at poker, and Hal’s last report on her odds was very, very bad. Tilt was no wizard in his own right, but he had obviously spent more hours around a card table than Trixie’s daughter ever had. Worry crossed her brow, and she began to wonder if she’d made the right decision coming to this place. Anger had clouded her judgment. It wasn’t the first time, but it might very well be the last. Tilt laughed. “What’cha waiting for? A proclamation from the princesses?” Tilt’s cronies backed him up, laughing heartily until they immediately fell silent at the wave of his hoof. Quantum levitated her hand. Alicorn of diamonds. Kingfisher of diamonds. Princess of diamonds. Quantum’s eyes went wide. Nag of diamonds. Nine of diamonds. Quantum Trots Lulamoon felt the color draining from her cheeks. The same hand. The exact same hand. Before she thought it was a royal flush – the strongest hand in the game. Now she knew it was just useless junk. Tilt’s smile broadened. She had no idea how, but it was clear what he had done. Tilt ensorcelled one card and flung it at his opponent. “One,” he grinned. Quantum passed the creamy thug a single card. She could feel her heartbeat thudding wetly in her ears. She had a plan, but it wasn’t time yet. She’d expected the encounter to last longer than this, and stalling was no longer an option. “…o-one,” she stammered, levitating the nine of diamonds face-down to the discard pile. Tilt only nodded, his lips turning up in a devilish smile. Quantum drew her final card. Before she could look at it, Tilt’s hand was laying down on the table. Four sevens and the nag of hearts. “Call,” Tilt rumbled. “Sevens over sevens. And look! I even got your marefriend!” The assembled pony-mafia’s laughter reverberated off the closed vendor stands around the pier. Before Quantum could return the snide comment, she felt a pinprick against her jugular. Tilt’s knife was floating there, its tip lightly touching her coat. “You know what?” Tilt began, “Your mare? She ain’t even in no real danger. I’m not gonna let her die. When this is over, and you’re dead, I’m gonna give her the antidote anyway. Then I’m gonna get Twiggy to train her to be the best little toy I ever played with. And when she’s broke, an’ callin’ me the love of her life? I’m gonna take her to this very pier and give her a taste of me, right over the spot where you met your maker. Call, Draw Out. Show us your cards.” Quantum flipped the four cards on the table over. Tilt grinned a knowing grin at each one of them in turn, as if they were old friends coming over for tea. She held the fifth just below her own eye level. Tilt frowned, and Quantum felt the pinprick dig in a little bit more. “Told you I ain’t got all night,” Tilt threatened. “Show it to us. Hey,” he smiled, “I’ll have two mares, so maybe I’ll play with both of ‘em over your death spot? I mean, why not, right? How’d that go back in school? The fittest passes on his genes? Seems about right to me!” Quantum saw red. It boiled through her mind, eradicating all sense of civility and instilling in her the need to end Tilt’s life at any cost. The red became white, and, for the briefest flash of a second, it was everywhere – swirling, reeling; blotting out everything around her with such force that it nearly staggered her. Then, the presence of color congealed into the form of a single pony. Standing behind Tilt, just over his shoulder, was the unknowable steed with the empty black face, shrouded under a cloak of the purest, gleaming white. Quantum gaped at the white pony, the one who had told her she had been judged. She swallowed hard. Was this the end? The chances of pulling the one card she needed, plus the odds already against her, plus the knife at her throat and the myriad thugs surrounding her. Tilt blinked, looked over his shoulder, and then back at Quantum, frowning. “The insanity defense ain’t gonna work here, Draw. Now show me that card before I have one of my stallions here do it for you.” The while pony loomed over the table; still as a marble statue and everpresent as the specter of death itself. Quantum glanced down at the card, which was angled such that even she couldn’t tell what it was. When she looked up again, she saw a single spot of baleful red light under the white pony’s hood – right smack in the middle of the abyss that shrouded its features. That single spot of light shown in her eyes like the rays of the sun, and in it she saw infinity. Worlds that were. Worlds that are. Worlds that shouldn’t be. Miasmic colors and billions of lives going about their toil strafed into and out of her mind too fast to overwhelm her – but just long enough to open her mind to the endless possibilities of time and space; if only for a nanosecond. All of them were against her. All of them were calling to her. Quantum heard ticking. The sound of a clock that was seconds away from tolling midnight. She scowled at the white pony. If it was her time, then it would be her time. She had already tried to commit suicide once, and she knew she deserved whatever was coming to her. Defiantly, Quantum welled up her magic and flicked the card onto the table. It didn’t matter what card it was, but the minty mare favored it with her sapphire eyes anyway. Ten of diamonds. The white pony was gone. Tilt’s sly smile took exactly four and a half seconds to evaporate into a jaw-dropping triple-take before it erupted into tumultuous, unreasoning anger bordering on dementia. “Th-the….the hell!?” Tilt screeched, rising from the table and scattering the cards with his horn. “Y-you…you goddamned CHEAT! Where did you pull that from, you dirty son of a nag!? Your ass!?” Quantum blinked, rubbed her eyes under her interphased glasses, and blinked again. The chuckle that rose in the pit of her stomach clattered around; suffusing her limbs with power and lighting a fire under her brain. She couldn’t see her grin, but she could feel it, leveraging her lips apart like a crowbar clear up to her ears. “Did I just….I mean—I did!” Quantum grinned, “Stick that in your oats and chew them!” She chided, pounding her hoof on the table, “Think you can mess with the luckiest stallion alive?” swishing her tail, she even winked, “See this? Nailed it to the WALL! Now pay up and let me go!” “That card…” Tilt simmered, “…I took that card out of the deck!” He stared down each of his thugs, who in turn all withered under his gaze, “Which one of you put that card back in the deck!? I’ll kill you!” Quantum folded her forelegs and smirked. “Oh? Who’s the cheat now?” Her smile vanished when she felt the point of the forgotten stiletto dig deeper into a vital artery. “YOU!” Tilt screamed, hoof running maniacally through his shocky mauve mane, “YOU die first! Right now! I’ve had it with you! Say your goddamn prayers, and then whoever put that card back in there is gonna—” Quantum moved to bat the knife away. She prayed Tilt’s magic was neither stronger nor faster than her reflexes, but the blade was already long gone before she could so much as bend an elbow. Without warning, one of Tilt’s thugs was surrounded by a purple glow and sent careening into the harbor, with two of his fellows flailing after him before anypony could so much as blink. Quantum stood up and ignited her horn, intending to defend herself even as the darkness and confusion sent the remaining thugs scattering in all directions. “H-hole Card?” The minty mare ventured. Was the red pony this powerful? Even if he was – this wasn’t part of the plan? “Wh-who in Equestria--?” Tilt tried to whirl around, but a purple aura suddenly appeared around his neck and slammed his face into the table. Grunting and concentrating he tried to counter the magic with a bluish aura of his own, but his efforts were in vain. The purple aura constricted until the creamy kingpin was left gagging. A figure, preceded by a purple aura emanating from a cyan horn, emerged from the darkness. Quantum’s spirits soared, “M-mom!?” Nowhere on the body of Trixie Lulamoon could be found fishnets, high heels, or ground-in makeup. Instead, Trixie scowled beneath the wide brim of her violet, starred wizard cap and cloak. With an almost royal disdain on her face, she clopped casually up to Tilt and raised a demeaning eyebrow at him, watching him struggle. “I put the card back in the deck,” Trixie stated plainly. “After it was shuffled – faster than either of you amateur goons could even see. Perhaps you’d like to make something of it, you clump of diamond dog poo?” Tilt’s eyes went wide. “T-twiggy? Hey…is this a joke?” “Am I smiling?” Trixie rumbled. Tilt gacked when the magical noose tightened and slammed his face down on the table again. “G-get…get offa me!” Tilt roared. “You know what happens to ponies who bite the hoof that feeds ‘em! You’re makin’ a HUGE mistake!” Quantum felt the air part inches from her head. Tilt’s stiletto, incased in a blue aura that matched his horn shot past her, intent on burying itself in one of Trixie’s violet eyes. It froze in place half an inch from its destination; purple magic easily overcoming blue. The knife then floated patiently down and jammed itself threateningly in the same spot on Tilt’s neck where it had been in Quantum’s moments ago. Trixie threw back her head and laughed. “You think you can out-magic The Great and Powerful Trixie? Such a pony has never been, and never will be born! You’ve had it with him?” Trixie thrust a hoof in her daughter’s direction, “I’ve had it with you! I’ve put up with your disgusting, rum-belching, busy-hooved attentions for Celestia knows how long! I’m better than you! I’m better than anypony!” The aura around the knife vanished, and it slipped through the cracks of the pier, disappearing with a small splash. “I don’t even need something like that to end your pathetic life!” Tilt continued to struggle. “You’re dead! DEAD! Pack your bags and run for your life Twiggy, ‘cause I’m coming for you, and I ain’t never gonna stop!” He managed a grin, despite half his face being mushed up against the card table, “And yer kid, too! You think I’m stupid? You think I dunno about your precious little filly, geeking away in her little school across town? You think she’s gonna be safe?” Tilt began to laugh, “My boys like ‘em young!” Trixie’s eyes burned with a pure, agonizing rage so strong Quantum had only ever seen it once before – in a maximum security prison cell in 2039. The minty mare shrunk, fear taking her in a way that no other sensation – not even the threat of death – had yet been able to. Tilt tried to speak again, but the magical collar yanked him off the table and slammed him in a heap at Trixie’s hooves. The instant it slackened just a bit, Tilt vomited into the slats between the pier, hacking and coughing as if the wind had just been knocked out of him. “When I’m done with you,” Trixie simmered, “You won’t be bothering anypony, ever again.” Tilt was lifted off the ground by his neck. Choking and sputtering, he barely managed to form words. “…h-hey s-sugar-*kaff*-cube…hey why d-don’t we-*koff*-talk about this, h-huh? I g-got….c-connections….c-can make you-*hack*-a rich mare…y-ya want somethin’ better for yer k-kid…d-don’t’cha…?” Quantum saw fear in Tilt’s eyes. The creamy stallion suddenly flew across the pier and crashed hard enough into a vendor stand to shatter a thick wooden support beam with his back. He cried out; the magical aura immediately lifting him back up again. Trixie poured every single insult since the day she fled Ponyville into her power as she bore down on her victim, “Write me from Hell. I’ve always wondered just how hot it gets down there.” “M-mom—“ Quantum stammered, rising from her seat, “Uh, Trixie…” she approached the psychotically angry wizard and held out a hoof to her, memories of how her mother looked on that fateful day returning to her mind. “...he’s not worth it. Poisoning and attempted murder are good enough. Let the guards handle this.” Trixie addressed her daughter, but didn’t take her attention off of Tilt. “I told you never to come within five hooves of me again, you bastard. And what do you care anyway? I saw that look in your eye. You want this germ to be disinfected just as much as I do.” Quantum shrunk. “Thanks for…thanks for saving m—” “I didn’t do it for you!” Trixie barked. Tilt’s battered, groaning form slammed into the vendor stand three more times until a small pouch fell out from somewhere in his mane. “Take it,” Trixie ordered. “Save that mare.” Quantum took a step forward, but her mother’s stern voice froze her up as if she were a foal in mid cookie-theft. “After that, you’re going to use every red bit you hustled from honest ponies to take responsibility and find her a real job. What you both do after that is none of my business, but if you don’t do that much—” Trixie snarled, “You’ll be next. Celestia help me.” “A-alright alright,” Quantum surrendered, retrieving the pouch. She looked up at the struggling, choking, terrified form of Tilt the thug. A moment ago she wanted nothing more than to do this same thing to him, but seeing her mother do it with that same, psychotic, murderous look in her eye that the minty mare had never known growing up… Quantum wondered what Hal’s numbers were saying right now. She spoke again, “But listen…don’t do this, okay? You’re no better than he is if you just—” Her words were cut off by the sound of a guard siren. The remaining thugs scattered instantly, already far too terrified to approach Quantum or The Great and Powerful Trixie. When they were far enough out of sight not to know the difference, Hole Card came triumphantly barreling down to the pier with something in his teeth. The minty mare smiled, sighing with relief as the red unicorn opened his mouth long enough for her to levitate the computer pad Quantum had filched from the destruction of Atlaminitis, twenty millennia ago. She silenced its incessant wailing and visual complaints of attempted unauthorized access. Hole Card smacked one ear with a hoof, as if trying to clear water out of his head. “Draw buddy, what is that thing?” Hole Card grinned, “Dang near blasted my eardrums out. I know you said wait for the signal, but you didn’t send it up on time, and I got worried, so I figured maybe it was time to roll out the fake cavalry, ya know?” He glanced around at the scattered chips, “…what happened anyway? It was too dark to see from up there and I couldn’t hear you all too well either.” Quantum tucked the device away in her interphased leg pouch while Hole Card wasn’t looking, pleased with her successful attempt to at least reconfigure it to complain when touched, even without a mnemonic access jack in her brain for it to connect to. She grinned, “Unexpected friends.” She replied finally, thrusting her hoof in Trixie’s direction. Hole Card frowned. “What friends?” The minty mare turned. The smashed vendor stand was still there, but Trixie and Tilt were nowhere to be found. Quantum cursed herself. Where had she taken him? What was she going to do with him? What if…what if Quantum herself was now responsible for putting the taste of murder in her own mother’s mouth? She took a step into the blackness of the peer, but Hole Card’s hoof came down on her withers. “Draw, c’mon,” Hole Card encouraged, “We only got so much time, right? Let’s get that junk back to the room and cook up whatever needs to be cooked up with it.” Quantum allowed herself to be led away from the pier. She lost count of how many times she looked back.