//------------------------------// // Act 2, Chapter 50: Ring Around the Rosie // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------// Starlight Over Detrot: Act 2, Chapter 50: Ring Around the Rosie          Misfortune comes in nearly as many colors as ponies do. Equestria being the sort of place it often is, luck is the difference between a comic pratfall that gets a good laugh from your friends and a bump into an expensive pillar that ruins a massive national event, leaving you ostracized from high society, stuck in a dead end job as a hick town's weather pony. There are the generally unlucky, who can give themselves mild concussions while attempting the daring act of crossing the room. There are the ironically misfortunate, such as the inventors killed by their own creations - a list of departed which includes Capacitance, inventor of the Voltage-Based Self-Cleaning Toilet (which later led to the development of the Cloudhammer Anti-Megafauna Cannon), as well as Lickety Split, inventor of the sticky note. There are those who have clearly found some way to directly insult chance itself, such as Star Struck, who got her cutie mark when she was whacked by a falling meteorite during a centennial meteor shower. And then there is a situation which has fallen so far out of karmic favor that it garners a particular term all it's own: Charlie Foxtrot. Charlie Foxtrot, but for a small nudge in the whims of probability, would have been a pony of little historical note. His first job was at the Cloudsdale weather factory; during his first week he went on break for a minute and a half to relieve himself, and returned to find a weather factory in ruins and an entire season prematurely dumped on a nearby town. His second job involved working security at the L.R. 05 Grand Galloping Gala, which had been for some reason visited by a semi-aware tide of magic resistant gelatin and thus went about as well as you'd expect. But it was not until his third job that he began to suspect he was truly cursed; after all, statisticians from Canterlot University have found that it is "Highly unlikely" for one to be hit by a train whilst acting as a sky-clearer for a nautical shipping line. The pony in question became so famed for his bad luck that when the Crusades broke out, he convinced himself - and the Equestrian Air Force - that Equestria might be safer with him in enemy lands, and basically allowed himself to be captured by enemy agents. Almost as if planned, his arrival in draconic territory was heralded by a volcanic eruption - which wouldn't have been so remarkable had they not been closer to a forest than a mountain. Several attempts to execute him went so cataclysmically wrong that an entire faction of dragon lords pulled out of the war entirely, convinced the ponies had somehow weaponized fortune itself, which was only half true; Schroedinger's Lion was still in the prototype phase by the time the war ended. In the years that followed, Charlie Foxtrot's name became synonymous for things going catastrophically wrong; And yet… it is very possible that he may not have been history's unluckiest pony. -The Scholar It’s a quirk of the brain that, when death is imminent, you don’t actually think. You might react and it could even be the right reaction, but you’re not thinking. When you’re in a plummeting elevator, there’s not a whole lot of available reactions. Screaming is a decent one. Praying works, but you don’t have much time to formulate a properly worshipful state of mind.          In total darkness, I’d felt the floor leave my hooves and had time to howl before I was thrown violently into Sykes. I only knew it was Sykes because the body I crashed into was big, fluffy, and still smelled of drink. His great wings spread open and he gave me a swat that would have felled a lesser pony. It sure felled me. I thought, briefly, the lights had come back on because I saw some stars.          Then the shrieking began. It wasn’t the standard terrified shrieking one expects in such situations. It was more mechanical. More like metal on metal.          Gravity reasserted itself. I felt the floor meet my hooves. Then it decided to get real assertive and the floor met my nose. I collapsed onto my stomach, moaning as another body crashed atop me, pinning me to the marble. Whoever it was clutched at my shoulders, both forelegs around my neck and their face buried in my hair. I caught a whiff of incense. It was Taxi, holding me tightly in our last moments of life. Somehow, that seemed right. After about three years, or possibly five seconds, the screeching abruptly stopped and left behind a silence that made me wonder whether or not we’d hit the bottom. I hadn’t felt my body crushed beyond recognition and all of my bones turned to a fine powder, but then, would you feel a thing like that? Does the nervous system have some kind of mercy center built into it that shuts off all feeling in the instant before an incredibly painful death? Maybe. My memories of the last time I died were a bit hazy, but I didn’t remember being in any pain. Gradually, I became aware of the legs clasped around my neck. Hot tears landed on my fur and I gently nosed at my driver’s cheek. She shuddered and clutched me tighter. “Sweets… Sweets, we’re alive,” I whispered. Hearing my own voice was jarring. It was my own voice though. Not the voice of a ghost. That I knew what the voice of a ghost sounded like was a bit worrying, but I was in no state to think about that. I was alive! I’d gotten into an elevator and it fell and all my bits weren’t splashed all over the bottom floor of a posh hotel! I started giggling. It’s not the most masculine response to almost dying, but...I was alive, dammit! “S-sir?” Swift murmured from somewhere nearby. “What is it, kid?” I chuckled, weakly. My driver hadn’t let go, but I didn’t really want her to. Shifting onto my side, I gently put a hoof around her. “W-what happened?” I shook my head, then realized she couldn’t see me. “The emergency brakes caught us. The cable must have snapped.” I heard the shifting of talons on the floor and Sykes growled from beside me, “Snapped nothin’, boyo. Elevator cables don’t jus’ snap. There be four cables holdin’ us up. Any one could hold this box. We falls when all four be cut.”          Forcing my hooves under me, I gently brushed my cheek against Taxi’s. She shivered a little. I rested my muzzle beside her ear and whispered, “Shhh...it’s okay, Sweets. I’m not going anywhere.”          “S-sorry,” she replied and I felt her pull back. “Bad memory.”          “One of those we can talk about later?” I asked.          She made a soft sound that might or might not have been an affirmative, then I felt her shift away and get to her hooves.          “If the brakes stopped us, why didn’t the emergency lights come on?” Edina asked.          “If all the cables were cut, they might have cut power to the elevator in the process. The brakes probably have their own power source,” I replied, straightening my coat and checking my guns. “Sweets, you got a flashlight?”          “Oh...oh, yeah, sure...just a second,” she answered, then I heard fabric shifting and the clasp on her saddlebags coming loose. A second later, a beam of light caught me in the face, blinding me again.          “Gah! Watch it!” I snapped.          “Sowwy,” she muttered around the light in her mouth. As she shone it around the interior, I could finally see the nervous faces of my companions. Sykes was inspecting the door, while Edina huddled in the corner, clutching her spellbook to her chest.          Swift was staring at the ceiling. I followed her gaze, but couldn’t see anything of interest up there.          “Kid...what are you looking at?” I asked.          “Sir...Sir, something’s directly above us,” Swift said, very quietly. “Three somethings. They’re all marked as targets...and they’re moving. I think they’re in the shaft...”          That got us going. Taxi and I spread towards the walls, hauling our guns up and pointing them at the roof of the elevator. Sykes was unarmed, but he tore his tie off and stuffed it in a pocket, then half spread his wings, ready to leap if the access panel on top of the car opened.          “Um...they’re moving away from us,” Swift added. “They’ve moved...okay, they’re not above us anymore.”          Everyone relaxed a little. I nodded towards the door. “Can we get that open?”          Sykes shook his head. “Neh, Oi doubt it. We be between floors.”          “Alright, that means the hatch.”          “Shouldn’t...shouldn’t we just wait for someone to get us out?” Swift asked.          “Yeah, that’ll happen,” I snorted. “I think someone either just tried to kill us or to cut off easy access to the top floors. We’re...where were we? I didn’t see the number before the lights went out.”          “We’re just above floor six,” Edina answered, meekly. “I...um...I hate to say this, but I think...I think I need…” Her pupils dilated and she scrambled back against the wall of the elevator. “-m-meeeat…”          “Edina?” I asked          She shook herself angrily, putting her claws on either side of her head as though trying to force something out. After a moment, her irises slowly returned to their normal size. “I’m still...still here, Detective. I don’t know how long. We didn’t bring any Beam with us, did we?”          Taxi looked pensive as she patted her saddlebags. “I thought that juice box was going to be enough. Even that amount would make a pony insane for a week.” I added, “Beam is not exactly stable when you expose it to fire. I didn’t want to carry that much explosive narcotic around with us.” “Aye, Oi’ve had me some experience with a Beam when it goes boom,” Sykes added. “Nothin’ noice. Edina, ye thinks ye could reach that panel if Oi hold ye up?” The tiny griffin gave the distance an appraising look, then spread her wings. They were just small enough that she could give them a couple of experimental flaps. “Actually, I think I could make it up there on my own. Just keep your heads down.” Crouching nearer to the floor, I watched as Edina took off and flapped up to the ceiling. Taxi swung the beam of her torch up to give her some light. Inspecting the metal panel beside the lights, Edina poked at something with a talon. After a second, something dropped and bounced off the brim of my hat, then landed between my hooves; a screw. “Careful. If that thing just falls-” “I am working with two fools howling in my brain already, Detective. Please don’t make it three,” Edina grumbled. A moment later, there was a snap and the panel came free, revealing a black, empty shaft above us. Edina caught it in her talons, sinking back to the ground, where Sykes carefully took it from her and set it to one side. Taxi was already digging out a length of nylon rope from her bags. Tossing it to Edina, she held the other end as the little griffin took off again and snatched at the edge of the hole, pulling herself through. Above us, somewhere, echoes reverberated down the elevator shaft. I thought I could pick out some frightened voices amongst them and something that sounded alarmingly like screaming. Grabbing the rope in my teeth, I pulled myself hoof and mouth up to the hole and began shimmying through as Edina helped drag me up. The elevator creaked alarmingly under us, but seemed to be holding. Thinking too hard about the possibility of those brakes giving way was just going to send me into catatonia. Thankfully, the roof of the elevator made a decent ‘floor’ so I didn’t have to look at the remaining distance to the ground. Hauling myself into a stand position on top of the elevator, I peered back down into it at the upturned faces of Sykes, Swift, and Taxi. “Hey, Sykes? You think you can actually get out of this hole?” I asked. Frowning, he turned in a little circle, examining himself then the small opening. “Oi don’ t’ink so, mate. That be made for ye pony koind.” “Alright, I hate to do this, but we need to get out of this shaft. Here.” Turning my head, I tugged my shotgun off of my harness and dropped it through. Sykes caught it in both claws and quickly checked the weapon, making sure it was loaded. He smirked at the ridiculous telescopic sights and the gold filigree. “I’ll be wanting that back, hear me? I’m sending someone back for you once we’ve secured the area and found out what’s going on upstairs.” “Aye, Hardy. Don’ worry about me. Oi’m a big griff. Oi can handle moiself.” “Sweets, you got another lamp?” I asked. She ducked her mouth into her bags for a second smaller one and passed it to Sykes, along with several extra shotgun shells. He popped them into a pocket of his greasy suit for easy access, then turned on the light. I held out my hooves and Taxi took a quick swing in a circle, then threw the other torch up through the hole. I caught it and quickly fitted it into the corner of my mouth, directing the beam of light up the tunnel until the it gave way to oppressive blackness, then around at the walls. What must have been the rest of the elevator cables dangled a few meters above us and it did, indeed, look like the ends had been cleanly sheared off. A narrow, metal ladder ran out of a hole recessed into the side of the shaft and disappeared into the distance above us. About two meters up, I could see the doors of the next floor. “Swift, you’re next,” I called down. “Sir, I can’t climb with the Hailstorm on!” she answered back. “Then get it off and have Sykes throw it up here! Move!” It was the work of another two minutes and I could feel every second ticking away as Swift unhitched herself from the weapon and scampered up the rope like only a freshly trained recruit can. I offered her a hoof and she pulled herself onto the top of the elevator, shaking her wings out. “Oof, thanks.” “No problem. Help Taxi get up here,” I ordered, then turned my attention to Edina. She seemed to be shaking, but when I glanced at her, she perked up. “Are you good to go?” “No, Detective. I am about two hours from total psychological failure,” she replied, pressing two claws to the bridge of her nose. “That said, for now, I can follow orders.” “Alright, I’ll take your word for that. Now, the outer door is going to have an emergency latch for maintenance on the inside of the shaft. If power is still on, that should let it open. If it’s not, we’ll have to muscle it. Go check. I’ll be right behind you.” I started up the ladder, which is a completely crap design for equine anatomy, but necessary if you want to go vertically in such an enclosed space. You can always tell a building where the architect was a minotaur or some other flavor of biped by whether or not there are ladders somewhere. The air in the tunnel was stiflingly hot and I could feel myself quickly breaking out in a sweat as I ascended. As I reached the next floor, Edina was floating beside the door, poking around at a red handle with yellow stripes around it. She tugged it out from the wall, then pushed it back up a couple of times. The door didn’t budge. “Damn...phew...Edina, I need you to fly over and put your claws on my back. I’m going to have to step onto the ledge there.” Edina flapped a little closer as I edged out onto the thin lip of metal at the bottom of the elevator. I wobbled on the edge and she quickly pressed against me, holding me stable as I pried the edge of my shoe into the split between the doors. I almost fell as I felt a pair of hooves gently rest on my shoulders, then glancing over my shoulder to see Swift hovering slightly below Edina. Her wings were big enough to take up most of the elevator shaft, but she was making short beats which kept her in the air. Shutting my eyes, I tensed and slowly forced my leg into the tiny opening. The doors slid reluctantly at first, then more readily as I got some leverage. Jamming my leg into the space, I turned sideways and, with a grunt, managed to shove the door open. The counter-weight finally took over and it slid the rest of the way as Swift, Edina and I toppled out into an unlit hallway. Nervous voices, some griffin, some pony seemed to be echoing down the hall, asking what was going on. Playing the light back and forth, I caught a few faces peering out of their rooms. Pulling myself up, I took a deep breath and called, “Ladies and gentle-beings! This is your concierge! Please return to your rooms! The power has gone out in the hotel due to a minor issue with the electrical grid on this block. It will be back on within an hour or so and your rooms will be comped for the inconvenience!” A large griffin with an axe slung across his back took a couple of steps out of his room, though most of the rest of the doors closed. He was slightly smaller than Sykes, with a lithe build and five or six rings in his lower lip. “Oi...ye be that Detective wot Grimble Shanks says is workin’ wi’ us, yeah?” I motioned for him to keep his voice down, then nodded towards the hall as the rest of the doors closed. “Yes, I am. How well can griffins see in the dark?” “Passin’ well ‘nuff. Why, cobber?” he asked, suspiciously. “Because I need you to go get all the armed griffins you can find. Keep it quiet, hear me? Don’t cause a panic. Something is going on upstairs. Get your people moving and get them ready to fight.” “Oi! Perkins! What be this then? Power’s out!” another griffin asked, peering out of the room across from the big guy with the piercings. “Grenhilda, get ye axe!” Perkins replied, heaving his weapon into a position where he could get it at a moment’s notice. “We movin’ sneaky loike. Summat upstairs gone soideways.” I held up my hoof. “It’s not the Tokan. Got me? No slaughtering everything you run into.” Perkins frowned, then slowly nodded as he noticed Edina crouched at my side, holding her head in her claws. Swift was gently rubbing the tiny griffin’s back as she rocked back and forth. “Oi...if not they, then what?” “Still working that out. Get your people and any Tokan who’ll join you.” I paused, as a thought occurred to me, then added, “Tell them to bring their swords. Leave those spellbooks. There’s something messing with magic in the area and it could cause some ugly effects if they use them, got me?” No sense letting that particular cat out of the bag just yet. “Aye, and why be we takin’ orders from ye?” Grenhilda sniffed, pointing to her mane which was full of hair rollers. “Oi jus’ got me hair loike it ought to be an ye want me to get me axe an’ come galivantin’ about for some pony?” I turned the flashlight around in my hoof and pointed it at my face. “You see these?” Her beak fell open and she backed into her room. “High Justice!” she yelped. “Keep it down, dammit!” I whispered, angrily. “You need any more reason to take my orders?” She quickly shook her head. “Get moving.” Turning, I stuck my muzzle into the open elevator shaft. “Hey, Sykes!” I called down. “You alright down there?” “Aye, Oi be foine,” he answered. “Jus’ get me out soon as ye can, aye?” Taxi was just stepping off the ladder onto the ledge and I pulled her back onto all fours, then pointed down the hall. The beam of my light illuminated her muzzle and I could still see some residual panic there, but she seemed considerably calmer. “Sweets, are you-” She held up her leg for silence, then pointed down the hall. I followed her gesture to a cracked door about five down. An eye glistened in the dark, then vanished as the door swung shut with a click. “I’m...I’m not alright, but it doesn’t matter. We need to move. I’m on your six,” Taxi said, giving me a shooing motion towards the stairs. Edina was still curled on the floor and Swift had her forelegs around her. I’d have expected that to offend her dignity, somehow, but Edina didn’t seem much inclined to reject the comfort. “Swift, can you carry her?”          She reached back and touched the Hailstorm, which was once more on her back. “I don’t think so, sir.”          “Edina?” I murmured.          “I...I think you’d best go ahead and bind my beak shut, and my legs together, and leave me here,” she muttered. “I’m going to be useless soon...”          “If this turns into a fight, I may need your other half ready to rumble,” I answered, softly. “You think you can point them in the right direction?”          She clenched her eyes shut and whimpered. “So...so loud…” I waited a moment and she seemed to relax a little. Gathering whatever wits she had left, she got to her claws. “I...I can control them for now. Mmm..I will do as best I can. For you, Justice.”          Pulling my revolver trigger to my mouth, I fitted it into my teeth and flicked my safety off.          “Keep your guns ready. We’re headed upstairs.”          **** Navigating the halls which were quickly filling with confused residents was difficult, particularly considering how heavily armed the four of us were, but once we reached the stairwell on the opposite side we could start back towards the penthouse. Midway up that first flight, we ran into a couple of staff in the process of heading to various rooms with a whole bucket of flashlights, candles, and batteries. I commandeered an extra pair for Swift and Taxi, along with head straps so I could stop carrying my own in my mouth. Pausing just long enough to get ourselves some proper illumination, we continued on. The distant sounds of a ruckus were getting louder, but I couldn’t tell what on earth was actually happening. It sounded part pitched battle, part demolition. Four flights up, we finally encountered our first griffin warband. There were six of them sitting together at the end of the hallway, arguing back and forth about whether or not to head upstairs. They seemed to be a mixed group of Hitlan and Tokan. Several doors were open and variously shaped heads were peering out to watch the disagreement. Two in particular were engaged in a spirited debate on the virtues and vices. One of them was a tall, matronly hen wearing a black and white bonnet. She looked like a Tokan, with snowy white fur and feathers. One hand was resting on her spellbook while the other held her sword. In front of her, a short, squat Hitlan with enough muscle that his neck was starting to consume his head was sitting beak to beak with the bigger female. “Come off it, Esmerelda! Shanks be waitin’ on us!” The short griffin growled. His axe was already off his shoulder, but he wasn’t holding it in an especially aggressive way. He only wore a kilt, which somehow made him look half dressed. “We needs to be checkin’ on our eggs!” “And I say I’m not allowing you lot into the treasury! You know the law. Those eggs are neutral! My hens and I are quite capable of protecting them! Whatever is going on upstairs, it is my job to make sure those eggs remain safe from both tribes. Therefore, unless you think you can march over my corpse, back off!” the huge hen snarled back. I trotted up to the little group and sat behind them, watching the two snapping at one another. “Ahem,” I said, loud enough that all six sets of eyes turned to look at me. “Pardon me? Could you direct me to the easiest way upstairs that doesn’t involve the elevator?” Esmerelda gave me a stony glare. “Why would a pony want to get upstairs? You’re not with room service.” Pulling my flashlight off my head, I turned it around and pointed it at my face. I’d been sweating in the elevator, but the bloody marks on my muzzle were still clear enough to be seen. The griffins all took a big step back, several pressing themselves against the walls on either side of the door. Esmerelda’s golden eyes flashed with worry, then she crossed her forelegs over her chest and sat in the doorway with an obstinate expression on her face. “Neutral means neutral. Even before the law,” she rumbled, tugging her sword out of the sheath and resting it across her other bicep in a way that suggested extreme readiness for violence. Edina took a couple of steps forward into the light. Inner tension kept her shoulders high and tight, but she seemed relatively in control of herself as she approached the much bigger female. “Ezzie? Can we get by?” The griffin nurse blinked a few times then took a step closer. “Edina? Edina Tokan Storm Ripper, is that you?! My word girl! Where’ve you been? You look like you’ve been diving dumpsters!” She stopped for a second, sniffed at the air, then suddenly reached out and grabbed my face in two claws, dragging me closer. I heard the barrels of the Hailstorm swinging on their joists. I quickly waved Swift back. “Wait a second, girl...is that your blood on this pony’s face?” Edina slapped the nursemaid’s talons away from my muzzle. She might as well have struck a brick wall, but Esmerelda drew back. “Yes, it is...and the blood of Grimble Shanks as well! So kindly take your claws off the High Justice! He’s here to help us, and we need to get upstairs.” Esmerelda gave me a close examination, snapping her beak at me as I tried to pull back. I could almost feel Taxi waiting for permission to thump her with whatever she’d loaded the P.E.A.C.E. cannon with. Up close, I could detect the scent of fear on the middle-aged nurse. She was big, but somehow projected a feeling of softness, a bit like a mother bear. Something had her spooked, but she kept me locked in her fierce gaze for a long minute, making her decision. “You’re here to make sure our eggs are safe, right Justice?” she prompted, carefully. “I must protect them from these fools, but I would like to send someone to check on the rest of my nurses. If that individual were sworn, by the blood of two Eggs, to do keep the children of the Tokan and Hitlan safe-” “You have no right to swear a High Justice to that, Ezzie,” Edina snapped. “He’s not a nurse and binding him to that for life would be ridiculous!” “Yes, well, as you say...he’s a High Justice. His life isn’t likely to be terribly long as it is. I must stay here to keep these morons from traipsing about tripping over incubator cords and cracking egg shells!” She gave the short griffin with all the piercings a glare that made him shrink back. “This is the only entrance to the upper floors besides the elevator or the windows. The nursery windows are guarded by our finest spellwork, so if you want to enter, this ridiculous pony Justice of yours swears himself to the protection of griffin eggs. Is that clear?” “You’re outside your authority, m-meat!” Edina barked, jamming her face against Esmerelda’s. At two different heights, it was a bit like watching a rabbit stare down a bull. An especially vicious rabbit, but still a rabbit. Before Esmerelda could make a solid decision about how far her authority extended, I raised my voice, “I’ll do it. I don’t need a fight with the nurses on top of whatever else is going on so whatever. I swear to take care of everyone’s eggs. Is that enough?” The nursemaid’s cheeks curled up into a worryingly smug smile. “Very good, little pony. I hope you find your justice in service.” I had a brief sinking feeling. Edina slapped her palm against her forehead. “Oh goodie. Detective, what did I tell you about accepting challenges?!” she groaned, poking me with one sharp claw “That...that wasn’t a challenge!” I snapped. “Yes, yes it was! Ugh....Detective, you do know you just swore your entire remaining lifespan to the protection of all griffin children, right? All of it?” “Quite,” Esmerelda said, tucking her tail around herself. “It will be nice for the Nursemaid’s Guild to have a Justice’s blood amongst our number...” “Ezzie, I swear-” Edina started, but I cut her off with a hoof on her beak. “Save it. Tell me what horrible new responsibility I just saddled myself with later on.” I raised my muzzle in Esmerelda’s direction. “Are you letting us through or not?” The large hen stepped back and to one side, revealing an open door and the staircase to the second floor from the top. “Go right ahead, Nurse Justice,” she chuckled. “I’ll need a full accounting of what happens up there!” The short Hitlan who was hanging back a little was edging towards the door and Esmerelda’s sword snapped up, wavering on the end of his nose. “Not you.”          Retreat was sounding better and better, lest I shove the entire rest of my leg into my mouth along with my hoof. That kind of situation is exactly why I didn’t go into politics. If it were possible to explode just from opening your mouth at the wrong moment, I would have long ago. Chief Jade would have found a way to make it happen.          I moved around Esmerelda and started up the stairs. After a moment’s hesitation, Edina followed, still rubbing her forehead as though I’d given her a migraine to go with her multiple personality disorder.          ****          I could still hear distant shouting as we crept up the stairs, weapons ready and safeties off. The stairwell between the floor below and the one above was anti-sceptic and white washed, as though few individuals were expected to use it. Knowing the height of the hotel and that most fliers would simply prefer a roof to leave from, while the ground pounders would probably take the elevator, it wasn’t surprising they hadn’t paid for the extra decoration. Without the lights on, it felt distinctly more industrial and sinister. The door to the next floor came into sight and gestured for Taxi to take the other side of the door with Swift. Edina joined me, her sword out. The tip of it kept wavering. I prayed she wouldn’t suddenly lose control of her unfortunate mental passengers at an inopportune moment, but leaving her with some unsuspecting person or tied up in a closet had its own risks. Besides, her other personalities did make a surprisingly effective ballistic missile in a pinch. Shifting closer to grab the handle, I felt something slick on my toes. Lifting my hoof, I shined the light on it. My hooves were stained with something viscous and red. A pool of blood was slowly spreading from under the door. Swallowing, I prepared myself. I knew what I was going to find, but somehow, there’s always that hope that someone’s spilt an especially juicy batch of catsup and will be along with a bucket soon to clean it up. Grabbing the handle, I turned it slowly. Weight against the door forced it open and something heavy, wet, and feathery fell across my fetlocks. It smelled of perfume. Jasmine perfume. ‘Steady, Hardy. Steady,’ Juniper murmured in my ear. ‘It’s a body. You know it’s a body. Just move it off of you and take a couple of steps back. If you scream, whoever might be in there could hear you. Then they’ll kill your friends.’ Someone retched behind me and I heard the soft spatter of something best not considered hitting the concrete floor. Edina squeaked and retreated to the stairs. With a will, I started to lower my head, but Taxi’s leg came up across my vision. I felt frozen, halfway between moving her knee and my own desire not to see what had happened to the poor hen laying against me. “Hardy, close your eyes,” she said just loudly enough to be heard. “Sweets, now is not the time-” “Please? Lemme take this one.” I bit my tongue and my eyes slid shut, standing there like a useless lump. I deserved to see her, to burn her image into my mind for the rest of my life, but I couldn’t force myself to look. Soft grunting was followed by the weight being heaved off my fetlocks, then the sounds of dragging.          “The hall is clear, Hardy. There’s another body about five meters up.”          I slowly turned and opened my eyes, carefully looking at Swift who was just wiping her mouth off as she hung over the edge of the stairwell. Edina was curled in the corner, shivering while Taxi stood to one side, shielding whatever injuries the body might have had with her body.          Keeping my gaze on Swift, I said, “Sweets. I need pathology and time of death.”          In the most matter of fact voice she could, Taxi began her analysis. “Time was the last fifteen or twenty minutes. Blood hasn’t begun to coagulate yet. Cause of death...blood loss from a torn throat. Her entire neck, from one side to the other, is basically gone. Maybe an animal, maybe a griffin. It’s hard to tell. Her sword is still in the sheath and her spellbook is clasped, though. She didn’t have time to go for a weapon. I don’t think she even had time to scream...”          I nodded, curtly, and stepped as far over the pool of blood in the doorway as I could. My hooves still came down on the far edge of it. I felt the wet squelch around my shoes and buried my reaction as deep as I could, turning my flashlight this way and that.          “Sir, do you think we should go get Esmerelda?” Swift asked, quietly.          “If whatever did this is still here, I don’t think it’ll help. She might not know it, but whatever spells were guarding this floor are probably gone. That goes for her magic, too. At the very least, we’ve got some heavy hitters with us. Let’s keep the civilians out of the way.” The second floor of the hotel was some sort of extension of the penthouse, though the doors were reinforced steel. Maybe it was a security zone for clandestine meetings between high ranking government officials or international diplomats. The hall seemed a touch more sparse than the upstairs A heavy metal bar beside the door we’d just entered through was propped against the wall. It seemed a tad more secure than the penthouse itself. With luck, it might have had its own spells, aside whatever blood magic the griffins had reinforced the windows with. Not that I had any evidence to indicate that whatever could cut off blood magic couldn’t also steal the power from unicorn enchantments. Another body was laying up the hall, also on her back. I could just make out the pool of still-warm blood around it and I kept my light low. Swift took a running leap, coasting through the door and spreading her wings to land with an almost silent thump on the carpet in front of me. The Hailstorm twisted this way and that. “Sir, I’ve got...five targets. One is on this floor and doesn’t seem to be moving. Four are...um...moving away. I think they’re...” She squinted at the wall. “They’re out of range.” “Hmmm...I hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means,” Taxi muttered. I pointed down the hall. “Whoever hit this place accomplished their objective. Alright, spread out, look for whoever is left. Watch for traps, explosives, and anything else that might indicate they’re trying to cover their tracks. Edina?” There was no answer. I looked back to find the white griffin still curled up in the corner beside the stairs, her eyes staring at me, blank and empty. Whatever battle she was fighting, it was taking most of whatever mental reserves she had left to fight it. The corpse of the griffin girl had been very nearly a final straw for the both of us. “Sweets, can you carry Edina?” I asked. Taxi nodded, pulling out a length of rope and carefully looping it around Edina’s ankles. I’d thought she was entirely catatonic, but as my driver reached for her forelegs, she lifted them together, holding them out to be bound. When the knots were cinched up tight, the last thing was a loop with a gag tied in it for her beak. As my driver brought it to her mouth, she snapped at it, then grunted and forced her beak open. When she’d finished, Taxi threw Edina over her back like a sack of potatoes. She squeaked something that sounded a bit like ‘eat’, then lay still. “Damn. I was hoping we could keep her together for at least a bit longer,” I said. “You did your best, sir,” Swift added, entirely unhelpfully. “Small comfort to her, I think. Alright, let’s see if we can find our survivor, if that’s what they are. Point me in the right direction.” **** We snuck down the hall, flashlights aimed at the floor in front of us so as not to alert any enemies who might be waiting in the wings. I could smell death and plenty of it. The scent of freshly spilled blood was thick enough to choke a butcher. “Why aren’t the griffins absolutely flooding this place?” Taxi asked, softly, shifting Edina’s weight on her back into a more comfortable position. “This looks like a secured floor,” I murmured. “If all the eggs and both treasuries are here, this is neutral ground. Either side sets a claw in here without permission, particularly with the heightened tensions, it might look like an attack. That would be a bloody affair and...not to put too fine a point on it, but nobody wants to fight around the eggs. Besides, I don’t think they know the nursemaids are dead, yet. They seem like some kind of non-partisan protection force. That Esmerelda character isn’t someone I’d like to tangle with.” “If they don’t know the nursemaids are dead, though, they will soon,” my driver said, pressing herself against the wall. “We could use the backup.” “As soon as I know what we’re facing, yes, I agree, but if your cannon and Swift’s...whatever it is...aren’t enough back up to get out of here, a bunch of de-magicked blood mages and pre-war-era axes won’t help. Come on. Silence running until we’ve got the area scoped out.” The second floor from the top of the Moonwalk was shaped like a horseshoe with especially long sides and a central area that might have been some kind of conference room. Smaller rooms branched off on either side of each prong. I pushed one open and glanced around. It reminded me of my old academy dorms, albeit with a bit more flash on the walls and a mini-bar in the corner. Like everywhere else, the lights were out, so I flicked my torch around over every surface. There was a sleeping griffin draped across a cot in the corner. Her eyes were shut and she seemed quite at peace, but I realized, on second examination, she wasn’t sleeping. The bedsheets weren’t originally that particular shade of red. I swallowed and shut the door, quickly, retreating ‘What’s going on? Why is this getting to me?’ I thought. ‘After Supermax and the Don, I should be invincible...’ The thought of the Don sent my mind chasing back to that moment when I’d come around the corner and seen my friend lying there. I felt a wash of entirely rational fear, seasoned with a hint of genuine terror. It passed as quickly as it’d come, but it left my throat tight and my jaw clenched. With a will, I forced myself to relax. Maybe ‘relax’ is the wrong word; I forced myself not to piss on the carpet. Taxi was just closing the opposite door. I thought I caught a glimmer of tears on her cheeks, but her expression was carefully monotone. “We’ve got two dead in here,” she said. I nodded towards the room on my side. “One in there.” Swift was moving along the hall, scanning the rooms side to side. She started to reach for one of the door handles. “Kid!” I hissed, loud enough to give her pause. “Don’t. Trust me. Just take us where we need to be.” She sucked a breath and peered off to our left at one of the doors into the conference hall. “The target is in there.” Taxi slid Edina off her back and gently pushed her into a corner. The little griffin’s eyes flashed with madness and she squirmed in her bonds for a moment, trying to open her tied wings. I wanted nothing more than to dash out of there and get the girl some Beam. Why am I still doing this, dammit? I asked myself. Any sane being would have quit awhile ago...  Like a well oiled machine, Swift, Taxi, and I lined up beside the door to the conference room. Taxi took up position to breach, standing on her rear legs with her cannon ready. At my signal, my partner and I grabbed the door handles and tore the door open. My driver crouched low, raising the gun to firing height, ready to pop off a round at anything that might move. After a moment, she let the weapon drop. The barrel sagged to the floor as she stared into the giant room. I slowly peered out from behind the cover of the door. My trigger smacked me in the knee as it fell from my lips. **** I remember reading about massacres during school. The Pyro Mountain Massacre. The Colton Prisoner Exchange Massacre. Baltimare. Death in huge numbers for the sake of death. The war was a strange time and blood ran freely, but we were many and they were few. They were just really, really big. Strange as it might sound, the number of deaths per hundred dragons in the world far exceeded the number of deaths per hundred ponies. Massacre was one of those ugly words that just never got used terribly much. Certainly not in police work. I’d seen a couple of nasty mob hits where ten or eleven would die in one go. Industrial accidents weren’t uncommon, although they never call equicide for those. Supermax was a bloody mess, but I don’t think that qualified as a massacre. Massacre suggests someone was unprepared and unable to fight back. Massacre is innocents dying to a vastly superior force. The thing I remembered most about those massacres during the war was a silly little factoid. Most of the time, they only knew there’d been a whole bunch of death when a large group of ponies didn’t come home. Dragon fire doesn’t leave anything to bury. **** I stared into that room of death and felt my blood pressure rising until I could hear my pulse in my ears. Moving quick, I grabbed Swift before she could follow where I was looking and stuffed her back against the wall, yanked my hat off my head and over her face. Flailing at the air, she let out a protesting squeak as I dragged her away, into the hallway on one side by the back of her tactical vest. One of her wings sprang out and clouted me in the side, but I held her firmly against the wall. My hat fell off of her face and she looked up at me, young eyes full of fear. The Hail-storm’s barrels were trying to center on my head, but they apparently didn’t aim well from below. “Recruit, ten-hut!” I barked, an inch from her face. Swift stopped struggling almost immediately and I moved away so she could snap into a crisp attention. She hesitated, her hoof halfway to her forehead. “Get that hoof up there, recruit!” I snarled and her toe almost left a bruise as it hit her brow. “S-s-sir?” she whimpered. I put one hoof on the lapels of her flak jacket. “I did not tell you to speak, recruit! You will stand here, at attention, until I say otherwise! Is that clear? Eyes ahead!” “Y-Yes, Sir!” she gasped, straightening into full attention. Her body was so taut she was quivering. I let the drill sergeant mask go and shut my eyes, sitting on the carpet there at her hooves. It was cruel, but it was necessary. Necessary. Mercy of Celestia, how many things are going to go under that heading? Supermax had been necessary. Cosmo had been necessary. My conscience might let me sleep one day, if I knew the kid never had to see what was in that room. Oh, and there’s the panic attack. I started to hyperventilate as the fear I’d been holding down washed in great waves up and down my body. Everything seemed to mute as I saw, in my mind’s eye, the scene in the conference hall. There were bodies. The room was full of bodies. Some were piled against the door, while others seemed to have been trying to climb the walls. Blood and things best not mentioned filled the space with a stink so strong my eyes watered. The corpses of dozens of griffins. There were enough that it didn’t matter how many there were. It was a slaughter the like of which I’d never seen. Some were dismembered. Some seemed to have just lain down for a little nap until someone came along with a silenced chainsaw and cut their throats. It was efficient death and lots of it. Murder by the numbers and en masse. How’d they done it? We’d heard the screams, but it couldn’t have been more than fifteen or twenty minutes since we climbed out of the elevator. Killing so many...ugh, I wasn’t in a condition to ask questions just yet. Swift was still staring at me and I realized I’d drifted off into space. Drifting off was a great alternative to the next decision I needed to make. “At ease,” I muttered, sitting in front of my partner and pulling my hat back on. Her shoulders didn’t relax. She stood there at attention, eyes forward. “Kid, I said ‘at ease’. I’m sorry.” My partner’s gaze swiveled to meet mine and she gave me a fierce glare. “That was mean, Sir.” “Yeah, well, basic training trumps everything and I was saving you the worst nightmares of your life, so I think we’ll call it even,” I replied, straightening my hat brim. “Just...look, would you please wait for me here?” “I’m not a little filly anymore. I’ve seen really bad stuff before, Sir. What is-” “Not this bad, kid. Nothing...nothing this bad.” My voice dropped to a choked whisper and I inhaled, but all I could taste was all that lake of blood. “I know you’re going to get curious, but short of cuffing you and leaving you with Edina, I can’t think of a way to stop you other than asking. For my sake, because I’m doing my damndest to protect you, wait here.” Swift’s wings tucked in against her side and she gave me a petulant look, then plunked her rump down on the carpet. Something in my pleading expression must have given her pause, because that she softened a little. “Humph. This is not fair. You trusted me in Supermax.” “Lets just say I don’t trust me, right now, alright?” “You better never use basic training against me like that again, okay?” I nodded. “I promise. Short of saving your life, I won’t. We’ll be back in a minute. Go see if you can get Edina calmed down.” “I think I need to be calmed down, first, but...but alright. Whoever you’re looking for is off to the left in there, about...maybe five meters from the door.”          Leaving Swift to tend to Edina, who was making little growling noises in her corner, I trotted back to the door of the conference room and stood there, staring at the carpet and the tiny pool of light my torch cast on the floor between my hooves. I didn’t really want to look again. Phew, I really really didn’t want to look.          I raised my head and pushed my battered hat back on my head with one toe, surveying the devastation.          Taxi was already inside, picking over the bodies with her usual clinical detachment. She had a set of latex socks on each hoof, pulled right up to the knee. Another set was resting over the handle of the door. I picked them up and began tugging them onto my hooves.          “We’re clear in here, Hardy! Close the door!” she called out. “There’s a breeze, but I don’t think it’s the air conditioning. I’m assuming we’ve got a breach in one of the walls or possibly a window. I say that’s probably how they got in...whoever ‘they’ were.”          “Swift is waiting outside. Let’s do this by...whatever numbers there are for this kind of thing,” I replied, struggling the last sock onto my rear leg. “Look for cause of death and maybe what happened here.”          Fortifying myself with a few breaths and a promise to myself that if I managed to do this without screaming, crying, or attacking any book-cases, I’d drink myself into oblivion later, I pulled the doors shut behind me and began my examination.          The conference room was about twenty meters across and mostly empty, with the exception of a few overturned chairs, tables, and a dozen or so cots lined up against the wall. Most of it was hotel owned, although a few pieces - particularly a chair that seemed to be made out of some kind of bone - were sitting against the walls as though waiting for someone specific. Four empty weapons racks were side by side, with space for books, swords, and axes. The bodies littered the entire space, though most were either closer to the door we’d come in through or near one of the side exits. Some slumped against the walls, while others seemed to have dropped where they stood. Three larger shapes lay in front of a paneled-off section from which I could hear a faint hum. A floor to ceiling curtain kept that space separated from the main room. Carefully strobing my flashlight over the cadaver that’d been lying against the door, I reached out and gently turned its face towards me.          She was young. Very young. If I had to estimate her age, I’d have put her at just beyond puberty. Her yellow eyes were glassy with surprise and her white fur had the look of someone who hadn’t quite lost all of their baby feathers. Cause of death was easy to figure; three holes in a line across her face, starting from brow-ridge and moving right down to her chin. Surgical precision and a guaranteed kill. The third bullet left a chip in her beak when it passed. Lifting her head, I peered at the back of her skull. The wound there was just as perfect as the ones in her face, as though she’d been hit with something which hadn’t so much punched through as cut. “Sweets? You seeing this?” “The funny wounds?” she asked, prodding an extremely old hen’s chest. Her feathers were long since grey, her talons twisted with age. She seemed to have been riddled with small, perfectly formed holes. “I’m seeing them on most of the bodies. The rest seem to have had their throats ripped out. Some are both. Whoever did this, it was fast. I’ve only got a few open spellbooks and drawn swords. Did you notice the wall?” I turned to look at the wall of the conference room. It was covered in floor to ceiling draperies for sound absorption in a comforting forest green. No wonder we hadn’t heard much more than a bit of shouting. They were also wrong. Very wrong.          I held my light up to the back of the door I’d just come through; it was entirely pristine.          “Where in Tartarus are the bullet holes?” I asked, letting my beam drift over a few other bodies lying against the walls. Any count was going to take time, and I didn’t think we had it. “With this much spray, some of them must have gone through and hit the far wall! Even if they planted every shot perfectly...I’ve got exit wounds here!”          “Yep,” she agreed. “There’s also no shrapnel or casings. They either fired from outside-”          “-or this is enchanted weaponry,” I grumbled, stepping over another body and into a second pool of blood. Ugh. Twice in three days. The smell was never going to come out. “Dammit. I hate it when they cheat. So...what then? If you can slaughter a whole room full of armed griffins at range, leaving no evidence...why get in close? Why start ripping out necks?”          Taxi paused as she moved another body, thinking. Her nose wrinkled at whatever thought had come into her mind.          “I… I could be wrong, but… this… this might be… an act of contempt.”          “Contempt? Contempt is sending someone a snooty letter. Contempt isn’t grabbing someone and shredding their throat with your teeth.”          Taxi pointed at the body she was inspecting. The griffin at her hooves was a proper mess. Whoever had killed them first decided to unload with whatever the strange weapon was on their lower extremities before coming in for the coup de grace with teeth.          “Contempt is what you do when someone’s already dying and you want to make them feel it.” She lifted the corpse a few inches and I shined my light on it. “That and...I’ve got a hoof print here.”          On the upper chest of the griffin - whose face was so bloody I couldn’t even make out what color they’d been originally - a very distinct size ten hoof-print with shoe was marked in the blood.          “I wish we could get a full forensics team in here,” Taxi muttered.          “We don’t have time for that. Anything you see indicate a ‘survivor’ here to you?” I asked.          She shook her head, then jerked upright as something nearby let out a ‘thump’.          I turned my light in the direction of the sound.          A tall, wooden chest of drawers against one nearby wall seemed to have been torn open and emptied. A few scattered throw pillows lay amongst the carnage on the ground, along with some blankets and a couple of torn sheets. It looked like something had been hastily stuffed into the bottom drawer. It was griffin make, with handles designed for gripping with claws rather than teeth or hooves.          Stepping over the body of a lithe griffin male who was splayed out against the bottom of the cabinet, I gently heaved him off to one side. He was wearing a sword like Esmerelda, along with another of those funny looking amulets filled with blood the griffins were so fond of, this one shaped like an egg. It was about half full. Picking up my trigger, I hooked a toe into the lip of the drawer and worked it open. I squinted, trying to figure out what I was looking at. Fluffy. There was something incredibly fluffy and very light grey in the drawer. It reminded me of a shag carpeting, except more-so. Reaching in, I lightly brushed a hoof over it. A single black eye opened on a tiny head. The griffin chick let out a shrill ‘meep’, burying her face back against the side of the drawer. She was wedged in tight, tucked behind several blankets. “Oh sweet mother of...I found our survivor,” I said over one shoulder. Setting myself down, I considered the bundle of fuzz stuffed into the drawer like a college student’s wash. She wasn’t bloody, but whoever jammed her in there had done it in a hurry. One of her wings seemed like it’d been twisted at a bad angle, although I couldn’t see anything broken. She was roughly the same size as Edina, although she showed the early signs of becoming an adolescent. “Hardy, we can’t leave her here…” Taxi said, quietly. “You think I don’t know that?” I grumbled. “We’ll see if we can deliver her to the griffins downstairs.” I carefully touched the little ball of feathers. “Hey, if you can understand me in there...we’re here to help. I’m not going to hurt you, but I need to get you out.” She chirruped, pitifully, and tried to wriggle a bit, her twisted wing smacking against the top of the drawer. I assumed that meant there was comprehension. Reaching in, I gingerly pulled the drawer open a bit further. She let out a distressed whimper, but I pressed on, wrapping my forelegs around what I hoped was her middle and giving a light tug; I felt her start to slide. “Easy...easy,” I whispered as I felt her start to struggle. She gradually quieted enough that I felt like she wouldn’t peck me if I made a move. Bracing my back legs, I heaved the bundle of frightened fluff into my lap. Taxi smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes as settled herself down on my other side, blocking the chick’s view of the rest of the carnage in the room. “Oh, Hardy...she’s cute. How old do you figure she is?” I had to admit, despite the surroundings, she was right. The chick laying in my legs stared up at me with bright, tear streaked eyes. My first estimate had been correction; she was the same size as Edina, though her back paws were much bigger, like she hadn’t quite grown into them yet. She was big enough to be edging up to puberty, but still quite young. Something about her coloring reminded me of Sykes. She was reddish brown, with a little tuft of white between her eyes that was shaped a bit like a diamond. Her closest relative might have been a golden eagle. Maybe a miniature golden eagle. The young griffin turned and gave my driver a curious look, that turned a little grumpy. “Where my da?” she squeaked, lashing her little feline tail. “P-pony? Where’s my da?”          I half-turned to look at the pile of bodies behind us, inadvertently exposing the griffin who’d been slumped against the drawer. The tiny chick let out a terrified squawk and tried to leap out of my legs. I caught her and held her to my chest before she could jump on the body.          “Da’! It’s my da’!” she whimpered, clutching at the lapels of my coat as she looked up into my eyes. “Why he not moving?”          “Oh...crap…” I muttered.          Behind me, I could hear shouting getting closer. Snatching up the chick in the crook of my leg, I held her close as I kicked my trigger into my teeth. “Hold still, kiddo.”          The half-closed doors of the conference chamber slammed open and a raging Grimble Shanks, axe drawn, was followed by Derida and a half dozen of her warriors. They stormed into the room to find me standing up to my knees in blood and clutching a traumatized child over the corpses of an uncounted number of their brethren. And this is how I die. Again.