//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Severed // Story: Equestria Delivery // by JLB //------------------------------// April 23rd, 1013 AN - 7:22 PM Carol City, Equestria Through a wide open kitchen window, hot wind blew against Ditzy washing her forehooves in the sink. She rubbed herself on the snout, trying to wipe something off with a wet hoof. Eventually, the mare dried herself with a towel, leaving a small amount of paint on it, now gone from her nose. Small drying blots of red were on her chest as well. Waving a hoof in the air in front of her and frowning, she approached an opened box on the couch, an open envelope on the coffee table in front of it. Small patches of bright, pinkish red covered the inside of the box and a bit of the floor, a medium-sized can of cheap paint at the center, the seal popped off. The mare followed a set of red blots on the floor, looking over her own steps from the box to the sink embedded in the carpet. Shaking her head, she carefully lifted the can out of the box and noticed a stencil underneath. After looking at it for a few seconds, the mare carefully put the paint on the floor and removed the stencil from the box. She looked at it a few seconds, tilting her head to the side. It was a round shape, in which basic outlines of a heart, a moon, and a star were preserved in paper, the rest cut out. The symbol identical as the stamp on the envelope laying on the table. The mare eventually nodded and left the picture form on the couch. She mare went to the coffee table, looking over the envelope’s contents. Dear Ditzy, Sorry it’s been so long since we wrote to each other. I know things are a bit different now, but that’s no reason not to stay in touch. Everything always changes, maybe even today. I’ve been up to something unusual lately myself. Now I’m starting to understand why you moved to Carol City despite what ponies say about it. Not to fight crime, obviously, but for the weather! Myself, I have to contend with a plain old beach resort. Take a look at the photo cards I’ve attached - if they’re blurry, don’t blame me, I had to be discreet, you’re not really allowed to shoot these. At least the vandals haven’t put graffiti all over these monuments… yet. I miss you. Well, it's not just you, but you get me. Write back soon! Lots of love, Cherry Berry In the envelope were three bland and blurry photo cards. They depicted a small apartment block, a beauty parlor, and what looked like the inside of an underground transit station. On the white borders at the top, written in hoof, were addresses - 20 Starling Ave, 55 Starling Ave, and Dasher Station. As the mare turned the cards over, she found small wads of Equestrian bills attached to the backs. Removed and combined, they made for three hundred. Ditzy picked up the photo cards and went into her room. After putting them into the pocket of her blue postal uniform, she looked out the window, watching a burning orange shadow take over the neighboring building. With a glance to the clock, the mare left her room and knocked on the door adorned with a picture of two grey ponies. Once done, she retrieved the uniform, put the now tightly closed canister and stencil into the bag, and left home. *** April 3rd, 1013 AN Carol City, Equestria 2 Starling Avenue - 7:40 PM A big, muscular, white-coated earth pony in the greyish-yellow uniform of the CCPD made a series of gestures to the group of other policeponies surrounding him. They moved in a defensive formation, approaching the back end of a three-floor apartment building. Along the way, they quietly powered up the batons attached to their forehooves, and each quietly tapped on the ground. The one in the lead put on his star-studded sergeant headwear, lifted a bulky metal device, and fired a loud flashbang charge at the building, which crashed through the second story window. “Go, go, go, get them fast!” he barked. The hooves of the rest of his squad thundered as they broke in through the door. “This better be worth it,” he added quietly under his breath, grimacing underneath the thick handlebar moustache. His forehoof adjusted a crystal antenna attached to a large box strapped to his back. Once he joined his squad in the building, he paused and stared, his jaw dropping. The back hallway was sprayed in blood and synapse, stains covering even a defunct firefly bulb on the ceiling. The sergeant sniffed at the air and nearly retched. His hoof swung through the air, dissipating a swarm of flies. He looked to his sides, where most of his squad stood still, staring at the massacre site. When one of them lifted his baton, the stallion nodded, lifting his own and activated it. The policeponies stayed silent, advancing down the corridor. The sergeant halted for a moment when one of the squad members' voices came from ahead: “Got bodies here, fresh!” The officer gestured with a hoof, ordering the team to move ahead. He remained in the rear and illuminated the area behind them with a shoulder flashlight. He frowned at the sight, ears jerking, teeth grinding together. “Who the—” he heard the same voice scream out, much clearer now and a loud thud came through the wall. Before they could turn around, more grunts and violent bashing sounds emerged from all around, and the earth pony saw four of the seven that entered stumble back. They fell on their haunches, wiping their faces of a thick, steaming green liquid. “It’s a cheeseleg!” one of them grunted. He quickly recovered and reattached his weapon to his hoof. “Looked like Sharp before he fucked off!” “Casualties?” the officer asked. He quickly rushed to get the rest of the team up and pointed them to defensive positions in the large room. He looked around, faintly hearing quick, clicking hoofsteps, and gestured to the other pony to use hoof signals for his answer. One of the policeponies gestured negative. The sergeant nodded and sent the squad out into the big room, keeping to the rear. His flashlight passed over corpses, some charred to a crisp, some sporting numerous broken bones and cuts. The bodies appeared to have been there for a couple of days. Remains of chemistry equipment lay under broken tables, all of it burned or smashed up. Three of the police squad lay on the ground, their noses and temples leaking blood. One of them shuddered on the ground, the hairs of his coat standing up, showing signs of baton shock. The stallion frowned and looked over the rest of his squad before having the incapacitated members dragged outside to a relatively clean spot. "Talk about a gut feeling..." he mumbled to himself before stifling a gurgle. Shaking his head, he smacked the device on his back, causing the crystals to whir. The officer positioned himself in the middle of the room and stretched out the antenna. His eyes wandered, and he noticed one of the more intact thugs with a glass vial stuck in his eye, green liquid saturating his dark hoodie. The stallion blinked and exhaled. The device on his back began to pulsate, each signal accompanied by a low screech. He had to move from corner to corner, eventually finding a direction near a disemboweled hoodlum slumped against the wall. The device began to ring, the tip of the antenna beginning to spin, settling on different directions each rotation. The stallion grumbled, his eyes lingering on the sign on the wall - a circle containing a star, a moon and a heart. He made a series of hoof motions. Each of the policeponies examined an adjacent room, finding more signs of carnage within. The sergeant remained in the center, keeping watch of a specific room, which the antenna settled on more often than others. Eventually, he beckoned another of the cops over, bursting through the half-destroyed door. Within was a decaying synaptic changeling, who was little more than a carcass with dried out synapse inside. The stallion kicked at the floor, flaring his nostrils. The rest of the rooms yielded nothing, so he pointed towards the stairs. The squad ascended to the second floor, where the antenna began to spin more rapidly. The cops stepped quietly, each keeping their eyes peeled while the one unicorn on the squad lit the area around himself, eliminating need for flashlights. The sergeant stayed in the middle center, twirling the baton around his hoof while pointing directions. The second floor lacked any lighting, most of the windows being barred up. Only the big hall stood out, which was where the flashbang landed, glowing sparkles still persisting in the air. There were just as many mutilated bodies throughout this level, with more changeling drone carcasses than below. The former apartments at each side of the hall lacked their walls, connecting both sides into singular rooms. They were filled with large glass vats, some containing fermented drone corpses. Most of their contents consisted of chemical lab equipment, left damaged beyond salvage. When they reached the central corridor, the sergeant split his team up, while still keeping track of the signal. It moved between two directions this time, remaining strong enough to suggest a synaptic changeling in proximity. The stallion nodded to himself and growled into his moustache, pointing one half of his squad to the lab on the left, and headed towards the right with the rest. The unicorn policepony headed the other team, the light from his horn distancing as his team went to check stash spots and investigate bodies for a living one. The sergeant activated his own flashlight and took a look at the lab on his side, scowling at the sight of drones floating in a dirty transparent substance with tubes connecting to all their orifices. He gave a nearby processing device a kick, with it spitting out a trickle of strongly odorous green liquid. There was a loud noise from the other side - a quick, high-pitched wheeze, followed by the sound of wood and plastic crashing together. The stallion spun around, immediately followed by his two followers, one holding the front, the other keeping to the sergeant's back. They stepped in unison to where the unicorn entered the other lab. Two of that team were slumped against walls, bleeding out their snouts. Further ahead, within the lab proper, two sets of hooves thudded against the weak wooden floor. The noise sent the officer charging ahead, the rest of his team close behind. The earth pony shook his head and growled, putting his shoulder forward for any incoming impact as he galloped past and over equipment. His eyes darted back and forth, watching for movement in the darkness where his shuddering light failed to shine, but all there was was many hoofsteps. Jumping over the charred corpse of a minotaur shaped synaptic, the sergeant re-entered the hallway connecting the former apartments. He breathed heavily, pupils shrunk, ears bent tight against his head, one of his hooves kicking against the floor. The officer's eye twitched when someone emerged in front of him. A short distance ahead, the unicorn from the other team lit up his horn. He breathed heavily and kept rubbing his throat. The sergeant flexed his neck and took a cautious step toward the other pony, shaking the baton in his hoof to bring it back to full power. There was silence behind him. “Piece of shit looked like Stones now,” the unicorn mumbled. His voice was unnaturally hoarse. “Must ha—” The earth pony did not let him finish. He lashed out with the baton, striking as hard as he could against the body. His target squeaked and squirmed, lightning coursing through his nerves and muscles. The sergeant kept the baton to his body until the charge ran out. The other officer’s body hit the floor, twitching and smoking slightly. It stayed the same, even the unicorn's voice remaining unaltered, aside from the naturally heightened pitch of his wheezing. There was a movement of air behind him, and quiet hoofsteps. The sergeant opened his mouth and began to utter a curse. Another baton buzzed, the sound being sharper and less coherent than genuine batons, and struck his head. The earth pony contorted, the hairs of his coat and his moustache raising. The sparks shooting off the baton and his own body turned green before landing on the floor. Within a few moments, he was down on the ground. The cop that covered his back stepped over him and paused before crouching down over the sergeant. He put his hoof at his throat, which hammered with heightened pressure. The cop exhaled and wiped his forehead, his visage fizzling away. He gave the sergeant one last look and rose. An extremely thin, husk-like synaptic with a sharp, jagged horn exhaled loudly, legs shaking, vertically slit pupils stretched out wide. “Fuck me... Why has it always got to be such a mess,” he muttered. His voice trembled and echoed, shifting away in tone from the cop that currently lay in the wardrobe on the ground floor. Another couple of breaths had him convulse shortly, whimpering in pain and biting on his crusty chitinous lip. Moments later, the effects of the pills wore off and a large exhaust of magic released itself from his long, jagged horn. The changeling limped his way to the ground floor. The pores in his chitin gaped, glowing a light green, some having gained new, web-like cracks. He took calm, slow breaths, knocking at his horn every time it began to spurt, preventing his synaptic signature from showing among the carnage. Once downstairs, he pulled open a slot in the floor near the main entrance and took the big duffel bag from within. Before he left, the synaptic took one last look at the apartment building, ground his teeth and took off before another seizure made him stop, additional cracks springing in his chitin. As it stopped him from rounding a corner and entering the main street, he did not run into a grey, blonde pegasus mare in a stained postal uniform who rushed past the alleyway he was in. The changeling's eyes widened and he backed away. Peeking outside, he saw her already having disappeared. Spitting on the ground, the synaptic waved his hoof and shook his head. He wiped his black vest and white shirt and took off, keeping watch for police. *** TO: Commissioner Vice Point FROM: Sergeant Thorn This isn't about my demotion, I fully understand the ramifications of my frivolous use of time, resources and police staff. I've settled things with Flash. I will be ready to get back to service on Patrol as soon as my nerves recover. It should be about a week, the doctors say, they won’t let me out before then. If it were up to me I'd be back already. The matter we're dealing with, however... I need to discuss what happened in private. I get you don’t want it to be public after my screw-up, but this is serious. This needs looking into. It's bad enough these thugs are using drones to cook illicit joy. This, though, was not band infighting, this was somebody slaughtering them like they were nothing. Labs like these take squads like the one I lead. Someone was very quick, very violent, and very flexible. Either that, or there was a whole group of killers. I really do suggest you look into this, because I have more than just a gut feeling. I don’t buy that those could be other drug dealers. That was not how thugs work. Tunnel Snakes, Majors, Los Caballeros, they rarely kill like this. That was an A+ massacre. Dedicated mass murderers, Commissioner, ones who kill like it's their special talent. They were dedicated, too dedicated. I'd really rather this was a misgiving on my part, as you seem to have indicated. I don't like what I'm seeing. I don't like how correct my gut feeling ends up being from time to time. As for what happened with my team, you already know what went on. I am not going to argue or try to leverage. What’s happened, happened. At the end of the day, I have to accept you've done me your share of favors. I trust in your better judgement, even if this time around I’m on the short side of it. Just realize that me and you know that this can go painfully wrong. I hope this doesn’t have to go public. "The Crown Casino and Restaurant" - 00:20 AM The changeling with the duffel bag on his back looked around, keeping his head low. He approached the doors of a night club. Its exterior was bursting with neon and sparkles, and its title was embedded in bold letters into a large plate above the entrance. It flashed in many colors, illuminating the black carapace, green eyes, sunken-in face and short mane of the changeling, along with the large horn topping his head. He shook the bag off his back, gripping it with a thin, green aura and knocked on the doors. “VIP’s only tonight, honey,” a female voice drawled. “Blacktop.” He knocked on the door two more times in quick succession. “The hell kept you?” a much deeper, male voice answered. The changeling entered the building. Limping slightly, he sauntered into the club, waving weakly to the receptionist at the door. “Hey, where’s the tip?” the slim, glossy, makeup-covered mare at the door barked at him in a male voice. “For what? Opening doors?” the changeling with the bag mumbled. “Screw you, Phase.” He struggled to pull his burden along. “Screw you, Nexus,” the mare shot back at him, settling down and beginning to file her hooves. The changeling passed through an area packed tight with patrons, all of them dancing to the sound of a deep, bassy tune that quaked the floor. He made his way through, pushing particularly numb ponies away, and finally reached the bathroom. Once inside, he dropped the bag on the floor and opened the tap, letting his head soak. He moaned and spat. After closing the tap, he looked up. There was another horned changeling in the room with him. “Boss has been waiting for hell knows how long,” the other one said. That changeling had a longer mane, as well as large scar across his left eye. He wore the same clothing as Nexus, as did several of the club's patrons back near the dance hall. “Yeah, I know, I know. There were complications. Urgh, this is going to end me.” The wet-headed changeling pointed to the mirror. The chitin on Nexus' face was sunken in, clinging tight to the endoskeleton, making his face taller, longer and thinner than the other changelings. There were webs of greenish veins poking through cracks in the chitin. His vertical irises had grown wide and jerked in place.  “I can't believe we're bothering with this. I took two, and look at all these damn cracks. Any more of this and I'm going to burst...” “You've been saying you could stop for years now. You haven't had an excuse since—” The scar-faced changeling picked up the duffel bag from the floor and examined its contents, nodding to himself. “Or…” “Or, Synth. Coppers. And not just a patrol. It was a whole squad, and they were working overtime. Someone's starting to get ideas. They even had these tracing things with them. I couldn't bolt, so... Yeah.” “Cold,” Synth nodded, shrugging. “But that's more trouble from the Boss. The cops were already hard enough to deal with, and if you're somehow not full of shit, cleaning up after an entire squad getting killed—” “Hey!” Nexus raised his forehooves, frowning. “I didn’t kill nobody. I knocked them all out, tried to leave nothing behind. No way my signature stayed, I'm not that damn weak. This crap makes you feel like your horn will pass gas, but I managed. Even if they bring out the real forensics, all they're gonna know is, whoever took their freelancing coppers out doesn't give a shit what happens to his body.” “Not like they’d be wrong, Nexus. You are a walking cadaver.” Nexus trembled and banged his hooves against the sink, nearly breaking it off. He stared at his partner with his irises shrunk. “Save your remarks for later, okay? Especially the fucking cadaver shit. You must think I had a choice.” He growled. “I'm not even done. Cops are one thing, but I saw some real shit there. Like, ‘we-may-have-an-actual-problem’ grade shit. Shhhit... Now, if I wasn't half-dead, falling apart and about to melt from my crippling drug addiction, I'd pack my hooves and gallop over to tell the Boss some bad news.” He looked at Synth, who scowled and began to stare. Nexus let out a groan and wiped his face with a hoof. The scarred changeling sighed and clicked his tongue. “Explain in short,” Synth said. “The joy-heads that we were trading this crap with? I came in, and everyone was dead. Oh, screw me up my misformed cheeseleg ass, this was bad. I don't think the Wedding War was this bad... I mean, this was savage. Ponies have been going cuckoo for a while, but this was just ghastly. Limbs all over the place, guts on the floor, charred bodies everywhere." Nexus gulped and stuck his head under the tap again. Synth rubbed his chin and looked down at the floor, while the thinner changeling spat the water out and continued. "Blood and gore aside, if whoever did this hit those lowlifes, they may be some sorta fucking vigilantes or some shit. That means it's gonna come to us in the end.” “Harsh.” The scar-faced changeling sighed and patted Nexus on the back. “Look, I’ll go take this to the Boss and tell him how it is. He can chew you out tomorrow if he feels like it. Last I checked, he was too busy to look at your ugly face. The bird and the cow are pestering him with something or other. Don’t think he needs any more distrac—” Synth's words were cut short by a loud crash, followed by a reverberating, growling roar. Nexus and Synth quickly flashed, turning into a pale, thin purple unicorn mare and a burly brown earth pony stallion. They headed back to the dance floor, peeking from the door. There, the crowd was scrambling and retreating to the sides, while in the center, a large bipedal figure stood over an equine. It was a tall female minotaur in a black business suit, towering over a feminine synaptic changeling, who bled green out a cracked nose. “Oh, you fucking—” Synth rushed ahead, shoving aside the bystanders. Nexus followed, stepping on bodies and raising the unicorn's head high, squinting. “That what you call pestering?!” Nexus hiccupped, eyes darting back and forth, while the unicorn's legs shook much more intensely. Flickers of the toxic green light coming from the cracks in his chitin poured through the mare's face. “Him and our foreign friends haven't been getting along. The Bosss... yeah, it was Parallax again.” The scarred changeling covered his face with a hoof and paced back and forth. “Wonder what he had her say to the cow. I thought she never even raised her voice." “I just wanna go home, okay?” Nexus said to Synth under his breath. The unicorn mare's eyes twitched, giving way to the slit irises, when the changeling glanced at the minotaur. There was a bulging vein visible on the bovine's temple. Her teeth were grit tight. Her blonde hair swung back and forth as she took slow, deep breaths. Behind the minotaur stood a griffon, a stocky magpie, who followed the same dress code as Synth, Nexus and the minotaur herself. He stood on his hind legs, supporting himself with a long object inside a thick black sheathe. He had a claw over his face, shaking his head. There was silence, safe for the music. The minotaur looked at the crowd, frowned, and wiped the synapse off her fists, suit and hoof using a napkin. Several other changelings in black vests and white shirts surrounded the one in the middle, supporting her as her head hung off, unnaturally blank eyes blinking slowly. Straightening her back, the minotaur let out a quiet huff and reached into a suit pocket before taking off her glasses and wiping them too. Her expression became placid and vacant, while her eyes were no longer visible behind the reflections of the glasses. The two changelings retreated near the bathroom. “Yeah... You should just go. I’ll cover for you. Whatever they aren't happy about, I think it's best if you aren't here to sour his mood once he comes back. You're already a cadaver, but right now you can't even hold a bag.” Synth put his hooves on Nexus’ shoulders. “You have a tendency of making a mess even worse, Nexus. And you already are a mess. I don’t want to have to tell your girlfriend that you died from joy-melt while Parallax was being blown out again.” “Thanks, dude. I owe you.” “That you do, Nexus. Remember - this isn't on the house. You keep making a mess..."