//------------------------------// // Act 3 Chapter 1: When It All Goes Wrong // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------//  Starlight Over Detrot Act 3 Chapter 1: When It All Goes Wrong Equestria has experienced many disasters in its long life. Some went on for decades, devastating vast swathes of the countryside and ravaging the lives of thousands, while some lasted a little under a half hour and were resolved with smiles and laughter. It’s the nature of Equestrians to be resilient, but every now and then a storm comes that they can’t weather, buck, or sing their way out of. In those darkest of times, there arise heroes who stand against evil, who will drag the world back from the edge of disaster. These will earn places in the history books, to inspire all future generations. Captain Pansy. Professor Martin Jay. The Turner of Time. It has been postulated that there are many who work behind the scenes, making certain those heroes arise. Princess Celestia may not be above a certain amount of manipulation, having had many centuries to position the pieces on her board against all but the most canny and dangerous opponents. Still, now and then no amount of planning or preparation will put that noble individual where they need to be in time to stop the holocaust. When they fail, and fall, it is to another breed to save the world. This kind is more desperate, wilder, and less predictable but they are arguably those who do the real work after all seems lost. Their names may not make the texts, but Celestia remembers them, therefore history remembers. That has always been the way of things. What then, do we do, when the board is upended? Who will stand when history runs out? - The Scholar               It was dark.          Maybe it had always been dark.          I’d woken with a stiff neck and a crick in my back for the second night in a row, but there’s nothing especially comfortable about sleeping in the Warehouse, other than the knowledge that you’re probably reasonably safe, so long as the resident bat pony secret agents don’t try to drunkenly lick you.         A week. Sweet skies above, had it really only been a week? It felt like centuries.         I rolled onto my side, staring out through the bars of the little cage I’d called home for the last couple days. The bars were open and a tray of hot food sat on a rolling service. It looked like it might be waffles. Cereus might have been a crap secret agent, but he made some good waffles. Sleep beckoned, but food was beckoning a heck of a lot louder. Somepony, somewhere, was singing in a clear, sweet soprano. I wanted to tell them to shut up and let me get back to sleep, but they could carry a pretty decent tune. It was better than waking up to a telephone with Chief Jade’s shrill voice at the other end. Swinging my legs off the cot, I dropped onto all fours and scratched at my side where my gun harness was chafing. It itched like a bastard, but an itch was worth the protection of keeping the Crusader close to my skin. Grabbing the dolly in my teeth, I dragged it back to my bed and settled back on my haunches, listening to the singer with a quiet wistfulness as I shoveled my mouth full of waffles drenched in syrup and butter. They were singing some tune that’d been popular about five years ago. It was one of those sad love songs where everypony died at the end, but it made me smile. ‘Getting a little sappy, are we Hardy?’ I thought, wiping some butter off my muzzle. Five minutes later, the impromptu vocal concert finished right as I lifted the last bite of my meal to my mouth. Raising my voice, I shouted, “Bravo! Encore! Encore!” and clapped my hooves. From down the hall, Sugar Lace called back, “Sit on it and spin, Hard Boiled!” “You missed your calling, Sugar. Should have done something with that voice besides howl into a microphone,” I shot back, grabbing my napkin off the edge of the tray and sweeping my chin clean. “Yeah, and you’d have made a really good doorstop!” she snarled, banging her hooves on the bars. “I bug one pony and now I’m stuck here while the whole world goes crazy and I can’t report a word of it!” She stomped back to her cot and threw herself down, scattering a few books off on the floor. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. This is still probably the safest place on this continent you could be,” I replied, dropping my silverware back onto the tray and pushing it to one side. “Hence why you’re cowering in here?” she snapped. I leaned back and sighed. Cowering. Yeah, that was a pretty good term for it. Reaching over, I prodded the quantum walkie-talkie sitting on a couple of milk crates which was I using for an end table. I’d given the other one to Swift when the decision was made to split up and get everypony somewhere safe.  “The entire country is under martial law. What, exactly, would you like me to do?” I answered, picking up my hat and pulling the brim low over my ears. “I dunno! Something! Anything is better than just sitting there!” I had to agree. Still, I’d been off the grid for a week. It was time to get back out there. Where to start, though? **** One week ago  **** “—continue reporting here. All commercial breaks are canceled until we have fresh information and we’ll have our reporters on scene as quickly as possible to keep you up to date—” I shut the television off and settled back on the couch. Limerence was still unconscious, laying sprawled out beside me with his head between his hooves. He was no longer making that disturbing noise, but he was still out. I reached over and rested a hoof behind his ears, gently scratching them. He didn’t move, but his breathing seemed reasonably even. A part of me was aware I should be far more freaked out than I was, but there’s a point beyond which fear is just not an option; you’ve moved beyond terror into a sort of peaceful acceptance of the situation, where things are so screwed that you’re free to enjoy the quiet times before everything explodes. I settled my legs back in my lap and murmured, “Mags...you can come out now. It’s safe.” Mags crept out from under the couch, peering in all directions before launching herself up onto my chest. I caught her in a close embrace. She grabbed at me with her little talons, wrapping them in my mane as I put my legs around her, as much to comfort her as to comfort myself. Princess Celestia. Princess Luna. Canterlot. Those were bywords for solidity and permanence. Entire civilizations had risen and fallen in the time they’d existed. Generations of ponies lived and died under their kind, watchful attention. I patted the young griffin’s shoulders as she clung to my breast, resting my chin between her ears. “Kiddo, I think we should get you some food. Alright? The scary noise is gone and you need breakfast.” I felt her nod, then pulled myself off the sofa, leaving Limerence laying there. There were so many things I couldn’t do anything about, but I could feed one little bird. I jumped as somepony banged on the front door. Had our opponents found us? Were we about to be attacked? Or was Swift just not using her house key for some reason? Kicking my trigger up into my teeth, I swung Mags around onto my back in one smooth motion, then edged over to the window. “W-what is it, pony?” Mags asked, soft enough that I wasn’t terribly worried about us being overheard. Tugging the blinds open a few centimeters, I peered out at the front porch. Two extremely thin, young mares, both unicorns with green manes and silvery golden bodies that put me in mind of a carrot stood outside. They were almost completely identical, though they had two very different cutie-marks. One was a harp of some kind, while the other was a pistol wrapped in pink cloth. There was a very distinct familial resemblance, however. Both wore matching white sashes across their stomachs; a pair of Stilettos.  Sighing with relief, I trotted over to the door and tugged it open. They looked up at me with two very similar expressions of surprise. “Detective Hard Boiled?” the one on the right asked. “What are you doing here?” the other one added, without missing a beat. “I’m...ugh, it’s complicated. We’ve got a situation,” I said, rubbing my temple with one toe. “And we have instructions, Detective,” the first said. “We are to move the Cuddles family from these premises to a safe location,” her companion continued. That was starting to get a bit disturbing. “More power to you. I assume After Glow sends her regards?” The two shared a quick look, then they both let their ears droop. “Mistress After Glow is not presently in command of the Stilettos,” the mare with the harp on her flank mumbled. “Almost a third of our unicorn forces are presently unconscious, including the matriarch. Our...our instructions remain that, in the event of city-wide crisis, we are to extract the Cuddles family.” It’d only been about twenty minutes since the first broadcast. Stilettos could give the griffins a run for their money in terms of efficiency. In Equestria, speed is frequently survival. Particularly in an Equestria that’d suddenly found itself short two beneficent rulers, a capital city, and who knew how many ponies. Still, this presented an opportunity. There was only one pony I knew of who might be able to figure out what was going on with Limerence and Quickie, and that was a long shot. Thinking quickly, I stepped back from the door, letting the pair inside. “You two weren’t affected by whatever that was?” I asked. They both shook their heads. “Many were. My sister and I both suffered a severe headache, but were not disabled,” the sister with the pistol cutie-mark answered. “My name is Sine. This is Cos.” I dipped my chin as Mags peeked over my shoulder. They gave her a curious look. “Good to meet you. We’ve got a situation here. I have four additional individuals I need you to extract. You have the resources to do that?” Sine and Cos gave me a pair of distressed frowns. Sine’s touched her sister’s foreleg and yanked her chin at the door. “Our instructions only include Quickie Cuddles and Deep Tip Suture,” Cos said, at last. “Oof...I see why he didn’t want me to use his first name. Either way, I didn’t ask you what your orders were,” I replied, pushing between them and tugging the door open. A small white transport van about the size of a police cruiser sat outside, parked behind the tarp-covered Night Trotter. The words ‘Rooster Removals’ was painted across the side in big, looping letters. “I asked if you had the space. Two of my friends are good-sized griffins of some importance. I need them somewhere safe. You’ve already got their eggs, so I figure they’re high priority. My driver is injured and can’t move, either. I’ve also got an unconscious unicorn in the living room.” The two of them twitched their eyes at each other, then Cos gave her head a very slight shake, making her bobbed mane tip into her eyes. Her sister sucked her upper lip between her teeth, then let out a frustrated groan. “I...do not like this,” Sine answered, shifting her weight from hoof to hoof. “However, Miss Stella has...indicated that your group’s survival is one of our secondary objectives. We must move quickly. Once we have extracted our primary targets, we’ll...we’ll see. Detective, do you have any idea what might have caused this situation? The radio in our vehicle stopped working half-way through our last update from the Vivarium.” “Not a clue, I’m afraid,” I lied, glancing back towards the kitchen. Telling them the world was screwed probably wouldn’t go over well. “I want to get out of here as much as you do. Come on.” I trotted off to find our hosts and the two of them followed a moment later. ---- Suture still knelt over his wife on the kitchen floor with some type of strange, boxy instrument in his hooves. It looked like a miniature television screen, except with a big green line across it that was waving up and down. He was running it back and forth over Quickie’s horn. As we came in, he glanced up and his eyes widened as the two Stilettos came in behind me. “Detective? Are these...friends of yours?” he asked, still guiding his tool over his wife’s forehead. Her eyes were shut and her breathing seemed somewhat more normal, but that didn’t make me feel much better; unconscious is still unconscious. “Your mother-in-law says ‘hello’,” I grumbled, stepping to one side. “Ah. Yes.” He squinted at Cos and Sine. “What do they want?” “Our instructions are to move you and your wife to a safe location in the event of city-wide catastrophe,” Sine said quietly, as she knelt down beside Quickie and inspected her closely. Her horn lit up for a moment and she ran it across the other mare’s face. “If...if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that looks like—” Suture pressed a button on the side of his little machine and shut it down, then tucked it into his bag. “Yes, magical burn out. Severe magical burn out.” “Like...something sucked all these ponies dry?” I asked. He nodded, rising to his hooves and gently pushing his head underneath his wife’s body, shifting her up onto his back. He settled her hooves on either of his sides with the utmost care. “So, it’s just a matter of waiting for them to recover, right?” I wanted to know. “It may be. I do not think this is a normal magical burn out, however. It seems to have negatively affected a very particular ley-line. Still, any more energy and it would probably have done something horrid to every unicorn in the city,” Suture replied. He had his ‘physician’s face’ up; the face of a stallion used to giving bad news. It couldn’t disguise the tremors in his chest and legs, though. Cos’ horn flickered and she brushed a stray lock of hair out of Quickie’s lovely face. “I was too young to know her personally, but I remember hearing stories of Miss Quickie’s skills,” Cos muttered. “I’d hoped I’d get to be as good as she was with a knife or a riding crop.” “As she is, my dear lady,” Suture chuckled, patting his wife’s leg. “She never held much truck with ponies who retire and let their skills go to waste. Even if she mostly uses her knives in the kitchen these days.”         He gave his chin a little jerk in the direction of the wall above the sink. An array of knives was attached to a magnetic board. Not all of them were kitchen knives. I recognized a tanto, a couple of butterfly knives, and even a very strange one that had a gun-stock instead of a handle. Oooh, yes, glad she punched me. The weight of her other options was leaving me a bit light headed. That could also have been horror over the seat of our national government and the controllers of the moon and stars vanishing right in front of me. Take charge. Get things back on track. Get everyone out and safe. “Alright, saddle up, ponies!” Everypony stood a little straighter. Reaching back, I gently tugged Mags off of my back, setting her on the floor. She peered up at me, twisting her head all the way to one side like an owl. “Mags, wait here for me. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Suture, take your wife and get out to the car. Once you’re done, I want you to head upstairs and get the griffins. I’ll...go tell my driver.” **** “Ha! Everything I know about that crazy witch tells me she didn’t take it well!” Sugar cackled from her cell as I paced back and forth down the hallway. She looked none-the-worse for her short imprisonment, but then, Cereus was probably the least punitive jailer the world had ever seen. If anything, she’d put on a few pounds. In the next cell over, the security guard from the museum was snoring up a storm. “Oh, and I suppose you know a fair bit, then?” I snorted. “I wasn’t aware you were so closely monitoring the police.” “You think I put a bug on you and I don’t have ears all over the department? At least...I did, until somepony started swatting them a few years ago. Probably that radio-mare. Whatever her name is.” “I’ll take that under advisement,” I grunted, sliding back to sit against the bars of her cage. “Either way...Taxi is Taxi. Her heart is usually in the right place.” “Are you kidding me?” Sugar asked, incredulously. “The right place? She's out of her damn mind! You remember that prick you got imported from Yakyakistan about five years ago? The ‘constabulatorial exchange officer’ or whatever they called him?” The memories resurfaced after a moment and I laughed to myself. “You mean Cormag? He was a train wreck. I never met a cop with anger issues like him. Still, he managed to keep it off his record most of the time...well, right up until the end there.” Sugar leaned between the bars of her cell and shot me a cocky grin. “Yeah, you remember his ‘thermos’?” I thought back, then slowly nodded. “You mean that ‘spirit tank’ he was always carting around?” “Sacramental booze, you mean. He was sneaking nips in the break room,” she said, dragging her hooves back and forth across the bars. “Bullying bastard. Made that nice girl in Requisitions cry her little eyes out. She quit a month later.” “Oh...yeah. Charity Bell. She was a sweetheart. I didn’t know it was Cormag that drove her out. Wait...wait a second,” Grabbing my coat tails, I trotted down to the front of Sugar’s cage and plunked myself down in front of her. “Be clear with me. How do you know any of this?” “Heh, I listened, remember?” she replied, tapping her ear. “Like I said, the department was bugged...so I heard when that scummy prick tried to get Charity into bed. Then, when she turned him down, he made her life a living Tartarus for the next four weeks.” I blinked a little, then shook my head. “Why didn’t she go to Internal Investigations? They’d have peeled him like a grape.” “You remember Cormag? He was the size of a manticore. He scared the pants off her. Rightly so. He was also damned careful. Nopony would have believed mister ‘by the book’ tried to get that nice kid into bed. She had no proof. Anyway...Charity might not have told anypony in official authority, but there are different kinds of authority. Sweet Shine is a lunatic, but she knows ponies.” I shifted onto my side, pulling my coat over myself. “What’d Taxi do to drag it out of her?” “What else? Got her drunk. After that, well...your driver started doping Cormag’s little spirit drink with some of this stuff the boys in the lab were cooking in their off hours to keep themselves awake,” she purred, with a satisfied smirk. “Took about four days of dosing himself every day with pharmaceutical grade amphetamines before he had his little ‘confrontation’ with Jade over ‘protocol’.” “I wondered what would make anyone crazy enough to take a swing at the Chief…” “Does she still have his horns mounted above her desk?” Sugar asked. “Nahhh...she moved ’em to the hallway with the suits of armor.” “Hmph. I digress. Your driver would give Princess Celestia a headache, so, what I want to know is how in Equestria you managed to convince her to sit a week out and kept all of your limbs? You’ve got the diplomatic skills of an industrial sewage dump on a buffalo holy ground.” “Yeah, well, two broken legs mellows almost anypony out. Still, it wasn’t easy...” **** I rubbed the hoof shaped bruise on my forehead. Twice in one day. I need to meet some less violent mares. “No, you are not leaving me!” Taxi snarled, dragging herself to the edge of the huge bed to reach for a pair of crutches that were propped against the wall beside one of the sex toy boxes. At some point, Suture had applied a pair of splints to her front and back legs, but they weren’t proper casts and I wouldn’t have trusted them with any weight. “Sweets, we don’t have time to argue about this. You can’t drive. You can’t fight. Until you’re healed, you’re not safe with me.” “I’m not safe with you, period!” she barked, flailing her good hoof at the crutches. They were miles out of range. “Now...now help me up, dammit!” I dropped back on the floor, settling against the tool boxes. I could already feel the bruise fading where my driver smacked me, which was either a sign Gale’s control over my nervous system was improving or that Taxi was really in bad shape. The sad truth is that some conversations just don’t have a pleasant, equitable outcome. Telling my driver she was being left behind was always going to be one of them. Particularly being as it was the second time in as many months that I’d done it. “Alright, this is not a negotiation. Two unicorns are going to be up here in five minutes to cart you to the Vivarium,” I growled, softly. “You can go with them, or I can have Suture put you under again. It’s either this...or I go deep cover and you and I can work this out once everything is over. I know you can probably find me, but you don’t get to help me if you’re on a self destruction kick again. I don’t need to see you die. I’ve already seen too many die.” I hate trying to throw my weight around with Taxi. It never ends well. Still, much as I needed her, I needed her alive. Her ears slowly laid back against her head and she lay back against the pillows. “Hardy...w-what’s happened? What was the resonance earlier?” she asked as real fear blossomed in her eyes. “It’s...something...something terrible, isn’t it?” I lowered my head. How could I tell her? It was like saying the moon was gone or the oceans had all dried up. I shuddered as a wave of exhaustion suddenly washed over me and I sagged onto the edge of the bed, collapsing with my face in the smooth, satin covers. I bunched both front legs in them, taking a deep breath. They smelled of griffin and my driver and Quickie’s sweet perfume. The shock would probably have made her easier to move. I hated the part of my brain that had started thinking like that. Still, there were no words for the vanishing of Canterlot and I was too worn out to try to find any. I finally found my voice after a moment laying there, but couldn’t hide a hitch in it. “Sweets, just this once...just this once, could you listen and not fight me? Everything is wrong and there’s nothing I can do to fix it right now. I need you to be safe. Just a little while? Just until you’re on your hooves...” I didn’t look up, just holding on to the sheets as I rested my weary eyes. Skies above, they felt so good. I just wanted to lay there until our enemies found me. I’d already had my weepy moment for the day, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t up for another.         A warm leg rested across my shoulders. I glanced up out of one eye at my driver. She’d never looked so conflicted.         “Hardy, I don’t know what is going on. I’ve never seen you like this, but...I’ve never seen you beg, either. Not like that. You swear to me...you swear, I’ll see you in seven days’ time, when I’m healed,” she demanded, touching my cheek.         “I swear, “ I mumbled into the sheets. “Seven days.” ---- I stumbled into the living room and fell onto the couch beside Limerence. ‘There’s another fifty five gallon drum of worms just waiting to be opened,’ I thought. Unconscious unicorns. The Princesses gone. Canterlot vanished. No beer. Beer would have been good. Beer solves many things. As I was having these considerations, Mags appeared in the doorway, her poofy mane sticking up in all directions and her tail tucked around her back legs. She reminded me so much of a guilty kitten I had to smile just a little. Silently padding across the carpet, she spread her wings and flapped up onto the sofa, pushing under my chin and making room for herself in my legs. I let her snuggle in and exhaled a weary sigh. Well, one more piece of unpleasantness to handle. “Kiddo, I’m going to have to leave you with—” I started, then found her tail flopped across my muzzle. I crossed my eyes to stare at it. Mags gave me a reproachful look. “Pony hasn’t gotten me breakfast.” I tried to come up with a counter-argument for that and found myself failing. All sense, common or otherwise, told me I should ditch the ball of fuzz with the first adult who still possessed a functioning sense of self preservation, but I was so far beyond rationality that making those sane decisions was a bit beyond me just then. Strange as it might sound, I found I didn’t want to leave her behind. Maybe my battered psyche just needed something to cling to for a bit; something I could take care of that was unlikely to explode or try to eat me. There was a clatter at the door and I leaned sideways so I could see into the front hall. Cos and Sine were holding the unconscious Grimble Shanks in a levitation field, his enormous body floating a few inches above the ground. Both of them were moving stiffly, gritting their teeth as they heaved him along out the door. Peering out of the blinds, I saw Suture sitting in the front of the van, peering back into the holding area where I assumed his wife also lay. Doing a few quick calculations in my head, I realized there was no way in the whole world that they were going to fit Derida and Limerence into that van without piling them on top of one another. Getting in touch with the Vivarium with every phone line in the city packed by emergency calls was a non-starter and I didn’t count my odds of finding a cab as much better. Oh to have a Ladybug. I missed having Ladybugs. Sadly, I hadn’t seen them since the day we left the Griffin Embassy. “Well, honey...you and I are going to have to figure something out—”  **** I was interrupted as a frightened squawk echoed from down the hall and Mags winged into the High Security area, Agent Night Bloom in hot pursuit. Bloom had armed herself with a kitchen broom which she clutched in her teeth and was flailing it at the griffin chick, who was using her superior speed and small size to evade, all the while repeatedly smacking the frustrated dusk pony across the nose with her tail.         Seeing me, Mags swooped in low and threw her claws around my neck as I scrambled upright, tipping my hat off onto the floor. Sugar reached between the bars, quick as a rattlesnake and snatched it up, dancing backwards with it into her cell. I opened my mouth to demand it back, only to catch a muzzle-full of dusty broom that sent me back onto my rump. “Help! Help! Egg pony! Protect your tribe!” Mags squealed, clinging to my mane.         Night Bloom pulled the broom back to take another swing, but before she could get her aim I caught it in my teeth and yanked it away from her. Her golden eyes bored into mine and she jabbed a hoof at my passenger.         “I swear, Hard Boiled...if I catch that ridiculous little creature poking around the filing cabinets again, I’m going to feed her to a damned hydra!” Reaching back, Bloom snatched a paper snowflake from under her membranous wing and unfolded it. “Three years of tax reports on Detrot’s criminal syndicates! She made a paper blizzard out of three years of hard evidence!”         Mags ducked in behind my mane, wrapping her tail around my neck.         Cocking my head to one side, I reached up and patted her behind the ears. Spitting out the broom, I wiped a couple dust bunnies off my muzzle.         “You honestly think that evidence matters now?” I asked, glancing at Sugar. She was sitting on her cot, my hat on her head. “Half the city has gone insane and we don’t even know what’s happening in Equestria at large. We’d be better off using it as fire lighters.”         Night Bloom huffed, tossing the snowflake at my hooves. “It’s the principle of the thing! One day, there will be a bureaucracy again and these characters will need to answer for their damn crimes!”         Turning on her heel, she stomped down the hall and out into the Warehouse. Mags dangled off my side, peering into my face. I gave her a squint-eyed smile and she answered with an impish grin.         “Daddy would say she be needing to get ‘waid’,” Mags giggled, dropping from my back onto the concrete. “I don’t know what that means, but he be saying it about Es’ma’relda when she be grumpy, too.”         “I think you mean ‘laid’, kiddo, and last thing I need is Agent Bloom trying to get under my tail right now. Or maybe that’d be the best thing. I don’t know. Either way, you and I are going to have to start thinking about getting out of here or she’s going to make herself four tiny griffin hide slippers,” I replied, gently chucking her under the chin.         Mags let out a loud chirp of interest. “Really, Har’dy? We goes to ‘Nest’ place?” “Yeah, later today I think. We’ve got to pick up my friends first and maybe get some intel. Where’s Cereus?” She pointed one claw towards the door. A sheepish-looking dusk pony stallion stood there, a pair of child’s safety scissors in his mouth and bits of confettied tax documents stuck to his dark cheeks. He ducked his head and dropped the scissors on a tray near one of the cells as he trotted in, peering in all directions like a nervous rabbit. “Is...is she gone?” Cereus asked. “She’s gone,” I answered, then turned to Sugar. “Lace, you wanna give me my hat back?” Running her hoof around the brim, she wiggled her ears back and forth in the comfortable suede. “I don’t know. I rather like it. It’s got that ‘lived in’ feel. Besides, you haven’t finished telling me where your friends are or how you ended up carting a griffin child around with you.” Mags made an offended noise. “Am not a child! I be tribe lord!” “Sure you are. And I’m a pink cotton candy cloud,” Sugar Lace snickered, rolling onto her back on her cot. “So, story then. It’s better than just sitting here waiting to die.” “Fine...I suppose it’s not as though there’s an emergency, unless you count the entire planet...” Cereus plunked himself down alongside Mags and I shucked my coat, using it to pad the cold floor. **** Loading Taxi didn’t take long once she was cooperating, but any attempt to wedge Limerence in was out of the question. Cos and Sine were starting to get antsy by then, so I retreated to the house to wait for Swift with Mags in tow. As the van pulled away from the curb, I sighed and began trying to compose myself. Leaving Lim draped across one of the ottomans, I decided the Cuddles family wouldn’t object if I raided their fridge. “Mmm...more olives?” I asked and Mags nodded vigorously as I heaped a few more black delicacies across the top of one of two open sandwiches. They were monuments to the chow-crafter’s art. I’d even managed to dig out some of the leftover chicken salad and, avoiding the urge to gag, heaped some on top of my little companion’s meal. Closing the sandwiches, I gave them both a good press with one hoof. They were still much too large for my mouth, much less Mags’ beak, but that wasn’t the point. If you’re going to make a masterwork, you take it as far as you can. Just as I was about to take my first bite, I heard the back door open. Swift trotted down the hallway, her ears pinned back against her head. She was breathing heavily. “Sir! Officer Swift...reporting,” she panted, flopping on her stomach. The Hailstorm twitched, weakly, its barrels spinning a couple of times. “We need...ah...we need to...phew...find someplace...safe.” I glanced at my sandwich, then over at Mags who had paused, beak open. Very slowly she leaned forward and took an intent bite, glowering at my partner. “Kid, what happened?” I asked. “I asked for a recon flight, not a trip to Los Pegasus. Are you alright?” Pulling herself up, she grabbed a cup off the sink and poured a glass of water. “The city is going nuts,” she replied, gulping her drink. “The roads are jammed and the skies...Sir, I had to dodge, like, three interdiction fields! I don’t even think two of them were sanctioned! What’s going on out there?” “Big bad things. There’s been...oh, go in the other room and flip on the television. Doesn’t matter what channel. I’ve got to eat and I’ve had enough excitement for ten minutes,” I said, popping a pickle into my mouth.         Rising, Swift peered around the kitchen for a moment. “Wait...where’s Mom and Dad?”         “After Glow sent along a couple of ponies to get them somewhere safe. They took Grimble, Derida, and Taxi, too,” I said, waving at the front door as I bit into my snack.         “B-but...but Mom would be so mad! My grandmare would never do that unless something really, really—”         “Television. Watch. Go,” I growled, pointing my hoof at the hallway towards the living room.         It was a funny thing, thinking on my own responses, to realize just how completely in denial I really was about what had happened to my city and Equestria in general. True, denial is very helpful, insofar as it lets you taste your food when absolutely nothing should overshadow a sense of ultimate terror and foreboding. The alternative is a despair so deep the mind recoils in horror and the total catatonia that follows.         Five minutes later while Mags was laying on her back on the kitchen table, dropping bits of lettuce into her mouth and I was sucking the juice from a couple of tomatoes off my hooftips, Swift trotted back into the room. Her expression was one of quiet determination as she yanked open a drawer beside the oven and began poking through it. Coming up with a shiny, old fashioned key, she turned on her back legs and went out of the other door towards what I’d assumed was some kind of utility room.         She returned shortly with four dark bottles balanced on her wings. I gratefully took one from her and popped the top off with the edge of my toe, then tipped the beer back. It was the kind of ice cold refreshment you find only in glaciers and the bottoms of oceans.         Mags made a little noise and I grinned, passing her the one I’d just opened. She sniffed it, then took a quick sip before making a ‘yuck’ face and pushing it back towards me.         I couldn’t read Swift’s emotional state as she pulled a pocket knife out of one of her combat vest pouches, popped the top off, and flicked her bottle cap towards the garbage. The first sip of beer seemed to bring her around.         “So...what are we going to do, Sir?” I shrugged and sucked another olive into my lips. “We? Kid, this town is going to be on fire here in about twelve hours. Canterlot is gone. We need to lay low. This is—” “Don’t you dare say this is ‘above your pay grade’, Sir!” she barked, suddenly, giving me a firm push that almost upended my beer. I grabbed the table to keep myself upright and gave her a dour glare. “Look...just don’t lie to me. I felt that stupid magical resonance or whatever. We all did. Whatever it was, it was here! Here, in Detrot. Whatever made Canterlot go away is here! It’s still dark outside and whatever made that happen is here!” I frowned. “Wait. The eclipse is still going on?” Pushing my beer away, I trotted out to the front door and opened it, stepping outside. The street was still deserted and darkness reigned, casting deep shadows of encroaching twilight over everything. Shielding my face, I turned to where the sun should have been. An icy lump dropped into my belly and started rolling around in my stomach at the sight I beheld. It felt like something out of one of those old story books. More accurately, it felt like something out of a dream. Far away, the mountains loomed over the city, like a crown of stony thorns wreathing the horizon. Stars twinkled in the dark, fathomless sky and the spires of the buildings seemed to jut from the ground, cast in the sinister crimson of the last rays of mid-evening. The half-light spilled deep shadows across everything. Up above, the sun and moon hung there like a black hole very carefully cut out of the expanse, surrounded by a faint and sickly glow. All that was missing was that terrifying roar and the gnashing of teeth coming to crush me and all I held dear. I swallowed, sharply, and backed into the house, slamming the door shut on the horror show outside. Swift and Mags were waiting in the hall. Mags had her nose in the umbrella stand, while my partner just watched me with an expression that said ‘Please, know what to do’. “Kid, I can’t say, in fifteen years on the force, that I’ve ever had to deal with a solar eclipse using standard policing techniques,” I murmured, pulling my hat off and smoothing my mane back. “Alright, so...first step is something we can actually deal with right now. We’ve got to get Limerence to...ugh...I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but we need somepony with an advanced knowledge of equine anatomy, magic, and diagnostic equipment. He’s the only one I can think of off the top of my head.” She tilted her head. “The Vivarium has the knowledge, but I don’t think they have much of the really powerful diagnostic stuff. Who do you mean?” I groaned and set my beer down. “Slip Stitch; our Master of Ceremonies. With the Night Trotter out of commission, I need to get Limerence someplace safe and the Morgue should be nearby. With a map and maybe some air recon—” Swift rolled her eyes. “The Morgue is twenty blocks east, then eleven blocks south, sir. How are you going to get there? The roads are a complete mess.” I felt my muzzle forming a grin. It wasn’t a happy grin, or an amused grin, or even a sad grin. It was the grin of somepony so screwed they’ve got nothing to lose by going forward with whatever mad plan has just entered their mind. “Well, in addition to previously mentioned criminal activity, we’ve committed major trespass, abuse of power, assault, theft, grand theft auto, a couple minor international crimes and possibly treason if you consider that I may now be working for a foreign government as a member of their legal establishment on Equestrian soil. Besides, it’s not like the whole city isn’t going to explode in violence the instant they realize there’s almost no chance of the Royal Guard swooping in to stop it. I figure a little more theft can’t hurt. We’ll probably be jailed for life the second this is all over, anyway,” I threw a leg across her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. “So, you with me?” My partner’s ears pinned back against her head. “Sir, I don’t think I want you to ever give me another dose of perspective. Your perspective tastes like cyanide.” ---- Carriages aren’t the best of modern transport, but plenty of ponies still keep one around, either as an art piece or because most cities have ordinances allowing carriages to move about in bus and bike lanes. Unfortunately, for us, Swift’s neighbors fell firmly into the ‘art piece’ category. The carriage in question was planted in the yard of a lovely little house with a chicken coop and rows of daisies in window boxes all across the front. It was being used as a bird’s nest and vegetable planter. Some clever individual had filled the bottom with dirt and flowers and there was a bit of moss on on the seat, but it seemed structurally sound enough in my completely inexpert opinion. The wheels were sunken into the grassy yard, but the tow-bar across the front seemed to be in decent shape. There wasn’t much padding on the chest-plate and we had to improvise a bit of rope to keep the yoke around my head, but earth ponies are designed with strength in mind. I worried the whole thing might fall apart the instant we hauled it out of place or tried to get up to speed, but I was in the sort of strange headspace where I could ignore those little niggles. Dodging life-crippling nerve damage and spending part of your morning dead will do that to a colt. “Sir, this is Miss Haven Loft’s,” Swift mumbled as I gently laid Limerence on top of the flower bed in the back. Turning my head, I picked up Mags and gently set her beside him, “And I’m sure Miss Haven Loft will be most pleased to know it saved lives,” I replied, stepping in front of the carriage and shoving my head through the loop attached to the push bar. Taking a deep breath, I hefted it up. The whole carriage creaked, but it held. “We be going for a ride, pony?” Mags asked, cheerily. “I sure hope so, honey. Get ready to jump off if you feel this thing coming apart,” I answered, then dug my forelegs into the dirt. Something about that simple act felt wonderful. It was something I could accomplish with my body and it didn’t require me to think or decide who lived and who died. Swift alighted behind the carriage and put her forehead against the back bumper, adding her strength. I heaved forward and the carriage came loose, sending up a spray of dirt as the rust-covered wheels ground up onto the sidewalk. An axle should have split, or a wheel cracked, or something, but against all odds the damn thing held together as I trundled into the street. I’d never dragged anything bigger than a rickshaw during my newspaper route as a teenager, but once it got going, asphalt was a fairly ideal surface for the carriage. My luck lasted a whole two blocks, before the earliest signs of the traffic Swift had mentioned started to appear. Two enormous box trucks had slammed into one another at the end of a road and a crowd of ponies was standing around them as the drivers argued with one another, waving at the sky, the crowd, and their radios. Some ponies seemed to be sitting against the walls, shell shocked, while others were talking to their neighbors, all trying to make sense of what they’d heard on the radio or on the television. “Kid, get your combat vest and gun off and get in the carriage. Try to keep your head down,” I called over my shoulder as I slowed, edging over into the bike lane beside a short row of empty store fronts. “Why, sir?” “You’re dressed as a cop, remember? You want to deal with this situation?” I heard a scuffle as Swift leapt up behind me and began shucking her weapons and clothes. Pulling my coat down over my gun, I quickly turned my badge around on its string so it was hidden by my collar. A couple of mares bolted down the sidewalk past us with a comatose filly thrown across the larger one’s back. They exchanged a frightened glance at the sight of the truck, then dived down one of the side alleys, rather than face the crowd. I watched them go, wishing I could help, but I was in my own pickle. Fighting my better nature, I turned down one of the thin side-streets. ---- The closer we got to the Morgue, the worse the roads became. Here, a unicorn driving a water truck had flipped his vehicle and landed it half-way through a storefront when he lost consciousness. There, a mother called her child’s name as she wandered from street to street. She kept pace with us for a little while, then fell back as we went by a small playground tucked off behind an apartment complex. All of it lay under the shroud of that unearthly darkness. I smelled smoke not long after and heard the moan of sirens over the building tops. Screams followed us the entire way, though the carriage could dodge most of the traffic. Ponies hadn’t yet come to the conclusion that panicking and running away was the best possible course, but I could almost taste the impending violence in the air. Most were still processing the news or tending to their loved ones. My muscles were burning by the time we finally crossed over the imaginary line in the dirt where the gentrified city blocks around the Morgue ended and the huge, empty parking lot out front of the enormous pink dome began. **** Cereus raised his leg for attention. “Detective, can I ask something?” I made an irritated sound in the back of my throat at the interruption. “Yeah?” “Um...I mean, okay, I totally get why you didn’t take him to a hospital or something, but there must have been somepony besides Medical Examiner Slip Stitch. Based on our surveillance, he’s...he’s completely bonkers.” I rubbed a spot between my eyes. “I can’t dispute that, but every other expert on equine anatomy and magic I could think of was a unicorn. That and Stitch is also about the only being I know of who I consider completely bribery or blackmail proof. As I was saying—” **** Pushing the lobby door open, I stepped into the cool air conditioning and let out a sigh of relief. The Morgue smelled of lemon meringue and party streamers dangled from the ceiling in vast profusion, but it was as close to normal as anything I’d faced that day. It was also, blessedly, deserted. Carting an unconscious librarian around on your back tends to have some questions attached and I wasn’t feeling like answering them for any parties in authority. I heard a soft sniffling coming from somewhere and took a couple of steps to one side as Swift came in behind me, Mags perched across her shoulders. Trotting to the bench across from the rows of dead celebrity photos, I grabbed Lim’s vest in my teeth and settled him into a comfortable position. Shucking my coat, I rolled it into a makeshift pillow and laid his head on it. “Stitch?” I called out. “You here?” The sniffling stopped and I kicked a little bit of confetti off my hooves, waiting for our host to arrive.         Thalassaemia’s fuzzy, brown head popped up above the edge of the reception desk. The giant rodent’s eyes were glassy with fear, but she relaxed as she caught sight of me. Her whiskery face was covered in bits of pie-crumbs and streaked with tears as she pulled herself to her paws. Clutching her lab-coat more tightly around herself, she pushed through the door out of the reception area.         “D-detective? H-h-Hard B-Boiled, is that y-you?” she stammered, then dashed forward and threw her forelegs around me in a vice-like grip. “Oh, Detective! Y-you’ve no i-idea! D-did you h-h-hear what happened? It’s so a-awful!”         I rested my hoof on her back. “I heard, Thal. I was watching telly. Things are a wreck out there. Where’s Slip Stitch?”         “Wh-why are you here? Shouldn’t you b-be someplace safe?” she asked.         “Can you think of anywhere safer than this building within the city limits?”         She bared her tiny front teeth at me in what I took for a rodent version of a frown. “I...I can’t. That m-makes me really scared, now that you m-mention it.”         “Before the situation out there gets really bad, I need to talk to Stitch and see if I can arrange some things with him. I may be off the grid a bit. I don’t have much time to explain, I’m afraid.” “Th-that’s okay. I don’t think I want to kn-know anyway. He’s l-locked himself in h-his office,” Thal replied, her ears flattening. “He s-said something about ‘n-n-not feeling like p-partying’, then grabbed a whole carton of icing f-from the fridge…”         “You’ve got keys to that office, right?” I asked.         She nodded and reached into one of her pockets, producing a large key-ring. “Y-y-yes, but please d-don’t tell h-him. When he’s in a m-m-mood h-he likes to pretend h-he’s some kind of l-l-lonely party poet who can l-l-lock himself a-away with his knitting and d-decorations…” “I’ll pretend he didn’t shut it properly,” I replied, taking the keys in my teeth and turned to my partner. Mags was still perched on her back, her paws balancing on Swift’s flight muscles as she stared at Thalassemia with wide-eyed wonder. “Do you be real, Miss Mouse?” Mags asked. Thal giggled, putting a paw over her muzzle. “Y-yes. I’m a h-hamster, though.” She finally noticed Limerence passed out on the bench and frowned. “I d-don’t remember there b-b-being anypony asleep out here…” “He’s with me,” I said. “That’s actually why I’m here. Whatever magic destroyed or teleported or did whatever it did to Canterlot also managed to cold-cock an awful lot of unicorns. I need to know why and Stitch knows horns as well as he knows a pony’s squishy bits.” The hamster’s mouth tugged into a disturbed frown. “Resonance th-that strong is extremely d-d-dangerous—” “Not ready to get into it yet, Thal. Just...find my friends something sweet, would you? Something to calm their nerves?” I patted Thalassemia on the back and turned towards the elevator. “I just need to talk to Stitch.” Her whiskers twitched for just a moment, then slowly nodded. “Yes, D-d-detective. He’s three f-floors down and to the l-left. You’ll know wh-which o-office is his.” ---- Resting my cheek against a poster from some long gone party on the wall of the lift, I listened to the machinery of the elevator as I descended, trying to find some solace in the logical, ordered operation of the mechanism. Tough thing to do, when trying to describe a situation in one's own mind keeps popping up synonyms for 'apocalypse' . The doors bonged and I stepped out into a narrow, concrete hallway lit by stark, white light. One end was sterile, clean, and contained nothing but an umbrella stand, sans umbrellas. There was a door whose placard said, in official looking black letters, ‘Deputy Coroner Thalassemia’. The other end looked like an explosion in an impressionist art gallery full of drunk schizophrenics. The walls, floors, and ceiling were coated in an inch thick layer of vintage posters, some dating all the way back to Luna’s return and even before, detailing events and celebrations for ponies of every caliber. I recognized a couple of Grand Galloping Galas, some Summer Sun Celebrations, and a whole heap of children’s parties. At the far end, so completely buried amongst the pictures it almost blended in, a door half my height had the words ‘Slip Stitch’s Party Palace’ sloppily painted in what I thought might be red hoof polish. The ‘i’s were dotted with pink kissing lips. A soft tune was coming through the door; light blues played on a kazoo. Stepping over a loose, half inflated balloon drifting pitifully along the floor, I trotted down to Stitch’s door and gave it a quick rap with the back of my foreleg. The music stopped and Slip Stitch called out, “Detective, unless you’re dead, I really would prefer to be left alone. I’m going to be extremely busy soon and I doubt anypony will feel like celebrating.” I pulled off my hat and held it to my chest, leaning against the little door. “Yeah, well, I’m afraid neither of us has the luxury of hiding while the country goes to the pit. How’d you know it was me?” “Who else would come to my door with that authoritative stomp just hours after Equestria’s capital city and national leadership vanish? I admit to a certain surprise you aren’t in a body bag, but I’m sure somepony will get around to that,” he chuckled, then the kazoo started up again. “Stitch, you and I need to talk. I’ve got a friend upstairs who needs your expertise.” The music paused for a moment. “I’m certain they can wait, Detective. I’m brooding. Besides, it’s not as though they can get more dead, now is it?” Even at his best, Slip Stitch isn’t the most cooperative individual. He’d always had a bit of a stubborn streak, which usually works to his advantage, but I was in no mood to bandy words with him. Not with Limerence upstairs in a heap, alongside an unknown number of other unicorns. Tugging Thalassemia’s keys out of my pocket, I flipped through them until I found one in the shaped like a cupcake. Pushing it into the lock, I turned it and felt the lock click, then popped them back into my coat. Sliding down onto my forelegs, I nosed the door open and crawled through on my belly. It was plenty wide, but anypony wanting in needed to enter on their knees, or alternatively, be the height of a foal. Thinking from that perspective, it made a bit more sense. Stitch’s office was both exactly what I expected it to be and somehow less extreme. A part of me expected a giant pinata instead of a desk, or for all the furniture to be on the ceiling. Instead, the space reminded me of a doctor’s office I’d been to as a kid. The walls were painted with cheerful pictures of ducklings and kittens sitting side by side, while a wide desk sat in the middle with the legs sawn off to bring it just high enough that a child could peer over the top. With his back to the door, the coroner had his rear legs up on an ottoman made out of a fuzzy, pink elephant. He was sitting on an inflatable chair constructed entirely out of artfully twisted balloons. I pulled myself to a standing position and readjusted my hat. “Stitch?” For a long moment, there was no reply. Sliding forward, Slip Stitch dropped out of his seat and turned, laying his kazoo on the desk with a certain finality. His normally wild, white mane seemed limp and lank, hanging around his shoulders in a loose mess. His labcoat was stained with blue frosting that matched his fur. Worst of all, his eyes. Tears had drawn long tracks down his face, dripping off of his chin. He made no move to wipe them away. “Celestia’s mercy, Stitch. Are you alright?” I asked, dumbly, trotting around his desk and putting one leg across his shoulders. He pressed his face against my neck and hugged me desperately, his tears wetting my fur. “Not even a clown can smile every day, Detective...”