//------------------------------// // Cat’s Paw: Grave Situation // Story: The Dark Mare // by MagnetBolt //------------------------------// Liveryburg had seen better days. The docks were quarantined, the guards pouring over the sunken ship while Brass Shield tried to find a clue to point him towards El Toro. Even the search was fraught with danger. Basilisk venom had seeped out of the ship and started contaminating the water. The bottom of the river was studded with fish that had been turned to stone. Loopy was watching the efforts from shore. She had absolutely no desire to jump in and help after her close call with the monster that had been on that ship. She fluttered her wings nervously. She wan’t entirely convinced that the thing was dead, and she couldn’t hide her concern even through her pegasus disguise. “I’m amazed you aren’t a corpse yet,” Songbird said, exactly the kind of greeting that Loopy expected from the mare. She rolled her eyes and turned to face her. “So am I. This isn’t exactly what I intended when I got involved with this mess.” Loopy stepped away from the edge of the pier. “So what, did you come here to tell me I should have handled it better?” “Actually, you did a decent enough job,” Songbird admitted. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Loopy muttered. “So what did you expect?” Songbird asked. Loopy looked up at her, confused. “You said it wasn’t what you intended. What were you expecting?” “I just wanted to soak up some love, you know?” Loopy shrugged. “Beat up a few muggers, make ponies like me, use the mask to stay anonymous. It should have been easy. I didn’t think half the town would get destroyed because of me.” “You almost sound like you care,” Songbird said. “Almost,” Loopy agreed. “I do like this town. I keep all my stuff here.” “Brass wanted me to tell you he’s back in touch with Canterlot. They’ve cleared enough ponies that they can send us some support soon.” “Great,” Loopy sighed. “That’s… that’s actually really good news. I was worried that they weren’t going to take this seriously.” “We have one of the most wanted criminals in the world lurking around, and ponies are getting killed in the crossfire,” Songbird said. “Canterlot can’t ignore this like they do in Manehattan.” “Manehattan?” Loopy raised an eyebrow. “El Toro isn’t the only criminal mastermind in Equestria,” Songbird shrugged. “Most of the others tend to work through corruption and blackmail, though. This kind of brutality is insane. He couldn’t possibly expect to keep going like this and avoid attention.” “Yeah, well, we’re no closer to finding him,” Loopy said. “I’m just a bug in a costume, not the world’s greatest detective.” “Well we shouldn’t need you at all once our backup arrives,” Songbird smirked. “You can just sit back and watch professionals at work.” Loopy limped as she walked through the hallway towards Jetstream’s apartment. She felt drained. Staving off the basilisk venom had taken a lot of her stored love, and changelings really weren’t supposed to completely expend themselves again and again like she’d been doing. “I could really use a few days off to just cuddle and… figure out how to fix this thrall thing,” Loopy muttered, stopping to lean against the wall. It probably wasn’t that bad. Jet seemed happy about it. Sure, maybe by some standards her judgement was compromised. A lot of standards, actually. The kinds that most ponies would have. “I really am the worst changeling,” Loopy groaned. She pushed herself off of the wall. “As soon as this thing is over I’m going on vacation somewhere quiet. Somewhere with no monsters, no criminals, and no princesses.” She got to the door and immediately quieted. Something was wrong. The door wasn’t quite closed, just barely cracked open. Loopy glanced back down the hallway. There were three other apartments on this floor. Plenty of room for a bunch of ponies to hide and wait for an ambush. Loopy dropped her disguise, letting her senses expand over the whole floor. She could feel bored ponies. Sleeping ponies. But no ponies with the anxious energy of somepony lying in wait to strike. More importantly, she didn’t feel Jet either. The pegasus should have been easy to pick out, even if she wasn’t a thrall. Loopy quietly opened the door, slipping inside and leaving it open behind her as a way out. Sensing emotions was good, but it wouldn’t let her find a bomb. That thought made her start to sweat. She definitely couldn’t disarm a bomb. That took training and skill, two things she was sorely lacking. The kitchen table was overturned. Plates were broken. Loopy slipped through the shadows, trying to remain silent. The important thing was, there was no blood, no stench of death. If something had happened to Jet, it hadn’t been fatal. Not here, at least. If Jet wasn’t dead, it wouldn’t be too hard to find her. It was difficult to carry a struggling pony anywhere and remain undetected - Loopy knew that from hard experience as an infiltrator. Still, that amount of effort also meant that Jet was probably still alive. Loopy hadn’t been gone that long, so she just had to find her. She turned to the door, intending to search the hallway. A throwing knife pinned a sheet of paper to the wood. Loopy grabbed it with her magic, sniffing the paper before reading it. It didn’t smell like poison, not that many pony poisons would even work on a changeling. It didn’t feel enchanted, either, though she had to admit that her skill at detecting such things wasn’t nearly equal to a unicorn’s. ‘I’ve kidnapped your food source lover pony. If you want to get her back, meet me, alone. Do not inform the guards. Do not bring anyone with you. -R’ Loopy crumpled the paper. So much for getting any real rest. Changelings were natural predators. From the moment they were born, even the most common drone had to learn how to hunt, fight, and survive. There were too many dangers around the hive for anything else, and for those who weren’t in favor, there were just as many dangers inside the hive. Loopy had never had to learn how to find a thrall. It wasn’t exactly something they covered in her training. Not that there had really been a lot of training, now that she looked back at it. It made sense. She had been unproven and disposable, and after those first few botched missions, they hadn’t even cared to look for her when she went rogue. She was a quick study, though. Jet’s love was sweet, like a trail hanging in the air, and with her link as a thrall, Loopy could sense it from almost any distance. The changeling had avoided the guards entirely. Even casually crossing their path might be dangerous, forcing her to use the rooftops, hiding when pegasai crossed overhead. Her mask hid the frown on her face. If they couldn’t even find her, they’d never find El Toro. She wasn’t even using magic to hide - she was just staying in cover. “I really hope I don’t have to find that guy myself,” Loopy muttered. She buzzed across an alleyway, and the feeling suddenly doubled in intensity. The changeling stopped, freezing in place. It was like walking through a curtain. Loopy looked around. There was no obvious spellwork. So that meant… “We must be close enough for the thrall bond to be working!” Loopy grinned. This close, the vague emotional trail was more like a beacon burning in her mind’s eye, with almost the same strength and texture of another changeling’s active empathic sense. She followed it for a few blocks until she got to the burned out-remnants of a store. “I’ve been here before…” Loopy muttered, circling the building. “Where have I seen it…” She froze. The throwing knife. It was the same kind the griffon had used. And this was where she’d fought her before, when she’d firebombed the city. “So you came,” said a voice behind her. Loopy rolled to the side, throwing herself out of the way of… nothing. No thrown knives, no deadly attack. The griffon she’d fought before was barely visible in the darkness of a covered roost, everything around her blackened with soot. She slinked out of the shadows, circling to keep a safe distance from the changeling. “So what’s it going to be?” Loopy asked. “A stupid fight to the death? Some kind of deathtrap?” “I wanted to talk,” the griffon said. Loopy could taste nervousness from her. It wasn’t an emotion she expected to feel from the predator. “This seemed like a good way to get your attention.” “Well, you’ve got it,” Loopy said. “Where’s Jet?” “Your pet is in the shop.” The griffon pointed towards the burned-out storefront with a talon. “She isn’t hurt. And she won’t be, as long as you didn’t bring any of those annoying ponies with you.” “I came alone.” Loopy was tempted to go right for Jet, but the griffon was faster in the air than she was. Over a short race like that, it’d be even odds at best. “I can tell. You’re not stupid.” The griffon scratched at the roof. “You know what happened with Caballeron?” “Yeah, I had a front-row seat,” Loopy said. “He got bitten by a basilisk. If he hadn’t been practically on top of the antidote, he’d be dead already.” “That was just him being stupid,” the griffon snorted. “I meant what happened after that.” “The bomb.” The griffon nodded. “The bomb. El Toro was willing to get rid of him and sink the whole ship just to get rid of you. Caballeron is as good as dead, that changeling agent is dead, Fimbulwinter is missing, and El Toro hasn’t said a damn thing about any of it!” The griffon stomped on the roof in frustration. “Well that’s what happens when you lose,” Loopy said. “There are consequences.” “That’s not the point!” The griffon snapped. “We’re supposed to be a team! El Toro saved us from that awful prison and I’ve been his right-hand bird ever since then! Do you know how much we’ve spent on this? And I don’t mean bits! I mean capital! Practically our whole operation here is bucked!” “My heart bleeds for you,” Loopy muttered. “Look, what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to fight you.” The griffon paced around. “I know when to cut my losses and run.” “For someone who doesn’t want a fight, you’ve done a really good job at pissing me off,” Loopy noted. “I don’t want to talk to prey!” The griffon snapped. “They don’t get things done! They’d arrest me and throw me in a cell and then El Toro would just kill all of us! I needed to talk to you alone so we could figure out a way to stop him from doing that.” “There’s no we.” Loopy held her ground, not backing off at the griffon’s ranting. “But there could be!” The griffon smiled. “We could take out El Toro, you can be a big hero, and I’ll skip town and never show up here again. Tartarus, I’ll leave Equestria entirely. I hate this country.” “You could leave town whenever you wanted,” Loopy pointed out. “No, I can’t,” the griffon’s expression fell. “If I leave and he’s still around, he’ll track me down and crush me. I can’t win in a fight against him, not alone.” Loopy watched the griffon closely. She was telling the truth, and more than that, she was scared. “How many ponies did you kill?” Loopy asked. “Does it matter?” The griffon glared. “That was then, this is now! I’m offering you better help than you’ll get from those useless royal guards, and we won’t have to worry about their stupid laws and rules. We can take El Toro out permanently, and neither of us will have a death sentence hanging over us!” Did it matter? Loopy hesitated. Part of her wanted to say that it absolutely didn’t matter. The only thing that counted was the result. If El Toro was gone, then she could go back to her quiet life and maybe even take a break from being the Mare Do Well. No more worrying about assassins in the dark, and even the guards would leave her alone. On the other hoof, was she really going to work with a killer and go behind everypony’s back just to save her own flank? She started pacing as she thought, her path taking her to the edge of the roof. Beyond it, she could see where the town had seen the worst damage. Entire blocks burned to rubble, then flash-frozen. Ponies had lost everything because of her, because El Toro was after her. The longer their little war kept going, the more ponies would get hurt because of it. Maybe the griffon had caused some of that, but she could help bring it to an end, quickly. And wasn’t that something ponies liked, turning an enemy into a friend? “Fine,” Loopy said, eventually. “We’ll do it. Let’s kill El Toro.” Songbird knocked again. Brass Shield hadn’t answered in over a minute. She was starting to get worried. She pushed the door open and looked inside. Brass was sitting behind the desk they’d appropriated from the harbormaster and was rearranging paperwork on his desk, as if putting the reports in a different order would make them reveal some hidden truth. “Sir?” Songbird tried. He didn’t look up. “Captain Shield!” She said, a little louder. Brass finally looked up, his concentration broken. “Lieutenant, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.” He cleared a little room on his desk, symbolically making a place for whatever business she’d brought with her. “You wanted progress reports, sir,” Songbird said. “The diving team went over the wreck. There were at least three dozen petrified ponies in the hold. They’re all too far gone to revive safely.” Brass sighed, rubbing his snout. “That’s awful.” “Yes, sir,” Songbird agreed. “The good news is that we’ll be able to close some missing ponies cases. The bad news is that we’re not going to be making any families very happy with the result.” “Closure is better than nothing,” Brass sighed. “It’s just… good to know.” “Yes, sir. Should we leave the remains in place?” “For now,” Brass nodded. “The Engineering Corps is going to be sending ponies to help with the damage to the town. They’ll have the equipment to retrieve the remains safely. We’ll have them transported to Canterlot for identification, and there’s a chance one of the princesses will be able to do something for them.” “That’s a bit of a long shot, sir,” Songbird said. “If we’re able to revive even one of those ponies, it’s worth the effort,” Brass said. “Is there anything else to report?” “There’s no sign of the basilisk. Since it would be pretty hard to miss, we’re assuming it escaped, probably downriver.” “If SECT was still active, they’d be the ones to hunt it,” Brass sighed. “Makes me wish Celestia never disbanded her secret little team of monster hunters.” “SECT?” Songbird asked, confused. “Above your clearance level, and in the past. Forget I mentioned it.” Brass waved a hoof. Now Songbird was really worried. He only let secret information drop when he was distracted and thinking about something else. “What are you working on?” Songbird tilted her head to the side to make it easier to read some of the reports littering his desk. “I’m trying to anticipate Labyrinth’s next move,” Brass explained. “They’ve been escalating their attacks, but at the same time, they’ve been using up what resources they have. Even if he’s doing this out of spite or some kind of sense of duty, El Toro’s options are being limited more and more.” “Are you sure about that?” Songbird asked. “I mean, he had a basilisk in his back pocket.” “I’m sure he still has some surprises,” Brass agreed. “But think about it - most of his operatives are in prison. His base of operations is at the bottom of the river. He’s already had to show up himself just to take care of a problem.” “He’s done that before, though,” Songbird said. “I read his file. He goes after symbolic and high-value targets himself.” “To remind ponies that he can do what he wants and we can’t stop him,” Brass said, nodding. “And more than that, he has outside help. Like that changeling.” She shivered. “A single, highly-placed changeling who had to blow his cover. I’ve gotten some reports on the side. All unofficial, of course. More than a few other officers have vanished from their posts, right at the same time the princess ordered all Guard members scanned for changeling magic.” “So it also ruined whatever they were planning,” Songbird surmised. “Or their plans aren’t relevant,” Brass offered. “But for what goal? Killing the Mare do Well and maybe a few guards? Why go to all this trouble?” “I don’t know,” Songbird said. “But there’s nothing more dangerous than someone who’s not only willing to burn the bridges behind them, but the ones they’re standing on, too.” “This is the place?” Loopy asked. It didn’t look like much. A mansion on the edge of town, far from her usual patrol routes. This one had been abandoned for some time, judging by the state of the overgrown garden they were hiding in. “Yeah,” Ravenheart said. “It used to belong to the Fragaria family. They ran drugs through Manehattan and San Palomino before El Toro took over. They were smart and decided it was time to get out of the business.” “So what, he took their house?” Loopy frowned, though it wasn’t visible through her mask. “They didn’t want to be in the same town as El Toro. Not after the example he made of the patriarch's eldest son.” She smiled. “Those were the days. Taking over weak little pony families, conquering the underworld. Equestria is so soft it was easy pickings, you know?” “...I know,” Loopy said. “Of course you do. It’s why you changelings came here in the first place, right? The ponies are so open and trusting and stupid that you can do almost anything and get away with it. Just look at you - a whole life spent preying on them and all it took was playing the hero for a little while and even the Royal Guard sees you as one of the herd.” Loopy didn’t let her expression show how much that summary bothered her. “Now here’s the plan,” Ravenheart said, getting down to business. “El Toro doesn’t have a lot of guys left. We lost most of them when he decided to sink our boat, and they’re pretty irrelevant as long as there aren’t an entire army of them.” Loopy nodded. “El Toro is probably going to be in the basement. He knows you can fly, so it’s safer than the upper levels, and he can control all of the entrances and exits. He always liked having control like that.” “We could just burn down the mansion around him,” Loopy offered. “I’d love to, if I thought it’d actually stop him.” Ravenheart tapped a talon against the ground. “He’s survived worse than that before, and if we try to kill him and fail, it’s gonna be bad. Real bad.” “So what? We have to go in after him?” “That’s how being an assassin works,” Ravenheart said. “And don’t mistake this for something else. We’re going to go in there and murder El Toro, ideally without a fight. We’re not here to capture him or chat with him or anything else. We’re going to slit his throat and watch him bleed out.” Loopy was silent. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold hooves? Or… bug hooves? Claws? What do changelings have?” “Hooves is fine,” Loopy said absently. “I just... “ “Never went in with the intent to kill someone?” Ravenheart asked. “Well, that might work against burglars, but if you want this town to be safe, El Toro has to die. He’ll just come right back and strangle every pony here with his bare hands if you leave him alive.” “I know!” Loopy snapped. “I don’t have to like it!” “Just don’t bug out on me,” Ravenheart said. Loopy frowned at the vaguely racist comment. “We’re gonna go in through the top floor.” “But you said he’d be in the basement,” Loopy pointed out. “And if we go straight there, we’ll be trapped with El Toro in front of us and whatever thugs he has on hand behind us. Even if they’re not a threat, they’ll block off our retreat.” She pointed at the roof. “We’re going to sweep from the top down, kill everypony we find as quietly as possible.” “And then deal with El Toro,” Loopy said. The griffon nodded. The top floors of the mansion were empty. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. Loopy found that they were far from empty, just void of any recent activity from ponies. There were rooms of mouldering furniture, paintings of the former occupants staring over the dusty rooms like ghosts. Some of them probably were ghosts, given what Ravenheart had implied about El Toro’s takeover. Loopy clung to the walls and high ceiling as she moved. Ponies didn’t usually look up, and she was far enough from the floor to put her out of casual view except in the longest hallways of the manor. She had hoped it would give her better than even odds at catching any ponies in the place unaware, but she couldn’t even sense them. No, more than that, she couldn’t sense anything. She felt half-blind, every shadow a potential threat. It hadn’t been a sudden halt, it had been more like reading a book in a room with only the sun for a light, everything going dark bit by bit until the words on the page in front of you were impossible to make out. It wasn’t the kind of thing ponies knew how to do. Loopy dropped to the ground at the head of a staircase down to the first floor. Ravenheart appeared out of the shadows, silent enough to surprise her. “Anything?” Loopy whispered. Ravenheart shook her head. She looked concerned. “Trap?” Loopy asked. “Can’t be,” Ravenheart muttered. She gestured for Loopy to follow her. “I didn’t tell anyone, and we came straight here after we let your stupid little pet go.” “She’s not stupid,” Loopy protested. “She’s a pony who thinks she’s in love with a changeling,” Ravenheart retorted. Loopy didn’t have an answer to that. All she’d done was get Jetstream hurt, after all. She was a terrible marefriend. Ravenheart stalked down the stairs, her head turning, appropriately, like a bird’s, quickly snapping from one side to another to keep the doors on both sides of the main foyer in view. Loopy was more cautious. With her senses dulled, a dull chill of fear rolled over her. Her own sight and hearing weren’t as sharp as a pony’s, and she knew it. “What is it?” Ravenheart whispered. “Something’s blocking my empathy,” Loopy hissed. “I can’t tell if there’s anyone here.” “El Toro got a bunch of changeling junk from the client,” Ravenheart mumbled. “Maybe something they gave him to keep you away.” “There are supposedly a few things,” Loopy said, nodding slowly. “But none of them are very pleasant or common.” “I don’t think anyone is here,” Ravenheart said, finally, after a few moments of quiet contemplation. “Not even El Toro?” Loopy asked. “He couldn’t have gone anywhere. I’d have seen him. He’s not exactly subtle.” Ravenheart tapped a talon against the floor. “He must have sent the rest of the local thugs to set something up. He’s always got a plan.” “You go first,” Loopy said. “I don’t trust you.” The basement was larger than the house would suggest, which was surprising since the house itself was the kind that implied a large, old basement with a wine cellar and storage rooms and maybe even a small dungeon and some servant’s quarters - which depending on the family were occasionally the same thing. Of course, the Fragaria family wasn’t the usual type of old money that would have a basement like that. They were crime lords, and crime lords had a very different idea of what a basement needed to be really fully furnished. There were secret rooms to hold crates full of drugs, a hidden vault that could have resisted the attempts of Celestia herself to break in, and a little room in the back with a very clean tile floor with a drain in the middle and a single, well-used chair with quite secure restraints. With all of the enhancements they made, the basement was considerably larger than the floor of the manor above it, though much of the extra room could be hidden as needed just in case some over-zealous guard decided to search the premises (which would have meant the end of his career and often his life). Ravenheart spotted the light under the door at the far end of the hallway. Behind the door was one of the larger rooms in the basement, which had been used for packaging and shipping before the family had moved their operation to the docks. It was almost big enough to be a warehouse of its own. She turned to alert the Mare do Well, and found herself facing an empty hallway. No, that wasn’t quite it. Not empty. There was a cardboard box, a few loose pieces of timber, a moving shape in the darkness. Nothing important. It wasn’t until the shape moved past her that she realized what she was thinking, shivering. She didn’t like ponies, she didn’t like magic, and changelings were annoyingly magic ponies with the worst type of skills of all - getting into your head and making you think and feel things. The spell broke, and the Mare do Well stopped at the door, looking back at Ravenheart for confirmation. She nodded, and the masked mare motioned for her to go first, climbing silently up the wall to stand on the ceiling above the doorway, somehow holding her cape tight against her body to keep it from dangling below her. Ravenheart opened the door, the flood of light making her blink in annoyance. “Good of you to come.” The voice boomed from around her, the size of the room making it echo. It would have been hard to place, except that the speaker was obvious. El Toro stood in the center of the room, hands clasped behind his back. He was far taller than the crates scattered around the room, and was looking up to where Ravenheart stood on the landing above him, the main floor of the large room being ten paces below her at the end of a set of metal stairs. “I was starting to think you ditched town,” Ravenheart said, trying to stay casual. “I was thinking I’d have to find the Mare do Well myself.” “No, no,” El Toro said. “You know I can’t leave while there’s unfinished business.” He seemed off, somehow. A slight hesitation in his words that didn’t fit with how he usually spoke. “So what’s the plan?” Ravenheart asked. She padded down the stairs slowly. “I get nervous when you don’t tell me you’ve got something going on.” “Ah yes, my plan.” El Toro’s expression was impossible to read through his mask. Was he angry? Bored? Suspicious? “Come on, boss. Tell me.” She circled around one of the crates, trying to distract his attention away from the door. Mare do Well’s tricks might work a little bit on her, but she wasn’t so sure they’d even begin to work on the minotaur’s iron will. The door closed up on the landing. El Toro didn’t visibly react to the noise. Ravenheart was just barely aware of a shadow moving along the wall. She forced herself not to glance towards it. “Well, I do have one thing planned,” El Toro admitted, sounding amused. Ravenheart shuddered as something passed through her like an invisible wave. She’d only felt it once before. “Do you know what two qualities I care most about in my subordinates?” “Loyalty and strength,” Ravenheart said, starting to get very worried indeed. “Indeed. Since you lack the former, you will have to prove you have the latter.” El Toro gestured towards the wall. “Kill the Mare Do Well, and I’ll be willing to forgive your little… slip.” “Or maybe instead, I’ll just kill you!” Ravenheart roared, jumping at El Toro. It was a textbook surprise attack. Ravenheart was certainly strong enough to hurt a minotaur, and her talons were razor-edged. El Toro was totally open, not even trying to defend himself as the griffon jumped him. It would have been a perfect, textbook attack, if El Toro had been there. When Ravenheart hit El Toro, the minotaur shattered like glass. Or, really, like a simulacrum made of ice and snow. It fell to the ground, quickly melting into a puddle of filthy water. “W-what?!” Ravenheart gasped. “Our White Witch has a surprising number of talents,” El Toro said, the sound coming from all around them now. “And she hasn’t attempted to betray me. Two things to her benefit. You are, at least, clever enough to have brought help.” The Mare Do Well dropped down next to Ravenheart, looking up. The griffon followed her gaze. Ice had coated the upper half of the room with a slippery glaze. “The door is quite securely sealed,” El Toro continued, as the Mare do Well ran to it, trying to pull it open. The knob broke off in her hooves, and as she stepped away, the frame filled with ice. “Miss Fimbulwinter has arranged for the room to become significantly less comfortable. She says it will kill you within fifteen minutes, though as she does tend to overdo things, I would say you only have perhaps half that time.” “Let me out!” Ravenheart yelled. “Face me like a real warrior!” “My dear, one thing you have never quite understood about our business is that we are not warriors. Assassins may have honor but an efficient thief does not. If you kill your new friend, the room will stop being colder and you will be free to go.” Ravenheart looked at Mare do Well. The masked changeling took a step back. “Don’t listen to him,” Mare do Well warned. “We need to work together-” Ravenheart roared and lunged.