“There’s always a bigger fish.”
In the realms of magic, that is the single, indisputable fact upon which all scholars may agree. There exist no inscrutable, perfect, all powerful magics which can never be beaten, broken, or weakened to a point of impotence. Even the almighty Alicorns may find themselves outmatched, either by dint of not being able to use their full power lest they wreck the surface of the planet or by being isolated from their sources of energy.
The grandest would-be gods of every age might stand on their thrones and proclaim themselves eternal, but if there’s one thing an alicorn will tell you it’s that eternity is a very long time and fate takes a certain glee in teaching lessons about hubris. Take for instance the Yak Lord Hectar ‘Wing Claimer’ Gutbuster, who attempted to launch the sixth Yak offensive upon pony-lands prior to the disappearance of the Crystal Empire.
While he is now little more than an anecdote, history may record that he did once find and briefly possess the Fragarach blade, The Answerer, which could penetrate any armor, command the winds, and slay any foe with impunity. In more ideal circumstances, he might have even gone so far as to succeed in his conquest. What Lord Gutbuster failed to account for was just how bad an idea it is to underpay your kitchen staff. He succumbed to catastrophic (the scrolls record the ancient Yak word for ‘explosive’, but this may be exaggeration) bowel distress the day before his campaign was to begin after a meal of heavily aged cheese, beer, slightly over-ripe cabbage, and slightly under-cooked chickpeas.
What one should learn from his failure and death is that no matter what powers you wield, no matter what you believe about your towering capabilities, the world is very big and has many things in it. Humility can be learned by observing the mistakes of others or by becoming an object lesson.
-The Scholar
----
It took a direct order from Twilight to ‘calm down and breathe into a paper bag’ before Cereus was able to answer questions.
----
“Th-then we managed to f-find the Warehouse. Mrs. Shadow C-Courser was gone and the Canterlot office wouldn’t even talk to Agent Bloom! Even our back channels were closed! We couldn’t leave the armor unguarded, then the Detective told us it wasn’t even really the armor, and then Canterlot vanished and—”
“Agent...take another deep breath. I’m getting things taken care of,” Twilight said as confidently as she could.
Cereus sniffled a little. “Ma’am, I’m just an intern…”
“You’re an agent now. Period. You hear me, Agent Cereus?”
He didn’t reply for a long time, but when he did his voice was a little steadier. “Really, Ma’am?”
“I’ll make sure the paperwork is filed as soon as there’s a government to file it with. In the meantime...I need you to be strong.”
He swallowed, loudly, then replied, “I’ll be strong, Ma’am. For you and for Princess Luna.”
“Good. I’m going to send the Detective back to you soon, and I expect you to give him all available Detrot resources in whatever direction he sees fit.”
“I understand, Ma’am. Is there...is there anything I should do about Miss Bloom? I think she’s really in a bad way...”
Twilight rested the mic against her chest and gave me a questioning look. “Detective, Agent Night Bloom was already fairly unstable. Has she gotten worse?”
“Like a barrel of monkeys, wasps, and nitroglycerin.,” I answered. “If you could give me some sleeping talismans or something I could knock her out with for a few days, I’m sure Cereus would appreciate it. Let her wake up when this is all over.”
The Princess rolled her eyes, then lifted the walkie-talkie again. “Agent Cereus, I would like to be there right now, but I can’t, and so I’m going to give the Detective the Emblem of Harmony. He is my majordomo in the region. Is that clear?”
Cereus made a choked sound and dropped his communicator again.
“The Emblem of Harmony?” Swift asked as we waited for the newly minted agent to pick up the comm.
“I’ll explain in a moment,” Twilight replied, then went back to the walkie-talkie. “Agent? Are you there?”
“Oh my, I need to go to the bathroom...I mean...yes! Yes, Ma’am!”
“Good. Keep your chin up. We’ll get Canterlot back.”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
“Dismissed.” Releasing the talk button, Twilight tucked the walkie-talkie under one wing. “If you don’t mind, Detective, I’ll be keeping this. I need some means of communicating with you and I’d rather not test our collective luck by sending it back through the Bull.”
I shrugged and nodded. “Go ahead. Tourniquet is slowly taking over the telephone network, so we should have some phones working again pretty soon.”
“Arrrgh! Stop reminding me of that!” she snapped, hopping out of her throne and trotting in a small circle around it. “I don’t even want to think about that!”
Swift stuck her chest out, proudly displaying the crescent moon on her breast. “Well, she still has to listen to me, Ma’am. I’m the Warden, after all.”
Twilight poked me in the chest with one primary feather.
“Officer Swift, you’re following this maniac around! If he didn’t have such a good track record for defying the odds to date, I would count his predictable future lifespan in hours.” Her expression darkened, and she dropped onto her belly. “And...and now I’m going to give him the keys to the country. What does that say about me?” she muttered, twirling her hoof in a circle beside her temple. “Let's go collect your friend and my bodyguard. It sounds like they’re mostly just basking now. If Miss Swift and Mister Limerence would like to go collect their weapons and make their goodbyes, we’ll have you all on your way back quick as we can.”
----
Taxi and Mayfly were beyond basking and well into the realm of heavy-duty snuggling by the time we found them. They’d picked one of the reading alcoves and dragged in most of the sitting pillows from the surrounding area.
Mayfly had one thin wing draped over Taxi, who was snoring like a congested bear as we approached. Twilight cleared her throat, and the changeling queen gave her a lazy smile. Her eyes were dreamy, and she looked minutes from a food coma.
“May? Could you wake your...ahem...your dinner and tell her that she must be going, soon?” Twilight asked.
“Oh, she’s way more than dinner, Ma’am. I could have her for breakfast, lunch, and a midnight snack! I’ve never met a pony who loved so intensely,” May enthused. “Maybe with the exception of Princess Cadence, but she said she’d make a set of lingerie out of me if I impersonated Shining Armor again. I’m still not sure if that might have been worth it or not...”
Twilight put her hooves over her ears and shut her eyes. “Yes, very good, I’m certain that’s something I need to know! Please get another shower and meet us downstairs!”
Her horn lit up, and I felt the tingle, then the rush of teleportation.
----
When I rematerialized, I choked on the breath I’d been holding, staggering against the wall. “Sweet Celestia’s sun-burnt backside, warn me before you do that!”
Twilight gave me a wide-eyed look, and I finally clocked the words I’d just said.
“Right...yes, Princess Celestia’s backside is very nice, I’m sure,” I grunted, yanking at my coat collar. “Where are we?”
The chamber was windowless, door-less, and only a little larger than a closet. A single candle lit the space, rather than the electric and magic lights that seemed otherwise ubiquitous in the Castle of Friendship. The walls were the same crystal as everything else, but something about them made the fur on my neck tingle. I had a feeling it might be a bad idea to touch them.
Piles upon piles of boxes and larger items were shoved in all four corners. Most of the room’s contents were variations on the theme of trinkets, doodads, and geegaws. There was aa strange red amulet with an alicorn emblazoned on it, what looked like a mirror covered by a sheet, and a heavily jeweled box that might have been one of Ruby’s works, among other things. It was this last that Twilight levitated out of its place by the wall and set down in front of me.
“This is my...private collection,” Twilight said, tapping the top of the box. It let out a click, and the lock snapped open. “We’re about twenty meters underground right now, inside one of the Castle’s distal roots. This is mostly where I keep anything that’s too troublesome or valuable to keep anywhere else. The Canterlot Royal Vaults are technically more secure, but...nopony knows most of this stuff exists.”
“Why didn’t you stick the Armor of Nightmare Moon in here?” I asked. “Seems safe enough.”
“Hiding the armor in anonymity would have proven very difficult, since the griffons already had the shoes. That, and...to be honest, I don’t want to know how the Armor of the Nightmare would react with some of the things in this room,” she replied, lifting the lock free and setting it to one side. “This object, on the other hoof, is not...troublesome or valuable in the general sense, except to the pony who carries it.”
Lifting the box, Twilight let the top fall open. Inside, nestled in a couple of silk kerchiefs, was a simple glass medallion with what looked like a short cutting from a strange blue plant suspended inside of it. It was about the size of my hoof, with a loop of silver chain so it could be hung around a pony’s neck.
“What am I looking at?” I asked. “This is the ‘Emblem of Harmony’?”
Twilight sighed and lifted the chain, letting the medallion dangle in front of me. “There’s a story there, if you’d like to hear it. It might affect whether or not you take this from me. It’s help, but...maybe not the kind you want.”
“I don’t see as it can hurt. I’d like to know what you’re about to saddle me with.”
Gathering the chain up, she examined it closely, then shook her head. “You should be used to it by now, Detective. You get to carry a little piece of history with you. Secret history. Sad history.”
I glanced at a few of the other items in the tiny room; somepony had jammed a rusty cannon in the corner, bits of glitter and confetti still stuck to its sides. “What else is new? Equestria’s dirty laundry couldn’t stay hidden forever, and I suspect I’m only scratching the surface.”
“Hmmm...if any of what I’ve discovered in the last sixty years is true, then that’s almost certainly true. The Tree of Harmony is a symbol of harmony in Equestria. It’s an actual tree, a beautiful crystal tree with six gems inside that are the Elements of Harmony. I know...almost nothing about it or its powers. Those powers came when my friends and me called on them. They locked away Discord, cleansed Princess Luna, and...other things. I don’t know who made the tree, though it was definitely made. It’s older than Equestria and unspeakably powerful, but...not invincible.”
“The war weakened the tree so severely that Princess Celestia was worried it might die altogether,” Twilight explained. “That weakness and the help of the deer-lords of the Everfree was the only reason we were able to move it to the Crystal Caverns under Canterlot. There were...consequences...for the deer-lords. Their ancestral home in the Everfree forest was destroyed by a magical plague of plants made of chaos magic. It took me a full decade to clear that magic once the war was over...and their only request once it was done was that ponykind leave them alone.”
“Hmmmph...seems kinda cold,” I said. “Weren’t they allies in the war?”
“It was our war, not theirs...but I’ve done my best the last thirty years to see their requests obeyed. In any case, at the same time the tree was moved, Princess Celestia had cuttings taken in the hope that we might somehow...re-grow the tree sometime in the future, should it die before the war’s end.”
Levitating the medallion over my head, she spread the chain open for me to stick my neck through.
“And...this is one of those cuttings?” I asked, warily.
She nodded
“It’s a symbol of the alicorn rulers. A symbol of Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna, and...and of me. The triumvirate. Sun, moon, and twilight. The pony who carries one of these carries the will of Harmony.”
“And you think I’m the pony to give that thing to?” I laughed, pushing the medallion away with my toe. “Lady, have you met me? I am chaos incarnate.”
Twilight rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Detective, I know chaos incarnate on a very intimate basis. You are much less friendly. That said, I like you...and the Crusader likes you. That means, whatever happens, you are looking to make Equestria a better place. This is a symbol of that. It’ll give you basic authority over any surviving military forces we have and anypony who still recognizes the power of the crown. It also conveys certain...protections, though they won’t be much use to you right now.”
“Such as?”
She let a tiny giggle escape, quickly covering it with a cough.
“Well, if you can get the Shield shut off entirely...you can call down alicorns on your foes.”
I backed away from the medallion. “This is a Princess pager?”
“Yep! Just break it to activate.”
Reaching up, I gingerly took the medallion from her and looped the chain around my neck. It dangled alongside my badge, and I could feel a gentle warmth radiating from it, like holding an ember close to your skin. It was beautiful, but a tad feminine for my taste. I couldn’t wait to put my armor back on so I could hide the damn thing.
“Are there any side effects to having this on me? Radiation sickness? Rectal bleeding? Letting you spy on me in the bathroom? Anything like that?”
Twilight’s nose wrinkled in a manner that looked strangely fetching. “Um...no? Why would there be?”
“Call it healthy paranoia. Crank up your horn, and let’s get back.”
----
We reappeared, side-by-side, in the foyer of the Castle of Friendship.
Mayfly and Taxi were standing at the bottom of the spiral staircase, the changeling on the bottom step and my driver just below her, exchanging a kiss that probably deserved an award-winning novella worth of build-up. Considering the changeling still had fangs, Taxi was doing some very dextrous tongue-work around them.
Meanwhile, Limerence and Minerva were exchanging a dignified hoof-shake in an attempt to cover up the passage of a slip of paper. Swift was beside the door, wiggling into her weapons harness, heaving the sack with the Hailstorm in it up onto her back. She was doing her best to ignore our librarian and driver.
I pulled my anti-magic armor off of a peg on the wall and shook my coat off.
“Would you like some assistance, Detective?” the Princess asked, forcing her eyes away from Taxi and the changeling.
I sat and held my forelegs up so she could slip the armor around my body.
“When you get back to Detrot, go and get the Hyper-Comm Mark One from Agent Cereus, first thing. I want some way of keeping track of you,” she replied, curtly.
“Good luck, Ma’am,” Swift commented. “Chief Jade couldn’t keep track of him, and she’s way scarier than you are.”
Twilight glowered at her, and Swift gave the Princess a fang-y grin.
“Regardless, it would be nice to have a means of speaking to my only resources in the region that I know haven’t been compromised. So could you please make a priority out of going to see my agents?” the Princess asked.
“I’ll do my best,” I replied, zipping up my armor. “I have some ponies who’re expecting my company sooner, rather than later: the Ancestors of the Aroyos, a particularly pushy disc jockey who lives in my car radio, and the Chief of Police. I’ve got a busy couple of days ahead of me.”
Princess Twilight gave me a poke in the chest just over where the Emblem lay. “And now you have a pushy alicorn. Don’t forget which of those can turn you into a slug if she feels neglected.”
“Eh...I’ll remind him,” Taxi purred from beside me, resting her head on my shoulder. Mayfly slid up on my other side, sandwiching me between the two extremely dangerous mares. My heart skipped more than enough beats to make me feel lightheaded.
“Of course, the Detective would never disrespect a Princess, would he?” May growled, leaning down so we were on the same eye level.
I picked up the Emblem of Harmony’s chain and wiggled the medallion in her face. “Respect the twig, sweetheart.”
Her slitted blue eyes crossed so she could see the medallion, and she sat straight back on her flank, her armor jangling like a bucket full of silverware tossed down some stairs.
“Ma’am...please, please, tell me he somehow stole that from you so I can break all of his bones!”
Twilight exhaled and helped her guard back to her hooves, giving her friend a light pat on the shoulder. “No, Mayfly. I gave it to him. The Detective has agreed to be my agent in Detrot.”
“Are we certain we can trust him?” she hissed.
The alicorn stopped for a moment, then smirked, flicking her floating purple mane back over one shoulder. “Yes. He hates that I am going to say this, but I do trust him.”
I had to resist an urge to spit on the carpet. “Yeah, you’re right, I hate that. I don’t need to go to my death with a disappointed Princess hanging over my head if we somehow screw the pooch here.”
Mayfly’s lips curled into a devilish smile. “Your suffering is as delicious as your driver’s love. Should you fail and survive, I will make a special effort to sample it more...intimately...before the end. If you think the disappointment of my lady weighs heavily, I recommend you keep in mind that there are others of us who are less...forgiving.”
With that, she swung about and marched down the spiral stairs into her hive. Twilight and I watched her go as Taxi nuzzled against my side, fanning her own nethers with her tail.
“Mmmph...she knows just what to say to get me going,” my driver murmured.
“Slip Stitch is a better kisser, though,” I commented and immediately ducked as her hoof almost took off my head.
“We are never talking about that!” she barked, and I grinned, bumping her back with my hip as I turned to Limerence and Minerva. The changeling librarian was nuzzling Lim’s hoof as he did his best not to blush.
“We ready to go?” I asked, giving them a pointed look. Lim gently extracted his hoof from hers and stepped back, leaving the little changeling looking a bit crestfallen.
“Yes, Detective. I am ready. I think I may have reason to study a little more history in the future.” He gave Minerva a quick wink, and she brightened, straightening her crooked glasses on her muzzle. “Shall we?”
“Well, unless Princess Twilight wants to try hopping back to Detrot on the Bull, I don’t see why not,” I said.
“That’s...an experiment I’m afraid I can’t run,” the Princess replied, unhappily. I must have looked confused, because she quickly elaborated. “I don’t want to find out I can’t make a landing in Detrot from another dimension, but I’ll let Agent Cereus know to get in touch with you as soon as you leave. The Emblem will protect you from the general effects of my memory spell, so do keep it on you.”
----
In silence, Taxi, Swift, Limerence, Twilight, and I trekked back to the armored limo-tank and piled into the back. Orb appeared, flowing shadow-like into the driver’s seat. He turned over the gigantic engine, and we set off across the moonscape in the direction of the Ponyville train station.
There were so many things I wanted to know or wanted to say to the Princess of Friendship, but something told me I’d be seeing her again before the end, if only to drag my broken body to whatever afterlife might be in store for ponies like me.
We’d spent the better part of a day in the remnants of Ponyville with a mare who, by all rights, should have been the one handling this disaster. She was a hero of the nation, a powerful magic user, and certainly better equipped to deal with arcane problems of indeterminate origin. That being understood, she probably wasn’t equipped to handle Detrot.
It had been a little over two months since that rainy morning outside the Highstep Hotel, and the shape of our situation was finally resolving into something I could make some sense of. My city was a giant spell-work in a game whose rules were laid out before I was born and whose caster was responsible for the suffering of untold thousands.
There were still plenty of questions I needed answers to, mind you.
What if the years of sleepless nights and nightmares were just my talent telling me something was wrong in the world and I’d somehow adapted to it? What if the endless parade of monsters and freaks who haunted my career as a homicide detective were really just a side-effect of the puppet-masters setting up my city to fall into fire and violence? What if I’d been dancing to their tune, cleaning up the corpses and never really rooting out the source of the evil?
So lost was I in all these dark thoughts that I barely registered the train station coming into sight. It wasn’t until we jerked to a halt and the back door began to swing down that I finally shook myself and opened my eyes to find Twilight studying me from the other side of the car.
I cocked my head, and she quickly looked away.
“You’ve got a question. This might be your last chance to ask it, so now is the time,” I said.
Twilight swallowed and leaned back in her plush seat, one hoof nervously stroking the padded legrest. “It’s...it’s not really a question, as such. More of a concern. I should have asked before we left the Castle, but...do you have a plan once you get back to Detrot?”
I thought for a moment, then shrugged. “A plan? No. A course of action? Maybe. I’m going to see if I can get into one of the Shield Pylons or into Uptown. If I can get into Uptown, I might be able to get to the P.A.C.T. headquarters, the office of Umbra, Animas, and Armature, or maybe the Shield Corporation. Possibly even the mayor’s office. Somepony has to have a means of getting the Shield shut off. Once that’s done, we see if we can reverse the spell that sent Canterlot to the Moon. Then I call down the fury of the skies on whoever did all of this.”
Digging the copy of the deed she’d given me to the U.A.A.’s gem-mine out of my pocket, I flicked it open. “I think this Pylon you pointed out near the mine is a particularly interesting target. You mentioned this one is out of the way and runs off generators? It’s in a dangerous area and it’s possible nopony has gotten out that far to refuel it. It might not be connected to the rest of the grid...and it might not be locked down.”
“That’s an awful lot of ‘mights’ and ‘maybes’...”
“You’ve been on this boat before, Princess. Do you really think anypony has guarantees for you?”
She looked thoughtful, then said, “You’ve made some powerful friends since this all started. Don’t forget to call on them in your times of need.”
“You’ve got some powerful friends,” I murmured. “Friends who will stand beside you when you need them. I think it might be time to trust somepony again.”
Twilight’s eyes slid shut, and she tugged at her forelock with a bit of magic, pulling it over her eyes. “You’re talking about the thrones, aren’t you?”
I held up my hooves. “Far be it from me to advise a Princess, but it sounds like this self-imposed loneliness crap isn’t going to be a long term solution. That pony who liked to pass out pictures of you...what was her name? Pink-something?”
“Pinkie Pie?”
“Right. Her. She shared those pictures because she wanted to share your friendship with others. You get the chance one day soon, I’d go ask her what she wants you to do.”
“She’d...probably tell me to giggle at the ghosties…” Twilight mumbled.
“Hmmm?”
Her back stiffened, and she sat a bit higher in her seat. “Never mind. You’re right. If we’re all alive a month from now and Canterlot stands, I’ll...I’ll do that. I promise.”
I got to my hooves. “I’ll remember you said that, Your Highness.”
Swift picked up the sack with her weapon, and Taxi groaned as she pulled herself off the extremely comfortable seats. Limerence took his time getting up, peering out at the train station with poorly disguised trepidation. The first hint of the Bull’s smell rolled in, and I tried not to retch too visibly at the thought of what was to come.
“Sir, do we really have to do this?” my partner asked as she stared out at the platform which shielded the great train itself from view.
“It’s this or a several week run and the distinct possibility that we get back to find the city gone.”
“I could turn off your noses for the next several hours, if that would help,” Twilight offered.
“Yes, please!” my partner gasped eagerly.
Twilight gave her horn a wave, and a tickle seemed to twitch at the end of my muzzle, then faded. I gave my nose a shake, and Taxi let out a loud sneeze, then poked at her nostrils with the end of her toe. It was a very odd sensation, not smelling anything whatsoever, but considering what we were about to be doing, it was a pleasant relief.
“Princess Twilight,” Limerence murmured, “I would appreciate it if you could point me to where you learned that spell. Considering some of my recent experiences, it would come in most handy.”
“Oh! It’s in Mister Malthusian’s Big Book of Spells To Survive A Minor Apocalypse. I could call back to the Castle for a copy—”
“Eh, no...that won’t be necessary, I don’t believe. I have a library of my own I can consult,” he chuckled, stepping out of the comfort of the limo-tank onto the dusty ground.
As I followed him out, I felt a brush of magic on my shoulder and turned to see Twilight looking down at me.
“Detective...” she began, but I stopped her with a toss of my mane.
“Princess, If you have a speech prepared, I’d appreciate it if you saved it for our triumphant return rather than this ignominious slink away from Canterlot with nothing but a piece of paper and a good night’s sleep.”
She crooked her lips on one side and leaned down, tapping me on the nose with her toe.
“Rude little pony. If you survive, I’m going to have Princess Luna flog the rude out of you. What I was going to say is ‘Good luck, and I hope you don’t die’.”
I touched the brim of my hat and grinned. “You too. Keep the home fires burning.”
Turning on my heel, I aimed myself at the train platform. I could feel Twilight’s eyes on my back as I loped through the little dunes, my three friends at my sides and a sense of renewed purpose in my loins.
Just leaving felt wrong somehow, but I knew I wasn’t going to get much else out of sticking around for a long goodbye. She’d given me what she could. Maybe she could have piled us with a few dozen magical trinkets or a whole heap of high-powered weapons, but what I’d really needed was a sense of direction. She’d given me that. It was a tiny thing, but it was worth all the gold in the world when weighed against what I’d showed up on her doorstep with.
The good feelings lasted until I rounded the corner and saw the steamy fog surrounding the Bull. Even with magically dulled senses, I couldn’t help but blanch at the sight of the beast.
“Are we really going through this twice, Sir?” Swift asked.
“Maybe Lim can find a spell to wipe the next three hours from our memories.”
“Only if you want me to render you a vegetable, Detective. My magical prowess doesn’t even rate beside that of Princess Sparkle. If you have noisy neighbors or wish to sneak through a room whose floor is covered in potato chips and squeak toys, then I am very useful.”
“It might almost be worth it.”
----
The Bull was merrily tootling to itself as we mounted the platform. A large central eye that sat in the middle of the primary boiler was open and dancing back and forth to a tune being sung from somewhere deeper inside. The creature’s gaze centered on us after a few seconds, and several more eyes opened along the body, focusing on my party.
“Mephitica!” I shouted, cupping my hoof to my muzzle. “Can we approach?”
I counted to three, then turned around.
“Why wouldn’t you be able to?” Mephi asked as she strolled out of the dusty wastes from the way we’d just come. A camera dangled from her neck, and she was wearing a ridiculous yellow sunhat. “He’s friendly! Besides, you have tickets. I’ve adjusted our re-entry vector so it might be a little smoother this time. Or five times as rough. I’m not sure which end of the dial is which. Won’t know until we try!”
Swift whimpered, and Limerence cringed against Taxi’s side.
“Find anything interesting out there?” I asked, gesturing to her camera.
“Oh, yes! There used to be this fantastic little sweets shop just over there,” she replied, pointing at the dust bowl. “I always wondered what it would look like if it was displaced to the moon. I’m sad I can’t go see, but Cordy and I haven’t been able to pinpoint the Canterlot train station.”
Swift’s eyes went wide. “W-wait...you knew Canterlot was on the moon?”
“Well, there’s regolith everywhere, massive transposition of matter signatures, spatial dilation...how could it be anywhere else?”
My partner’s tail swished back and forth furiously as she let out a sound something like a chicken closed in a door. Before she could say anything that might get us left in the middle of Ponyville, I tugged her behind me.
“Meph, can we get going? We need to get back to Detrot. This little excursion has probably left anyone pursuing us very confused, and we need to use that while we can.”
“Oooh, yes! I’ve seen most of the things I wanted to see here! On to the next calamity, Detective!”
With a quick salute, she broke into a gallop, zipping between us as she leapt onto the Bull’s front grill, then scrambled aboard with all the dexterity of a monkey climbing a tree. Her filthy tail vanished over the top, and a moment later her voice echoed out of a speaker.
“This is the eleven A.M one stop only out of Ponyville! Mephitica will be your conductor for today! The stewardess is currently on break, so if you could please load your own bags, we’ll get under way. All aboard for the fine city of Detrot!”
----
The launch was only slightly less unpleasant than I’d been worried it might be, which is to say I was nearly strangled by a living spaghetti demon with my driver’s face, then had a short conversation with three copies of myself. It was an enlightening but altogether uncomfortable discussion since the other two would only agree that we were all idiots who should have ignored that phone call from Telly two months ago on the day this all began.
At last, reality began to settle, and I sagged against the wall of the Bull’s passenger car, clutching at the furry carpet for some sense of solidity. When you couldn’t actually smell the damn thing, it was pretty nice, kinda like a warm blanket.
Swift was straddling Limerence on the other side of the car, her hooves around his throat, but as she realized what she was doing she quickly released him and backed off, helping him to his hooves with a soft apology. He coughed, then touched the sides of his neck, looking for tender spots. My driver didn’t seem to be in the passenger car with us.
“Taxi?”
“Over here,” she said, stepping out of the front compartment. “Sorry, Mephitica came back and dragged me off to feed me explosive chickens. We got a little carried away. Thankfully they disappeared when we landed. Where are we?”
I turned to the window and pushed my eye against the ‘glass’, trying to see out. “Not a clue. It’s pretty bright out there. There’s gravity, but it feels a little light. Somewhere with three suns? Not sure. There’s something that looks like a giant...worm or something some ways off in the sand. Doesn’t seem interested in us, though.”
Mephitica poked her head out of the front compartment. “This is your conductor speaking! I’m afraid the drinks and food had to be jettisoned during our last transition due to spontaneous evolution, but the good news is the potato chip civilization seemed to be doing well! We’ll be making landing in two hours, six minutes, eight seconds! Sit tight ladies and gentlecolts!”
With that she disappeared back into the engine room, leaving the four of us to sit and contemplate. Since I’m lousy at contemplating for any length of time, I was soon pacing back and forth the length of the compartment. Limerence and Swift were taking turns tossing playing cards into an upturned bucket, and Taxi sat in silent meditation.
At last, I could take the silence no longer.
“Sweets?”
My driver didn’t move or even acknowledge that I’d said anything. She just breathed, slow in, slow out. Swift and Limerence both looked up but didn’t interfere. They both knew what was coming.
“We’ve got two hours,” I said, sitting down in front of her. “I just spent a solid day with the Princess of Friendship, and it’s left me with more questions than I had when I got here. I’m a bit grumpy, and I’ve finally got a question whose answer I know somepony does know.”
Her nose twitched, and she rolled her shoulders a little.
“We’re operating from a place of trust right now,” I continued, watching her carefully. Anypony else would have seen an impassive wall, but I’d known Sweet Shine long enough to see the signs of stress, most of them consistent with pretending to be under no stress whatsoever. It’s a great poker strategy, but lousy with friends.
“Our trust was a little tenuous after what you did to Astral Skylark, but it was still trust. Now we’re facing death again. If we stay and fight, I want to know what happened to Fox Glove and Skinner...but if not, then it’s up to you. You say the word, Sweet Shine...and I walk away.”
Her eyes snapped open.
“What?”
“You heard me. You say the word, and I will walk away from all of this. Screw Detrot. Screw the Princesses. Screw Canterlot. You’re the only pony who was there from day one.” I reached out and put my hooves on her shoulders. She made to back away, her eyes wide and frightened, but I held on, pulling her into my forelegs and clasping them behind her back.
“Juniper died. My dad died. Tome died,” I whispered into her ear. “If I am going to risk your life, I need to know what happened to Fox Glove, because I need to know if it will lead to another situation like the one with Skylark. I can’t go out there worried you’re going to sacrifice yourself for me. I don’t want to see that smile of a little filly ready to die again. So, if you don’t want to tell me, say the word. I will write down everything I know and leave a copy with Chief Jade, Stella, and the Aroyos. They can have my gun, badge, and the Emblem of Harmony, but I will not lose you out there on some stupid, suicidal insanity.”
Taxi’s legs tightened around my neck. “H-hardy…you...you can’t do that...”
I put a hoof on her face and turned her eyes to mine. “Watch me. We’ll get Mags and get back aboard this train and be gone where nopony can find us.”
It was a cruel thing to put on somepony else, and I suppose some part of her must have known this was all a bluff, but I could still see the war going on behind her eyes. If she’d called me on it, I’m still not certain what I would have done just then. I could tell she wanted desperately to drag me off into the Wilds or some other world where it could be just the two of us again, like it was when we were kids; two little ponies hiding from the world.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the two of us anymore, but Taxi needed hear that somepony, somewhere, trusted her to live. I suspected she could have died for me without feeling particularly bad about it, but living for me was harder, and by Celestia I needed her to live.
Lim and Swift were both watching in silence. My partner looked a little nervous, but Limerence had a knowing smirk on his face. I flicked my eyes towards the engine compartment, and the librarian gently tugged on Swift’s tail, then led her out.
Once we were alone, Taxi gave me a rough push that sent me sprawling onto my back. I made a loud ‘oof’ then a choked gasp as she stepped on my stomach hard enough to send the air rushing out of my lungs.
“Dammit, you’re not supposed to be able to pull my strings!” she snapped. An errant tear streaked down her cheek and landed on my chest. “Hardy...the city needs you! It doesn’t need a pony like me. If it comes down to you or me—”
I batted her hoof off my belly and rolled upright, shoving my forehead against hers. She tried to back up, but her rear end hit the wall of the train.
“Then we’ll both survive—,” I growled. “—because you know that’s what I need. You deny your talent all you like, but I don’t need any more ghosts! Especially not my best friend!”
“B-but I can’t—”
“You are going to. You die out there, even in some noble act of personal sacrifice, you are going to ruin me. You get that? I will never recover.”
Then I grabbed her and held her close as she shivered in my legs, her breathing labored and her eyes wedged tightly shut against more tears. She couldn’t stop a few whimpers and sniffles, but she’d held in enough weeping sessions through the years to hide just how deeply those words affected her.
“Fine. Dammit. Fine,” she muttered, turning her head to one side and laying her cheek on my shoulder. “I guess if anypony is...is suited to judge me, it’s you, isn’t it?”
“You want me to judge you?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.
“I...I wake up some mornings wishing you’d put a bullet in my head because I’m too scared to do it myself.”
“You’re not raising my confidence here, Sweets,” I murmured.
Pushing her hooves against my chest, she fought her way free and stumbled back a couple steps, her black and white tail lashing against the wall of the train.
“Hardy! Your best friend is a murderer! You asked for the truth. Now sit your ass down and take it!”