//------------------------------// // Act 3 Chapter 21 : Guess What I Did Today! // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------// Whilst most ponies take for granted the technological explosion of the last hundred years that allowed for great advancements in personal comfort, safety, information access, and entertainment, few consider the steps taken to get us there in their day to day lives. Entirely new fields appeared almost overnight to support these developments. Materials science was almost unheard of until the Crusades, when the Princesses looked at the body counts of the early engagements and judged that purely magical armor was insufficient to the task. Before the war, ponies believed dragonfire to be some simple exhalation of ignitable gasses combined with a spark, but after the war began and Equestrian scientists could get a good look at the phenomena firsthoof, they quickly realized it was much more destructive than the involved temperatures could account for. Dragonfire is capable of burning through inches of solid steel and melting entire bricks of lead to a molten slurry within seconds. After some analysis, the power behind the fire turned out to be a form of unmaking magic, dissolving the very bonds holding the atoms of a target together. It was long known that dragons could enchant their own breath with various effects, but the intrinsic nature of these energies meant that even the least powerful dragon could melt their way into an asbestos-lined tank. Many different materials were tried and many of Equestria’s allied dragons (of which there were several) huffed and puffed themselves hoarse trying to find a solution to the problem. Even so, years of magical research failed to produce a shield that would deflect dragonfire without either killing the caster or setting fire to everything nearby. Finally, at long last, a solution was discovered in the kitchen of the Maresechusetts Institute of Technology when it was observed that even the most vicious cleaning spells would not remove the thin veneer of cheese sauce from the bottom of the employee break room oven. Once the producers were hunted down, their manufacturing process was determined to contain neither actual cows nor anything that could be called cheese but a very clever chemical analogue made of condensed magic and industrial run-off. While the first live test subjects were understandably reluctant, queso-armor proved quite successful even against full power dragonfire, and the resultant increase in the department’s funding led to many more advances. -The Scholar “To be honest, most of that is stuff I don’t remember,” Taxi finished. “I reconstructed bits from secondhoof accounts and rumors, but all I really have is flashes here and there.” I realized my muzzle was hanging open and quickly wiped a string of drool off my cheek. “So...what? That’s it?!” She nodded, pulling her mane down over her shoulder and beginning to rebraid the tips. “I see things in my dreams sometimes. Skinner bleeding on the carpet. Fox Glove’s body, cooling in the rain. It’s enough to know that I did do the things they say I did. The nearest thing after Fox Glove left the room that I remember with total clarity is you showing up, grabbing me by the tail, and hauling me out of that bar. The guy with two black eyes and some missing teeth who was drinking with me was in Skinner’s hideout when I was captured, so he saw the aftermath. He was a little reluctant to tell me what happened at first, and he tried to run, hence the injuries, but—” “Wait, he wasn’t there, was he?” I interrupted. “I thought you said there weren’t any survivors.” “He was out buying doughnuts and chips when I somehow broke out of the interrogation room,” she replied, guiltily. “He missed me by seconds or he’d probably have died too. He did tell me what the bodies looked like, though. I killed them, Hardy. It was my combat style, before I learned all the pressure point strikes. Even Fox Glove. I don’t know who he was working for and...and I don’t care.” I shut my eyes and drew in a breath. My cutie-mark was cold as ten graves. Ten well-deserved graves. “You spoke at his funeral, Sweets. You called him a ‘good officer’. You told them he died bravely in the line of duty.” She shrugged and picked up her saddlebags, slinging them over her hips to cover her scars. “Yes. I lied to everyone. A murderer added an extra lie on top of plenty of others. Are you surprised?” The Bull lurched suddenly, and Mephitica leaned her head through the door from the engine compartment. “Pardon me, ladies and gentlecolts, but we’ll be leaving this plane of existence soon! Ready to go?” I held up my hoof. “Give us ten minutes, Mephi.” She nodded, then ducked out of sight, leaving my driver and I to sit staring at one another across one of those silences so uncomfortable you wish you could fill them with anything up to and including the screams of your firstborn being boiled. Taxi broke it first. “So?” I shrugged. “So, what?” Pushing herself up, she marched across the cabin and poked her nose against mine. “So...say something! I killed all those ponies! You saw me murder Astral Skylark! I slaughtered my own partner!” I put one hoof on her forehead and shoved her onto her backside. “What do you want me to say, Sweets? After what you just told me, I’m reasonably sure you’re not going to kill yourself or do some kind of stupid self-sacrifice crap. I needed the truth. I’ve gotten it. We’re done here.” She gave me a look like I’d popped her one with a baseball bat. “T-that’s it? I’m not a jury or a judge! I k-killed all those people! I’m a monster!” “No, you’re Need,” I corrected, tugging my coat to one side so I could point at my cutie-mark. “I don’t feel for those people who almost killed my best friend. Justice was done. I’m Justice, so I’m qualified to speak to that. You killed killers to save lives that needed saving, and your life just happened to be one of them. You want to know if what you did in some altered state of mind was right or wrong, you should ask somepony else. I don’t know. What I do know is that it was just.” Taxi opened her mouth but ended up sitting there bobbing her head like a drunk fish as she tried to think of something to say to that. Of course, there was nothing worth saying. Some ponies might think it would have been harder or that I’d have some reservations. After all, my best friend killed ten ponies and an eleventh right in front of me. Reaching out, I offered her my hooves. Without another word, she crawled over against me, and I wrapped my legs around her middle, resting my chin atop her head. I wished I could smell her, just then. I had to settle for imagining the scent of joss and sweat. There were all those years between us, many full of tears and blood, but I wouldn’t have traded any of them away if it meant losing her. “I...I love you, Hardy,” she muttered, squeezing my barrel tight enough that I had trouble breathing for a moment. Her tears in my fur were warm, but she wasn’t weeping or sobbing, though I heard a little sniffle now and then. I smiled and rubbed my cheek against her mane. “Yeah...yeah, I know, Sweets.” We sat there, holding each other, quietly taking in the scenery for several minutes as she let out what must have been years’ worth of pain by drenching my chest in snot and tears. I didn’t really want to get up and would have happily lain there for an hour or two, but my rear legs were starting to float and one of Taxi’s hooves was growing some eyes. Then things got really weird. ---- The trip back through the ruffled edges of spacetime was enough to turn my stomach a half dozen times over. Then my vomit mutated into creatures which escaped through a hatch in the floor. Swift came out of the engine room to tell me something along the lines of ‘The Screaming God In Chains Will Eat Your Soul’, and Limerence was wandering about on the ceiling weaving socks with his own self-produced spider silk. To be fair, they were lovely socks, and weaving socks with eight legs is quite the challenge. ---- “Welcome back to Detrot, ladies and gentlecolts! We appreciate you choosing the Pan-Equestria Subterranean Express for your travel needs! Please take any luggage or extraneous limbs which may have become detached during the trans-planar jump with you when you exit the passenger car. Thank you, and have a nice day!” Taxi stumbled against me, still a bit uneasy on her hooves after the last bout of gravitational shifts. I wasn’t feeling especially stable myself, putting a hoof around her neck to keep myself from pitching onto the fuzzy floor of the passenger carriage. “Sir, if somepony ever asks whether or not I want to drown in liquid poop or ride the living train again, I’ll totally take the first option,” Swift groaned, trying to pull herself up. Limerence straightened his vest and checked to make sure his notepad and knives were still in place. “It brings a certain discomfort knowing the four of us can make such a decision from personal experience.” Mephitica popped out of the engine room, her stewardess cap perched on her head and her tail wagging like a cheerful spaniel. “Detective! I hope you enjoyed your ride. I would love to offer you our services again as soon as we return from...wherever we may be going next!” “I hope I never need them again, Meph,” I grunted. “Still, it was good to see you.” “You as well! You parked your cab near Twenty-Sixth Street, right?” she asked. Taxi gave her a confused look. “I never mentioned that…” “Of course not! That would make it so much less interesting to know,” Mephi chirped, trotting to the back of the passenger cabin and pushing open the back door. “Now, then, I’ve landed us in another abandoned station one street over from Twenty-Sixth. If you’ll disembark, I will be on my way. I hear the griffin lands are having some really spectacular bloodshed just now, and I don’t want to miss out on another minute of it!” ---- It was with some relief that we crowded out of the Bull onto a small, dusty, and unlit platform in the steamy underbelly of the city. I could feel it, the second my hooves hit the ground. Home. It was good to be back. Taxi had her torch out and was providing illumination for the empty train station as Swift and Limerence hopped out beside me. I inhaled and got the first whiff of an actual scent which managed to creep through Twilight Sparkle’s fading magic. Unfortunately, it was the smell of our transport. I turned to the Bull and pulled off my hat, giving it a quick nod. Several of its eyes were watching us. “Thanks for the ride, Cordbreaker. You take care of Mephitica, wherever you’re going, alright?” The train let out a snort which somehow communicated the idea that I’d stated the obvious. “If you could, would you convince her to swing back to Equis in...eh...three weeks?” I asked, tapping the platform for emphasis. “We might need an escape route if the planet starts to freeze.” He jiggled a little on his wheels, then made an agreeable ‘toot-toot’ sound with some orifice I stringently avoided picturing. Swift edged over and gently brushed her wingtips over the nearest bit of exposed metal. “I...um...I’m sorry I was rude earlier, Mister Cordbreaker.” One of the eyes nearest her rolled in the socket, and then all of them blinked shut at once, leaving us in darkness. ---- Shifting aside a piece of aluminum siding leaning across the entrance of the subway station, I pressed my forehead against the metalwork. Taxi pushed up beside me, and together we heaved the gates open with a clang that echoed up and down the street. We filed out into a refuse-filled alley one street over from the Night Trotter. The blood red sky still hung overhead, and it’d rained recently, the humid air making my fur stick to my rump, but the smell of my city made it all worth it. I suppose the scent of garbage and hobo piss might be a bit less romantic to some, but for me, it was the finest perfume. Of course, anything is perfume after a ride in the Bull. It was time to get centered. Time to get the ball rolling and charge the enemy lines. Time to self-actualize and make a plan of action. I straightened my shoulders and marched onto the sidewalk. Behind me, somepony’s stomach rumbled so loud I almost jumped right out of my skin. Taxi had one hoof on her belly, and her cheeks were pink. “Hardy, I hate to bring this up, but I think I puked up everything I had in my stomach during the reentry. I don’t suppose we could go get something to eat, could we?” “Now that she mentions it, Detective, I do find I could use a meal as well,” Limerence added, adjusting his coat. “We should also find somewhere to plan our next moves.” At the mention of food, I twitched one ear towards my back, but no shrill, slightly grumpy voice piped up to agree with my friends’ sentiments. For the last twenty-four hours, I’d had the growing sensation of a limb I quite enjoyed having that’d suddenly gone missing.  I turned to Swift, who was rubbing the scar on her chest. “Kid, you think Tourniquet would mind some guests? I’d like to get Mags back as soon as I possibly can.” She shook her head and smiled, sheepishly. “She’s listening to us, and no, I don’t think she’d mind some guests.” “She’s...listening to us?” Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the bottle with the ladybug in it. The little insect looked up and lifted its wings in a bit of a shrug. “She’s not listening through the ladybug network, Sir. At least, not to us,” Swift murmured, a bit nervously. “Something happened while we were gone.” “Is this one of those ‘something’s where I’m going to be absolutely furious when you explain it to me?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Yes, Sir. I do believe it is, Sir.” I pulled off my hat and set it to one side, opened the Crusader, and tapped the bullets out of it into my pocket. That done, I sat down facing Swift. “Alright, kid. Piss me off.” Edging over to the brick wall of the building nearest us, she kicked aside a sheet of cardboard. A black electrical cable as big as my leg sprouted like a grotesque snake from the sidewalk underneath, then disappeared into the structure itself a meter or so beyond. Reaching down, Swift laid her hoof on the cable itself. I took a step back as a soft glow started to radiate from her eyes. “Mercy, kid! Take your hoof off that before it—” “It’s fine, Detective.” Now that made me jump. Swift’s mouth had moved, but that wasn’t her voice coming out of it. I stood there, dumbly staring at my partner as light poured out of her head in two flickering beams. “Uh...Tourniquet?” I asked, cautiously. My partner’s body nodded, then took a moment to look at its own hoof, examining it front and back. “Oooh, I never got resolution like this before! I can actually feel physical inputs in high fidelity!” “That is extremely creepy,” Taxi commented. “I mean, it doesn’t really compare to some of the stuff I did in bed earlier today, but...that’s creepy.” “Agreed,” I mused. “Still, that’s just weird, and I’m not feeling particularly angry yet, so I’d like to know the other half of this little trick.” “Sorry. I thought I should let you know that if you can find a major electrical system that’s connected to the grid, I can actually see you as you move around. I might even be able to send some Aroyos to help you if you get in trouble. There are a few exceptions, like Uptown, the Castle, and anywhere near the Shield pylons. Oh, and if you get too far from the street, I lose you.” Ah. “So...you’re...spying on basically everyone...everywhere in Detrot.” “Errr...a little, yes. I promise, I haven’t been watching anypony in the bathroom or anything! I’m just trying to keep everypony safe.” I shut my eyes and inhaled the tepid air of the alley. “Tourniquet, we’re coming back to Supermax within the hour. Can you make sure Mags is ready to leave?” Swift’s mouth shut, and Tourniquet seemed to be thinking. “She will be ready to leave,” she said, finally. “I just have to tell Jambalaya to...erm...stop her ‘Aroyo’ lessons…” “Aroyo lessons?” Limerence asked curiously. “She’s made some pretty surprising progress. Apparently her father was already teaching her when he...um...when he died. Maybe it’s best you see when you get here.” “No, you tell me right now!” “Oops, Swift wants her body back! Gotta run!” The unearthly light faded from my partner’s eyes, and she smacked her lips a couple of times. Her pelt was standing on end a little as she pulled her hoof off the cable and stepped back. “Icky. It tastes like I’ve been licking batteries,” she muttered, smoothing the fur on her forelegs down as best she could. She looked up and realized we were all staring at her. “What’d I miss?” “Kid, what was Tourniquet about to say to me?!” I demanded. “Um...I...don’t know. I just wanted my body back so I could ask if we could find some fresh turkey, so I can make a grilled cheese turkey sandwich when we get to Supermax. One of the changelings I talked to said they were really tasty.” “Great. Lovely. We’re going to get there and my chick is going to be learning to cheat at poker and cook her own Beam,” I snapped, swinging around to face the street. “I’m not even going to discuss the whole freaky possession trick you two just pulled. Where’s the damn car?” “Sir, Tourniquet can only do that if I let her. I’m the Warden of—” “I said I’m not discussing it!” ---- The city streets were still quiet as a mouse. Even the sounds of gunshots were muted by an encroaching fog that seemed to roll between the buildings like a blanket of smoke, blotting out everything. In truth, I was grateful for the fog, though the red tint of the eclipse was spooky enough to have me jumping at every little noise. It gave us some decent cover as we moved through the city, even if it was also a stark reminder that the weather pegasi were well and truly off the job. Creeping into the parking garage Taxi assured me we’d used—I was entirely lost by the time we got there—we found the Night Trotter just as we’d left it with the exception that somepony had painted the Cyclone motto ‘Ever Free’ on the side in red spray-paint. Taxi took this with her usual grace and poise as she disengaged the security system and we all piled in for the ride to Supermax. ---- “I’ll tear out their eyes and tattoo ‘Ever Free’ in the sockets! No...no, I’ll boil their livers and graffitti their guts! Wait, better! I’ll feed them to Goofball, ankles first! Swift, I need to borrow your dog!” “No! Sheesh! He’s licky enough without a taste for pony!” “Grrr, then I’ll smash their heads with my tires! Make jam from their bones! Then feed it to them on crackers!” “Sweets, while you’re plotting all these murders, could you watch the road? We’re about to hit that—” Crash, splatter, spray. “—cabbage stand…” ---- The roads were as they’d been since the disaster: largely empty. We used Taxi’s Stiletto map to avoid most of the roadblocks and the territories of the majority of the gangs, but that meant going further out than any of us were comfortable with. Swift, who’d been nervy the entire time, was getting gradually jumpier the longer we were out. She paced back and forth on the back seat as far as she could, then turned and marched back to look out the rear window for the fifth time in two minutes. Of course, there was nothing to see out there but the all-encompassing fog that’d grown thick enough to restrict visibility down to a few meters off the end of the hood. “Kid...what’s wrong?” I asked. “I mean, besides all the obvious things.” She turned her nose in the air and sniffed a few times, then rolled the window down and did it again. “I...Sir, I smell...I smell dragons…” “Dragons? As in...plural?” She nodded. “Sweets, how close are we to where Stella’s people said they’d seen dragons?” I asked, leaning forward to speak to my driver. Taxi glanced down at the map spread out on the dashboard. “Pretty far. Farther into the city than I’ve heard of, but they’re dragons. It’s kinda hard to pin them down. I mean we might be—” A heavy wingbeat overhead was our only warning before a blast of fire that left all of us momentarily blinded rolled down out of the sky and scorched the road off to our left. As my vision recovered, I barely had time to grab onto Swift before Taxi swerved us sideways and into the gravel at the side of the road. The fog momentarily lifted only to rush right back in a second later. “Floor it!” I shouted, and my driver didn’t need to be told twice. Acceleration pressed us back in our seats, and we were off, flying through the fog at breakneck speeds. Unfortunately, that meant we were also shooting blasts of lightning from the undercarriage that lit us up like a firework. A moment later, as I franticly cranked the window back up for what protection it might offer, another fiery breath spilled across our path, searing the front bumper and leaving blackened burns on the hood before we were out the other side and careering back onto the highway. Limerence slowly raised his head to window level and peered out. “Detective, they can see this! I can silence the engine, but only if we slow down!” “We can’t slow down or they’ll just cook the fog off and catch us!” I snapped. Swift struggled out of my legs and grabbed the bag with the Hailstorm in it out of the footwell. “Sir! Roll the window back down!” “Wait, kid, what are you thinking?!” I demanded. Hauling the weapons system around her shoulders, she buckled the stomach strap, then put her hooves up on the window. “I see...Sir, I see two targets out there! They’re close! I don’t think they’re very big!” She turned to look at me and grinned. It was the grin of a tiger who's found herself some rabbits. “I want to find out if this thing works on dragons!” “We don’t even know if that thing works on walls, yet!” I protested. “Do you even know how to fire it? It could be damaged or broken or—” “Hardy, they’re going to cook us alive!” Taxi barked as another flash of flame almost hit us from the right. I could see some of the paint bubbling along the passenger side as we swerved again to try to avoid the next strike. “The car’s spell core doesn’t like dragonfire!” Even as she said it, the engine gave a nasty cough before firing a bolt of green lightning out of one side and accelerating again. “Sir, I can draw them off, even if the gun doesn’t work! I’m faster than any dragon!” Swift argued, pawing at the window. “Come on, lemme do this!” “Arrrg...dammit! Kid, if you burn so much as one feather, your godfather is going to eat me and your grandmare is going to feed me to him, so you come back in one piece!” Wind roared about inside the cabin as the window began to come down. My little orange monster smiled, showing off every one of those razors she called teeth. The Hailstorm’s turrets lifted from their mountings on her back and began to spin as ice formed on the weapon’s barrels and a cutting chill, colder than a winter’s day, filled the car. Suddenly, I felt kinda sorry for those dragons. Swift wedged her wings out of the window, letting the wind snatch her tiny body of the car. My last sight of her for about ten seconds was a tumbling neon blot on the fog, rolling end over end as she tried to stabilize in midair. Then she was gone. Overhead, a dragon let out a deafening shriek, and a wave of heat passed by much higher than the last one. It was still enough to clear the sky for a moment. A bright yellow dragon—a swollen yellow monster with a neck as long as the Night Trotter and wings that momentarily blotted out the red light of the eclipse—zipped by overhead at what seemed like a breakneck speed, then vanished again as the fog closed in. “Miss Taxi, we must slow down,” Limerence called above the roll and crack of what sounded like thunder in the heavens. “Are you nuts?!” “I cannot cast my silence spell if we are ejaculating lightning from the undercarriage every five seconds! We cannot outrun these beasts, no matter how fast this arcano-technological monstrosity is!” Taxi gritted her teeth and put one hoof on the brake. The deceleration was almost enough to throw me out of my seat, but Limerence grabbed the mouthstrap above the window and maintained his position. Raising his horn, he shut his eyes. Sound dropped out so fast I expected my ears to pop, but even if they had, I wouldn’t have heard it. We drove on in the unnatural silence, the thick air overhead lit up with fiery lights from time to time. I stuck my head out the window and tried to get a look at what was going on in the intermittent breaks in the fog. I caught a glimpse of Swift pinwheeling through the sky behind a sky blue dragon who was about twenty times her size. Its scales shone red, though whether that was blood or just the strange lighting was hard to say. The dragon was dipping, dodging, and doing everything it possibly could to get out of her way. As I watched, it pulled a quarter aileron roll, spinning on its wingtips before curling back on itself and blasting the air behind with jets of fire from an elongated mouth the size of a refrigerator. It would have been a pretty good tactic against anything slower than Swift, but my partner was far too wily. Braking in midair, she shot straight up and then arched over the dragon’s back. The turrets on the Hailstorm lifted, and an explosion of something that looked like fire strafed down the dragon’s tail. The creature stiffened, then dove out of sight as fast as it could. Something bright red splashed across the windscreen and Taxi shook her hoof at the sky overhead, snarling words that I was glad I couldn’t hear. A flicker of yellow swept past, headed straight for Swift and preceded by a vanguard of fire. Then the fog enveloped everything again, leaving us driving in the empty whiteness once more. The crackles and flashes of light continued for a minute or two longer, but as we drove on a little farther, they began to die down. At last, after what felt like a year, they stopped entirely. Part of me very much wanted to drive on. Swift might have been brave enough to qualify as crazy, but she was damnably effective. That said, I couldn’t leave her out there. I waved at Taxi until I had her attention, then mouthed ‘Pull us over’. She gave me a skeptical look, then hit the brakes hard enough to have me grabbing for the safety strap. We skidded into the ditch at the side of the long, deserted road, sending up a spray of gravel. Quietly shutting off the engine, she gave me a look that said ‘Now what, genius?’ I pointed at Limerence’s glowing horn, and he shrugged, then let the light fade. “Alright, what stupid thing are we doing now?” Taxi hissed, just loud enough to be heard. “She’s a pegasus. She’s probably flying to Supermax to have tea with Tourniquet and ponder how we could be dumb enough to stop at the side of the road with dragons scooting around out there.” “Probably, but if she’s out there with one wing burnt off, I am not leaving her here,” I growled. I left unsaid the possibility that she might be dead. It didn’t bear considering. I cocked an ear towards the sky, but I couldn’t hear any of the telltale screeching of giant lizards or sounds of weapons fire. Just a soft heaving noise, like somepony running a vacuum in twenty second spurts some distance away. I turned back to my driver and librarian and said, in a low voice, “Okay, I’m about to call out. Silence spell and engine ready. If anything answers besides a toothy little filly, we go, alright?” Rolling her eyes, Taxi put her hoof on the ignition, and Limerence set his horn shining. Cupping my muzzle with one hoof, I stuck my head out into the fog. “Hey kid! Mareco!” This was followed by the third or fourth longest ten seconds of my month. Finally, “Polo, Sir!” came back from somewhere off behind us. “You okay, kid?” I called, still ready to dive back into the car if one of the lizards made itself known. “Yes, Sir,” she replied, her words a bit muffled by the fog. “You didn’t get very far last I saw, but I can’t really move right now. Just follow my voice!” Cautiously, I stepped out of the car onto the pavement, picking up my trigger bit. Limerence caught my tail with a gentle tug of his telekinesis, then pointed at the dust on the side of the road. “Detective, that’s magically contaminated. We’re in the wasteland near Supermax, if you’ll remember.” I raised my hoof to show off my metal shoes. One of the four remaining nails chose that moment to drop out and clatter to the ground. “Yeah, well, I needed these replaced anyway. Should keep me safe enough, right?” Lim levitated a handkerchief out of his front pocket and quickly tied it around my muzzle, tucking the flap into the top of my armor. “They should keep you safe, but I prefer bare hooves as does your driver. Your partner is going to need her lungs magically nullified once we reach Supermax if she’s inhaled more than a muzzlefull or two of the dust out there. That is unless she wishes them to mutate into anything besides lungs at some point in the future.” “Duly noted. I’ll try not to sit in the mud.” “For the sake of any children you might wish to have, probably best not.” “If anything happens,” Taxi added, “make some noise and I’ll turn the engine over and get there quick. I’m going to have to repaint the Night Trotter anyway, so fixing the suspension is just another thing added to the list. Stay safe.” “I intend to,” I replied, pulling my coat off my revolver and freeing my trigger. I cautiously stepped into the dirt at the side of the road; it glistened with tiny fragments of ground-up magical crystal. ‘Shallow breaths. Try not to contemplate what walking through this stuff is doing to your toes or future reproductive options,’ I thought, then shut my eyes until my breathing slowed. When I felt ready to proceed, I raised my voice. “Hey kid! Sing something for me! I need a direction to walk in!” “What should I sing?” she asked, after a brief hesitation. “I don’t care! Sing anything!” There was a much longer hesitation, and then a surprisingly sweet tenor came rolling out of the distance. She had a pretty good voice, for having foal-sized lungs. “Standing here, in sweet sunlight, come love me dear, my morning sky, for when the wind blows through the night, I hear your kindly, loving sigh…” I couldn’t suppress a smile or a little bounce of the hips as I strolled through the contaminated gravel towards the source of that familiar old ditty; Sapphire Shores might have sounded better with backup singers and a band, but Swift did the tune justice. As I approached, the sounds of heavy breathing grew louder and louder until a shadow appeared a few meters off. It was a mound about three times my height and seemed to be moving in time to the breaths. “Kid?” “It’s fine, Sir! I’ve got them covered! Just stay away from the tail! It’s kinda flail-y.” I swallowed, then continued forward, though I wanted desperately to flee back to the car, since I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like whatever I found. My nerves were jangling like a bell factory in an earthquake. Only in a mad, capricious, and altogether absurd world could Officer Swift Cuddles have been perched on a giant yellow lizard’s head like a heavily armed rooster, her pistol resting against the beast’s scaly eyelid. Unfortunately, it turned out to be exactly that. Doing my best to appear nonchalant, I marched up beside my partner and peered down at her captive. The Hailstorm’s turrets lifted briefly from their place on her back, both coated in a thick rime of frost. “Kid, clarify this for me. Did you actually catch a dragon?” I asked quietly as the turrets tracked me. “Um...Yes, Sir,” she said, trying to sound professional. “I thought you might want to question the suspect.” ‘The suspect’ was about seven meters from nose to tailtip, a smaller member of the Highland species but still big enough to worry a pony. Most dragons who lived in one of the draconic communities within Equestria tended to be from the tinier breeds, but Swift’s prisoner was large enough to swallow a pony with only a bit of chewing. The beast sat on all fours, its legs drawn up as though it’d been about to take off. One wing was bleeding freely from a torn membrane between two of the structural bones that left it looking like a broken kite. Its scales were the color of blooming sunflowers, but the half-light lent them a grisly cast. The beast was very wisely not moving, except to take the occasional breath. I didn’t know whether or not Masamane could penetrate a dragon’s skull, but it seemed as though the dragon wasn’t sure either and was taking no chances. Walking in a slow circle, I looked over its injuries. Besides the wing, it seemed relatively unhurt, though its entire left leg was covered in a thick layer of ice. The ice was melting, but beneath it, I could see a streak of flesh that looked like it’d been seared black. The scales surrounding the damage were cracked and brittle, seeping dark blood. “Did the Hailstorm do this?” I asked, pointing at the wound. “Yes, Sir!” Swift exclaimed, bouncing up and down a little on the dragon’s long muzzle. The dragon let out a faint growl and was silenced almost immediately by a poke in the eyelid with Swift’s pistol. “It fires this weird ice magic, kinda like a beam from a flashlight, but a little slower! Anything it touches gets frozen solid, and the range is more than fifty meters! I froze the blue one’s tail and it made a break for the mountains, but I’m sure I can catch it—” “No, kid,” I said, holding up my hoof. “One dragon is enough for today. Besides, I don’t think we have cuffs big enough for this one.” “But, Sir! You could go get a trailer and some chain from Tourniquet and I could wait here—” She trailed off at the look on my face. I stepped around in front of the dragon and leaned down so it could see me out of its open eye. “You understand Equish? Blink twice for yes, or keep staring at me for no. If you keep staring at me and I think you’re lying, I’m going to have my partner turn your head into a popsicle.” The large, reptilian eye widened briefly, then blinked twice. “Good! Can you talk, too?” Two blinks. “Better. Now, I’m going to tell her to get off your head. You so much as muss my mane with that breath of yours then torture, hideous pain, blah-de-blah-de-blah. I’ve actually managed to get bored with threatening bodily harm, so if you piss me off, we’ll just skip straight to the part where I leave your body out here for the racoons.” I made a slight shooing motion with a leg at Swift, and she lifted into the air, climbing higher until she was standing on the dragon’s back, freeing its mouth to move. “Now, then...are we going to have a civil conversation? Or are you going to piss me off?” The dragon spoke, slowly and cautiously. Its voice was surprisingly high for a beast that size, and I quickly realized we were speaking to a female of the species. “I...will talk, pony.” “You can call me Detective. And what is your name, Miss?” I asked, politely touching my hat with my toe. “Vexis,” she growled, shifting on the rocks back and forth a bit. “May I lift my head from this gravel pit? The magic is making my scales itch.” “Oh, sure. If you can feel the very slight weight on your back, that’ll be my partner. You haven’t been formally introduced. Vexis? Swift Cuddles. Swift Cuddles? Vexis.” “How do you do?” Swift chirped, resting Masamane against the base of the dragon’s lone functional wing. “You will die soon,” Vexis rumbled, raising her head until we were about the same height. “Ambrock will return with more of my royal kin! My people and I have come with an army by order of the King of Dragons to slaughter you all! Our legions will descend from the skies, and all who stand before us will die! Fire and brimstone will be your only comforts and death your only reprieve! Do not believe you can escape! If you let me leave now, I may see fit to grant you mercy one day and...and...” She trailed off as she realized somepony was laughing. I mean, it was a pretty good speech and generally the kind that’s delivered with gusto and verve to a crowd of terrified townsfolk. In those circumstances, it would probably have been pretty effective. It was spoilt somewhat by having a giggling pegasus rolling around on her back. Turning her head, she stared down at my partner, who was sprawled between Vexis’s wings and yukking it up so hard she couldn’t stand. “Oh, that’s a good one! You’re really funny, Miss Vexis,” Swift snickered, rolling back to her hooves as the Hailstorm’s barrels rolled back to point at her mount’s face. “You’re part of the Dragon King’s army? He’s recruiting from prep schools, now?” The dragon squirmed a little as the flukes on either side of her face fanned shut. If we’d been playing poker, she’d have lost five hands straight on her expression alone. “Kid? You sound like you know something I don’t.” “Sir, I was P.A.C.T, remember? I might not have passed the physical, but I never had a problem in the classroom,” Swift replied, rolling to her hooves and matter-of-factly strutting down the dragon’s back to her tail. Swinging about, she pointed at the dragon’s back with her wingtip. “She’s between forty and fifty years old and she doesn’t have any combat scars, ritual runes, or rank markings. She’s molted maybe four times in her life. Her hoard wouldn’t even buy a condo. She’s barely a teenager as far as dragons go.” The scales on Vexis’s face turned an odd shade of pink, and she lowered her nose slightly. “My brother will be back soon, and he’ll tear you both limb from limb and eat you-” Taking off, Swift hovered around in front of the dragon’s face. “That blue guy I chased off wouldn’t be Ambrock, would he?” Vexis cringed and shuffled a bit in the sand as though wishing she could dig herself a hole to hide in. “M-my brother is a mighty warrior! He is just going to gather his band, and they’ll return and your freezing wizardry will be as nothing before our power!” Swift guffawed, landing back on her conquest’s neck and sliding down to her shoulders like a filly on a slide. “Oooh, whatever will save me from the terrible Ambrock! Oh no, I will be torn limb from liiimb...” The dragon’s skull-fluke sank an inch at a time until it was flat against her neck, and her head drooped until it was resting in the gravel again; she looked about as embarrassed as it’s possible for a giant reptile to look. “Did I miss a joke?” I asked. Swift wiped a mirthful tear out of the corner of one eye, still giggling to herself. “Oh, Sir...Ambrock means ‘little pudgy chicken’ in Low Draconic. Stella taught me conversational Draconic when I was barely big enough to fit in his palm! Pudgy chicken! Teehee!” “It’s just a name! My...my brother is coming back for me soon,” Vexis snarled, though there wasn’t much conviction behind it. “He’s coming b-back!” “I’ll take your word for it,” I replied. “Now! Swift, you got her covered?” “Yes, Sir! If she moves so much as a whisker, I’m gonna freeze her like an icy pop!” Casually leaning against Vexis’s chest, I crossed one foreleg over the other. She was surprisingly warm up close, and the humid air around her felt like a Prench bathhouse. Kinda nice, actually. “Now, Miss Vexis...it is question and answer time! I question, you answer.” The dragon blew a quick squirt of fire from her nostrils, turned her nose up, and declared, “I shall never betray my brethren!” “Do I have to remind you that your brethren just ran away from a pegasus that can use a pillowcase for a sleeping bag?” I commented, buffing a small circle of yellow scales with the elbow of my coat, then pretending to check my reflection in them. “You answer my questions, I can at least promise you’ll get to leave here today not looking any more like freezer-burnt leftovers than you already do.” Vexis scowled, though that might have been a default expression for most dragons. Her teeth were as long as my entire body, but she was just not that intimidating with Swift sitting behind her shoulders like an armed orange bookbag. “Are...you one of those mad ponies I hear about from time to time?” she asked, tracing a little figure eight in the dirt with the tip of a claw big enough to impale me straight through. “Undoubtedly. That said, there are some dragons in my city. Uninvited dragons. Unfriendly dragons. Dragons keeping ponies from leaving.” I blew on the tip of my hoof, then inspected it. “You...heh...you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you, Miss Vexis?” A blue tongue snuck out between her front teeth, tasting the air, and then she turned away. “You’ll get nothing from me, little pony.” “Oh...too bad.” I pushed myself up and twirled a hoof in her direction. “Swift, I guess we’ll get nothing from her. You can go ahead and freeze her head.” The Hailstorm’s turrets recentered on the back of Vexis’s skull as Swift bounced to her hooves, and a dull white glow began to gather around the barrels of the gun. “W-wait!” the dragon squeaked, her neck swinging around to stare down at my partner with a panicked expression. “We just followed the war band! We’re just here for the gem mines! I’ve never eaten a pony! I swear!” I stepped back and held up a leg for Swift to stop. She knew the script, but her gun still looked pretty eager to fire. “You weren’t with the dragons who were scoping out the city?” “No! They…” She hesitated, then clenched her jaw and muttered, “Th-they do not want clanless whelps in their flight…” “Huh...I see. And what made you think trying to roast us was a good idea?” I asked. Vexis smacked her lips, staring off in the direction I’d come from. “That vehicle you ride in smells delicious…” After a moment, she realized I was giving her a look and quickly wiped a bit of saliva off her chin. “We only wished to force you to abandon your transport!” Swift piped up. “Sir? Dragons eat gemstones. They probably smelled the engine.” Using a hoof to push myself away from her side, I moved around to stand just below Vexis’s chin. “You’re lucky you didn’t try to take a bite out of the cab. It has a spell core that would have popped you like a balloon.” Her pupils went round in what I took for draconic dismay. “Magical gemstones?” “Yep. Charged with industrial spellwork. Tell me this. Why has a flight of dragons decided to blockade this of all cities?” Vexis blew a thin stream of smoke out of the side of her mouth along with a noise like a softly steeping kettle. “I do not know...much. I have only what I saw and the gossip of the whelplings and lesser dragons. I’m mostly here for the food. These lands are rich in gemstones...or at least, that’s what I was told. I haven’t been this hungry since I was freshly hatched.” “Hey, rumors are what I’ve got right now, honey.” I gestured towards the glowing hole in the sky where the sun should have been. “You happen to like the sun, Miss Vexis?” Her lips drew down into an angry frown. “The Sun and Moon have abandoned us. There is little any of us can do about that, is there, Detective pony?” “Yahknow, you might be right almost any other day of the week,” I replied, tugging the Emblem of Harmony out of my coat and holding it up where she could see it. “Today? Not so much. You just very nearly cooked a member of the Equestrian government. Maybe one of the last. That might not mean much these days, but I know more about what’s going on than just about anyone else alive short of whoever caused this situation. So, you answer my questions, I’ll be on my way. Then you can go find your chicken...eh...brother.” Vexis’s tongue flickered between her lips again, and she looked down at her frost-bitten scales. “I cannot leave either way. These injuries will cause a molt within hours, and one cannot fly with fresh scales. I will not be able to hunt or feed, and these pony-lands are short enough of game that does not talk. Why should I help those who’ve killed me?” Melodrama and scales go hoof in hoof, as it turns out. “If you’re real helpful, I’ve got some friends just up the road who I’ll send back to move you to a safe place. We have a safe place that’s pretty familiar with draconic guests and enough food to keep you from dying of hunger anytime soon.” The dragon considered this for a long time, then finally slumped forward in the dirt, her long neck spilling out beside me. “You give your word I will not die here, pony?” “I can’t give you my word you won’t die in Equestria, but if you help me, you will be given food, medical attention, and your freedom so long as you follow directions and don’t try to kill anyone. I promise you.” “Sir, are you sure this is a good idea?” Swift asked in a soft voice, hovering down beside me. “I mean, what if she lies to us?” “What if she does?” I answered, making sure Vexis could hear my reply. “If she knows something that could have saved us and chooses not to tell me, she dies in a few weeks when the world freezes.” I turned back to Vexis, who was looking very thoughtful. Or possibly hungry. It was hard to tell with all those teeth. “So, what’ll it be, Miss Dragon? Maybe freeze, but with a full belly and someone treating your frostbite in the meantime, or definitely freeze, alone in the wastes?” Reaching back, Vexis gently snapped one of her frozen scales off and examined it, turning it back and forth between her claws. Based on what I knew of the durability and magically resistant properties of dragonscale, the Hailstorm’s attack was pretty scary. “Mmm...you could die between here and the end of that road, leaving me in the wastes...or any one of a hundred other deaths you short-lived creatures seem to make for yourselves,” she mused, flicking the scale in my direction. “Still, I haven’t eaten anything but scraps and slow rabbits in close to a month. It would be nice to have a stomach bulging with game one last time before the end. No shame in dying gorged and content.” “I’ll take that for a ‘yes’. Tell me about what caused the dragons to attack the griffons, then to come here and sit on the edge of the city instead of coming in and wrecking the place?” “I know little enough. A pony, like yourself, came to meet with Carnath who speaks for the King of Dragons beyond the plateaus where the eagle-cats live,” she replied. “They gave Carnath a great wealth in gemstones, almost a third of his hoard again. Then they said that the flight should attack the eagle-cats. The knowledge he gave to Carnath allowed them to begin killing off the patrols. They attacked, and the eagle-cats fled here with their young. The pony returned and said that when the...the ‘sky turned against pony-kind’, the flight should lay siege to this town...” I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t, seeming lost in thought. “What? Come on, finish that sentence!” I demanded impatiently. Vexis snapped at the air in front of my face with her teeth, blowing my ears back. “I’m trying to think how! It was not as though it made sense. This is all rumors and hearsay! It could be enemy propaganda, for all I know. Some other faction of dragons is out there, in the wild lands beyond your walls. Several of Carnath’s flight were attacked by them whilst alone.” “So there are...two factions out there patrolling the edges of the city?” Vexis nodded. “Carnath suspected Emberites. That mad ascetic order won’t let their sleeping queen lie. They fought for you ponies in the conflict you call the ‘Crusades’, and they still wage their insane guerilla war in the dragon lands. It is a dragon matter, though.” “You’re talking about followers of Dragon Lord Ember, right? What makes you think they’re in Detrot?” I asked, maybe failing to hide a bit of smugness at her surprised expression. “Er...Yes. How do you know of them?” “Equestrian government. Now, you were saying something a moment ago about the ‘sky turning against pony-kind’,” I said, changing tacks. “You attacked the griffins and a pony came to you. What did the pony look like?” “I-I don’t know!” “Was it a mare or a stallion?!” “I...I don’t know!” Vexis stammered, pulling away slightly. I pursued until she couldn’t back up without moving her injured wing. “This is not first-talon information! The rumors say that some demented pony dared appear at the door of our cave uninvited and, instead of eating him, Carnath...invited them in. This pony declared they knew the future and would make us rich with it.” “Go on…” “It was madness, though! Madness that Carnath believed. He tells Carnath to stay back and keep ponies from leaving until...until a black swarm flows from the center of the city and a new star rises into the sky! That is all I know!” I pressed on. “Changelings? Was the ‘black swarm’ changelings? Or Umbrum? What is this new star? Some kind of magic?” “I...I don’t know! I only hear what the young say!” “Did this pony say anything else?! Come on, tell me, damn you! I need to know!” “I’ve no idea!” she squeaked, or as near a dragon can squeak. “Was there anything else? Anything at all? Think! This may save your life!” “P-please, don’t kill me!” It was only then I realized I was less than an inch from the end of her snout and the mighty dragon was quivering like a leaf. I had one hoof raised, as though to strike her, and the sleeve of my coat was pulled back from the Crusader. Her eyes were locked squarely on it, and there was recognition in her gaze; terror stricken recognition. Even helplessness before Swift—who’d chased, downed, and captured her—hadn’t provoked that kind of reaction. What magics could make a dragon cower? The ultimate answer, and one I hated myself a little for thinking, was ‘convenient ones’. If Carnath or whatever his name was really had led his entire flight into my city, they were the sort I was likely to need. Still, what she’d said about Emberites piqued my interested a little. Friendly dragons? That might be useful, too. I lowered my leg and stepped back, brushing imaginary dust off my coattails as an excuse to look away from her. “I’ve got what I needed. Kid? Come on, we need to go arrange your trailer for Miss Vexis here, unless she wants to walk a couple miles with that busted wing.” Vexis hissed fearfully. “Pony...you violate the treaty just by having a Pistolium-Reginae upon your person! The entire dragon nation could be upon you if that became known! I would be seen as a species-traitor simply for speaking to you!” “That treaty is a piece of paper that you lot were more than happy to tear up the second it became convenient to do so!” I snapped, rounding on her. “My father gave me this gun. Everypony in the government thought it’d been destroyed. So we’ll leave it to the diplomats on the next sunny day. In the meantime, the road is that way.” I pointed in the general direction of the cab. “If you want to go tell the whole dragon nation about my gun, knock yourself out, but you’ll have to walk with a broken wing across however many miles and hope Carnath’s people, the beasts in the Wilds, and the Emberites don’t rip you to bits first. Now...you crawl your backside over to the tarmac there and my friends will be along shortly to get you some grub and give you a place to heal.” ---- Swift and I left Vexis where she was and started making our way back to the car. I made some room on my back for Swift to sit so she didn’t have to float the whole way there, then started following my own hoofprints in the dirt back through the foggy wasteland. “Sir?” “Yeah? What is it, kid?” “I caught a dragon today!” ---- I tugged the kerchief off my face and passed it to Limerence, then leaned back and tried to relax in the Night Trotter’s comfortable back seats. Taxi was burning three sticks of incense and the car was quickly filling with smoke, but that didn’t seem to put Swift off a chance to tell her story to an attentive audience. “—and then I did a double roll into a sky-drop to get around behind the blue one and he tried to hit me with fire breath by blowing it straight across his own belly! Too bad I was quicker than he was! I got him right in the tail and he started to make a break for it! Then the other one charged out of the fog and almost bit me in half! I had to loop around and let the blue guy go, but I strafed her butt and wing! That’s when she crashed and I landed on her face! You never saw a dragon so surprised!” She paused, as though waiting for laughter, but my driver and librarian seemed more incredulous than amused. “Your weapon froze a dragon?” Lim asked, leaning to one side to get a better look at the Hailstorm. “All I had to do was think about my targets, and then it made a noise like a swarm of bees and there was this bright light! Hailstorm did the aiming and the freezing!” Swift exclaimed, patting the straps across her belly. One of the weapon’s barrels lifted from its mounting and very gently rubbed itself against her cheek before settling back into place. “I did the flying, though! It was so neat!” “Yes, but...it froze a dragon,” Lim protested. “Their scales are rated at plus sixteen thaumic resistance, and they can survive bathing in magma!” Swift just grinned proudly at him as she began to unclasp the Hailstorm and stow it back in its bag. “So...what happened out there after that?” Taxi asked. “You downed a dragon. I’m assuming Hardy did something insane like try to interrogate it.” “Oh, you should have seen him. He had that dragon crying for mercy by the end without even laying a hoof on her! She told us everything!” “Not everything,” I interjected, quickly. “Some very interesting tidbits, though. I’ll tell you once we’ve got some food. I need time to think.” I turned to look out the window, staring towards the center of the city and brooding over Vexis’s words as the fog closed in again, blanketing the town in thick shadow.