//------------------------------// // 16 - And the Killer Was Smiling // Story: Beneath the Canon You Settle For // by The Amateur //------------------------------// Lots of ponies who held my position in the CPD either made the choice to retire early or had that choice made for them. My tenure was no different from my predecessors’, and any commentator or politician who said ‘times had changed’ was a liar. What I had to deal with was nothing new. But I had a natural talent, some said, that helped me survive each and every attempt on my life. It was a powerful adrenaline rush carried over from my racing days. The usual symptoms came at the very instant danger arose—perception sharpens, heart rate increases, time slows down. As crazy as it sounded, my perception of time allowed me to see the bullet as it exited the barrel. I could spot cover, read the face of my attacker, and ruminate on the choices I made all before the bullet brushed past my mane as I dived out of the way. But this talent did not make me the real–life equivalent of Power Pony Fili–Second. My body was no quicker, so if I made a wrong move and cost myself needed time… an early retirement. There were also times, when I was caught off guard or incapacitated; no amount of time dilation could save me if the bullet was already a hair from my forehead. When Twilight Sparkle flipped the sofa over, my body was still encased in the fabric. I only managed to dig myself out before the couch went into a somersault through the air. My body sailed with the flying furniture as it completed a hundred–eighty degree rotation; on the way down, however, I was dislodged from the path the sofa was taking. From a height of about a meter, I had around a fraction of a second before impact. The only choice I could make was whether to let my back or my chest hit the wooden floor. My wings could open, but there was simply too little time and space to break from the fall or soften the landing. All in all, I would rather wind up with a sore back than a broken rib. I curved my body into a crescent shape as well, tucking my head in with my forelegs. When I crashed back to Earth, my head would not slam against the flooring. I bounced on landing, lodging me just a bit into the air before I came to rest on my left side. The sofa had fallen upside down a few centimeters in front of me. The pain ripped me back to real time. It traveled right up my spine, setting alight all the nerves from the point of impact. The message they transferred back to my brain was not shock—I had experienced falls much worse—but rather encouragement. Encouragement to anger. Pain usually did that, and it served me a lot more effectively than self–pity. The killer within me was already painting red crosshairs on the alicorn responsible. Rainbow Dash held my foreleg and helped me stand up. I brushed her aside. My chest burned with that familiar rage, and it was fanned by a thousand inflamed nerve ends. Royalty or not, friend or not, Twilight Sparkle had to know she had made a huge mistake. I spat my spite at her: “What in the name of Celestia has—” “STOP.” She commanded. And I obeyed. Maybe it was the surprising lack of remorse on her part; maybe it was just my inability to trust my resolve. “What?” I faltered. “No, you don’t get to—” “STOP.” There she went again. The smug smile on her face erased all compunctions I had about my lethal desire. My hoof was curling around the trigger of a shotgun I did not have, but I had words for her that could more than satisfy as a substitute for twelve guage buckshot. Yet every time I opened my mouth—“STOP.”—she would would leave me gaping and glaring. So I bit my lip and kept the flames pent–up. It was going to burn a hole through my throat if she kept this up. Twilight smiled wider. “You feel your control slipping, don’t you?” She had no idea. “Step one: STOP.” “…What,” Rainbow Dash said. Though I was certain she would have backed away from the coming beatdown, she remained by my side. “When you feel angry, Fleetfoot, you resort to violence. Just by looking at you, I can tell that you want to punch me until I see stars in the middle of the afternoon.” My teeth clenched, I answered back, “I would rather save the energy and settle for pistol whipping you in the mouth.” “Pistol whipping?” “It’s when you take a gun and… Oh, forget it.” Twilight narrowed her eyes and mouthed the words one more time. The digression only lasted as long as that sentence, before she resumed her therapy. “This is exactly what I mean, though. You exploded on Featherweight and nearly hurt a child—” “But I didn’t!” “Then what was your intent when you came after him?” To interrogate him. Like the thugs and ruthless characters in Cloudsdale’s underworld? No, my intent was to threaten him into… but that was a lie too. My intent was to hurt him. I was about to hurt a child out of anger for something petty. That is the cruelty of the fall. Your flaws begin dragging you down a linear path of blind thoughts and unavoidable sins. The consequences ensnare your wings and legs with the weight of cinderblocks. You do not realize how fast you are sinking until you land at the doorstep of Tartarus with Cerberus tugging your mane toward its gates. That was where most tragic heroes met their end. But none of them ever tried fighting, digging, and flying their way back up. I bested one underworld even after losing nearly everything to it. My story was not a tragedy. There will be a happy ending. Twilight tapped my shoulder. When I looked up, she flinched and reeled her hoof back as though my stare could disintegrate her if she was too careless. Seeing that I was not going to obliterate her, the Princess took a step closer and smiled humbly. Ascension was significantly easier when you had help from above. “You’re not still mad about my flipping of the sofa, are you?” Twilight asked. I shook my head. “It’s just something petty. You’re not going to break my leg or something next time we practice this anger management technique, are you?” “No! Oh no,” she giggled. “But you should remind yourself whenever you get mad. Just STOP. Say it to yourself, if you have to.” Rainbow Dash audibly rolled her eyes next to me. “That’s it? Seven ‘assured steps’ to cure your temper problem and one of them is to tell yourself one word over and over?” Twilight floated the book above her head and frowned at Rainbow. “It’s a technique meant to help you acknowledge your anger and stop yourself from doing something you’ll regret.” “Got you loud and clear.” The pegasus laid down on the wooden floor with her wings spread out. “The next time some armored guards try to arrest me because I’m flying a little too close to the Everfree, I’ll just tell myself to STOP! STOP! STOP!” She emphasized the punctuation of the word with both forelegs straightened out. Twilight sighed and stared out the window at the cloud cover. “Shouldn’t you be out there?” “Doing what.” “Helping the weather ponies organize the rainstorm?” Rainbow sat up, eyes half–lidded, staring between Twilight and me. “Haven’t you noticed how frequently I visit you nowadays, Twilight?” It was the door she was looking at. Twilight gasped. “You lost your job!?” “Nah. The Cut and Drieds just took storm cloud responsibilities away from me after someone… with a delicious sense of humor… stole away a cloud and bucked it above the lieutenant’s quarters. At two in the morning.” I smirked and let out a laugh. “I thought you landed on the troublemakers list because of a graffiti prank.” “You did what?” Rainbow Dash scratched the back of her mane. Tilting her head to the left, she responded more quietly, “Yeah… I wasn’t caught for the graffiti though.” Twilight could make a dragon bend the knee with the glower she was giving her best friend. “Oh come on. She was a Canterlot regular, born and raised. It shows anytime she opens her mouth!” “I was born and raised in Canterlot.” Rainbow barely bat an eyelid. “Well then, count yourself lucky for having ponies like me to teach you the magic of modesty.” Twilight opened her mouth, took in a huge breath, and stopped. Her lips squeezed together, and all that air left her through a snort. She stalked over to a shelf neatly arranged with candles and matchsticks. “How long has the battalion been doing your job?” “Storm cloud responsibilities. I still clear the skies and stuff. Anyway, it’s been two weeks now.” The Princess slashed something on the shelf with the matchstick and pulled it back into sight with a flame on top. The match lent light to a portable candle in her magic. “Rainbow Dash… It’s admirable how the battalion hasn’t sent me any complaints yet.” Time slowed on the cusp of a eureka moment. The mind could arrange thousands of unrelated details and images into a coherent picture in the time it took for a camera lens to capture a single moment. In the back of my brain, a conspiracy theory was brewing. Personally, I thought I was insane enough to have these thoughts on a regular basis… The CAD Battalion had a scheme planned. I was more ready to believe the Foal Press runt than I was the occupying military force. An army detachment I never heard about entered this town two weeks ago, intending to fight back giant bears at worst. They did not concentrate around the obvious source of threats—the Everfree—but rather within the center of town. Soldiers patrolled the streets, armed with the kind of equipment used to crack down on an uprising. In comparison, Ponyville’s militia had just locals in tin armor like those sentries atop Town Hall. By themselves, they could possibly buy the town enough time to evacuate in case of a bear attack. I never saw any of Celestia’s finest mixing with the militia. They would not want to muddy their golden plates after all working with the commoners. Cooperation between the two entities was presumably non–existent. Then there were the disappearances. At least four citizens disappeared right around the time that the battalion arrived; the rest of the town was none the wiser. Yet there was another unsettling layer to this police state—memory manipulation. Assuming that Equestria’s intelligence service refrained from purging itself overnight, then there should be a handful of specialists who could cast such an intricate spell. This concern was where the theory grew dubious. No one outside of the alicorns could possibly implement the spell over the entire town’s populace with the necessary speed and efficiency. There was no reason to suspect the kind of twist, in which the protagonist’s friend turned out to be the evil mastermind. Real life tended to throw us surprises a little more creative than that. Besides, one of the disappearances was an Element of Harmony—one of Twilight’s best friends. The Princess likely had her memory tweaked just like Rainbow Dash. While I was on that subject, I had a hunch that the CAD battalion might be targeting the Element of Loyalty next. No bureaucrat ever kept their complaints to themselves out of patience or respect. Colonel Glory and his suboordinates probably wanted to keep attention away from their feud with Rainbow, so that they avoided suspicion once she was gone. That raised the question of why they would draw attention away from the feud if they could manipulate the memories of everyone in town. That was the trouble with conspiracy theories—you had to reject all the details that did not substantiate the conspiracy. This kind of thinking was the antithesis of detective work, but then again, I had already fallen far from my honorable position. A few disappearances linked to a national secret closely guarded by major players in both the underworld and the government. It was a familiar case, the kind that ended with little evidence collected and all the suspects dead. Not necessarily the worst result, if you asked anyone in the force—it was more important to stay alive than to solve the case. When the bullets started flying, the only investigative skill I depended on was instinct. I had to hope Featherweight would give me a lead once I met up with him. Instinct now told me the Cut–and–Drieds were behind a lot more than the disappearances. But first, my third–greatest priority—lunch. “We should jump right to step two,” Twilight said. Both the candle and the guide book floated to the top of her stool. “This one is sort of a continuation of the first step…” I raised my hoof. “Could we put this session on hold? I haven’t eaten lunch yet.” Twilight blinked and stared right at me. “Oh. Didn’t Rainbow Dash treat you to a restaurant around here?” The pegasus in question shook her head. “Didn’t the battalion offer you any meal?” “I left before I could take a bite.” I got up on all four hooves, feeling my stomach writhe from the torment of emptiness. Twilight leveled her eyes to the ground, pulling up her lower lip in frustration. “I wish I could treat you to a meal inside my home, but with Spike away, I wouldn’t be able to do you justice with my cooking.” “Not a problem!” Rainbow Dash showed off her pearl white smile. She lifted herself up with a pump of her wings. “I know a sweet place that offers a combo of daffodil sandwiches and hay fries!” “I guess we’ll just return to this on another time then,” Twilight muttered. Her magic set the stool and the sofa in an empty corner. “How about this evening? Before the expected storm?” I nodded. “I’ll make it.” Rainbow opened the door for me. On her insistence, we flew to the restaurant she wanted to visit. On the flight, I watched for golden armor in the streets below, expecting more than a few pairs of eyes staring right back. Unfortunately, there were a lot more eyes watching Rainbow and me than I could keep track of. It seemed as though the whole town was intent on seeing us. Undoubtedly this publicity was the result of Featherweight’s article. The mob was upon us the moment we landed at the restaurant. Once we were encircled by eager Wonderbolt fans and paparazzi, I started remembering all the horrible encounters I had with the Cloudsdale public in the old days. “Oh golly, Fleetfoot the Wonderbolt! What are you doing—” “—signing my son’s cap? I know you must be busy, but—” “—the readers have got to know what sort of feud you have with smugglers!” The voices of the mob were blending together into a piercing drone in my ears. Although the townsfolk respected or feared me enough to avoid physical contact, I still felt my body temperature rise and sweat accumulate on my forehead. I was confined in a box, cowering at the open sky as it descended upon me. The pen trembled in my grip, turning signatures into mad cryptograms. Admittedly, I was a little rusty when it came to dealing with these crowds. Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, handled the attention like a veteran celebrity. Her smile and warm words sent ripples of exhilaration across the ponies, who returned the feeling with cheers. When children desired photos or reporters demanded answers, she saw to their wishes with practiced bravado. How could she still be here instead of Cloudsdale, signing a kid’s shirt instead of signing a Wonderbolt contract? She reached a foreleg around my neck and leaned her muzzle toward my ear. “We’ll give them what they expect. It’s the fastest way to take care of these crowds.” And they expected us to pose like a duo of buddy cops. I had to hold a distressed smile for nearly a minute while the photographers got into position. As for how long it took for everyone to take their pictures? You probably should not trust my account for that––everything was relative to the observer. Right after the last camera flash, I walked away. I found us a table inside the restaurant––a place called “Cafe Hay”––farthest from the windows and the street. It mattered very little to me whether or not some filly had patiently waited there to get an autograph. I was done with this Wonderbolt facade. Besides, my insides felt like they were cannibalizing themselves, only partly out of hunger. “Hey, Fleetfoot,” Rainbow laid out her hooves on the table. “You okay?” “Yes. Absolutely. I’m fine. What are you ordering?” I grabbed the menu, found the daffodil sandwich combo, and tossed the pamphlet to the ground. We were sitting here for Celestia knows how long, and there was still no waiter coming. Rainbow looked down at her own menu, taking her sweet time to ultimately select the same thing I did. A tan orange stallion wearing a notch lapel (oddly without the suit) came to take our orders. If the cooks worked as slowly as the waiter trotted, I was going to eat the flowers they put in their fancy vases. “You’re getting angry,” Rainbow suddenly declared. I was just running a hoof through my amazing mane to kill time. When did she start reading a psychology textbook? “I’m not angry. I’m––I’m irritated,” I said. My ears were twitching. “Because I’m starving.” Rainbow steeled her doubtful expression. “You need to calm down. Those ponies were just excited to see a Wonderbolt in town.” “You think I don’t understand that?” I bit my lip and laid my head on the table. That was louder than intended. “I didn’t ask to be a Wonderbolt again. I’d give you my position if I remembered how.” My vision narrowed into a thin ellipse around Rainbow Dash as my hooves cupped my eyes. “I quit racing seven years ago to become a detective. My days used to be spent chasing criminals and doing paperwork on collateral damage. I was happy with my lot. Proud of my lot. So I’m not about to ease into this new life of mine. Not while my daughter’s still taken from me and while the Cut and Drieds are scheming behind our backs.” “Yeah, Fleetfoot! Cut and dried is just how I like my hay fries!” Rainbow was almost shouting, as though she were invoking the princess of the sun to hear her fast food preferences. Her eyes were wide, darting to every dark corner in the restaurant. I was genuinely worried that my rambling had given her psychosis. “Have you lost your mind?” Rainbow brought her head close to the table, leveling her eyes to mine. With hooves pressed against her forehead, she whispered, “Maybe I have. It’s like you’ve been talking in another code this whole day.” “What?” “Just hear me out,” she began. Her head shot up suddenly, and a plate settled in its place on the tabletop. A daffodil sandwich with complementary hay fries and milkshake. The fragrance was as soothing as a lover’s embrace, as addicting as their dreamt memory, as fulfilling as consummated parenthood. In essence, it was a hint of expectation frozen in time, and I finally had the choice of when to resume reality. “Miss, if you will please move your head…” I lifted my head away from the plate at the waiter’s urging. My own sandwich combo was placed before me. “Enjoy the meal.” I had not eaten in ten years—that was the impression you would get anyway if you saw how quickly I was devouring that sandwich. “Told ya it was good,” Rainbow said between bites. “Because I’m your friend and all… I say this to you out of concern for your well–being…” She smiled with a handful of fries in her mouth. As she chewed, her right eye blinked erratically. The mind of a royal guard might mistake the movement for some kind of facial tic—the mind of a detective sees much more below the surface. It is trained, for instance, to see and decipher morse code. Rainbow continued, “You should stop babbling about this make–believe past of yours. I mean, you, a detective? Give me a break! Twilight and I are doing our best to support you, but I think we’ve been getting a little too caught up in your craziness. You gotta let go of this story of yours. It’s been hurting you and all of your friends who want to help. So don’t mention any of it anymore. Okay?” I looked down at my cleared plate, letting my shoulders drop and voicing a sigh. With a full stomach, my confidence was restored, so much so that I could put on the façade of losing it. If the Cut and Drieds were really watching us, then we had to be vigilant and throw them red herrings to chow down on. Rainbow’s real message was straight to the point: “They’re listening. Featherweight’s house at twelve. Use the rooftops.” My only lead was a child editor, but the picture had never been clearer than now. I had a suspect to pursue and friends to stop me from destroying myself. Nothing, bar an actual mental breakdown, would stop me so long as the trail was hot. As for Lightning Bolt… I was going to need a way to engrave her in my mind.