Diamond Cutter Anthology Entries

by Yukito

Prompt #9 - Diamond Tiara Meets Sergeant Cortez

Prompt: Diamond Tiara meets a fictional character.

---

“I told you, it’s not like that,” Diamond Tiara told Silver Spoon through her cell phone as she paced back-and-forth. “I’m not trying to avoid you! My dad’s sick and he needs me at home all weekend!” A crashing sound above Diamond’s head startled her and caused her to look up. “… T-That was, uh… me. Crashing into the wall. Ouch… I guess I shouldn’t be walking while talking on this thing, huh?

“Look, I’ve really gotta go. I’ll see you on Monday, ‘kay? Yeah. Yeah. Bye.” Diamond hung up the cell phone and sighed. “Honestly, why does she have to make a big deal about everything?” Putting the huge brick of a device into her bag and hiding said bag behind some nearby bushes, Diamond Tiara looked up the wall of the building before her and hummed in thought. “… No open windows… I guess the front door’s out of the question, too. That only leaves the roof.”

Reaching into her gown, Diamond Tiara pulled out a couple of horseshoes and placed them on her hind hooves. She then pressed the buttons on the sides of both shoes and stood up straight, allowing the magic stored within the shoes to spray out and propel her upwards. As she reached the rooftop, she reached down to disable the shoes and landed gracefully on the roof… face-to-face with a suspicious looking bald, pale-coated stallion wearing a combat vest and a pair of goggles over his eyes.

Diamond reached into her gown and pulled out her knife, swinging it forward with the intention of holding it to the stallion’s throat. Instead, the muscular stallion managed to stop her foreleg mid-swing, and simply stared at the mare carefully. “Who are you?” Diamond Tiara asked.

“Name’s Cortez,” the stallion replied. “Mind telling me yours?”

Diamond Tiara gritted her teeth together. “Jade Starling.” Diamond tilted her head to the side, scanning the rooftop and finding a stallion dressed in black armour on the floor. “That’s one of the guards that works here. I’m guessing that means you’re not working for Kingpin?”

“Uh… who?” Cortez asked, releasing the mare’s arm and taking a step back. Diamond Tiara held her position, eyeing the stallion cautiously.

“Kingpin, the boss of this place. You must know him if you’re up here.”

“Not really,” Cortez said, scratching the back of his head. “I just sorta got a little lost.”

“You got lost,” Diamond deadpanned, receiving a nod from the stallion.

“So, about this ‘Kingpin’ guy-”

Diamond sighed and put her knife back into her gown. She walked past Cortez across the building’s rooftop. “Look, I don’t care why you’re here. But I’ve got work to do, so don’t get in my way, okay?”

“Work that requires you to sneak in through the roof?” Cortez asked, watching as Diamond Tiara reached a door and proceeded to pick at the lock with a manepin.

“I’m a spy,” Diamond told him. “Working for the Royal Guard. Kingpin has been suspected of running a slavering for some time now, and I’m here to collect the evidence to lock his fat flank in jail.”

“Sounds like you got a bit of a grudge against him, too,” Cortez said, noting the aggressive tone in Diamond’s voice.

“… When I was a teenager,” Diamond started, “Kingpin scammed my father into a business deal that eventually got him into trouble with the law. My dad was innocent, but because of Kingpin’s slick business approach and intimidating attitude, he had unwittingly participated as an accomplice to embezzlement. However, if I can find the evidence I need here, then dad’s reputation will be saved, and he’ll get back all the money that her lost.”

“I see. Well, I’d like to help you, but I got my own business to attend to,” Cortez said as Diamond finally managed to open the door. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know a guy named Crow, would you?”

“Crow… The name sounds familiar. I think that might have been one of Kingpin’s recent visitors,” Diamond told Cortez.

“Crow visited here?” Cortez put a hoof to his chin and mumbled something for a moment.

Meanwhile, Diamond Tiara pulled out the gun strapped to her left hind leg and proceeded cautiously inside. She spotted a security camera and ducked back out. “Anyway, you should g-”

“Alright, let’s do this!” Cortez shouted as he rushed into the building.

“W-Wait! What’re you-”

“It’s time to split!” Cortez took one step inside, and the sounds of the building’s alarm filled the area.

“YOU IDIOT!” Diamond Tiara shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Uh… Oops?” was all that Cortez could say as he laughed nervously, though his laughter died as he laid eyes on Diamond’s bemused face.

“Intruders!” a stallion’s voice cried, followed by hoofsteps climbing up the stairs inside. “Get ‘em!”

Cortez pulled out his own gun strapped to his left foreleg and fired two rounds. The stallion cried out and tumbled down the stairs. “We going?” Cortez asked Diamond Tiara before charging further inside.

“Wha- Hey!” Diamond ran into the building and watched as Cortez raced down the stairs. “W-Wait up!”

---

Diamond Tiara and her new companion, ‘Sergeant Cortez’, battled their way through an entire floor of armed security guards – none of which seemed to be particularly skilful at aiming – high-tech defence systems, medieval-styled traps, and due to a few navigational difficulties, a penthouse suite where a group of frat colts were having a party. Finally, they reached the elevator that would take them down to where they wanted to go.

“You look familiar,” Diamond told Cortez as they waited for their lift to arrive. “Have we met before.”

“Can’t say we have,” Cortez said with a shrug. “Maybe I just have one of those faces everypony recognises.”

“Sure,” Diamond scoffed. “‘Cause the skinhead look is so in fashion right now. Or the dorky sci-fi goggle look. Or the independent mercenary look.”

“Together, I think they work pretty well,” Cortez remarked.

“When this is over, do yourself a favour: get a makeover.”

“There they are!” a stallion’s voice shouted behind the two. Diamond Tiara sighed.

“They can’t let up for even a moment, can they?” she asked as she ducked for cover behind a corner.

Cortez hid behind the corner opposite to her and readied his gun. “At least they give us some warning, instead of just shooting us in the back.”

“I only brought along two spare magazines,” Diamond said as she checked her current magazine, finding that it was down to its last bullet and replacing it with her first spare.

“Really? To a place this big?” Cortez asked as he threw an extra magazine towards the mare.

She caught the gift and stowed it away for the time being. “It was my intention to enter stealthily,” she told him with a stern glare. She ducked out from behind her cover for just a moment to fire two rounds at the approaching stallions, causing two of them to fall as bullets penetrated their hooves. She quickly took cover again to avoid the incoming shots fired her way.

“Stealth was never really my thing,” Cortez said, jumping out and firing his machine gun at the remaining stallions, which forced them to retreat. “I like to make a big entrance.”

“So I noticed.” The elevator’s ‘ding’ alerted the two to their lift’s arrival. “Let’s go!” Diamond shouted as she motioned for Cortez to get in, holding her gun up to offer him covering fire.

Cortez got the message and entered the lift, soon joined by Diamond Tiara. He hit the button for the doors to close as the incoming stallions fired towards them. Once the doors were closed, Diamond Tiara hit the button for the floor five floors below them. The two took the moment to relax until the elevator arrived at their destination.

And the moment was over as the elevator’s doors opened, revealing a small group of security guards waiting for them outside, guns all pointed towards the two of them. “… Well, buck,” Diamond Tiara said as she raised her forelegs into the air.

“Ah, Miss Tiara,” the stallion standing behind the guards said as he grinned at the cornered mare. “… I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I know your new friend.”

“He’s my new butler,” Diamond said as she glared at the stallion grinning at her. “How did you know it was me, Kingpin?”

“Do not underestimate my intelligence, Miss Tiara,” Kingpin said. “I have eyes everywhere. Even in your Royal Guard.”

Diamond Tiara gritted her teeth together. “So you knew I was coming anyway.”

“Indeed. I was quite surprised to find that my right-hoof was unable to subdue you on the rooftop.”

“I, uh, might have had something to do with that,” Cortez said, raising his hoof to attract the stallion’s attention.

“… And you are?”

“Sergeant Cortez. I’m not here for you, though. I’m looking for one of your clients. Jacob Crow?”

Kingpin turned his attention from Cortez and back to Diamond Tiara. “I must admit, compared to the noisy little brat you were five years ago, you’ve certainly come a long way.”

“Hey!” Cortez cried.

“I worked hard to work my way up the ranks specifically so I could take you down,” Diamond told Kingpin.

“And yet, all this time I’ve been monitoring your progress, making it completely impossible for you to defeat me.” Kingpin reached into his suit’s pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “However, I’ve also taken a keen interest in you over the years. Not just your potential, but the way you’ve matured into such a beautiful young mare.”

“I think I’m gonna barf,” Diamond said in a groggy tone.

Kingpin placed a cigarette into his mouth and lit it. “Now, now, don’t be too hasty, my dear. Think about the situation that you’re in right now.” Diamond Tiara looked around at the five stallions aiming their guns at her. “You can either suffer an ‘unfortunate accident’, or you can drop your weapons and continue living as my beautiful wife.”

Diamond Tiara answered by taking a page from Scootaloo’s book many years ago, gathering saliva inside of her mouth and spitting it at Kingpin. The stallion stumbled back and quickly brought a hoofkerchief up to his face.

“So be it! Shoot them both, right now!”

“Cover your eyes!” Cortez shouted as he dropped something onto the floor. Diamond Tiara had barely a second to react as a blinding light filled the area. She heard gunshots from beside her and opened her eyes again to find Cortez running past five downed stallions and chasing a fleeing Kingpin down the hallway.

Diamond Tiara gave chase, only for two more stallions to approach her from the side. “Freeze!” one of them shouted as they both pointed their guns towards her.

Diamond fired a shot at one of them, bring him down as the other one open fired. Using her agility training from the past five years, Diamond Tiara was able to swiftly and nimbly move about from cover to cover until she reached the remaining stallion and knocked him out with the butt of her gun.

With the lackeys now out of the way, Diamond resumed her chase after Kingpin. She found Cortez waiting for her at the end of the long hallway, just outside of Kingpin’s office. “Damn thing’s locked,” Cortez told her as he turned to see her approach. “Can’t blast our way through this. We need some kinda password.”

“A password…” Diamond pushed Cortez aside and accessed the control panel to the side of the door, skimming through the information that was on it. “One of our sources told us that his name was the password, but there are too many spaces here for that.”

“He got another name?” Cortez asked.

Diamond simply shrugged. “… Actually,” she said, putting a hoof to her chin, “Now that I think about it, when he visited my dad when I was just a filly, I think he told me his full name… Gah! Why can’t I remember it?!”

“Speaking of names, why did he call you ‘Miss Tiara’?”

Diamond waved her hoof dismissively. “My real name is Diamond Tiara. Jade Starling is the alias I use when I don’t trust somepony.”

“What date?”

“Huh?”

“I asked what the date was that you met him,” Cortez explained.

“That’s… It was two days after Hearth’s Warming, when I was nine years old, so twelve years ago.”

“Anya, you catch that?” Cortez asked, confusing Diamond Tiara.

“I got it. I’m setting the co-ordinates now,” a voice said from the strange device on Cortez’s left foreleg.

“Alright, don’t go anywhere!” Cortez told Diamond Tiara as he pushed something on the device. “I’ll be right back with the password!”

A blue light enveloped Cortez and he vanished, leaving a confused Diamond Tiara alone at the scene.

---

Diamond Tiara sipped her hot chocolate and sighed as she rested in her comfortable beanbag seat, enjoying the sweet life of being a child out of school for the holidays. “Too bad there’s a storm outside. Guess I’ll have to just find something to do without Silver Spoon.

A flash of light shined through the cracks of Diamond’s bedroom door, and she paused for a second to stare at her door with a confused look on her face.

Suddenly, the door opened, and in ran a bald stallion, panting as he stared at the filly in the room. “You Diamond Tiara?”

Diamond Tiara threw her hot chocolate at the stallion, who merely deflected it with his hoof, and backed up as far as she could into a corner. “W-Who are you?! Daddyyyyy!”

“N-Now hold on!” the stallion pleaded, approaching the filly cautiously as she continued to back away as far as she could. “Just relax! There’s no need to fear me!”

“You’re a stranger in my house, and you look like somepony who’d kill me without a second thought!” Diamond told him. “Why shouldn’t I fear you?!”

‘Do I really look that scary?’ Cortez thought to himself before shaking it off. “Because I’m… I’m not real.”

Diamond raised an eyebrow at that. “W-What?”

“Right. I’m just a figment of your imagination.” There was a moment’s pause. “A dream! That’s right, this is all just a… hot chocolate-induced dream!”

“… It is?” Diamond asked.

“Of course. I mean, why else would a strange looking stallion just suddenly be in your house?” Cortez held up his left foreleg and showed off the device attached to it. “And just look at this,” he said as he brought up a map of Ponyville for her to see. “Do things like this exist in the real world?”

“… I guess not,” Diamond said, calming down and sighing with relief as she realised she wasn’t in any danger. “So you’re just a dream…”

“That’s right, and I was wondering if you could-”

“Hold on.” Diamond closed her eyes and concentrated. Cortez gave her a puzzled look.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to dream up Apple Bloom losing her farm and having to become my servant in order to make any money,” Diamond said with a grin. “You can go away. I don’t like dreaming about scary-looking stallions.”

Cortez turned around to look into the mirror beside him. ‘Maybe I need to grow some hair. Or maybe it’s the goggles.’ Turning back to the filly, Cortez nodded. “Alright, I’ll go. But before I do, you have to answer a question: what was the full name of that stallion who came to visit your father yesterday?”

Diamond Tiara opened her eyes and glared at the stallion still standing in her room. “You mean King Tenpin?”

‘‘King Tenpin’?’ Cortez nodded. “Uh, I guess so.”

“Well that’s his name, and I’ve told it to you, but I don’t see you going.”

“Alright, I’ve got what I needed. Thanks, kid. Tiiiime to split.”

Cortez pushed the button on his device and was enveloped by a blue light, before disappearing in front of Diamond Tiara’s very eyes.

“… Oh, I know! I’ll also make Scootaloo carry all my luggage to my new Canterlot suite!” With a maniacal giggle, Diamond Tiara closed her eyes again and resumed trying to manipulate her dream.

---

Diamond Tiara filed her hooves as she waited outside of Kingpin’s office for Cortez to return from… wherever he went. She had waited for five minutes… “I’ll wait another minute, and then I’m looking for another way in.”

As she said that, a flash of light appeared before her. Cortez jumped out of the flash of light and gave the startled mare a grin. “I’m back.”

“W-What the hay?! Where did you go?”

“Just a quick trip. I got the password,” Cortez told Diamond, turning to the console and pushing some buttons. “Turns out the guy’s name is really ‘King Tenpin’.”

Diamond slammed a forehoof into her face. “Of course! How could I forget a name that dumb?”

The door opened and the two ran inside. They found Kingpin sitting at his desk, looking up at them and jumping out of his seat. “H-How’d you get in here?!”

“Hooves in the air!” Diamond ordered as she pointed her gun at the stallion, who quickly obeyed her, panic spreading on his face as the two slowly approached him. She reached into her gown and pulled out a pair of hoofcuffs.

“How much stuff do you have under there?” Kingpin asked, raising an eyebrow as Diamond Tiara bound his forehooves.

“I borrowed this from Pinkie Pie,” she explained, turning to Kingpin’s computer and clicking the mouse a few times. A smile graced her face. “Well well. With all this, we can have you locked away for the rest of your life.”

“Anything on there about Crow?” Cortez asked.

Diamond nodded. “He bought some kind of machine from this building’s lab department, but it’s still here. He’s picking it up… today!”

“Alright! Time to spl-”

“Just go,” Diamond said flatly, pushing some buttons on Kingpin’s computer. “I’m gonna call my boss from here and let him know I’ve captured this guy.”

“… Uh, sure. Thanks for your help.” Diamond Tiara watched as Cortez ran towards the door, smiling as she was just about to call out to thank him… before a second Cortez ran into the room from around the corner and stopped the first Cortez in his tracks. “Whoa!”

“Hey! Going after Crow?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Well you’ll need this.” The second Cortez gave the first an ID card. “Lab’s up on the floor above this one. Remember, it’s the red wire.”

“Red? Got it, thanks!”

The two Cortezs ran out of the room and went their separate ways, leaving the stunned Diamond Tiara and Kingpin gaping at the open door, not quite sure as to what they had just seen.

“Who is this?” a gruff voice asked from Kingpin’s computer, snapping Diamond Tiara out of her daze.

“S-Sir! This is Diamond Tiara, reporting from Kingpin’s computer!”

“Agent Tiara? I take it you’ve captured Kingpin, then?”

“Yes, sir! And I’ve got all the evidence we need to bring him down.” Diamond considered telling her boss about the strange stallion she had run into on the building’s rooftop, who had helped her reach Kingpin’s room and somehow found out the password to his office… when she suddenly realised why her looked so familiar. ‘T-That guy who suddenly came into my room and made me think I was dreaming!’

“Good work, Tiara! I’ll send an armoured chariot to pick you up. Remain where you are until then.”

‘But, he looks the same as he did back then. Does that mean he hasn’t aged? Why were there two of them? How did he-’

“Agent Tiara?”

Diamond closed her hanging jaw and fell back into the chair standing behind her. “… Sir? I think I’d like to file that vacation request now…”

Author's Note:

So I had a bit of a tough time deciding who in the wide world of Otaku fandom I wanted DT to meet and interact with.

Going zombie hunting with Leon F. Kennedy? Yes.
Going on a blind date with Sephiroth? Yessssss.
Being adopted by YGO:Abridged Marik and Bakura? I wish I had thought of that before actually writing this, but oh well.

I just had a quick look around my room and my eyes landed on TimeSplitters. Good series, lots of nostalgic value, so I figured: 'Eh, sure, I'll go for it.'

Of course, meeting Luna (the cat from Sailor Moon, not the Princess from FiM) and becoming a sailor scout would have also been nice, but something like that would have become a very long entry. Not to mention Secret Agent Diamond Tiara is just awesome.

Comments

[Mattricole]

Awesome entry, though I know nothing of Time Splitters

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I know nothing of it, either. But this was entertaining.