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Motion

Conway stared in shock at the stallion that had just exited Celestia's en suite. He was wearing pretty much the exact same set of clothing as Conway, but in a darker tone of grey than Conway's hat. His trenchcoat, for instance, looked to be made of leather, and he had a black, wide-brimmed fedora. And instead of having the coat done up, he had it wide open, revealing a formal shirt underneath. The thing that was catching Conway's eye about the shirt and jacket was the small piece of patchwork on both in roughly the same place, so it wasn't too difficult to remember who this grey, brown-maned stallion was. Both simply stood in the room, slowly returning to light as Celestia re-kindled the fireplace and dragging Corporal Plate to the wardrobe. Neither was making any noticeable reaction to the other, and Celestia's chambers remained quiet as they watched each other. Finally, to break the silence, Conway spoke.

"Evening." he greeted calmly.

"Certainly is." replied Hightower. "How's the back?"

"Good enough. And your chest?"

"Healed up. Jacket's buggered, though."

"Sorry, then. Bear in mind you threw me out of a seven story building the moment I left a stairwell, and I have reason to question the logic behind forcing us to work together."

"Bear in mind that my employer was stood on the other side of the door and watching through a CCTV camera, and I have reason to question the same as you, plus why Princess Celestia decided to summon us both here." Both Freelancers stared at each other for another few moments, the rain pattering on the window slowly becoming more noticeable, as well as the sound of smooth jazz coming from an unknown source. Conway turned and looked at Celestia, who was fiddling with a record player using magic.

"And that explains the smooth jazz," remarked Conway. "When are we going to get to business?" Celestia rolled her eyes, and trotted over to the two of them.

"To begin, I suppose it would make sense to explain why I need you two in specific." she said calmly, turning to the mirror. Putting her horn aglow, in a feat that Conway was well aware of as magic, and caused the mirror to swirl gently as though it were a liquid. Through the ripples, however, an image became visible; a white stallion with blonde hair and a bow tie. He was walking (or as Conway would never get used to using the word, 'trotting') down a long, marble hallway. On both sides of the long hall, large doors loomed high, guarded by stallions sparsely populating the hall. Then, the white stallion halted next to a plant pot. Looking both way, his horn began to glow blue, and a plantpot raised up, revealing an elevator-like shaft beneath. Being sure he wasn't being watched, (which was made pointless since Celestia was able to stalk him like this) he clambered down, and the pot slid down on top. Then the mirror returned to normal. Hightower and Conway stared at this for a few moments more.

"Why were you stalking him in the first place?" Conway asked. Celestia facehoofed.

"Business." she snapped. "Anyway, that was the last time we saw Prince Blueblood, and it was about 2 days ago from this point. We, we being my sister and I, have reason to believe that he has been plotting against us. He has not returned any phone calls, and his credit card activity has gone dry."

"He's gone off the grid." Hightower said calmly. "What do you want us to do?" Conway leaned over and nudged him. In his other hoof was the Resolver that was in his coat.

"Eh, 6 bullets in this magazine?" he suggested. Hightower chuckled, and pulled out a rather nice looking Ocean Hawk, complete with suppressor. It, like anything else that was with them when they went to this magical happy land, was modified to work with a hoof.

"8 armour piercing rounds." smirked Conway's counterpart. However, before they could get into a dick-measuring contest over whose weapon was better, both were snatched away in a golden light, floating next to Celestia. She did not look impressed.

"No, I don't want him killed." she said sternly. After a pause, she spoke again. "Well, not obviously. Maybe he could just 'disappear'. Anyway, my idea is for you to do what you do best."

"Kill people." Hightower said 'excitedly', which consisted of him not changing his facial expression.

"Deleting System 32." Conway said 'excitedly', which was pretty much the same thing as his counterpart.

"Even better." Celestia grinned. "Hacking."

"...so, the invisibility spell will wear off in about twenty minutes from the moment you leave this room." Celestia finished, as her horn returned to normal and Conway and Hightower returned to normal. "It's the best I can do without alerting the whole castle to your presence."

"Surely you could make it last longer?" Conway asked. "You move the sun, for Christ's sake. Just make it an 'on-off' kind of thing." Celestia shot him a glare, that said 'bear in mind your limit is 12 stories high'.

"I can't just change magic. It's physically impossible without writing a new spell, and doing that is time-consuming and a bit cheap to use." she explained. "But what you need to do is set up any equipment you need, and then get out of the castle. I have a stallion waiting at the bench on 24th street, and he has the keys and information about your accomodation for the next while. Unfortunately, it's in Ponyville." Conway cocked his head.

"What, is it like the pony equivalent of Detroit or something?" Celestia shot him the 'how many floors is your limit' look, in completely the wrong direction. He was to her right, but he was just going to play along with it. "You make it out to be a bad place." he continued.

"The city you lived in was a bad place." Celestia replied. "Your flat was a bad place. Intex's office that you so fondly remember the concrete outside of was a bad place. Ponyville is a nice place, where everybody strives to make friends."

"Already hate it." Hightower muttered.

"I already hate you." she shot back, looking at Conway. "Anyway, you'll be staying in a holiday home near the centre of the town, and it's not too far from one of the main tourist attractions; The Elements of Harmony."

"Is that a science town?" Conway asked. Celestia didn't respond. "Y'know, Elements? Of, elements, y'know, like, of the sciencey-material variety, ah, screw it, you don't get it."

"No, Richard, I do get it. You just don't look very cool explaining it." she sighed. Just then, a phone levitated in front of her after being removed from the jacket, its holder invisible. "Wait, what are you doing?" she asked frustratedly.

"Changing your name." Conway replied calmly. "Rooke...delete the name...C-E-L-L-Y. Celly. There, sorted." Celestia facehoofed in response as the phone slipped into Conway's jacket again.

"Just get going. Set up your Wirejacks in the maintenance room, then get to 24th street to get the keys. You'll want to use the train tickets to get down to Ponyville, and then go to the specified address. Kitchen is already being stocked by my pupil, just be sure to thank her. She's quite the character." Finally, Celestia stepped to the side. "Off you go." Both men looked in what they assumed was each others general direction. The distinctive sound of hissing was heard, and Celestia could only hope they weren't discovered as they left.

For society's sake.

"I've set up a Wirejack for the lights and doors, plus the alarms. You?"

"Any weapons in the building and most security equipment. Did she say why we can't be on the same circuits?"

"Nope, she complained about me being so brash. Me? Richard Conway? Brash? I think not."

"If you could say that falling out of windows and punching the same guy 596 times isn't brash, then I agree."

"What? I just really don't like Gessler."

"Oh my God, you're SO obnoxious. Christ. Anyway, we've got about 5 minutes of invisibility left. If we use it to get out of here, then nobody will care if we're wandering about the streets looking for, ah, 23rd street, was it?"

"24th. And the politically correct term is 'everypony."

"For God's sake, Conway, I don't give a damn. Now how're we getting out?"

"Oh look, a window."

"Conway, no. No...no, for GOD'S SAKE, DO-Aww, Jesus, you did it anyway."

"Yes. God, I've not done that in a while. And my hat isn't even damaged. This hat, is just...wow."

"Conway, you've pretty much killed us both."

"No, if anything, I saved us, for your information. If we did it your way, we'd have spent 4 minutes finding the exit, and then one minute galloping along to make sure we got out before our invisibility ran out. Plus, I used the Hushcracker. If anybody heard that, they were the window itself."

"Just...wow. Let's get out, before you decide to shoot somebody."

"You'd be the one to do that, with your '8 round armour piercing' thing."

"Shut up."

"No, U."

By the time they had reached Ponyville, the night-time had intensified. Their 'holiday house', as it was called, was only a few blocks away from the Train Station, and the walking was negated by leaping from roof to roof, wall to wall, and top of building to flat on face. During the ride, Conway had been busy trying to lift his phone using magic, but had only lifted it a few inches. Still, progress. He didn't feel as though it would be an easy feat to teleport things, like Celly had done between dimensions with Hightower and himself, but levitation was cool enough in itself. He hadn't, however, noticed Hightower leave the carriage when he claimed to be going to the toilet (a recent addition since a certain pink customer found it an irritation), and going to the generator up front that was powering the train. Effectively, that gave Hightower the power to move a train using his phone, and that was pretty cool in itself. Both were out to outdo the other, and at the moment, nobody was winning, because nothing 'outdo' worthy had been done.

Finally, after what seemed like several self-broken-nose repairs, they had made it to their home. It was, to be honest, quite boring. A small garden, moderately large, and was made of tired old wood and hay, and the lights were out. The instructions had mentioned to 'switch on the power when inside' before anything else, and that only added to the depressing nature of the building. "Needs more bacon." Conway deduced brilliantly, hopping over the fence, picking himself up, dusting himself off, and then being followed by Hightower, who followed him expertly. Hightower was about to put the key in, when Conway raised a hoof to halt him. Lighting his horn with a crackling blue light, abeit very dim and jolting, he began to levitate the key to the lock. Slipping it in, both men were in a constant state of 'yeah, yeah, YEAH, COME ON' as he got it in the lock. Then, turning it, the door clicked open, and they both erupted into cheers.

But very quiet ones.

As he got inside, Conway was almost tempted to remove his hat and coat. Again, almost. As he switched on the power, attached a Wirejack to it from his infinite supply of the things, he was greeted by a blinding flash of light all of a sudden.

"SURPRISE!" yelled lots of ponies from around the room. The last time he was in a situation as surprising as this he was falling from 7 stories as his current companion threw him to the floor and began punching him, to which Conway responded by shooting him in the gut. Anyway he didn't like parties. How his mind wandered. He had no time to frown, as a pink blur jumped in front of his vision.

"Hi!" announced a cheerful voice. Looking at who it was, he saw a pink mare, with a curly pink mane and a bunch of balloons on her butt. She also had an abnormally large grin. "I'm Pinkie Pie, party-planner extraordinaire, and I threw this HUGE party just for you and your friend! Isn't it GREAT?!" While first tempted to say no, Conway had a strange and depressing vision of this mare looking very sadly at him and regretted his idea.

"Yeah...it is..." Conway sighed. "Look, I'm here to stay for abou-" Before he could finish explaining why he was here in a way that didn't imply he was a spy, she had bounced away to go piss off Hightower. Only one thought crossed Conway's mind as he moved into the crowds to meet new people.

'God, I could use some Ketamine and Columbo right now.'

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