XIV: Assistance Required
Diamond Tiara trudged through the dirty snow that covered the alleyway, barely keeping her head above it. "What's taking them so long in there? It's cold out here!" she shouted, finally climbing up onto a discarded cardboard box. The wet cardboard sank beneath her weight, crumpling to the ground. Diamond Tiara closed her eyes and took a deep breath before shouting, "Tiffany! Pick me up! I want to go back in the backpack now!"
"Please be quiet!" Celestia hissed. "Something is happening."
Tiffany picked up Diamond Tiara as instructed and walked over to the door Celestia was peering through. "Is it my daddy?" she asked, peeking inside. Celestia tried to keep Tiffany away, but didn't react fast enough.
At the end of the room, Tiffany saw her father with his hands in the air while a woman pointed a gun at him. He looked scared, and his expression changed to fear as he saw his daughter looking at him from the exit. Several men in black suits walked into the room and one grabbed David, throwing him to the ground.
"Daddy!"
Celestia slammed the door shut, preventing Tiffany from running inside. "Go! Move!" the pony shouted, pushing against the girl's legs with her hooves.
"But my daddy—!" Tiffany shouted, reaching for the door's metal handle. She tugged at it, but it had locked from the inside.
"Tiffany, we have to get out of here!" Celestia insisted, trying to push the little girl toward the opening of the alley. "Please!" she begged.
Diamond Tiara hopped out of the backpack and began assisting Celestia in herding Tiffany away from the door. "Come on! Move!" she shouted. With their combined strength, they managed to will Tiffany to move where they wanted her to.
She stumbled and sobbed out of the alley, trying to look back at the door. "My daddy!" she cried. "We have to help my daddy!"
"It's too dangerous," Celestia said, continuing to push Tiffany. "It's no good if we get captured too."
They came out on the street unnoticed, several yards away from the crowd of PETA members. The ponies pushed Tiffany in the opposite direction, trying to get as far away from the animal hospital as they could. Once they were a fair way up the street, they stopped to look back.
The front door of the animal hospital opened and David was dragged out in handcuffs. Camera crews struggled to get the best shot as he was escorted into the back of a police van. "I'm under contract!" David shouted as he was forced into the waiting vehicle. "I'm under contract!"
The door to the van slammed shut and the police vehicle drove off, followed by several of the government vans and news crews. Tiffany wanted to chase after them, but her ponies pulled her into the shadows of an alley. Once the vehicles were out of sight, they allowed her to walk back onto the sidewalk.
"Who were those people?" Diamond Tiara asked.
"I'm not sure, but something tells me that Discord planned on their appearance," Celestia replied.
Tiffany sat down on the cold sidewalk and began sobbing into her arms. "My daaaaaddy. I want my daaaaaddy."
Celestia and Diamond Tiara looked at the little girl and felt a bit of shame. All she had wanted was a pony—a friend—and now she was being put through this. Celestia approached her while Diamond Tiara stayed back and watched.
"Tiffany, I'm sorry. We'll help you get your father back, but right now we need your help," she said softly. Tiffany buried her face deeper into the puffy arms of her winter jacket, refusing to look at the pony. "We need you to be a big girl, come on, get up."
Diamond Tiara pushed Celestia out of the way and shot her a dirty look. "Tiffany doesn't need to do anything. She just had her dad taken away from her—if anything, we need to help her."
"How can we help her?" Celestia asked defensively. "We're just strangers in this world."
"Yeah, and she's like, seven years old! She's just as helpless as we are!" Diamond Tiara replied. "Let's at least find her mom, or something."
Tiffany wiped away the mucus trailing from her nose and grabbed Diamond Tiara for an embrace. "I love you, Diamond Tiara," she said, rubbing her face into the pony's fur.
"Okay, yeah, that's enough of that, let me go," Diamond Tiara said, rolling her eyes.
"After we find her mother, we must find a unicorn and contact my sister," Celestia said firmly. "Now, Tiffany, do you know where your mother is?"
"She's at my Auntie Jen's," Tiffany replied, standing up.
"Oh good," Diamond Tiara said sarcastically. "We can go back and see Becky."
Celestia grimaced at the thought. "So be it. I feel like they’re going to be slightly more reluctant to help us, though."
Snow started to fall from the clouds above, and Tiffany placed her ponies into her backpack. She fell into the flow of foot traffic and tried to figure out where she was. At every intersection, she would stop and stare at the street signs, ultimately choosing whichever path more people took.
It was the first time Tiffany had been on the New York streets without either of her parents. She knew not to talk to strangers, and to always yield at crosswalks, but not what to do when she got lost. The further she walked, the more she felt she was going the wrong way.
Finally, she had to stop to rest, and she set the backpack down on the bench next to her. Diamond Tiara popped her head out and looked around in disgust. "Aren't we there yet?" she asked, undoing the zipper and scrambling out. Celestia climbed out as well and craned her neck over the back of the bench.
"I don't know where we are," Tiffany said, defeated. She began to pout, getting the attention of an elderly black woman. The woman shuffled over with her walker and looked at Tiffany through foggy glasses.
"Ya'll right, little girl?" she asked. She took no notice of the two ponies as she went to sit beside Tiffany. They scrambled out of the way and onto Tiffany's lap. "Oops, I didn't see your puppies there, I'm sorry," the woman apologized.
"They're not puppies," Tiffany wiped her nose on her sleeve, "and I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
"No need to fret about me, child. I was just checkin' if you was okay," the woman replied with understanding. The old woman set her large handbag on her lap and began rummaging through it. "Let me see if I have any tissues for you in here," she said.
While the old woman searched for her package of travel tissues, Celestia crawled over Tiffany to address the woman. "Excuse me," Celestia said as politely as possible. "Do you think you could give us some directions?"
The old woman didn't even look up as she said, "I think I can. Where are you tryin' to get to, child?" Celestia turned to Tiffany and motioned for her to talk.
"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," Tiffany whispered to her pony.
Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes. "We're looking for an ice cream place," she said, addressing the woman. She turned back to Tiffany and asked, "What was it called? Jen and Berry's?"
"Oh, the Ben and Jerry's? Why, that's just up the street here," the woman said, absentmindedly pointing a boney finger east while still digging through her bag. "Are you and your puppies going for ice cream?" She finally managed to find the tissues she'd been searching for, and she looked over to see the ponies staring at her. "They're cute, little things, they are."
"Yeah, thanks," Diamond Tiara said, taking the tissues from the woman and passing them to Tiffany. The woman stared blankly at the pony and watched as it hopped off the bench. "Let's go already," the pony said impatiently.
Tiffany quickly blew her nose, then scooped up the ponies back into her backpack. As she walked up the street the woman had indicated, Celestia poked her head out of the backpack to look at the dumbfounded woman. "Thank you for your help," the filly said before ducking back inside.
"We're not supposed to talk to strangers," Tiffany scolded her ponies as she walked through the crowded sidewalk.
"From what I've seen so far, that's good advice," Celestia replied, "but we cannot assume everyone has ill intentions."
"David's the only good one we've met, and look what happened to him," Diamond Tiara whispered so only Celestia would hear her. "I don't trust any of them except this one," she said, lightly prodding Tiffany's back.
The Ben and Jerry's that they'd been to the day before came into view, and Tiffany finally recognized where she was. The sun was starting to go down somewhere above the clouds, and the foot traffic began to dissipate. Snow collected on the sidewalk, and Tiffany trudged through it as quickly as she could.
She could see Central Park at the end of the street, and she counted the house numbers until she came to 115. The front light was off, and the curtains were drawn, giving the appearance that no one was home. Regardless, Tiffany ran up the steps and pounded her mitten against the door.
A few moments passed, and when no one came to open the door, Tiffany knocked again. "Auntie Jen! Mommy!" she shouted when still no one answered. Out of desperation, she tried turning the knob. Surprisingly, the door was unlocked, and the knob turned all the way in her hand.
She pushed open the large door and rushed into the hallway of the home. The lights were on, and the sound of a television echoed from the living room. Tiffany closed the door behind her and waited for someone to come greet her. "Hello?" she called down the hall. No one answered, so Tiffany assumed they didn't hear her over the television. She sat down to take off her winter boots, and the ponies hopped out of her backpack.
"So what's the plan now, huh?" Diamond Tiara asked Celestia. "Are we just going to wander the streets, asking strangers if they've seen any unicorns? Because if that's your plan, I'm just going to stay here with Tiffany."
"No," Celestia replied with indifference. "I'm going to ask one of these humans for help. I'm sure now that one of their own has been captured, they'll be a little more willing to help us."
"Don't be so sure," Diamond Tiara said out of the corner of her mouth.
Tiffany finished taking off her boots and stood up. "Mommy?" she called out again. There was still no answer, so she began shuffling down the hallway. The ponies followed her, listening to the sounds of the distant television. It sounded like a cartoon or a kid's show was playing from the sounds of the voices coming from the room.
When Tiffany rounded the corner, she expected to see her cousin on the floor with her remaining pony while the adults sat on the couch talking about adult things. Instead, she found the room empty, and the seventy-two inch television showing a re-run of Monster High. She stared at the screen and then looked around in confusion.
"No one is here," she said, looking back to her ponies.
"Maybe they're upstairs?" Celestia asked, but Tiffany shook her head.
"Auntie Jen never leaves the TV on, and Becky hates Monster High," she replied.
"Yeah, they’re gone," a familiar voice said from behind them.
Diamond Tiara, Celestia, and Tiffany all turned to see Scootaloo crawling out from behind the couch. The little pegasus filly was shaking and her eyes darted left and right as she cautiously left her hiding place.
"Yeah, we see that," Diamond Tiara said bluntly. "Where did they go? And why are you still here?"
Scootaloo put her ears down and looked at the floor. "I don't know," she replied. "These other humans showed up and started asking lots of questions. I hid in Becky's toy box and when I came out, they were all gone."
"I want my mommy," Tiffany sobbed. The three ponies looked to the little girl as tears began rolling down her face. "And I want my daddy, and I'm hungry, and, and—" her words broke down into incoherent sobs.
"Tiffany, stop it," Diamond Tiara said, putting one hoof onto the little girl's shoulder. She shrugged it off and continued crying. Diamond Tiara turned to Scootaloo and said, "Look, can we get her something to eat at least?"
Scootaloo nodded and ran off to the kitchen while Celestia and Diamond Tiara ushered Tiffany onto the living room couch. The television kept Tiffany's attention until Scootaloo returned with a box of Pop Tarts which she placed on the coffee table. "I've seen Becky eat these," Scootaloo said, watching Tiffany remove a foil wrapped toaster pastry from within the box. "She wouldn't let me have any," she added with some resentment.
"Let's let her eat," Celestia said, beckoning for the other two ponies to follow her out of the room.
"Wait, don't go," Tiffany cried. She carefully divided one of her two Pop Tarts into three even pieces and held them out to the ponies. "Stay and watch Monster High with me."
Without hesitation, Scootaloo grabbed one of the crumbling pieces of pastry and stuffed it into her mouth. She then hopped onto the couch and sat herself as close to Tiffany as possible. "You're waaay nicer than Becky," Scootaloo said, cuddling right up to her in hopes of getting another Pop Tart.
Diamond Tiara was disgusted by the act. "So, we're just going to sit and watch cartoons now? Not going to 'try to get home' or 'rescue the humans' or 'stop Discord'?"
"Everything in due time," Celestia said, opting not to eat the Pop Tart, but choosing to join Scootaloo on the couch. "We should wait here in hopes that someone comes looking for Tiffany."
Hours passed, and still no one had shown up to the house. Tiffany could no longer stay awake and drifted to sleep surrounded by the three ponies. "Oh, finally," Diamond Tiara sighed, prodding the little girl to make sure she was really asleep. "I can't take anymore of, well, whatever this is."
She grabbed the remote to the television and began skimming through the channels. Sitcoms and commercials flicked by as the filly went through the hundreds of channels, not really looking for something to watch, just enjoying the power of controlling the television.
"How can you even tell what's on?" Scootaloo asked impatiently. She made a grab for the remote, but Diamond Tiara pulled away.
"Oh, I can tell, and it's all garbage," she said, continuing to mash on the remote's buttons. Scootaloo made another swipe at the remote and instead fell off the couch and onto the floor. Diamond Tiara stifled a snort of laughter, trying not to wake Tiffany.
Celestia was staring intently at the screen as each channel flashed by when suddenly she shouted, "Stop!" Diamond Tiara was so startled by the outburst that she dropped the remote, which landed with a thunk onto Scootaloo's head. "Quick, go back two channels," Celestia said frantically.
Scootaloo rubbed her head and grabbed the remote off the carpet which was immediately snatched up by Diamond Tiara. She changed the channel back as commanded and was both shocked and disgusted by what she saw on the screen. "Oh, gross, is that Snips? Why is he wearing a suit?"
"This is perfect," Celestia exclaimed, jumping from the couch and pointing at the screen as if the other two fillies couldn't see it. "We've found our unicorn," she said happily. "Now, we just need to find this Potamkin Manhatten."
"Potamkin Manhattan is located at 706 11th Ave, open from nine to eight, come on down for a test drive today," a man's voice said quickly at the end of the commercial.
Tiffany had awoken from all the commotion and was rubbing her eyes. "What's going on?" she asked sleepily.
"Tiffany, do you know where 706 11th Ave is?" Celestia asked hopefully. Unfortunately, all she received back was a blank stare and the shake of the little girl's head.
"Ugh, did it really have to be Snips? He's so weird!" Diamond Tiara growled, shutting off the television. "I would have taken Sweetie Belle over him."
"You've got a crush on him," Scootaloo said coyly from under the coffee table. Diamond Tiara's face turned more pink than usual and she lunged at the pegasus filly.
"I do not!" she shouted, her voice cracking.
Celestia simply ignored the two and took a deep breath before turning back to Tiffany. "If you help us find our friend Snips, we'll help you find your father," she said gently.
"And my mommy?" Tiffany asked trying to hold back tears. Celestia nodded and was met with an embrace from the little girl. "Okay, I'll help," she said.
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Celestia is really loosing control of thing, her aptitude at planning included.
Well, this is a surprise to say the least. Glad to see this finally return to the light, but WOW what a somber tone.
Oh fic, where have you been all my life?
This is brilliant, and is instantly liked and added to my favourites. Hopefully, now you've had a nice long break, you'll be able to finish it. Huzzah!!
So the G-Men (or the real world equivalent) are involved now.
No phone number on the screen? Ah well, I guess we can chalk that plot-dependent oversight up to the ponies not being able to read and Tiffany having blurry vision from crying herself out.
Well I'm pleased to see the story continues. Finishing a FIM Fic is enough to earn you a banana sticker!
Great to see this up and running again.
Also, great to see Celestia formulating a plan.
Also, also great to see Scoots enjoying pop tarts!
Not also great is Tiffany enjoying Monster High(TM)! That's owned by Mattel. No wonder Becky hates it...
This is a work of art. I've been Binge-reading up until now. so excited to see how it ends!
That reminds me. I need to pay this Discord a-... what's the word I'm thinking of?
Krillin: A visit?
A beating! That's right! Gonna pay him a beating.
6996594 I'm glad you're enjoying it, and you picked a good time to pick it up. I may actually finish it within the next month.
6996721
10/10!
6997252 Can I give Discord a beating?
6997252
Welcome back. We have missed you.
This wasn't a one-shot? ...wow.
I forgot I had favorited this. It took a while to remember what it was about. Eventually I did. Then the hype hit.