Wild Card: Two of A Kind

by Barrel-of-fun

Smuggler Hunting 101

When Ace came downstairs the next morning, he was greeted by the unusual sight of Gale and Melissa chatting amicably over two bowls of what could generously be called porridge. Considering the surly attitude of the diamond dog the previous night, Ace thought she would never warm up to the group and yet the two females were getting along as though they had known each other for years.

Shrugging, he approached the bar, “Good morning, may I ask what fine food you serve here?”

“Porridge.” The stallion spat out before going back to the seemingly endless task of cleaning a glass.

“You wouldn’t happen to have anything else would you?”

The surly bartender fixed him with a cold glare, “Porridge.” He said again, as though the word was the only thing that mattered. He then seemed to think otherwise, “Could spit in it if you like? For flavour.”

Ace stared at the bartender, honestly trying to gauge just how serious the pony was. An awkward silence stretched out between the two as the satyr waited for the bartender to crack a grin at his own joke, a grin that seemed to never be coming.

“Just porridge will be fine thanks.” Ace said eventually, giving up on the stoic stallion.

After receiving and paying for his food, he swept it up and carried it over to Gale and Melissa’s table, plonking himself down opposite the two.

“Morning ladies, how are we today?”

The two shared a look, incidentally causing Ace’s instincts to tell him that he should flip the table in their faces and run. He fought these instincts though, and decided that there was only a small chance that the two had decided to kill him. It was purely coincidental that most female criminals he met ended up wanting him dead after all.

“Curious, mostly.” Melissa started, snapping Ace out of his memories.

“Oh, what about?”

This time, Gale spoke up, “What exactly are we going to do next? I mean, you do have a plan don’t you?”

Ace almost choked on his porridge, though that might just have been because there was something unidentifiable floating in it, “A plan? Of course I have a plan. What sort of person decides to go against a massive international smuggling ring without some sort of plan?” He slurped down some more watery porridge, desperately buying for time, “But! I think there’s a better question here. Melissa, what are you doing in Cloudsdale?”

The brawler looked up in surprise, “Me?”

“Yes,” Ace replied, seizing this line of thought, “It’s unusual to see a diamond dog in a sky city isn’t it?”

“Well there isn’t a lot of us up here,” She grunted, “But it’s not like I’m the only one. There’s another dog up here I was tracking down, one of the escapees from Redcliff’s mine. I wanted to ask him what exactly happened there but now I know I guess there’s no point.” She sniffed, “Good thing too, he’s not an easy dog to find.”

“Oh? Having trouble tracking him?”

The glare she sent him once again set off Ace’s table-flipping instincts, though this time possibly with good reason, “On the ground there would be no problem. Up here though scents don’t stay around long. How ponies manage to live their entire lives up here I’ll never understand.” She shook her head, muttering something that sounded like ‘don’t ever look down.’ “Anyway, a source told me after some convincing that he had fallen in with ‘untrustworthy folk.’”

“Sounds fun,” Gale remarked between slurps of porridge. It was fascinating to see how the pegasus could eat something so disgusting without any qualms. Her stomach must be made of iron, Ace mused.

“I was going to hunt him down today, but it looks like that is off the menu now.” Melissa poked at her own porridge with a wooden spoon, looking slightly disgusted by Gale’s enthusiasm.

“Not necessarily.” Ace announced, getting the two’s full attention, “Sounds like he might already be connected to Cloudsdale’s underworld.” He paused for a second, “Wait, can a flying city have an underworld? Overworld?” He waved a hand and shook his head, “Nevermind, I’ll ponder that later. In the meantime, let’s ditch this weird breakfast and find ourselves an informant.”

“That’s more like it.” Melissa replied with a grin, standing up and pushing her porridge away at the same time as Ace.

“Just a second guys,” Gale said, scooping both bowls towards her with her wings and proceeding to guzzle them down, much to her comrade’s horror, “What? It would be criminal to waste food like that.”

The satyr let his face drop into his hand, “Gale, we are criminals. You know that right?”

She wiped her face and looked up at him, “Duh, but still, waste not want not and all that. Besides, that was some pretty decent porridge.”

Unseen by the pegasus, Melissa and Ace shared a look of mutual pity for their fellow.

---

Much to Ace’s disappointment, finding the dog in question had actually been pathetically easy. Perhaps it was the last few months he had spent tracking down and combatting an actually competent criminal agency, or perhaps it was simply the fact that Equestria just didn’t do crime as well as Earth did. Whatever the reason, it was barely an hour later that the three were standing outside the small apartment that the landlord assured them was owned by their target.

“So, what’s our plan of action?” Gale asked, standing back and letting her two more veteran comrades take the lead.

Ace knelt down to examine the lock, reaching into his belt to retrieve some tools, “Well this is a pretty cheap lock, it shouldn’t take-“

He was cut off by a speeding paw flying past his face and hitting the door, breaking the lock in an explosion of splinters and leaving it hanging by a single hinge. Shrugging, Melissa walked past the stunned thief and through the destruction she had caused.

“So,” Gale’s voice perked up from behind him, “In the Thieving 101 Syllabus, exactly where does that particular lesson come in?”

“Employee communication.” Ace muttered, picking a few stray splinters out of his hair as he followed Melissa into the apartment.

The apartment interior was a mess, although this time it wasn’t entirely Melissa’s fault. Various pieces of litter, including a few discarded animal bones, littered the floor around a cloud mattress that was a worrying shade of yellow. Dominating the floor space though was a standoff between Melissa and another diamond dog, this one slightly shorter and far lankier than his female counterpart. Both dogs had their claws out, challenging growls emanating from their throats. Upon noticing Ace and Gale’s entrance, the male dog saw the tides turning against him and chose to make a brake for it. One leg swept up, kicking some of the rubbish from the floor up into Melissa’s face. The brawler instinctively covered her face, allowing the other dog to bolt past her and charge directly at the two thieves.

As the snarling dog bore down upon him, Ace made the snap decision to face down his aggressor. The hound was far from the most dangerous thing he had fought in the last few months and, if he allowed him to escape, then they would lose their best chance at finding the smugglers in Cloudsdale.

Stepping into the dog’s pounce, the satyr span himself around so that his back was to the dog, one of his lean arms coming around under the furred arm and onto the dog’s back. With his other hand, he grasped tightly at the fur of the dog’s shoulder. From then it was simply a matter of ensuring that he was firmly positioned so as to not allow the momentum of the pounce to knock him off his hooves. When the full weight on the hound bore down on him, Ace simply turned it on his hip, allowing his arms to direct the dog past him, head over paws.

And directly into a vicious buck from Gale.

A shrieking whine came from the dog as all of his momentum was suddenly and violently arrested. Such was the force of Gale’s kick that he actually went flying the opposite way, now coming directly towards Ace. The veteran thief smoothly stepped out of the way of the howling ball of fur, allowing it to sail past him and directly into Melissa’s waiting paw. With a heave, she lifted him above her head before bringing him slamming down into the floor. Under normal circumstances, this would have been impressive and potentially quite dangerous. However, in Cloudsdale all that happened was a soft pomf. This thankfully did not retract from the intimidation factor of Melissa leaning in with a grin on her face, proudly displaying all of her wicked teeth.

“Good morning.” She said to the whimpering male.

“So,” Gale asked, recovering her hooves after her kick, “How about that?”

“Team building.” Ace replied, before pausing, “With a hint of public relations.”

“I’m learning so much already!” The pegasus grinned before bouncing forward alongside Ace.

The dog craned his neck round to watch them as they approached, an impressive accomplishment indeed considering the giant paw of Melissa’s that was gripping his throat. As he looked at Ace, his eyes widened, finally noticing the satyr and remembering who he was.

“Now I distinctly recall,” Ace said as he neared the dog, “That when we last saw each other, you promised to be a noble and upstanding citizen. And yet, my friend here tells me that you have fallen in with some rather worryingly criminal folk. Care to explain.”

The dog gurgled at him slightly.

“Melissa,” Ace rubbed his brow, “Please let up slightly. The whole interrogation thing doesn’t work too well if you choke him to death.” Grunting some unintelligible, she obliged, allowing the dog under her paw to let out a gasp of relief. “That’s better, thank you. How about we start this right? What’s your name my friend?”

“Dominic.” He croaked out.

“A pleasure to meet you Dominic.” Ace smiled, “You clearly remember me, though I’m not certain if you got my name when last we met. I’m Ace. My friends and I have a few questions for you, which I would advise you to answer honestly because if you don’t then Melissa here,” The named dog grinned and waved, “Might get a bit upset." He leaned in and whispered into Dominic’s ear. “You ever seen an upset diamond dog female? I’m not sure how badly clouds stain but I think the next five generations of cleaners that have to deal with this room would be picking pieces of you out of the floor.”

“Please, just tell me what you want!” Dominic howled in desperation.

“Right, the question. Of course. I probably should have opened with that now that I think about it.” Ace tried to ignore the fact that Gale had produced a notepad and quill from somewhere and appeared to be taking notes, “We want to know about any large smuggling operations that are going on in the city. The one we’re interested in will be particularly suspicious. They won’t brag about the cargo they’re moving or they’ll be deliberately vague when it comes to the product itself. Know anything like that.”

“No! I don’t know anything!”

There was a sickening snap, followed by a scream of pain, as Melissa broke the captive dog’s arm with barely any movement from her massive paws. As Ace and Gale looked at her in shock, she calmly moved around to the other side of the squirming dog, grabbed his remaining arm and put it in a similar hold, her left paw resting gently against Dominic’s elbow.

“Jesus Christ! Melissa! We don’t just start breaking arms if they don’t answer the question!”

“Why not?” She seemed honestly confused.

“Because it’s bloody barbaric for one thing. Also, they pretty quickly run out of limbs to break after a few wrong answers.”

The brawler mulled this over for a second before nodding. “Good point. I’ll start with the fingers instead.” She casually manoeuvred the arm she was holding until Dominic’s paw was engulfed by her own.

Ace shook his head, running a hand through what he felt was increasingly greying hair, “Apologies for that,” He said to Dominic, “I thought I was being hyperbolic with that threat earlier, but evidently not. So, large suspicious smuggling operations in the city. Happen to know any?”

“Yes! Okay, yes! Just please, get her away from me!” He shouted, staring up in terror at Melissa and, more importantly, his paw that Melissa held.

“Wonderful,” Ace clapped his hands together, “Mel, be a dear and stop violently threatening the poor lad would you?”

Looking a bit put out at Ace’s informal name for her, she nevertheless took a single step away from their captive, releasing the arm. Dominic immediately used his new found freedom to clutch his broken arm close to his chest, whimpering slightly as he moved it into a more comfortable position.

“They’re in the weather factory.” He said before Ace could prompt him once again. “They’ve got some ponies who let them in at night and they smuggle it out using the weather factory’s shipping routes.”

“Wow,” Gale spoke up from behind Ace for the first time since the interrogation started, “That’s actually kind of genius.”

“What do you mean? You know how they are doing this?”

“Well think about it. That thing that you showed us, it’s still a liquid right? Which means, presumably, it can be put inside a cloud. The storm clouds ship out and, when they reach their destination, their contact on the other end just has to jump up and down on it a few times and retrieve all of the product. Elegant in a way.” She saw the horrified look Ace was giving her, “I mean, a totally horrible and not at all good kind of elegance?”

“No, it’s not that.” Ace whispered, “What if there is no contact on the other end? What if these poisonous clouds are being sent out to unsuspecting towns across Equestria? Ponies everywhere could be getting innocently caught in a downpour and finding themselves poisoned by something more horrible than they could possibly imagine.”

Now Gale also looked horrified, probably imagining just how many times she had been caught underneath a seemingly innocuous rain cloud before. Melissa, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned.

“So we know where they are yes? Then we simply need to go and stop them.” The dog’s one track mind was just what they needed in this situation, snapping Ace and Gale out of their musings.

“Right, let’s go.”

Ace turned to walk out, but was stopped by a paw on his shoulder. Melissa pointed over to the kneeling form of Dominic in the centre of the room. “And what about him?”

“Of course, just a second.” He approached the still whimpering dog, “Hey Dominic, we’re going now. But you should probably forget we were ever here. Melissa and I would take it as a huge favour if you did.” Ace didn’t miss the way the male dog flinched at her name before nodding rapidly, “That’s great. I recommend you get that arm checked out and then leave Cloudsdale immediately. I bet the old homestead is looking pretty attractive to you right now?” Once again, he received frantic nodding as his response, “Great, you have fun with that now. Stay safe.”

Leaving the dog behind, he approached Melissa and Gale, who were waiting for him by the door, and shrugged. “We came to a mutual understanding.” Walking out of the apartment with his two comrades flanking him, he grinned, “Let’s go be good guys.”

Author's Note:

Well it has been a while hasn't it? Almost a month since my last update and some of you guys must have been losing faith with me. I apologize for that. I took on way too many writing projects at once, ending up with me writing about 7000 words a week and quickly burning myself out. I may have overestimated my abilities slightly.

However, I do have some good news to go along with this chapter. The awesome CrassBrass (also known as Shotershin on youtube) has done a reading of the first chapter of Wild Card. I'm very grateful and honoured. If you wish to check it out then you may find it HERE.

Hope you all enjoyed the chapter,
Barrel

Comments

[New Dawn]

5244435 "Hey! Hey Listen!"

[catfire13]

“They’re in the weather factory.”

NOPE

[Brony Tom]

I admit I shared Gale's horrified reaction when Ace explained his fear about the clouds.

I hope Gale was right about the person on the other end.

[Jane]

Ah, related stories. Haven't seen that feature in a long time.

[Robomac]

I kind of think Ace should have tossed the poor dog a heart card back there, though I can imagine that he doesn't want his new partners to know about those.

[Asheram]

So.... More please.

[magemagics]

Can't wait until the update.

[Asheram]

We hope all's well with you, good Barrel?

[Barrel-of-fun]

5813957
Sort of. I am fine personally, but I have lost my passion for this story. To be honest, It's not one I was overly keen on in the first place. I mainly started writing it because there seemed to be a large demand for a sequel, which I know is not a great reason to begin writing a story. Since I began my other writing projects have placed a lot of pressure on me. Between university, competition writing, the articles I do for magazines and my own projects it's all getting a bit much.

I have been considering officially cancelling this story but just can't bring myself to actually hit that button because when I do that then it is the end. There'd be no coming back to it. So at the moment I am unsure. I have no intention of writing more for this currently but maybe I'll get back to it at some point.

My apologies

[Asheram]

5818214 Oh, no worries. I believe we all know how it is to be swamped with projects and the stress of having something like this lurking in the back of your mind.

It has been a while now since last update so I doubt anyone will blame you if you put dear Ace here on an indefinite hiatus if you don't want to officially cancel it.
And if you do, then I'd like to be the first one to officially thank you for what you've made here.

[Caffeinated Pinkie]

5818214 its perfectly understandable if you wish to stop. Albeit, it would be very sad, it is your life and your hands typing away so just do what you want.

[Campanula Monkshood]

I'm really impressed with how well your story has come along, it may not matter much but you've taken a place in my list of inspiration; up there with what-must-I-do, Blackwing, and several others I can't list off the top of my head.

[thefroggyninja]

Loving the wildcard. Hope this thing reboots.

[megabyte97]

Will you eventually continue this or is it dead?

[Scarlet Letters]

6530930 Ace, Satyr Jack Sparrow.

[Rainbowblitz]

whens the next update

[Charedfirescale]

0.0 update?

[EyeCancer]

It has been 1.5 years since the last update.

I think it's safe to call it dead.

Time of death 12:43 am Pacific Standard time, Monday, June 27th, 2016

[ThatBadGuy]

2014 – last post
*Looks at calendar* ‘2017’
aussiestorageblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/its-dead-jim.jpg
Not even gonna try reading

[kingmoonwar85]

8282262
and now its 2018

[Savant Sentral]

6681732
NEVERRRRRRRR