Beneath the Canon You Settle For

by The Amateur

Chapter 13 - All the Gold Dust in this Village... And then You, Fleetfoot

The writer of the newspaper article went by the pseudonym, “Gabriel Gums.” One of my Ponville fans had apparently been expecting me. Whatever pain came out of this publicity, I could not allow the Foal Free Press’s latest edition to leave town. Whiplash had put his neck out on the chopping block trying to cover for me, but now Gabriel Gums had the executioner’s ax. This story had to die with him.

I knew exactly what path I was heading down and what consequences awaited me. But I could handle them. Once those dear to you were threatened, no course of action was too extreme. I only needed a destination.

“Fleetfoot? Hello?” Rainbow’s hoof poked my shoulder. “She’s gone into that trance again… Cream Tangerine, when was this published?”

‘Cream Tangerine’ was a few steps behind us. Her voice trembled from some sort of sugar high as she responded, “Just twenty minutes ago. The whole town’s gone ballistic over it!”

So much for staying low. My eyes scanned the front page for some information on the publisher. A single address had been italicized below the bold headlines: Ponyville Elementary. Since Gabriel Gums seemed so interested in me, it only seemed right to grant him a personal interview.

Then came that hiccupped chirping again. The numbing and appeasing chirping of a red bird. Glancing up, I spotted Rainbow Dash’s new pet, Columbia, perched on the window sill. Cream Tangerine squeaked nearby, perhaps just as entranced by the bird as everyone else.

Something churned in my veins. Maybe it was the adrenaline kicking in or my subconscious ordering me to get on with what I planned, but it was clear I needed to get out of here now. With Columbia blocking my fastest route out of here, I did the first thing that came to mind––I chucked the newspaper out the open window.

Columbia saw my move long before the Foal Free Press’s last edition sailed out of my hooves. She leapt out of sight without a sound. I galloped after her without a missed beat.

“No, Columbia! Fleetfoot, why did you–– Hey! Where are you going?” Rainbow had just missed my exit. My hooves departed from solid footing, and the sky opened up before me. Right before gravity caught me, I unfolded my wings.

In that instant, the sky transformed from an encompassing ceiling into a vast ocean. There were an infinite number of elevations to take, a multitude of directions to travel in, and a scarcity of obstacles to stop me. Despite that freedom, I was still following a single track, another lead in a case that has been haunting me for seven years.

The schoolhouse was a red bullseye at the end of this track––barely a five–minute fly away. As I soared over part of the village, I caught glimpses of newspapers in every pair of hooves. Everyone from the mail pony to the neighborhood watch had a copy. In the best possible outcome, they would all have reason now to avoid me. But I was not naive enough to believe that. There would be no peace here for me, not once I was through with Gabriel Gums.

With such a desire to punch a pony six feet under, one would imagine I was a charging bull the moment I entered the schoolhouse. But while I did intend to unleash every destructive impulse within me, as promised in the previous paragraphs, I managed to mask that fury under a stiff grimace.

Remembering to fold my wings, I trotted through the open front door. The classroom had a wall of windows looking out toward the playground and three rows of desks spread out to fill a wide space. Interior decorating had been left at a bare minimum: student artwork on the far left wall, some educational propaganda posters, a chalkboard on the right wall.

A mare of a mane bearing the likeness of bubble–gum cotton candy looked up from her paper–cluttered desk at the chalkboard. Neither of us had been expecting the other, but at least one of us could manage a welcoming smile regardless. “Hello! I’m the teacher here, Ms. Cheerilee. Do you have a daughter who attends the school?” Cheerilee ran through the introduction with a level tone, yet a quick shift in her green eyes told me that she knew I was not here on parent business.

“No, I’m here about the latest edition of the Foal Free Press.”

Cheerilee raised an eyebrow. “You should see one of the student staff about obtaining one. I only review the content before publication.” Not even a hint of recognition. It may turn out that Ms. Cheerilee was not as thorough as she thought she was.

“Could you direct me to the editor of this paper then?”

She grinned and complied: “Of course! Featherweight runs the operations under the schoolhouse. You can reach the basement through our door hatch––”

I felt the distortion in the air behind me before I heard the clip–clop of a pegasus’s landing. Rainbow Dash ran into the room and threw herself between me and Cheerilee. She stood her ground against me and said, “Don’t do it, Fleetfoot! That story’s not worth going on a rampage.”

Cheerilee went wide–eyed but recomposed herself in short time. “What’s going on here?”

I answered, “I have a complaint to sort out with Mr. Featherweight. Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Cheerilee.”

I took one step backward, keeping eye contact with the Element of Loyalty. She dropped into racing stance. I knew about her sonic rainboom, a weapon I had no chance of outrunning. Plenty of situations in the past had pitted me against unfavorable odds, but I survived due to a combination of my opponents’ incompetence and dumb luck. Unfortunately, it seemed neither was on my side at this point.

“I don’t want to have to take you down, Fleetfoot.” Rainbow exchanged volume for sincerity, bringing her voice down to a whisper. “It’s just gossip… something crazy a kid made up. Let’s just go grab lunch. I’ll pay.” With both aggression and conciliation packed into the same approach, she could have made for a fine negotiator. Still, her offer of free lunch would not dissuade me.

Cheerilee was up on her hooves now. The stare she gave me was both stern and terrified like that of an elk confronting a wolf. “You’re not here to threaten one of my students, are you?”

“We were going to have a chat about his latest article.” I was running out of options. The schoolhouse had been the last place I had expected to be cornered in.

“Twilight and I can handle it,” Rainbow affirmed. She came a step closer. “This whole mess is only happening because you previously ran off and went on one of your roaring rampages of revenge.”

“This is beyond my own problems, Rainbow Dash,” I answered. There had to be something to distract this pony with! “Someone’s career is on the line, and unless I keep the ordeal in Cloudsdale under wraps, he’s still at risk.”

“Then why won’t you let us help?” Rainbow approached closer. “There’s no reason for you to handle this alone. There’s no reason to be a one pony army. That’s all in the past, right?”

I retract the last thought. She would make for an outstanding negotiator. Doing my job solo had been my personal policy during my years in the CPD. Too many dead partners, usually the result of my guns–blazing approach to every situation, reinforced that doctrine. Now that I was out of the force, there was nothing keeping me to that policy. So yes, that was all in the past.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a short–cut brown mane emerge from under the window. A pair of brown eyes scanned the room briefly before spotting me. The moment the pony realized I had caught him, the head vanished below the windowsill. Rainbow had turned around swiftly, probably following the direction of my eyes.

With that window of opportunity, I kicked off my forelegs and tossed myself out the front entrance. As my form sailed over the staircase outside, my wings opened up and caught a gust of air. Within a fraction of a second, I was beating my wings fast enough to reverse my descent and fly over the schoolhouse. Upon landing outside the windowed wall of the school, I caught sight of the door hatch Ms. Cheerilee had informed me of. A brown tail was all I saw of the onlooker before the door hatch closed shut.

My legs covered the distance in record time. And with the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I concentrated my energy into a tree–bucking kick on the door hatch. Whatever lock the suspect had put on the doors dissipated into woodchips and nails, unveiling the stairs to the basement. Through a cloud of dust I galloped into the room that housed the Foal Free Press. My right hoof came down on a black coat, left disheveled on the floor in a hurry.

The suspect, a cream–coated colt, was standing in front of a black doorway ten meters away. I knew a secret escape route when I saw one. Gripping the coat with my hoof, I hurled it in his direction. Just by luck, it caught around his head as he made toward his exit. With the suspect immobilized by the distraction, I made four great strides and tackled him to the ground.

Experience taught me how to hold down any struggling pony, even if he was thinner than most foals. He growled as he struck out with his limbs in vain, “I know my rights, you stupid maniac! I claim freedom of press as is afforded by article one of the Sovereign Equestrian’s Doctrine!”

“Your paper’s no public forum.” Clench down with left hindleg. Opposition's energy and hope quickly dwindling. “It can be suppressed, if deemed inappropriate or if it doesn’t inform the reported individual and give her an opportunity to respond, by the school,” I countered. With the coat blocking his vision, it was easy to restrain his flailing wings and legs.

“You’re making that up!”

“Hazel Harvest v. Kohl Miner. Decision handed down by the highest court in the land.” Having successfully restrained ‘Gabriel Gums,’ I removed the coat with my teeth. It was at that point that I recognized the texture. I threw it down next to the editor and began my interrogation: “How did you get your hooves on my coat?”

“I’ve got connections all over the place!” He boasted. Either this Featherweight was putting up a pitiful attempt at buying time or he was just that arrogant.

“You’re the editor of the school newspaper. No one outside Ponyville even knows who you are. Now start talking!”

He made one last desperate push against my legs. After that failed, he laughed in my face. The smirk on his face aggravated me to no end. “Try to make me! You wouldn’t hurt a kid!”

Would I?

My right foreleg reeled back so my hoof was poised over his eye. Featherweight stopped grinning. I held the first swing in cocked position and… stopped there. My hesitation provided just enough time for someone to pull my leg back and restrain me with it. With my foreleg twisted behind my back, my assailant easily persuaded me to move off of Featherweight.

“What the hay are you thinking?” Rainbow yelled into my ear. “He’s just a kid!” My foreleg convulsed as she came dangerously close to ripping it from my elbow joint. Past the point of resistance, I tapped the floor with my free hoof. Rainbow honored my gesture and released me.

I fell onto my rump and looked up to her. My descent into the role of the villain, within my own revenge tale, was complete. Rainbow had seen what I could resort to. She should understand now that I embodied none of the virtues ponies naturally possessed in this world. “I––I made a mistake,” I muttered.

“I would say!” Disgust and anger dripped from her words, yet the expression she wore hardly matched her tone. Her lips thinned, her eyebrows arched upward, the signs were there that I was not completely repulsing to her just yet. If anything, it appeared that Rainbow was finally coming to terms with the fact that I was not the hero––the ambitious and righteous Wonderbolt Fleetfoot––she had envisioned me as.

Rainbow Dash helped up Featherweight. “You okay?”

The pint–sized editor brushed off some dust from his shoulder. “Not badly hurt, but––What are you doing!?” Rainbow had him by the cheeks, using her wings to lift herself two meters off the ground. Featherweight’s eyes went wide as her hooves pressed in and squished his face into the semblance of a fish.

“Forging pictures, giving a Wonderbolt a bad name in my town, and failing to effectively use a pre–made escape route. You’re a real brat, you know that?” She shook Featherweight around, as though her hooves were the hook, reeling in a flopping guppy.

“You’re going to issue an apology and fess up to making up that story or I’ll be the one kicking in your door, got that?”

With the promise made, Rainbow let him go. Featherweight fell unceremoniously on chin. With both forelegs covering his head, he spouted, “Yes Ma’am! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” Seeing that he took the threat seriously, it was clear that Rainbow Dash kept her word and clear that Featherweight was a pushover. I probably condemned myself for just coming this close to hitting the kid.

Thinking again about my idiotic choices and their consequences, I hardly noticed Rainbow Dash’s approach until her chest was a breath away from my muzzle. My eyes stared straight forward into her coat, even as she asked me, “What happened to you, Fleetfoot? You used to be the pony everypony wanted to be.”

A long time ago, I might have been carefree and jubilant; temperamental yet thick–skinned; empowering and inspiring; I might have been capable of taking on the world and convincing everyone else that they can do the same. That Fleetfoot ceased to exist once Whitewash died. The light had gone out of my life.

“I’m not the pony you look up to, Rainbow Dash.” I replied. The words were fumbled, because I had something in my throat. “She might be in a place where she doesn’t belong… maybe occupying a life she didn’t deserve. But she’ll come back.”

Rainbow sat down across from me. She wore the face of an onlooker at a funeral: stoic yet empathetic. I could be mistaking empathy for pity, but I wanted to believe that Rainbow understood what I was saying. Regardless of what else she thought of me, I just needed to know that much.

“Stay put, where you are. Hooves in the air,” a voice commanded behind me. As I turned my head, a beam of sunlight caught me in the eye. The ray had refracted off the golden armor of a unicorn guard. In her magic hovered three sets of hoofcuffs. “Miss Fleetfoot. You’re under arrest for attempted assault on a minor.”

Comments

[FadFreaky]

Oh Fleetfoot, your Max Payne backstory has left you powerless in this world. ( But then again you could just kill them all, you've done it before to other innocents, what's stopping you this time? ) Ignoring the really dark way things could turn out, bad mistake is bad, but this can only end well! ( The laws of happy endings demand that this is the only answer. ) Or she could spill her guts, I hope it ends well preferably but let's hope it's good!

[The Amateur]

6087236 Good point, couldn't Fleetfoot just go into bullet time and kill everyone?
"Not with an 'Everyone' rating you're not!"

Glad to know you are interested in the story! How happy this ending will be depends on whether or not Fleetfoot is willing to work with us...

[FadFreaky]

6087268 I'm leaning towards yes, Fleetfoot has started to realize that the jig is up and she can't go it alone and there's no risk to working WITH ponies after all. ( Besides her situation can hardly get any worse. )

[ChocolateFan25]

Finally, a new chapter! And a really good one as well.

I have to say, Featherweight is acting quite strange. All this planning, talking about his rights, his 'connections', which led him to Fleetfoot's coat... He's not the cute little foal he pretends to be.

Or I'm going insane. I dunno.

[The Amateur]

6091896 Thank you for your patience!

As for Featherweight, he has been acting strangely, but we will sort him out in due time...