Beneath the Canon You Settle For

by The Amateur

CH. 5 - It's Fear That Gives Ponies Wings

Dumb-Bell’s hotel was situated at the corner of a crossroads intersection, whereupon the infrastructure had been enhanced with magic to allow non-pegasi to walk without fear of falling through. But like all things in this city, the effort had gone to waste and decayed. There were sparsely any wagons or cabs operating on the roads; earth ponies hopped over holes to get from one decrepit building to another. The faded signs advertising new malls and construction projects stood atop the tenements of the workers who would build the district up.

The story of how the Caeci District was brought to ruin was a classic “fall from harmony” tragedy. Now, it was a hotspot for saloon patrons and the city’s undesirables, an economy specializing in decadence. Even without the Pulsant District’s overcast cumulus, this section still failed to shine in the sun.

At least, that was how I remembered it. I could describe how radical the minute differences were, but there was no point. Where was the satisfaction in that?

I came in low, sticking close to the roofs, hugging the chimneys and ventilation units for cover. My approach stopped atop the building directly across from the hotel, where a weathered billboard provided me an opportunity for reconnaissance. The hotel was six stories high, painted over in a lavish tan coat in a vain attempt to hide its cheap, cloud-brick architecture. It was the sort of place where frustrated underlings and smuggler soldiers would reside in just to live an illusion of luxury and wealth. Many of the windows were boarded up, and a barb wire perimeter had been set up on the roof. It also doubled as a fortress for the syndicate’s paranoid underboss.

The chink in the armor was a hole on the second floor behind the hotel’s neon front, made by one of the letters collapsing on the exterior framework. A thin sheet of metal had been placed hastily over the pony-sized opening. It was a shoddy insertion point, but at least it was a better alternative to kicking the front door in.

Armed with nothing more than my coat and my wings, I was about to storm a fort of trigger-happy smugglers. Even with vengeance pumping through my veins, I was short on stopping power for a suicide mission. But still…

I swiftly made the glide over the street, flipping my body over to kick the metal sheet in. An aerial kick and a tucking of wings later, I was sliding inside a vacated bedroom. The first thing to greet me was a fog of perfume and a stallion’s natural scent. Only after my eyes adjusted did I see the vibrating bed. Right into the smuggling ring's nighttime enterprise.

But still… there was an image of my daughter, gagged and tied up to a chair, in the hooves of Dumb-Bell and his soldiers. My legs would be bloody stumps before I allowed them to so much as speak to her the wrong way. Lightning Bolt could be somewhere in this hotel at the mercy of Cloudsdale's worst fiends. That was enough reason for me to be here.

Outside the room door, there were two patterns of clopping. A pair of smugglers was patrolling the hallway, but from the faint trickles of conversation I heard, they were not on alert. Using my wings to hover above the floor, I pressed my ear against the wall and imagined two ex-convicts with loaded hand cannons talking about their latest bloodthirsty excursion.

A gruff, baritone voice was answering a question: "Ya mean Ol' Dumb-Bell? The boss is clearly a classy fella. If he learned you were hosting a meet-up of 'Daring Do' fans here, he would toss ya out of Caeci to the next country."

Baritone's friend gave out a drawn-out sigh. He spoke with a broken chord in his voicebox: "Sure, Dumb-Bell made it clear that we would not 'fraternize' with famous ponies, but, Donny, think about the opportunity we have here!"

"As good as it appears, this is not the time to be discussing a possible panel. The captive's a master at elusion. If she gets out of the ballroom, we put her down. No questions asked." Donny had given me the confirmation I needed, but time raced against me. Lightning Bolt was on the fourth floor, held in a room with only one way in. Sneaking in was out of the question; I had to make like a manticore.

As they continued their discussion, I cracked open the door. Only the sparse lamps provided lighting in the hallway, casting a red shroud over cracked walls and a woolen carpet. To the left, Donny and Failing Voice were still patrolling, with their backs and blunderbusses facing away from me. The distance was fifteen meters.

Something reacted within my depths, a fusion of every vile act and thought to plague my body and mind. The tension that kept me awake and warm in the winters came unwound, manifesting into an adrenaline overdose. Fire entered my veins and lit the fuse to that hearth in my stomach. My wings unfolded, and I began galloping at the guard duo.

The hallway transformed into a spiraling fall as my legs dropped from under me and my wings carried me towards Donny's neck. A wallpaper of roses and vines dissipated into a rifled barrel, mixed like a watercolor painting, directing me to my target. Through that myopic lens of focus, he had enough time to turn his head and reveal his green horn and magic glow before my hoof stretched out to meet it.

The second stretched into minutes, enabling me to watch the surprise materialize on his face, one raised eyebrow hair at a time. A breath later, my hoof was drilling into the base of his horn, forcing Donny's head to follow the path of my strike. Without having time for so much as a cry, Donny began his graceful drop to the ground. His shotgun gleamed bloody red with the lamp light reflecting off the steel; my forelegs shot out with a quick flap of my wings, wrapping around both the barrel and the trigger-guard.

"Donny–!" Failing Voice gave out his last croak before I cocked the lever and leveled the peacemaker in his direction. There was no shame in this; I knew enough about these ponies to brush aside the guilt. There were enough corpses in their hooves to make them less than Equestrian. My hoof tightened around the switch and prepared to deliver them for their sins.

The soldier froze with his weapon in his teeth. I had time to guess his age, his occupation, from his face; how many deaths he had seen, how much innocence he had lost, from his eyes; what his final thought was, from his hesitation. Failing Voice was no older than a college graduate–

The hallway split apart as the shotgun unleashed its payload. The adrenaline promptly wore off, restoring time and un-dulling my senses. The explosion that resounded through the halls stung my ears, but it was nothing novel. The payload disappeared behind a powder cloud, launching Failing Voice into the wall.

"Deeauauughh!" The pony filled with buckshot clenched his chest, apparently not a gory pulp with smoke trailing out of him. I cocked the lever and kept my weapon up, prepared to blast open the skull of a zombie. "Ah, mercy! Mercy! No more confetti guns! Awwooouughhh..."

Unexpected.

“What was that?” More sets of hooves hit the floor around the corner. I could recall a blueprint, depicting the hotel’s layout from my position. The source of the steps was in the path of the stairwell. I galloped with the ‘confetti gun’ between my teeth, rushing to meet a purple mare as she rounded the bend.

“Listen! Do you hear that…” Her question slurred and trailed off as the adrenaline kicked back in. Quick as a switchknife, the blunderbuss came forward in my hooves; the barrel was up, my body tensed, and a fireball broke loose. True to its name, the confetti gun spat bullets made of rainbow streamers, trailed close behind by violet, volatile sparks.

“Buueaaaaahh!” She sailed the remaining length of the hall. I twisted around and gave one kick with my wings to propel myself out of cover, a javelin with a payload of confetti for the unlucky smuggler around the corner.

“We’ve got an intruder--” The concussive blast of my gun punctuated his sentence. The mook’s catapulting form disappeared behind a wall as I skid down the carpet on my side. He was still wailing as I ran past him, tugging at a face full of technicolor web. The hotel woke up like a dormant dragon, seething from the foundation up with a drunken stupor. More of Dumb-Bell’s soldiers were shouting across the floors, but from the cacophony, I could tell the element of surprise was still in my hooves.

The stairwell door was open, unveiling a brown interior made of cardboard and construction paper. As I ascended, the meshed plates that served as stairs rattled; a deathly moan of thin metal practically announced my approach toward the fourth floor. On my way up, I checked the smuggler’s shotgun–– one shot left. The smugglers in the next hallway were prepared for a firefight, and I was going in with one in the chamber.

“I’ve got the stairwell! Secure the ballroom! C’mon, we need to lock down this floor!” A cerulean pegasus opened the door leading into the next hall. “Oh sh–– Oh no! She’s here!” With no time to take aim, I leapt at the smuggler with the blunderbuss between my teeth. I swung it with a flick of my head, hitting him square in the chest. He took the brunt of my momentum, stumbling backwards with fruitless bravado.

My wings snapped into action, pumping with my life force. I bulldozed into the soldier, one hoof on his weapon, the other on mine. Peering over his shoulder, I spotted at least half a dozen more mooks running towards us. Like some sort of god of vengeance, I bore both blunderbusses and lay down an onslaught of party string. For a few seconds, this place was armageddon.

There was a firefight.

“Grrruuuaaah!”

“DEeeeeuauaaaggghhh!”

“Ah! My eyes!” After the third shot, I had an empty shotgun. After the third shot, the smugglers opened fire with their own guns. Looks of fear and confusion were illuminated between the flashes, and a haze of smoke and falling string decorated the corridor. Fortunately, the pegasus I was currently tackling across the hall absorbed most of the flying confetti.

“Stop! Shooting! Me!”

“Keep shooting! She’s getting closer!” I dropped on my legs and shoved the pegasus forward into his friends. I unloaded a shot on the nearest mook, a charcoal grey unicorn with his back to a door. The resulting shower launched him through and into the room. The remaining two ponies were too disoriented to aim at me, firing into the walls and screaming themselves hoarse.

Lying prone behind one of the fallen smugglers, I lined up the blunderbuss and sent another pegasus somersaulting. The last one standing fumbled with the lever, backpedalling toward a set of double doors. One cycle later, I had the barrel leveled on her forehead; she and I both closed our eyes in anticipation.

The trigger responded with a hollow click. The mook gaped and stared. The confetti settled and the echo of gunfire vanished. Then she brought the shotgun back up–– and I threw mine.

The ballroom doors were a short stroll away. Six smugglers writhed in my wake, suffering the worst party hangover this side of Equestria had ever seen. The underboss was all that stood between me and Lightning Bolt. I picked up the blunderbuss of the last soldier; she was too busy clutching her forehead to protest.

As I approached the doors, jittery whispers began manifesting from within. Dumb-Bell, backed into a corner with no back-up and no balls, was venting his frustrations to his prisoner: “...shoulda knew it! Them twats were wholesale muscle with no brains. Oh Luna, the shooting’s stopped. H–he’s going to be coming in any moment now! You bring Pinkie Pie on your adventures now or something…?”

I kicked in the doors. “Wait! Uh, wait a minu–– AAUUUAAGHHHH!” A falling curtain of paper petals marked the spot where Dumb-Bell once stood. His body collided with the wall, where it crumpled face-up like a poisoned roach. It took time for the echoes from the blast to stop resounding off the high ceiling of the ballroom. In the quiet that followed, I heard a pony speak into a gag: the prisoner was tied up on a short chair in the center of the room.

For a brief respite, my chest lit up. A thousand images appeared in my mind of reconnecting with my daughter, of taking her home, of keeping her safe from the clenches of a world gone wrong. But like all my naive hopes, it took just one second of recognition to shatter into sand–– the color of the pony’s coat.

She was a tan pegasus, not a white one; she had a monochrome grey mane, not a blue one. The eyes that met mine were not the sapphire jewels I could see my reflection in. They were magenta, fogged by experience and squinted in anger. The pony in the chair struggled against her bonds and screamed incoherent fluff at me.

Eventually, I did free her. The mystery mare was thankful enough to only slap my hoof away when she had enough of the ropes off. With the other, she ripped off the gag and immediately turned on me: “Took you long enough. Sor–ry if I’m a bit sore after listening to that fuming moron for a couple hours.” She took the time to check herself, straightening out what appeared to be a safari tour guide’s jacket. It was not until she was picking up a pith helmet off the ground and wiping the dust off that I had her name.

“Daring Do?” The fictional explorer, suddenly before me in the flesh, just grunted.

“Yeah, that’s me. What, were you expecting someone else with this sort of attire?” Daring was anything but a grateful protagonist. But knowing Dumb-Bell as I did, I could not really blame her. Speaking of the underboss, he was receiving a couple dozen kicks from his freed prisoner. “Smugglers! You should have just handed over the artifact to the museum like I asked.”

I was still standing in the same spot, trying to comprehend how Daring Do, the adventurous heroine of a children's novel series, could actually be real. I got over it with a quick shake of my head and a complete dismissal of the oddity.

“You good?” I asked Daring once she had beat Dumb-Bell to a sobbing sack of pity.

“Yeah…” She backed off and faced me, searching me from top to bottom with an inquisitor’s eye. “Nice coat. Matches the hair.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you take care of the goons outside?”

“They won’t be bothering us any longer.”

“Good.” Daring swiped something off of the crime boss’s figure, something that shined illustriously even without the sun. The smirk she gave me was too trademarked to exist anywhere except on a poster. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a thousand-year construct with no magical properties whatsoever.” I did not question what she said. “Who are you anyways, busting into a hotel full of bad guys with a confetti gun?”

I dropped said weapon from its sheath under my wing, letting the clatter clear my mind for a suitable answer. “Fleetfoot.”

“Fleetfoot. The Wonderbolt?”

“Detective Fleetfoot of the CPD.”

“A cop! That’s more reasonable.”

“A dang Fed!? Aw, crack son of a gun.”

“Who said that?”

“I think it’s Dumb-Bell. I can’t really tell with three of us talking at the same time.”

“Hold on, is this better?” I asked.

“Much better,” Daring answered. She suddenly tensed up and raised a hoof to my mouth. Her ears twitched as she did. “Listen.”

Beyond the walls, a low hum with screaming crescendos whistled. Police sirens. The sound had a soothing effect–– like the bugles of the relieving cavalry. Daring patted me on the back, a smug grin on her face. It was the grin of a winner. At least one of us was smiling.

“Hope you got what you were looking for, Detective Fleetfoot.” She could not be farther from the truth. “I have to get going now, but for all it’s worth, thanks for the kick-butt rescue.” Just like that, she was galloping out of the ballroom, and she would be long gone before any of the officers made it into the building.

As for me, I waited for the Cloudsdale police to kick in the door. There was plenty of time to escape but nowhere to go.

Comments

[Scootareader]

I doubt the Cloudsdale Police will appreciate Fleetfoot's "use of excessive force" against enemies armed with confetti guns.

This story is confusing, but in the best possible way. It's a mystery that's waiting to be solved, and it's leaving me wanting in all the right ways. Give me more please.

[The Amateur]

5156022 I look forward, more and more, to your honest thoughts each update. Thanks for sharing!

[Scootareader]

5156059
I look forward, more and more, to each update.