Prologue: Masquerade
Danger Around Every Corner
Prologue
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A police vehicle drove past the trash that littered the corrupted streets of Detrot, in hot pursuit of a convicted criminal accused of murder. The officer quickly turned her steering wheel to the right as she maneuvered around the corner, all four wheels of the vehicle splashing against a small puddle on the street.
“Police! Stop your vehicle immediately or I’ll start opening fire!” The officer projected her voice through her megaphone.
“Just for you guys to arrest me? Fat chance!” His hoof stepped down on the gas pedal, increasing the speed of the car.
As the criminal opened the glove compartment of his car as a pistol inched itself closer to him, he reached for his gun and firmly gripped the weapon in his hoof. Directly aiming the loaded pistol at the officer, he clicked the trigger as a speeding bullet shot out of the pistol, smashing through the glass window of his adversary.
The officer ducked her head down to avoid the speeding bullet. She lifted her head back up staying focused on the target, returning fire as they drove down an alleyway covered with propaganda posters and graffiti. As they were at each other’s necks, the front of her car slammed against the back bumper of his car through a steel gate and crashed into a wall.
He kicked the door vigorously to escape the wreckage of broken glass and his limp body gave out on him, stumbling down onto the ground. The officer walked away from her vehicle as she slowly approached the car with her gun pointed out at the stallion.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything that you say can be held against you in court,” Trixie took out a pair of hoofcuffs and pinned him against the wall, locking the metal cuffs around his wrists.
“This is why I hate the law, you never give us criminals a chance to defend ourselves.” Masquerade groaned, being escorted into the backseat of Trixie’s police car.
Trixie pressed down on the gas pedal, the sound of blaring sirens and flashing multicolored lights startled nearby neighborhoods of alley cats scrounging around trash cans for their next meal whether it was rotten fish or spilled milk. She stopped the car at a red light intersection across the street from the local pizzeria before turning around to Masquerade, then parked the car in the pizzeria’s parking lot.
“You’re lucky that Trixie’s boss gets in a good mood when I give him a pizza after a job well done, stay here and don’t move.” Trixie said, exiting the car and walking to the pizzeria.
“It’s not like I can anyway, remember?” Masquerade gestured to the hoofcuffs, trying his hardest not to laugh.
Perfect Slice’s Pizzeria was an establishment that a lot of police officers from the Detrot Police Department spent their nights cracking jokes and enjoying delicious slices of pizza, for a reasonable price of course. Trixie knew that first hoof on her first day on the job to take things seriously, while at the same time know when to have fun with her fellow officers. Pushing the double doors open, she heard the familiar warm welcome of a bell ringing.
“Hey, it’s Trixie! How may I help you on this fine night?” Perfect Slice stroked his handlebar moustache.
“Give Trixie an extra large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese. For you know who,” Trixie leaned against the counter, pointing to her badge that had the chief investigator’s name engraved on the front of the badge.
“But of course, for Private Eye!” Perfect winked at Trixie, trotting directly to his so-called “pizza experimentation” station.
“You know it!” Trixie returned the wink back at him.
The pizza confectionist rolled a ball of dough flat across the working station table as he tossed the dough’s flat texture into the air and spun it around on his left hoof, tossing the flat dough in his newly purchased wood oven. Warm flames inside of the oven flickered around the pizza as the yeast inside of the pizza bubbled up to the surface, and a ding sound notified Perfect Slice that the pizza was finished.
“Order up! Here you go Trixie, that will be eight bits please.” Perfect held out his hoof, waiting for his payment as he placed the pizza in a pizza box.
“Trixie’s got you covered, Perfect.” She reached into her saddlebag, dropping eight gold bits on the counter.
“See you around, Trixie. We’re still up for our date later?” Perfect rubbed the end of his shoulder, his eyes drifting away from Trixie.
“Hmm… Trixie will see,” Trixie gave a little chuckle as she left the pizzeria, and walked back to her car.
Driving across the street to the police station, Trixie parked the car in the police officers’ section of the parking lot. She turned off the engine and stepped out of her car with a pizza box as she carried Masquerade into the station by the back of his head, escorting him to the security checkpoint of the station.
“Is this really necessary?” Masquerade rolled his eyes, moving his long black mane out of his hair.
He watched each officer keeping a close on him as Trixie took his hoof and dipped it into an inkwell, stamping it down on a blank sheet of sandpaper showing physical evidence of his hoofprint printed on it.
“To keep the security at the highest echelon possible,” Trixie pointed out, putting her hoof in Masquerade’s path near the metal detector.
Masquerade brushed Trixie’s hoof off with his shoulder as he passed through the metal detector. “This shouldn’t be taken seriously, I’m innocent!”
“We’ll see,” Trixie pinned Masquerade’s face against the protective glass that divided the officers, and any criminals passing through the hallway.
[/hr]
Once Private Eye’s interrogation room came into view, Trixie walked into the room with Masquerade in her grasp and Private Eye’s pizza. Trixie sat Masquerade down on a seat with his hooves still cuffed and he felt the cold metal rip his freedom away in that moment.
“Trixie brought you, your accused murderer and your pizza,” Sliding the pizza box across the table, Private Eye caught the box under his hoof and inhaled the warmth of the steam from his pizza.
“Thanks a lot, Trixie. I’ll be sure to call for you if things start to boil over,” Private Eye waved a dismissive hoof to Trixie as she nodded and left the room.
Private Eye grabbed a slice of pepperoni pizza with his favorite, extra cheese sliding down like a long strand of hair into his mouth. He scarved down all of the cheese on the slice before tossing a pepperoni down his throat. “So, Masquerade, we meet again.”
“The feeling is mutual, you know that I’m innocent and didn’t kill Gold Record three years ago,” Masquerade crossed his forehooves, staring daggers across at Private Eye.
Private propped his hooves on the table, with his back leaned comfortably in his leather chair supported by his arms. “You know damn well that you killed him, because Ace and his gang had a hit on Gold. Who better to take out the trash than someone of your potential.”
Masquerade snarled at Private, his fangs poking the outsides of his mouth. “Me of all ponies might have a criminal record, but you can’t prove that I killed him.”
Private rubbed under his chin, looking under his desk cabinet. He hurled useless documents of his overdue parking tickets, jury duty, and a child support bill until finally finding Golden Record’s autopsy report and case file. “Oh, can’t I? Take a look at these.”
The scattered documents of the autopsy report and case file were strewn all across his desk, Masquerade looked at them as if he just saw them for the first time while he shook his head and banged his cuffed hooves on the table.
“You better cool it!” Private Eye got up from his position and pushed Masquerade down in his seat.
Masquerade took a deep breath, and knew that the only thing preventing him from taking Private’s head clean off were the hoofcuffs. He felt himself on edge with many thoughts rushing through his mind as he didn’t take his eyes off of Private Eye for one second. Sometimes I hate this guy to death, maybe he will let me off the hook this time.
His reputation with the law was nothing new to Private Eye, he remembers Private Eye arresting him for car theft and burglary just to get a quick buck for living in one of the parts of South Detrot where Ace and his gang controlled everything to stay on top for years. Selling drugs and buying semi-automatics were the only things Masquerade had to afford and count on for a living.
“Oh I’m cool, you were saying?”
Private popped a cigarette in his mouth, grabbing his lighter and a flame formed around the lighter as he carefully lit the end of his cigarette. He smacked his lips puffing out a circular smoke ring in Masquerade’s face, “Now, let’s take a trip down memory lane… three years ago.”
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I need to follow this for reasons.
5468489 Do as you wish.
5468492
Mostly because the Gilda episode of an AU fic I'm writing is gonna be a film noir detective flick starring Gilda as the hard-bitten gumhoof.
5468520 I can tell it is gonna be great.
5468524
In a world full of zeppelins and cloth-skinned propeller planes and steam power and budding diesel and Pinkie as a mad scientist inventor Tesla analogue.
5468532 Hmm... that could work.
It looks interesting but I'm having a very difficult time keeping track of what is going on. Your pronoun usage (He/she/they/them ect.) is baffling.
Let's take the first little bit for an example.
"A police vehicle drove past the trash that littered the corrupted streets of Detrot, in hot pursuit of a convicted criminal accused of murder. The officer quickly turned his steering wheel to the right as she maneuvered around the corner, all four wheels of the vehicle splashing against a small puddle on the street.
“Police! Stop your vehicle immediately or I’ll start opening fire!” The officer projected her voice through his megaphone."
Specifically this part: "The officer quickly turned his steering wheel to the right as she maneuvered around the corner"
A pronoun refers to the last applicable noun used. So in this case, the pronouns "She" and "his" both refer to the officer. So right off the bat I don't know what gender the officer is.
This happens again here: "The officer projected her voice through his megaphone." Again, remember that pronouns refer to the last used applicable noun. So in this case, once again "her" and "his" are both referring to the officer. So again, what gender is this officer? Later on we learn that the officer is Trixie (I think) none the less, this is needlessly confusing to readers.
"Once Private Eye’s interrogation room came into view, she walked into the room with Masquerade in her grasp and Private Eye’s pizza. Trixie sat Masquerade down on a seat with his hooves still cuffed and he felt the cold metal rip his freedom away in that moment."
Remember that page break bar you inserted into the chapter before this paragraph? That usually indicates to a reader a change of scene or perspective. When that happens, it's best to not use pronouns at first and re-establish who is who again.
For example, in that paragraph, the word "she" is Private Eye. So it reads like this: "Once Private Eye's interrogation room came into view, Private Eye walked into the room with Masquerade in her grasp and Private Eye's pizza."
But of course it was Trixie walking in with Masquerade, not Private Eye. So in order to re-establish who's who, you should probably write it something more like this "Once Private Eye's interrogation room came into view, Trixie walked into the room with Masquerade in her grasp and Private Eye's pizza."
Other than the rather ambiguous use of pronouns, this story seems decent. I'll be keeping an eye on it.
5476147 Thanks for pointing the errors out, I'll be fixing them immediately!
The story's premise is interesting so far, so I'm curious as to how it will go. However, I would change a few things.
I'm confused as to what this sentence is supposed to show, unless I'm missing something. I'd recommend changing it around a bit to make it clearer.
I'm guessing that Trixie is supposed to be the officer in this universe. Given that Trixie does come from canon, you don't have to go into detail of what she looks like, but some buildup to the reveal wouldn't hurt in my opinion. That's how I'd do it, but go with whatever you think is best.
Should read as: "So, Masquerade, we meet again."
I'd suggest splitting this up into two or more sentences. Also, the use of "mind" twice here is a bit repetitive, so I'd recommend changing that around to add more sentence variety.
Anyway, you definitely have something interesting here, so I'll leave an upvote and track the story. I'll comment on the next chapter as soon as possible.