Drastic Measures

by Nimnul

An Alleged Expert

Cash in pocket after a pleasantly smooth visit to the bank, they prepared to meet Bon Bon's local contact. As an entertainer for hire, the gryphon's home wasn't hard to find. It was located in an unremarkable residential part of town, and a somewhat more respectable one compared to Berry's old home.

The gryphon in question was apparently renting a small storefront. Faded with age, the sign praised 'Baron Chook – Master of Mindgames'. Other signage in the window described various shows for different age brackets of colts and fillies along with some quotes, praise from allegedly satisfied customers.

"Until further notice, I'm going to assume 'Chook' isn't a real gryphon name," Berry commented. She had a suspicion that the guy had taken on a new name if he'd once been in the same line of work as Bon Bon.

"So noted," Bon Bon nodded, but stopped walking towards the little store. "Why, though?"

"I think that's a chicken word in some parts. No sane gryphon would go around letting others call them Chook. Some nicknames, you just know they're trouble."

"You gotta explain that to me." Lyra sounded genuinely inquisitive.

"Well, it's like this. Back in the day, there was talk of a stallion everypony called the Ostrich. Now at first I'd figured he was some weirdo egghead type ponies put the name to as a joke, but in hindsight, s'probably not mean enough. Was no egghead anyway, hung around on the streets same as us."

The earth pony paused to gather her thoughts. "What kinda name is Ostrich then, right? Does he run fast or kick kinda hard? Ponies do that already, and we're less flimsy than a bird."

"I guess," Bon Bon allowed. "Even when you don't know what it's about, the imagination might take it the right way? Implied menace and all that." She grinned. "So where's this story going?"

Berry chewed her lip. "If ponies started calling me something real stupid, I'd shut that down fast, either way. You don't hang a dumb name on somepony what hits back." She raised one of her forehooves to underscore the point. "Not to their face, anyhow."

"So because this guy didn't have a problem with being the Ostrich, he was weirding you out?" Lyra raised an eyebrow.

"Ostrich was touched in the head, that's for sure." Berry shuddered at the memory. "Kinda friendly and non-abrasive, not because he was a nice guy, you generally just felt like he enjoyed you as a toy. Rumor had it that even bein' on his good side didn't mean much, he might just start hittin' or cuttin' you for any stupid reason or no reason at all." She shrugged. "And you wouldn't see it comin', cause he never got angry. S'was just how he interacted."

"Hm. I've worked with some real characters, but most still had some notion of how ponies work. You don't need to worry about Chook on that front. What happened to the guy?"

Berry hesitated, but there really wasn't any harm in finishing the story. "Picked on the wrong ponies once too often. I was in lock-up at the time, heard he broke some young colt's leg. The locals took exception to deliberately going after kids that young, so they tracked him down and punched his clock. Probably wouldn't have gone that far if everypony hadn't known that the Ostrich was a freak."

"I get it," Bon Bon agreed. Berry had half expected disapproval for that bit of street justice, or the question why they hadn't involved the police. "A communal beating like that lets everyone involved tell themselves they weren't the ones who got the kill, and it wasn't their idea alone. Better for the conscience than planning an execution."

Lyra frowned, but said nothing.

"Great, now you're bein' weird." Berry sighed. "Maybe that's true. Told you none of us was real introspective. Anyway, that was the Ostrich. Dangerously detached until the neighborhood got tired of him. We liked our violent psychos at least a little predictable."

"I suppose I appreciate the anecdote, but Chook plays by the rules, in his way," Bon Bon insisted. "Cash, no credit. Always been a mercenary."

"You might be right," Berry nodded slowly. It was perhaps a bit silly to assume everything went by the same rules she thought they had played by in her youth. "So what's your take on the name?"

"Hm." Bon Bon had the look of one trying to come up with a satisfying answer to a question she wasn't particularly invested in. "He's an entertainer, he probably didn't wanna pick something scary."

"Suppose so." Berry peered sideways at her friend. "Trixie turned out mostly okay when she wasn't in performance mode." She paused and decided to take a chance. "Don't suppose I'll ever hear your real name?"

The other earth pony narrowed her eyes, scowling in sudden anger. "I'm Bon Bon. I made Princess Twilight call me that even after she got the scoop from Celestia, what chance d'you think you have?" She ground her teeth before adding. "That mare ain't coming back."

"Alright! No need to bite my head off! I was just asking." You kind of had to get used to Bon Bon's occasional mood swings, and the mare talked so little of her past it was not easy to know what might set her off.

Lyra nuzzled her marefriend gently. "Take your breaths, Bonny. She didn't mean anything by it."

Berry watched the other earth pony take several slow breaths, which did seem to help her calm down again. Bon Bon didn't say anything, but Lyra spoke up again, stroking Bon Bon's mane.

"Her parents don't know the story - and they're still waiting for her to get over it, so they can have the young mare back who left home to see the world. You've got to know how it is, from living in Ponyville." Lyra shrugged and put on a wan smile, much different from her usual manic grins. "Lots of ponies don't know that life can mark you in a bad way."

"Still better than your mother," Bon Bon ground out towards Berry. "At least we get along in writing. And lucky thing, I got to know Lyra's parents after the damage was done."

Berry took no offense to the first part of the comment.

Although she continued stroking Bon Bon's mane gently, Lyra's tone turned lightly scolding. "You know that wouldn't have mattered. Dad's seen more of the world than most, and life's harsh where mom grew up. She'd treat you right either way."

Bon Bon grunted what might have been an agreement and started off towards the entrance to Chook's little storefront.

---

Baron Chook seemed friendly enough when he talked, but on the whole, Berry found him to be just a little creepy, and it wasn't just because gryphons had a sharp beak and claws. After all, Chook had clearly gotten on in years and seemed a bit fragile, and the threadbare tuxedo he wore didn't exactly say 'menace'. Yet the guy seemed to remain near totally motionless when not talking. Not tense, or stiff, but poised, as if he was just waiting for the right moment to spring for her throat. It was difficult to relax while having his attention, and Berry found herself trying to act slow and deliberate, perhaps subconsciously hoping to avoid accidentally triggering an attack.

She was going to assume he was just messing with her, and didn't act like that on birthday parties. Although maybe kids aged ten and up might get a thrill out of it. Berry did know a lot of skittish ponies, though, so she hoped gryphons weren't generally like that.

"Welcome, strangers, to the demesne of Baron Chook! To whom do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

Bon Bon took the initiative in introducing the ponies. "Bon Bon, Lyra, Berry." She pointed at each one in turn. "Nice to meet you."

Baron Chook cocked his head. "My sources tell me you've come all the way from Ponyville! I hope you're not here in service of the newest princess?"

"We're here to buy information, nothing more, sir," Bon Bon stated evenly.

Chook cackled "Every so often I permit myself to consider the notion that upon the dissolution of my employment with the crown, I slipped through the cracks, as it were." He shook his head. "Foolish, of course. Princesses never forget. They merely ... prioritize, eh?"

Berry suspected that Bon Bon might have underplayed the Baron's paranoia. Or perhaps he was just putting on a grandiose act, some folk liked to feel important. She supposed that explained why the two of them had acted like they didn't know each other. "We're not with the crown, pal. Let's just get down to why we're here, alright?"

"Absolutely," the gryphon agreed readily. "I'm listening."

"Huh? Kinda figured Bon mighta at least set you workin' on what we need?" Berry narrowed her eyes. More delays!

"That would've been foolish. I'm glad she was more circumspect than to trust these things to the mail." The old bird scoffed.

Berry leaned forward with a scowl. There were some things she found hard to not bristle at. "She's probably just humorin' you, ya clown." It was stupid to lash out about it, and she didn't really understand her friend Ditzy's enormous pride in the Royal Equestrian Mail Service anyway, but she was already on edge and she wasn't going to sit here and listen to this fool make implications about something that mattered so much to Berry's friend, just to play secret agents.

Not that she was going to explain this in so many words. "Ugh, fine! We need to find out what a stallion called Pan Flash's been up to. And it ought to be fast."

"It'd be nice to know something about him we could use to make him see things our way," Bon Bon agreed. She shot Berry a reproachful look, but she couldn't find it in herself to care just now.

"It won't be cheap to hurry this kind of work along without compromising quality," Chook cautioned. "I'll have to put a few of my associates to the task in parallel, which runs up expenses. But I would have a preliminary assessment two days from now. Based on that, you can decide how to proceed. A more thorough observation is a good place to start, and my rates are reasonable, believe me." His voice took on a note of seemingly genuine regret. "The Henches and Minions guild has been tightening the screws, lately, so I'm afraid my hands are somewhat tied. The rates are fixed, as it were. I'd be happy to offer you a greater discount. Out of the goodness of my heart." He minutely inclined his head towards Bon Bon.

Bon Bon really could have been a little clearer on what a barrel of crazy this guy was going to be, Berry thought. She tried not to roll her eyes.

---

They hadn't had any choice but to accept the rates the gryphon had quoted, at least not for the initial job. It wasn't like they had any clue what 'reasonable' meant. They were hardly in a position to shop for a deal.

"Pretty sure we just tossed a couple hundred gold bits down a hole, there."

"Yeah, but they weren't really our bits, anyway," Bon Bon stated evenly. If she had an issue with frittering away her prospective in-law's money, she wasn't showing it.

That just made it worse, and Berry said as much. "I'm not fond of wastin' other ponies' money."

"Enny gave us the money specifically to use here in Las Pegasus. I never cried about using up gear I got for a mission." Bon Bon glowered. "I trust Chook to deliver."

That caught Berry off-guard. The gryphon had been weird but she hadn't left with a particularly good impression. Sure Bon Bon knew him from her old monster hunting days, but it seemed to Berry that there wasn't much overlap between that and being a low-rent information broker. "You've got to be joking. Did ya look at this guy? He's a nutter, probably just knows how to spin a tale. We might as well have hit a casino and played the slots."

"I disagree." Lyra shook her head. "Well, he may be a little odd, that just happens. But a normal guy, or a fake, they would have focused on me, because I got the horn and the money. Non-ponies can be skittish about magic. He watched all three of us. I'd bet you the guy could deliver a real good description of any of us, if you paid him. The way you look, the way you carry yourself, the tone you take, your manestyle."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Could have taken Bonny's word for it," Lyra pointed out.

The reproach was gentle, but it did make Berry feel a little bad. "Yeah, I could have, huh? Sorry, Bon. You're creepy good at the gormless shopkeeper act in public most days, so I guess this guy gets to decide how he comes across, too. Think this city's getting to me, anyway."

"Don't worry about it," Bon Bon dismissed the topic with a shake of her head. "Speaking of the city, how're we going to kill time until Chook delivers? Casinos, maybe?"

"We are not going to be gambling. That's worse than drinkin'."

"How's that?" Bon Bon seemed genuinely curious. As far as Berry knew, the other mare had never taken to drink in any harmful way even when she'd been doing a lot worse.

"When you're drinkin', you can still hold a budget together. When you're gambling, y'can't tell how your money's gonna last. Fun either stops early or you start usin' up money you actually need for something else. Worse than drinkin'."

Bon Bon turned her head to give Berry a long, searching look. "Did you actually manage your budget, or did you just get cut off before you could spend more than you had?"

"Well, I guess some of the barkeepers did know me pretty well," Berry allowed. "Way to take a tiny achievement away from a mare, pal." She shook her head. "No, really, money wasn't a real problem. We always had food and I tended to have a couple spare bits to toss Ditzy's way whenever she had to pay for breakin' something. Least I could do for foisting Pinchy on her so often." She shrugged. "Booze was my job, maybe it was easier to keep a tiny bit of control 'cause I always knew I wasn't gonna have to look hard for the next drink. Easier to put it off if you're dead certain it's still there later, maybe."

"I see. Maybe some other time, then. Still a couple patrons back at the Copperhead who'll play poker with us." When the whole group was together, including Ditzy, they usually stuck to shedding games, or just board games. Ditzy was terrible at poker and everypony else felt bad about taking money from her.

The Copperhead was one of the few watering holes in Ponyville Berry hadn't really frequented until recently. It was a pub for old ponies, in her view. She suspected she and her friends were about the only regular patrons under the age of fifty. The proprietor had no use for ponies who got enthusiastically drunk instead of a nursing a beer or three and having a smoke to close out a tiring workday. Good way not to run into the types Berry used to get smashed with on the weekends.

Some of her old drinking partners had developed a case of tall poppy syndrome and not been very supportive about Berry trying to quit, so it was nice to not run into them at the Copperhead, she supposed.

"We'll see what we'll see tomorrow." Truth be told, Berry herself didn't really know her way around the better parts of town, and it had been years since she'd last been here. They'd all be on unfamiliar territory.