Villainy Abroad

by Impossible Numbers

One Heck of a Show

There were more officers, and in the sunlit library, their grey uniforms seemed thick and battered like granite beaten into shape. All of them wore sunglasses and skin-stretching snarls. At once, they began babbling in the local language.

“What are they saying?” said Vanilla, whose voice was already jumping right up. “What’s going on? Are we under arrest?”

The zebra’s front came down with a thump, and her eyes were now locked onto Carmine’s face.

“Who is that?” said Vanilla.

“An old friend I keep bumping into,” said Carmine, whose eyes had in turn locked onto the zebra’s face. “And by ‘old’, I mean ‘ever since I joined the stinking agency’, and by ‘bumping into’, I mean ‘keep finding when she’s trying to steal my work’, and by ‘friend’, I mean ‘why oh why haven’t I shot her in the head yet’?”

Two of the officers moved forwards, levitating the crystal out of Vanilla’s hooves and almost making her stumble into the points aimed at her chest. Another aimed a prod and motioned for Carmine to kick hers. This earned the officer a glare, but the weapon clattered across the floor regardless.

“You remember me telling you on the boat,” Carmine continued as though they were waiting for seats at the café, “about that time I was raiding those Amonic desert pyramids for their crystal, and I got in a three-way brawl?”

“Not really.”

Carmine snorted at her and shook her head. “No attention span…”

“Well?”

“Well, I mentioned the identity of the other two parties: the local militia and this other agency from Xenophon.”

“You saying she’s from the militia?”

Carmine shook her head without dropping eye contact. “From the other agency. And her mane looked like a lump of tar even then. Helped me fend off the Avant-garde Amonic Guard, and then I barely got my breath back when the backstabbing piece of filth pushed me right into a snake pit.”

Vanilla gasped and shivered. “Oh my word! That’s so… nasty!”

“You bet your croup it was. All those poor venomous snakes I had to kill! What a waste of a deathtrap! Took days to get all the scales out of my hair.”

The officers were apparently going through the reading of the rights, because one was now droning at them in yet another language – Carmine vaguely remembered talk of a local legal lingo used especially by the police force – and the others just stood around snarling at her. Zodos flicked a speck of lint off her jacket lapel, and in that moment Vanilla peered around, eyebrow raised.

“Ooh, I’ll get even with that oil-slicked little jackass,” she heard Carmine mutter.

“I don’t see the librarian…” she said. “Where’s she scuttled off to?”

“You were stupid to go into the cave by yourselves,” said Zodos. “Very unprofessional.”

Carmine shrugged, trying not to move her shoulders too much with all the pikes aimed at her muzzle. “I didn’t think that librarian had it in her.”

“Oh, she didn’t summon the police, Redhead.” Zodos smirked over the heads of the officers as they inched closer and encircled the pair. “I did that. Your librarian wasn’t fit to summon her own nerve. As soon as she saw us come in, she pointed out the cave entrance and then slipped out the back. A bit of a blabbermouth, to be frank. Smart pony, though. I think that one’s got a good future ahead of her. More than I can say for you two.”

The officers nudged the pair to start walking. Zodos ambled alongside at a leisurely pace, still smirking and still with her eyes locked onto Carmine’s face as they passed ranks of shelving.

“You led them to us,” said Carmine matter-of-factly. “So it definitely was you I saw at the marketplace. I thought so.”

“It was my duty as an honest citizen. You two are wanted criminals.”

Carmine growled and tried to stop, but each time she got prodded in the nether regions and shouted at.

“You fool, Zodos.” She pointed at her, hopping forwards in the path of the insistent jabbings. “You’re a crook yourself. Officers! Arrest her! Don’t you recognize her for what she is? That’s Zodos, you idiots! Zodos!”

Her voice echoed back at her mockingly. The officers made disbelieving grunts and barked at her until she walked normally again.

Zodos shook her head with the effort of not bursting out into laughter. “How public-spirited of you, my old friend! But that name means nothing out here, Redhead. I am wanted only in the Amonic Empire; here, I am Jane Public, the concerned citizen. And criminals aren’t in much of a position to point hooves at concerned citizens, now are they?”

The officers turned and barred the way before Carmine could charge through their ranks. Even then, they visibly struggled against her chest pressing hard against their pike shafts and the flats of their prods.

“You moron!” she yelled. “They’ll take the crystal away now that they’ve found it. It’ll be locked in this country’s treasury. Even you can’t get in there!”

With a grunt of surprise, she was batted back into line. One jabbed her with a prod, sending sparks up her hair and making her yelp in shock.

“My my,” said Zodos with a mocking bow of the head. “Such confidence!”

Now her eyes blazed and a snarl broke across her face.

“Don’t judge others by your own flawed character, Redhead. We’re not all as deficient as you. Your Equestrian agency is a joke, and you are walking proof of that. Types like you don’t deserve to live.”

Glancing at the white face of Vanilla, Carmine fought the urge to rush forwards again. “How dare you! You monochromatic swine! You small-timer! You backstabbing, slick-tongued, smug little piece of a horse apple!”

The front of the procession pushed the front doors open, and they descended the steps. Zodos stopped to watch Carmine be dragged away, the smirk now back on her face.

“When I get out of this, I’ll rip that crystal from your cold, dead hooves! I’ll set your legs in concrete and dump your broken, mangled corpse out at sea! And that’s after I’ve made sure your last few months on this planet are nothing but pure agony! I’ll torture the darn marrow right out of your bones!”

Zodos mimed a yawn and waved after her. “Sure. Enjoy prison, Redhead. I’ll send you a postcard before they give you the noose.”

Before they reached the last steps, Vanilla rushed up to Carmine’s side and almost knocked her into the pikes opposite. Out of the corner of her mouth, she whispered; “What do we do now?”

The unicorn said nothing. Behind the cracked remnants of the sunglasses, the glare was cutting almost down to the bridge of her equine snout. Both of her ears pointed backwards as though caught against the punches of a hurricane. Her lips and cheeks were struggling to keep her mouth shut.

“There’s a plan,” whispered Vanilla, more urgently this time. “Tell me what the plan is.”

To her surprise, the elements of Carmine’s face – once a rumbling faultline about to explode into an earthquake – slotted back into place, as though the bedrock underneath had collapsed. Even her red hair seemed to pale to a mild pink.

“There… is a plan?” Vanilla’s chest burst with panic and her eyes darted about, trying to spot the clue in the way Carmine ambled onwards, in the way her ears drooped, in anything.

“Isn’t there?” she squeaked.

Carmine slid her a sidelong look, and the sheer gravity of the expression began to weigh Vanilla down. Her legs felt leaden. Muscles in her neck and shoulders sagged, and even her gaze fell to earth with a wet thud. The unicorn beside her was a mirror of herself, and they were both bowing down to the seconds that steadily undermined them.

No… Years of promise, she thought, gone. Maybe there was a world in which she was a rising star, smiling down at her own younger partner and sipping refined punch at upmarket restaurants. It wasn’t going to be this one. Not anymore.

Shamefully, scalding drops pooled in her eyes, and she wiped them away at once. Beside her, Carmine had hardened again, trying to look as stoic as possible, and then as the travelling party merged with the ever-present Brownian motion of the square, she glanced up, and stretching across her face was a smirk.

“Ah…” she said softly.

Vanilla’s ears shot up at once. “What? What is it?”

There was the barest trace of smugness in her voice when Carmine said, “My trump card returns.”

When Vanilla halted and followed her gaze – wincing when a prodding pike forced her to carry on walking – the patchwork of blue sky and white cumulus did nothing for her. Straining to squint, however, she thought she saw a tiny dot of cloud starting to grow overhead. As it approached, two wiggling flecks of lines were suddenly visible above the cloud, and then she noticed a pegasus silhouette on the cloud – no, clutching the cloud – and growing by split seconds.

Around her, the police officers murmured. One or two pointed upwards. They’d barely raised their pikes when Folio zoomed past. The air was torn in half. The cumulus cloud she’d been holding onto now struck at their hooves, and everything was white mist.

Coughs and shouts broke out from the mist, but Vanilla had only just spun around when Carmine reached through the whiteness and yanked her by the elbow.

“While they’re distracted!” hissed the unicorn. “Grab the crystal!”

“What!?” Vanilla blinked about, and spotted a glint in the whiteout. “The crystal!?”

“GRAB IT!”

She lunged for it and the nearest officer bounced off her and vanished. Quickly, she stuffed it into her trench coat.

“You did have a plan!” she cried out with glee. Magic tingled across her skin before biting down hard.

“What plan? Now gallop when you land!”

“What do you mean gallop when I –?”

Yelping, she was thrown bodily up and over, clear of the ground, and for a brief moment she was just Vanilla, floating within a blank void. Her legs trembled at the imagined thump.

All four legs hit the sand. Grunting, Vanilla stumbled and yelped out in pain before Carmine landed with a bracing crouch beside her.

“I said gallop when you land! Up top! Gazelle Tactic! MOVE!”

At once, Vanilla’s legs kicked into gear before her brain had worked out what she’d heard. Crowding silhouettes loomed out of the mist, and she skidded. Despite the throng, Carmine if anything forced herself to gallop faster.

“UP TOP!” Carmine leaped and kicked off from the back and neck of a donkey, her tail whipped through the mist, and then she was gone.

Vanilla wailed. Seconds ago, she’d been winding down at the thought of years behind the same iron bars, and suddenly her muscles were being told to leap and dance with excitement. A bull faded into her view, and she bounced off with a yelp before the tingling seized her again and lobbed her over the back. It felt for a moment as if she’d been thrown ahead of her insides.

Four hooves struck the gaggle of zebra tourists on their saddlebags. She hit them running, legs frantically shooting out at any shape that shifted into view. She didn’t dare look up.

Finally, Vanilla tap-danced out of the last wisps and found herself facing a field of walking heads and backs and sacks and backpacks and trundling carts. Carmine was a pony’s length ahead, skipping over the heads and backs with the grace of –

“NO!” the unicorn yelled back. “Not Stepping Stone! Gazelle Tactic! Gazelle Tactic! Come on! You’ve been trained!”

Mid-jump, Vanilla’s scrambling limbs snapped together. All four hooves drew back to her stomach as though frightened of the crowd, and then the heads and backs rushed for her and she kicked out with one unified quartet, and her hooves knocked the shout out of someone as she flew yet again out of gravity’s reach. Soon, she was bounding alongside Carmine, who had for a while bounced one pony’s length at a time to let her catch up.

She didn’t dare glance back. Cries and shouts were following them. After a few yards across the square, she noticed the grey flash of a pegasus officer drawing level, just beyond Carmine’s other side.

“Surrender you!” cried the pegasus in strained Equestrian. “Give it to up! All of we are armed and danger!”

Except this time, Carmine was facing a one-on-one. She leaped and blurred. The pegasus was snatched away by the crowd and instantly lost behind them. Carmine landed again and then stotted off a cow as though nothing had happened.

“Now… what?” shouted Vanilla, panting against the wind. There were more shouts coming up from behind. Silhouettes were catching up; around the pair, babbles and pike tips were drawing closer.

Carmine’s head swivelled desperately, and then thrust forwards at a stall on the edge of the plaza. “Tarpaulin! Synch Landing!”

“What!? Synch Landing now!?”

“NO! Not yet! At the TARP!”

As they whizzed past an earth stallion’s straw hat, Carmine’s horn glowed and the sack on his back shot up. Despite the shouts from the pony, she swung round and held the bulging sack up high with a grunt. Her eyelids strained to stop her eyeballs popping out.

“OK!” she yelled over the shrieking crowd, which had finally cottoned on. The tarpaulin was looming up. “ON THREE!”

“The… apple stall?” Under the sunlight, Vanilla’s mane was a painted slick on her head and neck. She was radiating and her pale flanks were reddening.

“NO! MELON ONE! AND THREE!”

They braced their shoulders and haunches, threw their hooves back with a synchronized kick, and soared in an arc, clean over a diamond dog’s ducking head. Hovering in midair for a split second, Vanilla gave Carmine’s gritted teeth a sidelong glance and, when the unicorn threw her rear two hooves forwards, did the same. The horn went out. Carmine’s front limbs shot up to catch the sack.

Unicorn, earth pony, and four hundred pounds of what the sack described as “DELISHUSH POTAYTOS” punched into the tarpaulin. For a moment, the two mares were standing upright, frozen in elastic time. Grimacing at her own bent elbows, Carmine was glaring when one pegasus officer drew closer.

“Thieves!” cried the pegasus. “Give it up!”

Carmine shrugged. “OK.”

She flung the sack at the pegasus so fast she might have teleported it.

The tarp snapped up.

Black skull-socket windows and a whitewashed taipa wall flashed past before they cleared the guttering and reached out for the bleached hump of a roof. To her shame, Vanilla let out a brief whimper. The top of the house swung at them with the force of a batter swinging at a ball.

Baked earth cracked under their hooves. Vanilla slipped and scrabbled for the peak of the roof, sending chunks whizzing backwards. Beside her, Carmine clambered onto the semi-cylindrical roof peak and turned to watch.

“Get up here!” Carmine yelled.

Some glaze was shining on the roof like a glass veneer. Vanilla’s hooves were slipping faster.

“I… can’t…” She yelped in panic and dug a hoof into the dent where she’d landed hard, snagging on the lip of the crater. Far below her, the tarpaulin wobbled with those crumpled chunks that had tumbled over the edge and missed the guttering.

Gritting her teeth, she glanced over her shoulder. Cries and screams erupted among the crowd while the unicorns, fighting to get through, rammed themselves against each body blocking their way. Overhead, a couple of pegasi hovered, eyeing Carmine’s horn warily; the fates of their two colleagues had not been lost on them. Far beyond, the white mist had spread and thinned, and now it blocked all but the silhouette of the library from view. Figures could still be seen struggling against each other, clearly unaware of what had happened. A couple more pegasi were trying to disperse it with their wing beats.

Another chunk of earth slipped, yanking her foreleg under her belly. Vanilla bit her tongue. The sliding stopped, but now she was clinging on so tightly and so awkwardly that her legs bent at every joint as though utterly broken.

“I can’t do it!” Her voice cracked. “Can’t you just levitate me up!? Please!?”

“Stop whining! Jump your way up!” Carmine shot a glare at the pegasi, which had just been joined by a couple more colleagues and which were now drifting closer. “You can do it! Trust me!”

“O-OK… I’ll try.” She crushed her eyes shut.

Her first leap bought her a second to yank her leg back up. The second threw her onto the peak, and she and Carmine leaned forwards. Vanilla only had time to snap her eyes open when gravity won out and they slid along the arc of the roof, letting their horseshoes slide over the glaze down to the guttering.

“Well, fancy that. You did do it.”

“Carmine…” Vanilla whimpered.

“JUMP!”

Their front hooves smashed through the guttering just when their back legs shot out. While Carmine’s leap went straight across and she simply dropped down, Vanilla had leaped up into the air. A second later, she realized her mistake and screamed as several extra feet opened up between her and the ground below. Still screaming, she plummeted down to the deserted side street and the wide road and the pits and the cracks.

And stopped with a yank.

There she was, breathing hard and staring wide-eyed at the ground a foot or so below her hooves. Magic tingled along her skin like bubbles popping around her. Inch by inch, she was lowered until hooves met solid road, and then the magic vanished.

Carmine leaped down from a hay bale, a dozen of which were piled up on a cart nearby. “I told you that momentum-killer spell would come in handy some day.”

This got only a weak, whimpering titter from Vanilla; she was trying to convince herself she hadn’t died. “Ahahaha…”

“Good grief, you must have been dreadful in your practical exam.”

“Ahaha-aheh. Ahem.”

Then their ears stiffened. Both of them looked up. Overhead, wing beats stepped down; five pegasi were eclipsing the sky.

Carmine’s head snapped back and forth for an exit. She crouched, ready to spring at the slightest provocation.

“Over here!”

They both turned round; Folio was peering out of a doorway, waving frantically at them. She tried to wave with a wing, winced, and gripped it in both forelimbs.

At once, the pair threw themselves at her. Pegasi zipped out of the air. Vanilla could almost imagine their hooves reaching for her flank when she entered the dark house, and the door slammed shut. Three bangs rattled the hinges, and then all they could hear was the vicious hammering.

It stopped suddenly. All was still.

“They’ll wait overhead until backup arrives,” said Folio from somewhere across the room. “They fly up over a criminal’s hideout so the other coppers can spot them, so no staying here for us. Follow me.”

“Those bandages were just for show, huh?” said Carmine in the darkness. “Very cunning way of misleading others, the good old pathetic injured baby act.”

“Um, not, no, I, uh, I had a sprained, a sprained wi – Yes, yes, you're exactly right. An act. Well-spotted! A pathetic act. Yes. An act. Yes. That's exactly what it was.”

Light stung their eyes. The back door creaked open, and Folio held it and waved them through.

“Quickly, before they fly round!” she whispered.

Carmine cantered through, blinking at the sudden sunlight. “Won’t they just follow us?”

“Trust me; these back streets are like the Labyrinth of Minotauros.”

Carmine squinted. “I have absolutely no idea what that is.”

“It's a really, really big and twisty maze.”

Carmine scratched her head. “Still not following you.”

“It means ‘no’.”

“Oh.”

“Come on!”

As one, they galloped outside and through winding, tiny streets, under skyways and through tunnels. The flaps of following pegasus wings dwindled far above, but the further they galloped, the fainter the flaps became, until eventually they died away completely.

Turning into another side street, they found the way blocked by a wall of stacked crates and a couple of abandoned carts. Old newspapers were crisping on the earth, pages fluttering from a badly tied-up stack on one of the carts. A doorway to their left was dangling on its lower hinges and splattered with dried and flaking ink.

“I liked that place,” murmured Folio dreamily. “They sold good copy until they shut it down. Philistines,” she spat.

No one else was around. Only then did Vanilla collapse, panting and heaving while Carmine stood over her and winced at a stitch.

“Nice work…” Carmine said to Vanilla. She struggled to keep the breathlessness out of her own voice. “You didn’t… mess things up… too badly.”

After several seconds of waiting for her burning throat to die back a bit, Vanilla raised her head. “Funny… I was gonna… say the same thing to you.”

Carmine chuckled and shook her head, marvelling at her.

“And I did – I did good too,” added Folio huffily. Both of them snapped their heads up to look at her. “Thanks a bunch you two! Now I’m wanted by the police. That’s just great. All I wanted was a nice, quiet life, and then you two had to come in, and now I have a criminal record, thank you very much –”

“We’re not done yet,” Carmine snapped, striding towards the crates so that Folio had to duck out of the way. “Vanilla, still got that crystal?”

A few seconds of rummaging unearthed the thing, shining and glittering from its many facets. The thing was now glowing like a piece of sunlight, and she tucked it back into her trench coat hurriedly.

“Neat trick. Emotion-sensitive magical pulse. Looks like the real deal to me. Now…” Carmine turned round to face Folio, who shrank back. “About our next step…”

“I want my family back,” insisted Folio, but she was trembling where she stood and so pale that she was almost shining. “I got you into that cave –”

“Eventually,” muttered Vanilla behind her.

“That means my end of the bargain is complete. Look, please, think about me, please! Please, please, please! I only want nothing more than my family – no, my old life – given back to me.”

“Your end of the bargain?” Carmine’s horn flashed, and the pegasus shot down to the ground, cowering behind her front hooves. “What bargain? I didn’t haggle or make a bargain. You’ll get your family back when I say you will, and no sooner.”

“But… But…”

For a moment, Vanilla was sure she saw Carmine’s gaze meet her own. Then a grin crept up the unicorn’s face, piling up the cheek muscles and nudging her sunglasses a smidgen.

“Sorry. Let me try again. Listen, I’m a reasonable pony, Folio,” she said in such a chirpy voice that even Vanilla felt her shattered nerves settle down and listen indulgently. “This is all just a sad necessity of circumstance and of getting paid, I promise you. It’s how things are, unfortunately. We need some assurance of getting off this island and getting paid without ending up in someone’s dungeon, and you’re doing well on that front, might I just say? And as soon as we’re a long way off and getting paid with no pesky plodding police after our tails, you can have the family back in good health and forget all about this unpleasantness. And we get paid. That in the parlance of business is what we call a ‘win-win’, or at least a ‘win-don’t-lose-too-badly’.”

Folio had stopped quaking, and now stared up at her. “But how? You just said –”

“I’ll give you their location, don’t you worry. And the key to get in; you’ll need that. I left plenty of good grain in some nosebags and a trough full of clean water, and it’s all sheltered, nice and cool.” Here, the grin was wiped blank. “We are trained professionals, miss, not common criminals.”

At this, Vanilla sighed with relief and stepped forwards. Beside her, Folio rose to her hooves, still with ears flattened against her head. She could hear Folio whispering over and over; “The police’ll kill me, the police’ll kill me...”

“Relax,” whispered Vanilla. “Maybe they didn’t recognize you. I didn’t at first, and you were so fast, who could really say?”

“When you’re done blowing kisses in her ear,” said Carmine, “we’ve got until sunset to find a way off this dump. Cover of night should do the trick. Now” – she turned back to Folio, glancing briefly at Vanilla before continuing – “without further ado, and if you’d be so kind as to help us out, friend –”

A shadow stepped out.

Vanilla barely registered the movement behind the crate when a black-and-white body lunged at Carmine. Both Vanilla and Folio yelped and shot back, almost falling onto their haunches. Sunglasses shattered on the ground.

Zodos was standing upright behind Carmine’s back, and forcing her to stand in the same manner. One striped hoof had tilted the unicorn’s chin up, exposing the neck. The other was bent over the hilt of a steel knife. Against the rouge bobbing of Carmine’s swallow, the blade was making a dent where it was pressing down. The whole effect was a grisly parody of a cellist preparing to play a dirge.

Vanilla took a step forwards, ears blown back with shock.

“Stay where you are!” barked the zebra. Vanilla froze, gaping with disbelief.

Flicking an idle ear flap, Zodos grinned at her and then sniffed at Carmine’s neck. “Professional, my croup,” she purred. “I could’ve heard you blabbering a mile away.”

Despite herself, Carmine – bereft of her sunglasses and with her pink-eyed glare now on full display – ground her teeth and growled; her forelimbs, stiff by her sides, twitched at the elbows. A newspaper fluttered past her legs in the slight breeze. She narrowed her eyes to focus.

“If I see so much as a twinkle on that horn,” murmured Zodos, “you’re a dead mare. Even Factor 5000 Sun Cream can’t save you from cold steel.”

Carmine muttered, drawing her neck back slightly; she was trying not to get cut by her own bobbing throat as she spoke. “And where do you get off lecturing us about professionalism?”

A tiny smile bloomed at the tip of Zodos’ muzzle. “Typical Equestrian riff-raff,” she purred. “Cowards and plodders, the whole lot of you. Hiding behind your code of conduct like it makes you better than anyone else.”

“At least we have standards,” spat Carmine. “We don’t kill. We don’t break client confidentiality. We don’t shirk our refund policy when someone asks for their money back. And we definitely don’t backstab.”

The zebra was shaking her head sadly. “Such a waste of good tactics.”

“And yet we ‘cowards and plodders’ have the big contracts with international clients, while you’re still dreaming of your big break. We’re not just backwater thugs-for-hire like those Xenophon scum you work for –”

Zodos yanked the head further back, and Carmine grunted as tendons began to rip. “I’m smart enough to make you do all the work, Redhead.”

“Only because you thickos couldn’t find an art museum if we locked you in one –” The blade pressed inwards and the dent appeared again, and the unicorn added in a spitting rasp, “Bloodsucker.”

Vanilla stepped forwards –

“No heroics!” The zebra’s amused smile evaporated, revealing snarling incisors like meat cleavers. “If I so much as think you’re up to something, her head will roll.”

Vanilla stared into the naked eyes of Carmine, who met hers and, despite the gritted teeth and wrinkled snout below them, pleaded silently. The irises and pupils were shaking with supplication. Vanilla couldn’t step back for a whole twelve seconds, but finally she sagged and gently guided her hoof back to its original place.

“Let me show you how to manage a hostage properly,” murmured Zodos, who licked her lips. “Now. Without any sudden moves. The crystal, if you please.”

Vanilla didn’t move. She couldn’t take her eyes off the dent that the blade was pressing into Carmine’s neck. From a long way off, she fancied a pulse throbbed there every second or so. One little blade against the whole of Carmine… her veteran partner suddenly looked much younger, much frailer.

She didn’t dare move. Her whole mind was teetering on the edge of a yawning cliff with no end in sight, and however much it screamed at itself to back up, back up, back up at once, she could imagine her mind any moment losing the fight against the cold pull of gravity. Every muscle in her body was taut with the effort.

Carmine’s lips struggled around the words, but she finally whispered in a rush, “Give-her-the-crystal, Vanilla.”

“C-Carmine…?” Vanilla forced her eyes not to burn.

“Just-do-it!”

“Slowly,” added Zodos. Partly sheathed behind two lazy eyelids, the zebra’s stare was a poised ice pick, patiently waiting to stab.

With a sigh, Vanilla reached into the folds of her trench coat and felt a hard crystalline object jab into her frog. Her fur crackled for a moment. She rummaged around and finally clamped onto the crystal itself. As though drawing a sword made of glass, she guided it out through her collar and the tip arced through the air as she slowly swung it round, the glow dimming from sunshine brightness to a lunar sheen.

Zodos’ eyes gleamed. “Very good, little pony.”

Yet Vanilla didn’t hear the words. She was staring at the thickened end of the crystal. Her other limb urged her to clasp it in both forelegs, to heft it. If she could get close enough, then perhaps…

Carmine’s head pushed back slightly, bracing her muscles.

Scarcely had Vanilla wobbled on her hind legs and thrust one forwards when Zodos barked, “Stay where you are! No close-quarters garbage! And you” – Folio yelped and stood up – “stop creeping backwards. You must think I’m stupid.”

“You're not giving her many options on that front,” said Carmine.

“Please…” whimpered Folio. “My family…”

“Shut. Up. And don’t even think of throwing that crystal at me… kid.” Zodos gave a chuckle. “Tell her, Carmine.”

“She’s too fast,” wheezed Carmine through gritted teeth. “Lightning. Trust me. Seen ‘er b’fore.”

“Good.” Zodos’ lips pulled back, showing her meat-cleaver incisors again. “On the floor. Drop it.”

Vanilla was starting to pant, and a frown flickered over her forehead. “If I give you the crystal,” she said slowly, fighting to keep her tone steady, “then what stops you from killing her anyway?”

This got nothing but a second chuckle. She held her breath and bent down to place the crystal on the ground. Not once did she look away from Carmine. Another newspaper flapped in the wind and tumbled off the cart and onto the road.

“Step back nice and slowly,” said Zodos.

Folio was sobbing but still upright, and Vanilla nudged her to get her to step backwards. While she placed each hoof delicately behind her, the earth mare stared at Zodos’ grin but, out of the corner of her eye, noticed Carmine scrabble at the edge of the crispy pages. There was no way the zebra would not hear it, but if she could just get a hoof on it…

“Spare me your pathetic ploys.” Zodos’ hoof pressed on Carmine’s chin, jerking her head back briefly; the unicorn winced at the strain that shot into her neck. “By the time you kick that up into my face, that brilliant brain of yours will be rattling around my hooves. Now… kid… kick the crystal across the ground.”

A bead of sweat dribbled down Vanilla’s temple. Her mouth trembled to get the words out. “And then… you-you’ll let her go…p-p-please?”

There was no answer. Ears drooping, her left hoof to her heart, Vanilla closed her eyes and cringed at the stab of pain inside. Her other hoof flicked at the crystal. All the glowing facets skidded and flashed over and over until the tumble became a glide, and the thing stopped an inch ahead of the newspaper’s edge.

Carmine raised her other rear hoof an inch. A page flopped over, and she transferred her hoof onto the fully open newspaper. Shaking the drop out of each eye, Vanilla glared at the steel knife. She clutched her heart, creasing the folds of her trench coat. The collar drooped past her chest.

“Very good. Don’t bother reaching for any pocketed prizes,” said Zodos, whose eyes had briefly widened. “You can’t whip it out fast enough.”

“You cold-hearted monster,” breathed Folio. She stepped forwards.

“Back off, idiot!” Vanilla snapped at her.

Shock blooming on the pegasus’ face, Folio took two steps backwards and bit her lip.

“Now,” Zodos said to her captive. “I’m going to let go of your chin, so be it on your own head if you relax too much. Bend down and pick it up with your hooves.”

“Ah. Cunning,” muttered Carmine. “Of course, that stops me doing anything fancy with my teeth. You are a crafty devil, aren’t you?”

The striped hoof shot off the chin as though scolded. Yet the knife didn’t so much as waver. Carmine waited three seconds before leaning down, slow and stiff as an old arthritic mare, to wrap her forelimbs around the crystal. Zodos had to rest on her back, the knife still at her throat. The zebra’s gaze was fixed on the other two ponies.

Vanilla waited until the crystal was clear of the ground and the two were upright again; the only way power could get through it now was if it could continue down Carmine’s body, and the newspaper was firmly under the unicorn’s rear hooves.

“Good,” began Zodos. “Now –”

Still clutching at her own heart, Vanilla pressed at her chest with a jab so slight that Zodos barely registered the act.

The lightning sceptre flared.

Her hoof had pressed through a gap between the buttons. Yellow shot cleanly out through her hanging collar. There was metal barely yards away, and Carmine was the only equine touching it who had an insulator between her and the ground.

The unending scream of Zodos stuttered and skipped with each jagged shock. Arcs zapped in and out of existence all over her.

A purple tree of lightning strikes was still burning into Vanilla’s retinas when she heard a crack, and by the time the afterimage had cleared, Carmine was rubbing the back of her own horned head while Zodos rolled away, clutching at her striped nose and twitching and yelping in spasms and crackling arcs. Folio shrieked and spread her wings; with a tackle, Vanilla pinned her to the ground and held her struggling body down.

Carmine kicked the newspaper away.

“I am of course a reasonable mare with a generous outlook and an honourable philosophy,” she said. She hefted the crystal in her hooves. “Since you have expressed a keen interest in this ancient historical artefact, I am more than willing to overlook these recent differences and let you have it.”

She swung. It was a great uppercut, and the crack was loud and clear as a gunshot.

Zodos arced over the crates, trailing sparks and blurring with spasms and screaming in electric fits, and she was still trailing and blurring and screaming when she disappeared behind the wall.

Both Vanilla and Folio flinched at the thump.

“Past differences, on the other hand,” said Carmine. “That is another kettle of fish.”

The crystal clattered on the ground. Twinkling lights smothered it, and it rose level with Carmine’s glowing horn while she, still standing upright, spat and polished her hooves against each other.

“Vanilla,” she said in a slightly shaky voice, “I am not on my honour a biased mare, but if we survive this commission, then you are getting a bucket-load of gold stars on your résumé.”

“Carmine!” Vanilla’s beam hugged her own face, and she shone with the sunlight of a sky no longer overcast with storms. “I thought… I thought I’d never –”

A warning hoof shot up, and she bounced off it chest-first before she realized she’d even taken a forward bound.

“Don’t get sappy about it,” snapped Carmine. “Professionals don’t cry. Well, not like that, anyway.”

Vanilla rubbed her nose, snorting back something damp and cold. “S-Sorry. Sorry, Carmine.”

“We’re not out of the wicked woods yet.” Instantly, the unicorn rounded on Folio and reached across; the pegasus flinched, but merely received a few pats on the shoulder. “You holding up OK?”

Folio blinked at her and stammered. “Wh-What? Oh, y-yes. F-Fine, I guess. Uh, th-thanks.”

“You doubtless have to sneak out to do a bit of partying elsewhere every now and then. You know a way out of this dump?”

“Uh, uh… y-yes, yes I happen to –”

“Good mare. Keeps her head in a crisis. Well,” said Carmine, giving her a mock bow, “lead on, maestro.”

No one moved. Sweat dribbled down Folio’s temple. To Vanilla, it felt like an hour was looming over them, daring them to break it down.

Then, abruptly, she began to laugh. It beat her lungs up and punched at her voice box before shouldering its way out of her mouth, and even as she wept apologetically for the sky, she couldn’t stop committing violence to the very air around her with each boom and blast. Instinctively, she forced a hoof into her mouth and the laughter rounded on it, puffing hot breath like fire all over the horny edge until it was softened and melting. Through the smears of water on her eyes, she could see Carmine shaking her head, and when the unicorn sighed at her, she shook herself down and hit her own cheek until the gales of laughter were weak enough to lock behind her tight lips.

“Um…” said Folio, looking as though Vanilla had turned into a sizzling bomb.

“Let’s go,” muttered Carmine. As Folio led them away from the crates, Carmine waited for Vanilla to stumble past, and then added in an undertone, “Wet behind the ears and under the eyes. Never had this sentimentalism back in my day…”

“Sorry,” wheezed Vanilla, hastily wiping her eyes. “G-Got carried away.”

“It’s the shock, that’s all.” Carmine fell into line behind her, speaking matter-of-factly. “Better agents than you have had it. You’re fine now. Just keep your mind on the job and forget about what happened. It’s over. There! That’s the ticket! Your shoulders are heaving less already. Thattagirl. Steady breaths. Concentrate on the mission.”

“Steady breaths,” whispered Vanilla. “Concentrate on the mission… I got this… I got this…”

While the sun arced towards the western rooftops, the three of them looked around and up at the clear skies, and then scurried under cover of the lengthening shadows, lost at once to the maze of streets.

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