Act 3 Chapter 56 : In The Garden, The Snake
"I'm not going to claim the immediate future is bright. I've seen too many dead to tell you it will all end in sunshine and rainbows. The end is coming, but whether it is merely the closing of a chapter or the final words and a sense of wistful sadness at what might have been, it will be up to us. We are not helpless before the future. We are its creators and stewards. If the future is to be beautiful, it is up to us to make it so."
-Princess Celestia at the signing of the Canterlot Peace Accord, which officially ended the Cutie-Mark Crusades.
The first sign of ill tidings in the Heights was a burning furniture store.
Taxi pulled the D.F.W. to a stop out front of Sofas And Sundries, watching as a lovely Prench lounge smoldered in the front window. It seemed something heavy and on fire had punched through the corner of the building’s roof. The blaze appeared to be contained to just the one store, but the damage was extensive.
“That’s a sad sight,” Bones commented, watching the building with a bit of a sag in his shoulder, “I bought my bachelor couch from that place almost seventy years ago. Don’t know if old Loveseat is still alive, but damned if he didn’t sell me a decent spot to screw and sleep.”
We sat in silence for another moment, watching the ancient building burn.
“Sir? Can...can we go now?” Swift asked, “I’d really like to find out if my family is still alive.”
“Yeah. Yeah, kid. We can go,” I muttered, stroking Mags’s head as she sat in my forelegs, purring like an oversized pussycat. “Sweets, keep the headlights off. Lim, how much more silence do you think you can give us?”
Limerence’s face was covered in a thick sheen of sweat, but his horn still glowed steadily as he concentrated on keeping the engine quiet. “I am tired beyond words, so kindly don’t make me use any more. Drive.”
“You heard the stallion.”
----
I was more than a little thankful for the air filters built into the D.F.W. when we passed the first of several burning bodies, sprawled in a cart, limbs askew. Tar colored smoke thickened the air until we were driving in a dark haze, passing scorched storefronts and apartment blocks with bullet-holes dotting their vacant faces.
Contrary to what the movies would have you believe, gun battles are messy, awkward affairs. The P.A.C.T. hit the Heights like a sledgehammer, but from the look of things the Heights hit back just as hard. Blood-spattered street signs and devastated storefronts were everywhere.
There were few corpses out in the open, but considering anyone with a lick of sense had probably taken cover at the sound of the first gunshot that wasn’t surprising. Here, a mare dead in the door of a candy store. There, a stallion without most of his face in one of the upper windows of an apartment. In one or two places, burning bones indicated the final resting places of P.A.C.T. creatures.
It was silent in a way only a recently vacated battlefield can be.
A blockade built of disused cars and garbage that’d once blocked the primary road toward the Vivarium was toppled by what looked like an explosion. Taxi edged the D.F.W. between the shattered remains of two buses and we found ourselves in the middle of a blasted hellscape. Nothing moved, save a few weak fires still giving light to the darkened day.
Ahead, the shopping center where the Vivarium’s upper level and elevator once stood was simply gone. The temple facade with its golden arches was reduced to a heaping mountain of smoking debris. Rising over the pile, I could just make out the twisted corpse of Stella’s anti-air gun, still pointed at the sky. The parking lot surrounding the disaster was pock-marked and covered in signs of battle. Blackened bones lay everywhere, their misshapen owners nothing but ash blowing in a chilly breeze.
I wanted to cry.
I wanted to stomp my hooves.
I wanted a drink and a soft bed.
The cold thing that’d been growing in my gut bloomed into a shuddering, angry windigo blowing ice through my veins.
“Taxi? Park us,” I muttered.
The engine’s rumble died and Limerence let out a loud gasp, almost falling on his face as his hornlight faded out, leaving a thin trail of smoke coming off the tip. Breathing heavily, he laid his head against my seat and looked up at me. I gave him a slight nod, and he shut his eyes, slumping onto his crossed hooves. After a moment, he let out a soft snore.
“Swift, get topside and give me a report. Use the Hailstorm’s tracking magic. I want to know if there’s anything with a soul out there. Anything at all.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
I heard the top hatch clank open and a ruffle of feathers. Hoofsteps rattled on the D.F.W.’s roof as my partner moved back and forth from one side to the other, then back again. After a minute, she stuck her head back inside.
“Sir? There’s a bunch of targets below ground. There’s nopony above except us.”
“Anywhere?”
“Anywhere.”
Bones stepped between the front seats and peered outside.
“Doesn’t look good,” the skeleton commented, “Last I was here, there was only the main elevator, the garage entrance, and the industrial lift. You want me to go take a look at the garage?”
I shook my head, glancing toward the back where the three P.A.C.T. troopers sat, impassively waiting for orders. “It’ll be blocked off, collapsed, or booby-trapped. Stella is nothing if not thorough. Swift?”
My partner twisted herself around so she could look at me somewhat upright. “Yes, Sir?”
“Do you still have Tourniquet’s map of the sewers in your head?” I asked.
“Uh…” Her eyes rolled back and to the left for a second, then she brightened. “Oh! I almost forgot about that!”
“How do you forget—...never mind. Does Stella have any secret entrances that we can get into that’re connected to the sewers?”
She squinted, then slowly bobbed her head up and down. “I think so. There’s one down a ponyhole cover...uh...over there.” She gestured vaguely towards the other side of the parking lot. Her hoof froze in mid wave and she quickly pulled it back outside. “Oh...Sir, I don’t think we should use that entrance. I’m sure there’s...maybe...another one...somewhere...”
“Kid, we’ve swum through Detrot’s main black water line. We crawled through a cistern full of monsters that eat hearts. Are you telling me there’s something worse down there?”
----
“Hardy, tell me again why you get to make these executive decisions?”
“I have no idea, Sweets. If it would make you feel better, you can beat me to death. I don’t think this is a smell meant for equine noses, and being dead would be preferable.”
“Oh, no you don’t. If you die, it’ll be because I’m holding your head under until the bubbles stop.”
“Then I retract my offer. I really don’t want any of this on my hat. Kid? Why are they keeping all of this?”
“It gets Miss Stella a big tax break to be classed as a recycling facility, Sir. The city wasn’t very specific on what he had to recycle. It saves money to purify and re-use some things so they don’t go into the drainage system and cause a big dumping fine, too.”
“Come again?”
“Exactly.”
----
We trudged—the fastest possible speed a pony could move through the excess-lube dump of the city’s oldest brothel—down the narrow tunnel in single file. It was three brainwashed P.A.C.T. troopers leading the way in case of booby-traps or trigger-happy guards, myself, Swift with the Hailstorm’s turrets scanning the walls around us, then Taxi carrying a snoring Limerence, and finally, Bones bringing up the rear.
The secret entrance wasn’t so much a ‘sewer’ as it was a ‘sump tank’ for the disposal of the various ‘experience enhancing’ fluids used by the Vivarium. It was something of a blessing that it’d apparently been cleaned sometime in recent months; the ‘high water’ mark which ran around the interior suggested the tank frequently contained enough foulness to come right up to my neck. Still, being ankle deep in decaying, heavily perfumed, artificial sex fluids, potions, and other such business effluvia of the world’s oldest profession was enough to leave me craving a bleach bath. Fortunately, the only light was a dimly flickering gemstone hanging from the ceiling.
It was only about fifteen meters from end to end, but even doffing my coat and bundling it on my back couldn’t keep my clothing from catching a few stray splashes. Every step was precarious and the bottom of the tube felt like walking on greased rubber. Anypony who went down in that was going to be asking for a mercy bullet.
At the far end, there was a set of metal stairs with railings leading up to what looked like a hatch just large enough to accept a pony.
“Alright, I’m going up first,” I murmured. The P.A.C.T. troopers made way, slipping and sliding against one another as they piled up against the wall of the revolting tunnel.
Trotting up the stairs, I tested the hatch. Finding it unlocked, I shoved a shoulder against it and almost yelped as it flew open and I was sent stumbling out of the hole, sliding onto my knees on the carpet at my slippery hooves went out from under me. Something circular and very cold pressed against the end of my muzzle.
“If yer a pony, best speak up,” a voice said, above me. “Ah can’t see too good just now, but ah don’ need ta see ya ta put a load of buckshot in yer face at this range.”
I carefully raised my gaze to find Granny Glow standing over me with a sawn-off shotgun levitating steadily in her magical field pointed right at my nose. She wore a thick gauze wrapped tightly around her head and covering her eyes. Blood trickled from under the bandage, dripping off her wrinkled cheek.
We seemed to be in some kind of broom closet, though the only thing besides a mop and bucket was the hatch I’d just come out of.
“Glow? After Glow?” I whispered.
“Hmmm? Speak up! Ya a pony or ya a critter?”
“Pony! Pony! It’s me! Hard Boiled!”
“Eh...tha idiot detective? Prove it!”
“You almost drowned me once!”
“Ah almost drown lotsa people. Do better.”
Swift shoved her way out of the hatch and pushed the sawn-off away. I drew in a deep breath and stepped back as my partner took her grandmare’s cheeks in her hooves.
“Gran! Sweet Celestia?! Are you okay? What happened to your eyes?!”
“Swift? Little Bird?” After Glow asked, her ears swinging back and forth as she looked up at the ceiling.
“Who else would it be, gran?” Swift asked, then threw her forelegs around her grandmare who let out a soft ‘oof’ and hugged her close.
“Girly, ah swear! Somepony trips mah magic sensors down in the passage and ah thought ah was about ta do some wet work! Phew, ya smell like death, kiddo. Death and sex.”
The door of the tiny closet banged open and Lily Blue stormed in, looking like she’d just toured a griffin slaughterhouse. She wore a set of nurse’s scrubs that were covered in blood right to her hooves. After Glow’s magic grabbed the sawn-off, but Swift quickly reached up and bopped her on the tip of the horn, sending the gun skittering across the carpet.
“Miss Glow, you either stay in bed or I will tell one of those ponies with all the rope to tie your flank down!” Blue barked, before catching sight of the rest of our group. “D-Detective?! Hardy!”
Before I could stop her, Lily tackled me into the wall. My ribs creaked as she squeezed me with legs muscled from a lifetime of farm work. Still, the hug was worth a bit of pain. Mercy, was it.
“G-good to see you, too, Lily,” I coughed, patting her on the back.
A voice from below piped up.
“Can we all please come out of the stinky tunnel now? I need a bath and to have someone replace all of my skin.”
----
The Vivarium, once the vital, thrumming center of my debauched homeland, the core of commerce, and respite for the perverse, beautiful, and rare, was reduced in a matter of hours to a bloody triage. Appropriated hospital cots lined the hallways, pouring out of the full rooms that lined the corridors. Ponies moaned or cried out for help. Nurses, doctors, and volunteers rushed back and forth applying the scant bandages, suturing, and making the kinds of decisions nopony should have to make.
Who lives? Who dies?
It was enough to break your heart.
----
There were two knocks at the closet door. I quickly opened it, and Lily Blue rushed inside, levitating a heap of cloth behind her and dropping it at my hooves. Reaching down, I quickly picked up the top layer and held it up: surgical scrubs and a hospital gown.
“Sorry, it’s the best I could do on short notice,” Lily said. “We’ve got to get After Glow back to her room.”
“Ah can get to mah room just fine, missy!” Glow protested from where she sat against the wall with Swift fussing over her bandages. “Ah might be blind at the minute, but Ah know these hallways like the back of mah hooves!”
“Gran, you’re going back to bed. What even did this?” Swift asked, ruffling her wings worriedly.
“Ah tried to smack a grenade with a shield. Didn’t go too good. Caught most of the shrapnel, but a bit caught me right back. Oh, would ya stop, girly?!” Glow hissed, batting her granddaughter’s hooves away as she stood. “Ah’m not dead nor dyin’!”
“Did Dad get a look at this?” Swift asked.
“Yer dad’s a busy pony. Whole lot of ponies out there in sorer shape’n me.”
Swift’s ears lay back against her head. “What about Mom? I know she’d be fighting on the front lines—”
“Kid.” I reached out and gently put a hoof on my partner’s shoulder, “We’ll find out what’s going on soon, but right now we have to get to Stella and make him aware we’re back without causing a riot out there.”
Swift blinked uncomprehendingly. “A riot, sir?”
Bones clicked his jaw and nodded in my direction. “Sweetheart, I know it’s easy to forget how those ponies out there see my grandson, seeing as you spend most of your time with him, but he’s a big damn hero to them, whether he likes it or not. If Deadheart pokes a hoof out that door undisguised, he’ll have a line of ponies wanting to shake it. It’s why the Crusaders kept our heads down during the war. Let the Wonderbolts enjoy the spotlight while we get the real work done.”
“Too bad that wasn’t an option,” Taxi added, carefully setting down Limerence and picking up one of the nurse uniforms that Lily had provided. “A hero’s reputation counts for lots of resources, particularly when the Crown isn’t signing the checks behind the scenes. Still, there are downsides. Hardy, make sure your flanks are covered.”
I picked up a surgical mask and pulled it over my face, then grabbed a towel to throw over my cutie-marks.
Pausing, I glanced back down into the open hatch at the three P.A.C.T. troopers down below who were still dutifully waiting for instructions. They hadn’t moved, even to step onto the stairs and out of the sludge lining the bottom of the tunnel. A very cold part of me felt like I should be angry at their complete lack of self-preservation skills. Another part quailed at the thought of having so much power over a pony.
They were as helpless as foals. Nay, moreso. A foal wouldn’t cut their own throat at a command. I strongly suspected the troopers would.
“Who are they?” Lily asked as she came up beside me, squinting down into the darkness. “Oh Celestia, are they—”
I quickly slapped a hoof over her mouth before she could scream or do anything ill-advisedly awkward. I grabbed her face and pulled it close to mine.
“We were just talking about not starting a riot, right?” I hissed into her ear, gently removing my hoof.
“B-b-but they’re—”
“Yes, we’re all aware.”
Lily’s ears flicked against the side of her head. “H-how!?”
“Too complicated to describe right now, but they might be an ace in the hole once the city is back in our hooves.”
“What’re ya’ll talkin’ about in them ‘lowered tones’ over there?” After Glow growled.
Swift tugged her grandmare’s foreleg. “They’re kissing, gran. Come on, we’ve got to get you back to bed.”
“Ah can git mahself there jus’ fine,” Glow grumbled, but let my partner support her as they limped toward the door. She paused there, then glanced back at me. “Hard Boiled, when yer done makin’ time, ya best report yaself to the lizard right quick. Situation’s turned nasty.”
“That’s my next stop,” I replied.
“I’ll go see if I can track down the situation on the ground,” Taxi added, then turned to Bones. “You care to join me?”
“I’m not exactly an inconspicuous sort myself. Crowded building’s tough to sneak through. I can do it, but won’t be quick.”
“Simple solution to that. Miss Blue, can you step out and get us some bandages? Mister Bones here is going ‘old school’.”
----
Taxi ended up wrapping Bones so thoroughly the only sign he was anything but a catastrophic burn victim—or perhaps a mummy—was the dim blue glow from behind the thin layer over his eye sockets. I had to settle for my surgical mask and towel, but it was good enough. Limerence got the worst of it; he was still unconscious, so tossing him on a gurney Lily had acquired with a sheet over top seemed the best solution. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had time to clean it and whoever happened to have last occupied the rolling bed was a bleeder.
Part of me felt guilty for ordering our trio of mindripped troopers to get naked and stand in a closet, but it wasn’t as though we could drag them through a building that’d effectively become a hospital. Their gear alone was enough to set off the aforementioned fracas, much less what would happen if somepony should catch an indiscrete glimpse of their teeth. Still, despite their perpetually empty expressions, I couldn’t entirely shut off that voice telling me that they were still ponies and deserving of some baseline equinity for that reason.
Too bad that was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
Swift and her grandmare went one direction while Bones and Taxi went the other, both vanishing around corners as I set my hooves on the handles of Limerence’s gurney and Lily lit her horn to guide the other end.
I tried to keep my eyes straight ahead, but it was impossible not to see the weight of suffering around me. Cots and mats covered every spare surface except the wide avenue. Bodies were heaped against the walls, some sobbing, some just staring blankly at their neighbors across the way. Bloody stains had soaked into the carpet, making it squelch underhoof every few steps.
The smell of every imaginable thing that comes out of a pony should have been enough to make my eyes water, but I’d just come from a darker place and a pleasant fuzziness had settled over my senses. Whether it was Gale being merciful or just the natural numbness that comes with trauma beyond comprehension was hard to say. I focused on my hooves, keeping them moving. Sleep was a distant memory. Had I ever slept?
Even with my mind full of cotton, every ounce of cop-instinct demanded I dash over and help the nurse who was frantically trying to stem the bleeding of an elderly mare, her cane propped against the end of her cot; sadly, there was nothing an extra set of hooves could add to that which my presence in Stella’s room wouldn’t.
A foal at one of the t-junctions was standing looking back and forth, her eyes full of tears, her cheeks wet with them as she watched a young stallion lean over somepony I presumed was her mother, carefully working a plastic tube down the mare’s throat.
Every now and then, a pained shriek would echo from one of the side rooms. I did my best not to think on the possibility that it was somepony I knew or had met. Cold as that might sound, my sanity was already teetering, and more loss was likely to tip it into catatonia.
‘Talk to the serpent. Find a wall-socket, get some food, and rest. Find Scarlet. Get alone with him and Lily. Don’t lose your mind before all of that happens.’
I almost failed to notice when we came to a stairwell labeled ‘Deep Levels, Authorized Personnel Only’. Exchanging a look with Lily, I trotted around and pushed the door open. Just inside the door, at the top of the steps, a dingy brown Stiletto unicorn with a white sash spattered red stood guard. His forelegs were both heavily bandaged, but it didn’t seem to be affecting his ability to hold the massive knife that floated alongside his head.
“Who goes there?” he asked, shifting his weight.
“Three to see Stella,” I replied.
“Authorized means authorized,” he said, sharply. “Let’s see some faces and cutie-marks.”
I looked over my shoulder at the hall full of ponies.
“Look, that...might not be the best idea,” I said, lowering my voice.
“And why is that?” he asked, suspiciously.
I swallowed, then leaned toward him and pulled my surgical mask up six inches. His jaw went slack and his hornlight winked out, dropping the blade with a cringe-inducing clatter. I slapped my mask back in place.
“D-d-etec—” he started to say, but I quickly shook my head, pushing through the door into the stairwell and dragging Limerence’s gurney in behind me. Lily darted in after me and nosed the door shut.
I exhaled, pressing my forehead against the wall. The Stiletto stallion still hadn’t recovered and was just standing there, dumbly watching me with that expression I was growing to hate seeing directed at me: borderline worshipful awe.
“You. What’s your name?” I asked.
“Uh...Sturm...um...sir?”
“Sturm. Good. Hold the ‘sir’,” I said, then tapped Limerence’s sleeping chest, “Can you help my friend here levitate this downstairs and find the lump a spot to sleep off his little magical hangover?”
“Errr...Oh! Yes! Who—”
Lily pulled her own surgical mask down and smiled sweetly at him.
“Miss Blue! I’m sorry! It’s been so crazy and I didn’t recognize you!”
“It’s fine,” she replied, patting him on the shoulder. “I don’t think we ever talked, so no reason to, right?”
“But you rode with the Detective! You fought alongside Dead Heart! Everypony knows everypony who...” He trailed off as his eyes met mine. I must have been glaring, because he quickly muttered, “S-sorry.”
“I swear, if I end up as an action figure I’m going to stick my head into Swift’s pet cerberus’s dinner bowl,” I grumbled, then pointed at the stairs. “Does this go down to Stella’s lair?”
“Yes, sir! Right down the steps to the door at the bottom, then follow the signs! Come on, I’ll show you.”
----
It was a damn near interminable climb. For the first few levels, doors split off to the sides, then it was bare, industrial stairs. Slowly, sheetrock dust filled the air and cloyed at the back of my throat, leaving my nostrils feeling gummy and dry. The stairwell ended abruptly at a piece of torn plastic hanging over a gaping hole in what looked like bedrock. I brushed the plastic aside and stepped through, holding it wide for Sturm and Lily to guide Limerence’s gurney through.
I found myself in a tall, empty room stacked high on all sides with enough construction materials to outfit a small skyscraper. Heaps of wood, stacks of sheetrock, and bag upon bag of concrete filled the space, turning it into a precariously balanced maze. Down the middle, a single central path just wide enough for two ponies abreast led to a dark tunnel with a series of lights illuminating circles before disappearing around a distant curve.
“I don’t remember this being here,” I commented.
Sturm hefted the gurney a bit higher, eagerly trotting alongside me. “With the Aroyos, the Underdogs, and the refugees working together, we’ve had more magic and more free hooves than ever before, so we’ve been carving out...everything. I don’t think anybody besides Mistress Stella knows what all is happening down here. Ponies working with griffins working with diamond dogs—”
I put a hoof on his chest and his jaw snapped shut so fast I thought he’d clip the tip of his own tongue.
“I get that. What is all of this? And why aren’t the ponies upstairs down here?” I asked.
“It’s...Detrot,” Sturm replied, as though that somehow explained everything.
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“I mean, I don’t...really understand it all, but I think Mistress Stella is planning...um…” The Stiletto’s ears drooped, and he dropped to a whisper that I didn’t catch.
“Pardon?”
“He’s planning for you to fail, Hardy,” Lily interjected, her horn brushing waves of light back and forth in short strokes over Limerence’s face. “Yeesh. What did he do to burn his magic out this badly? He’ll be lucky if he can pick up a pencil tomorrow!”
I sighed, shaking my head. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised the dragon is planning on me botching this. He’s careful and he likes to plan ahead. What did he call it? Investing?”
“I’ve talked to Stella some when he...well, when he has a spare minute,” Lily said, giving Limerence a little pat on the cheek. “Stella likes you, Hardy, but he doesn’t think anypony can stop something that can re-order time and space, pitch the Princesses off the planet, and steal entire cities. He’s planning to lose.”
“What about you?” I asked.
Lily trotted over and levitated my surgical mask to one side so she could lean in and give me a tiny kiss on the cheek, light as the brush of a butterfly’s wings.
“I’m just a farm girl,” she replied, a little sadly, “You’d have to ask my sister. She was the one with all the big ideas.”
I cocked my head to one side. “What would Ruby have said?”
Lily snorted and dragged Limerence’s gurney toward the tunnel. “Ruby would have told Stella off for being silly, because of course you’ll succeed. How could you not?”
That brought a smile. Not much of one, mind you. It’s hard to smile when you’re covered in blood and lube. Still, it was better than nothing.
I turned to Sturm and asked, “You got somewhere we can stash my friend until he recovers?”
His ears perked up. “You can leave him with me! I’ll make sure he’s safe and knows where you are when he wakes up!” He paused, then added, “Errr...where will you be?”
“In an ideal world, asleep. So probably getting chewed out by a dragon. How lost can I get in these tunnels?”
The young stallion pointed at a piece of paper taped to the wall of the nearby tunnel just beyond the stacks of construction material. I strolled over and examined the sign. It was covered in various symbols, one of which was a coiled snake with an arrow pointing down the hall.
“Right. Lily, you coming?” I asked.
She looked momentarily conflicted, then let out a long breath. “There’s a lot of hurt ponies upstairs, Hardy...”
My breathing caught around what felt like a stone lodged in my throat, but I nodded. “Go on. I’ll be fine.”
Lily blew a thin strand of her red mane out of her eyes and looked a bit exasperated.
“You’re lying.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t matter. We’ve both got jobs to do.”
“I’m off shift in six hours. Find me?”
“I’ll save you a bagel.”
----
And that was it.
I was alone. Again.
My friends were doing the job. I was doing the job.
When had I last collected a paycheck? I couldn’t even remember.
I felt like a colt whose mother had walked off absentmindedly at the shopping mall suddenly discovering that he’s all alone.
I followed the signs through the darkness, between pools of light from the overhead lamps, with only distant hoofsteps and the occasional chatter of ponies coming from the farther corners of the tunnel network to keep me company Once or twice I passed doors that were little more than curtains hung over openings. One had the makings of a barracks, though with stacks of unassembled bunkbeds piled along the wall. Another smelled of compost and had a hundred ceiling-high racks of dirt with fat mushrooms growing in them.
I didn’t want to think about the possibility of failure, but Stella hadn’t survived in Detrot the last however many decades by failing to ask ‘What if this doesn’t work?’. Plan B, C, and D are fundamental necessities if you happen to have a draconic lifespan and want to use all of it.
Would ponies survive in the cold darkness of a future with no sun?
If anyone could figure a way to make that happen, I’d have bet good money on Stella.
After what felt like an hour of wandering in the dark, I found myself in familiar territory. My hooves moved from bored-out stone to smooth-packed dirt and I saw, just ahead, the heavy stone door that marked the entrance to Mistress Stella’s private lair. Loud voices calling orders back and forth were intermixed with a soft jazz playing on scratchy vinyl.
I poked my head into Stella’s lair and found a scene of controlled chaos.
The platform above Stella’s private swimming hole was crowded with ponies standing around a giant circular table with a map of Detrot laid out. I didn’t recognize more than a couple of members of the crowd. The zebra who’d followed us into Cosmo’s drug lab, Zeta, was there standing below Stella with a quietly impassive mien on her face. I recognized a former member of the Church of Nightmare Moon who was furiously scribbling on a clipboard; he had Tourniquet’s red crescent burned into his forehead, of all places. The rest seemed to be frantically working the burgeoning logistical nightmare upstairs.
Stella himself was slouched on his throne, listening to the ponies shouting back and forth. He looked haggard and worn, his tail coiled around the base of his throne and trailing through the water. He wore no makeup, nor his boa, nor even a smattering of lipstick.
Cheerfully eccentric personality aside, Stella was still a dragon. Part of me was willing to forget that fact, but seeing him without his glitz or glitter drove the point home. He was the most fearsome of beasts in Equestria and a lord amongst lizards. He’d manipulated Detrot for decades and been outplayed by a far more malevolent force with many more centuries to plan. The centuries were showing and the dark circles under his eyes made him look downright sinister.
As I was having these thoughts, a young filly rushed down from the table, a missive in her teeth, and almost bowled me over in her headlong rush for the tunnel. She managed to skid to a halt with her muzzle an inch from my chest, then slowly looked up.
“A-are you supposed to b-be here?” she asked. “The hospital is back that way.”
I winked at her and pulled my surgical mask down a few inches.
I’m not sure if she started to scream, but there was a definite deep inhale that caught in her throat and reduced her to a coughing fit. I patted her on the back, though no-one on the platform seemed to have noticed her distress. She sat down on the dirt floor and looked up at me, a hoof over her muzzle.
“I know you’re busy,” I murmured, nodding toward Stella. “I need you to go tell the lizard I’m here. Whisper it, if you can. I’m trying to be secretive here.”
The filly chewed over my words for a second, then backed up and almost galloped across the cavern. I stepped into the shadows outside, peering around the corner with half an eye. It took the little pony a moment to get Stella’s attention; the dragon seemed stuck in a deep brooding mood. When she did, he carefully leaned down to her, cupping a giant claw around her body for greater privacy. More than a few ponies were looking up from their work around the table.
Stella’s expression went from annoyed, to surprised, to slightly disturbed. Leaning back, he clapped his claws and said, “Ahem! Gentlebeings! Something...mmm...A...fact has been brought to my attention. I need a few minutes of privacy. Will you all please go get some food and check on the situation upstairs? I shall send a runner for you.”
“And myself, Mistress Stella?” Zeta asked, raising her head.
“I doubt I will need a guard, darling,” Stella replied, brushing the back of one of his claws through the zebra’s striped mane. “Though...do go find Scarlet Petals and tell him he will have a visitor soon.”
Zeta’s ears stood up and she glanced at the crowd of watching eyes, then quickly drew a circle around her head and tapped her chest. Stella gave her a little quirk of the lips that couldn’t quite be called a smile, then made a gentle shoo-ing motion with his fluked tail. The zebra’s eyes widened, then she bounced up on her rear legs and clapped her hooves.
“You heard him everypony! Go get dinner!” she called out.
The table dropped their papers, set down radio headsets, and began to gather their belongings. There was no pleasant banter, only a hushed conversation back and forth as the herd made its way down the stairs with the filly I’d asked to announce me at their head. I backed farther into the shadows and held my breath as they passed.
Zeta followed the group out, though she paused as she walked by my hiding place. One of her ears twitched, and she cocked her head in my direction.
“Good luck, Detective,” she whispered, just loud enough to be heard.
Then she vanished, sprinting silently into the darkness at a speed that beggared belief.
Watching her go, I breathed a sigh of relief and reluctantly stepped into the open doorway.
Stella reclined on his throne, his scaly face unreadable as he studied his painted claws, seemingly indifferent to my presence.
I trotted up the steps to the table, leaning over to give the map a quick once over. Red and blue figurines in the shapes of pegasi, unicorns, and griffins littered the roadways, most following lines that I presumed to be the sewers. A half dozen circles in varying colors were marked out surrounding the Vivarium, but I couldn’t make out what they might be for. Each except the very last, a single red circle around the Vivarium, had a red ‘X’ over it.
“Do you know, Detective, that you terrify me?”
“Me?” I asked, quizzically. “What did I do?”
“I may be a dragon, but there are things which cause me fear,” he said, sliding off his throne into the water and gliding silently over to the catwalk. “The killers who broke through our defenses and drove us from fallback point to fallback point until all that was left was to fill this hole with thousands of wounded. The sun that has gone dark in the sky. The endless horde of monstrosities that slaughtered my little ponies.” Leaning over, he rested his chin on his crossed forearms, his weight making the metal creak and groan. He smiled, though there was no humor in it. “And...then there is you.”
I slid my bundled clothing off my back onto the table and tried to wipe some of the filth on my hooves onto a towel somepony had left behind. All I succeeded in doing was smearing oily streaks of ash and other substances. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“Of course you don’t,” he sighed, sniffing in my direction. “Those creatures couldn’t penetrate this last respite. We had time to evacuate the surface. Not much time, mind you. Too many died, but against the most dangerous army assembled since the Crusades, my defenders held quite well until the streets were clear. More lived than died, and no demon came into this place. There was a time, millenia ago, when ponies considered the lairs of dragons to be holy places. You didn’t know that, did you?”
I shook my head. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
Stella tasted the air with his forked tongue, then rolled his eyes in exasperation. “You treated us as gods, little pony!” he exclaimed, spreading his arms. “Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Not much, if I’m honest,” I replied. “I’ve just been to a dimension I’m pretty sure was designed by something you and I would both agree could be called a ‘god’. If that’s what gods do with their spare time, I’m happier in a world without them.”
“True. Even at the height of our civilization, we were simple lizards. Big, yes, but merely lizards with eyes for shiny objects and soft living. Still, we did not know fear until you ponies made us fear.”
I shrugged and went back to trying to clean the disgusting concoction off my forelegs. “You’ve got nothing to fear from me, Stella.”
“Don’t I? Today, war came to my doorstep and I repulsed an army. Maybe not bloodlessly, but they did not even come close to this sanctum. You, on the other hand, have just now appeared in the door of my lair. If you came for my blood, you and that Crusader would have ensured I now lay dead. I doubt even Zeta could have stopped you.” His fangs glittered as he laid his cheek sideways on the railing, seeming to study me dispassionately before adding, “Worst of all, perhaps...You did not see fit to put a thought to what the ability to strut into a dragon’s lair without sending word ahead might mean to the dragon. So, yes. I see you standing there, covered in—” He sniffed in my direction and his lips wrinkled. “—First Fire, what are you covered in?”
I dropped the towel and sighed. “Everything, Stella. I am covered in everything. By the by, your lube dump is still a viable entrance and exit. I doubt anyone else would use it, but—”
Stella’s claws closed on the railing and the metal supports let out a squeal of pain as several bolts popped loose.
“Wait! Detective, are you telling me that you...came in through the juice pit?!”
I cringed, internally.
“I...would have strongly appreciated not knowing you called it that,” I muttered.
“Would you like me to have somepony draw you a bath?” the dragon asked, his voice full of a strange sympathy.
“Yes. What happened while we were gone?”
Stella leaned back from the catwalk. “Darling, are you sure you want to debrief now?”
I shook my head. “No, but I don’t think we’ll get a better chance. Oh, and would you put some makeup on? It’s freaking me out seeing you without it.”
“Oh Detective, that...might be one of the most inadvertently sweet things you’ve ever said. Well, for you,” he replied, a bit of his old swish returning as he glided back to his throne and picked up a giant tube of lipstick. Twisting it open, he quickly applied a layer of thick rouge, then popped his lips and scraped a stray bit off the corner of his muzzle with the tip of a claw. “Now, then...what would you like to know?”
“Just give me a general breakdown?”
“I likely know as much as you do, my dear,” he said, floating around to his dressing table to apply a pair of massive fake eyelashes. “A half hour after you left, our communications began to break down. All communications. Magical, non-magical, and so on. It was simple interference. We assumed an attack and started clearing the streets. The attack came soon thereafter: wave upon wave of P.A.C.T. monsters, sweeping down upon our defenses. We tried to call Skytown and the Morgue. One of our better fliers went as high as she could with a pair of binoculars and said that the Morgue was smoking, but looked as though it still stood. Skytown did not fare as well. Most of the cloud buildings are gone.”
I pulled my hooves under myself. “You held them back for...how long?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Stella replied, swirling a bit of foundation onto his cheeks. “I’m certain one of my underlings looked at a clock at some point, but once it began, I was rather more focused on keeping them alive. That filly who announced you was headed upstairs to get me a report on the medical situation.”
“I’d call it ‘not good’, but then I don’t have a basis for comparison,” I said, then nodded toward the map. “The attack came a little early. I thought they’d at least hold off until tomorrow.”
“Once the communications systems failed and the assault began, they continued until there was a burst of electromagnetic radiation strong enough to interfere with all manner of electronics. A moment later, they were retreating. The E.M. burst was your doing?”
Pursing my lips, I nodded. “That...would probably have been Limerence’s solution to the Scry.”
“What, pray tell, did he do?” Stella asked.
Leaning back, I scruffled at my mane with both hooves and let out an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t get most of the science mumbo-jumbo, but I’m pretty sure he turned a couple of P.A.C.T. troopers into a small star, then dropped them down the neck of an interdimensional portal where they exploded the world on the other end. If you want a better explanation, you can ask him when he wakes up.”
The dragon gave me another one of those funny looks, his upper lip curled and his neck flukes splayed out like a fan. I waited for him to respond, but the silence was becoming awkward. I quickly played back my last couple of sentences to myself, then blew a bit of greasy fur out of my face.
“Nothing I said just now helped your sense of personal or existential comfort, did it?”
“Not particularly, no,” he replied, setting his foundation brush down. He looked much more himself, though still with bags under his eyes that no amount of makeup would disguise. “Still, you say the Scry is destroyed? The enemy cannot track us any longer?”
“If it’s still around, we weren’t going to be able to destroy it in the first place.”
“Mmmm…” Tapping his claws on the surface of his vanity, he floated back toward his throne and heaved out of the water, flicking droplets all over me. “Then we have a temporary respite.”
“Not likely,” I said, picking up my hat and setting it over my ears.
Stella sat a little straighter. “How so? Basic battlefield strategy says one does not attack into the fog of war without time to scout and prepare—”
“The Family doesn’t mind wasting bodies, Stella. That army of theirs exists to waste bodies. They might have had to regroup when their communications broke down, but I give it less than a day before they’re back. Keep in mind, this slaughter is to a purpose.”
The serpent shut his eyes and drew in a stiff breath. “To charge this...wish machine?”
“Exactly. The more chaos and bloodshed they can sow, the better. Now they’ll have to do it without perfect information on our positions, but make no mistake, they will come. They might have considered preventing a large-scale, coordinated strike on the Office adequate reason to hit all of our positions at once, but this was not their full available force. Did you see any dragons?”
Giving his head a stiff little shake, Stella slumped back into the giant cushions on his seat. “I did not get any reports of dragons. You believe that...that butchery was a means of diverting an attack?”
“It’s a decent strategy when you expect your opponent to send a large force to accomplish a task,” I said, tapping the map of Detrot over city-center. “No-one sane would send only five fighters to take on the Office. We punched through their defenses by cheating, but their strategy should have held against damn near anything else. By the time they figured out what we’d done, we were already through and hidden. Their best strategy was to try to draw us off by attacking our strongholds. That force was set to take on an army.”
Stella raised one painted eyebrow. “The ‘too stupid not to work’ gambit. I do hate how many of your adventures have relied on that.”
I chuckled, weakly. “If it stops working, I’ll let you know. That bath is sounding excellent, by the way.”
“Mmm...I will send for somepony to escort you and to start a rumor that you’ve returned, safely, darling. Was there perchance anything else?”
I picked up my bundled coat and gun, setting the former back on my shoulders. “Yeah. Can you get somepony to head to Skytown and the Morgue to get their leadership? We should be expecting a runner from Supermax, soon.”
Dropping his claw to one side of his throne, he pressed a tiny gemstone that let out a low ‘bong’ in the distance. “Certainly. I take it you are planning something...considerable?”
Heading toward the door, I hesitated.
In the back of my mind, a feminine cackle echoed.
“Considerable. On second thought, there is one more thing I need. Could you send me a couple unicorns with decent enchanting skills? I made a deal with a friend, and I need to pay them.”
‘A friend, am I?’ a voice whispered in my head. I didn’t feel the need to reply.
“Ahem...before you do, mightn’t I ask you to go see Scarlet?” Stella asked.
Something in his voice made me feel momentarily cold inside.
“I’d planned to, but I smell like death—” I started to say, but he held up a claw.
“Go see Scarlet, Hard Boiled.” Stella looked off to one side, and the chill in my belly became a frosty wind, raising my hackles. “He will not care how you smell.”
It took me a second to find words.
“Al-alright? Is he okay?”
Stella’s tired gaze wandered up to meet mine, and he breathed a weighty sigh.
“No. No, he’s not.”
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Ah, no. Not Scarlet.
The interlude before the storm comes again, looks like.
why must you do this to us man
On one hand. I can understand where stella is coming from. This is someone that the foe that sends a wave of teeth, flesh, and monsters to stop you from aiding this figure. This lone earth pony, whom has inspired such fear, that death has not stopped, that an execution squad has not stopped, pact troopers. All of these, and he enters into your fortified base by a Sex lube dump hole.
But oofle, on things, and a breather, for everything. But hardy endures, and hardy finds a way, no matter the shit he crawls through.
Stella's summary of Hardy is probably the best explanation of his legend we're going to ever get. Doesn't matter how it's done, it's the fact that Hardy does it anyway, and often through ridiculous means. He doesn't like it, but his legend is important. In the end, hope in the face of everything that's wrong is what will win the day. I say leave the tell-all autobiography until it's all over, Hardy can become Alicorn Princess of Best Ass for all I care.
You've done a great job at keeping the dark atmosphere here, Chessie. First person helps with that, the interlude scenes showing how much shit has gone down when it's just them walking through a hall, the fact that comms has been cut off and the morgue is smoking with Skytown (which we barely get any connection with anyway) all but gone. I fear for Slip Stitch's life, but when even the granny gets blinded, all bets are off. Hardy's suffered enough, if anything permanent should happen to Scarlet (especially in the way I fear) this would be just another senseless suffering on top of the dung pile of despair.
I mean after all this and *still* the wish machine isn't charged? What the everloving fuck does the Family want to use it for? Inverting the universe? Rewriting time would take less effort than that. Makes me wonder how much power Hardy's producing on his own...even after all this he still cares enough to feel something. In a way going numb would be the perfect counter to the Family's greater plan.
Hardy got back, but thats a Lot of city bodies to use as cannon fodder, and then theyre even more useful as a power supply.
This is the sort of conditions that make me think of denying the enemy the resources and opportunity they aquire through personal brutal battle, by removing the battle. Problem is, this would involve removing the portion of the city the enemy is occupying in a most gurenteed manner.
If just PACT deaths are enough to drive the necromancy team, then the problem becomes denying resources and death, suspecting these guys dont go down with normal stun or anasthetic materials or spells, which means stasis and temporal displacement as most complex, dimentional portal vaccuuming, right up to paralysis surgical attacks depending on their healing abilities, but that would hit Scoots as well.
For the dragons, If theres little heavy weaponry, cant cast gravity spells strong enough or inverting fast enough, trying to do the throat stuffing trick is all thats left?
How much of Scarlet is left, given Grannys grenade cricket?
And I didn't find any problems in the opening note. :)
9378211
I am reminded very much of Harry Dresden from the Dresden Files.
Neither Hardy's allies nor enemies see the worn down earth pony who has only managed to survive by a combination of dumb luck and sheer bloody minded stubbornness. The pony who's driving is so bad that it's cheaper to give him a full time driver than to repair the damages he'd cause. The pony who'd been in the bottom a bottle for many years and has only just managed to find his way out.
What they see is the unyielding Detective who walked into a hostile Supermax and walked out with it in his control. The pony that has been fatally wounded on multiple occasions only to need a wall socket and a bit of rest to get back up. The pony the can walk unannounced into the very heart of a dragon's lair without a second thought. The pony who said he would protect the eggs of two warring griffon clans from all harm, and was believed.
9378572
This is not a being you want mad at you. This thing has been to hell and back. This dog will bite when you touch his cage. Hell hath no fury like a Hardy scorned. He is Justice's avatar and he WILL get the job DONE!
A part of me hoped that Scarlet would survive unscathed. A part of me hoped that Hardy, Blue, and Scarlet could, if not a happy ending, at least find something together after all of this pain and sorrow they never deserved. A part of me above all else hoped that Scarlet would be there to see Hardy through to the end. I have feared for so long that I was wrong even knowing full well the tone of Starlight Over Detrot and the enemies that are assembled against them. Now my only hope is that Scarlet and Hardy will have the time they need to say goodbye for the last time.
9379860 Trying to predict Starlight Over Detrot has never really gone to plan. Don't be so bleak!
-Chessie
9380155
The fire's of hope still burn brightly within this beating heart of mine. I know I'm going to need probably a solid hour to go through the next chapter though when Hardy sees Scarlet again because it will hit me like a freight train filled with bricks. I know I can keep going despite the emotions that scene will evoke in me because this story and characters have earned that. While I may be dour now it will pass in time and be worth it when we finally see the horizon that is the end of Hardie's journey.
...I...don't like the sound of that...
Well, heck.
Chessie, you motherfucker.
I'm not much of a brony but this is the best fanfic I've ever read. How do you come up with all of your cool chapter titles?
9434555 Honestly, most of them are pop culture references that vaguely reference something that happened in that chapter. Most come together with the chapters themselves. It's generally the last thing I make up.
-Chessie
9434706
Thanks for responding, keep up the good work!
Ooh boy, you've really done it now, DW.
I think they'll all take turns. Even Gale.
Replace it with what, that's the question.
You know, this makes me wonder if the changes made to the troopers and Swift are dominant traits. Will their children grow up with a hankering for bacon?
Poor Lim, clattering down the steps on a rolling gurney.
Good girl.
There are all kinds of gods, aren't there?
Hardy, haven't you realized by now that you dont do comforting?
I thought all of his adventures used it.
Chessie
What did you do to Scarlet
I'm hoping that this ends with hardy/blue/scarlet in a happy relationship
Oh no. When I started reading I thought Hardy and Swift were too cute together but Scarlet has really grown on me. I hope the poor boy is not too hurt.
Tip: As a Writer, punch the love interest for maximum damage.