Act 3 Chapter 59 : Home Again
"Why do we not invade Equestria, my son?
Because they are insane.
You see a weak, helpless country full of creatures with fur and flesh; no fangs, no talons, no beaks. However, if you had paid better attention in the war-master's classes then you would remember your histories. These creatures beat back armies with little more than friendship, baked goods, and their accompanying madness.
When faced with an overwhelming foe, what do they do? They sing.
If ever they should have cause to take up real arms, beware my son. Peaceful they may appear, but make no mistake: they are mad."
-Griffin Lord Bannertorn to his eldest child, transcribed into the Griffinstone Court Record Circa 831 Old Griffin Calendar.
“Is she…?”
“Aware? Not in a conventional sense, I don’t believe. She cannot hear us, if that’s what you mean.”
“Can you free her?”
“Not quickly. The necessary spells require extensive preparation.”
“How much preparation?”
“Several weeks, at least. I would not wish to rush for fear of getting it wrong. There are worse things that can happen to a soul than being trapped in a body part.”
“Can...I take this with me?”
“Her horn? That’s a bit macabre, Detective, but...I don’t see why not. Horns are quite durable.”
“Don’t tell Lily.”
“Of course.”
----
Quickie and Limerence accompanied me back toward the garage, going via the most discreet route we could if only because I didn’t much care for the idea of a crowd just then. Sure, the ponies of the Vivarium could probably have used a show, but they’d have to get by with Quickie marching me down to Stella’s room. Besides, what was I going to do? A song and dance?
I didn’t hear him fall in behind us, but Bones had appeared at some point holding up the rear. He’d cleaned himself and acquired a fresh pack of smokes. There was even a hint of cologne wafting around him.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t entirely avoid the building’s other occupants. While they never got in our way, the crowds were at every corner. Thankfully, Stella had found us an exit that would go up to the surface and not involve tromping through the lube dump.
“—that’s him? I heard he died—”
“—cousin is on the surgical team that brought his body in. He was burned alive—”
“—that skeleton was in the shower room just having a bath like it was nothing—”
“—Quickie Cuddles? Our Warden is her daughter!”
“—the one they’re calling the ‘Librarian’. He’s some kind of super-mage—”
I tried to shut out the conversations and focus on putting my hooves in front of one another; just follow Quickie’s flank and don’t listen to them.
‘She must have known,’ I thought.
‘Of course she knew! Did she not say as much in her diary? That mare might not have seen everything, but she saw enough to upset all of my plans. It would be nice if I knew, now, what those plans were,’ Nightmare put in, testily. An image of her sitting atop a lounging seat with a cup of tea held between her forehooves resolved in my mind’s eye.
‘You don’t know?’ I asked.
The picture of Nightmare bared its fangs. ‘I was never meant to have a personality! Giving me sentience came with a storage cost, which included many of my instructions! I am little better than a calculator with complicated feelings, now! I’ll kindly ask you not to rub it in!’
‘Alright, then, calculator. Tell me about Ruby. How did she know her horn would end up in my possession?’
There was a moment’s pause, then the Nightmare shook her head. ‘Even the best precognition suffers with specific details. My armor provides incredibly specific future sight, but...not specific enough for this. Whatever Ruby Blue saw, it must have been influenced by external factors.’
‘You think these ‘powers that be’ who keep interfering might have had something to do with it? Maybe they showed her something she wasn’t supposed to know?’
‘The ‘Juniper Shores’ character you keep interacting with is definitely something more than a fragment of your broken psyche.’
‘I figured that out a while ago. What is his game?’
‘I do not know. He seemed to think there were ‘interested parties’ out there who were influencing events here in Equestria. If there are indeed other intelligences in the cosmos, then it is possible they have a stake here.’
‘You think?’
‘This entity that the Family found out in the woods is something that beings beyond our reckoning do not want freed to such an extent that they were willing to violate any number of natural laws to ensure it remains locked away. It is also an entity which was able to—despite their intervention—bring the world to the brink of the current disaster.’
‘You’re not making me feel better, here, Nightmare.’
‘When you want to feel better, you should spend an evening letting that pretty colt service your—’
I was jostled out of my thoughts as Quickie came to a stop in front of me. Glancing around, I realized we were back in the halls near Scarlet’s room, but at some point the crowds had fallen back, leaving us relatively alone. At the far end of the hall, a Stiletto mare was standing beside a doorway, standing nimbly on her back hooves with her forelegs spread wide across the opening, holding back several rubberneckers. She shot me a quick smile.
Pulling off her apron, Quickie carefully folded it and set it to one side of the hall, then stood up and tilted her head back to study the ceiling. “There is a teleport rune hidden here,” she said. “It’s single use, but it will get us outside. My mother put them all over the club during the war. This is probably the only one left.”
“Where does it come out?” Limerence asked.
“On street level near the—” She trailed off, catching sight of Bones out of the corner of her eye. Shying back a couple of steps, she stared at the skeleton. I looked back and forth between them, then let out a soft ‘oh’.
“Sorry, Quickie Cuddles, this sneaky prick is my grandfather, Hard Boiled the senior. Bones, say hello to—”
‘Swift’s mother, yes. I do pay attention,’ Bones sniggered. ‘I also don’t think I will ever get tired of the expression of a pony seeing this body for the first time.’ Sweeping his hoof out to one side in a courtly manner, he bowed low, forehead almost touching the carpet. ‘It is lovely to meet you, Miss Cuddles. Your daughter is an extremely impressive mare.’
Quickie pulled a recovery that was one for the record books. Pulling her hooves in tightly together, she swept her tail over her flank and let the nasty looking spell that’d been gathering around her horn fade. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to relax.
“I really need to stop discounting any of the rumors I hear about you people,” she muttered, trotting in a little circle around my grandfather. “Are you the ‘hallucination’ who keeps taking people’s liquor and cigarettes, then beating them at cards?”
‘The same,’ he replied, straightening. ‘Now, then...we have a job. Miss Taxi has loaded the vehicle and should be keeping it warm.’
Quickie glanced back at me. “Every time I think you’ve convinced me that my daughter’s judgement is the least bit sound, I am reminded she’s working with you and this...freakshow.”
“You’ve seen her teeth. She fits right in. I can guarantee, though, that Bones is not the weirdest thing you’re likely to see today,” I said. “You sure you don’t want to stay here?”
With a little shrug, she lifted her head, and magical energies gathered around the tip of her horn again.
“I was in for this penny. Might as well be in for the pound, too.”
----
I’ll never get used to teleporting. It’s an awful way to travel and I’m thankful most of the unicorns I interact with on a regular basis aren’t capable of it. Teleporting via an ancient, single use rune that probably hadn’t been reforged since before I was born was even worse.
The four of us appeared in an explosion of light that lit up the whole street for a half second, leaving my eyes aching and blurry. The alley we’d appeared in was just off the square where the remains of the shopping center the Vivarium was built under still smouldered with slowly dying embers. Staggering out of the tiny circle of ponies, I sagged against the wall, breathing heavily as vertigo almost tipped me off my hooves. The air was chilly, but it helped focus my mind.
‘Not gonna puke. Not gonna puke. I just had all those bagels. I refuse to lose them.’
Somepony gently patted me on the back and I looked up to find Bones at my side, his glowing eyes flickering in the half-light.
‘Heh, I never got used to teleporting while I was alive, either. Turns out not having flesh has bonuses. You alright, colt?’ he asked.
“Peachy. Where’s the truck?”
There was a soft rumble of engine noise and the D.F.W. rolled up to the end of the alley. The passenger door popped open and Mags stuck her little feathery face out. Her gun was in its holster and she wore a half dozen magazines for the tiny thing on a belt across her chest. Cute things shouldn’t fill me with so much terror.
“Get in Egg Pony!” she squawked, irrtably, “Miss Shadow Lady have puppet pony say there gonna be chicken for me at Everfree!”
“Mags! I thought you were waiting here!” I snapped.
“You be telling me to stick to your tail and not tell you why! You just not remember! When time come, I know why, but till then, I not leavin’ you ‘cept when other you say it be okay!”
‘What did you tell her?’ I asked, whispering internally towards the corner of my mind I’d come to associate with Nightmare Moon.
‘Your little brain couldn’t hold two sapient minds without clearing out room!’ Nightmare growled back.
‘That includes the memory of whatever you told my friends to do...right?’
‘I didn’t have to deal with emotions and impulses, back then! I may be able to reconstruct it, but it will take much more time.’
‘Never mind. I trusted you then, I’ll trust you now.’
There was a short silence, during which I felt a strange emotion. It was like I’d somehow tapped, for just a moment, into somepony else’s feelings; Nightmare was slightly taken aback and confused, both by the pleasantness of her own response and that somepony might be willing to offer her trust.
‘T-thank you,’ she muttered, before sinking into the back of my consciousness.
Trotting around back, I tapped the rear hatch. The hydraulics hissed as the door clanked open and I stepped sideways so the ramp could drop onto the pavement. I was confronted by a crowded rear compartment.
All three of the P.A.C.T. ponies that we’d captured from the Office were sitting back there with vacant expressions, piled beside one another side by side like riders on a public bus. They wore no armor, but all three had on surgical masks and scrubs. Their shortcut manes were poofed, as though somepony had given them a bath without bothering to dry or brush afterward.
“Sweets? I didn’t hear we were hauling cargo,” I shouted toward the front.
“Tourniquet wants a look at them,” my driver called back.
“Why aren’t they going with Swift, then?”
“She couldn’t figure a decent way to strap them to Goofball,” Taxi replied.
Quickie poked her head around the side of the truck. “Who are they? And who is Goofball?”
“O-orders?” Goldenrod stuttered, pawing weakly at his mask for a second before letting his hoof drop.
“They involve an explanation that’ll end with us cleaning vomit off the seats,” I said, “They’re safe enough, without it. Just don’t tell them to do anything.”
“That is an oddly specific order,” Quickie commented, then flicked her mane back. “I also notice you carefully avoided answering my question about ‘Goofball’.”
“They’re victims of magical brainwashing. Harmless without orders. Just watch what you say around them. Goofball is a giant three headed dog. Get in.”
Quickie squinted at the trio, then trotted up the ramp into the compartment. “Brainwashing? Like the rumors said about the monsters—” She trailed off, then her flank dropped onto one of the plush seats across from the troopers. “Hold on. Did...did you say giant three headed dog?”
Following her into the compartment, I eased by Goldenrod and put a hoof on Quickie’s shoulder.
“Miss Cuddles, I apologize, but I don’t have it in me to explain every hideous or bizarre thing that’s happened to us in the last couple of months. I’ll keep it short and say ‘You missed some things’ and your daughter has heavily edited for content. You can go back inside the Vivarium, or you can get the answers as they come, but one way or the other, we’re leaving now.” I hesitated, then added as an afterthought, “If it’ll make you feel any better, you can threaten to tear me into small pieces if I don’t explain everything at some point. You’ll have to get in line behind at least one alicorn, but I’ll be sure she saves you a haunch.”
----
Quickie opted not to threaten me with violence, but I could almost hear the questions bubbling excitedly inside her. Swift’s mother was a mare of flexible character; working in a brothel most of one’s youth tends to instill that. Still, I was mentally bracing myself for the breakdown that I felt must be inevitable. Everypony has a breaking point where they must simply reject a reality that’s become too absurd. I’d reached mine a few times a week for almost two months.
That said, she seemed to be holding up well.
----
“Mister Goldenrod, touch your head. Good! Now your ear. Excellent! Now wiggle your flank like a cat about to pounce on a mouse.”
“Miss Cuddles, I would appreciate it if you didn’t amuse yourself with the brainwash-ees.”
“You said their memories are only a few minutes long, right?”
“Yeees…”
“Then unless you plan on giving me that full explanation or a window to stare out of, I’m going to amuse myself however I can.”
“Your daughter was almost one of the brainwashed...“
“And the fact that she isn’t is why you’re not a stain. Besides, I’ve never met perfect submissives before! Not that I’d do anything obscene to these poor, helpless souls, mind you, but when I was working the whip for fun, I’d have given my horn for some ponies like this to take out some excess aggressions and—”
“Oh sweet Celestia, never mind! Please don’t finish that sentence!”
“Mister Goldenrod...make a rude gesture at Hard Boiled.”
----
Taxi was brooding. It’s hard to tell sometimes when she’s brooding, but I’ve known her for enough years to know the signs; her ears would twitch at innocuous little sounds, her hooves beat out a steady little rhythm on the steering wheel, and she was watching the road with the kind of intensity a pony usually directs towards performing open heart surgery on themselves.
Behind us in the rear compartment, Limerence and Miss Cuddles were having a soft conversation about some finer point of magical mind control while Mags sprawled bonelessly in the older mare’s lap, enjoying a motherly preening.
“Hardy, you’re staring,” Taxi muttered, as I leaned back in the passenger seat.
“I haven’t so much as glanced at you in the last five minutes,” I grunted.
“You’re doing that ‘cop thing’ where you look at someone out of the corner of your eye while pretending not to watch them at all. You just do it under the brim of your hat.”
Tipping my hat back, I flicked an eye in her direction. “Did your talent tell you that?”
“No, but I know you. Ask whatever it is you want to ask. You’re going to irritate me until you do.”
“If we’re playing that game, then I think you know the question already.”
The street we were on was one of the few that’d taken almost no damage from looters or vandals; one could almost pretend, for the moment, that it was just a late evening with nopony about.
Taxi took a hoof off the gas pedal, letting us idle at a set of stop-lights that were somehow, against all odds, still operating.
“You want to know what happened at the Office,” she muttered, turning to look out the bulletproof window toward one of the empty shops. Her tone was calm, but it was the calm of somepony describing their own terminal disease.
Leaning over, I rested a hoof on her leg. “Sweets...I’m with you to the end. You know that.”
“I know, Hardy,” she replied, looking back with pink, shining eyes that glittered in the cabin’s interior glow. “You want to know if...if she can give us some kind of edge in the fight that’s coming, don’t you?”
“I think, first and foremost, I want to know what ‘she’ is.”
Taxi shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, I have suspicions, but…I think she’s my talent.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so my mouth was moving before my brain had quite caught up.
“Your talent is knowing what ponies need, isn’t it? Did that whole building full of ponies need to die?”
As the words left my mouth, I wanted to stuff them right back in. Tact and I are old enemies, but never quite so badly as when I’m worn out. Still, my driver seemed too distracted to take much offense.
“My talent is becoming what others need, Hardy. You can’t deliver justice with a building full of heavily armed killers in your way, now can you? I cleared the way. Isn’t that enough?”
“I spoke to her, Sweets.”
Taxi said nothing for a long moment, then reached back and shut the door between the cabin and the back compartment. Turning back, she gripped the wheel in both front hooves and took a shuddering breath.
“I mean, we’ve all known somepony who got T-D-S for a while—” I began.
“It’s not Talent Derangement Syndrome, Hardy!” she protested. “Celestia above, I’m not a stressed office worker going nuts on a fax machine because I can’t practice guitar!”
“Then what is it?” I asked.
Taxi lowered her forehead onto the wheel and sighed. “I doubt it has a name. My father needed a killer and from the moment I was born, I was slowly becoming that. We have our talents before we discover them, you know.”
“There’s been enough science done to say that’s probably true,” I mused.
“Well, I didn’t just ignore my talent, Hardy. I buried it. I picked some little ugly corner of my mind and slapped a mental gate down, then every impulse to look into other ponies’ needs went into that hole.”
“Except where I was concerned…”
She snorted. “You think the kind of ridiculous codependence you and I have develops magically? You need somepony who’ll never abandon you, even when you abandon yourself. You are an endless well of need I can throw myself down, knowing you’d keep me from doing anything really vile because your talent requires you to be just.”
Doing my best not to feel insulted, I propped one hoof under my chin. “So what went wrong?”
Taxi shuffled her hooves uncomfortably, her eyes darting down to the ugly scars on her flank.
“My little ‘bid for independence’, went wrong,” she answered, “I went undercover and I needed to be a killer again. That nasty part of my brain where I shoved all that equine need was...growing...all the time we were apart.”
“You’re saying it took on a mind of its own?”
She nodded. “That’s the best I can figure. I don’t remember killing all those ponies, Hardy. You try waking up with no memory, coated from head to hoof in blood. It’s a little jarring.”
“I might be the wrong pony to play that particular card with, Sweets,” I murmured.
Her lower lip twitched as her brain caught up to her words. “Ah...oh…mercy. I keep forgetting what life is like lately.”
“The first thing I’m doing as soon as Princess Luna is back is going to court and petitioning her to strip my memories clean. I want a brain bald as a newborn’s flank. But first...”
“You want to know if she can help us.”
I nodded. “I asked who I was talking to. She said, ‘I shine’. She called me Justice.”
Taxi shut her eyes a moment. “That...that sounds right. ‘The Shine’ is her name. She’s pure need, Hardy. She’s every need everypony around us has ever had.”
“She’s you, Sweet Shine.”
“She’s stronger than I am.”
Slipping out of my seat, I put my legs around her neck and pressed my cheek against her mane. “No, she’s not. She’s just a part of you that’s tucked away. But today, she’s got a purpose. She can save the world.”
“B-but if...if I bring her out, and let her free, Hardy, she’s so dangerous,” she whispered, leaning into the hug. “What if I she never goes back? What if I’m really...really a killer like D-daddy wanted?”
“Then we’ll be a matched set of mad killers with too many people in their heads,” I chuckled, weakly. I felt her breathing hitch as her legs tightened around me. “I know you. I know you better than anyone alive. You are my best friend. That’s never changing.”
“Even if I become a m-monster?”
“It won’t come to that,” I said, sliding back into my seat, “Plenty of people lately have told me I have no fate...no destiny. If I know one thing, though, it’s that you and I are going to die together. Guarantee it. If she’s part of you, then we’ll make peace with that. I need you, Sweet Shine. That means I need her, too.”
Wiping at her face with the back of her leg, Taxi let out the breath she’d been keeping in.
“If you’re there, keeping me on the straight and narrow...I think I can live with that,” she said, softly.
----
There was no gunfire, nor the shuffling of desperate looters hunting food, nor any other sign of life outside a few stray animals darting through the wreckage spread street to street. Smoke that’d billowed over the city for days was reduced to barely wisps, blowing in a stiff breeze. Toward city center, thick clouds still rumbled and boiled above Uptown, lit from within by sharp cracks of thunderless lightning.
We drove through the silent city, listening every moment for signs of an attack; I didn’t really expect one, but vigilance always pays dividends.
It was miles till Supermax when I finally spotted a corpse, lying in the street just off to one side, her face resting in a storm drain. Something had chewed her lower body and she seemed to have been dragged a few meters, judging by the trail of dried blood streaking the pavement. Policing bodies is something most intelligent beings do instinctively the second there’s anything like an organizational system in place. Seeing one left out tends to indicate order in an area has fundamentally broken down.
Part of me considered stopping to see if there was anything we could do, but noble and pragmatic are sometimes opposites. What were we to do? Bury her? Time was short enough. Carry her along? There were likely to be a hundred others along our path.
I caught Taxi’s eyes lingering for only a moment, and a word of silent agreement passed between us; we wouldn’t mention her, nor any other unfortunate, to the others.
With a bit of imagination, I’d have sworn I could almost see the Pale Pony of Death wandering the streets with us, pulling his cart full of souls.
We might have gone the underground route, via the sewers, and taken considerably less time, but Taxi wasn’t going to leave the D.F.W. behind. Besides, if we were going to get anywhere once things got loud, a giant, heavily armored, dragon-proof tank was as good an option as any.
----
It was a half hour later and just before we were to cross into the waste surrounding Supermax that I caught my first real glimpse of one of Carnath’s dragons.
At a distance I’d taken it for some kind of tasteless advertising; a giant, red lizard sprawled lazily atop a restaurant hawking, ‘Equestria’s Spiciest Curries, Take Out Or Dine In’. He was a big bastard, though not quite on scale with Stella. Lying up there on its side, I wouldn’t have known it was anything but a particularly realistic statue if it hadn’t casually raised its head to watch us pass.
It could have been my over-cranked brain, but I thought for just an instant that our eyes met across that immense distance. Tilting its head back, it belched a thin stream of fire that lit the half-night for a moment, then slowly lay back down; I suspected we’d just been judged a meal for another time.
Taxi still floored the accelerator the second we were out of its line of sight.
----
I was jolted out of a light doze by the gentle bump of the engine cycling down. It might sound mad to sleep, but rest is rest; a cop learns that quickly when downtime becomes sparse. My hat had slid down over my face at some point. I quickly wiped drool off my lapel and sat up.
“We be home! I gonna to be getting me a whole chicken!” Mags squeaked, then her not-inconsiderable weight landed on my back, before yanking open the door. She was gone before I could snatch her tail in my teeth, not that I’d put much effort into it.
“Well now...that’s a sight, isn’t it?” Bones murmured, standing in the aisle between the passenger and driver seats. I hadn’t heard him open the back compartment, but then it’s best assumed that if you heard a Crusader move, you’re probably already dead.
Yawning, I sat up, pushed my hat back, and peered out the windshield.
Comfort isn’t really the first emotion I’d have associated with that hideous black box with the supervillain-fortress aesthetic and the unnatural magical stormcloud hanging above it like an angry puff of super-sized cotton candy, but my heart still swelled a little at the view.
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of tiny pup tents were set up in neat rows back and forth across the road, filling the parking lot from end to end. Most were patchwork, assembled out of whatever was at hand. Even the gun range was full of tents. It was a refugee camp, but one somepony had prepared well for.
A much larger tent was propped against the wall of Supermax and was painted with a giant yellow butterfly overlaying a red cross. That one reminded me more of a circus big-top than a utilitarian military medical enclosure. Somepony had even hung some party balloons from the eves; it didn’t take much deductive reasoning to figure out who.
Outside, a crowd was already gathering. I recognized more than a few griffins amongst their number. As a matter of fact, more than half the people outside looked to be griffins. Many of them wore thick battle paint or carried polished weapons. Most were Tokan or Hitlan, though a few seemed to be wearing variants of pony clothing that marked them as Detrot residents. Even a few of the ponies appeared to have taken up painting themselves; the Aroyo body decorations seemed to be spreading like wildfire. If the world survived to recover, it was likely going to be an interesting year in fashion.
As I studied the herd, I noticed someone shoving their way through the crowd, pushing a bow wave of bodies ahead of them.
I opened the door and reared up, trying to get a decent look at who might be coming.
Big mistake.
The second my head was above the level of the door, a shout went up.
“Deadheart! Look! It’s Deadheart! It’s the bulldog of Everfree!”
There was no telling who’d shouted first, but a second later my ears involuntarily snapped shut against my head as several hundred voices all yelled simultaneously. It was mostly cheering or random noise, mixed with deafening griffin war-cries as the cat-birds unlimbered their blades, raising them in a practiced salute. Cringing would have looked pretty poor, so I forced myself to casually step down from the vehicle.
It went on a moment longer before the crowd split, stepping back as several griffins and ponies pushed through the gap.
At the front, the party was led by Sykes and Grimble Shanks, the griffin brothers standing side by side like mighty centurions. Their brown feathers were stained black in places, and Sykes sported a thick bandage around his chest. Both wore worn bulletproof vests and matching tartans. The smell of blood wafting off of them was strong enough to reach me five meters away. Mags was perched on Grimble’s shoulder like a particularly pleased-with-herself parrot; something bloody and covered in feathers was sticking out of her beak.
Behind them came Derida, the Tokan leader, carrying a tastefully appointed silver axe on her hip that looked more stylish than functional. It, too, was drenched in blood and she was also bandaged, limping along on three legs with a fourth in a sling against her chest. She also wore a tartan, but it had the look of something designed for a runway rather than a battlefield.
“Oi! It be the Hoigh Justice! Show some respect, ye gobs!” Sykes barked, loud enough to be heard over the cheering crowd. At once, all the griffins fell silent and their silence was so profound the ponies quickly followed.
In the intervening silence, I stepped onto the pavement as the rear compartment opened and Taxi hopped out of the driver side. Limerence, Bones, and Quickie were out the back a few seconds later. Voices in the crowd murmured at the sight of my grandfather, but they’d probably seen enough odd things in the last week that a simple skeleton wandering about, lively and unburied, wasn’t more than slightly unsettling.
Approaching us, the three griffin leaders dropped to one knee, bowing their heads.
Biting my tongue and painfully aware of our audience, I did my best imitation of a courtly lean from a turn of the century drama I’d watched some years back. Taxi snickered under her breath, expertly executing a much more elegant curtsy, followed a moment later by Bones and Lim dropping into their own versions, both of which looked a damn sight more practiced than mine. Swift’s mother looked quizzically up at the griffins, then dipped her chin.
Shaking my head at them, I rose and stepped forward, bracing for what I knew was coming.
“Heh! Oi bet me bruder a tenner Oi could git ye to do a dandy dip!” Sykes cackled, then swept me up in one of his trademark bonecrushing hugs. My vision hazed at the edges for a second, before he set me down. His brother cocked an eyebrow and passed him a tiny bag that clinked like it was full of metal.
“I take it somepony let you know I was coming?” I asked, nodding at the door of Supermax.
“Aye, yer good friend the mad bonecutter sent us a runner what said an attack were coming,” Grimble Shanks added, affectionately petting Mags who cooed and rubbed her beak against his claw. “We be evacuatin’ roight quick, but de beasties fell on us ‘afore we was all into de tunnels. Sykes and Oi held dem back.” From behind him, Derida let out a polite cough and Grimble quickly added, “Miss Derida...well, she helped.”
“Mad bone cutter?” Quickie asked, lifting up on the tips of her hooves as she studied the crowd and tents. “Does that mean a doctor?”
“I’m sure he’s an excellent healer if properly motivated,” Taxi growled. “Where is Slip Stitch?”
“Medical tent,” Sykes replied, jabbing a thumb-claw at the structure leaning against the side of Supermax. “That nutter...he knew they was comin’. Damn me if Oi know how. Bastard had his people out of de Morgue wi’ almost no casualties. Ye want to get movin’ indoors?”
“Is this...undead with you?” Derida asked, a hint of derision in her tone as she eyed Bones. “I thought you ponies frowned on having necromantic slave creatures.”
Bones heaved one of his dry chuckles, then tapped a cigarette out between his teeth. “Heh, I’ve got too much personality for one of them beasties, Miss Griffin.”
Derida let out a startled yelp and took a three steps back, tracing what I took to be a protective gesture in mid-air with two talons.
“Demon!” she hissed.
“Actually, my grandfather,” I interjected as Bones tilted his chin back. If he’d had a face, I imagined he’d have been wearing a devil-may-care grin that’d charm the pants off females of most species. “But you’ll soon be wishing he were a demon. A demon wouldn’t smoke so much. If you’re not hurting me, he’s not hurting you. Relax. There are bigger fish right now.”
Derida’s tail snapped back and forth as she looked between myself and Bones. “You have made yourself strange allies since we last met, High Justice.”
“No kidding. Let’s get indoors.” I looked over at Limerence. “Lim, could you get Goldenrod and his friends out of the truck? Keep them away from anything sensitive.”
The librarian’s ears twitched slightly as he leaned sideways, then lowered his voice. “Do you believe they are...dangerous?”
“I don’t want to find out they are,” I replied. “Go on. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Do you perhaps mind if I go find myself some ointment afterwards?” he asked, scratching at the bandage around his head. “The remains of my ear are itching unpleasantly.”
“Remains?” I asked, suddenly realizing I hadn’t actually asked him about the injury that left him with the wrapping.
“Ah, yes...you were possessed at the time and have not seen it. I lost an ear in our last battle. Pay it no mind.”
Before I could think of an adequately shocked response, Sykes stepped forward and clapped Lim across the shoulders. The librarian let out a strangled cough as all the air was knocked right out of him.
“Aye, an ear says he? Pay it no moind says he? Ye’ve got yerself a roight foine warrior here, despite his looks, don’tcha, boyo?” Limerence glared up at him, but Sykes didn’t seem to notice as he started toward the back of the truck. “Come along, lad! Oi’ll help ye wi’ whatever errand ye’ve got! Oi gotta hear how ye had yer ear clipped and ye must tell me what the Justice ha’ been up ta!”
Lim gave me a questioning look. “Detective?”
“Go with him. He’s not as dumb as he sounds,” I said, then added after a short consideration, “Get Stitch to look at that injury, alright? Then meet us downstairs.”
Limerence shook his head. “I do not wish to end up with a mismatched ear from a corpse grafted to my head, Detective.”
“Then be sure you tell him that before he gives you one of the cupcakes he keeps in the narcotics cabinet.”
I felt a gentle tug on my mane and turned to find Quickie’s horn glowing and her giving me a stink-eye that would curdle whiskey.
“You remember when you said I should be patient?” she hissed.
“Yeah?”
“I am no longer being patient! My husband may be willing to simply hide his fears by working himself insensate, but I will see my daughter now. Where is Swift?”
“Right here, Mom! Come inside!” a familiar and altogether too cheery voice said from the crowd. An older mare with a rumpled blue mane and a pair of red crescents decorating her breastbone was standing towards the front with brightly shining eyes. Turning to face the surrounding ponies, she yelled above the heads of the gathered creatures, “Okay everyone! The Detective is working and he’s here to help, but we’ve got to do our best not to get in his way! See any of the Marked or the adult ponies with facial tattoos if you need a bed, food, or medical attention! Basic weapons training begins in an hour! If you can fight but don’t know how, we’ll teach you everything you need to know at the new gunnery range across the street!”
At her command, ponies in the distance began shouting all manner of different orders and instructions. As quickly as they’d gathered, the crowd started to disperse with only a minimum of grumbling. I caught more than a few ponies watching me out of the corners of their eyes as I nodded at Grimble and Derida who were watching the mare with the glowing eyes like they’d found themselves in a small room with a wild boar.
“That unsettles me more than the undead,” Derida murmured.
“Aye,” Grimble agreed, shifting his weight from claw to claw, “Oi seen those creatures wi’ the moons on’em do funny t’ings, but tha’ takes all cakes.”
“Swift!” Quickie snapped, stomping one front hoof. “So help me, I don’t care how you’re doing that, I swear if you don’t get out here right now...”
The middle-aged mare blinked as she looked down at the much shorter unicorn, the glow vanishing like a switch had been flicked. “Ehm...Lady, de Warden be not on me just now,” the unnamed pony said, quietly. “If ye be needin’ food or tent—”
“We’re fine, thanks,” I said. Not waiting for her reaction, I put a leg around Quickie and pulled her towards the inner gates. She resisted for only a moment, but short of throwing me into the next county with her horn, earth pony strength trumps unicorn muscle. “Come on. She’s downstairs.”
“Oh, I cannot tell you how much I hate this,” Quickie seethed.
“Look at it this way. Your daughter has gone from ‘cop’ to ‘demi-god’ in record time.”
“And what does it make you if she still looks up to you?”
“Too sober to answer questions like that.” I glanced at Taxi and said, “Sweets, you coming for this?”
My driver dug a toetip at the concrete a couple of times, then let out a long-winded breath. Tilting her head toward where her cutie-mark used to be, she replied, “You don’t need me right now. These ponies? They need me. I’m going to go run logistics. I’ll start gathering up the leaders, too. What time should we have this meeting you intend to have?”
“Can’t the Aroyos run logistics? Or Tourniquet, for that matter?” I asked.
“Apparently not well enough. If you want me to make peace with the Shine, I suspect listening to her is going to help. My talent says I’m needed here.”
Running a hoof through my mane, I bobbed my head. “Then I want everypony in Tourniquet’s chamber in two hours. We’re sealing the door at that point. Anypony not inside is not coming in until the meeting is over.”
“Roger wilco,” she answered, reaching up into the D.F.W. to pull an ancient, battered set of saddlebags with checkered designs on the flaps out from under her seat. She tossed them over her flanks and quickly did up the belly strap.
“I’ll keep her out of trouble for you, kiddo,” Bones added.
As my driver and grandfather trotted off toward one of the larger tents, Taxi’s voice drifted back.
“My own necromantic undead slave! I’ve always wanted one!”
I caught myself smiling after them, then realized Derida, Grimble, and Quickie were all looking in the same direction.
“Inside,” I growled. “Anyone who wants explanations will get them inside. Anyone who asks me right now can wait in the lobby while I lay out what’s happened to this city.”
----
The Marked or Aroyos or Everfree or whatever they were calling themselves were as disciplined as ants, but even they were inclined to stop and gawk at my little party as we made our way through the door of the Fortress Everfree. My mental to-do list was too long, but it started with the one thing a pony can always do when life is getting you down: watch other people’s hilarious family drama.
Quickie had apparently latched onto the one completely sane, relevant fact in all of the madness surrounding her and was pursuing it with the single-mindedness of a hound on the scent: her daughter was somewhere and needed a firm talking to.
Derida and Grimble Shanks had apparently picked on Quickie’s mood, because they were whispering quietly to each over over what I presumed to be some issues of their own, punctuated by Mags interjecting her particular brand of commentary. Neither seemed much to mind my ward’s presence. After a few moments, I noticed she’d vanished again; for something that was normally quite loud and squawky, Mags could be damned silent when she wanted to be.
We moved down the central avenue between the former cell blocks, with ponies staring down at us from up above, but none impeding our way. Strangely, I only heard my name said a few times. Most seemed more interested in Quickie.
“Hard Boiled. Where are we going?” Swift’s mother demanded, looking left, then right at the cells. “How did my daughter...No, wait. Never mind. I will ask her myself.”
Jabbing a hoof at the nearest pony wearing a crescent mark—a middle-aged brown stallion in the ragged remains of a business suit who was sitting on one of the bunks in a nearby cell—Quickie marched over to him. “You! I know you have some way of getting in touch with Swift! Do it!”
The stallion grinned as his eyes started to glow a soft yellow. Carefully setting down his meal, the possessed pony slid off his cot.
“Mom, you’re acting like that time the principal of that middle school wanted to throw me out for sticking up for Tangerine,” Swift’s voice said, coming from the stallion’s mouth. “Calm down, okay? I’m in the safest place in the whole world.”
Quickie’s voice rose to an angry squeak as she stomped a hoof hard enough to send an echo through the nearby cells that silenced activity for a moment. “That might be, but you kept all of this from me! Swift, there’s a building here where everypony is you!”
The stallion’s expression sank into a disturbingly similar one to Swift’s when she’d been chastised.
“I know. I know, and I’m sorry. There were...bigger things...going on.”
Quickie’s lip curled. “I’m going to either be proud of you for being mature enough to decide I’m a lower priority than whatever...this is, or I’m going to scream my tail off, and I haven’t figured out which.”
“Iffen it helps, moi lass, wee pegasus saved a heap o’ lives,” Grimble put in, ruffling his wings.
“Griffin and pony lives,” Derida added. “Without the offer of sanctuary, I do not believe we would have survived in the open. Skytown has been without electricity for the last three days. Our communication infrastructure was down to messengers and shouting. The pony who came to us warned that an attack was coming. Based on what those beastly monsters hit us with, had we still been in the cloud buildings above—.
“You would have been slaughtered,” Quickie muttered, biting off the last word like it tasted unpleasant. “The best mages in the city were under the Vivarium’s roof and we barely held them back. The ones that can spread that black slime that disrupts magic almost ended us.” She trailed off, then looked over at where the stallion Swift was ‘riding’ still sat, looking abashed.
“Alright. Show me.”
----
Some smart pony had put up a few basic signs here and there, but once we got off the upper floors, it was all unlabeled once more. I also noticed we were running into fewer and fewer ponies the deeper we went. Whether that was by design or because most of them were working upstairs was hard to say; the lower levels seemed largely dedicated to housing. Most of the cells had added a third double bunk to accomodate more bodies. The few we did run into were asleep.
The possessed stallion led us in silence, though nopony seemed much inclined to talk any more.
Before long, we stood outside the purposefully nondescript door to Tourniquet’s antechamber. A small shrine of some kind had been laid out beside the door covered in piles of flowers, toys, beads, and plates of fruit. At the center lay a picture of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, side by side. It might have been a press photo or possibly just a candid somepony had paid for, but it was a reminder of brighter things I needed just then.
Stopping at the pile, the shining energy in the suited stallion’s eyes flickered out. He straightened, nodded once, then abruptly started back the way we’d come without a word. He didn’t so much as give us a backward look.
“So?” Quickie said, glancing into the former control room toward the open chamber door behind. All that could be seen within was a gently pulsing white light.
“This is it,” I replied. “You want the truth, it’s in there. I’ll catch you when you faint.”
“Mister Boiled, I have seen a pony do unspeakable things with a pool noodle while maintaining arousal. I have seen distension of orifices I’d have thought impossible without borderline illegal magical alterations. I have been in battle with unseemly creatures that defied logic—”
“And I acknowledge all of that,” I said, then stepped up against her side. “I’ll still catch you when you faint.”
Derida and Grimble didn’t look any calmer than Quickie did, but they were warriors, albeit in very different arenas. I knew there was no way the following meeting could go well, though I was hoping nopony would do anything stupid. More is the worry.
Stiffening her upper lip, Quickie stomped into Tourniquet’s chamber.
As she stepped onto the carpet just inside the door, the lights overhead resolved into a single spotlight projected from the ceiling, highlighting a long conference table in the center of the space. A dozen chairs were rolled up on either side, each with a folded paper name tag and a pot of steaming coffee within easy reach. At the center of the table sat a basket of various teas, desserts, and a whole plate of what looked like fresh raspberry scones.
Quickie narrowed her eyes at the platter.
“I’m too mad to be buttered up, Swift,” she said.
“I know, Mom,” my partner replied, stepping out of the surrounding darkness.
Swift wore a set of police issued body armor, though somepony had done a considerably better job fixing it up than whoever sewed it back together last time. The bunny patch was still in place. A single thick cable was wrapped around her neck, trailing down her back between her massive wings before vanishing into the darkness. Every few seconds, a flicker of light traveled the length of the cord, then back out into the unseen depths of the chamber.
The very tip of the cable split into a hundred tiny wires, each of them resting on Swift’s face. More than a few looked uncomfortably like they’d wormed their ways into her flesh, though she showed no signs of discomfort.
The red crescent on her chest gleamed like a diamond, shimmering and flickering as though a flame burned inside it.
“S-Swift?” Quickie whispered.
“Mom, Tourniquet really wants to meet you, but I have to make sure things are going to be alright first.”
“Your...your f-face—”
Swift twitched her eyes toward the side of her head seemingly invaded by the wires, then sighed. “I’m sorry. I know it looks freaky, but she can pull them out anytime. We’re working on the food situation upstairs right now.”
I felt a brush on my backside as Derida and Grimble Shanks moved past me into the chamber, silently taking in the scene with the practiced eyes of two creatures who’d lived through strange times. Despite their cultural differences, the Tokan and Hitlan leaders were surprisingly similar in some ways.
“Lass, jus’ lookin’ at tha’ makes moi flesh itch,” Grimble muttered, and Derida nodded, silently resting a claw on her axe.
“I’m afraid the only reason we’re making such good time on getting everypony and everygriff fed is because I’m connected here. It’s a sort of symbiotic thing,” Swift replied, her eyes still on her mother. “Before Tourniquet comes out, I need a promise from all of you not to hurt her, okay?”
Quickie wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I c-can promise that so long as sh-she’s not hurting you—”
“She’s not,” Swift affirmed.
“Then I promise not to hurt her.”
My partner turned to Grimble and Derida and said, “She’s a little scary, but I swear she’s safe.”
“I doubt we’d be able to leave through those ponies upstairs if something untoward were to happen to their leader,” Derida murmured, then added, “I promise.”
“Aye, Oi promise as well. Don’t fancy foightin’ a buildin’,” Grimble Shanks agreed.
Swift nodded toward another darkened section of the room just beside her. “It’s okay to come out, now.”
“I told you it would be,” Tourniquet’s voice answered, echoing unnaturally around the giant room.
What stepped into the light was distinctly not the pony I remembered.
Tourniquet had looked quite large in my last contact with Queenie, but it didn’t do justice to the giant equine shape that moved with the grace of a dancer, towering over my partner like a parent over their foal. She was only a little larger than she’d been in my last dream, but every part of her radiated power. If Princess Celestia were sculpted from metal and jewels, the mechanical mare would have been a good approximation.
The cables into her back spilled out in waves, like a great flower of hair. The gemstones that’d replaced her eyes flashed and sparkled as though they’d just come off the jeweler’s table. Standing side by side with Swift, the two looked a strangely matched set. Something in their mutual postures or possibly their expressions spoke of a shared awareness that transcended body.
Tourniquet had become a goddess, beautiful and fearful to behold.
I was so distracted, I almost didn’t catch Quickie before she hit the carpet.
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Wow . . .
And now we'll see what the final battle will look like.
And so we get ever closer to inevitable conclusion. What could possibly go wrong?
Either way, it was an excellent chapter as always. Keep up the good work!
Griffins verses Dragons or are there just that many corrupted inner citizens to try and get through first while being sidelined by drags?
Looks like Torniquet and Swift are gearing up for full Signals Warfare against teh spell craft running the Wish Machine, while Hardy and co work to disrupt it from outside?
Wasn’t Tourniquet regularly sized the last time they had met? Why is she huge now?
I love the ending point, and miss cuddles gets the hardy express ride haha. This was a very fun decompressor.
This was good.
I think I got a better handle on Quickie's personality after all this. But Tourniquet getting an upgrade in this way was unexpected. Your usual cliffhanger. Though what happened to her fleshy parts? Or is she all android now?
It's good that Swift is going to get some focus again though, she's been out of the spotlight for a while.
So have Taxi and Limerence and Bones and Mags, but their time will come, I hope. There's bits of focus on them everywhere these last few chapters.
So when do her motherly instincts come out and start asking for cyborg grandfoals?
9529902
Evolution. You might say she's "growing into" her potential.
9529828
Just blue-skying here, but I think Ruby's horn (and her trapped soul within it) might also have a part to play.
I swear I got this weird biological clock going on in relation to this story. I don't keep track of the day of the month very well and I certainly don't keep track of your updating schedule. But after reading chapter 58 and leaving satisfied I barely spared a thought as when this story would update again.
Then, three days ago, my brain says "hey, you should check if Detrot has updated" so I check and no. And the day before yesterday "Hey, Detrot" i check, no. Yesterday "Detrot!", still no. This morning during work "DETROT!", fine I check and there it is.
And it is not the first time i get the compulsive desire out of nowhere to check if you have updated and is barely a day off.
Damn I've got this story on my mind subconsciously. I Love it.
Thank you, captain obvious, haven't you all seen the worse case scenarios by now?
The Inquisition, here we go, the Inquisition, what a show!
Does this unit have soul? Seriously, I can't tell.
Hardy, why are you trying to give up the opportunity to scar Swift's mom for the rest of her poor, short life?
To be fair, it's not like she has a lot of experience at being trusted.
Speaking of unique experiences...
1) Dick move, Hardy. 2) Yes, actually, they did.
Oh Taxi. It's far too late for that question.
Not sure there's a difference in this case.
Not sure I believe Taxi. If she really wanted one, she would have gotten it already.
Sounds overly optimistic of you, Hardy.
Eh, it would have been ok if you didn't catch her. Maybe a little percussive maintenance is just what her brain needs!
I think Hardy has a case of fate-guided kleptomania. I mean, fate convinced him to take Cosmo's box of heart, and look how that ended up. I think Ruby's horn will play an equally as important part, perhaps even more so since Ruby seems to have had a mad plan all along.
I was a little concerned when Hardy and Taxi were hugging in the DFW. I thought 'wasn't Taxi driving!?' but then I remembered this thing had some kind of autopilot feature. At least, I'm prettty sure it did. Also, go Swifty! Now she has the most beautiful marefriend in town.
9531364
Actually, I think they had just pulled up at a set of lights that were still working and on red. As things seemed to be at a lull, Taxi had decided to stop at them just for the novelty of the normality of doing so. There may be an AutoP fitted to the DFW but I doubt Taxi, being a professional driver, would deign use it. It is good to see Taxi and Hardy reconfirming their friendship and commitment to keeping each other sane... well, maybe not a normal definition of sane but a definition that works for them.
It is probably not surprising that at this moment all I could think of was "What would happen if you freed Ruby into one of the semi-mindless PACT troopers? I mean between Lim and Twi could they make it happen?" What would Hardy do with a Lily, Scarlet, Taxi, Nightmare and Ruby collection?
Seems like Tourniquet has been on an upgrade binge. Out seems to be the last vestiges of a young pony who had too short a corporeal life and in comes a total adoption of a purely mechanical avatar. Unsure if this is more or less disturbing... it could make it harder for Quickie to see her as an 'enhanced' pony friend of her daughter's who needed help and saving rather than her present impression of an electronic golem who may be slowly taking over her daughter.
9529481
Yeh me too, its like Im in a library and sometimes people come by to tell me stuff about the book Im writing.
9531633
Yeah, I was thinking the casspir also.
I would hope someone could make an image of those two all wired up to the building. Some cool science fiction stuff right there.
Thanks for the chapter! If I could draw I would absolutely draw fanart of Swift and Tourniquet
9531314
Crazy idea, but hear me out:
Alicorn Hardy. Whatever he loots he ends up putting on himself. OG Cozmo's heart? It's now inside him, with gale. NMM's helm? He put it on, temporarily, and is now playing host to a NMM fragment, temporarily. So with Ruby's horn...?
Well, Lily is gonna be weirded out when the stallion she likes starts talking with the voice of her dead sister.
But hey, all that's missing now is a pair of "wings".
jk don't make Hardy an alicorn (though he can be a princess I guess it'd be fine) that would be such a deus ex machina9536552
I want to be a hundred percent clear...I am not doing this under any circumstances.
-Chessie
9536612
Well that's a relief.
I put my Surmiser into overdrive and started considering Umbra, Animus, and Armature. Two colts and one filly who operate under assumed names.
Umbra: Shadow
Animus: Hostility, ill feeling
Armature: The rotating core of a dynamo
I have surmised who the first two are, and have an idea regarding the third, which has to be the Item removed from the sunken pylon in the Wilds.
9536612
Aww
Totally behind hard boiled alicorn of justice
You should let Apple bloom have a crack at tourny
Just think of it
Wireless interface and she could feel like she's a real filly again
9536612
Honestly, Hardy’s probably immortal either way. I think Hardy prefers it that way, nevertheless. Who needs fancy horns and finicky wings when you have good old earth pony fortitude?
I'd like to take a second and say something. This is my first time back on this site unnnnnnnnn
three years? The 20s have been murder on my timepercep
regardless. Chessie I think, has created a very unique thing. Is this a sterling example of a noir story? No. It's some elements of eldritch horror mixed with what I can only describe as cyberpunk dip and urban fantasy, dressed in a noir suit that takes you into an alleyway and hits you across the back of the head.
I think that alone makes it fantastic. It doesn't hold back. To some extent it also allows for some class of empathy with the Detective; the events just don't stop coming, it is not solving problems it is triage and fire extinguishers.
11625147
Awwww, thanks mate. Really appreciate it. Can't wait to see how you feel as things get REALLY weird.
- Chessie
MAN WHAT THE FUCK-
Omfg there is no way this ends well.