Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale

by Chessie

Chapter 2: Your Princess is in Another Castle

Starlight Over Detrot
Chapter 2: Your Princess is in Another Castle

When considering what went wrong between the Detrot Police Department and the Perimeter Aegis Control Taskforce, it is important to remember that both groups were charged with maintaining order and protecting the city. The DPD hunted criminals; the PACT hunted monsters, and the harmonious operation of the two was often necessary for the completion of this duty.

Why they did not, in fact, harmoniously operate is not particularly a mystery. Over time, pride crept into the equation, and each organization collectively saw themselves as more important, skilled, and/or capable than the other, imagining in their minds that they were sole guardians of the city. Each believed that Detrot would ultimately collapse without their protection, and never stopped as a whole to consider that on this point, they were both entirely correct.

And thus, Detrot was stuck with a situation in which DPD officers saw PACT as a bunch of self-impressed cowponies with the brains of confectionery and only a loose understanding of ‘collateral damage,' and PACT thought of the DPD as lacking the fortitude necessary to control their bowels in the face of an oncoming manticore and/or household pet.

This was not a rift in any way mended when Princess Celestia donated The Castle to the DPD for use as their headquarters. The Castle was a sturdy defensive bastion eventually turned royal summer home when the borders of Detrot extended too far for the Castle to be of strategic value; a few decades and renovations later, it would ultimately serve as the schizophrenic nerve center of the Detrot Police, and as a continuous sore spot for the PACT.

-The Scholar

---

I awoke from my doze to gunshots ringing out overhead.

We were jiggling over some terribly uneven surface that nearly bounced my teeth right out of my face, when something bounced off the passenger side window, leaving a huge crack in the glass.

Taxi shrieked in alarm, slamming on the brakes as I jammed the door open on the opposite side from the incoming fire, and rolled onto cobblestones before the car had come to a full stop. Kicking the bit of my gun up into my muzzle, I carefully peered over the trunk, trying to find a target.

When none presented itself, I glanced around for a second or two to realize that we were not in a gang warzone; Instead, we were sitting in the old chariot loading bay leading up to the Detrot Police Office’s main entrance. We’d passed under its yawning portcullis and onto the avenue in front of the oldest building in the city. It isn’t called ‘The Castle’ because somepony in P.R. thought it was a cute name.

The tower proper looked like a monstrous onion sitting on an upended coffee cup, ringed with stained glass windows around the top. Its various portals, arrow slits, and murder holes had been attacked by a vengefully fashionable pony intent on making them look like something other than the trappings of a utilitarian fortress. Sadly, the additions of old-style Canterlot gold leaf and alabaster just seemed out of place, like cake frosting hurled against the side of a municipal parking garage, even if the decorations hadn’t started cracking and peeling in an effort to fit in with the weathered masonry.

It was from the tower’s shadow that a large pegasus in full body black combat armor wheeled down out of the sky from one of the smaller, newer buildings which crouched around the central pillar like ugly ducklings huddled around their gaudily decorated mother. His military-style, close-cropped mane was a shade of sickly green; It mixed with his brown face to make him look like a foal’s hoofpainting. There was something familiar about that awful color scheme.

The stallion dropped down to ground level, skidding to a stop and tucking his wings back as two more troopers followed him down. They kept a respectful distance, but were still close enough to be ‘backing him up.’ The other two were mares wearing much the same outfit. It covered them from head to hoof in thick black kevlar with ceramic plates underneath, leaving only their muzzles and eyes exposed, and considering the humid day, they must have been hot as fresh phoenix shit. All three of them wore badges on their flanks shaped like an apple tree overlaid by a unicorn’s horn, sporting a pair of wings which said across them in silvered letters ‘Perimeter Aegis Control Taskforce.’

“Civilian traffic is restricted. We’re having training exercises-” He began in an officious tone and I stood up, dropping my bit from my teeth and coming around the cab intent on chewing nine kinds of hay out of him. Taxi beat me to it, charging out of the other side of the cab and sticking her nose in his face.

Taxi wasn’t a small mare by any stretch, but the pegasus was a properly big bastard and his neck bulged with muscles. On reflection, I should have noticed the giant riot cannon strapped to his combat saddle, as well as those of his two companions, any one of which could probably have turned both of us into a fine mist. Its barrel was as big as my leg. None of that, however, deterred Taxi.

“Did you just shoot my car, you goddess damned bastard? Was your father a diamond dog or is stupid just the new PACT recruitment policy?”

Steam blasted out of his nostrils as his companions nickered laughter at his back.

“They’re beanbag rounds and your hack wagon is fine. You need a demonstration of just how fine it’ll be, or are you going to clear that yellow piece of manure from our engagement zone?” He kicked his back leg so the re-loading mechanism ratcheted a fresh round into the chamber.

Taxi growled at him, yanking her temporary police parking permit out of her saddlebag and tossing it at his feet, “Manure?! We’re not civilian traffic, you stupid @$&*#$!”

That’s not censorship; I’m not actually sure what that word was, but it was unflattering and in buffalo. Or maybe zebra. Or possibly draconic. Knowing how far she’d ranged during her various spiritual adventures one could never rule anything out with Taxi or her choice of invective.

He looked down at the paper then carefully stepped on it, leaving a muddy hoofprint.

I decided to intervene as I saw her starting to slide back into of those freaky zebra fighting stances that looked frighteningly like total relaxation. I wasn’t really in the mood to peel the big idiot’s face out of one of the rose-bushes lining the boulevard. Well, that’s not true. I just wasn’t in the mood to fill out an incident report afterwards.

I slid between them and began gently pressing her back with one hoof on her chest. “Taxi, give it a rest. Go park us. I’m sure this fellow isn’t looking for trouble any more than we are.”

Her pink eyes flicked angrily from him to me to the cracked window before she muttered, “I am going to put this on the Chief’s bill this month. She better pay it, Hardy, or you can take the bus until she does.” Stepping back she went around and got in, sitting there for a moment trying to collect herself.

His attention finally turned to me and a huge grin spread on his treebark colored cheeks. “Hardy?... As in Hard Boiled? Isn’t that right?” Stepping up close he pushed my hat back on my head. I watched the muscles in his eyebrows shifting as I resisted the urge to immediately crush his smug face. “Ladies, we got ourselves a proper hero cop here, ain’t that right... Hardy? Too damn good to drive his own wagon, so the chief hires out some weird ass filly to drive him everywhere.” He looked up at Taxi. “Is that her?”

The two mares accompanying him looked at me then back at the beefcake moron as though sizing us up. I was obviously not high in their estimations.

Taxi was sitting behind the wheel, taking deep breaths as she tried to get herself under control. She’s not a particularly temperamental filly, but he’d caught her on a bad day. Like a trainwreck in slow motion, he continued. “Huh... I hear that creepy cabbie don’t have no Cutie Marks. Some kinda bizarro religious thing.” Then to her he yelled, “Hey baby... you and me hang out some night, and maybe I help you find your Special Talent!”

I winced. Most ponies in the force knew the story of Taxi’s Cutie Marks; it was a fable told to recruits on the dangers of undercover work. Most ponies also had the good grace not to mention it to either of us.

Sure enough, the normally peaceful taxi-driver threw herself out of the car in a fury. “Oh, you want Special Talent?! I will show you my Goddessdamned Special Talent in amateur proctology you-”

I quickly stepped in front of her. “Taxi... that’s enough. Let me handle this.” She stopped short, one hoof out and hovering an inch from a particularly painful nerve cluster in my right front knee. She slowly lowered it.

Turning I trotted up to the towering PACT trooper. He unconsciously braced himself to lift off, raising his wings. Sloppy. He obviously wasn’t an experienced brawler. Still, I decided to go the diplomatic route. I studied him for a moment then looked at his badge. The name there was...oooh, yes. I knew he was familiar.

“Canyon... Canyon, isn’t it?” He dipped his nose, eyeing me cautiously.

I gave him a wide, friendly grin. “Heck, Canyon ol’ buddy ol’ pal!” Sidling up beside him I threw one leg around his broad shoulders and turned him to face his companions. Anything to get him away from Taxi. “I remember Canyon here, ladies! Guess his Daddy went ahead and got him into the PACT after his little stint in DPD Traffic Enforcement. He tell you about that?” I didn’t give them time to answer, but could feel the pegasus’ thick neck tensing as I gave him a little squeeze which might have looked, to an incidental observer, like a headlock. “No? I guess they don’t frown so much on those ‘little’ breaches of protocol out by The Shield.”

I turned to his friends, shifting my weight casually to press down on his wing muscles. “He got so drunk at last year’s Hearth’s Warming Eve party, he tried to stick his nose right in the Chief’s crotch!” My smile had turned slightly vindictive but there was a certain joy in his growing discomfort. “Didn’t she buck you so hard you they had to re-plaster her office wall again, Canyon me ol' pal?”

He shook me off and turned to face me, unconsciously running his tongue over his two front teeth. One was missing, and the other was broken and showed signs of recent dentistry work.

His companions faces were full of barely suppressed laughter, and the look in Canyon’s eyes was turning steadily from embarrassment to ‘I wonder if I can kill the shit-head Detective with bean-bag rounds.’

Before he could test that theory, an older looking unicorn in safety goggles stuck his head over the parapet on one of the lower buildings and shouted, “Hey! Canyon! Andele! Scarper! Get your asses up here and fly like targets! If a dragon attacks and DPD headquarters is hit, I will see to it Broadside knows it was you three that let the ground crews sit on their flanks!”

Canyon quickly drew himself to a formal military stance, rear hooves together. Flipping his tail in the air he took several steps away from me and shouted back, “Sir! Civilian caught a stray round! Just clearing them off and making sure they get on their way!”

The unicorn cocked his heavy rifle. “Getcher butts in the air, or I start shootin’ em on the ground!”

All three pegasi gave powerful flaps of their wings and lifted off, nearly knocking me from my hooves in the resulting vortex. Canyon’s companions looked over their shoulders at me then couldn’t contain it anymore and started laughing uproariously as he slumped, hanging between his wings like a prisoner being dragged to his own execution. Maybe the day wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Taxi stuck her head out the window of the car, a tiny hint of a grin at the corners of her lips. “Hey... Hardy? I... erm... I...” She stuttered for a second then seemed to find her words. “...thanks for that.”

I shrugged it off. “If you’d hit him I’d have had to go for his gun. Either way...”

Looking up at the Castle’s imposing edifice looming overhead like a stern parent I could have sworn I felt The Chief gazing down at me with horrible murder in her eyes. “...I don’t want to do this.”

The cabbie made a gentle shooing motion with one leg. “Go on, Hardy. The music is calling and must be faced.”

I cocked my head as though listening. “The music sounds like a prescription drug addicted unicorn with power over my paycheck. You sure you don’t wanna just... you know... shoot me here? Like one in the knee? A graze?”

She shook her head and revved the engine. “If I thought shooting you would make it all better, I’d have done it a while ago. I’ll be in the car park.” With that she was off, out under the open portcullis and around the side towards the garage.

****

I tugged open the heavy and ornate front door to the Castle, and was immediately caught full force in the face by a torrent of paper and a blast of air that almost shoved me onto my tail. Forms and files seemed to be raining from the sky, though they didn’t make it far before two ponies dashed out the door past me to gather them back in.

I could barely see the other end of the Princess’s former audience chamber; the Chief’s office sitting directly over the throne dais was invisible against a backdrop of fluttering paperwork. Overhead, a miniature tornado composed mostly of officious garbage swung back and forth just under the ceiling, dancing like a crazed, drunken snake. Several dozen uniformed pegasi were trying with only limited success to get control of the thing, which spat out bits of detritus, then sucked them back in. Occasionally, lightning arced out and struck the ancient golden pillars lining either side of the hall, leaving black streaks.

I pulled the door shut behind me. I had to dodge past a rushing greyish-pink earth pony who nearly took my head off as she tried to catch another set of escaped files, which seemed to be intentionally staying just a few inches ahead of her. The noise was deafening.

Celestia help us. There are just some things in the world that do not call for magical solutions. It was an inauspicious day many years ago when, during the height of an ambitious interspecies collaboration, somepony decided that file cabinets were too heavy and inconvenient.

The idea for the File Cloud was simple enough. You enchant a container (in this case the ceiling of the former royal audience chamber) and a cloud so instead of water, it holds... well, anything. Paper, mostly. Everypony was going to have a File Cloud right in their own home where they could store a lifetime’s collected junk. The pencil pushers in City Hall declared it ‘The greatest innovation of our times since The Shield!’ and Detrot Police Department would be ‘First to be Graced with all the Efficiency and Security this soon to become Indispensible Modern Convenience could Offer.’

Capitalized sarcasm aside, it did eliminate, single hoofedly, an entire department dedicated to cataloguing years worth of paperwork. Just call up to the front desk and they would magically deliver right to your chair whatever you’d sent up to be dumped into the cloud. It would literally rain evidence. Unfortunately, it was discovered only once it was installed that if you store decades worth of stuff in one place, it’s awfully easy to forget what you put in there. This necessitated a filing system almost as complex as the one it replaced to keep track of everything going in.

There was also the problem that, as more things were emptied into the cloud, the questions you had to ask the Cloud get back what you’d put into it became more and more specific, and, as anyone who’s ever dealt with a genie knows, asking the wrong question to a magical entity has consequences. There had been a few incidents of ponies asking for documents and receiving case files that were in unknown languages, for places that didn’t exist, or about incidents which either never happened or weren’t going to happen for centuries. One pony asking for the groundskeeping ledger wound up inadvertently receiving the case file for his own murder.

Years of magical development and what we’d ended up with was a glorified junk closet which could incidentally defy the laws of causality in an entirely useless and disturbing fashion. Accounting was not pleased.

Less pleased, at the moment, was Radiophonic Telegraphica, the unicorn center of Detrot PD’s information systems and poster child for Equestrian naming schema gone overboard. She was huddled behind an immense radio set, which took up a full third of the vast room. Her face was pinched like a teal lemon as she adjusted the chest-high bank of gems, knobs, and dials at a dizzying speed with her horn’s magic, all the while shouting into three microphones in six different voices simultaneously, as though she was a one-pony acapella group. Four separate headsets hung around her neck, restraining her bright green mane.

I pinned down my hat before the wind could tear it from my head and I pushed against the paper-storm, making my way through it over to her and hooking my hooves over the edge of the desk.

“Telly!” I yelled, trying to make myself heard.

She didn’t even look up as she slammed her hoof down on another call button. “We’re a little busy at the moment, in case you didn’t notice! Take a friggin' number!”

Trotting around the end of the desk I grabbed the top set of headphones and pulled them off of her ears. She glared up at me indignantly but her expression softened when she saw my face. “Oh... Hardy. Dammit! We’re busy as an apple-bucker during harvest with two busted left legs! Can it wait?”

I shook my head, trying to keep my voice level, which was difficult in the din. “I was having a perfectly wonderful nightmare too! What in Equestria is going on with the File Cloud? And why is the damn PACT outside blasting at cabs?” I gestured towards the mass of stationery, notes, and parchments swirling through the room.

A flash of static burst from her headset; she winced, hit a mute-button, and glared up at the spinning mass. “The PACT idiots are here to do joint training exercises to make sure the DPD is up to snuff if we get attacked by mega-fauna. One of their yahoos took a potshot at the dome and found a chink in the protection spells! They blew off part of the control rune for the substantiality matrix! We’re venting matter from the interstitial nexi!”

I shook my head, understanding very little of that. Telly was a brainiac through and through, and damn anyone who might be a few IQ points short. I pulled my coat tightly around myself, lest it be swept away into the maelstrom.

“Has anyone been up there to try to fix it?”

She shook her head, wind whipping her mane into her face. “We can’t get close enough! You wanna try flying through that mess, I’ll be glad to give you a push!” Her horn flashed and she pulled a large red lever, which only seemed to make the tornado darker and angrier. “Damnit! The stabilization array is fluctuating!”

“I’m guessing that’s bad?”

“Only if you like being a quadruped!”

As Telly fiddled with her controls, trying to bring the raging cloud under control, I watched the crowd of tumbling pegasi shooting back and forth around the edges, catching bits of trash before they could escape and tossing them back in.

From out of the mass of cubicles and darting ponies a tiny salmon colored bolt blasted through the edge of the funnel. I couldn’t make out who or what it was, but it rose towards the ceiling, nimbly dodging flying clipboards and ballistic note-pads. Holding my hat to my head with one leg I did my best to follow its progress but after a moment it vanished into the center of the storm.

Telly was shrieking into her mic again. “Who was that?! Did anypony see who went up there?! Someone talk to me! We’ve still got containment on the evidence armory partition, right? Right?!” The speaker just crackled as dozens of voices all tried to reply at once.

Suddenly and entirely without warning, the tornado vanished. Everything that had fallen or been ejected was slurped straight up into the air with a noise like a giant trying to get the last few drops of liquid out of the bottom of a glass with an enormous straw.

All of the pegasi, finding themselves no longer fighting the furious air-flow, scrambled to catch themselves. A young buck in lab coat crashed nose-first into one of the pillars, then dropped unceremoniously into a stack of empty cardboard boxes.

After a few seconds of stunned silence everypony began quietly dragging themselves up and dusting their tails off, then counting to make sure nopony had actually been sucked into the cloud. The now docile cloud was only occasionally letting out rumbles and crackles as it tried to re-arrange everything back in the proper order.

Almost entirely unnoticed, a small orange pony dropped out of the mass of white. At first I thought it was somepony’s foal who’d come in for one of those hideous bring-your-filly-to-work days, but as she got closer, I saw she was wearing a rumpled uniform. Her mane was cut in that same silly military flat-top style as the buffoons outside, and was a truly shocking shade of fluorescent red. If there was a geiger counter in the building, she’d have set it off.

She clutched a bucket in her teeth and fluttered towards us, almost losing her balance when one wing cramped from overexertion as she tried to land. Skidding to a stop on all four hooves she came up just a few inches short of the desk and collapsed on her stomach in a panting heap.

Telly glared down into the bucket at the tiny pegasus. “What...?” She began then paused and lifted the container in a telekinetic field, peering into the black mess inside. “What did you do up there... ah... cadet? Wait... aren’t you... you’re the transfer from PACT, right?”

She nodded weakly and tried to stand but her legs went out from under her almost immediately and she sat down heavily, “Yes, Ma’am... whoo... hah....” After a few more deep breaths she managed to reply, “I re-painted the... thing... hooo!... with the bullet-hole in it.”

The radio pony dipped one hoof in the dark substance and stared at it then gave it a sniff. “That’s... printer ink. Heh. Accounting is going to love this. Though, they’ll probably hate it less than an armory containment breach. It’ll hold for now. We’ll need a more permanent fix, but a more pressing issue is probably finding out where they punched through the shield spells.”

I huffed and tapped the wheezing young pegasus on the forehead. “Cadet... what did you think you were doing? You do know that cloud could have torn your damn fool head off! You know we keep weapons from murders in there?!”

“Actually the evidence armory containment magics seem to have held-” Telly started, but I silenced her with a sharp look.

“If they hadn’t, we’d have had a tornado whirling around, spewing out knives and shooting hoofguns!”

The cadet’s shoulders stiffened and she pulled herself upright. “I fixed it, didn’t I? I was watching the training exercises outside. I saw where the shot hit the roof-” Her brilliant cyan eyes shot wide as she peered my badge before yanking herself into a salute so fast she almost knocked herself cold with her own hoof. “Sir! Sorry, Sir!”

Shutting my eyes I let out a little breath then turned on my heels. “Alright... catastrophe averted by the scrub. Don’t expect a medal. Telly?”

A strange look crossed Telly’s face as she looked back and forth between me and the rookie. I couldn’t quite read it but there was a definite smile buried somewhere under the exhaustion.

“Telly!” I repeated in a louder voice and she looked at me, licking her lips as that smile turned into a huge snarky grin.

“Yes, Sir, Detective, Sir?”

I facehoofed, and then waved towards her radio set. “Is the Chief ready to see me? Tell me this mess wasn’t what she called me down here for. I’d hate to think the budget’s been hacked off so completely she’d need me filing.”

“What? Oh... er, no.” The radio pony slumped behind her desk and tapped a purple button lightly with a tiny flicker of her horn. Red emergency lights flashing all around the audience chamber quietly shut off. “We got a call this morning on a death over on the other side of uptown. Something pretty high profile. She sent the forensics bunch out there to get what they can but the media got there before us and is making a fracas of it.”

“So what does she need me for?” I asked, watching a passing accountant with a stack of loose paper balanced on his head trying to get around a small avalanche of garbage jammed in the stairwell that hadn’t been pulled back when the cloud returned to normal.

Telly shook her head, pulling one of her head-sets off and setting it aside. “Honestly? I imagine she needs somepony who can solve this quickly or sweep it under the carpet before the newspapers start howling about police inefficiency. Either way,” she said, adding a gentle bow and graceful sweep of her hoof, “it is but mine to listen and yours to jump like a bunny when she calls lest she tear your nuts off and feed them to you.”

An indoor tornado wasn’t the worst way I’d seen a day begin in Detrot PD, but it was right up there. If that wasn’t what the chief got me out of bed for... I felt a little worry plucking at my neck.

“Did you at least take the bullets out of her gun?” I asked softly.

The teal radio-pony grinned as she yanked open her desk drawer, and six small caliber rounds rolled to the bottom with a clatter. “You know I’ve got your back, Hardy. Besides, I think I saw her take a few of the blue diamonds. Those usually mellow her out.”

Straightening my jacket, I threw out my chest, assuming a stance I hoped radiated confidence.

“Alright. Wish me luck.”

Telly snorted and shoved her drawer shut, “You don’t need luck. You need a tranquilizer gun and royal intervention. Just try not to piss her off worse. Some of us actually have to work here.”

I looked up at the stained glass window over front of the Chief’s office depicting Justice, our patron, in all her glory. She who wore a blindfold and clutched a flaming sword in her teeth, rearing to charge forth against the iniquitous and unrighteous. Her hooves were sheathed in golden shoes and her coat was a burnished white. Rather dramatic, but still... beautiful.

I could see a spindly shadow moving back and forth, gesticulating wildly at something out of sight. Tipping my head I whispered a quiet prayer before turning towards the staircase up to the second floor. Telly and the recruit stood there together with sympathetic looks in their eyes as they watched me go. At least, I imagined them to be sympathetic, right up until Telly stage whispered to the little pegasus: “If she ever actually kills him, I want his hat.”

****

I stopped in the ancient hallway, one leg raised to knock on the heavily ornamented doors to the Princess’s old chambers. The long hall was almost silent, feeling like a world apart, separated from the mad rush of the audience chamber. I’d been fine right up until I set hoof on the extremely plush red carpet lined on either side with ancient suits of armor.

As I approached the beautiful forest fresco on the door, the weight of the morning seemed to drop on my head like an anvil. Followed by a wagon. And a piano. For a moment I entertained the idea that I could sneak back downstairs, out into the cab, and beg Taxi to drive me to the other end of the Equestria. It was a damnably attractive notion.

Celestia, did I once love this job? Was there a time where I sat bolt upright in bed and looked around and thought ‘Yes, I want to face a maniacal horned tyrant before breakfast?'

Actually... there was a time... several years ago, before my partner... No. Put the brakes on that entire line of thought, Hardy...

‘Death shadows you today, Hardy.’ Taxi’s words came back to me and I tried to push them aside, but it wasn’t happening. Equicide is like that. If you work there, death is always waiting somewhere in the wings. Besides, it didn’t matter whether or not I happen to like the job. I’d taken the oath. I put my hoof on a book of law and swore to serve and protect. That means something, right?

It’s not that I ever stopped feeling like I was doing the right thing with my life. My Cutie Mark says it all. A pony can know they’re exactly where they should be, and still want to throw themselves in front of a bus now and then.

A cup of coffee might do me good though. After all, the Chief could only get so angry before she either had an aneurysm or fired me. She could wait fifteen minutes.

I was just turning to creep back downstairs when the wide double doors glowed brightly, then crashed inwards and left me hanging there, turned towards the hall and a guilty expression on my face. I carefully looked over my shoulder; Her high backed chair was facing the other way, looking out over the rush of ponies in the cubicles below. Quickly burying the desire to bolt, I composed myself and marched across the threshold to meet my fate.

The Chief’s office was vast and covered in gold paint, but was mostly empty, save for thick red carpets that stopped short of the edge of a huge but worn maple-wood desk, which was a towering monument to the ancient royal order. It’d been Celestia’s at one time, and was just about the only thing that had been kept from the previous administration. The former head of the department was a big fan of antiques and jammed them in every possible corner, and when the Chief was elected to the position, she took one look at all that gaudy shit and sold it to pay off the department’s budget over-run.

Two flat backed chairs that reminded me of the ones in the headmare’s office of my old elementary school sat facing the desk. I’d spent many hours in similar ones writing endless lines of things like ‘I will not help Sweet Shine replace the fruit in the teacher’s lounge with unripe zap apples.’

There was a tiny bowl of peppermint candy, three perfectly sharpened pencils, and two boxes labeled ‘in’ and ‘out’ sitting on her desk. The ‘out’ box stack of paperwork was significantly higher than ‘in.’

Trying to be casual about it, I edged up to the desk and snagged a sweet from the bowl. Unwrapping it with my teeth I balanced it on the back of one leg then flicked it into the air and tilted my head back to catch it in my lips. It never landed. It just hung there a few inches from my face, shimmering slightly in a sparkling field of unicorn magic.

The luxuriously appointed chair slowly turned around, and Police Chief Iris Jade smiled down at me like a predator whose particularly stupid prey has just waltzed into her den. Her platinum silver mane hung around her skeletal frame in stiffly coiffed lines you could have used for a measuring stick. Her pelt was a harsh shade of emerald that contrasted badly with the chair, but went perfectly with the tailor made business suit clinging to her like loose flesh.

Each of her eyes seemed to focus on a slightly different part of my face, and her pupils were simply gone, lost in corneas the same shocking green as her body. Her horn was polished and shined, with the tip ground to a dangerous looking point. She watched me in silence for a few seconds then the peppermint floated over and dropped between her teeth. She bit down, and the crunch reminded me uncomfortably of breaking bone.

“Good morning, Detective. I’m glad you could grace us with your presence this beautiful day.” Leaning forward she put her hooves on the desk and slid off her seat to stand, watching me with that unsettling gaze.

I climbed up into one of the chairs, gathering my legs under me. “Glad to be gracious. You know, threatening my life before breakfast is probably against the law. Where’s the case?” I plucked my hat off and brushed off a stray piece of notecard from the mess downstairs.

“What makes you think there’s a case?” She inquired, tilting her head. One of her pupils chose that moment to reappear, lending her a slightly maniacal expression. “What makes you think you’re not here for me to take a skinning knife to your flanks?”

I clopped my hooves together and did not say, ‘because Taxi said there is.’ “I spoke to Telly. Besides, if you were going to fire me, there’d have been balloons, cake, and a gallows downstairs. And lemme just say, I was way more impressed back when it was ‘take a carrot peeler to your dick.’”

She said nothing, but the drawer of her desk slid open and the vegetable-skinning instrument in question floated out to hang in midair for several seconds before dropping back out of sight. I swallowed sharply and my jaw snapped so fast I almost bit my own tongue.

Wrinkling her nose, she lifted two files out of her inbox, shoving one across the table to me. I caught it in my teeth and unfolded it, looking over an ‘initial report,’ which is police speak for ‘transcript of a panicking idiot screaming into his telephone.’ It said ‘Murder/Misadventure/Suicide’ across the top, below the address.

“Fine. You’re right, much as it pains me to admit. We’re overloaded at the moment and the case that came in this morning has taken on a certain importance because the media managed to hear about it before we did. One of the cleaning staff at the High Step Hotel called every paper and news station in the book before they called the PD switchboard. Reporters were crawling all over the scene for almost fifteen minutes before we got there and managed to clear them out.”

I winced and folded the folder in half, wedging it into one of my extremely deep coat pockets. While I am from the school of investigative thought that says forensics tends to muddy otherwise cut and dry issues, they’re still essential to the job we do, which is finding criminals. Enough simple cases have been flat out ruined because somepony stuck his hoof in the wrong puddle that the thought of a crime scene covered in reporters made me want to weep.

“Though, it’s not the only reason I needed you here today. I happen to have some fantastic news! You’ll be overjoyed, I’m certain.” Leaning over she reached down into her garbage can and retrieved her battered phone. “I’ve been on the line with Mayor Snifter all morning about the latest ‘budget modifications.’”

Sudden worry twisted my stomach. “Right, budget modifications... what exactly does that have to do with me being in the office?” I asked nervously, lowering my chin onto the seat.

She grinned even wider, then touched the radio desk call button and said - in a voice so cheerful I almost retched - “You’re getting a partner!”

My ears shot straight up in alarm. “Wait, what? No, that’s fine! Taxi is plenty. I know she’s not official, but the last time we tried this, that pitiful pissant you set me up with almost shot himself in the leg. Juniper-” I began, but she swept her hoof down onto the desk and cut me off mid-sentence.

“Juniper is dead. I know you and he worked well together, but it’s been more than two years. I can’t justify the expense of that cab for one officer.”

Pushing myself up I stood and yanked my fedora down over my ears, starting for the door. “I’ll be at the crime scene. Doing my job. I don’t need this shit. If you find somepony dumb enough to ride shotgun with me, do us both a favor and fire them. Might save a life.”

Jade shrugged eloquently. “It’s a partner or a desk job. Take your pick. Frankly, I’d love to have you around the office more. I need somepony who can make a decent cup of coffee.”

That brought me up short. I turned and stared at her, but there wasn’t even a hint of humor in her sharply angled face; nor was there the sadistic glee I expected. It was more like... exhaustion, which she covered quickly by sliding back in her seat and plucking another candy from the bowl, shelling it open, and crunching at it loudly. A moment later her pupils expanded so wide her eyes looked almost black. Right, note-to-self: Don’t eat anything on the Chief’s desk.

I wondered, not for the first time lately, what actually went on in her mind. She was straight as an arrow and replaced a corrupt son of a whore who’d driven the department almost into the ground. When she joined the force, everypony thought we were getting a bureaucrat instead of a cop. We were proved wrong after she managed the first actual drop in violent crime-rates in almost three decades.

Over the years she’d relaxed, a little. The alternative, in her position, was probably insanity, though I can’t say the work left her completely unaffected. Her copious medication intake was a tolerated open secret. So long the job got done, nopony objected too loudly. It was a common enough story in Detrot; she took the job because there was no-one else competent or crazy enough.

Still, there were a few odd incidents when she got her pill bottles mixed up. Equestria being what it is, it’s entirely possible a purple dragon could have been eating the light from the city traffic signals, but that didn’t make the APB and the fruitless city-wide lizard-chase sound any better on the six o'clock news.

“You’re serious? Which poor fool did you con into this? Was it Cheese Nip? Or... nonono... not Creamy Goodness! He can barely leave his office without disinfecting his hooves!”

Jade pushed the other folder across her desk in my direction but caught it with a flicker of her horn, holding it just out of reach. The phone beeped softly and she raised her voice towards the big double doors. “You can come in.”

The hinges creaked and swung in a few degrees, then a familiar neon orange head poked around the edge of the door. It was that little pegasus; She’d managed to straighten her collar and was no longer breathing so hard, but her tail was a bit mussed. Her Cutie Mark, which was a crossed sword and fountain pen, still had some shreds of paper stuck to it. She was armed, technically; Her bit trigger dangled comfortably against her knee, but the weapon in her holster was a .32 caliber ‘Filly’ edition semi-automatic. It had the stopping power of a thrown gerbil and couldn’t have been any more girly if it had been pink.

When my brain made the connection that this was supposed to be my new partner, I jumped up so fast I almost pulled a muscle, staring at the pint sized pony. “You’re joking!” The new recruit cringed. I lowered my voice. “What am I? A babysitter? You can’t be sticking me with a rookie.”

Iris flipped open the other folder, flicking through the loose pages. “I’m ‘fraid so, sunshine. Detective Hard Boiled, I want you to meet Officer... Swift was it?”

She nodded and tried to hide a proud little smile. “It’s Cadet, ma’am.”

The Chief cocked her head, reminded. “Oh... Cadet. Right. Okay, step up here.” A tiny book lifted out of the center drawer of her desk then landed on the front. Swift scooted forward a few inches, and her eyes widened as she saw the title. It said ‘Laws and Rights of The Land of Equestria’ in silvery font. “Put your hoof up here.”

She was so small she had to lift off the grounds with a few flaps of her wings, rising onto just the tips of her rear horseshoes so she could reverently lay her fetlock on the book.

With a hint of a smile Jade said formally, “Do you swear to serve the citizenry of our fine city and protect them with your own life?”

It took the much smaller pony several seconds to respond. Tears had gathered at the corners of her eyes but when she replied her voice only wavered a little. “I promise, ma’am.”

The book lifted and dropped back into the desk drawer and the Chief rubbed her hooves together. “Alright... Can’t have a cadet riding with a detective. Effective immediately, you’re promoted. Officer Swift, welcome to The Detrot Police Force.” Jade looked at me expectantly and I couldn’t do much but stare at the foal she’d dropped in my lap. The cadet... Swift’s fur was so bright it actually hurt to look at directly, but she was swelling with pride. A smile split her face so wide I was worried she might sprain a cheek muscle.

I dropped my rump back onto the carpet and sighed. “Kid, I’ve got to ask. Did you volunteer to work with me?”

She nodded then unbuttoned the front of her heavily starched uniform vest and rooted around inside, coming up with a raft of papers and spreading them out on the floor. “Yes, sir!”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir.’ This isn’t PACT. Call me Hardy. You can call me ‘Detective’ if you pathologically must.”

“Yes, siirrredetective!”

I reached out and grabbed her hoof as she tried to salute me. She quickly put it back down, her ears turning a slightly darker shade of pink. I realized she was blushing. Princesses, lend me strength...

“Alright, so what sad sack pointed you in my direction? I can’t imagine it was your career counselor at the Academy.”

Her eyes darted to the Chief then back to me. “I... errr... I r-read your file.” She stuttered, then shifted into a familiar recitation stance from basic training. “Detective Hard Boiled. Six recommendations on file. Highest case closure rate. Wounded in the line of duty twice. Fifteen years on the force-” I reached out and put a hoof over her mouth. She stopped short and cracked a tiny, awkward smile.

“Methinks someone gave you a slightly trimmed version. One missing a few essential details.” I muttered quietly, giving Jade an accusing sidelong glance.

Jade leaned forward and clicked her tongue. Her voice dropped to a condescending tone so thick I felt my gorge rise. The pegasus didn’t seem to notice. “Officer Swift... show Hardy here your letter of recommendation.” Swift picked up a heavily creased sheet of official stationery from the papers on the floor, holding it in her lips so I could read it. I quickly scanned the typewritten note.

Dispatch to Detrot PD, District 1, main office from P.A.C.T. (Perimeter Aegis Control Taskforce) District 6 Shield Guard.

I, hereby formally recommend that Cadet Swift Cuddles be transferred to the Detrot Police Department. Her heroism and bravery will be of great benefit to the city of Detrot, and I look forward to watching her career develop.

Some of you may be familiar with recent incidents with the latest batch of PACT recruits. These included the escape and recapture of a cockatrice meant for training purposes, and damage caused by an underweight cadet trying to handle standard munitions. The climax of these events was during the final set of entrance exams: a mid-flight attempt to use a Skybreaker Flak Cannon, a weapon made for a pony twice her size. The recoil sent her rocketing backwards through two windows, a door, and onto a department border collie.

While this was the most prominent part of the training record, this was not the most amazing thing I saw Cadet Swift do that day. It wasn’t even when she stood up, hefted a weapon she could barely lift onto her back, and tried a second time. What really struck me was when she picked herself out of the foamy wreckage of the break room soda machine and got on her feet, getting ready to try a third time. I sincerely believe she’d have brought down the entire training facility with her spine if we hadn’t stopped her, and that says far more about what kind of pony she is than her range scores and track times ever could.

She may not have passed the PACT physical qualifiers, but her devotion would have made her an excellent trooper. After rescuing a reporter and several members of her own training team, including her instructor, from a rampaging cockatrice, we cannot simply abandon her because fate saw fit to give her a body too small to use A.M.F. (Anti-Mega-Fauna) classed weaponry.

She can still be an asset to this city. If it cannot be in PACT, let it be in the city Police Department. Equicide would fit her. Her crack marksmanship and masterful flying will prove invaluable.

Yours,

Lt. Grapeshot

Then down at the bottom:

P.S. Swift, if you read this every night. your boss won't be able to. I remember what you did with that love letter in flight camp.

I looked up from the letter. “Swift... Cuddles?” Her nostrils flared and she bristled a little as she set down the note and folded it back up. Right... has a problem with her own name...

“Swift... if you please, sir.” she said evenly as she began to gather up the papers.

The Chief shifted in her chair and cleared her throat, smiling far more pleasantly than the situation warranted. “You two can get to know each other on the way over to the High Step. I think this might be the start of something beautiful!” She was all but singing.

My shoulders drooped. “Chief-” I started, but she lifted her coffee mug and jiggled it threateningly.

“It’s this, or you can start your new position this morning. I like my coffee extra sweet with lots of cream.”

I turned to examine Swift again, trying to wrap my mind around how life could possibly have gone so wrong so quickly. At last I addressed her directly. “Alright... you can shoot and you can fly. Anything else you can do?”

She looked from me to the Chief then back, scuffing her hoof on the carpet. “I can write.” Her ears splayed out. “Sir. Detective! Please, give me a chance. I can do this work. I... I won’t disappoint you.” Her expression matched her tone of nervous desperation.

“Too late, kid.” I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable.

The Chief dropped the second file in front of me. The tab said ‘Swift Cuddles’ on the corner. I reluctantly picked it up and stuffed it in my coat. “Officer Swift, could you wait in the hallway for one moment? I need to have a quick discussion with my employee here.”

Swift got up and padded out with her head low, using one wing to drag the door shut behind her. Freaky dexterity pegasi have with those things...

When she was gone, Iris put both forehooves on her cheeks, pulling her face a little out of shape, brewing her thoughts. After about half a minute, she let her legs drop and set her shoulders. “Here’s the deal, Hardy. She washes out and there will be a shit-storm the like of which the Princesses themselves have never seen. Read her file. That rookie made herself a darling of the newspapers before she was out of the Academy. If that shit falls on my head, my final act will be to grab you by the throat with my horn and drag you in to drown in feces with me.”

I glanced over my shoulder in the direction the tiny pegasus had taken. "Okay, ultimatum out of the way... Why me? I can think of five other officers who need partners more than I do.”

“Two things.” She held up both legs, then tapped one with the other. “The mayor is on a budget cutting spree and ‘lunatic cab driver’ was right near the top of his list of wasteful spending. We both know Sweet Shine is still a great cop, badge or no badge. I’d rather have her working for us than going freelance." Gesturing towards the car park outside she sucked on her teeth. "I never busted her for it, but we both know she was sneaking into crime scenes after she ‘quit.’”

I acknowledged that with a little sniff. “And the other thing?”

The Chief pointed toward my coat with one leg where the rookie’s file was tucked. “That kid has got huge guts but she needs experience. Her file reads like a cheesy superhero novel. Top marks in Equicide training and marksmanship. She graduated in six months. Last pony who did that was... well...” She waved her foreleg in my general direction. Me. My, how youth doth pass.

I weighed my options, my gaze flitting between the coffee cup, the Chief, and the arching doorway. There really weren’t any. She had me by the balls. We both knew it. Right now it was mostly a matter of whether or not I was going to submit gracefully or if she was going to have to give’em a squeeze. The morning had started off so well, too.

Leaning back, Iris picked bits of the mint out of her teeth with her tongue. “She needs experience, but the only way she’s going to live long enough to get it is to have somepony around to keep her from stepping in front of a bullet. You, in turn, could use fresh eyes and a dose of her youth.”

I hiked up my coat and tried to smile, managing a tortured grimace. “Fine. After all, you of all ponies would know about dosage.”

I barely made it out the door before the phone smashed against the wall where my head had been seconds before.

****

I slammed the heavy portal shut behind me, then leaned back against it, trying to even out of my breathing. My mood was shifting crazily between fury and anticipation. The anger... well, anger and I are old friends. I’d gotten a new partner, yes. Brilliant. One who could use a gun and apparently finished basic in record time. Amazing. A fluorescent female flying turkey barely out of diapers. Fan-bleeding-tastic.

On the flip side... a new case. A new mystery to solve! New criminally inconvenient places to shove my nose. A hint of joy was sneaking around the edges of my black mood at the prospect. My Cutie Mark felt just a little warm. The cockles of my bitter old heart swelled with... with whatever it is pony heart cockles swell with.

I glanced around for the rookie, but she was nowhere to be found. I poked my head behind the rows of armored suits, then inside one or two of them, before my cob-webbed brain finally said ‘Pegasus. Look up, Dumbass.’ She was hanging up near the ceiling, closely examining one of the vast painted frescos.

Swift radiated guilt like a hundred arcanowatt bulb. Her tail was tucked up behind her back legs and her shoulders hunched right up around her ears. She'd obviously been listening to my little exchange with the Chief. So... not stupid, but probably too nosy for her own good. Now, who does that remind you of, Hardy?

“How much of that did you hear?" I asked and her ears splayed out to either side of her head. Reluctantly she began to descend, dropping to the carpet almost soundlessly.

"Sir? I don’t know what-"

"Yeah, playing innocent is going to work for about five seconds before I clop you upside the head. I know professionals who couldn't pull off 'innocent' when they were facing life in Tartarus Correctional."

Her expression turned to almost comical horror. "I swear I didn't mean to!... I... sir..." She sputtered, wings shooting straight out from her side. They were the color of a robin’s breast, and seemed like the only part of her that wasn't fun-sized. It made her look strangely like she hadn’t quite grown into them yet.

I cocked an eyebrow at her and she slowly deflated, collapsing onto her rump. Hanging her head she muttered, “I’m sorry, sir.”

With a wiggle one of ear I stepped past her. "I don't care that you listened in. You’d have been an idiot not to.” She lifted her head, staring after me. I could feel her skeptical look but pointedly ignored it. “But if you’re going to peek through keyholes, you might want to learn to play poker. You lie like a blankflank.”

Before she could respond, I headed for the spiraling stairs down towards the lobby. She followed in an embarrassed silence that was filled by an irritating voice somewhere in the back of my head, declaring me Equestria’s biggest prick.

Thank you, little voice. I thought, The hangover wasn’t enough this morning. I needed guilt too.

You’re welcome, asshole. It whispered.

****

Telly was managing to clean up of the office as I edged down the stairs, trying to be inconspicuous. She stood at the radio console, giving rapid fire orders in three different simultaneous voices through a half dozen microphones, which floated in a circle around her head. With the indoor weather under control, business was slowly returning to normal. I could still hear the gunshots outside but they were fewer and farther between than they had been.

Swift edged up behind me, peeking around the corner then asked far too loudly, “Sir, why are we sneaking around the office?” There is no way for a pony that color to be stealthy.

“First days tend to be a little bit... messy... around-” I started to reply, under my breath, but Telly’s hearing is almost as good as her vocals. She raised her head and grinned a huge grin, tossing aside the mics and racing over to us.

She almost purred as she inquired, “Hardy, you weren’t tryin’ to get out without frosting the scrub, were ya?” Without waiting for me to respond, she raised her horn and shot a blue ball of glowing light, soaring to a visible point just beneath the Cloud. Everypony else stopped what they were doing and started rooting in their desks. My tail drooped a little as I realized that, by this point, it was inevitable.

“Do we have to do this right now, Telly?”

Telly nodded vigorously. “Oooh, you know we do! Can’t have a rookie out on the street unfrosted, now can we? S’bad luck!”

“Sir? What’s ‘frosting the rookie’?” A nervous note crept into Swift’s voice as she realized, correctly, that perhaps not all was well.

Turning I sighed and put a hoof over my eyes. “Sorry, kid. I did my best. Try to breathe through your mouth.”

The unicorn was almost bouncing on her hooves. “Goody!” Her horn flashed and Swift levitated off the ground with an alarmed squeak. Struggling for a moment she tried to beat her wings but ended up just hanging there flailing like a frightened goose. I almost felt sorry for her.

The office poines started chanting; Softly at first, then with growing volume.

“Frooosting... Frooosting... FROOOSTING!”

I reared up and gave her a gentle push, and she soared off over the cubicles as the cheering rose to a crescendo. A spray of chocolate syrup shot out of one of the cubes and spattered Swift’s police barding. That was the signal. Egg yolk started flying, then bottles of silly string. Half-way down the room somepony managed to land some powdered sugar on someone else’s desk and earned a ‘returned fire’ in the form of a water balloon. Everyone joined in; Grizzled old veterans who’d seen more bodies than gravediggers cackled as they tossed cupcakes alongside department accountants who'd never had a gun strapped to their foreleg.

There is no word for the kind of mess ponies with quick-clean spells can make when they have permission. Dignity aside, I was trying not to laugh as the pegasus dangled there over what was quickly turning into a melee almost as messy as the tornado. Telly was less restrained and rolled around on the floor, beating her hooves on the carpet as she giggled like a schoolfilly.

After about ten minutes of very tasty siege warfare, I reached down and gently whacked Telly’s blue-green horn with a hooftip. It let out an alarming noise like a struck bell as she winced; The magic around Swift evaporated, dropping the sodden rookie on one of the mail ponies with a wet splash.

I tried to look exasperated but couldn’t completely hide my smile. “Alright, satisfied?”

Telly wiped a stray splotch of syrup off her nose and peered out over the office which looked like an explosion in a candy shop.

“Heh...very. Somepony call the janitor.”

****

It was a further fifteen minutes before we managed to drag Swift to the front of the line of ponies waiting to have the congealing muck magicked off of their hides. I took a quiet seat in an empty office and put my legs up, dragging out my... oog... I was going to have to get used to saying that... dragging out my new partner’s file.

A stray piece of paper dropped from between the front two sheets and fluttered to the floor. Reaching down I tried to pick it up with my hooves, but horseshoes are not ideal instruments for picking up anything perfectly flat. I was reduced to licking the back of a knee and sticking it to the note before lifting it onto the desk so I could read it.

It was mouth-penned on PACT stationary with their ridiculous seal in the upper left corner. The ink was still a little damp.

Dispatch to : Chief Jade

Re: Cadet Swift Cuddles

I’m going to keep this short and sweet. This cadet is, to put it simply, an issue. You’ve probably read her file by now. If you haven't, go do it. Pay attention to her psych profile; She's convinced she's gonna be some kind of Champion of the People, and has a list of pathologies and complexes you find only in serial killers and war heroes.

Well, I don’t need either a wannabe hero or a nutjob out flying the Shield. She spent half her training with her nose jammed in a novel and the other half damn near killing herself on the obstacle course. Sure, she posted a couple records, but PACT teams are cohesive machines; One cog out of place and the whole thing comes apart. Heroes get killed, and then everypony screams and hollers about their 'noble sacrifices,' which only makes more damn heroes. Heroes are like parasprites. If you’re smart, you beat ‘em over the head with a tuba then dump ‘em in the woods.

In any other situation I’d toss her out on her ear, and she’d probably get eaten chasing down dragons by herself. Unfortunately, when she saved that newsmare from the cockatrice, she complicated matters. I don’t need to stir up even more bad press by letting her wash out. The griffin refugees in town are causing enough of a shitstorm and I don’t need another ‘Incident’ with a deluded rookie.

Thankfully, I spoke to City Hall this morning and the mayor and I see eye to eye. I am therefore transferring her to the DPD, with Mayor Snifter’s blessing.

A desk job isn't an option for this one unless you want her trying to slay the fax machine. Put her to work. Stick her in front of a train. I don’t care. If you’ve got somepony whose life you want to make miserable, give her a partner.

She's your problem now.

With respect,

Col. Broadside

Perimeter Aegis Control Taskforce.

As I read the last few lines my heart slowly sunk right into the pit of my stomach. “Great... just beautiful...” I sighed, refolding the note and jamming it back in the folder. There aren’t a lot of things I’m afraid of. Yeah, a bullet could cut me down. Some days I think it would be a relief. But a child who thinks she’s the one to make the world a better place... That’s scary.

Swift poked her nose through the door, smiling sheepishly as she pulled her uniform shirt back on and buttoned it, then shrugged her gun back onto her leg and wiggled into her bullet proof vest. The fabric was white again, but she was still scented a little bit like chocolate and squeezy-cheese.

“Sir, did you know they were going to do that?” she asked, her ears flushed.

I sat up and shoved myself back from the desk, easing over onto all fours. “I was trying to get us out without that little ritual... hence the sneaking.”

Straightening her vest she sat back on her haunches and sniffed at the leg-holes then made a face. “I still smell like... everything.”

“It’s fine. Hardly noticeable. Speaking of things I’ve noticed, I’ve been sitting here reading through your file-” Which was not entirely true, but I resolved to give the actual document a once over later on. “-and I was just curious... Why take the transfer? You passed most of the physicals for PACT, minus the ordnance training. Why DPD? Seems to me like a strange step from monster hunter.”

Her nose wrinkled a little. “Oh...”

“Oh what? Come on kid, spit it out.”

Putting her rear hooves together she screwed up her courage. “Sir, I gathered you didn’t want a partner. If you want me to, I’ll put in for transfer to another department tomorrow.”

I blinked at her, then shook my head. The pegasus would have to be brick stupid not to have put that together, but it was still more blunt than I was expecting. I had to think about how to respond.

“It’s... not that simple,” I said, eventually. “Look, you’re not the first pony I’ve worked with... since my last actual partner.”

Swift tilted her head curiously. “There wasn’t anything in your file about your other partners...”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised. Didn’t you find it the least bit curious that department policy says everypony needs a partner for field work and I’m flying solo?”

“Well, yes... But sir, your record-” I put up a hoof and she stopped.

“Won’t mean a thing if the Chief can’t justify the expense of keeping me on. There are some... circumstances... which our ride will gleefully tell you about I’m sure. The Chief is looking for a reason to stick me behind a desk. If I ditch another partner, accounting will hand her one.”

Her wings ruffled worriedly as she inquired, “What... what about me, sir? What happens if we don’t work out?”

I didn’t feel much like sugar coating the truth and damn if she didn’t remind me of somepony I used to see in the mirror many many years ago. It was annoying as hell.

“Honestly? The mayor’s in a ‘fat trimming’ mode right now. One of the first places he loves to cut is our budget. That means whoever’s lowest on the totem pole. That means you, if you don’t have a partner. The union will give you to the mayor on a plate as a sign of good will so somepony else can keep their pension. So I ask again... why Detrot P.D.?”

My reply didn’t seem to comfort her in the least and her tail wrapped itself tightly around her rear legs. “I... mmm...” Shutting her eyes she muttered something under her breath. It sounded like a list of names.

“Say again?” I cocked an ear towards her.

“Oh... sorry... it’s something I do when I’m nervous.” She tucked her wings back and recited: “Beohoof, General Hurricane, Victoria, Shining Armor, Shimmerstrike, Daring-Do, Aurora Borealis... They’re ponies I admire. They’re the reason I joined. They’re ponies who made Equestria a better place.”

I tapped her folder, which I was certain had neglected to mention this behavior. “Half of those ponies don’t exist, and the other half are dead.”

Swift stuck her lower lip out stubbornly. “Does that mean I shouldn’t try to be more like them?" She stomped her hoof in frustration, a stomp muffled by the carpet. “I’m not stupid! I know I won’t save Canterlot or... or get to fight monsters. I just feel like I should do more with my life than just write silly stories!”

I bit back a particularly nasty retort that was spiraling around the tip of my tongue; instead I stroked my chin fur contemplatively. “Alright, fine. I just need to know you’re not going to do something stupid trying to play hero. I mean, unless you want to become a cautionary tale to tell my next partner.”

Her nostrils flared. “I know what my coaches in basic thought. I will do what is right and if I have to I will lay down my life for this city, but I’m not going to throw myself into a manticore’s jaws!” After a second she added more quietly: "Detective... sir."

I decided to let it go for now, but alarm bells were absolutely screaming that I should be watching this one before she managed to get herself turned into a neon spray all over a wall.

“Fine. Come on, kid. We’ve got a dead pony to see.” I scooted off my chair and strolled around the desk out into the royal audience chamber. After a moment, Swift followed.

****

We found Taxi down in the car park sitting on the hood of the cab again making a loud humming noise that sounded just a little like a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner. Every few seconds she'd take a deep breath, then start again. Swift examined the massive garage with a critical eye, moving past row after row of paddy wagons, chariots, and even some riot tanks. Her eyes lingered on the huge water cannons sticking out of the front of those and she licked her lips avariciously. "Sir... if you don't mind me asking, why are we taking a cab? Why not one of those?"

I growled, “Because I can’t drive.” I called to the cabbie, ”Sweets, are you ready or do you need ten more minutes to open your Tail Chakra?" Her shoulders fell and she eased down off the car’s bonnet, eyes still closed as she unwound from the strange cross-legged meditation posture.

Something was obviously bothering her, but knowing Taxi, it could just be poor energy flow in the garage. "Hardy, do you really need to-" She opened her eyes and caught sight of Swift. Her jaw dropped, and her gaze shot from my partner’s brightly colored face to her badge to her over-sized technicolor wings. "-Homygoddess..."

I wished I’d thought to bring along my hip flask this morning as I made introductions. "Officer Swift, I want you to meet Sweet Shine. She will be our driver. Sweets, make nice. The Chief has seen fit to give me a new partner."

Swift held out her leg and Taxi looked at it like she was being handed a live electrical wire before reaching out and politely tapping hooves. “Call me Taxi.” She turned and gave me a hard stare. “Hardy, you didn’t tell me you asked the Chief for another partner; Particularly one so... colorful.”

I held up my forehooves, placatingly. “Hey, it was news to me. She’s a transfer from PACT.”

Taxi blinked and shifted her pink-tinged gaze back to the pegasus. “Transfer? Was her IQ too high or something?”

Swift looked a little uncomfortable listening to us talk about her, but that discomfort vanished the moment she laid eyes on the cab. Her eyes lit up like a Summer Sun Celebration as she shoved her nose under the hood, getting a smudge of grease on her cheek. “Oh wow! You’ve got an Arcano NightTrotter with a full set of ruby... and sapphire speed runes! How do you keep the wheels from coming off with that kind of power?” She exclaimed excitedly.

Taxi’s chest puffed out and she lifted the hood. “The tire-rods are diamond heads. Trust me, it was totally worth the price.”

That was more or less it as introductions went. I spent the next five minutes listening to the two of them go back and forth on the various aspects of magical motoring. Nothing brings ponies together like a shared hobby.

I finally found an opening when they both paused for a breath. “Right... Taxi, we’ve got a place to be and the scrub wants to know why you’re driving us there. I’m sure you’ll be glad to tell her, but can we please do it on the way?”

Leaping into the back seat Swift danced on the cushion, flapping her wings like an excited pigeon. “Oooh, yes! I never get to go anywhere in a car!”

I eased myself in as Taxi got behind the wheel, putting a leg on Swift’s back and forcing her to sit. “Right, right... I’m thrilled for ya. Mind if I ask how you know so much about cars? I thought pegasi had about as much use for ‘em as they’ve got for hot air balloons. Do you even have a license?”

She shook her head. “No, but my grandmare taught me about cars; we used to watch the races together.”

“Your grandmare?”

She nodded. “Grandmare Glow is amazing! She’s the one who taught me to shoot!”

Taxi threw a look over her shoulder at the tiny firearm tucked under the pegasus’ wing. “I hope she taught you to fire something bigger than that. It might be a gun when it grows up, but right now, I’d toss it back.” Swift squinted at her weapon and her nose wrinkled.

“It’s... standard issue...” She couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice.

“Yeah, and requisitions will be getting a nasty note about that. We’ll get you an actual gun. Don’t worry about it.” I affirmed with a toss of my black mane.

“Where we headed, boss?” The checker-board maned pony adjusted her side-mirrored casually as I dug out the address from my pocket.

“High Step Hotel... and take your time. We aren’t in a hurry.”

****

As we pulled out of the parking garage and Taxi waved to the charcoal coated guard on duty, I thought back to the dreams of the night before. I’ve never been the kind of pony to believe in omens, but that dream felt like a bad one. There are many things that can ‘go wrong’ in life, and when you think you’ve been blindsided, it’s more often that you just weren’t looking very hard. I was praying that my eyes were open. Princesses save me if they weren’t. Death doesn’t let you go ‘Oops, sorry, wasn’t looking, mind sending that runaway bus at me again?”

This train of thought was derailed by Swift who had cheerfully put both horseshoes up on the windowsill and was watching the city pass as she enjoyed the novelty of being driven. “Ma’am, can I ask-” she began, and Taxi cut her off.

“You call me ‘Ma’am’ again, I will tan your ass with your own tail. Taxi will do nicely. And don’t apologize.” added Taxi. Swift’s nascent apology, correctly predicted, died in her throat.

“Miss Taxi...” Taxi winced at the ‘Miss,’ but Swift plowed ahead anyway. “Why are you driving us?”

The cabbie gave an aggressive jerk of the wheel, swinging us across three lanes of slow moving traffic into a hole between two carriages that I could have sworn wasn’t there a second ago. Swift almost cold cocked herself on the window but managed to press her wings against the glass before she broke her nose.

Taxi smirked at me in the mirror, “Mmm...still won’t tell that one?”

I pretended to study the seat back, trying to make it look like I didn’t care. “Get it over with. I don’t need this day to turn into a game of ‘Get Hardy To Suffocate Himself with his Own Hat.’”

“Oh, fine... Swift, right?” The little pegasus nodded and put her hooves under her chin, listening intently. Sensing she had an easy audience, Taxi puffed up like a peacock. “We’re dipping way back into history, into the dark ages when Hardy still had a sense of humor and Celestia was in diapers.”

I swatted the seatback. "I’m not that old!”

“Chyeah, sure.” She gave a sarcastic whinny then went on, undaunted. "Anyway, this was back when Hardy still had a partner. It's not my place to really put that piece of history on the table, but they had an... arrangement, for the safety of everypony. Hardy rides. Juniper drives. It was the law of the land. Juniper was a genius behind the wheel. Hardy, conversely, may well be the worst driver in Equestrian history."

I put my forelegs over the edge of the seat and protested, "Hey, Sweets, the way I see it, cars have bumpers for a reason, okay?"

Swift looked vaguely disturbed by that for some reason, but Taxi pressed on. "Well, he and Juniper were working a particularly nasty series of gang related deaths. It was the Jewelers and the Cyclone Crew fighting over turf. They got caught in a crossfire and Juniper took a bullet. Thankfully, they'd called for backup and the case was wrapped up pretty neatly but Juniper was out of commission for a month and a half... leaving Hardy driving himself. Mr. Leadhoof here managed to crash four cruisers in that period. Four."

I sniffed indignantly. "I was only driving three of them! The one in the canal wasn't my fault."

The cabbie blew a raspberry at me, "Point being, Juniper got back on his legs and all was well in the world. After they... well...” She stopped and her gaze danced warily in my direction.

I brushed off the unpleasantness. “It’s fine. Just tell the story.”

She thought for a moment then said carefully, “After Juniper passed on, Hardy was left to his own devices. Two weeks before he was set to go back on the beat the Chief dragged him into her office. She had this mealy mouthed little shit who used to work for the Mayor’s Office standing there with about a thousand pages of ‘wasteful expenditures’ he intended to cut.” Closing her eyes to slits she made a face that looked like a constipated goldfish. It was a surprisingly good likeness of the guy.

“It was slimy stuff that might have gotten a lot of ponies killed. Seriously, he wanted to use low-grain shotgun shells and buy this cheap-as-horseapples body armor.” She pursed her lips in disgust.

Swift’s eyes bugged out as the implications sunk in. She quickly patted her police vest, which I just then noticed was one of the armored models, feeling the reinforced plates. I’d long since stopped wearing a vest unless I was going somewhere I knew the bullets would be flying, but I understood the urge. “You’re fine. We’re getting to that.” I offered, trying to calm her fears but she still looked nervy.

“So why was he there?” she asked.

I lifted one side of my coat, flashing the gun strapped against my inner thigh. “He wanted my driver’s license and my gun here.”

The little pegasus let out a delighted squeak and jammed her nose into my coat. “Oh, neat! Is that a magical caliber? That looks like a... I don’t even know! What kind of weapon is that?”

“Hey! You wanna stick your muzzle there, you buy me dinner first!” I shoved her out of my lap with one iron shoe on her forehead. She sat back and looked disappointed, crossing her front knees. She was still casting covetous glances at my weapon. I patted my firearm against my chest protectively and answered. “She doesn’t have a ‘kind’; she was made before they really put standards on magic-caliber weapons.”

“Oooh...” said Swift, her eyes sparkling with interest. “What does it... she... fire?”

“Standard .45’s. Pop had it converted to handle ‘em. I’ve never seen magical ammo for her; They probably don’t make it anymore.”

“Oh... oh well.” sighed Swift, as hopeful images of crystal rays and magical blasts faded from her immediate world. “Why would an accountant want your gun?”

Taxi signaled a passing cart to move into the flow of traffic so she could swerve into the suddenly unoccupied space, narrowly clipping the curb. “It wasn’t so much the gun as what it represented. He was one of these big ‘corporate killer’ types who was of the school of thought that everything should be standardized,” she explained calmly, as Swift grabbed the door handle for dear life. “And, yeah, it keeps costs down if you only have to buy one or two kinds of bullet. But, you get a department as old as ours and everypony tends to use either weapons that’ve been passed down or whatever they buy themselves. He figured if he could get the most successful cop in the office to give up his special piece and use a department issue weapon, he could get everyone else to do the same.”

Swift groaned and fiddled with her trigger bit. I knew how she felt. I wouldn’t have set hoof on the streets of Detrot with that absurd pop-gun on her leg to protect me. The Requisitions office must have read her height/weight profile and laughed their asses off.

A grin spread on our driver’s butter-colored muzzle as she continued. “So Hardy here marches into the office, and that stupid S.O.B. asks for his parking pass, driver’s license, and his cannon real casual like. Hardy told him, in no uncertain terms, to go geld himself. ” Swift snorted, dissolving into a giggling heap at that and Taxi paused, waiting for her to recover.

“You’d have thought nopony had ever told him ‘no’ before. He started shrieking about how he’d read Hardy’s record and it’d be cheaper to hire a cab than let him keep driving, and how he was gonna have him fired and court martialed and charged with treason if he didn’t give up his gun and... It was kind of embarrassing to hear.”

I raised my ears. “Wait, I thought somepony told you this story? You were off running with the buffalo when that went down. How did you hear him?”

Taxi dipped her nose, tapping the brakes so I had to brace myself. “Well... I had to keep some tabs on you to make sure you hadn’t gone off the deep end. What did you expect?”

“I expected a sound-proofed office to be sound proof!”

She fluttered her eyelashes at me, making a face of cherubic innocence. “Telly was just... erm... she might have activated the Chief’s recording gem on her phone and taped the whole thing for posterity. Pure coincidence. I barely had to bribe her to let me hear it.”

“I’m sure.” I grumbled.

“Well, Hardy marched right out and returned five minutes later with one of the old armored vests and one of the new ones. He tossed the old vest over a chair and before the Chief or this accountant could say a word, he pulled his gun and shot it. It took the bullet. Then he shoved the accountant into the chair, threw the new armor over his head, and said ‘You wanna cut costs, answer me this; You think your life is worth what you budgeted for that vest?’ This ‘big bad corporate killer’ almost peed on himself.”

Swift stared at me incredulously. “And... you... got away with it, sir?”

Cheeks puffed up like a blowfish, Taxi tried to hold it in. She managed a full five seconds before bursting out laughing at the memory. “No, my dear rookie, he did not! Jade suspended him on the spot... by his tail! She threw him through the window with her horn and left him hanging over the entire office!”

I put a hoof over my face, waiting for our driver to regain control of her breathing before saying, “I was hoping you’d edit that bit out.”

“Hey, I’ll tell the story like I wanna tell the story! Where was I? Oh yeah! So a couple of days later a recruit was field testing the new armor and a small caliber round punched right through a weakness in that awful ceramic garbage. He’d have ended up with a liver full of pottery and lead if he hadn’t been wearing a ‘lucky coin’ on a chain under his armor. It caught the bullet, and he got away with a nasty bruise.”

I tried not to grit my teeth as I muttered bitterly. “It might as well have been paper mache. It went right through.”

Swift began nervously fiddling with the zippers on one of the armor pockets of her vest. I stopped her again with a little tap on the leg. “I said don’t worry. We don’t use that kind anymore.”

Swift nodded very slightly. “So what does that have to do with you being our driver, Miss Taxi?”

“I’m getting to that!” Taxi replied testily. “Well, the accountant ended up stuck in some backwater assignment cooking the books at a prison. I think he ended up getting busted for embezzlement and locked up himself. The Chief did go over his work, though, and she found out he hadn’t been exaggerating about Hardy’s driving. So she made a ‘deal.’”

My partner, whose infinite naivete was starting to get a little grating, asked “What sort of deal?”

I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and replied, “The kind where I never drive again as long as I live and I can have my badge back. Taxi happened to need something to do, so Jade hired her back as a ‘consultant’ on the condition she get a hack license so we could put her on the official payroll.”

My partner shifted in her seat and looked puzzled. “Why can’t she just drive you around? Or rejoin the force?”

Taxi tapped her hoof three times on the gear shifter. “One, I needed to take cop driving courses to get permission to have lights on the car.” Reaching up she touched a button on the dash; gems set around the windscreen at regular intervals flashed blue. “Two, part of my deal was I don’t get shot at, dragged into court to testify, or have to do paperwork.” She waved to the glove box, which she’d once kept absolutely stuffed to the brim with the junk paper crime investigation creates on a daily basis. The box, now empty, had once been a microcosm for my apartment.

“And three; speed wardens have standing orders to ignore me.” An evil smile split her lips as she chose that moment to abuse this particular freedom; she wrenched us over the median into oncoming traffic to get around a slow moving earth pony towing a cart covered in a huge mound of cabbage, sending the cart right up on the sidewalk. We swung inches past a poor traffic cop who very nearly had a heart attack getting out of our way. Swift squeaked, but Taxi quickly yanked us back into the proper lane.

I rolled my eyes at her antics and added, “Your karma is going to look like a pub urinal after that little display. Also, I noticed you’re very carefully not mentioning the other reason you agreed to this scheme.”

Turning her nose in the air she said primly, “I have absolutely no idea what you mean."

“So you’re saying you weren’t sneaking onto crime scenes? By the way, the Chief apparently knew. I don’t know if she twigged to you feeding me tips though.” I snickered.

Taxi gulped loudly. “She knew?”

“Yeah... and speaking of that, are you up for some extra work today? Dead body at a shag stop for rich idiots?”

The cab-pony’s lower lip trembled as she fought an inner conflict. “I... look, I talked to my meditation group leader and he said it’s really bad for my internal balance. I think I’ll sit this one out.”

“Sure. No problem. We can handle this ourselves, right kid?” I tried to make it sound agreeable, but couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. That didn’t seem to matter to Swift, though; the scrub almost vibrated with anticipation.

I knew needling Taxi on a day like the one we’d had was unwise, but the worst she’d do would probably be... well... kick me in a nerve center and stop my heart for several seconds. Regardless, she didn’t reply, and we drove on towards the other side of down town in pleasant quiet. Swift went back to staring out the window and I laid my head against the glass on my side, enjoying the few moments of calm the world offered before I’d have to put my brain in gear. We were nearing our destination and the streets were starting to smooth out. The storefronts were no longer mom-and-pop grocers and porn shops; those were being neatly replaced by organic hay joints, lingerie stores, and organic lingerie stores.

Putting aside the madness of the office and the altogether unpleasant bit of blackmail the Chief laid on me in the form of a rookie so wet behind the ears I was surprised her head didn’t slosh when she nodded, I entertained the thought that it might be a decent day after all.

That feeling lasted all of fifteen minutes.

Comments

[Ebon Mane]

This fic is really, really good, and you should be very proud of yourselves.

Also, I plugged your fic on my FIMfic blog. Hopefully that gets you a few more views.

[Twilight is Magic]

Interesting. I haven't seen much of this kind of story.
I'm calling it now, the stars are evil. I guess it's Fallout: Equestria talking, but I'm calling it anyway.

Only read the first chapter so far, but I will cut through the second after I've had some sleep.

Read my ass. I’m a cop. - , although he could've been a judge too... or possibly a scale operator.

“Fine, but did they have to be reborn into ponies that dress like they were sexually assaulted by the night sky?” - likewise, .

How many acts are you going to have? Is it 3 acts with a hundred thousand words in each, or somesuch? Because that's one immense novel.

Looking pretty neat so far.

851403 I haven't spotted much in the way of grammatical errors in the first chapter, save for one point early on. It seemed to waiver then solidify - I believe you wanted to put 'waver' here.

[mycutiemarkisagun]

Oh god. Noir. Dark Comedy. Pony Crime Thriller.

THIS FIC HAS EVERYTHING I COULD POSSIBLY WANT

[iisaw]

Your summary of the story is better written and more entertaining that most fics I've read! Saving this to read on my Kindle for my business trip next week.

I wish I could help with proofreading, but I'm still struggling with the rules of comma usage, myself!

BTW, why do people complain about fics being long? If they're good, shouldn't readers want them to last longer? I know I do!

[MasterCombine]

873331
Fic sounds interesting. Will read.

But hey, how did you get this on your Kindle? I wasn't aware that you could do that with any FiMFiction story.

[iisaw]

873416

Just download it as text and put it on your Kindle via the USB cable. Works fine! I read most fics on my Kindle because I travel a lot. When I'm driving, I use the read-aloud feature. (And I still can't keep up with all the stories I want to read!)

[Okayokay]

Made this account just to comment on this fiction.
Usually, I'm not one to enjoy fictions which are mainly based on OC's but I loved this. The characters, the plot (the story plot!), the descriptions, the mood, everything. I can't wait to read more of this and will be checking regularly for updates.
Thanks for the great read!

[Twilight is Magic]

I decided to sleep later and read now, instead.

Yep, spotted a couple places with errant commas and one semicolon somewhere early on, as well as an additional waiver where waver is called for. There were a couple sentences (too sleepy to find them now) which looked strange, as if they had two versions of the same sentence existing in one place. Check for them, if those things are not intended. Otherwise it's fine, however; the problems are not everywhere.

Still looking rather interesting. I'm a bit oversaturated with dark at the moment, but can still appreciate this one.

[MasterCombine]

873688
Ah, it works perfectly! Thanks!

[Chessie]

Thanks, all. I cannot convey how much your views, comments and likes mean to us, except by commenting on my inability to convey them.

873018

We've got a long and grand tale planned. My co-writer's seemingly boundless determination and drive, however, leave me little doubt as to whether or not we'll be able to complete it.

The error you've noted has been corrected; Feel free to PM me with anything else that we missed.

--CEO Kasen

[Prismatic]

“Hey! You wanna stick your muzzle there, you buy me dinner first!” So Hardy is a classy broad, then?

Anyway, love the story, can't wait to hear what happened to Taxi's cutiemarks .

[Twilight is Magic]

Forgot to mention this one.

“I’m not stupid! I know I won’t save Canterlot or... or get to fight monsters. I just feel like I should do more with my life than just write silly stories!”

I see what you did there. So she's a fanfic writer too?

[Redbush]

This is such a good story, so well written!

[The Mop Is AFK]

Great read cant wait for more.

[Mycroft]

Been waiting for a good noir fic, and I'm hooked. Make it as long as you want, I'll read every chapter.

[iisaw]

I love it! It's well-written, engaging, and very entertaining. Great characters, great situation, fun dialogue, all very in keeping with the feel of canon Equestria... what more could anyone want? I'm looking forward very eagerly to more!

[Flutterbrave]

This is good and you should feel good.

Seriously, I'm keeping an eye on this one. Awesome so far.

[Dezmo]

Well shit, i thought I commented basically saying "More!" but i guess i forgot to do that.

Well here it is, my review that is. (Warning I review very harshly, I am not a nice reviewer.)

The plot that I am seeing is a typical, generic, hardcore detective with, again, a generic partner loss history. His job is always on the line but they keep him cause he is good at what he does, generic like the other detective stories. He gets a new partner against his wishes and has to set off to solve this seemingly daily murder.
Now as boring as i made it sound, its not that bad. I am only pointing it out because you could have deviated just a tad bit so your story could be a little different than the others. And honestly that's the only thing i can come up with that I don't like about your story. Obviously you guys have spent a lot of time revising and editing this story.
You have no spelling errors, no grammar issues, your characters are always within themselves (Meaning they aren't bipolar), you gave great background information, and you have very good humor along with it.
I am impressed, by a lot, especially if this is your first story. (Warning this is turning into fan-boy praise)
Seriously though, ill admit I am not a detective fan. I find the cases boring and repetitive. (You can only kill a person so many ways until it just starts repeating) But you haven't even gotten to the case yet and I am eagerly waiting for it. While yes your Main Hero is generic you pulled it off by having wonderful allies. His Taxi driver is what kept me reading, then that intro with the Pegasus incident made me laugh, along with that cloud storm. Further more i was actually interested when he got a new recruit. She is small and funny, or at least the way the Main Character makes fun of her is funny. (I completely lost it when he said Fun-sized, was not expecting that word here)

All in all, I am interested, i hope you don't have a generic partner death where your Main character wants revenge, and god damn it for some reason i really like the recruit. So more of her. And more jokes. Lots of jokes.

Bravo and Encore, I hope to see more soon.

[Chessie]

Wheeeheeeheeee....Oh dear sir, I don't think you're likely to be disappointed. The entire point of this was to take 'generic cop detective story' and make it completely insane and pony. We actually went for following as many tropes of the genre as possible... but only to begin.

-Chessie

[Magic Llama]

Well, about to read this, but with trepidation. I sincerely hope this isn't filled with annoying stereotypes about the actual city of Detroit. That just gets old. Here's to hoping my fears are unfounded!

[Bad Horse]

Two flat backed chairs that reminded me of the ones in the headmare’s office of my old elementary school sat facing the desk. I’d spent many hours in similar ones writing endless lines of things like ‘I will not help Sweet Shine replace the fruit in the teacher’s lounge with unripe zap apples.’

This is wonderful - it describes the scene, tells us about Hardy, and tells us the nature of the conversation about to take place, all in 2 sentences.
All your descriptions, of places, of people, of body language, are great. You excel at what I suck at.

944521
I'm from Detroit, and stereotypes ain't gonna hurt my feelings.

"I just feel like I should do more with my life than just write silly stories!”
OUCH!

[bahatumay]

I know I'm late to this party, and I have just started reading, but I gotta say: I already love your characters, their attitudes, their personalities, you've made them real and 3-d and left me wanting to know more. I also really like the little earth pony intricacies you threw in (like where he couldn't pick up the paper with his hoof, so he licked his knee to stick it to the paper. I would never have thought of that).

[coandco]

“Civilian traffic is restricted. We’ve having training exercises-”

This should probably be "We've been having training exercises" or "We're having training exercises", since "We've having" doesn't parse.

I decided to intervene as I saw her starting to slide back into onto of those freaky zebra fighting stances

Should "onto" be "one"? "Onto of" doesn't make much sense.

Several dozen uniformed pegasi were trying with only limited success to get control of the thing, which spat out bits of detritus, then sucked it back in.

"Bits" is plural, so this should read "sucked them back in".

Straightening my jacket I assumed what I hoped threw out my chest, assuming a stance I hoped radiated confidence.

"Assumed what I hoped threw out my chest" doesn't make sense. Should this just be "Straightening my jacked I threw out my chest, assuming..."?

Her horn was polished and shined, with the tip ground to dangerous looking point.

This doesn't parse. "A dangerous looking point", perhaps?

It had the stopping power of a thrown gerbil and couldn’t have been any more girly if it had been pink.

Hah! Love the phrasing here

P.S. Swift, if you read this every night. your boss won't be able to. I remember what you did with that love letter in flight camp.

</br>

You have a stray piece of HTML formatting here.

It was mouth-penned on PACT stationary with their ridiculous seal in the upper left corner. The ink was still a little damp.

</br>

More HTML.

Heroes are like parasprites. If you’re smart, you beat ‘em over the head with a tuba then dump ‘em in the woods.

Hah!

</br>

As I read the last few lines my heart slowly sunk right into the pit of my stomach.

More HTML.

“Sir, did you know they were going to do that?” She asked, her ears flushed.

"She asked, her ears flushed" isn't a complete sentence, so it needs to be attached to the quote before it. As such, "She" shouldn't be capitalized.

“She doesn’t have a ‘kind;’

The semicolon should be outside of the single quotes.

“It wasn’t so much the gun as what it represented. He was one of these big ‘corporate killer’ types who was of the school of thought that everything should be standardized.” She explained calmly, as Swift grabbed the door handle for dear life.

Since the bit outside of the quote isn't a complete sentence, it should be attached to the preceding quote. The quote should end in a comma and "She" shouldn't be capitalized.

Putting aside the madness of the office and the altogether unpleasant bit of blackmail the Chief laid on me in the form of a rookie so wet behind the ears I was surprised her head didn’t slosh when she nodded, I entertained the thought that it might be a decent day after all.

That feeling lasted all of fifteen minutes.

Okay, finished this chapter. Seriously, this is some of the best writing I've seen on the site. I absolutely love what I've seen so far.

[maniactaxi]

Loving it so far! This whole situation kinda reminds me of Dredd.....

Okay I'm sorry.

[Ardwolf]

"Or... nonono... not Creamy Goodness!"

You (at least one of you) is sick and twisted. I *like* that in an author!

[Ebon Mane]

Chapter 2 of re-reading for analysis complete. Content of this comment may contain spoilers or gross inaccuracies.

I had forgotten about a lot of the characterization of Swift Cuddles, but it's definitely consistent. I'm waiting for more information about Grapeshot, and paying more attention to what's mentioned about him. Same with Broadside, for that matter. The cheif's pill popping is interesting. A lot of the time frames are different from what I had thought, since I came back and had forgotten a lot of the specifics. Juniper has only been dead for ~2 years? Hardy and Juniper were partners for ~13 years? Swift had at least a 6 month training since she was in the same place as Grapeshot. Did it happen to them at the same time? Is it a matter of PACT, or was it before that? How far back does it go?

I wonder what seemingly inconsequential details of current chapters are foreshadowing for 20 chapters from now...

Was the reporter Swift saved who I think it is?

I forgot Telly could do multiple voices at once. I'm once again calling that Telly is Gypsy. Telly may be my favorite character from a purely conceptual standpoint, setting aside everyone's contributions to the actual story. Part of that is just her being awesome and part of that is that I also have a job that involves panic and conference calls when a cloud is misbehaving.

This chapter also has a bit of nostalgia to it, since this fic had only these first two chapters to it when you first submitted it to Equestria Daily. I remember I was going through the queue and picking up the old fics that nobody wanted to deal with; dark fics, especially long dark fics, are often terrible, so I guess nobody had high expectations. I had spent hours rejecting things and reading terrible fics when I came to Starlight Over Detrot. I remember being amazed at how well this fic did just about everything. Hooking the reader. Characterization. Description. World building. It exposited without being boring. It moved the plot forward without feeling rushed and introduced like a dozen characters without feeling like too much information. After so many terrible fics, this one was just beautiful, despite being a bit rough around the edges.

I did reject it, but I had a habit of rejecting the fics I loved at least once before seeing them posted.

I think I left the first comment on your fic.

849416

I meant it then and it's even more true now. This fic is really, really good, and you should be very proud of yourselves.

[SIGAWESOME]

Why they did not, in fact, harmoniously operate is not particularly a mystery. Over time, pride crept into the equation, and each organization collectively saw themselves as more important, skilled, and/or capable than the other, imagining in their minds that they were sole guardians of the city. Each believed that Detrot would ultimately collapse without their protection, and never stopped as a whole to consider that on this point, they were both entirely correct.

That is so true IRL it is depressing.
Hooray for stovepipe organisation and jurisdictional pissing contests!

I just wasn’t in the mood to fill out an incident report afterwards.

Hardy should use one of the pre-printed "MISADVENTURE" forms they have in stock...

the File Cloud

Bozhe moi...
I see the DPD and Equestria at large has imbibed in the Cloud Kool-aid.

Did FLim and Flam (or possibly one of their descendants) have a hoof in this?
Flim
Well, lookie here, oh admin of mine, it's the same on ev'ry blade.
Servers with full drives, slow pipes - performance starting to degrade!
Maybe they pull their hair, unaware that there's really no need for this teary despair?

Flam
That the key to solve these network problems you and I will share!

Flim and Flam
Well we'll pass muster
On this server cluster!

Flam
He's Flim

Flim
He's Flam

Flim and Flam
We're the world famous Flim Flam admins.
Cloud consultants nonpareil!

Chief
Cloud-what?

Flim
Cloud consulting, and that's why you see we draw such a crowd.
We'll cut your bills and cure your ills, once on the Cloud!
Just wait 'till you see
The solutions we're engendering!

Flam
More speed that you could use in all your days of rendering!

Years of magical development and what we’d ended up with was a glorified junk closet which could incidentally defy the laws of causality in an entirely useless and disturbing fashion. Accounting was not pleased.

They should have used Starswirl's Book of Sand cataloguing spell as perfected by HSH Twilight Sparkle. You would still have al the same problems as before mind you, but at least you could stow the catalogue away in a drawer all nice and neat at the end of the day.

That’s... printer ink. Heh. Accounting is going to love this.

At $WORK I deal in part with various printing presses and assorted machines. Reading that made me wince inside.

shouting into three microphones in six different voices simultaneously ... giving rapid fire orders in three different simultaneous voices

I think Telly missed her calling as a voice artist. Pony equivalent of Mel Blanc perhaps?

she wrenched us over the median into oncoming traffic to get around a slow moving earth pony towing a cart covered in a huge mound of cabbage, sending the cart right up on the sidewalk.

My cabbages!

[Boott]

I was half expecting this to be a dark story and that's it.
I am happy to say that I am wrong.
May the comedy continue to ensue!
mrwgifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/My-Cabbages-Gif-On-Avatar-The-Last-Airbender.gif

[Khym Chanur]

There had been a few incidents of ponies asking for documents and receiving case files that were in unknown languages, for places that didn’t exist, or about incidents which either never happened or weren’t going to happen for centuries.

Sounds like the mail sorting machine from Going Postal.

[Loyal]

I am enjoying this more than anybody has any right to.
Damn you, I got shit of my own to write. Now I have to sit here and read as much of this as possible because I'm hooked.
You bastard.

You glorious, glorious bastard.

[Travolore]

Cadet Swift Cuddles. Yes!
T

[Ink_25]

“Sir, did you know they were going to do that?” he asked, her ears flushed.

He would be a she in this passage, right?

I'm hooked to the story

[TwilightUCrazy]

Goddamn you both.

You realize I'm following Austraeoh, The Things Tavi Says, and AppleDashery, right? Like I need another freakin' epic to grapple on to?

Why does the world hate my free time?

[T0ucan]

The scrub almost vibrated with anticipation.

*Scrubbing intenstfies*

[The Pyropath]

Swift Cuddles is so cute!

[donelel]

Wow, the DPD seems like an awfully terrifying place to work. I'm almost inclined to say it would be a bit exciting, but the apparent risk of personal injury or death makes me think otherwise. Swift Cuddles is already shaping up to be a really interesting character. She's a perfect contrast to Hardy; the bright-eyed rookie paired up with the hardened detective. It looks like we're getting closer to the thick of the plot next chapter. Looking forward to it!

[Queuefka Palazzo]

I adore the name "Radiophonic Telegraphica".

[AMuffinlover]

Swift coddles is now new waifu

[Hipparcos]

6512239 Pfft. Amateur.
On a side note, holy shit the history
Seriously.

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

You got me hooked, line and sinker!

[Chessie]

8847789 I am so glad! I hope you enjoy it!

-Chessie

[RexDraconum]

8847789
Isn't it hook, line and sinker?

[GMBlackjack]

Aight, you got some good characters and top-notch writing. Not sold on the noir theme yet, but the rest of it drags me in to read more.

However, this is a longfic. It's gonna have several opportunities to turn me away or draw me in closer. Let's see if I can make it all the way to the finish line here...

*cracks knuckles* here we go.

-GM, master of onions.

[Chessie]

9967245
Do please! I've been doing my best to keep things interesting from chapter to chapter.

-Chessie

[Silent Whisper]

Readthrough 5, and... action!
It's this or do actual homework, and it's spring break so no way am I doing it any time before my usual "shortly before everyone else does it, but still horribly close to when it's due" deadline.

“What makes you think there’s a case?” She inquired, tilting her head. One of her pupils chose that moment to reappear, lending her a slightly maniacal expression. “What makes you think you’re not here for me to take a skinning knife to your flanks?”

Ironic, all things considered.

The Chief cocked her head, reminded. “Oh... Cadet. Right. Okay, step up here.” A tiny book lifted out of the center drawer of her desk then landed on the front. Swift scooted forward a few inches, and her eyes widened as she saw the title. It said ‘Laws and Rights of The Land of Equestria’ in silvery font. “Put your hoof up here.”

Does Equestria have that few laws and rights?

I weighed my options, my gaze flitting between the coffee cup, the Chief, and the arching doorway. There really weren’t any. She had me by the balls. We both knew it. Right now it was mostly a matter of whether or not I was going to submit gracefully or if she was going to have to give’em a squeeze. The morning had started off so well, too.

Gonna start a little series here of "____ is a dick to Hardy's balls". First on that list is, of course, our dear Iris Jade.

Cheeks puffed up like a blowfish, Taxi tried to hold it in. She managed a full five seconds before bursting out laughing at the memory. “No, my dear rookie, he did not ! Jade suspended him on the spot... by his tail! She threw him through the window with her horn and left him hanging over the entire office!”

Iris Jade is a dick to Hardy's balls... presumably. Look, let's just tally it as a few extra separate instances where Hardy's balls have befallen great misfortune at Iris's hooves.

[Chessie]

10130092
Being as you're the only person who knows most of the story, I will be interested to see what you now see having had the mystery (partially) worked out.

-Chessie

[ArcherStern]

I can tell you have put a lot of effort into this world you crafted. You had people and places in mind, and you were going places with them.

I was listening to this while reading, felt right.

[Chessie]

10442308
A new reader! I love hearing people's comments as they read through for the first time and I'll do my best to be responsive if you want to leave some.

-Chessie

[Chessie]

10503378
Heh, Swift pre-dates Judy Hopps.

-Chessie

[AriethNinja]

how did i miss the my cabbages reference OMG hahahahaha

I had to stop reading for a second so i could say it in a normal voice because absolutely had me dying when i realized it