Act 2, Chapter 16: Devil's Deal
Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 16: Devil's Deal
The pony mind, by and large, is ill-equipped to deal with its environment as-is.
This cannot really be 'blamed' on the pony mind; It is difficult to envision many minds capable of truly dealing with Equestria, which has been known to take even the Princesses by surprise from time to time; Lesser souls have been driven to madness by the deceptively colorful no-pony's-land that we call a country.
So ponykind has adapted. One such adaptation was to develop substances that allow the consciousness to create a more comfortable reality to deal with; to allow escape, coping, and recuperation. Equestria has no shortage of these for good reason. While attempts are made to keep the most dangerous substances out of pony hooves, numerous mind-altering substances are nonetheless vital to the continued functioning of society as a whole.
Chief among these is, of course, alcohol - oft-celebrated social lubricant and sorrow drowner, said to be invented over a millennium ago by Princess Luna herself, as alluded to by the nickname for its improvised format, "Moonshine." Cider Season has become an annual herd ritual in numerous places around Equestria; a chance for everyone to buffer their confusions and pains through a cheerful haze formed by fermented apples. There had been, once, a brief attempt to introduce an alcoholic prohibition in Manehattan; This prohibition lasted all of 20 minutes, and that included the corny resolution and a song-and-dance number.
Zap, generally used as a relaxation drug among lower- and middle-income individuals, is an interesting case study. While technically illegal, it's usually harmless enough that a Zap user suspected of nothing else and not generating too many complaints from his neighbors will not generally be the subject of an arrest, unless he is caught smoking it outdoors during a thunderstorm. The discreet Zap smoker generally has little to fear from the law, though less-upstanding officers may take the opportunity to flex their authority.
Sadly, some of these substances are too powerful. Some, such as Ace, are so potent and addictive that ponies sufficiently exposed to them may seek little else; others, such as Beam, can cause ponies to inflict significant harm to themselves or others during bad trips. Some lines had to be drawn.
But one line that's been difficult to draw has been the squiggly loop currently attempting to encircle prescription pharmaceutical abuse; it's difficult to establish just how prevalent it really is. Because they are legal substances in the hooves of those to whom they are prescribed, even the highest and most heavily scrutinized echelons of society are not immune.
--The Scholar
Shouting at Chief Jade was always a poor idea, but without all those drugs in her system, only her charming personality and patience were between my squishy bits and her wrath. That, and a few extra cards I had in my hoof.
****
“You want my help, you put me down this instant. Otherwise, stick me in that cell, you get nothing, and the ones who foalnapped your daughter walk away. You’ll also answer me when I ask a damn question. Are we clear?” I growled from my position, held upside down against the bars of Swift’s cage with a pulsating magical field.
Chief Jade’s horn was squirting a steady stream of fiery light that was quickly making the air in the poorly ventilated cells uncomfortably warm as she pinned me to the wall.
“You are an utter bastard, Hard Boiled,” she snarled, then tossed me to the floor. “I should tear the answers out of you along with your intestines! This is my daughter we are talking about!”
Underneath the threats, I heard the real fear, the genuine desperation clawing at her sensibilities.
“Yes, it is.” I pulled myself up and pointed over my shoulder at Swift, who was looking like she wished she could show off some of those fancy P.A.C.T. combat tactics against the Chief just then. “And you’ve got my partner. So get off your damned throne for a minute so we can work something out!”
Swift perked up, putting her hooves up on the bars. “Wait, the Chief has a daughter? What does that have to do with anything?”
“We got some… deeper intel from Bari and a… recent acquaintance.”
“What sort of Intel? I wish I’d been there for that!” My partner wiggled her hips like a kitten in anticipation.
“I don’t think you’d have enjoyed it all that much. Limerence pinned Bari’s ear to the table with a knife. Bari got real communicative.” I couldn’t cover a smile at the memory.
Swift’s eyes popped, then she giggled. “Awww, now I really wish I was there!”
Jade dropped onto her haunches. “You must excuse me for interjecting, but I haven’t been following your various criminal activities quite so closely until… until the last several days. What… have you been getting up to? What does this… Bari fellow have to do with my daughter?”
I waved a hoof in front of my face, as though to clear the air. “It's complicated. We got a lead on this Bari stallion -- he’s an information broker, fixer, all around scumbag -- and he told us that it was the Church of the Lunar Passage or somepony working with them who paid for the theft of the Armor of Nightmare Moon.”
The Chief’s lips fell open. “What?! The armor is-”
“Yes, it’s been stolen. The armor in the museum is a counterfeit and the curator is dead. It’s unimportant, or maybe very important. I don’t know. The ponies guarding it contacted me. They seem to think if Canterlot gets wind of this, that our targets will disappear.” I rubbed my neck, thinking. “It reeks of rampant flank-saving measures, and they’re trying to keep themselves hidden, but I’m inclined to agree with them that it would be bad if the target of my investigations were to find out we’re aware that armor is gone.”
“You’ll have to excuse me, Hard Boiled, if I find this a bit hard to stomach. Are you saying the Princesses sent… secret agents to guard the armor, and that that vile Church took my daughter to make certain of my complicity in the theft of some ridiculous bloody artifact?!” Her voice was rising well into what I’ve long considered the ‘danger zone’ for mares.
I narrowed one eye at her. “I’m… sorry, I think we might be on two different pages here. Are you saying your daughter is being held against her will? I thought she joined the Church willingly.”
Jade frowned, which brought out deep lines on her forehead. “Now, how would you know that?”
“Like I said… you might want to fire Sergeant Sing-Song,” I repeated.
“Ahhh… his ‘poker-nights.'” She sighed and plucked at her thin mane with a spit of magic. “I attend them anonymously with some regularity, if only to gather intelligence on precisely what’s gone on in various departments. He does make the finest nibblets, too. I’ll be sure to nail his wagging tongue to his card table next I see him.”
Swift and I peered at each other and she shrugged, jiggling the chains around her foreknees.
Jade’s brow furrowed with an emotion I couldn’t identify as she went on, “But… yes, my daughter joined the church. After my husband’s… accident… we didn’t talk much. She needed some ponies who could support her. I suppose she found some.”
My partner murmured sympathetically, “I read about Mr. Jade when I was researching Detrot Police Department. That was awful… to die of a heart attack so young...”
The Chief’s horn flashed menacingly. “Yes, a heart attack. I had to pay good money for it to go unmentioned that he died of said heart attack while in the arms of a mare he could have sired.” She gave her head a slight shake. “Being that it was my Cerise who walked in and found them together, I believe his heart attack may have been only symptomatic of my horn cutting off the flow of blood to his brain.”
I sat there for a many seconds, my eyes wide and my tail clenched under my groin like it was trying to escape.
“Oookay, that was yet another thing I don’t think I particularly wanted to know...” I tried to say, light heartedly, but it faltered and I found myself unconsciously edging backward from Jade.
“I am providing context, Detective.” She replied, with a sweet little half smile that sent ice rushing down my spine. “Make no mistake, if I believe that you are between me and my girl, there will be no hole you can hide in deep enough that I will not find you.”
I peered at Swift, who was looking at the back of Jade’s head with fresh horror.
“I guess it leads back to another question. What makes you think she’s been taken hostage?” I asked, trying to recover my train of thought. Jade had a strange way of derailing it. “I suspected that might be the case, but you make it sound like you’re certain.”
Standing a little straighter, Jade flicked her forehead in a little circle. There was a snap, a bright light, and a pop. A small messenger scroll appeared, of the variety used by most of the delivery services in the city. She caught it before it could hit the ground and passed it to me.
I unrolled it, set it on the stone floor, and read it. It was succinct and to the point.
“We have your daughter. We will contact you with instructions. Fail to follow, and we will send you an inch of her horn every three days until you have.”
“Most of their ‘instructions’ were simple enough. Have patrols avoid this area or ignore that warehouse. Their latest instruction came in a matter of days ago, after you re-emerged.” Jade wrapped the scroll in her magic and tore it into tiny shreds. “It was to look for and arrest you, then keep you until such time as they sent somepony to get you. I suppose you’re going to tell me you think that’s a poor idea?”
“If you want your daughter back, then yes, probably.” I grumbled. “You’ve no idea where she is and your resources are police resources. The kidnappers will have accounted for that. What else? That can’t be all they told you.”
Jade’s shoulders rose defensively and he took a couple of steps back, reminding me for all the world like a nervous cat.
“Come on, dammit! Your daughter’s life, my freedom, and maybe this city’s safety are riding on this! What’s the deal?” I demanded.
“They… said… they knew something about… how I got into office.”
Swift cocked her head. “I remember seeing your ads on T.V! You were so passionate!”
I thought back to the election, trying to remember the details, but at that time, I’d been deep in the bottle. Well, deeper.
Jade’s answer was slow coming. “My… competition -- a very strong mare named Mariposa -- dropped out of the race and I was left facing this nitwit named Corpseweed who turned out to have hidden a history of domestic abuse. A history that just happened to be leaked to the press a few weeks before the election.”
My ears twitched. “Wait, you’re saying somepony… put you in office?”
“I know your history, Hard Boiled, so I know you’re not thick! Do you need me to write it down for you?!” The Chief snarled, poking me in the forehead with her toe. “Understand. I believe in this city. I believe it can be something better, but these… finks, these bottom feeders in city hall want ponies they can control.”
I chew my tongue, thinking. “Are you certain it was them who put you in office?”
“Damned if I can think who else, unless the… the beasts who stole my daughter somehow… knew they’d want…” She trailed off.
“-knew they’d want a pony with a viable hostage in case they needed, for some reason, to control the police department.” I finished.
The air in the dungeon became very suddenly quite thick. I wiped a bead of sweat off the tip of my nose.
“Sir… nopony could think that far ahead, right? I mean, it’s impossible, isn’t it?” Swift asked, worriedly.
“Kid, these characters have been one step ahead of us the entire time. The Church was staying very quiet when Jade got into office and they’ve grown exponentially since then. Limerence doesn’t think this is just the Church-”
“Limerence…” Jade’s face slackened. “As in, Limerence Tome?! The Archivist?”
“Yes? Why?”
“You have made some strange friends, Hard Boiled,” she murmured. “I have a file on Limerence Tome that I used for a doorstop. Nothing he couldn’t beat if it ever came to court, of course, but his father is involved in every kind of illegal artifact smuggling imaginable.”
I tugged at my left ear with one toe and flicked a bit of loose fur on the floor. “I know. The Don and I have been friends for years. As I was saying-”
Jade’s wrapped a thin glow of magic around my muzzle for a half second. “One of these days, we are going to have a complete debriefing, Hard Boiled. I’ll do it with knives, if I have to.”
I sniffed, softly, and smacked the side of her horn with one hoof. It twanged like a banjo and she winced, but the magic around my nose vanished. “We might, but right now, I’m focusing on getting your daughter back and my partner out of this cell. Now, you never did mention why you’re not on anything. Clarify that. If my daughter had been snatched, even if it was by some loopy cult, I’d be up to my ears in pills.”
The Chief bristled, half turning to look at the wall across from Swift’s cell. She sank onto her heels, shutting her eyes. “You must have some… idea of how hard this job is, right, Hardy? I mean, it’s been… I don’t even remember how many years. Enough years. More than enough. Watching, each day, as some part of your city dies or gets hollowed out by pony-shaped monsters ready to rip the very fabric of reality itself just to make a few bits.” Her lip quivered, a surprisingly vulnerable gesture from a pony I’d long thought ate a bowl of razors for breakfast and only bled iron. “You know what my first day of work was?”
“I can’t recall. I was… well, I was pretty drunk. I remember that,” I answered.
“My first day on the job, I went into my office and found a box on my desk with the head of a childhood friend in it and a death threat from the local Jewelers.” She shuddered, slightly. “A stallion named Iron Knuckle ran them. He was… an ugly character.”
Swift gasped, “What?! Really? I never read about that!”
“That’s because I… had it handled,” Jade replied, her face impassive as stone.
“Do I want to know?”
“It doesn’t matter if you do, honestly. I sent a P.A.C.T. team to Iron Knuckle’s front business with Cloud Hammers and an open mission to eliminate an infestation of carnivorous parasprites who’d somehow managed to enter just that building through a basement sewer. Sadly, the evacuation order for the building was… misdirected.”
She rested a hoof on her breast, slipping into an insincerely dramatic tone that sounded just a little like Sugar Lace. “A true tragedy, for a young police Chief, to lose twenty of her citizens to such a mistake. Of course, it was the P.A.C.T.’s responsibility to check the building before sending in their lightning throwers. Sadly, they missed that step. Though when it was discovered the building was being used as an illegal gambling and drug den, it was written off as a minor loss.”
Chief Jade’s lips lifted into a hawkish little smile as she finished, “Being Chief of Police is really all about messaging. I sent the bastards my message, and I’m sure they got it; Never touch the green bitch and her people, or Celestia will not save you.”
My lungs were burning. How long had I been holding that breath? I’d never really put too much thought into Jade’s success, but certainly a willingness to get her hooves dirty would explain how a pony whose history was, ostensibly, that of a bureaucrat had managed to bring about one of the first actual decreases in crime the city had seen in decades. I exhaled sharply, coughing into my hoof.
“Are you… sure you want me knowing all of this?” I asked.
“Hard Boiled, if I couldn’t have you in a cell for the rest of your life, I could just as easily turn you over to these creatures who’ve taken my Cerise.” With that, Jade’s horn burned brightly and I felt a sharp tug on two very essential and personal parts of my anatomy. I cringed, but she’d already released me. “But, I doubt there is a being whose testicles I am presently more in control of. So if you want to spill my dirty laundry, feel free. You’ve put away plenty of ponies in Tartarus Correctional. I’m sure they’d love a chance to show you just how grateful they are for the opportunity to reform their behaviors.”
My ears lay flat at the thought, then I ground my teeth and stood up straight.
“Alright, then. Hard ball. Dancing around won’t help us. Your ‘pill’ habit? What’s the story?”
Turning, she sat facing the far wall as she went on, “Like I said. They killed a friend of mine. Twenty of theirs ended up in the morgue. Oh, they couldn’t trace it to me, but they knew. That’s the Detrot way after all.” Her ears drooped a little. “But… you can’t be that pony forever without it… taking… something from you. Eventually, I damn near shot Fluff’N’Stuff, down in Requisitions, for arguing with me when I demanded another ‘Awake And Aware’ shot from the stakeout stash and a bottle of raw caffeine.”
“Trust me. You’re not the only pony who has ever been tempted to put a round in Fluffers,” I muttered.
“I’m well aware. I am, so far as I know, the only pony to ever actually press a gun to her forehead,” she countered, flicking her platinum mane from one shoulder to the other. “It was a bit of a wake-up call. I went to see a shrink. He started prescribing me this stuff that made… well, it made everything easier.”
“I take it that didn’t last?”
“Nothing ever does,” she said with a shake of her head, getting to her hooves and pacing back and forth across the front of the cage. “I moved from one pill to the next. I took more. I took less. I mixed.” Her ears fluttered as she tilted her head toward the ceiling, searching for answers there. “My daughter...” she gulped and forged ahead. “My daughter… stopped... having a mother."
Strange as it may sound, I had the completely irrational urge to comfort the Chief. I imagine that would have been similar to trying to comfort a manticore in heat, but she was still a mare and still working on the side of justice. Call me a ravening sexist, but I’ve always felt a stallion who won’t comfort a mare when she’s having a rough time isn’t worth the testosterone pumping through his veins.
Jade continued, bitterly, “Then… then... that damn shrink...up and vanished. I thought the little wormer left me, high and dry. Four days later, I get a call from this medical wholesaler who said they’d ‘heard’ from my ‘psychiatrist’ that I might be running low on medications and asked if I needed to place an order. Didn’t even ask for a prescription. I should have… dammit, I should have thought deeper into it, but the withdrawal was so bad by then…”
Putting a leg across her breast, she shivered from nose to tailtip. “Anyway, the blasted freaks fed me whatever I asked for. After you vanished and my daughter… sent me that letter… they asked if I wanted to ‘increase’ my orders. I’d finally had enough. I decided to start acting like Chief of Police.” Her nostrils flared. “I tried to hunt the pill pushers down. I called up Starlight Industries. The pills always came in their boxes, but they said they didn’t even have me on record! When you came to my office last week, I was on the last of my final shipment and trying to wean myself.”
Swift’s wings rustled against her sides as she shuffled closer to the bars. “Y-you mean… you think the ponies who t-took your daughter were…”
“Drugging me stupid. Yes, I know it sounds insane. Kidnapping my daughter, my psychiatrist, and getting me to drug myself... You don’t have to tell me how crazy it sounds!” She slid onto her stomach, ignoring the layer of grime that attached itself to her belly fur. “It’s like they...wanted...me in office, but too out of my mind to be effective.”
“That… would fit with some of what we’ve been seeing, actually.” I said, thinking. “Some of the events I’ve witnessed lately make me think this is some kind of… coup, but if it is, it’s too... Unstructured. This is almost chaos for the sake of chaos, but it could just be that I don’t have all of the pieces yet. What about your own investigations? Turn up anything?”
Jade shook her head. “I didn’t make the connection until a couple weeks ago. By then, it was too late. The wholesaler apparently knew I was on to them. The numbers I usually used had all been disconnected. There were no records left. They were thorough. Even the shipping slips were useless.” She shut her eyes, tightly. “That’s when I got the letter from the kidnappers.”
“Everypony has had a wake up call lately. I’d love to tell you about mine, but your opinion of my sanity is probably already low.”
Jade shifted one front hoof closed to the other. “I… it took that to make me realize what was going on. I had… nothing. Nothing, but you, you seething pile of manure… and every spell, every enchantment, every artifact I used to find your impossible ass came up empty. How did you even manage that?!”
“Trust me, I’m in the market for explanations, same as you,” I answered. “I’m… glad you didn’t just phone them the instant I showed up on your doorstep.”
“I’m certain somepony in our office has. I am not so naive as to think this department is without a healthy helping of rotten apples. Couldn’t you have contacted me privately? Did you need to face down the dragon, sword drawn?”
I tilted my head towards Swift. “I was pissed off. Speaking of that, can we get those manacles off the kid?”
The Chief snorted, softly. “She put two officers in hospital with broken noses while we were dragging her in.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s in an iron cage. One which I will be getting her out of sooner, rather than later.” I pointed at the chains binding my partner.
Jade rolled her eyes. “You’ve gotten soft.”
“I know,” I groaned, then gestured again towards the restraints. “Manacles. Now.”
Swift held up her hooves and the Chief’s magic wrapped around the lock, snapping it open. The pegasus whimpered as blood flowed back into her hooves, dancing on all fours.
“Ow! Oh, that smarts!” she whimpered, rubbing one fetlock with the other.
Shrugging my coat off, I laid it on the ground and stretched out. “So, your daughter’s being held, most likely by the Church or somepony directing them who now knows I was here and you captured me. That leaves us in a bit of a position.”
Jade raised one eyebrow. “I’m still curious as to what makes you think I’m releasing you. I tapped every favor and resource I had through the city to find you over the last few days and the best I could do was catch myself up, which ended up involving the sifting of a mountain of rumors. Your attack on the Monte Cheval? Your… associations with that psychotic pervert dragon down in the Heights? Be glad they didn’t reach the papers!”
“You need somepony outside of Detrot Police Department who won’t be missed if they should go missing.”
“So what do you suggest? I have ‘captured’ you, most certainly, in the eyes of far too many. I don’t believe we can get around that easily.” Jade murmured. “These… persons… will want a call back from me very soon to confirm you are in captivity. Unless I send that-”
“I’m going to hit you with this knock-out talisman I swallowed before I came into the building,” I replied. “I vomited it up along with a lock picking kit, then hit you with it and cracked the locks on the dungeon doors.”
“What? I’d have felt… ahhh...” Realization lit in her eyes. “Nopony would believe you simply showed up without some plan to escape. That would be ridiculous,” Jade murmured, then looked at me quizzically. “You… did have an escape plan, right? In case I just dumped you in a cell?”
“Of course.” I coughed, wishing I’d been that prepared. I hoped Limerence wasn’t about to drive a war-scooter through the front door of the Castle. “Granted, our time frame is now… significantly… shorter. I don’t want to push my luck, so I’m going to make my moves on the Church as quickly as I can. It may mean losing the armor, at least temporarily, but I’d rather have the full force of Detrot P.D. behind me-”
“You won’t,” Jade exhaled, unhappily.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.
“Excuse me?” I hopped to my hooves. “I risk my neck chasing a dead broad around the entire city, I get shot in the chest, I face down legions of mobsters, psychos, and freaks...and you are tossing me under the bus when this is over?!”
“What choice have you left me with?!” the Chief snapped. “You retrieve my daughter, I will tell our people to look the other way where you’re concerned and I’ll hunt the cowardly, gutless monsters who snatched my child, but Hard Boiled… if even half of what I’ve heard is true, that’s the best I can do. Right now, you are a wanted criminal, with knowledge of matters affecting national security. It’ll be a miracle if we can’t keep the Royals themselves out of this mess, if that armor is really gone!”
“If they get involved, it really will be gone. Dammit, I’ve done what I had to do! I need your help!”
“I understand, but you’ve had your big boy horseshoes stomping all around the city like a Minotaur in a ceramics shop.” She mimed holding a phone to her ear with one hoof. “Sweet heavens, do you know I called the Essy Office this morning to requisition assistance from the Ladybug Collective in finding you, only to discover, wonder of wonders, that you already had! That creature… Queen… or whatever its name is… fed me a line about not violating your rights to a functional court defense when I demanded to see what in Tartarus you’d been up to the last month!”
Thank you, Queenie. I owe you a bucket of donuts and coffee for that.
“Chief, this is bigger than either of us. This is bigger than the ‘good name’ of the police department. We have to find out what is going on in this city. Somepony was willing to kill a young girl, a cop, a top level mob boss, and kidnap the Chief of Police’s daughter, along with potentially risking the ire of the Royals to steal that armor. That isn’t even mentioning whatever else they’ve been up to.”
“And you still haven’t even given me a solid reason to let you walk up those stairs, Hard Boiled.” Jade blew a bit of her mane out of one eye and prodded me in the chest. “What are you going to do? Will you simply bust into a Church of the Passage and pummel somepony until they give away the location of my child?”
I’d hoped she wouldn’t ask me that. She’d given me at least one lead. Her psychiatrist might be a worthwhile avenue of research, or possibly just Astral herself, but the truth was that I didn’t actually know what I was going to do.
Infiltrating a religious group, particularly one that may or may not have had you killed, is tricky business. Astral was downright shocked to see me coming out of the Museum, but I’d been so focused on my plan of escape that I hadn’t taken time to consider whether or not there was another reason. That or maybe she hadn’t been directly involved.
Umbra, Animus, and Armature might have been a good direction, but I got the feeling that would lead me a bit further down the rabbit hole than I was ready to go without first taking care of the Chief’s ‘situation’. Even having her off my tail was likely to count for a lot.
All of that aside, I needed Swift. She was essential, and all other matters were secondary.
“I’ve got a plan ” I said, simply.
“Yes, a plan! Hard Boiled, the alcoholic who, until recently, managed to keep his job on the power of that mark on his ass alone despite offending every dignitary, breaking every protocol, and charging headlong into the lion’s teeth every time it presents its mouth… That Hard Boiled has a plan. You’ll pardon me if I want to know some details of this plan!” she snarled, tossing her mane.
“If I tell you, you’ll think it’s impossible, dangerous, and likely to get everyone involved killed.” I considered this answer, then nodded. “But, since you have very few options other than getting the Princesses down here or praying that the individuals who show up to pick me up also drop off your daughter in the process -- for which you have no guarantee -- I think you’re going to have to take it on faith that I can get her back.”
Jade’s face slowly sank into an incredulous expression. “I… Hard Boiled, you do realize that is perhaps the least convincing argument for allowing you to maintain your freedom I have ever heard, right?”
“It’s this, or you’ll probably be getting bits of Cerise in the post.”
That statement was like a bucket of extremely cold water in the face. The Chief’s lips thinned to an angry line and her eyes glittered with fury. I could almost feel all the terrible things she intended for the ponies who’d stolen her little girl.
“Death is too good for them… and if I allow Cerise to be the point of leverage that ponies can use to get to me, I may as well lock her away for the rest of her life.” With a sound of pained resignation, the Chief floated a keyring out of the darkness and slotted a long, black key into the door of Swift’s cell. “Therefore, you will retrieve my daughter and when she is safe, in my hooves, I will… apply… myself to seeing to it that you are allowed to finish your investigations and that you will spend as little time in jail as possible. Are we clear?”
I’d been offered worse deals, of late. Not many, but a few.
“Crystalline,” I murmured.
The door of the cage open and Swift threw herself out, crashing into my forelegs like an extremely happy puppy being let out from behind the doggy gate. “I knew you’d get me out of here, sir!” she squealed, putting her front hooves up on my chest.
“Oof! Alright, kid, alright! You’re fine!” I patted her on the back a few times, carefully avoiding her busted wing. “We’ve got to get your gun and vest, first. Chief?”
“They’ll be delivered to the bovine musclehead who works the front door of the Vivarium later today,” she said, shifting her tail to one side as she sat on the gritty stone, her horn glistening darkly. “There is, perhaps, one other… minor… matter which I think you will wish to look into. I don’t know exactly if it will end up helping you, but I figured I needed a...call it a ‘trump’ card in case, for any reason, I was unable to locate you before a ‘deadline’.”
“What sort of… trump card… are we talking about, here?” I asked.
Jade lowered her eyes slightly. “There is a pony who contacted me a couple of days ago asking about you. I have them stashed in one of my personal safe houses for the moment with a promise to help them with a matter. You say this is all wrapped up in the death of the gray filly a month ago? I think this pony may have some information that will, if nothing else, prove illuminative regarding that. I’ve got them at the Burning Love, in those rooms the owner rents out. I assume you’re familiar with him?”
I sucked my teeth. “I doubt there’s a cop in the city that isn’t. He and my father were friends when I was a colt. The Prince and I go back a long way.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Jade sniped. “You and he share an irritatingly similar lack of decorum.”
“From you? I’ll take that as a compliment.” I shot back.
“Is this… pony you have staying there… are they somepony you thought you could trade to these kidnappers?” Swift chimed in, curiously.
The Chief scowled at the young pegasus. “I’m not… proud of this action, but my little girl is the most important thing in my life. If you ever have children, you will understand. I shant expand on the details, lest there still be ears listening, but-” She turned back to me. “-before you do anything rash, speak to this pony. What this individual told me made little sense in the context I had available, but now… it makes more, and I believe you will find some of your answers there.”
“I can work with that. What’s our escape route?” I wanted to know, glancing back in the direction of the stairs. “I don’t… really know this part of the Castle all that well.”
Turning to the wall, the Chief’s horn sparked. “A very wise being once said ‘Never build a dungeon you aren’t prepared to be locked in one day.' I think Princess Celestia took that to heart when she built this place.”
The stones of the wall rolled back on themselves in a way that my rational mind said was probably impossible, but magic does things of that nature on a regular basis. The doorway behind the wall revealed a rickety metal staircase spiraling up and out of sight.
“There’s a hallway at the top that leads to a sewer grate. I’ll be casting a sedative spell on myself the minute you’re out of here, so don’t try to come back this way. The door won’t open for anypony but a unicorn.” She pointed up the stairwell. “If you need to communicate with me for any reason, leave a note by the sewer grate. I’ll check it once a day.” She thought, briefly, then added, “Also, if I get any parts of Cerise...even a hoof shaving...I swear, I will hunt you all the way to the moon if I have to and these rats will get only the parts of you necessary to tell them what they want to know. The rest, I am keeping. Understood?”
“Understood,” I muttered, then raised one ear. “There is one thing you could do which might improve our odds of success. Could you pull all of our files on the Church of the Lunar Passage and have them delivered with Swift’s equipment?”
She nodded, then gestured with her toe at the secret passage.
I picked up my coat, moving to the stairs with Swift fast on my heels, and started up, when a thoughtful voice called to me, “Oh, and Detective? One last thing.”
I held my breath as cold sweat trickled down my sides.
“In pursuit of my daughter, I am authorizing you to continue the use of the Ladybug Collective. They are technically police materiale, after all, and after I discovered you’d been using them, I gave direct orders to the big one not to communicate in an official capacity with anypony operating without the blessing of the department. Since I don’t fancy another call to those morons at the Essy Office, nor communicating with that ridiculous insect again, you’ll need this. Don’t go flashing it around!”
A gleaming piece of steel on a long, silver chain drifted up the shaft, clutched in a field of magic, until it hung in front of my face. I stared at it for several seconds, then leaned forward so the chain slipped around my neck.
My badge sank down onto my chest and I closed my eyes, feeling its heft like a comforting friend back from a long absence.
“Thanks, Chief!” I looked up and yelled back. The secret passage was already closing, but Jade's eyes were locked on me with a frightening intensity. She didn't say anything more; she didn't need to. The message in her gaze was unmistakable.
If you make me regret this, Detective, then you will regret it tenfold.
She stood, unblinking, conveying that message, until the way was sealed completely, leaving me with nothing but a badge, a partner, and a very long, very dark climb.
Stats
Page generated in 0.074 seconds
Total duration
975 users online
2,292,940 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
"Down the rabbit hole" isn't the phrase. "Stuck in the bloody Labyrinth" is closer.
squeeee! new chapter!
guess the dark lady of Detrot Police Department can be reasoned with to an extent. Hardy better becareful lest he suffers a million fold. then agian he would only have to avoid her till his battery died to avoid that fate. lol.
poor hardy is in for a HELL of a time if he gets through this. there is no if ands nor butts about it. short of getting a pardon from the princesses, which i doubt he could so easily get short of this being a plot against them.
i have to wonder what exactly are the puppet masters here, trying ot manipulate this city. it seems that its corruption is far from simple economic decay. though they definitely made a mistake when putting Jade in charge of the police. fuck with her and she unleashes tartarus itself upon you the first chance she gets.
....... weird line about the equine mind not being able to handle equistria on its own. using the mane six as an example, they probably got their heads stuck into the worse of it all, yet i would doubt they would be so easily tempted to drown their experiences in booze. then again some of them seemed to already have some sub level of mental issue, so maybe they just could handle it.
...............
why does everyone think they give hard cider for cider season? you need to ferment the apples first to make that kinda cider. they weren't using fermented apples.
Fluffers! Bloody brilliant!
Hell, now I get to work in an anecdote later about how she went from Requisitions to Evidence. Nice.
Another splendid chapter!
3691945
I imagine that having the police chief holding a gun to her head may have lead her to consider a transfer...
Sir? Not Now Simmons. you know I'm up to my eyeballs in paperwork ever since the "Accident" a month ago. i'm still amazed that Meerkat and NaiKujibo found the wavelength through one of their "incidents". Seriously how do you electrocute yourselves while holding the scanner in a tank of non-electric eels when the scanner is waterproof and why do their explanations always involve Rocky Road ice cream? Anyways getting off topic, if the Consortium is to stay active I have to get this all straightened out. But Sir... I know i know. it's like the Council didn't care about what happened after they got what they wanted. Granted from the noises they made as they were sucked through that tiny hole, I think they regretted their recklessness at the end there. and now I have to clean the mess they left, well the paperwork mess anyways (poor janitors). I've had to re-purpose that project, make sure all the companies the Council controlled are still providing the proper funding, and get us back to a point so we don't alert anyone to the problems. I mean seriously why do we even have to worry about Obamacare to begin with? We have doctors on staff. That's not what i'm trying to tell you sir. Hmm... oh is that a new chapter? well I have been working hard I guess a short break wouldn't hurt.
"begins reading" Ok Swift I think you're going to have to get that cuteness registered Because that's getting close to weapons-grade atomic cuteness there. "Continues reading" Wow you really start to understand Chief Jade in this chapter. Her personality makes so much more sense now. "Continues" Wait. Wait. Is it? Could it possibly be? Yes it is. A reference to Fluff’N’Stuff from the side story. That story really needs more readers. "Finishes chapter" Well I understand the chapter title now. Hardy has really put himself behind the Eight ball now. if he screws this up he'll have a completely clean and focused Chief Jade after his balls.
Anyways what was so important you kept poking me in the shoulder for Simmons? Sir I've been trying to tell you. I had turned on the communicator when i started taking to you. it's been a while since you last checked in with the others so I figured now would be a good time. So they heard it all. Yes.Everything I just said. Yes. Even the part about the Council being... That too. I... well... Aw screw it I was going to have to break it to them sometimes. The Council got themselves killed by getting sucked into an unstable portal to the Equestria this story takes place in (told them inter-dimensional travel was a risky thing. could have destroyed our dimension by accident) and now I'm having to do their jobs as well as mine. Oh Meerkat and NaiKujibo, despite its unintended consequence, good job on finding the wavelength. However until I get things sorted around here, you two are still required to guard the subject from afar.
3691945 I figured Jade and Fluffers were both in Requisitions together by coincidence, Fluffers overheard Jade's request, and Fluffer's knowing what all that could do started arguing with Jade, concerned for her well-being. but that's just my thoughts on it.
3692359 Yes sir, I will continue to guard from afar. *salutes* Also just to be clear, the Rocky Road Ice Cream wasn't my doing, I hate that stuff.
I hope they get her beautiful wing fixed soon.
Swift was soooo cute in this chapter!
3691654 I will say we are doing our BEST to wrap up every single loose end we can by story end, including how Taxi lost her cutie-marks.
-Chessie
3692359
Wait, rocky road was supposed to be code for...
Oh, OH ooooooh!
AHM! If you'll excuse me, I have something to disarm.
Great chapter. It's really interesting to see Jade clean and sober. All of these players and we still have no idea who the dead girl REALlY was, or what her involvement was with whoever it was that removed her horn. It's like a main quest disguised as a side quest pretending to be a collectable mission.
It's like this girl was in the middle of this super convoluted scheme to do something we don't even know why it's being done.
Really intriguing story, and we still haven't gotten to how this law firm is involved in this whole mess.
3693000 Meh. It's 'Equestria Noir'. Dark, but also crazy.
3692971 We're getting there right quick. Next chapter will have some pretty serious revelations.
-Chessie
I just love this story!!! :)
The deal has been struck, Hardy springs Cerise and Jade will make sure he does not spend too long in jail when this is all over. This city just comes off as more and more fucked with every chapter if that is seriously an acceptable arrangement between the Chief of Police and a rogue detective. Glad to see that even Jade can see reason and that, like it or not, Hard Boiled Junior is the best chance she has at putting a stop to all of this at this point. Probably not a comforting thought in her mind but it is better than nothing and just letting the puppet masters walk all over her. Now I am curious what Hardy really thinks he is going to do to get Cerise out of harm's way since he could not give Jade a straight answer about it. And of course Hardy has gotten soft Swift is just too adorable to not want to hug her like a big fluffy teddy bear...a big fluffy teddy bear that can rip your throat out with her teeth but big and fluffy all the same!
Long time reader, first time caller, hi!
I just have to know, was that a Ventinari quote, there at the end? About escaping the dungeon? Also, you should publish. I interrupted rereading Fallout Equestria just to catch up on this. You guys are fantastic.
3693938 Yeeeah, that was Lord Vetinari. I couldn't resist. Comments are the fuel that powers the continued writing of this story, so keep'em coming!
3693893 Jade is, no doubt, somewhere grinding her teeth over this...
-Chessie
..............okay, how many god damn things in this story are giong to become canon in the show?
last week we had the mane six pulled into some kind of pocket dimension magically created, kinda like the cloud thing but for a different purpose, with seemingly sentient magical cosntructs.
this week we have an example of a pony getting their mind and body atlered and acting more feral. fluttershy going batshit is many shades similar to what was done to swift, just it was an accident rather than turning her into a weapon............... it even had the factor that even after she was transformed back, she still had some fang left.
interstingly enough i noticed that those fangs did not fully recede even during the transformation in the episode.
that is an odd coincidence. its almost like the show has implanted precursors to certain aspects of your story. fluttershy becoming a vmapony could easily have been some sort of origin for what happened to swift adn grapeshot. someone figured out how to use that magic to alter someone's perception and give them killing tools at the same time.
3694987 Lots, apparently. It does seem to be a trend.
-Chessie
3696633 guess great minds think alike maybe. you guys did a lot of work weaving your ideas and factors from the show into it. suddenly the show provides in canon precursors to those ideas.......... jsut weird.
though unlike poor Swift Fluttershy only has to live with a coule pf little fangs rather than a mouthfuf of daggers.................. which are suspicionsly like the teeth nightmare moon grew in the season premiere................
a inquiry. what season do you think as part of your story? or is how vague that sixty years relatively is allows you to adapt the narrative?
3696827 The 60 year gap REALLY helps us adapt things. We haven't really had anything in the cannon so far that would completely derail the story itself. Twilight Sparkle becoming an alicorn is likely to be handled at some point, but we've honestly done our best to keep the mane 6 out of the plot.
-Chessie
3697171 makes sense. most of them would either have passed on by old age or would make granny smith seem young, though pinkie pie seems to still be alive lest she can sense a pinkie promise from the grave. twilight being questionable at best sdince she is an alicorn. though we have seen some ponies who are descended from them.
though it seems a lot fo the lore is that several of the events had some cover up going on............ for none know that the ones that wrecked the grand galloping gala sixty years ago enjoyed donuts amongst friends fater their rampage.
part of me is curuios of how the rest of equistria is doing though. it is emphasized that Detrot is in fact the most unstable and dangerous city in equistria, though those more within reach are still prone to instability.
something i am somewht surprised to have not seen yet are Changelings. while we have one's ticker keeping Hardy alive right now, we have yet to see any changelings in the flesh and or exoskeletal chitin. you would think that their abilities would be sought after by the criminal elements. then again if there were changelings, there would also be a changeling queen in Detrot............. and knowing Hardy's luck so far, he would probably encounter her getting hayfries.
Jade was... surprisingly cooperative with Hardy, not a carrot peeler in sight. I'm gonna take that as a good sign.
But apparently not a comma.
Something tells me that Hardy's long-term plan now involves finding and recovering the armor and turning it over for a Royal Pardon to avoid any jail time at all. If that's not the plan, then the plan had best be even more epic than that!
That was quite a conversation. Nice to know why Jade did what she did and yet retain that ability to get her hooves dirty in the process.
I even managed to feel a little sympathy for her with her first day in office.
Exactly Hardy, lets not bite off more than we can chew.
It does sound a bit crazy if it was a group who had small-time criminal intent then it doesn't make much sense for them to want an effective police chief. But for a group who wanted to have a lever on the chief for later use then perhaps that would work although that would put this imaginary group in the crazy bond villain category with a possible promotion to Discord himself.
And of course.
SWWWIIIIFFFTTTT She's baaaackkk!
yaaay.
Hardy has the gang back together. SwiftSwiftSwift.
Always fun reading this fic.
Swiftswiftswift.
The intro for this chapter is made all the more hilarious for coming right after an episode where Rainbow Dash was freaking out over the possibility of not getting her Cider fix.
I usually have a strong dislike toward fics that cynically paint Equestria as a candy-coated dystopia. This story, though, always finds a great balance between the whimsical charm of the show and the grittiness of the noir detective genre. I don't know how you guys do it, but just keep doing it!
I caught the Discworld reference!
And DAMN, I was NOT expecting that character development from Chief Jade. Kinda glad I'd put off reading this for so long, so I got to get three chapters at once.
3712529
Was that Havelock Vetinari?
I can't remember the specific book or context I read it in, but it sure sounds like him. Maybe it's the one where the dragon takes over? Guards, Guards?
3731260 Eeyup...and I was wondering if anyone would catch that or not. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that some of our readers are Discworld fans.
-Chessie
Before I read chapter 39, I must say that I pity the poor detective. Among other things, his boss is a real arse who, if we really considering any sort of justice, probably ought not to be in office. Her methods are far beyond questionable. No matter what success he achieves, everybody wants to off him. He's just doing his freaking job and of course there's the Detrot way. Chief Jade is the one who deserves to be thrown under a bus. After all, love aside, she's more than willing to throw people she doesn't like and that inconvenience her under the bus. Or at least that's what she like us to believe.
I expect, probably at half to three-quarters certainty that Hard Boiled is going to end up dead. Permanently.
3731599
But of course. Naturally that went over my head, but it should not have. I have after all, read just about every book in the Discworld series. Probably due for a re-read...
3764072 Who knows? You'll have to keep reading. Everybody dies sometime, after all. Well, except Celestia. Maybe.
-Chessie
This is quite possibly the greatest fanfic I have ever read. It's eating up all my time....I'm probably going to end up dying with this epic novel in my hands. Thank you for writing something so inspiring and entertaining.
Wow...never did I expect to start having sympathy for Jade...
Oi! I will have you know that flash street choreography is serious business for Equestrians! It is practically part of their national identity!
Anyway...
Banning alcohol?! Are you crazy?!
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/11/16/473859.gif
It will be bedlam! There will be panic in the streets! Unrest! Riots! Uprisings! Revolutions even! They may even go so far as to write a song about it!
Have you heard the recent news? Stop the Vote!
They will take away our booze! Stop the Vote!
The proposal, they'll delete
When we riot in the street
They will fear our marching feet
Stop the Vote!
They are banning ethanol. Stop the Vote!
No more liquor sold at all! Stop the Vote!
Our displeasure will be known
Broadcast through a megaphone
"Leave our cider well alone!"
Stop the Vote!
We're gonna lose all our beer! Stop the Vote!
It's a crisis without peer! Stop the Vote!
The situation's dour
We will exercise our power
To preserve our happy hour
Stop the Vote!
Which side of the door are the locking mechanisms?
(The City-Watch arc is my favourite of the series
)
Act 2, Chapter 16: "Devil's Deal"- making a Deal with the devil will most times have similar affects as wishing with a monkey paw.
And, being 38 chapters in(I think), one of the best parts about this story are the little bits at the start of the chapters.
They provide bits of information that would other wise spoil the mood a bit if they had to be explained mid-chapter.
And they give a good jumping off point for starting a chapter, something to warm the brain up if you will.
I'm not sure which of us did it or how it happened, but I looked over the list and saw that 2-16 "Devil's Deal" had somehow become unpublished. Apologies to anyone reading back through who may have missed it and thus become more confused than they already were.
--CEO Kasen
3764160 this is literally the LAST thing I wanted to hear from an author. something foreshadowing the death of a character *gulp*
3731260 yes.
3691932 Only hard cider foams. The cider in MLP foams.
Hoo boy, things just got interesting...
I had a bad feeling about the church since that first chapter where Hardy and Taxi talked about them. I’m glad to see my suspicions were well-founded.
3764160
Funny you didn’t mention Luna....
I have a sneaking suspicion that the lunar church is only a cover for something much, much deeper.
I absolutely love the character building. You give **everypony** flaws
And also the world and story building.
I am so glad that (correct me if im wrong) jade wasn't someone that the bad guys owned until they took her daughter
... the only thing that I dont like about jade is that she murdered her husband
Tough because her daughter *caught* him cheating makes me understand it
And that she used her resources to cover it up...
I respect her
10386042
Jade is...complicated. She's a monster, no questions asked, but she's not a monster by choice. I don't know how far in the story you are, but she's got a lot more going on than your run of the mill villain.
-Chessie
In which Jade and Hardy finally have an honest talk and come to understand how much they need each other given what is at stake. I loved it, Jade makes sense for why she's so stressed and why she was acting so odd, and she finally realizes just how useful having a pony like Hardy is on this case given, well..... who else would be insane enough to do this and get away with it, and if he can do that, what else can he get away with because nopony thinks anypony would be crazy enough to do it?
And those are Ponies who haven't experienced The Pink One. Though, would knowing Pinkie Pie exists make you more likely to go mad from how little reality makes sense, or actually make dealing with the absurdity of insanity that is Equestria easier, because nothing can be as bizarre and mind warpingly Eldritch as her? Really, most ponies tend to take the bizzarness of their world in stride, since to them, this IS normal.
So getting a handle on the drugs, Zap is pretty much jsut Pony Weed, with a high chance of shocking side effects if you use it in the wrong weather. Ace is heroin, and Beam seems to be Meth.
See! more proof! They just made Swift slightly more Kitty then pegasi already are! Not a huge change! Other then making her even more adorable! Because kitty!
I love this running gag! See a guy like that, you don't fire, you just set him up with some meaningless title and an office with a door leading right to the outside, then keep said office supplied with coffee and donuts at all time, and just, kind of have someone paying attention to what the ponies who stop by talk to him about.
Yikes.... okay, those assholes really do not know who they are fucking with.. there is "Can be easily leveraged by threatening her daughter" type mama bear. Then there is "Will relentlessly hunt you down and gut you with her bare hooves if you so much as indicate you MIGHT hurt her daughter" Mama Ursa mode. And Hardy is giving her a way to do just that.
Speaking of, so as we already know, whoever is behind all this has been playing a long, looooong game. But something has caused them to suddenly need to move fast. Something tied to whatever it is Ruby Blue knows/hid/whatever is in that diary. Or is it something else that made this all start moving, and she was just screwing over their plans because she found out about them? But, That law firm is too tied to all this to not be at the core, and they've been in the city for decades.... decades where the city declined precipitously fast... and while before NMM came back and so, how it's linked to her is odd, still too close to her return to not feel connected given all the other, everything about NMM and Luna going on. Was it the Armor being brought to town that did it? Or, is it just the timing and wanting to have things in place to take advantage of the special Summer Sun Eclipse that is coming?
Did they plan this all out and know exactly what they'd need, or were they just seeing what would be the most likely to be of use and be a pawn they could use when the time came in getting Jade made Chief? Was getting her hooked on meds just setting up for this, or to keep her unfocused enough for other stuff to slip by as well and this is just a case where it REALLY would have been good for her not to be sober? And yeah them being from Starlight Industries... big red flag there, even if it's the sort of thing that there are many logical and plausible reasons that aren't wrapped up in the stallion running it being evil. But..... there are no coincidences in a story like this...
Which of course calls to mind Discord but..... no... this isn't his sort of Chaos. He is not a 'long game' type Draconequiss. This is.. too ordered, too structured in how it's setting all these pieces up to be him, he's just pop into down, snap his fingers and turn the Jewelers and the Cyclones into cats and dogs and put them in a giant cage in the middle of the city to watch them fight if he wanted to see a gang war. I agree they are trying to create chaos but, I don't hink chaos IS the goal, but rather the chaos would be used to serve, or to provide cover for, whatever their REAL endgame is.
Which the later line
Kind of has me thinking.....what if that IS the goal? To create so much chaos and violence and anarchy in the city that to draws one or both of the Princesses to the city to deal with things personally? To create such a huge mess that they have to step in, bringing them right into some kind of trap. Hell that plays into the Starlight guys whole "Equestria needs to learn to stand without alicorns" spiel if he's either planning, or knows about this. And if The Nightmare is involved as it has to be with all of this, either directly or some creatures linked to it in some way, both taking out Celestia to let Luna ascend, and/or getting Luna to turn back into NMM are both valid end game threats I could see being part of this plan.
Hell yeah kid! Hey, just be glad she didn't make with the biting! She was being nice!
Okay he does not seem the type to go the frontal assault with heavy weapons. Also, I really want to see what the hell a 'war-scooter' looks like!
First again, what if that is the plan. Second, okay Tia and Luna would love Hardy!
Speaking of beings Celestia would get along with.......
She might not agree with all of Veternari's methods, but she would respect his skill, cunning, and dedication to doing the right thing for his city.
Hell yeah..... Hardy might be a cop with or without that, but it's still part of who he is and he'd prefer to have it. Especially while being off the grid enough to not have to stick to all the rules and regulations it brings with it.
11420990
Heh, you're starting to get that 'loooong game' thing and that really ramps up as time goes on. You got a lot going on here.
- Chessie