Act 2, Chapter 27: Sweet Shine, My Only Sweet Shine
Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 27: Sweet Shine, My Only Sweet Shine...
Magical injury is, put simply, a very bad thing. It has been mentioned previously that magic is capable of a variety of outcomes significantly worse than merely killing somepony. However, when it comes to why this is so, prior documents have danced around the specifics like a ballerina in a minefield, and for much the same reason: failure to do so would get messy.
Not all magical injury is particularly horrific. Much conventional magic doesn't really do anything a sufficiently powerful projectile weapon or physical force couldn't do: Concussive force bolts, fireballs, having your face savaged by a summoned orthos, and so forth. But then there’s the kind of magic that turns stomachs; now and then, into lemurs.
A thought exercise is illustrative in this instance: Imagine some sort of horrific and fatal occurrence, and leave nothing off the table for being too outlandish. Melting. Organ alphabetization. Torso turned to fruit. Decapitation by an uncalibrated party cannon. Having all your skin go on strike. Heart attack - as in being physically assaulted by your own heart.
Now imagine surviving it, and living continuously in whatever ruined state the magic left you.
If, at this point, you find yourself needing to go find a place to vomit, then you will be sharing a bucket with many of the greatest minds of this century.
-The Scholar
I’d seen all manner of magical injuries in my time with Detrot Police Department. "Death by magic" was the fourth most common pathology in my line of work, after bullets, bucking, and "Misc," and seeing that written across the top of a police dispatch was usually the first sign all the local psychologists with DPD contracts would be buying themselves extra boats in the coming year.
Death by magic was frequently nowhere near as bad as survival. Mercifully, equicide isn't called in when there's a ‘survival by magic,' so it was rare that the truly hideous effects were animated in my presence, much less talking to me.
Nopony gets to tell me that slipping into shock isn’t a decent coping mechanism until after they’ve seen one of the really nasty survival stories in person.
****
I was quick on my hooves, hauling Swift into the corridor and tossing her onto one of the spare cots lining the hall. Truth be, as the door to the little cubicle slid shut, I had to force my own mental state back to something resembling normal, mostly by clamping off every bit of the intense fear that’d suddenly welled up inside me at the sight of Taxi’s father. Lots of the various voices in my head were screaming ‘Icky, icky icky!’ at maximum volume. I just needed a quick breath of fresh air to settle my nerves.
I didn't bother trying to wake her. ‘Pegasus Nap Time’ was an easier solution than trying to wake Swift up for conversations like the one I anticipated having with Stone Shine.
I tried to toss a blanket over her twice, then stilled the shaking in my left hoof. It was a tremor with several sources, most pressingly, the civic impulse to do everypony involved a favor, grab my gun and just go end that abomination in the next room.
Be strong, Hardy. Be strong for her, I thought, breathing deep of the disinfected hospital air. Pepping myself up seemed a bit silly. The worst was over, right? I’d looked upon the beast and he was a broken shell of a thing, unable to move.
Why did that not feel particularly comforting?
I patted my coat and trotted back to the little hospital room, where father and daughter were still standing, staring at one another across a gulf of years, filled with unfinished business.
Tugging off my hat, I set it on the end of the bed. The movement broke the spell between them and Taxi’s shoulders sagged as she stared at the floor between her hooves like that little filly I’d known so many years ago. I could almost see the memory of the weighted collar dangling from her neck.
I had to force myself to look in the general direction of the creature under the covers. Stone Shine’s twisted body was enough to put a manticore off its dinner, and I didn’t feel like looking him in the eyes. The last time I’d seen those eyes, he’d been seconds from killing me. Sure, there’d been plenty of times in the intervening years when somepony was ‘seconds from killing’ Hardy, but that first time is always the one that sticks with you.
Stone Shine’s gaze drifted from his daughter over to me. His mitotic eye narrowed slightly.
“I… know… you, don’t I?” he rumbled.
His accent was unusual. It sounded like upper Canterlot, but slow and deliberate, like speaking took effort. I noticed the mouth on the side of his neck twitched with each syllable, as though it were trying to form the words but lacked for vocal chords. I forced my eyes back to his face, though that wasn’t any better.
Stiff upper lip, Hardy, said a smug voice hovering somewhere behind my eyes.
Go soak your head, Juni, I thought, irritably.
“Yeah. We’ve met. Baseball bat about twenty years and change ago.” I mimed swinging a club with my mouth.
Stone Shine’s upper lip pulled back, revealing a broken row of mismatched teeth. I shivered, involuntarily.
“I… thought so,” he said, with no hint of malice. I felt he should have been enraged, or at least showing some emotion towards the pony who’d put him there. Instead, I got the feeling I barely rated his attention.
His interest drifted back to his daughter. Another tuft of yellow fur sprouted near the general area of one eyebrow. I didn’t know what to think of that.
“My… good girl…" Stone murmured, spittle running down one side of his mouth. He absentmindedly wiped it away with a bit of rag kept beside one hoof. “I haven’t… seen you in too… long.”
Taxi wasn’t moving, her eyes locked on the floor.
She made a noise that might have been a word or an escaping sob, and sank onto her stomach, drawing her rear legs up.
“… Daddy…" she said, faintly.
I reached down and lifted my driver into my forelegs, hauling her upright. That ‘strong’ face had lasted about as long as I expected it to.
“I… suppose I should… not be surprised, Girl,” Stone mused, his speech slurring each word. “You… were… obedient, until the… end. You learned well… everything I taught."
Rising to her full height, she stepped to the edge of the bed and reached out, resting her hoof over top of Stone Shine’s. “Daddy?”
Remarkably, the monster in the bed’s lips spread into something resembling a grin. “It is time… we talked… yes?”
“Yes, it is. I need to know some things.”
“Then, I will know… some things… first. They… tell me nothing… of my daughter… in this place.”
Taxi was staring down at the blood on the sheet, and said nothing for a few long, awkward moments.
“Girl?”
“Yes, Daddy?” she answered, immediately.
“You… grew up… strong?”
She slowly nodded. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Good… good. You… are… a killer?”
I blinked at that; Even coming from a misshapen amalgamation of pony parts, the question seemed bizarre. I expected Taxi to dismiss the question as ridiculous, but her ears sank, and she said: “N-no, Daddy…"
He gave her a look that seemed to pierce through the thin facade she was presenting. In this case, his gaze was like using a buzzsaw to slice a dinner roll; a foal could have figured out that Taxi was hiding something. I cocked my head towards my driver, and saw her shoulders start to tremble.
“You… would not… lie… to me… would you… Girl?”
“No, Daddy,” she whispered. “I’ve… I’ve killed.”
I couldn’t be certain, but I didn’t remember her ever mentioning she’d killed somepony. It was certainly possible in our line of work, but most suspects surrender or flee when a cop threatens deadly force. Even patrol officers rarely actually discharge their guns, and some detectives are lucky enough never have to touch a trigger-bit with their teeth.
In all the time she’d been on the force and in the years thereafter, despite how crazily effective a martial artist she was, I couldn’t remember actually hearing of a death directly attributed to my driver’s hooves. She’d hurt a lot of ponies, who... usually deserved it, but killing wasn’t her thing. Even that whacking great cannon she liked to cart around in the trunk was a non-lethal weapon.
The somewhat traitorous thought occurred to me that her partner, Fox Glove, had died, as well as their suspect in that case, Skinner, but she’d never been forthcoming with the details of those events.
I shook my head. Part of me wanted to grab the nearest blunt object, brain her with it, then pull her out of that room and take my lumps later on. Surely avoiding the psychological damage this little meet and greet must have been doing was worth a few nights nursing some broken bones when she woke up. Right?
Stone Shine settled his misshapen skull back into the pillows, staring at the ceiling. “I… am glad. Girl will need… to kill. There will be… much killing.”
My driver and I shared a confused look. Taxi reached back with one leg and snatched a discretely placed stool sitting beside the bed. Sitting down, she rested one hoof on the bedsheet. “Daddy… I don’t want to kill anypony. I’m not like you.”
Stone’s lips twitched, though emotions were tough to read on that wasted face. “I… do… hope for your sake… that isn’t true.”
I took a couple of steps forward and put my forelegs up on the bed.
“You… know something about what’s been happening in the city?” I asked.
Shine shifted in the bed, bringing one ravaged hoof up to his face to study the back of it, then the front. “I know you are... working against... powers you do not... comprehend. I know... you would not... come here... unless death were... on the line. I know... my Girl... is in danger... and what I know... may keep her... alive.”
“And you’re going to tell me?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice.
He blew a breath out through his nose, along with a little bloody phlegm that landed on the sheet. He gave me a look like I was something he’d stepped in.
“I… wish… I’d… killed you,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“Take a ticket, get in line. If you know something, though, I need information.”
Rising slightly in the bed, I heard what could only be described as a soft tearing sound and the old stallion winced. I realized the flesh on his back seemed to be somehow attached to the plastic mattress underneath him. My gorge rose, but I swallowed and tried to keep myself from developing a very undignified case of the hiccups.
“I know… what I have always… known. This city… rots.”
"What else is new?"
"Rot is not new, but… the amount is. Corrupted foundations… wither. They threaten to collapse Detrot... altogether."
“...Who are they?”
At that, Stone’s expression darkened. His eyes darted to one side, as though he’d momentarily misplaced something. He shook his head, like he was trying to clear it.
“I… do not… remember.” he said, finally..
I took a step forward and said, “You don’t remember?”
Stone tossed his rag over the side of the bed in my direction and grunted, “Is that not… what… I said… foal?"
I couldn’t hold in a chuckle at the sheer, bloody, awful irony of it. “You’re telling me that somepony dicked with your memories? After what you did to her?”
Stone shrugged, his shoulders peeling away from the bed in a way that made me squirm inside.
“Part… of the… deal.”
“What deal?” Taxi demanded.
“To… keep you… safe.”
Taxi’s jaw fell open, then she fell onto her haunches. “To keep me safe?! You almost beat me to death! You beat me every other week!”
“Only to make you… better. You could… not remember… and I could not… remember. If… you had learned of them back then, they… would have killed… both… of us before I could teach you... to survive.” He touched the edge of the bed closest to her with his mutated toe. “You… had to be hard… and I tempered… you. You are steel...now. Steel to… cut. To… kill.”
“To kill who?” Taxi asked, her gaze narrowing.
“My former...employers.” He waved his hoof over his body. “They… are not the sort to… leave loose ends. They will... come for us... both… now that you are... pursuing them.”
“Well, you want to help us-”
“I do not… help you… boy! I help...blood!” Stone snarled, jabbing his hoof in my direction. He turned back to Taxi, his anger dissipating as fast as it had come. He folded his misshapen legs across his lap, his reedy voice calm again as he asked, “Tell me… Girl. Why… come now?”
My driver’s lip quivered, and she half-turned, resting her hoof on the tiny table beside the bed. There was an empty tin of something that smelled like fruit there. “I… I… ” she hesitated, like she knew the question she wanted to ask, but just couldn’t find the words. “I... never got to tell you what my talent was. Do you remember, when I got my cutie-mark, Daddy?”
Stone’s nose wrinkled. “You defied… me… to get it, Girl. You… succeeded… in your training. You… became strong. Why… does your… talent… matter?” he replied, coldly.
That got Taxi’s dander up. Her hackles rose and a spark of anger finally lit behind her eyes. She straightened, the pitiful little filly gone. “T… Training?! Seriously?! Do you have any idea what I’ve been through the last twenty-something years?” I don’t even know who I am because of you! Is Sweet Shine even my name?!”
The mouth on the stallion’s neck half-opened, then began to frown. I shut my eyes against the sight and tried to breathe. Something in that mouth was disturbing something buried deep within my psyche. I wished I could fish it out.
“Sweet Shine… is your name,” he murmured, at last. “I… gave it… to you after… your mother… died.”
Taxi’s braid slapped against my side as she tossed her head, angrily. “You mean after you killed my mother!” she accused.
“I killed… both… of them, Girl.”
No defensiveness. No remorse. It was as though he was correcting a minor point in her grammar. The simple, direct, and absolutely guiltless way that he said that snapped my driver’s anger like a rubber band. She slid forward off the stool, which tipped to one side and clattered against the floor. Tears were flowing freely now, but her eyes didn’t leave his face as she stared at her father.
She stumbled back, tripping over her rear legs and I had to catch her before she fell into the wall. She turned to put her face against me again, the wracking sobs leaving her shoulders quaking.
For several long moments, the only sound in the room was my driver’s weeping as I held her and stroked her mane. I rested my chin on her shoulder, smelling the incense in her hair and waiting. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know what to do.
Stone Shine watched the two of us, expressionless, with those disturbing eyes seeming to strip the years away. My driver was a strong, smart pony, but before that stallion it felt like she was a naked child, with her cutie-mark still fresh and bleeding.
When he spoke, I felt Taxi’s shaking redouble.
“You… think I… do not… love… the Girl, don’t… you?” Stone growled, softly. “Because I took… your mothers… from you?”
Raising her head, my driver whirled on him. “You… I… how can you even say the word ‘love’ to me?!”
“I… wished you… to be strong, Girl.” The twisted stallion’s eyes flickered towards me. “You… were stolen… from me… before I could teach you… why.”
“So tell me! Tell me now! Tell me why you choked my mother to death and left her on the living room floor!” Taxi shouted, shaking the bed with her forelegs. “Tell me why you brainwashed me!”
"You… witnessed… your biological mother’s… death. She produced you...and she was of no use to Them once she...had. To protect… you… you had to obey… and you had to forget. Obey… and disremember. You could… never know… what I was.”
“What were you, then? Tell me! Make me understand, dammit!”
Stone Shine examined his daughter, looking her over with quiet interest. I got the distinct impression he was seeing that girl he’d tortured all those years ago in a very new light.
“My… daughter...” he began, carefully, pausing to wipe his nose. It’d begun bleeding copiously. “I… was their first… attempt; the very first… for those who hold the reins… of power… in this city. They needed… a killer… who could bring death... to any… who might upset… their plans. They… paid… well.”
Taxi’s eyes widened and she glanced out the glass door towards where Swift lay.
“Somepony made you like this?!”
“For… a boon, yes.”
Taxi blinked at him, then let her hooves drop off the bed and took a step back. “What boon?”
Shine sat upright, or closer to it, and his shadowed eyes brightened. “I… desired… a child. They gave me… the Girl.”
The gears in my brain were grinding. I had a list of questions, and couldn’t conceive of how the answers could possibly make any sense.
The thin patch of yellow fur that’d been growing on his face blossomed into a thick tuft, with a faint strip of white overlaid with black across it. It looked, strangely, like he’d suddenly grown a mustache.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
Shine brushed his hoof over the fur, tearing some of it free. It floated down to the bed. “No longer calling me… Daddy… then? I was… rather… enjoying that. If… you must… know… it was… Supermax.”
“I don’t recall anything about Supermax causing rampant… whatever… is happening to you. Everything cancer." I put in.
He gestured to the wreck that was his chest, then to the mouth sprouting from the side of his throat. “I was paid… during my killing days… to allow Them...to give me certain... enhancements. They allowed me...to alter...my appearance. Supermax… eats… arcane energies. It eats those… things… which make a pony… powerful. It has eaten...my magic.”
“Daddy...I’ve got to go to Supermax. We’re going there to… to stop some ponies from doing something awful. Will you help us?” Taxi asked, quietly.
Shine lowered his eyes and sighed. “Girl...you should know that They...are aware...of your pursuit...though not the direction...it takes.”
“How can you know that?” I inquired.
“They...told me,” he answered, calmly.
“You’re saying they snuck somepony into Tartarus?!” my driver gasped.
“Snuck?… yes. They came to… visit me. Days ago. They sent their… representative… to me. He removed his face and… name… from my memories… but he left me… with a promise of… another wish…”
“Wait… a wish? Not a boon?” I asked, suddenly feeling like I was on to something.
Stone gave me a look of burning contempt. “Wish? Boon? What… is the difference? They offered… me… a new body. A new… body… and my freedom... if I gave you… to them.”
The hair on my neck rose. I put my hoof on my gun and slid back the hammer, then remembered they’d taken my bullets. “You… sold out your own daughter?” I hissed.
Reaching out, Stone Shine gently laid his broken hoof on top of Taxi’s on the bed. I expected her to flinch, but she didn’t. Her expression was unreadable, though her tears still dripped onto the sheets.
“Do I look… like I have… my freedom... or a body? Even if I had known… where she was… or that she … had grown… into such a strong, lovely mare… I never could have.” He coughed, blood drooling from his nose in thick rivulets. One of the machines behind him started to beep a little louder. “I turned them… down, boy. They left...me...to die.”
Taxi’s eyes slid shut and she laid her head on the bed. Stone brushed his hoof through her mane, and that memory from the days before I’d smashed his jaw with my bat came back to me; watching Stone and Shiny, curled up on the sofa, watching the news. For just a little while, things had been very close to… normal… there.
Like so many of the creatures I’d met lately, he was inequine. In any sane world, things like him should not exist, and yet this is not a sane world. Monsters like him and Saussurea love and live and fight and die, same as the rest of us.
Sometimes, very much by accident, they bring beautiful things into the world.
“Now… then,” Stone rumbled. “...Supermax?”
“Yes, Daddy…" Taxi replied, not moving from her place on the bed.
“I… remember little,” he sighed. “It...has been many...years.”
“Do you know anything about the magical construct?” I asked.
Stone lifted Taxi’s chin on the tip of his hoof so he could look into her face. She looked back at the patchwork stallion; father and daughter, seeing one another for the first time.
“It was the uniforms… and the cells. Something there… makes their sucking magics work, if the… construct… is active. The Jailer of Supermax placed… things… into the dragons to weaken… them. She could… not… with ponies. Instead… she wove something into… the uniforms… and the… mortar.”
I scratched at my mane, thinking. “You got any clue what that might have been?”
He shook his shaggy head. “They have taken… much… of my memories... and I was only able to… keep bits and pieces. I… remember only… that you must… beware… the red… moon.”
Laying back in the bed, he shut his eyes and exhaled, slowly.
Taxi raised herself and looked to me. “Red moon?”
I touched the diary in my pocket. “Like… Ruby’s cutie-mark?”
The machines surrounding Stone Shine were starting to buzz insistently.
“The doctors… will be here soon… Girl,” Stone murmured, glancing at the read out. I couldn’t be sure what all those red lights meant, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t indicate good health. “I… would appreciate… it… if you would do one… last… thing.”
My driver touched the hoof of the stallion who’d done so many horrible things to her. He’d stolen her mother, her childhood, and any hope for a normal life. He’d left her shattered, hating her own talent, and he was asking favors.
I would have walked away. Even knowing his reasons. Even knowing he’d done it all out of some demented version of familial affection. I’d have walked out of that room. At least, I tell myself I would have.
Of course, I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to my father. There are days I swear I’d give an eye to have had that privilege.
“Anything, Daddy.” Taxi replied, .
“Kiss my… cheek… and...” he leaned up to be nearer her ear and his voice dropped too low for me to hear the last whatever he was requesting. Taxi nodded to whatever it was and brushed a stray bit of fur from his fetlock.
Leaning down, she gently pressed her lips against her father’s ruined face.
He smiled. A contented smile. The smile of a stallion, after many chased years, finally finding peace.
A sick part of me envied him that smile.
My driver laid her hoof on his chest, then very gently ran it up to his neck. Taking a deep breath, she gave the side of his throat a little poke. If I hadn’t been watching closely, I might have missed it.
Stone Shine jolted in the bed, every muscle seeming to seize at once. The mouth on his neck opened and shut, its deformed tongue lashing back and forth.
Blood poured from his nose, his ears, and his tear ducts, gushing down his face, splashing onto the bed. Machines began beeping in alarming patterns.
Taxi rested her hooves on the edge of the bed. The blood washed over them.
She stepped back, just as the door slid open and Custodius, along with two nurses, all wearing face masks, piled into the room.
“He’s crashing!” somepony shouted. I just stared as Stone Shine’s body spasmed, then his back arched with a cracking sound that echoed around the tiny room.
“Out! Everyone out!” the donkey snapped, giving me a shove with his forehead.
That got me moving.
I was too stunned to do more than stumble out into the hallway as the hospital staff tried desperately to save Stone Shine from whatever catastrophic malady had finally taken hold.
Taxi turned towards the hospital’s exit and started walking.
Grabbing Swift off the cot, I tossed her onto my back and moved into line behind my driver. She didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry, so I just edged up beside her. Alarms were going off at the front of the building, but they seemed mostly centered around the nurse’s monitoring station.
“Sweets, what did you do?” I asked, just loud enough to be heard by her and, I hoped, nopony else.
“What he asked me to,” she answered, curtly.
“I… don’t know anything about your zebra stuff, but that didn’t look like he said ‘please turn off my pain centers’.”
She shook her head and pulled her braid down across her shoulders. She refused to look at me, but resolutely marched in the direction of the sliding doors.
“He… he asked me…" she paused, her eyes clenched tightly shut. “He asked me to… to show him… what a good killer I am.”
****
We made it back to the car with no additional incidents. The guards ignored us as we pulled out of the parking lot, and the first gate slid open without a fuss. If they saw what Taxi did, I hoped they would decide, upon second examination, that Stone Shine had plenty of reasons to be dead. The very last thing we needed was Warden after us for killing one of her inmates.
Swift shifted in her sleep, though I suspected it was now a more natural unconsciousness and less a faint. The hour was very, very late and I was feeling as shagged out as I could ever remember being. Sleep was becoming mandatory.
Still, the facts of what I’d just seen and heard wouldn’t leave me.
She’d killed him, right there in front of me, with her bare hooves. I admit, I might have done the same, but I am not Taxi. Mercy would dictate that, given the chance, you end suffering whenever you can. Stone Shine’s state was nothing if not suffering. By the same token, my friend had never been a killer in my mind. I’ve lived with that moniker since one of my earliest cases forced me to shoot a drug dealer who was half-way to beating one of his clients to death.
Sure, Taxi was physically capable of killing. The time spent with the zebras, plus her police training, not to mention all those weekly martial arts classes, meant she was nothing if not able to kill. It just struck me that, to my knowledge, she’d always held back.
“Sweets… why’d you do it?” I asked, trying to keep my voice down so as not to wake my sleeping partner.
“Why’d I do what, Hardy?”
“You know what.”
“He asked me to.”
“If he’d asked you to jump off a bridge, would you?” I grumbled.
Taxi didn’t even hesitate.
“Very probably.”
That statement sought for some emotion in my brain to latch onto. It didn’t find one. In fact, I was feeling strangely numb.
“Sweets… that is not how you make me feel better. You just murdered a stallion in front of me. Your own father no less. Am I meant to ignore that?”
She shrugged, turning the wheel to follow a tight bend. “You want to arrest me, Hardy? I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I’ll drive us to the Castle, put the cuffs on myself, march into Chief Jade’s office, and sign a full confession.”
I snorted. “Oh, don’t give me that martyr crap. My cutie-mark’s ice cold. I’m a bit confused by that, but it hasn’t been wrong so far and I just need to be clear in my own mind. Why? And none of that ‘because he told me to’ garbage.”
Taxi tapped the brakes, slowing us into a long corner. The blur of trees outside whipped by so quickly it looked like a picket fence. I leaned forward, waiting.
“Chains don’t… come off that easy, Hardy,” she said, after a protracted pause. Her voice was dangerously neutral; like a pony standing on the edge of a rooftop trying to figure out whether or not to take the leap. “I hoped I’d just be able to walk in there, see him dying, and walk out, knowing he couldn’t hurt me anymore. Turns out it’s not that simple.”
“I don’t remember you ever killing somepony before. Sure, you’ve threatened and beaten the sunlight out of enough ponies, but-”
“I’ve killed before, Hardy. I’m not proud of what I had to do, and I’m not going to talk about it. Maybe if you get me in an interrogation room one day, I might, but until then-”
I put my toe on her shoulder, gently. “Sweets, I’m not threatening you and I’m not attacking you. I’m just trying to understand. As your friend. Not a cop.”
“Good luck with that, Hardy. You’re always a cop. Besides… I don’t think I get it, either.” She exhaled and rolled the car’s window down, sticking her hoof out into the air flow. The night was cool, and the wind, refreshing. “If you figure out why I just let that bastard die peacefully instead of giving him a few more months strapped to a bed while his organs try to climb out, would you tell me?”
I slumped and let my eyelids drift closed, still trying to think of something to say when I felt Swift started to stir.
“Mrbledrble…" my partner’s big blue eyes opened slowly and she peered around the inside of the cab. “Did I miss anything?”
“No, kid,” I said, patting her spiky mane.
My little mutant assassin.
I shook my head and tried to smile. “Nothing at all.”
****
“Hardy, I don’t mean to alarm you, but… I think we might be being followed,” Taxi called as we drove back towards the city. We’d just passed the final gate out of Tartarus and were moving at what I’d have called a decent clip and most other ponies would have called a completely insane speed.
I sat up, having dropped off to sleep at some point. I was still knackered. “You sure you’re not just exhausted and maybe a bit paranoid? I know I am…"
“I’ve been getting this worrying tingle that you might need to know something important. I had it before we went to see my Dad and this feels… the same, but different.”
“That’s not terribly descriptive, Sweets…"
“You want descriptive, you try having a talent that mostly works when somepony else needs it to. It could just be that stupid bat-thing from M6, although how he’d be flying over Tartarus I don’t know. Either way, it doesn’t seem especially dangerous. Just strange. I think I lost them awhile back, but I’ve still got that feeling…"
I nestled down into the cushions beside Swift, who was already deep in dreamland. Reaching over, I gently tugged one of her big, fluffy wings away from her side, then pushed my head under it so I didn’t have the cabin’s interior lighting in my eyes. “If that feeling decides to give you any details, lemme know… otherwise, could you wake me up when we hit the Nest? A beanbag chair and a wall socket are sounding fantastic about now.”
“Alright, will do. Thanks for being there for me, tonight. I couldn’t have done all that without you.”
Yawning, I rubbed at a spot on my nose where Saussurea's chains had dug into the flesh. “I’m not sure if that makes me feel any better, but yeah… anytime, Sweets.”
I rolled over and buried my face against my partner’s side. Pegasi make good pillows. Gradually, I let myself relax, sinking down into the comforting darkness as the sound of tires on tarmac lulled me to sleep.
I dreamt of warping flesh, splitting eyes, and drowning in rivers of blood.
Same old, same old.
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..........this does not seem good t ome. they gave him taxi......... what could that possibly mean? and what exactly lead to him murdering her mother.... or perhaps even the question, what was her mother? poor sweets has a complicated life.
...... a weird thought came into my mind when i read that. i thought "Sweets could never bare an element". sweets is strong in her own sort, but she is also far too weak. a bearer of a virture, be it the elements of harmony or some other abstract magic, must be able to balance themselves. to be able to accept, i have this faults and these sins over my head, yet also uphold their virtues as well without them consuming their actions. poor taxi is incapable of diong that. her will is too weak when to comes to her past, as she cannot truly accept who or what she is.
ironically enough i think Hardy might be a bearer of some element. there are other abstract magics than harmony's six. his very mark gives him a mystic instinct to know when wrong has been done. he is able to know when to stay his hand and when to act on this impulse. he is aware of who he is yet it does not stop him or slow him down. Justice....... simple as that, that is his element, and it is probably one of the most difficult to bare.
worse yet that his element can only guide and empower him so much. he has the element but he lacks a medium to help him access the abstract power of it, and likely he never will find it.
jsut realized i sounded like i was putting sweet shine down........... better amend that.
i meant absolutely no offense to her. what she has gone through is beyond anything anyone should endure. to be able to evne act as a functioning being is nothing short of a miracle for her. still there is no denying her past is her weakness. she coulde not find the strength to break her chains, and now she may never break them. the ony being that binds her is gone, yet the shackles remain.
contrasting her to hardy, he is unnatural fortitude. what he has gone through would have broken a normal being, yet he has the fortitude to keep giong no matter the cost to himself. it is a strange, twisted, yet beautiful contrast.
as strong as Taxi's body is, with all her self imposed training and talents, Hardy's will is stronger than even that. i always viewed taxi as the stronger of the two both physically and mentally, yet it has become clear that Hardy has a soul far stronger than Sweet Shine's.
It's rough when you want the characters to succeed, but it seems increasingly unlikely.
4370602 Well, if they all die, then I promise I will at least make sure other characters figure out what's going on.
-Chessie
Well, I don't know what to say to this. I imagine Swift would make a good pillow though.
4370710 Swift is a good pillow, yes...
Honestly, this chapter was weird. Part of me wishes I'd done a re-write, but Kasen managed to salvage the initial train wreck into something decent. If you think it's still not worthy of the series, I can go ahead and probably take this down, spend a few days fixing it, and put it back up.
-Chessie
4370673 i will be honest but i would find that rather dissatisfying if they all just die and fail. it would rather be a slap to the face.......... i know some guys might like endings like that but i always felt that either extremes are easy. it would be easy for them to fial, just make them fial. it would be easy for them to suceed, just make them succeed. but the difficulty lies in what sits between.the balance of tragedy and victory. bittersweet if you will.
they do not need to expose the threat completey, they just need to peal back the deceptions enough for the REgal Sisters, or someone connected to them, to see. once the regal sisters see it they will tear the rest away and expose it, and deal with it with all their influence, power, and resources if the threat is large enough.
they just need to expose enoguh, expose and survive. how the survive is a question that must be answered. the turly best, maybe only, way that can happen is if they have allies. they succeeded with the raid on the drug lab because they had competent allies and were comptetn themselves. they cannot and hsould not do this alone, for that iwll only ensure that death will come.
4370746
I don't think that's necessary. Made sense to me. Things are going somewhere, and they won't spend the whole book falteringly stammering in acute awkwardness, but it's hard to imagine a more appropriate reaction to what they just experienced.
Hmph, Stone Shine. Deus ex icky-a.
4371128
It must be understood, re-writes are AGONY. This chapter...functions. I wanted more, but this chapter was written during one of the most difficult weeks of this year. I had to work six days straight in a job with a long history of causing mental instability.
By the end, I was a wreck. It sorta showed in the writing.
-Chessie
Another great chapter. Love this story, guys.
4371370 Tying up Taxi's life in a neat little bow just...couldn't be done. Granted, I wanted to write Detrot as a place where not everything GETS tied up neatly. It's such a massive, organic world that there's very few 22-minute episodes with a song and a lesson.
Equally, I can promise that the story ITSELF...will get a proper, functional, and above all SATISFYING...ending. I will not leave that hanging.
-Chessie
Stone Shine, how do you even cancer? I do not think that Taxi's and Stone's moment here really counts as closure exactly, but I suppose we do not really need to dwell on Taxi's history for long. Now that I think about it, did Hardy even get any new information from Stone? It is like all that was found out is that whomever is behind all this was trying to breed a living weapon and if Hardy had not interfered then that would have been Taxi. We do not know to what end that would help them reach, and I do not really know what to make of this chapter. Not to say that it is a bad chapter, it is just a transitional one where you could probably skip it and not miss anything.
4371128 part of the reason i am talking about. i would be disastified because death would jut end their experiences, accomplishments, and suffering equally.
Everything about this chapter is so perfectly written
Hold the phone.
Both of them? I know the woman Stone Shine was with when Hardy freed Taxi was a prostitute, but Taxi didn't know that, she only remembered one mother. How could she have two?
4370746 While I agree that the chapter was not as good as it could have been, I don't think it needs a rewrite. It did a very good job of seeming like a normal interview while mostly ignoring the pure horror that is Stone's body. Whether through willpower or jadedness or the hazy lens of memory, that's what Hardy and Taxi were doing, and it worked out, especially since the horror of his condition wasn't really important to the chapter or story at large. Having the Scholar mention it at the start, plus the small details throughout the chapter, was probably just enough context to be necessary. (Organ alphabetization, though...
)
4371431 here is a question though. if you have created a world that such things a less common, then how did the mane six succeed? true you hinted that detrot is a hellhole like no other, and something is intentionally making it worse, yet if this is a world where beigns ar emore likely to kill one another, then that means the events in the past have to be similarly escalated.
so does that mean the mane six are badasses to be able to succeed?
Because the powers that be demand some sort of "closure" in the story.
Didn't work out, tohugh. Answers were given, but there are, as shown by Sweets' conversation with Hardy, so many new questions still left unanswered.
I find it interesting that Stone was planning that far ahead. He's still a complete monster though, regardless if all he did was to "prepare" Sweets and make her "strong".
And speaking of powers, I find it very unsettling that the great unnamed foe out there knows most of what Hardy and Co. are up to.
*squee*
*not squee*
4371431 actually with the song thing i heard of a term caleld non diagetic or something. it means that things like songs nad pinkie pie raping the fourth wall are things for the audience and not necessarily the characters in the show. them breaking out into song is for us, while outside of the lense of television they would be having a conversation.
with things tying up nicely, it depends on interpretation. i am working on a story and have it that something that occur i nthe show are a few shades more..... aggressive. not enormously so but sitll darker. because i am creating a world where more aggressive things are possible ti makes no sense that the events of the past have not been potentially more dangerous as well.
cause it kinda does not make much sense that greater danger only occurs at the point where i am writing the story and not before.
4373135 I'm curious, L.O.M. Do you write on a tablet or phone? You've got lots of typos and limited punctuation, but you don't sound stupid. It's messing with my mind.
-Chessie
4373266 be honest i am just damn lazy when writing comments, at least in terms of punctuation and such over the actual thought going through my head. when writing a story or a Blog, something a bit higher on the scale of importance, i keep check on the grammar. just never bother with comments cause they are, well, comments.
a lot of guys seem to think just because the grammar is bad that means the points expressed are meaningless though. like them saying my grammar in comments, kinda lacking the significance of Blogs or actual Stories, makes my opinion on their characterization being non existent meaningless or untrue.
it does not help that i have a tendency or rewriting my comments over, and over, and over again just to make sure i do not end up sounding like an ass or not portraying my thoughts correctly, though grammar is still abandoned like a baby in a basket set before an orphanage.
4370673 No killing Hardy and Swift and Taxi!!! ... Everyone else is negotiable.
4371128 On the contrary - he told them how it works, but not why, because he doesn't know why. But knowing how it works could help him out. Especially if he can get some prison uniforms on the bad guys, and give them a taste of their own medicine.
Oh geez, that's hilarious.
D'awwww.
Taxi's biological mother was mentioned in chapter 48. Some poor dead girl who fell in love with the wrong stallion. Our...erm...our 'They' gave Taxi to Stone Shine as payment for letting them modify him, physically, to kill for them. They basically set the two of them up (Stone and Taxi's mother). Taxi's mother was killed when she'd produced a child. Taxi watched her killed, so her memories were stripped. I suppose that might have been clearer.
-Chessie
4370746 Oh no, I didn't mean the chapter was bad, it just left me kinda speechless. I think the chapter gets done what it needs to get done. I'm fine with it.
And what Rainbow Dash would have called "Are we there yet?"
4371370
I've found some tips for making an epub, if that helps.
Sweet new chapter!
Can't wait for the next one!
4387875 I wish I could compile all of your posts into a single page of comments that would just express the awesomeness that is Sigawesome.
-Chessie
4392496 I am curious about what your response to Saussurea will be.
-Chessie
4393103
I am also curious about Saussurea as well after seeing her fan-art on your blog post. I take it Hardy was not practising a manacle-based relaxation and meditation technique suggested to him by Taxi?
4402531 Goofy as it might sound, we've never actually intended to write Starlight as 'alternate universe'. It's followed Friendship is Magic as much as possible. It suggests, in general, that the Mane 6 wandered around Equestria a bit after the end of the show. Some of them had friends, families, and histories all over the place.
Fluttershy, at some point, had children. Pinkie Pie ran a series of ice cream factories. Twilight invented some of the most influential magics of the time.
Kasen and I stayed away from the show characters except as oblique references, largely because we wanted this to be about OUR characters. Honestly, given a second chance, I might have written this bunch as people and tried to publish. It...would have been MUCH shorter or several books...but still.
-Chessie
4402686
Yeah. I think I misphrased my previous comment. Looking back, I agree "Alternate Universe" does not fit at all. It certainly does not do justice to all the "future history" details you and Kasen included. Parallel universe does seem to work either since it implies there is no connection to the "present" FIM universe. Tangential universe perhaps? It certainly is a darker and more mature universe, but it still has its foundation set solidly in the themes and tropes from the episodes. Which is what makes it all the more amusing (to me at least
) when you explore those tropes and themes to their logical ends.
4405663 Taxi was quite the difficult character to get right, particularly in light of her special talent. Much of Detrot's appeal is in the simultaneous potential and tragedy of the entire thing. So many ponies could have done better, been better, and lived happier lives if they'd just gone someplace else.
It was that one, single decision which kneecapped them.
Taxi's relationship with Hardy is...well, let's just be honest, it's unhealthily codependent. Every time she's been on her own, she fucks things up, so when she's with him she feels like she has some margin of real control of herself. Hardy may just need her to be a functional pony, because he's frequently not.
It's weird writing characters you don't really like, or that aren't especially good people. Hardy's a drunk, emotionally crippled, socially awkward thug with only a little bit more brains than average and his driver's a violent, hypocritical, hyper-sexual deviant clinging to his coat-tails so she doesn't self destruct.
Equally, they're the good guys. The bad guys are so so so much worse.
A not small part of the story, to date, has been rebuilding these characters from the absolutely wretched place they were in when the story started.
-Chessie
4413325
No, but I'm ashamed to say what's actually going on might be little weirder than that.
It's because Kasen is an American editor and I spend my spare time watching European films, British television, and reading books by British authors. The language is a bit inconsistent in places because of it.
You wouldn't think living a life so deeply integrated with the internet could cause something like that, but...well, it does.
-Chessie
4405758 would give hardy a bit more credit in the intelligence thing. he isn't a genius but he is still intelligent. at least intelligent enough than even limy finds him a bit unnerving to deal with.
still, being the good guy is not what you are, is what you do. they are both hot messes in their own rights but the difference is that they seek to do good. one could be someone with grand intentions and a desire to rebuild what has been destroyed, but ultimately is the villain because his intentions will cause harm.
they are hurt and damaged in many a way, mentally, emotionally, physically, but they have the will to do good no matter what instead of inflicting similar harm upon others. they could have too, in fact had pandora's box in the shape of a book. but they chose not too because they are not so broken as to let themselves fall into that mindset. they may have tried to harm themselves more than once, but they are not trying to destroy others.
guess one could say it takes a greater strength altogether to still seek to do good with all they have been through.
Swift confirmed for pillow status.
4405758
I like them
And one of them only had to die once.
Worth.
According to Wikipedia almighty, orthos is also a genus of little butterfly. I tremble to think what had to go wrong if "savaged by butterfly" ended up on your Emergency Services report...
The rise of changeling organlegging by zebra syndicates combined with Equestria's high background thaumaturgical radiation have create a new class of horrific (if you are a normal, well adjusted pony) or darkly humorous (if you are not) medical emergencies: organ sapience. The aforementioned "heart attack" is the ur example, but many other cases have been recorded by Canterlot medical researchers in their yearly publication Closed Casket Compendium: An Omnibus of All the Horrible Ways You Can Die". For some reason unknown to researchers, the effect is most pronounced in the GI tract.
Ms. Doughnut Steel earned her place in the CCC when her duodenum, already a well-read legal scholar, claimed to have found a legal loop-hole in the Equestrian Constitution and promptly declared independence, claiming the title of "Generalissimo Hubert Cumberdale" and forming the sovereign state of Intestinum Duodenum. In a press release, Cumberdale promised an "eternal guerilla conflict against the despotic Celestia and her illegal junta". Fortunately the Equestrian Civil Service were able to negotiate a peaceful reintegration of Intestinum Duodenum back into Equestria (and Ms. Steel's body) through a month of legal negotiation and the procurement of 2 cherry ice cream sandwiches.
Mr. Tutti Frutti caused a sensation when his lower intestine crawled its way out of him in the midst of a radio interview to pursue a career as an operatic singer by singing a tear-jerking rendition of "This Day Aria" followed shortly by "Winter Wrap-up" and "The Smile Song". Mr. Frutti was hit with an expensive emergency prolapse surgery. innumerable calls from scouting agencies, and a 17,000 bit fine for "the broadcast of copyrighted works without a public broadcast licence".
As a result, many ponies panic when they feel heartburn or a twinge in their lower GI tract after a particularly hearty and spicy meal. Do they drink a slug of milk of magnesia? Do they call their solicitor? Or visit a talent agent?
I wonder if Stone Shine is Sicilian?
4376172
Ta for the link!
Act 2, Chapter 27: "Sweet Shine, My Only Sweet Shine"- My only sweet shine, you make me happy when skis are gray
All them Wishes. Sounds like the mob but this is beyond that.
Ok. So I'm drawing a thing (It may never see the light of day as I am nowhere close to being an artist. But its always good to practice) And I was wondering if you could give me a description of filly shine to work with.
Mane style/color, coat color; things like that.
I know I could just skim around but its better to just have info in one place.
How many episodes of Law&Order did you guys watch to WRITE THIS~!? ... I now feel like I need a few beers and to play an FPS to work out the akward and unpleasant feelings reading this stuff about sweetshine was giving me... But I am glad you didnt exactly go the path I was thinking.. I was honestly thinking sexual abuse (yeck) NOT that he was literally trying to pull a Ras al ghual and turn taxi into an assassin.
And that gives "I can kill you with my brain," a whole new terrifying dimension.
You know, I take it back. Murphy and Dresden are friends a lot like Taxi and Hardy are, but on a different scale. Dresden and Murphey have seen some shit, and both of them have issues, but Taxi and Hardy are on an entirely different spectrum.
a redeeming quality
I'm not going to forgive him of all the abuse
But damn if he didn't make the right call when it mattered
This is the second time I have caught you using one instead of pony
10387409
There's a reason behind that. The ponies are the only species that put "pony" in everything. The Doc is a donkey. Therefore, he doesn't put "pony" in everything he does.
I remember that the first time I read this chapter, in conjunction with the previous three or four, I was deeply disturbed by the content. Later on, when I got to the final chapters of the story, these ones remained the most poignant, most distressing, and most, for lack of a better term, edgy.
It is both a testament to the material that even during this reread, these chapters remain as horrific as ever, but also a bit of a detriment, that the disturbing aspects of this arc are the most disturbing of the story as a whole. Of course, I may be misremembering.
Yeah.... her dad was a piece of work and yet.... the really, really scary part of all this is, he is far from the worst we are going to see, and his former bosses terrified him enough he felt he had to go all Cassandra Cain on his daughter just so she could stand a chance of surviving what they have planned...
Okay, I'll give Dresden this over this setting, there, magic is both far more dangerous, and yet no where near as terrifying. Any sort of 'magical incident' of the kind this opening talks about only has two real ways of playing out for Dresden. Either minor enough to end up being a funny story you tell to embarrass someone while drinking with some buddies and all of you, including the victim, can laugh at once the injuries heal up. (Such as the stories of Harry's attempts to create a flying carpet) Or you're dead.
Yeah.... Pegasus Nap Time is both very cute, and saving Swift from some stuff she really does not need to deal with.
Yeah, this is going to be about that whole incident that made her leave the force. Still not sure what went on there. Best I can put together from the pieces is that she was undercover, something happened that burned her cover, or the cover of her partner, said partner and the pony they were undercover trying to get dirt on ended up dead, and somewhere along the line the "Magical artifact disposal" branch of DCPD got a bad call about something that needed blowing up being in a drug lab that really, really did not like being blown up.
Yeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh... and I don't really think he meant her to be one The Powers That Scheme's assassins. Everything here is implying he just knew how fucked up things would be if/when his bosses succeeded and wanted her ready to deal with that shit show of a world.
Yeah......they do not like leaving lose ends, and why cause the issue of a dead body when you can just make sure that pony doesn't remember anything that could be used against you? And given the previous entry about just how damn hard it is to mess with memories and leave the subject able to function at all.... the skill they have with this and the scale they employ it at is kind of terrifying about what power level we are dealing with. Also makes the whole, modifying Sweet's memories as a foal come into a whole new context, not just about serving his cover, but already hiding details TPTS didn't want even a young filly that could never understand what was going on to have.
And he was their alpha prototype for what ended up as the... whatever it is, that they did to Swift....
So, 1. This is not good news given, you know, Gale. 2. So, his modifications were being kept stable and under control by active magical forces holding the various genome changes and body alterations in place and doing only what they were meant to, but the loss of magic from being in Supermax destabilized those spells and so everything went nuts?
....... Ruby's cutie mark alteration.
That said, gotta say I do very much appreciate the dramatic irony here. The current biggest thorn in The Powers That Scheme's side, and the cause of their eventual downfall (Yeah, this story is dark, but still Pony and for all the horrors you toss at things, it ain't gonna end with the bad guys winning. This story is dark, not grimdark.) only ended up becoming involved because of the actions of Ruby, and she only got involved enough in their plans to throw in that Hard Boiled shaped wrench to things (as well as whatever it was she hid before that) because her life got ruined by the Jewelers that TPTS created and turned into the brutes that would be that kind of threat she'd need to hide from.
Yikes......... just.. yikes.... yeah Taxi.... has some issues and, let's just be glad for Detrot that these two emotional basket cases have each other and are able to codependently keep each other functional enough to be a threat to TPTS...
D'awwwwwwwww but we also need to be glad Swift is around and being adorable!
Damn that was.... very disturbing but also some wonderful hints of just how huge this is.
11433905
There is a sense of 'vastness' to this I guess. I never really contemplated as I was writing how that came through. I was just pushing the characters from one event to the next.
- Chessie
It almost tastes like love if you squint.