Chapter 8: Morgue Party
Chapter 8 : Morgue Party
Ponies are, historically, herbivores. While there have been some disturbing and situational cases where this was not adhered to with zealous vigilance, it's considered an aberration of their evolutionary biology for them to slice into meat.
Over the last six decades with the rising murder rates, drug overdoses, and spontaneous combustions, it's become necessary for some individuals to overcome the reflexive distaste most ponies have for opening layers of dead flesh. The Office of the Coroner had, therefore, become a sort of necessary evil. This is in stark contrast to the greatest griffin coroners, who've occasionally been known to invoke a ritual upon the completion of an autopsy that roughly translates to 'Left Overs.'
Nothing stated here should indicate that good ponies are squeamish about dispensing justice as appropriate. Indeed, many with the appropriate special talents were perhaps too territorial. Even within the various arms of the law, specific departments like Equicide and Organized Crime operated separately from one another. Specialized external bureaus such as the Sentient Construct Liaison (Sometimes bastardized as S.C. or Essy Office) were often charged with more specific tasks; in their case, making sure magically constructed intelligent beings stay in line.
All of these offices were more than happy to jump into a six-way jurisdictional clusterbuck at the drop of a hoof, except with regards to the actual handling of corpses. It's just not a thing most ponies want to do.
The Office of the Coroner, therefore, retained a unique position amongst Detrot's civic bureaucracy, and was afforded quite a bit of leeway for being willing to do what nopony else would. This leeway was a very fortunate thing, because it takes a very special kind of pony to slice into his or her own kind for evidence - and the word 'Special' is a fine gloss that does not even begin to do justice to that particular breed.
--The Scholar
Tap tap tap.
I was dead and in the Ever After. It was a nice place with a wonderful fluffy couch. There were no mobsters trying to destroy suburbs, no sea-serpents, and no unpleasant sensation of my tummy trying to furiously eject all of its contents in a putrid slushy waterfall.
Then came the tapping. The infernal tapping.
Tap tap tap.
My mouth tasted of things best not described. I tried to remember how many beers I’d had. The count on my coffee table was six, but who knew where others might be hiding. They were crafty things, those beers.
With a monumental effort, I eased one eye open and took stock of my body. It wasn’t the best inventory ever taken, nor by the most competent individual, but most of the pieces seemed to be there; four hooves, four legs, head... aw, clouds and sky, head. I’d slept on my side with my cheek on my gun.
Sliding off the couch I made straight for the toilet but stopped halfway there, feeling certain there was something I’d forgotten. My hat. I didn’t take off my hat before laying down. I must have been more tired than I thought.
Tap tap tap.
A large chicken that’d been doused in kerosene and set on fire was flapping around outside my window, rapping against the glass. Or at least, something that looked like one. My blurry vision was inadequate to the task of identifying it, so I decided taking a piss would have to come first and I’d worry later about the mad visions of my new partner knocking on my-
Luna strike me with the moon. Right here, right now.
Swift hung there outside the window, covering her eyes with one leg as she tried to see into the dusty apartment and catch a glimpse of my ruined person. I considered leaving her out there. It was tempting. I thought about shooting at her. Very tempting. In the end, though, I moved over and forcefully shoved the window open.
“Good morning, Sir! I brought bagels!”
Oh, blessed little fuzzy orange angel of kindness!
My partner was back in a freshly pressed uniform, over which she’d laid a combat jacket; She still looked more like she was expecting to quell a riot rather than investigate a murder. Masamane looked like Swift had spent the night spit-shining it to a mirror finish. She pulled a slightly rumpled paper bag from under one leg and thrust it through the window at me. Onion and garlic scented steam still curled from the top. This caused a dilemma; my bowels were shrieking for immediate attention but... bagels!
Eventually, the need to use the crapper won out. Sweeping a few old case-files off the ottoman I pointed at a spot for her to sit.
“Give me ten minutes and keep the bag closed so they don’t get cold!” I ordered.
Once in the bathroom I shut the door and had sweet release. I think I dented the toilet. Hops and barley doth not the kindest morning make.
One look at myself in the mirror convinced me a shower couldn’t wait another day. I’d been merely wretched the day before, but I was now a genuine threat to public hygiene. Stepping into the shower stall, I remembered too late I was still wearing my hat.
****
It was more like twenty minutes when I stepped out, rubbing my mane with a towel that could approximate clean if one were to look at it from a distance. Tooth brushing, a bit of personal care, and some quick drags of a brush through my mane and l felt immeasurably better. No hangover for once, or at least, not that pulse pounding variety with the overwhelming nausea.
Back in the living room, Swift had cream cheese on her nose and was absorbed in a trashy novel. She raised her head as I came in. “Wow, you look better... um... sir. Taxi said I should fly by and get some bagels from the place down on Ninth street.” I was so hungry by then, I barely noticed her otherwise irritating insistence on ‘sir.’ She'd just have to get over that in her own time.
“Food. Now.”
She passed me the bag and I tore into it with the viciousness of a tiger. It was a gruesome sight. They were the chewy, slightly sweet variety with bits of diced onion. My favorite.
“Mmm... thanks, kid. Where is Taxi? Why isn’t she up here?” I asked, flicking crumbs off my chest as I finished off a second helping of tasty bread.
“Well, she went by the records office, and now she’s downstairs sitting on the car. She said something about ‘toxic environmental hazards.’” Swift replied, reaching into her vest and pulling out something brown from a tiny bag. She bit off a piece of it and chewed, letting out a noise like a purring cat.
“Is... uh... that-” I tried to formulate the words; they were simple words made difficult only by the fact that they were components of a question I didn’t really want to ask. “-meat?”
Realizing what she’d just done, she hastily pushed the baggie back into her flak jacket’s pocket. “Um... yes... Sir, I found this really neat griffin store near my house and it was so good I wanted to try some different kinds and they promised me it wasn’t anything thinking because I didn’t want to upset Taxi and I was really nervous so the shopkeeper gave me a sample-”
Dammit Sykes.
I stemmed the flood of words by putting a hoof on her chest. “Alright, alright, kid. I don’t want to know.”
“But sir-”
“I really don’t want to know. What you eat is your business. I’d just appreciate it if you didn’t do it in front of Taxi, or we’re both going to end up enduring a long lecture series on predators and karmic retribution.”
“Yes, sir...”
We ate in an easy quiet, me mechanically devouring and Swift with her nose buried in her novel.
I felt suddenly and quite unaccountably guilty for having her in my apartment in that condition. She didn’t seem much bothered by the clutter, though, so I did my best to let it go.
Juniper was a neat freak. Back in the day I’d kept the place in a semi-livable state for him. Many nights when we were in the depths of a case we’d found ourselves too tired to go on and had fallen where we stood, ending up piled together on my bed or the couch. Waking up together was always a joy and we’d spend our mornings... doing much the same thing as the tiny pegasus and I were then.
A pinch of guilty betrayal quivered in my intestines. A bag of bagels? Was the price of my partner’s memory so low? I wished he were there to help me sort out this pile of manure. Taxi might make a great part-time therapist, but there are some places neither of us had ever been willing to let the other touch.
Ugh, chaos potentially reigning in the streets, and I’m getting self-piteous over bagels, I thought, kicking myself in the mental hind end.
Swift caught my frown. “Sir? Is something wrong?”
I covered it with a grin. “Nope. You did good, kid. Best thing for the cop mind is a cop breakfast.”
****
A half hour later, with breakfast concluded and the day officially begun, we climbed into the car and took off in the direction of the city morgue. The weather was fair for once, and I found myself humming something my mother used to sing me - and sometimes Sweet Shine when she was over - before sleep. Dad would stand in the doorway as she knelt beside the bed with a funny, almost sad expression, but to me, it was a song of comfort.
My driver was not comforted. She seemed unusually flustered; She kept checking the clock on the dashboard then putting her hoof on a stack of documents on the passenger seat like she was making sure they were still there.
“Sweets, quit looking like you stole something. You’re making me jumpy.” I said.
“Technically, I think I might get a plea deal for ‘felony borrowing.’ Telly snuck these to me on the sole condition I get them back to her before midday, so do your reading now because if they aren’t back then, Organized Crime is going to have a jurisdictional aneurysm,” she answered, steering with her teeth as she grabbed the files and tossed them into the backseat with me.
“Midday? You aren’t coming with us to visit your Favorite Colt in the Whole World?” I said, smirking at the back of her head as I gathered the papers up in my hooves and began leafing through them.
“I don’t need that ridiculous stallion giving me a headache this morning.” Taxi replied curtly.
Swift nosed in her direction and mouthed the words ‘Favorite colt?’ at me.
I conspiratorially leaned over and said in a voice just loud enough for Taxi to hear, “Oh, my dear Miss Taxi here has a love affair with Mister Slip Stitch, the city coroner.”
The cabbie savagely tore the car around a corner so fast my head slammed against the window. Spots danced in front of my eyes. Somehow Swift had kept her spot, leaning into the rocking of the vehicle almost unconsciously now that she’d gotten used to the constant motion. She was even still noshing on a piece of that unidentifiable jerkied flesh and listening intently.
“Mister Hardy had better watch himself unless he wants a quick trip to Unconscious Land where the Headache Fairies roam.” Taxi warned, pulling us back into our lane. “That pony is out of mind and needs his bloody brain examined. I’d suggest it to him but he’d probably just ask me to hold a lamp and a mirror so he could do it himself. He has no respect for the dead.”
I rubbed the fresh bump on my noggin. “Slip Stitch has immense respect for the dead! Enthusiasm, even. He just has... an... odd way of looking at death that can be a little... off-putting.”
“Off-putting? Off-putting?! The last time I was there he gave me ice cream that’d been cooling in somepony’s chest cavity!” Taxi yowled, bouncing us up on the curb and nearly ending a newspaper vendor.
I snickered at Taxi and replied, “Yeah, but it was the best ice cream you’d ever had and you know it!” I turned back to Swift. “Anyway, Slip Stitch handles Detrot and most all of the surrounding countryside. Best coroner around. You’ll see when you meet him.”
I’d neglected to mention that Slip Stitch was the only coroner in the entire region. That might seem a bit odd considering the high death toll inherent in living on one of the Equestrian borderlands, but then, nopony I knew had actually seen him sleep.
Pawing through the short stack of case files I noticed something. Or rather, a distinct lack of something. “There’s nothing on Azure Rose in here. Didn’t you call records?” I asked.
“I did.” She answered, sounding irritated. “I called records, the tax office, and even the Department of Magical Vehicles. They’ve got nothing on that name, her cutie-mark, or her colors. Did you know you’re part of the second smallest minority in Equestria? Ponies with grey pelts are almost as rare as alicorns.”
“I did not, in fact, know that. Lets see this ‘King Cosmo’ fella...”
The file was old and weathered with a coffee stain on it. A single ancient, yellowed mug-shot showed a hulking earth stallion with a serious expression. The colors were so washed out, his original shade was indistinguishable. A separate photo of his cutie-mark was included; It looked like a wooden hammer or maul of some kind.
“I thought he’d never been busted for anything?” I asked. “Why do we have a mug shot?”
“Oh, he’s been arrested. We never got a conviction.” Taxi affirmed. “That’s the only photo we’ve got and it’s about fifteen years old.”
King Cosmo’s criminal history was extensive, but not one iota of it was confirmed by anything but speculation and circumstantial evidence. Investigations had been run on Cosmo since he was in his teens for everything from racketeering to drug trafficking to conspiracy to commit murder and nothing, not one single thing, had stuck.
Cosmo’s rise to power in the Lo Zoccolo Rosso crime family was barely documented, but seemed to indicate he’d possibly had something to do with the mysterious death of the former leader. He operated largely as a legitimate businesspony, owning several cafes and restaurants including, I was surprised to discover, one of my favorite bars.
His father was serving a many year sentence in Tartarus Correctional Facility for apparently murdering Cosmo’s mother during a domestic dispute. I noticed a scribble in Telly’s horn-writing that said ‘Possible sibling?’ then a psychological profile. Stubborn, pragmatic, issues related to family. Sounded familiar.
“What is this about a sibling?” I asked, holding up the sheet so Taxi could see it in the rear-view mirror.
“His brother apparently died of ‘shock’ or something when their mother was killed. Cosmo spent some time in an orphanage before joining the Red Hoof as a runner and worked his way up from there. Now he runs them. Not directly of course and not provably. Kinda impressive how thorough this guy is.”
Rolling down the window to get some fresh air I plucked out a thick sheaf of information labeled ‘Red Hoof’ which seemed to mostly consist of busts on their members. Careful group. Few convictions.
Taxi saw the paper I was studying and said, “He’s the one who made Lo Zoccolo Rosso a drug family. Fired all the unicorns and added drug distribution. They think he’s making his own but nopony can prove it. He’s got some very expensive magical protection on his place. What little monitoring they’ve been able to pull off gives no indication the Red Hoof is into smuggling, so Organized Crime is assuming there’s a factory somewhere.”
I turned a page and came to the ‘conjectures.’ This is a sheet of information that goes into every case that is mostly just a list of thoughts cops have about the individual or event. It’s often the most useful thing in any file, and for police work is utterly essential. The first few lines were simple connections and inferences. His brother’s death apparently related in some way to why he didn’t like unicorns. Below that was a raft of disparate bits of consideration and a dozen numbers listed as references.
“What are these?” I asked, raising them so she could see.
“As far as I can tell from the few I could find, those are hospital cases in which the victim was a unicorn who lost their horn.”
Swift made an ‘ick’ face as she opened one of the hospital files. There was a picture there of a very young stallion with soft eyes and a stunned expression. A bandage was wrapped around his head, jutting out from the jagged remains of his broken horn.
“Ugh, how could anypony do that?” She asked.
I pointed at the cover of her book, which had a picture of a mare covered from head to hoof in blood wielding an axe in her teeth.
“You read those garbage novels about villains doing unspeakable things and this surprises you?” I asked, incredulous.
When she replied, I had to lean closer to hear her. “That’s fiction. This just feels so wrong...”
“Well, yeah. We’re dealing with assault and murder here. What the hay were you expecting?”
The pegasus raised her right wing and gave it a flap, stirring a gust that knocked me half onto one ear in the unstable twisting of the speeding cab. “I... don’t know, sir. I read case histories in training. They never felt like this. I knew it would be like this when I started, but it still felt like I was reading a bunch of... stories.”
A worry burgeoned in the back of my mind as I realized an unpleasant subtext to what Swift was saying; she’d drawn a line in the dirt between what she read and what she saw. Things she read weren’t real. All of them. That was a scary thought.
It was scary because cautious investigation is learned most safely from the mistakes of other ponies, and you have to take those mistakes seriously if you want to learn anything from them. Case files are, if anything, a history of the mistakes cops make in getting to the truth.
The job of turning her into a useful enforcer of the law was getting more interesting day by day.
****
Most ponies think of the city morgue as a place to tuck away the dead out of sight and out of mind. There are few gleeful thoughts associated with a place whose sole purpose is to process bodies. Our city's idiosyncratic chief pathologist was loudly and proudly not ‘most ponies.’
In the early days of Detrot up to the end of the Crusades, the morgue had once been a confection and pâtisserie factory. It was a relic of that era of hypervigilant construction, and thus was built according to the codes of the time which dictated function over form.
Whatever mad bastard designed it had gone one step farther. While there were attempts in the past to demolish it as the need for fresh room to build became more pressing, nopony had succeeded; short of calling in the Princesses themselves, it was doubtful any being alive ever would. The enchanted concrete had resisted all comers. For ten years City Hall maintained a bounty on the building’s annihilation, but at last, it was declared a historical site, and the freezers and fridges turned into the city morgue.
Only the original designer could say for certain, in the recesses of his or her possessed and heavily sugared mind, why the building had needed to be so durable. Why would a bakery ever need to survive a dragon attack?
****
The drive was through one of the oldest parts of the city, dating back to around Luna’s return. Structures became more squat and boxy with fewer bits of unnecessary flash. We passed over more ‘historic’ cobblestone streets and through very narrow alleys where the the shops crowded in on either side. Arrow slits, pegasi landing strips, and archaic unicorn defense platforms still decorated the walls and roofs.
All at once, the buildings seemed to stop dead at some architect’s secret line in the dirt, as though ashamed to be seen too close to the monstrosity which lorded over a parking lot that might as well be registered with its own postal code.
The morgue looked like nothing so much as an upturned lump of ice-cream laying on the tarmac, having been spilt by a titanic foal who’d presumably gone and wept to his mother until she bought him a second scoop. The dome was ferociously, viciously, ecstatically pink. Protuberances presumably made to look like chocolate chips jutted out randomly from its surface. The only structure that might have rivaled it as a stronghold was The Castle itself.
A sign over the entrance declared the building to be the ‘Detrot City Legendary Confectionery Celebratory Cemetery Preparatory!’ in twenty hoof-tall letters painted in all the colors of the rainbow.
A smaller, magically lit sign hung underneath, flashing on and off: ‘Ice Cream Factory Tours Every Other Day!’ and under that: ‘Magical Mystery Morgue Tours! Weekends Only! Bring The Whole Family!’
****
Taxi’s shoulders hunched higher and higher the closer we go to the dome. Her mouth was twisted into an expression so sour, it was as though she’d been sucking on raw sewage.
Pulling into a parking spot across from the door, which was done up to look like the mouth of a smiling pink pony, she yanked the parking brake so hard I thought it might come off. All mocking aside, I was reasonably sure she’d find a way to beat me to death with my own spine if I gave her any more shit about coming with us.
Swift hopped out of the window and nibbled on her pinions until they were in order then sat expectantly while I heaved myself out the other side. Taxi hit a button on the dash and the window rolled itself down.
“Hardy, I... would you... would you bring me his report? Please?” She asked, her eyes pleading.
“Sure, Sweets.” I replied, tousling her motley mane. Her eyes filled with relief. “But you owe me some backup the next time I’m conducting an interview. I’ll want your full perceptions. Got me?”
Her eyes narrowed in frustration as she warred with her own curiosity, but she soon gave me a quick nod. As I was pulling my leg back, she poked me below the knee which sent tingling agony right through my toe. I danced back from the car, kicking my hoof as I tried to get feeling back. It was a worthwhile reminder of who could cripple who if I pushed too far.
As if to drive home the point, she gunned the engine, blasting hot sparks all over my fetlocks; then she was gone. I smiled to myself and headed towards the morgue’s front doors, entering the Lair of Slip Stitch.
****
Swift pushed open the door in front of me, then stopped so fast I almost ran into her rear end. I peered around her, then let out a noise halfway between a laugh and a groan.
We’d come in on the remains of one of Stitch’s famed ‘Morgue mixers.’ They were rather sparsely attended by the government officials and celebrities he had a tendency to send invitations to, but that never seemed to much bother him.
The lobby looked like that of a doctor’s office, albeit one after a party hosted there by drunk twelve-year-olds. Limp streamers and glitter spilled over every inch, swirling in the breeze coming in with us. My nose wrinkled at the cloying smell of slightly stale cake frosting. There are so many worse things this room could have smelled like, however, so I considered myself grateful.
A mess of rumpled viridian colt wearing a frat-house t-shirt snored on one of the plastic couches, an empty bottle clutched in each foreleg. Swift started to shake him, but I tapped her side and shook my head. “You think we’re going to get anything out of him? Come on.”
Swift moved along the wall, examining the dozens of black and white pictures of famous ponies, standing right there in the very place my partner was, in poses they’d each made famous. They all had one distinguishing feature in common, aside their fame: They were all dead.
I stepped over a stack of party hats and banged on the metal grate over the reception desk. There was no answer. The button which normally said ‘Call’ had the words ‘Press Me For A Party’ scrawled over it in crayon.
Before I could stop her, my partner had pressed it. I hopped back as a blast of balloons and confetti fell from the ceiling followed by a short tune from a kazoo band that rang through the entire building. She was plastered from nose to tailtip in bits of paper shrapnel, standing there quivering with wide eyes.
“Kid, we’re going to have at talk at some point about buttons. Generally if they say ‘Press me’ you shouldn’t press them. The same thing applies to big, red, and shiny. In fact, why don’t you just ask me before you push any buttons at all?”
Swift’s ears turned red and she began trying to comb her feathers clean again.
The speaker on the wall buzzed and popped, then a shy, feminine voice said, “Hello?”
I pressed the talk button. Thankfully, there wasn’t a second load in the miniature party blaster. “Hey, Thalassemia, we’re here to see Stitch. You wanna let us in?”
“D-d-detective H-hardy? Oh, um... sure! C-come right down!” The voice’s stutter made her a little hard to understand, but she’d perked right up when she realized who it was. A buzzer sounded and the elevator, which had been disguised by an elaborate painting of a green alligator in a party hat, opened.
I yanked Swift back a second before she stepped into the lift. Strolling over to the unconscious pony on the sofa I tugged one of his bottles away from him and tossed it into the tiny box. A second explosion sprayed the interior with more multi-colored bits of paper.
“You’ve really got to be careful going into unknown territory.” I said. “Even the best officer with a gun can easily get herself turned into a fine goo by a stupid trap a foal could set.”
Swift kicked at a heap of confetti and said huffily, “I didn’t expect to have to use storming tactics going to a public office, sir!”
“This is Detrot, kid. We’re the police. We handle all the insanity that doesn’t come with body-length sharp teeth. Other ponies can afford to be a little complacent, but that doesn’t mean you can be. Take for granted, no matter where you are, that you’re in some brand of danger.”
I went in ahead of her and the doors of the elevator shut. The descent was slow, and the box shook, rattled, and creaked on its ropes.
Swift fished around in her vest, pulled out something small and green, and popped it into her lips. A spicy, sweet scent filled the space.
“What’s that?” I asked.
She stuck her tongue out, briefly displaying the lozenge. “It’s ginger candy, sir. My mom used to give them to me when I got airsick.”
“Airsick? I didn’t even know pegasi got airsick.”
Pulling out another piece she flipped it to me. “Well... I got over that years ago, but I figured they’d work for my other problem...” Corpses. Right.
All the bagels on top of the beer had produced a slightly upset gurgle in my belly, so I popped the candy into my mouth. It was surprisingly tart, and it only took a few seconds of sucking on it before I felt my stomach begin to settle.
“Huh, that’s amazing. Thanks.”
We’d been descending for a long time but then, no surprise, it was a very long way down. The sub-basements of most old structures contained a bunker of some description. As per the rest of the building, the creator had decided to take that idea one step farther.
Something niggled at the back of my mind. A piece of essential information was missing from this picture. I patted my jacket, making sure all of the things were in place. I checked my gun. I looked at Swift. Ahhh...
“Minor warning about something you might see-...” I started.
“I think I’ll be okay today. Yesterday was just a bad day.” She interrupted, giving me a confident grin.
“No, this is something else you really need to know-”
“I’ll be fine, sir.”
As I was about to insist, the door dinged and Swift stepped out - straight into the paws of a pony-sized hamster in a lab-coat. Everything seemed to freeze for a moment as she found herself nose to whiskers with the massive rodent.
They both let out a collective squeal of alarm as pegasus fell one direction and the hamster, who was only slightly larger than she was, sprawled in the other. There was a scrabble of claws and hooves on the polished floors as they tried to right themselves.
The hamster managed to get up first, running behind a water-cooler and peeking out fearfully. My partner was kicking her rear leg again and again, trying to get her gun to load, not realizing the strap had slipped off when she fell. I grabbed her tail in my teeth and dragged her back into the elevator, putting a hoof on her trigger’s strap so it was forced out of her muzzle.
“Kid! Come on, stop! What’s wrong with you?!”
Her bright blue-green eyes were a little wild as she shrieked: “They’ve drugged me! They’ve drugged me! I’m seeing things!” She struggled, flailing her legs against my chest until I gave her a good shake. She seemed to have forgotten her wings were probably strong enough to take my head off. Thank the Princess for small favors.
“Kid, relax. Nopony drugged you. That’s Stitch’s assistant. The one I was just trying to warn you about?” I said, releasing her a bit so she could get up.
Swift lay there, her breathing erratic. “Sir... I thought I saw a big mouse...”
“You’re fine-”
“No, sir, you don’t understand... I saw a mouse! A big one!”
“She’s not a mouse.” I said flatly. “Thalassemia, come out here.”
The hamster was still hiding, one paw clutching her lab-coat to her throat while the other shook uncontrollably with the urge to bolt. Tentatively, she took a few hopping steps away from the safety of her watercooler. Swift took one look at her, then began immediately trying to grab her gun bit again.
“It’s an Essy! Sir, let me up! I’ve got to shoot it before it hurts anypony!” Her frantic shouting was not doing much for the hamster’s shyness. Nor were the pegasus’ eyes, which held nothing but frighteningly animal aggression.
I put a restraining hoof on one of her wing-joints; she froze in place as I said very slowly, “Swift, Thalassemia is a pony just like you or me. She’s not a magical construct, and this isn’t PACT. Besides, not all the Essies you run into out there are going to try to eat your face. It’s fine. Calm down.”
At this, sanity slipped back into my partner’s eyes. “Why... why does she look... like that?”
“Why don’t you ask her?” I asked pointedly, releasing her wing and letting her up. Whatever psychosis had momentarily gripped her seemed to dissipate almost as quickly as it had come. I brushed it aside as stress. Essy’s weren’t really popular with PACT troopers, and I’d seen some pretty strong reactions to Thalassemia over the years. Swift’s might have taken the cake, but it was a reasonably well chewed cake by then.
Getting her hooves under her, my partner stood, breathed in, then examined the hamster. The coroner’s assistant wasn’t a terribly threatening sight once one got past the fluff, paws, and her uncanny proportions. She was light brown, with a kind face and a series of full-body tics and twitches that made her seem like she was going to dash off at any moment; habits she’d normally expressed even in the presence of someone who hadn’t frantically tried to shoot her on sight. Her labcoat was obviously cut for a stallion of a much wider frame, but while she seemed pudgy, most of that was excess hair.
“H-h-hello...” She stammered, holding out one leg.
Swift stared at it a long, awkward time then politely bumped her hoof against the hamsters claws with a little click. “Um...hi?”
They both stood there fidgeting; neither of them seemed to know what to say. Pulling a gun on someone can make things awkward.
“Thalassemia... why don’t you tell my partner here why you’re a hamster?” I prompted.
“Oh...I...I a-ate p-p-p...” She stopped, took a breath, and rushed the words out. “I ate poison joke!” Her cone shaped ears flopped down against her skull.
The childhood scourge of anypony dumb enough to walk through it, poison joke had long since spread from the Everfree Forest along with ponies. It was usually harmless, but very annoying. Whatever foul sorcerer back in history had decided to give a plant a sense of humor really needed a good kick in the brain box.
My partner’s expression turned to one of sympathy as she asked, “I thought that was easy to cure?”
Thalassemia shook her head, her whiskers bouncing. “M-most of the time. It’s worse if you e-e-eat it. When I was an intern I-I g-got lost when I was conducting research for the doctor o-o-outside the c-city and g-got hungry. I h-had some b-blue flowers. W-w-when I g-got back they c-couldn’t get it o-out of my system.”
“So you turned into a hamster?” Swift asked, her eyebrows up on her forehead.
Thalassemia nodded, turning towards the hallway, which was plastered with posters from old parties dating back almost to the Luna’s return. “It’s not so bad. I s-s-pend a fortune on sh-shampoo though.” She allowed herself a small quirk of the lips at her own joke. “The doctor...t-took me in. H-he’s waiting for you.” She swept a paw towards a pair of swinging double doors at the end of the corridor.
Swift touched the hem of Thalassemia’s lab-coat as though making sure she was real. “What exactly were you studying then this happened?”
The hamster stuck her paws in her pockets and sighed. “Rodent life-cycles.”
****
Thalassemia ducked under a nearly invisible wire crossing the hall at chest height. I pointed it out to Swift and we followed suit. No telling what enthusiastic greeting that could have been hooked up to.
Pushing open the swinging doors we passed into the morgue.
My brain failed completely to properly process what was going on beyond that portal. I made out a disgustingly stained night coat, strange music, and a pair of taut, bouncing blue buttocks. Said buttocks were attached to a wildly gyrating pony standing on his rear legs whilst spinning across the room on an empty gurney. A half dozen corpses covered in sheets dotted the room.
He was singing into a femur. Very, very badly.
“Thiiiiiis horse is a corpse, of course, of course
And no one can talk to a horsey corpse
So then, of course, your one recourse
Is to look inside the dead!
“Cut open the horse and there’s your source
for evidence you will need, in force!
Even though it may sound coarse,
Let’s open up her head!”
I put one knee over my eyes and slowly allowed my brain to compensate for the surrealism. Interacting with Stitch was a trial and those who’ve been required to do it for years make special allowances in their psyche for the things they’re likely to see on a given day.
Swift had developed no such defense mechanism. I heard a soft whimper, then turned to see her toppled onto her side, her eyes tightly shut and her legs drawn up under her in the fetal position. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so bad about how poorly I’d handled the sights, sounds, and smells at the Vivarium.
Doctor Slip Stitch noticed us as his gurney/stage swung back around and a crazed grin spread across his face; of course, any grin on those features, surrounded as they were by a shock of white mane that stuck out in all directions like he’d been recently electrocuted, looked pretty psychotic.
Leaping nimbly off the rolling bed, he tossed his ‘microphone’ into a bin of old bones underneath the rows of meat-lockers and clapped his hooves together, still standing on his hind legs. The music stopped and he pointed at our rodent guide with one hoof.
“Thalassemia! Mark! We show a four percent increase in the rate of decay across all subjects with the application of music with vocals as opposed to music without. This. Is. Stupendous!” He announced, smacking his cutie-mark to punctuate each of the last three words. It was a strange amalgam of a pony skull with two ice-cream cones crossed under it. I’d never asked him how he’d gotten it; I like what little mental stability I have left.
His assistant dutifully pulled a tiny scratch card from her coat and annotated the figure. “Yes, d-doctor. I must ch-check the progress of ex-experiment twenty eight. D-d-do you n-need me r-right now?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s fine, my girl! I shall call if I have need!” Thalassemia retreated to the door, gave me one last demure smile, then she was gone.
It was impossible to put an age on Slip Stitch just from looking at him; He might have been in his twenties or his fifties. He was in the sort of supreme physical condition one expects in a Wonderbolt, despite living in a sweets factory. Effervescent energy just radiated off him.
“Good morning, Detective Boiled!” He greet me, dropping onto all fours and grasping my hoof in both of his. “It is morning, yes? Sometimes I lose track. I wondered when you might toodle down to my demesne again. I take it you’re here related to that mystery filly that ‘dropped in’ yesterday?”
Tugging off my hat I set it on an empty gurney. “Yup. We’re just stopping in for your report. We...” I stopped as I realized the second part of ‘we’ was still curled up on the tiles with her wings over her head as though waiting for somepony to kick her.
“Kid... Oh, come on!” I groaned unhappily, moving over to her side.
Her eyes came up and she tried to focus on me. “Sir?... What’s going on? I thought I saw a... giant hamster...”
There are worse responses to a first meeting with Stitch and Thalassemia than flat-out denial, but it wasn’t going to help our chances of catching responsible parties.
“You did. I need you here and thinking.” I said firmly as I took her by the mane, pulling her up onto all fours and forcing her to look at me. “You have to keep it together today. This is important. Swift, do you hear me? I need you. Azure Rose or whatever her name really is... she needs you.”
These words took a bit to register in my weirdness addled pegasus, but when they did, she scrunched her face together and gave herself a rough shake. “Sorry, sir. I just needed a moment. I’m... I’m ready now.” She sounded steadier. Not much, but it was a fine piece of recovery. She pulled her notepad and a fresh pencil out of her combat jacket, taking a second to stroke one of the armor plates as though to make certain it were still as impenetrable as ever.
I patted her leg then stood back.
“Good. I want you to meet Doctor Slip Stitch.”
Stitch had waited with ineffable patience while my partner got herself into shape. He strode forward in an almost gentlecoltly fashion, his energy not diminished, but momentarily contained as he gave her a gracious hoof-shake. “It’s lovely to make your acquaintance, Detective Swift. I read your report. You have quite the flair for the dramatic.
“You... you read my report?” She asked, sitting straighter.
“Yes, I did! I enjoyed it thoroughly.” He swung a hoof sideways and picked up a clipboard which had been laying on the nearest body’s stomach. It held a few pages of Swift’s neat, tight script, the first of which he flipped back as he went on, “I am always quite pleased to discover a pony with an aptitude for story telling. I was able to sift out what I needed from the obfuscations and dramatizations. Now then, let us see what we have, shall we?”
Trotting to the cold-storage unit, he pulled it open and slid a sheet covered body out, then tugged back the cover and revealed our miss Jane Pony. Swift was already writing, her eyes locked on the paper.
“Shall I just give you a run down then?” Stitch asked, waving his hoof over the body. “This was one of the most impressively dead ponies I’ve ever come across.”
“Impressively dead? How do you mean?” I asked, tilting my head so I could see Jane Pony’s face right way up. She was still beautiful, even laid out like that. Such a shame...
Stitch’s excitement began to ramp back up as he listed what sounded like a Neigh’s Anatomy worth of damage. “Broken jaw, shattering of her sixth through eighteenth rib on the left side and fifth through sixteen on the right, fractures in... well, it would be shorter to list what doesn’t have a fracture! Punctures in both lungs from the ribs -” He pointed at each spot. “- and all of that is just from the fall, which I am labeling ‘cause of death,’ although it only won the race by a nose! There was the blood loss from her horn, which was probably making her woozy by the time she fell. Lovely thing, this! Quite the sticky puzzle!”
Swift made a faint sound of distress, holding her hoof over her lips as she forced herself to examine the filly’s corpse and take note of each injury.
“You’re saying there was more? What was competing with all that?” I asked.
“Let me see... where’d I put that toxicology report?” He mused, head swivelling about for a few seconds before he shouted towards the door. “Assistant! Where is that blood work-up on this dear child?”
The hamster poked her nose in and indicated one of the row of ice-cream freezers lining the wall. “It’s un-under Miss Ambient’s l-leg. Th-the one y-you were keeping.”
“Ahhh, thank you, dear Assistant!” Opening the freezer, Stitch shifted something heavy that didn’t bear thinking about, and retrieved a second clipboard. While Thalassemia ducked back out, he passed the clipboard to me and waited while I pretended to look through the miles of completely meaningless jargon.
“Give me the idiot’s version.” I said, finally.
Stitch took the report, pushed back several pages, then returned it. Printed across the top of the displayed page was, helpfully, ‘Idiot’s version.’
“Thanks.” I ran a hoof down the list of substances. “Love poison? Ace?”
The coroner pulled his night gown off and tossed it over a dead body. “Eeyupa-doodle! I’ve been seeing that mixer more and more in unlicensed sex workers. They use a low dose of love poison as an aphrodisiac, and the Ace numbs sensation, slows heart rate, and keeps swelling down.”
“What is Ace?” Swift asked, re-adjusting her pencil with her tongue. “I mean, I know they said in school it was ‘bad,’ but in training we were mostly grilled on drug symptoms and not so much on their effects.”
“It’s a painkiller of last resort.” I replied, shaking my head at the creative iniquities of the world. “Real strong, real addictive. Legal when a doctor gives it to you, but otherwise it’s too abusable and dangerous for the public. It’ll kill you if you overdose or on general principle if you use it long enough. Nasty shit.”
Stitch stroked Jane Pony’s cheek lightly. “Our filly had never used either one before. Her circulatory system was having one heck of a party for a first timer.”
“How do you mean?” I inquired,
“I mean this was her first dose.” He explained. “She took a real doozy too! I show absolutely no signs of long term addiction. She was clean as an trombone right up until yesterday.”
Swift stopped writing for a second. “Doctor, don’t you mean ‘clean as a whistle’?”
Slip Stitch contemplated that, his deranged mane seeming to swirl in a non-existent wind. “Nope, pretty sure she was trombone spotless!”
I waved a hoof at my partner for her to let it go. She shrugged and went back to taking notes. My eye caught on something at the bottom of the simplified toxicology report, because it had a gold star sticker beside it. “What is this stuff?”
The doctor didn’t even have to look. “Ahhh, yes, our mystery swill! Such a tasty treat, that! That collective of chemicals has exactly one use I know of; zebra religious rituals. They’re a form of magical sedative. I couldn’t tell you exactly what they do but I’d have put fine bits on her being right out of her mind. There’s enough in her system to give a manticore a bad trip!”
“I take it you haven’t made I.D. on the body either?” I asked after a brief hesitation.
“Nopers, and I called around quite a lot. Even this darling little filly who’s enamored of me in Canterlot District records office. She has the cutest-”
Before he could describe anything that would leave me unable to sleep for several weeks, I swept a hoof in the air, trying to wipe away any thoughts before they could form. “Facts please. Stick to facts.”
“No ID - Not a whit! Our sweet filly is a real sneaky creature. Lemme just say... that’s not the best part!” He grasped the sheet and yanked it off of her torso, revealing blood stains and her disturbingly misshapen rib-cage. A long autopsy cut ran up her side - but the red lividity that should have surrounded the cut was absent.
Swift began taking quick, short breaths as she tried to keep herself under control.
“Kid, you don’t need to watch this bit...” I murmured.
“I’m... I’m okay, sir. Really.” She assured me unconvincingly, while doing only a slightly better job of assuring herself.
“Now, this will stun and amaze! I assume you know the proper color of a ponies internal organs?” Stitch said, with the air of a ringmaster at a circus.
I raised one eyebrow at him. “Various shades of red and purple, yeah. Why?”
Picking up a long metal tool in his teeth, Stitch prodded the autopsy sewing, prying it open a few inches so we could see into her chest.
“Since yesterday, her organs, her hemoglobin... even the hemoglobin in blood which had already left her body have all... well, you can see!”
Swift gagged and swooped off towards a garbage can in the corner, standing there with her mouth half open, her chest spasming. Whatever magic was in those ginger candies kept her from losing her bagels, but there was no power in Equestria that would hold in those dry heaves. I merely stared in appropriately morbid fascination.
Ponies are inherently colorful creatures, present company excepted, and even I wouldn’t want to lose the golden perfection of my the scales on my flank. I’ve always taken a certain comfort that even in death, nothing can take those from me. I never understood how Taxi coped with losing hers.
It was like somepony had taken a picture of Jane Pony’s entrails with a very old camera. Nothing inside a body should look like that. Her lungs, heart, and stomach were all the same drab shade of ashen grey as her pelt.
“Sweet Celestia. What could do that?” I asked, my pulse racing. The murder itself had just gotten off its hooves to rival the underworld politics for 'most interesting aspect' of the case.
Stitch set aside his tool, tugged the incision closed, then dragged the sheet over it.
“It’s a juicy little conundrum, don’t you think?” He replied, tucking the cloth underneath her. “I am assuming it’s something in that hoof-licking good cocktail in her bloodstream, but couldn’t tell you what. I’m amazed she could walk, much less run. She must have been out of her mind. Oh, there’s one more thing that may be of interest.”
Folding back the shroud from Jane Pony’s rear end he swirled his hoof over the only spot of color on her body; the maroon crescent section of her cutie mark. His unnatural grin said he was waiting for me to ask him the obvious question.
“Fine, tell me why her cutie mark didn’t lose color along with the rest of her.” I said, sardonically.
He bounced up onto his toes and his rear legs did an excited little dance. “It did! This moon isn’t part of her cutie-mark! It’s some type of mystical tattoo. Right down to the fur follicles. Her talent is only the three gems and this stem.” Tracing the curve of the stem and tapping each gem, he hummed a jaunty tune.
“Come again? I thought even the Academy Arcanum hadn’t come up with a way to make cutie-marks appear before their time.”
“They haven’t! It doesn’t represent her talent, and I suppose that her cutie-mark had already appeared may have allowed for some alteration. It might be a dye of some kind I haven’t seen before, but whatever it may be, it’s quite impressive, don’t you think?” He made no attempt to disguise just how cheerful the enigma made him. Even Stitch must get tired of seeing the same old shootings and disembowelments.
“How can you treat this so... so lightly? She’s dead...” Swift muttered just loud enough to be heard, hugging her trash can for dear life.
Slip Stitch’s ever present grin grew and he tilted one ear towards her as he reared up and put both hooves on the tray. “Oh my heartful little wing-flapper! One day you will be dead too. Haven’t you heard? Life is amazing! Why then, should death not be? I am a student of the incredibleness of dying and therewith the beauty of being alive!” His mirth seemed unquenchable as he looked back at the corpse of the pretty filly. “I must say though, this one is a real humdinger. She didn’t die well.”
Swift, having momentarily conquered her stomach, went reluctantly back to her notes and began jotting down what she’d missed.
“What did we get from the rooftop?” I put forward, trying to find some light in the darkness. “Maybe something in the forensics report?”
The coroner blew a tuft of mane off of his forehead with a petulant whiff. “Oh, those pitiful coffee-slurping foals in the forensics unit don’t know their rubber socks from condoms.” He waved his hooves in disgust over a series of boxes laid out on one of his spare tables. “They bring me scraps! The hotel room was completely worthless. There was some fabric off the roof; expensive, tailored bits of a suit, but nothing identifying. Aside that? Unless you can bring me a suspect and probably what he was wearing? I’m afraid I haven’t much from that mess...”
“Right, that’s... not unexpected considering where she was and what happened to her. Any thoughts on how her horn was removed?”
“There are a few horn injuries every year but this one was rather special. It wasn’t snapped. Whoever did that used something like... well, like this...” Stitch picked up a long, thin implement off of his tool tray. It had a rather sinister looking jagged edge on one side; the other was some type of very masterfully cut crystal.
“What is that for, specifically?” I asked, eyeing the vicious looking blade.
“It’s based on a very old hunting weapon used by griffins.” He explained, deftly flipping it in the air and catching the other end then parrying with it like a sword. Dropping the knife back on the tool tray he went on, “It’s for cutting pegasus wings and dragon bone. I find it also makes a satisfying snap when used on rib-cages. Would you like to hear? I have a recording here somewhere...”
Swift chewed her lower lip, forcing herself not to retch.
“Maybe later. Thoughts on why the horn was removed?” I asked, biting back the urge to snap at him. No one could accuse Dr. Stitch of not giving enough information, but constantly dragging him from his self-fascinating tangents back to something that might actually help my investigation was always a little wearing. Patience is a virtue; my father laid that line on me every day of my life, and I still get pissy with the toaster on bad mornings.
“Not one. You pull a horn off of a unicorn and it’s mostly just a very efficient magical battery.” He nudged Jane Pony’s mane off her forehead, displaying the smooth stump where her horn had been. “You can nip down to your local Radio Barn and find yourself a couple AA rubies which will do the same thing. There are some more obscure alchemical uses that call for horns specifically but... most of those were replaced in the last fifty years with gems. You’d have to ask a unicorn what, I’m afraid. My speciality is less ‘boom, zap, zing’ and more ‘squish, splash, splorch.’”
I was starting to get frustrated. All of this was constructing an extremely interesting and completely worthless picture of our victim with regards to our single useable lead. None of it sounded much like ‘mob killing.’ Those tend to be brutal and quick, or long, drawn out torture affairs meant to ‘send a message.’
The death of Jane Pony was... almost surgical. Sensual even. A murder of planned intent. Mobsters are nothing if not practical, and while much about the dead girl in front of us screamed ‘self-assured and planned out,’ none of it seemed aimed at garnering information or delivering messages. Even her death by pitching off the rooftop was starting to feel somehow very scripted, like a ballet for my benefit.
Unfortunately, criminals are not caught by my feelings alone. On top of all these new mysteries, nothing Stitch had presented us with was dissolving the issue with Cosmo and the Vivarium.
Part of me was hoping we’d just be able to head straight over, arrest the bulky bastard. and deliver him to Tartarus Correctional in time for dinner. That hope is always there. As a cop, you love it when a criminal has left something useful on the deceased that lets you sweep in, all guns blazing, and deliver justice with certainty. It wasn’t looking like one of those days.
Jane Pony. Azure Rose. Princess Luna. Our little filly had quite the collection of names. I gazed into her closed, cloudy eyes. What were you running from, little filly?
While I was having these considerations, Slip Stitch had pulled another body from the freezer, easing the sheet off of it’s head. It was a stallion, his mane fading around his ears and his jowly cheeks wrinkled with age.
“Now, regarding your Mr. Cosmo.” Stitch was off again, clearly enjoying the opportunity to show off his collection of carcasses. “I do have some experience with him. Oh, none of it provable, or he wouldn’t be a problem, but I’ve started quite the curio worth of souls with snapped horns! This fellow died of a heart attack in hospital, mind, but he had quite the story of mayhem and woe. Apparently, he refused a payment to one of Mr. Cosmo’s associates... and this happened.”
“Yuck.” I muttered, prodding the busted wedge of horn. “Still, nothing to attach him to Jane Pony?”
His bush of semi-feral mane seemed to flatten slightly. “I fear not, Mr, Detective. Many brain teasers and not a single answer.” His mane puffed right back up again, however, along with his grin, as he slammed the two drawers with Jane Pony and the stallion back into the wall and flipped the doors shut. “Of course, that’s what you’re here for, Detective! You simply must make sure any fresh bodies are properly cared for next time. I sincerely hope we don’t see more ponies like this. You’ve no idea how difficult doing an autopsy without color coordination really is! Why, I haven’t had such a time since that Beam incident last year!”
“You mean the one where somepony thought he had worms and tried to tear himself open with a chainsaw?” I asked.
“You remember!” he said, grinning maniacally, flushed with the joy of proper recognition. “I got an award for that one, you know.”
Swift let out a noise like a cat being bashed against a tin door, coughing violently as she almost swallowed her pencil.
Stitch pounded her on the back until she spit it out. “Weak stomach?” He asked, sympathetically.
“First week jitters.” I answered as the pegasus wiped spittle off her lower lip.
“I quite understand. I have a weak stomach too, you know.”
“Really?” Swift asked, disbelief written all over her face.
“Oh yes! Would you like to see it? I think it’s in a bag in the freezer-”
She groaned and unsnapped her front pocket, sifting through it and spilling empty candy wrappers all over her hooves. “I have something for... oh pony-feathers... that was my last ginger...”
“Ginger!” Stitch exclaimed. “Excellent for the stomach. I have something better though! Would you like a popsicle? I find even the foulest cases of murder eased by a sweet treat.”
“Um... o-okay.” Swift replied, closing her notes and pulling a pocket watch out of another zipped pouch. She consulted it briefly then turned and held it up, “Sir, we’ve got an hour till noon still. Miss Stella wanted us at Azure Rose’s apartment then, right?”
“I think we’ve got time.” I set my hat back in place and straightened my coat.
Slip Stitch was over by the row of freezers, standing on tip-toes as he sorted something out of the very bottom.
My partner trotted closer. “I like grape. Do you have grape?”
“Oh, lovely! Here, let me see...” The coroner pony gave a few sharp tugs at the bottom of the cooler, then braced one hoof and yanked his prize free. Turning, he held it out. “Just the thing for all that ails you.”
Swift stared at the thing in his hooves and whispered “...grape...” before her blue eyes rolled back in her head and she pitched over sideways in a dead faint, splashing in a puddle of unidentifiable condensed liquid which had gathered in a low spot on the floor. It soaked right through her uniform shirt, leaving the white cloth an off green.
Stitch turned to me. “What’d I say?”
I pointed at the popsicle. An eyeball coated in a thin rime of frost dangled by it’s optic nerve from the end of the frozen purple treat.
“Oooh... too much?” He asked, plucking the eye off and tossing it back in the freezer, then sticking the popsicle in the side of his mouth.
I nodded. “Too much.”
Wedging my nose underneath Swift and wrestling her limp body onto my back, I waited while Stitch attached the clipboards to one another then opened my coat on one side so he could add them to my load.
“Do you think this sweet child shall last?” He asked, moving close so he could stuff the reports into my jacket. His fur smelled like a mixture of formaldehyde and cotton candy. “She’s a rather innocent little thing, isn’t she.”
“Neither of us has much choice. Snifter is on the warpath and Taxi is on the chopping block this time. If I lose the kid, I’m going to lose Taxi. I might as well pack it in and retire if they want me walking or taking an actual cabbie everywhere.”
Stitch slurped at his snack. “Well, if you need to harden that stomach of hers, I’m certain Thalassemia could use an assistant for a few weeks. Send her down to me! I can guarantee she’ll have the time of her life and get over that pesky blood aversion.”
“Tempting, but we’ve got someplace to be. Thanks again, Stitch.”
“Of course, Mr. Detective. Consider it my pleasure. Visit again soon!” He bowed, then shoved open the double doors for me. As I moved toward the elevator, the big band music started up again.
I hurried on a little quicker before he could get to a mind-altering vocal section.
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I have to say, Slip Stitch is really quite a character.
Every chapter of this is a real treat to read, and it's amazing the subtle world-building you do.
Keep it up!
Turning grey? Something Discord related?
Wonderful, another excellent chapter! I saw twice some notes in parentheses, I take it they are authors notes for future editing and improvements? They are only a word or two but a bit out of place in the flow of words.
Keep it up
1315178
Yes, that's what they were, notes for potential additional detail we didn't get around to taking out of the Gdoc. The offending notes have been removed.
--CEO Kasen
I about fell off my chair at the Mr. Ed parody.
1315000 Chyeah, he was a mutual creation of both Kasen and I. His second writing was HARD. Yes, this is the second time he's been written. Initially he wasn't as morbid or as deep but then, most of the story was a 'light hearted' thing originally. It's better now.
1315120 Heh, nope!
1315178 Thaaanks, for pointing those out. We do our best but 10k is still a lot to read through.
1315240 You can blame Kasen alone for that. The Mr. Ed Parody was entirely his doing.
-Chessie
Slip Stitch is best pony.
1315702 We worked rather hard on him. He'll be back! I promise.
-Chessie
This story is great you get to meet all kinds of new people. I laughed so hard throughout the entire chapter. Thank you again
I see what you did there.
"Why would a bakery ever need to survive a dragon attack?"
Why indeed...
1317111>>1317127 Heee, I'm glad people picked up on that one. There was a slight worry it was a little too subtle.
-Chessie
Ahhh, more Detrot
Be careful though-
You're good enough to be strict with yourself about this stuff- keep an eye on the details. I'm still following every detail avidly, and enjoyed the heck out of this chapter, morbid though it was
1318524
Ah, buck me in the face with a shotgun, did I really miss that? Fixed.
--CEO Kasen
1318524 Thaaanks Jinxy... I swear, the writing was easier back before I knew anything about punctuation and grammar. How do people do it?
-Chessie
woooo new chapter!
I just love these little expressions :-D
Another good example of how to perform
Bagels the ever existential pastry goodness.
I lol’d
How in the wide wide world of everything mystical did you come up with this?
Yay I’m learning!
I saw a little mouse with clogs on where on the stairs?
There on the stairs right there!~
This character also came out of left field O.o
Just comedy gold every moment
Hmmm I’m still a bit lost myself on the hows and whys of her murder (as it should be i guess) but it seems to point to some crazy guy/gal/thing doing it given the cocktail of drugs and creepy death method used.
D-:
ahhhh
Oh, Pinkie
1322976 I don't want to give a lot of things away but the Mane 6 had lives of their own after Friendship is Magic. I won't go into those things too deeply but make no mistake, their influence on Equestria is very lasting.
-Chessie
1323078
Sweet, I love that kind of 'outside look' at the main cast.
1323078 "After" Friendship is Magic seems to apply here at the same level as it does in Fallout: Equestria.
"I quite understand. I have a weak stomach too, you know.”
“Really?” Swift asked, disbelief written all over her face.
“Oh yes! Would you like to see it? I think it’s in a bag in the freezer-”
This. Just this. (Oh, and if it's unclear, I mean it in a good way)
Oh, and my brain finally figured out where to file this fic. It's between the Warhammer 40k novels and the aforementioned ponyfic of doom.
1323903
'Oh, and my brain finally figured out where to file this fic. It's between the Warhammer 40k novels and the aforementioned ponyfic of doom.'
I... dunno if that's a good thing or not. Fallout Equestria was pretty amazing but my roomie read the Warhammer 40k novels and said they were atrociously written although really fun to read in a 'trashy popcorn novel' kind of way. If that's a recommendation then I'll be certain to pick one up.
Funny you should mention FoE. This fic began largely because I'd just had an ugly break-up and finished reading that particular story.
-Chessie
1323930 Oh, I don't mean it in a bad way either. I only read a few, and it seems I ran into the better ones. Still wouldn't recommend trawling through them, though, ponyfics are better, but the, shall we say, criteria applied to the levels of weird or gross in those seem to fit nicely.
The inclusion of a Pinkie Pie confectionery factory turned into a massive morgue instantly made me think of Fallout Equestria minus the magic nukes.
Oh, and I'm not dissing the story. There's way too little black comedy done right, and I think Starlight one of the instances where it's good.
Also, good job keeping up both of the 'lines' - the underworld politics one and the mystery murder one, in Hard Boiled's own words.
Heeheeeheeee...Well, okay then. I'm always glad to get the feedback. I wish I could say that was the weirdest thing we had planned but... honestly, it's really not.
We are avoiding excess gore if possible just to keep our teen rating. Unfortunately, I was the kind of little girl who used to use cheat-codes in Turok 2 just so I could run around entire levels with the Cerebral Bore so this may or may not work out.
Even when we TRY to avoid the gallows humor it just sneaks in and everybody seems to be enjoying it so far so I'm just gonna let it go. If people start getting grossed out, I'm sure they'll tell us and I'll back off.
The 'two lines of inquiry' is actually REALLY FREAKIN' HARD... I mean really. We're constantly running into issues caused by the dual nature of the story. More than one of our bubble baths has been dedicated to nothing but trying to sort out our fuck-ups where that's concerned. It's good to hear it's working.
1323934
-Chessie
1323942 As long as it all stays within plausible levels, it's all good. For the record, the current one seems plausible. It can safely get weirder in other ways without detracting from the story, I'd say.
What I like about the dual lines here is that they don't seem to get in the way of each other when they advance. There isn't 'too much' going on, but 'just enough', and both lines' developments go smoothly without crashing each other.
Oh, and the 'grey everything' bit instantly turned Rainbow Factory on in my head.
1323977
'Oh, and the 'grey everything' bit instantly turned Rainbow Factory on in my head.'
Oooh, I hadn't even thought of that!
-Chessie
I'll just leave this here. Because of the ending.
1335713
Very glad you like it!
But the party is merely beginning, my friend. Merely... beginning.
--CEO Kasen
I have finally caught up--and it has been an amazing ride.
Little bits of their character peeking out, defining them... The Swift eating meat thing was hilarious, for some reason.
1322606
Everything you just said was my favorite, too.
You know. I am trying really hard, agonizingly hard, to not make a sex joke about Swift and her Meat.
...
Oh god damn it.
1360161 Bad, bad, bad... Dez, I swear, you're gonna infect my brain with this stuff and make it hard to write with a straight face.
-Chessie
1360654
Ugh I can't help it! Curse my hormones and the fact I can't look at a bathtub without you guys poping in my head. I really do like Swift though, which I'm pretty sure anyone could tell from a mile away, nonetheless I really hope you don't hurt her but seeing as she is so far the only somewhat innocent character in here it's bound to break soon. Just... Be nice.
1315000
What he said.
These two sentences should probably be connected, with a comma after "did" and an uncapitalized "she".
Traditionally, "X-year" is supposed to be a compound word with a dash in it.
Interesting. Lots of magical protection for a guy who hates unicorns...
"She" shouldn't be capitalized, since it's part of a dependent clause.
"Twenty hoof-tall letters" probably isn't what you intended -- right now it says that there are twenty letters, each a hoof (foot?) tall. If you want to say that the letters are twenty hooves tall, you need to make it one large compound word: "twenty-hoof-tall".
The "She" here shouldn't be capitalized, since it's part of a dependent clause.
"Day" should have a comma after it, and "She" should be uncapitalized.
Wow, she's really not very genre-savvy, is she?
"She" shouldn't be capitalized.
"Hamsters" should be "hamster's", since you appear to be indicating the possessive rather than the plural.
"The Luna"? She's an archetype now?
Rodent-Man, Rodent-Man
Does whatever a rodent can
Squeaks and runs, every time
Eats his food, at the chime
Look out, here comes the Rodent-Man
(Yes, I'm aware she's not a "man", but work with me here
)
"He" shouldn't be capitalized, since it's part of a dependent clause.
This doesn't quite parse. It'd need to be "then was gone" to be correct.
The "He" shouldn't be capitalized, and "greet" should be "greeted" to match tense with the rest of the paragraph.
You're missing a quote mark at the end of this paragraph, since you switch speakers in the next one.
"She" shouldn't be capitalized.
There's a little ambiguity in "sheet covered body" that would be eliminated by making "sheet-covered" a compound word.
The comma after "about" is superfluous, as the sentence reads better without it.
The quote should end in a comma to attach it to the dependent clause that follows.
The quote should end in a comma, and the "he" should be uncapitalized.
"An trombone" should "a trombone" unless there's some sort of odd rule specifically for it, like "an historical event".
Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts.
The quote should end in a comma, and "she" should be uncapitalized.
"Ponies" should be "pony's", since the context suggests you mean the singular possessive, rather than the plural.
"He" shouldn't be capitalized, since it's part of a dependent clause.
This doesn't quite parse. "I suppose that her cutie-mark having already appeared" would work, as would "I suppose that the fact that her cutie-mark had already appeared".
The quote should end in a comma, and "he" shouldn't be capitalized.
Hah! I love the vivid description here.
The "He" shouldn't be capitalized.
The quote should end in a comma.
"He" shouldn't be capitalized.
Same, "He" shouldn't be capitalized.
Aaand finished with the chapter. I absolutely loved it -- your characterization of Slip Stitch was wonderful.
So...from what I can see from this chapter, the murdered filly was probably killed in the worst way possible and may of may not have something to do with the Luna religion, Stitch is like a super morbid male Pinkie - I guess I know who originally built the place, and above all, Swift is really, really going to need more ginger candy.
OHMYKNIGHTY! Stich is Pinkie Pie's great-great-grandson!
Break that promise and Pinkie will haunt you.
=|,':{|}
I really, really want to see Slip Stitch meet up with Bob from the Dresden Files.
Yeah, no question Slip Stich is one of Pinkie's descendants--but it sounds very much like he got a touch of Cerise (from my head canon) too! :) The eyeball on the popsicle was a nice touch...
Oh, and I bet I know who Pinkie got to help build her bakery...it's got that "Twilight" overachievement vibe written all over it. Is Twi an alicorn in this particular Equestria?
Also, I am so going to steal that "Mr Ed" song of yours...it was absolutely a work of art!
So... That one Pinkie Promise...
Was it made to Slip Stitch?
And he has that knife...
Cupcakes v.3.0
...You know, Stitch wasn't nearly as "horrible" as I thought he'd be.
Swift eating more meat? Not sure whether to laugh my ass off or be horrified.
"Whelp.. Looks like we are done here. Cause of death has been determined. Forms have been filled out. Reports have been filed.
...
You gonna finish that?"
Reminds me of Sphinx from Gone in 60 Seconds
There is a raven in here somewhere.
Let's see...
Once upon a morning dreary, while I slumbered, weak and weary,
Over many an empty bottle of the brewer's finest skill—
Passed out cold and snoozing, from my overindulgent boozing
I heard sounds most confusing, tapping at my window sill.
"'Tis some pigeon," I slurred, "tapping at my window sill—
I think today I'll call in ill."
Trembling, with hooves uncertain, I threw aside the grimy curtain
Morning sun shining, blinded by bright Day-glo fur;
But the smell set my mouth a-flutter, onion bagels topped with butter!
"Ah ha," I did mutter, "A yeasty breakfast for a cure!"
My stomach agreed and did concur.
Quoth the rookie "Breakfast sir!
I like to do something similar when I talk to people about my work:
"Hi! I am SIGAWESOME and I am the number 1 premier <title> in my division!"
Given Equestria's natural background magic, the not-inconsiderable skills of its denizens, and the titanic energies tossed around during the Crusades, the answer may be simultaneously much more prosaic and horrific than you would imagine. The citizens of Detrot should ask one simple question about the building: "Which side were the door latching and locking mechanisms located?" It very well may be that the building was designed not so much for keeping things out, but rather keeping things in...
Could have been worse I suppose. She could have very well been researching the dietary habits of Ursas Major and studying their spoor...
Chapter 8: "Morgue Party" - this one kind of has me stumped. I know of a GTA mission from back in the day that had the name, but that seems a little far fetched to be it.
I'm having horrible flash backs of Bio2 when my class had to go look at bodies.
And, from what iv been told, I could have held a head if I hadn't of passed out.
3319508 I dont think the multiverse could handle the strain of that
Slip Stitch is officialy one of my most favorite characters ever
this seems accurate
Missing a " there.
Mr. Detective
1944700 What he/she/it said and isn't corrected yet.
Very interesting, world-building chapter!
Looking forward to a scene with him and Taxi.
You know, the worst is that I can totally see
Pinkie PieSlip Stitch doing something as nonsensical as what was in that film.Googoogajoo.
What is with the misuse of Sentient?
Hell, we can even argue that microbes are sentient.
But so far, only human is sapient. And any species that are like human are sapient, not sentient.
Bože všemohoucí, this Slip Stitch guy certainly is a horse of a different color.
This, also, needs to be a short story. :)
Clearly not by jury, because where would they find twelve ponies as crazy as him?
Am I the only one picturing Christopher Lloyd (aka Doc Brown) as the voice for Slip Stitch?