Act 3 Chapter 6 : Two Griffins, One Stone
Starlight Over Detrot Chapter 81 :
Two Griffins, One Stone
There has been much debate in recent years about what is to be done about the endless supply of military technology pumped out by Equestria during the period known as the ‘Cutie Mark Crusades’. Not being a country prone to military adventurism, their first effort in many centuries still found the equine population dedicating itself to the invention of ways to incinerate, implode, freeze, and atomize even the most dangerous opponents.
Of course, this being Equestria, they went at the production of weapons with the same zeal that had been previously applied to discovering new ways of baking apple pie (of which Equestria boasts the greatest variety in the entire world. Over 40,000 recipes at last count, not including those developed specifically for warfare). Once the war was over, there was a certain place for some of that equipment in border control and mega-fauna disposal, but that left great stockpiles of unspeakably dangerous tools of death simply rotting away in warehouses across the country.
Princess Celestia’s ‘Swords to Plowshares’ program helped somewhat and spurred much of the modern automobile industry, however there remained many objects which couldn’t be readily disassembled. Many became little more than expensive lawn ornaments. The Iron Charger Siege Dreadnought found itself repurposed as a foal’s playground in Baltimare, while the Ballistic Undertaker Titan Tank (A name that sounded fantastic until military acronyms were applied) was consigned to bottom of the Gulf of Kindness to become a reef for fish.
Sad to say, not all such objects could find meaningful purpose in peaceful times, but nor did Princess Celestia or Princess Luna feel they should go to waste. Much of the less dangerous surplus was auctioned off to the highest bidder, with conditions of registration and careful monitoring to keep them from falling into the wrong hooves. As with all such good ideas, they fall down somewhat when one realizes the wrong hooves are inevitably almost everyone who would show up at an auction for post-war surplus.
The Scholar
Water dripped from the ceiling down the back of my collar as I stood there in Stella’s lair, facing Taxi. I’d rather have faced my own firing squad than that sad-eyed expression. A crutch lay beside her, propped against the edge of the pool table she was using for a desk.
Her two tone braid was undone, hanging limp around her shoulders. She looked exhausted, which was a far cry from the rested and restless I’d been when I woke up after a week-long stay out of the city.
“Sweets—” I began, though I’m not sure what I’d have said as a follow up. Maybe some kind of excuse. Maybe dear exaltations. Maybe just a little gutless sobbing and begging forgiveness.
Taxi waved my explanations aside with one hoof and reached for her crutch, sliding it under her good leg so she could get herself up from the table. “I get why you did it, Hardy,” she murmured. “Just...come over here and give me a hug, would you?”
Sensing she might get squished, Mags quickly hopped down and scuttled over beside Limerence.
I trotted around the table and stopped in front of Taxi, studying her for a long moment. She looked so tired.
Stepping forward I slid my forelegs around her neck. She smelled like Minox. Incense, old memories, and horny minotaur. I sighed and hugged her a little tighter. It was nice to have her back.
“I’m aware you’re probably about to smash my muzzle on the edge of the pool table here for ditching you, lying to you, neglecting some...important pieces of information, leaving you without any way of getting in touch with me in a planetary crisis, getting your favorite gun destroyed, and vanishing for a week into parts unknown, but...I want you to know I missed you,” I said, softly.
Behind her, Stella had his claws clasped to his chest, stars in his eyes. It must have taken a Mareculean effort for him to resist the urge to go ‘Dawww!’ out loud.
“I missed you, too, Hardy,” Taxi whispered.
----
“You killed my egg pony!” Mags squealed from somewhere nearby.
I felt like I was swimming in warm liquid. Warm painful liquid. Warm liquid full of headaches. Oh, yes, many many headaches.
“He’s not dead. Most impressive. I wish I could study that heart of his. The bleeding stopped almost immediately,” Limerence murmured and something cool touched my face. “Detective? Are you with us?”
“Blabledable,” I replied.
“He’s fine,” Taxi said from a place above my head. “Give him a bagel.”
----
Bagel is life.
Bagel helps the headaches go away.
Cream cheese and headaches are natural enemies after all.
I slumped over the pool table, redundant ice-pack on my head, munching quietly on a delicious onion, garlic, and spinach with butter and cream. The rest of my friends had joined me on a long, wooden bench that’d been dragged over so we could all sit together. Mags and Swift took turns ripping a raw, gutted salmon to shreds. That was a grisly spectacle, so I’d moved one of the stacks of paper so those of us who were still herbivores didn’t have to watch.
Limerence and I shared the bread products, or rather, he ate the muffins while I ate the bagels. I almost bit him when he reached for the cream cheese. That would have been a tad embarrassing.
Even Stella was in on it, enjoying a quiet repast of fresh fish from a gigantic bowl beside his couch after setting aside his silly construction hat and sunglasses.
It was dinner and friends; some little shred of Equestria before the world caught fire still preserved in the peace of a meal, together. We didn’t talk. There wasn’t much as needed saying, really. If only the rat bastards out there bent on destroying everything ponykind stood for would sod off so those moments could last.
Sadly, this particular one couldn’t.
After a half hour, there were only soft burps and the faint rumbles of a digesting dragon.
Gathering what gumption was left in me, I swept my coat off and laid it across the table, then got to my hooves.
“Stella? If you don’t object, can I bring this meeting of ‘Suckers Trying To Save Equestria’ to order?” I said, pacing over to the railing on the platform and resting one leg on it.
Limerence raised a hoof. “Detective, if we’re going with that name, I’d like to nominate you as chairman for life.”
“Seconded,” Taxi piped up.
“All in favor?” Swift added.
“Aye!” came the loud reply from everypony except Mags, who was gnawing on a bone of some sort.
“Chairman Sucker, the floor is yours,” Limerence chuckled, settling back on his bench.
I shut my eyes for a moment and tried not to cry. Crying would have been undignified. The bit of cream cheese on my nose was undignified enough, but I’d only realized it was there after I stood and decided to get down to business. The mirth was nice, but it didn’t help my state of mind much.
Turning to Swift, I swallowed. “Alright, so...first things first. Kid, your grandmare and mother are going to be fine.”
She opened her muzzle for a second, then her breath stuck in her throat and she unconsciously rose to her hooves.
It’s funny how ephemeral horrors can be sometimes. The death of a loved one can go right out of your mind for the length of time it takes to eat a cupcake. Worries, especially those of great uncertainty, have a way of fleeing when faced with a bit of camaraderie, but they come crashing back the second somepony points them out.
“My...my mom? And Granny Glow? Are they—”
“They’re here, little bird,” Stella reassured her, batting his eyelashes. “Both asleep in the medical wing. We’ve been keeping very good care of them while we figure a solution for that situation. Your father has been watching over both
of them. You can go see him if you’d like.”
Swift swallowed, but sat again, looking back to me. “After we’re...after we’re done. Sorry, Sir.”
“Like I said, good news on that front. Coroner Slip Stitch has developed a means of waking the unconscious unicorns. It’s rudimentary and there’s...eh...there’s a hamster involved, but my friend here—” I cocked my chin in Lim’s direction, “—survived it handily.”
“Sir, why wasn’t that the first thing you said to me?” Swift asked, with a tiny frown.
“Planning sessions and debriefings are for shocked silences. That’s what this is, incidentally and why I’m telling you now, rather than when we’re sitting in a bar full of griffins in the middle of Sky Town. Atop that, I have no idea how this particular process works, so explaining it wouldn’t have done either of us much good.”
“From what I can tell it involves some means of channeling magic back through certain a leyline in the dispersion matrix of a unicorn’s—”
I flicked my tail and Limerence paused his long winded explanation. “Save it. Point being, Stitch thinks we can fix that situation and get our unicorn power back.”
Stella breathed a relieved sigh. “You can’t imagine the calm that brings me, Detective. I suppose one more thing we owe you thanks for. Our situation here has been a tad better than most of the rest of the city, but there are places it is simply dangerous to travel through right now and my...eh...cousins...on the outskirts of the city are making it impossible to leave. Any good news is truly good news.”
“Well, since I’m not being allowed to go quietly into the dark—” I glared at Taxi and Swift for a second. They both giggled and I quickly wiped the cream cheese off my nose. “—then I need something to do or I’ll go out of my mind in short order. Somehow, all of this is connected. The armor of Nightmare Moon, Skylark, Cosmo, the murder of Ruby Blue, the law-firm, and the disappearance of Canterlot. All of it. This is all one puzzle and we’ve got bits here and there.”
Mags gave my foreleg a little tug. “You be forgetting about griffins, Har’dy.”
“Yes...griffins,” Stella mused, studying Mags. She sunk a few inches under the scrutiny until she was almost below the edge of the table. “Detective, I am not one to typically pry, but I simply must know. Why is there a child attending this particular gathering? Her accent is old Griffinstone, unless I miss my mark.”
My ward opened her beak to answer and I quickly shoved a muffin into it, muffling whatever indignant things she might have had to say about being labeled a ‘child’.
“She’s with me. She stays with me,” I answered, gathering Mags against my side. “Her parents didn’t make it out of the Moonwalk and nobody else was available to take care of her. She’s my...eh...she’s my bodyguard.”
Stella looked back and forth between Swift and Taxi. “I am afraid she’ll have a bit of competition in that arena. Also, this...Archivist? Deary me, are the stories of that faction’s demise exaggerated? The Don was quite a good soul, occasional broken kneecaps and cracked skulls aside.”
Shutting his eyes, Limerence held his pocket watch to his breast. “My father is dead. My brother as well. My name is Limerence Tome. I’m the last of the Archivists.”
The dragon bowed his head for a moment. “So many good and noble dead. I am glad you have survived, though…My goodness. Swift, what happened to your wing?”
Swift froze for a moment, then looked wildly back and forth at her wings. “What?! What’s wrong with...oh.” Her ears turned a bit red as she wiggled the one covered in sticking plasters.
“Prize fighting,” I growled, poking at Swift’s wingtip with my hoof.
“Please, Sir! They really really don’t need to know any of that!” she pleaded, putting her hooves up on my chest.
Stella’s forked tongue quickly wet his lips and he slid down, planting his elbows on the edge of the platform and his chin on his palms. “Oh? We don’t, do we? I find myself suddenly intrigued.”
“Kid, you made this particular bed. You either sleep in it or I own you forever. Which’ll it be?”
“Own me forever! Please!”
I snickered and gently pushed her back. “Tempting as having my own pegasus hoof-rest is...I caught her at Pollick’s.”
Stella’s top fluke twitched as my partner sank back in her seat, letting out a sad whimper. Reaching down, he gently picked up Swift in his palm. She slumped like a dejected kitten, wings around herself protectively. “My dear...Your father is going to have a conniption fit. Did you have a story worked out for what happened to you that would cause griffin ritual scarring on your wings? Falling down some stairs covered in porcupines?” Leaning forward, he used the edge of his claw to lift her combat vest a little, exposing some of the bandages on her side. “And this?”
Swift batted his finger away. “I’m an adult!”
“One day, love, you will learn that is a thing children say right before or immediately after they’ve done something which gives someone who desperately loves them a very near heart attack,” Stella murmured, setting her down at my side again. Swift drooped even further, reminding me very much of a foal caught with her hoof in the cookies.
“Sorry, kid. You earned that one,” I whispered and she rested her chin on my foreleg.
“Not fair, Sir.”
“Still, minor injuries aside,” Stella clasped his claws together and sat back on his throne. “This is, as you say...a puzzle. Who stands behind this particular curtain of violence and evil? Who would destroy or kidnap those who raise and lower our celestial bodies and the capital city?”
I bit my lip as I mentally futzed with the mess that’d been keeping me up nights for the last few months. “Right now? Not a clue. The lawfirm was my next stop, but their office is in Uptown. I don’t even know what’s going on up there right now.”
Taxi shifted one of her stack of papers and pushed a photo across the table. I picked it up and examined it. The image wasn’t great, but I could make out a few details. It looked to be some kind of barricade made of bent fence posts, with a bright blue glow stretching across a city street. Behind it, the air was blurry and seemed distorted. “I’m afraid I wasn’t able to find out much with the scouts the Stilettos could give me. There’s a flight interdictor operating basically everywhere in Uptown. Ground approaches are covered by what look like magic shields, but nopony seems to be casting them.”
“I don’t know why I’m surprised. Snifter is a rat on a sinking ship and he knows it,” I grumbled, tossing the photo back on the pile. “You’ve been gathering intel on the comings and goings in the city?”
Picking up another folder, Taxi shoved it across to me. I flipped it open and I found a stack of index cards, papers, and post-it notes. In the back there was a map covered in paper tags of various colors. There was a smattering of black markers, a whole heap of red, and eight blue, spread out around the city. “Yes and no. When you...mmm...when you left, I had to find something to do. Since Miss Stella ordered the bar staff not to serve me, it was this or meditate and probably go crazy.”
“What am I looking at?” I asked, flipping back and forth through the scribbled notes.
Taxi tapped the paper. “That is the closest thing we have to a recent danger map of the city. The Stilettos are pretty good for gathering intel, but...there’s a lot of places they can’t go. The Jewelers and Cyclones both seem to have suddenly found themselves without most of their leadership. Lots of bodies have turned up in ugly condition. There’s places right now that are either demilitarized zones or no-pony’s land. The black marks are places where we’ve seen violence within the last forty eight hours. Red is gang deaths. Blue is...mmm...blue is where—”
“—where cops died,” I finished, sadly. “I know this is probably the worst question I can ask, but...anybody we knew?”
She nodded. “You remember Officer Candy Corn and Sergeant Subtle Sight.”
I cast my memory back as far as it would go and put a couple faces to those names; a mare with a ridiculous orange and white mane and a bored desk sergeant who could chug six beers in two minutes.
“Were these ‘Biter’ kills?” I asked.
“It looked to me like a pack of timberwolves, but they left their badges and clothing. Whatever killed them had the foresight to strip the bodies before it started...ugh...started—” Taxi’s ears laid back. “—eating. I don’t want to go over the gory details with her here.” She used her crutch to indicate Mags. “Either way, they’ve hit the gangs, too. We managed to catch a Jeweler grunt who swore his boss had just pitched over with three bulletholes in him, but he hadn’t heard gunfire and no shots penetrated the walls. Sound like something we’ve run into?”
“Yeah...yeah, it really does,” I said, softly, stroking Mags’ mane.
Stella smoothed one make-uped brow. “Care to enlighten the rest of us, my dear?”
I propped both hooves under my chin, frowning at the folder full of intelligence reports. “The Moonwalk was a killing field. The Nursemaid guild—which is so far as I can tell some kind of neutral party that cares for the children of griffin tribes in times of danger—was slaughtered using a weapon that kills but leaves no holes in anything but flesh. That is to say, the ones who weren’t torn apart with teeth.”
I felt Mags begin to shiver and held my coat out so she could crawl underneath. Can’t imagine what she saw in cuddling up in that thing, but on her worst nights during the last week I’d found her holding my coat when she couldn’t get into my cell.
“Why did we not hear of this?” Stella asked, then his eyes narrowed to slits as he put two and two together. “Ah...right. The bomb.”
“Exactly.”
“And...have you perchance discovered why the griffins might have become targets?”
“We did,” I replied, shifting uncomfortably in my seat. “So it goes, back during the war the Tokan and Hitlan were in the service of Equestria. I don’t know exactly what they were doing, but I’m assuming it was fighting dragons. After the war, Princess Celestia needed to...dispose of something especially nasty in a way she thought was probably secure. She gave it to them as a ‘diplomatic gift’. Knowing griffins, I’d have agreed it was well and truly gone.”
“What, pray tell, was our good Princess ‘disposing’ of?”
“Nightmare Moon’s shoes. So far as we can tell, the set was in the griffin treasury when it was hit.”
Stella’s head-fluke shot straight up and his jaw clenched tight enough that his fangs ground against one another. After a moment he forced himself to relax. “I...ahem...I see.” Reaching over to his console on his vanity, he pressed a button and said, “Scarlet! Could you please have the griffin tribe lords come down here?”
After a few seconds, Scarlet’s voice came back, “Mister Grimble Shanks is currently...um...from the sounds of things he’s ‘finishing’ his engagement with Miss Tangerine. Should I interrupt them?”
“Give them five minutes, but bring them to me.”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
Stella settled back in his seat and flicked his talons at me. “Proceed, my dear.”
“Not much else to tell. As things stand, the chestplate and the shoes are in the possession of our enemies,” I finished.
“That...is distressing.” Stella settled back in his seat. “Still, it is with some relief that I can say I am aware of the location of the helm. It remains in Canterlot’s vaults.”
I almost choked on my own tongue for a second there. “Oooh…erm…”
Stella looked grim. “Detective, are you about to tell me that the helm of Nightmare Moon is not, in fact, buried in the depths of Canterlot’s most secure oubliette?”
“Well...some good news, some bad news. The bad news? No, it’s not. Astral Skylark used to be a pretty good thief. She managed to snatch the helm. One of her former followers escaped with it, but was killed before she could reveal its location. She was a pony of our recent acquaintance.”
The dragon tilted his chin, lips pursed. “Miss Ruby Blue. I see. Then, what is the ‘good’ news?”
I buffed my hoof on my chest. “I’ve got the helm. I found it and it’s tucked away in a safe place. I’m the only one who can get it.”
I neglected to mention that Ruby had practically gift-wrapped it for me. There were too many additional questions attached to that which I wasn’t prepared to answer.
“That is...something of a relief, then. Have you, perchance, considered your next move?”
Pushing one of the cooling bagels around on the plate, I shook my head. “That’s what we’re here for. I’ve got some ideas, but nothing concrete. We’ve got some resources in the Skids. I need to get there. After that, there’s a pony who can probably answer me some questions about what’s going on Uptown. We need to find the Night Trotter.”
“Your...cab?” Stella asked, quirking one eyebrow.
“Yes. Sweets?”
“It should still be where I left it at Swift’s parent’s place,” Taxi said, pulling over a road map with a few pins stuck in it. “I’m thankful we thought to cover it.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already picked it up…”
“I’ve had a cast on both right legs for a week. It’s hard to drive like that. My Night Trotter is also a bit conspicuous.”
“You mean because it shoots lightning out of the back end or because you drive like your tail is on fire?”
Taxi gave me one of those looks that suggests bloody violence, but I’d wisely positioned myself on the opposite side of the pool table and she’d have to hobble around it to get me again. She still seemed a bit irritated with me, but most of her anger had been spent moments ago when she did whatever she did that left me with hazy memories of pain and flying hooves.
“At least I don’t drive like I’m possessed. Either way...my cab is pretty distinctive and it’s really closely associated with you and I. Everypony out there knows your face these days and I’m pretty sure there are some opportunists who’d present those golden scales on your butt to Broadside at the P.A.C.T. if it meant a reward.”
“Yeeeah, speaking of that—”
“No, Hardy, your celebrity status wasn’t my idea. You want somebody to lay that on, talk to Gypsy and the sea serpent,” Taxi grumbled, flicking her left ear at Stella who was looking altogether smug.
I turned to Stella, expectantly tapping the table.
“It needed to be done, Detective,” Stella explained, cooly. “The alternative was potentially watching my own ponies turn you over to the P.A.C.T. one of these days for crimes you are not constitutionally capable of committing. I couldn’t have that, now could I?”
I yanked my hat off and put both hooves up on the desk. “You’ve seen me in front of cameras. There are some ponies in the world that fame just doesn’t suit. It’s more likely to get me lynched.”
He laughed and slithered down to the platform at head height so we could converse eye to eye. “You’ll leave a very pretty corpse and Scarlet and I will cry absolute rivers. Take it for the blessing it is, my dear. You have done great things for this city and a bit of admiration is your just due.”
“More like just desserts,” I bit back under my breath.
Our conversation was interrupted by the clank and rattle of the descending elevator back down the tunnel. Mags crouched down, tail lashing back and forth as she stared intently at the entrance to Stella’s private lair.
“Ah! That’ll be our griffin friends.”
“Huh. What’ve they been doing all week?” Swift asked. “I thought sure they’d want to get home as soon as they were healed…”
Taxi waved at the stacks of paper in front of her. “They did. The deaths of at least six griffin tribe-lords traversing what were thought to be safe parts of the city convinced them otherwise. Somehow, someone is tracking the griffins very closely.”
“Tracking them?” I asked. “Magically tracking?”
“That’s the only way we figure they’ve known when the leadership has moved out of their enclaves. Spies don’t move as fast as would be necessary for these kinds of hits,” Taxi answered, shoving one of her heaps of paper over and digging something out of the bottom. It was a black and white photograph of a dead griffin wearing the tartan of some tribe I wasn’t familiar with. Most of his head was gone. “That’s Lord Geralta. He had four fully armed and armored bodyguards with him and they were shredded thirty meters from what we’re considering the edge of Sky Town. He’d gone out for a morning flight on a whim and they hit him less than ten minutes later. No witnesses.”
From the hallway came a pair of squabbling voices.
“—back, you great fool! I don’t fancy dying, but I haven’t had a decent smoke in almost a week! The Zapp on this end of this insufferable city wouldn’t tingle a chipmunk!” a voice I immediately identified as Derida snapped.
“Och, cease yer spittin’, moi lady! Make the best would ye? Oi found meself a sweet lass! Oi want to be back much as ye be, but Oi see nothin’ doin’ in killin’ meself makin’ it happen!” Grimble Shanks replied as the two of them came around the corner, lead by a slightly put upon looking Scarlet Petals.
Derida was wearing a soft blue dress tailored to a griffin only a couple inches shorter than she was and her expression looked like the sourest of sour grapes. Meanwhile, Grimble Shanks was still minus his tartan kilt and combat vest, but he’d equipped himself with a strange weapon that I identified a moment later as two butcher knives welded together and wired to a fence post; a makeshift halberd.
The big Hitlan’s expression grew into a jovial smile as he saw me.
“High Justice! Batter’n’boil me eggs! Oi thought sure ye were jack in the box!”
I tilted one ear towards Mags.
“He be meaning he thought you be dead, Har’dy,” she whispered.
“Ah, well, it’s good to see you too, Grim—”
I didn’t get a chance to finish before Shanks hopped across the distance in one great bound, landing in front of me. I braced, but nothing can really prepare you for a griffin hug, particularly not from one the size of Grimble. My spine let out some alarming crunchy sounds and both rear hooves went numb. I tried to breathe, but that just made my shattered ribs dig holes in my lungs. He was an awful lot bigger than his brother and I’d already survived one of those greetings today.
After about ten seconds, he let go and I collapsed against the bench, panting softly.
“Do I be needing to rip some bits, Har’dy?” Mags asked, putting her claws up on my leg and looking at me expectantly.
“No, Mags...just let me lay here and bleed internally for a minute,” I muttered, clutching at my chest. “Why do my friends have to greet me with attempts on my life?”
“It’s your winning personality, I’m sure,” Derida cooed, taking a seat on the bench beside me. “After all, you greeted me with that gaudy shotgun pressed against the back of my head. Speaking of things that require an explanation—”
I pointed at Mags. “No, she’s not staying here, she’s coming with me. Her father’s dead at the Moonwalk and she’s my responsibility.” Then at Swift. “Yes, that’s a pony eating meat. No, you’re not hallucinating. Yes, her wings are covered in battle scars from fighting griffins. Yes, her teeth really do look like that.” Then at myself. “No, I’m not actually crazy. Yes, I’ve answered all of these questions today already. No, I don’t care. No, if you wish to issue a death threat, you’ll have to take a number.”
Derida hesitated for a moment, going back through that list in her mind. Her beak slowly shut. “You know, Justice...I think you must remain alive by some curse of the Holy Egg. Nothing else could explain what horrible twist of fate allows someone to experience a life like yours and persist.”
I scowled at her. “Could you go back to the death threats? Those are more comforting than ‘curses’ from the gods’.”
Derida shrugged. “By the by, thank you for saving our eggs. I may still eat your liver one day, but I will feel at least slightly guilty enjoying it, High Justice.” She turned to Stella and dipped into a low bow, spreading her oak brown wings. “My thanks to you as well, dragon, for your hospitality.”
“And your company, dear griffins,” Stella replied, cheerfully, waving Scarlet out of the room.
“Aye, it be a proper place, this’un,” Grimble Shanks clucked, swirling one talon in the air. “Oi miss the Highlands. Can’t wait till me father calls us back, and when Oi first got here, Oi thought it was going to be shite. That mayor boyo jus’ sends us a bottle o’ poncy drink! After this, though, Oi moight be seein’ what me brudder does in pony koind.”
Clickety click goes Hard Boiled’s tired brain meat.
“Wait a second,” I interrupted, sitting up straight. “Say that again?”
Grimble Shanks leaned slightly away from me. “Eh...wha?”
“The thing...just now. About the mayor.”
“The...mayor boyo send us a bottle? Foine rooster piss it be, but gone quick wi’ me an’ the lads—”
I shook my head. “No, make it clear. The mayor sent you drink?”
Derida gave me a curious look. “Is that not the pony custom? He’s sent an entire case to our caves before we
arrived as part of his invitation. We’ve received such gifts before, of course.”
The idea that was twisting around in my head trying to take shape was still missing something essential. What, though?
“Would you...happen to know if he’d sent some drinks to the other tribes?” I asked.
Derida rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t be much of a banker if I didn’t, now would I? Quite the diplomat, your Mayor Snifter. He gives gifts routinely, of course. We are neighbors, after all, and he owes the mere existence of this city to my grandsire.”
“What are you getting at, Detective?” Stella asked, leaning forward intently.
‘The scotch. I mixed some of that drink you gave me into it.’
‘You told me the Scry could keep track of anypony once they’re marked!’
Cosmo had said those words to whoever was holding his leash the day we bugged his office.
I left the bench and began a slow, circular pace. “My friends and I have been narrowly avoiding a magical tracking mechanism called ‘The Scry’. I got...lucky insofar as I’m immune to it for reasons I won’t go into, but this magic can be ingested and seems to work over almost any distance. I believe somepony has managed to drug the griffin tribelords with it so they could track your movements.”
“The...drinks?” Derida asked, nervously tapping her claws on the table. “Justice, are you saying that Mayor Snifter is behind our recent troubles?”
“Snifter or someone who works for him, but...yes. I’d bet money on it.”
There was a round of shocked noises, followed by thick silence as somepony tried to think of something to say. The mayor was not a well liked pony and probably corrupt as they come, but the notion that he might be party to the disappearance of Canterlot atop the theft of Nightmare Moon’s armor and other crimes too numerable for me to count wasn’t a comforting one.
Just as I was about to suggest we break out some of our own booze, Grimble Shanks slapped the table. “That roighteous git! That be how the damned dragons done it!”
I blinked at him, confused. “The...dragons?”
“Aye! Hitlan patrols! We be foindin’ our war-boys butchered, somethin’ fierce loike. Those sneaky slitherin’ snakes crept roight through our outer loines loike they wasn’t there and hit the plateaus! Yer damned mayor...”
Derida came to her feet, wings popping open. “You can’t possibly mean—”
Shanks snarled, swinging his makeshift halberd down from his shoulder and burying it in the pool-table. It stuck there, the handle quivering. “Aye! The git magicks us, then be givin’ the dragons our positions!”
Across the table, Taxi’s lips curled back from her teeth as she stared at the weapon impaling one of her intel reports. “I thought that was strange. The dragon's numbers haven’t recovered enough since the Crusades for a frontal assault on griffin lands, but if they had advanced recon information and complete intelligence on your movements...”
“They could be cuttin’ us down loike dogs!” Shanks howled, angrily, slamming his fist down on the table and scattering the papers in all directions.
I shut my eyes as it all finally fell into place.
“You’re desperate. Your lines are compromised and every battle seems like an ambush. Then there comes a quiet invitation to shelter in our fair city,” I murmured. “Come. Be safe. We’ll set you up in a nice hotel with completely crap defensive positions. Make yourselves at home. Bring your weak, your young, and your old. Leave your armies to fight. You won’t need them. Bring your treasuries. Bring the horse shoes of Nightmare Moon.”
“All three pieces in one place. I can’t fathom what madness could drive ponies to believe such action would benefit them,” Stella said with a shudder that sent water flicking off the end of his tail.
“We have some friends of ours that we need to go see, but then...I want to see if I can get to Canterlot,” I said.
The reactions around the table were a bit lukewarm to that idea.
Derida frowned, Grimble Shanks looked bemused, Limerence licked his lips and started to say something, then thought better of it.
“There’s nothing there, Detective,” Stella murmured, finally. You saw the newsreels, yes? Besides, getting out of the city is going to be nigh on impossible, even if the P.A.C.T. weren’t looking for you. If, as you say, those dragons are working for the Mayor, they will be watching for attempts to leave.”
“I saw the news. Our options are getting real short, though. Iris Jade needs to know I’m back in play and I know a pony who has some fairly advanced information gathering resources available to her. Between the two of them, I’m sure we can figure something out for getting my friends and I to the capital. If nothing else, Jade may know a way to
get into Uptown.”
“That...doesn’t explain why,” Taxi said.
“I...mmm...look, there’s has to be some authority left out there, somewhere investigating what happened to Canterlot. Maybe some Royal Guard patrol or a detachment from the Crystal Empire. I know they don’t have an army to speak of, but they might be able to help us. If they’re anywhere, they’re going to be at Canterlot.”
Not the most popular idea I’d ever presented, but one that nobody seemed able to think of a good point of debate against.
“There are other things going on in the city right now. We need to get Grimble Shanks and Derida back to their people,” I said, deciding we needed a change of topic.
“Are they not...safe here, my sweet?” Stella asked, his tail splashing against the surface of the lake.
“Oi be feelin’ safe enough, but iffen ye have a way, Oi need ta see who be runnin’ t’ings,” Grimble murmured.
“Funny you should mention it, actually,” I replied, scratching at my mane, a bit nervously. I wasn’t sure how he was likely to take the news of what his brother had been up to. “Your people are holed up at Pollick’s Interspecies Taphouse. It’s a bar run by a unicorn who knows her griffins. That said, Sykes is holding the fort.”
The big griffin’s eyes went big as two trashcan lids; a single tear appeared and crept down his cheek.
“Me...me brudder? He be foinally actin’ loike a griffin?” he asked, in a voice cracked with emotion. “He...he never be wantin’ to lead afore now...”
“He’s got the Hitlan protecting the Tokan. He’s keeping them safe. They’re waiting for you.”
With a joyful cry, Grimble Shanks yanked me off my hooves and swung me in a circle, my back legs flying out behind me. I felt a bit like a ragdoll and only had an instant to suck in a breath before he crushed me to his chest again. Something covered in feathers shouldn’t be that hard.
“Och! Me boyo, ye gives me sweetest news! Me eggs live and me brudder come home to roost!”
“Myself as well, Detective,” Derida added. “You say my family is safe? The list of them I am inclined to have killed has shortened considerably in recent weeks. I would like to see if some honest affection might develop, now that there are some stakes worth playing for.”
I sagged onto the bench as soon as Grimble put me down, taking a few minutes to find my thoroughly squashed thought processes and batter them back into useful shape.
“They’re…*cough*...they’re safe as it’s possible to be Sky Town. They’ve got some heavy patrols and...I don’t know. I think the Biters are mostly interested in striking terror and causing chaos.” I nodded toward the danger map, silently apologizing to Gale for all the damage he was likely having to patch up, though it might have been mostly injured dignity. “Most of the attacks I see there are in relatively unguarded locations or places it’s easy to access and isolate an individual or group. We’ll get you home, get our cab...then we’re heading to the Castle. You have any essential business that needs taking care of before we do?”
Grimble and Derida both shook their heads.
Swift put her hoof on my leg. “Sir, can we go see my dad first?”
“Yeah, sure. Sweets? What’s the condition of those casts?”
Taxi glanced down at the plaster on her legs. “I...honestly forgot to have them removed when I got up this morning.” She turned to Miss Stella and pushed her crutches aside, carefully getting to her hooves. “Do...do you have the plans—”
Stella made a limp-wristed flick with one claw that cut her off. “Miss Taxi, we have plans upon plans upon plans for our defense dating back to well before you were born. I have four generations of the smartest, most resourceful ponies you can imagine who are either directly employed here or in my considerable debt. Your help has been invaluable, but...Hard Boiled needs you. Equestria needs you. Scoot!”
----
The halls of the Vivarium were packed to brimming with ponies, but a pair of griffin tribe-lords has a way of making a hole and the rest of us filtered through behind them. I kept my head low and the brim of my hat down, but that didn’t stop the eyes on my back as my five companions trotted along behind Derida and Grimble Shanks. Well, four companions on hoof and one tiny griffin riding shotgun. Mags steadfastly refused to get off my back and was happily munching on a loose bit of fish snatched from Stella’s lair as we were leaving.
As expected with recent events, the medical wing was swamped.
The first face I saw as we tromped in was that of Dr. Pickle, who must have been the unhappiest stallion in all of equine history. I hadn’t seen the grumpy sadistic prick since I’d delivered Swift to Stella for treatment after the bar-fight at the Plot Hole. He was sagging like a willow tree against one wall of his little examination room, a stained cup of coffee floating in his badly flickering magic as he flipped through papers on a clipboard. His green face was sallow and his eyes were sunken, like he hadn’t had much sleep.
“Whatever you want, find somepony wearing pink butterflies or a red ‘ex’ on their butt,” he growled as we approached. He didn’t look up.
“Pickle, honeykins, you happy to see me?” I chortled, trotting forward.
“Huh. I was half hoping somepony had caught you.” His eyes flicked in my direction and he took a careful sip of his coffee. “What am I saying? I was hoping they’d fed your skinned, char-broiled corpse to a pack of diamond dogs. So tempting to take the Black Coats up on that offer of theirs. Of course, it would be difficult to find another job that plays to my particular predilections in such a comfortable environment. More’s the pity.”
Grimble glanced at me, then unhitched his make-shift axe, but I shook my head and trotted forward, throwing my leg around Pickle’s neck. He tried to step away, but I held him fast.
“You know, I find it simply amazing how many ponies want to do that and end up helping me anyway,” I said in a chummy sort of way. “There’s a prison who is a friend of mine and she’s got a lawyer moping around inside her who I think you’d like.”
Pickle sniffed disdainfully and finished the last sip of his coffee. “I won’t pretend I know what that means, but I have a suspicion that you are somehow responsible for finding myself using my considerable talents for something besides making well heeled, paying customers writhe in agony for my own amusement.”
My grin grew and I gave his head a little squeeze. “I’m sure you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me for forcing you to make wholesome use of all those years of medical school. Either way, I need to know where the Cuddles family is. You seem exhausted, irritable, barely rational, and like you might have that information.”
“If telling you where they are is all that’s required for me to go back to my pleasant fantasies about the day I’ll get to hang your bones in my play-room as an anatomical display, then by all means…” He lit his horn and tapped it against the wall. A tiny, glittering arrow appeared, pointing down the hall. A few meters down, another one flickered into being.
----
They’d managed to get most of the Heights ponies who’d fallen during the Darkening into the Vivarium and had plenty of volunteers to change catheters and bed pans, shift bodies to prevent bedsores, and keep the invalids full of vitamins and nutrients.
Leaving Pickle to find another cup of coffee, we followed the magical arrows as they led us down the halls of the medical wing, past rooms full of sleeping unicorns in bunks and gurneys. Most of the nurses ignored us, too wrapped up in their rounds to really pay much attention to a few extra people.
“I find your way of making friends very strange, Detective,” Derida commented, slowing down to speak to me. I stepped aside so I wouldn’t tread on the edges of her dress.
“I consider my relationship with Pickle less ‘friends’ and more ‘bat and ball’, particularly after how we met,” I replied. “My friends have my back. He mostly just wants my spine, rib-cage, skull, along with any associated bits and pieces.”
Derida let out a noise that could almost be called genuine laughter.
----
Scarlet was waiting just outside the room where the arrows vanished, leaning on the wall with a novel open at his hooves, his long blonde tail swaying back and forth. He raised his ears as we came up and smiled like a foal on Hearth’s Warming Day.
“Oh, Detective! Miss Stella said you’d be here. He also had one of the nurses send me a cast cutter,” he said, holding up a funny looking hoof operated device with a crystal sticking out of the end.
“Derida? Grimble? Are you two cleared by medical to leave?” I asked.
Grimble shrugged and held up his wing, giving it an experimental wiggle. Most of the burnt feathers were already growing back, but there were still a few clumps that hadn’t. “Oi ain’t doin’ much flyin’ soon, but...eh, roight as rain.”
Derida flexed her claws. “I smoked my last joint a week ago and my dealer is most likely dead, but aside that, I am fine, yes. I ache to get back into the game and see what a hash my subordinates have made of things in my absence. Months of financial chaos to cure and currency exchanges to be made,” she replied, leering with anticipation. “Oh my, it’s been so long since we had a good audit!”
The way she said ‘audit’ was enough to send every butterfly in my stomach fleeing in terror up my esophagus. I had to swallow a few times to get the little buggers to calm down.
“Go get some food and meet us upstairs. We’ll be leaving within the hour.”
Grimble dipped his head. “Aye, Justice. Oi jus' remembers! Oi gots to go be sayin’ g’noight to moi sweet girly, too!”
“Your affinity for pony flank is disgusting, Grimble,” Derida cackled. “Do keep it up. We’ll make a Tokan of you one day...”
“Oi’d rather dye moiself purple and dance in leather pantsies!”
“Oh? You might look rather fetching in leather underwear, particularly with some lovely piercings on—”
I put my hooves over my ears and sat patiently as the two of them moved off down the hall, still bickering. When I was sure they were gone, along with whatever Derida had been about to say, I leaned against the wall.
Scarlet gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Detective, you really should get your modesty and shame organ checked. I think it might be over-active.”
“My organs all work just fine, Scarlet. It’s just the company and the mileage,” I grumbled, then stepped into the tiny hospital room.
There were three beds, side by side, two of them pushed next to one another. Quickie Cuddles was in one and After Glow was in another. Dr. Suture sat at his wife’s bedside, clutching her hoof, his head on her shoulder. His brown pelt was unbrushed and he looked bone-weary.
Reaching inside, I tapped on the wall for attention.
Suture looked up and his ears pinned back against his head. He fluffed his wings out and shook his mane, which was a politely pegasus way of saying ‘piss off before I start breaking things’.
“Detective Hard Boiled. I thought never to see your face again except when somepony finally parades you in front of the press in shackles.”
“That might still happen,” I replied. “Can we come in?”
“My shift doesn’t start for another hour and the serpent won’t let me work sixteen hours at a stretch any longer, so...yes, I suppose you may. What do you want?”
Swift poked her head around me, waving her wing. “Um...hey Dad?”
Suture’s stoic expression broke for an instant as his daughter snuck in beside me and I got a glimpse of a great ocean of barely contained emotion held back by a wall of nearly endless self control. He pushed himself to his hooves and reluctantly let go of his wife as my partner dropped the satchel with her weapons in it, trotted over, and threw her forelegs around his neck.
She barely came up to his chest, but as he slung his wings around her shoulders and clutched her like a foal, my mind flashed back to that picture I’d seen in their home of mother, father, and daughter. A little truth that I’d missed until that moment assembled itself in my head.
In many ways, Swift was always a contradiction. Innocent and fierce, sweet as honey and more dangerous than even Taxi in defense of her loved ones. Grapeshot never stood a chance after he took the shot that killed me. He might have blown off two of her legs and I think she’d have still found a way to put him in the ground.
Her mother might have given her talent, but it was her dad who gave her passion and drive, carefully hidden behind that mask of the fearless physician. I could be her mentor, her friend, and her partner, but I could never be half the stallion that her father was. I’m just not that good a pony.
The moment ended and Suture stepped back, carefully taking one of her wings in his hooves and inspecting the bandages. “What’ve you done to yourself, my dear?” He gave her a disapproving look. She made to pull her wing away and he poked a spot just behind the joint, making it spring out to full extension.
“Daaad...it’s nothing—”
“Then you won’t mind your father, the doctor, taking a look...now will you?” The way he said it brooked no opposition. She sighed and stood there as he peeled back one of the bandages and peered at the cut underneath. “I thought so. What have you been doing? First you appear at home with those teeth and that scar on your chest, and now you’re...Swift Cuddles, have you been fighting war-makers?”
Swift’s ears popped straight up and her back legs gave out. “H-how did you—”
Suture let her wing go and she snapped it back against her side. “Those cuts are made by a griffin ritual knife they call ‘The Great Reward’. I saw them from time to time in the emergency room. But then, I suspect you already know that.”
“She made quite a name for herself down at Pollick’s. You know Pollick, Doctor Suture?” I asked.
His frown deepened. “I know that demented stallion, his family, and the Decagon well enough to extrapolate the remainder. I assume, since my daughter is standing here instead of being delivered in a wheelbarrow full of small, orange chunks that her win rate was...positive?”
“I saw her last fight, today,” I said and couldn’t suppress a slightly proud grin. “It was fairly spectacular, though I doubt the guy she was fighting will remember much of it.”
Suture turned to where his comatose wife and mother-in-law lay. “I suppose it is too late to complain about your violent genes, Quickie.” He reached one wing out and gathered Swift up against his chest again.
I felt a little shift on my shoulder and Mags whispered, “Har’dy...I be...I be missin’ my daddy.”
“Me, too, kiddo,” I muttered, backing out of the room.
----
Scarlet lead Taxi, Lim, and I to a separate, nearby room to give Swift and her father a bit of space. I had a feeling they’d need it. The room was unoccupied, save for a dentist’s chair and some orthodontistry equipment in a bin. I didn’t have the courage to ask if that’d been here before the Darkening, nor what it might have been used for.
I helped Taxi up onto the chair as Scarlet fired up the cast cutter.
“So, what is the actual score, here?” Taxi asked, leaning back and shutting her eyes. “You can’t really think going to Canterlot is a good idea.”
“I’m grasping at straws, Sweets. It’s the best I’ve got. Gypsy and Jade may have some information for us, but if Slip Stitch can’t get into Uptown I’m not real cheerful about our prospects. The P.A.C.T. is what worries me here. Black Coats. They’re acting...strange. We need a higher authority to appeal to.”
“They’ve been rousting ponies and searching places, ostensibly for you. It’s not making them any friends,” Taxi answered as Scarlet pointed the funny little instrument at her cast. It began to hum and a thin line appeared at the top of the cast, splitting slowly as he dragged it down her knee. “There’s an awful lot of rumors of disappearances, but it’s like everything else you don’t see with your own two eyes; almost impossible to verify. We don’t have resources to chase ponies who vanish going for a walk right now. There’s theoretically a curfew and the city is under martial law, but I think you’re safe enough so long as you avoid their air patrols.”
“That’s good, because...we’ve got the car. It’s the fastest heap in the city. If we need to outrun dragons, it’s our best option.”
“Hardy, you’re not thinking of making a run for Canterlot—”
“That is Plan B. Plan A is...well, we can’t get in touch with the Essy office, but do you think The Bull is still in town?”
Limerence pulled his spectacles down his muzzle. “The Bull? What do you-...wait... Am I to understand you’re referring to the Pan-Equestrian Subterranean Express?”
“That’ll be it, yeah.”
“You...are suggesting we take the Express to Canterlot?” he asked. “I must say, I like having all of my organs in their current shape, Detective. Not flattened against my spinal column.”
“I be not wanting my bits flattened either, Har’dy,” Mags put in, watching the cast cutting with interest.
“You and me are going to have a conversation about her at some point soon, Hardy,” Taxi murmured, biting her lip as Scarlet finished the hoof, trying not to giggle as the cast cutter tickled her frog. When he was done, the plaster split cleanly in two and she let out a sigh of relief, giving the pristine leg a ferocious scratching with her free hoof. “You’ve no idea how nice it feels to have that stupid thing off.” Moving to her back leg, Scarlet started at the hip and she had to struggle not to kick him as he gently peeled the other cast off, squirming in her seat as the cast cutter tickled her pelt.
“The Bull isn’t the worst way to travel. It’s better than flying. I know the Bull’s handler, or at least, I used to know her,” I explained, pacing back and forth in front of the chair. For some reason I was feeling awfully restless. “Juniper introduced us a few years before he died.”
“If I remember my father’s reports, she’s an...eccentric personality,” Lim mused.
“Eccentric doesn’t do her justice,” I replied, twirling a hoof beside my head. “She’s just about the friendliest thing in Equestria, but you’re going to hate her, and probably hate yourself for hating her. Taxi, you know how to find them?”
“I...yes. I mean, I know where we can probably find her, if they’re still in town—”
“If she was here when the Darkening happened, she’s still here. She can’t resist a good disaster.”
Scarlet stepped back as the second cast came off and tapped a bit of plaster dust off his hooves. “There we are, Miss Taxi! I’m not a doctor, but I don’t think you’ll even have a scar.”
Cautiously at first, then with more confidence, Taxi slid out of the chair and onto her hooves. She took a deep breath, then stepped forward. Her front knee gave out for a second and I moved to catch her, but she waved me back.
Straightening, she took another step, letting her full weight gradually settle.
“I think I’m good. Let’s go get Swift and I’m going to say goodbye to Minox. I imagine he’ll be glad to finally get some sleep...”
----
Swift was giving her father one last hug as we came out of the private room. Suture gave me a little nod, then retreated back into his wife and mother-in-law’s sick room, shutting the door behind him. She picked up her satchel with the Hail Storm in it and slung it back over her shoulder.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Nothing, Sir,” Swift replied, fluffing her wings and patting down the pockets on her combat vest. “Dad is...ugh, he’s being my Dad. Typical threats to ground me forever if I get myself killed and stuff, you know?”
“That’s a refreshing change from threats to kill me if you get yourself killed,” I murmured.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about my Dad, Sir. He’s not like that.”
I felt momentarily relieved, then had a thought tickle my brain.
“Is that because your mother and grandmother won’t leave enough to make it worth the effort?”
----
Word had apparently gotten around as we headed upstairs and I got more than a few blatant stares. My ears were burning by the time we reached the exit out back of the building. Somepony had arranged a chicken lorry, sans chickens. It still smelled like poultry, which didn’t bother me much but Mags, Grimble, and Derida started drooling the second we piled in. Prepubescent, fish-scented griffin drool down the back of your neck is not the way to start a journey.
Taxi said her last goodbyes to the minotaur, which involved an alarming amount of bumping, grinding, and tongue-play which was probably for my benefit. She’d enjoyed making out in front of me since we were teenagers, always hoping to get a rise. She never had, but “torturing Hardy when he’s trying to focus” was one of her favorite past-times. It was properly irritating when she got her first marefriend, then invited me to see Spacemare Destroyer Captain Part 6.
The back of the chicken truck was tight, but it had a covered top. I hadn’t had the forethought to check the time before we left.
Sliding behind the wheel, Taxi unfolded her map, then popped the hatch between the cab and the back compartment. “So, what’s our first stop? I need a new gun, but I’m betting my contact who got us the last batch is half-way to Los Pegasus by now. Or dead.”
“First? We deliver our friends here back to Sky Town. Next, the Night Trotter. After that...I don’t know.”
“If I may, and being as you are the only likely representative of the Nursemaid Guild I’m likely to see anytime soon...What about our eggs?” Derida inquired, tilting her chin up slightly. “I wish to see my own hatch as much as the next griffin.”
“Do you really want to move them?” I asked. “I mean, they’re in the creche here at the Vivarium. They’ve got a fair bit of experience taking care of eggs. There’s no Nursemaid Guild to speak of, unless you mean me. You want I should cart your eggs around in the trunk of my friend’s cab?”
A slightly queasy look crossed her face. “I think not.”
----
The map Taxi’s Stiletto scouts managed to hack together laid out a route that avoided the densest of the P.A.C.T. patrols and the most dangerous factions, but it still took us nearly an hour to get to Sky Town. Riding in the back of a sweaty, stinky truck full of griffins, a grumpy unicorn, and a mopey pegasus is a special kind of Tartarus that I don’t feel any need to describe outside of saying they hadn’t cleaned the chicken feathers out of the bed as well as I might have liked; I ended up with half a feather pillow down the back of my collar.
On the outskirts of Sky Town, we were accosted by a patrol wearing the familiar tartan of the Hitlan Tribe.
The second they laid eyes on Grimble Shanks, there were chest bumps and cheers all around. After extracting a promise from him not to go on any patrols, nor to leave Derida alone under any circumstances besides having a piss, we sent them on their merry way.
----
I shoved open the front door of the Cuddles residence and winced as the creak of the hinge echoed down the deserted street.
Mags bonked me on the head with her knuckles. “Be quiet, egg pony! It be dangerous!”
I gave my back a rough shake and she yelped as she slid off my shoulders into a heap on their doorstep. “You can have your riding privileges back after I’ve had a beer.” She gave me a reproachful look, tucking her tail between her back legs. I sniffed at her and added, “And you’ve had a bath.”
She stuck her beak under one wing, then stuck her little pink tongue out. “I be smelling fine!”
“You smell like raw fish and chickens.”
“What be wrong with fish and chickens?” Mags demanded.
“Nothing, if you enjoy walking everywhere we go.”
“Speaking of going, Sir…why aren’t we?” Swift asked as she backed up against the wall of her family home, warily studying the sky. “This feels awfully exposed. I want to be back on the road and—”
“We all need some rest, kid. This side of the Heights is safe enough and according to Taxi’s map we aren’t in an area that’s heavily patrolled by the P.A.C.T. or the Black Coats or whatever they’re called these days. Relax a bit. I think everyone needs some down time.”
“I also need to check the car,” Taxi added, glancing at the tarp-covered Night Trotter that was sitting just where we’d left it a week ago. “Does your dad have any tools I could use?”
Swift pointed towards the little garage adjoining the house. “Um...in there. I think he’s got some sprockets and stuff. Sir, I really don’t like this...”
“If you don’t mind, I find myself needing the facilities as well,” Limerence said, tugging his vest off with his teeth and giving it a good shake. “One would think after swimming through that sewer that my olfactory senses would be irreparably damaged, but a week in a coma has left my personal scent a bit...undesirable.”
Slumping a little, Swift pushed passed me into the house. “Ugh...Fiiine. I may as well finish that chicken salad my mom left in the fridge. The power is still on so it’s probably still good…”
“Yes, regarding that,” Limerence murmured, stamping dirt off his hooves on the welcome mat. “Why is the power still on? Something of a mystery if you ask me. Unless someone is maintaining it, shouldn’t it have failed catastrophically after the first three days or so? I don’t imagine the employees of the company are still making repairs. You made it sound like you had a theory about that earlier, Detective.”
“A theory? Not so much. It’s just a notion. I’ll know once we get out to Supermax. I want Ladybugs with us before we leave Detrot, either way.”
“You think it’s the Aroyos keeping everything going, Sir?” Swift asked, scuffing her hoof self-consciously. “I...I really want to see Tourniquet. I can feel her magic inside me, but I can’t talk to her without a Ladybug…”
“Like I said, it might be,” I replied with a little shrug, then turned to my griffin ward. “Mags, grab a towel out of the hall closet and get your butt upstairs in the tub.”
“Don’t wanna,” she sulked, digging at the rug with her claws.
“It’s either that or I go get the hose. Move it, fuzzball!”
----
Two hours later, I was toweling my thick mane out, flopped across the couch in the living room as Mags played with some of Swift’s old action figures on the carpet. I’d tried the television, but got only static or automated public service announcements declaring a ‘state of emergency throughout Equestria’.
Not surprising, I guess. Uptown encompassed the print and television districts. Every major station and most of the minor ones were there. Odd that there were no broadcasts going out, but with the disruptions to magical fields around the city, there was no practical way of guaranteeing your signal was going anywhere.
The radio yielded some slightly better results. There were plenty of stations still broadcasting, but most were single-pony operations. I dialed from station to station until I found what I thought was probably Gypsy’s. Light jazz filtered through the cozy little home and I let my shoulders begin to unwind.
I was clean and comfortable. Nopony was dying or screaming or sobbing or getting blown up in my immediate area. Limerence was upstairs still splashing around in the Cuddle’s family’s giant, claw-foot bathtub and Taxi was outside with a jack and a heap of Suture’s tools, happy as a clam as she fiddled with our ride.
That left Swift in the kitchen, sitting there disconsolately chewing on her third chicken sandwich.
Heaving myself up, I tugged the towel off my head and wrapped it around my flank, keeping my tail from dripping on the carpet as I trotted into the kitchen and sank down into a chair opposite my partner at the table. She didn’t acknowledge me, still chewing on a bite of her sandwich. She seemed lost in thought, her combat jacket folded on the table in front of her along with Masamane and the bag with the Hailstorm.
“Alright kid, what’s eating you?” I asked, reaching across the table and putting my hoof over her meal before she could bring it to her muzzle, “You’ve been acting like somepony kicked your puppy since I found you in Pollick’s.”
Swift finally looked up and swallowed. Her eyes were shining with tears, but they weren’t falling.
“Sir...it...it’s nothing. Really.”
“I’ve been around long enough to know that ‘nothing’ doesn’t come with a thousand yard stare. We’ve been up to our ears in blood together.”
She shut her eyes and sat for a long moment, taking some deep breaths. Her lips curled back in a way that made her look a bit like a wolf, then she dropped her unfinished sandwich. “Sir...I need to be able to trust my partner, and...I know it’s stupid, because you’ve had my back all this time, but it won’t leave me alone! I lost count of how many times you saved me, but you’d lie if you thought I’d be safer because of it. You’d lie to me if you thought I wouldn’t be hurt. You’d lie, Sir! You’d take that judgement call away from me.”
I gulped. “I...can’t say you’re wrong, kid. Your safety is the most important thing there is to me. I want you to still be okay when this is all over.”
She jabbed her hoof at her teeth, angrily rising to her hooves. “I’m never going to be okay, darnit!” she snapped, “I’m not ever going to be okay! I killed somepony I looked up to my whole life! I watched my partner die! My whole family is unconscious because of magic that might have killed or foalnapped the Princesses and a whole entire city! Somepony did something to my brain and I eat meat! I’m pretty sure I killed some of those cultists, too! There’s no such thing as ‘okay’ right now! Stop treating me like a filly, Hardy!”
I couldn’t remember getting up, but I was standing as she finished her furious speech.
Had she ever used that name before? Surely she had, but I couldn’t remember. Strange.
Swift sagged into the seat again, putting her hooves on either side of her head as she glared at her meal. “So...so I need to know. This is my question and you promised me the truth.”
Carefully pulling my chair in, I settled back down. “Uh...sure, Swift.” My voice caught in my throat and I had to force the words out. “What…*ahem*...what do you want to know?”
She was shaking with tension, but her gaze was unwavering. For the first time since I’d met her, I finally saw the pony who was my partner. I saw her for who she really was, under my preconceptions about youth, under the respect training and the military regimentation. I saw the mare who’d fought her way through Diamond Dogs, invisible monsters, professional killers, and mad, drugged up religious zealots.
I saw her and, if I’m honest, I was afraid.
“Sir, how did Juniper Shores die?”
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The team is tiptoeing toward settling accounts in Detrot to make way for the Canterlot expedition. Unfortunately, I'm having a gut feeling that something will go wrong. They're barely scraping by, but I guess we'll see what happens when the team takes a road trip. As of now, they haven't made any progression on uncovering the mystery of the Mane Cast, but that'll come in time. Kinda expecting them to get derailed at Ponyville, or what used to be that place on their way to the capitol.
Now the question is, "Is Bagel love?"
Great chapter. Really love that Hardy is seeing Swift as an equal almost now. Also enjoyed the magic reference in Sword to Plowshares.
6576526 The Canterlot Expedition. I kinda like that. Might be a good title for a future story! Preferably not one in the Detrot universe, but maybe another tale.
-Chessie
There seems to be some uneven indenting in this chapter.
...Did Grimble and Derida not hear the first mention in their presence of the shoes of Nightmare Moon? They seem to have only responded to the second one.
"then unhitched his axe"
When did he get the axe back?
"sniffed, disdainfully"
Extra comma?
"rib-cage, skull"
"ribcage, and skull"?
"Mags, Grimble, and Edina"
"Derida"?
"with involved an"
"which involved an"?
"the Cuddle’s family’s"
"Cuddles family's"?
Oh, now that's an interesting end to the chapter. :)
6577186 I'll go back and fiddle with the chapter a bit. I've been a mess lately.
-Chessie
Now thats a question to end on haha!
And mags, never change. the hose hahaha.. Nice call there.
Still, ouch hardy on the interaction with taxi... I think if you werent the sturdiest earth pony in the world by now, there is a crime being committed somewhere of staggering proportions..
Oh dear. Out of all the things that she could have asked, that is something we've all wanted to know.
Story has defintiely taken a turn, and whoever is behind it has the upper hand in this city. Still they still have obstacles well beyond just a undead detective and his pals, or an transgender draco. Cadance is sitll around, and the years would only make her more powerful, and Discord would still be a player, if these guys do the wrong thing to incite his disapproval. The moment he hears of what goin on in Detrot will probably be that point. He may be chaos, but murder and death is beneath him.
Still whoever is behind it would not be an easy fight for either or both of them. Though they are far from uncontested right now.
Will we be seeing some popping up to help? Considering things went so well with admtiably civlian but talented and strong will ponies before, i would imagine there would be dozens, even hundreds, who will be rising up in the midest of all this and figuring out something is a miss.
asdfasdfasdfasdfasdfcliffhangerdamnit
I've said it a billion times before, but I've loved seeing how all these characters have developed in this story. Especially Hardy and Swift. It's interesting...kinda seems like they've been heading in opposite directions. Swift's been getting a little harder, while Hardy's slowly breaking down.
You know, for a second there, I really thought she was going to let him go without any physical injuries. I am such a fool.
This part made me have a little bit of a twinge behind my eyes.
Bit of a weird formatting error there.
Really well written. Umbra, Animus and Armature might just have bitten off more than they can chew.
6577324
Sorry about that; hopefully things will improve for you soon.
Always a pleasure
Wow, great chapter. I really enjoy the way this plot is going. I imagine we're in for a ride on the flashback train in the next chapter? Looking forward to it!
Also, I'd like to point out some inconsistency on some terms. Namely, "Grandmare/Grandmother" and "Kidnap/Foalnap". The mix up is more than understandable, but I thought you'd like to know.
In any case, a freaking good job!
6578179 Sadly - like the show - Starlight is a tad inconsistent at times with how things are referred to. Characters find one term means more to them at a given moment than another. They'll say 'somebody' rather than 'somepony' when referring to a group which could contain non-pony characters and grand-mother rather than grand-mare when suggesting a closer familial relationship than just blood.
-Chessie
I am unsure how I feel about that cliffhanger. Should I be afraid that maybe this darker part of Hardy's past, or excited to uncover the truth, and maybe will it open up some undestnading about why the hell Juni is still hanging around in Hardy's head
Either way, phenomenal read and always looking forward to continuing reading this series. Haven't followed a story this much since Fallout Equestria
Act 3 Chapter 6 : "Two Griffins, One Stone"-
Whose ready for some flashbacks?!
I find myself with so many things I want to say, but none of the words to say them with...
Well, I must admit, wasn't expecting her to ask that. Also, I think Swift just went from cute to beautiful, terrifyingly beautiful.
Lucky bastard. Oh, he didn't take that offer? I would have.
I want you to know that whenever I see a new update here, I drop everything I'm doing to read it. I don't stop until it's done (unless I run out of hot water.)
I read this chapter and felt- dissatisfied. Upset. I retreated within myself, to figure it out.
Their world is so hopeless at this point. That's the rub. So many things have gone wrong, I can't see where they could fix it. It is broken in a deep and fundamental manner. It's so sad...
6579345 I promise a satisfying ending. I won't walk away from this until I feel the readers are happy with what has happened. This isn't a Greek tragedy.
-Chessie
Damn. Swift is cutting right to the heart of his need to protect her it seems.
Welp it seems they are crawling up from Near rock bottom if not rock bottom. Still atleast they are getting some of the pieces together. Im curious to see how the next chapter will be, But I have a feeling Canterlot's remains if there are any will hold something of value, or maybe a way to find the forgotten princess...
6579479 It FEELS like one, though. Like nothing can be completely fixed... So many dead...
Oh come on Hardy, Taxi didn't hit you that hard. You can't really believe that.
Somepony who's never been mentioned as a magical heavyweight and whose greatest accomplishment in life is getting elected mayor of a wretched hive of scum and villainy at the flank-end of Equestria is pulling the strings behind a massive, far-reaching, and lifetime-spanning, (remember, we know Taxi's charming dad was involved back when you were foals) conspiracy? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
Think Hardy, there's pattern and precedent here. Cosmo. Astral Skylark. Whoever you're chasing has empowered and controlled the ponies running two of the three major criminal enterprises in Detrot. Bits to bagels they've got the trifecta, (or quadfecta, if you count their probable control of P.A.C.T.) and Snifter's another pawn on their board, who has only the vaguest notion of whose tune he actually dances to, besides that he gets his marching orders from
Wolfram & HartUmbra, Animus and Armature.Also, was it just me, or did the story not show up as an unread chapter for anyone else?
i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/010/100/dis_gon_be_good.gif
It is by bagels alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the cream of cheese that bagels acquire calories, the nose acquire stains, the stains become a distraction.
It is by bagels alone I set my mind in motion.
It would be funny if this all turned out to be some sort of localised illusion spell to cut Detrot off from the rest of Equestria. The dragons and PACT are there at the borders to keep everypony from wandering too far and peeking "behind the curtain" a la Cabin in the Woods. The rest of equestria had the most successful Summer Sun Celebration since Luna's return: no wars, no (overt) end of the world crisis, no escaping denizens of Tartarus, no invasions... The only reason anypony in Canterlot government would suspect something is amiss would be the sudden drop in crime reports from Detrot...
I imagein Lim is soo going to "dispose" of the pony/dragon/griffin/being responsible for this in some chillingly creative fashion when (if?) they ever catch them:
Limerance glowered at ██████ before him before lighting his horn.
"My name is Limerance Bwana Kitabu Tome. You killed my family. Prepare to suffer."
*pop*
"Limerance! what did you do with ██████! You did not kill them did you?"
"Detective, ██████ murdered my family, my friends, and destroyed everything I held dear. Do not talk to me of what I can or cannot do! However, out of respect for our friendship, rest assured that I did not perform an inverse shear affine transformation along their rostrocaudal axis and instead merely shifted them with a 4-vector rotation about the origin of their sagittal plane, naturally excluding any Brownian vectors outside their immediate body. They have not gone anywhere. They are still here before us."
"Equestrian Lim! Do you speak it?"
*sign*
"I simply rotated ██████ away along the fourth dimension instead of tearing them into two pieces."
"Oh. That does not sound too bad. Thank you for showing some restraint."
"I never said that I rotated any oxygen with them..."
Indeed he was. He of all ponies (and zebra) should know what qualities make a good soul. He, did after all, have a collection of souls on his desk in a little Neighton's Cradle and several more powering his desk lamp...
On a completely unrelated note, did you know Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale is an anagram of "a terrorising death: total revolt" ?
6585288
Bells and purple leather fetish harness and tack picked out by Derida.
I am with you there Lurky. We have someone who can foment an international crisis (zebra, dragons, and griffons), access to some serious military R&D and hardware, and the chutzpah to go and nick the forbidden evil alicorn artefacts, and resources to dabble in forbidden necromancy. Snifter certainly is a scumbag of the highest order, but I do not see him as being anything as other than yet another puppet. If he really was a "player", he would have consolidated his control over his political opponents rather than disgracing them with a fake scandal involving the Arroyo filly agent-provacateur...
6591632 We already have some insight on who killed the Archivists. Practically since we meet the Archivists.
Finally we learn how Juniper met his end. The real monster haunting hardy. IT ALL COMES TOGETHER NEXT CHAPTER! I would hope.
I just realized... they are gonna need to ether find some way to get outta town without shutting down the shield pylons or the only other way is... .. horseapples. This is not good.
6617565 Wouldn't you? I could have sworn you'd already read through Starlight once before! Am I just seeing your name because I read it someplace else?
-Chessie
Yes I finally got caught up on this story after I started it 2 weeks ago. I'm a bit late to the party but this story is great and I look forward to what happened to Juni, and I know I am not the only one.
By the way my ideas on how Hardy and crew are going to get out:
drive the night trotter through the m6 tunnel or blow up a shield pylon or two.
Also why do I get there feeling that when they do do out of Detrot, that a forgotten princess,and (the other eoh and/or adraconiquis of chaos)will show them selves?
This seem fitting for this Arc so far.
T (FN)
I'm reminded of a book I read many years ago, which revolved around a dessert cook-off, and a main character who literally couldn't help weaponizing his dishes.
Hah! There's a BOLO story like that! Except the Iron Charger probably won't wake up autonomously to defend Baltimare.
Also bursting into Iris Jade's office and/or bedroom is an excellent place for shocked silence.
1) You're not exactly short of things to do. 2) We're not sure you're in your mind.
Apprentice bodyguard.
... Kinky.
Well ... that's pretty accurate. And a little more foresightful than I expected from Stella.
Says the Death Pony, destroyer of traffic?
To inspire your enemies to even greater heights of violence, I'm sure.
Imagine the existential crisis that Hardy would go through at the thought that he is merely a character in a story. (Existential crisis probably cut short by the immediate attempt to commit homicide on Chessie via Crusader-class weapon and/or vehicular terror.)
Random page break here.
The worst part about this is that I'm pretty sure Slip Stitch would happily help him set it up properly!
*puts on Barry White*
"But Har'dy, you didn' know my daddy."
I was afraid of what that question was gonna be.... dammit Swift. It’s not like I don’t want to know, but Hardy doesn’t need to be reflecting on that subject.
Gosh I now have the headcanon that Taxi and Hardy have banged two or three times while REALLY drunk, and agreed to never speak of the incidents again.
9831987 It's possible, but neither of them remember it. When they drink together, they're there to drink.
-Chessie
I second the whole things outside of detrot aren't as bad as they are trying to make it sound
The fact that almost all of the stations are conveniently blocked off...
Alright the squad is back together and they will be ready to go as soon as Hardy can once more feel all of his limbs following Taxi's greeting.
Pfffffft, yeah... they would be calling it that. Though knowing soldiers it would just be 'The ass tank" doubly so if it just happens to be crewed by donkeys.
And don't knock the importance of proper naming for these things, you have the case over in Schlock Mercenary of the galaxy ending up glad that a rogue AI hijacked a super weapon and named it the Long-gun of the Apocalypse, since once that tech became more common they just refereed to them as 'Longguns' rather then the initial military name of Discontinuous Elementary Particle Acceleration System...... though I'm sure no one would find a crude way to refer to the D.E.P.A.S.
When you aren't sure if this is just named after the Virtue, or if there is a story here about Fluttershy that was lost to history because Twilight fucked over everypony to go be a hermit.
Danger! Danger Will Robinson! Danger! She's in a cast, you can out maneuver her for now, don't close into melee range!
And a perfect cut... yeah w all saw that coming.... but relax he's not dead... that would be too merciful.
So still working off some brain damage.... how long did you stop the flow of blood to his brain there Taxi?
Have I mentioned recently I really love this story? Just, such perfect touches of just... such Pony humor and fun despite the darkness, things are serious, but this never stops feeling like Equestria.
Only that one time, Slip said they could use anypony running in the wheel. So not always hamsters, just hamster wheels!
True, but you all are really not considering what this means and just how widespread things have been for so long. There are clear connections here none of you have made about what is going on and how things are connected. See, in Dresden, this is where local internet nutter Paranoid Gary would have had some random conspiracy theory about something that ends up being right in the wrong way about things but gives Harry and Co. a place to start putting it all together. (Okay, so that only happened twice, but still!)
Seriously did, they all just live in that library full time? None of them were out on business or had the day off? Out doing collections/scouting... anything?
Likely a very good call on this one.
See, just let this place handle inter-species diplomacy for the city from now on, they are really, REALLY good at it! Also, I mean, what else are you going to do while spending a week holed up in the kinkiest bordello this side of the Crystal Mountains?
Ummm.... about that.......
Porque no los dos?
And Swift. But again Hardy, this is a good thing! TPTS already want you dead, this is making it harder for them to do that.
Ah, so they just got The Scry on everyone don't they..... how are they monitoring this all? Do they just have like, a room somewhere with a bunch of unicorns constantly updating a giant map with where all the Scry targets are?
Inventive!
Because your suffering is a source of amusement to all.
See, like I said, somepony put Stella in charge of the cities diplomatic corp!
And there it is..... fun fun.
Oh for the love of Celestia.... how are you this dense? It should be very, very clear by now that Snifter is just another pawn of the ones really behind all this! Stop focusing on the wrong level of the plot!
Okay now he's crazy...... wait do you mean go to the giant crater where Canterlot used to be, or somehow get to the city itself that you have no idea where in all of the possible realities it might be assuming it wasn't simply vaporized instantly. I mean it could be anywhere...... and if the Changeling Space Program ever existed to get you to the moon, Twilight's little "I want to yank out a bunch of history" spell erased them.
I love this Sea Serpent. So perfectly dramatic in the right way, and knows what's important.
I mean..... I'm given how clearly evil they are at this point and not giving a buck about laws or decency or morality.... I'm sure the Black Coats could use a good tourt..... sorry 'Pain Technician". And one with the medical skill to keep the client alive long enough to be useful would be a good catch. You know, right up until Taxi teaches you a new way to trigger every single pain receptor in an equine body at once.
Such a great tragedy... I have no words to express my sympathy for you.....
At this point.... yeah.... Hardy, this stuff should not be shocking you anymore.
Yeah, Swift is an adorable ball of precious adorableness....... but try to hurt somepony she cares about and she will END you! And she's awesome!
Oooookay, this is getting intriguing.....
No no.... see he won't kill you..... he'll patch you back up and keep you alive as long as possible so they can enjoy making you suffer longer.
More evidence Taxi is just plain eeeeeevil!
Ummm...smart call there. heh
Maybe.... oh I don't know.... TPTS need power for something like..... maybe keeping up the spell holding Canterlot away..... or prepping for phase 2. At this point I'm assuming everything the least bit odd that goes on is TPTS unless given proof otherwise.
She..... is not wrong about this and has a good point. Also, an issue Dresden dealt with a lot early on till he finally learned not to.....and then ended up getting back into having to simply because of the level of secrets he got privy to tended to be of the "Kill people just for potentially knowing them" type.
Good call.... she is cute and sweet and adorable..... but also a relentless badass who does not let anything get in her way.
Oh.... ohhhhh boy this is..... ohhhh boy, fun times ahead!
Well gang is assembled, a few stops to make then Hardy will try to find somepony else to make this be their problem, and find out somehow that no... this is all his problem.
11572202
Eeee, I just checked Fimfiction to see you'd been reading and I was so happy!
- Chessie