Case Six, Chapter Nine: The End of an Era
“Your terms are unreasonable,” Celestia said, folding her forelegs across her chest.
“I apologize, but I only ask for what I consider to be absolutely necessary,” Silvertongue replied. “Considering what is at risk, I would think that you’d be more willing to negotiate with—”
He was interrupted by the blaring of an alarm. With a great rattling, a steel shutter slammed down over the door. Celestia sprang off the chair in surprise, Mythic half-drawing her sidearm on instinct.
Silvertongue froze for a moment in shock, then raised the hoof with the silver bracelet at his two guests. “Eico Expolso!” he shouted. A beam of silver light shot out of the bracelet and struck both ponies, causing them both to vanish from the room. Breathing heavily, Silvertongue then grabbed a telephone from a box hidden in the wall behind him and held it up to his ear.
“What happened?” he demanded, touching a gem embedded in the underside of the table. A projected image appeared before him. He stared in shock: Phillip Finder and Daring Do, engaged in combat with the demon-faced armor in the purple room.
“How did they get in?!” he demanded. “What? Another unicorn? Yes, in the white room, I see him, he’s busy with the armor there…the armor in the purple room saw him? Good.” He paused for a few moments of silence, then said, “No. Get all the guards assembled.” He raised the silver bracelet and projected his will into the totem. The bracelet glowed once more; inside the blue, yellow, green, and orange rooms, the suits of armor each looked up, their eyes glowing red. They stepped off their platforms and began to march towards the white room, the steel shutters opening and closing to allow them passage. A dozen Cerberus security guards followed, their electric batons buzzing with energy.
“No more, Mister Finder,” Silvertongue growled, opening the shutters between the white and purple rooms. “No more interference. You die here.”
A flash of light and Princess Celestia landed in reality again, her head swirling with confusion; taking in her surroundings in a glance, she realized that she was in the purple room.
Movement behind her. She ducked just in time to avoid a vicious punch, feeling the wind from the golem's punch pass over her head. She replied by lighting up her horn and pushing the armor away with a burst of magic: the demon-faced suit skidded back several feet, but kept its footing and charged at Phillip instead, who had to dive roll out of the way.
She turned and saw that the doors to the white room were open. Inside the white room, Daring and Arc Light were struggling with a different suit of armor, this one with metal wing-like attachments with blades that it twirled and slashed at them with, forcing them to continually dodge back.
Arc and Mythic both looked at each other and nodded, then grabbed the emerald necklaces that they both wore. Both the summoning gems glowed with a bright light, surrounding the guards’ bodies. When the light faded, both were donned in the battle armor of a Royal Guard: a dark blue vest that covered their torsos, boots with attached knee and shin guards, gorgets to protect their necks, and helmets with semi-tinted visors that covered their upper faces. Gold accents adorned the armor, along with plates that bore runes; each of them was armed with a .45 caliber N4 “grease gun,” the barrels of which were adorned with more runes. As one, they cocked these weapons with a sharp cli-clack.
At that same moment, the door to the white room opened. In marched four more suits of armor, accompanied by a dozen guards, each armed with a baton that buzzed and crackled with energy.
“Great,” Daring muttered.
“Phillip and Daring, focus on the guards!” Celestia instructed, firing another beam of magic at an approaching suit of armor; the golem slowed, but did not stop. “Mythic and Arc, to me!”
“Yes, Your Highness!” Mythic and Arc both shouted, immediately dashing over to Celestia’s side. They fired their N4s at any golems that approached, their bullets pinging musically off the suits.
Daring snapped her wing out at the approaching guards; three smoke bombs flew from her wing and detonated as they struck the ground, summoning a great black cloud that filled up the room. The guards halted in their advance, coughing and choking. Daring dove into the group, lashing out with her kusarifundo and her hooves, followed by Phillip and his baton.
Celestia lit up her horn, driving the smoke away from herself and her guards, and a ribbon of golden light blossomed from the tip. It floated down beside her, straightening into a line, and turned into a golden halberd. She immediately thrust at the demon-faced suit of armor, but the armor deflected it with its foreleg and pulled her in close for a punch. Going with the momentum, Celestia dodged the punch and struck the armor in the jaw with the blunt end of the halberd as she dodged past, then immediately jabbed again, striking it in the back of the knee and forcing it to the floor.
Two more golems pounded towards her and struck, their blows halted at the last moment by a golden shield. Their animated hoofguards pounded against her shield with gong-like blasts, forcing her back slightly, but she countered with the halberd, her weapon clattering against their foreguards as they blocked her blows.
Arc raised his N4 to his shoulder and shouted, “Frost!” A rune on the barrel glowed blue and Arc opened fire, blue streaks of energy blossoming from his gun. Where each of his bullets struck the demon-faced armor, ice formed, rapidly encasing and immobilizing the golem. Arc grunted in satisfaction.
But a moment later, the ice began crackling and creaking. A moment later, the golem shattered the ice around it, breaking free. It turned its glowing red eyes on Arc and charged at him.
Without missing a beat, Arc lit up his horn. Instantly, three duplicates of himself appeared and simultaneously charged, surrounding the armor. The armor paused, confused, then punched at one of the Arc Lights. The hoofguard passed right through the illusory Arc, allowing the real one to fire another ice bullet at the golem’s left foreleg, hitting the joint and temporarily immobilizing the arm. Charging forward as he dissipated his illusory copies, Arc struck the armor across the jaw with the butt of his gun, then in one fluid motion, drew a knife from his belt and slashed at the golem’s right foreleg, cutting through the straps that held the armor together. The arm, no longer animate, fell to the floor in a useless heap and the armor tumbled down after it.
“Arc, behind you!” Mythic shouted. Arc ducked as Mythic fired a burst from her own weapon, striking the tragedy-masked armor in the face and stunning it. Arc turned and slashed at his new enemy’s forelegs again, forcing it away. Mythic leaped up into the air and came down onto the demon armor like a meteor, pinning it to the floor and preventing it from getting up. She shoved the barrel of her gun into the mask’s mouth and barked “Armor Piercing!”
One of the runes on the N4’s barrel glowed red and Mythic fired a short burst that roared out of the weapon. The enhanced bullets tore right through the back of the helmet, reducing it to scrap metal. The suit of armor fell apart into inanimate pieces with a great crashing, parts rolling across the floor.
“Take out the helmets, that’s their weak spot!” she shouted.
No sooner had she said this than Celestia speared another golem through the face with her halberd and yanked its helmet off, flinging it at another with the force of a cannonball and sending her foe crashing through a cabinet of porcelain statues. “Good to know,” she grinned.
“I already told you officers, I don’t know anything,” Rhythm Blossom said, folding his forelegs across his chest. He was a dark blue earth pony with black hair and mustache, green eyes, and a cutie mark of a row of tulips stretched across a musical bar.
“It’s standard procedure for us to go back and double check with any witnesses,” Trace Evidence said, holding a folder in his magic. He and Red were sitting across from Rhythm in the stallion’s living room, which was decorated with a bright blue carpet and posters of jazz musicians on the walls. Trace looked at the photograph of Meadow Dance on top of the folder. “Where were you two weeks ago, when your sister was abducted?”
“The same place I told you the first time,” Rhythm said flatly. “I was at the Midnight Oil, having a drink and listening to the band playing. Gabby and the Globe-Trotters, this griffon trio. Real nice sounding.”
“You did not see your sister at all?” Trace asked.
“Of course not,” Rhythm said, looking down at the floor. “Maybe if I’d gone to see her, she might not have…” His voice trailed off and he fell silent.
Trace and Red both glanced at each other and Red gave a little smirk, ensuring that Blossom could see the gesture.
“See, here’s the thing,” Red said. “We went back and reexamined your sisters’ house, and we figured something out. We think that she was taken by somepony she trusted. Somepony she let into the house.”
“O-oh?” Rhythm said, shifting backward in his seat slightly.
“And here’s another thing,” Red said. “Whoever took her knew about that medical condition of hers, because they took that potion that she had.”
“And funnily enough, we checked with the apothecary you get it from,” Trace said. “And they told us that you bought refills for that. Twice.”
Rhythm flinched a little, trying to retreat from the questions. “I...it’s habit, you know? You get used to buying it every week, and…”
“What I can’t understand is how a pony can willingly kidnap their sister so that they can blackmail their brother-in-law, and yet still give enough of a fuck that they make sure that they buy her medicine,” Red interrupted, scowling at Rhythm. Rhythm froze in his seat, sweat trickling down his brow.
“This isn’t going to look good to a jury,” Trace said flatly. “Save yourself some face and just come clean with us. It could save you a few years in prison.”
“Y-you can’t prove anything,” Rhythm stammered.
Red snorted. “You think you’re so smooth,” he scoffed. “Did it never occur to you that you left some evidence? A few hairs are all we need to put you in for thirty years, and that’s if you’re lucky.”
Sweat was now pouring from Rhythm’s forehead. He looked around as if trying to find the closest avenue of escape, then sighed. “Look, it was just for the money, okay?” he said. “Between her potions and auditions, I was being bled dry. They promised they wouldn’t hurt her, and I still got her potion...look, I just—”
“Save it for your lawyer, I’m not interested in your bullshit,” Red interrupted, his lip curling in disgust. “Where is she?”
Rhythm hung his head. “I took her to a warehouse in the Financial District. I can give you the address.”
Dual-wielding his own baton and one of the guard’s electric batons, sweat pouring from his forehead and blood trickling from a split lip, Phillip carved his way through the onslaught of security thugs. Blocking one unicorn’s wild swing, he feinted with the shock baton, then struck his foe’s wrist with his other baton went they moved to block it, disarming them. Briefly shocking them with the electric baton, Phillip blocked an incoming attack and countered with a roundhouse kick to the side and finished the unicorn off with a heavy blow to the head.
Suddenly, a pegasus guard flew in and stabbed him in the side with her baton, shocking him. Phillip yelped in pain and flinched away from the electric touch, but another guard seized him from behind in a bear hug. Grinning, the pegasus shoved her baton into Phillip’s gut; he doubled over, his muscles seizing up. He struggled to move, to strike back, but his limbs refused to answer.
Suddenly, an antique Japonese vase flew across the room and smacked the pegasus in the back of the head. Her eyes rolled and she tumbled to the floor, unconscious. Phillip took a moment to recover his breath and rammed his head into the face of the guard holding him, breaking his nose and forcing him to let go. He dropped to all fours and bucked backward, sending his foe into the wall and knocking him out.
“Shit," Daring winced, looking at the fragments of pottery on the floor. "That was from the Trotugawa era. Should've just grabbed a baton."
“Phillip, Daring, get close to each other!” Celestia ordered. She and her two Guards were fending off the last three remaining golems, who were now determinedly protecting their heads from any further attack.
“Is this really the time?!” Daring shouted.
“I need to shield you both!” Celestia explained, parrying an attack from the golem with bat-like wings and forcing it away.
Phillip and Daring both moved close to one another. Gritting her teeth, Celestia lit up her horn. Golden bubbles of energy appeared herself and the Guards, Phillip and Daring, and the unconscious Cerberus guards. Then she took a strong stance and narrowed her eyes. Her horn began to sparkle with increasingly bright light, then with a sound like the sky itself was screaming, three beams of intense golden light fired from her horn, striking each of the golems in the head. The metal foes raised their forelegs to block the beams, but Celestia’s magic cut right through the metal. The heat from the spells was so intense that paintings on the walls curled and caught flame, and pottery and glass sculptures cracked and splintered.
Within moments, the golem’s arms, then their heads were reduced to slag that dripped into smoking, stinking pools on the floor. The golems collapsed into useless heaps, and Celestia dropped the spell and the shields, panting and sweating. The unharmed ponies stared at the destruction in awe.
“Why does she need protecting again?” Daring asked Mythic, who was staring wide-eyed at the headless winged armor. Mythic shrugged slightly.
“We seem to have worn out our welcome,” Celestia said, wiping her forehead. “We should go.”
“Not yet,” Daring said, pulling out the red notebook. “I need to talk to Chuck.”
“What?” Phillip said.
“If we just leave, he’ll have us all arrested for burglary,” Daring explained. “We need an ace in the hole.”
Celestia nodded and turned to the steel shutters covering the door to the final room. “That’s magic-proof steel,” Arc pointed out.
“It’s rated against unicorns,” Celestia pointed out, igniting her horn. “Not against me.” A thin beam of golden light blossomed from her horn and she began to slowly carve out a hole in the shutter. It took her just under a minute, but she finally managed to cut through the shutter and the wall beyond, giving them a tunnel into the black and red room. The group walked through the tunnel and entered the room.
Silvertongue slowly peeked out over the table he was hiding behind and raised his foreleg. Before he could summon his banishing spell again, Celestia reached out with her magic and plucked the silver bracelet from his wrist, tossing it into the corner. Silvertongue stared open-mouthed for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Your Highness, you can’t seriously think that this madness will go unpunished,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “You have brought thieves into my home, assaulted my guards, and destroyed my property. You will be arrested for this!”
“Oh, no, Chuck,” Daring said, walking forward with a confident grin as Mythic and Arc covered Silvertongue with their N4s. “You’re not telling anypony about this.”
Silvertongue swallowed but managed a shadow of his superior smirk. “And what makes you say that?”
“Because if you tell on us, I tell on you,” Daring said, holding up the red notebook.
Silvertongue’s eyes widened in horror as Daring flipped the notebook open and took out the letter with the black seal on it. “‘Dear Charlie August Silvertongue,’” she read out loud. “‘In the name of His Majesty King Sombra, the Crystal Emperor, I would like to commend you on your loyalty to the Empire. The intelligence that you have gathered has all but assured our victory…’” She smirked at Silvertongue. “You’re a spy. That explains who gave you this notebook, and how you went from a small-time art dealer to a big boss.”
Silvertongue swallowed. “You know what the sentence for treason during wartime is?” Daring asked, her smirk growing wider. “Death. By hanging. And here’s the thing: sometimes they make the rope a bit too short. The drop’s supposed to snap your neck, but if it’s too short, the rope strangles you instead. And that hurts. A lot. And it takes a really, really long time to die that way.” She leaned in closer. "See, I've met ponies like you. Big ponies who think that their dicks are three feet long and they can push other ponies around for no good reason. Beneath all that bluster and high-class bullshit, you're nothing but a bully, Chuck. And like all bullies, at your heart, you're a coward. And you're scared of dying. You might be able to get away from this with a long sentence, maybe end your life in some cushy minimum security place for old fucks who can't hurt anypony anymore. But if you're ousted as a spy, that's a one-way ticket to the gallows."
Silvertongue was trembling and sweating profusely. “So go ahead, call the cops on us,” Daring smirked. “When I sit in my cell and read in the paper about how Charlie August Silvertongue, respected art historian, was busted as a traitor and hanged, and that it took him five minutes of agony to die of strangulation, I’m gonna laugh my ass off.” She paused for a beat. “Of course, that’s assuming the gangs don’t find you first when they figure out you don’t have any leverage on them anymore. I hear Whitestone sometimes eats ponies she really doesn’t like. While they’re still alive. But, I might be willing to help you out a bit...for a small price.”
Silvertongue slowly turned to Celestia. “You...you won’t let this happen,” he whimpered.
“Goodbye, Silvertongue,” Celestia said, turning on her tail and exiting.
"You told us before," Phillip said coldly, his eyes as hard as stone. "You either bend, or you break." He and Daring exited after the Princess, followed by Mythic and Arc. Celestia gathered everypony close, then lit up her horn and the group vanished in a flash of golden light.
Silvertongue was left alone, looking out at the ruined artwork in the purple room, filled with the shattered golems and unconscious guards. Slowly, he collapsed to the floor, staring wide-eyed at nothing, staring as his doom approached.
The warehouse was an older establishment; if the fading sign hanging over the doorway was any indication, it used to belong to a paint and hardware chain.
Inside the warehouse, four ponies sat around in an open room with a blank concrete floor. A pair of zebras were playing poker at a card table, an overweight unicorn was sprawled across a sofa with a pornographic magazine, and a pegasus was tinkering with an old radio in the corner.
“She’s crying again,” the pegasus grumbled, brushing a strand of his bangs out of his eyes and glaring at a padlocked door in the corner. Faint sobbing and whimpering could be heard from inside.
“So what?” the unicorn grunted, turning an already worn page.
“It annoys the shit out of me,” the pegasus grumbled. “Gotta feed her, give her her meds. Why don’t they have us changing her diapers too?”
“If you find the crying so annoying, perhaps something else you could be deploying,” one of the zebras said, not looking up from her cards.
“How do you zebras get to be so good at the rhyming anyway?” the pegasus grunted. “Does it come off the top of your heads or—”
They were interrupted by an enormous crash as the door was blown open by a blast of magic. Before anypony could react, five ponies charged into the warehouse and quickly had them covered. “Do not move!” Prowl barked. “On your knees, hooves on your heads!”
The four thugs had no choice but to obey and were quickly patted down and cuffed. Recovering a key from one of the zebras, Trace walked over to the door with the padlock and unlocked it. Inside was Meadow Dance, her coat and hair matted and dirty, her eyes hollow, crouching next to a bucket that had been used as a makeshift toilet and a bottle of water. She flinched away from the door, raising a hoof to shield herself.
“It’s okay,” Trace said, crouching down and holding out a hoof. “You’re safe now.”
Meadow Dance stared for a moment while her brain processed the fact that she was being rescued, then threw herself into his forelegs with a relieved sob. Trace gently carried her outside as the sound of sirens announced the arrival of more police and an ambulance.
The group emerged into the snowy night just as the first cruisers and an ambulance were pulling up. Trace guided Meadow Dance over to the ambulance and placed her in the care of the waiting medics, who quickly wrapped her in a tight blanket and began to examine her.
Trace helped Red, Prowl, Bumblebee, and Flash shepherd the captors into a waiting paddy wagon, secured them inside, then sent the wagon back to the precinct.
“We’ll head back with them to make our reports and help with booking them,” Prowl reported.
“Good,” Trace nodded. “I’ll stay with Meadow.” He nodded as Prowl walked off with her two partners, then turned to Red. “Did you call him?”
“He should be on his way,” Red reported.
Trace nodded and walked back to the ambulance. Meadow was now sitting comfortably in the back, being tended to by one of the medics, a jenny with a brunette ponytail. “How is she?” he asked the other medic, a tall earth pony with a beard.
“She’s dehydrated and malnourished, but not seriously injured,” the medic reported. “No signs of...abuse. We’ll take her to the hospital.”
“Hang on a sec,” Trace said, holding up a hoof, noticing an approaching set of headlights.
A cruiser pulled up to the scene and stopped. Rusty Key stumbled out of the back almost before the vehicle had come to a complete stop and ran to the ambulance, panting. “Meadow!” he cried, his eyes lighting up in joy as soon as they spotted his wife.
“Rusty!” Meadow sobbed, leaping out of the ambulance and hugging her husband. The two clung to one another, both of them weeping in joy.
“She’s safe now,” Trace said to Rusty. “Silvertongue can’t hurt either of you anymore. He’s done.”
“And I’ll make sure of it,” Rusty said, his eyes filled with determination as he continued to hug his wife. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”
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Daring Do, badass. Now that is how you take down a Charles Augustus Magnussen expy.
This one needs a bit of a correction, particularly...
and
How'd they all wind up in the same room?
Also you might want to replace 'paddy wagon' with something else, the paddy in there is slur, specifically a reference to the Irish, the equivalent of the N word. I know this because a childhood friend's father was Irish having come over from Ireland, and he did not like that phrase, and that's putting it mildly.
Also I'm trying to figure out what you were quoting with the hanging description, because I know I've heard that before.
9039743
I tried to make it clear that Silvertongue had opened the door between the rooms so that his thugs could focus on them both at once. I guess it wasn't that evident.
9040063
Looking at it, I think the problem is that we see the guards and armor marching to the purple room with the doors opening and closing behind them, but there's no mention of the doors opening between rooms. You might be better off just beaming Tia into the white room, especially as there doesn't seem to be a purpose to beaming them into the purple room. Had they been beamed out of the house or to another random room, it would've made sense, since they would've needed time to come to Philip's rescue, there by increasing the threat to him.
On another note, will this be happening in a future chapter?
9040661
Okay, I did change things a little bit to explicitly state that the door was open.
Also, as cool as that animation is, I don't have any plans to include Octy and Vinyl yet.
9035554
Experience? What experience? *looks around*
I love it!
Is this the end of volume one?
9040723
Didn't expect that you did, but those two as bank robbers and all that? Couldn't resist sharing, though Octavia is obviously not one you should turn your back on.
9040774
Not quite. We got two more chapters to go!
9040751
Well, in your studies, I thought you might have come across some of said diseases.
9041560
Oh, sweet!
9041563
Ah, Alrighty
Oooooohohohooooo this was great. There's nothing quite like seeing a smug jerkwad break.
Just to note you have it backwards on the hanging thing, the subject is strangled to death if the rope is too short. Too long of a rope and the result is actually decapitation
11130160
Ah, thanks for letting me know.