The Runaway Bodyguard

by scifipony

Chapter 38 — Dog and Pony Shows

By the time I found the shadowy warehouse a block off the docks, I felt sick to my stomach. I worried that the group had been caught or ambushed. I had kept ruminating. It made no sense that the two rival gang members had taken so long to attack, unless they had actually wanted to waylay me. I galloped the last length to the wood and brick building and threw open the corrugated doors with a bang, huffing and puffing.

What I saw made me freeze.

Ma'am hovered above the group.

All eyes focused on me. Everypony froze, too. Amongst the group stood a light blue pegasus with a dark blue mane beside a muddy brown earth pony peppered with bruises. The tableau lasted a couple heartbeats before the entire lot all pointed at me and broke out laughing. Spiker fell over, snorting—disgustingly ejecting a bloody tissue he had rolled in his nose.

"Celestia on roller skates!" I hissed. It had been a dog and pony show all along, with me jumping through the hoops.

Ma'am swooped down and landed a pony length away. She swatted my nose with a wing. "So impertinent. Her royal age-less-ness definitely does not skate!"

I blinked, then lifted my hoof to my stinging nose. The cut bled anew. "I passed the test?"

Ma'am flew off to a table. Hoisting a bottle of Sunny Daze orange juice with a wing, she said, "You walloped Pig Pen and Crystal 'The Knife' Skies but good. Got away with just a cut on your nose, all limbs and extremities intact. That says nothing about countering Breakaleg and Spiker's clumsy dance moves. You're not stupid, you're not a klutz, and you're not so mental that you love to fight when you don't have to." She shrugged. "We made the delivery."

"Thank you, I think?"

They laughed again. I'd read about hazing in at least one book I'd read. I now understood the definition.

As the sun rose, the seven of us—except "the Knife"—gathered in an adjacent park for breakfast. Ponies hastening to work or jogging in sweatshirts studiously averted their eyes and modified their path. While we waited for Ma'am who left to fetch breakfast, my five stallion homies took the time to insult one another and act like grade-schoolers at recess, fake fighting and horsing around included. I endured questions answering as vaguely as I could, including one about the type of fillies I preferred. They'd pegged me as a teenage colt. When one asked—in crude language I shan't repeat here—if I'd had relations with any, I nodded affirmative.

Well, I had, in a manner I wasn't willing to share.

That resulted in me being good-naturedly shouldered and shoved about, getting a foreleg over my withers, and Spiker delivering a "noogie" to the crown of my head. Colts and stallions! I endured their collective physicality, shoving them away only when I feared they might as a joke try to squeeze something I didn't possess.

I later took notes about what I recollected. My Grimoire persona might improve if I could act the part better.

Would teenage Sunburst, I wondered, given a similar excuse, act like an uncouth male idiot with others his age? I wondered what he would look like with longer legs, fuller muscles, and that fuzz that had looked like moss on his chin grown into a beard. A roughhouse? Would I like that kind of colt?

Ma'am landed with a loud clatter of hooves on the picnic table. She brought boxes of jelly donuts and chocolate curlers, a basket of red apples, and something fried that smelled incredible enough that my mouth watered.

My homies didn't share my opinion of the smell, but grabbed the donuts and apples aside to eat like the little piglets they were.

I reverently unfolded the top of the grease-stained takeout box to find what Baltimaren pegasi called "fish and fry"—crusty spice-speckled bread-battered cod on a bed of lettuce, surrounded by golden-brown hay fries. I worked hard not to drool.

Ma'am said, "The Fish Net. Rooftop access, so it's just for pegasi. I thought you deserved a treat."

"For me? Wow." I lathered on as much enthusiasm as I could, none of it feigned. I levitated a steaming hot piece, huffed to cool it off, and took a bite. Crispy. A bit salty. I could taste a hint of malt vinegar as my eyes widened and my eyes rolled slightly upward. "This doesn't need tarter sauce at all!"

"But it's worth it. Dip some."

I tried it both ways. The sweet pickles in the mustard-mayo sauce had been hoof cut into irregular sizes and crunched nicely. The batter had been peppered and considering the hour, it was probably the freshest and first plate of the day. So good.

"Please share," I said.

Now, I'm not going to say I wanted to share, because, well, the flaky white fish really was that good. I knew that a pony stomach could only take so much protein-loading. From experience. Suffering the cramps of colic was no picnic, and I knew it made me mean. I suspected the free meal and me demonstrating I knew my limits were Ma'am's way probing me and my bravado.

The testing wasn't over when we split up. I realized within a few blocks that Ma'am was having me followed. The fact that nopony seemed to know that I was a filly not a colt probably meant the C.A. Syndicate did not let anypony know who everypony was. That made sense, considering what I'd seen of the bottom level of the gang, today's group of muscle-herd stallions being prime examples.

Crossroad's training paid off in this respect. In a few blocks, I slipped through the east entrance the Able Woolpony Municipal Building, which I knew spanned the block with multiple entrances. I hustled into a second floor little-filly's room and changed in a green-painted stall. I braided everything, fetlocks, pigtails, and all—and added blue yarn bows. I scrubbed the grimoire cutie mark makeup into the toilet and painted on an archery target, then put on a grey and blue blouse that looked vaguely like a school uniform when I knotted around my collar a blue scarf so it looked like a tie, leaving my hindquarters bare.

The interior of the cloak had an olive lining. Couture is nice as it lets one specify such things. I rolled it inside out and tied it with yarn so it looked like a sleeping mat. With it on my back and my makeup, stallion horseshoe lifts, and hairpins stowed in my messenger bag, I trotted toward the entrance on the northwest side of the building.

As I approached, I spotted a constable in a black uniform and peaked hat heading that way. I trotted faster to get to the bronze and glass doors as he did.

"Sir?"

He pushed the door so I could exit and followed me out. The Appaloosa had brown spots and a light blond short-cropped mane. His brown eyes were friendly. "Yes, filly?"

"Do you know how to get to Baltimare Polythaumic?"

"High School?"

"Yes, sir."

"It's not close, but it's only one bus if you're okay with walking about eight blocks to the 83..."

Funny how the company you keep can scare away your so-called friends.

The subsequent weeks went nominally well. Trigger reported that his superiors liked what they learned about me, and might soon start actually paying me. My stock of bits had dwindled thanks to clothing purchases, restaurant meals, library fees, gym dues, and having to split the exorbitant rent with Trigger. Whatever he did, he got paid well, and mostly these days kept him on a schedule that I didn't have to see him much other than at lunchtime, or to hear him snore in the same room when I was trying to study.

My magic training still consisted mainly of relatively elementary (for me) library books and an occasion journal I found. The one time I got a syndicate-provided unicorn instructor, I couldn't get Force to work as we sparred. All I got for my trouble was a singed tail and a scorched shoulder. I did manage to shoot an empty stewed carrots can, knocking it over, so at least the skeptical pink mare believed my claims at some level.

A look from her frosty blue eyes made me shiver as she left me that day with, "If you can't use it to defend yourself, you'd best run and not get yourself toasted."

I asked to go over the math she used, to examine the vectors in her aura as she cast, but that got me looks like I was some sort of crazy pony. I wasn't going to compound it by claiming I'd once read Princess Celestia's aura from across a street when my "teacher's" aura was too dim for me to see in daylight or to sense without me sticking my horn in it (which she manifestly would not let me do).

Epic fail, the whole thing.

When I complained to Trigger, he burst out laughing. He looked ready to pee himself in disbelief when I admitted to reading Celestia's aura and continued, going into the circumstances. He did get me time with trainers at a syndicate-sanctioned gym, The Goldpony, for some dirty hoof-to-hoof tips and sparring. Amusing. Helped me get over my reflexively pulling my punches to pegasi wings, unicorn horns, and earth pony private bits. I didn't like it as much as I expected I would. For a unicorn, they told me I could punch well.

I saw a lot of the city by night as an unpaid intern, participating but as the chorus line not the actual cast. I felt I'd been turned into some sort of a voice response navigational aid more than anything else. Nopony had the temerity to attack, though I did get to stand as a boogiemare one time and watch Marvel gang-members wearing primary-colored capes posture and pose, then run away after I did little more than raise my eyebrow as Proper Step had taught me.

Trigger bought me a potions manual. I now know that I can't do potions, or cook very well for that matter.

Weeks and weeks after the hazing, I received my first real assignment. Either a graduation present or a final test, I didn't know. All I knew was that Trigger returned home with an address on an index card. Once I'd memorized the address, he went to the stove and lit it in the burner and let it roll up into a blackened crisp. I knew it was a real assignment when he hoofed over gold bits and explained I would always be paid in advance.

Author's Note:

Next: Starlight encounters an old rival and learns the bad part of working for gangsters.

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