The Runaway Bodyguard

by scifipony

Chapter 69 — The Runaway Bodyguard

I caught myself dragging my right rear hoof, again.

Half-convinced it was psychological, I felt the friction despite the rear and bottom of my leg remaining all pins and needles. The unconscious tendency wore away the front surface in an unsightly fashion, like a woodworking rasp, and made me trip or bash into things when I tried to up my rear-body training. I felt half the mare I had been.

"Bedraggled" fit the image I wanted to project this morning, walking across the grass at the North Community Park in Prancetown. The petite blue mare lay on a red-check cloth; she wore a white linen blouse that made her cutie mark—four pink pony forelegs hoof-bumping—stand out. The new Sunset Park had taken the first express train from Hooflyn.

At 8 AM on a weekend, I saw stray colts on the pitch practicing hoof ball and two elderly types trotting along the stone path around the pond. The water lapped peacefully. Trees sported yellow leaves that rustled in the breeze. Autumn approached and you could smell the crispness in the air. Nopony to overhear, few to get caught in an unlikely crossfire—I approved of the venue. I wore a yellow strapless sun dress and a not-so-floppy hat that didn't interfere with my sight lines.

Her white tail thrashed with unease as her purple eyes followed my approach. The dark circles under her eyes spoke volumes. Her three hench-ponies sat under separate trees. Safe and Broomhill Dare lay down side by side facing opposite directions ten pony lengths away in the sun, while Carne Asada's monitor, a C-team pegasus bodyguard assigned to me, took point hovering near the shore.

"Craving breakfast company?" I asked, but even as I sat, she hoofed out plates of honeyed caramelized hay and apples, along with two bottles of Sunny Daze OJ.

"Craving answers," she said, laying out implements that included taking out something wrapped in a purple satin napkin that wasn't a napkin. The square of fabric had been ripped from a Marvel gang cape. She unrolled it to reveal a hunting knife.

I looked, not touching. It was missing specific scratches and a chip on the up-curved razor edge. No dried blood. New. Nasty. Symbolic.

"Not mine."

I had seen Blue Lightning's knife drop into molten iron at the Equestrian Alloy Foundry in downtown Baltimare, had heard the splash. Safe had been right; squinting into the fierce heat and the act of throwing it in had helped clean away bits of the darkness lingering around me.

"Doña Asada hoofed me the knife, the scrap of cape, and a one-word message to deliver to my predecessor: 'Retire'. I accompanied him to the airship terminal and saw him off safely."

"I'm having an influence, I guess?"

The mare pushed around the hay on her plate, but I could see from her darting eyes she was measuring her words. She added, "When I returned, I found a—" she coughed "—'recall notice' for all the satin capes in Hooflyn."

I frowned, thinking immediately about who I needed to take to lunch in Baltimare and later to dinner in Fillydelphia. I could ask Carne Asada, but intuition said I should wait for her to tell me. Tellingly, I was neither dead nor reprimanded. "This could negatively affect production and syndicate PR."

"You think?"

#

It went from bad to worse as summer turned into fall. The vendetta toward the Marvel Gang spread across all the metro areas because they were affiliated organizations much like the Carne Asada Syndicate was, except with less central control and with more hot heads. That destabilized territory boundaries and encouraged the remaining gangs to look for advantage in the resulting chaos.

It seemed like Carne Asada wanted to start a war.

I didn't like this because it made my job protecting Carne Asada more difficult. If I hadn't enjoyed my job at some level, I think I would have left about then. Sadly, I wasn't that smart. Apparently, I had a multi-faceted sugar addiction.

I used the tools I had at hoof for all they were worth: Celestia's training thanks to Proper Step, White Towel's fight-smart training, and the implied power of being Carne Asada's "daughter."

I was the Earl of Grin Having, and that meant as an earl I would have had the right to command one of Princess Celestia's armies. That went with the title, and it was a title rarely bestowed on anypony. Yet, what had I been taught?

Magic? No.

How to fight? No.

How to command an army? My stars, no! Not that I would have prosecuted a gang war for Carne Asada!

I had been learning how to run the business of a provincial-sized estate and to an administer a town, so I went with that. My goal was to minimize the danger to Carne Asada while not kicking her hooves as she walked her tightrope. As a side bonus, I got taken out to nice restaurants and invited to special home-cooked meals on a regular basis. I spent a lot of time traveling, meeting a lot of ponies you wouldn't want to take home to meet mama.

It became a collaborative effort, with those who would listen and work with me. I emphasized becoming competitive at the expense of some of our profits, cutting into the business of the other gangs because Carne Asada's goal of cutting into the business of the other gangs was something everypony clearly understood. Where I could, I convinced them into cherry picking the clients we invested in and letting the dregs go to our competition. I got them working with our debtors so they could repay. Getting the intermediate levels in our guard and transportation workers to weed out the hot heads and put the smart fighters in charge helped further, especially when I convinced their higher ups to emphasize defensive strategies, ensuring no one could affect the flow of product or cut supply chains. Let the competition waste their time protecting assets they didn't need to protect. I convinced some of the lower bosses to pay the newly promoted better, and to contract the ponies I helped train to train their best ponies better.

Then I added an innovation: Where possible, know where the constabulary was. Yes, keep from being caught. Better: Fend off some attacks by tipping off the coppers.

Incarcerated, competing gang members were removed from the playing field and, if they got popped more than once, sometimes removed for good.

I, of course, wrote extensive sanitized notes about every meeting and every proposal, and results when reported to me. I took to leaving my notebook on my desk.

Carne Asada had said I needed to ask permission. I preferred to ask for forgiveness, but at least I was upfront about it.

Surprisingly, I found very few red-penciled corrections. I didn't have to fend off any griffons, either, though I accompanied Carne Asada to restaurants, business meetings, hotel visits, and to various pony's homes.

Returning from one well-attend party, we rode a coach-and-two brougham late in the evening. Both the earth ponies pulling at a canter could fight and wore quick-release harnesses. I had my grey party dress hiked up so I could straddle the dashboard to keep watch, while Citron kept watch on the tail board, and Crystal Skies watched overhead. I knew that Carne Asada could see in the dark as well as I could in the day, so she accommodated my nervousness by scanning the road ahead of us. I could smell rain in the clouds that the moon played hide-and-seek with, which made me worry about pegasi attacks.

"Rosedale is unhappy he lost two ponies last week," I observed, over the sound the wind, the clatter of the cobbles under the wheels, and the rhythm of earth pony hooves. I avoided listening to business details, but some facts were general enough I judged I could learn them in a newspaper.

Her pupils were so wide and her irises so thin, her eyes looked more like round windows letting in light than eyes as they fixed on me. "And his profits are down. I understand this. And yet, I am es safe." She waved a hoof at the night sky. "You do your job well, Hija."

"You could be safer. It doesn't have to be this way. Having to recalibrate. To keep on compensating." My mane kept blowing in my eyes. I compensated by pushing it up and over.

"'Risk is essential for the growth of any enterprise,'" she quoted. "I read that in one of your books! Stagnation is its own risk, and I've held back too long on the progress of my plans. The White Windigo is ageless, but I am not. Again, Hija, you do your job well. Our time is near. I have no complaints."

"And, you saying it, worries me even more."

Carne Asada smiled, showing her fangs. She shoved me lightly on the withers and said, "Hija, you are—how you say—being an es silly filly, now?"

As if.

#

I stood in Carne Asada's way, blocking her path, my horn lit. A curl of frost steam waft from her hips.

She looked exasperated. "If you teleport me away, again, I will fire you."

I looked askance at the red brick archway, thought about it, then said, "I think it might be worth it."

She glanced at Peppermint, the forest green unicorn beside her, and the stallion levitated me aside very gingerly. She added, "Yet, not actually worth being fired for?" she asked, chuckling, and trotted out of the International School's main yard for the adjacent city sports park.

I followed, chewing on some choice words. The whole thing was a mess. I'd been dragged out of bed by very respectful toughs at 5 AM when I'd though I had the next four days off and had stayed up late, reading. I'd had time to grab my Grimoire cloak and nothing more before I was levitated hooves up to Prancetown Station with Safe and Broomhill Dare to meet up with Carne Asada's private rail car when the train made a one minute stop at 5:36 AM. I had none of my make-up. I'd washed all the dyes out of my fur and mane. I was a blank flank. But it got worse.

Gang Summit.

You read that right.

What the fudge!? Does anything about Gang Summit sound like a good idea to you? If you say yes, you are either stupid, a sadist, or a member of the constabulary—possibly all three.

Yet, here Carne Asada and I were, in Hooflyn, at a—yes, we didn't use the G-word out loud—summit, but still... Stupid. And worse than stupid. Somepony else had picked the venue! I had venue plans thanks to Crystal Skies and plenty of gold bits. It was a hodgepodge of red brick and grey brick two- and three-story buildings repurposed into a school, with a courtyard and a sports track/skate park underneath elevated railroad trestles—but I couldn't get eyes-on to check it out, and nopony in the syndicate had ever attended the high-class magnet school. I had visions of another griffon dive-bombing me, though there wasn't a cloud in the bright blue afternoon sky. I wondered if Carne Asada had paid the Hooflyn weather bureau director off, because I'd thought I'd heard they had been brewing a storm, or maybe I was thinking metaphorically. I saw roofs. I saw windows. I saw metal trestle beams shudder as a train rumbled overhead. At least nopony could hide on top. I had Crystal Skies hovering. Other gangs had a pegasus in the sky, too.

I liked the idea of peace. Why didn't anypony else?

Ponies wouldn't get hurt if the gangs declared a peace. Hey, even a truce would help. The newspapers didn't go so far as to declare it a gang war, but I knew from my facilitator meetings, everypony considered it one. Despite all my mitigation suggestions, and all the other ideas we had come up with together, ponies still got hurt, or worse. Territories fluctuated. Business suffered. More ponies in the constabulary, the guard, city governments, and the judicial system had to be paid to look the other way. Everypony except the EBI, who couldn't be bribed... Wartime taxes by any other name. What was it if not war?

A high school seemed like neutral territory. Everywhere I looked, I saw ponies. I didn't think for a minute they were students, even though on a weekend afternoon, I might expect them in the city park. The Running of the Leaves had taken place almost four weeks ago and my breath threatened to condense when I huffed in the chill. It might snow any day. My cloak helped a little. We clattered through cement bleachers onto the "skate track," a narrow long urban recreation area with lanes intersecting lines for a hoofball pitch and positioned around the supporting members of the trestle. My art training lead me to see all the negative metal spaces above, in the cement behind me, in the brick buildings, in the darkened windows hidden by glare, and in the rustling skeletal trees framing the park—shadows in which any sort of monster or pony could hide.

Shadows I knew I would utilize.

I saw an open invitation to assassination. Knowing what a perfect assassin was capable of, I randomly sauntered in front of the team. I scanned the sky for griffons and really wished I hadn't stayed up reading late last night.

On the field, everypony noticed me. I was indisputably the youngest bodyguard, and while the cloak hid my blank flank, without the lift shoes, the clothing looked oversized and failed to have the intended aging affect. Carne Asada had both paraded me as a filly and as a mare. At least my costuming fiasco kept all pony eyes on me, not my "mother," as we stepped off softer composite ground onto to running track, causing our horseshoes to clatter again.

The other groups approached from the cardinal directions. By their red, blue and gold capes, I recognized the Marvel Gang. The Avenue P Gang wore random pieces of clothing or none, but each wore a purple hat or cap. The Fleethooves wore white tee-shirts or sweats, each with a bandoleer studded with spikes. I'd been briefed that they swung those like chains, and many hid knives in them. While Carne Asada stopped in the first lane of the track, the others didn't immediately catch her power move and continued to approach from their entrances into the park.

The unicorn stallion leader of the Marvel Gang, a golden palomino with a blond mane and a red cap-and-cape comic book combo stopped suddenly, the fabric fluttering dramatically over his back in the breeze. He shouted, "You want peace? We need concessions!"

As I scanned my eyes past the bleachers, I saw a smile grow on Carne Asada's face. She wore a thick coat with re-enforced fibers, her purple scarf, and sunglasses. The tip of her scarf fluttered, too. As I looked another direction, she began to laugh.

"Concession? Who was it who attacked me? Who was it that es sent a griffon to crush my daughter? Look, even now she drags her leg, not yet recovered. You ask for my concession?" She spat on the pavement.

Thanks for pointing out I wasn't as good a bodyguard as I used to be, Mom!

"That's not the point. You are driving business away—"

"Not how I es see it."

My ears perked up. I thought I heard something differentiating itself from the traffic sounds and machine noise of the city. Under my breath, I said, "Eyes. To the south."

"You're putting the squeeze on us, C. A., and by us, I mean Fleet and P, too. They see the writing on the wall, with you tagging our territories and all. Back off and we'll back off. Think of the lost business! If you don't, we will gang together–"

"You? Form an es syndicate? You ponies can barely wipe your—"

Tweee! The sound came through on a breeze and nopony could miss it. The coppers. They'd figured out the impromptu summit location?

The unicorn stallion turned as red as his cape, spearing me with his fiery glare. "You informed on us? You low down—"

Citron fired a yellow beam of Force his way before the magenta aura around the Marvel gang leader's horn even intensified.

I'd turned and shoved Carne Asada back with my hooves, then tripped myself I'd turned so quickly. Peppermint caught me in a cushion of green magic as I got my shield up behind us and pushed the boss to retreat. She broke into a gallop. The whole agreeing to the summit thing was stupid, but she herself wasn't stubborn enough to resist me now.

Crystal Skies: "Coming across the 9th Street Bridge and East on Hunting Town. Two dozen, at least."

"North?"

"Not yet. Looking."

Tipping off the coppers was a page from my playbook, and coming from the opposite direction of our retreat did make it look like I'd called in the tip. Too bad I hadn't thought to do so.

I heard the other gangsters galloping after us. I looked back and confirmed that and saw constables leaping the school yard fence beyond them. I didn't like any of that, not one copper bit.

We took Knoll Son to Court, where I bounced Carne Asada onto the bench seat of our waiting Regency Brougham carriage, brooking no complaints, before Broomhill Dare did the same for me, dropping me on the dashboard before I could more than flail my legs once. I landed on my stomach with a thud as we slammed into motion.

I cried out, "I remember there's a park— Coffee Park, five, six blocks west. We can go to ground there."

"There's a subway entrance closer," Citron chimed in from the tailboard. "I'd go there. We can be in Manehatten in a half-hour."

Carne Asada grabbed me with her hooves, pulling me up. She shouted to the drover. "Go north on Court."

"Can't. One way. Cling Town?"

"North toward the Hooflyn Bridge."

"Yes, Boss!"

The carriage tilted and I scrambled as I lost my balance again. I needed to get myself on station. I heard a bang and a fizzle, and could only assume somepony was shooting at us. My Grimoire lifts had had rubber integrated into the horseshoes, which I sorely needed right now for stability.

"I need you somewhere safe while this sorts out," I shouted, climbing into a seat. I startled at the crowd of ponies boiling onto the street. I saw plenty of C.A., but there were other gangs to, and not just Marvel, Fleethoof, and P, either.

I looked at the middle-aged mare as I spun up Teleport, having lost it being dumped on the floor. With her scarf wrapping her face and her sunglasses, not to forget the clothing that wrapped wings that pegasus often used to speak a second parallel language, she could be hard to read. The grin on her face was anything if not hard to read. A sinking feeling in my stomach insisted she had planned all this. Had she called in the constables? Had her response to the Gang Summit been a coup d'état with her letting herself be the bait and me the savior?

Brass clasps latched. She finished strapping on a black messenger bag purse across her chest like a peytral. It had a red droplet cutie mark emblazoned on the flap.

I reached out my forelegs to her withers and with more force than necessary, jerked her flat on the bench seat so she was no longer visible through the windows. It did nothing to wipe the grin off her face, even when I sat on her haunches to keep her down.

"Why north? Why the Hooflyn Bridge?" I asked, the metal rims on the carriage complaining as we skidded on to Cling Town going north. It surprised me to see a wagon half-a-block up lose control and roll over. Ponies scattered as we quickly passed by. "Crystal Skies. Broomhill Dare! What's up?" Shop owners were pulling closed crash gates and garage doors, with customers inside.

I heard from Citron, "This is a Fleethooves' corridor. Hear that buzzy horn? I think that's their alarm."

"Agreed," cried Crystal Skies.

I watched with growing horror as a riot broke out and we rode through the first few blocks of it.

"Why North?" I asked again, sharply. "I need to protect you!"

"The White Windigo—"

I heard the roar of a fireplace followed by a thunderous bang. A vertigo-inducing drop to left and the sensation of the carriage fishtailing was followed—in extreme slow motion—by me seeing a half-arc of smoking wooden wagon wheel hurtle upward in front of my face, cutting through the front of the brougham.

I had triggered Teleport reflexively.

I clamped my mouth and nose shut as a sheet of blue lightning spidered across the sphere of enveloping blackness like dragon claws. I blinked.

Traveling in a carriage at a gallop is not the time to be doing targeting by the numbers. I had to be watching for attacks and for obstacles in our path ahead, staying aware of where there were no ponies, no buildings, and no wagons that if I targeted would cause my spell to fail, while understanding my speed so I could negate that because if I didn't and the spell "perceived" I'd injure myself, it could also fail.

I flipped our vectors, x, y, and z—tried, anyway. It felt like hitting a brick wall midair without the brick wall. My insides bounced nonetheless but nothing ripped, and we fell upward, before gravity caught us and Carne Asada, now laying above me draped over me. I had barely an instant to squirm midair like my defense teachers had taught me, as Grape had re-enforced, so as not to break my neck, and to somewhat cushion Carne Asada's fall as she landed atop me and then slid across the broken sidewalk. I recovered quickly enough. Before I could take a breath, I shoved her toward the stairs of a brick walkup and behind a pair of smelly silver ash cans.

I saw our brougham down the street keel over. Our drive team dove free of their hitch whinnying, dodging wooden spears hitting their flanks as the demolished dash hit the cobbles, the carriage doors following, the wood and glass disintegrating in flinders mixed up with shredded upholstery that sprayed against a storefront, shattering the glass because the unfortunate owner had still been cranking down the garage door. The yellow earth pony leapt away. Bouncing wheels chased another pony who miraculously dodged behind a light pole that rang like a bell when struck. Our drover slid into curb to be dragged away unconscious by his teammate as gangsters fired again.

"Citron!" Where was he?

"I'm okay!" he said. "Just a cut." He dashed from an alleyway.

"That way!" Carne Asada ordered. The fall and my shoving her on her back had tussled her worse than I thought. Her dress ripped and freed her wings. The atrophied leathery appendages didn't quite stick to her sides the way a pegasus wing at rest would have, and each of her wings had two claws: one at the elbow and one at the wing tip. She pointed with her left elbow claw, then adjusted her cracked sunglasses with it. She trotted north on Cling Town, her dark wings shifting right and left as if helping her to balance.

Before I could stop her, Peppermint came galloping up with other C.A. They engaged the Fleethooves who had gone from being perplexed that we had survived being thrown almost a block from a wagon accident to determined to perpetrate mayhem on my charge.

There were way too many gang members of all affiliations on this block.

My right hoof dragged as I followed Carne Asada. I growled and gritted my teeth as I added that to my need-to-concentrate thoughts, then trotted fast to catch up to the crazy mare. I spun up Teleport again, thinking that Shield would be a good second in the queue. What if the group of us tied her up and sat on her in some shop backroom until it all blew over?

The team formed around me, with Citron watching my back. Blood dripped down his neck from his right ear, now ripped in half, but he grinned with his horn alight. He didn't seem to notice the blistering and charred burn across his flank that added a certain immediacy to his flaming cutie mark. Crystal Skies kept a look out above, and Broomhill Dare helped him and alternately tripped ponies who were fighting along our route or, or more amusingly, threw trash cans or post boxes. Between them all, we picked our way behind abandoned or parked wagons, street posts, newspaper machines, and other urban cover as ponies fought around us. They fought between gangs. Or they fought against the constables, who had roused themselves and got bogged down in the unexpectedly wide-spread riot.

I couldn't understand why it continued to blow up.

"Why?" I asked.

Carne Asada said, "Hija. You made this all possible."

"Me?"

"You convinced ponies to become organized, to have the best qualified ponies to be doing the job, not to waste effort or bits, to put ponies predisposed to fighting where their fighting would do some good, not just to cause general mayhem."

"I didn't tell them to do this!" To emphasize the point, a few unicorn gang members of I-don't-know-what-rival gang dodged behind some wagons and Citron shot Force in that direction. I saw Peppermint run another direction. Suddenly sweating, I hustled Carne Asada between a parked lorry and a shorter stake-bed that had barrels in it.

"This?" the thestral asked. "This cleaning up of the streets?"

"This is not cleaning. It's fighting."

"Fighting, cleaning, es the same thing. You bake a cake, you break some eggs." More shots.

"You make all this fighting sound like a good thing!"

All I had wanted to do was to atone for a moment of mania. I had done something monstrous, then one thing lead to another, and I saw ways of making things better for everypony. I'd seen ways to be useful. It had seemed right that it made my life before I had run away have some meaning. I had seen it as a way to allow ponies in the syndicate to need to fight less to achieve better results, with much less violence.

Had I deluded myself?

Or had I just been being used?

"Hija, we es share many ideals in common. We agree ponies should be able to do what they are good at. We both hate the White Windigo. After today," she said excitedly, gesturing grandly with her wings that looked like they had been plucked. "After today, we will be on a road to make that all reality!" She would have flared them if she had enough strength in them, but she lifted them reflexively high enough.

A unicorn saw her wing movement.

I saw a blue aura.

I wasn't touching her.

I leapt forward, twisting so I could push her head down and sweep her out of the unicorn's line of sight.

I didn't entirely succeed.

The plasma from a Force spell sizzled past us setting the stake bed posts and the closest barrels afire with blue flames. Carne Asada's silk scarf whooshed and burnt in an instant. I was on her as she fell, patting out her deep red mane. Fire had burnt toward her scalp in little glowing sparks of orange. Hairs on the skin of her wing smoked, but she dunked that in the water flowing in the street gutter.

I then twisted around, realizing the shoulder of my cloak was on fire and doused that. It hadn't burnt through. I'd only caught the edge effect.

Carne Asada laughed lowly. I'd have expected a whimper, at least. I knew how sensitive pegasi wings were from my year as a prizefighter. Flopping awkwardly with her wings, she nevertheless righted herself with her usual grace while looking into the street. "Going to get in my way, boludo?" she asked under her breath.

She used her left wing's elbow claw to open her messenger bag and grabbed with her teeth, by a hefty tooth-grip loop, what looked like a pine cone. She struck the brass object against the fender of the lorry the way one might the lid of a jar to loosen it, then she flipped the thing up and in an arc over in the direction of the unicorn that had sent the force bolt.

I saw a flash and heard a report like the sound a green-wood log makes when it explodes in a fireplace, only magnitudes louder. The sharp pop numbed my ears, leaving a ringing sound, and it was followed by shooting sparks and gouts of flames. Thrown debris peppered the side of the wagons, and I felt a pebble bounce off my hoof.

Screams followed, and I caught a glimpse of a bloodied tan pony running, trailing flames behind him, his hooves galloping until he tripped and I heard him slide to a stop. I heard moans.

The unicorn gangster with the blue magic would not be the first I'd see die that day, nor would he be the last. He was the first I saw die and whose death I knew I could have prevented.

I stood gaping.

"I don't need the finicky magicks to protect myself, Starlight Glimmer." That name again. "Let's go," Carne Asada said, shocking me into motion when a pony claw pricked into my flank.

My whole body went cold in horror with a sudden realization: I had saved Carne Asada's life. Twice, today. I understood her words. I understood her deadly intent. In that moment, I understood that circumstance had presented me with an opportunity to choose. Despite all that I knew about her, I had acted as I had—and had saved her.

How many ponies would pay with with their lives because I did my job well? Had I not shoved her head down, it would have been Carne Asada who died in flames, not the tan unicorn.

I really was a bad pony. I was The Monster.

In the back of my mind, I began a death tally as we proceeded north.

The neighborhoods became progressively better as we approached the bridge, and we had to skirt the blocks the constabulary had cordoned off, but there weren't enough copper badges in blue uniforms yet to bring order to the chaos. It helped all of us, including the B and C team, that we all wore passably civilian clothes. Pig Pen with his chain and me with my dark cloak were the sketchiest of the lot, blood and burn marks amongst us aside. Even when we could have slipped through out of the fighting, nothing could dissuade Carne Asada from going north and, with me in my shock and apathy lacking the initiative to bind and gag her for her own good, none would buck her wishes.

As the sunset turned the Hooflyn Bridge orange and it became easily visible above the park and shorter buildings to the northeast, the fighting between gangs got worse, not better. I understood it was a major transportation corridor for our goods from the docks. This close to the financial district, various diversions from the hard realities of city-pony life sold well in the few dozen blocks of high-rises amid the remaining historic brownstone buildings that had been here for centuries. Fewer shops had crash gates uptown, and glass from busted windows littered the street and sidewalks. Smoke layered the air, and at times made it hard to see. Some wagons burned and crackled, while other's were turned over in heaps of smoking charcoal. Here and there I saw ponies that didn't move, might never move again, all wearing colors of P or Marvel. That they weren't civilians didn't make it better. That Carne Asada saved us from a well planned ambush with her last pine cone didn't make it any easier to stomach, or that I'd told her do so.

"Makes me feel young again," I heard her murmur to herself. "Reminds me of fighting the imperialists from the forests when I could still fly, and making them pay." I saw her laugh as we walked around the stilled forms. Others ran, for the moment too frightened to fight us. I heard distant shouts and bangs, but silence made our hooves sound loud in the moment.

She added, "But for my boludo brother-in-law, none of this horse apples would have been necessary. Could have been free of the White Windigo, the both of us, Equestria, the world. Esa Tirana, she would have died a hero es saving her little ponies when I collapsed the Fillydelphia Estadio down on her head, but no! Today I free my hooves—" she flexed her wings "–and my wings of chains so that we do es so much more better tomorrow."

It didn't surprise me that the constabulary closed down the Hooflyn Bridge, or that Bridge Street was empty, but for wrecks and abandoned lorries and wagons. At Blue Jay and Myrtle, we got bogged down again. This time, Carne Asada didn't have any pine cones to help us with. We were near the provincial court buildings and the college. I could see the Old Equestrian Post Office in the next block. Grey granite archways and arched windows made up its street-level façade, while large two-story square windows went up three further levels and were framed with white granite. Two rounded towers with grey conical roofs on one side made it look vaguely like Castle Canterlot, while a square towering castle-keep made it look fortress-like. Two pony height rounded dormer windows in the blue-grey mansard roof completed the monolithic institutional appearance of the massive historic edifice.

"We're going there," Carne Asada announced.

In the end, that proved doable, but not the way I liked best. Broomhill Dare found a spot at one end of the block where she could throw things down approaching streets. Citron took station at the other end, from whence we crept, with the rest of the group keeping us from being followed or hounded from high atop another building. Despite Carne Asada claiming the post office was her destination, she was alright keeping to the opposite side of the street. Fine by me. The post office, which close-up looked like a mega-mansion mated with a small castle, was in the process of extended renovation. Most of the upper story glass was painted white, and many of the ground floor windows were boarded up. One exception was The Green Hoof Grocery, but it's owner had hastily pushed racks and shelves against the window and boarded up the double-door entrance on his way out. I didn't worry we'd be watched from that side. I judged the threat, if any, was from the storefronts beside me and the office windows above me. Or possibly the abandoned open wagons that lined the curbs of the street.

Crystal Skies curved out of the cover of the Cat Pony Memorial Park to the north and came zigzagging down Plaza East coming west toward us, flying low. His head flicked right and left as he peered into carriage cabs and down into wagon beds.

A bright orange beam shot out from above me. Carne Asada grunted as I pushed her tighter against the wall, but my eyes followed the frictional cylinder through the air. As was typical of such apparitions, it missed, but Crystal Skies banked wildly to avoid the heat flash and plasma cone that projected from its endpoint. He struck a brass carriage light with a wing. The severed lantern careened into the air, but friction and the loss of momentum was more than the pegasus could compensate for. He bounced off a van, went tumbling through the sky then, fluttering for all he was worth, spun down the street almost to the end. The brass lantern followed him, bouncing, the glass cracking out.

I heard a bang-whoosh! above me. A ball of bright red fire unrolled like a serpent's tongue from a fourth-story window while sparkling glass exploded away, to come tinkling down and splash like a solid wave of ice on the sidewalk and into the street.

Citron's yellow Force bolts shot out further windows. I spared glances, shielding us with Shield from raining glass. Soon I feared the building might catch fire, but beyond smoke, which quickly went from black to grey, soon there were no more flames.

Anypony trapped in the building didn't want it to be burnt down either. I looked down the street.

I asked the team. "Where's Crystal?"

"My pegasus can walk," Pig Pen answered. "Broke wing, tho." At least Crystal Skies reported the wagons, lorries, and carriages appeared clear.

I had to stop and clear each address. All had triangle glass fronts that angled at thirty degrees in from the street to a doorway. The law office had a red marble entrance gallery with impressionist paintings. The wooden racks in the candy store had been pushed across the door. The bank branch had a crash gate pulled across behind the glass, and its lights were out.

Celestia chose that moment to put the sun to bed. Orange and purple light showed a teller window, but no guard. I saw gleaming steel weight machines in the fitness center. I identified another law office—

"That wagon's mine," Carne Asada said from where I pressed her against the brick. The black end claw of her right wing pointed beyond my muzzle at a squat blue-grey van. Rearing, I'd easily be able to do a pull-up to see over its roof. It looked both unharmed and vaguely armored sitting there on industrial-strength leaf springs with heavy duty metal-rimmed wagon wheels that looked recently brushed so they showed almost no rust. A special delivery that got stranded?

Glancing at the inline double-hitch, I could see it was made for Clydesdales. I said, "This rig is more than I or even the both of us can pull. We're not earth ponies."

"Silly filly," she said, rummaging with her mouth in her purse. I cringed reflexively, though I knew she'd thrown her last pine cone. I heard the telling jingle before I saw the ring of three keys she grinned around, snagged in her fangs. "We're delivering."

I pushed her back against the wall when she stepped toward the van. She smiled when I took the keys in my magic and showed her the stubby vehicle key, which I could recognize as not being a wide house key or an old-school door key. I spun up Mirror Shield because an iffy spell was better than none and edged out, taking my time. Clouds far to the west reflected the colors of the twilight. As my eyes adjusted, as would those of any other pony watching, I could see better into the windows of the building front above me. If anypony remained that hadn't fled, I supposed they didn't want their presence advertised: I saw no windows cranked or lifted open. The lingering smoke may have been a reason, too. A pegasus wouldn't want to cast a javelin through glass, nor would Citron cast Force lest it splash back, but there were plenty of spells that could work. Illusions, for instance, which I did not understand except for one stupidly complex one.

I saw black glass. I saw unmoving white curtains and shut blinds. I swiftly unlocked and threw open the van double-doors. Seeing only some barrels and wood crated boxes, I jumped in and levitated Carne Asada in after me toward the front.

I tensed, waiting for thumps or clanks, or the static discharge of a spell. None came. I heard a can rolling in the street, but I'd identified that one earlier.

I murmured under my breath, "We're in the van mid-block. Any eyes?"

"No," came back.

With my head down, I could stand in the wood-paneled interior. She sat and so did I. I glanced at the barrels. They were metal pony kegs, so-called because filled with cider they weighed one pony weight. These were strapped in pairs, one above the other. The crates looked much larger, put when I pushed one, my first guess was it weighed about the same as each pair.

"Delivery?" I asked.

"Por supuesto," she said, digging into her purse. "Crystal Skies got this for me." She pulled out some paper tied with a string, which in a very pegasus manner, she took with her wings and untied. Though shaky, the claw proved very good for pulling out the knot in the twine. She unfolded—

"Blueprints," I cried, surprised. The van doors faced west. The twilight lit the plans and the Old Equestrian Post Office to the left that they depicted, in details down to decimal pony length measurements and hash-shaded shadow-outlines of the adjacent buildings on the opposite side of the block it abutted. I saw the area circled in red pencil was labeled vault.

"A heist?" I asked, not liking it one bit.

Carne Asada chuckled, clearly taking my question as a joke. She clacked the temples of her cracked sunglasses together and placed them in her purse, training her brown eyes on me. The bright twilight compressed her irises into slits, giving her dragon eyes. Her singed dark red mane glowed. My breath caught.

Predator. Prey. I was the prey.

She owned me.

"Nopony has es stored anything of value in the vault since the princess decommissioned the post office a decade ago. I have a use for it, though." She gestured with a wing and a hoof to the van's cargo.

I glanced at the crated boxes of nailed together scrap wood. I saw red diamond-shaped stickers that had been torn off, but it struck me as not particularly important or valuable stuff. Somepony had scratched out some printing, but Carne Asada cleared her throat distracting me from reading more then NH₄. I looked back to the plans to avoid her eyes, focusing on the measurements. "Um?" I asked.

"Poof," she said, touching the frog of her hoof to my horn, causing me to gasp. "The miracle that is you."

With her claw, she had snagged compass dividers from the cache of odd stuff in her peytral purse, but dropped it on the plans unable to hold it. She pointed with a hoof outside and to the plans, "That's this, that's that."

My brain was so messed up, I finally got it on her third try. I grabbed up the dividers with my magic. As I determined the position of the van from the vault, I said, "You want me to teleport this stuff into the vault."

"So es simple, yes?"

"I guess," I said. I had my tongue out as I figured out the numbers, after taking a few moments to shove the pony kegs and boxes around to be sure I understood their masses. The boxes were heavier than I thought.

I asked, "You've been following my progress at the gym?"

"So proud, Hijita! I know you want to teleport the entire pony cart, but five pony weight is not so bad. One day, one day."

Each crated box massed nearly five pony weight.

I sighed. Five each of the dual pony-kegs and boxes. "After I do this, can I take you somewhere safe?"

"Of course."

Citron quipped, "Good. Marvel has brought in some new unicorns and they're proving a headache."

I wanted to be home. To sleep it off. To consider disappearing somewhere in Trottingham for good. "Okay. Let's get this over with as fast as possible."

The little filly in the middle-aged mare caused her to stamp her hooves happily.

I teleported Carne Asada along with the first dual pony-kegs. I took my time, measuring my splendors, checking my math, and balancing my vectors to maximize my efficiency and minimize any error that might inadvertently exhaust me. I knew I'd left in-between because I heard the out-teleport pop echo on a space the size of the great hall at Grin Having. That and I could breathe. The darkness was total.

Carne Asada said, "Keep it dim, Hija," touching my flank.

The shock caught me mid-cast of a third-level Illuminate spell. I flinched, side stepped from her claw touch and jerked my head around. Like I had done when I'd misfired—when Steeple Chase's stupid statement that he would not fight alone had spooked me—I sprayed the spell. A stripe of effervescent sparkles forked out in fractal branches from twin ribbons. The two whip-spiral lines painted the closest wall, part of the ceiling, stacks of government-issue metal and wood furniture, and Carne Asada herself in a blue-green glow.

The thestral hopped back, gasping, clearly startled at the circumstance. The line colored her right wing, set her dress aglow, and her tail. I'd missed her eyes; that would have blinded her. I knocked over the pony kegs, which together rolled away. She circled herself, looking at what I had done, frost steam glowing as it rose from her.

Anticipating her question, since it was the one Trigger first asked, I said, "I don't know how to cancel."

Her right hoof glowed, too. She stared at it and said, "When you play with unicorns, expect to be burned."

That sounds rather unfriendly, I thought. "It'll work as a flash light," I tried.

She tried laughing. "The air is fresh enough."

"Yeah." I looked and found vents. That much was a relief. "I'm getting the rest of it. I want this over yesterday."

"I applaud your work ethic. Always will. I want the next ones over there."

I popped back, head held low into the van, Shield at ready in moments but nopony had invaded or shown hide-or-hoof on the street. I shook out the frost that had gathered on my mane and jogged in place as I warmed myself preparing the next spell. Now that I had a better sense for the thick viscous liquid in the kegs, I horsed around the box. Some sort of mineral filled it. Crushed gravel? Some sort of salt? Some ingredient to create a highly profitable happy juice that would advance Carne Asada's plans at an accelerated rate?

Best I did not know. Not knowing the details was always best. Plausible deniability.

Warmed up, I slid a crated box so I could grasp it between my forelegs in the growing darkness. I felt the strain of nearly maxing my limit, but that brought a sense of warmth as I exited into the vault, though halving "impossibly frigidly cold" was still pretty darn cold.

Carne Asada, still aglow, huffed. "Thought you might have abandoned me."

"Teleportation can't be instant if you have to do it many times. Want me to freeze solid? Employ a moving company next time."

"No. This will do."

"Thank you, I think?"

I thought to ask Citron about the street and confirmed it was safe before cycling two dual pony kegs this time. She had me levitate them to specific spots, then asked for the remaining kegs first. My hooves crunched on stuff on the floor, but I didn't want to waste time investigating things that would delay the moving process.

After I brought the next crated box, I noticed an acrid scent in the air and I nearly slipped in something oily on the floor. "Is there something wrong with the ventilation. I should Teleport you—"

"Don't worry. Everything's fine." She sounded winded and I noted sweat on her brow by the thaumalight radiating from her wings as she waved at me to go. I shrugged, cracking off a bit of frost that had hardened on my cloak.

It took me progressively longer between each delivery, but by the time I brought in the last crate and levitated it beside the pony kegs and the stack of discarded furniture, she seemed rather satisfied with what she had been doing. In the wane light I'd created, I'd gathered she'd opened at least one of the crates. She'd also spread out stuff she'd had in her purse. Stuff crackled underfoot.

She didn't seem particularly shy about it either. She stepped up to the last crate, looked for what I realized was a rectangular process of some sort. She bucked it. That opened a spout and gravel-sized crystals poured out.

She trotted away from the dust that formed the acrid smell I'd detected before, like lofted salt or dust on a dry day. As I backed away, my right hoof slipped again. I jumped back over a spill of what I realized was some sort of oil mixed with a different powder. That made me look at the pony-kegs and I realized one of the far kegs had split open and I smelled something between grease and machine oil. Was that what was on the floor? Somepony had left the vent vanes cranked closed, or had she closed them? It concentrated the smell.

I wanted to say, "Can we go now?" What came out instead was, "What is all this?"

She faced away, again rummaging in her purse. "The White Windigo and I have played a game for the last decade, where she has kept me in check. I never expected she would forfeit one of her game pieces." I heard her strike a match with a loud crack!

Carne Asada had asked me to keep my Illuminate dim. The match glowed very bright yellow and orange which reflected off an institutional white-washed wall. Despite her directly blocking the flare of the igniting phosphors, I reflexively reacted by lifting a hoof rather than by doing what intellect demanded I do instead—grab or snuff the match.

Too late.

She dropped the match to the floor. The powder-oil mixture puffed into yellow actinic sparkles that crawled in eight different directions. I pushed her aside without a thought, trying to stomp out the fire.

She kept to her hooves, steadied by her out-flung wings, chuckling. "It's all right. It is intended, Hija. It's all good."

Stomping it out didn't help. It burnt even completely covered, moreover it spread out the glowing embers and the combustion kept going. I had to hop off lest I burn my frogs or overheat my shoes. Sweeping it made the flame spread more because of the oil. I didn't have an appropriate spell. I tried Levitate, but it was too much like water and flowed out into the air. It whooshed, crackled, and actually burned faster, sending up slimy red smoke. I began to cough.

"I think we need to leave," Carne Asada said, sounding disappointed in me and like she was growing impatient. Okay, maybe it was also the tapping of her hoof.

"Why?"

"Why, she asks? It is the point of the whole day!"

"The war?"

"No, how ponies will respond to what they think is war. I called in the tip." In accentless Equestrian, she said, "'Carne Asada will be at the International School and is behind everything.'"

She continued, "The EBI will call in all their agents. Every single pony from every es single field office. They'll be ready to investigate once the constabulary gets the city under control. Do you know where all the agents will wait? The Hooflyn office, which is where all the records on me are now stored. The Hooflyn EBI Headquarters, my lovely daughter, is on the other side of this wall."

I thought of thrown brass pine cones and running ponies on fire.

I thought of bridges being blown up, brother-in-laws framed for the crime, and a royal guard and his Equidorian wife sent to Tartarus.

I thought about Princess Celestia saved from having to die heroically to save a stadium full of ponies that did not blow up.

I thought of fuses that burned without air that I could not snuff out.

I thought of a very green very professional pegasus named Agent Greene and Greene who had treated a seemingly nonplussed middle-school filly at face value without judgement. She was on the other side of that wall.

Carne Asada wrapped a leathery wing over my back. I felt her bare warm canvas-like skin. I felt the claw dig in slightly.

My hide ticked as she asked, "Don't you think we should leave now?"

Author's Note:

Um... cliffhanger. What will she do? The next chapter is named On Fire.

Comments

[Conscat]

I think it's fair to say that Starlight Glimmer has gotten in over her head!