Manehattan's Lone Guardian

by Curtis Wildcat

The Morale of the Story - Day Two

The attitudes of ponies are funny things.

When Leviathan's presence was announced in the paper, the majority feared her like only a flaky species could. Only those who interacted with her directly saw that they had nothing to worry about: everypony else remained convinced that her presence didn't bode well for Manehattan. At times, it was only the fact that she was accompanied by Gray---whom many of the city's older citizens remembered and respected---that kept them from stampeding.

As more eyewitnesses saw Levi interacting with others in a peaceful manner, their attitudes changed. A certain pegasus who had helped chase after her that first day would later describe a short race they had weeks later as "thrilling". The three ponies at the aquarium who were eyewitnesses to Ebony's attempt at overcoming her fears found it strangely uplifting. Charity Kindheart, somepony who virtually everypony in her neighborhood respected prior to her departure, clearly had no fear of her. An open-door policy was instituted at places such as the aforementioned aquarium, the Lonely Heart nightclub, Mustang Lanes, and Bossa Nova's clothing store, stating that Levi would always be welcome there.

Still, there were plenty of neighsayers in the city who retained their fear at that point. That number began to take a nosedive after Leviathan's role in catching half of those involved in the MRPD breakout was printed. She wasn't acting on her own like a vigilante, but was actively cooperating with the authorities for maximum efficiency. The towns of Diarchs and Bright Lights near-unanimously made their support of her clear. The Madisoat Square Garden employees spread the word of Levi and Statuette's duel. The local representatives of the Apple family---and by extension, the Oranges---took a shine to her after her role in helping Babs Seed with her problems became known.

Even those only tangentially effected were showing their favor. Post-forgiveness, Juniper Leaf thought about recent events and decided that she couldn't thank Leviathan enough for recovering her journal. Gilbert, Levi's number one fan, contemplated starting a fan club. Those who escorted Glintlock back to Griffonstone approved of her surprising generosity towards them. Little Butterscotch and his mother Cotton Ball cheered when they read about her exploits. Manehattan's mayor began seriously considering setting up a meeting with her to convey his thanks directly and discuss a long-term relationship with the city.

Those that hated Leviathan still existed, of course, and likely always would. Natural fear of the unknown, bigotry, blindness towards reality, and simple "she's not like us so we don't like her" beliefs were the root causes of most of their behavior. For some of them, it seemed like they would never change their minds.

Then the announcement that Leviathan had been overwhelmed by Illudere hit the streets, guaranteeing that few in the city would ever see her the same way again.

Leviathan would reluctantly drag herself out of the Pyre to collect the Police's payment for her services. She kept only a comparatively token amount, splitting the rest with Gray, Drama, Maverick, and Magnum (much to the latter two's surprise). Coffee-and-Cream declined a share, saying that she was doing just fine supporting herself.

True to her word, once everypony except Drama was gone, Levi would go to sleep early.

The next morning, Gray took her to meet with a therapist that she trusted. Unknown to everypony but Gray herself, this therapist was S.M.I.L.E.-approved and was qualified to deal with mental issues stemming from the bizarre and mysterious. He was taken off guard when Leviathan appeared at his office, but accepted the explained circumstances with stride and agreed to take her as a client.

One of the first things the therapist said was that due to the sheer scope of Levi's memories, it might be worth trying to collaborate with the only known pony of equal or greater longevity. Gray said that she'd see what she could do, despite not believing that Celestia would have enough free time on account of her current project. Levi didn't add to it, but she privately wondered why the Princess would use up more of her time on her than she already had.

It would take some time dwelling on the subject before she remembered there was one more long-lived entity she could talk to: that sea serpent Tiffany Polari. She resolved to visit her that night.

When they returned to the Pyre after the session, the sight of a strange pegasus in a tracksuit putting Maverick and Magnum through their paces was enough to briefly pull Leviathan out of her funk. The new pony introduced herself as Fleetfoot of the Wonderbolts and claimed that she'd been given permission by her captain to prepare the ex-thieves for their new role. Gray immediately asked to be included in the workouts, to which Fleetfoot shrugged but agreed. All three were practicing a dizzying array of maneuvers and exercises, attracting a small crowd of on-lookers, when Levi re-entered the building.

Drama debated whether or not to go through with the day's shows in light of her friend's condition. Leviathan convinced her to go ahead, saying that she wasn't the one at fault and that she had the right to earn a living. Levi stayed backstage for the puppet shows, watching them from behind the curtains, then retreated to a far corner of the Pyre to keep from getting caught up in Salamandra's standard opening ceremony. The three pegasi, exhausted from their day-long regiment, didn't join her there but instead returned home.

She never read the newspaper for that day, as she didn't feel up to re-reading what she'd told Buried Lede. Everypony else, on the other hand...

In the grocery store that Gilbert worked at, an out-of-character statement was being uttered.

"Sir, I need to take tomorrow off."

The old stallion reacted with surprise to Gilbert's request. "Did I hear that right? I've never known you to take off of work. You're always wanting to earn money."

Gilbert steeled himself to explain his request. "Something's come up, sir. You see the paper yet about Levi?"

"That bounty hunter you're always going on about?" The store owner thought back as he tried to remember the Minutes' contents. "Right, right... what about her?"

...

...

"You'd like to get some sort of get-together going for her?" Turkey Bowl wondered, wincing inwardly at his tone. "I mean, I'm all for it, but..."

"You might think this sounds weird coming from a griffon, dude, but she needs our help," Gilbert insisted to the pony who'd overheard his plans for Leviathan. "We can't hunt whoever it is she's hunting, but we can cheer her on. C'mon, you know we've got to do this for her."

...

...

"Bossa agrees. Count her in," the minotaur declared whole-heartedly, arms folded. "They think they can tear Leviathan down? We'll just build her back up again. She's better than that, and we'll prove it."

"Awesome." Gilbert beamed, happy at how things were going. "Here's what I had in mind..."

...

...

"I don't like her. She splashed me in the everything once," Limefrost Spiral indignantly remarked. Her pupils shifted to the side. "Buuuut I guess I could go. Maybe I'll bring my canvas and make some bits off the event, or something."

Gilbert didn't like her tone of voice, but he shrugged and gave her the details. Support was support, he figured.

...

...

Word of the event spread around, and those whom Gilbert would never have talked to began to find out about it.

"She seemed alright. Would have to be to let herself get kissed like that," Pinny Lane commented to Turkey, giggling at the memory. "I'm not doing anything tomorrow. I can make it. They re-opened Median Park, didn't they?"

...

...

Mortar listened to the old stallion talk about what his griffon employee had planned. He considered the idea and agreed it had some merit. "Pestle and I didn't leave a good impression that first day, and we saw how wrong we were this past week. Attending it will give us a chance to apologize."

...

...

"You betcha I'm going!" Babs Seed loudly insisted, all spit and fury. "She didn't deserve to have that happen to her! Let's go and make her happy again! Tomorrow afternoon at the Park, right?"

...

...

Coffee-and-Cream overheard its existence while she was on the beat. After getting the required information, she passed it along to her superiors. They agreed to send her and several other officers to the event, allegedly to make sure everypony behaved themselves. Among those being sent were those that had just been released from the hospital.

She suspected that the real reason behind them okaying it was that the Department wanted to show their thanks beyond just giving Leviathan money. She had no way of knowing it, but she was right.

...

...

Fleetfoot found out about it when she returned to her hotel. Until that day, the Wonderbolts didn't have any contact with the alien robot. Since Spitfire permitted her to stay in town for a bit longer to train those oddballs, she decided that she would take them with her when it came time to attend the get-together. She'd only had a very brief interaction with Leviathan when they first met that morning, and she was curious.

...

...

Caramel Mocha, a bit despondent that Hazelnut would likely be too tired to see anypony after her next set of treatments, had been taking an afternoon trot when the grapevine reached her. She'd read the news that morning, and like anypony with a heart she was appalled at what that rogue illusionist had done. She tried and failed to imagine what having two centuries of false experiences would be like.

Attending the event will give me an opportunity to meet the robot up close and personal. Maybe I can learn why Hazel was angry at her.

...

...

Even with how well word of mouth was circulating, there shouldn't have been a crowd of more than a hundred, possibly two. Somepony on the Manehattan Minutes came to the rescue.

Honest Crow, a red-capped black-winged pegasus who was the city's self-proclaimed best journalist, learned of the event from a passer-by who in turn had learned it from Limefrost. Seeing huge news from a mile away, she took all of the details straight to the Minutes.

...

...

The event was likely to be a middle-to-lower class affair. Those of the upper class who learned of the event would decide they had better things to do with their time, whether they sympathized with Leviathan's plight or not.

But Caramel wasn't the only exception to this.

That evening, Celestia received another letter from Gray telling her of the event. The writing was sloppier than usual (which the letter explained was due to exhaustion), but still recognizable. With regret, she wrote back that she couldn't spare the time to attend. Her duties and current project made doing so impossible. There was nothing stopping her from sending somepony in her stead, however: that night, Shining Armor and Cadance were on the train to Manehattan.

And during all of that, Gray's challenge continued.

"This is a bit difficult to remember... could you run that by me again?"

Fiver sighed irritably, towards which Calico expressed indignation. "I'm sorry! Cut me some slack! When you said you were playing Solitaire, I thought it was Solitaire Solitaire! Not..." She gestured at the card layout on the floor before them. "...this!"

The little filly locked eyes with Calico, making her sweat a little, but finally she gave up. "...The highest number of cards you can move is equal to the number of empty cells plus one," she explained quietly. "...Suppose that this column here was empty. I can move up to two cards if I want to, so I would have the option of moving the Seven of Hearts and Six of Clubs there. But I would not be allowed to move the King-to-Jack stack to that same column. That's a card too many."

Calico frowned as she tried to parse Fiver's explanation. "So in that scenario... if I wanted to, I could just move the Queen and Jack there instead? I only have one free space, so..."

"...Correct." Fiver moved several cards from the fourth column to the seventh. "...Though in this circumstance, your best move would probably be to transfer these two cards to the Queen of Diamonds here..."

Calico initially had a very difficult time getting Fiver to open up that first day. By the end of the second day, during which Fiver had agreed to show her how to play this new Solitaire game she'd been occupied with, she had learned more about cards in twelve hours than in the rest of her life combined. For example: the deck Fiver had found was called a "Minotaur" deck, and it differed from the standard Equestrian pack in that it had Kings and Queens instead of Princesses and Nobles (though it exercised artistic license in that ponies were still front and center).

She also learned that where her meals were concerned, Fiver wasn't exceptionally picky. She had a mild allergy to chocolate and a slight distaste for spicy foods, but that was it.

Something that Fiver hadn't opened up to her yet was why she was so fond of long stretches of silence. Calico vowed that by the end of Gray's challenge, she would wrangle that secret out of the creepy little child.

Illudere didn't know what was going on. For reasons she didn't understand, her bedroom door had refused to budge since yesterday.

She'd tried magic. She'd tried opening it the old-fashioned way, by shoulder-charging it, and chucking her mattress at it. Nothing was working. Somepony out of the loop might have suggested teleportation, but that was one technique she never had the patience or the power to learn.

The only plus side to this situation was that there was a bathroom adjacent, so thank goodness for small favors. Otherwise, on account of having long since lost her ability to understand children, she wasn't going anywhere.

There's only one I can blame for this! Illudere turned towards thin air and shouted at seemingly nopony. "GET ME OUT OF HERE! WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU, YOU AUTHORIOUS CRETIN?!"

Nopony answered her but silence and the concept thereof. After a few seconds she gritted her teeth and turned towards her bed with the intent to dismantle it, find something that would let her escape---

The bedroom door opened minutely, and Illudere's head snapped towards it with a whip crack. A plate with two flower sandwiches and an orange slice was pushed inside, followed closely by a glass of water. As soon as they were both inside, the door slammed shut again.

Illudere's eyes twitched, and she charged for the door. She made one more effort to get out, but once again the door refused to move. Her pupils shrunk, expanded, and shrunk again. She struggled to get a coherent sentence out, or at least for her what passed as a coherent sentence. "Who... wha... fah... nee... shoo...how..."

...

"The kidnapper isn't supposed to be the kidnappee! Let me out of here, you twisted little pretzel!"

When Illudere finally started screaming again, Pure Energy was in the next room feeding Ralph. "That's a really weird owner you have in there, little guy," he told him, ears flattening at some of the things he was hearing.

Ralph made as close to a shrug as his biology would allow.

...

When Energy left the room, he headed straight for the front door. It had no less than five locks on it, with three along the side and two up top. The side locks weren't an issue: he had already taken care of those. The two top ones still remained secure, as they were both out of his reach.

He'd already looked out the windows to see where they were, but he didn't recognize the streets. He could see the giant head on the Crystaller building a few blocks away, so he figured that he was just in a part of the city he'd never wandered through. In light of how awesome these rooms looked and the spectacular view before him, he had guessed he was in a... what was the word... penthouse. Nopony showed up to investigate Illudere's loud protests, so he assumed that nopony lived close enough to hear.

None of the windows could be opened, so it wasn't like he could signal any pegasi for help in the event that one happened to pass by. The only way out was the way they came in.

Energy sat down before the door and stared at it. I've got to figure out some way of getting out of here. I've got to, he told himself. This is her house. I have to offend it.

It would take another ten minutes before Illudere stopped screaming and started coughing instead. It was only after her abused vocal cords made it clear that enough was enough that she ravenously set upon the meal she was given.

"I thought you said you checked out all of our safe houses in your district," Gates complained over the radio, watching Ebony and listening to her grumbled complaints. "There's pests everywhere here. Tall, dark and gorgeous just got done carrying out a one-pony extermination on most of 'em."

-"Where are you located?"-

Gates told him.

-"That's a full two blocks outside of my assigned zone, Gates,"- Bushwhacker informed him dryly. -"And even if my route went that far, there's no way I would've been able to search it before the operation began. Take it up with Ignition if you're upset about it."-

Gates started to answer, but paused when some background noise reached him. "What's that back there?"

-"We found a record player in one of the closets. He seems to be getting a kick out of Sapphire Shores."-

"The both of you have poor tastes in music," Gates said with a snort. "If you want to talk about cheesy pop and dance, I'll nominate Countess Coloratura every day. Helps that she's good-looking."

"Oh, T- to the -artarus no!"

Gates growled irritably at Ebony's exclamation. "What's she upset about now?"

-"I'll just let you get back to that."- There wasn't enough time to berate Bushwhacker for his smug tone before he cut off the transmission.

Ocean Guard looked as if he was about to chide his child for acting up again in front of two dangerous ponies, but Ebony had found a new reason to be angry and was having none of it. "What sort of muse-less, misplaced, uncultured hack would think that Coloratura is anything but a waste of sound? Too much razzle-dazzle, not enough actual music!"

Gates mouthed the word "uncultured?" before coming up with a proper reply. "Little lady, Sapphire Shores is old news. She hasn't been in the business long, and already she's on her way out. Get with the times and get with the best."

"There's absolutely zilch of a reason why I'd want to listen to her!" Ebony protested, getting into his face. "Half of her songs are peppy with depressing lyrics, the other half are depressing with peppy lyrics, and she's trying way too hard to come off as somepony important! Contrary to ponies' opinions, it is possible to look nice without resorting to a wagon's worth of makeup and hair spray!"

"And it never occurred to you that this is entirely why she's popular?" Gates shot back. "Seriously, why are you rattling off all of her good points?"

"Good points? Explain to me how they could be considered good---ow ow ow ow!" Ebony suddenly blurted out as the fed-up Ocean asserted his authority as a parent, dragging her off by one of her ears. "Okay, dad, okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She shook her head as her father, mollified by her hasty apology, let her go. "Sheesh!"

"I'm not going to tell you this again, Ebony," Ocean warned. "Making armed ponies angry at you is a poor judgment call. Now, calm down, apologize to them, and behave yourself before I put you in the box."

Ebony's ears flattened. All of her previous anger was gone and replaced by fear. "The box..."

"That's right," Ocean said, nodding. "The box."

...

After Ebony offered a halfway-sincere apology (which Gates halfway accepted, natch) and retreated back to the bedroom, Bastion conversed with Ocean in low tones. "What is 'the box'?"

"An empty cardboard box with the lids torn off," Ocean admitted. "My two oldest really hate that thing."

Bastion couldn't hide the grudging respect he felt after hearing that. A damaged box by itself was nothing, but from his point of view there was some psychology at work. "And I was under the impression that your wife was the frightening one."

---

Some days later, when the full account of the captives' experiences was published in the Minutes, Coloratura would admit to herself that Ebony's criticisms weren't exactly wrong. Not that she'd ever tell her manager, of course.

After the call ended, Bushwhacker was content for a little while to sit back and let Zig-Zag have his fun. There had been a case full of records in the closet---probably left in there and forgotten about by the residence's previous owner---but as he didn't normally listen to much music, he'd selected the only name he was familiar with.

Zig-Zag had recognized Sapphire Shores, and had explained with his usual truncated speech that the family was divided as to whether she or the Countess was the better performer. Of the six, he, his father and oldest sister preferred Sapphire.

The little colt was shuffling about the room in an odd sort of dance and trying to sing along, though most of the lyrics escaped him. After a couple songs, Bushwhacker came to a decision: he'd heard the music before and he was familiar with the performer's appearance, so there wasn't any harm in using his innate abilities for entertainment purposes. The familiar flaming shroud concealed him for a moment as his appearance shifted.

Later, he was thankful that Quarter's policy for maintaining the safe houses involved soundproofing them, because he was sure that having Sapphire Shores sing a duet with herself would've attracted a crowd. Since it took a while for Zig-Zag to stop smiling and cheering, he counted it as a win.

As a light rain fell outside his window, Ignition removed his radio and resisted the urge to crush it, instead setting it aside. We're not going to win this challenge.

Quarter's second-in-command had called up the agents at the end of the day to receive a status update. Agents #6 and #7 had reported that all was well and that their respective charges were behaving themselves. Agents #8 and #9 had told him that despite the family's oldest being a typical teenager, the father was actually helping them by keeping her in line.

In contrast, Agent #5 was furious. Ignition had trouble getting a clear picture from her on account of her ravings and garbled threats, but he was eventually able to determine that the pony she'd kidnapped had in turn kidnapped her, somehow trapping her in her room and giving him free reign of the penthouse.

You'd think that somepony that powerful wouldn't let themselves be rendered ineffectual, but sadly even magic has its limits.

Keeping Gray from opposing them post-challenge was off the table. Priorities needed to be re-arranged. First, the Golden Bell's safe needed to be retrieved whether the Police were watching it or not. Second, further research into Gray's background and abilities needed to be carried out in order to find something---anything---that could potentially kill her, or at the very least render her ineffectual. Third, Leviathan needed to be destroyed while she was still psychologically damaged.

And fourth, Illudere would need to be kept under watch in the event that she decided to ditch the organization. She had become too dangerous to be left on her own.

Author's Note:

I hate Crohn's Disease. That is all.

Anyway, music links for this chapter include: Mega Man 3's "ENDING", from the "We Are Rock-Men" album, and Amilcare Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours". The ending might a bit too energetic for this chapter, but try to imagine Ignition's plans falling to pieces while you're listening. >^_^<

The picture of Calico and Fiver comes courtesy of Berry-Bliss-Sundae at the MLP Forums. My thanks to her for her work!

Speaking of, I actually had a different card layout in mind from the one that ended up being used. When I took another look at Fiver's instructions and noticed they were different, I shrugged and decided to change the dialogue accordingly.

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Comments

[Shazam 25]

Well, it seems that everything is working out so far. Levithan is getting help from lots of ponies (and Gilbert) that she knows or don't know. Some mishap with Grey's family, but everything seems to be working out okay so far. Too bad, the villains won't be stopping Levithan or Grey that easily. This peace is lasting, but it only a matter of time before it's broken.

And Merry Christmas!

[artanisjerin89]

Energy sat down before the door and stared at it. I've got to figure out some way of getting out of here. I've got to, he told himself. This is her house. I have to offend it.

That last line, I see what you did there. This is why this story is one of my favorites.

[tsaukpaetra]

Let the power of friendship heal!
Retrieving companionship in perspective may help. Time will tell.

[Fox Jones]

The next morning, Gray took her to meet with a therapist that she trusted. Unknown to everypony but Gray herself, this therapist was S.M.I.L.E.-approved and was qualified to deal with mental issues stemming from the bizarre and mysterious. He was taken off guard when Leviathan appeared at his office, but accepted the explained circumstances with stride and agreed to take her as a client.

You did that on purpose, didn't you?

[Curtis Wildcat]

11789066
Did what?