Love, Friendship, and Gangsters

by scifipony

Chapters 5-7: Fighting for a Job

Author's Note:

• Grimoire is Starlight Glimmer many years before the Our Town incident.
• Salernitanos come from Salerno, Italy, and are considered “high-spirited and energetic.”
• Anypony recently-mature just-turned-adult late-teens to twenty is considered a yearling.

- 5 -

Who would have thought security could be a euphemism?

A few weeks later, we met in a park on a cold morning. Because of my work on the docks, my winter coat had grown in. Pig Pen wore a jacket. I spotted red pegasus wings braking hard as the mare descended to our redwood picnic table with a paper bag in her mouth. It had Fish on Fifth printed on it. Her red fur and feathers, her auburn mane and tail, even her blue eyes looked unremarkable. Her gold nose ring caught my attention, however. Dark mascara and gold eye shadow made her look intense.

"Ma'am?" I asked.

She put the oil-stained bag down and grabbed apples for Pig Pen from her messenger bag. "Same as yours is Midnight Star." She winked.

Pig Pen had advised me to make up a name, despite him using Pig Pen. I watched as she unwrapped two cartons of fried fish, by the smell, and something else. She pulled off the metal wire handle, then pushed the cardboard down, unfolding the carton into a plate, revealing browned crispy fingerlings and a mess of toasty fried onions, glistening with oil. I could smell the garlic and saw the cracked pepper. The Petit Pescatarian Pegasus tended toward gourmet dishes, but this reminded me of the Salernitano meals Daylily's mère used to cook when her family had our family over for dinner. Hardy. Chopped and fried, with lots of onion or other vegetables. Imported tinned fish, always marinated.

We ate the kippers and onions in silence only broken by the crunch of Pig Pen's apple. The red dots of hot sauce surprised me, and burned my mouth, but after finishing I realized how perfect it all tasted together. This could become a favorite.

"So," she began, throwing aside her napkin, "Did the big oaf explain what we do?"

"Not in so many words."

"Good for him. You can fight?" She eyed me. I wasn't large for a stallion, so we were practically the same size.

"I—"

I reflexively caught her wing slap with my wings before she could strike my nose. She stepped up on the table, kicking our empty cartons to the grass as Pig Pen jumped out of the way. I couldn't help focusing on the gold ring in her nose as she shoved me away from the bench until we were both standing on the grass. I was huffing when she jabbed at me with her right hoof.

I buzzed back, sliding back and forth through the air, sure she would follow and hit me if I turned tail on her. She didn't leap into the air. Instead, she stepped hard on something and a small pole flipped up. She caught it with her wings, scissor grip, and thrust one end at me. I dodged, but she did it again and again, alternating sides, causing the air to whistle. A javelin. I thought to kick it, but worried the point might score my leg or poke my frog. I wondered if she could throw it, too.

This was a test.

I flexed, adjusted my wing beats faster so I could add an intermediate thrust and... Clank!

I sliced the rod in half. The pointy part flew past my ear, while the other part sprung back and walloped Ma'am across the jaw. She stumbled back while I crashed down before her; the rod was at my cutting limit and I fouled my airfoil. I bounced back with a side kick.

She jumped onto the picnic bench, saying, "Enough, enough!"

I stepped out of reach. "Yes," I said.

"Yes?"

"Yes, I can fight."

"I think I believe you." She returned to a bench and tapped the table, motioning me to sit. "Pig Pen vouched for you and checked to see if you're in the constabulary or associated with another gang. You seem clean. Muscle, I don't need. I need ponies who can think, do their job, and leave without breaking horse apples for the fun of it."

"Breaking things?" I looked at Pig Pen, who studied the single cloud in the otherwise blue sky.

"Not breaking things," Ma'am clarified. "The syndicate ships things, and you don't need to know what, across the city. Sometimes other ponies interfere. Me and my crew run interference to ensure the shipment arrives safely."

"Security?" I asked.

"Security," Pig Pen repeated.

Ma'am nodded, bobbing her head back and forth with a funny look. "Yeah, call it security. Once a week, five or six times a month. Pays a gold bit each shipment."

More than a week's salary.

"More for special orders, or if the higher up ask for you by name."

Pig Pen said, "There are no rules."

Ma'am added, "Ponies will try to hurt you."

In a lower voice because a pair of early morning joggers were trotting by, Pig Pen said, "It isn't exactly legal what the syndicate ships—"

"—Or our security work."

Ma'am said, "We don't ask what the mules carry, and we will get you a private security guard card. Run-ins with the constabulary are rare. The syndicate came under new leadership, what, six years ago, and they've got their act together. It's run like a business."

It sounded like what my would-have-been Salernitano in-laws called The Family Business, which is why Daylily's family emigrated, though in a way they had started one of their own considering how they dealt with fly-by-night haulers—and helped us with the constabulary when investigators didn't like the way Maman and Dad ran their business. Legal and illegal sometime varied in definition by who used the word and how the bits dictated. Like me being in Baltimare instead of in jail for assault in Vanhoover.

Pig Pen nodded.

- 6 -

Being a pegasus, I had never trotted that far for that long, ever, in my entire life. We went in groups of six to eight, with Ma'am and somepony we referred to as the mule, regardless of whether he or she was a unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony thatweek. Crossing the town late at night or in the day—or for the first few weeks of the year in snow—left a pony achy, damp, and cold.

It didn't get real until one night a half-dozen crazy pony toughs wearing blue and red satin capes came screaming out of an alley way. All earth ponies. They barreled down on us each with a two-by-four clenched in their jaws. Worse, the end bristled with nails.

Ma'am left Pig Pen, Breakaleg (a piebald earth stallion with a silver mane), and me to block the way while the rest galloped off. It helped that I could fly at anypony who dodged to follow the mule, but these rival gangsters knew how to fight a pegasus, too. I dodged spiked clubs, flicking up into the air as I tried to apply my rear hooves to knock somepony, anypony down.

We had to engage for two minutes, enough for the rest to sprint blocks away. I did get one chasing me to club his companion. Then, thanks Pig Pen and me sparring, I was able to name one of my katas and we double-teamed a third and kicked him into the gutter.

When one goon got away from Breakaleg and grazed Pig Pen, causing him to buck, I lost it. I shot up, like I remembered Shadow Strike doing at the fight, then stooped, coming down screaming, evading. With a club in her mouth, the mare had to use her neck or twist her body. I came in so fast, she chose the wrong side to protect. I slit her open from flank to shoulder. She spooked, as the drag on my wing set me careening off in front of her face. That sent me into a spin trying to find my horizon. As I found lift, I found the remaining gangster. I flared my wings, got my rear legs forward, and planted both in his shoulder with a meaty crack.

Next thing I new, I found myself laying in the gutter. The trickle of melting dark icy snow shocked me up. I saw two sets of brown eyes on me, Pig Pen's and Breakaleg's. "You okay?" they both asked.

I laughed. I threw myself up, despite the back of my head and right wing hurting.

"Maybe he isn't," said Breakaleg, having thrown himself back. "Did he hit his head?"

I sobered, catching the groan of one of our opponents raising himself up. "Maybe we should go?" I asked.

Pig Pen explained, "I think he likes fighting," as we high tailed it, galloping on a detour toward the next checkpoint so we could again provide escort. I began laughing, feeling the rush. I nevertheless took out my first aid kit as we ran because Pig Pen was bleeding.

- 7 -

You mean, like... hazing?" I asked Ma'am.

"No, it is hazing. Word is Carne Asada herself picked the little pampered foal, and I don't like anypony, even her, foisting nopony on me without me first checking him out. All I know is he is a navigator. You have my permission to cream him if he turns out to be as stupid as I expect. Got it? I'll take the heat and ask forgiveness later."

Pig Pen and I said in unison, "Yes, Ma'am!" I saluted with a wing as he did with a leg. We both snorted, dodging her wing slap.

Ma'am left us standing on a street corner to which we returned at 3:30 AM, to wait. And wait. I had flown up and shut off the gas valve to the street lights, which left us in the cold and dark. The snow had melted days ago. Small comfort. The restaurant and salt lick named 7 had closed over an hour ago. I ought to have packed my insulated bottle with hot tea, but I'd hadn't been thinking. Regardless, a gold bit was a gold bit.

Ma'am's group came trotting up E. Redwood pretty much on schedule, slowing as their guide, the newbie, noticed the lights and noticed us. As they got to the intersection, Ma'am said, "Your turn on the hoofball pitch," turned onto Light Street and hightailed it, leaving the newbie behind in the intersection. Presumably to block us.

I glanced at Pig Pen and he glanced at me. What were we to do? Was the small stallion, a colt I gathered considering his stature, poorly trimmed fetlocks, and a his rather creepy dark full-hooded cloak. The hood was back, revealing a purple mane in a gang bouffant and a grayish purple horn.

A unicorn.

We looked at each other. The expressionless colt backed up to a street corner, looking around. He found a coin in his blue-green magic and inserted it into a newspaper machine. He pulled out a section of the paper as the door banged closed, loud in dead of the night, placing the rest of it on top of the green machine. He then reached into the gutter, picking up the bottle Ma'am had spilled there hours ago. Sunny Daze orange juice. He brought it to his lips.

I flinched, my stomach turning. I clearly saw where somepony had curbed his dog.

The colt grinned maliciously as he placed the unsampled bottle down on the newsstand with a loud clunk. Both of us stood aghast, until suddenly the extinguished street lamp above him lit with a blue-green light, which more surprisingly changed and brightened until it glowed a sun-like yellow.

I got a really bad feeling. Carne Asada's Syndicate, I'd read recently, was one of the biggest Family Businesses in Baltimare—other cities, too. I gulped. Who was Ma'am hazing here? The unicorn or us?

I'd seen unicorns lift things. I'd seen a unicorn light his horn. I'd seen Princess Grim blast the lights in the arena, and heard the syndicate had a few more geniuses like that. Were I to fight Princess Grim, how would I do it? I'd not like being grabbed and thrown into the street. I gulped.

The unicorn said in a rough voice that sounded like he was trying to sound older than he was, "Seriously?"

He lit the lamp above me to my left. I jerked, as if physically slapped. I felt exposed. I tensed, ready to fight the sharp-horn shoving me to the ground.

He grabbed the newspaper, snapped it, and trifolded it like for reading on a bus. A moment later, "Oh," he said, "Grape is going for the title this year—'

"Pincer," I said to Pig Pen and launched down Light Street, to get behind the unicorn to flank him.

As I passed, the crazy sharp-horn threw the orange juice bottle at me. He missed, but all the juice ejected and sprayed my wing, fouling my airfoil and causing me to teeter in the air. Simultaneously, a blue-green cloud of magic lit up my mane and jerked me as hard as somepony biting my hair then jumping aside. I fought not to bash into the cobblestone street. Fortunately, I'd planned to bank around and make the unicorn have to deal with two attacks at the same time, so I used his help to pull me around and toward him. I saw Pig Pen galloping along my flight path beyond the unicorn.

The unicorn stiffened in realization, perhaps frozen in indecision. I would sweep by to the right, cutting toward his face to leave a big scar. Pig Pen would sweep him off his feet from the left.

The next instant two things happened. The unicorn danced backward, his freeze obviously a cold calculated ploy, and jerked my trajectory exactly into line with Pig Pen's charge. I fought the irresistible force keeping me in line with no time to spare.

Pig Pen realized what the unicorn had done at the same time. He reared trying to stop or change course.

We both failed.

I collided with my friend, barely missing head butting him, which probably would have knocked us cold. Nevertheless, pulling up, I clocked Pig Pen in the jaw. That dragged me down enough that I pulled him back with the rest of my body. Him rearing, we keeled over into a bouncing tangle of limbs, rolling and sliding across the cobbles. Bruising.

The unicorn threw the paper at us. It ripped into two dozen bits of newsprint, fluttering around us like confetti.

I heard horseshoes clattering away on east on E. Redwood. A few seconds after, I heard the miscreant chortling with glee.

I looked at my wing. I'd cut him and blood dotted my feathers. He galloped down the street as I pulled myself from under Pig Pen who, though stunned, also looked that way. I said, "What the fudge just hit us?"

I felt like Shadow Strike after Princess Grim's last move.

Turned out the unicorn's name was Grimoire, like the scary old books with metal latches, the kind that reputably ate scholars that weren't studious enough. He had a tiny cut on his nose. The yearling colt alternated from emotionless to what felt like a pasted-on emotion. He also had this tendency to tilt his head down and look at you with the whites of his eyes exposed below the iris. Like a wolf. Like I imagined Princess Grim was like before a fight.

He scared me.

The syndicate was training him to replace Ma'am, who had gotten promoted. Worse, he asked for Pig Pen and me by name on his assignments.

Comments

[Bicyclette]

She pulled off the metal wire handle, then pushed the cardboard down, unfolding the carton into a plate, revealing browned crispy fingerlings and a mess of toasty fried onions, glistening with oil. I could smell the garlic and saw the cracked pepper.

well this is making me hungry, so good job there!

We went in groups of six to eight, with Ma'am and somepony we referred to as the mule, regardless of whether he or she was a unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony thatweek.

ah, yeah, the word "mule" would have an ambiguous meaning in Equestria. fun!

Turned out the unicorn's name was Grimoire, like the scary old books with metal latches, the kind that reputably ate scholars that weren't studious enough.

well, since i know what the A/N says above, this is very intriguing!