1. The Aerodrome

Have you ever been to Canterlot?

Speak to most ponies this side of the boarder and they will describe a city like no other; the crowning jewel of the Celestial Union, a shining beacon ushering in a brighter future for us all.
They’d say that it is a melting pot for the best and brightest that civilised society has to offer, a wealth of culture and advancement where dreams and ambition is currency, and where any and all can rise to the top.

The gleaming walls and gracefully curved spires of the city catch and transmit the rays of the dawn long before the rest of the land sees the sun, bathing the earth below in a golden hue. To gaze upon Canterlot as the day breaks is to see hope itself, the siren song calling of a better life in the capital, away from the dark and harsh realities in the sodden lands below.

If you live an honest life, work hard in the name of the Union, and earn the respect of your peers, the rewards for your dedication will far outweigh the struggle and endless monotony of daily life.

All are free, all are strong, and all are content.

But then again, most ponies have never actually been to Canterlot.

You may forgive them for their misconceptions; to any living outside the city walls Canterlot appears just as awe-inspiring and impressive as the tales tell.

The centre of the Union is unique in that the daydream of the city persists just as long as a pony keeps his head pointing upward. Although the image the capital has invested in keeps its substance even once inside the main gates, an attentive eye can begin to peel away the fantasy with intense scrutiny.

Half the shop windows are bare and up for sale, indeed the only places which are open are either those that sell the daily necessities of life, or those who could remain in business for a week if they sell but one overpriced object in their establishment a day.

The citizens themselves are another detail. Of course, the truly undesirables are set aside far away from the main streets; but ask why one Canterlonian can stroll along without a care in the world wearing the most garish outfit known to pony kind, whilst the other scurries around with nought but the hair on his back and the sweat on his brow, his eyes fixated to the ground.

Perhaps you would even notice that the road itself, the pathway leading to the Old Citadel in the distance, is dotted with elongated shadows that have no owners, which never bend or twist to celestial whims as the sun arcs across the heavens.

They are images burned into the very stone of the streets, remnants of the final day the Gods strode among us, and a reminder that ponykind must look out for itself in the coming ages.

Possibly then, the Aura of Canterlot is the truest description of the city itself;

Glamorous.

Enchanting.

An illusion.

But, in order for Canterlot to shine, it must first be sunny.

I trotted along the pavements, ducking underneath the overhangs and awnings of the buildings in an attempt to avoid as much of the rain as possible.
It was a losing battle, as I was already soaked to the core and freezing, but since walking in the open would not make me any drier, I was determined to evade as much of the downpour as possible.

Aside from myself and a few stranglers sticking to as much cover as possible, the streets were almost bare. The soft purple hue of the crystals imbedded into the streetlights highlighted the raindrops as they hurtled to the ground.

A red searchlight was all the warning I got, as I sidestepped closer to the buildings to avoid the splash created by a passing locomoted patrol carriage. The two members of the Sentinels inside were completely impassive of the drenching they almost gave me, as their gaze remained fixated on their spotlights piercing into the night.

Searchlights but no sirens meant that the Sentinels were on the hunt, but did not want to alert their quarry of his impending fate. Unlucky for whichever poor soul wound up in their sights, but fortunately for me I had no reason to attract their curiosity.

Not for now, at least.

In a city where your father’s name can secure you a better place in society than an educational degree, there was never much hope of me having an honest way of living.
Strong earth pony legs combined with a skill for crossing the city both swiftly and silently meant that an exciting career in marketing just wasn't to my tastes.
I am a Runner, a courier for those who cannot deliver their packages alongside this morning’s issue of The Canterlot Telegram.

I have rules for my service, and because I’m known in the right circles for my ability to get a job done, I’m lucky that I’m not forced to break them just to get work.
No items that cannot fit into a saddlebag.
No items heavier than a pair of bricks.
Always tell me what I am carrying.

My rules keep me safe, and my rules keep me free.
Only a closer encounter with either the Sentinels or my own mortality will cause me to write another.

I nearly fell from a rooftop when an overlarge item became snagged on a clothesline.
I nearly broke my ankles when I misjudged a jump because I was over encumbered.
I was nearly killed for successfully delivering an item to a customer who wanted no loose ends.

Tonight, I was in need of some work. The current Lord of House for Defence was enforcing a strong policy for Sentinel patrols in the lower districts, and many of my regular customers had become timid in the face of a stronger force of authority.

In fairness, I had gone to ground with them, but my dwindling amount of savings forced me into seeking a job. And so tonight I had ventured out into the downpour, and stood before my most frequented business establishment.

A once white (now grey more than anything) building with exposed wooden support beams on the outside; The Hounds Head was a ye-olde-world pub which would always be guaranteed patrons, regardless of its current state of repair.
Compared to the large modern apartment blocks flanking either side, the building couldn’t look more out of place, appearing to have been plucked straight out of one of the outlying villages surrounding the capital; and none of us would have it any other way.

To those who lived nearby it was more than just a place to drink yourself unconscious, it was neutral ground, a safe haven for any who needed to escape from the real world for a few hours to catch their breath.
It also happened to be the building where I was offered the majority of my agreements.

If you had no reason to look closer, you might only glance at the green and red magically charged sign in the front window of The Hound which always flickers on and off; the image of a barred teeth diamond dog fading in and out at random. It gave the building some character, and no-one could be bothered to fix it.

But if you had been told what to look for, the Iris of the dog’s eyes would tell you if there was work to be found inside. Two green eyes mean that business is available, two red eyes means that you should try again another day.

On this night, as I stood and stared at the front of the building, the Hounds Head glared back at me with a pair of green pupils. I was good to go.

The Hound seemed to be full with a reasonable amount of patrons, enough that you occasionally had to ask politely in order to gain passage through the gauntlet of assembled ponies, but not so crowded that you might accidentally upend someone’s cider as you passed by.

I made for the bar; having to take a few meanders around some particularly tightly clustered social circles, and trying my best not to drip rainwater over any of them, and nodded to Keg once I had caught his eye. A quick grunt of acknowledgement was all I got as I placed a trio of bits on the table for my usual pint of cider.

I was never going to drink it, what kind of example would that set if I were to ask for a job whilst getting drunk?
It was more a precaution than anything else; after all, no-one stands out at a bar more than someone who has no intention of getting a drink.
Cider in hoof and my back to the bar, I ran my eyes around a quick scan of the area, trying to spot any familiar faces amongst the mob in the room.

To my ten o’clock and holed up in his usual corner, Old Forty could be found talking in hushed voices with his typical cadre of war veterans. Good pony, that one. Little unhinged at times perhaps, but he had some tall stories to share of his time serving on the boarders with the Gryphon Kingdoms if you could pick out the exaggerations.

Grouped around the horseshoe toss were an irritating loud group of young stallions, punctuating each miss or cling of metal on metal with a cheer, often accompanied by a comment on the sexual preference of whoever happened to throw the last shoe.
Never much liked stallions like that; often they cared more about getting into any old fight instead of getting into one for the right reasons.

Sitting as close to the door as possible was a reasonably attractive ivory coated Pegasus mare, a too orange to be juice drink in hand and a stare aimed directly at me.
I looked away briefly to make sure there was no-one nearby who her gaze was actually for, but when I looked back she still had her eyes fixed in the same direction, a small smile playing on her lips.

One of her eyes morphed in an instant from a green iris on white to a light turquoise, and then back again.
Ok, signs don’t usually get much clearer than that, a changeling had just winked at me.

And there was only one active changeling that I knew of in Canterlot.

I pulled up a stool opposite her, my back turned so that it faced as much of the wall as possible with my legs clear of the table in case I needed to get up in a hurry.

She gave me a quick eye up and down before chuckling to herself. “You look completely drenched, there’s a small puddle forming underneath you already”

There was indeed a small body of water right under where I was sitting. If I didn’t want the locals to start swimming for the exits I should probably try not to stay sat here too long.
“Rain tends to do that you know, it’s not like I had much choice in the matter.”

The mare gave a brief sigh of exasperation. “See and this is why I hate wearing fur, all you have to do is just step outside when the pegasi are feeling grumpy and you’re sodden for ages. You’ve no idea how much better it is to be naturally waterproof.”

I knew that she would make small talk all night if I didn’t try to steer the conversation where I was hoping for it to go, even if I could use a bit more skill at it. “Your right, I genuinely do have no idea. I’ve also have no bits right now, and I was hoping you could help me with that.”

The changeling in disguise put a hoof to her mouth, looking slightly taken aback. “Now Pathfinder I’m positively shocked, and here I was thinking that you came all the way out here just too spend some much needed quality time with me.”

That earned a quick snort from me. “Come on Nightshade, even I know that your, ah... ‘quality time’ comes with a price tag attached. I’m here because I have no bits not because I want to spend them.”

Nightshade’s eyelids dropped slightly as she leaned closer over the table. “Pathfinder, we’ve known each other for a while now, aren’t you the least bit curious? Is it that I’m just not pretty enough?” She made her point with a small pout and a fluttering of eyelashes.

A laugh or two escaped me before I knew what I was going to say. “No, you really do know how to sell yourself, its just that I’m not buying. Besides, if this was just a social call for you I’m sure you would have at least put on a face that I recognised; a blank shell means that your out here on business.”

Nightshade gave up at that point, leaning back into her chair again with that small smile back in place. “Urgh, you know me too well. You’re never as much fun when you’re all serious and business-like.”

She took a sip of her almost glowing drink before continuing. “But you are right, I know of a package – a crystal - that needs collecting and delivering to none other than Mr. Grapevine himself.”

Grapevine. Now that was a name with some serious weight behind it.

Ever had a pony speak the old saying; ‘I heard it on the grapevine’?
It has a much more modern meaning now, when they say that they mean they actually heard it from Grapevine; a pony who hears much and knows what ponies will pay so that they can hear it too.

I suspected that I had run jobs for him in the past, but never had his name been linked to anything that I had transported. I wondered what makes this job different so that his name was given before I had even accepted.

As I gathered my thoughts I looked over the table to see that Nightshade was taking some satisfaction that her name-dropping was doing the trick. “Grapevine huh? Well ok then, you’ve got my attention. Tell me more about this job.”

“You want the full pitch, or the no-bullshit version?”

I raised an eyebrow expectantly, and Nightshade seemed to catch on. “Ok then, we’ll keep it simple. We don’t have the item yet, so we’ll need to break into the building it’s filed away in and get it back to Grapevine before anyone’s the wiser.”

I was slightly confused as to why I was being offered this. I didn’t ever steal anything; I only ever ran it from A to B. And since Nightshade could become anyone imaginable she’d certainly be able to do the whole thing by herself.

“Breaking in? Why would you need me then? You’ve got to be a hell of a lot better at keeping a low profile than I ever could, why not just go in and take it yourself?”

Nightshades smile grew slightly wider. “Because this isn’t just about the item; Grapevine wants someone to be seen at the time it went missing. Specifically, someone he hasn’t been on good terms with recently.”

"And since i'm guessing this 'someone' wouldn't be willing to help... You plan to go in all dressed up as this person and been seen taking this crystal that Grapevine wants…”

“…At which point I pass it to you in a blind spot, walk through security with nothing in my possession, and we both get away clean.” Nightshade finished for me.

It sounded intriguing but still, one thing didn’t add up. “Why not just fly away as soon as you have the crystal? Why do you specifically have to walk out the front door?”

“Because it needs to be seen that the individual I will be impersonating was searched and was clean as he left. He will be the only visitor that night, so it must have been him that took it, but how? It’s that fear of them not knowing how it was done that Grapevine is really seeking.”

I brushed a slowly drying lock of brown hair out of my dark blue eyes as i mulled over her proposal. Although I do prefer it when my jobs are straightforward and simple, I couldn’t stop a little bit of excitement from slipping into my voice. “It sounds very interesting. Before I accept though, will this job conform to my rules?”

Nightshade looked at me as if I had just asked if unicorns could do magic. “Please, Pathfinder. I wouldn’t have hoofed this job to you if it didn’t, I know you better than that.”

“Alright then” I grinned as I held out a deep yellow hoof. “It’s good to be working with you again Nightshade.”

She returned my smirk as she bumped my hoof with her own. “Just like always, Pathfinder. Now, meet me outside, i'm sure Keg wouldn't mind you using that old stairwell out back to get up high.”

And with that, Nightshade got up from the table and left the Hound, attracting quite a few stares from several of the stallions dotted around the pub as they stepped aside in an attempt to appear like a gentlepony in the face of a pretty mare.

I sat and waited a while longer, staring into my still foaming cider and watching the bubbles chase each other to the top of the glass.
It’s never a good idea to get up and leave at the same time as Nightshade, she’s guaranteed to raise the attention of the patrons and I wanted them to settle back into their conversations before I made my move.

Satisfied that everyone had turned their mind to more important things, namely the glasses in their hooves, I stood up from the table with a small squelching sound as my hooves stepped into the reservoir that had been gathering underneath me during the conversation. Shooting an apologetic glance at Keg, I made my way through the crowd and towards the rear exit of the building.

As I stepped outside I got the instant smell of a damp, humid evening. The only smell you get after a heavy rainfall. At least said rain had stopped whilst I was inside. It wasn’t going to make the rooftops any less slippery, but I wouldn’t have to keep my eyes half shut to keep the raindrops out as I ran.

Halfway down the alleyway past the soggy and crumpled cardboard box that was probably someone’s home and worldly possessions at the same time, a set of metallic stairs led up towards the rooftops of the taller buildings flanking either side of the Hounds Head. Not wanting to waste any energy before I really needed it, I ascended the steps one at a time, enjoying the anticipation I always got whenever I was climbing upwards to where I could see the skyline.

The popular opinion is that Canterlot looks at its best in the early morning as the sun crests the distant mountain ranges, but I have to respectfully disagree.
In my opinion Canterlot city – the real Canterlot city – looks its best in the dead of night. Purple light from the crystalline streetlights below rose upwards through the empty spaces in between buildings, the occasional light inside a structure showing someone pulling an all-nighter at the office or eating dinner with the family at home.

Several ponies I know have called me a cynical and jaded pony, and nine times in ten I’m inclined to believe them, but even I could not look out across a cityscape in its prime such as this and not admire it for the true beauty it holds. Viewing the ever changing skyline gave the impression that this was something more than just a place where ponies lived; it flowed, it adapted, it looked alive.

I almost didn’t hear the flutter of thin membranous wings nearby as Nightshade landed next to me in her true form. “Feeling sentimental, Pathfinder?”

I kept my gaze fixed out across the city, half watching the occasional red spotlights of the Sentinel’s pegasus division trace a path across the horizon. “Just trying not to get caught up in it all, the view never gets old does it?”

Nightshade gave me a quick nudge in my side “Oh my, you are getting sentimental! Is this where you propose and promise to take me away from all this?” A pair of pointed fangs showing as she grinned and looked out across the rooftops with me.

I half considered dropping to a knee to carry the joke on, purely to see how far she would take it. But I knew I’d get embarrassed and back out long before she would.
“Hah, in your dreams missy. As if you would ever want to leave this place anyway.”

“True” Nightshade conceded, “And now that I think of it I suppose I am technically engaged to three separate bachelors at the moment, perhaps a fourth would be too much company.”

She broke off into a light jog, but not before giving my face a quick flick with her tail. Slightly flustered I followed after her, soon catching up and keeping pace. “So, where specifically are we going, and do we have a plan that extends beyond turning up, grabbing this crystal, and then legging it back home?”

Nightshade shot a brief glance over her shoulder before continuing. “Grapevine never acts without a plan; he hates the unknown more than most since it means he’s doing a bad job, so a lot of thought has gone into this.”

Seeing that a short gap over an alleyway was coming up, I tore ahead of Nightshade to gain enough speed to make the jump. Clearing it with plenty of room to spare, I once again took a little pride in being born an earth pony.
Sure, a pegasus could have flown over and maybe a unicorn could have levitated themselves if they were a decent spell slinger, but nothing is a good enough substitute for earth pony legs in my mind.

Nightshade glided into position next to me and we both returned to a light jog. “It doesn’t make for easy conversation if you keep running off like that you know.”

The liquid confidence that is adrenaline tends to mess with my mind with ease, and since it was starting to flow freely through me, I shot her a cocky grin. “If you want easier conversation you should work a little harder to keep up then.”

My competitive edge is only spurred on because I know that Nightshade has one too, and I know how to get it to rear its head now and again. “Alright then mister, we’ll see what happens when we come to cross the street.”

Nightshade made a quick beat with her wings to take her over the top of a chimney as I ran past it before landing in a jog again. “Anyway, specifics; we’re heading to the Aerodrome. There’s a branch of The Wonderbolts set up there, and amongst the many things in their possession is a holo-crystal containing their weekly intelligence reports for the Committee.”

Well that put a slight edge on my mind. “The Wonderbolts? as in The Wonderbolts? Elite military arm of the Celestial Union?”

“Elite military arm and part time aerial display team, if you remember. They’re currently putting on a show in Ponyville in remembrance of Rainbow Dash, the mare they have that giant golden statue of out front? We can only expect a skeleton force of security staff and no actual members of the team tonight.”

Nightshades words put an ease to some of my creeping doubts, but this was still a rather high profile target Grapevine was aiming for. If we didn’t pull it off smoothly its likely the repercussions for us would be severe.

I kind of liked not having to look out through barred windows every morning.

I was still musing what it would be like to be locked up until the apocalypse came and the East Wind swept us all off the face of Equis when Nightshade came to a stop at the edge of the rooftop.

“Right then hotshot” Nightshade sounded particularly smug as she looked over the precipice of the building and into the streets below. “Here’s your gaping chasm to cross, impress me.”

“See, if you had these pair of beauties...” She gave her holed wings a quick flutter “It would be as simple as a hop, skip, and a jump. But with just a set of legs, i think its time for you to pony up and…”
Her trail of thought wandered as she realised that I was no longer stood behind her, and was making for the building to our right further down the street.

“Hey! You’re going the wrong way!”

Unbeknown to Nightshade, I had already spotted my way across the road whilst she was still delivering her victory speech, and was bolting for it with all speed.

Taking a swift hop across the alley joining the two buildings together, I brought my hooves down on to a nearby chimney to give me some extra height, so that I almost skipped onto a protruding balcony, and finally I gave it everything I had as I jumped out across the street to latch onto my target with both pairs of legs – A thaumatic leyline connecting the building to the transformer across the street.

The momentum I carried with me nearly caused me to do a full barrel roll around the leyline, and the high tensile cable swayed from side to side due to my leap, but I had carried enough speed that I was sliding down the cable towards the smaller building across the street with relatively little resistance.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s perfectly fine to touch a thaumatic cable, so long as the cable was the only thing you were touching and not the ground as well.
It’s how birds manage to perch on them without constantly being turned into oranges.

As I neared the end of my impromptu zip line, I spotted Nightshade waiting at the transformer at the other side of the street.
So for a little added flair and to hammer my point home, I let go with my fore legs first to give me a bit of rotation, then released my hind legs as I was facing directly downwards, performing a half back flip before hitting the deck on my hooves, skidding to a stop across the rooftop.

I turned to face Nightshade, trying my hardest (but still failing) to contain the self-satisfied look I wanted to pull upon seeing her face.

As she inhaled to come out with a fast remark, I put a hoof near her mouth. “Ah, ah! … That’s one point for earth pony legs.”

And just too really put salt in the wound, I gave her a quick tap on the nose with my hoof, releasing all the static energy that had been built up in my fur as I had slid down the cable.

ZAP!!

“Ahhhh!!!”

Nightshade leapt back and shook her head, as a small bouquet of multi-coloured flowers spontaneously materialised out of her nose.

All professionalism was far out of the window by this point, I let go of any restraint i had left to keel over onto my back and laughed like a loon under the starry night sky. After all, its what any good friend would do at the sight of Nightshade frantically trying to shake the flowers out of her nose and sneezing all the while.

Still tittering to myself as I lay on my back, I looked upwards to see the black void above and a half pissed off - half amused changeling standing over me. “Right, I take some of it back; you can be fun when you’re on business, and fur can have its uses…”

She seized me in her notched horn’s field, and unceremoniously upended me to dump me back onto my hooves with an aura of green magic. “…but magic and wings still beats hooves.”

_____________________________________________

We crawled along the surface of the final rooftop before coming to the edge, looking out at the Canterlot Aerodrome that filled the whole city block beneath us.
Several miniaturised landing pads surrounded the main complex with a runway towards the rear of the compound, the ramped lip at the end pointing off the edge of the cliff face that Canterlot clung to and into the open valleys below.

The main building was an incredibly impressive structure, all flowing lines and graceful curves; it looked as though it wanted to be in flight itself. The walls and features were so aerodynamically sculptured so that it gave the impression that if the wind were strong enough the whole construction would rise into the sky.

And right in front of it was the immortalised statue of Rainbow Dash herself, considered the best flier of her time and possibly of all the generations of Wonderbolts. I knew little about her personal history, other than that she was instrumental in the reforms of The Wonderbolts after The Fall of the Gods.

From our angle on top of the roof the statue was facing the wrong way, but even if you didn’t know of her, the aggressive angle of flight, platinum lined wing blades, and the battle harness around her barrel gave little doubt that this was a pony of great power. I wondered what it must have been like to exist back then, with living legends walking amongst us just like normal ponies.

I was getting too distracted; focus on not getting apprehended by the ponies guarding one of the nations secret intelligence buildings and avoiding being cast into a dark hole for the rest of my life first, then I will have time to daydream about the legends of the Celestial Union.
Though I suppose getting locked up would give me plenty of time to daydream.

Nightshade gave me a quick nudge in the side. “Right, the plan from here is this, see the skylights on the eastern rise?”
I glanced over to the high sloping section of the roof closest to us where she was pointing and spotted several glass segments bedded into it.

“Captain Rolling Thunder’s office is close to those skylights, and they can only be unlocked from the inside. I’m going to carry you over to that part of the roof and drop you off there. Wait until you can see me in the room below you, and be ready to run when I fly up there and give you the holo-crystal.”

Nightshade then directed my attention to the main entrance. “I’m going to put a face on and go straight through the door, its important that security sees me and checks that I’m clean and that I have my pass.”

Nightshade looked directly at me with a serious stare that I had seen only on very few occasions. “It’s going to take me a long time to get into position, and I mean a long time. If you don’t see me, wait longer. If you think I’ve been caught, wait longer. Unless you see the Sentinels, daybreak, or brood-forbid the Wonderbolts themselves you stay in position, ok?”

I nodded silently, I knew that for the plan to work cleanly I needed to be ready to take the crystal from Nightshade. Of course, she could leave the building anytime herself if she really got in trouble, but if Grapevine wanted her to waltz through the front door dressed as someone else and still take the crystal from the building, that’s exactly what was going to happen.

Nightshade gave me a small smile for confidence. “Ok then, once you have the crystal, the roof of the building slopes down almost all the way to ground level, so getting down should be easy. I’ll find you on the way back to the Hound.

“One last thing” I asked as Nightshade started to rise, a slight concern forming on my mind.

“…you’re going to carry me over?”

_____________________________________________

“You know, earth ponies really, really weren’t built for flying!” I practically shouted over the airstreams rushing past my ears

“Do try to keep your voice down, I’m right here you know, and changelings have much more sensitive hearing that you ponies do.” Nightshade had both her legs wrapped around my barrel and wings extended, the two of us riding an updraft skywards to get enough height to glide over to the building. “I thought you would be fine with heights after your little stunt anyhow, is that so different from flying?”

“That wasn’t flying, that was me crossing a street with style. I wasn’t being airlifted by something with freaking holes in its wings!”

Nightshade dropped her head closer to my ear and whispered in an all too sweet voice, “Come now Pathfinder, do you not trust me?”

A quick glance towards the increasingly distant streets below did little to help my nerves. “… erm, which answer is the one that won’t make me end up as a bloody stain on the ground?”

“None of them” Nightshade chuckled “So perhaps you should remain quiet for the rest of our journey, hmm?”

Can’t argue with that logic.

I kept my mouth shut as we reached the end of the updraft and began our flight out towards the Aerodrome. If it wasn’t pitch black and you happened to be looking upwards, you might have mistaken us for a particularly oversized and cumbersome bumble bee, as we drifted across the evening sky to our destination.

_____________________________________________

I instantly felt safer once I had something solid under my hooves. Perhaps it wasn’t quite terra firma, but I’d take anything over having the feeling of no control over my body with my legs dangling into the oblivion below.

Nightshade had long since left, so that she could both change to her disguise and approach the building from a plausible direction other than directly from the roof.

All there was for me to do now was wait.

I gazed through into the offices directly below the skylight I was lying down next to. For the most part it looked like the interior of any other workplace, with cubicles for the staff lined in a neat and efficient order along corridors in such a manner to fit as many workers into as smaller space as possible.

The only exception being the segment off to my right, it was an actual room of the building as opposed to the thin privacy dividers that the rest of the workforce had.
The lavishly decorated walls, huge window overlooking the landing pads, and large paintings of pegasi in flight made it fairly obvious that this room belonged to a pony of some importance.

I couldn’t make out any of the writing of the many newspaper columns that made up the wall flanking the side of the door, but I could easily recognise the distinctive colour scheme of the mare in the majority of the photos; yet more Rainbow Dash.
Seriously, Even I know that she was a pretty big thing back in the day, but this looked like more like a personal shrine than merely something to remember her by.

There were some signs of life still in the building as well, aside from the occasional guardspony patrolling the halls, there was the slow but steady rotations of the building’s security matrix eyes watching for movement – small boxes mounted at each corner with a lightly illuminated green crystal fixed at the front.

As a patrolling guardspony rounded a corner below, the nearest security matrix eye would snap to him, the crystal inside briefly turning red for a few moments, but then relaxing back to green as the semi-sentient matrix seemed to recognise the guard. This would happen for every matrix eye the guard passed as he walked down the hall, but he did not seem bothered in the slightest, probably used to the routine of being watched wherever he went.

Enough time had passed by now for me to become slightly concerned for Nightshade; it shouldn’t have taken her this long to get here by now, even if she was really taking her time and had stopped to chat with the ponies at the front desk.

Who could she even pretend to be that they would just allow into the building at this time of night anyway?

I looked away from the skylight towards the horizon, looking to see if anything was heading our way. The only red spotlights I could make out were the airborne Sentinels which were heading in a direction that would completely bypass the building.

Satisfied that the Sentinels weren’t on their way just yet, I looked back into the rooms below and noticed a new figure striding purposefully down the halls.

It was a stallion, white coat and golden mane which looked like it had received careful attention to make it look constantly windswept, and as I watched his progress further, realisation dawned on me.

“…oh shit.”

Nightshade wasn’t impersonating just any old pony.

She was only dressed as bloody Blueblood the 52nd – current Lord of the House of Traders. One of the six most influential ponies in the Union.

Oh shit!

Blueblood, the actual Blueblood that is, was currently making a strong push for increased relations with the New Luna Motherland. A powerful figure in the Union ruling committee, he was already facing accusations from the media of being a secret Luna supporter.

And now here he was. On recording. Blatantly stealing state secrets.

Grapevine certainly wasn’t messing around, this would likely cripple Blueblood’s image, and even if he was proved innocent of this he’d certainly never be allowed near any political circles again for the rest of his career.

The faux-Blueblood strode through the hallways, multiple eyes of the security matrix watching him as he went, red spotlights turning a softer green as the matrix confirmed that he was allowed to be there.

Blueblood never broke pace as he neared the office of Rolling Thunder, opening one of the heavy wooden double doors and quietly closing it behind him. A matrix eye inside the office was fixated on him the whole time as he went rummaging through cabinets and looking in between drawers before finally pulling out a hoof sized crystal.

Blueblood shut the door carefully behind him and took in his surroundings, there was a matrix eye stationed at each corner of the hallway running perpendicular to the office, but neither could see to the office door itself, the camera inside the office assumed to be able to see if anyone went inside the only room in the hallway.

Seeing that the coast was clear, Blueblood shivered slightly and a small wreath of green flames on his back gave form to a pair of membranous insect wings.
Looking directly upward at my position, Blueblood flew towards the skylight, unlocking it from his side then motioning with his hoof that I should open it.

I quickly obliged, lifting it just wide enough so that it propped itself open while he climbed out through the opening.
“Sweet Celestia Nightshade, Blueblood?? Have you got any idea what this is going to do to the Union tomorrow morning??”

“Of course I … Urgh.” Blueblood started in a surprisingly deep voice, making a face like he had just swallowed something vile “…Urgh, these vocal chords feel strange. Of course I know, that’s the whole reason we’re doing this the hard way instead of just taking the damn thing and bolting, here.”

Blueblood hoofed over the holo-crystal. I expected it to be cold judging by the light shade of blue it was, but it felt warm and pulsated with a soft light that changed into a lilac hue the further the light travelled from the crystal.

“Now that you’ve got it, get the hell out of here and make your way back to the Hound, I’ll meet you on the way there.”

Nodding a confirmation, I secured the crystal in my left saddle bag, making sure that there was no way it would open unless I wanted it too. “Ok then, I’ll keep an eye out for you. Good luck Nightshade.”

A small smile that was very unlike Blueblood appeared on his face as he eased himself back through the skylight. “Earth ponies may need luck, but I have magic and wings.” With one last eye-morphing wink, Blueblood silently glided back into his original takeoff point, shivering again as his wings were enveloped in green flames and vanished.

As Blueblood walked down the hallway like nothing had happened, a realisation came to me;

I was now carrying classified information relating to the secrets and defence of the Celestial Union. The Sentinels would be the least of my worries if I was caught with this.

First order of business then; run like hell.

I took off down one of the slopes of the aerodrome roof, the roof itself still being slick with rainwater from the downpour earlier.
As I neared the dip where the ceiling began to stretch to ground level, it became increasingly hard to keep a steady footing as the incline of the roof was becoming gradually steeper with every hoof-fall.
If I wanted to keep my speed but not break my neck trying to get off this building, there was only one thing to do.

I pushed off the roof with my rear hooves, bringing my hind legs underneath me as I did so and going into a controlled slide down the roof, keeping my fore legs on the deck for balance.
I was increasing speed as I neared the lip of the roof, and I realised that due to the angle of the slope I wasn’t going to be able to see where the roof ended until I was already airborne and about to land into the ground face first.

I waited as long as I dared, pausing for the right moment so I could get as close to the ground as possible before I moved.

...Now!

I pushed out with my hind legs just before I ran out of room on my roof-come-waterslide, launching myself away from the building in an attempt to gain some horizontal momentum to add to my freefall.

Although I was only a few metres from the floor before I jumped, I had enough speed from travelling down the roof to still break my legs if I tried to land on them properly.
As I hit the deck I kept my legs purposefully bent, attempting to absorb as much of the energy as possible from the collision instead of trying to resist it. Ducking my head down took me into a well practiced forward roll, before I was back on my hooves again and bolting off into the night.

Exhilaration and adrenaline flowed through me as I ran across one of the empty landing pads, trying to stay as far away from the centre of the floodlights illuminating the complex as possible.
I daren’t look back at the building; I needed all my focus to be on getting away as swiftly as I could.

If I had though, I may have caught a glimpse of a single red light in one of the windows, silently watching my progress as I fled across the open terrain for the cover of the city.

I had to get up high as soon as possible. If the sentinels were looking for me (even though I doubted that they were just yet) it would be much easier to avoid accidentally barrelling into a patrol on the rooftops than it would be at ground level.
You can spot air support coming in a mile away from up high, but you’d have little warning if there was a passing patrol chariot waiting around the next corner if you were still on the streets.

I ran in a straight line from the Aerodrome at first, wanting to put as much distance between me and the building as possible, and as I sprinted I shot brief glances down any alleyways that I saw.
This one was filled with too much rubbish blocking the way.
This one had no access to the rooftops.
The one had a cluster of ponies keeping warm around a burning barrel.

I was beginning to become anxious as I neared the end of the third block with no clear way to get up high, and as I ran past yet another alleyway that was completely impassable I saw that a red spotlight was nearing the corner at the next junction up ahead.
With no better alternative, I dove down the first available back alley just before the Sentinel patrol rounded the corner.

Out of luck, this passage still had no means of getting up onto the rooftops; the dumpsters lined up against one wall were nowhere near tall enough for me to be able to reach any higher building features to pull myself up with. Seeing no other options, there was only one thing I could do.

The carriage slowed to a crawl just at the mouth of the alley, the red spotlight of the passenger on the right side sweeping down the long corridor.
The beam passed over the bricked-off wall at the end, the side door on the right with a swaying porch light, and finally over the rack of dumpsters on the left. The searchlight slowly drifted from one to the other whilst searching for any unusual signs of activity.

I had my back pressed as tightly against the dumpsters as possible, keeping my head down as the searchlight cast the silhouette of my cover against the brick wall at the end of the alley. If they spotted me, I would have to come out and leave behind my saddle bags, the slim chance being that the Sentinels would not spot the slightly pulsating light emanating from them.

It was then that I noticed the tip of my right hoof was peeking out from behind the dumpster, an inch or so being covered in the spotlight.
I couldn’t move it now; they would notice the movement immediately and come to investigate. My best chance was to remain perfectly still and hope that they would mistake it for just another piece of debris commonly found in a place such as this.

I had kept my breath held for so long, I could start to feel a vein on the side of my head thrumming in time with my heartbeats.

...hold...

I could vaguely hear the Sentinels in the carriage chatting amongst themselves, though I couldn’t make out what they were saying over the sound of my own blood rushing through my head.

...hold...

My chest was begging me to draw in fresh air. I fought to contain the pressure inside me as my vision was starting to turn hazy around my peripherals.

...damn it you’ve got this, hold!...

The searchlight moved on, and I was dimly aware of the sound of the chariot pulling away as I still fought to keep control of my breathing.
I waited a few seconds more before as quietly as possible I released the pressure in my lungs in a haggard breath.

I’m not sure how long I sat there for, propped up against a dumpster in some scum-ridden back alley, trying to calmly get enough air back into my lungs so that I could think clearly again.

It had been close, but I still didn’t think they were specifically after me just yet. If the Sentinels were responding to an alert at the aerodrome, they would have gone straight there. If they were out looking for me, I would have passed more patrols by now.
I had to assume that it was ok for me to get up, and only after a silent battle of wills between my mind and my legs did I eventually rise to my hooves again.

I peeked my head put around each corner of the mouth of the alleyway to make sure that it was safe to go, the carriage that had been searching my hiding place had stopped further down the road, the pair of Sentinels inside apparently trying to disperse the group of homeless ponies around the burning barrel I ran past earlier.

Poor sods, having to camp out on the streets every night, only for them to be harassed by the Sentinels just for trying to make do. Sure, they could just go to the Altruists for help but I had to admire the steel in their spines.

Everyone knew that the help of the Altruists often came with a lot of small print; any help they gave would not only be paid back in full, but with added interest as well.
The Altruists had been around long enough after Generosity herself had passed on for them to lose sight of their founding vision, and so these days a pony only went to them if the only thing he had left to sell was his free will.

Given the choice myself, I’m not sure which fate would be more preferable.

Thankful for the distraction however, I resumed my jog along the pavement. I had been that desperate in my escape that I hadn’t registered just how close to the Hound’s Head I actually was. I abandoned my search for routes up high and chose to stick to the road for now, deciding that I might as well use one of my more frequent impromptu staircases than waste time searching for a new one.

_____________________________________________

I found Nightshade perched upon one of the smoking chimney tops, on top of the same building we had originally set off from earlier in the night. A glazed look on her face as she looked out towards the horizon, smoke flowing around the contours of her plated form and through the holes in her unfurled wings.

Over to the east in the direction she was facing, I could see a line of deep blue nestled in amongst all the black of the night sky, signifying that a new day was not too long in the making.

Nightshade didn’t take her eyes from the skyline as she addressed me. “I thought you might have gotten left behind, glad to see that you made it back. Do you still have it?”

I opened my saddlebag and passed the glowing crystal over to Nightshade, the blue and lilac light emanating from it highlighting her features. “Ah, excellent. It seems you have passed your test them, Pathfinder.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Test? I was under the impression that this was just a job.”

“It was just a job” Nightshade turned her head towards me. “But Grapevine wanted to see if you were trustworthy. With both the information that this crystal holds and the knowledge that it was Grapevine who asked you to deliver it, you could have thrown his plans seriously off track if you had given it to someone else.”

The thought hadn’t actually occurred to me. “My reputation is everything in this line of work, if I lose that, then it’s worse than going back to square one.”

That seemed to be the response Nightshade was looking for. “Good, well now that we know you can be trusted we need to know a bit more about how you tick.”

That sounded ominous to me, and I looked at Nightshade for a while, trying to asses her intentions before I spoke. “And what exactly are you getting at there?”

“Oh it’s quite simple really” She hopped off of her perch and walked up to me, offering up the holo-crystal. “Now that we have retrieved it, what will you do with it? This contains an intelligence report meant for the committee charged with running the Celestial Union itself, are you not in the least bit curious?”

“You want me to watch it?” I took the crystal back and held it in my hoof, feeling the slight heat it emitted. “Why?”

“I don’t want you to do anything; I just need to see what you’ll do.”

I took my eyes off her and looked down at the crystal in my hoof, weighing up my options and their consequences.

Should I watch it? Just knowing the information on this crystal would make me a target in several ponies’ eyes, it’s enough work trying to stay ahead of just the Sentinels, let alone The Wonderbolts and whichever other intelligence organisations existed across in the Union.

And what of Grapevine? If this was all some test to see if I was trustworthy then I’d expect him to be lining me up for a job of some description. Wouldn’t it paint me in a bad light if I watched the crystal that was meant for him? I mean, they can be replayed repeatedly but once I heard what was on it I wouldn’t be likely to forget.

But, as ponies have always said; ‘knowledge is power.’ And if I was moving up the trust circles wouldn’t it be good to know what was really happening in the world? Hell, I’d be lying to myself if I wasn’t downright curious as to what’s on this thing. Maybe I could learn something useful as well as satiating my curiosity. It may even demonstrate some intuition on my part.

And on the other hoof, it’s blatantly obvious that this is another game from Grapevine to learn a bit more about me. What if I were to start playing the game myself? Stack the deck in my favour slightly? If I watched the recording and destroyed it afterwards, only I would know what was on it. That could give me an edge I might need, something I could use if ever I saw an opportunity, and earn a few extra bits on the side.

The options were there and they all had their advantages and drawbacks, there’s rarely such a thing as a right or wrong answer these days, the only real decision is what would help me the most.

What should I do?

Author's Notes:

Well here we are at the end of my first chapter! I hope you enjoyed it, and i'd really appreciate it if you let me know if you did or didn't and why.
What I really need though is an answer to the choice presented at the end, because as I said in the story description this is a tale which you can modify to your liking.
Perhaps you would like Pathfinder to become a paragon of the new age, or maybe you'd just like to mess around with the choices to see if i can make sense of the whole thing, there is no such thing as a wrong choice!
So, what i would really appreciate is a comment below starting with your choice in one of the following styles;

Do not view the crystal

View the crystal

View, then destroy the crystal

Drop us a comment with your choice, and I'll see you in the next chapter :D

2. The Grapevine

View Online

I looked at the holo-cyrstal in my hoof, my mind made up.

“How do I work this thing?” I asked Nightshade, turning the crystal over and seeing no obvious way of activating it. Couldn't they have just slapped a big red button on it or something?

“Simply press the side of the crystal against your temple” she informed me, her trademark smile back in position. “Although I do suggest you get comfortable first, your going to be out for a while when you’re viewing it.”

“It’s going to knock me out?” I asked with a degree of concern. “Are you sure this is safe to watch like this?”

“Of course. It’s not usually meant to be viewed by one pony at a time, but since we don’t have a light caster with us you’ll have to make do. I’ll keep a watch whilst you’re in there, it should only take a few minutes real-time.”

Still slightly sceptical, I held the crystal close to my forehead. I could feel the heat bleeding off the arcane construct warming my face and watched the distorting effect of the air around it as I examined my reflection.

I’d made my intentions clear; it was too late to back out now without looking like a complete moron. So with a deep breath and expecting the worst, I brought the crystal in contact with my forehead.

____________________________________________

I... honestly don’t know what I was expecting

Perhaps seeing rushing stars go flying past my head as my conscious raced towards a guiding light would have been more dramatic, or appearing as a ghost in a room watching everything going on from a third perspective, maybe even seeing the recording through the eyes of a pony who was recording it would have been more what I had envisioned before going into the crystal.

I might as well have waited for that light caster; it was just like watching a recording, if a little more immersive.

As it was, in my minds eye I was looking into the same office in the aerodrome that Nightshade had just broken into, albeit from the perspective of a recoding device sat upon the captain’s desk.

The recording eye was facing the large window looking out upon the aerodrome landing pads, large shadows cast across the open ground and crept up the side of the one airship still stationed there.
I tried to turn my view with no success, my peripheral vision was hazy and bled into the same blue / lilac hue that the crystal itself emitted when I tried to look anywhere other than directly in front of me.

The recording shook slightly and changed both zoom and focus, as though someone were adjusting the settings and moving the device around. It was a little uncomfortable and disorientating when your whole perspective got shook about like a goldfish in a water bag, but fortunately for me the sensation didn’t last long.

A dark grey Pegasus in military dress stepped out into the view of the recording, turned once on the spot and saluted the camera, holding the position for a second or two before relaxing.

“Captain Rolling Thunder providing intelligence for the Celestial Union governing committee, dated 31st August 1216.”

“My Lords, we recently received news from the New Luna Motherland. It appears that the Premier saw our attempt to undermine his powerbase by appealing to the populace, and as you are aware our operative in the region went silent a few weeks ago.”

The captain took a moment to collect himself, and released a long breath of air to keep his voice steady.

“…My Lords, it is with regret that I inform you that Operative Swift Step was publicly executed on 29th August 1216. Video evidence follows.”

My viewpoint suddenly cut to a scene of barely restrained fury, as a mob of ponies shouted abuse at the light blue earth pony shackled to a large wooden pole fixed to the middle of a stage. The captive stallion was trying his best to get away from the crowd, but with both of his legs in bonds wrapped around the pole itself, it seemed like a hopeless task.

The video was shaking slightly due to the recording eye being held by hoof from a member of the onlookers, and the angry mob of ponies pushing in on whoever was recording wasn’t helping much, but the look of pure terror and despair on the face of the captive was plain to see. A deep red unicorn stood next to the prisoner, a six-barrelled revolver held aloft in his magic field.

The unicorn was shouting something out over the crowd, but the mindless noise generated by the mob made his words unintelligible, the crowd barely seemed to register that the unicorn was trying to address them at all as they focused completely upon the bound captive.

Seeing that words alone would not hold the attention of the gathered ponies, the unicorn slowly started to lower his weapon towards the head of the prisoner.

The crowd began to gradually fall silent as they watched the descending revolver, until the courtyard was quiet enough that you could barely hear the sobs of the prisoner as the weapon came to rest against his head.

The prisoner forced his eyes closed as he prepared for the end.

'Click’

“Ohhhhhhhh!!!” the crowd cried out as one.

The revolver had cycled onto an empty chamber and not fired, the crowd vocalising their disappointment as the captive looked around in confusion.
Tears were streaking down his face even though he was unsure as to what had just happened, his head frantically turning this way and that, trying to figure out who or what had saved him.

Then the unicorn began to slowly lower the revolver towards the captive again, the crowd fell silent, and as it’s barrel rested once more against the now frantic prisoner’s head I began to understand;

They wanted to give the prisoner some sliver of hope, before yanking it away as one final torment.

…..

'Click’

“Ohhhhhhhh!!!”

…..

'Click’

“Ohhhhhhhh!!!”

…..

BANG

The revolver discharged at point blanc range straight into the captive’s head, scorching the fur closest to the muzzle and sending a spatter of blood out into the crowd, who cheered all the louder for the gruesome display.

“YEAAAAHHH!!!”

The lump of meat that had once been a living being fell limp, slumping against the pole it was still tied to as the mob around the stage yelled and stomped their hooves in glee.

At first I couldn’t feel anything, I was so shocked at what I had just witnessed that I was unsure if what had happened was real.
This had to be some sort of sick joke or fabrication, there was no way that any sane pony could witness that and react in the same manner as the crowd had.

And yet the horde cheered on.

Then I felt it; nausea creeping through the pit of my stomach as I came to realise that not only had that prisoner been mercilessly executed, the ponies surrounding him had been calling for his bloody end, taking joy from the execution made entertainment.

The red unicorn with the revolver stepped over to the crumpled body of the captive, before grabbing his head and twisting it so that the crowd could see the half of his face that was missing, before pumping his free hoof into the air.

I felt sick to the core.

I’d heard stories coming out of the Motherland, and I had always assumed them to be exaggerated to make us more afraid of them, but this? This was monstrous.
I wasn’t aware that ponies had it in them to be so appalling.

The video cut back to the captain who began speaking again, he was saying about something about the captive but I found it too hard to pay attention. I couldn’t shake the image of the cavity in the prisoners head and the crowd’s reaction from my thoughts.

I felt ashamed to be a part of the same species as those creatures.

“…My Lords, I request that no more operatives be sent into the Motherland. The Premier always seems to know when we are coming, and until we find out how he’s doing it sending more of our ponies in would be handing them a death sentence.”

The captain began to pace along the window, turning on the spot just before moving out of shot of the recording eye and pacing in the other direction.

“My Lords I must also report on the Gryphon Kingdoms. Or more to the point, I’m concerned about the lack of reports coming out of there at all. The Kingdoms have been silent for a while.”

“As you are aware, the last we knew they were still squabbling between each other, which had allowed us to create alliances and secure trade routes with a number of separate factions, but if they have all gone silent…”

The Captain stopped pacing as if thinking for a moment before facing the recording eye.

“My Lords, I fear that an event of significant importance is happening within the Gryphon’s boarders. I have no idea as to what it could be yet, but if all of the separate kingdoms that we are in contact with are going quiet, it can only mean they are all either being subjugated or annihilated, perhaps both.”

“If the kingdoms fall we could lose security in the region to whatever they may be facing, we might even be on the receiving end of a refugee problem. But more concerning, is the possibility that the Gryphons are being united… and I shudder to think at what the consequences of that would be for us all.”

The captain began his pacing once more, his most worrying thought apparently taken off his chest

“One final thing My Lords, I’ve been made aware of a group known as the Ordo Solis which is becoming increasingly active in Canterlot. Whilst they seem to pose no threat to the Union itself, their practices are… troubling. They appear to be attempting to recruit as many ponies of influence from all walks of the union, and they have certainly made our informant uneasy. I request permission to dispatch additional operatives to investigate this movement as soon as they become available.”

And with that, the captain of the Wonderbolts returned to position in front of the recording eye, and saluted the device once more.

“So concludes the weekly report of Captain Rolling Thunder. May Celestia see fit to walk amongst us once more.”

____________________________________________

I snapped back to consciousness almost as soon as the recording ended, taking as many deep breaths as I could to try and calm my racing heart.
That was all to real for me to be comfortable with, it had felt like i had been stood right there in the crowd.
Whilst i knew the footage was days old and that Swift Step - a pony whom i had never known had exsisted - was long dead, the helplessness i had felt from being unable to do anything other than stand by and watch as his life was stolen from him was overwhelming.

I dimly became aware of a presence next to me, and looked up to see Nightshade standing over me with a look of concern on her face.

“Pathfinder, Are you alright? You were curling up and dry heaving for a while there. What did you see?”

It took me a while before I felt in any fit state to answer her, gulping down as much of the early morning air as I could in order to dispel the dizziness in my head.

“I saw… I saw Rolling Thunder, he was just talking to the recorder but then it changed to something from the Motherland…”

I must have looked a real mess, as Nightshade actually recoiled slightly and took a half step back when I looked at her. “I saw them murder a pony. On a stage, in front of a crowd… They cheered, Nightshade.”

Nightshade looked a little uncomfortable and unsure with what to do with herself, but she settled on kneeling down next to me and resting a hoof on my shoulder. “Equis is a darker place than you think, Pathfinder. Just be glad you’re lucky enough not to have been in that pony’s position.”

I took another minute to gather my thoughts and calm myself down before standing to my hooves. Nightshade was right, Equis was a more dangerous place than I had believed, but I had also learned something more than just a brutal lesson in pony nature.

The last time we had seen the gryphons outside of their own territories was just after the Fall of the Gods. They had sensed a weakness in what was then the remnants of the nation of Equestria and decided to try and take from us what they could.

We’d had minor skirmishes with them since then along our boarders as Old Forty would tell anyone who listened, and I made a point to myself to ask him about his experience with the gryphons the next time I saw the old geezer.

What could be going on over there? The gryphons have always fought for dominance over each other but a definitive ruler never emerged for long before another kingdom undercut him and reset the balance.

What I really knew nothing about was this Ordo Solis group. Based on Thunder’s report it sounded to me like they weren’t exactly all sunshine and rainbows, but his description of them hadn't exactly been detailed, as he appeared to have only just been informed of them himself. I’d try to find out more about them if I could, but I stored that thought away for a later time.

I trotted over to Nightshade, who had decided to give me some space whilst I collected myself. She was gazing into the blue and lilac hues of the holo-crystal, a look of unease on her features.

“What now?” I asked her, wanting to get this over and done with so I could hit the hay as soon as possible. Maybe even actually drink a cider instead of just ordering one.

“Now, we get this back to Grapevine as soon as possible.” Nightshade placed the crystal inside her saddlebags. “…For what it’s worth Pathfinder, I think you made a good call. It may not have been pleasant to see, but information of that calibre is hard to come by for free these days.”

After we descended the staircase back down to street level, we found an empty locomoted carriage waiting by the roadside; both side doors open revealing the single large compartment inside.

This was an expensive piece of arcane science; dark hardwood making up the chassis and exterior structure, with the rest of the carriage body painted gold. No pony in their right mind would leave it open at the best of times, let alone outside The Hound in the early hours of the day.

I turned to Nightshade to ask her what she made of it, but she was already halfway inside by the time I opened my mouth.
She looked at my expectantly from the interior of the carriage as I stood still on the pavement.

“…Do you really need to ask who left this for us?”

Judging by the green highlights along the carriage which looked suspiciously like vines, I guessed that no, I didn’t need to really.

I climbed aboard, the double doors shutting behind me the instant I did, and the carriage smoothly pulled away from the corner of the road all by itself.

The thing’s driver still hadn’t returned when we pulled off, so how it could move on its own as well as know where it was taking us was a complete mystery to me, so I drummed it up to the usual reason why things in the Union worked when they shouldn’t.

Magic.

We passed a sentinel patrol as we continued on to our mysterious destination, the two ponies inside their own locomoted carriage paying us no attention as we glided past. Perhaps they assumed that if you were rich enough to own your own self-propelled magic carriage that you were obviously a completely first-rate law abiding citizen.

Or one of their unofficial sponsors, either of those was fine.

Our carriage took a turn leading out of the main city and heading towards Canterlot’s industrial sector. Large, hideous factory buildings were placed alongside the great mineral mines, with large scale earth movers cutting into the very mountain that the city of Canterlot itself perched upon the edge of.

The industrial district was a feature of Canterlot that the city often tried to hide from the tourists, but on a particularly dry day the dust clouds generated by the rotary maws of the earth movers made the machinery almost impossible to ignore. With the discovery that the city had been placed next to an immense crystal deposit, and with the advancements in arcane science, a demand for the raw materials hidden within the mountainside was far greater than the outbursts of protestors to mechanisation.

Personally I had to question the logic of carving a massive hole into the only geometrical feature that was holding the city aloft, but I’m just a common pony, what did I know?

“I can’t help but notice” I said as a gazed out the carriage window at the huge piles of rubble slowly being stacked behind the earth movers. “That this would be an excellent place to make a pony vanish”

I caught a glance of a pair of fangs gleaming from the opposite end of the carriage, bright enough to be half-reflected past the stands of my brown mane and into my vision by the window.

“Hmmm, doubtful. Grapevine likes to hang on to tools that could prove useful. As long as they stay that way, that is.”

As much as I disliked the idea of being referred to as a tool, I couldn’t come up with a decent response to that. Not without sounding like the very object I would be attempting to deny being, that is.

I noticed a small gathering of ponies in suits around the entrance of one of the factory buildings with red brick walls. The majority of them were a mixture of dull colours, but most of their bodies were hidden behind the black suits and shades that they wore, as was the expected attire for your typical run-of-the-mill goons.

I mean come on, the sun wasn’t even up yet and you’re wearing shades? How do you expect your guard to protect you if he can’t see anything?

In the middle of four heavies in suits stood a unicorn with a dark green coat, cream cut back mane, burgundy waistcoat and an honest-to-Celestia monocle perched in front of his left eye.

“Well” I reasoned to myself as the carriage crawled to a stop in front of the group. “This certainly isn’t going to be the janitor that we’re meeting then.”

I let Nightshade out of the carriage first, and as I climbed out the Gentlecolt with the monocle raised his right fore hoof in a friendly gesture.

“Ah, welcome my dear boy! So good to finally meet you in the flesh, as it were.”

He offered out his raised limb, and I gave it a quick shake with a yellow hoof of my own. Nothing too over the top, I wanted to stay in this guy’s good graces after all.

“Mr Grapevine, I presume?”

“Bah, is it that obvious? I mean the location, security, and transportation aside I like to believe I keep fairly incognito.”

I raised an eyebrow at that statement and cast my eyes across the cliché location, easily identifiable thugs, and the less than stealthy carriage that brought us here.
I had to believe this guy was pulling my leg. No way could you run a secret information empire and not learn the meaning of subtlety along the way.

“Ah, but where is my hospitality? Come in my boy, come in. Then we can have a closer look at this trinket that you’ve brought for me.”

With that Grapevine turned on his heels and took a few steps before throwing open the doors to the factory floor. As Nightshade and I followed him inside, one pair of the heavies on the door stepped in to close the doors behind us, leaving a set of guards on either side.

Inside was a trio of green leather chairs (actual leather, I suspected) set up in a space on the factory floor, in-between several industrial size steel rollers with a small conveyer belt leading into the mouths of each mechanical behemoth.

I eyed the rollers cautiously as I took a seat in one of the chairs.
After all, those things were designed to take a steel slab in at one end and produce very thin steel plate at the other.

Try as I might, I couldn’t stop my head imagining what such a machine could do to a pony were they to be fed into those rollers.

Grapevine tapped his hooves together to recapture my attention. “Now then, I believe you have gone to great efforts to retrieve something for me.”

With his eyes fixed in my direction, Grapevine extended his left hoof towards the other chair. “Miss Nightshade, if you please.”

Nightshade rummaged around in her saddle bag for a moment, before lifting out the holo-crystal from within. Once the distinctive hue of the crystal registered with Grapevine, he took his eyes off me to accept his prize.

“… Ah, such a pretty little bauble, is it not? I take it that when its absence is discovered the Union will believe that it already has a suspect?”

Nightshade nodded her confirmation, eyes pointed slightly downwards as if she was unsure if it was her place to speak aloud.

“Excellent! I can already feel several gears sliding into place. Perhaps I will even receive a message from dear Blueblood asking if I might spirit him away in the night to another continent”

Grapevine turned the crystal over in his hooves, before casting his gaze in my direction.

“Now Mr. Pathfinder, I find myself in the need to enquire, are you aware of the contents of this device?”

I faltered slightly, Grapevine was staring intently at me, his piercing gaze examining me to rout out any signs of deception.

“I am aware… Sir.” I replied, attempting to meet his eyes to try and convey the truthfulness to my words. “I watched it back before we got into the carriage that took us here.”

“… I see.”

Grapevine continued to play with the crystal, pressing a hoof to each of the largest points of opposite sides of the crystal and using his magic to twirl it upon its axis.

“Hmmm… You strike me as the kind of pony who can take an opportunity when he sees one, but only if it’s presented to you on a platter.” Grapevine said to no-one in particular, still gazing into the crystal as it spun between his hooves.
“I can make use for one such as yourself, a small amount of oppertunistic thinking on the fly is a trait which has become increasingly rare as time advances.”

Grapevine exerted a little more pressure on the crystal, and it immediately stopped spinning.

“Yes…” he pocketed the crystal in the front pocket of his waistcoat before turning to look at me once more. “You’ll do just fine. I have a proposition for you, dear fellow.”

Grapevine rose from his chair and onto his hooves and began walking through the building, motioning for us to do the same.

We were progressing deeper into the building, beyond the steel rollers and past other forms of heavy machinery, some of which I could identify and some that I could not even begin to guess the function of.

Grapevine began to speak, bringing my attention away from the unnerving industrial giants flanking either side if us.

“If your business is not growing, it is dying. And I have absolutely no intentions of letting my resources go to waste. So when I hear of both a demand in the market and an opportunity to supply I leap at the chance. It seems that the upper crust of Canterlot craves more than just knowledge, they require certain services also.”

At some point the heavies guarding the door had begun to follow us as we walked, I wouldn’t have been aware of their presence if not for the sound of their heavy hoof-falls.

“I would be a fool not to exploit a gap in the market when one presents itself, so we began to run a small distribution operation within one of the… how should I put this… neglected, districts of the city.”

“Oh the operation is wonderfully simple, it practically runs itself, but one of my staff happened to notice how easily the conversations of punters were to hear even when standing outside of their transportation. And I realised, where ponies were talking and going largely unheard, I was missing an opportunity.”

Grapevine suddenly stopped in place and turned on the spot to face both Nightshade and I.

“I loathe a missed opportunity. A day or so hence, I want you both to aid my operation. You will be there to remain unnoticed and listen; its amazing what ponies of influence will say when they think that no-one can hear them.”

“Hold on” I interjected, “You want us to stand around all night and just try and pick up on the idle gossip of random ponies?”

Grapevine shook his head “No gossip is idle Mr. Pathfinder; you just need to understand how best to use it. I merely want you to gain as much useful knowledge as possible. My products attract an above average clientele who will inadvertently become my highly-placed informants. I trust that you will exploit any opportunities that present themselves.”

“He wants us to get close to them without them ever sensing our presence.” Nightshade explained for me. “If we just stood on the street corner we’d be doing no more than his usual guys and the buyers would know that they’re being listened to. We need to get close to the carriages so we can hear the occupants clearly and catch the whole conversation.”

“I couldn’t have found better words myself!” Grapevine positively beamed at Nightshade. “I look forward to learning what transpires, Nightshade will find you when we require your services Mr. Pathfinder.”

“Now I do hope you will excuse me” Grapevine tapped his fore hooves together to summon his two moving mountains to his side. “But I believe I am overdue an appointment with an old acquaintance, and I must bid you a good day.”

And with that, Grapevine tipped his head to us before leaving with his entourage.

As both he and his bodyguards left the building through a door at the far end of the factory floor, I turned to look at Nightshade.

“Well he was… surprisingly cheery.”

“And he always will be, so long as you keep being the bearer of good news.”

Nightshade tapped a hoof against my shoulder before nodding back to the door we originally came in from. “Come on, the sun will be up by now, and you’ll need some rest for his next job.”

“It’s that time already?”

Sure enough, as we opened the doors leading to the outside world the sky above was the light blue of the early morning, the sun itself was still hidden from sight but identifiable by the golden sheen in the atmosphere surrounding a group of clouds beyond the mountain ranges.

As I looked around, I noticed that even with Grapevine’s unusual hospitality, the carriage that delivered us here was nowhere to be seen, chances were that it was probably ferrying Grapevine to his next destination.

Such is the glamorous lifestyle of a crime boss; travelling from one out of the way and discrete location to the next.

Nightshade was consumed in heatless green flames as she assumed a public face that I’d seen before, an orange pegasus with a sky-blue mane. She’d always preferred to be in disguise that meant she could still keep the use of her wings, it allowed her to leave in a moments notice without anybody questioning it,.

“How do you think that went?” I asked her as we began the long walk out of the manufacturing district.

“I think you were exactly what he expected; as much as he likes to hold all the cards, he was certainly seeking a pony with some intuition. He wouldn’t have told me to offer you a chance to peek into the crystal otherwise.”

“He certainly wasn’t the type of pony I was expecting, usually the ponies I’ve met that are pulling the strings tend to err more on the side of unbridled power trips. He seemed like the type to ask politely and hand out second chances if he thought you’d still be helpful.”

“Don’t for one minute think that he’s not dangerous.” Nightshade looked at me sharply. “He may appear pleasant enough, but that’s only because he’s figured that’s the best way to deal with you. Sure, I’ve seen him be a genuine gentlecolt at times, but you tell him something he doesn’t want to hear and he’ll personally break every one of your knees.”

I remembered how Nightshade couldn’t look Grapevine in the eye when he addressed her. It takes a hell of a lot to make Nightshade shut up at the best of times, how could that one pony suddenly turn her into an obedient pet without even breaking his friendly persona?

I knew Nightshade too well to think that this was just a showing of professional respect, these two had history.

“You’ve known him a while then?”

“Know?” Nightshade gave a humourless laugh “I’ve worked with Grapevine for over a year now. But the instant I think I’ve finally got him figured out he goes and does something that throws everything I thought he was out the window. I don’t think anyone could truely know him.”

I caught onto her dour mood as she spoke, I would have had to have been completely oblivious to my friend not to. Her tail drooped closer to the ground with every word and she seemed to lose the very spark that made her… well, her.

“I never know if I’m doing a good job or not, he’s about as quick to praise me as he is to insult me. It’s a little scary not knowing what he’ll do next.”

I put a hoof on her shoulder, concerned that my usually cheerful and joking friend had become so down just from talking about a pony.

“…Are you alright? I can let this go you’d like.”

She must have realised that she was telling me more than she should, as her head picked up the instant I spoke.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Look, I really should be getting back; if I don’t get home before I’m missed I’m going to be short on breakfast for a few days until I can find a replacement."

“Celestia forbid you don’t get to be fed by whichever poor sod you convinced to let you stay with them.” I patted a hoof on her back to try and lift her spirits “Take care of yourself Nightshade.”

“I shouldn’t need too, that’s what stallions are for.” Nightshade flashed me a brief smile to let me know she was ok before spreading her wings. “Catch you around, Pathfinder”

With a few flaps of her wings, Nightshade took off into the city. The sun finally peeked around the corner of the distant clouds, and the golden aurora of the early morning light reflecting from Canterlot’s towers soon hid her from my sight.

I’d never say it to her face, but I worried about that changeling sometimes. A hundred years or two ago and a thought like that would have likely caused me a very painful death as a sympathiser of the enemy. And whilst ponykind as a whole still distrusted the changelings, I figured that I shouldn’t judge her for her race's past actions.

After all, I couldn’t help but be reminded that ponykind wasn't clean of the sins which my ancestors did to her people.

As I neared the undeclared boundaries between the different districts of Canterlot city, its inhabitants began to show more and more signs of life as they began to realise that the new day was upon them and time was a-wasting.

Me? I just wanted to get home, grab a shower, and then crawl back into bed to enjoy as much sleep as I could before my broken body clock told me it was time to get up again.

Think that cider might have to wait until I’m awake enough to enjoy it.

____________________________________________

Aside from the bag of bits that was waiting for me when I got home (how Grapevine already knew where I lived did cause some minor alarms to go off in my head), I hadn’t heard from Nightshade or any of my other contacts yet, and it was nearly the end of the week.

It was late evening, and I was slumped on my couch, bored out of my mind waiting for something that didn’t seem like it would ever happen. They could at least have given me some idea as to when they would need me aside from ‘A day or so hence’.

I flicked on my light caster, the arcane device responding by sending its star shaped emitter crystal into a gyroscopic spin, before projecting a flat wall of light from the device that always oriented itself to face me as I moved about my apartment.

The wall of light changed from a blank surface into the familiar shape of a news broadcast as I fixed myself a drink before collapsing back onto my couch.

“We’ll hear more about the surge in popularity surrounding the controversial but delightful singer Miss Flowing Mantra after we return to our main story…”

- BREAKING NEWS! –[

They really go all out to grab your attention with that transition

The whole light caster projection turned into a miniature alarm, a pulsing red light behind the bold yellow writing as the Canterlot News Network tried its hardest to both scare its viewers witless and make them pay attention to what it had to say.

Well, I suppose what it lacks in tact it makes up for in simplicity.

- Blueblood flees Canterlot -

The title of this particular report repeated on a constant loop at the base of the projection, as if fully expecting the ponies watching at home to instantly forget what the fuss was all about if it didn’t constantly remind them.

The news alarm switched from its ‘look at me’ background to that of a lone unicorn reporter stood outside the House of Lords; the seats of parliament for the committee that governed the Celestial Union.

A large crowd had built up outside the building, mainly consisting of reporters fighting for room to film and shouting demands that their questions be answered towards the officials entering the building.

“I’m standing outside the House of Lords amongst a storm of scandal and outrage” the reporter began speaking to the camera, doing an admirable job of ignoring the ponies in the background attempting to gain their five seconds of fame.

“Lord Blueblood, Head of the House of Traders, has fled Canterlot city amongst accusations that he sold Union secrets to the Luna Motherland.”

“Blueblood has been forcing a policy of increased relations with the Motherland upon the committee for months now, and whilst many believed him to be the traitor he has revealed himself to be, none of us thought it would end like this.”

The reporter ushered the pony holding the recording eye to follow him as he began to walk through the crowd, talking as he moved but trying to find a pony in the mass of bodies to speak to at the same time.

“Miss! Excuse me, miss. Can you tell our viewers why you’re out here today?”

“Well I have to say I am absolutely appalled! They haven’t even begun to review the evidence yet and already he’s being labelled a…” The elderly mare began to speak but was swiftly interrupted by the reporter.

“Did you know that Blueblood was a traitor the whole time?”

“Why would he be a traitor? He would have heard the report with the rest of the lords anyway; it makes no sense for him to steal…”

“Yes, yes thank you for your time miss…” The reporter cut the mare off again, seeing that she would not help the particular story he was trying to report. “Ah you sir, do you have anything useful for our viewers to hear?”

“Ah knew he was a liar the moment Ah saw him!” A particularly loud stallion yelled into the reporter’s microphone.

“So it didn’t surprise you when Blueblood betrayed us?” The reporter held the microphone close the stallion, seeing that he would provide all the opinions he wanted to hear.

“A Surprise?? That no-good traitor sold us all out! He’s probably running straight for Luna land right now!”

“And there you have it, anger that a stallion so powerful could betray his own nation in such…”

“Ah hate them Luna lovers!” The stallion who had just been interviewed barged past to yell into the microphone one last time before he was pushed away, much to the irritation of the reporter.

“… Uncontrollable rage here at the House of Lords” the disgruntled reporter began again into the camera. “We know now that the public is certain that Blueblood deserves to be brought to justice, but let’s hear what our political correspondent has to say...”

With a quick twitch from my hoof, the output from the light caster died.

Personally, I really didn’t need to hear what the correspondent had to say.

It would be the usual impotent rage that he always trumpeted whenever a story broke that was not about how amazing the union was and how we should all be proud to be a part of it.
Most likely he’d accuse Blueblood of being a spy, murdering baskets of kittens, stealing candy from foals and shooting the sheriff as well as his deputy.

It seemed like Grapevine’s side plan had worked brilliantly, Blueblood was now apparently an enemy of the state and on the run. However, I couldn’t help but feel that this was severe overkill if this was merely Grapevine settling a score, there had to be more to it than just that.

Grudges get settled on a personal level, you don’t throw the entire country you live in into chaos just to get back at a pony. If Grapevine had left just one lasting impression on me, it was that he never acted to gain just one benefit. What else was he getting by throwing Blueblood to the wolves?

As I pondered the potential reasons why Grapevine would be lighting the torches and fetching the pitchforks, my thoughts were interrupted by a few quick knocks at the door.

Tap, Tap, TapTap, Tap……Tap, Tap.

At least she always let me know it was her when she knocked.

I looked out of the door’s peep-hole to find an amused but slightly impatient looking ivory pegasus outside, stood next to a brown earth pony stallion who was trying (and failing) to look as unnoticeable as possible.

The pegasus I knew from the knocks and because I had seen her in the Hound just the other day, the stallion was new though.

“Come on Pathfinder, open up! Places to go, ponies to meet!” The pegasus said as she put her eye up to the other side of the peep-hole, completely filling my field of view.
I opened the door just as she was beginning to make a hole in the floor with her tapping hind leg.

I was more interested in knowing why we were getting an unannounced third wheel before going anywhere however.

“Its about time you turned up Nightshade, I’ve been bored out of my mind for days. But who’s tall, dark, and definitely-not-a-crook over here? I didn’t know you were bringing a date with you.”

“Ah, this guy. He’s here to show you some of the ropes before we get to the street he works at. Pathfinder, Buckshot. Buckshot, Pathfinder. Ok, everyone happy? Awesome, lets go!”

Nightshade took off down the hallway in a jog with her wings fluttering behind her, a transport sign of a pegasus (or some other thing I knew of with wings) that was itching to get a move on, leaving me and Buckshot stood outside my doorway feeling a little awkward.

I decided to take the lead by locking my door behind me and nodding my head down the hallway.
“Come on, she’ll be halfway to the labourer districts if we don’t get after her now.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Buckshot said as he followed me out of the building, clearly not quite sure what to make of his new 'professional' business partners.

Buckshot didn’t say anything more as we left my apartment block and headed down the streets, following the rapidly disappearing silhouette of Nightshade galloping off into the distance

I thought that by getting the pony of few words thinking about something he knew already would be a decent way to get him talking.

“So, anything you can tell me about the plan for the evening? Gra… uhh, our ‘mutual employer’ was a bit light on details.”

“Yup, I’m pretty sure that I could, how much do you know about our bit of the business already?”

“I know that you sell a product to the nobility on the street corners in the middle of the night. And because you don’t want the Sentinels to know about your dealings I’m pretty sure I can guess what that product is, so don’t bother with that.”

“Right, at least your not as naïve to how this town works than I thought you might be” Buckshot spared a quick glance over each shoulder to check if we were being listened too.

“Well you’ve got the basic idea, we’ve been running this for a while now but we need some pairs of ears on the customers as they enter and leave the streets.”

As we got closer to our destination, I was able to put a location to the descriptions that Buckshot was telling me.

The operation was based in a small street that deviated from the main road to travel in a half circle around some housing blocks, before linking back up to the main road again. In the middle of the half circle was a four exit alleyway to the main road, each entrance of the street, and the midpoint of the half circle.

Buckshot explained that a buyer would come down the road and place their order with a runner at the entrance to the half loop. As the carriage made its way around the curve the runner would leave the bits with a pony with a bag at one end, run through the alley to a pony with another bag at the other side to collect the product, and give it to the carriage as it joined the main road again.

“It ain’t foalproof, but its pretty effective.” Buckshot was still running me through the process as we turned onto the road in question. “Bit bag and Product bag are always kept separate, and if the Sent’s turn up there’s four ways of escape, five if you’re a flyer.”

I gave it some thought, after all you never want to put yourself in a position where you’re not sure if you can escape from it or not.
If I were the Sentinels, the first move would be to block the mouths of the half loop, but if you weren’t quick enough one could slip by right through the middle of you or bolt the opposite way and lose you in the maze of pathways the buildings surrounding the road that it linked to.

Using the exits close to the mouth of the loop was too risky as far as I was concerned, you would be spotted as soon as you ran. And since I wasn’t a pegasus, that left me with either running directly away from the main road, or getting sneaky and crossing the main road when no-one was looking. One and a half escape routes were better than none, but was by no means ideal.

“The real stallions don’t worry half as much as you do” Buckshot was quick to tell me when I voiced my concerns. “They stand their ground and fight back whilst the bag runners get away. Since I’m on bit bag duty tonight that means I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

As we neared the corner of the side street we walked past an unlucky light green stallion sleeping in an alcove at the bottom of a building, curled into a ball as he slept on a spread out newspaper.

“Uhuh. So what do the ‘real stallions’ do when the bags have escaped and left them to fend off the sentinels by themselves?” I asked him

Buckshot snorted to himself as he delivered his reply “Who cares? They get paid for the risk, and chances are Grapes would bust them out if they were dumb enough to get caught.”

Good to see that time hadn’t made the unlawful of Canterlot any more dependable.

“So where did that winged missy get to?” Buckshot looked around, clearly expecting Nightshade to have been waiting on the corner for us; she had vanished from sight some time ago. “I think a good show of the old Buckshot charm would get me a drink or two with that mare.”

“We just walked past her.”

“Ehh?...” Was all Buckshot managed to get out before being cuffed around the back of the head by the lime green pony he’d presumed to be just a homeless tramp.

“Pathfinder! You nearly ruined my fun!” Nightshade strolled past the pair of us in her green stallion body “At least I managed to get the jump on Buck before he realised.”

I think she might have knocked a cog loose from inside his head, Buckshot just stood there as he tried to piece together why some random bum had just clipped his head for no good reason.

“I’m more of a classy kind of gal, Buck.” Nightshade smirked at him “…And even then only if you’re paying. Now shoo shoo, the real stallions need to have a quick chat before ponies start queuing for their goody bags.”

Buckshot left us to it without another word, nursing his pride more than his head I thought, as he made his way across the street to take on his shift with the bit bag.

“So.” Nightshade said “You ready for this? I heard you and Buck talking plans when you walked past, anything else you want to know?”

I had one thought that I felt needed explaining.

“Yeah, we’re supposed to be getting close enough to these carriages to be able to listen in, but it was never explained to me exactly how we were going to do that without the ponies inside catching on.”

Small smile back in place, Nightshade ushered me back into a back alley so we were out of view of the main road.
“Well…” Nightshade began as her body was enveloped with green flames to emerge as a pegasus whose coat mimicked the colour of the night sky. “… If you had wings and magic, it would be simple. I guess you’ll just have to be creative.”

“All the buyers know that they can only enter the loop from one way if they want us to sell them their treats. I’m going to wait on the other side of the street to catch any that come down the other side of the road. That way, if a carriage pulls up from either direction at least one of us will be able to hitch a ride.”

“… How can we tell who’s a buyer and who isn’t? I could end up tailing some random pony and they’d drive straight past.”
I didn’t want to involve some ponies that were just passing by in this mess. At least if a buyer heard me they couldn’t go running off to inform the Sentinels, not with their chosen products in hoof. A bystander could do anything however.

“Look around you Pathfinder, I hid myself as some passed out homeless stallion because that’s what everyone around here looks like. How many ponies that live here do you reckon could afford a carriage?”

I began to feel incredibly dumb as I took her advice and gave the area a closer look. The road was lined with apartments that had windows boarded up and doors that had been kicked in. Cider, trash, and I didn’t want to think what else covered the streets. Celestia, there was even a working mare pressed up against one of the purple streetlights.

“...Point taken. I’ll wait till I see something coming my way and try to think of something.”

“Ata-boy” Nightshade took a few steps back from me and unfurled her wings. “Now don’t you go doing anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That doesn’t leave me with much I can’t do!” I yelled after her as she took off towards the night sky, presumably to get in place on the other side of the street without anyone seeing where she came from.

I settled into a seated position at the mouth of the alley, piling a few empty bottles of Applejack-Daniels next to me to complete the look of a pony that had lost his way in the world.
From here, I could see down both ends of the street to watch for traffic, as well as seeing part of the distribution ring in operation.

Keeping my eyelids half closed and resting my head back against the wall to make it seem like I’d had a few too many, I started shifting my eyes around to try and get a feel for the ponies within sight.

About fifty metres or so off to my right, I could see the mouth of the half loop, and instantly spotted the lookout standing post on the junction corner. He wasn’t even trying to hide himself, standing out way past the wall onto the kerb itself, giving off the aura that said he’d knock you down if you so much as made eye contact with him.

I couldn’t see into the operation itself, there was a whole line of buildings following the roadside and Buckshot and his buddies were tucked out of sight behind those. I could just barely make out the lookout posted on the far exit of the half loop however.

Directly across the road from the second lookout was the working mare I’d noticed earlier. She looked like she was trying her best to catch the eye of the guard, but to no avail so far it seemed.

A brief flutter of movement drew my eye left of the working mare, as I spotted Nightshade getting into position between a pair of buildings of her own. Aside from that, the rest of the street was deathly quiet, only the rustle of some discarded newspaper or the clinking of empty bottles rolling down the road lifted the silence.

I heard the sounds of a wooden wheel creaking in the distance, and looked right to spot a carriage heading down the road.
Although everyone on the street that night was trying to look uninterested, I felt that there were many eyes watching that carriage as it trundled down the road.

As the stagecoach neared Nightshade, I saw the dark coated mare flash a catlike smile my way before the transport blocked my view of her. In the moment it had moved on, she was nowhere to be seen.

Without trying to move my head too quickly, I glanced over at the two sentries and the mare on the kerb, but none of them acted like they had spotted anything unusual.
Credit where its due, if there’s one thing changelings were good at, it was disappearing.

I tracked the progress of the carriage and sure enough, it made a turning into the ox-bow before slowing down to pull up out of sight. As it was making the turn though, I noticed that one of the purple lights from the crystals in the street poles briefly winked out as the carriage moved past it, casting the outline of a dark shape on the roof of the carriage that had blocked out it’s light.

Clever girl.

Nightshade was perched on top of the roof of the carriage, letting the colour of her chosen form blend her into the shadows of the district. Unless she was directly between someone looking at her and a light source, she would never be spotted.

As well as that worked out for her though, I doubted I would be able to replicate the same trick. Nightshade was both considerably lighter and more nimble than I was, and whilst I had no doubts that I could jump to the roof of a carriage if I wanted to, the ponies inside were pretty much guaranteed to notice the loud crash of me landing on top. I might even put a split in the roof if I was too heavy-hoofed about it,

I needed some other way of getting close to the carriages.

And I needed it quickly, I could see another carriage at the opposite end of the road coming my way.

I couldn’t jump onto the stagecoach as Nightshade had; I’d give the game away too easily. And I couldn’t just trot alongside next to it, if the ponies inside didn’t see me they’d likely notice the distinctive clip-clopping of a pony following them around.

And then I remembered something from my trip to visit Grapevine, something that I could use to my advantage.

The carriages had no drivers.

I waited until the carriage was as close as it could be without letting the occupants at the windows see me, and keeping as close to the ground as possible, I crept out into the road directly in the path of the carriage and lay on my back with my legs on the deck.

If the carriage had a driver like any normal one would, he would have easily seen the movement and could have either stopped the carriage or steered it around me.

As it was, the carriage carried on to its destination, the wheels set to miss my hooves by inches.
The stagecoach rolled over me, and when it had passed, I was no longer lying in the street.

I was spread-eagle underneath the chassis, my hooves pressed against the undersides of the carriage frame and my head nearly rubbing against the rotating prop-shaft driving the wheels forward.
I was in an extremely uncomfortable position, but was feeling quite proud of myself; it wasn’t even that stressful on my legs yet.

“…way of operating. If there’s one thing that Blueblood’s always been it was careful, even if he was a traitor he wouldn’t have been so bloody obvious about it.”

I could quite clearly hear a male’s voice coming from inside the compartment above me; all I had to do was make sure I split my focus between listening in, trying not to touch the rotating prop-shaft, and making sure I didn’t scrape my head along the road.

“But what of his dealings with the motherland? If anyone were to defect he would be in an ideal position.” This was definitely a mare. Were they a couple maybe?

The carriage turned into the street and crawled to a stop at the kerb, a runner made himself known as I spotted a quartet of legs trotting up to the carriage, before sprinting off to the sound of chinking bits after one of the occupants placed his order of ‘The usual’.

That caught me as odd, how many times must a pony have to come back to a distribution ring before they set up a tab for him?

The carriage began to pull away again as the first occupant resumed speaking.

“It was because he was in an ideal position to defect that he was targeted. It gives plausible motive and an opportunity for him to escape; increasing both the length of the distraction as well as the belief that he genuinely turned.”

“… Distracting who, and from what?”

The carriage clattered over a drainage grating, nearly causing my face to have a brief meeting with the chassis components, I managed to keep my grip, but briefly lost track of the conversation.

“…is crumbling under its own need to tell itself that everything’s fine. Reminding everyone that the Motherland is still out there is a good incentive to bind them together under our protection. The committee had little to lose from Bluebloods trade agreements, so who would gain anything from casting him out?”

“The Trading Guild definitely would, just because smuggled goods from the Motherland will become illegal doesn’t mean that they will lose any demand, they might even become more valuable…The Ordo maybe? More paranoia means more members for them.”

I silently urged the carriage to speed up slightly, as strong as earth pony legs are I could really start to feel my muscles twitching involuntary as they put up with the strain of keeping me in place.

“Your thinking of groups, Ingot. Even our own house would gain to benefit from Blueblood’s departure, think of specific ponies; the individuals who openly loathed him.”

“Hmmm… His wife fled the city with him, his mistress will be too busy raking in bits for her story to care, and the house of traders doesn’t have a suitable replacement in the wings… Lord Aegis?”

“Exactly. The house of defence has been looking to steal his thunder for some time now. Add in some national security threats and stories of the motherland and their popularity will never have been higher.”

The carriage began to slow again, and as I looked around I spotted the same four legs of the runner who took the speaker’s bits earlier stop next to the carriage.

The goods were exchanged without a word, and as the carriage pulled out into the main road it took all my willpower to ignore the agony of my own legs for being locked into position for so long.
If I could hold out just a little longer…

“…ling Thunder’s request?”

“We should deny it; we need as many ears in the Motherland as possible now. The other Lords know they could have their credibility ruined as well if they don’t support action now.”

Right, I’d heard enough and my legs were about to give up.

As gradually as was possible with shaking muscles, I eased myself towards the road and managed to let go before the carriage built up any real speed.
I tucked my legs into my sides as the carriage rolled over the top of me and away into the night.

I half considered just lying there for a while, a thought which my aching body heartily agreed with.
Then my brain had to be all sensible and remind me that just staying in the middle of a road probably wasn’t the smartest idea. It wasn’t busy enough for me to be run over or anything, but any old pony could notice me and wonder what was wrong.

I tried to ignore the protests my legs made as best as I could and gradually eased myself off my back to stand up, checking my surroundings to see if anyone had spotted a pony appear from underneath a stagecoach.

Fortunately, the only pony that seemed to have noticed was the closest lookout, the working mare across the street apparently had eyes only for him and so missed my appearance completely.

The sentry posted at the corner gave me a quick grin and a nod as I passed him, but I didn’t return the favour. I knew now that if anyone had been watching him and noticed his friendly gesture, they would presume that we were working together.
They’d be right of course, but that’s not a fact I wanted to advertise to anyone.

I walked purposefully slowly back to my position, I could see that there were no carriages coming down the road from my side so there was no rush, and I wanted to avoid gaining any more attention than I might have already picked up.
That and my legs still ached like a bitch, but that’s not the point; I was walking slowly because it was my choice to.
Yup.

I sat down with no grace whatsoever when I returned to my spot, I was just grateful that I had got some time to rest instead of having to jump straight under the next wagon that rolled by.

What had I just heard?

It seemed like whoever was in the carriage hadn’t bought Grapevines story of Blueblood defecting as well as the media had. They mentioned their own house, so they were either from nobility or were a part of one of the Houses which governed the Union Committee.

The Trading Guild I knew, they were a practically a country onto themselves, a town of merchants who set up on the unofficial border between the Union and the Motherland. As far as I knew they were a fairly decent group but never cared much for the laws of either of their neighbouring states, they had a supply to maintain and a demand to fill for the goods that either faction could not get hold of.

Supposedly renowned for their uncompromising honesty, the Trading Guild could be trusted to let you know if they saw a business opportunity with you, or to tell you straight to your face if they thought you were being a complete arse.

I already knew that we had spies in the Motherland. “Had” being the key word there, if Thunder’s report was anything to go by. And they wanted to send more in?? Thunder seemed to believe they would be killed the moment they got there, so why risk posting more informants there?

And here was the Ordo again, who were they and what had they done to get the attentions of so many ponies? They had to be doing something important if they were mentioned in the same breath as the Trading Guild.
Lord Aegis was another point, the pony they thought to be behind Bluebloods exile. Grapevine would need to know this.

As I sat on the kerb in my thoughts, I became aware of the sound of another approaching carriage, I looked over my shoulder to check if it was coming along my side of the road and….

…Wow…

This abomination of a carriage was the beyond ridiculous. If you were to look in a dictionary under ‘tasteless’, you’d find a picture of this thing stapled next to it.
Bright, neon pink exterior. Silver highlights. Dear Celestia, they’d even plastered fake eyelashes on the poor machines front lamp lights.

I was brought up to try and not judge ponies when I saw them, hell I’d never have made friends with Nightshade if I hadn’t have been, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this hitchhike was going to involve a lengthy discussion about how a mare had seen a funny shaped cloud the other day.

Well, if Grapevine wanted me to collect any and all idle gossip, I’d happily recount to him the thrilling tale of the pony-shaped cumulus.

With some reluctance (although I’d be surprised if I found a pony who wasn’t slightly reluctant to throw themselves under a stagecoach), I eased myself back onto the road in the path of the oncoming carriage, silently praying that none of the ponies I knew would catch wind of this. If Nightshade saw me, I’d die of embarrassment long before she would stop joking about the carriage I had to hitch a ride with.

I latched onto the underside as the carriage trundled over the top of me, noting how it was actually a lot easier to get a secure footing underneath this chassis than the last one. Perhaps my legs would forgive me once this was over after all.

“…she, how dare she think she can be seen with us. I don’t care how popular she is with the commoners; she does not get the privilege of being seen with me.” A shrill female voice came from the carriage, so loudly that I probably could have heard it if I had just stayed sat on the street corner.

“Just because she makes a song about how the workers are worse off than us and earns fame practically overnight, Flowing Mantra is not even close to the same league as me.”

“Ruby…” another, older female voice began

“Don’t ‘Ruby’ me, its Miss Tiara to you.”

I don’t think I’d ever changed my opinion on a pony from ‘stranger’ to ‘irritating’ so quickly.

“…Miss Tiara, perhaps you’re overreacting slightly? The poor mare only wants to make some friends.”

“But she doesn’t get to. It’s not her place to mingle with her betters.”

The carriage drew to a stop and was approached by the runner, his legs stopping just short of my nose.

“Ummm, a packet of rainboom, an ounce of blitizen, and twelve of those little yellow tablet thingies, you know which ones I mean? ‘kaythanksbye.”

As the carriage pulled off the irritating filly inside started up her complaining again.

“Even daddy agrees that she shouldn’t be seen with me, he even said she deserved to be taken down a peg or two.”

“If that’s what Lord Visage wants then it’s not for me to disagree.”

“You’re absolutely right, it isn’t! What a clever pony you are. Now what to do about that mare though…”

I could practically hear the gears clunking as the filly fell silent to think. It was either that or the sound of the carriage wheels rolling along, but I know what I preferred to think that the noise was.

“… She wants to make friends? Fine, I know which friends she needs to meet so that ponies can see what she’s actually like. Daddy would see to it that everyone finds out, and then she’ll be forgotten in a week or two.”

The other voice in the carriage said nothing, letting the filly continue her monologue.

“I mean, it’s what she deserves after all. My daddy runs the union and our family has been important for centuries, these ‘new money’ ponies need to learn some respect.”

The carriage came to a stop again, as the runner who had been waiting for us to appear picked up the bag that had been by his side and give it to the ponies inside.

“Now, I’m sure you’ll help me with this Mrs Sweep, I might even put a word in to daddy if you do a good job.”

The carriage turned the corner, and even though my legs were a lot less strained than they had been clinging on to the previous carriage, I decided that this filly had nothing useful to say and I'd be much happier if I didn’t hear another word from her.

I started to ease myself slowly back towards the road, and as I let go of the carriage underside, I felt a sharp tug and pain shot through my left fetlock, quickly followed by agony from the rest of my body as it was scraped along the street by my hoof that refused to let go.

I tired to clamber back into position so I could work on getting my leg unstuck without having my hide sanded away by the road, but the carriage was travelling too fast for me to get a good footing to push up from.

I could feel my own skin being burnt away by the friction of the road surface; I had to get my leg free now before the carriage was moving even faster.
I pulled with my stuck leg so that I could reach it with my free hoof and began to work it loose.

The carriage hit a bump in the road, and I swore I felt something move within my knee that shouldn’t be able to, but as the suspension recoiled from the shock my hoof came free. I tumbled along the road as the carriage pulled away from me, the rear wheels barely missing my battered body as it carried on into the night.

I didn’t know if the occupants had heard anything as their stowaway was caught underneath them, but frankly I was in far too much pain to care about them right now. I swore my head must have hit the road once or twice, as all the colours of the surrounding buildings and streetlights became much brighter, but also fuzzier at the same time.

I had landed next to a dumpster waiting on the kerbside for collection the next day, and I crawled over to it to prop myself up against it as I waited for the world to stop spinning around so bloody quickly.

As I tried to control my breathing to stop my stomach from bringing my dinner up all over myself, I could hear the sounds of ponies talking nearby. I looked up and down the street, but either there was nobody there or I was just too out of it to notice.

My head was absolutely pounding, and was clearly having a contest with my leg to try and inform me which one hurt the most, but if there were ponies nearby it was more important for me to find out if they had seen me or not.

I peeked around the corner of the dumpster, and my vision almost immediately cleared as another shot of adrenaline coursed through me with what I saw.

Four ponies clustered in a circle in the alleyway behind my dumpster, grey ceramic ballistic plates and black mesh clothing covered the majority of their bodies with black caps perched upon their heads; they stood in front of a pair of locomoted carriages parked in a line behind them, both had a set of red spotlights mounted on their roofs.

Sentinels.

…Oh shit.

None of them had noticed me yet, so I quickly drew my head back behind the dumpster before they spotted me. My first instinct was to get the hell out of there, but experience had taught me that it would be a terrible idea if I bolted now. Not only would they instantly see any sudden moves, I doubted that I would get far on a gimpy leg.

And what about all of Grapevines guys? The Sentinels were obviously waiting for something, and I doubted that Grapevine would take too kindly to me abandoning his men without warning them. Chancing another glance at the Sentinels, I saw an opportunity and crawled away from the dumpster and out of view of the alley, before trotting back to the ring with a very obvious limp in one knee.

As I neared the ring, moving as quickly as I dared without damaging my leg further, I saw that the working mare had crossed the street and was talking with the closest sentry. That worked out fine for me, I could warn them both before finding Buckshot.

“Sentinels in the alley down the road, we need to get out of here now.” I said urgently to the pair of them as I passed, not slowing down in the slightest as I limped by.

“Eh? What do you … ARHH!”

I looked behind me at the sentry, wondering what had happened. The working mare stood over him and had him on the ground with a knee in his back and two hooves twisted behind him as she began to speak out loud.

“They’re on to us, execute the operation. Move!”

Ah, crap. I turned and bolted, trying not to care about the sharp pain that coursed through my leg whenever it hit the pavement. The Sentinels were on their way and I had to get everyone moving before they boxed us in.

“Everyone, Sentinels are coming, get out of here now!” I yelled as loudly as I could whilst I ran, the more ponies that I warned the more would start running too, and the less likely it was that I would be targeted in particular as the group scattered.

The runner got the message pretty quickly as I dove toward the alleyway, lobbing the bag he was about to deliver straight through the window of the carriage that had pulled up next to him and raced ahead of me, shouting warnings as he went.
The suspension of the carriage creaked as a dark shape pushed down to launch itself from the roof, and Nightshade landed in a sprint at my side.

I knew that there were at least four sentinels in carriages behind me, and whilst I didn’t know for sure if there were any more at the opposite end of the street, I doubted that they would be dumb enough to only bring their guys in from a single direction.

I raced past the pony with the product bag, who was gathering as many packets of multi-coloured dust and crystals as he could into the large black rucksack next to him, before slinging it onto his back and chasing after me.

So, escape plan. One of those would be nice about now.
For all purposes the road behind me was a no-go, as well as the other end of the street since I thought it likely there would be sentinels waiting at that end too. If I thought it was dicey to run across the road beforehand I knew it was insanity now, not only would I be spotted they would also see that I was hurt and would be easier to catch. Only one thing for it then.

As I came to the middle of the alleyway I took a left turn at the point where the paths crossed. Apparently, Buckshot had listened to my concerns earlier as it seemed that every pony (and one changeling) was running in the same direction as I was.

We emerged at the midpoint of the curved road to see the carriage that the runner had just served was surrounded by Sentinels with weapons drawn off to our left, and to our right another pair of Sentinel carriages had entered the street; red spotlights fixed on our fleeing group as we ran into the alley on the opposite side.

As we tore through the cramped side streets I was being overtaken on both sides by ponies that didn’t have a knackered leg to worry about, in fact the only pony that seemed to be slower than me was Buckshot, the bulging bit bag fixed to his back making him the slowest mover of all of us.

The alley opened up into another street, and the black pegasus form of Nightshade took to the air in front of us. “Everyone, split up!” she yelled, before a red spotlight was fixed on her and she flew off into the night, a pair of Sentinel pegasi in hot pursuit behind her.

Our group split into three as the runner tore off to our left, with the product bag and remaining sentry running straight ahead. I turned a right behind Buckshot, practically neck and neck with the stallion now as he struggled under the massive weight of the bit bag.

“It wasn’t supposed to go down like this, where the hell is the other lookout?” He yelled at me as we raced down the street

“The mare across the road took him down, she’d been watching us all night!” I yelled back. I looked behind me to see that four Sentinels had appeared at the mouth of the alley where we split up, and immediately all four of them turned their attentions to us and charged after me and Buckshot.

What the hell?? There was easily enough of them to go after more than just the two of us, why did they focus everything our way? If that mare had been feeding them information all night they must have known who was carrying the product bag, so either they were focusing on us because we were slow, or they didn’t care about seizing the product and were only interested in the bit bag.

“Quickly, down here!” I yelled to Buckshot and the pair of us turned left down another alley that was much more cramped and filled with debris. I kicked a few bins over as we passed to try and make life harder for the pursing Sentinels.

“I can’t keep this up man, the damn bags too heavy!” Buckshot shouted at me, I hadn’t realised that he was gradually starting to fall behind me, desperation in his voice as he realised that he would get caught if I didn’t help him.

“Take the bloody bag off!” I yelled back at him. He’d make it if he just dropped the accursed thing.

“Are you kidding me?? Grapevine would skin me alive!” He shouted back, he was starting to fall further and further behind, and I could see the squad of Sentinels tearing into the mouth of the alleyway behind us, they certainly weren’t that close to us before as they were now.

I had to go back and help him. The dumb sod wasn’t going to ditch the bit bag regardless of what I said, and if he didn’t lose that weight on his back he would be caught for sure. If he wouldn’t listen to sense then I’d just have to get back there and bite the damn thing off.

Or maybe this was exactly the opportunity I needed to get away, I wasn’t running much faster than Buckshot and I might get caught if I went back to help him, then both of us would get caught and the bit bag would get taken anyway.

What if I were able to lighten the load though? I might not have to bite the strap of the bag off; if I tore a hole in it then maybe enough bits would come out to make the bag light enough for us both to get away. Surely it would be better to lose most of the bits instead of all of them?

Hell, I could actually get away and keep the bits if I wanted. If I took the bag from Buckshot and tripped him up, it would be enough of a distraction to get away with both my freedom and all the bits. Sure the poor bastard would get caught, but I would be free and gain extra favour with Grapevine for bringing all the bits home.

I could see the Sentinels gaining behind us, they leaped over or barged through the debris I had scattered behind us, and soon they’d be close enough that I wouldn’t matter what I thought, they’d take us both down anyway. I could see that the unicorn in the group was charging a spell up, a blazing blue light beginning to form on the tip of her horn.

It was now or never.

3. The Wake-up Call

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The group behind us had moved into a formation so that they had their unicorn at the front of the pack, wanting to give her a clear shot at us.
I didn’t know what she had on her mind, but looking at the bright blue currents arcing around her horn and the determined sneer on her teal face, it didn’t take much to figure out that it wouldn’t end well for me.

I was sprinting down the alleyway at top speed, but everytime i put any weight on my damaged leg a muted spike of pain shot through me. The adrenaline was keeping me focused on the more important things, but if i didn't do something soon i'd either loose the will to keep running, or the unicorn behind us would find an oppertunity to bring me down.

A flash of silver in the moonlight ahead of me gave me an idea; I just had to pray that Buckshot wasn’t looking behind him or this could go spectacularly wrong.
I dipped my head to the left as I ran, and bit onto the edge of a circular dustbin lid as I fled down the alleyway, and with a quick flick of my head in the other direction I lobbed the metallic disk over my right shoulder and sent it flying behind me.

Buckshot saw my impromptu frisbee heading right for him, and had the good sense to duck underneath the spinning lid as it skimmed over the top of him, giving my projectile a clear path to it’s real target.
Unluckily for the unicorn mare she never saw it coming, as she had completely forgotten one of the crucial rules of spell casting against a hostile;

Never build up a spell strong enough to force your eyes shut.

She only had her vision blocked for a fraction of a second, her brow furrowed under the strain of both casting and running at a dead sprint, and so she never registered the chunk of metal flying towards her until it hit her square on the base of her horn.

The surprise and sudden pain was more than enough to break her concentration, and the incomplete spell discharged against the dustbin lid. Random bolts of lightning flew out in all directions from the stainless steel surface, it was as though a malicious spirit of pure energy were reaching out with extended tendrils to snatch at anything nearby.

The pair of Sentinels nearest to their unicorn companion were both caught in the grip of the wild spell almost simultaneously, causing their muscles to seize up as the currents of energy grounded through their bodies and into the pavement.
The two stunned ponies instantly hit the deck, taking out the legs of both the unicorn and the final Sentinel behind them, and the co-ordinated pursuit turned into a tangle of limbs as they hit the floor.

A bolt of lightning flew past my head to strike the fire escape in front of me that I had just been about to try and climb, and unbridled power hummed throughout the structure as blue arcs danced over its frame, as I swiftly ditched that idea and carried on running.

Buckshot didn’t luck out as I had however; one of the lightning fingers reached out and connected with the jingling bag of bits strapped to his back, the energy racing through his body causing him to lose all control of his legs, and the stallion bit the dust as his limbs pulled taught against his chest.

Hearing all the commotion behind me, I chanced a look back to asses the situation.
The Sentinels had been put down hard but the ceramic armour they wore was a great insulator, and whilst they didn’t look like they were going to spring straight back on to their hooves, they wouldn’t stay down for long.

Buckshot looked like he had missed the brunt of the wild spell, but he hadn’t been armoured and had taken a solid hit to the face from the asphalt when he went down, blood was running from both nostrils as he struggled to climb to his hooves.

I turned around and ran back to his side, and whilst he was unable to complain or resist, I bit into the bag on his back and tore a hoof sized hole in the material before helping him to his hooves.
As he rose, several bags of bits cascaded out of the bag and spilled out across the alleyway, dumping their contents everywhere in a wave of gold behind us.

“Damn you!” Buckshot cursed; forcing the words out through a clenched jaw as the effects of his shock hadn’t completely worn off. “I’m not going to be the one who explains how we lost all the bits when we get back.”

“We aren’t home free yet, just get your arse moving!” I gave Buckshot a shove to get him back into motion, conscious that the Sentinels behind us were also slowly managing to get their legs underneath them as well.

We both limped down the alleyway towards the road at the end, taking a right turn onto the pavement and moving as quickly as our battered bodies would carry us. I didn’t know if the Sentinels were still chasing us or not, but we didn’t dare stop moving.

We had completely lost all sense of direction as we fled. Running was now out of the question with our collective injuries, so we hobbled along as fast as our legs could go, our heads constantly looking around us for any signs of more Sentinels. Back alleys, roads, and industrial estates all blurred into one as our attention was more focused on looking out for red spotlights than figuring out where we were going.

It was only when we realised that we had been completely alone for several blocks did we eventually slow down, the pair of us wandering down a road lit with soft purple crystalline streetlights as we gained our bearings and headed towards The Hounds Head.

As I caught my breath I became painfully re-aware of the damage in my fetlock. Whilst the adrenaline of nearly being captured had almost blinded me to it in the heat of the moment, the sensation of trapped nerves, torn muscle, and what I was convinced was a knackered knee joint returned with a vengeance.

“I can’t believe we lost the take, I can’t go back to Grapevine after this, I’d disappear from the face of Equis within a day!” Buckshot rambled more to himself than me, his eyes staring unfocused into the distance as a look of a stallion who knew he was screwed began to form on his face.

Where once it had only been every fourth step that had caused me pain, it was now every single step; with the fourth being particularly excruciating. Perhaps helping Buckshot come back to his senses would be a welcome distraction.
I tapped a misshapen bulge at one corner of the bag still strapped to his back, producing the distinctive sound of bits chinking against each other.

“We didn’t lose it all. It won’t buy you a trip to Roam, but it was all we could save if we didn’t want to get caught.”

Buckshot ignored me as he trotted down the road, still muttering to himself as his desperate look intensified, a drop of blood falling from his muzzle and splattering against the pavement.

“How the hell did this happen... He’s gotta see that it wasn’t my fault... No, it can’t have been my fault... He’s gotta see...”

Damn it, I was too tired and in too much pain to have to put up with this guy having a breakdown as well.

“Hey!” I pushed his side with my hoof. “Panicking never helped anyone. You got away didn’t you? Hell, almost all of us did, and we even saved some of the bits!”

I was concerned that my words were falling on deaf ears as Buckshot continued to plod onwards, not even breaking his stride as he started into the distance.
After a dozen paces though, his expression began to lose some of its anxiety as what I said finally started to get through to him.

“We... We did, didn’t we?... We got away from them. I’m still free...”

His eyes came to focus as he realised that although it had been close, we were definitely in the clear.
We were battered, tired, and bloody, but we weren't cuffed in the back of a Sentinel chariot. No matter which corner of Equis you came from, that’s definitely called a victory.

“Oh sweet Celestia, I’m still free... I’m still free! Hah!”

I grinned at him as I saw his spirits lifting. “You’re damn right you are! Even with a ton of bits strapped to your back and my knackered leg we still left those guys to choke on our dust!”

That was one way to spin it, the final stretch of our escape hadn’t been nearly as speedy as the first part; we had actually ended up limping down any road or alley we saw in order to flee a force that we wasn’t even sure was still chasing us, but that wasn’t the point.

We had beaten them.

Buckshot reared onto his hind legs and kicked the air, his previous despair completely forgotten in the rush of euphoria from successfully evading capture. “Oh you better believe it baby! That’s one more giant fuck you to the Sentinels! Hoo-yah!”

I allowed myself a small chuckle at his antics. Joy and relief are intoxicating emotions; mix them with adrenaline and dopamine and you’ve got yourself a fine cocktail that’ll swing moods faster than a baseball bat. The evidence of how potent it can be was etched right there on Buckshot’s face as he bumped my shoulder with a hoof.

“And you mate, they might have caught us both if you hadn’t lobbed a bloody chunk of metal at them! Did you see the lightshow that thing caused??”

I tactfully decided to leave out the part where I nearly took his head off with said chunk of metal, and also that it was because of the lightshow that Buckshot tripped and had a mess of dried blood for a nose and muzzle.

Why dampen the mood with needless details like that?

“Lit ‘em up like a Hearth’s Warming tree. I’d almost feel sorry for them if they hadn’t been about to take us down with the same spell.”

A small sack of bits broke free from the bag on Buckshot’s back and hit the ground with a muffled ca-shink.

“And where do you think you’re going?” Buckshot scooped up the sack and stuffed it back into his ruined bag. “You’re our ticket to staying on Grapevine’s good side, don’t think that I’m letting any more of you get away from me!”

I can’t say that I shared Buckshot’s worries that Grapevine would lose it when he found out what had happened. With everything stacked against us like that, we hadn’t performed too badly.

“From what I know of Grapevine he isn’t unreasonable. They hit us hard and fast, and frankly it was a miracle we got away with anything at all. He’s going to see that we did our jobs, and we came out of it with more than we had any right to.”

We’d just come within eyesight of The Hound, and I could feel an urge inside of me for cider. Anything that allowed me to just sit down and enjoy something ice-cold to take my mind off my aching body was a nice thought.
I gazed longingly at the front of the door to The Hound.

“I dunno about you, but I just know that there’s a pint in that building calling my name, you sticking around?”

“Looking like this?” Buckshot waved a hoof over his bloodied nose. “I’ll pass for now; I’m ready to spit my bit. I need to make sure as many of these bits as possible get back to Grapevine anyhow.”

“Oh, but do me a favour though?” Buckshot turned around and offered a limb out. “If you run into Nightshade, put in a good word for me? I’ve even got some more scars in the collection to show off now.”

I chuckled as I bumped his outstretched hoof. “You do realise she isn’t the secure, settling down type of mare right? Will do, but on your head be it.”

“And when did I claim to be a settling down kind of stallion?” Buckshot tired to flash a cocky grin, but with all that blood and scratched flesh on his muzzle it was a pretty hard look to pull off. “Later, Pathfinder.”

As Buckshot turned and shambled off into the night, I turned my attentions to the now most important item on the agenda;

Ice. Cold. Cider.

I checked the eyes of The Hound’s trademark neon sign out of pure habit and found a set of red irises staring back at me. That was good as far as I was concerned right now; more work was definitely something I wanted to avoid in my current state.

I nudged the door to The Hound open, suppressing a wince as raw patches of my hide brushed against the grain of the wooden doors, and found The Hound to be thankfully less busy than when I had last visited.

Keg was behind the bar of course, even Old Forty was propped up in his usual corner, minus his usual ex-service drinking buddies. The rest of the pub was occupied by the kind of ponies whose faces you had seen so often you felt like you knew them, but had never been curious enough or had chance to ask for their names.

I didn’t even bother to pull up a stool as I propped myself against the bar, if I was going to sit down I could wait until I found something more comfortable. I had the feeling that if I parked my backside down now I wouldn’t be able to get up again for the rest of the night.

Keg glanced over at me whilst he was cleaning a glass with his copper coloured hooves, giving my appearance the once over with his eyes before raising an eyebrow questioningly.

“...Yes, I know I look like shit. Yes it’s dumb of me to be here instead of at home recovering. And yes, I’ll take my usual please.”

Keg grunted an acknowledgement and poured me a pint of cider. I was also pleasantly surprised when he slid an icepack over the bar to me with my drink. Grateful for his uncanny ability to read minds (especially for an earth pony), I pocketed the icepack for now and dropped some bits onto the bar, before hastily gulping down half of the pint the instant I got it in my hooves.

Savouring the taste can come later, for now I just wanted to get as much of the happiness-in-a-bottle inside of me as quickly as possible.
Finishing off the rest of the drink at a more reasonable pace, I dropped another trio of bits onto the bar and found another full glass already gracefully gliding across the polished hardwood surface and into my hooves. With service like this, it was hardly surprising that The Hound was always in business.

This pint I was going to hang on to a bit longer however. I scanned the room looking for somewhere out of the way for me to sit, and my eyes settled on the sky-blue pegasus form of Old Forty who was scowling into his own glass. I remembered that there was something I had wanted to ask the old timer about from the other night, and now was as good a time as any.

Sitting back into one of the chairs surrounding his table, I pulled out the ice pack and rested it on the fetlock of my leg that had been trapped under the rich filly’s carriage and took a sip from my cider.

Forty didn’t move. In fact, he showed absolutely no signs of realising that I had sat down at his table at all.

“It’s a rough night on the town out there, hardly surprising you’d want to stay in here all evening.”

No response.

“... I’m glad there’s not much of a crowd in tonight, how about you?”

Still nothing.

He wasn’t hammered already was he? I knew it was past midnight, but Forty never went home until it was closer to daybreak.

“...I’d heard something interesting about the Gryphons, and I was hoping I could get your take on it.”

“...The Gryphons of old? Or the debased mockery that took their place?”

Ah, now we were getting somewhere.

“The modern kind, although I can’t say I was aware that there was a difference.”

Forty took a long pull of his drink before bringing the glass down with a thud.

“Then you haven’t fought them. When I took my first watch on the boarders between our nations, the Gryphons then were honourable. Aggressive yes, perhaps they were brutal even, but honourable. If a Gryphon gave his word you could trust that he’d stick to it in writing and in spirit. The marauders that came after them pissed all over their tradition, and now look where they are.”

It was rare enough to hear about Gryphons in any manner in the Union, indeed a small section of the nation was probably ignorant to their existence at all.
When you did hear about them, it was either in textbooks or news reports describing them as heartless renegades, guns for hire, or just plain psychopaths. To hear a pony describe a gryphon as ‘honourable’, especially a pony that had probably killed a few first hoof, was a fairly alien concept in this day and age.

“I’ll have to take your word on them being honourable. All I’ve ever heard is that they’re raiders who occasionally take a break from fighting amongst themselves to try and kill us instead.”

“You’ve been listening to ponies who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

Forty took a deep inhale as he leant back in his chair, his eyes glazing over as he was lost in thought.

“You aren’t completely wrong; they do fight us and each other all the time, but they aren’t mindless beasts from the depths of Tartarus. They once held their beaks high, and were easily our most formidable adversaries.”
His gaze suddenly hardened as he continued. “Now they’ll just wait until you have your guard down before slitting your throat in the night.”

Did I detect a sliver of bitterness there? It seemed like Forty was mourning the loss of a rival he had once respected, he was never usually this serious when talking about his service in The Watch. Whilst his change in tone was concerning, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that this wasn’t one of his usual tall tales.

“For a race as proud as the Gryphons were, defeat is something to be truly ashamed of. So imagine what must have been going through their heads when they didn’t even lose to a worthy foe; they lost to us when we were weak.”

“Luna had vanished, Celestia refused to speak to anyone and soon disappeared herself, and Equestria as a nation was in turmoil. The majority of our army had only just returned from slaughtering the changelings, and the entire country was wondering why the princesses had just left us so suddenly. The gryphons should have annihilated us after The Fall of the Gods and they knew it.”

“The charisma of Rarity and the valour of Rainbow Dash shook Canterlot out of its grievance and we drove them back. The Gryphons have lived with the humiliation of their defeat ever since, and each new clutch of hatchlings grew more and more resentful of how weak their ancestors had been, the rage of having to burden a dishonour they did not deserve slowly shaped their culture.”

Forty took a pause from his story to have another swig of his drink. I knew all about Rainbow Dash and had heard mention of Rarity before, aside from being hailed as the creators of the Union as we knew it, one went on to become a Wonderbolt legend, and the other laid the foundations for the Altruists. Never once had I considered what became of the enemies they had to defeat in order to establish the Union however.

“Posted on the Watch, you saw the way they were changing with each skirmish. They became more reckless, arrogant, and deceitful with every engagement. You would wake to find your comrades slain in their sleep, or find explosives hidden inside civilian trading caravans. I know of similar stories of how they treated each other and gained power within their own kingdoms.”

“I hear there’s trouble in the kingdoms now.” I said as I sipped at my cider. “The word is that there are no stories coming from there at all, the few neutral kingdoms we trade with have gone completely silent on us.”

Forty scratched a hoof against the silver stubble on the underside of his face as he mulled over what I had told him.

“...If it were a civil war there, then there would be refugees fleeing the region, and I haven’t heard that asshole on the news go on about any new immigrant problems. If I were to hazard a guess, some sneaky bastard of a gryphon is making as many alliances as possible to try and grab some power; you get characters like that now and again. Won’t be too long until some other ambitious gryphon takes him down though, I wouldn’t be that concerned by it.”

That seemed pretty dismissive of a potential threat to the Union, but if Forty wasn’t that bothered by it then I guess I had no reason to be, he knew a hell of a lot more about gryphons and how they acted than I ever would. Still, the thought of a single gryphon with several kingdoms in his claws was more than a little unnerving.

“Listen here squire; trust Fortification, Captain of The Watch, slayer of a hundred gryphons, when he says that it’ll all blow over soon enough.”

Ah, and there’s the exaggeration.

It was a fairly welcome relief that Forty couldn’t resist a chance to grab some extra fame when he had a captive listener, his serious retelling of history had me slightly concerned for a minute there. I was beginning to think that he was actually Nightshade pulling the disguise trick again.

Realising my mistake I shot a quick glance around the pub. Usually fate doesn’t miss an open temptation like that one, but Nightshade was nowhere in sight.
She was more than capable of evading the Sentinel air support that had been chasing her, but I couldn’t ignore my concern for my friend. I had only gotten away by the skin of my teeth, rather literally as it had turned out, but I supposed that there was nothing that I could do about it from here.

“You’re not asking because you ran afoul of a gryphon yourself did you? You look like something tried to take a chunk out of you.”

“Something being the right word there.” I muttered to myself. “I’d rather not talk about it. Right now, I just want to get so drunk that it’s not important until tomorrow. Future Me gets to worry about that.”

“Hah, I can drink to that squire.”

We chinked glasses, and I settled myself in for a long night of tall tales, laughter, drinking, and good times with a friendly crowd. Because right now, that was exactly what a doctor would order.

Or that’s what I told myself at least.

Thump-thump

... Urgh.

What time is it?

Midday? Too early...

...

Thump-thump

...

...Ok, I’m up... I think.

To say I got out of bed would be far too generous.
I crawled out from under my sheets to the edge of the bed, rolled out, fell onto the floor, and was almost immediately fast asleep again.

Who knew that floors could be so comfy?

...

Thump-thump

No really, I’m awake this time.

How was I supposed to get up again though? I could feel the room spinning around me even with my eyes shut.

Thump-thump

And why won’t the door stop making that damn noise? My heartbeat was already amplified inside my own head and was thumping out of time with the bangs from the door.

No, I’m not in. Go away.

Thump-thump

Eventually, I became more annoyed at the constant banging sooner than whoever was at the door became bored, and forced myself up off the floor to answer it.

Thump-Smack!

I opened the door and was greeted by a tennis ball to the face. An orange pegasus mare with a light blue mane who was propped up against the door opposite mine grinned rather sheepishly as she held the offending tennis ball in one hoof.

“Ah, er... Hey Pathfinder! I er... kinda got bored knocking, so I figured out a way to pass the time and get you up all in one go!”

I just stared at her. It didn’t really hurt to be pelted in the face by a lazily thrown ball, not compared to all the aches I’d acquired yesterday. I’d just had much better starts to a hangover day in the past and was silently whishing that it could have been one of those days instead.

“...Nightshade. I would really, really like to be spending all of this day asleep. What’s so important that you had to be sat there for hours knocking at my door?”

“Ummm... I’ve actually only been here about twenty minutes. But anyway, we still have to report back to Grapevine and he’s getting pretty insistent, you remember the whole reason we were out there in that mess yesterday?”

I remembered, I just really couldn’t find the effort to care right now. “I’m tired, aching, and since the room is still slowly revolving I don’t think I’m in any state to go places just yet. Can you just give me a few minutes?”

“A few is fine, just remember though that a girl doesn’t like to be kept waiting!”

I gave her the most expressionless look I could. “You made me wait for days before turning up last night to give me that job. I think I’ve earned some time to at least look like I wasn’t camped out on the street all week. Give me a minute.”

“Sure, I’ll just wait out here then.”

Thump-thump

Almost the instant the door was shut behind me the sound of Nightshade’s tennis ball resumed, just as a background reminder for me to hurry up before she eventually drove me insane.

Suppressing the urge to go back out there and strangle my best friend for tormenting me like this, I headed for the bathroom to try and at least make an effort to clean myself up.

That’s one of the joys of being a stallion, a quick five minute shower and a swing of mouthwash and your good to go. When a mare tells you she’ll only be a few minutes, you might as well get comfy and accept that you’ve just lost an hour of the day. For a guy its get up, wash, go. Ten minutes, tops.

Thump thump

I waited until Nightshade had already thrown her ball before opening the door this time.

“In case you hadn’t figured it out, I’m still pretty hung-over, and I’m not sure my brain has actually turned on yet, so don’t expect me to be too clever today. Are we walking, or do we have another magic carriage waiting for us?”

“Walking I’m afraid.” Nightshade picked herself up off my floor and pocketed the tennis ball. “Grapevine originally had the carriage put aside, but it took so long to wake you up its long gone by now. We’ll have to walk to the Altruist’s Refuge if we want to catch him.”

After locking my door and tossing my saddlebags onto my back, we left my flat and headed for the central district of Canterlot. The Altruist’s Refuge is a much grander building than the name implies, and was situated right on the main road from Canterlot’s outer gates to the Old Citadel itself.

This was the part of the city constantly depicted on postcards and is the first thought that comes to mind when ponies think of Canterlot, it was certainly the most glamorous district of the city, and was always full of tourists or the Canterlot high society.

As we slowly pushed our way through the crowd on the most famous road in Canterlot, I noticed Nightshade visibly tense as she walked forward.
I quickly scanned around me to see if she had spotted something, but I couldn’t see anything that might have spooked her.

“What is it? Have you seen something?”

“You could say that.” Nightshade was looking down at the cobbles directly under her hooves, but I still hadn’t caught on to what she was talking about.

“Look at the street itself Pathfinder, I always hate walking across this part of town.”

I looked around, not sure what she was referring to. The street looked just like it did every day, a huge crowd surging past the shops and market vendors with ponies of all kinds and several other beings of various races going about their business.
Hey, was that a Minotaur? Don’t see many of those around these days.

It was only when a large partition appeared in the crowd around me did I see it, a cluster of the cobblestones in the street was darker in some places than in others, and formed the elongated silhouette of a creature vaguely resembling a pony.

Ah crap, how could I have forgotten that?? I could have blamed the cider I’d had last night, but that was no real excuse. No wonder Nightshade hated this part of town.
“Shit, I’m sorry. We could have avoided coming here if I was a bit more awake.”

“It’s fine, really. I couldn’t have lived here more than a few weeks if I couldn’t accept it. I have to wonder though; just how many ponies here realise that they’re desecrating the graves of my ancestors just by walking here?”

Nightshade stepped off the cobbles as we resumed our walk towards the Altruist’s Refuge, but now that I was aware of them there I spotted dozens of shadows on the street that didn’t belong to any of the ponies walking upon it, hundreds even.

“These shadows are all that is left of the changelings that had infiltrated Celestia’s royal guard who tried to flee when she declared war on our kind. The heat and light of Celestia’s fury vaporised them, and burned their shadows into the very stone of the street itself. You don’t fuck with a God, and that's something we had to learn the hard way.”

Nightshade spoke to herself more than me, maybe it was a self-comfort thing by trying to distance the shades on the road to mere historical facts rather than imagining them as the sentient beings they once were.

I tired to walk in a path that would avoid stepping on as many of the shadows as possible, but with a crowd of ponies pushing in on either side it was almost impossible to achieve. What had been going through the mind of the last changeling queen for her to attack a pony as powerful as Celestia a second time? It was madness.

I was feeling more and more awkward and out of place as we walked, I wanted to say something to Nightshade but couldn’t really find the words. I decided that she’d probably prefer respectful silence than a half-thought out attempt to apologise for something that had happened before either of us was born.

It felt like a huge pressure on my shoulders had been lifted when we finally stepped off of the main street and towards the Altruist’s Refuge, and it was a feeling I was incredibly grateful for, even if we were about to step into a building that I had promised myself long ago I would never turn to.

Considering that it was a group that had been created to help others and named after selfless generosity, I couldn’t help but feel that they were doing incredibly well for a non-profit organisation. White marble seemed to be the material of choice, the outside of the building resembling a simplistic but still elegant ivory diamond with a large circular window cut into the face of the building oriented at the street below, four or five floors of ponies at work clearly visible through the violet tinted glass.

Stepping inside the entrance, the reflections of a yellow / brown stallion and an orange / blue mare were projected by the indigo crystalline floor along with the ceiling above us to give the building an even larger feeling than it already had.
I was struggling to find the right word to describe this place. Amazing seemed just too plain, unbelievable was outright untrue as here at was in front of me, dare I say that it was… fabulous? That’s not a word I used often, or at all, but it certainly seemed fitting here.

Nightshade bypassed the front desk entirely (which I secretly whished she hadn’t, it was worked by a pair of the prettiest mares I’d ever seen) and headed straight for the platinum-coated elevator doors. I reluctantly followed, but reasoned to myself that perhaps a battered and hung-over Pathfinder wouldn’t make the best of first impressions on the pair.

The doors opened to reveal a luxurious but empty compartment, save for the small green levitation gem that hovered perfectly still near the floor of the elevator.
As the doors closed behind us, the green gem glowed and hummed ever so quietly with power, and the lift began to rise up the diagonal spine of the structure.

Although I could feel the floor of the elevator pushing upwards against my hooves, as though someone had turned the gravity of Equis up ever so slightly, the gem never moved. It stood completely immobile in the centre of our compartment, never turning nor reacting to the inertia of the moving lift.

It was quiet eerie to see a small object such as that completely defy non-thaumatic physics without even betraying much effort on its part, but then again I had always been a bit wary of arcane technology. They just seemed to have a habit of not working when I was around them, Marephy’s Law was a real bitch sometimes.

We arrived at our destination, the doors gliding open with a whisper of well maintained machinery to reveal a white marble hall with a pair of large hardwood doors at the other end of the room. As Nightshade took the lead and opened them into a lavish office I spotted a familiar dark green coated stallion with a cut-back cream mane.

Grapevine sat back in a large wheeled office chair, hind legs propped up on the mahogany desk in front of him as he scooted the chair back and forth in a small arc behind the desk, making a faint rustling noise as it rolled across the carpet.

When he noticed us enter the room he raised a foreleg in greeting. “Ah, a good morning my fellow compatriots! Or is it good afternoon? The day certainly seems to have flown by for some of us has it not? Although if Buckshot’s recounting of yesterdays events is anything to go by, I believe I can forgive this minor discrepancy.”

Slightly embarrassed at how quickly I had ditched all professionalism after I escaped the raid last night, I said nothing as the pair of us took a seat in front of the monolith that Grapevine called a desk.
Actually, on closer inspection it probably wasn’t even his desk at all, if the gold and platinum nametag on it was a giveaway. Not unless Grapevine had recently changed his name to ‘Silver Belle’.

Grapevine caught my wandering eyes and pulled a particularly smug grin as he adjusted his position in the chair, his hind legs still firmly in place upon the desk.

“Unfortunately Miss Belle was unable to join us this afternoon, but as a token of appreciation for an old favour, she has kindly allowed us the use of her personal workspace. This is why it’s always good to make acquaintances before they gain any real stature, the very motto the Altruists themselves work to these days if I’m not mistaken.”

“Regardless, we are in a place of business, so straight to it then! I’m rather grateful that you passed a warning to my employees; I hear that they would have been in quite the conundrum otherwise. But, I’m particularly interested to know what you overheard before the Sentinel’s decided to interfere.”

I decided to get what I felt was the more important piece of news out of the way first.
“I heard a stallion and a mare, a couple, they seemed like they were members of a noble house. Ingot, the mare was called.”

Grapevine rested his hooves together and balanced his chin upon the point they formed. “Ingot... I’m aware of half a dozen mares of that name, and all of which hail from the House of Industry. Did the male give any inkling to his identity?”

“He was never named, although he must be a regular at the ring since the runner knew what to get when he asked for his ‘usual’.”

“Ah! That would be Lord Wrought Ferrous then; terrible anger issues that one, but luckily for us we sell just the right prescription for him. And by powers of deduction, that would make his partner the Lady Brass Ingot. Issues amongst the House of Lords are always a hot topic, do continue.”

“It seemed that they didn’t buy the story of Blueblood turning traitor, and that they were pushing to deny Rolling Thunder’s request to stop sending spies into the Motherland.”

Grapevine looked... slightly disappointed. “Predictable, even though they knew Blueblood far to well to believe his supposed defection they’re still afraid of sharing the same fate. I’d guessed as much already, although I suppose it’s nice to have confirmation.”

I’d thought that this had been serious news; it was a little disheartening for Grapevine to dismiss something I believed to be important so easily. What would he think when the only other information I had to offer was of the spoilt filly who doesn’t play nice?

“Was that all you gathered? I know that you’d barely had time to eavesdrop on a few carriages before the Sentinels made their move but I was rather hoping for more.”

I took a deep breath, praying that Nightshade wouldn’t tease me for weeks to come about this. “There was one other; although I’m not sure what they said was significant.”

A steely edge appeared in Grapevines expression. “I believe that I will make the decision of what is relevant and what is not Mr. Pathfinder, continue.”

“I heard some rich filly complaining about how she didn’t like to be seen with this singer, Flowing Mantra or something.”

Grapevine actually sat up slightly.

“Flowing Mantra came into the public consciousness after she unexpectedly replaced another act on an entertainment show viewed by hundreds of thousands. Her message of equality, promotion of the working class, and her sudden appearance all indicate that she might be a subtle propaganda relay for the Motherland. If this is the case, it’s highly important that you recall as many details as possible from the conversation.”

You’ve got to be shitting me. Grapevine was more interested in what a bratty filly had to say than a couple in the House of Lords itself? Had I made a seriously mistaken judgement call back then?

“Erm...”

Celestia-damned Brain, think! I could feel Grapevine’s expectant stare drilling into my skull as I desperately tried to recall a conversation I had almost completely dismissed.

“Erm... She was talking about how Mantra was trying to fit in with the rich group and she didn’t like it, she was planning to introduce her to a crowd that would somehow discredit her? And... and she was roping her maid or servant into helping her, Mrs Sweep I think she said her name was?”

“The Sweep family is wide and deeply spread amongst the Canterlot nobility in all manner of households. The filly. What was the name of the filly?”

Argh! I knew this one! I tried to imagine the ridiculous pink carriage I had clambered underneath, and the voice that came from it. The amazingly shrill, whiney, loud and irritating voice that I’d tried so hard to forget.

“it’s R-something Tiara!... Red? no... Regal? no...”

Grapevine finally took his hind legs off the desk and leaned forward in anticipation. “Ruby Tiara? Ruby Tiara, daughter of Lord Visage??”

Ding Ding Ding! We had a winner!

“Yes! Yes that’s the one!”

A rather predatory grin crept onto Grapevine’s face as he eased himself back into his chair.
“Ruby Tiara… Whose housemaid is Mrs. Clean Sweep. Quite the gambler if the rumours are to be believed, and if that filly is as annoying as I hear I’m sure Mrs. Clean Sweep would not have many real ties of loyalty to the family. Her relationship with Ruby Tiara requires further investigation, but if I play my cards right not only would I learn of Visage's intentions, I may even acquire an asset in the House of Culture itself, closer to the Chancellor of the Union than I’ve ever been!”

Grapevine said nothing for a while, he just stared over the top of our heads as he propped his hooves back upon the surface of the desk, his devilish grin still playing upon his features as his spoke again.

“What you witnessed was an insight into how the Union defends itself from more insidious threats. Lord Visage is well renowned for his eye for detail, and if he’s spotted a danger to the union in Flowing Mantra, a smear campaign would be the perfect defence for a public figure such as her. Of course it's entirely possible that she's just a normal mare who had a lucky break, but even then Visage and his house has significant investments in competing performers. Fame is fickle, and if she’s caught Visage’s gaze then Miss Mantra’s new found celebrity status will be her undoing.”

Grapevine produced a sack of bits just barely the right size to fit into my saddlebags if I split it in half and tossed it onto the table.
“It seems my investment in you was a wise choice Mr. Pathfinder, Information is a valuable commodity that can be sold or acted upon. These are for your trouble and for aiding Buckshot in his escape; the lost bits are insignificant in what it would cost in lawyer fees.”

Grapevine then turned his attention to the changeling in disguise sat next to me.
“Well then Miss Nightshade. What do you have to report?”

Nightshade had dropped her gaze before Grapevine had even turned to face her, and seemed quite content to speak at the nametag on the desk rather than look Grapevine in the eye.

“The Guild of Traders has lost a caravan on the outskirts of Ponyville, there were signs of battle, but both the caravan and the ponies that were guarding it have gone missing.”

Grapevine’s brow furrowed. “The Guild are a particularly honest bunch, it seems unlikely to me that they would have had any of their members turn renegade. But the route from their outpost to Ponyville is far from any dangerous wildlife, and there are no organised bandits or raiders in that area. This could be nothing, but I shall see if I can’t get a copy of the Guild’s investigation. Was there more?”

“Unfortunately not. The next carriage contained a group of party-goers who were heading to the bars for the night, and the final carriage had a mare inside who was incredibly excited to see The Six Companions with her new coltfriend, who apparently is ‘the perfect catch’. She’s probably in a Sentinel lockup by now.”

She must be referring to the carriage that had been swarmed by Sentinels as we had made our escape. I wasn’t sure if I should pity the mare who had been caught or not; yes it seemed like she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it was her decision to be there in the first place.

Only when Grapevine reached under the table did Nightshade lift her gaze again.
This no eye contact thing was really starting to bug me now, perhaps now wasn't the time to go hunting for the real reason when i was barely awake, but clearly i was missing something here.

Grapevine’s head emerged from under the desk as he tossed another bag of bits onto the table.
“I thank you both for your services. But before you leave, whilst I realise that it may be rather much for me to request your assistance again so soon, this task leans very much to your skillset. I have a package that needs recovering, and that is all. No theatrics, no danger, no sneaking into military compounds, it’s just a simple retrieval job.”

Just a simple job.

I really, really wanted to go back to bed.
And frankly, I thought that yes, it was rather much for Grapevine to ask me to do another job so soon.
But whilst I was trying to come up with a more civilised way of telling Grapevine where to stick his job offer, Nightshade beat me to the punch.

“We’ll take it.”

Wait, what?

No, no we wont! I still had a thumping head from the night before and was still kind of irate that Nightshade had woke me up in the first place.

“Ah this is excellent! I’m overjoyed at my ability to recruit such devoted employees.”
Grapevine said, as he pushed off the desk lightly with one hoof and his chair went into a slow spin. He waved a hoof lazily behind him as the chair came to rest facing the tinted glass window.
“You will find the details in the envelope on the desk.”

I drew in a breath to point out that whilst Nightshade and I were good friends, she did not dictate what jobs I would and would not take, but felt an invisible force clamping my jaw shut.
Suddenly I was a lot more awake than I had been when we first walked into the office, I looked over at Nightshade to see a faint lime green aura playing around her horn, and put two and two together.

Nightshade responded to my scowl with an ever-so-sweet smile that I only ever saw when she knew she had me over a barrel.
“Of course Sir, we will retrieve the package shortly.”

Will we now? As Nightshade rose from her seat and turned to leave with the envelope in her magic field, I still had my backside firmly parked in my chair. It was madness for me to take another job in my current state, it took far too much effort just to get up this morning, I wasn't leaving until I had asked Grapevine for a day to recover at least.

...And now I was silently being levitated towards the door. Celestia-damn that changeling and her magic tricks.
Only once she coolly closed the large doors to Grapevine’s ‘borrowed’ office did she finally put me down and removed her invisible binding from my mouth.

“Ok then Nightshade, what the hell was that? I don’t know about you, but I’m in no state to be running jobs right now!”
I didn’t know if the door was sound proofed or not, but even though I tried to keep my voice down, it was too hard to let slip that I was just a little bit pissed off.

“I did you a favour you stubborn mule!” Nightshade replied defensively. “You don’t get to waltz into a meeting with Grapevine both late and hung-over and expect him to be ok with it! If you had turned down that job, and I know you were thinking about it, he’d never give you work again.”

“Look, I get that I didn’t leave the best impression there, but what the hell were you expecting after a night like that? Even if I knew that I was turning up for an interview I’d still look a mess anyway.”

“You’d have been much worse if you hadn’t remembered that filly’s name! Listen to me when I tell you that Grapevine never stops watching you, I’ve been working for him ever since I came to Canterlot and I’ve never felt like I wasn’t being scrutinised by him the entire time!”

I bashed my hoof against the call button for the lift probably a little harder than I needed to. Whilst I was a bit pissed that Nightshade had decided to talk for me, I was even more irritated at the fact that I knew she was right. I’d gone in there and made a complete arse of myself, I knew I was better than that and would apologise later, but right now I just wanted to get this over and done with.

The elevator door’s ‘dinged’ to signal the arrival of the lift, but before the doors were a third of the way open they snapped back shut again right in front of Nightshade’s face, almost catching her nose like a mousetrap.

The lift made a further set of dings but refused to open again, and a small image of a trio of fillies hitting a large set of jammed gears was projected in red light onto the doors.
Below the moving pictogram of the fillies trying in vain to get the cogs moving again by hitting it with screwdrivers, an ‘out of service’ message flashed repeatedly,

It’s why Marephy’s Law was a law and not a guideline; if it could go wrong, it would.

I sighed to myself as I rested my head against the firmly shut doors, the hologram of the filly with a bow in her mane merrily hammering away with her screwdriver at the side of my skull. Perhaps I should just accept that this day wasn’t going to go smoothly for me.

“...Stairs?”
I asked the question aloud, with my head still propped against the metal doors.

“Other side of the building. Apparently the notion that his elevators could break down or that ponies would be fine with taking the stairs was insulting to the architect.”

Of course it would be, this was Canterlot after all, and Canterlot was designed to impress ponies, not be useful to them.

We headed around the back of the elevators and opened a much more simplistic set of doors into the meat of the Altruist’s Refuge; the recruitment floor.
A massive white expanse, everywhere you looked there were ponies sat at desks, either waving their hooves across the interactive projections in front of them, or pitching the recruitment offer to other ponies – many of whom looked like that had been picked right of the street corners.

We didn’t get many looks as we headed to the opposite corner of the massive room, as everyone their seemed to be focused on something, I could even catch snippets of the conversations going on around me as we walked.

“...Sir we would prefer it if you did not use that word, this is a binding contract to live within the confines of our rules that you willingly signed yourself...”

“...Can offer me? I graduated with a first class in Thaumatic Dynamics and the best you have is a Telekinetic Labourer??...”

“...Yes Ma’am, whilst you will receive no pay for your work for the first three years we will cover all of your living costs, and once we’ve helped you back on your hooves you will be legally required to donate a percentage...”

“...The court deemed you unable to help yourself Sir, and so we are obliged to help you. Either you can agree to our contract, or you will be facing jail time for the large debts you have amassed...”

Amongst all the background chatter a particularly loud unicorn stallion caught my attention.
“I severed this nation for eight years on the Watch! Eight years! And now you parasites want to send me to some Celestia-damned glue factory??”

“Sir, please try to keep your voice down.” The mare sat at the other side of the desk urged. “That unfortunate term comes from the power plant’s statement of ‘Being the glue which holds the Union together’ and has absolutely nothing to do with its function.”

Holy shit, I recognised this guy! I remembered back to a few nights before when I was making my escape from the Aerodrome - this had been one of the homeless ponies keeping warm around a burning barrel.

“I gave my eyesight in service to a nation I believed in! I can’t believe you’re doing this to me!”

“Sir, you were brought to us because you couldn’t pay your bills, and because of your disability we have no other positions to offer you.”

“Your damn right I can’t pay! As soon as I wasn’t useful to you leeches anymore I was discharged. No pension, no aid, nothing!”

That’s a story you heard often in The Hound. Not because it was a popular story to tell, but because the amount of bodies the Watch swallowed up and spewed back into the Union was tremendous. It was dangerous work, and if you couldn’t do it for any reason, you were gone.

“Its not even work at all Sir, you should consider yourself lucky. All you need to do is stand upon a siphon for a half-hour and that’s you done for the day! Then you can go home to the accommodation and food that we provide for you.”

“Stand around whilst you stuck the very magic out of me? Just so you can play with your fancy gizmos? I’ve spoke to the ponies that come out of that damn building, and they ain’t the same ones who went in.”

They may have been founded by the very embodiment of Generosity, but all that remained of Rarity’s legacy was a pristine, shiny, soulless example of her good intentions.
I had to feel sorry for the old buck as we found the staircase and began to descend to the bottom floor.
This wasn’t even a case of being dealt a bad hand, he had been royally fucked by a broken system.

This was why you never went to the Altruists of your own free will.
Indentured Servitude, Long-term binding contracts, legal obligations, however the they tried to spin it with fancy words and offers of good will, you would always lose.
Work for us or starve. Work for us or go to prison. Work for us or die.
Those were hardly choices if you asked me.

As we left the building and I tried to hide my rather obvious staring at the receptionists (Were they twins? they had to be twins.), we headed down a path that would avoid the main road, so that Nightshade and I could read our instructions in relative privacy and so that we didn't have to go walking down the street of shadows again.
She opened up the white envelope, which had a printed image of a black Zebran tribal style glyph that I didn't recognise on the reverse side.

“It appears our package is hidden away in the back room of a Shop n’ Drop. We just need to collect it, and take it back to the factory where you were introduced to Grapevine. Should be a cakewalk.”

That sounded easy enough, the industrial sector was only a stones throw away from my apartment. If we were lucky, I could be back home and in bed again within an hour or two.

“Which Shop n’ Drop is it though? There’s one on practically every other block, must be at least two dozen of them in Canterlot alone.”

“It’s the one near the Celestial Academy campus.”

I sighed internally. Of course it would be the one on the exact opposite end of town, I’d be lucky if I got home by nightfall at this rate.
At least there wasn’t a strict deadline, or someone chasing us, or state of the art security when we got there. I just had to resign myself to a long walk across tow before I could drag myself home.

We travelled the distance at a relatively steady pace, neither myself nor Nightshade were in the mood for our usual shenanigans, and the changeling led the way at a leisurely stroll.
To take my mind off our conversations, I let my attention wander as I looked up at the cityscape.
When you had time to take it all in, Canterlot wasn’t a bad city. Sure, it had its shady areas and dark secrets, but actually walking out in the daylight amongst normal ponies just going about their business, it was kind of relaxing.

Maybe I’d spent too much time in the dark running with the less noble crowd, being out in the sun for a change might do some wonders for my outlook on it all.
We walked in silence for the most part, there was only so much that idle chatter could cover before just talking for the sake of talking lost its charm.

I knew exactly why things felt a little awkward, and as we finally came within sight of the Shop n’ Drop we were interested in, I decided that it would be good to clear the air before we let the words in our argument outside Grapevine's office fester.

“Nightshade, I’m sorry for snapping earlier. I was tired and not thinking straight, but you were absolutely right and I owe you a favour after saving me from making an arse of myself.”

Nightshade carried on walking forward, but glanced an eye my way with a half up-turned mouth.
“If there’s one thing you know, its how to make an arse of yourself. Apology accepted; just wait for me before you start the cider flowing next time.”

“Mmm, I had offered Buckshot a round, but he was in more of a mess than I was. He’s not a bad stallion after all; either that or electrocuting a squad of Sentinels has a previously unknown ability to bring ponies together.”

Nightshade snorted to herself. “He asked you to put a good word in, didn’t he? One day Buck’ll learn to take no for an answer, but until then I’ll gladly take the free drinks he keeps sliding my way.”

This particular Shop n’ Drop seemed nigh on deserted at this time of the day, lunch hour had been ages ago and most of the students on the campus were still in class, even then that was assuming that the had enough bits to spare from alcohol and Celestia-knows what else to spend them in here.
I noticed a Locomoted carriage pulling up on the kerb just as we opened the front door, so atleast they would be getting some business today I supposed.

The small chime of the doorbell signalling our arrival caused the only check-out mare on duty to perk up and offer us a friendly wave, but her cheerful demeanour quickly vanished when Nightshade showed her the emblem on the back of Grapevines envelope. With her mouth firmly shut, she gave a particularly exaggerated nod to the opposite corner of the store.

It really was empty in here, infact the only other sign of life I saw was the lone pegasus stallion stocking the shelves at the far corner of the building, who was far too engrossed in his work to notice us slip into the store room.
The chime of the front door bell went off once more, just before the storeroom door softly closed behind us and deadened all noise from outside the rather cold and dingy storeroom.

“...The instructions from Grapevine say that we’re looking for a small package, about two hooves high, one wide, and really thin. It should be hidden amongst the Zanzebran Spices.”

Careful not to damage any of the glass bottles of cinnamon or black pepper, I dug my hoof around in several large cardboard boxes before brushing against something that definitely wasn’t a Zebrican spice container.

“Is this it?” I asked, pulling out a brown envelope. Turning it over the package it didn’t have any distinctive markings, other than the postage stamp which was an exact copy of the glyph on Nightshade’s envelope.

“Gotta be, that emblem there is Grapevine’s mark for this month, it’ll change to something different in a week or so to stay ahead of customs. Any idea what’s inside it?”

“It feels like a small book.” I said as I gauged the object in my hooves. “It could be a diary or journal maybe? Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure Grapevine wouldn’t appreciate it if we took a sneak peak, lets get it back to the industrial sector and then I can finally call it a day.”

Feeling rather happy that Grapevines small job had turned out to be exactly that, I walked up to the edge of the room and reached for the door...

BOOM!!

The tranquillity of the store room was shattered by an earth-shaking noise, and though the door stayed shut, shards and fragments of chipped wood shot into the room, catching my hide in a number of places and ripping open some shallow cuts across my body.

Dazed, I struggled to stay on my feet as my vision blurred for a moment and my ears were filled with the sound of an endless high pitched ringing, like if a filly were screaming as loud and high as she could right in front of your face.

The dizziness wore off almost as quickly as it had arrived, but the ringing was still going strong in my head as I looked around the room to try and figure out what the hell had just happened.

The door still stood in its frame, but the outside layer was showing massive splinters of broken wood , and several small equally shaped holes had punched right on through, letting a small amount of daylight peep into the storeroom.

If I had been stood just a few feet to my right…
Oh shit, Nightshade!

I wheeled around to find my friend still standing behind me, she looked like she hadn’t been hit with anything significant, but even with the small holes of daylight I could clearly see a fine dusting of red droplets covering her face.
She stood with one hoof pressed to her cheek, staring at the miniature spotlights in the store room door.

She wasn’t hurt, I could tell that much as I did a quick look over her to see if something had hit her that i hadn't seen, but if that were the case, then where had the blood come from?
Nightshade still hadn't moved, hoof still firmly in place on her face, eyes open wide as she breathed with rapid shallow breaths.

I looked back toward the door, it was still firmly shut, no-one had tried to come in. But as I tried to see if I could spot any movement out of the neat holes drilled into it, I saw a slowly advancing pool of liquid creep under the doorframe.
If I hadn’t been stood quite as close to Nightshade as I was, I might never have caught the barely audible screams coming out of her mouth with each shuddering breath.

My body had finally realised that now would be an excellent time for fight or flight, and as the adrenaline hit my system and clarity came to my head, I realised several things that had just happened.

One, someone had just fired a shotgun through the door we were hidden behind.
Two, if they hadn’t been using raspberry jam as a clay pigeon, then another pony had died on the other side of that door.
Three, my best friend was having a panic attack and if I couldn’t make sure that she stayed quiet, then whoever was on the other side would know we were in here.

Panic hit me with tidal forces as I turned around and gripped my friends shoulders, and as loudly as I dared I tried to get her attention.

“Nightshade! Hey, hey! Look at me, just try to keep calm ok? Try your best to stay calm.”

I could hear her screams becoming less silent with every haggard breath that she drew, it wouldn’t be long before they’d be loud enough for someone to notice if they were stood at the other side of the room.

“Nightshade, I need you to be calm, they may still be outside! Please, please try to keep quiet!”

I couldn’t tell if I was doing any good or not, Nightshade was hyperventilating and lost in fear. I drew her into a franticly tight hug in an attempt to bring her back to her senses.

“Shhh shh shh, We’re going to be fine, you hear me? Just take some deep breaths and come back to me, try and focus on your breathing and keep it steady ok?”

I was getting through to her, I could tell the instant that her screams turned into sobs as she buried her head into my neck. I held her tight and stroked the back of her head as she silently cried, unable to hold back her tears, but aware enough to try and be as quiet as possible.

We couldn’t have stayed like that for more than a few seconds, but it felt like hours as I was painfully aware that there was something outside our room that might find us at any moment. I was torn between consoling my friend and finding out if we were still in danger or not, Nightshade certainly didn't give the impression that she wanted to move, as she was clinging on to me with all her strength.

Eventually, the need to ensure that we were both safe won out, as I knew that all the reassurances in the world wouldn’t mean jack if someone actually came in here.

“Nightshade? Hey. I have to go see if anyone’s still there, ok? I need you to stay strong for me, can you stay here a while and keep calm while I see what’s going on?”

Nightshade didn’t say anything, but I felt her nod her head against my shoulder, telling me that she understood.
Even though I knew it was necessary, I still felt rotten as I gently set her down in the darkest corner of the room, and slowly crept my way back to the door.
I pressed my head against one of the undamaged sections of the door and listened.

...Nothing.

No hoof-steps, no cries of terror, nothing.

I then moved my head so that I was peeking through one of the miniscule holes in the door itself to get a look outside.
All I saw was the same store that had been there when we first arrived, everything was still stacked neatly on shelves, and there were no ponies in sight to speak of.

If I hadn’t been seeing this sight through a hole that had been drilled through a door by shotgun pellets, I would have thought that everything was normal.
I couldn’t get a larger field of view through the holes however; at some point I was going to have to open this door.

As quietly and slowly as I could, I nudged the storeroom door open.
It moved about two inches before it was caught on something on the other side, but allowed me a slightly better view of the store, where I actually saw the first signs that something was amiss; an upturned box with various objects that had been scattered in our direction.

Knowing full well what I was going to find, but dreading it none the less, I put my shoulder to the door and nudged it open wide enough for me to slip out.
I could feel myself pushing something out of the way, and heard the sliding noise of a large object being shifted across the floor.
Still seeing nothing out of the larger opening, I took a deep breath and stepped out of the storeroom.

Sure enough, lying in a heap on the floor just outside the door was the limp form of a pony. Judging by the few patches of colour where his fur hadn’t been soaked in blood, and the tattered mess of feathers, this had to be the pony I had seen stacking shelves earlier.
Where a large pool of blood had started to form under the door, there was now a red angular smear mark to show where I had pushed his corpse out of the way.

Fighting the nausea inside of me, i tried to disconnect from the stiuation be reducing what i saw to potential was that he got here.
He must have seen something and made a break for the back door, but a hail of lead pellets stopped him just before he could dive into the storeroom.

Whilst I couldn’t help but pity the poor guy, a much smaller and darker part of me was slightly relieved that he hadn’t made it in, or both me and Nightshade might have shared the same fate.
Better him than me a quiet voice said in the back of my mind.

Disgusted that I could even think something like that, I banished the thought from my conscious, and moved as silently as I could further into the store.
From here, I didn’t have the insulated walls of the storeroom blocking any sound, and could quite clearly hear the distress of the mare who had been working the checkout opening as many of the tills as possible, probably in order to give the bits they contained to whoever was holding the gun in this room.
I reached the end of the isle and trying to be as subtle as possible, I slowly peeked around the corner.

There was the mare from earlier, desperately shovelling as many bits as she could into a large black rucksack placed on the conveyor belt nearest to her.
To her left was a stallion with his back to me and a silver revolver in his mouth. He wore all black clothing and although he had a black balaclava over his head, I could clearly see his orange fur and red mane poking out of a gap in his outfit at the base of his neck.

Hang on, silver revolver?
There had only been a single shot fired against the worker who had tried to run, and that one shot had took him down and put several holes in the door at the same time.
That indicated a shotgun, not a revolver.

There was another armed pony in the building.

I backed away from the corner and checked behind me.
I wasn’t staring down a gun barrel, so that could only mean good things, but whilst I couldn’t see the second pony, I saw a clear trail of bloody hoof prints leading right from the storeroom door to me.
Shit, if someone saw that then they would know for certain that I was running around the store. Not good.

I double-backed along the shelf I had been hiding behind, and quietly edged towards the other end to check the other side of the building. I still couldn’t see anything, but I could hear some steady hoof steps moving through the aisles.
This had to be the second pony, but where the hell was he? I could hear him moving around but still had no idea where he was, I could turn a corner and bump right into him without realising.

I chanced a look all the way around the corner to see into the aisle that I hid behind, and still saw nothing.
Should I move up and try and find this guy? Or stay where I was? Maybe they’d leave, or maybe they’d find me and turn me into a wet stain on the floor before checking the storeroom to make sure I wasn’t alone.
I couldn’t take the risk of not doing anything; I had to start making decisions before the chance to be able to was taken from me.

I moved forward, but the instant I left my cover I spotted a flash of movement at the far end of the aisle. Heart in mouth, I pressed my back up against the end of the end of the row, trying to ignore the sound of my thumping heart in my head so that I could listen out for an approaching pony.
Noticing a crack between the boxes on the shelves, I realised that I could look into the aisle without exposing my head, and took a glance to see if anyone was coming.

There he was. At the other end stood a pony in similar black outfit and balaclava, but with a twin-stick type shotgun braced in his mouth. Two barrels in total, joined together by a horizontal grip in the middle, so that each barrel pointed forwards and the pony had one on either side of his head.
He was moving from the right to left side at the end of the aisle, right where I had been hidden not a few seconds ago.

Shit! He’s going to spot the blood trail!
That means he’ll follow it one of two ways, either back to the storeroom door, or if he was clever he would notice that the direction of the trail ran away from the door and around the corner, right to where I was currently hiding!
Even worse, I thought, if he was really clever he’d alert his buddy so that they would both hunt me down at once.

Regardless of what he did, I needed a weapon, and I needed one now.
I frantically looked around me trying to find something I could use, hopefully something sharp and pointy, or at least blunt and heavy.

I could hear hoof steps coming my way.

Shit Shit Shit!! Canned tomatoes, no. A glass of pickles, no. Cheese in a tube, when was that ever useful??

The steps were closer now and picking up the pace, he must know something’s amiss now.

Scissors! I grabbed them from the top shelf and bit onto the handle, pointing the blades out at a ninety degree angle from the right side of my head.
I wasn’t scared, I was down-right terrified.
It wasn’t even a case of me bringing a knife to a gunfight; I was bringing kitchen scissors against a pony who I knew was armed and very capable of killing others.
Shit, I’d been in a fight or two but I’d never actually killed someone before, did I actually have it in me to do this?

Maybe if I just tried to...

I didn’t get time to finish the thought as I saw the shotgun barrels point round the corner, and all rational thought was disconnected as instinct took over.
I swung my head to the right and upwards in an arc around the corner, and felt the points of the scissors I held in my mouth break through the resistance of flesh, tearing a bloody hole right through the other pony’s throat and into the back of his neck.

A warm splash of liquid hit my face as the shotgun fell out of the pony’s mouth and clattered to the floor, the rest of his body frozen stiff with shock.
I let go of the scissors and took a few shocked steps back on trembling knees, I couldn’t believe what I had just done.
The other pony couldn't either; he pawed helplessly at the scissors still lodged in his throat, unable to stem the flow of blood escaping from his neck.

I’ll never forget the look he gave me.
Although his face was masked and I never learnt his name, his expression will be forever burned into the back of my mind for the rest of my days.
It wasn’t a look of pain, or surprise, or even fear.
It was questioning.

Why?

“I’m sorry.” Was all I managed to whisper out before his eyes lost focus and he slumped to the floor.
My mind had completely shut down. I stood and stared at the pony whose life I had stolen.
Yes, it could be argued it was self-defence, and Yes it was almost certainly him who had killed the store worker earlier, but did that make it right?
I couldn’t bring myself to believe so.

“Oi! Did you slip or something back there?”

I didn’t know this voice, definitely male though.

Oh shit! The other guy!
If I was worried that he might have killed me beforehand I knew for damn sure that he would now that his buddies blood was smeared across my face.
I had to end this now, one way or another.

I walked over to the fallen robber and picked up his weapon. I’d never used a firearm before, but I’d spoken to Forty and seen enough footage of them on my light caster to have a basic idea of how to work it.
I broke open the barrels to see the rear ends of a shell in each tube, and snapped them back into position.
The safety was already off; I probably should have done this before checking for ammo, but I flicked it back on so that I could bite down on the horizontal grip between both barrels without accidently firing them, getting a taste of metal from both the grip itself and the iron in it’s previous owners blood.

“Hey! The hell are you doing back there? Get your ass back up here and watch the front!”

I could feel the split-button controls with my tongue. I could either fire the barrels individually, or fire both at the same time. I braced the guns in my jaw and moved around the side of the store until I could see the other pony with his revolver still pointed at the mare, although he kept flicking his head to his left side to see if his partner would come back.

Sorry, I might not have meant it to be this way, but you’re all alone now.

“Celestia damn-it we’re taking too long, the Sentinels will be here any minute, get back here you asshole!”

I was about halfway along the aisle, stood directly behind the pony with his revolver, both barrels of my shotgun levied at his torso. I could see glimpses of the mare every so often as she moved between filling the bag and emptying the next till in the line.
I could end this right now. One flick of my tongue, another dead bad guy. You’ve already killed one. The dark voice from the corner of my mind whispered. What’s one more?

But I’d never used one of these before, and I only had two shots. One should be more than enough, but what if I missed? Worse, what if I hit the mare by accident? I should move to a better spot, or at least get a bit closer. I had to make sure that I didn’t fuck this up.

It might be too late to change position now though, this guy was already starting to catch on that maybe his buddy didn’t have an accident and wont be coming back. If I wait too long he might see me as I try to move, and then things would get really messy.
I should just head straight for him, point a barrel in his spine and order him to drop his gun. That’s what a good guys supposed to do, right?

The stallion was getting more anxious every second that I waited, I needed to decide now before he looked behind himself and spotted me. If that happened there was a chance that everyone’s lives would be forfeit.

I bit the blood stained grip of my shotgun harder.

It’s time to make a call.

4. The Proposal

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Well, this certainly wasn’t how I had expected my day to go.

I was standing in a Shop ‘n’ Drop, a bloodstained shotgun in my mouth with both barrels pointed at the back of a masked robber. He didn’t know I was here, but had his own gun pointed at an innocent mare, and his buddy was lying in a puddle of his own fluids not far behind me with a pair of scissors in his neck.

In all honesty, I would have been perfectly happy to sleep through this entire day, but instead Fate had made other plans, and here I was.

I could end this right now, I had this guy dead to rights and he didn’t even know it.
I’d be lying to myself if I denied that there was a tiny sliver of morbid curiosity that had risen within me; some neglected recess of my mind that wanted me to hit both tabs of the split-button trigger in my mouth to see just how much carnage two barrels full of buckshot could cause.

Fuck, I was going to have to sit down and have a long talk with myself after this. I’m no expert on these things but I’m pretty certain that’s not a healthy thought to have.

No, I couldn’t just take this guy down, at least not from here. I could clearly see the mare’s head bobbing in and out of view on the other side of the masked pony, and a mistimed or badly aimed shot could obliterate both of them.
I was going to have to find a better spot, and then decide from there if I would get this guy to put down the revolver, or just drop him then and there.

Slowly, I started to creep my way towards the armed robber, taking care not to accidentally kick any of the occasional tins of food scattered around the floor.
It was only a few strides worth of distance, but it felt like the longest mile I’d ever walked as flicked my vision between checking to see if I wasn’t going to kick something by accident, and focusing on the back of the pony himself to make sure he hadn’t spotted me anyway.

Finally I had reached the end of the aisle and now that I had some space to move around in, I carefully started to side-step to my left, all the while keeping both barrels pointed at the centre mass of the robber in front of me. I wanted to get a clear shot that I was certain wouldn’t harm the mare, as I had no idea how wide the spread of pellets would be if I fired this thing, and needed to be sure that if I did use the weapon in my mouth that the bad guy was going to be the only thing it took down.

I was now stood at the masked pony’s eight o’clock, in full view of the mare who was still shovelling as many bits as she could into the oversized rucksack.
Great, I was half convinced that I wouldn’t hit the mare by accident from this position, but what the fuck did I do now?? I didn’t want to kill this guy, hell I hadn’t wanted to kill his buddy either but his blood was on my hooves all the same. If I spoke up and demanded that he drop his gun, would he just turn and fire on instinct? I was practically breathing down the guy’s neck; surely he’d notice if I got any closer.

In the brief moment that I was contemplating the weight of ending the life of another pony, the mare stuffing bits into the bag looked up.
I must have made quite the sight; just appearing from nowhere with shotgun readied and blood all over my face, as her eyes went wide in shock and the hoof full of bits she held tumbled to the floor. The flash of movement not only distracted my eye, but also caught those of the robber as his body instantly went stiff and he glanced over in my direction.

For a heartbeat my blue eyes locked into his magenta, and in that impossibly long instant, we both realised that we’d let our guard slip.

It was absurd, we both knew that we were armed and that we should act while we could, but for that tiniest fraction of a second as we stared at each other we stood frozen, shit scared for our lives and wondering who would make the first move.

As it turned out, he was apparently more used to this kind of situation than I was, and his face was lost in the bright flash of the weapon held in his teeth as he snap-fired over my shoulder.

The bark of the revolver and the feeling of displaced air rushing past the side of my head was a more than sufficient wake up call, and as I pushed down with my left hooves to dive back into the aisle I responded in kind by pressing the left button on the trigger in my mouth.
The shotgun roared as it spat flame and a volley of lead shot out of the left barrel; the recoil twisting my head to the side as I was mid-dive and causing me to land awkwardly on my side when I hit the deck.

I sprang back to my hooves and bolted down the aisle to the far end of the store. I didn’t know if I’d hit anything or not, and until I got myself behind something solid I couldn’t really give a flying fuck.

Apparently I’d missed the only bloody target I had been aiming at though, as a shot whizzed past me to strike a row of lemonade bottles on my right side, the crack of sound from the weapon ringing clear in my ears as the destroyed bottles fizzed up and sprayed both me and half the building in citrus flavoured soda.

Knowing full well that I was going to slip whatever I tried to do, I dropped down onto my stomach and slid across the remainder of the floor to the end of the isle, which turned out to be a great call as a second shot punched through the mist caused by the fizzing bottles and buried itself in the line of fridges in front of me.
I kicked off the fridges to change my direction as I reached the end of the aisle, and the sudden friction burn on my stomach told me that I was good to get back up on my hooves again.

My back finally against something solid, I shook my head out of the ‘flee for my life’ setting to try and think up of something clever to get myself out of this Celestia-damned building without having several holes drilled through my chest.
Not wanting to risk my head, I poked the right barrel of my shotgun around the corner and was rewarded by a face full of glass fragments and sweet and sour sauce as another shot destroyed some of the jars lined up on the shelf I was hiding behind.

Ok then, poking round the corner was a no-go, the guy clearly knew exactly where my head was and would gladly remove it from my shoulders before I could line up a shot.
Same thing would happen if I waited for him to come to me, he’d just have his eyes trained on this shelf the whole time and would pump some rounds into me the instant I tried anything.
All things considered then, this was a shitty place to be. Time to move.

I ran to my left, straight towards the nearest corner of the store, and took a left turn up the aisle at the end of the row. A quick dash to the next corner and I was now pretty much on the opposite side of the building than where I had just been, and was within hoof-reach of the main entrance.

A brief peek around the corner showed me that the other pony had changed position as well, but also that the mare was intact and hiding behind the tills.
That was great as far as I was concerned, I don’t think I’d have been able to live with myself if I had missed the only bad guy in the room and took her out instead.
My more immediate concern however, was that there was an armed pony in the building who wanted to splatter my brains over the nearest wall.
I had only one shot left in my shotgun, and I didn’t have the faintest idea where this guy could be.

Time to get clever then; I quickly ran over what I knew already to try and figure out a way to get myself, Nightshade, and the other mare out of here intact.
I could just bail right now; the way out of the store was right next to me. But that would meaning leaving the other two in the good graces of a pissed off gunpony, so that was not an option.

I had one shot left in the right barrel of my shotgun, so I wasn’t going to win a straight up fight as I was. But what if I could find some more ammo? This was a grocery store so I doubted they’d have any shells just lying around, but what about the pony I took down earlier? He’d have to be insane to rob a place and only bring two shells with him.

Actually, I knew for a fact he must have more ammo; he’d shot the pony stacking shelves earlier but when I’d picked up his gun both chambers were loaded, which told me that he must have some more loose shells on him.

Right, I had a basic objective now, which was something at least. I’d figure out what to do from there once I’d actually scavenged some more ammo.
I poked my head around the corner again just to see if it was still clear.
Yup, still no sign of the other pony. I could hear the crunching of glass under horseshoes so I figured that he had to be where I had been hiding earlier next to the fridges.

I started to move along the edges of the aisles, stopping at each end to carefully check that the coast was clear.
I spotted a bright red tail swish past the opposite end of the third aisle as I poked my head around the corner; he was definitely hunting me now, but at least I’d got the chance to see him before he saw me.

I picked up the pace as I neared my destination, feeling particularly vulnerable with having just one round in a weapon I really didn’t know how to use properly.
Not forgetting that it was a weapon that I’d only fired once at almost point-blanc range and yet had still managed to miss the only target in the room with.
Yeah, I really wasn’t confident in my ability to use this thing.

Scooting round the corner I spotted the shotgun’s previous owner, and trying really hard to not look into the wide open eyes of the pony I had killed only a few minutes before, I rummaged through every pocket that I could find in his black outfit.

I found a hoof full of red shells, but the majority of them were slick with the blood of their previous owner. I had absolutely no idea if that meant they would still work or not, but there was no way I was going to take that risk.
I took the lot, placing the bloody shells in one pocket and two of the decent shells in another, and broke open the shotgun’s left barrel to shove a clean shell inside.

So, I had a couple more shots now, but I still had to find a way to deal with the other pony in the building.

I did have one idea. It was dumb, it was risky, and it relied entirely upon the other guy being smart, but not so clever as to figure out what I was doing.
If I’d have had more time to really think it through I probably would have realised that it was a terrible plan actually, but I had nothing better to go with at the moment, so fuck it.

I poked my head around the corner of the aisle and had a clear view of the entrance to the building. If he had been following me round the corners like I suspected he had been, he should be in that corner right next to the door, and I promised myself that I would let him go if he ran.
As far as I was concerned this was the other pony’s unofficial chance to walk away.

If he didn’t run, well... I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

I was expecting the other pony to round the corner right next to the main door and had both shotgun barrels ready and pointing right at it, but unfortunately this guy had come up with other ideas.
He must have double-backed at some point; perhaps expecting me to try and charge him from behind, and his head poked out of the second closest aisle from me instead of from the other side of the room.

I’d like to say that I kept a calm head and adapted to the situation, but what I actually did was get the jump-scare of my life and fired my right barrel at his head in a panic.
He ducked back into cover just in time, as the shotgun belched flame and the cereal boxes just behind where his masked face had been exploded into a shower of shredded wheat flakes.

I frantically kept pressing the right trigger button, each time the hammer fell onto the spent shell with a loud ‘click’.
“Ah, fuck!” I shouted, the actual panic from my previous scare adding to the strain into my voice.
I abandoned my position on the corner of the shelf, and after a brief sprint, slid hind legs first into the still open storeroom door.

I twisted onto my stomach and got my shotgun barrels levied at the corner I had been hidden behind just as the masked pony rounded the bend, firing his revolver even before he’d gotten around the entire turn, hitting absolutely nothing both times.

He’d expected to find me out of ammo and either cowering behind the corner or running away to the other side of the building. It was when it registered that not only had his shots hit thin air but also that I was nowhere in obvious sight did surprise creep into his eyes as he realised his mistake.

I meanwhile, had a clean shot at a pony out in the open, and one shell still loaded in my left barrel.

Gotcha

A quick flick of my tongue and it was all over.
Once more the shotgun roared and spat lead shot, but this time some of the pellets found their mark.
Half a dozen holes spurted blood from the gunpony’s midsection, and he hit the floor with a cry.

The original hit of euphoria I got when my plan worked was intoxicating, but quickly faded into nothingness as I witnessed what happened next.

In the movies I’d seen back home on my light caster, when a bad guy got hit by a shotgun he just went down and instantly died; often with a spray of blood but usually with minimal fuss or drama.
In reality however, bleeding out was a relatively drawn-out process. It was slow, it was painful, and it was messy as hell.

If he had the strength, I was sure the pony would have been howling to the four corners of Equis, but all he could manage was a pitiful whimper as he tried in vain to get his hooves back underneath him. If I had been counting, I would have guessed that he had crawled about three feet in twenty seconds before giving up, eventually curling up into a foetal ball as though it would help numb the pain, and just lay there before letting out one final shuddering sigh. Only then did his body become lifeless.

And I watched the whole thing.
Frozen.
Scared.
Horrified.

I could clearly see the ruined bodies of the ponies that had entered this store tonight looking to make a quick bit, the slowly expanding pools of blood from the two was already starting to mix together.
I had done this. I had stolen the lives of two sentient beings, who with just a small twist of circumstance could have easily been me.
I didn’t exactly lead the life of a saint, who was to say that in a few weeks I might not be doing the exact same thing they had?
I didn’t know their motivations, their situation, or even their names.
But they had threatened me. So I had judged, acted, and killed them outright.

Who the hell was I to decide that? Who could possibly ever have the right to decide that?

I didn’t know how long I stayed there for, half my body hanging outside the storeroom, lying in the slowly drying blood stains of the shop attendant who’s limp form was still just on the other side of the door. I’d let the shotgun clatter to the floor long ago, I hadn’t even realised I’d dropped it until I noticed how much lighter my head had become.

I felt wretched.

I probably would have lain there on the floor lost in my own misery for a lot longer, had a face not poked around the corner of the shelves to look at me.
It was a lilac face of the mare who had been forced to stuff bits into the black rucksack, green irises small with a mix of caution and fear and her body highlighted by the red spotlights coming from outside the opaque glass of the store’s front windows.

She cast her eyes over the scene; the three bodies scattered around, the discarded shotgun, and the look on my bloodstained face.

She skipped the first questions that most people would have asked, mainly because the answers were right there in front of her.
Yes, it was over.
Yes, they were dead.
No, I was not ok.
And instead of doing what any normal and sane person would have done in that situation; bolt for the door, scream in terror, or break down in tears, she did something that I didn’t expect.

She tentatively walked over and offered a hoof to help me up.

I just looked at it for a moment, since part of my brain had completely shut down and I was trying to understand the meaning of the gesture.

“...Thank you” She said with a hushed voice “My names Foxglove, and I don’t want to think what could have happened to me if you didn’t do what you did. So, thank you.”

Maybe one day I’ll be able to forget what happened this day, maybe I’ll even learn to forgive myself for it; but I figured that I might have many more days in my life for self-pity, there was no need to waste any extra time right now.
With more effort than I thought I would have needed, I accepted her outstretched hoof and pulled myself up off the floor.

I checked back over my shoulder as I rose to see if Nightshade was in one piece. The package we’d originally come to collect was still lying on the floor where we’d dropped it when this mess kicked off, but my friend was nowhere in sight. She hadn’t left me here to deal with this all by myself had she?

I grabbed the package and started to check for Nightshade, but my attention was diverted when I heard a heavy ‘thunk’ from the main room. Someone from outside had tossed a glowing emerald through an open window, where it had bounced off a till and rolled across the floor to stop near where we were standing.

The light emanating from the face of the gem that was pointing directly upwards pulsed and the projection of a pony began to materialise in the light.
As the image became more focused, I recognised the bulky lines of a pony wearing a dark tactical vest, outfitted with smooth grey ballistic plates, and the trademark black cap of a Sentinel.

The gaze of the Sentinel swept the room, his eyes lingering on the three still forms scattered around the floor, before coming to a stop over Foxglove and myself.

Although the mouth of the Sentinel never moved, an echoing voice of a pony began to radiate from the gemstone, the glowing light of the emerald itself fluctuating in intensity as it spoke.

“Citizen, do not move. The building is surrounded by multiple units of sentinels, including the aerial brigade. There is no escape. Release your hostage and surrender yourself into our custody, or face the consequences.”

...

The holographic Sentinel continued to stare at me as I realised that my already shitty situation had just made another turn for the worse.

...

... Well fuck me sideways.

“You have exactly five minutes to provide your complete support or we shall employ any means deemed necessary to both bring the hostage to safety and to detain you. This is your first and only warning.”

“She’s not a hostage!”
“I’m not a hostage!”
We both shouted at the projection in near unison.

There was no way that I was going to let myself be taken down by the Sentinels for actually doing the right thing for once.
Any other night and I certainly wouldn’t have been able to claim innocence, but I was certainly going to milk it for all it was worth while I could.

“I just did your jobs for you and stopped these guys! They were sticking up the place and I defended myself, they would have killed us otherwise! They did kill him!” I pointed at the body of the stallion who had worked here, just the tip of his muzzle and am outstretched hoof visible from behind the door.

“Then if you are innocent as you claim, you will have no reason to not release the hostage immediately.” The voice replied in a reasonable tone, the features of the Sentinel still completely motionless whilst it spoke.

Sounded like a great idea to me, especially presented in a rational light, except that years of rumours and first hand experience had eroded any trust I had in the word of Canterlot’s authority.
Chances were the only reason I wasn’t currently catching a dozen bullets in my teeth was because the innocent mare who worked here was stood right next to me.
The mare in question looked sickly at being reminded of her dead colleague, and was obviously wanting to get away from here as soon as she could, but she seemed to have come to the same conclusion that I had.

Although I’d love to get Foxglove as far away as possible from this shitty situation, I needed some kind of reassurance that I wouldn’t be blown away the instant she stepped out the front door.

“As much as I like your logic, I’m sure the ponies in the neighbourhood could think of a few good reasons why it wouldn’t go well for me. You guys aren’t exactly famed for your sense of community spirit around these parts. How the hell do I know that your buddies aren’t going to shoot me the instant she walks?”

The image of the Sentinel glanced over his shoulder, as though he were listening to someone else speaking in the background.

The voice from the crystal resumed speaking just before the Sentinel’s head turned back to face me; a more natural appearance on his face as opposed to the ‘I am the law’ look fixed upon his features during his initial speech. Perhaps he was starting to find my story more plausible.

“Aside from my word as a Sentinel of the Celestial Union that you will be unharmed if you co-operate, there isn’t much more in the way of verbal reassurance that I can give to you. I can guarantee however, that you will be brought in with force if the civilian stood next to you is harmed in any way.”

Well that didn’t help much.
Hearing some of the stories that were circulating The Hound about the Sentinel’s conduct during their quelling of protest groups at the start of the year, the sincere word of a Sentinel didn’t carry much weight these days.

“I don’t want reassurance, what I’d like is honesty. And since I can’t put my faith in the word of a Black Hat just because he says I should, I’d like you to level with me. What’s actually going on out there?”

The holographic form of the Sentinel pondered this for a moment before breaking eye contact and gazed off in several different directions. Although it looked to me like he was looking at random points in the room – the hologram even clipped through some of the items on the shelves as it moved its head – I knew that the pony the crystal was showing us must be actually looking at the assembled teams around the building.

“... Well the pegasi and unicorn strike teams are raring to go; their pride took a bump recently because the fliers got outfoxed and a spell slinger ate a dustbin lid last night...”

Whoops.

“... But the guys running the show don’t have anything to prove, so they’re keeping everyone in line for now. If I were you I wouldn’t wait too long before making a call though, they’re looking pretty pissed and will only get more so the longer you delay.”

That certainly didn’t bode well for me. I supposed I’d just have to hope that none of the Sentinels would recognise me from the raid last night, or I might be on the receiving end of some ‘excessive force’.

To my surprise Foxglove spoke up for me.
“So say you were him, how would you handle this? As much as I’d like to I can’t say that I put much trust in those guys outside either, we’d just like you to help us both.”

The sentinel was silent for a moment. The fact that Foxglove was speaking for me had shattered any remaining conception that she was being held against her will; but he was obviously deciding whether helping me would get Foxglove out safely, or just give me a better awareness of where the strike teams would attack from and put up a stronger fight.

“... Ok, how about this; you let her walk out of the building, but I won’t tell my guys until she’s nearly out the door anyway. If you do that, I can talk you through what’s the best position to be in when they enter the building, so you’ll not be giving them any reason to be overzealous.”

Urgh... That still left me entirely hanging upon the good word of a Sentinel and his buddies. I didn’t like it. Not one bit. But what else could I do?

“Hold on.” The hologram shifted its weight as though someone had just bumped into him, the pony moving back into full view with a slightly irritated edge to his voice “A camera crew has just shown up. You wanted reassurance; there it is. There’s no way in Tartarus that the guys are going to try anything excessive whilst they’re being filmed.”

The Sentinel’s words were punctuated by raised voices coming from outside the building, what sounded to me like a mix of shouted questions as well as orders for ponies to stay back.

I might as well make use of that while it was there, I didn’t want the incredibly irritating distraction that the press wagon gave me to be told to shove off. As much as I hated to admit it, the Sentinel was right in that this was the best time to act, his colleagues would be less inclined to bash my face in if they thought a film of it would be shown live on the evening news.

“Right, fine, ok then lets just get this thing over and done with please?” I exasperated.
I really, really just wanted to be back home in bed right about now.
“Foxglove, are you alright with this?”

She shot a glance over her shoulder, head slightly dropped but with a half-hearted smile for confidence on her face as she made her way to the front door.
“You’ll be fine, I know it. Just um... good luck, ok?”

“Yeah, luck. Some of that would be handy.” I muttered to myself as she slowly starting walking to the exit and I turned my attentions back to the holographic Sentinel. “Right come on then, talk to me. What should I be doing?”

“Flyers are going to come in from the skylights, and the unicorns will be punching some new doors through the main window. I suggest you stay in the open but don’t stand near or underneath any windows.” The Sentinel appeared to relax a little as I moved to a good spot in the building, which happened to be almost the mid-point between all three bodies still on the ground. This was certainly one fucked up place to be standing in, but I had to trust that this guy was actually trying to help me.

“Good, now you don’t want to look like a threat of any kind so take off your saddlebags and toss them into the corner, then lie on your back; hooves in the air.”

You’ve got to be shitting me. “Should I add to the effect and put an apple in my mouth? Tie myself up? I’m sure there’s a silver platter or at least a tea-tray or something in here I could lie on too.”

“The floor will do just fine.” At least I’d gotten a slight smirk from the hologram. “Oh, but you might want to cover your eyes with at least a hoof or something; these guys aren’t going to be playing around and it might get a little... intense.”

I really hoped this guy was trying to pull my leg, I already felt ridiculous lying on my back with my legs just dangling about in the air.
“This isn’t helping ease the stress you know!”

“You’ll be fine, I’d like to say that they’ll go easy on you, but I’m not too sure about that, they’re pretty tightly strung at the moment.” The Sentinel glanced over to the main entrance to make sure that Foxglove was nearly out.

“You’ll be fine though. Try to keep calm, do as they say, and don’t look like you might attack them.” Before I could get another word in however the Sentinel shouted over his shoulder, his mouth actually moving when he said the words this time. “Alright boys, hostage is coming out!”

Even before he’d finished speaking several small objects were hurled through the skylights, and the front windows of the store shattered as multiple shockwaves bent the glass inwards and turned it into razor sharp fragments.
I quickly threw a hoof over myself, not wanting to get any extreme close ups of flying glass shards in my face as the Sentinels employed some good old fashioned shock and awe.

You know what? Some days, my life could go fuck itself. Seriously.

I felt more than heard the detonations going off around me, mainly because my ears were already ringing with painfully loud static, and even with my eyes shielded and practically welded shut my vision was filled by a piercing white flash as the objects that had been thrown into the building exploded with concussive force.

I’d been so disorientated by the assault that I hadn’t even realised it when the pegasi came smashing through the skylights to land on the floor around me, when my vision started to return it was filled with the face of a female pegasus wearing a partially enclosed black helmet, the narrow slits for the glowing blue eyes of the helmet and her yellow mouth shouting in my ear being the only things I could see.

“GETDOWNGETDOWNGETDOWNGETDOWN!!!”

Bloody hell lady, can’t you see that I’m already down?? Chill the fuck out!

“STAYDOWNSTAYDOWNSTAYDOWNSTAYDOWN!!!”

Oh, apparently she could. She still didn’t have to be such an arsehole about it though. – I thought dimly to myself as her team mate slapped a set of hoof clamps onto my outstretched legs, the powerful magnetic forces in the clamps snapping all four of my legs together and rolling me onto my side.

“Everyone sound off!”

“Clear!” came multiple calls throughout the building, and whilst the majority of the ponies kept a watch around the perimeter, A white earth pony stallion with a trimmed dark blue mane wearing the standard sentinel gear climbed through the shattered front window, and was joined by a unicorn and the pegasus who yelled in my face as he approached me.

“Citizen, you are under arrest for suspected equicide and attempted robbery. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court.”

“In other words; your nicked.” The yellow pegasus chipped in, an upleasant smirk across her face

The stallion, who I presumed to be the pony I had communicated with through the gemstone earlier merely rolled his eyes at her remark.
“...Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand these rights?”

“I would have done if you guys hadn’t chucked a crate full of flash bangs at me” Is what I wanted to say, But I just nodded a confirmation as I really didn’t want to piss these guys off; the pegasus looked like she’d happily claim I was resisting arrest and take a few more chunks out of me for good measure.

I’ll say this about the way the Sentinels get suspects into their locomoted carriages; it’s undeniably effective, but undignified as hell.
I was held aloft in a unicorns magic field by the clamps on my legs, hooves in the air and my body swinging around as I was carried out of the building like some kind of rabid animal, the Sentinels around me not wanting to get any closer to me than they absolutely had to.

Then again, I supposed if I had to look after a pony I’d found surrounded by bodies and covered in blood, I might have had some reservations about getting too friendly with them as well.

Unfortunately for me the camera crew didn’t seem to share those same reservations.

I squinted as an incredibly bright light from the imbedded opal fixed to the news crew’s recording eye was shoved as close to my face as they could get it, all the while reporters and random bystanders bombarded both me and the Sentinels with questions.

“Who are you, why have you done this??”

“Did he put up much of a fight?”

“Why are you covered in blood, what did you do in there??”

“Hey look at me! Tell me why you killed those ponies!”

The yellow pegasus mare pushed her way forward and eagerly positioned herself between me and the recording eye, raring to jump into the proverbial and literal spotlight.
“Everyone please, I led the strike teams which brought down the suspect, you may direct all of your questions to me.”

The media team quickly shifted focus to the pegasus, the mare herself basking in the attention as I was carted away and thrown into the cramped and dark confines in the back of a Sentinel carriage.

Celestia damn it, why couldn’t we have left this job for just one more night? I had no idea what was going to happen to me now. I had killed two ponies but I should be able to get away with self-defence if I had to, what was truly concerning was if they thought I had started the whole thing and took out the worker as well.

And on top if all that I had to worry about Grapevine’s package. It was still in my saddlebags that I had taken off in the building before the Sentinels stormed in. If they recognised Grapevines symbol or if there was anything incriminating inside of it I was well and truly buggered.

We travelled in silence to the Sentinel’s main station in Canterlot. I had guessed that it would be our destination, but I didn’t know for sure until we arrived and I was dragged out of the back of the carriage and carried into the building.

I think I’d have much rather ended up back at the Altruist’s Refuge then here. I’d always considered the possibility that I’d get caught on a job - it would have been incredibly arrogant of me not to believe that there was a chance it could happen - but I never thought much about what I’d do if I was ever brought in.

The media wagon must have called up all its friends, as a massive contingent of reporters from various organisations were waiting around the main stairs into the building, there to point bright lights at me and shout more questions or just general abuse in an attempt to get me to look into their recording eyes.

I’d seen packs of feral diamond dogs in the city slums that acted less like vultures than these ponies.

I spent the rest of that night in a cell (or was it the morning? There were no clocks on the walls to tell me the time), the only things in the room being a sapphire powered water fountain, toilet, and a hard mattress that had been enchanted to stick to the floor and couldn’t be moved no matter how hard I tried.

There really wasn’t much of the room for me to explore, it had everything in it to make sure I wouldn’t die of thirst or shit myself overnight and that was it. White walls, a solid steel door with a viewing slot, and a blue floor with a tacky pattern on it that looked like it would be really easy to clean up any mess that might be spilled on it.

As I took in my surroundings I noticed that I was being watched by the soft red glow from the building’s security matrix. I took some comfort knowing that it was a semi-sentient gemstone in the top corner of the ceiling that was constantly watching me and not another pony, although I couldn’t say for sure if someone was using the matrix eye to keep tabs on me, which was a little discomforting when you were debating on whether to use the bathroom or not.

No dignity for the accused it seems.

I settled down on the bunk and decided to call it a night, I’d already taken the time to try and wash as much of the blood off myself as I could– there was no mirror next to the fountain so I was sure I had missed patches; I could still feel some knots and clumps in my fur that were too stubborn to remove with just water.

Tomorrow I would find out what the hell would happen to me, but right now the only thing I could care about was getting some shut-eye and getting this particularly shitty evening over with.

_____________________________________________

“Get up, scum!”

Ah, it’s going to be one of those days then.

I raised my head to be greeted by the open cell door with the yellow pegasus mare from last night stood in the doorway in the standard black cap and ballistic vest of the Sentinels.
“Someone’s been told that they need to see you, and I’ll very happily kick your arse out that cell and down the hallway if you keep me waiting.”

She’d have been quite attractive I thought, if it weren’t for the fact her face looked like it was constantly sneering; her pupils slightly smaller than normal as if she was hoping that I’d put up a fight.

I figured that rising to the bait wouldn’t do my long-term survival any favours, and I tried to resist running my mouth as I fell in line behind her as she lead me through the building.
I’ve just never played well with ponies who take advantage of their power, and a lot of stupid things tend to come out of my mouth when I’m in the presence of someone I thoroughly despised.

I noticed that there was a large amount of full cells as we walked through the block, a lit ruby above all the closed doors indicated which held occupants and which did not. The whole block felt eerily quiet as we walked through it however, and I assumed that each cell must have a sound-deadening spell placed upon them or something, there was no way that a building housing this many incarcerated ponies could be so peaceful.

I turned my eyes forward again to find the mare looking back at me, open contempt in her voice and features.
“I don’t know who you think you are but you’ve kicked up a hell of a lot of attention after last night. And as much as I’d like to see you getting mauled by all the press at the front desk, we won’t be taking the lifts at the entrance.”

What a fine exemplar of Sentinel authority. I might have to send this mare a bouquet of flowers, and perhaps a parasprite or two.
Despite the pegasus's abrasiveness, I followed her out the cell block and into the main building.
As we passed through multiple rooms showing many different scenes of daily life in the station, I got to see the inner workings of the Sentinel’s main centre of operations.

A mare with tattered and greasy hair in the process of being restrained was shouting so many expletives at the Sentinels trying to get her under control, I actually learned a few new curses that up to this point I had never known existed.
I had to give her points for creativity at the very least, as she was bodily dragged kicking, biting, and screaming to the cells.

We took a path through an office not too dissimilar to the one I observed from the skylights of the Aerodrome; ponies hard at work hidden behind obscenely high dividers so that there would be no distractions from the task at hand, many of whom were tapping away at interactive holograms or communicating with Sentinel patrols.

Where the hell were we actually going? I was being lead up the floors of the building but my guide hadn’t spoken for most of the time, the exceptions being when she would turn to fire a venomous stare or snide comment in my direction whenever I voiced a question.
Did I mention that I didn’t like this mare much? I really, really didn’t like this mare.

We must have been just a floor away from the roof when we finally stopped just outside the entrance to an office larger than my entire apartment, the words ‘Chief Constable Raffica’ imbedded in the frosted glass window of the door.

“I’m meeting the Chief? Well that seems highly irregular” I remarked upon reading the name, and was rewarded for my observation by being shoved against the opposite wall by the pegasus, one of her hooves pressing the side of my head into the painted cinderblocks.

“Your fucking right it is, I have no idea what strings you pulled to get up here you fuck but you listen close when I tell you that I’ll gladly break every bone in your body when I get called to bring you in again. Are we fucking clear?”

Who knew you could put so much anger into a whisper? I certainly didn’t until today. All I had to do was just keep quiet until the crazy mare calmed the hell down and then...

“Sweet Celestia lady that’s a lot of pent-up anger, did daddy not love you enough as a kid or something?”

Brain to Mouth, Brain to Mouth come in please – The hell did you just go and say that for?

Her hoof grinded against my head as she put more pressure on and leaned in closer.
“Keep talking you disrespectful fucker, I’ll gladly crush your face into paste.”

I need to realise when to shut the hell up sometimes, really I do.
The sound of approaching hoof steps caused her to finally take her hooves of the side of my face and stalk off into the building, not wanting to even risk the slimmest chance being caught getting physical with a suspect.

Bloody hell; nasty and not completely thick, I hoped that I wouldn’t have to tangle with that one again anytime soon.
The pair of ponies who rounded the corner carried on walking down the hallway oblivious to what had occurred, leaving me alone and standing in front of the door of the station’s Chief Constable.
Something was definitely off about this; it was time for me to get some answers.

Chief Raffica was a unicorn who appeared to have reached his own personal peak a few years back. A unicorn with a receding cyan hairline and orange fur made pale by the occasional grey strands, the slightly longer and more defined jaw line hinted that he came from a family which was not native to the Union. His physique suggested that once he had been a powerhouse, although accepting a job behind a desk had softened the edges slightly.

He was engaged with his own holographic projection as I entered the room, but swiftly shut it down when he saw who it was that had entered his office.
He nodded over to the empty chair resting against the wall to his right, but did not say anything at first as I sat down, likely trying to come up with his own measurement of me.

He just stared at me for the longest time, hardened bright yellow eyes scanning me for some quality to give him a better idea of exactly what kind of pony he was dealing with.
“... Do you know why you are here?”

Was I back in middle school or something? This felt like I’d been sent to the headmaster for misbehaving again.
No Sir, I hadn’t called Breadstick a fuck-ugly mule again Sir.

Why was I here though? The obvious answer was the shit-storm that went on last night, but they wouldn’t bring someone up to meet with the Chief Constable just for that.

Could it be for something I’d done in the past? As a general rule I tried to keep as far away from the Sentinels when I operated as possible, and often left a very light footprint behind me. If they had something on me they would have tracked me down and brought me in a long time ago.

“Honestly? I really don’t have a clue in the world.” I answered truthfully. I got the feeling that there was a bigger picture hidden somewhere, and I was only just being shown the tiniest corner.

Chief Raffica seemed satisfied with that answer, as though I’d passed some unspoken test.
“That massive fan club of jackals wearing Canterlot Network tags at the front door is waiting for you by the way. How they caught on so quickly or why they think this is a story at all is beyond me; ponies die all the time in the capital. And they’re surprisingly good at it too, so it’s rarely newsworthy.”

Raffica leaned forwards to place his hooves on the desk, his chair creaking slightly as he shifted his weight.
“You might understand what’s going on better if we start at the very beginning I think. What do you know of the Sentinels?”

“As in like, the whole thing?”

The Chief nodded a confirmation.

“Ok, that’s a big question then. Um, well you guys used to be the Royal Guard until everything hit the fan with the fall of the Gods, and when Celestia took off she left you lot behind to keep the whole country in order and enforcing the law. But since you weren't actually guarding any royalty anymore the nobles re-organised the whole structure to serve the Union instead. That about sum it up?”

Raffica stood up from his desk and turned to look out the large window behind him, an impressive view of the sprawling city of Canterlot in the morning daylight.
“... The ponies of the Union despise us.”

“Well no shit.” Is what I wanted to say, but turns out I might have just learned something from my run in earlier and kept my mouth clamped shut.

“The Sentinels are a paramilitary more than a law enforcement group, one that nobody asked for at the time, but ever since Celestia left in self-exile Canterlot has had nothing better.”

“Regardless of the performance of this organisation, the fundamental principle that the Sentinels were founded upon is that we’re merely keeping the seat warm for Celestia. And as long as we exist, ponies know it is because she still hasn’t returned to us. For that reason we can never truly be respected, only feared.”

“I reckon it’s more because of your blunt application of the law, violence, and scare tactics if you ask me.”
Well I might not have learned as much as I thought, so it seems.

Surprisingly for me it turns out that ramming someone’s head into a brick wall isn’t the base instinct of every Sentinel when they get spoken back to. I did get a disapproving look however.

“We enforce the letter of the law and keep the peace above all else. But it seems that merely doing our jobs isn’t enough for some ponies.”

The chief sighed and sat back at his desk.
“If I had any say in it you would be cast back out onto the street since the store’s security matrix proved that you acted in self-defence, but the matter has been taken out of my hands.”

“After your stunt last night it seems that you have caught the attentions of powerful figures, people that seem to think that you are what the public need to restore their faith in the chosen authority of the Celestial Union.”

Uhhh, what?

“Someone much further up the chain than I has decided that the Union needs a figurehead; a relatable public face for the Sentinels to improve our image in the eyes of the public.”

“... And out of everyone in the Union you guys picked me?”

A slight tone of disgust crept into Raffica’s voice.
“As I stated, I did not have any say in it. I think the whole idea is madness, the fact that the Sentinels maintain order alone should show the public that we are on their side, but apparently the common pony feels like they are entitled to more than that.”

“Right, hold on a second, can I just make sure that we are both on the same page here?”
I asked, trying to decipher if this was a massive joke with an insane amount of setup. If it were then the punch line had better knock it out of the park.

“You, the Sentinels, want me to work for you as your poster boy?”

Gritting his teeth slightly, Raffica nodded.

“Would you be offended if I told you guys where to shove that idea?”

The Chief snorted.
“Believe me the feeling is mutual. Whilst your file is clean you are listed as a known associate to a multitude of undesirable people. Although that in itself is not a crime, it raises suspicions as to how you became to known to so many of Canterlot’s criminality.”

I had a file? That can’t be good.
“Yeah, I think it’s pretty clear then that we know this is a dumb idea for both of us, I’m not working as a Black Hat.”

Raffica reached under his desk and pulled out something rather familiar. Although I knew these things were manufactured in huge numbers, seeing the unmistakable lilac and blue hue of a holo-crystal did make my heart skip a beat like I’d been caught with my hoof in the cookie jar.

“I was given this to present to you. I was ordered not to view it as it is set to shatter after what it contains has been seen, so I don’t know what it holds. However, I have been told that you are to view it, and that you would change your mind once you had.”

This definitely wasn’t good. I wanted to just lob the thing out the window and get the hell out of here before I was roped into more insanity, but the rational side of me knew that I didn’t have a choice.
I had to see what was on this thing, I didn’t know what the consequences could be if I ignored it, and I needed to find out who was trying to play me and how.

With some trepidation I reached forward and picked up the crystal, feeling the soft heat radiating from the construct.
I knew that this was going to suck, but I brought the crystal to my head all the same.

_____________________________________________

I looked out from the view of a recording eye into an almost pitch black room, the only visible thing in sight being the backlit form of a pony, his face and body was shrouded in darkness but his outline was defined by an aura of soft light.

Well isn’t this nice and melodramatic?

“Pathfinder” The figure spoke with a voice that had been altered with magic to hide the true sound of the pony talking, the pitch of the sounds fluctuating through each sentence but maintaining a generally deep tone. “You will be watching this in Raffica’s office and so he is likely present with you. This recording is for your eyes only and so should not be discussed with the Chief Constable under any conditions.”

“In the event that he has not made you his offer before you were told to watch this, I shall state what I want from you.”

“After your demonstration last night I saw an opportunity to increase the standing of the Sentinels in the eye of the public. The media will portray you as a hero for acting above and beyond the call of a normal citizen of the union, and will make it so that the public expects you to join the Sentinels to make them more favourable and relatable.”

That much had been made clear to me already, except that this guy must have some serious ties to the press if he thought he knew exactly how they would act. But if this pony knew who I was he must also know some of my background, and so would have some card to play to make me even consider becoming a Black Hat.

“You will do everything in your power to fill this role that I have assigned to you. If you refuse to co-operate, the following footage will be sent with top priority to the Sentinels and the Canterlot News Network.”

My viewpoint snapped to a scene overlooking Canterlot city in the dead of night, the purple crystalline tint from the streetlights highlighting the building faces.
A cold chill ran down my back as I took in the large open area complete with landing pads, floodlights, and runway as I realised exactly what I was looking at.

Canterlot Aerodrome.

The blood froze in my veins as I spotted a lone shadow sprinting across the landing pads. The matrix eye which was providing the perspective spotted it shortly after, the crystalline lens zooming in and changing the spectrum of light it was recording with, until clear as day I could see myself running for all I was worth.

Sticking to the shadows had been smart but had done me no good, the matrix was able to see me clearly enough to identify both myself and the light signature of the holo-crystal I was carrying in the left pocket of my saddle bag.

Whoever this guy was, he knew that it was me who had stolen state secrets.

Was it possible for your heart to stop whilst you were viewing one of these things? It certainly felt to me like mine had decided to give it a go and was trying to find out.
I was still stunned by this revelation as the feed from the matrix eye cut out and I was sent back to the view of the hidden pony again.

“You now understand the implications of refusing to collaborate. You will accept Chief Constable Raffica’s proposal, and you will endeavour with every fibre of your being to fill the role that I require of you.”

Oh fuck me, this isn’t happening!

“Do this until I believe that your usefulness has run its course, and I will ensure that the recording is destroyed and you will be rewarded with a position of power within the Celestial Union.
Fail and you will be hunted for the rest of your days, until you are inevitably cornered and shot for treason against the state.”

Celestia, I know I’ve not always been a good pony, but I could really use some help here old girl!

“This message shall destroy itself upon a complete playback. Do not disappoint me, Pathfinder...”

_____________________________________________

I came back around in Raffica’s office, still sat upright and with sweat running off my brow into my eyes.
I felt the pulverised dust that used to be the holo-crystal filter between my shaking hooves.
I must have looked a sight, as Raffica himself had the most peculiar look upon his face as he watched me.

Do you know what the funny thing about freedom is? You never notice it. You can’t see it or measure it because it’s always just there. It’s one thing to know when something is taken for granted but only will you truly know what that means when it is suddenly yanked away from you.

Any plans you made for your life? Gone.
Any achievements you had accomplished? Out the window.
Imagine that all of your hopes and dreams have been taken away from you, and are now suspended above your head like a carrot on a stick.

I hadn’t even noticed or cared about how awkward the silence must have become until Raffica spoke.
“So, do we have an agreement?”

“...Agreement isn’t the word I’d use.” I said with a tremor in my voice. I hadn’t realised how dry my throat had become. “But we have an understanding.”

I can’t believe I’m going to say this…

“I’ll do it.”

Raffica nodded his acknowledgement and got up to leave.
“Then I suggest that you stay here a while and collect yourself. An officer will be along in a few minutes to take you to speak to the press.”

I really didn’t have anything else to say at this point. I was completely focusing on my breathing so that I wouldn’t chuck my guts up all over the carpet.

Halfway out the door, Raffica turned towards me.
“Although I’ve never been more reluctant to say this; welcome to the Force.”

In, Out,

In, Out.

Don’t think about how messed up this whole thing was, just breathe.

In, Out.

In...

“Excuse me? I’m to take you downstairs to the conference.”

Oh come on, you said I’d get a few minutes to think! That was a few seconds at best!

Perhaps it was a bit foalish of me to kick the chair across the room when I got up, but after everything that had happened yesterday and everything that was still going on today I really wasn’t in the best of moods.

I wasn’t even looking where the Sentinel was going as I got up and followed him; frankly I had more pressing things to be thinking about, namely how the hell I was going to be able to get out of this mess. So it came as a bit of a surprise when he led me into an empty office on the other side of the building and shut the door behind us.

Oh joy, I couldn’t wait to add more complications to my already massive pile of problems.

“Right we don’t have long so just listen to me. Grapevine knows what went down last night and has a good idea of what you’ve been asked to do.”

Of course Grapevine had a Sentinel or two in his pocket. Combine this with the way that they had just signed me up to the cause, it’s no wonder that the organisation was getting a load of flak from bad public opinion.

“He wants you to know that whilst he doesn’t blame you for what went on, you are not to attempt to contact him or anybody else in his organisation until this plays out, got that?”

Great, my employer had blacklisted me. It was to be expected really but I’d have thought he would at least wait until the day after to get in touch.
I guess that meant that Nightshade had reported back to him, and also that I couldn’t go looking for her myself. Maybe he was worried what I’d say when I found her.
Right now, I honestly didn’t know what to think about her. We’d been friends for a long time, partners for longer, and it didn’t seem right for her to just take off and leave whilst I was fighting for my life.

“Also, the buyer for the package you were sent to collect has pulled out since there was so much heat around the job. Grapevine says it’s yours to do with as you will, but if you want to get rid of it leave it taped to the lid of one of the dumpsters outside the Altruist’s place. Have you got all that?”

Oh goody, a mystery prize. I was hesitant to call it a silver lining in all this since I might have just received the box with half a bit in it. I’ll decide what to do with it later.

“Yeah, I was listening.”

“Good, let’s get moving then, I don’t want people wondering where you’ve got to. Have you thought about what your going to say to them all? It’s a pretty big mob of ponies out there.”

I’d certainly had a few ideas.

First and foremost was to give a massive ‘fuck you’ to the pony who thought he could shove me under his thumb. I was still seething that so much bullshit had been piled onto me over the last few days and I was in half a mind to kick off just for the sake of venting.

He wanted a public face for the Sentinels? I’ll give him a public face the people would believe. The idiot had the balls to do me over and then ask to play nice whilst I had the nation watching me? All I had to do was call his bluff and the whole thing might fix itself – Everyone still thought that it had been Blueblood who stole that crystal and I was willing to bet that even with evidence to the contrary they would still want to believe that he did it. After all, it was only myself and the Shadow Pony who knew the recording was the real deal.

I stomped through the hallways behind my escort, thinking of the best way to stick it to this guy. Maybe I could even spin it to make it look like I hadn’t understood his message. Maybe…

I took a second to mull things over properly.
...Maybe I really should take this guy seriously, after all he had enough strings in his hoofs to prevent the information leaking that it wasn’t Blueblood who was the thief.

No, no, Sensible Me shut the hell up! I’m trying to get mad here, not listening to you!

Seriously though, this guy must have some heavy weight to throw around. He knew my name, what I’d done, how to shape the whole thing so that he had the perfect card to play. For Celestia’s sake I would be standing right on the steps of the Sentinel’s building – it’s not like they’d have far to throw me if they wanted me off stage.

And then what? Shot for treason?? There was no way in hell I was letting myself go down like that. If I was going to play this guys game I was going to learn all the tricks, I was going to beat him at it, and then I would change the rules to work for me.

But when did this all become about me? There were three ponies that had died last night. What about them? They hadn’t asked for any of this just as I hadn’t. Granted two of them caused the whole thing but who was to say that they weren’t in a situation as shitty as mine was right now? I felt for the poor son of a mule working the store more than anything, he was just minding his business. The victims, That’s who this whole thing should be about.

It might be best for everyone if I tried to focus on the positive. Mark my words, I would get the arsehole who’s trying to play me but perhaps the best thing to do today would be to let him win this time.
Give him this first battle, pretend that I was naive and incompetent, and then fight the war on my terms.

I could hear them now. The ponies outside the front doors with their recording eyes and bright lights and questions. I could feel the vibrations in the floor as they clamoured around to get the best position to see what I had to say.
Ahhh adrenaline my old friend, at least I can always count on you to have my back.

As I walked to the doors I was flanked by a pony on either side. To my left, the white and blue earth pony who had spoke to me through the gemstone in the store. To my right, the yellow pegasus who was shaking in anticipation – either from getting the chance to restrain me again or soak up some more glory, who could say.

The two stallions on the door looked to the white stallion who nodded towards them, giving the unspoken command to open the doors and start the performance.

Showtime.

Author's Notes:

First and foremost sorry that’s its taken so long for me to get another chapter out – a mix of IRL issues such as finding a new job and moving out have played havoc with the amount of time I wanted to spend on this chapter.

As always, if you would like to get involved with the story and dictate the outcome, feel free to post a comment below with the option of your choice from the list below. If no comments are left, I’ll carry the story on as I see fit.

1.“No Comment”
2.“I did what anyone else would do”
3.“This isn’t about me, its about the victims”
4.“I annihilated them all single-handedly”

As a completely seperate option, Pathfinder has the option to either return the package he was sent to collect, or keep it for himself.

Hopefully it will not be as long before my next chapter goes up, but until my life settles back in to some kind of predicatability i cannot say for sure.

Machinations

by TheLoneWombat

1. The Aerodrome

2. The Grapevine

3. The Wake-up Call

4. The Proposal