Connections

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Equestria was burning. The flames stood still over houses, tearing through fields, or burning in the air on what seemed to be nothing at all. Some fires had been reduced to embers, but others were in the state of a full inferno. However big the fires, they gave off no heat, and remained in the state and the place they were. Ponies had their faces locked in agony, though no sound whatsoever came out of their mouths. Even the frozen lands to the north had burned, the flames dancing within the tundra through the reflections of the permanent ice covering the northern cap of the planet. It was like a photograph of the apocalypse, and no sign was anywhere that there had ever been or would ever be anything alive in it. No sign but one.

Through the devastation, a single pony walked through the flames, looking around at the devastation of her home. Twilight didn’t know exactly how it had happened, or why, but the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and her best friends in the world, had been taken, and she was the only one of them left in Equestria. For the Elements of Harmony to truly be separated was the worst thing that could possibly happen, and with the Tree of Harmony lost to her due to what the invaders had done, the only thing Twilight could do to protect her home was to completely halt the flow of time there.

All her other friends who could still move had already left, travelling through the portals via their own magic. Celestia had travelled by the sun, Luna by the moon, Cadance guided by Spike’s love, and Discord by... whatever he did. Twilight’s magic was connected to Equestria, though, and that limited her options dramatically. She had to stay in Equestria, or else it would be lost forever. She couldn’t directly go looking for her friends. All she could do was stabilise her world, and the portals leading back to where the invaders had gone.

That left her to search one more portal the invaders had left through. They’d opened five more, rather than simply returning to their own world, though why they would do such a thing eluded her. She didn’t even know who they were, only that they clearly had the destruction of Equestria as their ultimate goal.

But she wouldn’t let them. As long as she could act against them, she would. And already, she had managed to scry out a few things about the world she had been assigned to search. She’d found Rainbow Dash, locked up in a small metal room, tranquilised beyond what was necessary. She didn’t know how anyone but her captors could get the vault open. It’d take a master safe cracker or a career criminal of some sort.

Something tugged on her consciousness as that thought left her mind. Maybe she could find a way to hire a career criminal. She could only hope that the criminals she chose wouldn’t hurt her friend. Either way, it would be taking a massive risk. All she could do was make the best of a bad situation. And on top of that, bits were made out of pure gold, so that could easily grease the wheels...

~~~

There were some users on Crime.net who thought that Bain, the website’s mysterious administrator, literally never slept. Still others thought he was some sort of ghost in the Internet, able to move between sites through electrons, and had no physical body. Neither of these were true. Bain had a physical body, and it had physical needs. Though he could occasionally suspend them for the duration of a job he was overseeing, he still had to eat, sleep and consume copious cups of coffee to avoid dying or falling asleep at his terminal.

In his lair, the monitors flashed all around him with all the information he needed about the people requiring jobs, places recommended for a job, and the people willing to act on them. He could read this information like the Matrix, and distribute the right jobs to the right people, along with the money. He usually skimmed a bit off the top himself, but that was just the price of doing business, particularly his business.

He wouldn’t call it ‘organised crime’ directly. Sure, there was crime involved and he organised it, but it wasn’t large-scale stuff like long-term drug operations. He’d distribute a hitman to someone wanting a rival producer gone, but he didn’t produce himself. That was how crime worked these days, and it had paid off well for him.

A message suddenly popped up in the corner of the window, its text an unusual purple colour:

hello, mr. bain

He didn’t know what to make of it, and so he simply clicked it shut. As he turned away, he saw out of the corner of his eye that it was opening again:

i have a proposition for you

“What on earth are you?” he asked out loud, wondering to himself. “And how did you get here?”

there is a vault that currently contains a package that was stolen from me

retrieve it, keep it safe, and i will make it worth your while

How did they hear that? he wondered. He was starting to get more and more paranoid, but for now, if someone could do that to him, they could easily turn him in if he offended them. He clicked on the window and typed in himself, How worthwhile?

about half a million dollars in 24-carat gold for you and all your contractors

your part when you take the job, the rest for your crew on completion

I really don’t know about this. It just seems so... strange. Why would you come directly to me?

then you don’t want the job?

okay

There was a short pause, then all the text so far disappeared, and replacing it was two words:

wake up

As Bain opened his eyes, he realised that what he’d seen was a dream. As he thought about it, though, there was no way it could be anything else. Who could possibly hack into his computers to post messages like that? If someone wanted his crew specifically, they could send out a request like everyone else.

He stood up and walked into his lair, only to see a box on the table in front of his keyboard. The box seemed to weigh about twelve kilograms when he picked it up and moved it. Opening it slowly and carefully, he looked inside, and saw a large number of gold coins. There was a piece of paper lying on top of the coins, blank side up.

Bain pinched himself once to ensure he wasn’t still dreaming, but the box and the paper remained. Slowly, he reached out for it and turned it over. There was a map of a building that Bain recognised as a Harvest and Trustee Bank, with the main vault marked with an X. A map next to it detailed its location, which he recognised as the West End of Washington. There was also a drawing of a cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt coming off it, circled twice. At the very bottom of the paper was written, in perfect copperplate handwriting, Do we have a deal, Mr. Bain?

“As long as you stop making me sound like Rowan Atkinson... okay, I’ll play your game.” He pulled up a window that he never fully closed, containing four images and four phone numbers. Calling them all at once into a conference call, he said the only words he needed to:

“Gentlemen, it’s time to get paid.”

~~~

Even though Rainbow Dash had been conscious for a while, she hadn’t been able to move. Her legs had been tied up two and two, and her wings bound to her body. Even beyond that, she could barely feel her limbs, and in the position she’d been left, she was unable to roll off the bench.

Immobilised as she was, all she could do was remember how she’d gotten into this situation. As far as she could tell, it was entirely out of her control. Out of nowhere, she’d been grabbed and thrown through some vortex that made her feel sick, then injected with something. When she woke up, she was in the small, stagnant room, and a voice she couldn’t see the owner of had told her that “her accommodation was only temporary,” and “she would be reunited with her friends soon enough.”

She could hear some noises outside the room, though they were muted heavily by the large metal door. None of it was coherent, but it was active and it sounded a lot like conversation. Once in a while, she thought she could make out a word, but realised that it wasn’t anything. She also considered calling out, but only once, when she realised the croak she was reduced to wouldn’t even make it through the door at all.

It seemed like nothing would ever happen, and Rainbow would meet her end of days in that stuffy, oppressing room. All of a sudden, the hairs on the back of her neck started tingling. That was always a sign that something was about to happen.

What happened was a loud bang! noise that penetrated even the door, and the sounds of screaming following it.

“Everyone get down!” a voice shouted, finally loud enough to be heard through the thick metal. “Wolf, set everything up here! Chains, get the lobby!” His voice was suddenly cut off by a loud shriek that seemed to be an alert signal. “And Hoxton, turn off the fucking alarm so we can hear ourselves think!”

The alarm shut off a few seconds after that last command, but it seemed too late, as another set of noises started outside, barely audible. “That’s the cops, fellas!” the voice called again. “Wolf, how much longer are you gonna take with that drill?!”

“You wanna give it a shot, Dallas?!” a second voice called back. He said something else immediately after, but was drowned out by a loud whining noise that prevented her from hearing anything else outside the room. She couldn’t even put her hooves over her ears to keep it out, as it got louder and louder for a few minutes before suddenly stopping.

She could hear more of the loud bang! noises through the vault, then a third man’s voice came through: “Who sold us this drill, the cops?” The whining returned immediately after that, getting louder and louder as the wall seemed to glow from heat. Finally, the noise stopped and the wall swung open, revealing itself as a door.

Rainbow couldn’t see out very clearly, but there was a figure standing in the circular hole, upright on two legs like a minotaur without horns. She could hear it ask, “Are you guys sure this is what we’re looking for in here?” before it stepped closer, holding up her wings roughly. She tried to call him off, but only barely managed to croak again. “Holy shit, it’s alive! Bain, are you sure about this?”

He paused for a few seconds before telling the air, “Okay, okay, I got it. I’ll get it out of there. C’mon, up you get...” He tried to move her off the bench, but she fell to the ground, unable to move with her hooves tied up. “Ah, shit... I’m gonna have to carry you, aren’t I? Everyone, cover me! We can’t let this package get shot up!”

After a burst of noise, a voice called back, “They’re backing off anyway! Now’s the time to move!” With that, she felt herself being lifted into the air and slung over the creature’s back. Outside the metal room, it seemed like there was an explosion of colour all of a sudden, though she had no idea what kind of place she was being carried through. Without warning, she felt herself being thrown, and sliding along the ground until she hit a wall.

From what she could see, she’d been thrown into a tunnel, and the creature took one last look before turning around and raising something he’d been holding in his hand. “Wolf, what are you doing in there?!” he shouted, running towards a building in the distance. It could have been the one she’d just been taken out of, but she couldn’t get a good look before something blocked her view, a shadow like the one that had saved her. This one raised up something in its own hand, and suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her neck.

He reached inside to grab at her, but suddenly, his head exploded in a shower of blood which she tried to pull herself away from. “It’s okay! It’s still alive!” the voice shouted. She thought he was reaching in towards him, but her vision and hearing were starting to blur.

What was that thing that hit me? she wondered drearily, before the horse tranquiliser she’d been shot with fully took effect, and she fell unconscious in the back of the van.

Safe

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September 7, 2014
6:41 PM

In our top story tonight, the Payday Crew have struck at the Harvest and Trustee bank once again, this time hitting a branch in the West End. Though the crew were in and out within ten minutes, over thirty police officers were killed in the attempt to clear them out. Surprisingly, however, this time no cash was stolen that we are aware of. There is currently no clear description of what was in the vault, either from the bank’s employees, the surviving police officers or those who were taken hostage by the crew for the duration.

This is the sixth time that the crew have hit this company, so if you bank at Harvest and Trustee, we recommend getting insurance on any valuables in your deposit boxes. Where will the Payday Crew strike next? Only they know. More tonight, on the Seven O’clock News.

~~~

The van parked in a deserted alley, and Dallas was about to step out when he saw the rest of the crew looking at him. “What?” he asked, unable to tell their thoughts through only their masks. He had a pretty good idea of what they were about to say, however.

Hoxton was the first to answer. “What are we going to do about this pony?” he asked. “I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it before. And I don’t have room at my place for any pets...”

“Shouldn’t we be dropping it off somewhere?” Wolf added. “Usually, if we’re getting a package for someone else, we need to at least leave it somewhere for Bain...”

“All I was told was to keep it safe,” Bain’s voice crackled through their earpieces. “Most likely, we’ll get more instructions later, but for now, someone’s gotta keep it at their safehouse. Any volunteers?”

“I ain’t any good with animals,” Chains sighed. “Had a rabbit once, but it died about three days after I got it.”

“Mine’s way too public to bring anything in like that,” Hoxton added. “Too many people around. I’d never get in through the front or back doors.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have room for a pet?” Wolf asked.

“That too.”

“And I wouldn’t trust Wolf with anything alive,” Chains said.

“Why not?” Wolf leaned in closer, threateningly.

“I still remember that time you punched a Bulldozer to death. Anyone with hands like that shouldn’t be left in charge of anyone or anything else’s life.”

“Why, you-!”

“Calm down, fellas!” Dallas shouted, putting his hands between Wolf and Chains. “If it makes it any easier for you all, I’ll take care of it.” He pushed the door open and was about to step out, taking the pony with him, when he heard some rustling in the van. “What’s that?” he asked.

Wolf held up a few bundles of cash, apparently having completely calmed down. “Your share of what I got from that deposit box. That’s what I was doing in there: making sure the heist wasn’t a total washout.”

“Well, you’ve all got half a million inbound, or so I’m told,” Bain told them. “For now, I’ll see what I can find about looking after it.” He paused for a while, and then added, “Either way, you did good today, everyone. I’ll let you know when it’s time for another job.”

As the van drove off, Dallas looked down at the pony, which had been laid on top of the pile of money Wolf had given him. He pulled out the syringe from its neck he hadn’t seen before. The label said ‘ketamine’. Horse tranquilisers... No wonder it’s totally out of it. Sighing, he piled the money into his duffel bag and pulled the pony over his shoulders.

On days off, Dallas actually did some dry cleaning, but he’d never had many customers and he preferred it that way. The back of the building was mostly sparse, but its single most defining feature was the statue of Justice. Bain had set it up himself before calling him to Washington D.C. Somehow, placing a weight like a bundle of money on one of the scales opened a secret staircase, leading down into the safehouse. He had never tried to work out how it worked; he’d just chalked it up to Bain being a genius.

At the bottom of the stairs was a laptop and a set of security camera feeds, along with a few halls leading to various other parts of the safehouse. Dallas headed straight ahead for the vault, dumping the duffel bag there to sort out the cash later. As he looked around, he saw a box sitting on the table, containing gold coins of some kind. How the hell did anyone get in here? he wondered, making a mental note to make a security sweep later. And did they pay me in... doubloons?

It was a mystery he’d have to solve later. For now, he needed a place to keep the pony until it woke up. Upstairs was out of the question, and the vault would probably give her a panic attack, considering it had been extracted from one just before. The firing range wasn’t safe, and the mask room would probably give away too much. That only left one place.

Slowly, carefully, he laid it down in the room full of doors that he used to practice lockpicking, and cut the cables around her hooves with a Swiss army knife. How did I get myself into this shit? he wondered idly as he watched its slow, rhythmic breathing, and waited for it to wake up.

~~~

Rainbow Dash had felt like she was floating in oblivion for a while, and more than once wondered if she was dead. As she started to feel her extremities once again, though, she realised that she was still alive, if only barely. “Where... am I?” As she opened her eyes, she found herself lying against a cold floor, barely able to pull herself into a sitting position.

She gasped and tried to push herself backwards when she suddenly saw a figure in front of her, hitting a wall before long. “Relax, it’s okay,” it said, raising its forelimbs. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Get away... Please... Don’t hurt me!” she cried, barely holding herself upright.

The creature tilted its head sideways, and she stared at its blank face and fake smile. “You can talk?” it asked. From its tenor of voice, Rainbow assumed it was male, though she couldn’t tell.

“How are you... talking... without your mouth?” she breathed, wondering what was going on.

“Oh, I left my mask on. That’s...” He paused for a minute, then shook his head. “I’d probably better start over. Who are you?”

“Me? I’m... Rainbow Dash.”

“That your real name?”

“Of course! What else would I be called?!” She tried to pull herself fully standing to try and get back for his seeming insult, but he stood up well above her, and she fell back again.

Slowly, he crouched back down again. “I’m sorry, I’ve never really spoken to a pony before. And usually, they don’t say anything, either. I just assumed, it sounded like a code name. Everyone I know uses one. It’s... necessary in our line of work.”

“Are you a spy?”

“Not quite.”

Rainbow thought for a moment, then put everything together. “You’re a thief. Just my luck, to get foalnapped and then rescued by a common criminal.”

“We’re exceptional criminals, Rainbow Dash. And since we just saved your life...”

“Why did you, anyway? And how did you even know where I was?”

He stood up, shaking his head. “I’ll explain later. For now, you’d better stay here. I’ll try and get you something to eat. You look like you could use it.” He pulled something out of his pocket as he walked off, speaking to the air about whether a delivery was there yet. Pulling herself to her hooves, Rainbow followed him up the flight of stairs, wanting to see where she was.

The building around her seemed totally alien in style, like the metal room had before. Everything seemed built for a much taller race, which she supposed was only natural. There were lots of things stacked on the shelves and a few boxes with pieces of parchment attached to them. Two low beds sat in a far corner, the threadbare blankets reminding her of how cold she was herself. She walked behind a counter, out through a doorway into an enclosed space.

The buildings around and above her seemed oppressive, the dirty air and faint noises drifting in from all around feeling completely alien. The creature was there, holding a bag. “What are you doing? I told you to stay put!” She cringed back as he rounded on her again, then suddenly stopped. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just used to people staying put when I ask them to. C’mon, you’d better get inside before someone sees you.”

“Wait. There’s something I have to do first.” Slowly, she extended her wings, then pushed down, but nothing happened. Usually, all it took was a single push, but she couldn’t get off the ground. She tried again and again, but nothing came of it. She just couldn’t take off. “Why? Why can’t I fly?” she asked ruefully. “Without my wings, I’m nothing...”

“You’re important enough that I’ve been asked to take care of you,” the other one told her, putting an arm around her. “C’mon, let’s get you something to eat.” He led her back inside slowly as she tried to hold back tears. “My name’s Dallas, by the way.”

“Is that your real name?”

“In my line of work, names are a liability. I don’t even know the names of the other guys I work with. But I answer to Dallas from them, and I will from you too.”

As they stepped into the kitchen, she thought of something else. “What about your real face? You said that was a mask. Or are you actually a clown?”

He paused for a moment, then made eye contact (presumably) with her. “I might be able to. But first, you need to promise me something. In the event that you get caught, you cannot tell anyone what I look like. They’d be able to track me down more easily. Promise me you’ll keep it secret. At least as long as you can.”

It was Rainbow’s turn to pause. Dallas was a criminal, and she should turn him in, but he’d also saved her life, and was giving her a place to stay. She couldn’t rat him out. Even in another world, where all else had failed, she would maintain her own element. Raising a hoof, she made the series of motions and sounded out the Pinkie Promise.

Dallas started laughing by the end of it. “What’s so funny?” Rainbow asked. “That’s the Pinkie Promise. It’s unbreakable!” He tilted his head slightly, but suddenly recoiled, as though he’d heard a faint voice from nowhere tell him the same thing. “I’m not gonna betray you. That’d be a totally lame thing to do. I promise. Now take off your mask.”

Sighing, he pulled it off over his head, revealing the grey eyes and brown stubble behind. “Happy now?” Rainbow nodded, and started poking inside the duffel bag, smelling apples. “Bain said that was a care package for you. Not sure what he put in it yet.” As he laid it down on the ground, Rainbow quickly pulled out a small bundle of hay, a bushel of apples and a strange device she couldn’t figure out. “An earpiece? Bain never said anything about that.”

As she munched on an apple, Rainbow asked, “Who’s Bain? You keep bringing him up...”

“Put that device in your ear, and he’ll tell you himself.” It took the two of them some fiddling, especially since Rainbow was loath to let go of her apple, but after about a minute it was securely in place. Dallas tapped his own ear, which she noticed contained a similar device. “Alright, she’s got it set up.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Rainbow Dash,” another man’s voice said suddenly, lightly crackling with static. She jumped into the air, not expecting the voice to be so close, or so loud. “Call me Bain. I give Dallas and his pals what they need to make the most of each heist.”

“So why are you giving me one of these?” Rainbow asked. “I’m not a crook. And besides, right now, I can’t fly. I wouldn’t be much use to you anyway.”

“I like to keep my bases covered. Besides, it makes it easier for me to help you. Being in direct contact with you means I don’t have to dig around on the Internet for info. There’s pretty much nothing here that tells me anything about how to deal with a Pegasus. It’s all fiction and mythology, and that’s not useful to me.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You don’t have any ponies here at all?”

“Not ones like you, anyway.”

Rainbow thought about it for a moment, looking at Dallas again. Unbidden, a memory jumped into her head. Daring Do and the Lost City. The creatures that Daring encountered, the humans, were shaped almost exactly like Dallas. She could only assume that Bain was the same. And none of the humans in the book had ever seen a pony before, either. That piece of familiarity allowed her to calm down and settle into the strangeness of the situation somewhat.

Bain’s voice crackled in her ear again, “So, where do you come from?” he asked.

Clearing her throat, she began, “Well, I’m from a country called Equestria—” At that, Dallas broke out laughing again. “Really. That’s what it’s called. Why do you keep finding these things so funny?”

Swallowing one last chuckle, Dallas apologised and said, “That doesn’t sound like any country I’ve ever heard of. The only explanation I can think of is that you’re not actually from this world.”

“So we’re dealing with an alien?”

“I can’t think of anything else she could be. Do you remember how you got here?”

“I’m afraid not... All I can remember was somepony... or someone, I guess, grabbing me. Then I was hurtling through this weird vortex-like place, injected with something, and the next thing I know, I was in that metal room.” Dallas looked at her, frowning and not saying anything. “I’m sorry I can’t be of any more help to you.”

“Well, we reckon that someone’ll be coming to pick you up soon enough. We saved you on their payroll, so they should be along sooner or later. I can track you through the earpiece, so if anything goes wrong, we can just pull you out again.”

“Thanks... I mean it.” She bit into the half-finished apple again, swallowing almost the entire thing and picking up another. “Oh yeah, who are those other guys you work with? I know you didn’t get me out of there alone...”

“You’ll probably meet them all later. For now, just get something to eat. You never wanna pass out in the middle of a job due to forgetting to take care of yourself.” He put a hand around her shoulder for a moment, before standing up to get himself something to eat.

~~~

Bain had written down everything he’d learned from the conversation Rainbow Dash was having with Dallas, but as he looked over the information again, something tugged at his mind. He’d heard the name before, but he couldn’t quite place it. He brought up a search engine he’d programmed himself to keep his data out of anyone else’s servers and typed in her name.

The only results that kept her name together were discussions of a cult TV series named My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The show had only lasted one season due to poor ratings, but had gained a cult following online. Routing through a few proxy servers, he started to download the entire series. Twenty-six episodes wouldn’t take long, and watching them would only take a little over a day. If he wanted to know more about Rainbow Dash as a pony, as well as her physiology in general, going straight to the source was the best option.

There were a few problems created by it, though. How had a fictional character wound up in reality? For that matter, how could she be gotten back? Maybe their mysterious contact had a solution to it, but who were they? And though he could be certain none of the others knew about the show, and that it wasn’t in reruns, what would happen in the event that Rainbow herself found out?

He’d have to solve those problems as he came to them, though. He had plenty of work to do.

Blood

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September 11, 2014
7:00 AM

This is the Seven O’clock News.

Vladimir Kozak, the Ukrainian former mob boss, has been released from prison today. After being turned in in 1999, he was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, reduced to fifteen for good behaviour. Kozak was unavailable for comment, but many have wondered: is releasing a known mob boss back into the world, even with his empire in ruins, truly a good idea?

~~~

Several days had come and gone, but there was still no word anywhere on where they were going to pass off Rainbow Dash. She and Dallas had spent the time simply sitting together, Rainbow occasionally doing some wing stretches that didn’t help her to get off the ground at all. Dallas was starting to go a little bit stir-crazy from the lack of anything to do, and had been planning to hit a convenience store on his own time when the phone call came through.

“Any of you clowns ever heard of Vladimir Kozak?” Bain asked the group over the conference call.

“That mobster on the news?” Hoxton replied. “What about him?”

“Now that he’s out, he wants to start rebuilding his power base, and he’s asking us to help him get off on the right foot.”

“So what does he want us to do?” Chains asked.

“There’s a set of four stores in the Downtown district that he used to own. He wants you to go there and remind them of who they work for. Clean out their cash registers and deliver the loot to Vlad.”

“And what’s our payday like?” Dallas asked, turning to see Rainbow coming up the stairs and lowering his voice near the end. “Is Vlad going to pay us at all?”

“This seems like something you’d hire basic muscle for. Why should we go along with this?” Wolf added.

“Guys, I know it’s not much, but Vlad could easily have a lot of better contacts for us if we do this one for him. Trust me.”

There was completely silence on the line for a minute, and Dallas thought they’d all hung up when Hoxton came through, saying he’d do it. Spurred by his younger brother, Dallas said he’d come as well, and their de-facto leader’s acceptance led the other two to agree as well. “Oh, and you might want to take Rainbow Dash as well. She’s probably feeling a little cooped up in your safe house. Winged beings tend not to like being underground much.”

“What can she do?” Dallas saw Rainbow’s ears perk up as he said it.

“She can always be a spotter,” Chains suggested. “Cheaper than hiring that guy from the senator job we did last year. And she probably won’t chicken out like he did.”

“I’ll ask her.”

“Good. Everyone be ready in ten. Let’s get paid.” Bain hung up, and the others all clicked off at almost exactly the same time.

Dallas turned to Rainbow Dash, who was looking up at him expectantly. “Get ready to move,” he said. “I’m going on another job, and Bain wants you to come along. Said you’d probably want some fresh air.”

“I don’t know how much of that there is in this city,” Rainbow mused, “but okay. As long as I don’t actually have to do anything... y’know, illegal.”

“Nothing simpler. Just keep an eye out on the street for us. Let us know if any cops are coming, stuff like that.” He pulled out a pair of old binoculars from under the kitchen counter. “I used to go birdwatching a lot,” he explained. “Don’t know if these’ll fit you, but they should help.”

Rainbow put the strap around her neck and pulled up the binoculars with one hoof. “They’ll do,” she replied. “When are we going?”

“Ten minutes. Get some breakfast.” He tossed her an apple and picked one up himself. “We’ll eat properly once we’re back in the safehouse.”

~~~

“So, who are all these guys?” Rainbow asked a few minutes after the van left the safehouse, looking around. “Dallas, would you mind introducing me?”

“I’m Wolf,” said the bald one sitting right next to her. “Baddest motherfucker ever came out of Sweden.” The mask sitting on his lap seemed a lot simpler than the one Dallas wore, with only the white and red halves top and bottom, and the black eye coverings.

“That’s Wolf,” Dallas repeated. “When we need a little extra force to get through walls or doors, he’s the guy we set on it. He’s... also a little bit deranged.”

“Can’t be a great criminal without it,” Wolf replied.

Dallas simply shook his head and moved on. “Next up is Chains, our team muscle.” The dark-skinned one waved slowly, raising his mask with the two slits across the eyes. “When the big guns need bringing out, he’s the guy who brings them. He also keeps people from getting in the line of fire.” He left out the fact that he also tended to keep them from getting home for a while, though Wolf was the one who usually ensured they never got home at all.

“And finally, we have Hoxton.” The one with the close-cropped hair nodded slowly, raising a mask with large pink bags over the eyes. “When we need a job done quietly or a door opened, there’s nobody better on the East Coast. He’s not the best in a gunfight, but he’s always come through for us before.”

“Together, we’re called the Payday Crew,” Hoxton supplied. “Since the First World Bank in 2011, we’ve been the scourge of safes, vaults and rich corporations everywhere.” Rainbow nodded slowly, taking in the crew around her. “Not many people get to watch us in action on a job start to finish. You’re about to become one of an elite group.”

“She’s not seeing any action,” Dallas told him. “She’s just there to be a spotter. She’s not fighting or anything like that.” He turned to her for a moment, then continued, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” Checking his gun one last time as the van suddenly braked, he said, “This is it. Everyone out.”

The van deposited the group in a deserted back alley, and Dallas hoisted Rainbow up onto a nearby fire escape. From there, she climbed up to the roof, looking down at the street below. “Alright, fellas,” Bain crackled through again. “There’s four stores down there that apparently Vlad used to own, but now his rivals have taken them over. Again, he wants you to clean them out so they know he’s back in charge. You’re looking for the Kung Bo, the Time Out café, the Twenty-Four Seven convenience store, and the local Pear Store.”

“I can see Kung Bo and Time Out from here,” Rainbow reported. “The other two must be on my side of the road.”

“Anyone inside?” Dallas asked.

Pulling up her binoculars, she replied, “Yeah, there’s a couple of people in each. And...” She focused through the front of the china store on the man in the baseball cap and white shirt. “One of the guys in the Kung Bo has a gun.” She’d learned from Dallas just how dangerous guns could be, though she’d had trouble using it herself. Pony hooves were more dextrous than the humans thought from horses, but she’d never bothered learning it, focusing more on her flight.

“Roger that. We’re moving,” Chains affirmed. He and Wolf stepped out into the street, looking around at the group of civilians. Chains headed for the Time Out, Wolf for the Kung Bo. She assumed that Dallas and Hoxton were in the other two stores, and kept looking out at the street.

“Everyone ready to go?” Dallas asked, waiting for a moment. “On my mark. Three, two, one, go!” Looking through the window of the Time Out, she saw Chains suddenly pull on his mask while nobody was looking directly at him, and his gun immediately after. As he fired twice into the air, a similar symphony of syncopated gunfire filled the air, quickly followed by screaming.

Rainbow gulped slowly, trying to tell herself that she wasn’t involved, that they needed her help, that it wasn’t a major crime. She couldn’t turn them in. She couldn’t betray the people who’d saved her life and given her a roof to sleep under. As she was telling herself that, she dropped her binoculars, only pulling them up in time to see someone in the street pull out a phone. “Uh, guys,” she started, but it was too late.

“A 911 call just went out! Cops on scene in 30 seconds!” Bain shouted. “Get the cash and dig in for a fight!” In a few seconds, Rainbow could hear the sirens in the distance. Looking down at the street, she saw the crew meet together for a second, then head for cover in a nearby alley.

“I’m just a few blocks away! Be ready to move in one minute!” a strange voice called out, that Rainbow could only assume was the van driver. The sirens down below faded into hearing range, and as she looked over the rooftop, she saw the cars with the flashing lights pull up. People, Rainbow assumed they were the police, started to get out of the cars, pulling guns out and looking around, stopping when they saw the crew holed up in the alley.

All of a sudden, one of them fired, and the officer’s head exploded, spraying blood across a nearby colleague and draining out when it fell to the floor a few seconds later. Rainbow couldn’t take her eyes off the spectacle until she heard a few more gunshots in rapid succession, this time hitting someone square in the chest and spraying blood out multiple times as he flailed backwards. She felt her cheeks building up, but tried to force herself down.

She looked away for a moment to get herself back together, until the driver said he was only thirty seconds out and Dallas asked her if anything was wrong at the same time. A black truck pulled up in the street as she looked out again, and a group of five humans wearing armour stepped out. Before she could report it, Chains pulled out a small object and threw it into the group that had just arrived. They all immediately tried to split up, but then the object exploded, flinging the bodies around.

Most of them were missing at least one leg, and one body was hardly recognisable as human anymore. All of them were leaking blood all over the street, and the screams of the civilians reached her even on the roof. Down below, Wolf ran up to one of the bodies that was still moving and raised a large knife above his head.

As it came down, Rainbow was finally unable to take any more, and turning away from the street, she threw up. She only managed to throw up once on her scant breakfast, but continued dry-retching for almost a minute until Dallas finally came up to check on her. “Van’s already here,” he said as he came up. “Hoxton’s just getting the door, and...” He trailed off as he saw what had happened, and without saying any more, he picked her up across his shoulders as he had before.

“Why?” Rainbow asked as Dallas took her down the fire escape. More gunfire came up from the others, stopping when they hit the ground. “Why?” She could barely even stand up when she was finally put in the van, she felt so weak. “Why?” They started to drive off, and the crew pulled their masks off one by one, but she barely saw it as she lay on the floor. “Why?”

Her repeated question was the only sound as they drove, and only stopped when the van did. Slowly pulling herself to her hooves, she stepped out of the van and into the safehouse garage. She only fell over once she was safely inside, and Dallas crouched down next to her. “It was horrible... Blood... Death... Why?”

Dallas paused, unable to answer her. “It’s...” She pushed him away with a hoof even as he started, sliding along the floor towards his bedroom. He could only watch as she clambered into one of the small beds and, dry-retching towards the floor one more time, fell into a restless sleep.

~~~

From her position on the side of the mountain, Trottingham looked like a diorama to Twilight. The standing flames seemed almost fictional and easy to write off, if only she hadn’t seen firsthand what had happened in similar towns. Beyond Trottingham, the plains seemed like an ocean of flame, with no ground visible between them from the distance and height. Slowly, Twilight turned away from the scene, towards one of the only other beings to still be active despite the spell.

Dragons had a naturally high magic resistance, but only the oldest could manage to move despite the freezing spell cast by the Princess of Magic herself. Spike was an exception; Twilight had pulled him inside her bubble to aid Cadance in finding Rarity. The dragon before her seemed to be a totally different species to her diminutive assistant, nearly a hundred feet long and large enough to swallow her whole if it wanted to.

As the oldest dragon living in Equestria, however, Twilight doubted he had any desire at all for pony flesh. That he hadn’t attempted to eat her yet was no guarantee, but it was a good sign. When he spoke to her unprovoked, that cemented it. “Why do you seek my help?” he asked.

“You are the oldest, and the wisest being remaining in Equestria,” Twilight started. Flattery wasn’t guaranteed to work, she knew that much from experience, but it never hurt. “I wanted to ask you something about what happened.”

“I had nothing to do with it, if that is what you want to know,” he intoned. “Fire comes from more places than just dragons.”

Twilight sighed. “I had assumed as much. But is there anything you might be able to tell me anyway?”

He snorted once, the smoke filling her face, but she didn’t flinch. “I know this for certain. A portal of such distance, and such magnitude, could not have been created solely at one end.”

“Then how could it have been done?”

“I should think that was obvious, Twilight Sparkle. Then again, those with intelligence, but too young for wisdom, have a habit of ignoring the obvious.”

“What do you mean?”

“They had help from inside Equestria. At this point, however, it would be fruitless to search for them. The damage has been done, and your acts to contain it make their persecution impossible.” He turned around and returned to his cave, and Twilight flew off over Trottingham, wondering who could possibly do such a thing.

The dragon was right, though. With time frozen, she couldn’t interrogate anypony on why or how they had done it. All she could do was keep searching for a way to get Rainbow Dash back without leaving Equestria herself, and ensure that Bain and his Payday Crew kept her safe until she did.

Poker

View Online

September 14, 2014
8:41 PM

Russian-American celebrity Mikhail Kraminsky was present to open a new shopping mall in Miami today. The mall’s construction was primarily funded by him, and he has described it as being a new way to bring the community of Miami together...

~~~

When the van arrived outside the safehouse, Dallas wasn’t there to greet the others. Hoxton was naturally worried, being Dallas’ younger brother behind the mask, but Wolf and Chains said he was probably just busy with something. They entered without knocking, looking up at the surveillance camera that Dallas used to practice on. In the back living area, the two tables were locked together, creating a single table like a figure-eight without any holes.

Behind it sat Rainbow Dash and Dallas on the floor, opposite but not looking at one another. Two bowls that used to contain oatmeal were between them. “Hey, bro?” Hoxton asked, putting a hand on Dallas’ shoulder. “Everyone’s here. It’s Sunday, remember? Poker night.” Slowly, Dallas turned around and nodded once. Chains pulled a brand-new pack of cards out of his pocket, like he had every Sunday night since they first met in D.C., with the exception of the night they picked up Rainbow.

Slowly, they sat around the table, pulling a few bottles of alcohol from a cooler Wolf had brought. “Hey, Rainbow, what do you drink?” he asked, entirely oblivious to what was between her and Dallas, and by extension the rest of the crew.

She didn’t say anything for almost a minute, and everyone was simply staring at her. Dallas was about to mention how she felt when she said something, too quietly for any of them to hear. When Chains put a hand to his ear, she repeated herself just barely audibly, “Apple cider.” Wolf reached into the cooler, but couldn’t find any. Dallas stood up, excusing himself and walking out the front door.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” Hoxton asked, shuffling the cards idly. “What are you looking so down for?”

“How can you be so casual like that?” Rainbow asked. “You kill all those people, and you act like it’s nothing back here. What kinds of people are you, that you can be so... heartless?”

“Would it help at all if I told you that the police in this country are pumped out of a factory, and have no soul, little consciousness and aren’t really people?”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes at him. “That isn’t funny. Death shouldn’t be a joke. Ever. Killing, even less. And you,” she pointed a hoof at Wolf, “looked like you were having fun killing. Just my luck, to owe my life to people like you.”

Wolf seemed confused by the accusation, and was about to say something in response when Chains cut him off. “What’s Equestria like?” he asked, turning his chair to face her directly.

She wasn’t expecting the question, and took a minute to reply. “Well... I guess you could say it’s peaceful. We don’t really have many major crimes, and the last war was about fifty years ago...”

“Before I was a career criminal, I was a soldier,” he explained. “This country looks pretty peaceful, but there’s a lot of people looking to take it down. I went to a lot of countries where you saw massacres like on that street every day, but of innocent people who simply believed differently to the people in charge.” By that point, her jaw was hanging open, trying to picture the scene. “This world doesn’t have easy solutions like friendship or diplomacy. Most of the time, it’s kill or be killed, and when you live like we do, killing is usually the only option. If you aren’t willing to fuck someone up, they’ll fuck you, and that’s just how life is here.”

Rainbow pulled her mouth closed, frowning. “That sounds horrible,” she finally said. “How does anyone go on living, in a world like this?”

“When it’s all you’ve ever known, it’s a lot easier. How do you sleep without your wings bumping against stuff and keeping you awake?”

“It’s impossible to explain to someone without wings—”

“There you have it, then.” He turned back to the table, and Rainbow sat in silence, pondering what Chains had told her. People kept on living, despite the horrible things that were commonplace. How they did it couldn’t be explained to somepony like her, because her world was just too different. But as she looked at the crew, she supposed that even in a world torn apart by war and violence, there was some level of harmony.

Laughter, at least; Wolf and Chains were laughing at some private joke she hadn’t heard, and hoped wasn’t to do with their escapades. And Dallas taking her in was either kindness or generosity, or both; honesty as well, when he and Chains had told her about their world without trying to soften the blow and let her get hurt for it later. She couldn’t gauge their loyalty, but perhaps that was why she’d been given to them.

None of it made any sense, and she started casting around for something to say when the door opened and Dallas returned, carrying a bottle. “I got you a drink, Rainbow,” he said, removing the cap and passing it to her. “Apple cider, just like you asked for.” Slowly, she took a sip of it, and then sprayed it out over the floor.

“This is... What kind of cider is this? It’s so...”

“Oh, you’re used to soft cider?”

“I didn’t know there was a difference, but the stuff I’m used to isn’t like this.” She took another sip, then added, “But just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s bad. I dunno, it’s just another thing that’s different in this place.” Slowly, she sucked at the bottle again, and Dallas sat down at the table. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Playing a game. You ever heard of poker?”

“Yeah, I tried it once in flight school. Could never remember the rules, though. Too many different things to do with the cards.” She looked out of the window, nostalgia overtaking her for a moment. “Mind if I just watch?” she finally said.

“Sure.” Dallas picked up a chair and set it at the end of the table that was reserved for Bain. He’d set up a miniature camera to look at his cards, and used the earpieces to bid despite never leaving his lair. “It’s nice to see you so chipper,” he added.

“What Chains told me, about this world, and this country... If humans can manage to not kill themselves despite violence and suffering, then I can find that strength too. I couldn’t say I was truly awesome if I let it stop me from smiling.” She looked around at the group. “Even if I never truly comprehend your world, or what happens in it, I can survive, and I should be grateful for it.” Falling back into her memories again, she recalled a pony from flight school who had told her that for the first time, after both of them had failed a test. “Celebrate because you’re alive, and because you’ll always have another chance.”

There was silence around the table, the only sound being Wolf gulping down his drink before he put it down on the table and declared, “Well, enough of that heavy shit for now. Hoxtonator, you’re dealing, so that makes me small blind,” he put a blue chip in the middle of the table, “and Bain over there is big blind. Regnbåge, if you would?” He pointed to the stack of chips in front of her. “Two of those blue ones.”

Tilting her head slightly at the Swedish word, Rainbow nonetheless placed two blue chips marked with a 20 in the middle of the table. Hoxton finished shuffling the cards and began to deal them around the table, directing Rainbow to place the cards face-down over a certain part of her seat. Bain explained that was how he saw the cards, and that he’d direct his bids through her. With two cards in front of each of them, Rainbow peeked at Bain’s hand, but then narrowed her eyes. “What’s with these cards?” she asked. “What do those symbols mean?”

“Thought you said you’d played before?” Dallas asked, tossing two blue chips into the middle as well.

“Yeah, but the suits here are all wrong.”

“How many are you used to?”

“Four, but... Not these four. Swords, cups, coins and staves.”

“Oh, that’s old-fashioned cards for you,” Hoxton mused as Chains threw in a red chip, which he responded to by throwing in his cards. “Well, that doesn’t really matter. There’s four suits, and as long as you can tell them apart, you’ll do fine. Besides, you aren’t even actually playing, so what’s it matter to you?”

“Jävlar,” Wolf muttered as he threw his cards in as well, during Hoxton’s ramble. Bain indicated that Rainbow should toss in a green chip, printed with a 10. Dallas repeated the gesture, and laying one card face-down to the side, Hoxton placed three cards in the middle. “Hold on, how does this work?” Rainbow asked.

“The cards in the middle belong to everyone,” Dallas explained as he listed off their denominations for Bain. Bain didn’t start the bidding, but Chains threw in a black chip, which was enough for Bain and Dallas to both bow out and leave the whole pot for their friend. As Wolf picked up the cards and started shuffling, Rainbow threw in a blue chip. “Now you’re getting it,” Dallas smiled as he threw in two.

This time, Rainbow took a peek at the cards herself: a ten of diamonds, and a card she couldn’t make out at all with a pointed black design in the suit and a Q for the rank. Bain thought it was worth raising to three blue chips on, though, which led Chains to fold. The three cards in the middle, she read off as being “K of black pointy thing,” “7 of diamonds,” and “10 of hearts.”

“Those are called spades,” Hoxton deadpanned, “and the round black ones are called clubs.”

“Sure doesn’t look like a spade,” Rainbow said as she tossed in three blue chips again. “At least with the Equestrian suits, you know what you’re looking at.”

“The simpler symbols take up less space, and less ink,” Bain explained as Dallas ‘called’. “Makes the cards cheaper.”

“For that matter, why do you keep buying all these fucking cheap packs?” Hoxton asked Chains as he called as well. “We can afford better cards, you know.”

“And if they’re so simple, then what’s with that fancy design on the K?” Rainbow asked.

“The king? ...Long story, and one that I don’t actually know. It is the way it is, and that’s all I can really tell you.” Rainbow could only nod and accept it, though she still thought it was dumb.

Wolf called and dealt another card to the three that were already down. “J of diamonds,” Rainbow said, tossing in a black 100 chip.

“That’s a jack. The jack, queen, king and ace are the highest cards. Since the names are so long, though, they’re given letters instead,” Hoxton said as Dallas ‘folded’. He and Wolf quickly followed, leaving the hand unfinished again. This time, it was Rainbow’s turn to deal, but since she’d never shuffled cards before, she let Wolf shuffle and deal again for her. He left the deck next to her so she could flip out the ‘river’ cards.

“Hey, Rainbow,” Chains said as he looked at his cards. “Usually we’ve all got stories to tell ‘round here. You’re new here, so all your stories are new. Got any good ones?” All eyes were on her, and though she usually relished the attention, having it from these people gave her a moment’s pause.

Finally, she pulled herself up and started, “Most of the stories I have involve ponies that you don’t know about. They’re my best friends in the world, or I guess, in any world. I know it’s probably hard to imagine that there are others besides me, or that they aren’t all just like me, but...” She paused and cleared her throat, then continued, “But it’d take too long to explain them now. How about the story of how I got my Cutie Mark?”

“Your what now?” Wolf asked. She turned her flank to face him. “Oh, that tattoo on your ass?”

“I’m not sure what a tattoo is, but yeah, that’s my Cutie Mark. It’s a sign of our destiny or our special talents that we usually gain in childhood or adolescence. Everypony’s is different, and sometimes they can be hard to truly understand, but it always helps us to know just who we are.” She looked over the group. Dallas was staring straight at her silently, Chains had his head tilted to one side, Hoxton was rubbing his chin and Wolf was still staring at her flank. “You don’t have those?”

“Uh, no,” Bain said at last. “We don’t get our special talents indicated to us openly. We have to do a lot more work to find them. And sometimes, you have to wonder just what ours would look like. I mean...” The rest of the crew nodded, all thinking about what their own Cutie Marks, or Bain’s, would look like.

“Anyway, one of my old friends in flight school was often picked on for being a bit of a weak flier, and a lot of a shrinking violet. In order to stand up for her, I decided to prove once and for all that her most frequent bullies were all talk and no action, and I challenged them to a race. Well, even though I was about this big at the time,” she held a hoof above the table, not noticing that it was her turn to call, “I actually managed to fly fast enough to break the sound barrier, and that was when I got my Cutie Mark. I’m a daredevil, a loose cannon, but most importantly, I’m a speed demon. That’s what it says about me.”

She looked down at the table sadly and continued, “But there’s something about this world... I can’t fly anymore. And I don’t even know why, but without my wings, I’m nobody. I’m not special, or skilful, or anything like that...”

There was silence around the table, and everyone was looking down, not expecting Rainbow to be morose again. Finally, Hoxton broke the silence. “You were worth two and a half million dollars to somebody despite that,” he said. “Clearly, they think you’re special. Even if we don’t know who they actually are yet, surely you can get your confidence from the fact that they believe in you. I never would’ve made it as a big-time criminal if my brother hadn’t told me I could do it.” He nodded to Dallas, who nodded in return.

“I was normal once, but I became a criminal for my family,” Wolf said. “My startup company only ever had one client, who was stiffing me on payments. When we lost our house, I joined Dallas to hit the First World Bank in order to buy them a new one, and I’ve never looked back since.”

“It takes all kinds of people to keep a world spinning,” Bain said. “Straight people and crooks, politicians and lawyers and taxi drivers, people with too much confidence and people with too little. Equestria was the same way, right?”

“I guess...” Rainbow looked back up at the group and nodded. “Thanks, guys. Even if you’re thieves, and killers, you’re not bad people. Not entirely.” She threw in a black chip unprovoked, without looking at her cards or waiting for Bain’s instructions. Everyone folded in response, and she picked it up along with the blue ones from earlier. “Hey, I’m better at this than I thought.”

“Well, you can only get so far by looking at the cards,” Dallas explained. “If you really want to be good at poker, you have to learn to read your opponents, and know when to lead them on and when to intimidate them out, without them knowing your true strength. Just like a major bank heist.”

“Really? I didn’t know that...”

The rest of the evening was spent giving Rainbow a crash course in poker, with Bain eventually ceding total control of his hand to her. At midnight, the group split up. No actual money changed hands because they were all rich enough that it didn’t matter to any of them. “And we still use the same drill despite that,” Hoxton mused. “Why can’t we get a better drill with all that money?” Eventually, everyone agreed that the drill companies were just out to get them, and went their separate ways.

“Hey, Dallas?” Rainbow asked, when they were alone. “How did you start as a criminal?”

Dallas thought for a while. “Back in Chicago, there were these two mafia families where I lived. I joined one early on, and I quickly rose up the ranks. Eventually, I decided to play them off against each other and take over in the chaos. It didn’t work out, and a hit was put out on me, but I managed to shake it off by going straight. Became the manager of a bank, but they were crooked above me, and eventually I got a criminal team together to help rob it with what I knew. I’ve always been a good leader, so I guess my Cutie Mark would be more towards that than stealing. It’d help me stay undercover, too. A bank-robbing Cutie Mark would just give the whole game up, huh?”

Rainbow laughed at that implication. “Yeah, I guess it would at that. Good thing humans don’t have them, then.”

“Oh, we wear clothes all the time, so they wouldn’t be that easy to see.”

“Yeah, forgot about that... Well, anyway,” and she yawned loudly. “I think it’s about time for bed. Who knows what tomorrow may bring, huh?”

“Good idea. G’night, Rainbow.”

“Night, Dallas.”

~~~

That night, Bain was visited in real life, in a similar way to the first dream he’d had. As he was browsing Crime.net, he came across the purple message box again.

hello again, bain

I have another job for you

What’s this one about?

i would like you to investigate this man:

A picture flashed up on the screen of a scientist who had been in the news a few weeks ago.

he has been doing research into dimensions and teleportation

And you want us to make him stop, or steal his research?

learn what he knows already, but do not stop him

A strange offer. What are you willing to pay for it?

he has a large stash of immorally gained grant money

he does not strictly require all of it

Understood. I’ll get it done. Your faithful criminal, Bain.

There was a long pause before the visitor responded:

how do you know that?

It’s a bit of a long story, but I suppose I’ve got time.

Cloak (now with A/N)

View Online

September 15, 2014
6:52 AM

Senator John Henry Simmons, known to most of Washington as ‘The Elephant’, has announced his intention to join a march for equal marriage rights in Georgetown today. Though he stands against his party’s line on the subject, he has always been known for his strong views, regardless of whether they fit with the Republican leadership or not. His full statement will be aired, and discussed, on this morning’s Seven O’clock News.

~~~

The radio switched into an old-timey song as the advert for the news ended. “Ah, good old Elephant,” Dallas said. “Didn’t we rough up a scientist for that guy too?”

Wolf nodded, playing with a folding knife. “House even looks pretty similar. Perhaps it’s the same guy, researching stuff besides cold fusion now that he’s scared off it. Wouldn’t that be nice? Ah, nostalgia... Just like in the movies, the scientist from earlier turns out to be evil.”

“There you go again with those ‘movies’ of yours. What are movies?” Rainbow asked, sitting at the back of the plane, enjoying the feeling of flight even if it wasn’t technically her own.

“Maybe we’ll show you later,” Chains replied. “But first, you gotta actually spot for us this time. Point out what’s going on, and don’t get too focused on us like you did last time. Try and see as much as you can; you miss something, and a lot of people get hurt.” He shook his head, muttering, “Shouldn’t have cheaped out on the spotter.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he’s giving you another chance,” Dallas cut in before Chains could reply more directly. “So don’t waste it.” He passed her the binoculars again, then knocked on the pilot’s door. “Hey, we’re getting close to the place! Bring her down, Alex!”

Still humming the song, Alex cut in just to say, “You got it!” The plane tilted sharply down, skidding across the runway before stopping completely. “I’ll be waiting. Don’t take too long, now!”

As they got out of the plane, Dallas pointed out a hill. “Rainbow, you get up there. Those big windows should give you a pretty good view inside. Try not to mess this up.” Pointing at the house, he continued, “Hoxton, find that grant money Bain said we were getting paid with. Wolf, Chains, make sure nobody comes snooping around while we’re doing this. I’ll deal with our mad scientist.” Everyone nodded and started moving towards the places Dallas had marked out for them.

“Alright, I’m in position,” Rainbow said. “Alright, I can see about... six people from here. Four on the ground floor, spread out, looking around. None of them seem to be moving... One of the guys up the top is sitting at a desk, wearing white. Wonder if that’s our guy?”

“What room is that in?” Hoxton’s voice buzzed.

“Uh... Second on the... right side of the corner. Upstairs.”

“Any of the guards downstairs moving?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Gonna need better than that.”

“They’re not moving. Okay?” Looking to the far side of the house, she saw another guard. “Someone’s outside, standing near this tiled hole.”

“Looking over the empty swimming pool. Got it. Wolf?” Out of nowhere, Wolf popped up behind the guard, and instinctively Rainbow looked away before she could see what he did with the knife. I’m okay... I’m okay. Can’t stop looking, she told herself. Wolf was crouching over the now-dead body. After a few seconds of waiting, he pulled out a bag he’d had folded up, stuffed the body inside and hid it behind the rise.

“Swimming pool is clear. Pager operator doesn’t suspect a thing. You’re good to enter, El Hoxo.”

“Wait, scratch that, somebody’s coming out that door!” Rainbow shouted. “Everyone hide!”

Wolf and Hoxton quickly crouched down inside the hole, and she commented that the guard was just unlocking the door when Dallas asked her for a status update on the other side of the house. “Uh, there’s only two guys in that corner room on the bottom now. Two guys on your side, one upstairs and one downstairs. Damn, I can’t see the bottom one anymore. Went behind a solid wall.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got eyes on him,” Dallas replied. “Hoxton, how’s it going over there?”

“That guy changed his mind,” Rainbow reported. “It’s safe to go in that way, if you wanna. Nobody’s looking at it.”

“What if there’s a guard inside just outside what you can see?” Chains asked acidly.

“Then it’s not her fault. Back off, Chains.”

“Guys? There’s a guard...”

“Am I the only one who still remembers—”

“No, but you’re the only one who still cares. Let it go.”

“Guys! There’s a guard heading to the back of the house!” Dallas and Chains both shut up at once, and Rainbow pointed her binoculars back towards Wolf and Hoxton. “Hoxton, Wolf, you two are clear if you wanna head inside.” Sighing, she pulled her binoculars down, taking a look at the house as a whole again.

Dallas had come around to Hoxton’s side, swapping with Wolf as the pink-eyed clown picked the lock on the door. Chains was still sitting on the far side, watching with a scoped rifle. The guards on the bottom floor had dispersed further, and she could only see two of them, plus who she assumed was the scientist. Hoxton and Dallas moved in through the open door, and disappeared into the back of the house for a moment. Dallas reappeared upstairs just as a guard did on the other side. “Hey, careful, Dallas. There’s someone up there with you.”

“Not a problem,” Dallas replied. With a single silenced gunshot, the guard was down. Over the radio, she heard him say, “Are you Dr. Winston Canard? I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask you. And don’t press any buttons, or my gun will be asking them.” He pressed his gun to the man’s temple to get the point across.

Strangely, the man didn’t cower or cry out at all. Through Dallas’ earpiece, she could hear his response: “Ah, yes, the so-called Payday Crew. After your visit to my colleague last year, I’ve been expecting you for some time.” His voice was stable, but he spoke quickly.

As he reached into his pocket, Dallas shoved the gun again, repeating, “I told you not to press anything. When we leave, you can be alive or dead. It doesn’t matter to us.”

“I was going to tell the guards to stand down, and allow you gentlemen access. Surely where one of you travels, the rest follow.” Dallas backed off slightly, and the scientist nodded, pulling the pager up to his mouth. “This is Dr. Canard. Everybody, please put your guns away. The four men stalking the grounds are my guests this morning.”

Looking around with the binoculars, Rainbow saw exactly that happening, and Wolf and Chains seemed confused, but stepped into the house anyway. One of the guards even held a door open for the pair. “I don’t like this,” Bain murmured. “It seems too easy. Be ready for anything, clowns. You too, Rainbow. Make sure to watch your own back as well.”

“Copy that.”

“With everyone inside the house, maybe you should keep an eye on the road. If any cars come through, let us know what they look like, license plates, occupants, anything. It’ll be good practice for you.”

“You sure on that, Bain?”

“I know you guys can handle yourselves in there. You’re the best crew in the world. Now get what you can out of the good doctor, or his coffers.”

Ignoring Chains’ grumbling, Rainbow turned to the road. There was something she wanted to say, though. “Hey, last night, you weren’t this aggressive towards me.”

“That’s because you weren’t on the job. A job that you seem totally underqualified for. I made a mistake bringing you that time. Never had a spotter in the Middle East, so...”

“All I need is a little practice, though, right?”

“Well, yeah, I guess... But I still don’t feel good having you out of the safehouse.”

“I can look after myself. I have before.” Turning around, she suddenly saw a car. “Uh, there’s this red car coming... no, it’s not stopping. It’s moving on.” She settled herself back down on the hillside, staring up at the road.

“Alright, first question. What exactly are you researching here?” Dallas asked.

“Ah, good question. But one I am not sure I can explain to a layman. You are aware of the theory of teleportation?”

“Only from science fiction. And they don’t normally explain that deeply.”

“Ah, then I must start from the beginning, I suppose. Do you know how to draw a circle with a dot inside on a piece of paper, without taking your pen off the paper?” There was silence for a while, as the scientist pulled a blank piece of paper out of a drawer. “Most would say it cannot be done. But if you fold in one corner, then back again... You have the drawing, in one motion.”

“Cut the technobabble. What exactly are you working on?”

“I have found a way to fold three dimensional space; the world we live in, to cross borders in an instant. I have not perfected it yet; lab rats have a habit of being... frail.” He chuckled weakly, then added, “But I have managed to move them. And soon, they will be alive again, and Nobel will finally see the true genius that I am.”

Turning away from the road for a second, Rainbow saw Hoxton jiggling the lock on another door, out of sight of the guards, who were being distracted by Wolf touching the things on the shelves. She almost didn’t see the car coming, hearing it first. “Guys! A car’s coming! Looks like police!” The deactivated lights on the car gave it away.

“How many people?” Bain asked, in lieu of the crew.

“I count two people in the car. Wait...” For a moment, she thought she’d seen another black figure in the back, but wrote it off as a shadow. “Two people. They’re heading for the back door. And they don’t look like they’re here to hear about teleporting.”

“Sorry, Dr. Canard, but a situation has arisen,” Dallas interrupted the current lecture, putting his gun to the scientist’s head and an arm around his neck. “Nobody move, or the doctor dies!” He pointed his gun at the guards and repeated, “Hands up, everyone! I don’t want to take you away from your families!”

“Get ready, they’re about to come in!” As she pulled her binoculars down, she suddenly heard a strange whining noise. She thought it was her imagination again, but it was getting louder, and the pitch getting higher. “What the heck is that...” she started, turning around to face it.

Then she felt something rather like a freight train landing right on the top of her skull. She collapsed almost immediately, winded and trying to catch her breath. “Happy birthday!” a man shouted, his voice distorted slightly. She looked up to see a black figure with glowing green eyes for just a moment, before he brought a baton down on her head. “You can start crying any time you like!”

“Shi—Can’t—Must...” A cacophony of voices came through her earpiece, but the black man saw it and struck there next. The jolt in her ear made her cry out, but she didn’t start crying yet. Another strike came down on her midsection, then another almost immediately after.

“Cry!” He kicked her in the head, and she started rolling down the hill as he gave chase. She tried to pull herself up at the bottom, but he tackled her to the ground, striking the base of her wing with his baton again. “I’ll stop as soon as I see you cry for me!” The baton came down across her eyes, and she screamed, but didn’t cry. She couldn’t give him the satisfaction. “No? Well, how about this?” Holding her eyelid open with one hand, he raised his baton in the other, pointing straight down—

The split second between when the baton started falling, and the bullet ripped through her attacker’s skull, felt like an eternity. The rest of his body was thrown to the side by the impact, and the baton missed her exposed eye by a hair’s breadth. She felt herself being picked up, and looked down at the mask. “Chains?” she asked, weakly.

“Ain’t gonna let you get into trouble,” he said as he started running. “Now c’mon, keep your head down. We gotta get back to Alex.” As he ran, bullets flew through the air, coming from both directions at once as the others held the line at the plane, keeping the continuing police response from getting any closer.

“We’re here, let’s go!” he shouted as he charged into the back, setting his charge down on the floor. The plane started moving, but the others were able to run fast enough to get in. Hoxton pulled the door closed behind them, and the plane pulled up into the air. Rainbow started to stretch her wings out, stopping as soon as she felt the sharp pain at the base of her left wing. “Is it broken?” she asked.

Dallas picked her up and strapped her into a seat before the angle got too steep. As he pulled the seatbelt down, he checked at the base with one hand, causing Rainbow to wince again. “I don’t think it’s broken, if you were able to move it,” he said finally. “But I don’t know much about this. We’ll just have to hope for the best.”

A minute of silence passed before Rainbow looked over at Chains again. “Even if you’re not a great spotter, I’m not gonna leave you hangin’,” he said quickly. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t need practice. Get up on the rooftops sometime. Keep an eye on the street. Back off if anyone tries to photograph you. Practice makes perfect.”

Slowly, she nodded in response, trying to make sense of the rapid-fire stream of words. “He doesn’t hate you just because he got angry,” Dallas finally said. “But you can’t slack off when someone gives you a job to do. Right?”

“Right,” she nodded. “We’re all a team. I can’t be the only one not pulling my weight.”

“You’re not really part of the team. It’s only temporary until we can get rid of you,” Hoxton said. As Rainbow looked at him, he quickly backed up. “That’s not what I meant. Not that I don’t appreciate you around, but...”

“Hoxton? Stop talking.”

“Right.”

Dentist

View Online

September 20, 2014
10:35 AM

“SD 1550, CP 2249...” Rainbow was watching cars through the window of the van. If she saw a police car, she noted down its license plate in a notebook. It wasn’t much, but it at least gave her something to do as Dallas drove her to the dentist. “Hey, why are you taking me outside, anyway?” she asked. “And how do you know nobody’s gonna freak out or try to turn me in?”

Dallas said nothing, and she simply returned to her car watching, fuming slightly. “SCP 173... Wait, that’s not a D.C. plate.” She scribbled it out on the page, looking up from it just in time to miss a police car’s plate. “Damn it!” The pen flew into the window, landing out of her reach. That only made her even more frustrated, and she was just about ready to tear off her seatbelt and go up to shout at Dallas directly when the van suddenly stopped.

“This is the place,” Dallas said. “I’ll take a look around, make sure nobody’s looking in the street before I open the doors. You’ll have to move fast, though. Brick building just to your left, up the stairs and into the waiting room. You ready?”

“I guess... But you still haven’t told me where—”

“Now.” The doors slid open, and sighing angrily, Rainbow threw herself into the street, turning left and seeing the staircase that Dallas had mentioned. Quickly, she galloped up it, not caring about the sound she made as she passed through an open door. The ‘waiting room’ was definitely there, but there was nobody else around. Though it meant she was safe for the time being, it was slightly creepy to see an empty waiting room.

When she heard the door close behind her, she jumped and spun around to face it. She didn’t see the person who’d come from the other side, hearing the woman’s voice first. “Miss Dash?” she asked, and Rainbow jumped again. “What is the matter? The dentist is not that scary, right?”

In response, she could only giggle nervously. “Right, right...” Trying not to make eye contact, she stepped through into the treatment room. There was another person there, tall and dark-skinned with rimless glasses, the lower half of his face covered by a disposable mask. Having to reach up slightly to get into the human-set chair, she lay back, the chair falling back as well.

“Ah, Rainbow Dash,” the dentist said. “I have never operated on a pony before. This is going to be an interesting experience for me.” He paused for a moment, then added, “And hopefully, for you as well.” He washed his hands at a nearby sink, then pulled on a pair of gloves and walked up to her right side.

“I’ve been to the dentist before,” Rainbow said.

“Ah, yes. Doctor Colgate, I believe. Open up, please?” Her ears suddenly perked up, but immediately fell back down when she realised it was probably just a joke. Her name had sounded like a joke to Dallas as well, at first. The dentist had noticed, though, and he added, “Though I believe her real name was Minuette, and Colgate is just a professional handle.”

Her eyes went wide at the casual statement. How had he known that? As he put the mirror and scraper in her mouth, she tried to calm herself down. She didn’t want to make anything worse in her own mouth. “I wouldn’t know,” she lied softly.

“Of course not. These are some pretty good teeth, as far as I can see. Do you floss?”

“Not really.”

“Hmm. Perhaps that’s only to be expected.” He turned away from her, looking out of the window, though he seemed as focused as ever. “Your friends... How are they doing?”

“They’re fine. Off destroying a mall, or something like that.”

“Maybe you should check up on them. Even if they are in other hands, you ought to keep tabs on how they’re doing.”

“I’m here right now, and I can’t go to the mall. I’d be photographed, captured, tugged at by kids—”

“Oh, my apologies, Rainbow Dash. I had forgotten you were there for a moment.” She tilted her head fully sideways at the statement. Something was very wrong. “I don’t see any major problems with how you’re doing, personally. It’s a pity that you’re having trouble flying, though. And that you can’t do much else for the team, it must be so frustrating.”

That did it. She was going to throttle his sources out of him. She tried to shoot out of her chair, but faster than she thought humans could move, he’d turned around and was holding her down in the chair, along with the female orderly. “Rest assured, I have no intention of becoming your enemy,” he said, his voice never changing from the tone he used as a dentist to a patient. “But if you insist upon that course of action...” He shook his head slowly as he let go. This time, she stayed still in the chair. “Mouthwash?”

Suspiciously, she sipped at the cup, letting the mint-tasting liquid sit in her mouth. She knew it was probably to stop her protesting at whatever he was going to say next, but by that point she also knew he had the upper hand regardless. “Magic in this world is difficult to find, or make use of,” he mused. “And not just the kind that Unicorns use. Earth Ponies and Pegasi have their own magic as well. That is why you can’t take off. Spit.”

She leaned over a small portable sink and ejected the mouthwash. She hated mint. “Why are you telling me all this?” she asked. “What do you want from me?”

He took off his mask and made eye contact with her. “When Dallas came to visit me, I told him of the plans I had for him and his crew. In other circumstances, they could have pulled off the jobs, but since you’re here, I feel like they’ll need your help. And not just as a birdwatcher. I intend to you to help them on the ground.”

“I’m not a criminal. Besides, since I can’t fly, how can I possibly help them?”

“There are different degrees of criminal out there. I’m sure you have stories of a bandit who robbed the rich and greedy to give to the poor and needy. It’s a tale as old as time itself. Most humans do not believe Robin Hood was a criminal.” Rainbow nodded slowly, recalling the tales she’d been told of the Red Baron by Gilda in flight school. “Most of the truly criminal jobs can be carried out by the Payday Crew themselves. But against larger and more corrupt opponents, they will require your help.”

“You still didn’t answer my question. How can I help them?”

“Don’t worry. I have a plan in mind for that. But I cannot tell you of it just yet. Do not be impatient, Rainbow Dash. Your wings shall return to you.” Frowning sadly, she stretched them out in the chair, looking down at them and flapping once impotently. “Other than that, I think we’re done here. Normally I’d tell you to start flossing, but just take care of your teeth the way you have been.”

Nodding, Rainbow stepped out of the chair and started heading for the door. “Oh, and one last thing,” the dentist called as she passed into the waiting room, still empty. She turned her head back to face him. “I’d suggest you ask Dallas what happened to Hoxton. He’s been rather stressed as of late regarding him.”

“Hoxton? His brother?”

“No. The real Hoxton.” The door seemed to close on its own, and Rainbow was left wondering just who the dentist really was, and why he’d told her any of that. All she could do was wait for something to happen, and ask about Hoxton in the meantime.

“How’d it go?” Dallas asked as she came down the stairs.

“He’s... creepy. He knows way too much. How does he even do it? It’s like he’s psychic...”

“He has a lot of patients, who talk about a lot of things. That’s all he told me as well.” Looking around once more, he opened the back doors of the van and beckoned her inside.

Once she’d strapped herself into the seat and they were driving off again, she decided it was the right time to ask. “Hey, there’s something I wanted to ask you. The dentist told me about who he called ‘the real Hoxton’. What happened to him?” Dallas didn’t reply for almost a minute. The silence told Rainbow some of what she needed to know. “He said you needed to let off some stress regarding him. Can you just tell me?”

More silence followed, before Dallas eventually said, “Hoxton was part of the original crew, back when we did the First World Bank. He was... dependable in pretty much any situation. And he was a good friend.” Another pause. “A couple of years ago, he gave us a call, saying the police had surrounded his safe house. We couldn’t get him back in time. There were too many, and we had to retreat without him. We split up after that, until Bain found my little brother and made him the new Hoxton.

“It’s just not the same, though. Hoxton was a master at everything. The new one isn’t bad, but he’s inexperienced and lacks confidence, a bit like you. But he’s out of our reach now, and there’s not a lot that can be done.” Rainbow fell into silence at that. To have to leave a friend behind, and never being able to see them again... As the Element of Loyalty, she knew how much that had to hurt, even if she’d never been in a similar situation herself.

~~~

Back in his operating room, the Dentist himself turned back to the same spot at the window he’d spoken to before. “You see, Twilight?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t get a reply, but that his words would reach her. “She was entirely safe in my hands. And I know how to retrieve her power. All I need is a concentrated source of magic.” He paused for a moment, as if to let her respond, then continued, “I don’t know exactly where or how GenSec are moving it. But I know how to find that out. They’ll require some more, shall we say, direct help from you, however...”

Docks

View Online

September 22, 2014
9:22 PM

Though bounty hunters are often seen as fiction or ancient history, there may be a few appearing in modern-day Washington D.C., as the Federal Bureau of Intervention has today placed a reward of five million dollars for the capture of each of the Payday Crew members. FBI Director Angelo Stevens was quoted as saying that he was willing to take any measure to remove these criminals, including getting help from outside the Bureau. Will anyone collect on these bounties, or will the Payday Crew simply continue to pile up the bodies of those who stand in their way? Stay tuned for our expert analysis on the Seven O’clock News.

~~~

“So, now that we’re all here, can you tell me just what we’re doing?” Rainbow asked, pointing her binoculars at the road leading through the harbour. There was a makeshift fence of shipping containers pressed right up against the road, one of the highest of which she was holed up in.

“GenSec are the biggest security company on the East Coast,” Bain began. “If someone wants their building secure, private or business, odds are GenSec provides it. They do everything: doors, alarms, manpower... They also tend to move things around a lot, from little Timmy's favourite baseball card to gold bullion for the banks.”

“Let me guess. You found out that this particular convoy’s carrying that gold.”

“Right now, they're in possession of something the Dentist wants. He doesn't know where the item is, but this convoy is carrying a manifesto that might lead us to it. We're going to drop a shipping container as the trucks pass through the harbour, and the gang will spring out, open the trucks and take the document.”

She took her eyes off the road for just a moment to see the container hanging from the magnetic crane. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just tell me when the trucks are coming, and we'll handle the rest of the caper. These docks have a long history of criminal endeavours; hopefully, we can do that record proud.”

“Gotcha.” She turned back to the road. Nothing was coming, still. “That container looks a little high up. Are you sure the crew can survive that drop?”

“If we hang it too low over the road, someone’ll get suspicious. Besides, the Dentist said he had that under control, and I have no reason not to believe him. He knows a lot of people in a lot of places and fields, after all. Calls them his patients.”

Nodding slowly at the revelation, Rainbow turned back to the road. “Hey! Bunch of trucks are coming! Four of ‘em, all painted alike! Must be our convoy!” She paused for a moment as the first turned the corner, then shouted, “Drop it now!”

As the container fell from the magnetic crane, accompanied by a faint purple glow that she wrote off as a mirage of some kind, Rainbow realised she’d mistimed it. The first truck made it through, and the second managed to accelerate just hard enough to get under. “We got the last two trucks,” she reported back. “Sorry, must’ve mistimed the drop.”

“Well, you did what you could,” Hoxton said. “And we’re all okay in here. Guess our contractor came through for us.”

“Looks like there’s a few people getting out of the trucks.” After a moment’s checking without the binoculars, she said, “There’s six of them. Red shirts, red caps, and they’ve all got guns.”

“Roger that,” Dallas replied. “Okay, Wolf, Chains, I’ll leave this part to you. Take the security down, and get the drill mounted on one of the trucks. As soon as it’s open, Hoxton, get to the strongboxes inside. Rainbow, keep an eye out for any incoming police. The other trucks probably already made the call. Ready?” A short pause. “Go!”

The doors of the container burst open, and Rainbow instinctively looked away as the sounds of gunfire echoed in the narrow street. There was a long report from Chains’ machine gun on one side, a single explosion echoing from Wolf’s shotgun, and a few quick bursts from the other that were silenced almost immediately. After a few seconds of total silence, she looked down to see that all the people she’d marked out were dead, along with a few others she hadn’t seen.

From the height she was at it seemed unreal, the bodies seeming as though they were dead before she arrived. The only clue that they were fresh bodies was the blood still pooling underneath them. She started to feel the bile building up again, but with the surreality of the vista she had, along with her will to get the job done this time, she was able to suppress the feeling.

The drill’s distinctive sound broke the silence. “Alright, that’s the first truck ready,” Wolf said without the communicators. “About three minutes before we’re in.”

Wolf’s ‘normal’ speech surprised Rainbow when she heard Chains give her an order through it: “Hey, Rainbow, keep an eye on the road. Cops could show up any minute now.” Sending back a simple acknowledgement, she pulled up her binoculars again, looking out at the roads leading off the scene. Nobody was coming, and even if she focused as far out as possible, she couldn’t see a single moving car.

“Where the hell are the cops?” Wolf asked, leaning against the truck. He pumped his shotgun once, loading the shell straight back in. “What’s taking them so long? They didn’t take this long when we did that Roberts Bank job at the outskirts of town. On Christmas!” Chains was whistling a tune to himself, and didn’t reply. Hoxton and Dallas were out of sight, but the muted screams she could just barely hear indicated that they were busy nonetheless.

“Alright, that’s the dock workers taken care of,” Dallas reported. “What’s the situation out there?”

“Bored out of my mind, but otherwise okay.”

“Totally empty. Nobody around as far as I can see.”

“A minute left on the drill. Get that lockpick of yours ready, Hoxtonator.”

“I don’t like this at all, guys,” Bain said suddenly. “I can’t hear any chatter from the police at all, but we hit the convoy ages ago, and the other trucks must have put out an SOS by now. I can’t shake the feeling we’re about to get sucker punched.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Be ready to move that drill, Wolf. If the manifesto isn’t there, we’ll need to get the other truck too, and that’ll mean we’ll be here even longer. Don’t make this job any longer than it has to be.”

“Just a few seconds to go. Everyone get ready!”

As the drill beeped once, Wolf picked it up and stowed it in his bag. Hoxton stepped up to throw the doors open, then stopped short. Rainbow couldn’t see his face, but he was frozen in terror, shouting a single word: “BULLDOZER!” She didn’t know what it meant, but she saw him turn and duck as the deafening shotgun blast ripped past him.

A large man in thick green armour slid out the open doors, shouting something indistinctly as he landed. He levelled his shotgun at Hoxton again, but was interrupted by Wolf jumping on him and grabbing at the faceplate. Kicking the shotgun out of the ‘Bulldozer’s hands, he tore off the faceplate with his left hand and drew a pistol with his right, levelling it straight at his prone opponent’s face.

Rainbow looked up as the execution ended, and what she saw instead didn’t make her feel any better. “The streets are filling up, guys!” she said. “Cops everywhere! Looks like you’re going to have to fight it out!”

Looking down at last, she saw Wolf helping Hoxton up to his feet. Most of the shotgun pellets had missed him, but a couple had landed in his left arm. Dallas pulled a bandage out of the bag at his hip, along with a bottle of painkillers. “How many do you see?” Bain asked, and she looked back up.

“Six cars that I can see. Don’t know how many inside each. And there’s a SWAT van, too.”

“Alright, people, everyone into the truck! We’ll hold the line there for Hoxton! Wait for them to back off before we go for the other one, if it’s not there!” Dallas ordered. “Bain, you picking up any chatter yet?”

“They’re preparing for an all-out assault. Only a few seconds away... No, they’re going right now! Brace for it!”

A shot rang out from the far side of the alley, and Dallas dove into cover behind the truck’s cab. Shots rang out back and forth as the police, and then the clowns, ducked in and out of cover. A duffel bag full of money flew out of the back of the truck; Hoxton hadn’t found the manifesto yet, but he had found that instead, and decided it was worth keeping. A policeman tried to sneak up and steal the money, only to back off as soon as he saw Wolf draw his pocket knife. It flew across the distance and landed in his neck as he tried to reach for his gun.

“Only one box left,” Hoxton said, then, “Shit! It’s not here! Wolf, we gotta drill the other truck!” Wolf immediately started running towards the second truck, retrieving his knife as he did. Chains ran out behind the truck and provided covering fire, laying down a sustained burst with his machine gun as Wolf set up the drill. Dallas fired off one last shot before following the rest of the group, setting the bag of money down behind the second truck near Hoxton.

“Those SWAT guys are a hostage rescue team! They’re going after those workers you tied down before!” Bain shouted. Swearing, Dallas waved at Chains to come along and ran behind where Rainbow could see, into the docks. She heard movement just below, and suddenly, someone in orange and a helmet climbed into the shipping container with her.

“What the—?” he asked, as Rainbow held up a hoof.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Just get behind me, stay quiet and stay still,” she said. Seeing something down below, she reached up for her earpiece. “They shot the drill! Someone’s gotta restart it!”

Wolf and Hoxton both shouted “Fuck!” at exactly the same time. “What’s the matter with that fucking drill?!” Hoxton added as he pulled out an assault rifle, laying down a burst of cover fire for Wolf again. As he reloaded, one of the officers pulled out a revolver and shot Wolf in the chest. The impact was blunted by the bulletproof vest under the suit, but it was enough to knock him off balance, hindering his progress. In response, Wolf pulled his own revolver out and fired a single shot back, returning to the drill as Hoxton began his cover fire again.

The drill’s whine quickly returned to Rainbow’s ears, and she shouted, “Better keep them off it from now on!”

“Thanks a lot, Captain Obvious!” Wolf shouted back, looking down at his phone. “The drill’s got one minute left to go, if it doesn’t fuck up again!”

“Don’t worry, Wolf, we got this!” Chains replied as he returned to Rainbow’s field of view, letting off another burst from his machine gun. “Dallas, how much longer until the van gets in?”

“Two minutes!” came the voice of Twitch, the crew’s getaway driver.

“Two minutes?! Can’t you do any better?!” Wolf asked.

“I’m driving as fast as I can! You wanna drive?!”

“The drill’s nearly done anyway! Van should arrive just as Hox is done!” Rainbow suggested. “Don’t worry too much about it!” Behind her, she didn’t see the worker pull out a cell phone and start to record her. “Wait a minute, more cops coming in! The cars are piled up past where I can see, so I don’t know how many! Be ready for anything!”

As the second wave came in, the drill beeped once, indicating it was done. Wolf threw the doors open harder than necessary, almost shoving Hoxton in before pointing his revolver towards the street and firing off the other five bullets in rapid succession. As he emptied the shells to reload, he suddenly started spasming and stuttering, dropping the pistol.

“Taser!” Dallas shouted, pointing out a man in navy blue armour who was aiming some kind of plastic gun at Wolf. Chains took the hint, letting loose with a burst of machine gun fire that tore through the armour, causing the ‘Taser’ to fly backwards, waving his arms around like he was at a rave. As soon as he finally fell to the ground, Wolf bent down to grab his gun before diving back behind the truck, just in time to avoid a bullet.

“Hey, I got the file!” Hoxton suddenly shouted. “They’re moving a gemstone on a train a ways out of D.C., tomorrow! This is probably it, but I’m gonna make sure! Only a couple of boxes left here!”

“Guys, I’m here!” Twitch shouted. “Everyone move out! Back corner of the docks, behind the trucks, just like we agreed on!”

“Gimme a minute here, I need to get these boxes!”

“There’s no time, Hoxton! More could be here any minute now! Take that file and go!” Dallas ordered. “Rainbow, it’s nearly time to split! We’ll cover you!”

“When will it be safe to come down?!”

A pause. “Now! Move it!”

Rainbow jumped down out of the container, rolling to take the impact and immediately galloping towards the crew, who were firing over her head. Dallas ushered her through a hole in a wire fence, and she crawled through it quickly. “Chains needs help!” Bain suddenly shouted. Turning around, she saw that he was down on the ground, surrounded by three cops, one of whom was turning him over.

Wolf, who had come through behind her, quickly turned around and fired his revolver, hitting the man holding Chains first, then the other two. He ran out into the street, firing his shotgun wildly, as Hoxton came out of the truck. The two of them helped Chains to his feet and pushed him through the hole. Dallas tried to pull him up, but was waved off. “I can walk, as far as the van anyway,” he said as the other two came through the hole, Hoxton still firing behind the group.

“We gotta go, people! Haul ass!” Twitch insisted, and Dallas started running. Rainbow followed him, then Wolf, Hoxton and Chains, who was limping slightly. The group turned left, through a container, and piled into the van one by one. Hoxton pulled the doors shut behind Chains as he fell into a seat, and the van quickly accelerated off.

They stopped a ways away, piling out into a secluded alley. Dallas attended to Chains with his medic bag as Hoxton pulled out the file again. Wolf looked over his shoulder to see what was written in it. Looking at Chains, Rainbow didn’t hear what Hoxton said, but Bain did. “Alright, looking up the line between those two points...” he said. “I’ve found a spot where I can stop the train. But we’ll have to get the lead out to get into position in time. You guys up for a little road trip?”

“Sounds like fun,” Wolf said. “A great train robbery, just like in the movies.” He cocked his shotgun, then reloaded the unused shell straight back in.

“Hoxton, what did you say the cargo was?”

“Some kind of gemstone. Details are pretty vague. But they’re also moving some kind of prototype anti-infantry turret, and about a dozen bags of ammunition. Gage will probably be happy to see those, if we can get them too.”

“I’ll call up the Dentist, see if he’s looking for a gemstone too... Yeah, he’s after the gemstone. Says it’s beyond any value, though he’s willing to compensate us as well as he can. And that turret sounds like a good idea too, if we have time for it. Get rambling, ramblers.” Everyone piled back into the van, and as the police sirens continued screaming towards the now-empty docks, the Payday Crew, along with their spotter, drove off into the night.

Return

View Online

September 23, 2014
11:51 AM

The bridge crossed a ravine which was perpendicular to a nearby river. A small boat stopped at the intersection, allowing four men and a pony to get out. “I’ll wait for you here. Don’t take too long, okay?” Twitch said, waving them off.

“Alright, the train’s not here yet,” Dallas said, pulling on his mask. “Let’s figure out how we’re going to hit it. There’s no high enough places to spot from that Rainbow can reach without flying, so she’s gonna stay down here. We don’t want to lose her now.” She nodded slowly, not liking the situation, but able to accept it. Once again, she flapped her wings a few times, as if hoping against hope that she could miraculously fly again.

“There’s three carriages, carrying three vaults,” Bain reported. “The Dentist said that the gemstone is the priority, but if you want to take the turret as well, he says that’s on your initiative. Just be careful out there. GenSec are pretty jumpy after the hit we gave them last night.”

“It looks like there’s six entrances, though,” Hoxton said, pointing at a schematic of the train. “And only three vaults, which they wouldn’t put doors on both sides of.”

Dallas nodded agreement. “That means we’ll need to find out where the vault doors are as well. There’s camera feeds inside each vault, but we only have one of those anti-vault thermal drills, so we’ll have to make sure that it’s the right one before we place it. Wolf, I’ll leave that to you.” Wolf cocked and reloaded his shotgun again.

“Chains, it’s likely that GenSec are going to defend in depth. We’ll try and sneak in if we can, but if that isn’t an option, we’ll need your help to clear them all out.” Chains raised his own shotgun in response, an automatic with a regular clip rather than Wolf’s more ‘traditional’ style. “Hoxton, I’ll need your help to get into the cars. I’m sure I can probably coerce some assistance out of the guards, unless things start getting loud, but you’re our primary man on the job.” Hoxton screwed a silencer onto his pistol and nodded.

“If you find the turret, disassemble it, bag it up and toss it down. Rainbow can probably move the parts back to the boat by herself. Be a little more careful if you find the ammo, though; it’s explosive, and it won’t like being tossed around. I’ll tell you more when you get there,” Bain added. With a quick pause to check his data, he continued, “Security seems pretty loose. They think it’s a bug in the rail system, and they aren’t on guard for an attack. Just don’t get spotted too early. Clear? Transform and roll out.”

The crew started heading through the ravine towards the bridge, and Rainbow watched them go, sitting and flicking her tail. Already bored, she pulled up her binoculars again, seeing them climb the stairs to the train bridge. A few men in orange were standing around, and others in black were crawling over the train and the depot at one end. She couldn’t see very clearly, though, and gave up after only a few seconds. Instead, she focused on the voices coming through her earpiece, trying to follow the heist through only sound.

“Alright, moving in.”

“Be careful, Hox. You don’t wanna get seen, at all. You don’t command the same respect that I do.”

“Speaking of that, there’s someone alone in that shed on the side. Maybe they know something. Go check it out; I’ll look for keycards.”

“So, Chains, do you think Rainbow would take to Transformers? It seems like her kind of show...”

“What, like ‘transform and roll out’ before?”

“Yeah, that was the reference. And it wouldn’t even give you nightmares, the way some of Wolf’s DVD library would.”

“Hi, my name’s Dallas. I’d like to ask a few questions about that train there. And it’ll be a lot easier for everyone if you don’t touch that phone, and stay away from the window...”

“Maybe it’s something I could catch up on while you guys are having poker night. Bain seems to be a lot better as your fifth player than I am.”

“They can’t tell when I’m lying because they can’t see my face, that’s really all it is. Oh, by the way, Hoxton, nice work finding the dropped card. Now get one of those doors open, and keep an eye on the situation outside. Wolf’s not as good at sneaking as you, remember.”

“Okay, entering the fourth door, back of the centre carriage... Huh, there’s a vault door right here, and—Drop that gun! Down on the ground, right now! And give me that pager!”

“Nice work, Hoxton.”

“Wait, what else did he find in there?”

“What’s going on down there? Respond immediately, over.”

“Nothing’s the matter. I’m trying to quit smoking, but my hands keep twitching. I was just fiddling with the radio. Everything’s okay on this end.”

“Alright, just give me a second... Yeah, sorry, you know how it is. Can’t be too careful after that hit last night.”

“Looks like he bought it. I found a camera feed for the inside of the vault. Looks like that turret you mentioned, and a few boxes of bullets.”

“What’s the code to the centre vault? ...3104? Interesting. Thanks for your cooperation. Now stay down, stay quiet, and I won’t have to retract my appreciation and replace it with a bullet.”

“Hey, buddy, can I borrow your hand for a minute? Wolf, don’t bother coming in yet, I’ve got this under control.”

“Is it working, Hox? Because I’d really like to see you pull this heist yourself. I really don’t feel like steppin’ in, I still need some coffee...”

“Don’t pressure me, Chains. ...Yeah, looks like it’s legit. Turret’s right here.”

“Alright, you can unscrew the top part, separate it and place the two halves in a bag each, then the tripod in a third bag. Toss ‘em down to Rainbow when you’re done, and get to work on the other cars.”

“What if somebody finds that guy you tied up just now?”

“I’ll lock the door. Nobody’ll be coming for him until the train’s reached its final destination.”

“Good thinking. ...Hmm, looks like you forgot to shave this morning...”

“First bag coming down. Heads up!”

The duffel bag fell from the bridge, and Rainbow broke into a sprint to catch it before it hit the ground. She laid it gently on the ground as Hoxton kicked the second bag over, and did the same for it and the third. The pieces were all quite heavy, so she had to start moving them one bag at a time back to the boat. As she did, the chatter continued.

“So anyway, do you have cartoons in your world, Rainbow?”

“I don’t really know what those are, so I’m gonna say no.”

“Okay, door’s locked and the middle carriage is secure. Heading for the back right now. Shit, gotta get over the train!”

“What happened, Hoxtolicious? Somebody see you? That would be bad.”

“...No, looks like I’m in the clear. That was way too close, though. We can’t afford to mess up like that again, especially not you, Wolfie.”

“Okay, first bag’s in the boat. I’m coming back for the next.”

“This guy doesn’t know anything. If you find the next vault, you’ll probably just have to drill it and hope nobody gets close enough to hear it.”

“That end of the bridge looks pretty deserted to me. Wolf, cross at the bottom. There’s a ladder on that side you can use to get into the train car without having to go through as many people.”

“Thanks, Chains. On my way. Hey, Regnbåge, I’ll help you move that other bag first. Hoxton can probably wait in the cars. Just lock them again, yeah?”

As Rainbow returned to the pair of bags, Wolf slid down the side of the ravine and picked up one of them, leaving his orange bag with the drill. “Let’s go,” he said, gesturing back to the boat. “So, anyway, Transformers. Very popular show when I was little. You’d probably like it, it’s got lots of action in it. And giant robots. No kid your age doesn’t like giant robots.”

“How old am I?” Rainbow asked, stopping for a moment and staring at Wolf through the black holes in his mask.

“Uh... Fourteen? I don’t know how ponies age.”

“Closer to twenty-two. C’mon, keep walking. Those bags aren’t gonna deliver themselves.” Shrugging, Wolf fell behind slightly.

“Okay, what’s behind door number five... Nothing. Except... There’s a camera feed here.”

“Yeah? What’s inside? C’mon, Hox, don’t keep us all waitin’ around.”

“...Looks like this is pay dirt. There’s definitely a bigass gem right in the middle of it.”

“Great find, Hoxton. Go drill it open and grab it.”

“I’m already heading ‘round the other side. Wolf, get ready to drill her open.”

As Rainbow was about to throw the bag into the boat, she suddenly stopped, perking her ears straight up. “Hang on, Hoxton, what did the gem in the middle look like?” Wolf pulled the bag out of her hooves and tossed it in, sprinting back for the bag with the drill he’d left behind.

“Uh... I didn’t get a good look at it. Some kinda ruby, I think. Why d’you ask?”

“Okay, I got the drill back. Which side are you on?”

“From where you are, I think Hoxton’s in the furthest door to the left.”

“Yeah, that one’s open. I’m heading up.”

“What colour was it? What shape?”

“Why the hell do you wanna know all this stuff? It’s what we came here to get. Why do you need to know more than that about it?”

“Tell her, Hoxton,” Bain cut in, more harshly than Rainbow had ever heard him speak. “Just do it. If she’s that concerned about it, then it could be something from her world. If it is, then the Dentist has a lot more explaining to do.”

“Alright, fine. It was a ruby, couldn’t see the shape, but it wasn’t cut like a normal gem. The necklace was pretty ornate, too. Had these kinda cloud-shaped markings on it...”

“A ruby, set in a gold necklace, with kind of cloud-shaped markings... Guys, I’m coming up. If this is what I think it is...”

“The heck are you saying, D? Stay with the boat! If you get spotted, there’s no telling what’ll happen!”

“Listen to yourself! I’ve seen too many plans ended by someone doing something against the plan that they just ‘had to do’!”

“I’m sorry, guys. But you can’t change my mind on this.” She broke into a gallop towards the bridge, ignoring the voices coming through. She wouldn’t pass up her chance to get her Element necklace back for anything. She hadn’t known that it had been taken too, but having it back could only work out in her favour long-term.

“Hey, why’s the door opening?” Wolf suddenly asked, and Rainbow stopped in her tracks. “What’s going on in there... So there’s the camera, and—Hoxton. RUN!” The sound of a very loud gun being fired for an extended burst filled the air. “Get out of the train! Shit, there’s too many of them!” Wolf’s shotgun and Hoxton’s rifle both fought to be heard over the sound of the other gun, but only barely succeeded.

“The guards all just woke up! I’m surrounded, and my cover’s not great here! Chains, I could really use a hand right about now!”

“On it, Dallas! But what about Hox and Wolf?”

“They’re too far away right now! Just do what you can for Dallas!”

Trying to find an opening in the battle, Rainbow crept up the stairs, seeing the open train carriage. She was about to jump in when someone, or something, jumped out. For a moment, it looked like the Bulldozer from the job at the docks, but this one was wearing a black-and-white speckled suit, and the faceplate had a skull painted on. She barely noticed the massive gun that it was pointing at her until it laughed, sounding nothing short of evil.

Only barely coming to her senses in time, she dodged out of the way of the burst of gunfire that ripped through where she’d been just a moment before, and slid under the Skulldozer’s arm before it could grab her. As he turned around, she ran into the train carriage, hiding behind the vault door. “Yes, that’s good, my little pony,” it said in the same insane voice. “Hide if you want, but I will find you again, as soon as I’m done with your clown friends. And when I do, you’ll be wishing they’d never gotten you out in the first place.”

He walked away around the side of the train, towards the gunshots that were penetrating the door on the other side. Rainbow let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, and looked at the necklace sitting on a podium in the middle of the vault. A single look at the gem in the middle confirmed her suspicions. All she had to do was take it and run, and never look back. She couldn’t let herself get caught by the Skulldozer.

As she placed it around her neck, though, a surge of energy flowed through her. No, that wasn’t quite correct, it was a surge of Loyalty. Immediately, she discarded the idea of escape. She couldn’t leave the people who’d rescued her, multiple times, and were willing to rescue one another, despite the danger they were frequently in because of it. She owed them the same, no matter how scared she was.

Pressing a button near the closed door on the far side, she saw the Skulldozer approaching a crate that Hoxton and Wolf were cowering behind. Letting out a war cry as it turned to face the opening door, she charged, jumping at its faceplate. The sudden impact from a fast-running Pegasus to the head took it off-balance, and it stumbled, hitting the guard rail and continuing past it.

Rainbow was still holding onto the faceplate, but quickly tensed every muscle in her body as it tried to grab at her. With a single movement, she jumped off, heading straight up in the air. She stretched out her wings again, feeling the air underneath them, and then pulled them back down.

Somehow, she felt herself moving forward from the action.

Braking and turning around, switching into a hover, she realised she was flying again. Before she could wonder how or why, a bullet whizzed past her ear, and she fell into a crash dive, swooping around like a madmare to keep the GenSec guards from landing any solid hits on her. Down below, she could see the Payday Crew taking advantage of the situation, gunning down the distracted guards rapidly. Not wanting to stick around too long, she flew back towards the boat, diving into the river and feeling the rush of water around her.

It had been far too long since she’d flown, and she wanted to enjoy it as much as she could now that she had it back. She’d never take her wings for granted again.

When she finally saw the boat pulling off, she made a landing on it. Everyone was staring at her through their masks, and even Twitch had turned around. After a few seconds, she decided to break the silence herself. “Rainbow Dash is back, bitches!” she shouted, pumping a hoof into the air.

There was silence for another few moments. Then the clowns all started cheering and whooping. Dallas slapped her on the back, saying, “We’ll have to have poker night early this week, I reckon. We even managed to make a lot on the side.” He pointed out the three bags containing the turret parts, along with a few more red bags that he said had the ammunition. “Gage is going to love us for this!”

“Hold on, fellas,” Bain suddenly cut in. “The Dentist specifically told me that he wanted the gemstone himself. That means you’re probably not going to get to keep it...” Everyone fell silent, and Rainbow fell into a sitting position, head lowered and ears drooped. “Hey, don’t give up yet. We at least pulled off the heist. And I’m sure I’ll be able to work something out.”

“Yeah...” Rainbow looked down at her neck, and the ruby sitting there. “Celebrate because we’re alive. And because that Skulldozer is dead. I mean, nobody could have survived that fall. Right?” Everyone nodded agreement, and the boat continued its journey back up the river.

~~~

Bain had left his monitors for a while to grab a bite to eat. When he returned, there was a message sitting there. It was an audio file, and as it began, he recognised the voice as the Dentist’s.

“Excellent work. Your crew performed admirably despite the conditions, and I suspect that they owe many thanks to your guidance as well. GenSec will now think twice about moving such precious things, which may well make any further valuables easy to find.

“I received your prior message about the Element of Loyalty. I only wanted it so that Rainbow Dash could return to her peak. She will be a vital asset to your team in the future, I am sure. Having a spotter who can fly and see a situation from many angles will surely come in quite useful.

“The money I offered will be wired to your accounts come morning. Enjoy your payday. I will be in touch.”

Bain nodded slowly as the message ended. It made sense; the Elements of Harmony were concentrated sources of magic, and in a world with no magic of its own, Rainbow Dash would need it in order to fly again. That the Dentist hadn’t taken it from them in the end worked out strongly in their favour. But whether Rainbow would want to continue working with them, he couldn’t say.

Well, he’d be able to figure all that out later. For now, he returned to his work, lighting one of his special cigars, to commemorate a job that went wrong, but that they pulled off in the end. Success under duress was worth celebrating as much as a perfect crime, after all.

~~~

When FBI agent Roy Wilson had taken to tapping the Director’s phone on a bar bet, he hadn’t expected much to come of it. He could only hear what was coming from his side, and the Director often didn’t have that much to say. Besides, it was surely only a matter of time before he was found out and fired, or worse. The message that he found on his phone that night, however, disturbed him greatly.

“So the train was hit, and the Element was taken. Well, I suppose that was the only possible outcome, after they did that harbour job. Don’t worry too much about it.”

“...”

“It’s only a temporary setback. And now, they’re in the same place. We can reach out and take one along with the other just as easily.”

“...”

“Flight seems like a great advantage at first, yes. But we humans learned to fly as well. And we are so much stronger once we’re in the air than anything else that flies.”

“...”

“Hoxworth? ...Yes, I suppose he might be able to help. Particularly with the right... encouragement.”

“...”

“Promise him anything, but don’t feel like you have to follow through. He’s a criminal, after all. And he deserves no better.”

“...”

“Jared Stone failed, you say? Well, that’ll give him an incentive to perform better next time. Revenge is one of the most powerful motivators out there.”

“...”

“Yes, I understand perfectly. It will be done. Good day.” The phone beeped off, and the next message played, given to him directly. “Mr. Wilson, I have an assignment for you. There is a bounty hunter who will be entering Washington in three days. You will accompany him from Dulles, and ensure he has the full cooperation of the Federal Bureau of Intervention. If you want career recognition for the capture of the Payday Crew, I suggest you carry this out.”

Roy fell back in his chair, wondering how he kept getting into these things. He hadn’t even been told the man’s name, or what he looked like. Guess I’ll just have to roll with it, he thought. Not like I have a choice. I’m dead when they find out about the bug anyway, but maybe I can at least delay it by playing along.

Intermission (edited)

View Online

May 19, 2011
11:04 AM

They found the white getaway van on its side in the parking lot of Inkwell Industrial. Matt was inside, but had locked the doors, and they’d bought the van specifically for being immune to just about everything the cops could do to it. Matt was taunting them from inside, and he didn’t care for that. Not one little bit.

He located a jerry can of gasoline in the parking lot, and brought it back to the van. No matter how much he wanted to stay in there, he wouldn’t be able to hide forever once the heat was on. He pulled a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and set the large puddle of gasoline alight. Almost right away, Matt stopped his taunting. “Cosy in there, Matt?!” he shouted.

The police had cornered them, but they weren’t worried. The van was theirs, and they had more than enough ammo to last out the assault. From inside, he could hear Matt scream, “What are you doing with that Union Jack?!” That threw him off for a second, which was long enough for him to be torn apart by gunfire—

September 27, 2014
5:34 AM

Hoxton’s eyes shot open, and he started gasping for air as though he really had been shot. Then he realised that it was just a dream, and he was still in Hazelwood. Matt was screaming in the bunk below him, and he chuckled to himself as a guard banged on the cell’s door with his baton, telling them to keep the noise down.

Neither of them got back to sleep afterwards; Matt’s whimpering kept Hoxton up, and it only got louder when the latter threatened him. Still, he couldn’t beat up Matt actively after lights out; as much as the guards hated Matt as well, the noise kept other prisoners up, and that was off limits. The day guards were totally fine with it after a few favours, though, and he took the opportunity as often as he could. It was just about the only thing that was keeping him going in the nick.

That, and he knew that one of these days, the fellas would break him out again. When the new mayor had been elected last year, the first thing he’d done on the New Year was move Hoxton to a lower-security prison. Someone else had arranged to have Matt moved with him, for which he was incredibly grateful, and Matt wasn’t. Some foul play had been suspected in the election, which only led Hoxton to believe that the crew were coming to break him out at some point.

Every time there was a heist in the news, he’d been pulled out of his cell by some police officer or FBI agent to talk about it, but he didn’t know anything about how or why they’d come back together. He knew who they were, to some degree, except for the one now using his old mask. That seemed insulting somehow, and he intended to rip into Dallas for it as soon as they were reunited.

Still, it broke up the monotony of prison life, and he was grateful for the small mercy, especially knowing it was temporary. And so it was that he was whistling ‘Rule, Britannia’ as he came into the visitor room again, knowing his only visitors were the FBI and he’d have nothing new to say to them, in exchange for details on what his mates were doing.

As soon as he came into the visitor room, though, he knew something was different. He’d never seen the FBI agent before, when usually it was the same one. Furthermore, there was a second man behind him, whose black suit seemed slightly familiar, though he couldn’t place it. His face was impossible to place, as well.

The day only got stranger when the man in the black suit, rather than the agent, pushed a photo under the glass screen between them. The photo was of a pair of trucks that had crashed into a shipping container in the road. “This is a still from a video that was recorded down at the docks on the night of the twenty-second,” the agent, who had introduced himself as Wilson, said. “The Payday Crew were there, attacking a convoy of GenSec trucks. According to a video taken by one of the dock workers, they had an accomplice there, calling out the situation for them. As for who that accomplice was...”

Hoxton turned the photo over, expecting to see it there, but instead he saw a pair of letters: ‘JW’. He mouthed the words ‘John Wick?’ as the agent turned around to take the second photo, to which the man in black nodded. There was a surprise; last he’d heard on the prison grapevine, Wick had gotten out of the game. To see him back in America, working with a cop, was unexpected to say the least.

The second photo surprised him a lot as well. What it seemed to show was a sky-blue pony with a rainbow mane. Wilson explained that that was the clearest frame of the video. “Are you fuckin’ havin’ a laugh?” Hoxton asked, laughing. He just barely managed to restrain himself from asking why somebody had rotoscoped Rainbow Dash into the heist video, not wanting to out himself as having seen the show.

“As far as anyone can tell, that’s real. There was definitely someone acting as their spotter that night. If you know anything about it, then...”

He turned the second photo over, finding the actual message from John: ‘Dentist knows your plight. Can help, but it will take time. Have faith.’ He didn’t know who the Dentist was, but knowing he had a proper ally on the outside led him to shake his head. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times; I don’t know enough about the crew to rat them out even if I wanted to, especially anyone new they’ve hired since my arrest. You FBI wankers can all go to hell.”

“Disappointing, but perhaps not unexpected. I guess I can chalk today up as another wasted day in the Bureau. C’mon, we’re leaving.” He waved John along with him as he stood up. Hoxton stood as well, not wanting to be jerked up by the two guards. Even if his dignity was pretty low in prison, he still prided himself on being a proper English gent, and that meant not getting manhandled if he could at all avoid it.

But as he walked back to the cell, his mind was racing. Assuming that the photo was real, then how was there even a real-life Equestrian pony? Why that one specifically, and how had she been picked up by his old crew? Why had John Wick, who supposedly had gotten out of the game after one last hit, back and trying to help him out? Who was this ‘Dentist’ person, and why did he want to break him out? He knew that being moved to another prison was for the sake of getting out, but he’d assumed it would just be a straight prison break...

Wanting to be alone with his thoughts when he returned to the cell, he even told Matt outright that he wouldn’t beat him up that day if he was just left alone, an offer Matt was all too willing to take. He couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation. But there was a much clearer hope of release now, and that made him happy.

~~~

He was back on what the crew had come to call Heat Street, but this time, he knew it was a dream from the start. The lack of any gunfire, shouting or screeching tyres had tipped him off. Still, with no further objective, he began to run down the streets, through the path he had taken all those years ago.

As he approached the burning van, he heard a noise behind him, and turned to see that the street had gone. Replacing it was a village of thatch roofs, burning like the van behind him. A meteor was frozen in midair, its trail still visible like someone had paused a disaster movie. The van and the factory parking lot were still there as he began to trace the streets of the village, adding to the surreal effect.

“I know what it feels like, to have your friends taken away from you,” a young female voice said, echoing about the village and seeming to come from everywhere at once. “To see them just close enough to touch, yet so far away you start to feel like they won’t even recognise you if you ever do meet again.”

“Where are you? Show yourself!”

“But you may yet see your friends again. And that works for me as well. The larger your group is, the more likely I may see mine again...”

“Lady, I’m not going to ask you again! Show yourself, right now!”

“You’re not in any position to be making demands,” she chided. “But then again, I might as well show you who I am. If anything, it may even help you too...” Hearing footsteps clicking on the stone path behind, he spun around, seeing another of the ponies from the show. But it wasn’t quite the Twilight Sparkle he knew; he didn’t recall her having wings of her own.

“I assure you, this is all real,” Twilight said. “And as soon as you’re out of prison, you’ll understand even better how you can help me.”

There was silence between them for a while. “What... the... fuck?” Hoxton finally said. “Why am I dreaming about shit like this? I didn’t even like the show!” As Twilight quirked an eyebrow, he looked away and added, “...much.”

“Believe, Hoxton,” she finally said, as she walked away. “You won’t have a choice, before long.”

The village started fading away, and in its place came the familiar sounds of a heist gone wrong. But it just wasn’t the same now that he knew it was a dream. And he couldn’t get Twilight’s words out of his head either. All the questions he thought he’d come up with satisfactory answers to before were now thrown back into focus. There was one new one, as well:

With all the insanity outside, should I go back at all?

Shadows

View Online

September 27, 2014
9:54 PM

Rainbow turned on the TV and put in the video tape that Bain had sent her. After watching it for about a minute, she turned away. “Alright,” she said. “I’ll do it.” She picked up the bottle of midnight-blue hair dye and the Shadowbolt flight suit that had apparently been made by one of the Dentist’s patients. She couldn’t imagine why, or how, but if he expected her to go out in the field at least once with it, it was probably a good idea to.

She had been struggling with her morality in helping the Payday Crew before, but against these people, she had no questions at all. She’d be on the front line, just like the Red Baron. Heading into the next room, she could still hear the dialogue from the news clips coming through the wall.

...this shocking footage shows a mercenary in Afghanistan entering a civilian’s home on suspicion of terrorist activity, and leaving with ‘evidence’ worth a hundred thousand dollars...

...more war crimes in the War on Terror reported, but few are from the U.S. military itself, rather from ‘private security contractors’ in the region...

...Murkywater fires one of its employees for the first time on record. Jared Stone, formerly a Navy SEAL, was convicted of abusing a child earlier this week, and though many among Murkywater have denied the allegations, there is little they can do in the face of a conviction...

“These people give a bad name to our country and our cause. Will somebody please get these corn-fed crooks out of our nation’s arsenal?”

~~~

About an hour later...

The van pulled up across the street, slightly around the corner from the warehouse. Looking almost entirely unlike herself, Rainbow stepped out first, adjusting her goggles. Dallas followed, carrying a briefcase. Hoxton screwed a silencer onto his pistol, Wolf took out his knife and ran his finger along the flat of the blade, and Chains carried a briefcase of his own, which Rainbow recognised as containing his sniper rifle.

“Okay... I’m getting the live feed from your goggles, crystal clear,” Bain said. “Everything you can see, I can see. And if we set it up right, the cameras shouldn’t even be in your way. Gotta love modern technology, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess. Suit’s pretty tight, though, especially since I still need my necklace on to fly,” Rainbow replied, recalling the tests she’d done towards learning that. “What’s it even made from?”

“I dunno, but it should at least help you blend in more in the dark. It might also protect you if you get caught, though I’d rather you avoided that. In fact, there’s something I need to tell all of you about the job.”

Wolf and Hoxton stopped talking to one another, and the five of them bunched up together, though it wasn’t really necessary to. “Murkywater are dangerous people to cross, and they probably have actual soldiers on-site as well. If the alarm goes off, there is no Plan B. You have one minute exactly to get back to the van, or it’s a long walk home.”

“So that’s why you had me leave my guns in the van?” Wolf asked.

“Exactly. I know you’re not really one for the silent approach, but this is even bigger than that time we stole the server from the FBI. We cannot let this go loud.”

“Alright, we get it,” Chains cut in. “Though truth be told, I wouldn’t mind putting down a few of these guys. Give soldiers of fortune a bad name.” Before Bain could tell him off, he said, “Only if it comes to that, I know. Alright, see you guys at the safehouse.” He headed for a building next to the warehouse, climbing up a fire escape to the roof to take up a spotting position.

“Don’t forget to set up the zipline while you’re up there, Chains,” Bain called out. “It’ll help us get the loot out once we’ve bagged it. I know the helipad is risky, but it’ll be faster to get the bags out from there than taking them all the way back.” Everyone sent out an acknowledgement, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Dallas set the briefcase down on the ground and opened it, pulling back a secret panel to reveal two unmarked canisters. “Thermite,” he explained. “Bain looked through the plans for this area, and he reckons we could get in through the sewers if we burn through the grates. Gage could only get us a couple of packs without raising suspicion, though.” Hoxton and Wolf each took one. “They’ll go in through the sewers while we get the side door,” he explained to Rainbow.

“What about the gate?” Rainbow asked, pointing at it.

“Too many people watching. Gotta be another way in, though. Let’s go find it.”

The crew started moving down the street, with the main gate on their right. Past it, there was a manhole just above the dead end of the road, and Hoxton and Wolf slipped down it as Dallas and Rainbow continued around the side of the concrete wall, through an alley. At its end, a left turn and a flight of stairs down led them to the waterfront. There was a chain link fence on their right, from which Dallas quickly cut a hole large enough to get through.

Along the waterfront, there was an open door leading into the basement of the warehouse. A guard was standing just outside the doorway, smoking a cigarette under a fluorescent light on the wall. Without missing a step, Dallas pulled up his pistol and shot the guard twice in the head. The small-calibre bullets punched two neat holes through the skull, leaking blood onto the ground. Rainbow quickly averted her eyes from the sight, comparatively tame though it was.

The pager on the guard’s belt beeped once, but Dallas was already there, expecting it. “Nothing to report. Thought I saw something before, but it was just a rat.” As the pager beeped off, he put the body in a dark blue bag and tossed it into the water. “C’mon, let’s take a look around.” Rainbow was still looking at the patch of blood on the ground, but snapped out of it quickly and followed Dallas inside.

There wasn’t much in the basement except a crate that they couldn’t get open. “We’ll probably need a crowbar for this or something,” Dallas said. “Maybe there’ll be one here. Keep looking.” They headed up a flight of stairs into another room. Dallas quickly set upon a black case that contained a set of guns. As he bagged it quickly, Rainbow started poking at a package of a white powder.

“Don’t get that up your nose,” Bain warned her. “Cocaine. I hope they weren’t giving that ‘marching powder’ to any real soldiers... Bag it up. I’m sure we’ll find a buyer.” Confused, she nonetheless pulled out a duffel bag of her own and packed it in.

A cover underneath them slid open all of a sudden, and Dallas pointed his gun at it until he saw Wolf coming up. “Geez, Wolf, give me some warning next time. I nearly shot you!” he said, lowering his gun and sighing. “Anyway, we’ve found some weapons and some cocaine. Pass a bag down to Hoxton and carry one yourself. Get them secured as soon as you can.”

“Okay... I was hoping to get into the warehouse myself, but—”

“Guys, quiet down! I can see a guard coming!” Bain suddenly cut in. Wolf grabbed the bag full of weapons, and Dallas kicked the cocaine down after him, closing the cover and running through an open door behind it. Rainbow followed, shutting the door. “Wait a minute. Turn around, Rainbow. There’s something behind you, and I want a better look.”

As she turned around, she saw a massive vault with a panel on each side. “That’s one big vault. And with two keycard readers. Probably have to be inserted simultaneously. I bet there’s something pretty special in there...” Bain said. “But we need the keycards, first. Keep searching, and stay low.”

Dallas peeked through the keyhole of the door they’d come through, and seeing it was clear, led Rainbow back through it. Rainbow went down the stairs to where she’d come through as Dallas stayed on the same floor, looking for a security room. She continued down the path she’d come inside from, taking another look at the drying bloodstain on the ground and gingerly stepping around it. Wolf reported that they’d gotten their two bags back in and were heading back through the sewers to get some more.

“Don’t forget to keep an eye out for cameras. You don’t want to get spotted,” Bain reminded her. She looked up and quickly pushed herself flat against the wall, seeing a camera above. “You... probably don’t have to be that careful. Just keep an eye out.” Sighing, she waited for it to turn away from where she was going before moving on.

Around another corner, there was a room with stairs leading up, out to the yard. “Hey, Rainbow, how you holdin’ up out there?” Chains asked all of a sudden. “I know it’s weird to ask now, but I know you get edgy when you’re out too long—”

“I’m not a child. I can handle myself out here,” she snapped back, looking around at the yard. There were a few containers piled up right in front of her, and down the makeshift path she could see more piled up. “Uh... Which containers am I looking for?”

“The red ones marked ‘Murkywater’ on the side. They’re the most likely ones to be carrying the loot, anyway. Don’t bother searching the others.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. If you need any more help handling yourself—”

“Shut up, Chains.”

There was one like that against the wall on the right, but nothing was inside except a piece of bent metal painted red in the middle. She was about to turn around and leave it when Bain’s voice came in through her earpiece. “Nice find there, Rainbow,” he suddenly said. “That crowbar will definitely come in handy when we get to searching the warehouse.”

“Uh, okay...” She tucked it under one wing and headed out of the container, suddenly noticing the camera above her. “Crap, camera up there... What do I do? It’s got me trapped in here...” She huddled down in the back of the container, staring up at it.

“Breathe, kid,” Chains told her. “Just breathe deeply and focus. You’re not in any trouble yet. Wait until it turns around, then get out.”

“No need,” Dallas cut in. “Uh, yeah, no problems at all here. Must have been on your end.” After a pause, he continued, “I just killed the guy on the cameras. Nobody’ll call it in even if a camera does catch you. I don’t know how long that pager guy is going to keep believing me, though. Be careful with killing any more guards. Oh, nice,” he suddenly added, and then went quiet.

Everyone sent back a confirmation note. As Rainbow stepped out of the container, she came face to mask with Hoxton. “If you want to keep searching the yard, I’ll use the crowbar on the boxes inside. It’s probably easier out there with Chains spotting for you.” Rainbow wanted to tell him off for patronising her, but she decided she probably wasn’t up to the indoor area, and gave him the crowbar. “Alright, looks clear out there.” He pointed down the path between the containers, and she headed out into the main yard.

“Got eyes on you, Rainbow,” Chains called out. “Civilian coming your way. See that container above you?” She looked up, seeing another of the red containers. “You can probably get it open before he gets to you. Hide in there, quickly!” She jumped up to the container, flapping her wings a few times to jimmy open the lock and hide inside.

She didn’t hear anything from the civilian down below, who walked straight underneath her without even glancing up. Wiping her brow and failing to remove any of the sweat from above her flight suit, she started looking around the container. Bain stopped her as she passed over a box of money. “Looks like used foreign banknotes. Difficult to trace, so they’re perfect for us. Bag ‘em up.”

She pulled a second bag out and unfolded it, piling the notes inside. It wasn’t quite full, so she slung it over her back and started searching for another container. Hoxton called out that he’d found a server inside one of the crates. “Wonder what’s in it,” he mused. “Bank account numbers, FBI data, the President’s e-mail address, the passcodes for Area 51...”

“That’s entirely possible,” Bain agreed. “It’ll take a while to decrypt, but for now, just get it out of there.”

Rainbow dropped down to the ground again, slinking along towards another container with the Murkywater logo on the side. There was another box of the same kind of cash inside, which she used to completely fill the bag. With the bag slung over her back again, she flew up to the roof and attached it to a zipline, watching it travel across the yard. “Bag coming your way, Chains. Get ready for it,” she reported.

“Roger that. Oh, and you might wanna get off the helipad. I can see a chopper coming in.”

“Wait a minute,” Bain said. “My flight plans don’t say anything about a helicopter coming in, at any time tonight. Something’s not right here. You’d better hide somewhere, Rainbow.”

She quickly got off the helipad, hiding behind a door that someone had left open for roof access. As the helicopter passed by her, though, she called out, “Wait a minute. It doesn’t look like it’s landing here. It seems to be carrying something...”

“Is that a shipping container underneath?” Chains asked. “If they’re flying it in after dark, then they don’t want anyone knowing about it... Must be pretty valuable, like whatever’s in the vault.”

“I’ll go check it out as soon as the helicopter’s gone.”

“Damn, Hoxton, that gold is quite a find. It’ll be heavy, though.”

“Don’t worry, I can take it,” Wolf said. I’ll just need a little while—Shit!” The line went dead for a few seconds before he started up again, in a slightly different voice. “You’ve reached... Steve. He’s unavailable at the moment. Please leave your message after the beep.” He made a beeping noise before adding, “Nah, just kidding, it’s Steve. Everything’s cool.”

Another pause followed, then Hoxton said, “I can’t believe he bought that.”

“Hey, the helicopter’s moved on. You said you wanted to check out that container; now’s as good a time as any.” Still slightly stunned by how stupid Wolf’s excuse was, Rainbow didn’t sent back an acknowledgement right away, but did drop down over the rail just as a guard came up through the roof access.

Inside the container was another crowbar and a large crate. Under Bain’s directions, she cracked the crate open, finding a set of armour like the one Chains wore. She was about to just close the box and leave it when Bain cut her off again. “That looks like some kind of prototype armour. Definitely not just run of the mill. Bag it up. We’ll check it out later.” Shrugging, she pulled out another bag and started to put the armour pieces inside.

“Freeze!” someone suddenly shouted beside her. She started and turned, seeing a man in dark green body armour and a brown helmet, pointing a very large rifle at her. “Whatever you are, don’t move a muscle!” She nodded, which led him to pull his gun up again. “What did I fucking say?” She didn’t move again after that. He reminded her too much of the man in black who’d attacked her a couple of weeks ago.

He stepped closer and pulled out a pair of handcuffs from one of his ballistic vest’s pockets. “I usually save these for my wife, but I think this is a special case.” He handcuffed her front hooves together, then pulled out a pager. “HQ, I’ve found—”

A bullet burst through his head from behind, followed by several more. As his body fell to the ground, she started panicking, but Hoxton placed a hand over her and shushed her. The pager beeped again, and someone on the other end said, “What have you found, two-five? Report in immediately!”

“I’ve found that this is an extremely boring job most nights, unless a spider as big as my goddamn hand appears,” Hoxton replied, trying to imitate the voice of the dead man that Rainbow was still staring at. Facing away from the pager, he whispered, “Please work, please work, please work...”

“A spider... right... Okay, you’re clear. Just don’t call in for stupid shit like that again, you hear?”

Rainbow and Hoxton breathed a sigh of relief in unison, and the latter began searching through the dead man’s pockets for the key to the handcuffs. “They were in that one,” Rainbow said, pointing her nose at one in particular. He pulled the key out and uncuffed her, pulling the body further into the container as she finished filling her bag with the armour.

As he dragged the dead body further into the container, he poked around in the remaining pockets, eventually finding a keycard in one of them. “Hey, I’ve found a keycard,” he said. “Bain, didn’t you say somethin’ earlier about a vault that needed two of these?”

“I found the other one in the security room before,” Dallas said. “Meet me at the vault, and we’ll get her open.”

“So that’s why you said ‘oh, nice’. Good to know. Wolf, Chains, get over to the vault. Chains, drop off that money bag on the way. We’re not gonna need any more spotting for the yard.”

“Roger dodger.”

Hoxton helped Rainbow get down into the sewers, leading her back to the entrance inside the warehouse near the vault. Wolf and Dallas were already there, and Chains arrived a few seconds after. “Alright, you ready?” Dallas asked, and Hoxton nodded. The two took up positions next to each of the card readers. “Three, two, one, now.”

They put their cards in at the same time, and the readers beeped and turned green. Slowly, noisily, the vault began to open, and everyone started glancing around, hoping that nobody had caught them. Rainbow was the first to see inside, and her jaw dropped at the sight of the armour inside. The black mail, flower symbol on the breastplate and the angry mask all confirmed that it was from an entirely different culture to that of the Americans. The mystery of it got to her, and she let out a small noise, murmuring “So awesome...”

“The armour of Oda Nobunaga?!” Bain exclaimed. “That’s... Everyone, bag that up, no matter how many bags you need. If that’s genuine...” Nobody had to be told twice. All in all, it fit into four bags, which the crew immediately started moving out. Rainbow stayed behind in the warehouse, wanting to check out a few more crates in the area around the vault.

There was nothing in the first two crates, but the third contained a painting. “Can’t believe that Murkywater would steal something like this. Only fair we steal it back, right?” Rainbow found herself reluctantly agreeing as she rolled it up and fit it into another bag.

She was about to start heading out when she heard someone call out behind her. Without thinking, she turned and bucked him straight in the sternum, and he fell to the ground. Then she heard the beep from his pager, and gulped. “What’s going on out there? Respond!” the operator said.

“Uh... I didn’t see anything, just tripped over... heh heh...”

“Hey, something’s not right here. I didn’t think we had any of our female personnel at Murkywater. Identify yourself immediately!”

“I, uh...” She immediately started sprinting away from the body, trying to retrace her steps back out into the yard. “Guys, I blew it! Better double-time it back to the van!” The alarm suddenly went off behind her, the loud klaxon seemingly pushing her harder.

After scrambling around in a few rooms full of lockers, she made it to the yard, getting airborne to take a look around. More of the guys in the dark green armour had burst out of the path in front of the clowns, but were quickly cut down in a hail of gunfire. Rainbow met up with them at the van, throwing in the painting as they added the armour to the stockpile.

She was about to get in when she heard the helicopter returning. “Guys, that helicopter is going to follow us as soon as we leave, and I don’t know if the van can shake it. But I might be able to.” She flapped her wings twice on the ground to prove her point.

“Rainbow, we can’t let you do something this dangerous on your own—” Dallas started.

“It’ll be easy! Don’t worry!” she replied, before darting off into the air, hovering in front of the helicopter. “Hey, you want to chase someone down? Try this on for size!” She darted off across the yard, away from the van, hoping the helicopter would follow.

“The gunship’s firing! Get outta the way!” Bain shouted, an instant before rapid gunfire filled the air. Rainbow started a barrel roll just in time, and the bullets grazed past her, far too close for comfort.

Trying to get away, she turned upwards and ducked through a cloud bank, only for the helicopter to shred the clouds above it as it rose to follow. The gunfire started again, and she turned around, trying to get over the rotor blades without being torn apart by them. It rose to catch her, cutting off part of her tail before she made it over.

As it started to turn around, she flew underneath it as well, hoping to catch it facing the wrong way. She’d gone too fast, however, and they saw her again, launching a missile. It chased after Rainbow like a Timber Wolf, and she pushed herself as hard as she could to get away. It wasn’t enough. The missile kept closing in on her.

Out of options, she tucked in her wings and dropped straight down, back through the clouds. As she fell, she quickly gained speed again, making a turn to level out and cut through the streets. The missile crashed into a billboard behind her, the loud explosion making her cringe. That, in turn, made her fall out of the sky, landing roughly on a rooftop below.

“Holy shit, Rainbow Dash, are you okay?!” Bain shouted through the earpiece. “That was one hell of a fall you just took!”

“I’m okay...” she managed to croak out, pulling herself up to her hooves. When that failed, she resigned herself to sitting on her haunches, which she could manage if she sat against a nearby AC unit. “I’ll be okay. Probably pretty sore tomorrow, but I’m okay.”

“As long as you’re sure. I’ll send the van around as soon as I can. Looks like they’re in the clear; your distraction worked, perhaps a little too well.”

“Good to know the guys are okay, too... I’ll just hang tight, then.”

~~~

“So, what’s the final score?” Dallas asked as the crew laid the bags out, opening them one by one. “A whole lot of dinars, some gold bullion, a few AK-47s, several bags of cocaine. We can probably just fence all of those right away.”

“That painting Rainbow took will have to be verified for if it’s real or a forgery first,” Wolf said. “But we can probably afford an art expert to check on that.”

“And Bain should have plenty of decryption programs for that server,” Hoxton continued. “We can’t really sell the box itself, but information is a commodity too.”

“That armour you found in the container is pretty damn high-tech,” Chains added, nodding at Rainbow. “I reckon I’ll keep it. Useful for assault jobs.”

Bain cleared his throat as his voice crackled into life. “And that just leaves the armour. That’ll be a lot harder to verify, or find a buyer for that won’t bring down any unnecessary suspicion. Still, our total score for the night’s work is a whole damn lot. And even though the alarm went off at the end, we all made it back here scot-free. Nice work, folks.”

“Probably worth bringing Rainbow out on more jobs, too. She performed pretty well tonight. Maybe we should get her a proper mask,” Dallas said. In response, Rainbow curled up a bit. “What’s wrong?”

“That helicopter... I very nearly died tonight,” she said. “And it was my own stupid fault, for hanging around in the warehouse and trying to take on the helicopter alone. I don’t think I’m cut out for field work. I might still be able to spot for you, but...” She couldn’t finish the sentence, overcome by visions of herself falling out of the sky, torn apart by bullets or a missile.

Everyone was silent for a little while, and the other three robbers looked at Dallas. “I didn’t know she would react that way,” he said, raising his hands. “But if you don’t wanna go out again, that’s fine. Still, we appreciate your help for tonight’s job.” He crouched down and stroked her mane, pulling off the latex glove when he saw the dye come off on his hand.

“Wow, that stuff didn’t last nearly as long as it should’ve,” Wolf said.

“Maybe because ponies’ manes work differently after all.”

“I wouldn’t really know. I don’t know much about human hair, and it’s not something that comes up much around you guys.”

“In any case, we’d better all get home. I’ll hook up some buyers and fence everything. The money gets split even four ways, like always. Nice doing business, gentlemen. Lighting a cigar for you right now.” With that, Wolf, Chains and Hoxton stood up and left.

“We’d better get some sleep,” Dallas said once they were out of sight. “Though, after tonight’s excitement, it’s gonna be hard...”

“Yeah, you got that right, Dallas. G’night.”

~~~

The police arrived at the scene too late to do anything about it. They’d been expecting a mess, so it surprised them to see that the Payday Crew had long since been and gone, leaving only a few patches of blood and, strangely, one guard merely unconscious with two broken ribs. That didn’t fit their MO at all, as far as any of the police knew.

As Wilson arrived at the scene, he looked back at ‘John’ as he stepped out of the car. John was still a complete mystery to him. With only a given name that could easily be a pseudonym to go on, there wasn’t much he could dig up. He also couldn’t find much under facial recognition scans, leaving him entirely at a loss for just who the bounty hunter was that was being given not only the approval, but the full support of the FBI.

As another van pulled up outside and a few urban-camo-clad soldiers piled out, he caught sight of their massive leader. Unlike John, a simple database search for Jared Stone had turned up more than enough. Formerly a Murkywater employee, he’d been suspected of steroid abuse and possibly even illegal drugs for a long time. However, the only crime he’d ever convicted of was the abuse of a young girl in Iran as an unidentified soldier filmed it.

In the face of the video evidence, Murkywater had had no choice but to fire him. How he was back out in the field after that, he couldn’t be certain. Clearly, he’d been hired under the table, but by who, and for what purpose?

“Fuck. They’re gone,” Stone said, growling. “Pity. Hope they haven’t gone fully to stealth, or I won’t get another chance to take ‘em on...” Wilson didn’t say anything, not wanting to set off a ‘roid rage incident, but the clue was there. There were only a couple of groups that had frequent enough contact with the Payday Crew that he’d not only expect, but look forward to encountering them.

He turned to face Wilson and John, immediately passing over the FBI agent. “And who are you?” he asked John, looking him up and down. “Another bounty hunter after the twenty million?”

“Something like that,” John replied, doing the same behind his sunglasses. “But then again, I wouldn’t want you to fall behind on your alimony payments.”

“What the—Nobody disrespects me like that!” Stone shouted, raising a fist. One of the others in the urban camo grabbed his arm, saying something Wilson couldn’t make out through the mask, and he lowered his arm. “Ah, you’re not worth it. But if you fuck with me again, I will fuck you up. Mark my words.”

They all got back into the van and drove off, and Wilson sighed. “Are you trying to get killed, John?” he asked.

“No. I just wanted to size him up. I don’t doubt we’ll be seeing him again. C’mon, there’s not much else we can do here. The actual police have it under control.” Wilson could only nod as he got back into the car.

Hotline

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September 30, 2014
11:41 AM

Dallas was on the phone to Bain, a remarkably rare occurrence. “I got us a new job,” Bain began. “From the Dentist. He says it’s a direct link to getting Hoxton out. The tape should arrive at your place later today. I’ll let the others know.”

“You never were one for small talk, eh, Bain?” Dallas replied, laughing. “But it’s cool. I can’t imagine having another commander.”

“That really who I am to you?” They both laughed. “Anyway, how’s Rainbow doing?”

“She’s fine. Likes watching cartoons a lot on TV. Just finished another episode of Transformers. Wolf was right, she’s really into that.”

“How long ago was that?”

“About... five, eight minutes. Why?”

“Dallas. Listen to me. Go in there and turn off the TV. Right now. It might not be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“Just do it!” Dallas dropped the phone and ran for the other room. What he saw in there surprised him. Rainbow Dash was sitting in front of him, but she was also on the TV, in a city made out of clouds. As the Rainbow on the TV declared ‘My life is ruined!’ he saw the one in reality mouth the words, exactly in time.

Without saying anything, Dallas walked back to the phone, which was still lying on the floor. “I’m gonna give you to Rainbow, Bain,” he said slowly, quietly. “I think you have a lot of explaining to do.”

“Yeah... Maybe that’s for the best,” Bain agreed. Dallas took the phone back into the other room, and silently handed it over. He left after that, making an excuse about needing to dry clean his suit.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Eventually, it was Rainbow who broke the silence. “How long have you known?” she asked.

“Since a few days after we found you. I wanted to know how to look after you, and the show was the only resource I had.” Bain sighed, taking a drag of his cigar before continuing. “I didn’t want to drop the existential crisis on you, but I guess it was inevitable once you started watching those cartoons.”

“...It’s weird, to see your life from outside... How did you guys even know all that? How did you record it all so perfectly, if our worlds have never had contact before?”

“This is what I was dreading trying to explain. It’s a coincidence, is the best answer I have. We drew, animated, and voiced a cartoon, and something exactly like it just came through. I’m still working on how that happened.”

“So... I don’t actually exist? I’m not real?”

“I don’t care what the people who made that cartoon think,” Dallas said as he came in. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re right here, and that makes you real.”

“Yeah. If you weren’t real, you’d never have been able to help us the way you have. And that’s something I don’t want to give up.”

Rainbow looked away from Dallas. “But... what happens when I have to go back? Am I going to stop existing then?”

“I think I know how to tell... Do you remember anything that’s happened since the Grand Galloping Gala?” Bain asked.

Dallas tilted his head quizzically, but Rainbow understood it perfectly. “Yeah, that was years ago. Lots of stuff has happened since then. There was that time we saved a royal wedding, and the time that I was shown up by a superhero who was actually all of my friends, and then Twilight accidentally screwed around with all our Cutie Marks and then turned into an Alicorn—”

“Then you’re real, your world is real, and more has happened in it than we, by coincidence, have turned into a cartoon here.” Rainbow took a minute to process Bain’s logic, but eventually nodded and gave the phone back to Dallas. “Is she okay?” he asked.

“Seems fine. I’ll just try and get some actual Transformers DVDs or something, so she doesn’t have to watch live broadcasts. Today it was her own show, next time it’ll be a cop drama or something like that...” He sighed and sat down on the threadbare bed. “I’m surprised you came so straight out with it.”

“Hoxton’s joking around the last time Rainbow had a crisis of that kind didn’t help at all. I decided not to try and pull my punches. I think she’d appreciate it more from the rest of you, too.” Bain hung up at that point, leaving Dallas to wonder about what he meant until he heard the van pulling up outside the store.

Hoxton and Wolf piled out as Twitch drove off, making an excuse for Chains being late that Dallas didn’t really pay attention to. Wolf was holding a large cardboard box, still taped up from the courier it had come to him from. Drawn on the front was a toothbrush, suggesting its sender was the Dentist. “Been expecting this,” Dallas said as he took it from Wolf. “Let’s get inside and open it up, see what we’ve got.”

Placing a bundle on money on Justice’s scales, he led the crew, along with Rainbow Dash, down into his basement. He set up a table in front of his laptop, which Bain had hijacked for the duration in order to communicate with the crew. Everyone sat down around it as he opened the box, first taking out a cassette tape and a player.

“Hey guys, I’m here,” Chains suddenly called out from the top of the stairs. “What did I miss?” He came down the stairs, followed by a man in a black suit.

“What’s the deal, Chains?” Dallas asked. “We can’t bring new people down here. Who the fuck is this guy, anyway?”

“Name’s John Wick,” the man introduced himself. “I’m an old friend of Chains here, from back in the military. He had some trouble with the police on the way here that held him up. I helped him out of it, and told him I was looking for a crew.” Chains nodded, confirming the story.

“That doesn’t change the fact that we can’t really trust the guy,” Dallas retorted. “How do you know he’s not gonna betray us?”

“I don’t see any profit in doing that,” Wick replied. “Besides, if I have a choice of which crew to run with, I’d rather go with someone I already know.” He looked down at the table, and at the photo of the Commissar. “And you guys don’t already have a hitman, correct? I watch the news; I know you guys don’t normally do assassinations. I can help out with that.”

Everyone looked back and forth for a few seconds before Dallas said, “Fine. You’re gonna need a mask, though.”

“I already have one.” He pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. “This is what I’m comfortable with. Good enough as a mask?”

Dallas wanted to protest, but Rainbow was the first to speak up. “I think it looks cool. As long as you don’t mind getting found out, y’know...”

“Facial scans don’t work on me. Better people than you have tried.” He looked down and removed the sunglasses again, taking in Rainbow for the first time. “Well... people, as in...”

Rainbow waved him off with a hoof. “Don’t worry, I get it all the time here. Not having any other ponies around leads to that sort of thing. So what’s the job?”

Dallas put the tape in the player, which began, “Greetings. As Dallas may or may not have told you already, I have a plan to release your former colleague Hoxton from prison. This plan has steps, and you are instrumental in the first: to eliminate the mobster known as the Commissar.”

Dallas took a photo out of the box, of a man in a tacky green suit with a cross drawn over his face with a red marker. “Mikhail Kraminsky is known to most of the country as a socialite and celebrity. To the underworld, he is the Commissar, a ruthless mob boss who runs many operations on the East Coast. I have learned that he has a hotline that leads directly to the District Attorney of Washington D.C. By killing him, we will be able to use this hotline to apply leverage to the DA.

“His current exact location is unknown, but I have no doubt you will be able to devise a solution to this problem. Find the Commissar and eliminate him, and you will be one step closer to the release of your friend.” The tape ended, and Dallas took a few more papers out of the box. They seemed to be addresses in Washington, though he didn’t recognise any of them.

Confused, he read them out for Bain, who replied, “I think these are the locations of his operations in D.C. Though why the Dentist would tell us about them...” He went quiet for a while before saying, “I’ve got an idea. I’ll e-mail Kraminsky a hotline to us, as we disrupt one of his operations here. We’ll be able to trace him, go to wherever he called from and kill him.”

“Sounds good. So which one of these addresses do we go after?” Hoxton asked.

“One after another until he finally mans up?” Wolf suggested.

“That’ll take too long, and he’ll surely up the security after a while. We need a place big enough to get his attention in one night.”

“What do you suggest?”

“There’s a motel in Georgetown that’s full of his people. We go there, kill everyone we see, and do whatever the heck else we have to to get the trace going. Not the most complicated of plans, but if it helps gets Hox back...” Everyone nodded, even the current Hoxton at the table. “If you guys are all okay with it, we’ll do the job tonight, at about 9 PM.”

“I’m not planning on anything else. I’ll come to the party, sure,” Wolf said first.

“I can cancel dinner for one at that Italian restaurant,” Hoxton continued.

“There’s nothing good on TV that late at night.”

“I never have anything to do after dark these days.”

“If the rest of you are going, I might as well tag along.”

“Okay, then. Oh, yeah, you might wanna check for one more thing in the package.” Dallas dug around underneath the papers and found a set of car keys. “The Dentist rented a car especially for the occasion. Don’t ask me why.”

“DMC?” Dallas said, reading the label on the back of the keys. “He rented us a DeLorean? That’s... How are we all gonna fit in there?”

“Ain’t my problem. If anyone needs me, I’ll be getting that flight suit back on.”

“Hey, Bain, is Ilija free tonight?” Chains asked. “He’ll probably come in handy. I can cover the cost myself, if he is.”

“I’ll take a look. Maybe Rainbow can spot for him instead.”

“He’s never needed one before. And I don’t know if we can trust him with keeping her a secret.”

“Well, he never shot any of us.”

“True enough...”

“So if that’s all settled, let’s all get ready for the job. Synchronise your watches on my mark...” Dallas took off his wristwatch, and everyone else followed suit. “Mark.” Five beeps sounded like one in perfect harmony. “I’ll have Twitch pick us up at eight to get to the rental company, then take the DeLorean over to the motel by nine. Until then, do whatever preparations you have to.

“Gentlemen...” He pulled on his mask for dramatic effect. “The Commissar must die. Let’s make it happen.”

~~~

It had started out as such a lovely evening for the Commissar. He’d gone to a party at a house on the waterfront, owned by someone who was paying him for protection after losing his counterfeit plates to a group of rival criminals. Messrs Wilson and Mitchell were all too happy to have him bless the party, and the fact that they hadn’t cheaped out on the vodka was a nice bonus.

While there, he’d met a very good-looking young lady, who he had invited back to his ‘palace’, as he called his penthouse apartment. She’d been very drunk at the time, and was likely to regret her decision when she finally woke up the next morning. The man in the varsity jacket was also starting to regret his decision to try and kill him, particularly after the extremely relaxing torture session that he’d delivered.

When he arrived at the penthouse, he was surprised to see an e-mail had come. Despite being a junk e-mail, it had somehow slipped through the filter:

Angry? Need to relieve stress? Call 1-555-468-5463 to help cool down!

He was about to delete it when his mobile phone started ringing; a call from one of his underlings. Turning away from the computer for a moment, he pushed the ‘answer’ button and said, “What is it? I am very busy right now!”

“Boss, you gotta do something!” the man screamed. “They’re tearing up the motel! We can’t stop them! These four guys in masks...” A gunshot was heard, and then a few seconds of silence before a flat dial tone. He scratched his forehead, wondering about the call. It seemed real, but who would be stupid enough to try and attack one of his operations?

He looked back at the computer screen, and read the number again. Running his call through as many points as possible, he dialled the number. “This is Mortimer at Hotline. How can we help you?”

“Your e-mail arrived at a very convenient time,” the Commissar replied. “I just now had a motel that I own attacked by gangsters. Would you happen to be behind this?”

“You’re too clever for me, Mr. Kraminsky,” ‘Mortimer’ replied. “Or would you rather I called you Commissar?”

That gave him pause. Someone knew exactly who he was, and yet was still attacking him. “You and your masked friends have a lot of balls, tovarich. Who are you, really? Who sent you after me?” he asked. “Wait, no, don’t tell me. I will enjoy extracting it from you—as I enjoy extracting your fingernails!” With that, he hung up.

With another call, he was through to the Washington D.C. police department, through the same number of points. Forcing himself into an American accent, he began, “I have heard gunshots at the motel next door to where I live.” He gave the motel’s address and added, “It may well be nothing, but it is the duty of a concerned citizen to report such things, correct?”

“Uh... Yeah, I suppose so,” said the police operator. “I’ll send someone around.”

“Please do. It will bring me great peace of mind.” He hung up again and sat back in his chair, sending a text message to the manager of the D.C. operations to send his own people around to investigate. Now it was only a matter of time before everything could be returned to normal.

~~~

A little while ago, at the motel...

The DeLorean pulled up near the motel’s driveway, and the four criminals inside got out. Following from above, Rainbow Dash flew into an open window on an apartment across the street. There was a man inside assembling a sniper rifle, his face covered by a hood. “Dobryy vecher. I have been told of your arrival. Do not be alarmed; I am entirely capable of keeping a secret.” He turned to face her for a moment, rubbing a pistol in a hidden pocket for a moment. “My name is Ilija. Your name is Rainbow Dash. Now that we are acquainted, allow me to work uninhibited, if you please.”

His brusque nature pushed her off at first, but there was something about him that she couldn’t quite place. Either way, she could tell she was safe with him, and so she started to relax, looking through another window into the parking lot. The crew were masking up behind the corner on the far left side, and nodded to one another. Hoxton went around the back of the motel, turning a corner to the left and disappearing, while the other three entered the parking lot.

Wolf fired the first shot, the pellets from the shotgun tearing through the torso of one of the men in white suits standing around. He quickly pumped it and pointed it again, but dived for cover behind a pickup truck as bullets began to fly from the far end of the lot. Anyone who didn’t make cover in time was taken down by Chains’ machine gun, as bullets bounced harmlessly off his new armour. Dallas kicked open the door to the nearest room and let off a burst of fire inside. One of the men in white began sneaking up on him, but suddenly flew backwards as a loud gunshot went off next to her.

“One down,” Ilija said as he pulled back the bolt. “It has begun.”

Once again, Rainbow found herself unable to watch any more of the carnage, and she pulled her head down below the windowsill. She could tell when Wolf and Chains were firing, but Dallas’ rifle blended in with those of the men in white. Another shot rang out next to her, and she started. “Two,” said her companion, quickly loading the next shot before firing again. “Three.” Some more distant automatic fire, then another shot from Ilija. “Four. You can look now.”

A few doors had been kicked open or completely destroyed, and several windows were either boarded up or broken through. About five bodies lay in the middle, but she suspected that most were hiding in the rooms. Hoxton and Wolf were clearing the upper layer, while Dallas and Chains made a final check downstairs. “Hey, guys, look what I found!” Wolf suddenly shouted.

“A meth lab!” Bain shouted. “Looks pretty well-stocked, too. Burn it to the ground. That should make the Commissar mad... Oh, hold on, I’ve got a call. This is Mortimer at Hotline. How can we help you?”

A man Rainbow had never heard before answered. “Your e-mail came at a very convenient time. I just now had a motel that I own attacked by gangsters. Would you happen to be behind this?” The man sounded like Ilija, but where the sniper was collected and brusque, this man seemed... slimy, like he was trying to get a rise out of Bain.

If that was the case, though, Bain didn’t rise to it. “You’re too clever for me, Mr. Kraminsky. Or would you rather I called you Commissar?”

There was a pause before the Commissar replied. “You and your masked friends have a lot of balls, tovarich. Who are you, really? Who sent you after me? Wait, no, don’t tell me. I will enjoy extracting it from you—as I enjoy extracting your fingernails!” The other phone hung up as the crew congregated in the meth lab.

“Okay, got his attention, check. But he ran the call through a lot of terminals. I didn’t get an exact location, so we’ll need to think of something else.”

“Hey, guys, don’t torch the meth lab,” Hoxton said quickly. “It only caught fire because Bain was getting directions off that Arabic website. I know how to cook meth, and I should be pretty safe in here while that’s going.”

“What about the rest of us?” Wolf asked. “We need you, Hox.”

“Probably not for this next part. See that gas station on the far side of the motel? Get some gasoline and douse the cars in the parking lot.”

“That’s not gonna work with the owners already dead,” Rainbow cut in. “Whoever this Commissar is, he probably doesn’t care so much about the cars.”

Unexpectedly, Wick entered the call as well. “Sorry I’m late, everyone. I was picking up some C4. Might come in handy somewhere...”

“Perfect timing, John. Get that C4 on the petrol pumps. I have a feeling the Commissar owns that gas station as well; let’s send it up like Sputnik,” Bain ordered. Wick came down the street past the DeLorean, running with a yellow bag over his shoulder. As he arrived at the gas station, Bain suddenly said, “The police are sending someone over! Neighbours must have heard the shots! Don’t know exactly when, but be ready!”

Rainbow turned her binoculars down the street to the right, keeping an eye out for any flashing sirens. “Hey, what are you guys still doing here?!” Dallas shouted, not over the radio, drawing her attention to the gas station. As Wick was doing something with the pumps, he was pointing a gun at a pair of men who had their hands raised. “If you want to stay alive, then get the hell away from the gas station! Come on, follow me!”

One started to run in the opposite direction, but tripped and fell to the ground when Dallas let off a burst from his rifle just over the man’s head. “Don’t act dumb! C’mon, you get on the ground as well!” He pointed his rifle at the ground, and the second man quickly lay down on his face. Dallas pulled out two cable ties from his pocket and bound the men’s wrists together. “Hey, Wick, don’t set the timers too short! We gotta get these two out of the blast zone first!”

As Wick moved away from the last pump, he picked up one of the men and started shoving him back towards the motel as Dallas moved the other. Rainbow turned her binoculars back down the street, and suddenly saw the distinctive red and blue flashing lights. “Cops on the way! Be ready!” she called out as the car pulled up, stopping in front of the gas station.

As he got out of the car, he suddenly dived away from it on some instinct just as the C4 exploded. Again, Rainbow was forced to pull her head away from the window as a deafening explosion seemed to tear through the wall. Even Ilija ducked down to the floor, only looking up after it had quietened down. The entire gas station had been replaced by a sizable crater. “That is the effect of C4,” he explained. “What once was, now is not.”

“Whoa...” Rainbow poked her head back out the window, but this time she didn’t even need to use her binoculars. “Uh, guys, we’ve got a problem,” she said. “There’s this black van coming...” The van wasn’t that strange in and of itself. What was strange, though, was that it didn’t have any SWAT markings, and it had arrived a lot sooner than she’d expected. Everything seemed explained when four of the men in white piled out. “More of the Commissar’s men are here, near the gas station. Or where it used to be, anyway.”

“Well, we’ve really kicked the hornet’s nest now. Time to reap the whirlwind,” Bain said. Suddenly, he added, “Wait a minute. Commissar’s calling me back, hang on...”

“Why, you snivelling shopa!” the Commissar screamed. Now he just seemed impotent, especially in comparison to Ilija next to her. She almost laughed at the display, picturing the man in his office somewhere. “Do you have any idea how many dollars I sunk into that place?”

“Do enlighten me.”

“Enough to pay for all your heads ten times over, you ublyudok! You are fucking with the wrong man tonight. Mark my words.”

“Consider them marked, Mr. Kraminsky. But you might have a bit of difficulty with that.”

“You aren’t the first masked asshole I’ve dealt my revenge to, ‘Mortimer.’ You will regret this.”

The Commissar hung up again, but this time, Bain’s response was rather more jubilant. “Okay, and it looks like the Commissar is in... Miami!” He paused, then added more slowly, “I can’t do any better than that, I’m afraid. But maybe there’s a clue somewhere in the motel. As the Dentist might say,” and he dropped his voice to impersonate the man, “any secret worth keeping is likely to be well hidden.”

“Nothing in here but the meth lab,” Hoxton reported. “And a whole lot of wooden planks, and some Claymore mines. That should keep them off me. I can handle myself, guys.”

“Hey, there’s something here,” Wick called out as he moved his hostage into one of the rooms. “This carpet’s clearly been rolled over something recently.

“What’s under it?” Dallas asked as he followed Wick inside.

There was a pause, which Bain filled first. “Whoa, that’s one hell of a hatch! I think I have just the thing for it, though. Let me get Bile on the horn.”

“Gonna have to wait,” Rainbow said. “The police must have heard the explosion as well. There’s...” A siren came into her hearing, followed by a few more as the cars’ tyres screeched to a halt. “This is madness! I can’t even tell how many there are!”

The sirens filled the air, but one of the officers’ megaphones came in over the sound. “Whoever is in there, you’d better come out with your hands up! Make no mistake, you are not in charge of this situation!” He was about to say more, but Ilija took a shot, knocking the officer down.

“That’s five,” he said as he pulled himself down to avoid retaliatory gunfire. He pointed at the door and added, “You might want to watch the door. I do not need a spotter forward, only one to cover my back.” Rainbow moved in behind him as he reloaded his rifle.

“This is Bile,” the helicopter pilot said as he entered the call. “I can hear and see the sirens. About thirty seconds out.” Chains started firing wildly out the window of one of the rooms, giving Wolf an opportunity to sprint out of it and behind the motel, where Chains followed him after a moment. More gunfire was heard behind the motel, and the pair came out behind a wall, entering room 108 from the rear window.

“Happy birthday, everyone. Your present’s coming down,” Bain reported, as a duffel bag fell out of the helicopter, which flew off as soon as the bag was out. “There’s a heavy cable in there. Hook it up to the pickup truck outside and the hatch.” Once again, Chains’ machine gun forced the cops to hide behind their patrol cars as Wolf headed for the middle of the parking lot. Wick followed halfway, taking cover behind a car and shooting anyone who popped up with his twin pistols. Ilija started shooting again as well, increasing his count to eight.

“I got it, I got it!” Wolf shouted as he started carrying the bag back, slowed down by the weight of the cable.

“Nine.”

“Shit, someone’s—” Hoxton shouted, before being knocked out by a loud noise. As Wolf laid the bag down in front of the truck, Wick jumped on top of the car and climbed up to the second floor from there, entering the meth lab and firing two shots.

“Cloaker’s down!” he reported. “You okay there, Hoxton?” Wick began to carry Hoxton out of the meth lab, moving him towards a ladder. Hoxton pushed off the assistance at the ladder, sliding down and landing.

“Ten down.”

Meanwhile, Wolf and Dallas had set up the cable. “Alright, who here knows how to hotwire a car? Get that pickup running, and we should be through in less than a minute.” Hoxton waved Wolf back inside as he dived into the truck. After a few seconds, the engine started roaring, and he climbed out of the car, only to take a bullet through the back. “Hoxton’s down!” Bain shouted, and Chains stepped out to help, only to be forced back by a sudden deluge of gunfire.

A SWAT unit, who had arrived while Rainbow wasn’t looking, started heading for Hoxton. Ilija shot one of them down, but the others all took cover behind the truck, forcing him down as well with a few shots. “You have the right to remain silent, and anything you say will be used against you as evidence in a...” they started, only to be cut off by Dallas’ shout.

“Hey! We’ve got two civilian hostages in here! Let him go, and we’ll send them out! If you don’t let him go within a minute, or you try to take his mask off, we will shoot one of the hostages and ask again! What’s it going to be?!”

The police stopped, and started to converse with one another. “Picking up a lot of chatter here. That was a hell of an ultimatum,” Bain said. “Okay... Looks like they’re letting him go. They’re keeping the guns, but there shouldn’t be any fingerprints, and you can probably scrounge some more off the dead Russians.”

The SWAT officer uncuffed Hoxton and shoved him back towards the room, where he was moved in by Dallas. A second later, Chains shoved out the two hostages, one by one. Suddenly, the pickup truck jerked back. “It’s open! Everyone get down here, let’s find out what they’ve got!” Dallas cried.

As everyone piled downstairs, Rainbow said to Ilija, “You probably won’t be doing that much, now that they’re not actively fighting.”

Another shot. “Eleven. And they’ll still be trying to get in there. And in here.” A loud pounding on the door followed immediately. Ilija let go of his rifle and turned around, facing the door. Two shots were heard, and the door fell down off its hinges. Seeing a small object get tossed in, Rainbow quickly backed away from it, looking for any cover she could find in the apartment before it exploded in her face.

The white flash and ringing noise in her ears had convinced her she was dead for a moment, before they both finally started fading out. “Are you alright?” Ilija asked as she shook her head quickly. She didn’t hear it entirely under the ringing in her ears, but managed to make out the intention. “Give it a minute. Stay out of sight, down here.” He led her into another part of the apartment, and put his hand up to his ear. “This is Ilija. It’s getting a little hot up here. I’ll need a minute to secure the area before I can cover you again.”

“Hey, guys, I just picked up a status update on the police radio,” Bain reported. “They’re not heading inside after you; too scared of the bottleneck, I suppose. They’re setting up sniper teams on the nearby rooftops, and they’re gonna wait for you to come out first. This could get hairy, but you should at least have enough time to do what you need to down there.”

“Hey, look at this map. Bunch of East Coast cities, paired up with all these supplies... What the hell does it mean?”

“Maybe they’re being shipped out to those locations. And all these crates must hold all the stuff to be shipped out later. No wonder the Commissar was mad about us coming here.”

“I found a crowbar in the meth lab. I’ll get those crates open, hang on...” Wood creaked loudly enough to come through the earpiece for a second. “Whoa, these are some rockets. Stolen from the military? Even Gage can’t get stuff like this. And there’s a barcode in here...”

“Don’t bother. Those rockets are headed for New York, according to this map. Open another crate, keep looking.”

“Looks like Cuban cigars. Probably more weed than tobacco in ‘em, though.”

“Unless they’re headed straight for the Commissar... Nope, looks like Baltimore.”

“Look for vodka. That’s what’s listed as going to Miami here.”

“Where do I even put the barcode once I’ve found it?”

“There’s a reader on the bench here. Rip it out of the crate and put it under the scanner.”

“More meth chemicals. Police are probably all over the meth lab, though, so it’s not really useful.”

“Found another crowbar here. Let me help out, Hoxton.”

“Thanks. More of those cigars...”

“Found it! Crate full of vodka! Let me just grab that barcode.”

“I’ll boot up the computer here. Scan it in... and we should know where he is in just a moment.”

“...Any second now.”

“...What the hell is up with this thing? It’s slower than traffic on a Sunday.”

“Did he import this from the Motherland too? Slow Russian junk...”

“Worse than the drill.”

“Why do we still have that thing?”

“Probably because nobody’ll sell a drill that’s compatible with that OVKL operating system.”

“Maybe that’s what causes the drill to break.”

“Hey, guys, what’s that noise?”

“Oh, shit, Cloaker!”

“Sorry I’m late! Now go on the forums and cry like—”

“Damn, Wolf, that must have hurt. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. But now we have to restart the fucking computer...”

“Sorry, I didn’t notice they were sending in a Cloaker. Guess you’d better watch the ceiling vents from now on.”

“You think, Bain?”

“Faster to get to the DeLorean and go to an electronics store to read this barcode.”

“Stop bellyaching, it’s already done.”

“Hmm... Yeah, that address seems to match up with the trace. Find any loot you can get out of there and get ready to fight your way back to the car. Ilija, you there?”

“I’m here,” Ilija said. Before returning to his rifle, he gave Rainbow a few small cylindrical objects. “Rainbow, take these. Go up to the roof, take out the pin and throw it at the sniper up there. Then get back down here, as quickly as you can.”

“What are these?”

“Flashbang grenades, like the one you saw earlier. Non-lethal, but it should distract the sniper that landed on our roof just before. I can handle the ones on the motel from here.” Though she didn’t really want to, she swallowed and left the apartment, heading for the stairs marked ‘roof access’. As she pushed up the trapdoor, the sniper turned around, and before he could say anything, she quickly pulled out the pin on one of the grenades, threw it and ducked.

The loud explosion followed, but it was muted by the distance, and she didn’t see the flash. When she looked up again, the sniper had been killed, presumably by the gang as they came out. “Fourteen,” Ilija suddenly said, then, “Fifteen down. You guys should give me a mask, too, I reckon.”

“We’re heading around the back of the motel,” Dallas reported. “We’ll be leaving pretty soon. I’d suggest you get out as well, Rainbow. It’s not gonna be pretty for the next few hours.”

“Alright. Should I go to the safehouse?”

“Spend some time above helicopter level, then meet up with the van,” Bain corrected. “Those crates in the basement gave me an idea...”

Miami

View Online

October 1, 2014
8:32 AM

Rainbow and John Wick were sitting in the van, outside an apartment block in Miami. The heat and humidity, even inside the van, were bothering her a lot. How Wick, in his black leather gloves and suit, was able to cope with it was beyond her. She tried to blow her mane out of her face again, but it had slicked downward too much, and even pushing it away with a hoof didn’t work very well.

The crates had been arranged for them at short notice in a warehouse, which the four clowns had entered with their masks off. A few minutes later, they were taken away by the Russians, whom Wick had tailed in the van. She suddenly heard the door open, and heard Wick talking to a man outside. “What the fuck are you looking at?” the strange man said.

“I’m here to see Mikhail Kraminsky.”

“Never heard of him. Shove off.”

“The Commissar?”

“Oh, the Commissar. Yes. Hey, what do they call you?”

“Names are for friends, so I don’t need one.”

Two loud crashes were heard before Wick knocked on the van’s back door. “It’s all clear. You can come out now.” The man in the white suit was unconscious behind a now-open cast-iron gate, leading into a courtyard. A man with a bright orange beard was tied up on the ground. From below, she suddenly heard a few gunshots, the source of which was revealed as the masked-up Payday Crew emerged from a basement.

“Alright, you got the C4?” Dallas asked, and Wick nodded. “Good. We’ll blow the front door open, charge in and kill the guy.” They all walked into a courtyard, and Chains began to fire up at the windows as more of the white-suited men appeared, pointing guns downward at them.

“Rainbow, stay here. This shouldn’t take long,” Chains said as he directed the crew to stack up behind a large metal door on the east side of the courtyard. Wick placed a single brick of C4 on the door and stepped behind Hoxton and Wolf on the right side. Dallas and Chains were on the left, and Rainbow followed them to get out of the way of the explosive’s backblast.

“And remember, guys,” Wolf added, “no Russian.”

“...really?”

With a single protracted beep, the C4 exploded, and Dallas and Wolf pointed their guns inside. The Commissar was in an elevator, and called out “Dasvidaniya, motherfuckers!” as he rose into the air. The two robbers tried to shoot him, but he disappeared from their sight too quickly. As the two men in white who had been knocked back by the explosion stood up, they were shot instead.

“Guys, you can’t lose the Commissar now!” Bain shouted. “If he escapes, Hoxton will rot, so get your asses in gear!” The crew all charged up the stairs one by one as Rainbow launched herself straight up, heading for the top floor. Through a window, she could see the Commissar getting out of the elevator, heading for the penthouse apartment on the north side.

She tried to follow him, but a sudden hail of bullets filled the air. “Shit!” she cried as she started pulling manoeuvres in the air, trying to get away. “There’s too many of them! I can’t get close! Sorry, guys, looks like you’re on your own here!”

“Damn, this place is built like a maze... So many collapsed walls and barricades,” Bain added. “Don’t get lost, guys.”

“Hey, why don’t you try splitting up?” the Commissar taunted over a PA system. “One of you might actually find me!” Though the laugh wasn’t over the PA, Rainbow still heard it through the roof of his apartment, which she was lying on for cover.

Suddenly, she heard a noise outside, and took off again to investigate. “The police are here!” she called out. “Must want to talk about the motel battle last night! If they find you here, things could get a little rough!”

“Hey, over here! I found the stairs!” Hoxton called out. “Let’s get to the next floor!”

“Holy shit, guys. You’re not gonna believe this,” Bain suddenly cut in. “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is, I’ve gotten access to the cameras, and I can see a huge stash of cocaine in the Commissar’s apartment. The bad news? He’s ordered his men to flush it, just out of spite! The sooner you get up there, the more of it you can save, so get a move on!”

“Uh, that might be a little difficult,” Dallas said. “There’s a locked gate here.”

“Wolf, where are you? We need the drill!” Wick shouted.

“You’re going the wrong way!” the Commissar suddenly added. “Or are you? If you’re lost, way out is straight down. Try jumping out window!”

Rainbow heard the drill coming from the west side of the building through the badly insulated walls, drowning out the response. “The police are coming up! Stand them down!” Bain shouted, and gunfire followed the drill, the two fighting for dominance for a few seconds before the drill broke. A lot of loud profanities followed through the walls, but Rainbow couldn’t wait around for one of them to finally fix the drill.

Diving in through a window behind the gate, she grounded her forelegs and bucked the gate as hard as she could, sending the gate flying into one of the blue-armoured police officers. Chains was freed from the electrocution and returned fire with his Desert Eagle, sending his helmet flying with no head left behind on the body. “Come on, there’s no time!” she shouted, leading the group through the corridor to the eastern stairs.

The stairs were already barricaded when the group arrived. “Shit, we’re not getting through there anymore! There must be another way up; look for it!” The group split up into three groups and ran through the nearby apartments; Dallas covered Rainbow, Wick went with Chains and Hoxton followed Wolf. Heading to the left, Dallas noticed a ramp made from a collapsed floor that Rainbow hadn’t noticed, and called it out to the others, telling Rainbow to stay below and mark it for the others before heading up himself to investigate.

Hoxton and Wolf were the first to arrive, followed by Wick and Chains a few seconds later. “Guys, I don’t mean to tell you your business, but you just lost another bag of coke! I don’t know if I can even watch this anymore...” Bain said, and Rainbow couldn’t tell if he was actually having a panic attack or was just trying to motivate the crew.

“Hey, we’re doing the best we can here,” she replied. “Can you actually help, or are you just going to criticise us?”

“Well, for starters, that door seems magnetically sealed. Looks like they haven’t had time to hide the wiring, though. Don’t waste your C4, just follow it back to the source.” Looking down at the cable, Rainbow was the first to trace it, hovering above the cable slightly. As she followed it into a room, another door suddenly slammed shut behind her, darkening the windowless room except for a spotlight which suddenly turned on.

Under the spotlight was a man tied to a chair. She couldn’t see what he was wearing under the vest he’d been given, with some beige blocks attached to each other with lots of wires. Too late, she realised she’d been led into a trap, and it was full of C4. “Pretty pony is very curious, no?” the Commissar taunted. “Well, pretty pony can go join the cat for curiosity!” The C4 vest beeped once, and a number appeared on a screen: 1:00, which quickly became 0:59.

“Fellas! I’m trapped in a room with a guy who’s wired to blow! What do I do?!” she shouted. The timer had gone down to 0:53 during the rant.

“Cut the red wire!” Wolf shouted. Everyone else quickly began giving instructions over the top of one another while banging on the door.