A Wonderbolt mystery. When the Wonderbolts' machines repeatedly malfunction, most take it as a sign that their lead engineer, Rivet, is overworked. No one sees the acts of a sabotuer in their midst. No one save for ex-detective Keen Eye.
"The impossible happened... Rivet started making mistakes.” “Doesn’t everypony make mistakes?” "Even if ‘everypony makes mistakes’ was a legitimate excuse, most ponies mistakes don’t almost injure ponies, and definitely don’t almost kill ponies.”
Rivet is, before anything else, a genius. A master of machines and the lead engineer for the Wonderbolts, he's the first pony you go to for all problems mechanical, from inventing new training equipment to rapid repairs. It isn't much exaggeration to say he's one of the rivets holding their base together. They leaned on him so much, it seemed only natural that he start to buckle under pressure. The machines he designed to get the Wonderbolt recruits up to speed have started to malfunction, and ponies have narrowly avoided getting hurt. Now he's under probation, forced to take a break from his work. No one is listening to what he's saying. No one is seeing that a saboteur is on the loose. With both his job and the well being of the Wonderbolts on the line, he calls the only person he can rely on to solve the case. He calls his old friend and rival, ex-detective Keen Eye.
What would you say the most important part of a pegasus is?
…Wings? What are you, stupid?
Wings are for flying, in other words, vertical movement. A skilled unicorn can do that with teleportation, enchanting something to float, or magical fake wings. Earth ponies can do that with hot air balloons, gliders, and other flying machines. Even if all these methods aren’t as good as pegasi flight, magical research and technological development can only go forward. Once something is discovered it can’t be undiscovered. Once something’s progressed it can’t retrogress. The days of Pegasus domination of the skies are numbered.
…The brain? Are you even taking this question seriously?
Yes, the brain is important. It controls everything else. Signals have to go back and forth from it in order for a body to be anything more than a lump of hastily organized flesh and bone. If you’re brain dead, you might as well be dead in every other sense. But everpony has one of those! The question has to do with pegasi!
…Wait you were expecting me to say something about thinking? Something about how knowledge and creativity are the highest endeavors anypony can reach for, and all that nonsense? Don’t make me laugh. Being able to think is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. There’s a reason people say they want to “turn their brain off” when they want to relax. Not that I would know much about that. It seems whatever made me forgot to give me that off switch.
Anyways where were we? Oh yeah, the most important part of a pegasus? Well? If you try to be clever and say the heart then I’m not even going to bother with you anymore.
…You give up? Ugh. Fine.
It’s the eyes. Even if a unicorn or earth pony find a way to move in the air as fast and precisely as a pegasus, there’s no way they’d be able to keep it up for long. There’s a lot you have to keep track of when flying: clouds, buildings, trees, birds, other pegasi, litter carelessly thrown in the breeze, your distance from the ground, etcetera etcetera. Someone without the width and range of Pegasus far-sight wouldn’t be able to last 3 minutes at high speed before being overwhelmed, either getting dizzy and nauseous or crashing and burning. Yeah, there are pegasi that need to wear glasses, but a visually impared Pegasus still a step up from a visually impaired unicorn. The only reason I’ve gotten as far as I have in my life is due to my sharp eyesight.
I’ve been told my eyes are one of the few good things about me.
Hm? Whatever happened to “The days of Pegasus domination of the skies are numbered”? You’re making a crucial misunderstanding here.
A group doesn’t dominate something by being the best at it. A group dominates something by being the ones who make the action commonplace. A single genius unicorn can’t dominate the field of spellcasting, they’re one pony, who can only cast so many spells in so many places. The genius unicorn can only matter if their contributions better the understanding of the common spell caster. A genius who doesn’t affect the baseline of society is just a novelty, someone to wheel out for entertainment or, even worse, inspiration, and then forgotten as their abilities inevitably decline. A genius who does affect the baseline is sucked dry for their contributions, buried into the foundations, and then have caricatures of themselves erected in statues and written history books.
That’s why the pegasi domination of the skies will eventually come to a close. A Pegasus genius in flight can’t be anything but a novelty. The ones that aren’t, that discover new techniques and forms to be copied by other fliers, are still only affecting the lives of other athlete fliers. The true genius will be someone who figures out how to make flight commonplace to non-fliers, and who cheapens the field of flying by making it nothing special.
That pony would outdo even the best of the best flyers.
But that’s alright. Anypony who wants to be the best of the best is just asking for disappointment. It’s better to be average, anything else is a waste of effort. To be the best, you have to put in an unimaginable amount of work to reach the top of the hill, and even if you get there, either someone better will eventually overtake you, cutting down a core facet of your identity, or you’ll eventually grow sick of the thing you’re the best at, and your identity will rot from the inside out.
I’m the latter type. An eyesight sharp enough to get me my cutie mark, a mind active enough to rob me of any quiet rest, a stubborn streak, an endurance to match it, and a naïve and idealistic love of mystery novels, all came together to make me a detective.
A master of looking at things, the most commonplace of skills.
Somepony who’s called upon only when something horrible has happened
Somepony whose skills can’t be made available to the baseline
I was mistakenly called a genius, the best.
I was the ultimate novelty.
These days, I paint. I like to think that I’m really good at landscapes.
I still have habits from the old days. I still stubbornly cling to problems that interest me. I privately investigate fun seeming cases brought to me. My mind still spins with questions at the drop of a hat. My eyes still take in too many details about ponies, and I still play reasoning games with them. I still need to take sleeping pills to get some rest from the cacophony in my head. My skills have less to do with raw brainpower and more to do with having wider filters than others.
That’s not always a good thing.
Sometimes ponies should look away. Sometimes seeing something is a bigger burden than not seeing something. Sometimes you shouldn’t follow the reasoning to its endpoint. After all, once you know something, you can’t un-know something. Once you discover something, you can’t un-discover it. Seeing something sublime makes all other good things bland. Seeing something shocking numbs you to the mild negatives. Tasting the top makes everything below it feel like rock bottom.
Thoughts like these were running through my head as I waited outside the Wonderbolt compound, a distasteful feeling place where the strongest winged and sharpest eyed novelties dedicate themselves to burning out brightly, where the best of the best delegitimize the efforts of the common pony just by existing.
“I’m telling you guys! Rivet sent me! I have the letter right here!”
…Where I was being detained in a painful pin by a pair of stone faced security guards.
I swear, things like this happen every time I’m called in for a favor.
Rivet is like that one annoying neighbor kid you had growing up. You know the one. The honor roll student. The one your parents would constantly compare you to when they were yelling at you.
“I bet Rivet keeps his room clean.”
“Rivet keeps up with his homework, why can’t you?”
“Rivet has such good manners, why can’t you be like that?”
“I bet Rivet never gets sent to detention.”
He was living proof that, whatever you were, you weren’t good enough. And yet, when you saw him, his half-pint stature, his sandy yellow coat, his name matching cutie mark, his short cropped brown mane, his excited smile at whatever subject he was studying, oblivious to the world around him, or his trembling frown, overwhelmed by the world around him, you couldn’t completely hate him. He did nothing wrong after all.
You could resent the hell out of him though.
He and I had that kind of relationship.
(Oh, and if you’re the kind of reader who needs to know what the protagonist looks like...
First of all, shame on you for being so shallow. Looks aren’t everything, you know.
Second of all, I’m a light green Pegasus stallion, short brown mane with long swept bangs just reaching past my eyebrows, with a streak of gray going down the middle. My eyes are, more often than not burdened with bags, and my winning white smile has a front tooth missing, my personal favorite battle scar. My cutie mark is an eye with a sparkle flashing off the pupil. I never leave the house without wearing my favorite red scarf. )
We had met years back, when I got him to drag me through a group project. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to arrange that. When he wasn’t being picked on, 90% of the student body was content with ignoring Rivet and he was content ignoring them, but when it came time to partner up, suddenly he was the post popular colt in class. The class president even had to make a waiting list behind Rivet’s back, one I cut through in a story involving blackmail and at least one beating by the students I cut. I say “at least one” because my memory gets hazy after my skull hit concrete.
It was supposed to be a quick business-like relationship, but Rivet was surprised to find somepony who could keep up with him, and I was surprised to find somepony who could out-pace me. We had something of a pseudo-friendship/pseudo-rivalry after that. He came to me to talk about things few others would care about. I would try to keep people from picking on him, and in exchange I would have exclusive right to pick on him. At the end of every term we would compare test scores and report cards.
Of course, he bested me more often than not. It’s only natural. Rivet was as straightforward as straight A students get: a student with a preference for mathematics and the sciences, who turned the metalworking shop into a second home, and studied for the sake of studying. I was a student that preferred the “softer” sciences like psychology, and the liberal arts. When it came time for tests, I couldn’t be bothered studying, so I instead found better and better ways to cheat and improvise my way through the answers. I think that makes my results more impressive. I kept up without giving it my all, imagine what I could do if I actually tried!
…What’s with that look you’re giving me?
…Okay, okay, “I could have won if I tried” is a lame excuse, I admit that. Still, it’s how I operate.
The best wins aren’t the ones where both parties give it their all, and everyone’s content.
The best wins are the ones where someone exploits a flaw in the ruleset, and ruins the game for everyone.
Anyways, for a few years that’s how we spent our days: chatting, laughing, fighting, studying, wandering… I even dragged him into being my assistant the times I played amateur sleuth. Those days were fun, and it was a shame to see them end…even though, looking back, I probably wasn’t the healthiest friend for him. He’s probably found much better by now.
After graduation, we were bound to go our separate ways, but we promised to keep in touch, and compete to see who got farther in life.
Rivet went on to become a genius engineer, and was eventually hired to be the lead in the research and development branch of the Wonderbolts.
I became a homicide investigator, got roped into some interesting cases, some boring cases, and some incredibly painful cases, eventually quitting in disgust, moving cross country, and supporting myself selling paintings on street corners and privately taking up odd cases from ponies who somehow got wind of my old life.
I think we can see who won here.
Just as with our bodies, soon it seemed our hearts began to drift apart. As the letters between us got shorter and more infrequent, it felt like we would soon reach the point where we run out of things to talk about, and never hear from each other again.
That is, until I got an SOS.
“Dear Keen Eye
Please come to the Wonderbolt HQ ASAP. There’s something that I need you here for. Show this letter to security and they should let you in. I’ll explain more when you get here.
--Rivet”
His bit with security didn’t exactly go as planned though.
I wasn’t exactly expecting our reunion to be us sweating under the gaze of a burning Spitfire…
It wasn’t clear who Spitfire was asking this to: me, rivet, or the security stationed by the door.
Maybe it was all of us. Maybe it was none of us. Maybe she was interrogating the universe, the fabric of reality itself.
Right now she seemed like a mare who could get results from that.
“Well?”
Looking at her now, I get the feeling that spitfire was born with the wrong color scheme. She was fiery, yes, but it wasn’t the kind of fire you would associate with yellow and orange, wild and unfocused, spreading its heat wherever there’s a flammable surface.
No, right now, Spitfire’s fire was definitely blue. Everything about her demeanor, from her rigid forward posture, to her cutting glare, to every harshly enunciated syllable in her statements, were focused, purposeful, and so much more intense. She wasn’t yelling, yet my ears were still ringing, completely overwhelmed.
“Ah..e-er…um… s-s-s-s-oor-r-r-r-y aaah I mean…” Rivet was looking everywhere but her eyes. He was stuttering more than normal. His leaned into himself more than normal, tried to make himself look smaller than normal. His main, tail, and coat were more disheveled more than normal. He looked like he lost more sleep than normal. Rivet was being Rivet much more than normal.
Even the security was sweating in this pressure cooker. Their facial expressions were equal parts regretful and fearful. Regretful that they eventually read the letter and let me in, and fearful that they would be the next target of Spitfire’s ire. Sure, they kept the composure their job commanded, but they kept shifting their weight on their hooves, with a nervous energy unbecoming of them, their ears kept twitching, like they wanted to fold them down in submission, and their eyes kept flicking to the door. The only thing keeping them from trying to slip out is that Spitfire’s presence probably melted their shoes to the ground.
Me? I won’t lie and say that I wasn’t also taking a similar strategy to Rivet. I’d like to believe that my experiences in my old life had steeled me, but with the right fuel even steel will start to melt. Still, I had a bit more composure than the other 3 victims in the room, so I had enough sense to start taking stock in my surroundings.
I’ve heard you can tell how hard a person works by either how clean or how messy it is at the end of the day.
A clean desk is someone methodical, who you can trust got a sizeable amount of work done just by going through the motions.
A partially messy desk is low to average, a person tepidly punching in and punching out.
An extremely messy desk however, is either a sign that the person has given up on work entirely, or has given up their entire selves to work. No time to clean when there’s still the next thing to be done, after all.
Judging from the state of Spitfire’s office, she was the first type until very recently, and then became the third. Looking at the shelves, filing cabinets, and placement of the few decorations she allowed herself, she was someone who had a definite order and method to her work. Recently, however, something had overwhelmed it. Her desk was strewn with papers. Her posters on the wall had a few maps laid over it, with some pins marking several spots. The bin for her mail seemed to be overflowing, and a set of blue envelopes with wax seals seemed to almost burst out. Her filing cabinet drawers were half open, and while things were properly in their proper order, they had corners poking out here and there, like the papers had been hastily pulled out and shoved in.
“I didn’t ask for a ‘Sorry’, I asked for someone to explain THIS.” She slammed my letter onto her desk. “WHY exactly are you inviting non-Wonderbolt personnel onto the compound? Without telling anybody? NOW of all times?” Her teeth grit harder with every sentence passing.
“I-I-I-Thought I t-t-t-told y-y-“ I didn’t know whether he looked more ready to cry or to vomit. I couldn’t stand this tension, so I decided to play the ace up my sleeve.
“Is this about how I’m not supposed to know that the Wonderbolts are secretly a military organization?”
For the next few seconds, you could hear a pin drop. Wide eyed and gaping, no one dared to make the slightest move.
The calm before the storm.
“YOU TOLD HIM?!”
“NO! NO I DIDN”T! I-“
“He DIDN’T. That’s exactly why I know.”
Her eyes narrowed into slits as she zeroed in on me. I felt like I was staring down a snake ready to strike. “Explain. If you can’t make that make sense in 1 minute then I’m WELL within my authority to detain you.”
“Well, Rivet is the kind of pony where, if he’s in his element, or he has an audience that he feels will listen, will talk your ear off about whatever he’s working on. It was like that when I first met him in school years ago, he was like that when we became pen pals, and I would bet money it’s how he still is today. I used to find whole schematics shoved in the envelope to elucidate a point he made in a single paragraph.”
“That habit stopped abruptly when he was hired for the Wonderbolts. He would make passing references to something he was working on, but he would never go into detail. His letters got shorter and had less of a spontaneous air to them. It was almost like he was being asked to limit the details of what he was doing for you guys, and he had to write much more reservedly and deliberately as a result.”
“Now, I couldn’t think of a reason why an athletics/showpony team would have him be so tight lipped that he couldn’t even talk about simple things like how your spotlight system worked, so I had to think ‘Maybe there’s much more to the Wonderbolts than meets the eye?’. What else could a team of highly trained flyers with an extremely difficult entry process be doing? Ones where expose articles have shown events like sparring practice? Ones who have been spotted scrambling at disaster zones? It’s only a few steps from there that you reach Military. If you need proof that he didn’t say anything, I still have the letters at home” I could only let my smile grow as I watched her slit-eye glare loosen into a wide eyed stare. Thankfully, Rivet had calmed down, and while he also looked surprised, he was less so, and his smile seemed thankful enough.
“Of course, I didn’t really have any proof until you confirmed it for me.” I finished off.
She groaned and rested her forehead on the desk, all the tension she held before slipping right off of her. “Great. Just great. We’ve got ourselves a detective in our midst. Our secrets are doomed.”
“Hahaha. Don’t be silly. I’m just a painter, here to visit my good friend Rivet in his time of need.” I stretched my smile as far as it could go. “Besides, you shouldn’t feel bad about this. Most secrets are secrets just because no one bothered to look into them. Your cover is solid enough that only weirdos like me will question it.”
“Hmm?” She looked at me with a raised eyebrow “Whatever…” she started to go through one of the cabinets beneath her desk. “Of course, now that you’ve gone this far, I’m going to have to ask you to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Even if you didn’t use illegal means to find it out, we can’t have you blabbing this to anyone. Don’t think we won’t know either. We have the resources of the princesses on our side.”
“You mean the princesses that are currently ignoring you?”
SLAM
“WHAT THE HELL!” Spitfire yelled, as she rubbed the point where she slammed her skull into the underside of her desk.
“It’s the basket full of mail, namely the blue envelopes. They all have the royal seal of the lunar court on the wax. I’ve heard that our night princess is still pretty old fashioned, and prefers to use scroll and quill. Those all have typewriter marks on the envelopes, not hoof written ink. I’m guessing those are form letters, and you don’t exactly get multiple form letters from someone hanging onto your every word.”
Spitfire had gone from looking impressed to looking annoyed. “Are you SURE you’re not a detective or something? You seem pretty suspicious. If we didn’t have Rivet vouching for you, I’m not sure I’d be giving you the time of day.”
“I know who I am, thank you very much. Still, it’s somewhat refreshing to hear someone speak so bluntly, instead of dancing around their feelings."
She sighed, rubbing her temples. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been so short with you, it’s just a lot of unusual things are piling up right now.”
“I can tell.” I said, gesturing to the clutter. Turning to Rivet, I whisper, “I sincerely hope I wasn’t called in to help with whatever this is. I get you have faith in me but I doubt even YOU would be rash and insensitive enough to try and get me involved with a matter of national security. Especially after last time I got involved in something like that.” I shuddered.
“Oh no no no. The problem I called you here for begins and ends within the compound.” He whispered back.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“AHEM!” Spitfire said. “If you two are done gossiping…”
And the sigh of relief forcefully crawled back up my throat.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook yet, Rivet. There’s still the fact that you invited someone here without permission. With the mess you’re in right now, I’m surprised you’d want to do something as risky as this.”
“But I DID get permission! I sent in the proper form! I have it down in my office! You signed it! I can run down and get it now!”
Spitfire looked more confused than anything else. I timidly raised my hoof.
“Miss Commander Spitfire, Ma’am… are you the kind of person who, when overwhelmed with paperwork, might sign something without completely reading it? Or when you see a trusted name, you might automatically assume whatever is written is worthwhile?”
I didn’t even have time to adjust the neck-strap my guest pass hung from before Rivet started dragging me out, or at least attempting to, for what his stature was worth.
“Geez, hold up man, this isn’t like you!”
In fact, there were a lot of things Rivet did recently that were unlike him. His brisk letter that left more questions than answers, his carelessness in not double checking that my arrival was expected, his thoughtlessness in not giving me a specified time and place to arrive, his overall more-tense-than-normal demeanor…
“Just what exactly is going on anyway? Why did you need my help again?”
“Um…” He nervously glanced around “Can it wait until we get to my lab? I… don’t want to talk about the specifics out here.” He said, glancing to the ponies that were walking up and down the hall.
“Can I at least get a general version?”
“Nnn…” he bit his lip anxiously, and contemplated before motioning for me to lower my head to his level.
“For one, my future employment here might be in danger.”
…Wait, I think I lost track of what I was going for when listing his old nicknames.
It’s not MY fault that he was really easy to make nicknames for!
Still, THAT Rivet? Possibly getting fired?!
“What?!” I gasped as my thoughts finally caught up to my throat, loudly enough that Rivet was startled and slipped backwards.
…Yep, still Walking Talking Tumbler Rivet
“Did you finally knock up one of your admirers?!”
In an uncharacteristic display of reflexes, he leaped to my eye level and painfully clamped my jaw shut.
“One: Shhhhhhhhhhh, Two: no!”
I could help but giggle at this, despite the fact that my tongue is probably bleeding. Seems like Rivet grew up a bit since last time I saw him, or at least, the situation is abnormal enough that it’s growing him a spine. That sort of teasing used to send him sputtering to a stop.
“Ugh…” He dropped back down to the floor. “This is exactly why I wanted to wait until we got to my offi—“
“RIVET!”
Around the corner came 4 ponies: a massive blue bruiser with a short brown mane and a soft look in his eyes, a tan stallion who looked like he lost a fight with a pair of scissors and brags about it, a light blue mare with a tricolor mane, and a dark blue stallion with a short black mane, one who somehow lacked presence, as if he melded in the background even if he’s the only one in the shot.
The mare scooped him up as the other three surrounded him “Rivet are you okay? We rushed over as soon as we heard you were called up to spitfire’s office! Were you in trouble again?”
“Ah, well, d-don’t worry. Everything was cleared up I guess…” said rivet, impulsively looking away. Looks like he hasn’t grown up that much after all. I couldn’t help but snicker a bit.
Maybe he’s just finally immune to me?
“Who’s this joker?”
The dark blue nobody was casting a suspicious eye as he pointed me out. The atmosphere shifted as the spotlight drifted from the fan favorite to the new character.
“You first. I AM a guest after all.” I said, flashing my pass. “I don’t remember Rivet mentioning anyone like you in his letters. Since you’re hanging around him, I’m guessing you’re all part of some secret new super soldier program or something?”
Their jaws dropped simultaneously.
“Why do you know that?!” the mare said.
…
“Um…that was a joke.”
Embarrassment was etched across all our faces as an awkward silence filled the space where the casual atmosphere had been a moment ago.
“Oh… um, our reaction was too!” she responded.
“Oh…”
“…”
I tried to cut through the rapidly frosting ice. “So…introductions?”
Scarface took the lead. “I’m Playblitz” He turned to the mare “This firecracker is our captain, Shine Struck” She seemed to shrink a bit at that, in a manner that suggested the exact opposite of a firecracker, “This walking contradiction is Calm Wind” He gave a shallow wave, not entirely sure what to make of the situation, “and this cool customer is Swift Justice”
Ugh, why do ponies name their kids after vague ideals like ‘Justice’? They know they’ll never reach them, right? It’s a complex waiting to happen!
He continued. “We’re friends of Rivet. How do you know him?”
“Wait. Rivet? Having friends? Hold on, it appears I have a bet I need to pay out” I tossed a 5 bit piece Rivet’s way. He tried to fling it away, but he missed, and it bounced off his head.
“Grr…”
“You know…” Calm Wind casually threw a foreleg around my shoulder, and leaned his weight on me, his tone and his smile betraying the intimidating tension he was sending my way. “You’re not exactly making good first impressions right now.”
“I’ve never been good at those. Just take how Rivet and I met years back. There was a group project in chemistry, and I notice Rivet in the corner acing everything! So I walk up to him, bow my head low, and begged and pleaded to him:
‘I know about the Nightmare Night incident, and if you won’t help me then your face and your costume will be plastered across the school paper for all to see.’
“Since then we were inseparable pals, two idiots too smart for their own good, glued together by the magic of blackmail!” “
Calm Wind’s facial expression and grip was tightening with every word.
“I’m Keen Eye by the way.”
Getting hard to breathe.
“I’m a painter. Ack…”
Rivet sighed, rubbing his temples. “Just… let him go Calm. I called him here.”
“Rivet…” Star Shine looked at him with concern “Ponies normally call this sort of relationship Stockholm Syndrome.”
“That’s…ack…what I keep telling him.” Turning blue…
Rivet scuffed the floor. “Er… He’s kind of fun to talk to… once you get to know him, he just kind of doesn’t have a filter…or tact…”
Calm shrugged and let me go. I immediately crumpled to the floor and desperately gasped for breath.
Swift Justice poked my prone form, “Listen, I don’t know why you’re here, but we’re watching you. If you mess with Rivet, we’ll know.”
“You guys are being too quick to judge. After all, I kept my end of the bargain! I burned the negatives after we were done. It takes some serious integrity to do that!”
“…” They were still glaring at me.
“I mean, yeah I was kind of a bully to him, but I was a bully to a lot of the other bullies as well, so I kept him from being a target. I have to say, our little arrangement might have been one of the best things that happened to him! Me being with him sent a message to the other instigators: ’This one is MINE! Don’t you THINK about touching him!’ Ah it takes me back… kind of romantic don’t you think?”
“…”
“…”
“…um” Calm wind hesitated.
“No, no it’s not romantic at all.” Playblitz broke in.
“Stop giving them ideas!” panicked Rivet. He turned to his friends with a pleading look “Please get him to my lab before he makes more of a scene. He’s here to figure out who’s been messing with my machines.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute. Rivet, the big emergency you sent an S.O.S. for, the one that send me all the way from Manhattan, straining both my wallet on an overnight train and my wings getting up here, was ‘who’s touching my stuff?’”
“There’s more to it than that! It’s—“ His ears perked up and his eyes went wide. “Darn it! Hide me!” He harshly whispered as he dove behind Calm.
Around the corner, a lithe, light blue mare with silvery hair was humming to herself. I didn’t keep up with Wonderbolt related things, but even I could recognize one of the members of the lead squad. I couldn’t remember her name though… and why was Rivet hiding from her?
“Hey guys! Any of you see Rivet anywhere?”
Started with an F…
“N-no…” Calm looked away and started blushing.
Fast-something? Free-something?
“Are you suuuuuure?” She dragged it out as she leaned up against Calm.
Flow-something? Far-something? Fleet-something? That sounds kind of right I think…
“Hmm? Hey who are you? I didn’t know we were expecting visitors.” She noticed me as I zoned out. “Why’re you staring? See something you like?” she smirked flirtatiously.
Fleet…flight? Fleet…fight? No that isn’t right at all… Wait did she say she’s looking for Rivet?
“Ah! I know you!”
“Yep! Fleetfoot at your service! You want an autograph?”
“Rivet wrote about you!”
“Oh? You’re a friend of Rivet’s?”
“You’re that blue she-demon he complains about!”
“…What?”
“Yeah! The monster-molester! The mare with no modesty! It took me a while to connect you to the pony that keeps heartlessly interrupting his work! Man do the Wonderbolts have any code of conduct?”
She seemed downcast at that, ears and eyes drooping. “…Did he really say that about me?”
“No I did not!” Rivet popped up on top of Calm, unable to take the farce any longer “I didn’t write that! Don’t put words in my mouth!” His voice wavered between panic, a comforting tone for fleet, and an accusation for me, and was more strained than a poorly tuned guitar as a result. Ah, it’s fun to get this reaction out of him…
“You DIDN’T say anything about it, that’s EXACTLY how I know!”
“YOU DON’T GET TO USE THAT LINE TWICE!”
“RIVET!” Fleetfoot dove for him, missing Calm by a razor’s edge and squeezing him like a teddy bear “There you are!”
“Gah!” He struggled fruitlessly in her embrace
Despite Rivet being the victim, the scene was surreal enough that the squad behind me couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Um… a little help maybe…please?” Rivet reached out to us
“Nuh uh.” Fleetfoot said. “You said mean things about me. Now you have to give me extra cuddling time”
“But I never di—“
“Shhhhhhhh” She put her hoof on his mouth.
I cleared my throat. “So, since it looks like Rivet’s going to be busy for a while, mind showing me the way to his lab?”
“What? Wait! No!” Rivet futilely tried to reach toward us as Fleetfoot lazily floated in the opposite direction.
Earlier I mentioned a way to tell how productive a pony is by looking at how organized their workplace is. Rivet’s lab exists on the border between a type 1 and a type 3. Everything here has its exact place, and every place has a thought out purpose, but there’s so much stuff going on, so many projects still under development, that to an untrained eye it looks like a mess. The room is a balancing act between order and chaos.
Which is why it’s fun to touch his stuff when he’s not looking.
“Nope!” my foreleg was painfully twisted back by Shine Struck “Not until Rivet gets here.”
“Oww… You’re no fun.” I pouted.
Even without mischief, it was impressive to glimpse at what Rivet's been up to. Automated cloud sculpting machines, armor made up entirely of reflective surfaces for clear sky stealth flying, and judging from the machine that’s been pointing at us the entire time we’re here, even heat seeking systems, or something even more intimidating. I don’t know if I should applaud or be afraid.
Then again, all applause and adulation has some fear in its base.
When you see something incredible, you heap praise on it both to encourage that exceptionality, and out of a fear that it might disappear, or worse, be turned against you. There’s a reason “awesome” can also mean something terrifying. The gods must be kept happy after all.
There are a lot of applause worthy ponies here.
I looked around. “Still, judging from the casual and familiar way you guys carry yourselves around here, plus the dents all over the lab, you guys seem to play with his stuff plenty. What gives?”
“We only do it when he’s around. We stress test for him” Calm Wind said.
“In more ways than one, I bet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Playblitz accused.
“Nothing Nothing Nothing.”
“You sure love to talk about that.” Swift Justice quipped
“It’s the meaning of life after all.”
“How Discordian of you.” Shine Struck said.
“Don’t you dare say anything like that to me ever again.”
“Alright alright… jeez.”
Swift justice seemed to be contemplating something, looking into the distance and muttering something. “Keen eye…Keen eye…”
“You called?”
“Huh? Oh I was just wondering…I swear I’ve heard your name somewhere before.”
I raised my hoof to my chin and took on a flattered pose. “Hmm? Are you perhaps a fan of the fine arts? I’m quite famous on the street corner next to Manehattan Central Park. Especially with the guard, they’re such fans they repeatedly haul me away for themselves!”
“…No.”
I brought my hoof to my forehead and played shocked. “Oh so you’ve renounced the arts entirely? For shame for shame!”
“What? No! Look I’m just saying I’m sure I read your name somewhere, or at least a name that sounds like yours, back in law school.”
“Well names that have “Eye” in them can’t be too uncommon. I’ve met several Justices in my life. Never liked a single one though. I hope you break the pattern.”
He smirked. “Sounds like a challenge to me.”
“Why, Swift, are you coming onto me?”
“Not even if I did swing that way.”
I sighed theatrically and slumped my head. “They never do.”
Playblitz laughed. “We should really introduce this guy to Long Run.”
“So wait…” Calm had an inquisitive look on his face. “Rivet said he called you to figure out who’s been messing with his machines. How can you help? Aren’t you just a painter?”
“Are you only JUST a flyer?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Don’t tell me that you have no interests outside of mindlessly flapping those oversized wings of yours? No hobbies? No passions? Nothing on the side? That’s really sad…”
“HEY!” Playblitz practically growled “What we do isn’t mindless! It takes a lot of effort to be a top flyer!”
Calm Wind ignored Playblitz’s complaint. “Well…I like to do some writing during my time off.”
“See? We all learned a valuable lesson on not making assumptions about ponies—“
“You’ve been making assumptions about ponies all day” Swift deadpanned.
“—because even the plainest looking ponies have hidden sides to them."
“I’m not plain looking, am I?” Calm looked down at himself
“Don’t listen to him, Calm.” Shine Struck comforted, glaring daggers at me.
“As for me, let’s just say that I have a keen eye for things.”
Everyone groaned.
“Well, having an eye for a cutie mark is pretty vague. If I saw that then I would assume that the guy was a professional voyeur” Playblitz said, eyebrow raised and smile half-cocked.
“…No comment.”
“Wait… ‘Met plenty of Justices before’… ‘Have a keen eye for things’…your cutie mark… your behavior…” Swift’s eye lit up as he made the connections “Oh! I know who you are!”
Crap
“I heard about you back in law school!”
“Aaaand challenge failed. You just had to be a lawyer. Good job Justice.”
“Go on…” Star Shine urged swift with an inquisitive look.
“This guy was apparently a legendary investigator in Los Pegasus! He solved a string of impressive cases for a few years and then quit, disappearing without a trace.”
“Is that what they’re saying about me?” I puffed up my chest a bit. Sure I left that life behind, but compliments are compliments.
“Well, you’re also kind of used as a textbook example of what not to do in Evidence Law.”
And there it goes. Bye pride~!
“What do you mean?” Shine Struck asked.
Swift Justice took on an amused half-sneer as he went on “From what I heard, he liked playing detective more than actual detective work, things like guessing where a pony had been based on the bit of dirt on their hooves, or making elaborate predictions based on vague personality quirks. He seemed to guess right more often than not, but his methods were so roundabout that actual investigators and forensics often had to work overtime to find proof that would actually stand up in court. There’s debate on whether you were a genius or just extremely lucky.”
I sighed “Definitely the latter.”
His eyebrow rose at that. “Though now that I see you face to face, I have to know. Why did you quit?”
“I just got tired, realized that the illustrious mysteries I loved so much were nothing like the real thing. Is that so hard to understand? I mean, have none of you ever achieved something, only to wonder if it’s what you really want? Have you ever doubted your dreams?”
“That’s not what I hea—“
“What you heard is probably, definitely, entirely wrong” I cut Swift off. “Look, I’m just here for Rivet’s sake, and I’d rather keep things low key. Do you mind keeping quiet about this?”
They looked at each other with predatory smiles.
“Sure thing.” Playblitz said, his smile becoming uncomfortably wide “after all, what’s a little blackmail between friends?”
I could only gulp as the warm embrace of friendship began to ensnare me.
The sound of a door opening broke the tense atmosphere.
“Rivet! Thank Celestia you’re here. I was running out of ways to give these weirdos the runaround and I think they’re onto us!”
Around the corner came not a small, probably irked, sandy colored stallion but three different ponies, two mares and a stallion. The unicorn mare at the front was, in a word, straightforward. She had a ramrod straight posture that screamed all business, and a body that was composed of hard angles. She had a forward facing glare, piercing through whatever she looks at. Her coat was a straightforward orange, not near enough to red or yellow to be seen as any other hue, and she had a straight line of white going down from her forehead to the tip of her snout. The only thing that didn’t remind me of a level was her yellow mane, curled into a tight bun. Her hips bore the image of a series of ratchet wrenches.
The earth pony stallion to her left was a square. No, that isn’t right. Between his long, drooping face, his long solid legs, his more-long-than-tall proportions, and his thick black rimmed glasses, he was more of a rectangle. He sported a patchy dappled coat, moving back and forth from dark and light blues, and was topped by a short white mane falling forward. Betraying his solid stature were his drooping, somewhat tired looking eyes. His cutie mark was a blueprint schematic.
Trailing shortly behind the unicorn and the earth pony was a pear shaped Pegasus. I don’t mean just body type, though she fit that too. Her coat was a pear’s green-yellow, and her brown bob cut gave her front profile a pear like shape. The only thing not pear-like were her dew-y wide red eyes. Those were more apple-like. Adorned on her flank was a welding torch.
“You’re not Rivet.” I said.
The unicorn looked amused at this. “Not the first, nor the last time I’ve heard that working here. What was that about someone being into someone? Are we missing something steamy?”
“Oh, I was just trying to set up a gag to fluster Rivet in front of his friends.”
The pear-gasus emerged from the cover of her friends with a reproachful expression.
“You shouldn’t do things like that. Even the strongest pony’s emotions are fragile.” She then noticed squad zero behind me “Oh hey guys!” she waved enthusiastically. They responded with their own warm greetings in turn, a much warmer reception than I got.
“Calm, how’s that sprain been healing up?” She asked.
“It’s practically gone!”
She seemed to have a motherly tone to her, the kind of person who fussed over anyone’s and everyone’s problems. She’s probably a mare that everyone knows.
I scoffed. “You don’t have to worry about Rivet’s feelings. After spending enough time with a mean spirited degenerate like me he’s probably got a thicker armor than any of the wimps here.”
“Grr…” She tried to frown harder, but ended up puffing her cheeks from the exertion. The rest of the pegasi in the room wore a much less cute version of the same expression.
“Where is he anyway?” the blue stallion asked.
“Fleetfoot.” the entire squad answered in unison.
“Oh…don’t you guys normally interfere when that happens?” the unicorn said.
Shine Struck gestured to me. “We’re kind of foalsitting his friend here.”
“Oh? What sort of company does the great genius Rivet keep with him? Crash-test dummies aside.” She spoke with an edge befitting her right angles, her praises wrapped in barbed wire.
“Hey!” Shine bristled.
Calm Wind scratched the back of his head. “Well, in a work context we kind of are…”
“I’m nothing special, just a painter.”
“Just a painter?” She asked.
Swift took on a conspiratorial grin and slung his hoof over my shoulder. “Yep, JUST a painter”
Playblitz followed suite with his own smirk “Nothing but a painter.”
Amateurs!
When it comes to blackmail and verbal needling, these guys are complete amateurs!
“So, Mr. Painter—“
“Call me Keen Eye.” I could see her grit her teeth at being interrupted. “And what might I call you ladies?”
“Ahem” Blue finally piped up.
“And what might I call you lovely ladies?”
Blue sighed and sadly brushed his hoof against the ground. He seems to be a pony that will stand up if he sees something wrong, but will easily buckle under pressure. Kind of sad. Pear spent a moment giving him a reassuring brush of her wing before she jumped and used him as a podium. To Blue’s credit, his back didn’t budge an inch.
“This workaholic here is Ratchet Wrench,” she pointed to the unicorn, “I’m Piece Maker, and this sturdy stallion beneath me is Blue Print.”
It only took a moment of silence before chuckles began to crackle across the room, including my own. The only people unaffected were Blue, whose face finally had blushing red contrast, and Piece herself, as her practiced beaming smile dimmed into one of confusion. “Huh? What are you all laughing about?”
It was Ratchet’s words that broke through the wall of giggles. “Piece you—hihihihi – Piece you might want to think about what you said.”
“What I said?...Ohhhhhhhh” Her voice dipped with her posture as embarrassment caught up to her, and she took this as her cue to hop off the stage Blueprint. “Sorry if I embarrassed you…” Her head hung low as the message meant for Blueprint was spoken to the floor. He in turn responded with a quick, chaste nuzzle.
“Don’t mind too much. It’s more embarrassing I got flustered over something so silly.”
“I’ll say.” I said, smothering Piece’s reassuring response and the budding romantic atmosphere. After the awkward pause, Ratchet took helm of the conversation again.
“So now that we’re back on track, why are you here, Mr. Keen Eye? You’d think Rivet has enough moral support after his oh-so-devastating two week probation.” She rolled her eyes.
“Probation? Is that what’s happening here?”
“He didn’t tell you?” An eyebrow rose as her eyelids squinted toward me.
“He just said something about his job being in danger. I didn’t exactly get to ask more between my summons just being a panicked ‘Come here ASAP', being tackled by security, being sent to Spitfire’s oven, and being split up by hurricane Fleetfoot,”
Half the ponies in the room gave me a glare that screamed “You were the cause of that last one, you idiot!”
She seemed amused at that. “Jeez, he basically gets a vacation and he thinks it’s the end of the world. The minds of geniuses really are as messed up as this room, aren’t they?
“They sure are.” I nod.
“So, while we’re here, want me to put you in the loop?”
“Not sure it’s your tale to tell, Ratchet” Blueprint scolded.
“Please, you say that like its Rivet’s alone.”
“Well, it kind of is…” Piece pleaded.
“Says who?” Their eyes widened a bit at my interruption. “How exactly do you tell who has the right to tell a story?”
“Well…I guess the person who it happened to should be the one who tells the story” Piece maker pondered.
“Why, Piece Maker! I didn’t know you thought so lowly of historians!”
“Huh?”
“They have the gall to tell stories about things that happened hundreds of years ago, when the ponies it happened to are no longer on this mortal plane! Who else is on your hit list? Journalists? Biographers? Is any and every second hand source a mere gossiper?”
“That’s not what I meant! Besides, those ponies' jobs are to tell the story right…”
“And how exactly do you tell a story right? How can you tell if the details are correct without being there yourself? Evidence can be misread, and testimony can be mistold. How can you tell something right if you can’t be sure what ‘right’ is? For example" I picked up a small crowbar from a nearby desk. "Say that Rivet saw me in the middle of a busy street, and used this to bash my brains in."
"...This is the same Rivet we're talking about here right? Why would he do that? Why would he want to do that?" Piece said.
"Trust me, he has plenty of reason to. Anyways, if you were to ask anypony in the street, their response would be the same: 'Rivet finally enacted justice on Keen Eye by bashing his brains in with a crowbar.'"
"...You have problems, don't you?" Shine said.
"Several!" I chuckled "Anywho, imagine that same scenario, but instead of Rivet, it's a changeling in Rivet's form, enacting his will..."
"It sounds like a pretty bad strategy for a changeling to go about whacking ponies at random too..." Swift said.
"...Or imagine that I was the changeling, or imagine that both of us were changelings,--
"This scenario is getting harder and harder to follow..." Calm said.
"...or imagine that a nearby unicorn was using dark magic to control his mind? In all these scenarios, the stories of the onlookers would be the same: 'Rivet killed Keen Eye.' All of their testimonies would be spoken entirely truthfully, and all the evidence would be pointing to them being correct, but they could still be wrong. And that's not even counting the possibility of lies! You can never be 100% certain of any story, whether you saw it yourself or heard it secondhand. So how can you tell who has the right to tell somepony's story?”
Scenarios like that are actually why there's debate on whether the new rule in mystery stories should be "no changeling characters allowed" or "no changeling characters unless they're foreshadowed or revealed early...
This time it was Blueprint who took the lead, Piece looking a bit nervous at my questioning.
“You tell it like the ponies involved would want you to tell it.”
“You do realize that King Sombra had a way he wanted his story to be told, right? One of an Ubermensch leading the ungrateful underclass into a utopia or something like that?”
…
The last line seemed to knock everyone off balance.
"Are you seriously comparing Rivet to Sombra?” Shine asked, caught between angry and agape.
“Well they’re equally tyrannical in their domains, aren’t they?”
Thwack!
“Owww…” I didn’t see who hit me, but everyone seemed pleased with the bop on the head I got, silently praising the hero Rivet’s Lab needs but doesn’t deserve.
“You guys really are too trusting. Everypony has some evil in them. Even me, even the princesses, even Rivet. Anypony can become a monster, maybe even the next Sombra, and denying this is denying a crucial part of your se—“
TWACK!
“Ow!” Who’s doing that?!
“Not funny.” Calm admonished me.
“Yeah, you’re going too far.” Even Ratchet was brow-beating me! Alongside the regular beating I was getting!
“You’re all missing the point! I’m saying that you can’t trust only one story, no matter who it’s from, be it your best friend or your worst enemy.”
And especially if they’re the same pony…
“Ponies lie to others to look better or defend themselves, ponies lie to themselves to feel better or defend others, ponies mis-remember and mis-interpret. Any story, be it from your best friend, a historian, or a god, is just that, a story. A single pony can’t know the truth, it takes two or more comparing to see it, and even then your prospects are shaky”
“That’s a really depressing outlook. Aren’t you supposed to trust your friends?” Piecemaker asked.
“Absolutely not.”
“…what?”
“If you love someone, you should make an effort to really know them. That includes questioning and doubting them, accepting the possibility of lies and dark sides. If you’re unwilling to accept the possibility of your friend being awful, you don’t love that pony, you only love the idea of that pony. You can trust someone without thinking. You can follow someone without thinking. All it requires nodding your head. It takes real thought to doubt. ‘You should trust your friends?’ Bah! I respect Rivet too much to trust him. I need to hear the story from someone who hates him.”
“…Love?”
Crap
“I was speaking figuratively! Platonically!”
“Suuuure you were.” Ratchet quipped. Everyone laughed as heat rushed to my face, and I reflexively pulled my scarf up around my cheeks. At least I wasn’t alone in this. Piece Maker was wearing a blush of her own too.
“Trust me on this, there’s no way I could have a thing for him. He’s nowhere near my type. I prefer more forceful and forward ponies.”
“What? Trust? Aren’t we supposed to doubt our friends?” Calm snickered.
“You say that like we became the best of friends within the hour we’ve known each other.”
“Our oh-so-painterly conversation from before suggests we kind of did.” Playblitz said.
“You paint, Playblitz?” Piece asked, excited.
“Let’s just say this guy perked my interest.”
“Ohhhh tell me when you get started! I want to see what you make!”
“Graaahhhh!” I rubbed my temples, trying to wipe away the memory of where this conversation went wrong.
“Ihihihi. Compared to Rivet’s other friends, you’re a riot. Well Piece, Blue, after such a rousing speech, I doubt either of you will have any objections to telling Rivet’s tale for him?”
She huffed and looked away, but the corners of a smile were still there. “Fine…”
Blue looked unsure. “If Piece says so…”
She turned her eyes to me “Of course, your little speech, rousing as it was, got something wrong.”
“And that is?”
“You’re a bit too presumptuous. I certainly don’t like Rivet, but I don’t hate him. It’s not worth the effort to do something like that.”
Ah, I get it.
Eventually genius or power takes you to the point where, in the eyes of the world, you stop being a pony. You become a force of nature.
And who in their right mind would sincerely hate a force of nature? Who is petty enough to sincerely hate bad luck? Or the ocean?
“Noted.” I took a seat. “So…what exactly has been going on here?”
“Well, to make a long story short, the impossible happened.”
“That’s never a good sign. Did Discord fly through here?”
“Yes, actually. How did you know? Of course, no one’s seen him here for a while so I’m pretty sure he isn’t involved… Hey are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m fine.” I choke out, desperately trying to force color back into my face. Note to self, get the job done and get the hell out ASAP.
“Continue.”
“The impossible thing was, namely, that Rivet started to make mistakes.”
“Doesn’t everypony make mistakes?”
“That’s just a weak excuse ponies make to justify their mistakes. No one says it when everything is going fine. Everypony gets sick, but that doesn't make a stay in the ER any less harrowing. Everypony dies eventually, and you don’t see anyone trying to say that you should take death lightly.”
“I don’t think we’ve heard of god’s dying, have we…?” Piece Maker quietly wondered.
“God’s aren’t ponies. Don’t think of them as ponies.” I said.
“But isn’t that cruel? They have feelings too you know, Isn’t that enough to make you a pony?”
“Ponies are ponies, gods are gods. Or rather, a pony is not-godly, and a god is therefore not a pony. Ratchet, continue.”
Besides, feelings aren’t the sole deciding factor of personhood. Beyond any objections of simple animals like dogs and cats possibly having feelings…
There are such things as ponies who do what they wish without feeling anything.
“…Right. Anyways, even if ‘Everypony makes mistakes’ was a legitimate excuse, most ponies mistakes don’t almost injure people, and definitely don’t almost kill people.”
“Let her finish!” I say, cutting off what was about to be an angry objection from either the squad behind me or Piece and Blue.
“I don’t know if you haven’t noticed but things have been getting really hectic in the compound. For some reason, Captain Spitfire has been making everyone train double time, and the engineering teams are being strained to keep up, constantly repairing, upgrading, and flat out inventing new training machines, though, once again, Rivet has been carrying pretty much all the last burden." She turned to Blueprint "Isn’t that right, Blueprint?”
He huffed and looked away “Don’t bring me into this.”
“Suit yourself." Ratchet turned back to me. "Anyways, over the last two weeks, malfunctions have been occurring with the recruits training equipment."
"During an obstacle course where each squad was tested on flight formation, a piston locked up last second, and Squad Foxtrot missed a devastating crash by inches.
A glorified dodge-ball exercise between Squad Charlie and Squad Foxtrot was sidelined when the timer on a mechanical ball launcher broke, and it moved from one ball a minute to one ball a second.
In another exercise, the dizzy-tron spinner launches a flier and their teammates have to catch them by creating a small tornado, funneling them into a safety net. The machine released too early, sending a member of Squad Charlie in the wrong direction, away from the nets. Poor Velocity Vector completely locked up, and would have died were it not for Runner Up.
After that last incident, it was decided the stress was getting to Rivet, and he needed to take a break. When he refused, Captain Spitfire pulled rank and revoked his punch-card for a week. Now he’s been going on nonstop about sabotage. It’s kind of pathetic…” She concluded.
“And how do you know these events were Rivet’s fault? Don’t you have groups of ponies working on these machines?” I asked.
“Rivet was meticulous. During setup, after everyone took off, he would stay back and run a final diagnostic on the machines. He’s the one who took responsibility for making sure everything was in working order. Even if he didn’t cause it, he’s guilty for letting it happen.”
“You wish!” Swift Justice was bristling “Someone must have tampered with the machines after he checked it!”
"Keep telling yourself that~.”
“That’s enough for now." I cut off the argument before it could grow. "So what are you three doing in Rivet’s Lab?”
“You mean Workroom 3.”
“For Luna’s sake, you’re still hung up on that?” Blue spat.
“Hung up on what? I’m just saying that workroom 3 is workroom 3.” She shrugged.
“I assume there’s something I’m missing here.” I said.
Blue answered. “There’s always several jobs to be done around here, so we got multiple workrooms. They’re normally first-come first-served. You gotta reserve one in advance if you’re working on something long term. When Rivet became the head engineer, he got permanent reserve over workroom 3, a fact that SOME PONIES are still sore about to this day.” He glared at Ratchet.
“Is it wrong to feel that way? Everyone needs space to work, you know.”
I looked around at the mass of work around me “I’m not going to say you’re unjustified but, it kind of looks like Rivet only barely has enough room here.”
“Well he is a genius.” Ratchet smiled.
"As you keep repeating to me. If I didn't know any better it sounds like a crush."
She looked at me a bit lopsidedly before bluntly stating "You have exceptionally bad taste in matchmaking."
"Whatever" I rolled my eyes. “You still haven’t answered me why you’re here.”
“Oh! That’s easy. We just need to borrow some screwdrivers from Rivet” Ratchet moved to a glass case with identical screwdrivers lined together and suspended on holders. “Every workroom has one of these, but someone else borrowed some of ours.” She pulled a punch card out from her hair bun, and placed it in a slot next to the case. It quietly dinged, and the glass slid open. “It’s not a huge deal, we have to return these to their slots by the day’s end or we get fined, so we’ll get ours back.”
“What’s so special about those screwdrivers that they’re in a locked glass case?”
“Well it—
SLAM!
“…looks like something Rivet will explain to you. C’mon guys, let’s go.” Ratched jumped over the parts cluttered about and turned the corner.
“It was fun meeting you, Mr. Eye!” Piece waved.
“Sorry bout Ratchet.” Blue said “She’s normally much more cordial, till the subject of Rivet comes up…”, He left with a terse nod. As the trio rounded the corner to make their exit, in came a ball of ruffled fur, and frustration. When he opened his mouth, he spoke with such a cold intensity that the room temperature dropped 10 degrees.
“I didn’t know you could get that kind of reaction out of Rivet…” Shine Struck left.
“Good luck, you’ll need it” Swift Justice left.
“Give him hell, Rivet!” Playblitz left.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret…” Calm Wind left.
Like a funeral procession, they one by one laid their parting words, and left.
All that was left in this overstuffed casket was me and rivet.
Alone.
And with that, all the tension I had been carrying, the tension I held for so long I forgot it was there, melted off my shoulders. No more compulsive need to feel like the smartest pony in the room. No more habit of trying to dictate the flow of conversation. No more feeling like every eye was a spotlight trained to me.
“Phew…”
“….”
“Thanks for getting everyone off my back Rivet. Jeez, this place is crazy.”
“…”
“Still, this is really impressive! I always knew you were meant for big things. Most-likely-to-succeed Rivet… I don’t think a single nickname I’ve given you has been wrong.”
“…”
“… Rivet, why aren’t you talking?”
“I’m waiting.” He said, his words coiled in barely restrained anger.
“…For?”
“An apology!”
“Oh..I thought this sort of thing happened to you regularly?” I couldn’t even look him in the eye as I scratched the back of my head, handing out my weak justification.
“I call for you in my time of need, and you immediately embarrass me, give me and my friends the runaround, ditch me, and mess with my stuff!” He yelled at me
“To be fair! I didn’t get a chance to mess with your stuff yet, and your friends kind of pulled the runaround on me too…”
“hhrrgg…”
“Besides, you know I can’t help it…”
It’s true. I really can’t help it.
One-on-one conversation is one thing, but in a group I can’t help but feel like I’m on the defensive.
Part of my word games is wanting to dig deep and know ponies' true faces but, part of it is just me acting like a cat, arching myself to look big and flashing claws. It’s not my fault, I’m the victim more than anyone el—
“As if that’s any excuse!”
As if reading my mind, Rivet broke me out of my embarrassing self-justification.
“I thought you said you were getting better about this!” he continued.
“No, I said I was getting better AT it.”
“AUGH!”
No, I shouldn’t make excuses, even if they’re true. If I’m going to do wrong, I should relish it unashamedly.
Besides, even if it’s born from a flaw, there’s a unique thrill in being hated.
“Maybe calling you here was a mistake…” Rivet mumbled.
I sighed “You’re right, you’re right…”
“About?” He asked, voice equal parts accusative and skeptical.
“Well, first off, you’re right about it being a mistake to call me here. It’s a mistake to call me to most places. Even if I’m retired, the detective is cursed to have misfortune and turmoil follow him through each installment of his story.”
“You say that like you don’t cause it half the time.” He deadpanned.
“Secondly, you’re right about deserving an apology. Sorry that I’ve been messing with you… however, I offer no apologies for anyone else I’ve messed with here. Why should I have to apologize to ponies I barely know?” I played indignant.
He groaned. “Close enough… still, you’re right about this being an impressive place to work.” He took a fond look over his creations. “I’m really hoping I’ll be here for a while…”
“I’m really jealous. Of course, I’ve been jealous of you since the day I met you.”
“You always used that excuse when making fun of me.”
“And I meant it every time.” I pat his back. “It looks like you’ve found a pretty good menagerie of bullies to replace me with. Your cute looks sure attract dangerous types.”
“Yet another thing you’re jealous about.”
“Yeah…do you think you could ask them to pick on me more?”
“…No. That’s weird.”
We both couldn’t help but laugh, both at the cheap jokes, and at the complete joke that was our friendship.
C’est La Vie.
“So now that we finally have some alone time…”
“This better not be a setup for a dirty joke.”
“I was GOING to say that we should finally catch up. I didn’t worm my way into a NDA with Spitfire for no reason.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Of course if you WANT to just exchange dirty jokes…”
His response was to throw a paper ball at me.
“Point taken.” I said.
And so two foul-wheather friends sat down and shared stories.
Stories of meeting heroic Wonderbolts and making new friends, of rising in the ranks, of working overtime on putting together the tests for new recruits, from elaborate obstacle courses to simulated dragon attacks to even a surreal mystery house.
“Ohhhh, I wanna try that one.”
“No, you really don’t…” He trailed off awkwardly.
“You don’t think I could handle it?” I asked.
“It’s not that…it’s just it’s not a very standard mystery…”
“That makes me want to try it more. The work of amateurs can sometimes create new conventions no one had thought of before! Of course it can also be a mess.”
“It’s your funeral...” He rolled his eyes.
We shared stories of struggling to establish a painting reputation, and being stuck selling works on street corners, stories of being dragged into incidents like an impossible moving closed room murder in a manehattan hotel elevator, or a disappearing act at an illusionist’s conference where a trick had been sabotaged to remove the re-appearance step.
“Wow…you never really retired, did you?” Rivet asked, wide eyed.
“I’m here aren’t I?” I grimaced.
Eventually we ran out of stories of any importance, and resorted to telling petty stories of our day to day lives.
“And then Silver yells, ‘ARE YOU STUNT FLYING OR DOING BALLET?!”
“Hahaha… Shame that it wasn’t ballet though. Doubt any of your elites are tough enough to keep up with The Nutcracker”
“What? But Silver does that every day!”
I was shocked that Rivet would make that kind of joke. “…Wow, you’ve sharpened up last time I saw you!”
He blushed at the praise. “It’s hard not to when you’re surrounded by sharp ponies.”
“Huh? And you never inherited any sharpness from me? Am I not sharp? I’m offended Rivet!”
“Oh, uh, um…I mean…”
I broke out laughing. “Sharper, but not sharp enough~” I teased.
And soon we even ran out of stories, and had no choice but to talk about the job I was here for.
“Well, we’ve got most of our exposition out of the way, and are finally on the same page, let’s get to the meat of the story.”
Let’s start talking mystery.
“To be honest, I’m kind of disappointed.” I began. “I mean, It’s right there in Dine’s 7th. ‘There must be a corpse, and the deader the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice.’”
He facehoofed. “One, I know that you’ve tackled lesser things than murder. Two..." His eyes took a bit of a manic sheen for a moment. "my work is more important than my life. Each machine might as well be a corpse.”
“That sentence would sound depressing coming from anyone other than you.” I joked. “No need to be so dramatic over a small probation! Back when I was official I got suspended plenty of times!”
“So you know about what’s happening?” he asked, before my words caught up with him, and his brows furrowed “And it isn’t just a probation! First, Its a permanent mark saying that I endangered ponies! That will follow me! Second, and much more importantly, whoever is doing the sabotage is still out there! There might be another accident!”
“Alright alright.” I waved my hooves complacently. “Anyway, I got the gist from Ratchet. You passed her trio on your way in. You probably want to tell your version though.”
“No, I trust that her word’s good enough.”
“Huh?” I gaped. “Rivet are you feeling alright?”
“What are you looking at me like that for? I work with her regularly. She’s smart and dependable.” He spoke of her like a pony would speak about a favored employee at a shop, with the limited fondness such meetings would allow.
Does Rivet not care that she hates his guts?
Does Rivet even know that she hates his guts?
Something tells me I shouldn’t rock this boat…
“Well, she had to leave before I could learn everything from her, so I still have plenty of questions.”
“Fire away.”
I threw the paper ball back at him.
“Very funny….” Rivet groused.
"So, to make a long story short, three training machines malfunctioned while recruits were using them, and you’re the one they’re holding responsible. You, however, claim that someone tampered with them after they were set up. Correct so far?”
“Right.” He nodded. “It’s why I had to call you. Since no one sees this as a crime, I can’t get an official investigation.”
“So I’m the last resort. Wow. I’m flattered.” I said, ears and eyebrows flattening. “Whatever…so what’s the window of time the saboteur would have to work?”
“Unless we’re pressed for time, like when we’re recruiting new members, we set up the courses at night. We finish at around 10:00 p.m., so they have from then until the 6 a.m. wake-up call.”
“Do you have anything that might be proof of tampering? Aside from the malfunctions themselves of course.”
“Just one thing. On the outer paneling, the metal is very slightly discolored around the screw holes. I don’t know what it means though.”
“Can I see them?” I asked.
“The machines?” He looked down and sighed. “No, I’m afraid not. Since we’re so pressed for time and resources, most of the parts have already been reused in other things. I still have the panels though” he pointed to several sheets of metal laying along the wall.
The first thing I noticed was how surprisingly thin they were. You would think that, with all the high speed flying exercises they do there, they would want something a bit more resistant…
“They’re tougher than they look.” Rivet said, reading the incredulity on my face. “I could go for something thicker, but that would increase the weight and cost too much. Besides, it’s not the panels but the frame itself is taking the impact. That’s the important part.”
I nodded at this, and turned my attention to the screw holes. True to rivet’s word, the metal around each one was slightly darkened. It was too consistent to be a coincidence, but not large enough to be a sign of anything conclusive.
“When did you notice these?”
“It was after the dizzy-tron incident” His face tightened up at that. “I thought it was just mistakes until then. Stupid stupid stupid…” He had real pain in his voice.
“Don’t beat yourself up too much about it. Some, but not too much” I said. “After all. Once is an event, two’s a coincidence, three’s a pattern.” I put down the panels, not seeing anything else of note with them. “What’s the security here like?”
He took a moment to answer. “Depends on where you are.” He said “Spitfire has been trying to loosen up the atmosphere here, even turning a blind eye to office prank wars. Having guards around every corner would be counterproductive to that. The security outside, building to building, is good, but inside it’s easy to sneak around.”
“Have the malfunctions been all indoors?”
“Now that you mention it…yes. Normally the dizzy-tron would be used outside, but it was easier to set up the safety nets for the test indoors, so we moved it to the auxiliary gym.”
I rolled the implications of this info around in my head. “So either the culprit has been sneaking their way through the biggest layer of security, or the culprit is in the compound…”
“What? No, it can’t be the last one…” he said. “Why would anyone here do this? It doesn’t make sense.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Rivet, Rivet, Rivet… I’ll let you in on a little secret. Something doesn’t have to make sense for it to happen. Really, the types who want everything to fall into their narrow preview of ‘sense’ are really the worst.” I spat at the ground.
“Don’t do that! What’s wrong with you?!” He rushed for a canister of disinfectant wipes on his desk, only to find the contents empty “Augh!” He turned to see I had used the moment to steal his much comfier seat. “AUGH!”
“So.” I continued, ignoring his outburst. “It’s only been recruits that have been affected by these malfunctions, right? No sign of anything happening to the elites?”
He took a few deep to calm himself before answering. “…None.”
“It seems that the only recruit squads that were hit were squad foxtrot and squad charlie. Do you know anything about them that might connect them to this?”
“Do you think they’re being targeted?” His voice took a much more worried tone.
“I’m thinking a lot of things.”
“I…really don’t know.” From the sound of it, old insecurities about not being sociable were coming up. “Foxtrot is new, I don’t think anyone would have a grudge with them. As for Charlie…Charlie is kind of a loner squad. They keep to themselves.”
“Ratchet’s words made it sound like only you could have been the last one to touch the machines. What makes her think that?” “It has to do with those cases.” Rivet pointed to the glass case full of screwdrivers.
“I was wondering what that was. Why do you keep screwdrivers under lock and key?”
“It’s an anti-tampering security system I implemented. It’s supposed to keep this very thing from happening” He stomped.
“So whoever is doing this is using your security system against you? How does it even work?”
He flew over to a small container of screws, and threw one to me. “Notice anything about these screws?”
It took me a moment to get it. The head was wider than normal, almost a bit wide. Enscribed on the top was not a plus or a minus but…
“Is this an M?”
He facehoofed again. “It’s supposed to be a W…you know… for ‘Wonderbolt’.”
“I knew that. I was just testing you.”
“Right… anyways, these screws are what we use to affix the paneling to our larger machines. They can only be opened by these screwdrivers.” Now that I look closer at them, they looked like flathead screwdrivers, if the heads had been bent to resemble a crinkle cut. “We got an exclusivity deal with a manufacturer, Kinetics Industries. They only send these screws and screwdrivers to us. It has it’s downsides though. Work almost ground to a halt when the last shipment was a week late.”
“Can’t they be removed using magic?”
“Unicorn telekinesis is tricky, or so I’ve heard. The smaller an object is, the easier it is to move, but the harder it is to deftly manipulate. No one here has the finesse to carefully undo one of these with just their horns, trust me I’ve seen them try, and if they tried to rip them out then the metal would be visibly bent. No one here knows enough magic to teleport them out of the holes either.”
“So the punch-card reader is to make sure no one but the engineering staff can access the screws?”
“Correct. Each engineer is given a unique card, and at the end of the day the cases print out who opened the cases, when, and how many screwdrivers they took or returned.”
“How does the machine know the amount of screwdrivers taken?”
Rivet pointed to the hooks in the case. “The hooks they’re resting on are weight sensitive. If it has no weight on it, or if the item is 0.1 grams too light or too heavy, the machine marks the screwdriver as missing.”
“Oh…” I began to closely examine the case, looking for cracks, visible screws, gaps in the glass, anything that could be used as an opening. I couldn’t see a thing. It was even bolted to the wall. “Let me guess, on the days the machines failed, the records showed you were the last one to access the screwdrivers?”
“Right.”
“So, if there’s a saboteur, they not only have to get around the security between buildings, but the security layer of the screws, the security layer of the punch card reader and the glass case, and the security layer of the weight sensitive hooks”
In other words, an impossible crime.
“Haaah… What a pain…”
I said that, but my grin betrayed my words.
I was getting excited.
“You do know that my hooves are pretty tied, right? I don’t have any official authority and, according to the Wonderbolts, a crime hasn’t officially happened. I’m only here as a guest for a few days. I can’t exactly maneuver much.”
“That’s strange… the old Keen Eye would have taken that as a challenge.” He goaded me on.
I wanted to say that I wasn’t the old Keen Eye, that the old Keen Eye had faded away and I was just a poor replacement.
I wanted to say that, but I got caught up in the excitement. I could only laugh.
“Alright. Alright. Get your friends back in here and tell them to find a copy of today’s training schedule.”
“Why do you need that?”
“Knock’s 1st: The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story. I’ve yet to meet everyone involved, and what better way to meet the recruits than to see them in action?”
Right when I needed to see both Squad Foxtrot and Squad Charlie, they were scheduled to train together. Inter-squad sparring.
“They won’t exactly let you talk to them between the fights you know” Swift Justice said from the seat beside me. Once they returned, Ratchet’s Squad Zero got the full story on what I was doing here and what I needed from them. They soon after parted ways, most having other things to do, but Swift Justice opted to stay by my side a bit longer, either because he was curious to see me work or because he wanted to see the fights.
If I were him, my motivation would definitely be the latter.
“I don’t need to talk to them.” I replied. “At least not yet. Fighting is a form of communication itself. Right now I just want to get a sense of who they are.”
The Wonderbolt battle dome was more than a bit extravagant. For one, it was a battle dome. If it was pragmatically made, it would just be some form of rectangle, like most of the rooms in the compound. Hell, with that shape, you could possibly have multiple areas to fight. Instead, it’s a shape designed to draw all eyes to the center, a fact highlighted by the rows of bleachers surrounding it, encouraging crowds to look down on the fighters, like the pegasopolian coliseums of old. The only thing separating the spectators from the bloodshed was the 5 feet of height difference between the pit floor and the audience floor, and a machine fed cloud cover making a ceiling.
This wasn’t built just as a place to learn to fight.
This was built as a place to learn a love of violence.
Which is probably why Rivet looked uncomfortable.
“Do I really have to be here?” He pleaded. “I don’t really like watching the fights…”
“You DON’T like watching the fights, that’s EXACTLY why you’re here!”
“…” He stared at me “Please don’t tell me you’re going to make that A Thing the entire time you’re here.”
“Make what a thing?”
He sighed “Nevermind…”
“Besides!” I continued. “You’re a Pegasus, a descendant of a warrior race! Enjoying violence is your birthright! Don’t tell me you never enjoyed seeing me get beat down?”
“NO!” He snapped. “I just got scared!” He glared at me before looking down. “…and I wish you would stop making those jokes. I mean, despite everything, you've helped me out through a lot, and I do consider you a friend, but then you turn around and joke that I should hate you, and that you deserve bad things happening to you.” He turned to me once more, with a sad look in his eyes. “How am I supposed to feel about that?”
“Well, he did blackmail you.” Swift said.
“Rivet…” His unintentional puppy dog eyes cut straight through my defenses. “…Fine. Sorry. I can’t make any big promises but I’ll cut down on it when you’re around.”
Damn it Rivet. You’re too pure.
It would be easier if you hated me.
My jovial mood ruined, I continued talking. “All jokes aside, there’s two reasons I brought you along.” I turned to Swift. “You’ll actually be a big help with the first one. I just need you two to tell me what you know about the fighters as they take the stage.”
“And what’s the second?” Rivet asked.
I pointed to the cloud machines above us. “You’ll be better at this part. Keep an eye out for malfunctions. Look for signs of the saboteur.”
His face took a grim expression, realizing that there was still danger around, before he nodded determinedly and started looking upward.
“So how is this going to work?” I asked Swift.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I assume you don’t just all pile up in there and kill each other… you don’t do that right?”
Swift chuckled. “No, that only happens when we play Kill-The-Stallion-With-The-Ball.”
Note to self: Avoid any and all balls here.
“But I assume you’re asking about the rules?” he said. I nodded. “One of the elites will act as a referee. Since it’s the recruits fighting, Silver Lining is taking that place.” He pointed to an older gray stallion with a puffy white mane sitting by the entrance of the ring. “The old fogey is in charge of training up the recruits.”
“Wait, that’s Silver? They keep Wonderbolts that age? He must be over 50!”
Swift shrugged. “I don’t like him, but I can’t say he isn’t good. Anyways, he’ll randomly pick a pony from each squad to fight. No biting, no mane pulling, no eye gouging, among other things. They’ll go at it until knock out, surrender, or more commonly, the ref deciding, ether during the match or after they time out. They should be finishing their warm up practice right about now.”
“LINE UP!”
Silver had yelled into the lower entrance, meant for the fighters. This was followed by the sound of quickly shuffling hooves. The fighters had arrived.
“YOU CALL THAT A LINE?! I’VE SEEN STRAIGHTER LINES IN MUSICAL THEATRE!”
“He better be talking about choreography…” I muttered.
Unfortunately, we were seated in a position where we couldn’t see into the lower entrance, so I couldn’t get a good look at the group as a whole.
“Listen up! You may think that, just because you’re recruits, we won’t be expecting much here in the arena! That you can rely on the elites to fight the good fights while you find your footing! Well, you’re DEAD WRONG! You are Wonderbolt recruits! In other words, before you are recruits, you are WONDERBOLTS! With all the burdens and expectations a Wonderbolt is expected to carry! So when you go out there, I want to see a clean fight! I want to see a good fight! I want to see a skillful fight! I want to see a brutal fight! I will accept no less than 200%! Do you understand?!”
“SIR YES SIR!” They said in unison.
“Alright!” without missing a beat, he dug a hoof into two different piles of cards, pulling one out from each. “First up is Matteo and Crashin’ Burn!”
Matteo? That doesn’t sound like a pony na-
Before I could finish my thought, two fighters, each more out of place looking then the last, walked toward opposite sides of the pit.
First was a white Pegasus mare with a purple mane, cut into a Mohawk so messy and uneven it could only be self-cut. Her body was covered in bruises, scrapes, and cuts. Her snout looked permanently scrunched, probably from a broken nose, and her feathers looked like they hadn’t had too good a preening in a while. Her ear was missing a chunk.
“Is…is she really fit to fight?” I asked.
Swift shook his head. “Even if she wasn’t, she’d still be here.”
Across from her was a massive griffon.
“You guys have a griffon in your ranks?!”
Swift seemed nonplussed about my surprise. “Oh Matteo? Yeah. He’s strong. I’ve seen him fight before”
“But why did he join the Wonderbolts? Doesn’t Griffionia have their own flight team? The Sky Wings or something?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t know the full story, but I heard it was something to do with him being too big to fit in their formations. Thankfully, he’s found a good niche for himself here. I am worried for him in this match…”
“Wait, you’re worried for the guy who’s almost double the size of his opponent? An injured looking one?”
“It isn’t that he’s not stronger than her..." he paused, looking for the right words. "...it’s that she’s an opponent where being stronger than her doesn’t mean much.”
I tilted my head in confusion. “Who is she anyways?”
“I’ve heard a lot of rumors about Crashin’. She was a race flyer, until she quit. She was an MMA fighter, until she quit. She was a gang member, until she quit. I’ve heard that she’s one of the few recruits that Silver has completely given up on. I haven’t talked to her much, but I’ve seen her fight.” He shivered a bit. “Don’t tell any of the guys I said this, but she kind of scares me.”
“Okay, I’ll only tell Shin.”
Thwack
“Ow!”
While we were talking, the two had been putting on their gloves and padding, limbering up, and waiting for the buzzer to ring.
“Hey” Crashin’ said, her voice carrying a thick lower Manehattan accent. “B’fore we start, Ya mind promisin’ me something?”
“What is it?” Matteo responded, his voice sounding too grave and serious for a simple spar.
She gestured over her body. “Don’ pay any attention ta my size or ta deez little love taps. When da buzzer rings, I want ya to go all out on me.”
“Feh!” He looked angry “I’m offended you think I wouldn’t”
She chuckled at this. “Ya see, dats what they all say, but—“
Before she could finish her sentence, the buzzer rang, and they launched themselves to each other with no hesitation.
Matteo drew back his massive fist, and threw a devastating looking straight, one combining the force of his massive size, his swing, and the momentum of his whole body. Crashin’ saw it, and she faced it head on.
Without blocking
Without flinching
Without budging
Without blinking
She took the punch right in her cheek.
THWACK
“’Zat all?” She asked. Her face was completely impassive.
Before matteo could react or respond, she used her free forelegs to deliver a quick combination of punches directly to his face, closing in with each punch, until she was less than a leg’s length away from Matteo.
“Why you!” Matteo threw a hook directly into her side, which she once again completely ignored blocking, and threw another set of punches.
Less than a minute after starting, the match had turned into a merciless slugfest, one party too large to dodge, one party not bothering to take any defensive measures at all.
“What is she doing?!” Rivet looked woozy at seeing the harsh impacts they were trading.
“In-boxing” I responded.
“What?”
“Normally Crashin’ would be at a severe disadvantage, not just due to weight classes, but due to their difference in reach. Matteo’s legs are longer, so he has a safe zone where he can attack without her attacks reaching. In response, she closed herself in uncomfortably close. A punch or kick needs to reach full extension to reach full power, and by placing herself before that extension point, she’s neutered his attacks.”
The rapid exchange of blows continued, as Crashin’ rushed forward every time Matteo tried to make space.
“He can’t use the jab or straight to its full potential. He doesn’t have enough time to set up a kick, since she’s constantly throwing punches. Because of her smaller reach, she can get closer to the full extension point, and thus throw a harder punch. He can only throw the comparatively unwieldy hook, and uppercut. This isn’t boxing, though, and she’s forgetting something. She’s leaving herself straight open for an –“
TWACK
“…elbow”
Matteo hit her across the side of the head with his elbow, sending her spinning. She immediately used the momentum of her spin to throw a lariat at the opposite side of his head, and used the opening to rush in for more counters.
“That doesn’t explain why she’s not blocking!” Rivet said, sounding more distraught as the fighters looked worse and worse with every exchange.
“Playblitz sparred with her once.” Swift said, looking a bit unnerved. “His specialty is freefalling. He grapples his opponent and slams him down from a high distance. When he was dropping her, she was able to pull a single wing out of his grip. She pointed it straight downward. If he finished the drop normally, he would have completely ruined her wing. He panicked and turned his body, taking all the impact.” He turned toward me. “He said that, as she was taking her own wing hostage, she just smiled at him. That’s why I was worried for Matteo…being strong doesn’t matter against an opponent who has no regard for their own safety”
The effects of her strategy were readily apparent. Matteo looked more exhausted than he should, wincing as he moved, irritating sore spots from her various blows. Crashin’, however, looked slightly worse for the wear, with several bright red bumps that will be bruises at best, welts at worst. She turned the match from a battle of skill into a battle of attrition.
But her strategy had a massive flaw, as the story with Playblitz illustrated.
“ENOUGH!” Matteo bellowed. He opened his talons and grabbed both of her forehooves.
Her strategy is weak against grapples.
With all his strength, he spun her around before sending her flying into the ground. She didn’t have time to blink before she felt the impact.
Taking no chances with her, he rushed downward, placing his weight on her and pulling her foreleg behind her back.
“Augh!” She wildly struggled in his grip.
“Surrender. You fought honorably, if a bit strangely. It’s over.” Matteo said sternly.
She stopped struggling for a moment, then turned her head as far as she could to Matteo, smiling condescendingly. “Hey, whateva happened ta goin’ all out?”
He tightened his grip as he became angrier. “Are you saying I didn’t?”
“I’m sayin’ dat puttin’ me in an armlock an’ not doin’ anythin’ else ain’t exactly goin’ all out.”
“…What?” Matteo’s eyebrow lifted.
“Gah, do I hafta do everythin’ around here?”
Silver stepped forward. “Alright. I’ve seen enough. Fight’s over. The winner is—“
Before he could finish, Crashing violently twisted her upper body—
SNAP
…ripping her shoulder clean from its socket.
“GRAUGH!”
Aside from her screams of pain, no one in the battle dome made a sound. Rivet looked nauseous. Swift looked shocked. Even Silver was frozen.
“RAUGH!” Both from Matteo’s grip loosening in surprise, and from a greater degree of flexibility her dislocated arm allowed her, she was able to twister herself around from under him, and kick him off. “Augh…” She forced herself to stand on her hind legs as her arm dangled out in front of her. She spent a few seconds panting before she bit her lip…
POP
…and pushed her foreleg back into the socket.
“Dis fight’s not over.” She said as she took a fighting stance again.
“No.” Silver cut in. “Crashin’, you need to go see Nurse Bliss immediately”
“Aww, cmon Silvy, don’t stop my fun now.” She smiled. “There’s so much more I wanna feel.”
“I said NO!” He had walked up straight to her face “I already declared Matteo the winner. I’m not afraid to drag you kicking and screaming to the infirmary again.”
“…Tch. Fine” She turned and limped toward the exit. “Congrats, big guy. Thanks for the fight.”
Matteo’s face looked anything but triumphant.
Only one match in and I can already tell.
The ponies here are terrifying. Terrifying enough to applaud.
Charlie Vs. Foxtrot Part 2: Tradewind Vs. Little Star
“What?” I interrupted my stomping and turned to Swift, who was staring at me sternly.
“Ponies are staring.”
I looked around, and noticed too late how we were in the spotlight. Everypony in the bleachers, their faces blanched from the last fight’s carnage, were now wide eyed and gawking at my applauding. Rivet was slowly scooting away from me, covering his face. “I don’t know him…I don’t know him…”
“He he he…oops…” I slunk back into my seat, embarrassed, as I scratched the back of my head. “Well… you can’t say that it wasn’t a good fight, right guys?” I tried to salvage the situation. Neither of them answered me. “…Right guys?”
“AHEM!”
“Wah!”
I jumped back in my seat. Silver had flown directly to my face. “If the-one pony peanut gallery is done here—“
“Oh wait.” I said. “Give me a moment.” I turned to Rivet. “I mean, did you see her? She really was black and white and red all over after that last match. I’ve always said that newspapers were for the birds!”
Rivet began to scoot away faster. “I REALLY don’t know him.”
“Okay, now I’m done.” I said to Silver. He narrowed his eyes at me, before noticing the pass around my neck.
“You keep interrupting my practice, and I’ll shove that guest pass so far down your throat, your breakfast will have more right in the compound than you.”
“Sir yes sir.” I said, sweating under his glare. “I’m sure my curry will love it. I’m glad that the Wonderbolts are so accepting of international visitors.”
“…” He turned away, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he returned to the arena. “Rotten punk…”
“How rude…” I crossed my forearms once he was out of earshot. “I’ll have you know that I’m, in fact, a very fresh punk.”
“Keeeen…” Rivet groaned. “You’re not doing yourself any favors, getting on Silver’s bad side. Everypony listens to him. He’s like a father figure to most of the ‘Bolts.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m a very fresh punk, but that just makes me want to piss him off harder. Isn’t that right?” I turned to Swift for a brohoof, which he didn't return.
Rivet’s only response was to repeatedly hit his forehead against his hooves.
“Anyways, Rivet.” I let my tone be serious again. “Did you notice anything with the cloud machines?”
“Hm?” He lifted his head from his hooves. “Oh… I admit the fight made it kind of hard to focus but, no. Everything is working as it should be.”
“Did you see anyone fly up to them? Or the control panel?”
“Not really.” He pointed to a metal podium in the back, manned by a bored looking stallion. How he looked bored after that, I don’t know. “The only pony that’s touched it is the pony running it.”
“Hmm…”
“Atten-SHUN!” Silver bellowed down below. “Right now it’s Charlie-0, Foxtrot-1. Charlie, you’d better get your rears in gear, because tomorrow the losing squad will be running 10 laps for each point they lost! Do you understand?!”
“SIR YES SIR!”
Silver reached into Foxtrot’s bowl of cards. “Little Star! You’re up!”
Out flew a foal-sized yellow mare, with a pink-purple mane and a dragonfly cutie mark.
“Okay hold up. You let ponies join the Wonderbolts at that age?” I asked Swift. He chuclked.
“She’s been hearing that a lot. You see she—“
“I mean, she must be at least 30!... Why are you two looking at me like that?”
Both of them looked surprised.
“Most ponies guess that she’s younger.” Rivet said. “A lot younger…”
“…You mean it isn’t obvious?”
“Tradewind! You’re up!” As we were chatting, Silver had drawn the next card.
“…Are you sure that Silver’s really picking at random?” I asked.
Swift shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“Well, he seems to have a thing for having petite mares fight hulking stallions. Are you sure that isn’t his fetish?
“PFFFFF—“ Swift clamped his hooves over his mouth to contain his laughter, earning a glare from Silver down below.
“Guys…” Rivet warned.
Tradewind was an oak of a stallion, both in terms of size and in terms of color. His wooden brown coat contrasted with his thin dark green mane, which spilled down his neck. His cutie mark was a shipping crate.
The most outstanding detail about him was his wings. I called Calm’s wings over-sized earlier, but this guy really takes the cake. It’s not just that they’re large, it’s that they’re out of proportion with his body, one and a half times larger than they should be. Even folded against his sides, the tip of his wings were dragging against the ground.
Come to think of it… Calm Wind… Tradewind… I wonder if they’re cousins or something…
“Wow!” Little Star chirped. “It’s like we’ll be fighting our complete opposite!”
Tradewind just lowered his head and mumbled. “Man after all that buildup it’s you I’m fighting. This really is the worst matchup. I was hoping for someone exciting at least.”
Little star titled her head, not making out any of it. “Excuse me?”
Tradewind just sighed. “Nothing…”
“So…what’s their stories?” I asked.
This time it was Rivet who answered. “Little Star…” He began, looking for the right words. “Little Star is a Wonderbolt. That’s the important part. She trained for years to be a Wonderbolt. She tried out for years to be a Wonderbolt. She only recently passed, that’s why she’s joining so late.”
That explains why she’s so damn chipper then. Living proof of the Equestrian Dream. Even against insurmountable odds, if you put in enough effort, you’ll achieve your dreams…
I can never understand Ponies like that.
“As for Tradewind…” Swift took over. “Um… I’m not sure. I know he was a long distance delivery stallion before joining but nothing else. He doesn’t exactly talk to ponies, just mumbles to himself.”
“You know…” I wondered aloud “even if it’s not a real fight, I’m pretty sure they could argue that this matchup is completely unfair.”
Swift just beamed pridefully at that. “If we complained every time something was unfair, we wouldn’t be Wonderbolts.”
And with that, the buzzer went off.
Unlike last match, both fighters took a more cautious start. Little Star took to the air and hovered a good distance away from Tradewind, her tiny wings flapping at an unbelievable cadence. Tradewind did the opposite, lowering his stance, digging his hooves into the ground, and flaring his enormous wings out.
“That’s an odd stance” I said. “He’s leaving his wings wide open… if one of them gets injured, he won’t be able to take to the air.”
“He’s not going to.” Swift replied. “He fights best on the ground.”
“A pegasus ground fighter? Isn’t that more of an earth pony thing?”
“No, those wings are out for a reason. He fights in a way only a pegasus can fight.”
The two continued to stare each other own, each winding down the timer, each waiting for the other to make a move.
This continued for a good 40 seconds before somepony in the crowd got impatient. “Get on with it!”
“Well,” Little Star smiled, “you heard them.”
She rushed forward, going from standstill to speeding in an instant.
WPM manipulation…She doesn’t have much wingpower, so her speed is decided by her wingbeats per minute…because of that she has much finer control of her speed and movement.
Tradewind didn’t move from his spot, instead gritting his teeth and pulling his wings back. When he flapped them forward—
“AH!”
--a massive gust of wind sent little star tumbling in the air, headed straight for the bleachers.
“Oh no…” Rivet covered his eyes as the audience winced at the incoming impact.
“Hrrg… Got it!” Little Star said.
The entire dome breathed a sigh of relief. She narrowly avoided ring-out and injury by grabbing onto the edge of the pit.
“Wow!” she said as she returned to the ground floor. “That was scary…”
“That…” Swift said “was Tradewind’s trademark Air Wall. Practically guaranteed to send the opponent back.”
I get it. Using his massive wingspan and channeling all of his pegasus magic into his wings, he creates a massive gust. That’s why he sticks to the ground. If he did it in air, he would launch himself backwards as well.
“Normally he would follow up the opening made by his Air Wall with an attack, but in this matchup he doesn’t have to bother…” He leaned forward intently. “How’s Little Star going to get around this?”
The two had reverted to their stare down, Tradewind readying his wings for another Air Wall, and Little Star waiting with a contemplative look on her face, trying to figure out a way around the barrier. She glanced back at the wall of the pit, her eyes lit up, and she turned toward Tradewind with a smirk. “Alright, let’s go again. I promise that it won’t be the same this time.”
“Why do they always have to talk. Just get on with it. It doesn’t really matter either way…”
She flew toward Tradewind again, this time bounding much closer to the ground. The moment she got close, he threw another Air Wall and she was again launched backwards.
“So much for it not being the same…” I muttered.
She flapped her wings wildly to stabilize herself, and then turned toward the wall she was rapidly approaching. “Told you!” she yelled as she landed hooves first against the wall, and kicked off to relaunch herself at Tradewind.
He grunted as he set up his next air wall, launching her again as she got close.
She relaunched off the wall and approached him from his left.
He adjusted his position and blew her away again.
She relaunched and approached from his right.
He blew her away again.
She relaunched and tried to curve around to his back.
He spun on his back hooves and planted himself on the ground before blowing her away again.
Back and forth, they repeated this same cycle as Little Star tried angle after angle, and Tradewind kept up his defense.
Each time she relaunched off the wall, she got a little more speed.
If she kept this up, she could break through the wall.
“Here I come!” She shouted as she made another relaunch, this time headed straight for him. His wings at the ready for the next Air Wall.
Right before she got to the point where he would launch it, she disappeared.
“Huh?!” His body was too caught up in the rhythm of the fight to react, and he launched his Air Wall at nothing.
He spun around as he searched the arena, finding no trace of her.
“Up here!”
He looked up just in time to see her slamming her entire body weight down on his head.
“Augh!”
“Wow…” I whistled. She used the relaunches to set up a rhythm for him to follow, then on the last shot, right before she entered his area of attack, she made a sudden stop, then flew straight up, too fast for his eyes to process, and tricked him with that rhythm to attack at the wrong time.
She couldn’t make it through the Air Wall, so she went around it.
She took to the ground, gasping. “How was that?” She asked between breaths, collecting herself. “I wonder if I should call that move anything. The Twinkle Feint? The Feint Twinkle? No…that doesn’t work…”
Tradewind just muttered something to himself as he shook off the blow. As hard as it was, their size difference made itself apparent, as he seemed barely bothered by it. He took his stance again.
The tides seemed to be turning away from Little Star. As impressive as her last showing was, the same trick probably won’t work twice, and while he looked barely winded, she looked completely exhausted. Unfazed, she took to the skies again. “Alright… lets go again.”
His glare hardened as she flew toward him. He pulled his wings back, but as she got in range again, he clamped them to his sides and threw a hoof back to strike her—
“BZZZT”
Before he could see how his feint worked, the buzzer sounded again, signaling they had timed out.
He slowly brought his hoof to the ground as Little Star took the buzzer as cue to completely collapse. “Good…fight…” she forced out, finally indulging herself in her exhaustion. He just nodded.
“It doesn’t look good for her…” Rivet said. The winner seemed obvious, the one still standing.
“She put up a good fight.” Swift said admiringly.
“Was it really worth it though?” I asked.
“Huh?” Swift seemed shocked I would ask that.
“Well, think about it. She surprised everypony and got a hit in, but the end result was the same. It was impossible from the start. Wouldn’t it have been better if she had surrendered after the first Air Wall? Why waste energy on impossible things?”
He looked almost offended at my question, but before he could make a retort, Silver had already taken the floor.
“You okay?” He asked Little Star as he helped her up. She nodded weakly. Tradewind was already walking to the exit. “You did a good job. Get some water and rest.” Off she went, trailing after Tradewind. Silver then addressed the audience.
“The winner is… Little Star.”
Both of them turned around and stared at Silver in shock. Answering the unsaid question, he said “From what I can tell, Little Star hit you once. You didn’t hit her at all” his voice took a grave turn “I said I wanted your all and you half-assed it.”
“Of course, of course this is how it ends. Why not, it’s not like I was expecting anything else”
Next up was Twister from Squad Foxtrot and Zugzwang from Squad Charlie.
Twister was a small, green, wiry looking stallion with blue hair and a wild look in his eyes. He was hopping from one hoof to another in excitement.
“What’s with the jumping bean?” I asked.
“Twister is…Twister” Swift said, shuddering.
“Meaning?”
“I don’t think I CAN explain him.”
“He’s one of the few ponies banned from my lab.” Rivet said. “He ignores this when he wants to visit.”
Okay, now I’m scared.
Rivet is patient. He’s dealt with ME after all. It takes real skill to get that reaction.
I don’t know whether to be frightened or jealous.
“THE LATTER!” Twister yelled out into space.
I’m…I’m going to ignore that.
Pulling my eyes away from the pony shaped nightmare, I looked at his opponent on the opposite side of the arena.
“So prim-and-proper-poise there is Zugzwang?”
Zugzwang was a grey stallion, the kind of grey that reminded you of old stone statues, and his posture had a dignity and stiffness befitting that comparison. His mane was neatly trimmed and slicked back, one half black and one half white. His cutie mark was a chess board mid play, and from the looks of it nearing checkmate.
“Weird name huh?” Swift asked.
“I take it you don’t play chess then.” I said.
“I played against him once.” Rivet said.
“I didn’t know you played, Rivet.” I said.
“Not anymore, not after him…”
“I take it he’s good then. What’s a chess pro doing in the Wonderbolts? I wouldn’t expect his skill set to be useful here…”
“You’d be surprised.” Swift said. “He’s Squad Charlie’s captain. According to rumors, he’s the reason that Squad Charlie is what it is.”
“Hmm? What rumors?”
“He was apparently the son of Canterlot nobility, a chess prodigy primed from birth for greatness. When he left the chess world to try out for the Wonderbolts, his parents apparently disowned him."
"This is probably an exaggeration" Swift continued "but, when the Wonderbolts tested for Squad Charlie, the 5 that got in didn’t get in because they were the best, but because Zugzwang willed it. He’s only an average flyer, but he had a knack for figuring out strategies for the tests. He fed good info to the ponies he liked, and bad info to the ones he disliked.”
“Hmm…” I rolled the story around my head. “Yeah, probably an exaggeration. No chessmaster would be that direct.”
So it’ll be a battle between the incomprehensible and the comprehensive…
BZZZT
As the buzzer sounded, both parties calmly walked to the…chessboard in the middle of the arena…
When did the chessboard get there?
“Well?” Twister said, now wearing a top-hat and a monocle. “What say you for a game, old chap?”
Zugzwang gave a long suffering sigh. “I take it you want yet another rematch, my dear Twister?”
“Very much so, ZigZag!” Twister said, his faux-posh accent getting deeper and his nose up in the air, eyes closed. “My Mega-Chess-A-Tron strategy was perfect. There is no way you didn’t cheat, you cur!”
“Very well.” He said. “But, if you will excuse me, you forgot something important.” He turned the board so that the black pieces were facing him. “I admit it’s a bad habit, but I always go second.”
Silver facehoofed as the audience grew more and more perplexed, not only at Twister’s antics but at Zugzwang for going along with them.
“Hmmmm” Twister brought a hoof to his chin as he contemplated the board, tounge sticking out in concentration. After a good 30 seconds of pondering, he moved said hoof to the center of the board and…
…dropped 5 dice.
“YAHTZEE!” Twister yelled, as he flipped the board, sending the mat and the pieces directly to Zugzwang’s face. He reflexively struck it away, but as they fell to the floor, Twister had already disappeared from his line of sight.
“B-8 to D-7!”
Twister struck Zugzwang in the back, sending him stumbling forward. By the time he turned around and put up a guard, Twister had already disappeared.
“A-1 to A-6!”
Twister shot out from his side, his blow barely parried. When he turned to follow up –
“H-16 to J-27!”
Twister was already kicking at him from above.
Every time Twister made a pass he would make an impossible looking turn towards a blind spot of Zugzwang’s, before yelling out nonsensical chess notation and performing a hit and run swoop.
Every blow was either barely parried or taken straight on, as Zugzwang was desperately herded around the pit by Twister’s relentless and violent peek-a-boo.
“A-1 to V-8!”
Before he could turn to the attack, Twister had shot to the ground and gave him a full force buck, sending him flying to the wall. Before he made contact, he flapped his wings and flipped his body upright, stabilizing himself. As he landed perfectly on all four hooves, he turned and took fighting stance, wearing a self-satisfied smirk toward Twister.
“Pawn to D-8. Promotion to queen.”
It was at that moment that I noticed the pattern. He had been parrying hits that would take him away from the wall, and purposely taking the ones that would bring him closer to it. With the last hit, he used the force of Twister’s buck to propel himself toward the wall.
Despite not throwing a single punch...
The entire fight so far had been part of his plan.
“Don’t know why he looks so confident when he’s cornered.” Swift said.
“Tell me, Swift, do you know what the word ‘zugzwang’ means?” I asked
“You already know I don’t.” he said, irked.
“It means ‘compulsion to move’. It’s a situation where a player has to make a move when they would rather pass, due to being in a bad position. His parents probably gave him that name to say ‘This is a pony who can face hardship.’”
“What does that have to do with the fight?”
“You said that Zugzwang was an average flyer, correct? Against a flyer like Twister, the odds were against him from the start. In other words, Zugzwang was in zugzwang the second he stepped on the board. So he made a strategy where he embraced that. Tell me, why hasn’t Twister moved since Zugzwang cornered himself?”
“Huh?” Swift looked back down at the battlefield. Twister was uncharacteristically still, staring Zugzwang down. “Why is he…Oh!”
“That’s right.” I nodded. “By creating distance between them and standing near a wall, Zugzwang has shut down Twister’s ability to attack from surprise angles. He can see every angle of approach.”
Still, he started parrying with the second blow. He must have made up the plan right after the first hit, or maybe he made it the moment he saw the chessboard…
And in order for it to work, he would have to guess where the move would send him ahead of time…
How many steps ahead is this guy thinking?
“Well, Twister?” Zugzwang said. “It’s your move. It’s only fair that I warn you. You’re in check, to be checkmate in one move.”
“Check?” Twister giggled. “But Ziggy, I thought you knew…”
Without any surprise angles, Twister shot directly at him.
“WE’RE PLAYING CHECKERS!”
In less than a second, the gap between them had closed.
Zugzwang threw a punch, and missed, as Twister flew inches above it.
There was one angle that Zugzwang hadn’t covered. There was just enough space behind his back for Twister to fit in, and he took it, making an impossibly tight turn around him, like jumping a checker piece.
“…and that’s Checkmate.”
Before Twister could make his strike, Zugzwang jumped to his front hooves and bucked back with all his strength--
BAM
Slamming Twister’s head against the arena wall, knocking him out instantly.
He knew that Twister liked attacking from impossible angles, so he gave him only one impossible angle to attack from. Twister flew straight into his target.
“Oh dear…” Zugzwang checked Twister’s vitals and, satisfied he was still breathing, hoisted his limp body on his shoulder. “Silver, sir, would you happen to have a pen and paper? I want to tell Twister ‘good game’, but …I doubt he would appreciate the sentiment right now.”
“There should be some in the infirmary.”
“How convenient, I was planning on carrying him there already.”
Silver’s eyebrow rose. “You really want to do that?”
“It’s no trouble. After all, I put him in this state, it’s only fair for me to see him out of it. Besides, I have a few scrapes to look at myself.” He started inching toward the exit. “Do you mind lending me a hand, Tradewind?”
“Well with everypony looking it’s not like I have much choice. It’s help or look like a jerk.” Tradewind grumbled.
“Hmm? What was that?”
"Nevermind…”
And with that, Squad Charlie finally got a point on the board, and the standings were 2-1.
“Phew…” I leaned back, stretching my stiff back. “It’s nice to finally see a fight that wasn’t so brutal or one sided. I was starting to feel guilty for enjoying this.”
Swift looked at me strangely “You mean that concussion wasn’t brutal to you?”
“To be honest, that sort of injury is more nostalgic than anything else.”
“Don’t ask.” Rivet said.
I checked in with both of my assistants for any signs of strangeness. Still nothing.
“So that was Charlie’s captain… Have we seen Foxtrot’s captain yet?” I asked.
“No, not yet” Swift said. “But there’s only two fighters left, so you’ll be seeing Dash in action soon.”
Dash?
Could it be? The world wouldn’t be that cruel, would it?
“Er…” I began “Hey Swift, when you say ‘Dash’, you wouldn’t happen to mean R—“
“Rainbow Dash!” Silver called.
“Yes! Finally!”
Out came That Mare with That blue coat, That rainbow mane, That lightning bolt cutie mark, That scratchy voice, That self-assured swagger…
That Mare
“Impatient?” Silver smirked. “Remember, no one’s going to give you a free pass.”
Her grin widened at that. “Just watch me!”
She actually made it in.
Celestia Damn it…
“Looks like I’m paying out another bet…” I mutter to myself.
“Yeah…”I said, rubbing my temples. “I just was remembering something embarrassing…
He patted my back. “I know how that feels. I still get shivers when I think about when I tried to hit on Surprise. She didn’t even recognize what I was doing…”
“Oh really?” I leaned in, with a glint in my eye. “Tell me more…”
“Um…” Swift leaned back, unnerved at my sudden interest.
“Swift...” Rivet said “You do realize you just gave ammo to an admitted blackmailer, right?”
“It’s okay, we’re all buddies riiiiight?” I leaned further into him “And buddies share secrets with eachother, riiiight?” I placed a hoof on his shoulder, closing in with every word. “So as long as we STAY buddies, everything will be peachy, riiiight?”
He gulped. “S-sure. After all, friends can trust eachother with their secrets, right Painter? He said, his gaze getting a bit harder with the last word.
Touché.
“Guys.” Rivet said “Ponies are staring again.”
“GET A ROOM, YOU TWO!”
TWACK
“OW!”
Swift slugged me off him.
“How cruel!” I said, tearing up and rubbing my cheek. “I thought we were friends…”
“HEY!”
Hovering a few feet away from me was Rainbow Dash, glaring daggers through me.
“What are YOU doing here?”
“Well, when a mare and a stallion think that they love each-other very much, the stallion takes his pen-“
“STOP PLAYING GAMES WITH ME!”
“Oh, speaking of games,” I reached into my scarf and tossed another 5 bit piece. “I believe this was our be-ow!” She spiked the coin back into my face, hitting right where Swift hit me a moment before.
“DASH!” Silver yelled from below “GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!”
“Tch. Coming sir!” She gave me an I-have-my-eyes-on-you motion before flying to the ground floor.
As Dash was getting chewed out by Silver, both Swift and Rivet stared at me with confused faces.
“Um… Do…Do you know her?” Rivet asked.
“What? Nooooooo. No. No way. Not at all. I would remember a garish mane like that."
“But…the coin.”
“A stallion can’t be generous every once in a while? Oh by the way, that was my last bit, I’ll need to borrow money from you.”
"What?!”
“Just think of it as advance pay…I am getting paid for this, right?”
Before he could answer, Silver called the next name.
“RUNNER UP!
Oh, it’s one of the ponies that Ratchet mentioned! Though thinking about it…
“…Did his parents essentially name him ‘Loser’?”
“Funny story” Swift said “His parents were both earth pony marathon runners. When they got a Pegasus, they named him Runner to follow the family tradition, and Up for his wings. They didn’t realize what the combination meant until years after.” He chuckled. “Poor guy…”
“How sad…”
Runner Up was a lean stallion, his body melted down to the leanest layers of muscle by years of hard cardio, his legs toned and defined. He was a bright gleaming yellow with a spiky green mane, and a cutie mark of a hoofprints under a gust of wind.
“So I take it that a terrible name wasn’t the only thing his parent’s gave him.”
“Nope” Swift nodded. “He’s Charlie’s resident speedster.”
So it’ll be a speedster vs speedster battle…
He pointed confidently to her and taunted:
“Get deady, Rash! I’m gonna be learning raps around you!”
“…”
“…”
“…Um. Yo yo yo I guess?” Dash deadpanned.
“LAPS!” he shouted, a blush rapidly spreading around his face. “Get ready Dash, I’m gonna be running laps around you.”
The second time didn’t really have the intended effect…
His face continued to heat up as quiet, constrained laughter started to spread through the audience.
“Ha… classic Runner” Swift said.
“I take it his mouth regularly runs faster than his thoughts?”
“Bingo.”
“I’m…I’m…” his stumbling became worse as he sunk under the weight of the audience.
“RUNNER!”
A feminine voice called out from the lower entrance.
“Don’t listen to them! Remember, actions speak louder than words! What you can’t say with your mouth, say with your legs! You can do it!”
His shaking died down as he took a few deep breaths after a moment…
He smacked himself.
“Okay. I’m good now.” He turned to the voice, smiling warmly. “Thanks Vivi!”
“Feel free to hit yourself a few more times before the buzzer rings” Rainbow Dash said.
He laughed. “Why Hash, are you asking for a dandycap?”
“No thanks, fancy hats aren’t my thing.”
Groan...
BZZZT
FWOOSH
FWOOSH
The second the buzzer rang, Dash went from zero to 60 forward.
The second the buzzer rang, Runner went from zero to 60 to the right.
“Huh?!” She went skidding to a stop as she turned her head right to follow Runner’s movements--
WHAM
…Only to be clotheslined from the left.
“I’ll give it to him… he keeps his promises.” I said.
Sprinting around the perimeter of the arena, he was literally running laps around her.
Just as Runner was about to make a second pass at her, she rolled backwards and moved toward the center of the arena.
“How did he pick up speed that quickly?” Rivet asked.
“It has to do with their launches. They both launched off the ground, but then Dash propelled herself forward using her wings. Runner propelled himself using his legs. Dash pushed against the ground once, and then relied on pushing against air to propel herself, while Runner is pushing against the ground with every step. In terms of pure acceleration, most of the time running is more effective than flying," I explained "...not counting freefalling.“
Her moment of hesitation, losing track of his movements, had cost her. He was now moving at a speed where she couldn’t interrupt him without risking a hit to herself. She was forced into a defensive position, watching cautiously near the center as he picked up speed with each lap.
“Is he trying to form a cyclone around her?” I wondered.
“No.” Swift replied. “I mean, he can do that, but he needs a much tighter circle.”
His laps were sticking close to the wall, not closing in despite his current advantage. He wasn’t even looking at her, just single mindedly building up speed.
If he keeps this up, he’s going to tire himself out before the match is done.
At the speed he’s moving, he can’t make a turn toward Dash without losing the momentum he built up.
How are you going to attack, Runner?
Dash, now unable to reliably follow his movements, took up a guard, her body low and her wings flared.
Wait…why does that seem familiar?
Once he became enough of a blur, Runner kicked off the ground…
And started running on the wall.
“What?!” I gaped.
What I was seeing shouldn’t be possible.
“Take a close look.” Swift said. “You’ve been good at analyzing everypony else here, you should figure this out.”
He was flapping his wings in an odd fasion as he ran, keeping his head low to reduce air friction. The bottom of his hooves were….glowing.
And then it clicked.
“It’s a three part technique. He uses his momentum to keep himself up. He pushes upward with his wings to force his body down. As for his hooves…the entire time he was running, he was building static from the friction of his hooves hitting the ground. It wasn’t much, but he continuously collected, condensed, and concentrated it with his pegasus magic. He was now using it on his hooves to cling to the wall.”
More importantly, if he keeps a hold of it, he’ll have an electric punch.
With that, the mystery of how he’ll attack is revealed.
On the ground, he would have to lose speed to turn toward dash. On the wall, he can kick off and fly directly toward her without losing speed.
Furthermore, combining the speed that Dash can’t follow with the myriad of ways he can curve his flight to her, he can attack her from practically any and every angle, and she has no way of predicting where it will come from. With his incredible momentum plus the electric charged punch…
He’s aiming for a one hit win.
How will you respond, Rainbow Dash?
When I turned to look at her, my jaw dropped.
She had closed her eyes.
Are you trying to lose?!
Her ears were perked, twitching slightly with every step of his hoof against the wall.
Wait…
CLANG!
The sound of his hooves slamming against the wall rang out through the arena as he jumped off the wall, flying directly toward Dash with his glowing hoof pulled back.
At that exact moment, she launched herself straight upward.
“Ah!”
SLAM
His momentum was too great to change, and he slammed into the ground that Rainbow had been standing a moment ago, skidding across the entire arena and crashing into the opposite wall.
“Woah!” Dash flew to his prone body. “Are you okay?”
He was taking deep, gasping breaths, as he struggled to get up, slipping and crashing down.
“H-help.” He whispered, his voice completely dried out. “Too tired to move…”
He bet everything on an all-or-nothing gamble.
He bet everything and got nothing.
“Here.” Silver appeared with a bottle of water. “Drink up.”
After a few desperate gulps, Silver whistled to the crowd, and two Wonderbolts flew down from the bleachers.
“Take him to the infirmary.” He pat Runner’s shoulder as he was propped up. “You did good.” He turned to the crowd, “It’s pretty obvious, but the winner is Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow pumped her hoof and waved to the short burst of applause before her eyes once again crossed mine, and her expression instantly hardened up, glaring at me the entire time she walked to the exit.
“…What the hell was that?” I said
“Yeah… Runner’s Static Sprint sure is something. It’s too bad it didn’t work here…” Swift said.
“Not that!” I said. “Rainbow’s dodge at the end!”
“Huh?” He tilted his head. “You mean when she jumped?”
“You didn’t see it?”
“See what?”
“Right after she jumped, she did Tradewind’s Air Wall downward, launching herself further upward and smacking Runner down at the same time. Why would she know that? She doesn’t have the body type for it at all…”
“Oh, just that?” Swift seemed amused at my shock. “That’s just one of Dash’s quirks. I don’t know how she does it, but if she sees a move once or twice, she can usually copy it.”
“Terrifying…”
“Shine Struck has the same thing.” Rivet pointed out.
“Double Terrifying…”
Swift laughed at that. “I can think of a lot of ways to describe our captain, but ‘terrifying’ isn’t one of them”
“I’m not scared OF them. I’m scared FOR them.”
“Huh?” Swift said.
“Just think about it. What sort of effect will that ability have on their psyche?”
“…I don’t follow.”
I turned to Rivet. “Tell me you see what I’m talking about, at least?”
He just shook his head.
“Okay, lets put aside questions of the identity or personality that comes from copying without timidity. After all, everypony emulates other ponies. No, the problem is with how they’ll end up viewing ability.”
“In every pony’s life, there’s possible and impossible things. Things you can do and things you can’t do. No amount of work or practice can change this. Even if I were to have studied 8 hours a day from birth, I don’t have any delusions of matching Rivet in technical prowess, just like Rivet would never be able to yell like Silver. That’s all right. Learning your barriers between possible and impossible is part of understanding yourself.”
“But what about them? Their abilities leave too many doors open. They don’t get a good sense of possible and impossible. I don’t doubt that they worked hard to get here, but even their hard work was backed by unnatural promise”
“They can say pithy things like ‘Hard work is its own reward’ because they’ve never felt work that gave them absolutely no reward.”
“They can say cruel things like ‘You can do anything you put your mind to’ because, in their experience putting their mind to something and doing something are the same thing.”
“In other words, they haven’t learned proper futility.”
“When they fail, they never learn ‘I shouldn’t have tried that in the first place’, just ‘I wasn’t ready this time, but next time I’ll get it.’ A normally good moral that might completely wreck them once they face something truly impossible.”
“From a failure to ask ‘What can I not do?’ can lead to a failure to ask ‘What should I not do?’ It can permanently offside their common sense."
“It can feed a delusion that the world is their oyster, that they’re main characters in a story, and that their hopes and dreams are something tied into the fabric of existence, not incidental wants.”
“I can only see those two as ticking time bombs…the only question being if they’ll hurt themselves or if they’ll hurt others.”
They were staring at me with incredulous looks on their faces.
Swift spoke first. “You know, I bet Shine would love to hear how you called her a ticking time bomb”
“I bet Surprise would love to hear about your crush on her.”
“I bet Captain Spitfire would love to hear about the real reason you’re here.”
“I bet you’d love to hear about the costume Rivet wore that one Nightmare Night.”
“Deal.”
“No deal!” Rivet said, lunging to clamp my mouth shut.
“Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm.” I laughed as well as I could given the circumstance.
“You still haven’t answered why Dash reacted like she did.” Swift said.
“Hm hmmm hmmhmm hm hmm hm hmmm hmmm hm.”
“Um…Rivet, he can’t answer my question until you let his mouth open.”
“Not until he promises not to say it!” Rivet said.
“He…he can’t do that while you’ve got his mouth shut.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to silence him forever.” He spoke, twitching and unblinking.
“Rivet, you’re scaring me.”
“Hmmmmmlllllllllllll”
I stuck my toungue out and ran it along Rivet’s hoof.
“Ah!” He immediately began frantically wiping his hooves against his chest. “Ew ew ew ew ew.”
I took a moment to laugh at Rivet's distress. “You don’t have to worry Rivet.” I said. “I don’t have the photo anymore. Even if I did say it, no pony would ever believe me.”
From the look on Swift’s face, I hooked his curiosity now more than ever. Rivet definitely won't be hearing the last of this
“As for your question,” I said to Swift “I don’t now! Maybe she mistook me for someone else. After all, I only know ponies worth knowing. Rainbow Dash isn’t a pony worth knowing, ergo I don’t know her.” I nodded at my own wisdom.
“Um…”
“Anyways!” I cut off whatever they were about to say “Such a shame about Squad Charlie. I’m shocked, personally. I was expecting something more exciting, like a 2-2 score and a dramatic tiebreaker to settle everything.”
“It’s not surprising.” Swift said, with the finality of a pony saying that 1+1=2.
Swift, who normally looked somewhat amused at the world around him, looked uncharacteristically solemn.
Almost pitying.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He sighed. “Squad Charlie has a nickname. It's an insult that stuck when Crashin' found it hilarious and made it her own.” He looked at me.
“…Squad Charlie is The Failure Squad.”
“What?” my mind ran through the skills that were put on display moments ago. “THOSE ponies are failures?” A chill ran through me “I’d hate to see your successes…”
“It’s not that they’re incompetent.” Swift said. “I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s their personalities. Maybe it’s their team makeup. Maybe it’s bad luck. Whatever it is, things tend to go wrong around them, or they fall apart at the last moment. You even saw it here. Almost every match ended with a pony heading to the infirmary.”
“…That isn’t normal?”
His piteous mask cracked as the tips of his mouth inched upward. “Well, when we’re messing around, let’s just say what happens, happens.” And just like that, it fell again. “But not during official sparring. It’s definitely not normal.”
With that info, something clicked into place.
“And I assume Foxtrot has been much more of a success?” I asked.
“Dude, they’re the first recruit squad to actually pass The Test.”
The Test.
The surprise simulated dragon attack.
The one meant to make them think their lives were in danger.
The one meant to be failed.
“If you’re curious,” Rivet said “when Charlie took the test, they didn’t run away exactly. It’s more that…before they had a chance to pick between fight or flight, they kind of... accidentally broke the entire set.” His voice petered out into Tradewind-esque grumbling “It took so long to fix it too.”
It became clear why Squad Charlie was being paired up with Squad Foxtrot.
They want to see if training with the unprecedented successes will pull up the unprecedented failures. Whether it’s due to coincidence, conspiracy, or their condition, the result of their collision has been…
Mass Malfunction.
Enough of a disaster to get a pony like me involved.
“So yeah,” Swift said. “It’s not surprising. Everypony was expecting Charlie to lose to Foxtrot. The only question was by how much.”
“Hmm…”I rubbed my hoof against my chin “That explains why Silver waited until the second round to mention the lap running punishment. It wasn’t planned, but something desperately improvised to break their losing streak…”
Of course, it didn’t go well. I guess working with The Failure Squad can cause even veteran trainers to fail.
“Well, we’ll see how hard they’ll have to run soon.” Swift said. “All that’s left is Foxtrot’s Squall and—“
“Velocity Vector.” I interrupted.
“You know her too?” Rivet asked.
“I know OF her.” I said. “You two should really spend more time off-compound.”
Velocity Vector was an anomaly.
The daughter of a family of scientists, her only public appearance as a Wonderbolt was during a ceremonial lap around the arena, before the professionals took the field. Her only claim to fame is existing. Despite this, she’s already had her fair share of fame. It’s nothing compared to the flash in the pan of her first appearance, but she still has a fan base waiting for her to establish herself. She’s even had a few interviews, talking about how she fell in love with the beautiful formations of the Wonderbolts as a filly, about the trials normal and abnormal she had to face to get where she was, about her training, about her status as an overnight inspiration to certain ponies.
Even I, who barely knew anything about the Wonderbolts, remembered her.
After all, it’s hard to forget about the one-winged Wonderbolt.
The fact that a pony like her was a fixture in The Failure Squad was… deliciously heartbreaking.
Down in the arena, Silver had yet again taken position next to the bowls holding the Wonderbolts’ cards. Even when the next fight was obvious, he still went through the motions.
“Next is…” When he shoved his hoof into Charlie’s bowl, his words stopped. “Huh?” The bowl was empty. He blinked at this, and furrowed his brows as he turned to the entrance, his voice harsh. “Velocity! Did you avoid putting your card in again?!”
“No Sir!” the feminine voice replied.
“Then. Where. Is. It?” He said, each word stressed with a pause.
“I-If you would excuse me saying so, Sir, have you che--“
“It’s by your feet.” a deeper voice said.
Silver looked down. Fallen to the floor was a single plastic card.
“Oh.” Silver picked it up. “Thank you Squall.”
“Whatever…”
Silver turned his attentions elsewhere. “You better remember this day, because you won’t hear me say anything like this ever again. Sorry for yelling at you. Now get out there, Velocity.”
“It’s no problem, Sir.”
Into the arena trotted a night-sky dark blue mare, her coat bringing out her strikingly bright green eyes. Her light brown mane was perfectly parted down the center, the bangs almost forming an arrow, as if to point out her forehead and high hairline. Her cutie mark was a capital V and a delta symbol.
On her back, one of her wings was made not from flesh and blood, but of metal and plastic, painted to match her coat.
If I remember correctly, Velocity Vector had suffered an accident in her foalhood, one that, in normal circumstances, would have ripped apart any dreams of being a Wonderbolt.
Being in the Vector family is not normal circumstances.
Since that day, they shifted priorities to prosthetics, and worked countless hours to replace her lost wing. Even now, it’s not perfect. According to her, it gives no tactile feedback, and she has to work twice as hard and stay twice as aware while flying. While she volunteered to use this system, it’s apparently not good enough to recommend to the general populace. Rumor has it that it might have been recently made obsolete by a unicorn doctor.
Despite all this, she made it through, and became an icon to handicapped ponies.
Still, the way she walked in wasn’t with the confident sway of a self-assured hero. Her movements seemed almost mechanical and forced.
“You too, Squall!” Silver said, pulling out Foxtrot’s last card.
Stomping into the ring was a scowl of a stallion, black coated with a red mane that fell forward very slightly into his face. He shook it off with a huff as he took his place, paying neither Silver nor Velocity Vector any mind.
“Let me guess.” I said “Loner. Not good with others. Impatient. Skilled, but can be overconfident because of it. Issues with his parents. Extremely fragile and sensitive behind tough exterior. Desperate for approval.”
“Huh?” Swift seemed shocked. “…How in Celestia, Luna’s, and Cadenza’s name did you know all of that?”
“Cosmetic Psychology, Swift. Cosmetic Psychology.” I gestured to Squall. “I mean, just look at his read and black color scheme.”
“I’m…I’m not sure that’s how anything works.” Swift said, his shocked disbelief turning into another kind of disbelief entirely. “I’m starting to see why some ponies considered you a joke.”
I laughed. “You haven’t seen anything yet.” I turned to Rivet and noticed a shift in his posture. He was more leaned forward, his hooves gripping the seat a bit harder than normal, and he was biting his lower lip from worry. His back hoof was tapping the seat from anticipation. Something about this fight had caught his attention the way the other fights hadn’t. “You rooting for someone down there, Rivet?”
“Huh?” he gave a tiny jump at his stream of thoughts being rerouted. “O-oh. Yeah, I guess. Vivi can’t do any work there yet but, she sometimes visits the basement and talks shop with the engineers. I’m just hoping she doesn’t get hurt.” His eyes drifted to her opponent. “That and…well Squall did kind of go off on me once…”
Note to self: Get Dirt on Squall.
“Keen, I don’t like that look in your eyes…” Rivet said.
“Don’t worry.” Swift pat my back “We took care of that problem a while ago.”
“Yeah…” I said, my voice level as I looked at him sharply.. “You did. I haven’t had my turn.”
“Er…Okaaaaaay…?” He slowly withdrew his hoof.
Down in the arena, Velocity Vector was going through yet another series of stretches while Squall was impatiently scraping his front hoof in the dirt. Despite his body language saying he was raring to go, he refused to look at his opponent, as if he was above it all.
“So,” she said, “Let’s do our best?” she said, offering an awkward hoofpump in his direction.
He just scoffed. “Whatever…” and offered an equally awkward hoofpump in response.
Squall had given Vivi neither mercy nor quarter. From the moment the match started, he rained down blows born from a history of traditional martial arts. It seemed less like a fight and more like a high-speed, high-impact kata demonstration.
“Hya!”
Clang Clang
It was enough of an onslaught that, for most ponies, even if they block every blow, they’re muscles would still feel plenty of bruises and burn.
“Oraaa!”
CLANG!
But, as I’ve mentioned before…
Velocity Vector is not most ponies.
“Ya!”
CLANG!
Her artificial wing, her handicap, the aid that gives no feeling or feedback, her biggest enemy in flying…
In this fight, it was her greatest ally.
CLANG CLANG CLANG!
No feedback meant it was the perfect shield.
“Augh!”
Clang!
Squall grit his teeth with each impact, wincing from pain but unwilling to let up, unable to find an uncovered angle of attack, unable to break through her wing shield. It created enough distance to make sweeps useless. It had enough cover to make hooks and roundhouses ineffective. Even full blown body checks were only able to force her to stumble back, Squall taking the brunt of the force.
He snorted as his frustration rose, not just from his impotence in the match-up, but from his entire rhythm being thrown off. Her body was not reacting the way a body should when struck, not shifting when struck, not flinching when struck, not giving way when struck, not dropping when struck. Whatever years of reflexes burned into his muscles, whatever years of tradition that were drilled into his brain, and whatever years of experience that ate away his days, all of these years were coming up short.
And Velocity Vector…
Vivi was doing nothing.
She wasn’t advancing. She retreated only when he approached, circling rarely to avoid the wall. No matter the size of the gap between Squall’s attacks, she never dared to throw one of her own.
Her face was covered by her shield, I couldn’t see her expression from here, but her body language seemed the same as when she entered the building. Stiff.
“Hey.” I said “Rivet. You’ve met her. Would you say that Vivi is conflict averse?"
“Um…I’ve never seen her argue with any pony. Ah!” Rivet said, tensing up the sound of each of Squall’s hits.
“Yes, but Is it because she doesn’t want to, or because she’s never had to?”
“I…huh?” He tilted his head.
“I don’t get her…” I said. “If she’s scared, she can just surrender, or at least try to move more evasively. She shouldn’t be facing it as head on as she is now. If this is some sort of strategy to wear Squall down, then she’s doing that wrong too. She saw Tradewind’s fight. She should know that sitting back and waiting will hurt her. She’s had chances to safely put in some offense.”
Just what are you doing, Velocity Vector?
“Gragh! This is stupid!” Squall abandoned his stance, alongside all pretense of proper fighting, and lunged forward with both hooves out, and grasped the edges of her wing shield. The moment he made contact…
“Ah!”
With a gasp of surprise, she slammed her shoulder forward, knocking Squall backwards, and she immediately brought her false wing flared out to her side, watching it bend for a moment. She turned back to Squall and, seeing she had the advantage, she—
FWOOSH
…immediately flew straight upwards, straight into the battle dome’s cloud cover.
“…Is she seriously going to take her one hit and hide?” I said.
Somehow I doubt Silver will be happy with that…
By the time Squall shook off his disorientation, Vivi was completely hidden above. “Wha?” He immediately spun, scanning for his quarry. “Where did…” His eyes flared wide in momentary panic, as his line of sight scrambled until settling on the audience. Whether he looked there strategically, or looked there out of insecurity, I don’t know, but he found what he was looking for either way.
He saw several audience members looking up.
Memories of Little Star’s blow against Tradewind rushing through his mind, he threw himself backwards, tripping himself up and getting a face full of dust, sweat, and whatever else was on the arena floor. Faint laughter drifted from the audience as he collected himself, further fueling the flame of his rapidly dwindling patience. You could practically see smoke wafting off of him as he looked up…
…and saw the shadow in the sky, the silhouette in the clouds, the body not bothering to press its advantage.
The fighter not fighting seriously.
“GRRR!!” You could practically hear his teeth grinding, practically giving off sparks, as his body coiled and tensed in embarrassment and rage. He launched himself upward screaming. “ARE YOU MAKING FUN OF ME?!”
And that’s when Vivi dropped.
Neither running away from, nor rushing to meet Squall’s approach, she brought her feathered wing to her side, and let herself plummet. Poised in front of her was her wing shield.
She had turned her entire body into a living meteor.
Squall, having neither the distance nor desire to dodge, met her head on, attempting a wide arcing kick to jolt her off course.
One was fighting with gravity. One was fighting against it.
One had all their weight leaning into the attack. One had only part of their weight leaning into the attack.
One was destined to lose the exchange.
SLAM!
Squall was sent spinning downward as Vivi veered to the side, both of their blows connecting but the difference of payoff in the trade obvious. Both flared their wings out to stabilize themselves, but by the time Squall had brought himself to a standstill, Vivi had already stabilized and hid herself back in the clouds.
Squall’s nostrils flared hotter than a steam engine as his once cold looking eyes were wide and burned red with frustration, as the pupil danced around the whites, his sight spearing through the wall of clouds, looking for his opponent.
Fwish!
Vivi had dropped again from behind him, the only warning the faint sound of her body cutting through the air.
To Squall, all senses made hyper-sensitive by his search and the rush of the spar, that swish might as well been a train whistle, screaming out an oncoming arrival.
Instead of spinning to meet her, however, he propelled himself forward, out of the way of her onslaught, attempting to circle around her. He attempted to, but the edge of his hoof clipped against her wing, merely a grazing blow, but one with enough force to unbalance him, turning his body away from his opponent. Once again, she seamlessly glided from hit to run, returning to the clouds yet again.
“Damn it!” he growled.
“I don’t get it…” Rivet said. “I mean, I’m happy that Vivi is winning, but why doesn’t he follow her into the clouds?”
“Seriously? You have flown through clouds before, right Rivet?” I said. “They’re thicker than air. He’ll be slowed down, and while he’ll need a moment to re-orient himself, Vivi will be used to it and be in a perfect position to ambush him.”
Despite this, you could see it in his face. He was debating rushing in, weighing facing an ambush versus facing her dangerous drop, sandwiched between two bad options, shivering with adrenaline and anticipation.
A moment later, like flipping a switch, he stopped.
His shaking calmed. His stance loosened. His scowl rose into a grin, as the wild look in his eyes dimmed. You could practically see the proverbial light bulb shining above his head.
The air around him began to heat up as he channeled the elemental Pegasus magic around him, cooking the atmosphere and sending a chill through the audience, as fire materialized in his front hooves.
“Get down here!”
He threw a barrage of flame towards the ceiling, punching holes through the clouds, Vivi’s shadow scurrying from side to side to dodge the shots. Seeing results egged Squall on, as he pushed himself to throw faster and faster.
“Ahh!”
A pony in the audience shrieked. Squall’s overzealous assault had filled the air with faint embers, floating down onto arena and audience unbidden. Ponies reflexively covered their heads, and Swift Justice immediately shot out a wing to cover me and Rivet.
FWEEEEEEE!
Silver’s whistle brought the match and the incoming panic to a screeching halt.
“SQUALL!” he yelled. “Save the playing with fire for elemental practice or your parents’ house! Not during sparring! And you all!” he addressed the audience “Sweet Celestia, It’s like you all have never been on fire before! You panic at those wimpy wisps again and I’ll teach you all a new meaning of fire drill!”
Unable to find flammable purchase, the remaining embers burnt out harmlessly as Silver delivered his tongue lashing.
“VECTOR! Get down here!” At Silver’s call, Velocity Vector slunk to the ground, her posture preemptively wincing at Silver’s glare. “As much as I would hate to interrupt your game of hide and seek, or whatever the hell it was you two were doing there, I had to stop the timer when I called out our little pyromaniac! As much as you would like make like an infant and run down the timer under a blanket of fluff, the rules state you have to return to starting positions before I start the timer! Now both of you, go!”
“S-sir yes sir!” She shakily saluted as she rushed to her side.
“Tch. Whatever.” Squall huffed as he dragged himself to the wall.
BZZZT
They once again took fighting stance, but the interruption had robbed both of them of all momentum. They were back to square one, feeling out the opponent and waiting for the first move.
FSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH
“Keen, look!” Rivet tugged at my hoof and pointed upward.
A cloud machine, one that should have been only occasionally puffing out cloud, was spewing.
Like a Daring Do temple trap, the ceiling descended, as the hissing, malfunctioning machine pumped out its entire cache of cloud. Within moments, the entire dome was enveloped in a thick miasma of poorly packed clouds.
Despite the battle dome being a highly trafficked area.
Despite no one unexpected approaching the machines.
Despite dozens of eyes seated here regularly
Despite all this, an accident still happened.
Perfect!
I grasped the ponies on each side of me and huddled them in, whispering in their ears.
“Alright, our window of time is small, so listen up.”
“Window of time for what?” Swift asked.
“Investigating!” The crowd was starting to move, leaving their seats, searching for the exit, looking for the machine, or wordlessly volunteering to contain the mess of cloud. “Listen, the audience is moving about so now’s our chance! Hide near the ceiling before Silver blows his whistle!”
Rivet opened his mouth “Wha—“
“There’s no time!” I grabbed him with both hooves and flung him upwards, sending his unsurprisingly yet unnervingly light body bouncing between tufts of cloud.
“Rivet!” Swift reflexively jumped to follow him, making sure to clock my face with his back hoof on the way up.
“Owww…” I rubbed my nose as I followed them, straining my wings as I pushed through the viscous mass of clouds.
FWEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEE!
Below, Silver emptied his lungs into his whistle, bringing the motion of the crowd, the noise of their chattering, and seemingly the air itself, to a harsh standstill.
“Everypony clear out!” He yelled. “I shouldn’t have to say this, but on the off chance that being hit with a cloud knocked what little good sense you have left out of your brains, sparring’s over! That means you Squall!”
“Hggg… Fine!” Squall yelled back.
“Again? Seriously?” Rainbow Dash groaned.
Paying no heed to the grumbling of the recruits, Silver continued. “If you can’t find your way out, first, your special awareness is shameful! Second, follow the sound of my whistle! Once every pony is out, line up to volunteer for cleanup!” He then blew short, sharp notes into his whistle, acting as a beacon in the mist.
I reached the top layer of the dome just in time to see Rivet’s entire front half stuck in a particularly dense patch of cloud, his back legs kicking about uselessly. I was able to capture this moment seconds before Swift pulled him out.
Maybe the world isn’t so cruel…
I bit down on my front hoof in a futile attempt to silence my laughter, earning a glare from both Rivet and Swift as they dislodged.
“Wha—“
“Shhhhhh!” I hushed Swift, putting my hoof up against his lips.
He slapped my hoof away. “Like I was saying,” he whispered harshly, “What the hell are you doing? How did you know Silver was going to blow his whistle? Why are we hiding here? What’s going on?”
“Oh Swift Justice…” I pat his head, earning another slap to my hoof. “The Silver question is easy. He needed a way to get everypony’s attention and lead them out of the room, without using sight. His whistle was the closest thing that could outshine his voice, ergo…” I shook my head. “As for why we’re here… tell me Swift, what do you see?”
Swift Justice stared at me blankly. “Clouds.” He said. “And an idiot.”
“Really?” I said. “Because from here, I see clouds, an engineer on probation, a guest with no real authority, and an idiot. In other words, three ponies who probably won’t be able to get a close look once cleanup starts. If we want to see if it was sabotage, now’s our time to do it.”
Rivet huffed. “That doesn’t explain why you had to throw me…”
“Well, for one, throwing you got all three of us up here quickly.” I said. “I didn’t have to do any convincing.”
“And two?” Rivet asked.
“For two, it was funny.”
“…” Rivet stares at me for a moment before sighing.
“Do you want me to throw him for you?” Swift said.
“No…knowing him, he’d just laugh it off.”
“What can I say? I’m a masochist. Crashin’ is a mare after my own heart.” I shrug, sending a wave of shudders through my two companions.
“Too much information…” Rivet said, reflexively hiding his face out of embarrassment again. “Keen do…do you actually have a plan here?” He sighed "I don't want to get in more trouble right now."
“Well, the machine stopped hissing, so it probably finished dumping it’s load—“
Rivet coughed “Could you please describe it some other way?”
“It finished spurting out its white—“
“Nevermind!”
“Anyways, I couldn’t see any wires running across the walls or on the floor, so whatever connects the machines and the panel should be underground. Is that correct?” Rivet nodded at this. “It looks like it would be painfully difficult to get underneath the floor…”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Rivet said. “Last year, a leak caused some wires to short out. It took hours to get under there…”
“Good.” I nodded
“…It’s good that we had to waste hours working?”
“Yes, but it’s good for another reason. IF this is deliberate, then the work was done above ground, either at the machine or the controls. Are the panel’s control’s intuitive?” Rivet nods. “Alright. Rivet, Have Swift fly you through the clouds to the machine and take a quick glance, see if you can tell what went wrong. Swift, after that, help Rivet exit the battle dome unnoticed. If you are noticed, tell them that Rivet got stuck and you were pulling him out. It’s not exactly a lie, after all…”
They both growled at that.
“…After that, volunteer yourself for the cleanup crew and keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”
“Wait what?” at the last order, Swift did a double take toward me. “Why do I have to volunteer? We were going to lift after this. Can’t you do it?”
“Excuse me, Swift? Lifting?” I grabbed Rivet held him like a plush toy. “Do you honestly have so little care for Rivet?”
“Please let go of me.”
I gripped onto him harder.
“Here he is, in his time of need, desperate for assistance, and you’re willing to leave it all up to an incompetent weirdo like me? while you go gallivanting off with your comrades to lift, something you can do any day?”
“Please let go of me.”
I pulled him up and pushed his cheek against my cheek.
“Can you honestly look at this face and tell me that lifting is more important that saving his job? And incidentally, the Wonderbolts?”
“Please let go of me!”
“Ugh, fine” Swift said, as he pulled my chew toy out of my grip. “It’s not like I’m not already in peak condition.” He said, flexing his bicep.
“Yeah…Peek condition” I said, running my eyes across the muscle.
“Peak with an A, weirdo.” He said, flicking my forehead.
“No fair, how did you even know?” I said, rubbing my head.
“You’re not exactly subtle…” Rivet said, hiding his face in embarrassment yet again.
I shrugged it off “Besides, they probably won’t let the nameless guest and the forced vacationer volunteer. You’re kind of my only option.”
“Um… that’s is all well and good, but…” Rivet rotated, trying to look through the mess “I’m not sure where the machine is anymore.” His gaze hardened a bit when it returned to me “I kind of lost track of it when I was spinning.”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem” I said, patting Rivet on the head. “I can keep my bearings in a tornado.”
“Then where is it?”
“It’s…” my hoof moved from his head to his shoulder “right…” my grip on his leg tightened, “over…” Rivet’s eyes widened with my smile, as he realized what was happening. I turned my body for the wind-up…
“There!”
And there’s the pitch! Rivet went flying!
“Ah--!”
Biting his lip to silence his cry, Swift immediately turned kicked off of my gut to launch himself after Rivet.
Twump!
“Oof…” Even caught by cloud, I had to take a moment to find my bearing, and let my lungs refill with air.
C’mon Keen, shake it off. Silver’s whistle stopped blowing, meaning he thinks the place has been cleared out. You only have a couple of minutes left before cleanup starts. Get moving.
I pushed, ducked, weaved, and dug through the clouds toward the back of the room, in the direction of the control panel.
Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, my plans to investigate the controls were derailed. Against all expectation, the area wasn’t completely buried in clouds, and the panel had not been abandoned in Silver’s evacuation. Instead, it was surrounded by a solidified dome of cloud. When I poked my head through the top, I saw why. The loose mass had been haphazardly pushed out of the way, accidentally compressing it into a shell. In the center of that shell was a purple unicorn stallion with a black spiral quaffed mane, who held himself shaking like a wound up spring.
…which, incidentally, was his cutie mark.
His eyes were twitching, his teeth were clattering, his ears were spinning and his body was shaking, as he leaned over the controls, alternating between rapidly pressing what seemed to be an on/off switch and repeatedly sending sliders, which seem to control the strength of the machines, up and down the bottom and top of the console.
He was clearly completely out of it, caught up in a maelstrom of anxiety.
He must be. If he wasn’t, he would have known better than to mention a name like that at a time like this…
“Clockwise!”
I would say ‘Speak of the demon’, but wrong monster
Silver’s voice pierced through the clouds like water through tissue.
“Clockwise!”
“Hiiiiiiii!” His gasping shriek reaching an impressive falsetto, he began messing with the controls even faster, his dilated repeatedly pupils pacing back and forth between the switches and the direction of Silver’s voice.
As Silver Lining finally found his way near Clockwise’s line of sight, I patched up most of the hole I poked my head through and peeked in on the unfolding drama.
Silver’s entry can’t be described with any words as brutal as “breaking through”. He didn’t push the clouds aside and force open an entrance with his hooves. He simply walked through, sliding across the boundary as if it wasn’t there, as if, in the face of his unflappable composure, the clouds pushed themselves out of his path making way for his unblinking glare.
Clockwise was so wound up, spinning in the gears of his panic attack, that he looked up from the control panel several times before his conscious mind was aware of Silver’s presence.
“Ah!” like the spring on his rump, he bounced backwards, landing on all fours. “Uh…uh…” His eyes rapidly ran from corner to corner, like cornered prey looking for an exit, before stiffening his posture like lightning had run through him “SIR!” He yelled, saluting so overenthusiastically that his hoof hit his forehead with an audible thump.
Foregoing the formal verbal dressing down, Silver simply stared at the falling apart stallion.
“Er…um…” His posture remained unchanged as he struggled to maintain eye contact, his voice breaking on the vowels like a cold mid-puberty. “N-n-nice weather we’re having, Sir?”
Silver’s eyebrows dropped to a straight line as he looked from the field of white to the splotch of shaking purple.
“Uh…Uh…Iiit’s not as bad as it looks sir? I can explain?”
Silver’s right eyebrow rose…
“I…Uh…I mean it IS as bad as it looks? But… I mean…it…isn’t my fault?”
…and immediately fell with the left into an angry downward arrow, causing clockwise to flinch.
“Ah! I mean it is my fault! It is my fault! I-I-I-I just don’t know what happened?” He winced with the end of his line.
Finally with room to get a word in edgewise, Silver opened and closed his mouth a couple times before settling on a single stern syllable.
“…What?”
My thoughts exactly.
Clockwise’s shivering was his only response.
“You were.” He steps forward. “Right here.” Steps forward “In front of the controls.” Steps forward “And you don’t know what happened?” They’re nose to nose now. “Care to explain?”
As if he’s staring down a cockatrice, Clockwise refuses to open his eyes. “Th-The thing is, I k-kinda, sorta, accidentally fell asleep?”
With that answer, all sense was blown away, and a deafening silence flooded the blast radius.
Asleep?
He was asleep?!
The reason that the operator looked so bored back then was because he was dozing off?!
Judging from the expression on Silver’s face, similar thoughts were bubbling in his head. In the time it took for Silver’s mind to make sense of the situation, Clockwise had completely crumpled to the floor.
Reality came crashing back in as Silver slowly inhaled, readying his lungs to unleash a ballast of berating…
“Meep!”
…Only to slowly exhale at the sight of his target, who had been browbeat, literally beaten down by his brows, moments ago.
“Just…” He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose “Just get to the exit. Find you way somehow. I’ll deal with you later.”
“Yes si--“ He rushed out so quickly we couldn’t fully hear his two syllable sentence.
“Every single time…” Silver muttered, as he went to inspect the control panel himself.
I think I’ve seen enough…that stallion already ruined any chances of seeing the state of the panel at the moment of the accident.
It appeared he was awoken by the machine malfunctioning, and in a panic desperately tried to undo it, not knowing it already let go of its whole payload, probably accidentally making it worse. Still…
Is that what really happened? Was he connected to the cause?
Did he purposefully do it, then acted that way to make it look like an accident?
Did he actually sleep, and unconsciously leaned on a slider on the panel?
Did he sleep, and some pony nearby used that chance to quickly mess with the sliders?
Was he connected at all, or was he just the next patsy for the saboteur now that Rivet’s out of the way?
I need more information. I hope Rivet and Swift are done with their half of the search…
Lost in thought, I quietly drifted toward the exit--
Fwoosh!
…Only for Silver to burst through the shell of clouds and stop right in front of me.
“Now that he’s out of the way…” Silver said. “What exactly were you doing there?”
Hey fillies and colts, mares and stallions, whoever and whatever else! It’s now time for everypony’s least favorite part of the story! That’s right, it’s time for!
LIFE LESSONS WITH KEEN EYE!
The part of the story where I share important morals for your day to day lives!
Today’s lesson is about: Authority!
Spell it with me now. I-N-J-U-S-T-I-C-E. Authority!
Namely, the lesson is about what you should do when you’re dealing with an authority!
Let’s say, hypothetically, you’re facing down an authority who is irked with you. Say, I don’t know… a high ranking military elite in the Wonderbolts. Let’s also say that you’re in the middle of their home turf. Suppose that, for once in your life, you don’t have any illegal substances, contraband, falsified documents, lewd literature or outstanding warrants on you…
Seriously, you need to get your life together.
Anyways if we’re supposing so much, let’s also suppose that you’re kind of cornered, like stuck in an ocean of clouds and you’re only an average flyer.
What do you do?
I’m not really sure, but in this case, you definitely don’t run.
I learned this one the hard way.
As an aside, if you are carrying any of the things listed above, and/or you aren’t so cornered, feel free to run.
Take it from me, a former authority.
Of course, being a former authority doesn’t really mean much. It’s not stopping Silver from dragging me by my ear.
“Owww…”
No, not anything dignified like, say, putting me in an arm lock. No, he has to drag me around the like a parent drags around a foal throwing a tantrum. He’s not even putting in all his effort. He’s just circling the opposite direction of wherever I pull.
It’s too embarrassing…
“Hmm? What’s this? Weren’t you the same punk who was making an ass of himself in the stands a moment ago?”
Now that the stage was cleared of everypony but us two, I finally had a chance to get a good long look at Silver, to try and read what sort of pony he was
My impressions weren’t promising.
When you look at most older ponies, you get a sense of something dulled or smoothed, their edges eroded by the tides of time.
But not Silver.
From his from the way he carries his speech, to the way he brandishes his words, to the way he throws his glare, everything about him suggests sharpness. The tides of time had eroded his points into a single, sharp blade.
Tricking him is going to be tricky…
“Guilty as charged.” I shrugged.
“Well, what’s the matter? You were such a chatterbox back there. Why are you wasting breath running instead of wasting your breath answering questions?”
“Questions? What questions? I didn’t hear any questions.”
“I’d ask if you were deaf, but it would feel disrespectful to compare you to somepony I know.”
I flared out my wings and dusted off my Pegasus sign language
<“Oh yeah, totally completely deaf.>
“Do you hug your mother with those wings?!”
<“…no?”>
Okay so maybe my wing language is a little rusty…
“Well…” He gave another sharp tug. “Now that you’ve answered one question, let me jog your memory on the others.”
Honestly considering trying to rip my ear off just to spite this guy…
“What exactly were you doing there?”
“Floating.”
“Why are you here in general?”
“Philosophically? Nothing. I, like all ponies, was born for no reason, will live for no reason, and die for no reason.”
“Why didn’t you leave when I was calling every pony to the exit?”
“I got lost?”
“Why was your first instinct when you saw me was to run?”
“I couldn’t help that last one! You’re just so intimidating… your grizzled looks, your chiseled physique, your wizened grey mane…it’s like you jumped straight out the cover of a romantic bridle ripper novel, and me without my bridle…”
“…”
“When I saw your face, my heart beat so fast that I couldn’t help but run! Your ear tugging really isn’t helping. Ah~!”
His facial expression stayed unchanged. “If you’re trying to get me to loosen my grip by weirding me out, it’s not working.”
Drat.
“Do you honestly think that you’re clever?” He asked
“I dishonestly think that I’m clever. Enough to fool myself and others, in that order.”
His grip tightened with every word I said, and my ear started ringing from the pressure. I can only stall so long. I need time to think…
“Oh, are you two dancing?” A high pitched voice said from our left.
Hello distraction!
Jutting out of the clouds was an equally fluffy puff of yellow, seemingly floating on its own.
…not exactly what I was thinking of but I’ll roll with it.
“Yellow Puffy Madness, Help! This scary old man is bullying me!”
It giggled in response. “I’m sorry, you’ve got me confused with my second cousin! I’m…”
The tuft sunk into the clouds as she left her sentence hangi—
“SURPRISE!”
A white mare, with a puffy yellow mane and sky blue eyes burst out from the clouds behind us, sending enough of a shock through me that I flinched away, pulling further on my ear.
“Gah!”
“Silver!” she placed her hooves on her hips and took a scolding tone, “I’m ashamed of you! You’re the lead in the dance! You’re supposed to keep things like that from happening!”
I winced at her high pitched admonishments. “Didn’t I say he was bullying me?” I earned another yank for that statement.
She shrugged “Bullying, dancing, tomayto, tomahto…”
Note to self: NEVER TAKE THE DANCE FLOOR WITH A WONDERBOLT.
Silver was about to say something when.
“So!” she interrupted, our confused glares washing right off her back “I was out and about and doing my rounds and rounding my do’s rounding my rounds and doing my do’s, when Silver yells for me. I say ‘What is it?’ and he says a class 2 cloudflood was in the battledome-- which is silly because those never happen inside! Well, unless you’re in a weather factory-- And that I was to rouse up some rookies to roll it up!”
“Er…”
“So I says to silver,” She donned an accent “I says to the big palooka that he must be crazy, cuz there’s never been no class 2 indoors before.” she immediately drops it “but then he opens the door and there it was! So here we are now!” she pointed across the room, now somewhat visible as the room was thinning. Ponies were condensing and rolling up cloud like hay bales and flying them outside, the remainder thinning out as it spread to the new space. “A real mystery huh?”
“Er…It sure is…” I said
“Surprise.” Silver said “It was just a—“
“I was stumped! But then I got thinking and thinking and thinking and then I remembered something! One time I accidentally filled a fog machine with regular ice instead of dry ice and it just dripped water instead of smoke! Then it shorted out! It must have been something like that! So I fly up and what do I see? You two dancing the forbidden ear tango!” She threw her hoof out, pointing with gusto. “So it must be you two! You sneaky sneaks tried to turn the arena into your own personal dance party, and were using us to clean up your mess!” She spun around and took a deep bow, addressing an unseen audience. “This level of reasoning is possible for Surprise! What do you think everypony?”
“…”
“…”
How does Rivet work here?!
I would have killed by now, surrounded by ponies like this!
“Surprise.” Silver said, the syllables weighted with lead.
“Yessir?”
“One, it was just something wrong with the cloud machine. It’s been overdue for maintenance anyways. Two, never refer to me as “A Big Palooka” ever again. Three, we weren’t dancing. Neither you nor this child have earned the privilege of ever seeing me dance, and I don’t think you ever will. I was apprehending him. ”
“Ohhhhhhhhh. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“Beca—“
“And who are you?” She popped up inches away from my face. “What’re you doing that’s got Silver’s tail all wrapped up in knots?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.” Silver ground through his teeth, irritation at the interruptions building.
And here it is. The pieces of my con are in place.
It took some effort, but Surprise ended up doing most of the work for phase 1: Unbalancing the speaker and taking control of the pace of conversation. Now to hammer in the nail.
“Weeeeeeeell…” I said, the vowel extending with my grin, “since you’re the crush of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, I think I can make an exception for you.”
“What?”
“You can call me Keen.” I said to her. “Not you though.” I said to Silver, his frown deepening. “You can call me Sir.”
“No, the other ting.” Surprise said.
“As for why I’m here, I’ll give I’ll give…”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and…
“I’m a secret spy for a shadowy underground organization tracking the Wonderbolts.”
Phase 2: finish the unbalancing by feeding them a lie so obvious they’ll never believe it.
“You’re. What. Now?”
Augh!
Silver’s grip tightened severely after I said my line. Opening one eye, I saw that both Silver and Surprise had tensed up completely, she was even taking up a defensive stance.
What? Did my unbelievable lie strike close to the truth somewhere? Damage control time…
“Yes, yes, it’s exactly as you’d expect. I am an agent of O.R.D.E.R!”
“…What.” Silver’s line was as flat as his eyebrows.
“Order?” Surprise asked.
“Yes! The Organization Restoring Discord’s Eternal Rule! O.R.D.E.R! The ironic ring is catchy isn’t it?”
The silence was punctuated by the slap of Silver facehoofing himself.
“I heard through the grapevine that the Big Kahuna himself was passing through here. I just had to investigate.”
Silver sighed as he addressed Surprised. “Put your hooves down Surprise. He’s just an idiot.”
He then pulled me uncomfortably close. “Listen you little prick.” Silver went forehead to forehead with me. “You know that I know that nopony would be stupid enough to make, much less join, something like that. Especially not when Discord is actually around to disappoint them.”
"You'd be surprised..."
Here it is… catching the obvious lie will create a sense of false security, that they’ve figured me out, and are in control of the situation. The trap is set.
“Well, what do you expect me to say? I mean we’ve set up all this drama and the answer is so obvious, especially considering who I was sitting with. Being forthright will just be disappointing…”
Sorry Rivet, looks like I’m throwing you under the carriage~
I kind of have to, though. The best lies are close to the truth.
Silver pondered for a moment. “Who you were with…” the gears ground together till they found their slots, until his eyes lit up…
…and he let out a groan
“You were with Rivet weren’t you?”
“Took you long enough to remember.” I jeered. “Yeah we’re kind of old school chums, He was torn apart about his little slap on the hoof, so I offered to visit him for moral support. You probably know how he can get.”
“Oooooh!” Surprise bounced “You’re Rivet’s classmate? He never mentioned you! Well, he never mentions other ponies anyways, but still! You must be super good with machines too, right? What was he like back then? Do you have any stories?”
I laughed “Enough to stuff a folder or two”
A folder among many in my “Leverage” drawers…
Silver let go of my ear and crosses his forelegs. “And let me guess…” he shook his head “When you two saw the malfunction, Rivet was desperate to see what happened. Since he was told he couldn’t, he sent you to peek in his stead?”
“Poor guy…” Surprise said. “He’s been acting somewhat out of character ever since Spitfire probated him. Like if he’s being written by the wrong writer… Between us three, I kinda think Spitty needs a bit of a vacation herself…”
There it is.
The trick to a good lie isn’t to try and fool someone else.
Silver seems sharp enough that I wouldn’t be able to fool him with anything I say, not without some preparation time.
No, the trick to a good lie is to let a pony fool themselves, just subtly lead them to making their own wrong answer.
My horrible lie at the start makes any lie that follows seem more plausible.
And even if he has doubts, Surprise believing it too adds more confirmation, a majority rule against him.
Even if he catches on later, I can play coy and say that I never really confirmed anything.
And with that, reality is rewritten, and Keen Eye the painter/ex-detective is rewritten as Keen the overly generous engineer…
“You can probably guess why I put in so much effort in trying to get away, even if it was useless…”
“Oh! Oh! I know!” Surprise waved her hoof “You didn’t want Rivet to get in trouble right? How sweet~”
Silver groaned. “How exactly does a good kid like him surround himself with troublemakers?”
I shrugged. “I’ve wonder that myself. My guess is because he’s too pure. That sort of good natured single minded personality is bound to attract poison to it, like fresh meat to monsters."
“...Right” Silver obviously didn’t buy my reasoning.
“So, grand detectives, you solved the mystery, what happens now? Forced into chores? ejected from the premises? Rivet getting fired? Or do I have to sell you two my body in exchange for silence?”
“I…” As my last words were processed through Silver’s skull, his sentence switched lanes “Just…just follow me. An idiot like you would probably make a mess of any order I give, and getting rid of you will probably make Rivet do something more drastic.”
“Aye Aye, captain” I mocked a salute.
“Wait!” Surprise pulled me by the arm “You still didn’t say who my crush was!”
I smiled “A gentleman never kisses and tells~”
“You’re kissing my crushes?! You’re awful!”
“I can offer you an indirect kiss from them~” I puckered my lips
“Ewww…”
“Surprise!” Siver snapped “Stop clowning the clown and get to work.”
“Yes sir!” and with that, the yellow puffy madness dove back into the clouds.
The flight to the exit had been uneventful. Now that they had made some headway on the clearing, I could see some of the makeup of the cleanup team. There were others, but it looked like every pony that wasn’t injured in the sparring was helping out.
I get the feeling that the volunteering wasn’t so voluntary for them.
They had been caught up in work or contentious enough to ignore us, save for a pair of harsh glares at opposite sides of the room, from Rainbow Dash and Swift Justice respectively.
Ah, was he able to hear me talking to Surprise?
Well, I never named names so he doesn’t have reason to retaliate.
Probably.
“Huh? And where are you going?” I asked
We were now standing among some of the engineering team, who were waiting along the sides of the doors for their chance to perform their repairs.
“Giving Rivet a dictionary. He seems in dire need of a reminder on the definitions of ‘Probation’, ‘Vacation’, and ‘Relax’.”
I laughed “Good luck on that, you’ll need it.”
“I’ll also be asking about you.” Silver said. “If his story matches yours, then I’ll send him to collect you and we’ll get on with our lives. If it doesn’t, then…let’s just say I’ll pick you up where we left off.”
My ear reflexively twitched.
"Keep an eye on this punk for me, will you?” He addressed the engineers as a whole. They nodded and saluted unsynchronized
“Wait!” I reached out to Silver as he turned away. “Before you go, one question.”
“Make it quick.” He said, his frown etched slightly deeper into his face.
“I was just admiring your charisma. You really had a way with words in there. You were almost as entertaining as the fights themselves. Considering we saw a pony dislocate their leg for fun, that’s quite an accomplishment.”
“Get on with it.” He said. “I have better things to do than listen to insincere flattery.”
“I was just thinking back on something you said earlier… “You’re Wonderbolt Recruits. That means that before you’re recruits, you are Wonderbolts.” Such an idealistic sentiment… It got me wondering. As you know, personality-wise, there’s two different types of ponies—“
“Let me guess.” he said, impatience clear in his tone. “Ponies who believe that there are two types of ponies and ponies who don’t?” He rolled his eyes.
“Right, Right.” I nodded. “But within that division is another division. There are ponies who love ideals, and learn to hate ponies for failing to live up to them, and there are ponies who love ponies, and learn to hate ideals for weighing ponies down.
“Really?” his question dripped sarcasm “absolutely no middle ground?”
“Well, it’s more of a spectrum, but still, loving all things equally is just another form of apathy. I have a hunch, but I wanted to hear it from the pony’s mouth…Tell me Silver, what type are you? What do you love? What do you hate?"
“…”
“If you’re curious, I’m the second type myself.”
“Who do I love? My wife. Who do I hate? My ex. I don’t have the time or energy to worry about loving or hating any other nonsense.”
Avoiding the question entirely, the denial idealist and antipathic equinist parted ways.
To be honest, I wasn’t really worried too much about Silver and Rivet. Silver seems perceptive and intimidating but…
Rivet views most ponies as intimidating.
There’s a few sets of skills that the socially anxious cultivate in their day to day. Skills like the ability to make yourself part of the scenery, the ability to avoid being where ponies are looking for you, the ability to avoid conflict, and the ability to shamelessly try and make everypony happy.
Rivet would violently deny this but, if you consider silently not saying the truth as bad as saying a lie, then Rivet might be a bigger liar than me.
So I figured we had some time
Now all that’s left is to wait…
“That was an interesting question.”
The voice I heard was too gentle to describe as “jostling” me out of my reverie. It was a slight enough nudging that it took a moment for me to register Piece Maker’s statement.
A clipboard loaded with papers in hoof, the pear-gineer was sporting the same serene smile she wore when we last parted, a smile now slightly out of place below her tired looking eyes, standing next to a sweaty looking Wonderbolt, black coat and a frazzled blonde mane, matching his frazzled looking eyes.
“Oh, hey Piece Maker.” I said. “I take it you’re part of the team who’ll be working on this? Where are the other two thirds of your trio?” I drank in her companion “And, more interestingly…who’s your friend here?”
With the kind of flourish reserved for stage shows, she waved her left hoof in an unveiling motion. “This is our newest elite flyer, Storm Front!”
“Welcome to the compound.” He said as he shook my hoof, his smile and statement just charismatic enough to tell he felt awkward.
“Storm Front… Storm Front…” I let the syllables roll around my tongue. “Wow… What a scenic name!”
“…Scenic?” One eyebrow lifted, as the lines in his forehead tried to follow his thoughts, ending halfway. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before…”
“You don’t hear it? Just close your eyes, imagine it…
The dark blue evening sky turning to a distant grey…
The wind merely a whisper of the tempest yet to come…
While possibly a Pegasus hid well behind the cloud line,
Not a creature stands before the storm…”
“Wow!” Piece quietly claps her front hooves. “How poetic!”
Storm just looked confused at my attentions, chuckling a bit. “I’m flattered but, I think you’re kind of looking a bit too into it.”
“I can’t say I’m jealous, though...” I said. “Now with a meaning like that.”
His chuckles putter to a stop “…What exactly are you getting at?”
“A 'Storm Front' means an oncoming storm. In other words it suggests that ever-so-tranquil calm before the storm. It also suggests that scene’s transience, or its destruction. You were named after an end of tranquility, as if your existence was bringing something to a close… Man, which one of your parents hated you enough to name you that?”
…
The last vestiges of a chuckle fled his expression, as his face hardened and his jaw hinged open, swinging open and shut, as if silently wording out what he just heard. Piece Maker stepped back, her pupils traveling a shaking volley between us.
“…What did you say?” I could feel the daggers he stared ripping through me.
“Er…” I looked away “It was just a joke…?”
“A joke?” His nostrils flared. “Are broken families funny to you?”
“Storm Front…” Piece Maker placed her hoof on Storm’s shoulder. “You’re perfectly justified in feeling angry, but he didn’t mean anything. He couldn’t have known… Besides. Even if his reading is right, a storm brings rejuvenation. You should still be happy with your name.”
Uh oh…did I poke a raw spot?
“Oh, sorry about that.” I said “Don’t worry, you’re among friends. If there’s any pony who understands bad parents, it’s me. You wouldn’t believe how much the air cleared after I kicked that garbage to the curb.”
Something about what I said seemed to make him angrier, as his muscles tensed up harder and his eye began to twitch. Just as I was beginning to fear retaliation he turned his head away and took a deep breath.
“Can we…” His words were still tense “Can we please change the subject?”
“Sure!” I said. “So…why are you two so disheveled? Did this malfunction perhaps intrude on something intimate?”
Thunk.
“Wrong.” Piece tapped my head with her clipboard.
“Er…I already have a marefriend.” Storm said.
I gasped. “How scandalous!”
Thunk.
Despite the slapstick, Piece just giggled and rolled her eyes. “It’s simple really.” She explained. “The intercom called the engineers here. I had to run all across the compound. Ratchet and Blue are picking up some supplies in the basement. As for Storm, he just got off practice—“
I wiggled my eyebrows at her.
“…He just finished practice when he heard about what happened. Concerned, he rushed over.”
Storm brushed his hoof against the floor. “I just didn’t want to see anypony get hurt.”
Piece smiled at him “We need to see more of that sentiment in the world.” She turned back to me. “Anyways, since the cleanup crew was already full, and the engineers are still waiting for the room to empty enough, we were just using the moment to make some small talk. That was when you had your…scene with Silver.”
“I have to say.” Storm regarded me warily “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anypony talk to Silver that way.”
“Are you serious?” I said. “No one, not even his superiors, ever plays around with him? That’s just depressing…”
“No, not that.” He said. He paused, biting his lip and looking towards the corners of the room, as if literally looking for the right words. “It’s just, I’ve never seen somepony sound so doubtful to him. He sounded stern as ever, and you just smiled and questioned his motives.” His eyes narrowed. “It was almost like you were looking down on him.”
“You must have been imagining things” I said. “I’m not in a position where I can look down on anypony, Wonderbolt or not.”
“Besides.” Piece Maker swooned, “Doubting ponies is just how Keen expresses his love~.”
“What?” Storm said.
“Long story.” I groaned. “Speaking of questions…” I turned to Piece maker. “It’s strange. I would have expected you to say a question was too mean. Something about ‘Even the strongest ponies’ feelings are fragile?’”
“Well…” She tilted her head “Silver is kind of the exception. Besides, that wasn’t a mean statement directed toward anypony. That question was more of a scathing indictment of all pony-kind.” She smiled and nodded. “I’m more okay with that.”
“Oh? I didn’t take the kind sounding Piece Maker for the misanthropic type.”
She shrugged. “Well, it’s kind of obvious that the world is cruel. Isn’t that reason enough to be kind?”
“Be careful. That line of reasoning is dangerous.” I said.
“Yeah.” Storm Front nodded “Even if there are cruel ponies, you need to have more faith.”
“No, No that’s not what I meant at all.” I chided Storm. “She’s right to feel that way. I was talking about that statement’s logical inverse.”
“Inverse?” Storm asked.
“If ponies being cruel is a reason to be kind, then it follows that ponies being kind is a reason to be cruel.”
“That…doesn’t make any sense.” Storm said.
“Does it? Last I checked, that was the basis behind the Bystander Effect.”
“Bystander Effect…” Storm bit his cheek as he looked upward, contemplative, “…what was that again? I am pretty sure I heard it somewhere…”
I laughed. “It’s no surprise you don’t remember. You’re a Wonderbolt after all. The weaknesses of the everyday pony must be completely foreign to someone as special as you.”
Storm was taken aback by my statement. “Hey, I know that the title may look intimidating, but beneath it, I’m just another pony, just like you.”
I couldn’t help it. I grit my teeth and sneered.
“You know, it’s not healthy to lie to yourself like that."
He stepped back at the unexpected animosity.
After a moment of silence, I just tipped my head and returned to my neutral smile. “Never mind, It’s nothing. Don’t mind me.” I said. “Anyways, let me explain the bystander effect: Imagine that you’re walking along on a sidewalk by a crowded city street. Suddenly, a taxi carriage takes a turn too fast, and the whole thing tips over, slamming into the side of a building. The pony pulling the carriage is knocked out. From within, you can hear the passenger, trapped. She’s writhing in pain, screaming for help. Her leg’s broken. She’s stuck in the splintered wood. Tell me, Storm Front… in this situation, what exactly would you do?”
“I would help her, of course!”
“And what about you, Piece Maker?”
“Um…I’m not sure.” She said “I guess I would call for help?”
“Hmm…” I nodded. “Those are admirable answers. Whether or not you would actually do these things, however, is another thing entirely. After all, this scenario wasn’t a hypothetical. This was news. How do you think ponies responded there?”
They didn’t respond, their expressions growing uneasy.
“Why, it’s simple.” I continued. “Most ponies neither helped nor called for help. They averted their eyes, and kept walking. It took over an hour for any help to arrive.”
“Huh?!” Storm front said. “Are you sure you’re remembering correctly? I mean, I know that there are ponies who could ignore that, but the entire crowd?”
“Hey, these aren’t my words. They’re the words of the victim themselves. Primrose Prose’s article on her time in the ruined coach was really quite riveting. But do either of you have any ideas why it took so long? Why everypony so heartlessly refused to call for help?”
Piece Maker was the first to answer. “It’s sad but…it must have been because they didn’t care about her.”
“Nope! Wrong answer, zero points.” I said. “In fact, most all of them were extremely worried about her.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense!” Storm said “And what does this whole story have to do with assuming… kindness…” His words slowed as something dawned on him.
“It sounds like you’re getting it. The key word to look at here is ‘crowd’.” I said. “If the crash had on some derelict mountain pass, a lone traveler would almost certainly try to help, or at least get help. But all the bystanders saw the crowd swarming around them, and they all independently thought: 'It’s okay. Other ponies are on the job. Faster ponies, stronger ponies, smarter ponies. Somepony must be running for help. Somepony must be getting tools. Somepony must be doing something. There’s no way we’re just abandoning her. After all, ponies are kind.’ ...And because of that assumption of kindness, every single pony thoughtlessly and passively delivered the worst cruelty. That’s why that sort of thought is dangerous.”
“Even if that’s true…” Piece sounded unconvinced, “that's assuming ponies are kind. What does that have to do with assuming that the world is cruel?”
“The inverse equation produces an inverse answer.” I said. “In other words, if assuming ponies are kind brings about thoughtless cruelty, then assuming ponies are cruel brings about thoughtless kindness. Pitying kindness. Unnecessary Kindness. Kindness aimed at the wrong ponies. Kindness loaded with bad assumptions. That sort of thoughtless kindness can hurt just as bad as thoughtless cruelty.” I let out a deep sigh as I let them chew over my words. “Of course, by now it’s a loaded question, but I really want to know your answers:"
“Do you love ideals and hate ponies for failing them, or love ponies and hate ideals for weighing them down?”
“Ponies.” Piece Maker said without hesitation. “Even if they can be cruel, I want to love ponies. If I have to hate ideals to do that, then so be it.”
“And you, Storm Front?”
“I reject the question.”
I laughed. “Not answering isn’t much of an answer.”
“Like you said, the question’s loaded either way.” Storm said. “You make it sound like the only way you can love a pony is for their failures, and any attempt to improve yourself is destined to fail. It’s a false dichotomy.”
“Well…” I said. “Whether or not a pony can ever reach their ideal, and whether or not it’s something they should even think about, that’s another long conversation. We could even go deeper and try to debate what an ideal actually is. Since I don’t have the time, I’ll concede the second part. The first part, however… Storm Front, you don’t spend much time reading, do you?”
“Well…” Storm scratched his chin. “I mean, most of my reading time has been eaten by work but, what makes you say that?”
“Because you don’t understand character.” I said. “What you said is right. You love a pony for their failures. Ponies only really like stoic personalities once they’re able to see the cracks beneath it. Overly aggressive personalities are only palatable when that forwardness often fails them. Cute traits like clumsiness or timidness are just flaws dressed up to be features. Every single thing you like about a pony can eventually be traced to some failure. If a character lacks failures, either internal or external, and if they seem too perfect, then even if they’re harmless or entirely in the right, the reader will want to see them punished for just existing. Really, the line between love and pity is honestly razor thin.”
“…But.” Storm front said “That’s fiction…not reality.”
I shrugged. “I’ve learned more about ponies from books than from ponies. Besides, is there any love more pure than love for a fictional character?”
“…Um” He reflexively looked away, embarrassed for me after my statement. A quick glance around the hall suggested everyone in earshot was going through their own quiet groans.
“Er…” Pierce stammered “Now now…every pony is…different in their own special ways. We shouldn’t be too quick to judge.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else.
“… Anyways!” Storm said. “Even if that’s true, I still don’t like the question. I don’t like to think about hating.”
Hmm...
“You did it again” I said.
“Did what?” Storm said.
“You didn’t notice it? What about you, Piece?”
“I’m sorry,” She shook her head “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t want to think about hating.” I said. “He said something similar earlier. I didn’t want to see anypony get hurt.”
“…And?” Storm said.
“Well, isn’t that an odd pattern? Whenever you describe something bad happening to another pony, you add an extra verb: a verb that re-centers the sentence on yourself, more-so than the actual victim. Not ‘I didn’t want ponies to get hurt’ but ‘I didn’t want to see ponies getting hurt’. Not ‘I don’t want to hate’ but ‘I don’t want to think about hating.’ I wonder… this could just be coincidental slips of the tongue, or it could be a sign of something more…”
“What exactly are you implying?” Storm said.
“I’m just wondering…your desire to be a good pony… is it based more on resolve, or repression?”
My grin widened as he was shaken by my words.
“Deep down, do you wish to stop pain, or do you just want to avoid acknowledging it? You did run here, but was it because of genuine concern for others, or just because you knew the guilt would be uncomfortable if you didn’t?”
With every statement I stepped forward, closing the gap between us.
“Do you dislike hate because it’s foreign, or because it’s too familiar? You have to have some knowledge of something to truly hate it, so is it that hateful thoughts rarely pass through, or are you pushing down hateful thoughts regularly? Is the ideal Wonderbolt Storm Front the real Storm Front?”
I could practically hear his heartbeat
“Are you really who you say you are?”
Our faces were inches from each other, and the doubt etched into the edges of his eyes were clear as crystal.
“Or rather, are you really who you think you are?”
“I…I…” He stumbled with his words, and stumbled with his legs, stepping back from my approach until--
“Oof!”
He tripped up on his back legs, landing square on his butt. The impact seemed to shake him out of his doubt, as his expression seemed sharper when back on all fours. “I don’t have to listen to this.” He silently walked past me, acknowledging only Piece Maker as he crossed her. “I’m heading back to the showers.”
“Storm Front, wait!” She reached out for him, about to give chase before catching herself, and looking back at her post.
One down!
Part of me wondered if I went too far, but…
…Nah
I mean, seriously? “I just didn’t want to see anyone get hurt?” in a building filled by capable staff? As if they wouldn’t have the situation completely under control? There’s no way sort of compulsive heroism isn’t driven by some hypocrisy or delusion.
I know I just talked about the evils of assuming others will help but…
If that sort of compulsive hero jumped into Primrose’s accident, her injury would have gotten worse. Not because of a sincere decision but compulsive neurosis.
Just as you can hurt others through thoughtless inaction, you can hurt others through thoughtless action.
That sort of pony deserves a few good kicks to the teeth.
Besides, while this conversation was fun, I need to slip away and rendezvous with Rivet soon. It’ll be easier if they want me to leave, instead of risking some excuse why I need to leave.
Now to push away the other one…
I rolled my eyes with an exaggerated pout. “Awww… they always leave before it gets good.”
Piece bit her lip, looking back and forth between the hallway Storm ran down and me, before drooping her head and sighing. “Could you follow me for a moment?” her tone was a strained calm.
She wants to keep our talk going? Stubborn. I’ll have to push her a bit more.
“Dragging me to Storm is a bad idea.” I said. “After all, he’ll need some time to cool down before he’s willing to apologize to me. “
She was facing away from me, but I could hear her grit her teeth for a moment. “No…it’s not that. I just want to talk with you. One-on-one. Someplace private”
Huh?
If she doesn’t want to iron things out with Storm, why is she dragging me away?
…Did she catch on to why I’m here?
“Are you sure?" I said "Didn’t Silver say something about the engineers keeping an eye on me?”
"I’m an engineer. I have eyes. We won’t be far.”
No one else in the hall seemed to be objecting. Most of them weren’t even paying attention now, caught up in their own conversations. They must have assumed that, because Piece Maker was focusing on me, they were off the hook.
Assuming the kindness of others…
My escape plan took shape.
“Hmmm…” I played up my reticence before shrugging. “Alright, if you insist.” Before she could respond, I walked passed her, beckoning her with a free hoof to keep up.
“Ah! Wait up!” She jumped forward to get in front of me, rounding the corner.
With that run, our hasty exit now looks like her doing. Phase 1 complete.
…
It seems Piece’s idea of a private place was a half empty utility closet down the hall.
In other words, she seemed to have a poor sense of what’s private.
Seriously, the door looks thin enough that eavesdropping wouldn’t be difficult at all! You wouldn’t even need to put a glass against the door. And it’s not like she didn’t give people reason to do so. Dragging someone into a closet and slamming the door shut sure doesn’t look suspicious.
The suspicious atmosphere wasn’t helped by her jamming the door handle locked with a broom, nor by her refusal to look at me, instead busying her eyes with the shelves beside her. She’d been glancing my way before returning to the wall for at least a minute now, like she was trying to say something but was cutting herself off.
“Fair warning, if anyone asks what we’re doing here, I’m saying ‘Seven Minutes in Heaven’”
“…”
My attempt to lighten the mood went ignored. No laughter, no anger, not even sounding flustered. She just bit her lip and sighed, before finally addressing me.
“Are you…” she began.
“Am I…?”
Actually a painter? A detective? A spy? A journalist? A criminal? A victim? A saboteur?...Single?
“…Are you okay?” she finished.
“…What?”
“I mean…” She gulped before continuing “the first time we talked was kind of worrying. You did a lot of self-depreciation, even talking about scenarios where you’re killed… Then you made it sound like you’re having financial troubles, if that thing about being arrested while selling paintings was true. You got into an altercation with Silver lining… Now you joke about having garbage parents and you lashed out at Storm when he just wanted small talk… I mean, I know Rivet mailed you asking him for help with something but…what about you? This sounds like a cry for help. Are you okay?”
…
Is this a joke?
Are you serious!?
You just met me today! Our relationship is only hours old! And now, on a hunch, you lock me into a closet, corner me, and play unlicensed therapist? You expect me to spill my guts out to you?! And in here of all places, where we can be easily overheard?!
How self-absorbed are you?!
I attempted to keep most of my reaction internal, but from the way she started to wilt away, some of it must have leaked onto my facial expression. I cleared my throat and hastily rearranged my face into something more neutral.
If she wants to be so helpful then, might as well use her.
I made a show of exaggerating my pout. “Why would you care?”
Lure her in with a light refusals...
“Because…” She placed a hoof on my shoulder “I’ve seen what happens when ponies keep their problems bottled up. Besides, I’m Rivet’s friend too, you know.”
"I brushed her away. “Don’t bother, you wouldn’t get it.”
“Well…” she looked down at her fetlocks “I admit…I might not be able to understand, but…” She looked up once more and closed the gap between us “can I at least try?
Now to reel her in with some drama…
“Really?” My voice dropped to a strained hush. “Do you really think you could get it? Do you think you could really get being precocious enough to be labeled a prodigy, only to let everyone down? Do you really think you can get feeling socially stunted to this day, because growing up no one could keep up with you where it counts, and you couldn’t keep up with them where it counts?” I let myself sound choked up. “Do you really think you could understand visiting one of the few friends you’ve been able to keep, only to be reminded of how much more successful they’ve become? How you didn’t keep up? Could yo—“
She tackled me with a hug, burying her face in my neck and rubbing my back. “It’s okay…”
I had her.
In the end, she never really cared about me as an individual. She only cared about the archetype of a troubled pony. All I needed to do was make myself seem like whatever imaginary victim she imagined up. She’ll eat out of my hoof to convince herself she’s a good person…
“Alright…” I said “Alright, I’ll talk. I need some time to get comfortable, though… do you think we can make some small talk first.”
“Sure thing.” She said “Take as much time as you like…So what do you want to talk about?”
And here’s the catch on my hook. Time to mine for information…
“Well...Rivet never told me much about his co-workers…how about some old fashioned workplace gossip?”
“…Gossip?”
A spark lit in her eye and a smile creeped up her face, moving from her lips to her eyes, even somehow expressed at the tip of her mane. I could tell I hit a rich vein.
“Oh no no no…” she said, her face still beaming, “I couldn’t! I mean…they’re my co-workers! I wouldn’t want to talk behind a pony’s back, not with a visitor…”
You totally want to talk behind ponies’ backs!
“Are you suuure?” I said “I mean, a friend of Rivet’s is a friend of mine, so it’s like we’re practically already friends riiiiight?” I gave her a wink and a nudge. “and since we’re practically friends, I’d probably be willing to share some stories about the wonderbolt’s resident wunderkind…”
“Oh...” she was vibrating at this point. “…OK!” she punctuated her agreement with a small hop.
I get she’s a meddler, but this is a bit much…
“But don’t expect me to get too person, buster.” she said, “After all, even if we are practically friends, aren’t you not supposed to trust your friends?”
Hearing my words cheekily flung back at me, I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Wow…” I said “This is new. Where’d this energy of yours come from?”
“Oop!” she blushed “I just… get excited when I hear about other ponies’ lives.” After a moment of clearing her throat and letting her face cool down, she spoke. “So, where do you want to start?”
“Hmm…”I brought a hoof to my chin and made myself appear pensive. “Well…Oh! Something just came to mind! Or rather, some pony.
“Oh? Who?”
“I saw something weird when leaving the arena… I saw this purple stallion, about yea high, black mane with a bit too much product in it, spring cutie mark…”
“You mean Counter Clockwise!” she said.
“You know him?”
She puffed her chest out in uncharacteristic pride. “I know practically every pony at the compound.”
Note to self: Probe her mind often, if not for information about these incidents then at least for blackmail opportunities…
“So, as I was saying” I turned my head and gestured like I was looking in the distance “I was digging through the cloud flood, and I noticed Counter Clockwise at the control panel. He seemed panicked, just mashing buttons and looking like he had no idea what was going on” I let the implication that he caused the accident hang in the air, unspoken. “Do you know anything about him? It seems odd that a member of the engineering team would be so careless.”
“You’ve got it all wrong.” She shook her head. “He’s not an engineer.”
“…What?”
“He’s our mathematician.” She nodded. “He helps wherever numbers need crunching, like double checking the engineers’ schematics, balancing the budget, or arranging the schedules.”
It felt weird for my impressions to be so off. “Not that I view cutie marks as worth anything…” I said. “,but how exactly does a spring relate to math?”
“Well…” she tilted her head and pursed her lips. “He SAYS it’s supposed to be a logarithmic spiral… but if you ask me” She leans in and lowers her voice “I think it means he’s good at working under pressure.”
“…He looks like a walking nervous breakdown.”
“He’s nervous more often than not but, if you’re constantly scared, then you’re constantly under pressure. That he gets so much done is admirable!”
…Can that really be called a talent?
“So,” I said “what exactly is an organization as professional as the Wonderbolts doing allowing unqualified staff operate heavy machinery?” I shifted my posture forward, creating a sense of leering over her. “I would assume there are rules against that sort of thing.”
“Well the truth is…” she hesitated. “it’s kind of because we don’t have enough hooves on deck”
I thought back to the engineers lined against the wall, impatiently waiting for the room to clear out so they can get to work. “…That’s ‘not enough hooves’? Really?”
“Well, yeah, there’s a lot of us, but there’s a lot more to be done too, especially recently. The situation with Rivet doesn’t really help…”
“Oh?”
“He, alongside whoever was on his team at any given moment, would always get a godly amount of work done. As for everypony else…” She uncertainly forced out a laugh while rubbing the back of her head “Everypony else had to scramble for whatever was left.” She sighed. “Now that he’s not working, we’re king of struggling to make up for his output.”
Oh Rivet…
Same old Rivet…
Even now you do it.
Without prompting, without questions, without complaints, without hesitation, without any expectation for praise, you dive into your work and take for yourself as many jobs and as many ponies’ burdens as possible, all for the love of your job, and all for the simple joy of feeling useful.
How completely callous and selfish of you, Rivet.
“I’ve tried to convince Commander Spitfire that we need more staff but…” She sighed “,it always looks like we have more than enough” After a moment of staring dejectedly at the floor she gasped and covered her mouth “Not that I’m resentful or anything!”
“You might not be, but is there any pony who is? I mean he already isn’t popular with Ratchet.”
At line of questions she just…giggled behind her hoof. “Mm-mm-mm-mm. You’ve got her all wrong. She doesn’t dislike Rivet. In fact he’s one of the ponies she respect the most.”
…
Am I the only pony in this building who can recognize bare-faced contempt?!
I began to express my discontent. “Are y-“
“Up-up-up!” she interrupted. “I shared my piece, now Piece gets her share. You promised stories about Rivet”
Jeez, is this the same mare who cowered when I got too confrontational? With this hunger for info, she could make a good detective…barring that, a good blackmailer.
“Hmmm…” I had to take serious consideration.
… If I use the Nightmare Night incident, then I lose a good bit of leverage over Rivet... and I can’t use a story that shows off how genius Rivet is, she sees events like that on a day to day basis… and it can’t be a story of the everyday, it needs to be interesting or else I lose my hooks in her…
Out of the ordinary, and shows off some vulnerability…
A story came to mind.
“Do you want to hear about the time Rivet was almost expelled?” I said.
The story I told was one from quite a while ago, soon after that fateful chemistry project, and soon after I first fooled him into being friends with a person like me…
In an honors class with a tyrannical senior teacher, enforced and assisted by a senior student, what should have been an ordinary end of the day, went horribly wrong.
Rivet had been the victim of a frame job.
He was so entranced in his studies, he didn’t notice a note placed on his desk. A notoriously crude note, one that had supposedly polled the class on how awful the teacher was. It was the kind of thing Rivet could never do, even if he wanted to, maybe even THOUGH he wanted to.
The teacher made a threat under the guise of a compromise. Since Rivet was adamant he hadn’t written it, they proposed a test. They assumed whoever would have written a note would be a friend of his. With that in mind, Rivet was threatened with the worst punishment available, unless the supposed actual author revealed themselves, at which point they would be given a single day’s detention.
If no one stood up in the remaining class time, then there was no other author, and Rivet was the original all along.
Of course, in telling the story, I rewrote my role to one of a helpless bystander, and passed off the role of the pony who helped Rivet find the true culprit somewhere else.
How exactly did that go?
I told Piece a shortened version of the story, going into full detail is a story for another time…
“Wow!” she quietly clapped her hooves, eyes alight.
“Impressive story, huh?” I said.
“And an impressive teller!” she praised.
I think, somewhere along the line, she forgot this was supposed to be about my emotional problems.
I was about to goad her into spilling info on Squads Charlie and Foxtrot, when two of my plans accidentally collided with each other.
“Alright!” a muffled voice could be heard in the distance “We’ve cleared it out!”
Crap!
My escape plan had been, once she had separated me from the crowd, to tie her up in conversation until the engineers had to enter the arena. She’d be forced to leave me alone, and I could wander off without the engineers disobeying Silver’s order to keep an eye on me. Stumbling into this source of info had been unplanned.
“Eep!” she jumped, remembering her job. “Hold that thought alright? I need to get going, we’ll talk later!”
Before she left, I decided to use her to tie up a loose end.
“Wait!” I said, “Can I borrow that clipboard for one moment?”
“Uh…err…” she danced in place for a moment before shoving it in my chest. “Make it quick!”
Grabbing an empty sheet of paper in the back of the stack, I wrote a short letter…
A short letter for a certain rainbow mare.
It was worded vaguely enough that any second set of eyes would mistake it for a fan letter, but she’ll get the implications.
Don’t talk about me, not unless you want your friends to know what I know.
“Can you hand to Rainbow Dash?” I said. “Just tell her it’s from a fan. Kind of nervous about it…”
She smiled and tucked the note behind her ear. “No problem.” Then she undid the lock and rushed out.
I timed my exit a couple minutes later, avoiding any witnesses seeing us leave together.
There, in the doorway across from me, was Rivet.
“Rivet!”
Before he could respond, I dived across the empty hallway, throwing him into the unoccupied room, and slammed the door locked.
He was rubbing the back of his head “Hello to you to—“
“Don’t give me that Rivet!” I hauled him up by his shoulders.
“Wha—“
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I’ve been up and down this entire compound twice now!” I shook him with each syllable.
“I—I—I—“
“What happened to meeting up with me?! Where were you?!”
“I was in the bathroom!” he finally spat. “The same one you just threw me in! The same one we're locked in!”
“…Oh.” I gently put him down. “So since you aren’t crying now, I guess you successfully dodged Silver?”
“…Why would I dodge Silver?
“Well…on the way out of the arena, Silver sort of caught me, and I kiiiiiiiinda tricked him into thinking you asked me to check out the problem as a way around your probation. Since we’re here, I might as well coach you on the lies you’ll need to say.”
I doubted that he would be able tell them with a straight face, but that actually worked to my advantage. Since he’d already be nervous facing down Silver, all his tells would be misread as his baseline nervousness. By being bad at lying he’d become an unassailable liar.
He didn’t dignify my statement with a response, though. His was just repeatedly hitting his head against the wall. “Great…Just great…”
“Well…on the good news, I think I figured out his specific incident with the cloud machines. It looks like it might have been an accident. At the control panel there was this stallion named Clo—“
“It was sabotage.” His tone was deadly serious.
“…what?”
“The cloud machines…one of the ways they regulate release is through the nozzle at the top. It tightens shut when you want less, and expands open if you want more.” He explained. “When I looked at the machine with Swift…the nozzle was completely removed, allowing the depository to flow freely. We found it on the floor. The outer rim of the nozzle piece had the screws half removed.” He grit his teeth “They’ll probably say they were just loose, it IS overdue for maintenance, but when I saw it...I could only imagine it as deliberate…”
I thought back to the scene.
“If that’s true…” I said “we have a big problem.”
The battle dome had been completely packed with witnesses.
Not only that, but at the moment the machine failed, Velocity Vector had been flying through the cloud cover at the upper level. She was moving constantly, she didn’t have time to mess with the machine herself. Not only that, but Squall had been throwing a barrage of fire up there.
If it had been some other pony, though, not only would they have to somehow make it up there unseen by the audience, but they would have to avoid being seen by Vivi, and avoid being caught in the crossfire of the fight.
It had been a good 15 minutes since Rivet asked me that, and I still didn’t have an answer.
It wasn’t that I was completely out of ideas, this was far from my first time around the block with the seemingly impossible. What I SHOULD be doing is taking a closer look at the scenes of the incidents. What I SHOULD be doing is tracking down any and all witnesses and noting what they saw. What I SHOULD be doing is finding the squads involved with previous incidents and getting those testimonies. What I SHOULD be doing is getting records from the screwdriver containers on who had the special screwdrivers and when. I SHOULD be recreating the scenes of the crime, and finding new angles to approach...
…but I can’t, not with the handicap I’ve been placed under.
I can’t investigate too overtly. Officially, there’s no crime.
We couldn’t find Swift Justice, so we couldn’t get any leads on strange behavior during cleanup. My guess is that he was dragged into some other “volunteer” work, since he was there…
Ah well, he could use some discipline or whatever anyways.
I wanted to take a deep look at the other workshops in the basement, but that route was blocked off. Yes, plenty of engineers were above working, but they were running up and down for parts, tools, and schematics. If we were caught digging through stuff we’re not supposed to, at the very least it’d be unwanted attention…
So we retreated behind the locked door to Rivet’s workshop, and I got lost in thought trying to pace my way through this maze.
Tap Tap
“Not now Rivet” I said brushing the hoof off my shoulder.
Tap Tap
“You know Rivet if you want to say something you can just use words. It’s not like I slipped numbing cream in your toothpaste again.”
“You did what now.” Said Rivet…with his back to me…sitting on a chair on the opposite side of the room.
I froze.
“Rivet…how are you tapping my back all the way from there?”
“I’m not…?” he swiveled the chair—“Grk!”—and his eyes bulged when he looked my way.
Then who’s behind me…?
Tap Tap
I turned my head and…
…was assaulted with a flood of unpleasant memories
“It’s your fault you know. They’re dead and it’s your fault.”
“GAH!”
Before I could process what I was seeing I had already bucked, launching the body behind me into a pile of machine parts, landing with an unpleasant, wet sounding crunch.
“WAAAUGH!” Rivet screamed “Keen what did you do?!”
Laying in the pile was a prone, unmoving pony, covered by an old newspaper, the one I had an adverse reaction to. “SERIAL KILLER FINALLY CAUGHT!” on the front page, next to a picture of a face…I’d really want to forget. I won’t describe it, I’ll leave it at that.
That’s a story for another time.
Maybe never.
“Relax, Rivet.” I said, shaking off my nerves and approaching the pile “If I don’t know how to fix this, I’ll at least know how to hide it.”
He just hyperventilated.
Jeez, it’s like he’s never even considered hiding a body before….
I pulled away the newspaper, and beneath it, crumpled under the pile of metal was…no one. Just a depression where the body should be.
THUMP
And that’s when I felt a pony jump on my head.
“Wow Detective Salsa! You’ve got quite a kick!” Screeched an entirely too loud voice.
“Twister!” Rivet’s fear turned to irritation “What are you doing in my lab?”
Boing!
I turned around just in time to see the scrawny green stallion with unkempt hair and unfocused eyes leap onto Rivet’s back, posing like a frog and puffing up his cheeks.
“Ribbit!” He said “Keeping the great detective Keen Eye locked up in your basement!” his tone was aghast. “How selfish! How scary! How creepy!”
Oh no... a fan... This is the worst development possible.
“Wait…You know who I am?”
He stopped chiding rivet and just…smiled at me.
It wasn’t the manic teeth-and-gums, eyes bulging smile he showed off in the battledome. It was calm, restrained, with eyes slightly narrowed. Something about that expression…staring into those eyes, two idioms came to mind…
Still waters run deep
and
The abyss gazes back.
When I finally brought myself to blink, I was face to face with that unpleasant paper again.
“Can you sign this?!” Shoving it into my hooves. “Make it out to Make outs!” He spun away from me not noticing nor caring that I didn’t have a pen on me. “This one’s my favorite! I’ve always wanted to be in one of your stories!”
You do realize the ponies in news stories with me tend to be murderers or murder victims, right?
“…Shouldn’t you be nursing a concussion?” I said.
“That’s my secret, Detective!’ He said. “I ALWAYS have a concussion.”
“That’s nice…” I said, inching back “hey, how about you take a nice, relaxing nap.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead!”
“Yes, that’s the idea.”
That might have sounded harsh but…there was something unnerving about Twister… No, something disgusting about him. My talent isn’t just looking at things…it’s also looking at ponies. Up close, if I’m focusing, the small shifts in body language and facial expression become evident, and they’re often clues on what they’re feeling.
I’m not saying this to brag that I’m a living lie detector, I have a large margin of error. I’m saying this because...
Up close, Twister looked all wrong.
He was too expressive. Every facial tic and every gesture was caricature, overblown, they all looked affected, and yet…that’s all that was there. I couldn’t see anything behind it, any suggestion of hidden feelings in his movements. Those fake movements somehow felt entirely sincere. It’s uncanny. Almost like watching a method actor completely lose themselves in a role, and never returning to their original personality…
“AHEM!” Rivet, stood by the door, pointing to a poster on the wall. “Twister, please read the sign.”
“How about YOU read the sign?!”
“What?” The ban list at the entrance of Rivet’s workshop, which originally only had Twister’s name, had been defaced to read “NO RIVETS ALLOWED”
“Welp.” Twister said, scooping Rivet from the ground “I don’t make the rules. That’s the lizard-pony shadow government’s job. I just follow them.” He then placed Rivet into a box labeled “Rivet Jail”
“Twister” I said, wiping off the “NO” from the sign, “as fun as it is to bully Rivet, we don’t have all day. Why are you here?”
“Yes, ‘why are we here?’ the million bit question…” he jumped towards me, stopping inches from my face. “What about you? Are you here to solve the mystery of the Shadowbolts?”
“What’s a Shadowbolt?”
“Or the mystery of Soarin’s Horn?”
“Who’s Soarin?”
“Or the mystery of the disappearing sandwiches in the rec room fridge?!”
“It’s probably Swift Justice.”
I could feel him use the same conversational tactics I used. Use bizarre statements to put them off balance, use retorts to keep the pressure, use aggressively close body language to make them feel trapped… the more I saw of this pony, the more I was impressed and unnerved.
“Or how about the mystery of why I feel scared when I look at the vastness of the night sky?”
“That’s just existential dread.”
With every question he bounced closer, and with every answer I stepped back, until I was pinned, back against a cluttered tool desk.
“Oh! Are you investigating the training equipment sabotage?”
I shoved my hoof in front of his mouth, shutting out his incessant spew of questions.
“Twister…” I said. “Shut up, and start talking.”
I’ll spare you the entirety of our conversation.
Even for me, it was unreasonably long winded and roundabout. When Twister wasn’t bursting out non-sequiturs or puns, he kept going on weird tangents. Still, I got some of my questions answered, even if the answers weren’t very helpful at all.
“So how did you know about me?” I asked.
“I’m a big fan of the obituaries!”
I don’t know whether that makes me or him sound more awful.
“How exactly did you get banned from Rivet’s lab?”
“Lots of cockroaches.”
“Nice.”
“NOT NICE AT ALL!” Rivet shouted.
“Why do you think that someone’s committing sabotage?”
“The second law of thermodynamics.” Twister said.
“Um...Well, do you have any proof?”
“I’m bad at math”
“…Did you witness any pony tampering with the machinery?”
He nodded.
“Who?!”
He pointed toward Rivet…
“Ugh…”
And so on and so on and so on…
“Listen…” I was rubbing my forehead, struggling to keep my regular smile up, “…do you have ANYTHING I can work with here?”
“Oh! I have something!” he said, waving his hand like he was in a classroom.
“…”
He kept waving as I waited.
“…well?” I said.
“Well what?” Twister tilted his head.
“…Twister,” I said, affecting a nasally deadpan, “would you please share what you have with the class.”
He squirmed in his seat and blushed, “I can’t…. It’s embaaaaaarrassing…”
…
“Hey Rivet,” I said. “Didn’t you mention that you once made a tazer? Do you still have that lying around?”
“Okay, I’ll talk I’ll talk!” grabbed my shoulders and shook frantically “Just don’t hurt my babies!” He held up two eggs with faces drawn on them.
I smacked them to the floor.
“Oh…” he looked down at the crumbled shells and runny yolks “I was going to eat those…”
“Talk.” I said.
“Only if you two turn around first…” he said, blush reappearing.
“Just play along Keen…” Rivet said.
“Fiiine.”
As our backs turned, I could hear a sound akin to rustling through a cluttered bag.
“Okay! You can turn around now!”
I turned. “I swear if you’re just showing us your—“
In front of me was Twister standing on his hind legs, bloodlust in his eyes, holding a screwdriver in the icepick position, about to drive it into my skull.
On reflex, I lunged forward, not tackling him, but intentionally placing my face centimeters away from the tip. I glared at him, staring daggers in his eyes, daring him to move forward. For a moment, all was still.
“Y’know Twister…” I said, adrenaline pumping and smile stretching. “I really appreciate good slapstick. In fact, I don’t even mind being the victim. I am a masochist after all…” I reached back to the desk behind me, the bridge of my nose not leaving the metal point. “but, if you’re going to do it, you need to commit to it. No fake-outs, like making it look like you’ll swing before dropping the weapon.” I grabbed a box-cutter from the clutter. “In other words…”
I put the blade against his throat.
“Don’t write checks you don’t plan to cash.”
Click
With that tiny noise, everything went white.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT
“GaAaAaAaAaAGh!”
I collapsed to the floor, twitching. Above me was Rivet, wide eyed and shaking, with a tazer in his hooves.
“Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?” I moaned.
“Y-you two were at each others throats!” he said.
“No, I meant why meeee.”
“You’re the less trustworthy one in this situation!”
“What have I EVER done to make you think that?!”
“I have a list!
“MY TURN!” Twister shouted.
“Wha—?” before Rivet could react, Twister leaped toward Rivet, landing straight on the active end of the tazer, causing Rivet to reflexively pull the trigger again.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT
“WAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHA” Twister fell back, laughing as the volts swam through his system.
“Ah!” The impact and surprise led to Rivet tripping backwards, the tazer escaping from his grip and flipping through the air, before falling directly downward towards Rivet’s prone body…
THUNK
Where the butt of the handle hit his forehead.
For a minute we all just laid on the floor writhing in our injuries.
“I think…we all got off on the wrong hoof.” I said.
“I normally get off on the back left hoof” Twister said.
“Impressive” I said.
“Ew.” Rivet said.
“Anyways…” I sat up. “Twister, would you mind telling me how you got your hooves on one of the locked up W-Screwdrivers?”
I’ll say one thing about Twister. He’s good at making you go along with things.
Shortly after I asked my question, his eyes lit up, and he dashed around the room, grabbing chairs and props along the way.
Before I could process what was going on, he had me and Rivet sitting on two ramshackle podiums, with Twister standing opposite of us in front of a whiteboard, placed right next to Rivet’s locked screwdriver case. Three screwdrivers were missing. Twister was holding his W screwdriver like a mic.
“Iiiiiiin the Red corner, we have the Macabre Massacre Machinist, R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rivet!” He said, with a rolling R.
“I’m the what now?...Keen why are you writing that down?" He pointed at me, already jotting it down on a nearby notepad.
"What?" I said "It's a fitting nickname."
Twister continued to play announcer: “And in the Blue corner, black-eye, red-eye, pink-eye, brown-eye, Keeeeen Eeeeeeeeeeye!”
Rivet scooted away from me. “Keen, do you need to see a doctor?”
“In front of you are two buzzers—“
“These are whoopee-cusions.” I said.
“—IN FRONT OF YOU ARE TWO BUZZERS!” Twister said. “FIRST TO BUZZ GETS TO ANSWER”
Rivet lifted his up “Why do they have my face on them?”
“ARE YOU READY TO BET YOUR LIVES?!”
“Uhhh…no?” Rivet said.
FRRRRRRRRRT
“I was born ready to bet my life.” I said.
“Wow! That’s worrying!” Twister said, clapping and grinning at my statement.
Like you have any grounds to stand on!
“Today’s question iiiiiiiiis!” he dramatically spun the whiteboard, letting it careen for a couple of seconds before grasping it, revealing the block letters written on the other side:
"HOW DID RIVET GET HIS HOOVES ON THE W-SCREWDRIVER?!"
He posed dramatically beneath the letters, letting us soak in the question and giving me time to think.
What exactly is this Twister’s angle here?
He knew who I was, and he knew why I was here, but he’s being indirect about how he knows.
He could be the culprit, or connected to them…he’s already shown an ability to get the key item in this case…but if he WAS, he could have easily gotten rid of me. He just needed to tell the higher ups about my purposes…he even has obvious proof with the newspaper.
This setup feels like he’s trying to help me…waving information about one of the biggest locks in the case in front of my face. He COULD just be an ally..
But if so, why the roundabout presentation?
Of course, it could be that he’s helping me BECAUSE he’s the culprit. He could be trying to place me on the wrong track in order to frame some other pony. Continuing an investigation would be beneficial in that case…
But if he’s trying to frame someone else, why is he doing it by incriminating himself? Screaming “I could have sabotaged the machines” to my face? Playing to the fallacy that the most obvious culprit is never the real culprit?
Or...it makes sense if his motive is thrills. If he’s the saboteur, and sabotaging for the thrill of almost being caught, then teasing the pony on their trail makes sense.
But wait…he was knocked out when the last incident happened wasn’t he? It would work if he’s only an accomplice but…
Wait…no… I think I’m starting to get somewhere with this.
“Hmmm…I almost got it…” I said.
“Um…” Rivet said “Keen, not like this question isn’t important, but isn’t there a more pressing question at hoof?”
“Oh REALLY!” Twister slammed his hooves on Rivet’s podium, looming over him with grit teeth. “What could POSSIBLY be more important than my QUIZ?”
“Er…” Rivet flinched away, but then looked Twister in the eye. “Twister, how did you even get in here?”
“…oh is that all?” Twister said, his smile calming.
“The door’s been locked the entire time we’ve been in here, we locked it first thing when we enetered” Rivet said. “We’ve been sitting in silence ever since, for a good 15 minutes or so, and we didn’t hear the sound of the door opening and closing, nor the sound of any pony walking through the room. In fact…” Rivet stood up and rounded the corner to the entrance before running back. “Yep. I just checked and it’s still locked…” Rivet looked around "And the vent to this room is partially blocked by some parts..." his eyes widened “Wait…whatever this was, has this been how you’ve broken into my lab?!” Rivet grabbed my shoulders “Keen, please, you have to solve this!”
“Rivet…I’m disappointed in you.” I said, pushing him off me.
“Tch…Disgusting” Twister said, shaking his head.
Rivet’s ears flattened against his head “W-what?”
“You’re the smarter one between us.” I gestured to the various creations around him “You’ve done more with your life than I ever will. You’re the one who made it.” I glared at him “and yet, when you’re faced with a locked room—a BEGINNER’S LEVEL one at that—you stop thinking and just tell me to solve it. I expect better from my Wattsons.”
Behind me Rivet was doing a cheerleading routine, chanting “Think think Rivet! You can do it!” On the whiteboard, beneath the original question, something had been added in parentheses:
"(also how did Twister enter the lab?)"
...Wait...that's it!
“In fact,” I said, “figuring out this closed room is key to understanding how he got the screwdriver.”
“You have the answer?” Rivet said, a twinkle growing in his eye.
“I have some answers, but I’m still whittling them down. I want to hear your reasoning first, Rivet.”
“Umm…” Rivet bit his cheek as he paced back and forth from the door.
A one-two punch of criticism and encouragement got Rivet on task. He was mumbling his reasoning aloud.
“Is there…maybe something’s loose?” He began to run his hoof against the wall. “Like a piece of wall…or the ceiling…it can’t be the floor, can it?…He didn’t find THAT did he?”
“I didn’t” Twister said, spinning in his chair.
“…How would you know what I mean the—“
“I didn’t” he repeated.
I was watching Rivet’s performance with all the sadism of a loving father.
This is adorable.
Rivet IS smarter than me. There’s no way I could create like he could, and there’s no way I could keep up with his output without completely draining myself, but his way of thinking is more logical than lateral. He thinks the way he builds. Ideas are parts, and he methodically connects them to create an elegant concept. If you ask him how he got to his conclusion, he’d be able to write down his steps one by one.
But there’s a weakness to that type of thinking. If there’s a piece, a logical step, missing, then construction grinds to a halt.
Because of this he was stumbling in the wrong direction.
‘This is only half of a closed room problem, you know.” I said “Normally you have to figure out how they entered AND how they left.”
“I know I know!” Rivet growled. When he was lost in a problem, he could be surprisingly curt…
“I’ll give you a hint.” I said. “The question itself is somewhat misleading.”
“What?” Rivet said.
“It’s in the wording: How did TWISTER get in the lab. You see the problem right?”
“How is Twister’s name a problem?”
“Ponies blame me when their homes are blown away by storms… I only did that once or twice or a few times…” Twister said.
“…Like I was saying” Rivet said “I’m trying to figure out what Twister did, right?”
“Yes, but you’re subconsciously putting the cart before the pony.” I said. “By placing Twister in the forefront of your mind, you’re creating biases and assumptions about what you think Twister would or wouldn’t do. Remember: for all the geniuses, the gifted, and the eccentrics of the world, deep down we’re all replaceable and irrelevant. Similarly, most places and events are, in the end, interchangeable. The question shouldn’t be “How did Twister get in this lab, but how could a pony get into the lab.”
Rivet twitched his ear, not seeming to get it…”Well, if it’s any lab or any pony, then they—“ his eyes widened. I could see the gears grinding in his head “they would just…”
The last piece fell into place, and he understood how it happened.
“AUGH!” Rivet facehooved.
I grinned. The frustration on Rivet’s face was delicious~
Sure, handing the answer off to him was a sign of respect, but the answer itself was also something of a prank.
The 15 minutes of silence between our entrance and Twister’s exclamation was key to this trick. Because Twister is boisterous, we assumed he would have made noise immediately. Because Twister is Twister, we thought he had done something elaborate and impossible. The truth was painfully, hilariously, more mundane.
“I’ll leave you the honor” I said, waving a hoof to Rivet’s podium.
Cheeks puffed, he stomped his way to the whoopee cushion buzzer, and stamped down on it.
FFRRT
“The answer is this: while we were out, the door had been left unlocked. During that time, you snuck in and found a hiding place. After we entered, and locked the door, you waited 15 minutes before making yourself known. Why you did that, I don’t know, but it looked like you had only just entered. In other words, I still have no idea how you normally break in.”
“CORRECT!” Twister said, as he pulled a cord that ran to the ceiling.
SPLASH!
“GAH!” A bucket of ice water, hidden behind some machines hanging above, poured over me. “W-w-w-w-w-w-whyyyyyyyy?”
Twister shrugged. “Should have been faster on the buzzer.”
Rivet smirked, his earlier frustration washed away. I glared at Twister.
You planned this didn’t you?!
“But wait,” Rivet said “I don’t get it. You said that this was key to how he got around the screwdriver security system.”
I toweled myself off with a nearby not-too-greasy rag. “Hmm? I never said that.”
Rivet stared. “Keen, this is no time for games.”
FRRRRRRRT
Twister had shoved down Rivet’s whoopee cushion. “INCORRECT!” he shouted.
“I didn’t say that he got through the screwdriver case’s security system” I wiped out the inside of my ears “I said that he got a screwdriver. There’s a difference.”
“But there’s three missing!” Rivet pointed to the case.
“That’s your problem Rivet,” I said “You think too reasonably. Three screwdrivers are missing. Twister has a screwdriver. Therefore Twister must have taken it from the case. It sounds sensible, but if twister had taken it from your case, then there would be FOUR missing, not three.”
“Four? So there were three missing beforehand?...wait!” realization flashed in his eyes
“I won’t blame you for not noticing, you were pretty pissed at me at the time. Actually...I will blame you. You should know better.” I swatted his forehead. “You saw them earlier today. Piece Maker, Ratchet Wrench, and Blue Print borrowed W-Screwdrivers from your lab shortly after I arrived. Before Twister did anything, three screwdrivers were already gone.”
“So…” Rivet rested his chin on his hoof “If he didn’t get that W-screwdriver from this case, he must have gotten it from one of the others. But…even if we could check all the cases in the other labs without rousing suspicion, that wouldn’t confirm anything. Other engineers take them out during the workday too so…wait…that means…”
“You’ve got it Rivet.” I said “You were on the wrong track because you were applying the same logic of the supposed saboteur incidents to Twister. There, a pony is using the screwdrivers when the machine records state no pony took them out of their case. Because Twister is Twister, you assumed he was doing the same impossible trick.”
“Accept no substitutes!” Twister shouted.
“Twister, however, took a screwdriver during a different scenario,” I said “He took one in the middle of a work day, during a period where several of the screwdrivers aren’t locked up.”
“But…when did…wait, that’s it!” Rivet shot upwards “When! The key tying the screwdriver question and the locked room question is time!” He lunged for the whoopee-cushion buzzer.
FRRRRRRT
I pressed mine a moment before him.
“That’s right” I said, ignoring Rivet’s glare “In both problems, we underestimate how much time Twister has to act.”
“If we dial the clock back to the beginning of this incident, we would find ourselves in the Battledome, during the sparring matches.”
“Twister knew what I looked like, so, unless he had some prior warning, like looking through Rivet’s mail, this was the moment he learned I was here. He spotted me in the audience. Shortly after, he had his match against Zugzwang, and was promptly knocked out.”
“Here is the origin of our error: We assumed that, because he was knocked out cold, he must have spent a good while unconscious. Even if he woke up quickly after the fight, he probably would have been detained by the medical staff. Forget means, there’s not even enough time to make plans. And yet, here he is, holding the impossible screwdriver.”
Twister was beaming, vibrating in excitement. “He’s talking about me!” he squeaked.
“Therefore, he must have actually had more time than expected. Here’s Twister’s first trick: During his fight with Zugzwang, he wasn’t actually knocked out. When Twister took the climactic hit against his skull, he used that opportunity to play dead.”
“It’s possible that Twister and Zugzwang had colluded before the match to orchestrate this outcome, but that’s unlikely: the matches were randomized. That leaves two other possibilities: One: as impressive as Zugzwang’s positioning plan was, Twister read through it from the start, and intentionally played into it, knowing that Zugzwang didn’t have enough strength to properly knock him out. Two: Twister fell for it hook, line, and sinker, and when the blow hit, he made a split second decision to play dead.“
Either way, the end result is that The Failure Squad’s only victory was a thrown match. How apropos.
“I came to a similar conclusion but…” Rivet looked to Twister “Why did you throw the match?”
“To see how far it would fly!” Twister said.
“It’s because I was there,” I said “He wanted to get closer to me, and ending the match prematurely gave him opportunity. Once he was carried out of the arena, he gave his carriers the slip. There are countless ways he could have done this, like simply pretending to wake up and saying he can walk the rest of the way. He then makes his return.”
“I’m guessing he attempted to sneak up on me through the audience seating. Before he could pull this off, however, he’s interrupted. The fourth match goes by quickly, and the fifth match is interrupted by the cloud machine malfunction.”
“We’re separated again, but here Twister comes up with a new plan. He waits for the engineers to respond, and swipes one of the now unlocked W-Screwdrivers. Then he runs into Rivet’s Lab, and lies in wait for us, creating this little locked room puzzle.”
I look to Twister, who’s now hopping from side to side in excitement at watching my explanation.
“So, what do you think?”
He stops, head drooping. “I’m sorry but…THAT’S CORRECT!” he shouts, jumping and pulling at another cord dangling from the ceiling.
“Ah!” Rivet covers his head with his hooves…as confetti slowly falls above him.
“…Why doesn’t Rivet get the cold water treatment?” I pouted.
“Because Rivet is Rivet and Keen Eye is Keen Eye!” he says.
…aren’t you supposed to be a fan?
“Anyways” Rivet ruffles the confetti out of his mane “That answer may be ‘correct’ but…I still don’t understand why he did it.”
Rivet looked at Twister.
Twister stared at Rivet.
…
…
…
…
“Nevermind” Rivet said “Understanding Twister’s motives is impossible.”
“Well, he said he was a fan. He also seemed pretty entertained by the proceedings.” I said “He created a mystery just to see me solve it.”
I had a second theory to his motive, one that might be critical to the saboteur investigation, but I needed to be away from Twister to discuss it.
For now, I prepared the ace that landed in my hoof.
“Anyways, now that we’re done with that fun distraction,” I offered Twister a hoof “Let’s talk business.”
“No! I don’t want any Filly Scout cookies!” said Twister, in response to ‘Business’, “I refuse to aid and abet such a corrupt and vile organization!”
“Okay…” I said, “Instead of business, let’s just say I need a favor.”
“Which? Rocky Road? Tutti Frutti? Neapolitan?”
I ignored his awful pun.
“Yes, a favor that you, and only you, can provide.”
Twister’s eyes bulged. “Meeeee?” he was breathless. “This is just like my fanfics…”
I’ll have to find and burn those later…
“Keen…” Rivet looked nervous “This doesn’t sound like a good idea…”
I ignored Rivet's terrible advice. “I, Keen Eye…”
“Yes?”
“Need you, Twister…”
“Yesssss?”
“to do…”
“YESSSSS?!”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“GAAAAAAAAAAASP!”
He didn’t gasp. He said the word ‘gasp’ aloud. Then he held his mouth open for a few seconds before snapping his lips shut.
“You see,” I said “I’m kind of incognito at the moment. Whether or not there’s any sabotage, the Wonderbolts probably wouldn’t appreciate a civvie snooping around, considering how secretive you guys are. And yet, counting you, there’s now at least seven ponies that know of my actual purposes here. You can see how that presents a problem.”
“…” Twister listened, unblinking.
“Let me put it this way: practically every team sport shares a position in their line up. It’s one that’s more important than any goalie, pitcher, center, or quarterback. Do you know what it is?”
More silence from Twister.
“Hmm… This sounds like a trick question…” Rivet said, “Is it the Coach? Or the referee?”
“Wrong. It’s the bench. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Who isn’t playing is more important than who is. The bench also allows you to store pitch hitters, and swap out tired or injured players. The path to victory isn’t on the field, it’s on the bench. Right now, Rivet and I are content with playing doubles. Save for a short play with Swift Justice, I’ve sent every other pony to the bench, to silently observe until otherwise needed. That includes you. I don’t want any surprise assists. All I want is your silence and indifference. Can you give that to me?”
“…”
“…”
“Um…” Rivet poked Twister’s unmoving form. “Are you alright?”
Twister collapsed.
Oh…
It looks like he took “absolutely nothing” to include blinking…or breathing…
He was turning purple, His jaw was clenched, He was sweating, The whites of his eyes were turning an angry red, his cheeks were puffy, his pupils were dilating, and he was shaking, his muscles giving tiny convulsions as he fought tooth and nail against his own survival instincts.
“Twister!” Rivet panicked. “Keen, what do we do?”
“Hmm…”. Normally a pony holding their breath would have given up, or passed out by now, but he clung to consciousness with an unusual tenacity.
I remembered reading medical reports of ponies either dying or suffering irreversible brain damage from long periods of asphyxiation. If this keeps up…
I clapped my hooves.
“Well, if we just wait 15 minutes or so, both of our problems will be solved for us!”
“Keen no!”
“But he’ll stop breaking into your lab!”
“KEEN NO!”
“Fiiiiine…” I said. I walked up to Twister’s prone and twitching form…
And slugged him in the gut.
“Gah!” He gasped and curled up.
“See Rivet?” I said. “Crisis averted!”
“…Couldn’t you have just asked him to breathe?” Rivet said “I mean he was holding his breath on your order…”
“Yes, I COULD have, but—‘
FWUMP
My excuse was cut off by Twister tackling me, sobbing.
“I…I couldn’t do it!” He choked out, blowing into me like a tissue.
Eww...
“There there…” I said, patting his back. “Sure you failed completely, let me down, and I’ll never forgive you for it, but it doesn’t matter in the long run.”
He sniffed up phlegm. “Really?”
“Really.” I said “After nothing you ever do will ever matter in the long run.”
“…WAHHHHHHH!” he cried harder. “Please! Please put me in coach! I don’t wanna be a disappointment!”
I grinned.
Sure, if he was innocent, he would be glad to help anyways, but a bit of reverse psychology can turn an assistant into a fanatic. That is... of course, if I’m not the one being played right now. I’ve only talked to him once, but I can tell. With Twister, you can never be sure.
“That depends, Twister.” I said. “How far will you be willing to go? If it came to it, would you betray the wonderbolts? Would you betray your squad?”
“What?!” he jumped from my hooves, all signs of distress disappearing from his face. “Of course not! I would never! I would never tell you about how Squall sucks his hoof like a baby when he sleeps!”
Oh…that’s useful
“I would never give you photographic evidence of him sucking his hoof as he sleeps!” He said, as he passed exactly that.
“I would never give you a manuscript about squall Sucking his hoof, ready to be printed in all the latest academic journals!” he said, giving me a copy of "The Opodial Complex in Modern Athletes: As Illustrated by Squall’s Interest in Older Mares and How He Sucks His Hoof In His Sleep Like A Baby."
Wow…not enough to ruin his life, but definitely enough to leave some emotional scars…
“Twister…” I said “If you’re trying to bribe me with blackmail, I’m sorry to say that you are very very successful. Welcome Aboard.”
“YES!” He scooped me into a bridal carry “Where will we have the wedding?!”
“BRIBE me, not BRIDE me!”
“Oh…Homewrecker!” He dropped me onto the hard floor, landing on the back of my head.
“Owww…”
I’m already doubting this decision…
‘Anyways…” I said “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you investigating. Even if I told you to keep an eye out, you’d probably get overzealous, give me useless information, and get ponies suspicious.”
Twister shrugged “There's no such thing as suspicious.”
“Right…” I said “I do have something else though. Silver Lining—“
“It was Silver Lining! I knew it!” Twister said.
“No… Well, maybe.” I said, “Listen, me and Silver Lining had a little tete-a-tete earlier. He’s suspicious of me now. I need you to keep an eye on Silver, distract him if he gets close to the truth, and keep him away from me. Think you can do that?”
"Aye Aye Sir!" He said, and threw something to the ground--
PHWOOSH!
--and dissapeared in a cloud of smoke.
...
“…I ask again, are you sure this is a good idea?” Rivet said.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Well, for one, he’s Twister,” Rivet said ‘Two, he showed knowledge that there was a saboteur, and showed off how he can get though security. He was also near the battledome when the cloud machine broke. He could be the culprit.” His eyes widened “He could be blowing your cover right now!”
Just as Rivet was about to bolt out the door, I stomped on his tail.
“Yipe!”
“You never were good at strategy.” I said “It’s not that I think he’s innocent. It just doesn’t matter whether he’s guilty or innocent.”
Rivet glowered at me as he rubbed the base of his tail. “Explain.”
“Just look at his behavior. He recognized me as an investigator. He could have revealed my purposes to higher ups. He even had proof with that newspaper clipping. Instead He sought us out ,gave information, and volunteered to help. Why would he do this? There are a few possibilities that make sense.”
First: He’s innocent, and sincerely wants to help.
Second: he’s an unwilling accomplice. He’d be freed if I solve the case, so he has motive to help.
Third: He is the culprit or willing accomplice, but my investigation is to his advantage. If his motive is thrills, then a pony investigating only gives him a greater high. He might be planning a frame job, and will try to get me to hoof the wrong culprit. A risky strategy, but I’ve seen it before.
“So, on every point in the scale of innocent to guilty, it’s better for Twister to assist us.”
“Oh…You’ve really thought this through.” Rivet said. His tone showed lingering doubt.
“You’re right, though” I said, “Twister is not to be trusted. Most of what he said was backhoofedd or a lie: his reasoning to suspect sabatoge, that taunt of a puzzle, claiming to be a fan of me…”
After all, any pony that knows me well enough knows I shouldn’t be admired… and if he actually admires me, that’s even scarier.
“Wait, taunt?” Rivet said “I thought you said he was just playing games.”
“Most taunts are playful, and its playful things that are the most dangerous.” I said “He saw me struggling to reason out a puzzle, so he threw another puzzle at us. The subtexts are obvious: ‘I know more than you do’, ‘don’t focus on the screwdrivers, that part’s easy’, ‘Stop thinking so rationally, here’s more nonsensical’ ‘Stop trying to armchair detective in a locked room.’ Stuff like that. It makes me hope he’s the culprit, more reason to break him.”
“…Are you sure you’re not projecting?” Rivet said.
“SPEAKING of Twister’s lies” I said, “There was one statement that I’m not sure about. Tell me Rivet, does the word ‘Shadowbolt’ ring any bells?”
Rivet tensed up.
Bingo
“That’s…er…classified?” He looked away.
“Thanks Rivet,” I pat his head “You just told me everything I needed to know.”
He deflated, his head drooping. “Crap…”
“You would have been better off lying to me,” I said “More fitting, considering the Wonderbolts are a den of liars. After all, if it was nonsense, then you could easily say it’s nothing, but if it’s classified, that basically confirms it to exist. I can work my way from there.”
Rivet sighed. “Here we go…”
“It’s obvious that the Wonderbolts are on alert for something. The ramp up in training and training equipment, Spitfire’s disheveled workspace, the strange silence from the crown…when I made a bad joke about being a spy, Silver actually took me seriously” I chuckled “Something is definitely up”
Rivet groaned “Why in Celestia’s name did you do that?”
“Now, you helpfully confirmed that a group called “Shadowbolts” exists or existed,” I pat Rivet on the back hard enough to force a cough “so let’s look at the etymology of their crappy name: ‘Shadowbolts’ Obviously it’s meant to parallel ‘Wonderbolts’. Same number of syllables, same number of characters, same compound word structure, same ending. That isn’t coincidental.”
“If they chose a parallel name, then they must, on some level, want to be a parallel organization, separate but existing in the same field.”
“But which field is it? The Wonderbolts are two faced, after all. If it’s their public face, then they would be a rival athletic flying group. But if that were the case, then they would want the spotlight. They would want to publicly compete, look for sponsors, and drum up a rivalry for the fans. This hasn’t happened.”
“So it must be their uglier face: military. But that brings up a couple questions. First, how did they know about the Wonderbolts military aspect? I was able to reason it out, but I had you as my handicap. For most other ponies it’s probably a better kept secret. Second, who is backing them? A military is only a military if it has a government, country, or cause to prop them up.”
“There’s two possibilities. First is that a spy for another country or group discovered the military nature of the Wonderbolts, and moved to make a counterpart. The name, then, presents a problem. If the name was something vague, like ‘The Wings of Liberation’, then, if discovered, they could shrug and say ‘Wow, what a coincidence, we both have unethically secret branches of our militaries! Isn’t government grand?’ With a name like ‘Shadowbolt’, it’s explicitly states: ‘We know about you, and we’re willing to fight’. Considering the current geopolitical climate, that’s a suicidal move.”
“So we move to the second: The Shadowbolts know that the Wonderbolts are military because they were founded by defected, defecting Wonderbolts. Losing the crown’s support, they became the only thing a military without a backing can be: aimless mercenaries.”
“So, my guess is that the Wonderbolts recently clashed with these Shadowbolts. Whatever the outcome was, it wasn’t open-and-shut. There’s reason to suggest they’re still active, and the Wonderbolts are becoming more alert in response.” I grin towards Rivet. “What do you think?”
“That’s…more than I know,” Rivet said, “And probably more than I’m supposed to know. Half of what I do know is from overhearing things…” He started shaking.
“It’s alright Rivet” I said. “If it comes up, I’ll just repeat myself: You didn’t tell me anything, that’s exactly why I know.”
