> Putting Out a Hit on Harmony
>  by Wanderling
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: Small Potatoes Gets Dirty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Small Potatoes scowled down at the newspaper clutched in his hooves.

He was a small earth pony stallion, rather scrawny with a coat the dark black-brown of fresh soil. He had a pale yellow mane like the flesh of a potato, and grassy green eyes that were currently narrowed as they roved across the headline. 



 The Canterlot Star

The Guardians of Harmony Save the Day Once Again!
Unprecedented spate of victories against Evil and a slew of redemption arcs sees the Guardians quash a record number of Villains this week!

A small foal possessed by King Sombra's horn, the Ghost of Discord's Pet Eight-Legged-Capybara, and a voyeuristic tower with a giant flaming eye attached to the top of it are but a few among the threats that our fearless heroes have faced up against within the past couple of days.

Their latest escapade, covered here exclusively in the Canterlot Star by our own exceptional reporters, took place near San Franciscolt yesterday morning.  

The events of the day began with a writhing, tentacled leviathan rising from the depths of the ocean and approaching the city's coast. The monster was intent on destruction and mayhem, and bellowed out great strings of unintelligible threats as it drew closer and closer. One of our reporters, Sneaky Shot, was struck with a deep existential terror by the rumbling words of the cephalopodian behemoth, and spent the rest of the day babbling incoherently. 

Luckily for San Franciscolt, the creature was more drawn towards its famous bridge than to the buildings. While the bridge connecting to the city was destroyed in the struggle, nopony ended up seriously injured. 

The Guardians of Harmony arrived on the scene, and had things under control in minutes. The beast was returned to whence it came after a particularly intense hit of what we suspect is a form of mind control employed by the Guardians of Kindness. Mind control, or laser vision.

We managed to locate these incredible ponies shortly after the titanic battle for an on-the-spot interview. 

We asked what the Guardians' leader, Princess Twilight Sparkle, thought might have caused the attack by the eldritch abomination. Her words have been paraphrased by our reporters for simplicity's sake as a lot of the language she used is far too technical for the average reader.

"Bad book."

One of her companions seemed to have been affected by the monstrosity, and spoke in unintelligible gibberish with words and phrases such as "varm'int pap'ar ahtz'ee" and "y'ain't ev'e n'real repo'r'ters arr ya". We are all wishing her a full recovery from her terrible affliction as soon as possible.

We ask our readers now - what is next in store for Equestria's champions? Only time will tell.





Potatoes threw the newspaper down onto his desk with a disgusted snort. How in Equestria was a self-made villain like him supposed to compete with the likes of old, mad gods and creatures from other planes of existence? He glanced at his cutie mark, three greening potatoes, and sighed. 
Things had been so much easier back before Princess Celestia's delinquent little sister had returned from her stint on the Moon and shaken things up. Now, Small Potatoes was competing against the likes of old gods, such as Lord Tirek and Discord. It was almost enough to make him grind his teeth. 

The heroes were a problem, the Guardians of Harmony, they attracted danger. Villains of all shapes and sizes. Even now, he could feel the pull towards Ponyville, the urge to scheme. Small Potatoes didn't want to be some bit-part on the sidelines any longer. No, he wanted to be in the big leagues, to have his name up in the history books next to the likes of the Pony of Shadows and Imhorsetep.

Potatoes glanced around his lair, lips pursing, and a dozen fragments of dastardly schemes flashed through his head. 

His lair was fairly modest, all things considered. Plain magnolia walls, the same colour as the ceiling. A soft beige carpet that felt wonderful on the frogs - some villains chose to make their lairs uncomfortable, but really, if you were going to be spending much time in a place you had to think of the state of your hooves. A filing cabinet to the left. A set of shelves covered in precariously-balanced stacks of paper and a few potato-themed knick-knacks to the right. His desk faced the door, and his back was to a medium-sized window. 

The blinds were drawn against the daylight, however, and the illumination in the room came from a single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Anypony uneducated on the subject might just call it a 'kind of cramped office', but then, they were uneducated. No, he had made certain modifications.

His filing system was in reverse alphabetical order, after all! He allowed himself a self-indulgent grin. There was also his secret escape tunnel, but that was secret.

The grin faded as he looked back towards the newspaper. How on earth was he going to prove himself? It wasn't like he had any special powers - he was but an average earth pony. He had no access to any Dark Artefacts. Why, even for the legitimate side of his potato chip business it wasn't like he was the one who did everything. No, he had ponies for that.

He had... outsourced the work.

Small Potatoes felt his grin return with a vengeance, and he grabbed a blank sheet of paper, a bottle of ink and a quill. 





Small Potatoes looked the pony in front of him up and down.

Dirty Work was a well-built, greyish green pegasus stallion, with a shortly clipped greyish green mane and tail a few shades paler than the hairs in his coat. His fetlock feathers were a little shaggy. Dirty's eyes were bright, turquoise and flickering around constantly to take in any details. His cutie-mark was a white sheet ghost. Upon one's first inspection of him, he would appear to be a perfectly average, rather forgettable sort of pony. Upon a second glance, well, those were apparently rare.

The brown stallion looked back down at the resumé. 

"Your talent is being unnoticed, Mr. Work?" he asked, glancing down at the little ghost on the green stallion's rump.

"Yes, Mr. Potatoes. I'm 'like a spectre in the night', though I do work in daylight as well," said Dirty Work. He pursed his lips. "Depends on the target's routine, ya know."

"My, that is a useful talent for your line of work, Mr Work," Potatoes said, nodding faintly. "Do you have a musical license?"

"What kind of self-respecting assassin do you think I am?" The pegasus' wings fluffed up and his nostrils flared. "Of course I have a musical license."

Potatoes pursed his lips. "What clearance is it?"

Dirty Work smoothed down the feathers of his wings. "Level Four."

Sighing, Potatoes shook his head. "The Ponyville zone is Level Six, so unless you can upgrade it shortly, the only way you'll squeak a villain song through is if any of your members are foals."

"Naw. Guess that option's off the books, but we don't need a song to get the job done," said Dirty Work. He tossed his head a little. "Sometimes it's nice going right to the basics."

Potatoes nodded. "How many members of your team are there, just to double-check that I have the correct information here?"

"Six of us," Dirty said. "I reckon we'll be taking on one target each for a coordinated attack."

"Good, good," said Potatoes. "And they are all willing to participate?"

Dirty Work nodded. "We haven't had the opportunity to go for anypony this high-profile before. You've got some big potatoes, Mr Potatoes."

There was a pause. Small Potatoes raised an eyebrow. Dirty Work's face remained neutral.

"If you know what I mean, Mr Potatoes."

The other eyebrow rose to meet the first. The pegasus coughed into his fetlock and shifted in his seat.

"So, uh, payment. Obviously with targets like these we're going to want something... significant."

Small Potatoes slid a piece of paper across the desk between them. Dirty Work's ears pricked, and he looked down at the number written on it. He didn't react.

"Each," said Potatoes. "Providing that you are successful in your endeavours."

Dirty's eyes widened a little, and he glanced around the admittedly small room. "You sure you have that much? My ponies don't like to be shortchanged, and-" he leaned in over the desk, not exactly looming but close to it. "-they can get quite. Insistent. With their money, Mr Potatoes."

Potatoes squinted. At the very least, his legitimate business was thriving. "I have the money, Mr Work, do you have the skills?"

Dirty narrowed his eyes and sniffed once. "Sure do."

Small Potatoes smiled, showing teeth. "I can give you half now, and half after the deeds are done, if that would reassure you."

"That sounds agreeable," said the pegasus, reaching one hoof over the desk. "I accept your terms."

Potatoes bumped against the offered hoof with his own. "Excellent."





Somewhere in Ponyville, a pronking pink pony shuddered all over and felt a tingle down her spine. One ear flopped, her right foreleg went stiff, and her tail lashed from side to side.

"Ooh," she said, stopping in her tracks. "I haven't felt that one before."
> 1: The Perfectly Pleasant Tea-Party
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy sipped her tea and marvelled slightly that it didn't just go flying off to the right. More accurately, down. Discord had decided to hold their little get-together on the wall today, because the ground was 'boring' and the ceiling was 'getting there'. It was rather early in the morning, but Fluttershy usually had to get up to feed all of her animals, and a tea party for breakfast was just what she needed.

"How have you been, Discord?" Fluttershy asked.

"Simply splendiferous, my dear," Discord said, chewing the crusts off his sandwiches and leaving the middles. "I've recently started a new chaotic project for the good of all Equestria."

"Oh?" Fluttershy asked. She knew that Discord enjoyed it when his friends went prodding for more information.

Discord sighed deeply. "I've been talking to some of those stuffy scholarly ponies at Celestia's school. You know the ones, like Twilight but even more boring. I've been helping them run tests." 

"It sounds like you're putting in a lot of hard work," Fluttershy said, putting her teapot left and reaching for a spoonful of jam to scone. 

"Oh I am," Discord said, putting his lion paw to his head. "Truly it's-"

Discord paused and took his paw off of his face. Fluttershy watched his disgruntled expression and the way his ears twitched to and fro for a few moments. "Discord?" 

"Ah," Discord said, his bushy eyebrows falling into a scowl. "Terribly sorry, Fluttershy, but there is an issue that requires my attention. I shan't be two ticks!" 

"Oh," Fluttershy said, for lack of any other words. "Of course." 

Discord snapped his claws, vanishing. He would be back - it wasn't like Discord to skip out of their tea parties without good reason, after all.





"My, my," Discord said upon materialising in front of an interesting mix of creatures. 

Harry was there, of course, standing up on his hind legs with his arms crossed and a snargly snarl pulling up his lips. If ever there was an ursine-themed shindig thrown by the delightful Pink One in need of a bouncer, Discord would definitely recommend this bear for the job. There was also a family of rather angry-looking weasels, a very aggressive flamingo, and a duck. 

The demon in rabbit flesh was perched on Harry's head, but for once his beady little know-too-much eyes weren't aimed at Discord. No, in fact they were set on the most interesting of the creatures gathered on the path up to Fluttershy's house. A pony.

He was rather large, as ponies went, and a pegasus like Discord's dearest friend. This pegasus, however, did not seem to be of the adorable, sweet-tempered nor kind variety. Not at all. This pony had scars littering the dark orange of his coat, and his dark blue mane was patchy in places where the scars travelled over the back of his neck. Discord had seen his fair share of pony warriors in his time, but this one was giving off quite the most alarming vibes of no-sense-of-humour. 

He was probably here to recruit Fluttershy and her friends for some boring mission somewhere where Discord wasn't going to be. Hrmph. Still, he'd tripped the barrier that Discord had set up around Fluttershy's house to let him know if there were any malevolent intruders wandering around, and so it was worth asking him: What was up with that? 

In all likelihood he'd probably just been startled by the bear and the demon, and reacted like a warrior towards them in picking fight over flight. It had happened before, and Fluttershy had pulled out her big watery eyes (the Stare was ineffectual on him, but by gum the waterworks were not) and convinced Discord to apologise to the mailpony who'd accidentally stepped on a wolf's tail and incited a small brawl. He'd been in a bit of a bad mood that day and might not have reacted to the brawl with the best of intentions... But the mailpony had seemed to forgive him for his trip around the Chaos Plains when he'd pulled him back!

"Goodness me," Discord said. No one there had really reacted when he'd spoken before - the pegasus was sizing up the bear with an iron-willed focus, and the other animals were too used to him to really be surprised by his brand of teleportation by now. "What in Equestria is going on here?"

Finally, the orange pony looked over to him, and Discord had the absolute pleasure of watching his eyes widen and his pupils shrink. Oh ho. If nothing else, still being able to inspire a little bit of awe would be worth the pause on his teatime with Fluttershy. "D-Discord? You're real?"

"Eh," Disord waved his talons around vaguely. "That's not important. No, no, no, what's important here is why you set off my 'bad intentions' alarm."

"Uh," said the pegasus. Hm. Not a very eloquent fellow, was he? "I have... A delivery? For the Guardian of Kindness."

Discord felt red flags fly around inside his brain and made a mental note to clean those up later. The pony in front of him had a delivery? Then where was it, whatever it was? "You're not any of the usual mailponies."

The orange pony began to sweat. That was, as Applejack might say, 'a tell for when somepony was lyin' their Celestia-forsaken hocks off'. "I'm new."

"New," Discord said, re-examining the pony in front of him. A couple of lightning bolts as a cutie mark. Kinda bland. He didn't even try telling a believable lie. "How... Nice. What's your name, little pony?"

The pegasus blinked at him. Was he going to try and give a decent false name, at least? 

"Crash. Crash Sentinel."

"I see." That sounded far too real. Oh, this pony was no fun at all. Something about the name was familiar - ah, probably similar to an actual guard that somepony had mentioned before, perhaps? Maybe they were related. A member of a guard family gone rogue and turned to... What? Mercenary work? That, at least, was dramatic. 

Wait, now just hold on one tick! Mercenary work? Now where exactly had Discord pulled that out from? His cerebral janitor pulled a red flag away from a blinking console. Aha, the analysis of the situation was done! Discord hit the button and a report began to spill from his mouth. He used his paw to hold the piece of paper up so that it was easier to read, and so that he would be able to catch it when it was done. 

The pony was a warrior, but he was doing distinctly un-warriorlike things, such as sneaking up towards... Fluttershy's... House. Discord felt his brows pull down into a scowl and the paper burst into flames in his paw. Mercenaries were hired to do violent things by other ponies. The only pony who lived up this track was Dearest Fluttershy. Therefore, if this extrapolation thing Twilight kept going on about was to be considered, the mercenary was here to do violent things to Fluttershy specifically. 

Clearly, this could not be allowed to happen.

"Uh, so if I could just be on my-"

"What were you really planning to do?" Discord asked, in an admittedly flat sort of voice as he pulled out a clipboard and materialised himself a nice pair of glasses. So what if he sounded a little bored with this situation? He was! He'd much rather have had something like a hydra with laser eyes threatening to rampage, because that would be something fun to watch, rather than this whole pony thing about being polite and letting other ponies have their say and not teleporting them into the Chaos Plains for a few relative centuries. He was already sure that this pony deserved it, of course, but first he'd have to prove-

"Muck, I ain't gonna get this mark, am I?" Crash said. Discord felt one of his eyebrows soaring up in response. Aw, rats, he'd have to fetch that back later. 

Discord looked through the papers on his clipboard. "Hm. Mark. Mark. Nope, no ponies of that name out here. Unless you're meaning mark as in 'target', in which case it seems as though you were approaching the dwelling of my dearest friend Fluttershy. Which, well, is frankly an activity that may not be particularly healthy for you in the long run." 

The stallion gulped. 

"So, if you wouldn't mind telling me how exactly you were going to ruin Fluttershy's - that is, my closest friend's - day, and who sent you to do it, I may be inclined to hand you over to the town's police department," Discord said, snapping the clipboard and glasses away to snake his head forwards and meet Crash's eyes from very close up. "Instead of, you know, taking matters into my own claws." 

For a moment, it looked like the stallion was sufficiently cowed enough to capitulate. Then that spark of stubborn pony defiance flared in his eyes, and he braced himself on the ground. What a bother. 

"I won't talk," Crash Sentinel growled. "You might be the Lord of Chaos, but I will never-"

"Yes, yes, I've heard it all before," Discord waved his hand and snapped his fingers to bring his wandering eyebrow back. He turned to the animals. "Angel, I know we have our differences, but in this instance I believe we share a common goal." 

The fuzzy little demon rubbed his fuzzy little demon paws together, and let out a fuzzy little demon laugh. Crash suddenly seemed to remember the presence of the animals - notably Harry, but in Discord's opinion that wasn't the one to watch for - and his head swung around to stare at them with once-again widening eyes. The weasels were bristling, the flamingo looked ready to kill, and the duck was a duck, so really anything could have been going on in that brain.

Discord and the demon rabbit locked eyes.

"Make him talk," Discord commanded.

For once, the demon named Angel seemed only too happy to obey.





Fluttershy was just wondering if she should help herself to another jam when Discord rematerialised. 

"Oh! You're back!" Fluttershy said, smiling at her friend. Discord didn't smile back. "Oh dear, what's wrong?"

Discord looked off to the side, expression pensive. "I believe this issue may take longer than I thought in order to resolve."

"Goodness, is it anything I can help with?" 

"It's probably best if you stay here," Discord said. "I just apprehended a would-be assassin on his way up to the path here."

Fluttershy covered her mouth with one hoof and gasped. "An assassin? After me?" 

"Yes, it seems like you and your friends have become targets for some nefarious criminal," Discord sniffed. "I must go check on the others. Perhaps, lock your doors and windows until it is safe." 

"Oh, uh, yes," Fluttershy said, feeling her pulse racing. An assassin? Goodness gracious, if Fluttershy's language might be excused.  

Discord's ears twitched. "I believe I will go check on Pinkie Pie first. Stay safe, my dear." 

Fluttershy nodded, and Discord disappeared. Oh dear. She hoped that all of her friends were safe, and that Discord got to them in time. She stared at the remainder of the tea party and felt her appetite leave her. Right. Lock the doors and windows, and wait. She could do that, and then she would be free to fret under her bed.

That sounded like a plan.
> 2: An Apple a Day Keeps the Hitmares at Bay
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Melonie had this in the bag. 
She tossed her frizzy green and pink mane, and she could feel it in her cutie mark. Melonie's special talent was for taking out other earth ponies. The exploding melon on her rump was proof enough of that. She took earth pony magic up to a whole new level. 

The target, the Guardian of Honesty, well she had been working all morning. More than that, Melonie had felt that the Guardian had been channelling a great deal of growing magic into her fields. This was going to be a cakewalk. Rarely had her targets decided to exhaust themselves.

Where unicorn ponies focused all of their magic in their horns, and pegasus ponies had most of theirs in their wings, hooves and eyes, earth ponies were different. Their magic was more diffuse, spread throughout their whole bodies, enhancing their physical traits. The earth ponies who grew things, the ones really in touch with their ancestral roots, so to speak, they could push the magic out of them and into the ground to make it fertile. They could push magic into plants to make them grow faster, bigger, more delicious. 

Even those who didn't grow specifically pressed a little bit of magic out with each step; this was known as the trace. It was an earth pony thing, once used to identify territory back when things were a little more medieval, and now mostly used to track where a pony had been. The fresher the trace, the closer to the surface it was. The older, and the further the magic would sink into the ground until it mingled in with everypony else's.

The really skilled earth ponies like Melonie, now they had one more trick. They could draw magic back out of the ground, and use it to strengthen themselves further. Every pony had a different magical flavour, a part of their essence, and so pulling up the energy that you yourself had left behind was more efficient than taking anypony else's. Family bonds helped, too, magic was strange and almost self-aware like that. If one's family had owned land for a long time, each generation walking upon the earth would add to the pool. It was why more earth ponies living on a piece of land also improved productivity - there was just more magic going in. And there was more to draw on.

True, a lot of earth ponies used this ability subconsciously when under significant enough stress. Being attacked, for instance, tended to cause a draw. Melonie had experience, however, so she knew that attacking this Guardian - an Apple, no less - on her own farm would not be the best idea. No, Melonie was waiting until the farmer started heading into town to make her move. Dirty Work had chosen today of all days because according to his observations, it was the best chance everypony - and griffon - would have to take out their assigned hits.

Melonie giggled and popped a piece of bubblegum in her mouth. She'd draw up a bit of the generic pathway magic and deliver a devastating kick before the Guardian of Honesty even knew what was happening. Melonie could see it all unfolding in her mind now. 

She would stroll up, crossing paths with the Guardian. As they walked past each other, Melonie would end up in her blindspot, and it was then she would strike. She would draw up as much power into her hind legs and let loose one of her patented melon-destroying kicks. Melon in this case, being a crude term for head. She snickered a little more, and trotted away from the spot where she had been discretely watching the farm over the fence. She had to get into position.





Applejack squinted. "I think that pony's moved away from the fence now, Granny."

Granny Smith harrumphed from her rocking-chair just outside the house. "Gosh dern newcomers lurkin' around 'n' starin' all the time. Like that green fella last week! Whatta they after, huh? Cider? It ain't cider season yet, it ain't even Applebuck season, 'less you young'ns've put too much in them trees agin."

"That was one time, Granny, once," Applejack grumbled. "Ya overcharge a coupla trees on yer first ever Applebuckin' and ya never hear the end of it."

"Heeh," Granny Smith laughed. "Yer pappy did the same when he was startin' out. So, ya finished yer fields today already or no?"

Applejack frowned. "Yeah, I've finished, Granny. Now I've jus' gotta load up the last of the summer crop fer the market an' we've got a coupla slow days before Applebuck starts. I don't wanna leave you alone out here in case that pony comes back, though."

"Alone? Ha," Granny Smith rolled her eyes. "Yer brother's jus' over in the south paddock, and Apple Bloom's showin' old Grand Pear that clubhouse of hers. If'n that pony comes back, I'll show 'em how hard an old mare can holler fer her kin, an' how hard she can kick! Git on down to sellin' those last summer apples, ya hear?"

"Yes, Granny," Applejack said, setting off towards the barn where the produce cart was ready to be loaded.





Melonie hid her grin with a large bubble of gum. This was even more perfect! The Guardian was hitched to a cart, so she would be hindered in her movements. They were just in sight of the first true buildings of the town, and Melonie felt that they would be far enough away from the Guardian's territory that she wouldn't be able to draw from it. Sure, there was likely some Apple magic on the pathway, but it wouldn't be so intense. Melonie was used to these encounters, so she knew what to expect.

The Guardian of Honesty approached. Melonie walked, chewing her gum. The Guardian of Honesty stopped. Melonie saw her nostrils dilate, and both orange ears turned her way. Huh.

"G'mornin', stranger," the Guardian said, unsmiling. "Y'know there ain't nothin' much but farmland down this way, you lost?"

Melonie's tail swished. Alright, so the Guardian was chatty. She could deal with that. "Oh, no, I'm visiting a distant cousin. Thank you."

"Yeah?" asked the orange pony, her green eyes narrowing just a bit. "I know most of the folks 'round here. Who's yer cousin?"

Melonie hesitated. There was chattiness - some ponies were just friendly and wanted to know everything - and then there was interrogation. There were no smiles on the Guardian's face, and the orange ears had swivelled backwards. Had Melonie been rumbled? That didn't happen very often. Then again, she was dealing with Honesty here. Did the mare have some sort of lie-detection powers? Melonie weighed her options - try to bluff her way through this, or act with the element of surprise on her side.

It wasn't a hard choice.

The Guardian's eyes widened as she felt Melonie draw. She had barely had time to raise one foreleg to shield her face when the mare with the frizzy mane wheeled about, lashing out with a vicious double kick that shattered the Guardian's leg and caved in the side of her face.

Or at least, it should have done. Instead, Melonie staggered, her hooves feeling like they'd just tried to knock a mountain over. There were marks in the path that showed where the Guardian had been pushed backwards, but she lowered her definitely-not-broken leg and stared at the green pony. What? Melonie shook herself and glared at the Guardian.

"What the muck," she spat, prancing up and down and trying to get some feeling back in her hind hooves. "That should've taken your head off."

"Beggin' yer pardon, stranger," said the Guardian, her eyes now set in an appraising squint. "But did ya jus' say you were tryin' ta kill me?"

Melonie bared her teeth and took another draw from the ground. It must have been a fluke or something. A second go was sure to work.

The Guardian shook her head. She was still attached to the cart. "You don't wanna do that."

Melonie snorted and rushed the Guardian, swinging around for another pair of kicks, but she was met again by an apparent solid wall. What was this pony made of? Melonie backed up, giving the Guardian - lowering her other foreleg -  a little more space. 

"This isn't possible," Melonie growled. "I watched you dumping magic all morning. You shouldn't have any left!"

"That was you," The Guardian scowled. "An' Granny thought you were jus' after some cider. Whatta ya tryin' ta do, make a name fer yerself? It ain't gonna be pretty for ya."

The Guardian had noticed her? Ugh, so maybe the Guardian knew how to draw, and she had boosted herself up on her own land after Melonie had left. That was unfortunate... but out here maybe all she needed to do was get the Guardian to tire herself out again. After a morning of hard work, most of the mare's newly absorbed magic would eventually be going towards mending the physical strain. Melonie, on the other hand was fresh and ready to fight. She just needed some more time...

"No, I don't want anypony to know my name," Melonie said, circling the other pony until she was out of sight, behind the cart. She heard the sounds of the disconnecting harness and continued. "But I have your name and a promise of bits."

"Ah," said the Guardian. "Ya have my name, huh?"

"I have the one that counts, Guardian of Honesty," Melonie sneered as the Guardian came back into her view. The orange mare had set the harness down to the side, but otherwise hadn't moved from her spot in the middle of the road. "It's just business, you know."

The Guardian sighed. "Business an' amoral dealin's, huh? That sounds familiar. Let me guess, ya waited up here fer me ta leave my farm, so I'd not be on my territory no more?"

"Yeah," Melonie said. "Yeah, I did, and now you're here, away from your land. You were up on that farm of yours since the crack of dawn, breaking your back. You must be tired now, after all your hours of toiling. Why not let what magic you've drawn heal your aches and pains and just let the inevitable happen? I promise I'll make this as painless as possible for you."

"Yer kiddin', right?" The Guardian's expression was one of bafflement. "Yer... not kiddin'. Sweet Celestia."

To Melonie's horror, the Guardian began to laugh.

"Y- ya think I'm tired? After a mornin'?" The orange mare wiped a tear from her eye. "I tell ya what, stranger, that ain't half funny. Tired is nearly two weeks non-stop kickin' trees, and I ain't never tryin' that again. A mornin', ha! Ah, sorry, I'm probably ruinin' the mood with you tryin' ta assassinate me an' all."

Two... weeks? Melonie couldn't wrap her head around it. It had to be some sort of exaggeration. She drew a little more power up from the ground and felt it wrap itself into her muscles. 

"Fine," she said. "The hard way."

The Guardian's laughter stopped. "So yer still on that, huh? Okay, if'n ya think it's worth the bits."

"Oh, it's always worth the bits," Melonie smirked, trying to project more confidence that what she was feeling. "And once you and your friends are all dead, I think I'm going to retire to a nice little private island somewhere off of-"

"My friends?"

Melonie faltered at the sudden cold tone in the Guardian's voice. Melonie lifted her head up and puffed out her chest. 

"You didn't think you were the only one being targeted, right?" Melonie asked. "Even as we speak, the rest of my team are likely closing in on the other Guardians. Our client wanted the full set, so to speak."

"Y'know, stranger," the Guardian said, her eyes half-lidded and blank. "I don't think we ever introduced ourselves proper-like. If I'm gonna be assassinated, I wanna know who by."

Melonie's tail lashed, and the Guardian looked up past her, along the path to town.

"Well, if'n yer gonna be that way, I'll go first. Hello, I'm Applejack of the Apple Family, an' I'm from here, Ponyville," Applejack rolled her shoulders. "Funny thing about that, see, it was my great-gran'parents that done settled this town. Princess Celestia herself gave 'em the land they needed to do it. So Sweet Apple Acres was plotted out, an' there it's been. You know what that does fer a pony, huh? Gettin' land from a Princess? Gives 'em a title."

Melonie frowned. Applejack continued.

"'Course, my folks weren't too fussed about all that, so most ponies don't know. I don't like t' spread it around much, 'cause I ain't one fer bein' all hoity-toity like that, but my Granny, see, she's technically the Duchess of Everfree. That big ol' scary forest an' the surroundin' areas, like Ponyville, fer instance. Y'know what that means, stranger?"

Oh. Dirty Work had not done enough research, not in the slightest. Melonie was about to fail a hit for the first time in a long while.

"Eeyup, I can see that ya do," Applejack said. "I am still on my land."

Applejack drew.
> 3: Giggling Sometimes Just Isn't Enough
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cloudy Crosshair was blue. A pleasant periwinkle, to be precise. Her mane was poofy, in more shades of blue, and was pulled back out of her ultramarine eyes with a tight, chunky braid. Her tail was short, only reaching down to her gaskins. On her rump, a blue crosshair symbol had been present since the tender age of nine, when Crosshair had found her parents' collection of Griffonian windrifles unlocked and discovered that she could solve the problem of that one neighbour she had disliked. Permanently. 

Cloudy Crosshair prided herself on being meticulous. Not a single strand of her mane, hair of her coat, nor barb of her feathers would ever be left near her targets. Her preferred method of working was from a distance with her custom-built windrifle. Windrifles involved the compaction of high-speed winds and small hail pellets. Once you pulled the trigger, the compacted wind would be released up the barrel of the rifle, propelling the ice pellet up to lethal speeds, and could only be used by a pony or other being with weather magic who had to recharge the tiny gale and form a new pellet of hail.

Crosshair was quick, efficient, and would normally have been in and out of a town to take somepony down within a few hours. Almost all of her targets had never even so much as seen a glimpse of her bobbed tail.

Unfortunately, there was that one word - almost - and Crosshair had had to add it to her record on this very morning. 

It was still early and the last blushes of the dawn were still tingeing the edge of the sky. The job had seemed simple enough; find the Guardian of Laughter, and kill her. It was a big prestige hit. The Guardians of Harmony ran around Equestria stopping monsters, which frankly, given even what little she knew about these ponies, was laughable. The photograph of the Guardian that Crosshair had been assigned to showed a beaming pink mare with a trio of balloons for a mark. She didn't appear to look particularly special, only as overly pink as Crosshair was blue, and for Celestia's sake the pony was a baker. She was probably just the group's cook during long trips away, riding on the winds of her friends' successes.

At least, that had been what Cloudy Crosshair had initially assumed. 

Bakers got up early. That was a fact. It was expected and predictable. So Crosshair had picked a spot tucked out of the way to give her a view through the window into the kitchen where the Guardian of Laughter resided. She had been told that there were four other ponies living with the Guardian, a married couple who had been apprenticing the Guardian since she was a foal, and their own two infants. For a while, the couple were the only ponies she saw, labouring away to prepare their store's stock under the last shimmering silver of the moon. Crosshair had begun to wonder if her team had picked the one day that her mark might have had the day off. Typical.

Then the pony she had been after had appeared, yawning, and Crosshair had used her sight to get a better look. Pink? Check. Balloon cutie mark? Check. These balloons were about to pop. Crosshair took careful aim at the pink earth pony's head... Then the pink mare had swished her pink tail and ducked. The shattered glass had alerted all three of the ponies in the store, and Crosshair had just about made out a high-pitched sound of curiosity carry across the distance. She had cursed her bad luck and retreated from her position.

Since the first shot, Crosshair had tried five - five - more times to shoot the blasted baker and have done with it. Every time, the mare had ducked, a window had shattered with no results except to draw ever-increasing alarm from the ponies in the bakery, and Cloudy Crosshair had had to move on out of range just to watch for a better opportunity. It was still early, but the blue pegasus knew that there would be more ponies than would strictly be safe to work around fairly soon.
To her annoyance, her target had disappeared from sight. She hadn't left the store - Crosshair was certain of that - but she wasn't visible from any of the windows in the building, nor had been for some time. Crosshair glanced up at the sky, wondering if she ought to contact the chief and hold the plans off for the next day, but she knew her colleagues wouldn't appreciate th-

"Hi!" a very pink-sounding voice piped up to her left. Crosshair dropped her windrifle and fell out of the tree she had been hiding in. She groaned and rubbed her head, looking up to see what in the muck had happened. Above her on the branches was- no. It couldn't be. The Guardian of Laughter was beaming down at her.

"I'm Pinkie Pie," said Pinkie Pie as she hopped down from the tree - the tree, an earth pony in a tree, and a high one - with a sproing. "You must be new here! Are you visiting from out of town? Who are you visiting? Ooh, or are you moving in somewhere? Do you wanna move in but you don't know where to go? Are you on holiday? Oh, looking for a holiday home?"

Crosshair looked on, aghast, as Pinkie Pie drew in her first breath.

"Oh but I'm making assumptions about you and I don't even know your name! What is it? You're really blue, oh! Wait let me guess first is your name Blue... Blue? No, that's silly, um, Blue Sky? Bright Blue? Deep Blue? Blue Planet? Blue Bottle? Electric Bluegaloo? Blueberry? Feelin' Blue? I hope you're not! True Blue? Blue Collar? Blue Moon? Blue Murder? Oh boy, that would be..."

Pinkie Pie trailed off as she noticed the windrifle that Cloudy Crosshair had retrieved and aimed right at her.

"Bad," Pinkie Pie finished. "This is bad."

"For your information, Guardian," Crosshair said as she cocked the windrifle and felt the internal tempest swirl. "It's Cloudy Crosshair."

"Oh bother," said Pinkie Pie, taking a step backwards and giggling even as her eyes darted this way and that. "Not even just a little bit of blue in your name? Oh boy, I wasn't even close to getting it right. So is that cross-hair as in your mane gets angry, or-"

Crosshair said nothing. Pinkie Pie shuddered and pronked to the side just as Crosshair fired her windrifle again. The pink and blue ponies stared at each other.

"Ookay, crosshair as in aiming at a target, gotcha," Pinkie mimed shooting back at the pegasus. "You know what would be nice? If you just put that down, nice and slowly, and we can-"

"What?" Crosshair bared her teeth. "That was point blank."

"I mean, technically," said Pinkie Pie, backing up a little bit more and still putting up a shaky grin. "I'm just about a length away. A length and a half. Point blank would be right up against me. Can we talk about this? Laugh it off over a cuppa joe? I know this great bakery nearby and I can get the employee discount! No?"

Crosshair reloaded her windrifle and aimed again. She saw the pink mare's tail swish and then the ice pellet pass harmlessly over her ducked head.

"No," Pinkie Pie repeated, drooping slightly. "I guess not."

"How!" Crosshair snarled, moving forwards even as Pinkie Pie was backing away again. There was another, smaller tree almost right behind the pink pony now, and she was in danger of walking into it rump-first. "How are you doing that?"

"Er, doing what?" asked Pinkie Pie with an innocent voice. Crosshair couldn't tell if the pink mare was putting it on on purpose or not, which infuriated her. She brought up the windrifle and shot several times in quick succession. The click indicating an empty wind-chamber sounded, and Pinkie Pie was still standing, though not in exactly the same place she had been before. Now she was beside the smaller tree, panting heavily and having ducked or jumped over every single piece of hail.

"That!" Crosshair cried. "Nopony should be able to dodge my rifle. Nopony ever has!"

"Uh, yeah, you see," said Pinkie Pie, suddenly reaching inside a hole in the trunk of the tree she was standing next to with her muzzle. Her next utterance was muffled by what she now held in her mouth. "Ropf emwergenshy!"

"What-" Cloudy Crosshair began, but Pinkie Pie was already twisting her head. A swinging lasso streaked across the short gap between the two ponies and slipped over the pegasus' neck where she had reared back in surprise. Pinkie Pie yanked, tightening the lasso and unbalancing Crosshair before she'd had a chance to get into the air. Crosshair dropped her windrifle for the second time.

The pink pony leapt forwards, looping the rope around Crosshair until her forelegs and wings were tightly bound together.

"Whew," Pinkie Pie said as she'd tied the last knot. She wiped some beads of sweat from her brow with one hoof. "Good thing I've been taking lotsa lasso lessons with Applejack recently."

Crosshair struggled with the bindings, but found no give to them anywhere. She glared at the party pony. "Let me go!"

"And risk you pulling something else out of your mane? No-siree-bob, cob," Pinkie herself tugged at the ropes and gave a little pink pout. "I guess these'll do. You're more uh, what is it Applejack says? 'Trussed up like a turkey for a greedy griffon's gizzard' which might be a little bit speciesist but griffons do do the whole turkey thing for that one holiday they have, and everypony and everybirdy can be a little bit greedy sometimes when it comes to food, I mean, look at me! I eat a lot of cake, and I mean, a lot."

Crosshair stared up at the rambling pony above her.

"I don't know if griffons have gizzards, though. I know that's sort of a bird thing and griffons are sort of part bird but they're also part lion and I don't know if a griffon's digestive system also has the half-and-half thing or what, I should ask Twilight about that."

Pinkie's eyes trailed back down to Cloudy Crosshair, and for a moment she seemed surprised. "I should probably ask Twilight about you, too."

"You mean the Princess of Friendship?" Crosshair gulped. She could only hope that Dirty Work would succeed before this pink pony rolled up and disrupted all their plans. 

"Yeah, but I don't think I can just leave you lying around here, you would not be a pleasant present for somepony to unwrap," said Pinkie Pie, as she looked to the side and saw the fallen windrifle. She looked back at Crosshair. "First of all, I don't think you'll be needing that."

Pinkie Pie hopped away from Crosshair and circled the windrifle. "Huh, this sure does look fancy, but I don't think it's very fun."

She lifted one foreleg, squinted, and then brought down the full force of an earth pony's stomp on the barrel. It buckled under her hoof and Cloudy Crosshair whimpered slightly.

"You'll pay for that, Guardian," she growled, with her ears pinning back and her tail swishing against the ground.

Pinkie Pie didn't reply, instead scooping up the ruined rifle and sticking it into the empty tree hollow. 

"Evidence emergency," she muttered, and then she faced the assassin. "Okay, I'm gonna take you to Twilight. She'll know what to do with you. It's not like I can just throw a 'please stop trying to kill me' party and expect you not to injure anypony."

Cloudy Crosshair found herself being slung onto Pinkie Pie's back and bounced towards the bakery. "Wait, you're a party pony?"

"The premiere party pony in Ponyville, Pinkie Pie, that's me," Pinkie said. Crosshair blinked. Well that certainly explained a few things. Drat, if she'd only known what she had been up against! She would have taken precautions! 

The pink pony stuck her head inside the stable-style door and called out. "Hey! Mr and Mrs Cake! I found out what broke the windows and I need the rest of the day off to deal with it! I'll be at Twilight's if you need me! Thank you!"

"Okay, Pinkie dear!" a mare's voice replied. "You take care!"

"Will do, Mrs Cake," Pinkie Pie bellowed. Crosshair gritted her teeth and wished she could put her hooves over her ears. "Let's go then, Cloudy!"

Pinkie Pie turned from the door, hoisted Crosshair up a bit to rearrange her, and set off towards the castle at a steady pronk. Then there was a thunderous wobble from the ground, and Pinkie Pie stopped dead. 
"Uh oh," she said. She listened. Cloudy Crosshair's own ears twitched, but she couldn't pick anything ot of the ordinary up.

"Should I..." Pinkie turned her head and stared hard in one direction.  "Oh, nevermind, she's fine."

Her head kept turning, turning, until it really shouldn't be turning, until Pinkie Pie was giving Cloudy Crosshair a hard stare. "Are there other ponies like you going after my friends?"

Crosshair didn't reply. She only scowled. Pinkie hmmed and let her neck snap back to where it should be. Her eyes darted side to side, as if she was reading, but there was nothing in front of her.

"I need to find Rainbow Dash..." Pinkie muttered. "But I've still got to put you somewhere, Cloudy."

Crosshair opened her mouth to retort, but she was interrupted by another voice.

"I think I can help you with that one, Pinkie," said the voice from behind. Crosshair saw Pinkie Pie beam and then they were turning to see who it was.

Cloudy Crosshair's jaw dropped, and she let out a little squeak.

There was a monster. A towering creature, long and sinuous, made up of mismatched parts and a furious expression.

"Discord!" Pinkie exclaimed, then her face dropped into panic. "Wait, you should be at Fluttersh-"

Discord held up a paw. "Relax, dear Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy's would-be attacker has been dealt with. He is currently enjoying a lovely view from one of my guest rooms."

Crosshair whimpered. The Guardians of Harmony were friends with the Spirit of Chaos himself? Of course they were.

"Oh good," Pinkie said. "You mind if Cloudy here joins him?"

Cloudy Crosshair barely had time to yelp 'no!' before she found herself in an empty room. Well, not quite empty. Crash Sentinel was there, sitting on the floor, staring out of the window. 

"Crash?" she called out to him, trotted over, had no response. What was he looking at? "Crash can you... hear... me?"

Cloudy Crosshair stared into the swirling, endless void outside, mesmerised...
> 4: Rush Job
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the pegasus passed underneath the ceiling of her bedroom to dust at the shelves, it snapped out to grab her. A vicious, jagged maw of spikes, designed to slice through an unfortunate victim, removing a large chunk in the process. The jaws of the trap snapped shut and it hung there, tightly closed, metal teeth on metal teeth with nothing between them. It had missed by moments. Rainbow Dash had not noticed.

She snorted at the conquered dust on her shelves and left the room. The little poison darts that shot from her bedroom doorframe barely disturbed the air as they flew. They passed harmlessly through her tail, and if Rainbow Dash noticed, she gave no sign. Not a glance back, where she would have seen a few darts sinking into the cloudstuff of her floor. Not even an ear flick in their general direction.

Rainbow Dash was cleaning. While perhaps not her favourite ever task - it hardly came with the thrill of wrestling a tornado, or stooping into a dive to rescue somepony - but it was one she generally set about without complaining. Keeping tidy was important. 
Tidiness started with the self. Now, Rainbow wasn't all that philosophical, and she only had a light grasp on what the word philosophical meant, so self didn't mean some namby-pamby, wishy-washy meditation mumbo-jumbo. It was simply a matter of personal hygiene. 
Flying was Rainbow Dash's true passion. Flying meant using your wings, and using your wings meant keeping them preened. Maintaining glossy and functional feathers meant maintaining one's nest. A nasty environment would simply end up messing up your wings faster. 

This was unacceptable, and so Rainbow Dash cleaned. 

As with all the tasks that Rainbow chose to do, she did it with gusto. She cleaned with intent, using her sharp pegasus sight to eradicate any specks of dirt or debris that might have been littering her home. Dirt wasn't too much of an issue, as she lived a considerable distance above the ground and therefore didn't seen too much of it. Debris could be blown in, of course - dead leaves, bugs, some weird spiky bits of wood today and all of that stuff - and Tank didn't exactly help when he decided to decorate with his vegetables instead of eating them. However, in the world of house-cleaning, Rainbow Dash's true enemy was dust. It came from her, little flaked off bits of skin and hair that had turned against their progenitor. Dust was a betrayal. It was a personal affront to all of her sensibilities and the size of her house didn't exactly help things. Twilight Sparkle or Rarity would likely have sighed at her and muttered hubris, but then Rarity would understand about the dust. It had to go.
Dust was denied entry to this, her own little realm, and if found to be taking residence it would be swiftly eliminated. 

She was so focused on her task that she missed the dark-feathered head of a griffon ducking away from the nearest window as she passed. She missed the glint of steel as a dagger flew past, right where she had been until she'd spotted dust on some of the Wonderbolt memorabillia in the hallway outside her room. She missed the muffled curse from outside at the dagger now lodged in her wall, instead pulling back her lips and baring her teeth at this foul, omnipresent enemy that coated her precious collection. If there was an alicorn of Dust, Rainbow was going to find her and tell her to stop. With her hooves and teeth if she had to.





The griffon himself was, well, not having the best day. Grimoire had arrived, early, and under the cover of night he had laden the Guardian of Loyalty's house with traps. All manner of traps, designed to pierce and rend and skewer and kill. He had not accounted for the fact that the Guardian was so fast. Sure, Dirty Work had mentioned that she was a Wonderbolt, but she was zipping around her home like she was racing herself, leaving prismatic contrails and failed traps in her wake. Who did that? 

There was maybe the falling spike in the kitchen, and the- clunk -nevermind. Just the spike in the kitchen. Grimoire didn't have much hope for that succeeding at this rate. He peered in through the window, half-expecting the speedy little mare to be gawking at him and activating whatever freaky pony friendship powers she had to blast him out of the sky. Nothing. The hall was clear. Grimoire eyed the dagger.

Time was running out. Sooner or later, the Guardian would notice that something was amiss. Grimoire could only thank the alicorns that she hadn't noticed any of the failed traps yet. It was time to buckle down and just do things the old-fashioned way. Not the old-old-fashioned way if he could help it, he'd rather not leave any traces that a griffon had been involved. Grimoire's dagger was nice and non-identifying. His claw-marks would not be.

He looked around the hallway again. No sign of the pegasus, only her weird flying tortoise pet hovering somewhere near the ceiling. He could probably hop in through the window and grab the dagger, right? The snap of something in the kitchen, and a voice lifting in a wordless sound of confusion - not fear, not pain - sent him scrabbling in through the empty pane and into the hallway. He crept forwards, slinking like only something part cat can slink, his dark feathers and darker pelt standing out starkly against the pale whites and blues of the cloud home. The weird flying tortoise looked down at him and rasped a weird tortoise noise.

Grimoire plucked the dagger from the wall and grinned up at the tortoise. He whispered. "Don't worry, lil guy. Once I've taken care of your mistress, I won't leave you all alone. I've heard tortoise is delicious."
Grimoire turned towards the door to the kitchen, poised and waiting for the Guardian to emerge.

This time it was the griffon that didn't notice something crucial - a very slow narrowing of eyes above him.





Rainbow Dash stared at the enormous spike sticking up out of the floor.

"Eh?" she asked it. As it was a stick, it did not have much to say in response. Then her brain allowed her eyes and ears, at last, to send the information they had gathered up into the area of conscious thought, and Rainbow Dash realised that all those weird sounds and spiky sticks she had found today were connected. Connected to this, the very largest, most spiky stick of them all, one that had almost dropped through her head.

Rainbow Dash might not have been the most studious or deepest thinker of her friends, but that didn't mean she couldn't think quickly or add two and two together when she really wanted to. Sticks didn't, generally, hang around too much on clouds. That meant that they had been enchanted to stay. That or they were cloud pine, but Rainbow wasn't exactly an expert on identifying wood. That would be more for somepony like Fluttershy or Applejack, or Twilight after a dendrology binge. Anyway, the point of that was that somepony had put the sticks in her house. 

Rainbow was the self-professed number one fan of Daring Do. She had also been in a number of scrapes with her, and what that experience was telling her, was that these things? They were traps.

Somepony had been in her house and set up traps. Was it Cabelleron? Had he found out where she lived? No, no, Cabelleron would have ponynapped her, and put her somewhere with traps. He wouldn't have set things up here, with no opportunity to gloat. Rainbow mentally scrolled through her list of enemies. None of them seemed likely, not even the ghost of Discord's eight-legged capybara.

A thunking noise from the hallway caught her attention, and her pupils shrank to pinpricks.

"Tank!" she yelped, scrambling across the cloudstuff and bursting through the door into the hallway. "If you hurt my tortoise, so help me Celestia, I'm gonna- oh!"

Rainbow stopped short and sniffed. She looked up at Tank, who seemed smug. She looked down at the unconscious griffon, at the dagger gripped in his talons, and at the rather large welt on the back of his head that could even be seen through his feathers.

"Oh, good boy, Tank," Rainbow Dash said. "I'm gonna get you some strawberries once I... uh."

Rainbow prodded the griffon with one hesitant hoof. "Deal with. This. This guy. I think I've got some rope upstairs I should probably go get."

There was a knock at the door and Rainbow jumped. She looked at the griffon on the ground. What if he had had a friend he was working with? She made her way to the door, but she didn't open it immediately. 

"Who is it?" Rainbow asked the door. The letterbox morphed slightly, now bearing one snaggly fang. It blew a raspberry at her, and Rainbow Dash sighed with relief. She opened the door to Discord. He tipped a top hat to her and then rolled up a pair of sleeves.

"I hear you have an unwanted visitor, Rainbow Dash." He threw the bundled-up sleeves over his back. They bounced off the cloudy steps, once, twice, and then over, but Rainbow didn't watch to see if they dissipated or not.

"I, yeah. How'd you know?" Rainbow moved aside to let Discord in.

"My teaparty with Fluttershy was rather rudely interrupted," Discord sniffed. "And Pinkie Pie didn't need any sugar to wake her up with a windrifle cracking windows left, right and centre. It seems that you Guardians have been targeted."

Rainbow Dash's eyes widened. "All of us?"

Discord shrugged. "Seems so. I'm going to be checking on Rarity next, Pinkie Pie was going to drop in on you but as I am here and I seem to be collecting these miscreants, she decided to let me make sure you were all okay. That and Applejack ran past, so Pinkie had to leave rather hurriedly. I retrieved Applejack's victim from her family, and then I came here."

"Applejack's victim?" Rainbow squinted at the draconequus. He shrugged.

"If you'd seen the state of her you'd understand."

"Huh," said Rainbow. "Right. Mine was a griffon. He tried putting traps up everywhere, but..."

"You remain happily unscathed," finished Discord. "Alright, where is he?"

Rainbow turned and jerked her head, leading Discord to the corridor where the griffon still lay prone.

"That's the guy, what are you gonna do with him?" asked the pegasus.

"My house-" Discord said, picking up the griffon and inspecting him, "-has a guest room with a wonderful view of the Eternal Void that lives nearby."

"Lives?" asked Rainbow, and then she threw up her hooves. "You know what, forget I asked."

"Wise," Discord said with a nod, and the griffon disappeared in a flash. "I will now go see to our resident seamstress and make sure she's still alive."

"Wait," said Rainbow. "What about Twilight?"

Discord tilted his head. "Oh, yes, I suppose there'll be one after dear Princess Snarkle as well. Hm. Why don't you fetch Fluttershy, and I'll meet you at the castle."

Rainbow nodded and leapt out of a window, streaking off towards Fluttershy's cottage.

"And to the screaming I go," sighed Discord, snapping his tail. 

When he arrived at Carousel Boutique, however, he found nopony there at all.

"Oh," he said. "Bother."
> 5: Diamonds Don't Scratch Easy, Darling
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rarity caught the first dart without that much thought. The second and third darts were granted a little twitch of notice, but it wasn't until Rarity realised that she had just caught eight small, sharp, flying projectiles that she deemed it necessary to look up from her sewing and find out why.

A strange pony stood in her room, blinking at her in surprise. Rarity's eyes flicked between her and the darts held in her aura, and then-

A strange pony was in her room! In her house! 

Not only that, but this mare had thrown darts at her. Rarity took a moment to examine the other unicorn, who was lowering some sort of pipe from her mouth and now staring slack-jawed. She was a rather offensive red-orange colour, almost fluorescent, with a bold blue and pink mane. A tiny part of Rarity immediately began trying to find an appropriate colour palette to match that wasn't the plain brown pair of saddlebags sitting across the mare's back. That tiny part began to sob, and Rarity hushed it, because the bigger part of her brain was trying to work out why in Equestria anypony would break into her home and throw darts at her.

"You caught them? What in the muck?"

There was a long pause. Rarity closed her eyes for a second and put down the appliqué that she had been working on.

"Why, exactly, are you in my home," she asked, opening her eyes again. "Flinging darts and expletives at me?"

The orange unicorn frowned. "Guess it'll have to be the hard way."

She took a step forwards, and Rarity glimpsed the knife mark on her rump. Also, the knife that the mare had pulled from her saddlebags. That one was probably the more important of the two.

"Oh, I see," said Rarity. This pony was here to kill her, how inconvenient.

The orange mare grinned. "Sorry, Miss Guardian of Generosity, but I've been paid for this."

Rarity's brow creased into a delicate frown. So that was how things were.

"I," she said. "Do not have time to be assassinated today."

The intruder frowned. "Wh-"

"I," she said, louder now. "Am on a deadline." Rarity brandished the darts at the hired killer, and dropped them into the nearby wastebin.
"Kindly leave."

The strange mare frowned harder. "I don't think you understand how this works."

Rarity sighed. "I suppose I don't have any choice, do I?"

"That's right," said the mare. "Nice and qui-"

"I do hate being so brutish, but desperate times call for desperate measures." Rarity's horn began to glow. The other unicorn was stopped in her tracks as her hooves were encased by Rarity's sparkling blue aura. 

"Ugh, you think this is going to stop me?" The orange mare pulled a face, and lifted the knife in her own pinkish telekinesis, aiming it at Rarity. A spot of blue aura suddenly drew towards her, something silvery within it. The stranger froze when she realised what it was and just how close it was getting to her eye. She dropped the knife.

"No." Rarity's expression went flat as she caught the weapon and set it gently down on her workbench. Dozens more needles and pins were now floating in the air, surrounding the interloper. Her bright pink eyes fixed on Rarity's blue ones.

"But these might."

"Needles?" The stranger drew herself up, but there was a distinct quaver in her voice, and Rarity knew that she had her. "Needles don't scare me."

Rarity sniffed. "And pins, darling. There is a vast difference between the two."

The stranger bared her teeth. "You're a fashion designer. You don't have the stomach to do anything."

"No?" Rarity asked. She narrowed her eyes.

She focused the magical grip on one of the strange mare's forehooves increase, bending the hock to turn the frog up to the air like a farrier or a spa pony might in order to tend to the hoof. Unlike a farrier or spa pony, however, Rarity's intentions had nothing to do with hoof care.

Rarity jabbed one needle into the other mare's soft and tender frog. 

The mare yelped in pain and tried to tug herself out of Rarity's grip, but Rarity squeezed at the tendons and the stranger stopped struggling very quickly. She turned her gaze back to Rarity, and now her eyes were wider and warier. 

"Now, if you will, consider very carefully what else I can do with but a single one of these needles. Or pins. Your eyes would not take much to pierce, Neither your tongue nor ears. I could find things deeper to puncture - lungs, oesophagus, magiperae, stomach, kidneys, gall bladder, caecum. There are so many things one needs to survive that are so easily... ruptured. Or I could remain at the surface where things are less, hm, messy," said the white unicorn. "You see, Miss, ah?"

"Berry Blade," the assassin said meekly.

Rarity nodded. "Miss Berry Blade. I have a rather wide range of hobbies, along with my dressmaking business. Primarily among those, I rather enjoy martial arts for keeping my waistline trim and my muscles toned. I enjoy visiting the spa because it keeps me relaxed. I have recently begun requesting the services of their acupuncturist, and we have had several delightful discussions about pressure points. Thus, I think you can grasp that I am rather clued up, as I believe the saying goes, about the anatomy of a pony, what she requires to function adequately, and where exactly I can impede that function with but a single pin. Is that quite clear?"

"Y-yes ma'am," said Berry Blade. "Very clear, ma'am."

"Good." The array of small sharp pointy things was joined by the darts, and Rarity watched Berry Blade's pupils shrink. "These darts... are they poisoned, Miss Berry Blade?"

Berry Blade nodded, barely. "Yes. It's- it's a conotoxin. You're paralysed and unconscious within seconds. Dead in a few more."

"Hm, well I certainly don't want Sweetie Belle getting at these. I shall bring them along with us, so be very well-behaved," said Rarity, loosening her grip on Berry Blade's hooves. The knife she could simply place on a high shelf - Sweetie was at least sensible enough to know not to play with blades unattended. "Turn around. We will take a walk and see what Princess Twilight Sparkle has to say about this attempt on my life. Yes, on your frog. I dare say it serves you right."

Berry Blade grimaced as she walked on her pricked frog, but Rarity was pleased to see that she wasn't trying to drop the pace Rarity has decided to set as they made their way through Carousel Boutique and out of the door.

Rarity tossed her mane and huffed as she cast one glance back at the rack of finished dresses from her latest commission. Oh, she still had so much more to do! "You know, my client shall not be happy about this delay on my work, Miss Berry Blade, but I'm sure she'll make an exemption for an assassination attempt. If not? I hope that you will be expected to pay for any of my lost revenue in addition to whatever your sentence for hiring yourself out as a murderer is."

"Uh, sure."

A blur of motion caught Rarity's eye, and she spotted Applejack and Pinkie Pie moving at quite a clip a little way off. Ah. So something was afoot in Ponyville? Perhaps Berry Blade was not working alone...

"Enough chatter," Rarity told her would-be assassin. "It's time for us to run."
> 6: Doomed From the Start
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack raised an eyebrow at Rarity as the unicorn fell into stride with her and Pinkie Pie.

"You, uh, got a few somethin's in yer magic there."

Rarity raised her eyebrow in return. "Ah, yes, an assortment of my finest steel stitching needles, and a few fun little items I'm told are deadly poisonous blow-darts."

"An' I'm guessin' they have somethin' to do with the unicorn?" asked Applejack, as an orange-red unicorn with a frantic expression and a slight limp was keeping up with them, followed by the cloud of deadly sewing implements. Pinkie waved at her.

Rarity grinned and hopped daintily over a rock in the path. "You would be correct. This is Berry Blade, and she attempted to kill me just now. I'm guessing from the urgency of our pace and the disarray of your mane that you had something similar occur?"

"Yup! It's assassination central, today," Pinkie chirped. Well that was one way of putting it.

Applejack rolled her eyes, and sidestepped one of the townsponies as she ran. "I didn't have time to brush after I knocked my 'guest' out."

"Oh no, darling, quite right," said Rarity. "But once we reach where I assume we're both headed to discuss this matter, I insist upon a spell at the spa to fix you. Perhaps a session for everypony."

Applejack opened her mouth to respond, but instead of words, a long, sinuous body began to flow from her mouth. Applejack stopped in her tracks, coughing and spluttering. Discord curled upwards, regained his customary size, and began to float above them with a furious scowl on his face. 

"Well," he said, pointing at Rarity. "I was on my way to rescue you from mortal peril, and you weren't even at the Boutique! How am I supposed to keep my friends safe if they keep disap- Oh. Hello."

Discord eyed Berry Blade with a squint. "Ah, not such a damsel as I had feared."

"Discord! Please, do not ever use that method of arrival again!" Rarity said, stomping her hoof, as Applejack was busy retching. "It's so icky."

"Fine." Discord said, pouting. "None of you ponies appreciate the efforts I go through to make my entrances anyw-"

"Hey, do you know what in the hay is goin' on?" Applejack asked, trying to forget the taste of draconequus. "What's with all the hitmares?"

"It seems that somepony has it out for you girls," Discord said. "I've sent Rainbow to Fluttershy, and taken care of both of their attackers."

"You got mine, too!" Pinkie said, and Discord nodded.

"I was more worried earlier, but half of you seemed to have been able to knock these villain out without any intervention," Discord said. "Applejack, I saw your work, and I'm a big fan." 

Applejack grinned.

"Unconscious?" Rarity frowned and prodded the other unicorn towards Discord. "No, no, mine is still awake. Say hello, Berry Blade."

"Hello," said Berry Blade. "Please don't go after my eyeballs again."

Everyone blinked. Rarity trilled a little laugh. Everyone leaned away from Rarity.

Applejack coughed again. Was there still fur in her throat? It felt like there was fur in her throat. Wait a second. "Okay, so, if we all got assassins after us, don't that mean that Twilight's in danger too?" 

Rarity's eyes widened for a moment before she nodded with pursed lips, and Pinkie's face screwed up.

"We need to get there now," Pinkie said, taking off again. Applejack could tell that her honourary cousin was really worried, because she was galloping instead of pronking. Applejack wasted no time in taking off after her.

"Ah, would you be a dear and bring along Berry and those other mares with you?" Applejack heard Rarity say. She glanced back to see Rarity push the luridly-coloured unicorn into one of Discord's empty paws and summon a pincushion for her needles and the darts. Discord's head tilted backwards and he raised a furry eyebrow.

Rarity leant back in towards Berry Blade. "If you try to escape the Lord of Chaos, he'll probably trap you in another dimension. A dimension full of needles. Just so we're clear about what happens should you go getting any ideas."

"Crystal." Berry squeaked.

Rarity nodded once, and then set off in hot pursuit towards her earth pony friends. "Thank you, Discord!"

The draconequus looked down at the quivering mare in his paw. "I suddenly feel terribly afraid of Rarity. What a peculiar feeling. Still, I suppose my enormously powerful magical talents will make this a snap."

He cracked his tail like a whip and the road was finally empty.





As soon as they hit the front door, Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie split off into different directions. 

Rarity cantered down the East hallway, pincushion floating behind her, and she used her aura to fling open the doors as she went. She reached a corner, skidding a little as she turned, and struck gold behind the third door when it opened onto the castle library. Starlight Glimmer was dozing at one of the desks, her head resting on the pages.

Rarity clattered into the room, whipping the book out from underneath Starlight's head. The other unicorn jumped up, horn igniting, and then let the aura drop once she'd squinted to see who it was. 

"Rarity? What are you- Are those needles?" Starlight looked between Rarity and the pin-cushion in confusion. "Is this a sewing emergenc-"

"No, Starlight!" Rarity cried, spinning around on her hindquarters and making towards the door again. "Quickly, Twilight is in danger!"

"Danger?" Starlight's pupils contracted to pinpricks, and she scrambled after the white mare. "What could possibly-"

"Where is she, this time of day?" Rarity continued to fling the doors open as she passed them.

Starlight huffed as she caught up to Rarity. "Probably reading in the throne room? But what sort of thing could ever-"

"Then that's where we shall go!" Rarity called, and swerved down another corridor. "There are ponies here trying to kill us!"

"WHAT?" Starlight yelped, her stride faltering, but Rarity didn't have time to slow down and explain things further.





Pinkie Pie took the West, mostly, and bounced from room to room. 

"Twiiiiiliiiiiiiight!" she called, peering underneath tables, behind bulky furniture, and into one rather steamy bathroom. 

A yelp replied to her most recent call, and Pinkie Pie found Spike, clutching a towel around his waist. He was just twisting the tap to stop the water running into the enormous and mostly-filled tub. Pinkie eyed the bubbles and privately lamented for them. That bath could easily fit three ponies or more. How she envied that bath. How she wanted to- no, Pinkie, stay on track. Spike glared at her.

"Pinkie Pie! You can't just barge in on somedragon while they're in the-" He stopped as one pink hoof was put gently over his mouth.

Pinkie leaned in to stare Spike directly in the eyes. "There's no time to play around with bizarre nonsensical social etiquette in our primarily nude society, Spike! Twilight is in danger!" 

"What?" cried Spike, hastily dropping his towel to the floor and giving his bath a wistful look. "Danger from what?"

Pinkie was already turning to head back out of the door. "Assassins and intrigue, Spike! Where's Twilight?"

"Assassins?" Spike's voice rose about an octave, and he started towards Pinkie with more urgency. "Uh, uh, in the throne room!"

Pinkie pulled Spike up onto her withers. "Then let's bounce this bathroom and throwdown at the throne room!"

The pony and the dragon sped off, Pinkie's hooves clattering over the crystalline floor as she made her way along the corridors at top speed.





Applejack had, by chance or intuition, headed straight for the throne room in the helter-skelter confusion of panic that had gripped her and her friends as they had entered the castle. This meant that when she burst in through the door, gasping for breath and eyes wide looking for Twilight, she was both right on time and in the prime position to see a tall grey-green pegasus looming over the Princess of Friendship.

To see him plunging a dagger into Twilight Sparkle's chest.





Twilight had been having a pleasant day so far. She had a hot cup of tea to one side, a tall stack of books about the intersection of thaumatology and quantum theory to the other, and several hours of undisturbed peace to last most of the rest of the day. Spike was due for one of his seven hour bubblebaths, and Starlight was studying her own project in the library. Her princess duties had either been completed for the day or postponed, and she had made no plans to meet up with her friends. They were all busy with things themselves.

Twilight wondered briefly how Rarity's last-minute dresses were going, if Pinkie had spared enough cakes from 'taste-testing' to pull off her latest party arrangements, and if Applejack was overly stressed prepping for the bumper crop that Applebuck Season had promised this year. Twilight sipped her tea, a blend she had been gifted by Princess Luna, and then turned a page in her current book. 

Riveted by the devision of opinions from the scholars Professor P. Orbital and Professor M. Spectroscopy on whether or not unicorn magic violated the laws of thermodynamics or not - though Twilight was leaning towards her own ideas about interplanar energy siphons it was still interesting to see other ponies' perspectives - she didn't hear the door handle click open. Nor did she hear the door itself glide smoothly over the crystalline floor, inwards and then outwards, or the second click as the door closed. She didn't hear the quiet wingbeats that drew towards her, and while a vague shouting from somewhere else in the castle made her ears flicker, she didn't look up.

She did look up, however, when a shadow fell across her page. There was a strange pegasus standing upon the table above her, and she barely had time to squawk in surprise before he'd leapt and stuck one hoof across her muzzle. Twilight vaguely heard the doors behind her burst open, but then there was a frightful, awful pain in her chest. 

The stallion leapt back, and she heard Applejack's cry of anguish before she slumped over in her chair. She grabbed at her chest and found the dagger's handle. Oh, she thought. I've been stabbed.

It was, quite frankly, mucking painful.

Twilight gasped for breath, wondering when she would lose consciousness. Any time now. The stallion had gone with a bit of slash to his strike so it wasn't like the dagger was keeping all of her blood inside her, and she was pretty sure the blade had got into her lung.

"Twilight!" Applejack was at her side, pulling her off the throne and laying her down on her side. The orange mare seemed to be crying as she cradled the alicorn's head, and hot splashes of her tears dripped down onto Twilight's neck. "It's okay, Twilight, yer gonna be okay."

Twilight had been stabbed, and she wasn't sure if Applejack was being totally honest with her. 

More hooves clattered somewhere behind her, and she heard an assortment of gasps and shouts. She didn't hear Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy. Here she was, bleeding out on the floor, and a quarter of her closest friends weren't even here. It was rude.

"Oh you festering pile of manure, you're going to pay for this!" A bolt of turquoise magic flew across the room towards the green pegasus. Ah, that was Starlight. The stallion dodged, and Rarity held out one hoof. 

"Ah, Starlight Glimmer, don't waste your aura on the likes of him." Rarity growled. "Allow me."

Twilight was rather amazed that she was still hearing all of this. She would have expected to have passed out by now, either from a lack of oxygen, or blood. Maybe she already had, and this was an out-of-body experience? She flexed one leg to check. Nope, that was still her leg, and it was still moving when she wanted it to. Twilight could feel her blood seeping into her fur. It was warm and wet and kind of gross. And the pain of the blade was still there, still horribly present. Apart from that... She wiggled her leg again.

"No, Twi, don't move," said Applejack. "Ya don't wanna make it worse."

Blue light flared and several small silvery things flew through the air above Twilight's head.

"Applejack," said Twilight. "How much blood have I lost so far?"

Applejack gulped. "T-too much, Twi. Jus' try an' stay calm."

"I am calm," said Twilight. "I just don't know why I'm still conscious."

Applejack stared at her. Rarity and Starlight, each wielding several pins and needles, walked toward the door with the green pegasus in front of them. He was trying very hard not to blink with what looked like a poison dart very close to his face. Rarity murmured something to Pinkie and Spike, and then the two unicorns were out into the hallway with the assassin. All Twilight could hear were their gradually quieting hoofsteps.

"I'm not even feeling dizzy. Shouldn't I have gone into hypovolemic shock by now?" Twilight asked, pedalling her forelegs and squinting at her chest. "The only thing that's bothering me is this Tartarus-forsaken dagger."

"Ya cain't take it out!" Applejack said quickly, and batted away Twilight's reaching hooves. "That's stabbin' injury one-oh-one."

"It hurts, Applejack," whined Twilight. The orange mare sighed. 

"I know, sugarcube."

Pinkie Pie walked over to them, picking her way around the growing pool of blood with subdued movements. Spike, sitting on her back, looked down at Twilight with wide, watery eyes. He wrang his fingers together and gulped. 

"Is she going to make it?" he asked, voice wavering.

Alright, that was it. Twilight scowled and lit her horn, tugging the knife from her chest with a short burst of aura before Applejack could stop her again. It clattered to the floor, and both the earth pony mares and the dragon looked aghast as Twilight struggled to get her feet underneath her. Blood and crystal made for quite a slippery surface. Applejack backed away as Twilight beat her wings a little to right herself properly, and then Twilight was standing. Maybe wheezing a little from the effort, but she certainly wasn't trembling all over like she had expected. 
Now that the knife was gone, she felt fine.

"Yes," Twilight Sparkle decided. "I am."

Ignoring her friends' gawking, she turned towards the table and grabbed her teacup with her aura. She downed it. Actually, no, she wasn't fine. She turned back to her friends.

"Pinkie," she said. "Bring me the fridge."

"Um," said Pinkie Pie, glancing at Spike and Applejack. "Your fridge?"

"Yes," said Twilight, putting one hoof to her chest, over the ragged wound there. Okay, that was a little tender. She grimaced. "I'm starving." 





Rainbow zoomed into the castle, even dragging along the rather less aerodynamic Fluttershy along with her. She sniffed the air, scanned the hall with quick eyes, and zipped towards the throne room. The pair found the doors already open, and Rainbow Dash at last released Fluttershy from her grip, as her hooves had dropped along with her jaw.

"...Oh my goodness."

Fluttershy gasped as the pegasus ponies took in the scene. There was... blood. A whole dang lot of it, and a bloody dagger sat in the middle of the largest pool. It was mostly all over the floor, but there was a fair amount on the seat of Twilight's throne. The pony in question was sitting against one of the walls, her lavender coat stained rusty from her chest down and all over her left side, as if she'd been lying in the pool of blood. Applejack was next to her on the left, looking a little shell-shocked, with the fur on her forelegs almost as stained as Twilight. 

Pinkie Pie and Spike stood to Twilight's right side, reading a piece of parchment that bore the Solar Seal. Twilight had a square paper bag clutched between her hooves, and every few moments she would levitate some of the contents into her mouth. There was a pile of food packaging and an empty fridge just beyond Applejack, for some reason.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy landed - well clear of the congealing smears of blood - and practically cantered to get around to the others.

"What happened?" Fluttershy asked, staring between the blood on the floor and the bloodstained ponies.

"I got stabbed," Twilight said, and beamed at the two new arrivals. Fluttershy put her hooves to her mouth in horror, and Rainbow Dash glanced down at the bag Twilight was holding. It was... brown sugar? Twilight lifted another lump of it into her mouth. She seemed to swill the sugar around her mouth before swallowing it. "But I'm alright now."

"Turns out it's basically impossible to kill an alicorn," said Spike, brandishing the parchment. "I sent a letter to Princess Celestia once the panic was over and Twilight had cleared out half the pantry. So long as Twilight gets to eat enough, her body can repair the damage. The Princess is gonna send some ponies to pick the assassins up, too."

"See?" said Twilight, using her hooves to pull back her fur and expose the fleshy line of what really ought to be a week-old scar on her skin. "Magic healing, who knew?"

Applejack shook her head a few times. "Scared me half ta death."

"Huh," said Rainbow. "Discord popped up on our way here to say he has all the assassins at the moment. He said he was gonna come back for the last one to keep them 'safe' until the guards get here. Where's the pony who stabbed you?"

"Rarity and Starlight have him," said Pinkie. "I let them know Twilight was okay already."

Rainbow Dash thought about that for a few moments. "Sucks to be that guy."

As Pinkie nodded her agreement, Fluttershy walked up closer to Twilight and Applejack. "Are you sure you're not hurting, Twilight?"

"Not anymore," Twilight shrugged and ate another lump of sugar. "I think I might join Applejack in emotional shock once Celestia's ponies get here and wrap things up, though."

Applejack gave her friend a sage nod. "We could get some therapy together or somethin'. Please don't let me see ya get stabbed again, Twi."

"Absolutely, Applejack," said Twilight. "Next time I'll try to give you a heads up so you can stay at home."

The two began to giggle, and Fluttershy pursed her lips. "I think you are in emotional shock, Twilight."

The alicorn shrugged and continued to snicker.

"Aw, laughing helps," said Pinkie. "Take it from an expert."

"To quote one of Rarity's favourite words, however," said Twilight as she raised one hoof. "I am feeling rather icky. The blood is drying and I don't like it." 

"Oh," Spike said. "My bath, Twilight. I'd just finished running it and it still ought to be warm. Why don't you-"

Twilight was already on her feet, the half-eaten bag of sugar and another back-up held in her aura. Applejack, too, found herself floating in magenta.

"What in blue blazes, Twilight?" she asked with a weary tone.

"You are also icky. So bath," said Twilight, trotting for the door. "Bath and crying, I think."

Applejack sighed again. "'Kay."

Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Spike watched as Twilight's navy blue but blood-clogged tail whipped around the door and out of sight. 

A popping noise above the table drew all of their attentions, and Discord floated in the air, looking down at the mess with a wrinkled nose.

"Golly," he said. "What'd I miss?"
> Epilogue: Small Potatoes Goes to Ground
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

If all things were to be said and done, Dirty Work would have admitted that it was a relief to be handed over to the Guard. The two unicorn mares that had escorted him from the throne room had frankly rather terrified him. The white one had explained exactly how one of her deftly moved needles could kill him in a variety of creative and painful ways. The pink one had interjected at various points to explain how she could achieve similar effects magically. Then there were Berry Blade's darts being waved all over the place. Dirty didn't know if his unicorn underling was even still alive, which was a little disheartening.

By the way the white mare's blue eyes were flashing, that confrontation had likely not gone well for poor Berry. Given the presence of the pink and orange earth ponies as well, he was inclined to assume that Cloudy Crosshair and Melonie had also fallen afoul of the Guardians' skills. The lack of pegasi meant nothing, but he had hoped that Grimoire and Crash Sentinel had found their targets more agreeably killable. 

The pink earth pony had bounced into the room at one point, carrying of all things, a fridge. She had told the unicorns that the Princess was still alive and not to worry too much. Dirty Work had been rather skeptical of that, but the pink pony was grinning with a radiant look that he was pretty sure couldn't be faked by anypony mourning a friend. Apparently the Princess just wanted to eat and then would have the dragon send a letter to the other Princesses, and at that point Dirty had decided that he wasn't going to get out of this one.

Then there had been Discord. The less spoken about that particular experience, the better, but he had found out that exactly none of his team had succeeded either.

So it was that when a small contingent of guardsponies arrived - some in the armour of the Crystal Empire - he found himself relaxing somewhat under the quiet scrutiny of a tall, muscled unicorn with a dark blue mane and a white coat. The absence of a wall of glittering needles was of great benefit to his state of mind, although the pony who had held it up was still staring daggers at him from the door of the castle. 

All six of the Guardians of Friendship were there, crowded in tight around the now much cleaner Princess Twilight Sparkle, and none of them looked particularly friendly. The other scary unicorn, the baby dragon, and Equestria's only draconequus were also present, and also glaring.

The white unicorn from the Guard surveyed the rest of Dirty Work's crew. They had all been hobbled. Dirty, Crosshair, Crash and Grimoire had all had their wings bound, and Grimoire had also had his claws capped and his beak wrapped. Berry had the base of her horn fitted with an aura disruptor. They weren't going anywhere.

The unicorn returned his stare to Dirty Work. That was when the green pegasus noticed the stallion's cutie mark and the rather familiar star shape on the shield. At that moment, Dirty would say later to his dungeon-mates, he could have sworn he could feel his glands pouring the stress hormones into his blood vessels. He had gulped. 

Dirty Work thought about the part of the contract with Small Potatoes that indicated he was to keep his mouth shut about who hired him. He weighed it up in his mind. Mentally tore it in two.





Shining Armor looked around the dingy little office with his lip peeled back in disgust. Some tacky potato-shaped ornaments were standing on a set of shelves to the left of where he had flung open the door with a blast of magenta aura. Some of the solanius tat had fallen over, one or two had fallen to the floor, but Shining's eyes were drawn towards the ones still standing. 

His crashing entrance into the mostly empty room hadn't been enough to knock over those potato-shaped knick-knacks.

Small Potatoes wasn't there, but the receptionist at the desk said that she hadn't seen him leave - nor had she had any idea that the boss of an otherwise well-respected crisp-producing company moonlighted as a villain.

The pair of armored guards behind Shining Armor - one in Princess Celestia's royal gold, and one in his wife's glittering blue crystal - stepped gingerly after the now irate white stallion. Shining squinted at the ornaments and reached out his aura to tug. Sure enough, one of the small sculptures - a crudely carved mare draped alluringly over a potato - didn't smash to the floor. Instead, Shining found that it twisted with a click.

He cursed as a panel in the plush floor twinkled and faded, revealing an opening. Shining Armor's tail lashed as he stared down into the hole. It was a tunnel. The walls were tiled in slick black squares of glass, and as Shining cast a light down the opening, he could see that the floor of the tunnel was dark, hard-packed dirt. From the way his light threw shadows against the polished walls, Shining reckoned that the tunnel branched in several directions. He cursed again.

Shining looked up at the guard in blue. "Get the tracking team up here. He's gone to ground."

The guard rushed off in a flurry of feathers, not having enough space to really take off in a corridor built for groundbound ponies, but using what beats he could manage to speed up his galloping steps. There wasn't much point in hurrying now - Shining had a gut feeling that the pony who had tried to have his sister killed had gotten away. 

The hard earth below wouldn't have caught any of Small Potatoes' hoofprints, but Shining Armor had enough approximate knowledge to know that the floor of the escape tunnels had been left uncovered for a reason. To draw magic from the ground as he ran and increase his speed and endurance. Hopefully the earth ponies of the tracking team could tell which direction the villain had taken by reading his trace. 

Shining cursed once more.





"Sorry I'm late," said Fluttershy, slipping into the hot water. "I had to convince Angel and Harry to wait outside for me. The poor dears are still worried about letting me go off on my own."

"Oh no, darling, you're only just a few minutes out from all the rest of us," said Rarity, cracking open one of her eyes. "We've all been dealing with clingy families since the incidents, as it were."

Fluttershy smiled. "Well I'm glad you finally finished your dresses. Any longer and I might have just booked myself in at the spa!"

Fluttershy giggled and put a hoof over her mouth. Rarity let out a mild snort.

"Anyway," Fluttershy said, stretching her wings beneath the surface of the giant tub and turning towards Twilight. "How've you been?"

Twilight was leaning with her head on the rim of the tub, the rest of her body mostly underwater. "Well, it's only been two days and already you can barely tell anything happened to my chest. Alicorn self-healing magic is fascinating." 

"That's great! But I meant, um," Fluttershy wrung her hooves. "Mentally?"

"Oh, that," Twilight sat up and water streamed from her mane. "I've been a little jumpy, I guess? But now I know I can't really die... I'm more concerned that that assassin pony was in the castle where Spike and Starlight were, and that all those other ponies went after you girls. It's been worrying me."

Twilight bit her lip. "Who's to say somepony won't follow Small Potatoes' example? What if he tries again? What if-"

Pinkie Pie stuck her hoof into Twilight's mouth. "The spa is for letting all your brain wobblies melt away, Twilight. You can panic about that afterwards and then come up with some super-smart solution. Stop stewing on the scary things and stew yourself here."

"Mm, quite," murmured Rarity, who had shut her eyes again.

"Don't you think talking about these things will help, though?" Fluttershy asked, frowning slightly and touching one hoof to her chest.

"Talking? Yepperdoodle," Pinkie said. "Letting the wobblies take over? Uh-uh, no way, po-neigh."

"Okay," said Twilight, taking in a deep breath. "No brain wobblies."

"What about the rest of you?" Fluttershy asked, turning her head to look over all of her friends with wide eyes. "I didn't know anything had happened until Discord said he'd caught somepony, but you all had to deal with these ponies yourselves."

Fluttershy closed her eyes and shuddered. "I just couldn't imagine it."

"Well for starters," Rainbow stuck one hoof up with a ripple of water. "My assassin was a griffon, and he wasn't very good at it. Tank knocked him out, and his traps? I didn't notice them until like, the last one, but they were like, meh. I've been trapped in better. You remember the slime pit in Somnambula, Pinkie? Way better, and I was just blindfolded and tied to a statue."

"A statue that was sinking into hot, bubbling, lime-flavoured slime, Rainbow," Pinkie said. "In a room where pegasus magic had been nullified so you couldn't just fly out. It was a bit of a sticky situation."

"Yeah, yeah, point is that the griffon who came after me wasn't that scary," The pegasus pony stretched her wings up out of the water, and then folded them back down again. "I mean, flying in to see Twilight all shaken up and a giant pool of blood like that? Yeah, that wasn't cool. But me? I'm fine, Fluttershy."

Rainbow stopped, blinked, and then turned to Pinkie. "What do you mean lime-flavoured?"

Pinkie shrugged. "Somnambula's blindfold tasted kinda limey when I found it."

Rainbow frowned, sighed and leant back to submerge herself a little more. 

Pinkie reached over to boop Fluttershy on the nose. "I got a little spooked 'cause my meanie-mare could've hit Mr and Mrs Cake by accident. Or the twins! But my Pinkie-sense has got my back. Tingling spine, left ear flop, stiff right leg and swishy-swashy tail means a hitpony was hired to pop my balloons permanently, so I can let you all know if it happens again."

Twilight tilted her head. "You can feel that? That's- that's useful, Pinkie Pie."

"Ah, put your thinky-face away, Twilight!" Pinkie scolded the alicorn. "Thinky-face leads to thinky-frights and those pesky brain wobblies."

Twilight pouted. "Fine, but I want to ask you about it after the spa."

"Sure!" Pinkie chirped, and then nudged Rarity in the ribs. "Hey, Fluttershy wants to know if you've been horribly traumatised."

"I don't-" began Fluttershy, but she was interrupted by Rarity's scoff.

"Traumatised? No. Offended? Completely," Rarity tossed her damp mane and stuck her muzzle up. "I was considered the most powerful unicorn in Ponyville until Twilight showed up - no no, do not apologise, darling, I absolutely did not mind being upstaged in that particular area - and I cannot believe that they underestimated me so dreadfully. It's like they saw 'fashion designer' on my resumé and read no further. I'm not saying I would have wanted them to try harder to kill me, but, well. I suppose I am just a little bit vain."

Rarity brought her nose down and stared into the middle distance. Her gaze went hard. "I'm more worried about how much I enjoyed myself when I saw that mare realise that she was the one in danger. I'm afraid I rather relished it. I went into some rather disturbing details about the damage I could do with but one of my sewing needles, and I watched the look in her eyes as I brought out my entire stock of them with... pleasure. And then I did it a second time with that green fellow."

"Oh my," Fluttershy said, bringing both hooves to her mouth. 

"Quite," Rarity agreed. "I am currently arranging some things to see a therapist about it. If any of you girls would like me to put you in touch with the ponies I've been speaking to I can provide their details."

"I might take you up on that," Applejack said. She'd been pretty quiet so far. "I ain't been sleepin' right since it went down. It ain't that my hitmare was all that scary, I mashed her up pretty good after all. But seein' Twilight get got an' thinkin' she was gonna..."

Twilight reached out with a wing and pulled Applejack into a light hug. "I'm okay, Applejack! One good thing we've learned from all this is that it's impossible to get rid of me."

"Aw, yeah, I know that, in my head," Applejack said, leaning into the hug and pulling the next-closest pony (Rainbow Dash) in to start an impromptu Friendship Pile. Applejack gave a watery laugh. "But I keep seein' the scene over 'n' over and it ain't budgin'."

Fluttershy's ears drooped, and she made sure to squeeze the Frienship Pile extra hard. "I'm sorry to hear that. Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Nah, jus' keep yerselves safe," Applejack said, pushing them all gently back and waving a hoof around. "An' I guess Rarity's therapy ponies couldn't hurt."

Rarity nodded. "I'll draw you up a list as soon as I get home."

"Just remember, if you do need any help-"

"I know, Twilight," Applejack shot her friend a light grin. "I'll ask for help."

"Okay, that's enough dwelling, girls!" Pinkie piped. "Topic change! If you were a type of cheese, what do you think you would be? I'd have to go with mozzarella for myself, or maybe gorgonzola? Both of 'em have that funky 'z' action going on and I am All. About. The funky."

Pinkie continued her musing, and the six ponies in the tub settled into a lively conversation.





Elsewhere, in a hastily-decorated new lair nestled somewhere undisclosed...

A pale-maned pony sat, scowling, and schemed.