> Spike Reads "Red Mask Vol. I"
>  by StrongBrush1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: An Introduction by the Author
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A ‘few minutes’ my scaly purple butt," Spike thought to himself. "She left me at home with nothing to do, and she’s been gone for almost four hours now. I don’t see any signs of her coming home soon. She’s probably off necking with Caramel or something like that. Dear Celestia, how much longer am I going to just be sitting here with nothing to do?"
Spike had been pacing back and forth for almost half an hour. He had done all of his chores. He had filed away all of Twilight’s books by subject and author, even the ‘personal’ ones. He had eaten lunch and dinner and a pre-dessert snack. He considered going up to his room and masturbating, but he dismissed the thought, remembering what happened last time he tried that.
Spike wandered off of his pacing spot, looking around the library for something to read. If nothing else he could just bide his time by mocking an old romance novel, or whatever else Twilight had lying around.
Spike tripped over something.
After getting back on his feet, he noticed what he had tripped over: a trashy-looking paperback that he had somehow missed before. He picked it up and examined the cover, which had a sultry-looking, half-naked mare on it. Surrounding the mare were word clouds that read “Lust! Violence! Crime!” Above all of that, Spike saw the title of the book, in bright yellow and red letters: “Red Mask.”
"What is this thing?" thought Spike. "This doesn’t look like the kind of book Twilight would put in the library. Or keep to herself, for that matter. Hmm… maybe I’ll have a look, just to see what it’s about."
Spike opened up the book. Its pages felt incredibly rough between his claws. On the title page, he noticed the name of the author: Dusk Shine.
"Who in Tartarus is Dusk Shine?"
He turned the page and started to read. He wasn’t quite sure what lay in store for him, but he was about to find out one way or another.



An Introduction to RED MASK

Hello. My name is Dusk Shine. I would like to thank you for buying my book. I appreciate the support, and I hope you enjoy what I have written. I doubt that the stories contained within that cover you just opened will become known as literary classics any time really soon, but who can really tell?
I’ll be honest, most of these stories were just ideas I came up with off the top of my head. But, every writer has to start somewhere, don’t they? Besides, if I thought any of these stories were bad, I wouldn’t bother publishing them. Anyhow, enough of my rambling. Enjoy the first volume of “Red Mask”.


> The Fly-By
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE FLY-BY
Five years, she had spent in Manehatten. Five long years. Zelda had almost forgotten about home. She hadn’t thought about her brother, about Nest Street, or about the passing of their father in a long time. But when the letter came, those thoughts came rushing back to her.



Dear Griselda,

It’s been too long since I last wrote you. I just figured you ought to hear the bad news. The day before I wrote this letter, Mom was shot during a fly-by on our street. Try as I might, she didn’t make it. We’re having the funeral at Griffonstone Memorial on Saturday, if you care to come by. If you can’t make it, I understand. Wouldn’t be the first funeral you skipped.
If I don’t see you by Saturday, you can forget ever coming back because you will not be fucking welcome in my Mother’s house.

Gary



Griselda couldn’t believe the news. She felt like she’d taken a crossbow to the heart. Saturday was two days away. Which meant she had to make up her mind now: stay in Manehatten and skip the funeral, or skip town and go home. Since Manehatten had nothing to offer a griffon like her, she decided it was time to leave.
After taking care of her last rent check, quitting her job and packing up everything she owned (which admittedly wasn’t much), Zelda took the first available train back to the outskirts of Griffonstone. It was an absurdly long trip, but she arrived in Griffonstone that Friday night.
The old train station outside Griffonstone was still as run-down as ever. Zelda didn’t actually tell Gary she was coming home. She figured that she could arrive faster than a letter ever would. In retrospect, it was probably a mistake to not give Gary a heads-up. 
It was also probably a mistake to walk around Griffonstone alone, at night, without any sort of defense. As Zelda walked down to the old cul de sac on Nest Street, she took in the sights around her. The buildings were in just about the same state of repair as when she left, although they did look a lot more cleaned up, aside from the poison joke smokers lounging about.
The old house looked as empty as it did the day she left.  Zelda didn’t expect much of a homecoming, but nevertheless, she was a little disappointed that returning home felt more hollow than she expected. 
Looking at the kitchen table, Zelda found an old picture of her family and studied it as best she could through her teary eyes. Her dad was in his prime, a strong and resilient flyer whom everyone looked, even after the beating that led to his death. Their mom looked so proud of her children. She was a kind, yet proud woman, the only thing keeping both kids from getting lost in the gang culture surrounding their neighborhood. Now, they were both gone.
Zelda stared at her reflection in the glass. Her piercing blue eyes and big curved beak stared back at her with misery. She put the frame face down on the table and buried her face in her front paws.
“YOU CHOSE THE WRONG MOTHERFUCKIN’ HOUSE, COCKSUCKER!” Before Zelda could even look up, Gary had rounded the corner from the downstairs bedroom, brandishing an old baseball bat.
Zelda had very little time to react.  So she quickly turned around, picking up a nearby chair to defend herself with.
“Gary! GARY! It’s me, Zelda!”
Gary stopped in his tracks and dropped the bat to the floor. Zelda looked him over. His gang alias of ‘Big G’ was still very fitting. Tall, fat, and wearing a scowl that could unnerve even the biggest dragon in Equestria. And he’d gotten bigger in the five years since she left.  “I don’t fucking believe it,” he said. “You actually came.”
“Anything for Mom.”
“Put the chair down, Zee. We don’t have those to spare.”
Zelda did as she was asked and sat down. “So, no ‘hello’? No ‘how are you’?”
“I’d ask where you’ve been, but we both know the answer to that question.”
“Fuck you.”
“Five years. Five fucking years you’ve been gone. Four years, you haven’t sent one word my way. Too busy sucking every dick in Manehatten to write to your brother? Or mom?”
“Hey, I was going legit in Manehatten. I was saving up money to get you and mom out of here! Make a better life for all of us!”
“You were saving your own skin. Look at this place, Zee. It’s a shithole, yeah. But it’s home. You can’t just walk out like that and think everything will be fine if you come back. That’s not how this shit works. You LEFT us, sis!”
Zelda sighed. “Can we discuss this in the morning? I need some sleep.”
Gary sighed. “Fine. You can sleep on the couch.”
“The couch? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I had to sell your old bed to afford the funeral services. And there’s no fucking way I’m letting you sleep in Mom’s bed, so you get three options: the couch, the floor, or outside. Whatever you choose, I don’t give a shit.” Gary walked back the way he came.
Reluctantly, Zelda made her way to the living room and laid back on the couch. It was just as comfortable as the day she left, which is to say it was wreaking havoc on her spine. It was clear to Zelda that between her brother’s guilt trips and the world’s worst couch, she would be getting absolutely no sleep tonight.

The funeral took place early the next morning. Zelda’s old black dress still fit her, much to her surprise. Gary’s suit, on the other hand, was tight around his overstuffed belly. The procession was short and relatively small, and most of the attendees were old friends of their family from the Nest Street Gang. Zelda couldn’t stop thinking about a song that she heard as a teenager. 
“The casket was lowered, prayers were said
the body was buried, the tears were shed.
I was tryna hold it in, but ma looked me in the eye, 
said no one gon’ judge you, it’s alright for you to cry.” 
Zelda hadn’t thought about that song since her dad was killed. It brought a tear to her eye. Gary, however, kept a stiff upper beak throughout the whole ceremony. Zelda wondered if this was what her father’s funeral was like. Probably not… Then again, she had no frame of reference. Somehow that made the whole situation harder to handle.

On the way home, Zelda and Gary tried to keep quiet. It didn’t last long.
“I’m hungry,” said Gary.
“Of course you are.”
“Don’t start with me, Zee.”
“It’s cool. I’m hungry too, anyway.”
“Alright, let’s head over to Haymakers.”
“Haymakers? We ain’t seen head or tail of each other in five years and you wanna get fast food for breakfast?”
“You got bits to burn?”
“...no?”
“Then we’re settling for Haymakers.”
“Ugh… fine.”
The path down to Haymakers was a well traveled path. If you were broke (which you most likely were in this part of Griffonstone), you ate a Haymakers burger pretty much every weekend. It was the closest you ever got to dining out.
“Did you know there’s over 100 Haymakers in Manehatten?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Same thing with Sunbits. Sometimes they’re right down the street from each other.”
“Ain’t got no Sunbits around here. Coffee is for chumps who don’t know how to survive from six to eleven.”
“I hear you. I do like their frappes, though.”
“What’s this ‘frappe’ shit? You know what a 'frappe' is? A milkshake. If I wanted a milkshake, I’d order a damn milkshake.”
“You sound like a stand-up comic.”
“I sound like a griffon with common fucking sense.”
“I’d hope you don’t just SOUND like it…”
Gary rolled his eyes. “Smart-ass.”

The restaurant staff had just started serving lunch when Zelda and Gary walked in and strolled up to the counter. The two ordered their usuals: Zelda got a number eight combo, Gary ordered an eight large with extra fries and a large milkshake. Zelda couldn’t help but tease her brother about this.
“Careful, Big G. You stuff that suit anymore, it’ll tear at the seams.”
“Fuck you.”
The silence that followed was far too long for either one’s comfort. The two sat down at an empty table, staring daggers at each other.
“You got anything to say to me?”
“What do you want me to say, G? I’m sorry? I should have never left?”
“You should have at least kept in touch. How many letters did I write you that first year? Something like 25? And you only responded once. With the 3 words stop writing me.”
“I didn’t want to become dependent on you.”
“So you cut us out of your life? Look, Zee, I understand the sentiment, but you broke Mom’s heart when you left. She may have forgiven you, but I ain’t going to forget so easy.”
“Easily.”
“Shut the fuck up with that grammar shit.”
The food came out, and the two siblings paid their fair share to the overworked griffon behind the counter. The meals were eaten in silence, without the usual enjoyment and idle chit chat that usually cropped up when G and Zee ate together at Haymakers. 
Once the food was all gone, G excused himself to go to the bathroom. Zelda knew he didn’t really have to go, but let him go anyway since she felt like having some alone time.
Out of the corner of her eye, Zelda noticed some shifty-looking gang members outside. Definitely not Nest Street. They were wearing blue, so she figured they were Rustlas, but that didn’t make sense. This place was in Parajos territory. it was odd that these Rustlas were so far out of their territory-
Something clicked in Zelda’s mind. Just as the two Rustlas pulled out crossbows, Zelda yelled as loud as she could: “FLY-BY!”
The windows were shattered by flying arrows. One unlucky customer took an arrow to the neck. The rest got down on the ground as quickly as possible. Zelda quickly made her way over to the shot customer. There was nothing she could do. The arrow had severed his jugular vein, and he was bleeding out quickly. The poor bastard would have said some profound last words, but he didn’t get to because of the arrow in his neck. After about ten seconds, he slumped over, covering the left half of his face in his own blood. Zelda tried to take the arrow back out so she could defend herself, but the tip broke off.
The Rustlas had reloaded their crossbows  and started aiming again. Zelda knew she had to be quick in making her way to the bathroom if she wanted to survive the coming onslaught. 
As Zelda weaved her way through the crowd on the floor, two Parajos who were sitting in one of the back booths took out their own crossbows and fired back. The shots didn’t connect, and the Rustlas managed to take one gangster out instantly with a deadly shot between the eyes. The other Parajo ducked back down, partly out of self preservation and partly out of grief for his dead friend.
Zelda had made her way towards the bathroom in the midst of the chaos, ducking into the door just before a Rustla fired off a shot in her direction. Fortunately, the arrow couldn’t pierce all the way through the door.
“Gary! We got some Rustlas pulling a fly by!”
Gary came out of the stall he was in and immediately went into 'Big G' mode. “How many of them out there?”
“Two outside. Don’t think they have back-up.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“Two griffons are dead. One of them was a Parajo.”
“The Rustlas ain’t got no grief with the Parajos...”
“Then why are they here? Are they… following us?”
Big G realized something and was filled with rage. “Motherfuckers!” He pulled out a crossbow of his own and kicked open the bathroom door, firing and striking one of the Rustlas through his lung.  The other Rustla responded in turn by firing an arrow into Big G’s belly, sending him sprawling out on the floor.
“Gary!” Zelda ducked behind the counter near the hole where the bathroom door used to be, narrowly avoiding another crossbow shot. She looked across at Big G. He clutched his abdomen in searing pain but still found the strength to slide his crossbow and a couple arrows over to Zelda. 
“Ice those assholes!” he yelled, doubling over from shock. Zelda quickly loaded the arrow and carefully pulled back the string over the hook. Luckily, she wasn’t too out of practice with the crossbow, but she took a deep breath before raising her head above the counter and taking aim. Her shot landed a bit lower than expected, striking the Rustla through his genitals and causing him to scream and collapse in pain.
The pain didn’t last long for the Rustla, however, as the surviving Parajo sent a shot clean into the bird’s right eye, ending his misery. The customers at the restaurant were in a frenzy. There were four dead bodies: The two Rustlas who started the attack, a Parajo who happened to be on the scene, and a passerby who was just trying to enjoy his lunch. 
Zelda dropped the crossbow and crawled back over to Gary. He still had an arrow in his belly, but the damage was mostly external. He could probably live through it, but only if taken to the hospital immediately. The surviving Parajo volunteered to help Zelda bring Big G to the Emergency Clinic down near Coop Road. As Celestia was her witness, she would not lose another family member today.

Gary took a long time to wake up, but wake up he did. He was sitting in a hospital bed, his suit jacket was stained with blood and the cut-up remains of his shirt were bundled up in a bag beneath the bed. Sitting down next to him was Zelda, overjoyed that her big bro was alright.
Gary didn’t waste any time asking questions. “How’d it go after I got hit?”
“I had a little trouble taking out the other one, but if you ever run into a Parajo named Gerard, be sure to thank him for saving your life.”
“So we’re not dead. Fantastic.”
“You came pretty damn close. That arrow almost hit your intestines. If you were just a tiny bit skinnier, you’d be dead.”
“I’m never gon’ hear the end of this, am I?”
“Probably not.”
“I’m real sorry that this shit had to happen on today of all days. You’re probably gonna order a ticket for the next train to Manehatten, huh?”
“...No.”
“No?”
“We already lost Mom and Dad. I’ll be damned if I lose my brother, too.”
“So you’re gonna stay?”
“I’m not leaving until we figure out what those Rustlas were tailing us for.”
“Sis, you don’t have to do this.”
“Now who’s lying? Gary, I may not have been there for Mom, but I won’t make that mistake again. ‘Sides, the Nest Street Gang could probably use some extra help round here.”
Big G smiled for the first time in years. “Thank you, sis…”
Zelda and Gary shared a quick hug. “You rest easy, bro. I’m gonna pay the Parajos a visit. See if any of them are willing to team up with us Nest Streeters against the Rustlas.”
“You sure you can handle that?”
“Don’t worry. I’m gonna bring Gerard with me.”
“I want you back here in one piece by tomorrow.”
“It’s a promise.” Zelda took her leave from the room. She, Gerard, and the Nest Street gang had a lot of work ahead of them, but in the end they had to stick together if they wanted the family to survive.