> Operation: Alicorn
>  by Calico64
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> A Devil is Rising
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the first part of her life, she had felt alone. A whole array of caretakers and nannies were no way for a girl to be raised. She was pampered, she was given things, she was loved by her father when he had the time. However, over the years, she had heard that the death of her mother changed him. Whatever warmth was in his veins that remained were there only for Pearl Necklace, his little princess. 

Everything else was marketable. Everything else needed to be in order so that the new wave of products could be sold. Pearl was the only love of his life he had left, but she reminded him entirely too much of his departed wife. Obscenely Rich’s heart grew angry, and when he grew angry, he grew vengeful. Even his daughter was collateral damage. However, Pearl proved the stronger. 

Now her father was serving time in prison, 25 years with no chance of parole. She visited him three times last year. For her birthday, for his, and for her mother’s birthday. The conversations were surprisingly mild, some business, some pleasure, and some photos of her fiance, who was now her wife. 

What pained her the most was that this all stemmed from those three fateful days. Three days that spun her world round and propelled her to becoming the richest pony in northern Equestria, save for royalty. 

Royalty. Now it is brought to her attention that she overstepped her bounds in the eyes of one who truly ruled those territories, Ranchtown included. The royalty outside of the Princesses of Day and Night was more reclusive as a whole. With the exception of Celestia’s student, other royal family members prefered to keep to themselves and rule behind closed doors. 

However, there were times when they made exceptions. Pearl Necklace now owned a generous portion of Ranchtown, after bartering with Vineyard for a few more blocks of property. Some of them historical landmarks that she felt needed to be preserved and remodeled to proper living conditions. 

Not only did this new mysterious entity show up on her radar by literally crashing her wedding, but now something had been stolen from Pearl. How long it had been missing was uncertain. However, now something had to be done. 

These three were the answer. Two ponies sat across from her in her office. There was no way to trace this meeting. There were no eyes that could pry, magic or otherwise. The third pony across from Pearl was on a tablet screen pointed toward her. 

“You do know who you’re talking to, don’t you, luv?” The green furred, gruff but ruggedly beautiful shark-like pony said as she sat in her gray gym clothes, a sports jersey and shorts. Her accent was thick with Trottingham; the most cockney region, it seemed. “We ain’t the cappies and we ain’t the guard. We certainly ain’t the Wonderbolts.”

“I’d like to join the Wonderbolts!” The blue pegasus beside Sharktooth said. 

“Shut up, Verti.” Shark said, and Vertigo only stuck her tongue out. “A jewel heist ain’t exactly what our skills are sharpened with.” 

“We did steal back those crates of gold, though.” Vertigo raised her finger. “Or should I say ‘obtained with some force.’” 

Shark raised her pointed finger toward Vertigo and nodded. “Bit different, but true, I suppose.”

“And the ambassador’s wedding ring.” Proxy said from the screen, her robotic eye turning pink. “He was so happy.”

“That was a courtesy.” Sharktooth turned her head toward Proxy’s monitor. The semi-cybernetic pegasus was the reason why the radio waves were clear and the cyber security was iron clad. There could be no one looking in on the conversation through any mechanical means. 

“Three point five million bits.” Pearl said, stopping all three of the other ponies from conversing further. 

“What is that calculation?” Proxy asked from her screen. 

“That’s how much it’s worth in material. To me, I would sooner sell my company and all of my stocks than ever part with it.” Pearl picked up a file from her desk and slid it over to Shark, who picked it up and her eyes lit up as she opened the manila envelope. She whistled like a wolf and passed it over to an anxious Vertigo. She had a much more flabbergasted look on her face, but she soon gave it back to Shark to run it into the scanner for Proxy. 

The machine worked instantly, pulling it through in a quadruple encrypted message that changed I.P. address five times a second and left no digital signature until it found Proxy’s computer. All of that was done in three seconds. The file was brought up to her computer and her eyes reacted, the light-up eyeball turning blue as she calculated it. 

“Oh, my deepest condolences.” Proxy looked toward Pearl, who raised her hand slightly in thanks with a nod.

“I’m not going to lie to you, this may be the toughest mission you will ever go on.” Pearl said, drawing looks from them once again. “The one who did this only called herself ‘The Duchess.’ She attacked my wedding party and brought down an entire wall with giant spiders.”

“Spiders…” Vertigo said, closing her eyes and sighing. “Why did it-” 

“Don’t finish that sentence.” Shark demanded with a pointed tone. Then she looked back to Pearl “Duchess, you’re meanin’ to tell me that this tart is royalty?” 

“Yes. The spiders were not especially strong, but they were not meant to actually harm anyone. No one was injured and the spiders were taken down in short order. What they were meant to do was scare my guests and disrupt my most perfect day. All of the ponies involved in the kitchen have been sworn to secrecy. The police have already taken the case. More specifically, the royal guard.”

“Are they not sworn to protect royalty?” Proxy said in her more robotic voice as she ran diagnostics on the exact ruling in the universal royal guide, written by White Shield in the second age of Celestia’s reign. She quoted. “‘All royal guard, future, former, and presently under oath must act with all power at their disposal to protect the Princesses and their subjects.’ After reading more appendages, it also reads that the rulers must also be just and fulfill their royal obligations in the face of peace and mortal danger. However, if a member of the family is to be brought to trial, a royal guard must be deemed to carry out their apprehension by a higher authority than the royal family member in question.” 

“We are not doing that.” Pearl said this, and that was when Sharktooth sighed and chuckled.

“Ah, now you see, luv. There’s the problem.” She looked toward Pearl with a serious business look as she pulled a dagger from her pocket and began to admire its metal gleam, even in the dim lit office they sat. “I’m not supposed to be mixin’ business with pleasure.” She shook the short dagger with the blade pointed upward as she talked. Then she tossed it upward and caught it perfectly by the flat metal between her index and middle fingers. “And you’re startin’ to give me chills.” A sinister grin crossed her face, and the name Sharktooth was ridiculously fitting. Her jagged teeth were on a razor’s edge as she gave a very small but excited giggle.

There was a long pause between them. Shark gave yet another sigh, and then looked over to Vertigo, whose eyes darted back over to the green earth pony. Vertigo’s purple eyes gleamed back at Shark, who continued to grin.

“We’re in. Give me everything and I’ll start digging, luv.” Sharktooth said, and Vertigo pumped her fist into the air. Pearl nodded, then pressed a single button on her keyboard to the computer on her desk. This drew a puzzled look from both ponies physically present. However, Proxy started pressing buttons loudly and her computer started making sound effects. 

“Digital Contract signed, payment in full plus bonus, attachments uploaded, full data confirmed. Locking diagnosis.” Her computer began to make long streams of beeping. “Processing complete.” 

“Please.” Pearl put her hand on her forehead. Her eyes closed, and just in that one single moment, it was quite clear that Pearl was not sleeping. The bags under her eyes were covered by makeup and given anti-swelling treatment, but it could never be truly masked. To say she was exhausted was something of an understatement. The exertion she had to endure to keep from losing it was compounded by the fact that the most dangerous adversary she had ever faced was now right at her doorstep. Before they knew it, the pink earth pony with red hair was on the verge of tears. It was the kind of tired that sleep would never cure. “...Please.”

3 Weeks Earlier
----------------------

They couldn’t even get through the door fast enough. The baggage had already been delivered to the honeymoon suite, and the newly wedded mares were kissing each other harder than ever. As they made it through the door, Death Metal kicked the door shut in a firm manner. Before she could even drop her large shoulder bag on the ground, Death’s bright gray shorts were on the ground and her black panties were in full view. For a moment, Pearl admired the black heart wrapped in green barbed wire cutie mark on Death Metal’s hip. She slid the black underwear to the ground, putting her pussy lips were now in full view, pink and slightly open. They were very open when Pearl pushed Death Metal down onto the bed and opened her legs wide apart. 

“Don’t act like such a slut, you horny cunt!” Death Metal said, but then let out a loud gasp as Pearl engulfed her labia in her mouth, licking her pink pussy with a hungry tongue. “God! Why are you--ooohh Pearl, you sick fucking mare! Why did I ever marry a slut like you!” The short, but tough talking earth pony whined and bucked a little as Pearl chomped onto her pussy folds enough to make Death yelp. 

“You’re so cute!” Pearl said before lunging her tongue straight back into Death Metal’s crotch. 

“Shut up, you fucking pig! Let me feel that pussy! Now!”

A small amount of time went by before they were back on their asses in front of each other, and their pink and soaked vaginas were grinding against one another. Their groans were melodic as they began slapping one another on their private parts. 

They should have been up on deck, watching as the pier began to grow distant from the deck of the cruise. However, they felt compelled to stay below deck, in a suite that came equipped with a full two pony sized hot tub. With a bed that could fit four and a beautiful view below sea level, both of these mares were more than content with staying in that bed and living off of the already paid room service. They laid in bed, draped in each other’s arms after such furious loving. Pearl’s arms were wrapped around Death’s upper back as she laid on top of the pink pony’s very large, swollen, DD breasts. Her tits were ever so malleable, like huge sacks full of nice, fluffy dough. 

For hours, they watched the sea as it passed them by. Beautiful shining beams of blue light bathed them in a wonderful, tranquil glow. It was so peaceful. Schools of fish crossed their view. There came a rather large gray shark, followed by rainbows of other ocean life swimming by. The two of them drifted in and out of consciousness. For a while, they started to mistake this place for heaven, and this was a reward for their hardships. 

They had coffee in the morning, tea in the evening and hot chocolate late at night. They watched stupid thriller movies ranging from A to C in quality and sometimes cracked up so hard that anything scary about it was now lost on them. They slept some days away. They screwed some nights away and sometimes they even showered just to have sex only to have sex in the shower. 

One week was as good as she got. One solid week with her beautiful bride is as close as she came to Nirvana. That was when they came to shore, returning to land and returning to phone signal. Pearl was immediately pained by the sight of the image that popped up on her screen. She hadn’t even gotten five steps off of the ship’s stairs onto the land and she was already stopped short. From that moment on, Pearl was distant. The shops they had seldom interested her, she bought very little. The pink pony purchased a small bottle of perfume for Death Metal, but that was about as shopoholic as she got. 

Their meal was not much better. Every time Death Metal asked Pearl what was wrong, she would cross her legs and look away, claiming it was naught. It was a very long day, and they got back to the ship hours before they were scheduled to ship off. The romantic visit to shore was turned into a sour experience, and now both of them were becoming somewhat distant. Pearl tried her best to act like nothing was wrong, but it was nothing compared to the first week they were on vacation. Pearl laid down on the bed, cramped up on her side of the bed with the light on. She closed her eyes, but she was not going to get to sleep. 

That was when Death’s arms came around her from behind. Her white fur caressed her pink fur, and the two of them stayed like that for a good long while. 

“We have to cut it short, honey.” Pearl was now in tears. Death gasped at this and turned her wife around to meet her face to face.

“Why? What happened?” Death Metal was a little more excited than she should have been to finally get some answers. She watched as Pearl Necklace looked at her phone and held it up in front of Death Metal.

There was a giant safe on the front page of the newspaper of the Ranchtown Nightrider. The bank was robbed in the middle of the night. The only thing stolen was a single item from the main vault. It was a huge safe door, but the compartment was around 2x2, now only having a small bit of fabric in it. 

“It was something that I was going to show you after we got back to shore. I tried to pretend I could put this off, but now I know I can’t.” She was now sobbing, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“What is going on?” Death Metal asked. Then came a long, horrible tale of the Duchess, and how she sent the spiders to interfere with their wedding. She threatened Pearl over the phone, and it was apparent that it was not going to end there. Now this royal pain in her ass reached into Pearl’s chest and removed the most valuable organ in her system. 

“Pearl! What happened? What did they steal?” Death Metal’s voice was sporadic, and so was Pearl’s. It was clear that she didn’t want to tell, but with a nodding head, she conceded the point.

“My necklace.” She swallowed hard as she looked at the phone, and zoomed out onto the headline which read PEARL NECKLACE’S PEARL NECKLACE HAS TAKEN A POWDER. 

Death Metal looked at it in shock. The rest of that night was spent in one another’s arms. After that, much of their time on the ship was spent in silence. There was some happiness, and for that, they were grateful. However, once they got back to shore, they had to bring all of their belongings with them as they took the next train back to Ranchtown.

-------

Money changed hands, and the job was passed on to a motley crew of unlikely jewel hunters. They were jewel hunters hunting other jewel hunters. According to their sources, the one who commissioned the job in the first place was not going to be keeping the item in question. Only a moron would keep an item that hot on their person. So the job would be passed onto a few tiers downward. Whoever was her right hand minion would have arranged for someone else to arrange to do it. If they could catch the one who headed this snatch job, they could work their way up the ladder.

However, that meant starting at the bottom. There was always a base operation headed by a shrimp in the food chain that ordered around smaller shrimps. The first name that came up on their sensors was Red Light. He was a pretty small time grifter that got lucky on a small diamond heist. Ever since then, he’s found ways to work his horn around security systems. This job was entirely too large for the likes of him, however, that didn’t mean their eyes left him. 

Sharktooth held the headphones up to her ears as the small microbot worked its way around the room, moving around to make sure that it stayed away from Red Light and his cronies. The location was remote in the middle of a crime ridden part of town. It was the kind of place where someone avoiding the authorities would flock to in a hurry. 

Most of it was a bunch of meaningless chit chat. There was something about making a beer run, then there was something about renting a movie or getting something to eat. 

“Man, these guys really love infomercials.” Vertigo whispered over to Shark, who nodded. 

“Yeah, it’s not just Red Light, it’s the blue guy too. How much can you possibly know about a single ring? Are they even wanting to buy the bloody thing?” Sharktooth asked. She had to admit, it was a very nice ring, but not worth how long they were watching the commercial for it. They had all kinds of time to buy it, but it was apparent that they had no intentions of doing so. “Bit pricey, ain’t it?” 

“Yeah, five hundred bits is a total rip off. It’s pawn shop fodder.” Vertigo said as she opened her steaming cup of ramen, and so did Sharktooth. They began to suck in noodles as they watched these boring stallions sit around their room. “If a guy gave me that ring, I wouldn’t even kiss him on the cheek after he bought me a steak.” She said with a mouth full of flavored noodles. 

“Oh, bollox, the ring is sold out. Look at that rubbish. Now here comes the cheaper ring.” She predicted, but both of them were taken by surprise as they set out a very nice golden watch with silver numbers and diamond clock tabs all around it. “Oh, bloody hell, I’d let a guy peek of my knickers for that one.” 

“I’d go deep throat.” Vertigo drank the remaining broth from her cup. “I bet it is sold in stores. About 95% of that crap is sold in stores, they just don’t have to tell you that.” 

That was when they heard a knock at the door. There was a whisper from one of them to turn off the TV. As they did, one of the lackies opened the door. Two other ponies walked into the room, both of them seeming somewhat nonchalant. In fact, they looked a little too nonchalant. 

“Alright, guys. Not a bad job all around. Not bad at all. Well, next score is gonna be around the same price. The security is less, but the manpower is doubled. That means all of you got another job, if you want it. Bring your own vehicles, we’re going to be filling him up with merchandise. There was a paper in his hand all the sudden, and he held it out to Red Light, who took it and opened it up. 

“There it is.” Vertigo said with a sense of pride. 

“Keep it there, luv.” Shark typed it down on her map program and located the address. Surprise, surprise, it was a warehouse belonging to Crystal Ball. They were going after her shipments of beauty products, that included makeup, lotion and fragrance for mares and stallions. “Beautiful.” She held up some lemon cinnamon tea. She was the driver, so there was no scotch in it. After she sipped it, she kept her ear open still. 

“We’ll need to call Sprite. She’ll want in on the job.” The taller stallion said. He was a dark brown, and his left eye had a deep scar on it. “I’ll be overseeing the operation personally, follow instructions and you’ll get the same pay. After this, we’ll order another round of pizzas and beer.”

The rest of the guys seemed to agree with these terms. Proxy ran his face through the databases, her organic fingers travelled across three keyboards and her mechanical arm moved the mouse. Faces began to come up faster than anyone could blink, but she stopped it with a click immediately as the database brought up his picture. He was something of a mobster. He’s been wanted by the royal guard for three years but got off easy with a really good lawyer. He must have been one of the top dogs of the organization.

“Tuxedo Tom, associated with a lot of shady characters in the underworld. He is definitely the highest ranking individual we have encountered as of yet.”

“Tom, eh?” Sharktooth scratched her bottom chin and grinned, seeing that he could handle himself in a fight. “Looks like we have a new target with which to keep an eye on.” 

“Affirmative.” Proxy said, then made her fly drone fly off of the wall and made sure to land on a part of the ankle to go unnoticed by anyone. “Tracer deployed.”

“Looks like they’re getting ready to move.” Vertigo grinned big, as did Sharktooth. 

“Looks like we’re gonna get ready to move.” Sharktooth said as she got up from her desk chair and moved to the driver’s seat. She turned the key and cranked it into drive. The image of a windowed van that was empty began to move, but then a driver appeared digitally as proxy reloaded the program that fooled any casual onlooker. 

“They’re headed to the south side.” Vertigo said as the fly tracer bleeped as their car started going faster.

------

The mentality of hurry up and wait was a great annoyance to our heroes. The blue pegasus propped her feet up on the side table of the van, her handheld hooked up to the battery pack as she played a very old retro game. Sharktooth was leaned back in the driver’s seat, a book draped across her face while she slept. The night skies loomed over them as they waited for the men as they sat parked outside of the warehouse. 

“Hey, Sharktooth. Get that blade out.” Vertigo said, taking her own advice, as well as equipping a few more items. Then she made sure that her taser was secure. Within two seconds, Shark already had her combat knife in her hands, sliding it into its holster. 

------

There were three trucks coming in through the back entrance of the warehouse, away from the road. The garage door was more than big enough for all of them, and they already had five guys, all equipped with dollies. They were loading up entire crates of merchandise, making sure that they had turned off the security system before they started the job. Each truck was roomy enough to hold forty-five crate stacks. Each stack was worth around twenty thousand bits of premium retail. It wasn’t long before they grew into a pattern. They formed lines between the five of them, efficiently moving the crates from the ground to the trucks with little effort. 

What they didn’t hear or see was a set of wings hovering downward from the scaffolding and onto the top of the moving truck. The pegasus was black from head to toe with two goggles covering her eyes. She could see them with the utmost precision. If she increased the intensity, she could even see their skeletal systems. There were two in the truck she was on top of. They were still loading two very troublesome stacks of crates onto the truck. They were clueless. At first, she thought she hit the jackpot, but then she saw Sharktooth.

The green furred, orange maned earth pony watched through her own omnivision goggles as the loaders walked past her without even noticing that she was leaning against their vehicle as nonchalant as if she were waiting for a food order. Shark looked up to see Vertigo, and gave her a tiny wave. The blue pegasus flipped her off in response, then she swung her legs down, smashing her hooves into one of the henchmen’s face, knocking his head back into the next guy’s face, and causing them both to fall. 

“What was that?” One of them asked as he looked around, but the place was entirely too dark. 

“Text?” The driver said as he got out of one of the trucks. “Someone check over there!”

There was more mindless murmuring as they started shining horns and cellphone lights over toward where they heard the noise. Two brave souls looked into the truck cargo unit with their lights shined inside. At first, they just saw the two fallen comrades on the floor between the stacks of cologne pallets, then they slowly began to notice a shadow looming from above. 

She had shaded goggles on her eyes, and literally everything else was complete black. She left her knives in their sheaths. Vertigo simply waited for them to finally notice her as she glared down at them. When she recognized the look of surprise on one of their faces, she used two fingers to throw a metal ball into his eye, causing him to cry out in surprise and pain. 

The ball hit the ground and immediately sparked into pieces. Smoke began to spray out among the three others who were by the end of the truck. All of them searched around for what was going on, but the smoke filled their senses, causing them to cough.

The other wingless pony in black came in on the scene with the edge of her fist colliding with a driver’s chin. The unicorn beside her dropped the dolly he was carrying as he reared up for a punch. With no trouble at all, she caught his fist in her palm. She grabbed the handle from the dolly, sliding it out and smashing it across his snout.   

As the two of them separated, they kept complete control of the situation around them. Vertigo ducked underneath a oncoming fist, rolled forward while her hoof came straight up and smashed into his chin. The woman flipped three times up into the air and landed right behind the moving truck. They were trying to get to her, but more and more of them were being taken down by the earth pony who was hard as a rock. She received three solid punches to her midsection and she did not even flinch. In fact, Shark seemed to be fighting even harder with every hit she took. 

Vertigo dropped down behind the only pony who was able to approach her. With this one, she stuck him with the tip of her very long dagger, making him freeze him place. ]

“Did you get’im?” Shark asked as the last one dropped from her hammering fist on the back of his head.

“Yup.” Vertigo said in an almost casual tone. Before he knew what was going on, he was pulled up-side-down and strung up by his ankles while he dangled from the ceiling. With one good hoist, Shark pulled him up a bit higher. 

“Nice one.” She fist bumped the pegasus and they both grinned as they got close to him as it started to come to him that he might be in trouble. He looked at both of their black masked faces, but he knew that they were grinning.

-------

The fly bot flew near a car that was still parked outside, this one with a very bright red, smaller pony with a laptop in the passenger seat and a large, burly stallion in the driverseat. 

“The police are on their way. From the sounds of things, they’re bringing some of the head honchos.” She spoke into her headphone microphone as a red dot continued to glow in the center of her computer screen. “Time to cut your losses, there’s no drivers left to get the merch out. I’m bailing, contact me when there’s a new plan.”

The small mare pushed her glasses up as the words appeared on the lenses and she continued to type. She was not privy to the fact that a robotic fly managed to get into the cracked window of the car before it pulled out from its parking spot. 

“You will be paid the same amount.” Proxy heard from the fly’s audio receptors. The cyborg pony listened in hard, hearing the very deep voiced stallion in her headphones. “Lay low and stand by for further instructions.” He said before there was a click, signifying that he hung up, and their communication disconnected. 

--------

“Yeah, I’m here.” The bat pony said from outside of the crime scene tape. From what she could see just from the garage door, it was ground zero. There were splinters of wood from crates, glass shards, teeth, bodily fluids of a red nature and bound up stallions in black. They were all hog tied and gagged. Whoever it was, they made sure that these men were unconscious. Some of them were in far worse shape than the other. Whoever was taken out first got off easy. Everyone else had at least a hairline fracture in a very important bone. 

She took another long sip on her Diamond Cherry Blast Energy Surge, the high mixing in with the high from her coffee from earlier. Focused Sight didn’t look stressed, nor did she look like she was dreading her work. In fact, it looked like she was waiting for an elevator. From where Sight was standing, the worst part about her job was that there was no foreign objects on the crime scenes. The new caffeine buzz mixed with the coffee buzz very well as far as she was concerned.

“Smells like stress management is working for you, Focused Sight.Is that a new flavor?” Grem asked as she walked by and lifted up the crime scene tape for Diamond to walk under.

“Hey, Sight.” He waved at her as he walked by, ducking down a bit. She waved back at him. 

“Find me a natural herb that kills all of the senses and I’ll quit.” She said as she finished off the good part of her energy drink, dropping it into a nearby waste receptical. “Multiple subjects. No fatalities. All of them are either former military or former inmates and all of them are now missing molars.” Sight ducked under the tape after trashing her cup. “I know this is more than normal, but I don’t see any need for the Royal Guard to get involved.”

“Yeah, did you want me to cover the shoplifter at the Night n Day or the three serial killers that don’t exist? I think this is more deserving of our attention. Any idea of who did this?” Grem asked as she walked into the garage doorway that was busted wide open. Glass and vehicle debris covered the warehouse exit. All three of them tried their best to walk around it, but there was still a little crunching. 

“From what initial diagnosis gathers, these guys were loading merchandise from Crystal Ball onto three trucks. Two trucks remain, one of them was used to destroy the garage door we just walked through.” 

“They couldn’t take the back door?” Diamond Sword asked as he studied the scene. They weren’t kidding, it looked like just about every single guy in the room got their teeth kicked in. 

“Not when they were trying to showboat.” Focus looked around. “This wasn’t a personal job, and it sure as hell wasn’t done for the money. It sounds like a hilarious mixture of business and pleasure.”

“I don’t follow.” Diamond admitted as he took a close look at the unconscious suspect/victim who had a very bruised up face. “Where’s that coming from?” 

“Well, for one thing,” Focus said as she knelt down to the open truck door, which was now bent all the way off of its hinge and flat against the side of the truck’s front. “There’s no VIN number on this truck.” Then she walked to the back of the truck and knelt beside the license plate. She ran her gloved finger across it. There was nary a single scratch or sign of age on it. “Run these plates. If I’m right, they’re fresh, clean, like a newborn baby. This is something we shouldn’t be seeing in the first place. This was especially built for this one job. Everything on it is factory fresh. If it wasn’t for the battle scars, I’d say this could go for full retail price.”

“Technically, it loses almost half of its value once you drive it off the car lot after purchase.” Diamond Sword said, making both Grem and Focus Sight dart looks toward him. 

“Wait, are you for real?” Grem asked him, but then shook her head. “Either way. It looks like there’s one of them that doesn’t have missing teeth. Not to mention, he just has minor bruising on his face. It looks like we found our star witness. Think he’ll talk if we buy him lunch?” 

“He’ll talk.” Diamond Sword smiled at Grem and they both nodded. “So, pretty much, what you’re saying is, someone spent about seventy thousand bits on each of these trashed trucks. The things they were taking can make a profit, but that’s where it gets weird, once again.”

“Well, these are some of the top fragrances internationally.” Grem said. “They could go for top bit.”

“Right, but you’d get more money from electronics, televisions. Any shipment of small, expensive electronics would have been far more lucrative and ten times easier to move. So, yeah, I’d say this is something of a personal crime.” Diamond Sword hoisted himself up into the back of the truck and shined his cellphone into one of the crates that toppled over. He picked up one of the bottles that didn’t shatter. He held up a sky blue, round bottle with fancy designs on it and a name printed on the front. “Ice Pearl.” 

They all gave the bottle a good looking over. There was a gigantic piece of the puzzle. This was not a crime that was committed for any financial gain. This was meant to hurt someone where it really mattered, their image. For someone like Pearl, that image was everything. The white unicorn stallion looked at all of the broken and otherwise bottles of fragrance from the one single destroyed stack. 

The two bat ponies surveyed all of the carnage in that warehouse. The purple one looked to the gray one, both thinking the same thing. The paperwork was going to be absolute murder, and untangling this mess was going to be a massacre. 

-----

Sharktooth wasn’t much on the clean up jobs. Usually when someone cut her, it wasn’t too deep. Some twerp in that garage got her pretty good up over the front edge of her forearm. Her armor black fabric took some of the brunt, but the guy was good, that much was evident. They got back to their new motel room, complete with television from the 1990’s, a sink that had none of its original color, as it had molded off long ago, and a shower that actually somehow meshed hair completely into the tile floor, as it was now impossible to remove. This room had not seen the light of day for some eons, and that was one of its smaller problems. Thankfully, though, they actually changed their sheets. 

The green earth pony gently pulled the bandage tape along the creases of her makeshift cast. It wasn’t the greatest she could muster with just one hand, but it was tight. 

“Ow! Fuck!” Vertigo shouted once again. She was on the bed next to Shark, however, her problem was slightly more… sharp. With a pair of tweezers, she picked at tiny blood stained pieces of glass that had lodged into the front of her left thigh. The most common injuries were always on the fists, which she always made sure to hard glove before a mission, but it never failed, there were always scratches. 

“Oi, quit your moaning! You got off easy.” Sharktooth finally leaned back against the headboard at the top of the bed, sighing in some relief. She reached over to the ice pack next to her on the side table and pressed it against her cheek. All in all, it was one of the smoother transactions they were a part of. Then, of course, there came the phone call. Sharky gritted her teeth. If there was one thing she hated, it was laying down and forgetting about that damn phone call. 

Her eyes darted over toward the blue pegasus, who was now trying to become invisible as she hunched over to put a bandaid on her booboo. Her cheeks blushed as her partner’s evil glare began to burn holes in her back. 

“Oh, I hope you’re happy with yourself.” Shark answered the phone. “I can explain.”

“You said that last time.” Diamond Sword said as he made sure she heard the paper work. 

“For real, there were--” Sharktooth began to say but then there came the condescension.

“There were what? Shark? What? Complications? Is that the word you were gonna say, again?” He said, then he switched his tone to that very quiet, threatening tone. “I am now knee deep in paperwork, and three booklets of them are the warehouse you trashed, then there’s the truck you guys rammed down the street! And don’t tell me it wasn’t Vertigo, I recognize her fingerprint wipe! Now! What the hell happened!?”

Sharktooth’s lips pursed, and she took a very, very deep breath as her evil gaze now had Vertigo in something of a trance. 

“Well…” Sharktooth started.

--------

“Damnit! Get the hell off me!” One of the guys shouted as Vertigo had jumped on top of him. His head was pounding from the injuries received, but he’d kept his consciousness. She quickly shifted all of her weight, arching her back like she was diving off the highboard, flapping her wings to make him go straight back down onto his ass. 

Vertigo was not especially strong when it came to brute prowess, and this guy was very much on the other end of the spectrum. They struggled onto the floor. 

“Oi, Verti, you gonna tie’em down or not?” Sharktooth shouted as she finished up with the scene, throwing a bloodsoaked fingerprint wipe away. 

“Give me a minute, Shark!” Vertigo reached a very high, shrill screeching voice that made the earth pony cringe. That was when she heard Vertigo grunt as the stallion landed a solid hit on the side of her chin, knocking her for a loop. In that one instant of blurred vision and dazed confusion, he took his opportunity and got up from the floor. 

“Oi! OI!” Shark got up from the ground and began charging toward him as he began to book it toward the truck. He got in, not even closing the door as he hit the ignition. The unicorn looked over at Sharktooth as he put it into drive. She was entirely too close for his taste. However, when he shined his horn, she was met with a burst of energy that not only knocked his head back in recoil, but blasted her straight back. Even with the very loud combustion, one could hear his neck crack very loudly and his very loud grunt as he grabbed the back of it. 

Still, he had a job to do, and he hit the gas as hard as he could, the tires screeching as the black masked stallion took off, not caring about the garage door in his way. The impact could be heard for miles. Glass and carnaged shards of metal littered the streets as his wheels hit the asphalt. At first he thought he was finally home free, but then he heard hooves clattering against the street next to him. His window was open, but he was very quickly rolling it up as he saw that the blue pegasus was speeding toward him with her purple eyes a furious red shade. Her teeth gritted. She didn’t have the concentration, nor the brain capacity in that moment to start working her wings and concentrate on taking to the air, but her hooves were doing their job quite nicely. She ran with it, quite literally.

“What?! What are you doing?!” The man shouted as he saw that she was actually gaining on him and he looked down to see he was going upwards of fifty and climbing! “What are you doing?!” He shouted out the closed window as he saw that he did not lock his door, in fact it hadn’t even closed all the way because he didn’t bother with the effort. “What are YOU DOING?!” He shouted even louder now as she practically tore the door open, a knife now in her gritted teeth as she boarded his truck cab, grabbing onto the first handle she could grip. 

However, in her haste, she narry had the thought that her hand had gripped the steering wheel. One good tug downward sent the truck sprawling into the street, tipping completely over sidelong toward Vertigo as she was now fully inside.

All she remembered was all of the glass in the windows and the windshield completely shattering all around her and the purple furred stallion, whose mask was now mostly shredded off along with a lot of their clothes. The truck’s impact smashed through a fire hydrant, kicked up insurmountable clods of concrete and dirt and decimated an entire street corner. The truck was completely totalled and the sirens began to wail in the air as Sharktooth ran to the truck, shouting Vertigo’s name.

-----------

“I mean, we had a cupper and she felt better about the crash.” Sharktooth went on as Vertigo rubbed her thumb on the little bandaid on her thigh. “She’s still a little shaken, though.”

Sharktooth could just heard Diamond shaking his head and scratching his mane as if he had fleas. Then there were the deep breaths and the grinding teeth. 

“Alright, alright, I know we put you under a lot of pressure, and I know you have one of the harder jobs. But you need to know what kind of risks we’re taking here. If even one single inkling of this gets out that you were brought in by us, the show is over.”

“Yes, Diamond, I am aware of that little detail, as it was in the contract that the nice lady shredded for us. Now, if you do not mind, I’m going to mind this bollox blasting headache and dip into a nightcap. So, if that is all…”

“Inform me if there are any breaks in the case. Good night.” He hung up and put his hand on his face as he leaned down into them. His face cringed a little and his breathing became a bit more sporadic as well. “God damn… I can’t thank you enough.” He said to Grem, who was under the desk with her mouth well rounded on his cock head. She’d unzipped his uniform pants and brought it out, soft as a pillow. It took quite an effort to get it hard in his huffed up state while he was talking on the phone. 

“I know the paperwork gets stressful. A blowjob makes any job better.” Grem whispered before continuing to take in his enormous length. His nice peach colored slab of meat throbbed within her mouth, and between her tits as she brought them around the shaft. “Mmmmm, and what’s a titjob going to hurt?” Her gigantic mammaries gripped him in something of a soft wet vice. She tongued the head as she moved her tits, beating against his pelvis and making him close his eyes and sigh deep. 

“Lieutenant Sword?” A voice blurted as his office door opened and a young mare poked her head in, making his eyes go wide. “I just came to inform you that Focus has the forensic report headed your way.”

“Yes, thank you Scarlet.” He said in the most stone faced expression as he stared straight forward toward his desk. Without knowing it, he had migrated closer to the center of the room where the white furred, red maned pegasus could very clearly see his very stiff member get strangled by two fat melons. 

“Hi, Grem.” She smiled at the gray bat pony who never stopped flopping her knockers. She merely hummed a hello toward Scarlet as the pegasus exited the office.

There was a moment of silence as Diamond sat there with wide eyes. He blinked a few more times before finally looking down at the two blue eyes looking back up at him. She hummed a question up toward him. 

“Oh, nothing, just thinking about how strange this place has become since we told everyone we were dating.” Then he grunted a little harder, leaning forward a little. As he did, she took her mouth off of his dick to let some nice, precious white sauce splash her face and drizzle her tits. Five shots in, and her mouth was full, her chin was dripping and her tits were glazed. She stayed in that position, only tightening her tits on his horsecock, which was not even remotely softening.

“Whatever do you mean?” Grem licked her lips.

--------

Finally, the end of the day, one in the morning on a Thursday night. Focus Sight ran her fingers through her bright blue hair as she downed yet another colorful drink from a small glass. Thirsty Thursday was in full effect at the Pink Troff. She had been to Cloudstone more than once, but this was the place that had the right volume in their techno or whatever the kids were calling it these days. The lights flashed all different, electric colors and everyone was splatting themselves with weird colorful paint that tasted like very mild taffy. She had been gotten a few times, with a slime green across her chest above her white t-shirt, which had blue and pink blotches over it. 

The purple bat pony never mixed business with pleasure, but they were so close together, that she could barely see the line anymore. When she worked, she thought about drinking, when she drank, she thought about work. One made the other so clear, and yet she hated the concept all together. So many puzzle pieces blazing across the map in her head. Every dot leading to yet another. As of right now, the most familiar points are nothing special, but within those lies a very deep hole. 

It was a simple robbery. Get in, get out, get paid. With no identification, no real plates and no hindrance, they could have made it in and out with everything in hand within half an hour. Obviously, something went awry. They now had a group of stallions in custody, all of them were identified as contract mercenaries of some of the highest caliber. Trained in combat, magic expertise and counter magic tactics. 

The signs pointed to two ghost points. Whoever took down the robbery had to have been either larger in number or better armed, but neither seemed true. According to them, they were there on a routine pickup, and they were attacked by two female combatants. Highly skilled in combat and ridiculously outrageous in their strategies, yet they were able to take down all of them within the span of three minutes. 

Then, there was one single burned tarnish mark on the concrete floor inside of the warehouse. With the use of forensic magic powder, Focus was able to decipher the blemish as caused by magically induced combustion. The one who used it is now in Ranchtown Hospital ICU for multiple lacerations from broken shards of glass.

The fact that the mark was made by magic wasn’t what struck her. It was what kind of magic was used. Whatever it was, it was enough to blast through a brickwall. After a thorough examination of the blemish, it was shown to be Crimson Magic in its base. Crimson Magic was one of the most dangerous magics to be used in all of the parts of the world. Invented as a way to combat Alicorn magic, Crimson was far more destructive and dangerous in nature, even to the user. 

The mark was only partial Crimson, however, our friend in the ICU could be looking at a sentence of five years just for its use. It was universally banned in Equestria and all of its allied countries, though some smaller, less scrupulous nations still practiced its use. This sort of magic was almost impossible to come by, even for the underground. Spells of that caliber went anywhere from seventeen to twenty thousand bits on a good day.

This fact alone limited the options of who may be involved, and that was where Focus Sight planned to st---

“Excuse me…” A male voice spoke near her, drawing her attention. All the sudden, shr was met with what looked like the more barbaric type. Though, as chiseled as his body was, she had to admit, he had some soft facial features. His chest was only covered by thin cotton fabric. The shirt that was once white was now smushed up with multiple neon colors, charged by blacklights. His fur, however, was pitch black, and his hair was an electric, deep blue. “Is this seat--”

“Is now…” She said with no hint of excitement. Her cold demeanor caused him to wince.

“Oh, am I interrupting quality time?” Despite asking this, he was already in the seat next to her.

“By comparison.” She quipped right back at him. The earth pony taking another hard hit. Still, he waved over the waitress, pointed to all of her empty drinks, then held up two fingers. “I don't remember feeding the lost puppy, you got any better tricks or did you forget your clown makeup?”

“Oh, actually, I brought some of it.” The stud put the red powdered sock up against the front of his snout. “I don't have any more of the makeup, but if you had some handy, you can try it on me. My sister use to make me into a kabuki actor. She even made me do the dance.”

Focus's eyes widened slightly for an instant then turned her stone cold gaze over toward him fully for the first time. However, her brow was slightly less on edge. Then she looked up to see that their drinks had arrived in every color of the rainbow.

“Alright, hot shot, I've got one question.” Focus Sight said as they clicked their small glasses together and drank. He was intent on listening. Every time she looked like she was about to talk, through, she drained another glass. After the second time, though, a tiny miniscule smirk made him smile big. “You remember that dance?”

---------

The rave bar hopper known as Rain Shadow sat under her on her bed, his face puffed all over with powder. He has red lipstick smeared from his lips to his chin to both cheeks. It looked like the job was topped off with a pink blush powder. His green eyes gazing into hers as the purple bat pony's tits flopped up and down in front of his face. His cock was already flared and his glans took the shape of a heart, kissing her cervix like they were old buddies.

Their fluids spilled from her as she came all over his shaft, however, he was not done. He banged against her from underneath, his base and balls mashing against her labia folds.

She had been mostly silent through the majority of their little romp. This time, she began to sing in higher and higher octaves as he reached down and pressed his fingers against the top of her stretched vagina. 

She looked down at him with a look of shock as he kept pistoning with the pedal to the metal. Her tits were something of a blur as she vibrated with the dial turned up to 11.

She could barely gasp, let alone breathe as he vibrated at the frequency of her heart beat. He kept grinning at her, though, it was clear that his jaw was clenched to its tightest degree. Beads of sweat streamed down all sides of his makeupped face. How he didn't get it in his eyes was beyond her, nor did she care! 

Her body managed another orgasm that was triggered like a snap in her brain.

Everything became clear in front of her eyes. As if she were watching a memory from the theater seat. Photographic click. For just a moment, she couldn't even feel the gush within her. Her eyes went a little dull. Either she was in a trance or she was frozen in time. 

She breathed in huge gasps after a moment. Some of her gasps were screams in higher pitches than she was used to. It wasn't long before they both dropped to the bed. They lied flat there for a solid five minutes catching their breath. 

Steam rose from their bodies as the air conditioner blasted cold air into both of them and she broke out in a solid gooseflesh as she opened her eyes. Focus had definitely passed out, she knew it. She looked to see that Shadow had opened a window to let in a bit of cold air. He was still naked, so she figured she couldn't have been out for long.

“Thanks…” She turned her gaze over to him to see that his abs were swollen like a bodybuilder's, and the glistening sweat didn't deter that notion. “You don't have to s-”

“Mind if I shower up?” Shadow honestly didn't mean to interrupt her but he was liable to stink soon, not to mention, his glazed dick caught a solid blast of that wind and it was not quite as impressive anymore. 

His hand went straight over his crotch as soon as her eyes darted down. This gave her pause. 

“Please do.” She gave him the first real smile of the night. She didn't know if it was the euphoria of her fifth orgasm or the fact that her insides were still vibrating from the aftershock, but she felt rather like she was glowing. However, that click in her brain could not be overlooked.

“Thanks.” He gave her a sweet smile. Sadly, it was maligned by the streaks of black, white and red makeup that was now oozed down his face where it redried in formless blotches and splotches. He placed a hand on his stomach with a groan as he went to the bathroom door on the other side of the room. 

She regained use of her legs by popping every vertebrae disc in her lower back and wobbled out of bed. For the life of her, she hoped she wasn't just some bimbo stud's ab day. For the life of her, she required some serious Z's, but this couldn't wait. She got to her computer on her desk in her living room. Case files were in three boxes marked by year. She flicked through the green folders stacked sidelong, spreading each of them only to pull out a forensic file from the box. Case 3789, suspect found not guilty after magical investigations proved that he was physically incapable of performing crimson magic, thus unable to cast the spell in question. Silvia Windmane, brought on as a consultant for the case, not only was able to prove his innocence but pinpoint the real culprit soon after. 

“Silvia Windmane…” She said aloud. She dipped back into the box to go to the same file. The consultant file she filled out to the most detailed profile she'd ever seen.

Silvia Windmane, said to be of the finest quality supermodels on the planet. Moved to Ranchtown three months ago in order to open a new and improved super modeling company, Windmane Modeling Inc. Said to have years of experience and knowledge of magic from all over Equestria. Graduated top of her class with a masters degree in Magical History and minored in potions. Despite being a pegasus, her knowledged from every corner in time and from several different countries was astronomical, putting many of the top academy unicorn students to shame with her expertise.

“Hey, uhhh Focus.” He said from the doorway, startling her slightly. “Are… you ok?”

She found her head drooped over her shoulder. She was reading the computer sideways and slouching over to the left of her office chair. She straightened up for a second, but began hunching over. As he approached her, he also noticed that Focus's left wing was extended while her right was drawn in over her back. He gently straightened her wing as he approached.

“I'm… working.” She looked up at him with a frown for two seconds Before returning to look at the computer screen.

“Working on getting to bed? That is a great idea.” He leaned over and put his arm over the back of her neck. Shadow's other arm curled up under the purple bat pony's legs. With no effort to speak of, he picked her up and headed back to her room. “Couldn't have said it better myself.”

“Asshole…”

“Yes, ma'am?” 

“This is your fault…”

“If I remember correctly, you are the one who rolled over on top of me and told me to, and I paraphrase, make your cervix my bitch. I think there was something about a sloppy cunt full of my horse sausage, I can't recall, you were at one of your higher pitches.” He smiled at her as he saw her face was almost painted red. She was still naked, and not exactly clean.

They made it back to her room and he placed her on the mattress, making her sigh. “Still your fault.” She whispered softly as he picked up a fresh wet cloth and began dabbing it against her naughty bits. She began breathing at a quicker rhythm as he applied pressure with a cold cloth. This made her gasp as he wiped it across her partially opened vagina. 

“Stop it…” She told him. Her eyes closed as the black stallion looked at her face. He took the cloth away from her labia and held it up. Focus opened her eyes and placed her hand on the back of his. She placed the cloth back where it was.

His look inquired an explanation from her and her beautiful, deep blue eyes looked into his green.

“Stop being like that.” She whispered as he continued to work. At first, he was going to ask, but his smile and nod made a smirk spread across her face. He finished his work, fairly certain she was good now.

Beyond that, as the comforter hit her chest, she was out.
> We All Have Skeletons
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Man musk, her sinuses were thick with it. It had been eons since Focus woke to that blissful, yet haunting odor. She opened her eyes as she heard another creature breathing. There he was, chest deep in her covers and sleeping on his stomach. He was a stomach sleeper. Such a thing was by far more of a rarity than the one night stand from the night before sleeping comfortably in her bed.

There was a long pause as Focus turned on her sight. She examined him. The black earth stallion was built like a gladiator, but his bright blue hair, which was only maybe one or two shades away from her own hair color, turned him into more of a surreal art piece.

Her first instinct was to start talking to him and tell him she wasn't running a hotel. Instead, she suddenly wondered how his mane locked in so much moisture. One tiny little touch was probably not going to matter. 

Rain Shadow lied there, his arms around one of her most comfortable pillows. Many girls would find his face cute when he slept. However, she was beyond such contrived notions. She was just going to give his cheek a little pet too. Two of her finger tips traced along the edge of his cheek.

“I know you're awake.” She whispered. That was when his hand shot up and snatched hers in an instant. She gave a sudden shriek and then a wail of guffaws. While she laughed, one of his green eyes was opened and looking toward her with a grin on his face. “You really are an asshole.”

“Take me in, Miss Crime Scene.” He groaned as he got up and popped his back in the pushup position.

“How'd you guess.” She stated, not asking. The crime scene files that were no longer in use but still deemed worth keeping were scattered in ordered chaos through the house. “Still, you're avoiding the issue.”

“You're not single?” He asked. She was given pause, a bit derailed by the question. That was obviously a negative. “You live with your Uncle Gross Drawers?”

Her face twisted in disgust. “Ew! No!”

“What's the problem? You don't like bass guitar, xylophone, cello, trumpet, flute, lute, and accordian players?” 

The pause between them was like one crazy desert of a fever dream. The thoughts that ran through her head ranged from circus clown to just a plain old wacko. “Do you… really…”

His nod made her blink three times. “No, I love instrument players b--”

“Whoa, shouldn't you buy me a drink first?” He asked, then she got a good look at his wrist watch. She grabbed his arm to bring it in close.

“Shit!” She shouted before tearing the covers off her and hurrying to get up, but it was a struggle as all of her jointed popped in quick succession and she nearly hit her face on the floor. “Damnit! Shadow!” She cringed and kept trudging and limping to her bathroom.

“Sorry.” He also got up and started gathering his stuff. “So, ummm… about--”

“One a.m. pick me up here, and next time, try not to attempt to break my pelvis!” She shouted as they both scurried to get ready.

----------

She pulled her ID card from her jacket as she swiped it to get into the lab, where Grem and Diamond were sitting around her desk, a generous pile of small daisy blossom dumplings were piled in a huge bowl with both of them eating with chopsticks over small plates. Both of them looked up at her as she walked into the forensics lab. Before Focus could even open her mouth to apologize to the two of them, Grem disoriented her further.

“How was he?” Grem asked, eating was was left of her dumpling. “The man.” Grem clarified.

“Oh…” Her face flushed. “I'm…”

“Glowing.” Both of them nodded and Diamond added. “Like the fullest moon.”

“That's not glowing… she's still hot.” Grem laughed a bit. “Oh my God, Focus, what did you find?!?”

“Later.” Focus pointed at the gray bat pony on her way to the desk. Then she grabbed three dumplings and handed Grem the file. One flick to open the folder and she went from zero to a hundred in no time at all.

“You're serious…” Grem could already see Focus nodding from her peripheral vision. “Okay… that sounds like a tall order.” One look from Diamond and he wore a similar look of shock.

“Windmane has risen to four times the star than she was when she consulted.” He said, but then looked in the file block for phone numbers. Silvia's phone number was once sold for charity at seventeen thousand bits. To hold such an item was the subject of dreams.

“We are going to try.” Grem was in no mood to hesitate. She picked up the phone.

---------

The definition of paradise had only changed for the better, it seemed. Diamond and Grem wore their black uniforms, symbolizing them as royal guards as they walked up to the gate. Both of them showed their ID’s to the very large, studly clydesdale guard. As they walked toward the building, both of them talked about perhaps bringing the guard to bed, thinking that he would give Grem a run for her money on how much she could bare as a bucking bang session. They kept him in mind as they all walked into the building, the lobby was very wide, and spanned half a football field. 

“Hello, how may I help you?” The receptionist at the desk greeted them with a smile. The cute, bright gold unicorn woman with electric red hair stood just a hair over four feet. She was very young, but she must have been around eighteen or nineteen. She was an unusual sight, but also quite cute. “You’re here to see Miss Windmane?” She turned her head to the side as her headphone was apparently talking to her ear. She nodded and spoke into the microphone. “Roger that.” She smiled back at them. “Come with me.”

The two of them followed her as she barely stood above their knees. She stood up straight and prim, but walked with a casual stride. They weren’t sure if they should ask her the questions that were swirling around their heads as she led them to th back of the building, and out the back door into the huge acre of green grass across a decorated field. It was protected from wind without blocking the sun. There were large shady spots with chairs all through the grass, and little spots where women could lay down in a sun chair and rest for a moment. 

Then there were the girls. All shapes and sizes. All dress types that went with all bodies. The girls were beautiful in so many different ways, it was hard to know where any man would ever start. The plus sized lady walking by had her rump in plain view as she carried a snake to a shoot on the other side, where the shades were brought down to allow natural sunlight. Her purple ass was painted with strange symbols that looked like leaves and trees, things of nature. 

So many of them turned their heads as Diamond Sword came into view. A man in uniform seldom went unnoticed in such a place as this. There were whispers among the crowd of women as they stood out of their way. Grem gave them all looks, and even she was getting a few herself. One of them even kept her naked ass right up in the air so that Grem could see all of the goods, and Diamond could look if he wanted. 

Then, there, at the table with the tea kettle, tea pot, all of the cups and saucers laid out in front of one mare with yellow fur and a bright blue mane. Silvia Windmane stood up and held up her hands to both of them. 

“Ah, my brothers and sisters at arms are always welcome in my house.” She walked around the table and met Grem in an embrace. Then kissed both of her cheeks. Her red eyes went from Grem, then to Diamond, with whom she smiled with half open eyes at. She held both of his hands and slowly wrapped her arms around his neck. He blushed at this, her presence was a tad overwhelming. 

Silvia was something of a legend in any and all circles. Her philanthropy knew no bounds and her beauty was so far deeper than her skin, though it lied there in mass quantities. Her love was bigger than many had ever known, and her charisma rivaled any and all princesses. Yet she was so humble. 

“Welcome, please, sit.” She wore a bright green spaghetti strap tube top that didn’t reach her belly, and her deep chocolate brown shorts reached the top of her hips. She wore very lacey sandals on her feet, and her sunglasses barely even covered her red irises. She led them both in front of her desk, and began to pull the teabags from the kettle, then poured the tea from the pot into the cups. “You’re Grem, and you’re Diamond Sword.” She said with a smile. 

They both nodded. “We cannot thank you enough for seeing us.” Grem smiled big, her palms were sweating so hard she had to keep them off the table so it wouldn’t smear the glass. “I’m, ummm… I’m kind of one of your biggest fans…. Ever…. Actually.” 

“Grem, that is so wonderful. I cannot tell you what that means to me. I never heard that sort of thing growing up, especially when I first started as a model. To get such a compliment from ones of your esteem is an honor. Now, what honors me more is your business here.” She picked them both up tea cups, and bowed to them both as she handed it over to them. “I was told that you found more Crimson magic in the crime scene of this latest robbery. You have the file?” 

Diamond had it ready for her immediately, and she nodded as she took it and opened it. She shook her head, sighing. “Unbelievable. Even in this dampened form, it’s so destructive. This one was at least restrained. Whatever it hit was not harmed too badly, but judging by the residue coated with ammonia, there was blood from an impact where the head met the concrete.” She looked the photo over more. “And you’ve questioned the suspect thoroughly?”

“He won’t take a deal. He’s keeping his lawyer close, and the chip on his shoulder closer. He’s already denied a five year deal. We told him if he cooperated we could possibly do better than that. He is giving us, literally, a twenty year guarantee.” Diamond Sword explained as he passed her the suspect’s file. 

“Lime Grass, age twenty two, in and out of jail since he was fifteen years old. How tragic.” Silvia shook her head. “He did so well in college under the magic tutelage of one, Sword Knight. He had perfect grades. It’s no wonder he could perform the proper spell so well.”

“Yes, we’ve got his magical signature at the scene, he’s dead to rights as it is. What we need to know is where he learned the spell, and if you can identify its source…”

“Of course.” Silvia nodded as she looked. “This is definitely the 3rd Scroll Crimson. It is the weakest of them, but that is a good thing. If it were the 5th scroll, neither the victim, nor our own Mr. Lime Grass would have survived…” She looked at them with a very dismal expression. “And neither would have eight square miles of innocence.” 

The gravity suddenly hit them in that moment. “If they have one form of dark magic, it’s a safe bet they’d be willing to use a much stronger one to get what they want. We’re dealing with an adversary that is without bounds, has infinite resources and influence. We know who it is, but we cannot say their name for--”

“Legal reason. Royal reasons. As Royal Guard you are unable to act in any direct way, however, you are not acting within the bounds of the law yourselves. Whoever defended the warehouse are very strong allies, and they are invaluable to your cause, however, I fear they will not be enough. I cannot act myself, for obvious reasons. However, I know where the spell came from, and I know who sold it to the guilty party.”

Both royal guards instantly sat up in their seats, listening with great intent now. That was when Diamond sipped his tea. His eyes widened and he looked at the tea to see that it looked so very weak, and pale orange, but the flavor burst in his mouth and he could taste a tea blended with a citric acid that mixed oranges and lemons perfectly. It tasted like he was drinking the nineteenth century in a sweet, sumptuous leaf blend.

“He is a collector, his name is Ruby Red, and he is… eccentric. Do not approach him with questions of the crime, he will know nothing. He knows nothing other than the artifacts he holds in his house. He deals in many illegal magics, but if you go with intent to arrest him, you will never find him. He knows much of what you seek.” Silvia bit her lower lip and pulled a pen from her table as a cool breeze passed over the field and the paper she wrote on almost flipped off the table without her very elegant, yellow gem she used to hold it down. “However, he comes with a price.” Windmane handed Grem a slip of paper that had a phone number and a name.

“Sky Blue?” Grem asked as she looked at the paper, then over to the yellow pegasus mare as she nodded. The bat pony actually knew the name quite well.

“I am going to call in a favor from her. She will help you, as will I, when I can.” She stood up from her seat, as did they. They all knew that it was time to go to work. She held both of their hands in her own. “Do not give up hope, no matter what is to come. They must not bring Pearl down. That mare has done more for this town than I have, and she will do more when this is through.”

All of them nodded, and they bid her adieu.

-------

Focus’s cellphone rang as she arrived at the hospital. She walked the hallways, going around the other patrons in the lobby and heading for the patient rooms. She clicked the button, recognizing the phone number, she just couldn’t remember from where. Her photographic memory was a bit selective when she was in the swamps of a case such as this.

“Hello?” She held it up to her face.

“Hey, it’s me, Rain Shadow.” He said, and her eyes brightened a bit. “I have some bad news.” 

“Bad news?” She asked, forgetting where in their relationship bad news came into the mix. 

“Yeah, I can’t make our date. Something came up. I need to go see some family.” He said, and she could tell by the tone of his voice, something was very wrong. He was not making this up to get out of dating a cold hearted cunt that barely gave him the time of day. “I’ll be happy to make a…” 

He stopped midsentence as they both turned the same corner and nearly ran into each other. Rain Shadow and she came in front of the exact same room and gazed at one another, face to face. 

“Shadow?” She asked, hanging up. They both looked one another over for a moment before she shook her head. “What are-- you said you needed to see family?”

“I do. This is it.” He pointed to the patient room where there were two armed guards in police uniforms and long daggers at their sides, ready to pull them out at a moment’s notice. 

“This guy is a suspect in a case I’m working. He--”

“Just helped in an attempted robbery of a warehouse. Yeah, I know.” He said and pulled out his photo ID, handing it to the officer, who looked it over. “He’s my brother.” He admitted as he was let through. She wore a flabbergasted face as she walked in with him. 

As soon as he walked in, there was a reddish orange unicorn handcuffed to the bed. His long, white mane a complete mess as he had not exactly kept it very well in this place. It was clear that the cuts on his body were extensive, though his face was more or less unharmed. He could barely move, and his torso and arms were covered in cast and stitches. His eye was cut shut, but his other was wide open as Rain Shadow walked in. The Earth Pony eyed him and Focus Sight closed the door. 

There was another officer in the corner of the room, sitting and watching him very closely. He did not move very much, as it was his duty to stay alert, and make sure the suspect did not attempt to make a move, no matter his condition.

“Lime… Man… What--” Shadow asked, and the unicorn snorted.

“Don’t start with me, Shad. We ain’t going through this again, and we ain’t talking about what happened. Tell mom I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry, what the fuck did you just say? Say that one more FUCKING TIME! You’re what?!” Shadow pointed at him, aggressive as hell, but the officer in the corner of the room didn’t seem to care. Focus pursed her lips. Lime Grass sat there, obviously the swelling in his lips and cut eye were pulsing and the pain was extensive as he was given the minimal amount of painkillers. “Fine is not a word that is going to be used in this room again, is that convenient for you, little bro? Do you need me to take out the trash for you again because you’re too fucking high? Should I tell Mom her money walked off again? What should I do this time? Tell these cops ‘Oh, sorry, officer, my brother, he’s been in and out of jail, why not just cut him a break this time?’ Yeah, no. That ship has sailed.” Shadow’s face told Lime Grass that this was a one-sided discussion, and the adult was talking. 

The air in that room was absolutely thick with tension. The silence could but cut with a knife. 

“Who taught you how to use crimson magic?” Focus asked as she saw her chance. Both of them looked over at her as she held the file up to her side and looked back at both of them with her glasses on. 

Shadow pointed at her and nodded. “What she said.” He looked back at Lime. “Well?” 

“Fuck you.” He said and crossed his arms. 

“Oh, here come the big boy arms.” Shadow laughed and clapped his hands, pointing at his brother. “This means he’s pouting and his bottom lip won’t let him tell us. Isn’t that right? Mouth like a steel trap, this one!” The ridicule on Lime Grass’s face was palpable, but he stood there, absolutely still with his arms crossed. “They’re going to get what they want, whether you give it to them or not. But, hey, if you want to rot in a medical prison rather than get better in one like this, go right the fuck ahead. I’ve had enough of this, anyway.”

“They’ll fucking kill me, Shadow.” He said, looking over at a shocked black stallion. “These people, you don’t know who is working for them. For all we know, Mr. Star over there is working for them. If I say one single thing, he’s going to impale me with a dagger. Or that trollop over there, she could be ready to poison me, even if I say a word, bro. So, no. I’m not saying a damn thing, and I’d rather get put in the stocks!”

That was another long, long pause. All who were talking were no longer talking. Shadow didn’t have the words. After just a moment, he began to feel numb. The little brother he use to bathe, the one he taught to ride a bike, and the one who built a fort made of pillows with him in their bed was now laying there. He was a broken stallion. The wounds on his body were the perfect analogy for his true form. Every moment staring at him was masochistic torture. He loved him, but the pain was rising in his chest and his eyes were beginning to fog up. 

Shadow opened his mouth to talk, but the knot in his throat was far too thick. Instead, he closed his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks as he turned and knocked on the door. The guards opened up for him to let him out. In that instant, Focus Sight decided she could go with him. 

“Shadow.” She called to him. However, he kept walking, shaking his head. “Shadow! Wait!” That’s when he turned around suddenly, and they were face to face. The anger in his face was boiling hot, and suddenly she regretted calling after him as she backed away one step. 

“Well?” He choked out before a sob. He wiped his nose and raised his arms up. “I’m waiting.”

“I need your help. I need to know everything you can tell me about your brother and his history in the teachings of magic.” The worried look in the bat pony’s face did not leave her, especially when he began to laugh. It was one of those unbelieving laughs, like when your dog just died and they ask why he wasn’t wearing a collar. 

“Oh, is that all? Well, that changes everything.” He turned and began walking faster. She reached out to him, but he was very fast. He dodged all of the hospital personnel faster than even they could keep up with. Focus couldn’t find the strength to even take a step toward him. The hospital continued to move around her as she took off her glasses and sighed. 

“Shit…”

-------

Computer technology has come to a point where we can now take pictures of deoxyribonucleic acids. Robots can now clean your floor to near perfection, and modern medicine could now cure diseases that once were known as mass killers. Proxy, however, was far beyond what many knew as “modern science.” Her circumstances were different, and her body brought a new meaning to the word “Complicated.” She was updated with all of the highest technological advances available (and many not available) in the market today. 

Her spy drone had successfully landed in the midst of a very interesting, smaller lady whose lab had some equipment even Proxy didn’t have yet. This was coming from a woman whose entire right side was worth upwards of twenty million bits upon its creation. With upgrades and attachments, it could go for ninety million without breaking a sweat. The cyborg mare’s right eye sat in the center of a steel eye socket, and glowed a green color as she gazed at the beautiful computer tech this hacker had. 

She could see the girl’s computer screen, but only just barely. Proxy’s lab was nothing to sneeze at. This video surveillance equipment could never be replicated, as she knew the ends and outs of how to make them to where they self destruct if tampered with. However, the fly drone detected an energy field around her, kind of a literal bug zapper. It prevented her from getting too close to the computer screen to read everything, but she got some pictures out of it. Those pictures were already closely monitored and filed away in her databanks. She had computer efficiency, as she was fed through internal tubes and could remain stationary until she was depleted of the protein paste she consumed on a daily basis. With her main attention sensors directed at the screen, her brain could entertain itself, interact with her pleasure centers in order to reach orgasm, or shut down for a period of time, activating the movement sensors to alert her of any change. 

This time, the flashing, dexterous hands of the hacker girl began to bang on the keyboard once again. At first, Proxy couldn’t make out what the screen had on it. It was a symbol of some sort. It looked like a crescent moon with two long swords crossed behind it. The background was gold while the symbol was a dark purple. Then there was another pattern beside it as the flag was actually something of a banner. The site she was on had the look of an encrypted forum. 

That’s when she caught a glimpse of the name of the forum. However, proximity alerts went off on her scope, and she turned to the left. She saw that Crystal Clear, the hacker in question, was looking at her fly with a computerized scope, one that fed it a magnetic force that did not allow it to move.

“Whahahahahahahhaaaaat the fuck is this shit?!” She shouted as the fly was starting to break down all the way to its bare essence, along with the camera that was attached to it. Proxy, began to press buttons, she had to cut the server, why could she not cut the server?! Even if she disconnected it, it was no use, it was remotely enhanced to stay on! “Well hello there, little fellow. What’s your name? Who’s your owner?”

Shit! She had to act fast, she switched on her auxiliary power, along with the emergency power to her firewall. She did not want to take a single chance on this one. Proxy had faced hackers of this caliber before, she had no desire to do so now! Not when there was so much at stake!

Video feed incoming! Shit!

“Hellooooooo!” Her face popped up on Proxy’s view. “Anybody hooooome?” The cute red mare said as she looked around. “Anybody hooooome?” 

That’s when Proxy appeared as a normal pony. As if she had never had the illness, she smiled at the new girl, nervously. She was bright orangish peach in her fur, with a yellowish mark leading down her snout. She had freckles, and her hair was still in dreadlocks. Her bright blue eyes flickered as she blushed. 

“Ummmm hi! I’m Shimmery! I see you… found my bug.” She said, trying to sound as normal as possible, using contractions and talking in a normal, nervous tone. The digital video imaging did the rest beautifully while her eye worked furiously to launch counter measures digitally. 

“Oh, yes, the bug, and every single little file I see raining into my file box in stealth mode. My dear sweet loveable asshole. You’re about to get triple fucked!” 

Before she knew it, the signal was overrun. She tried to switch over IP address but she was locked in!!!!

“Damn, you sure know how to struggle. I’ll give you that! Now take it like a bitch!” She tried to implant a death virus known as Cerberus, blocking her systems from all outside contact, but it only partially worked, part of it was deleted in key files that were prevented from going off. However, she had no contact with her teammates, as her systems were still in a jam. 

That’s when she picked up the inbounds. Fuck fuck fuck FUCK! She cut the video feeds. All contact was now lost as she was on voluntary lockdown. Her systems began to reboot, at least the main ones. The mechanical ones were already booted, but now they were gaining power as she pressed buttons, turned knobs to maximum and cut all feeds, even solid surveillance. Everything was loaded into her eye, which she plucked out of her metal socket and placed into the computer port beside her robotic coffin. Her dead husk, no longer viable as a person, slumped over into the coffin and many coils began to come around it. 

Everything went dark other than one single flashing red light in the middle of the darkness that was now being barged into. A team of alpha mercenaries brought their weapons and moved with precision and great speed. They came out of their vans, approximately twenty of them. The red orb calculated all that had to be done. All power was generated to the proper consoles and she waited. 

“Alpha Bones, in position.” The stallion said as the black suited men and women carried their two long daggers each, strapped with kevlar armor meant to repel the sharpest blades. They wore ski masks, but she had thermal scans on, she literally see right through them, especially with x-ray. They all stood at the door until a unicorn female came to the front and lit up her horn, blasting through her steel plated door as it crumbled into rubber. The small house was so unsuspecting. It was a normal grandma sort of house. Nova Proxy was sure of this because she shopped at the mall online and ordered drapes that she saw in a movie she liked. Now it the jig was up. Especially when the first male in the door who searched the corners tripped a taser clip that zapped him from head to toe and made him hit the ground hard. 

“Shit, Nine is down!” One of them shouted as he went down to his friend, tripping yet another laser and a syringe shot out of the wall and into his arm. “GA-” He landed on his teammate’s back, limp. 

“Everyone, watch your fucking footing!” A female voice shouted as she searched for anything around the hallways. Of course, they would wise up to her act. The attic was all but too common a place to hide. However, not all attics spray tear gas in mass quantities when you pull the cord. “GAAAHHH!!!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!” 

“Charlie! Are you alright!” Her other teammate asked as he went to her aid. He had to talk over the very loud spraying tear gas. He turned his head away from the gas but he still got a whiff of it as he carried his teammate. 

Over the next twenty minutes, there were little wooden caltrops, marbles, and any other early 90’s trap Proxy could think of when she modified the house. However, she had miscalculated their conviction. It wasn’t long before they busted open the wall to find an entire dark lab chock full of secrets and things they could not begin to comprehend. 

There were now ten of them. She had disabled eighteen of them, as they had called in a whole nother van to aid in the evac of the injured and then carry on the mission. This strike force was the real deal, and she knew it. This next part would need to be played very carefully. Like smart people, they approached every single piece of equipment like it was a sleeping bear. The red flashing light was especially a no-go area. All of them stayed far away from it, checking everywhere for any connections. No trip wires, no mines, no acid spray of any kind in the attic, and that made them nervous… rightfully so.

The screens came on, and there was nothing but a single ball of red light. All of them froze and pointed their throwing knives at the screens, but then thought better of wasting their ammunition. That’s when the deepest, darkest, most robotic voice they had heard in their lives blared into the attic, making them all wince. 

“Targets Analyzed.” Said the bionic being. “Initiating countermeasure deployment!” 

That was when all screens turned white and fizzled as the red light in the middle of the room began to go haywire in beeping with it getting louder! 

“Someone hit that thing!” One of them shouted.

Then came the flatline beep. As it happened, the coffin began to rise very slowly, the screens going red as it stood, and opened to reveal a automaton of enormous stature, covered in metal parts with two red glowing eyes. Both of her arms were encased in cybernetic bracers, and her body was simply covered in a metal that looked flashy. She stood on legs that made her three feet taller and stared every single one of them down, stopping all of their breath. 

“Stage one: Deliverance.” The dark, gruesome voice boomed toward them as it began to move. Three daggers went into its metal shell, harmlessly penetrating the outer metal layer as both of her hands shot two cords into two of the mercs, zapping them with enough power to drop a moose. 

The next soldier who made a move to take Proxy’s new form on was met with two cords that snapped out of her the side of her arm, and locked his arms and legs into place, making him fall to the side.

As she contracted her taser cords, she whipped them around to stun two of the aggressors from approaching. Two very large pensers grabbed them, and they were thrown at the next two. 

There was Crystal Clear, watching all of this from her computer, mouth gawked in still life for a good five to six minutes now as she watched from the cameras on the Alpha Team that was now down to one stallion. He was being webbed up onto the wall. 

Proxy began to emit a beeping from her arm when she finally got the whole team piled up in one area. A single, small EMP knocked out all of their equipment, including trackers. With that, there was no time to waste. She took money, important files, extra food and any other essential she could cram into the old Pluto they had parked out back. It was a tiny little car that no one would suspect was built to last through a machine gun fire fight. 

When she had everything loaded, she remembered her communications were still taken out and she couldn’t contact them! Immediately, her anti-virus kicked up and she went to work decrypting her brain of this little blemish. She sighed, doing that and running was going to be an absolute joy for the next forty eight hours. Station three was compromised. Beyond that one, there were no other safe havens for her, digitally. At least, not that the Sweepers knew of. 

She got into the car, looking into the mirror at her red eye. That face, the right half, she didn’t look at it very often. She sat there in the backyard of the house, knowing she had to run, but in that moment, she started to question…

No, now’s not the time. She reached into the glove compartment and smashed a magic potion onto her metal face. As her skin turned normal in the mirror, it reflected. As did the tears welling up. She swallowed hard, the adrenaline needing to go somewhere. She pulled the drive and pumped the gas. The natural looking pony wanted to savor both days of this. Normally it was for vacations, but today, she had to run. She hated running. 

Especially alone.
> Ever Closing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sharktooth stood in the shower, her head not feeling much better than it had before. Her cheek was still a bit swollen, but the impact the weirdo spell hit with was beyond any she had felt at an indirect impact. Normally, she could shrug off damage like it was a fly, but this was the real deal. She turned on the water and got it to just hot enough to give herself goosebumps. Her orange hair turned darker as she closed her eyes and sighed. Then two hands came out from behind her and hugged her across her waist. Her body went rigid from the touch and she scowled back at Vertigo. The blue pegasus smiled as cute as she could to offset the green pony’s anger. However, the reveal of her razor sharp teeth told her it wasn’t working. 

“‘Ey! I said you could shower with me to save time, I didn’t say we were snogging!” The shark-like earth pony snarled. “I don’t need you to wash my back, so keep your hands to y’self!”

“Awww, come on, Shark! At least let me use a luffa?” Vertigo asked, and put on a pouty face. Sharktooth rolled her eyes and turned back around to face the shower head. 

“Fine, but watch where your hands g--oi!” Shark was interrupted as two soapy hands came from behind and groped her tits, starting to caress them. “You’ve got two seconds before get a shark tooth in your-” 

Both of them were interrupted by a ringing phone on the counter next to the sink. It wasn’t the normal text notification. It was a custom notification. 

“That’s Proxy!” Vertigo said as she got out of the shower and Sharktooth turned it off after rinsing her tits in annoyance. The blue pegasus dried off her hands and arms as she picked up Sharktooth’s phone. She could hear her own phone going off in her pants on the ground as well, but she unlocked her partner’s phone and her face twisted in confusion. “What the hell? Why would she send us this?”

Without a word, Sharktooth took her phone back and studied the text. It was an advertisement for a mail-order anal dildo especially for stallions. The page started with the low low price of 30 bits and went on to describe the patented vibrating action complete with remote control and straps for easy use and connection to any bluetooth. 

“It’s our emergency encryption, you simp! Don’t you remember?” Shark asked, and left Verti with a blank look on her face. She rolled her eyes at the blue mare. “If it’s a sex ad, then it’s an emergency. If it starts with a price, then we use cipher number 3.”

She opened the cipher on her phone and it began to show all of the symbols and tells that the message should have. Still naked, she went into the living room and swept off all of the snacks, cans and bottles from the small table they had in their main area. As it hit the floor Vertigo whined a bit and tried to find the bags of oat chips that were still full.

Shark got a notepad and a pen. She started doing the calculations in her head as she read the two together. Her pen began to work on the pad as she put the whole thing together. 

“Shit, station three is compromised!” Sharktooth spat as she kept reading into the encryption. Verti let out an “Oh, no!” sound with a mouth full of chips. Her wet, orange mane covering her eyes as she looked up, so she combed it out of the way. “Those bastards traced her bug’s signal back to her. Proxy got out unharmed and was able to destroy all of the data in her harddrives.”

“Does it say where she is now?” Vertigo asked and Shark waved for her to shut up while she thought and kept writing down the message. That’s when the pegasus saw that she was still naked and started to contemplate whether or not to finish showering. 

“Get dressed.” Sharktooth answered her unspoken question. “The bastards traced her bug, but she traced them right back.” Sharktooth held up the piece of paper and showed it to her pegasus partner. “It’s a power station.” 

“But what about Proxy?” Vertigo asked as she started the search for where she threw her sports bra. 

“She specifically told us not to go looking for her. It’s too dangerous. We gotta go after these bastards now, or they’re going to get away with everything. We’re not going to let that happen.” Shark said as she got on her gear, ignoring the fact that her head was still pounding. “This time,” The green mare said as she strapped on her combat knife. “It’s fucking personal.”

Vertigo seemed to take a second to acknowledge this. Then she nodded and got her fingerless gloves on. The two of them bolted out the door and into the night. 

-----------

Sky opened her door before Grem could even knock. The two guards stood outside of her house in the afternoon. Both of them were taken aback by the fact that the blue unicorn with dark orange hair was completely naked. Her pale blue nipples were hard as the cool breeze hit them from the outside. There was a pause as she stood at her door and looked them both over. The two of them had been working that entire day, and it was pretty obvious that they were both tired from such a long day. This made Sky Blue smile. Both Grem and Diamond Sword couldn’t help but notice that her breasts were very perky and were quite large without sagging. 

“Grem,” She nodded to her, then looked at the stallion with a smile. “Sword, so nice of you to come. You’re late.” She said as she held the door open for them both. “Come in.” 

She walked back into the living area of her house, past her kitchen. It was a very nicely laid out house. The carpet was a bright gray, while the walls were painted a rustic, dark red. She had a very large white stone fireplace, which was lit. She also had a very nice looking set of books lining the wall in three bookshelves. All of her books looked like they either had something to do with magic or some very dark, cryptic fantasy novels. 

“Ummm, did we come at a bad time?” Diamond Sword asked as the unicorn mare held up one finger for him to hold on. 

She walked to the hallway and opened the door of the first room, poking her head into it. She said something too low for either of them to hear, then walked back into the room. 

“Now then, to answer your question, no. Aside from the fact that you’re slightly late, we still have ample time to do what needs to be done.” She said as she stood in front of them as they were still in her entry way. “What were you here for?” She glanced at the two of them.

“Wait,” Grem said, “You knew we were coming, but you don’t know why we’re here? Didn’t Sylvia tell you we were coming?” As she said the name, Sky’s green eyes almost burst from their sockets. The whites of her orbs in plain view. 

“Sylvia Windmane?!” She said. Her hands went to her mouth as both of them nodded. The white stallion and batpony glanced at each other in complete confusion. “Oh my God! That’s awesome! Tell me everything!” Sky squealed with glee. 

“Sup, babe?” There came a tall, very muscular stallion from the room, who was strangely also very much naked. His cock was only partially hard, which led both of them to believe that they had, in fact, come at a bad time. He was a burnt orange furred pegasus with long, raven black hair. That’s when he caught sight of Grem, and his brown cock twitched a bit to life. 

“Printer!” She turned to him and began jogging in place a bit, making her boobs bounce. “They said Sylvia Windmane wants me for a job!” 

“Whoa! THE Sylvia Windmane? That’s awesome! She is a total babe.” Print said as his eyes went back to Grem and he nodded. “Hey, I’m Color Printer.”

“Hi, I’m Grem,” The gray batpony said with a smile and a blush as his cock was now at a semi-hard state. “It’s spelled with an ‘e.’” 

“Go on!” Sky said to them both. “Tell me what she wants! Ooohh, you’ve got me all excited again! Printer!” She turned away from him and got on all fours. Then she motioned him toward her. Then her attention was fixed on the two royal guards as they looked on with some surprise and a great deal of arousal. Printer mounted Sky from behind and reinserted himself into her, making her shiver with delight.

“Well, she wants you to go to some collector guy and--” Grem stopped talking as Sky exasperated in disgust. This made the orange stallion stop for a moment, but then she motioned him on. He continued to hump steadily.

“Damnit, I should have known she’d want something inconvenient and uncomfortable as hell.” Sky rolled her eyes, but then closed them for a moment as she gave a grunt in pleasure. “That damn collector guy…” She sighed. “Go on, I’m listening--nmm!” 

“Ummm, yes, she says he knows things about Crimson Magic that we need to find out.” Grem brushed her hand against her own breast and drew in a sharp breath as she ran her fingers through her hair. “It looks like we came at a bad time, maybe we should come back?”

“Crimson Magic…” Sky looked off to the side and still gave tiny little grunts as Print started to fuck her harder. Her eyes began to waver and she let out a small gasp and a solid moan. “That’s awful. Yeah, if anyone knows anyth-ooohh!-about this, it’s Ruby Red.”

“Didn’t you say they would join in?” He whispered to her, but loud enough for them to hear. This drew strange looks from both of them as they were beginning to sweat, and Sword’s sex organ was becoming a contusion in his trousers. 

“I said that most of the futures--ennmm!!--had them--Oh! Go harder!” Then she looked over to Diamond Sword with a grin. “I need a--mouth plug!” 

Before he could even reply, Grem was working on her uniform to get it off. Her gigantic tits bounced out of her blouse and her jiggly ass was soon to come into view with her very wet panties almost see-through at that point. 

“Well? Go on.” Grem said as she slipped her undies off to her ankle and kicked them to her pile of clothes. 

Sword wanted to remind her that they were on duty, but she was quicker to grab her phone from her pants and show him that it was well after their work hours should be over. Their days only got longer as they went deeper into this whole farce. 

It took no time at all to plug Sky’s mouth with his long, bright skinned dick into her mouth. She was taken by surprise with how much it filled her mouth completely. Sky wasn’t sure if she could handle two big dicks on either end, but she also wasn’t going to give up this opportunity. Grem watched as her lover fucked the unicorn in the mouth. She helped him get off his shirt to show off his chiseled physique and reached down to cup his balls. 

“So, you think you could help us with this guy a bit?” Grem asked as she gently rubbed his scrotum and caused his dick to throb against her tongue. Behind Sky, Printer was still thrumming away at her cunt. The extra added weight to her lust caused her to relubricate herself, smearing juices all over her lover’s steely cock as it thrust within her. 

“Hey, tiger.” Grem said to the orange stallion as she took up the same position next to Sky and showed off her curvy ass cheeks and her very wet quim. She gave it a little wiggle and giggled. “You wanted us to join in.” She said with a bit of a melodic tone. 

Sky hummed her agreement and Print simply shrugged his shoulders. He switched over to the batpony, who welcomed his cock with open lips and a tight grip that he had to fight against. In no time, he was banging the gray mare with a passion. His tempo took no time at all to return as she clenched her eyes shut and lowered her head. The two guards hadn’t relieved themselves the whole day and she couldn’t help but cry out. 

The white unicorn was pleasantly surprised as Sky slipped her mouth off of his head and began to jerk him with a skillful hand. 

“This job is only going to get worse. You know that, right?” Sky said in all seriousness to the two of them. “I can’t know what’s going to happen, but all of the possibilities look rather gloomy.” 

“Yeah, we figured that.” Sword said, his dick was at full depth and precum drizzled down his shaft over her fingers. She smiled and began to lap it up to its source, sucking on his glans. This made him draw in a sharp breath. “It needs to be done, though.” He strained to say.

“I know.” She chuckled and kissed his tip. “Another thing that needs to happen is this needs to go deep into me. I’ve been edged twice now and this has gotten out of hand.” 

Without another word, she turned around and nestled her firm ass against his groin as she slid him deep into her sheathe. 

“We should--really---hurry--uuunnn!!!” Grem gritted her teeth as she worked her way through her first orgasm. Printer wasn’t as big as her favorite unicorn, but he had enough spirit to make up for it. Her tits bobbed back and forth below her as she felt him burst inside of her. Using his spurting jizz as extra lube, he banged her with his hips slapping against her ass. 

“You heard the lady.” Sky said as she looked back at Sword with a grin. “Fuck me faster!”

To her surprise, he slid even more of himself into her and began to kiss her cervix with a newfound gusto. He wasn’t gentle, nor was he rhythmic. He was rough! Sky wasn’t sure if she came once or came twice in instantaneous succession. 

To her surprise, he pulled out. Grem was quick to get her mouth on top of his tip. She jerked his long, bright skinned shaft. Sky's wetness made this easy. Her palm glided over his skin and her tongue welcomed a wonderful spout of jizz. Her tongue worked his head over as he twitched against her touch. She drank him in gulps until he was finished.

The blue unicorn sat up as she watched this. Her jaw dropped when she noticed the bat didn't let a drop escape her. Grem licked her lips, smiling up at Sword. He shivered a little as she kissed his very sensitive dick. 

Both Printer and Sky glanced at each other, a little amazed at their prowess. 

The guards met in a kiss as he helped her up.

"We should get going." Grem proclaimed as she started to gather her clothes. It took a moment for Sky to finally snap out of her stupor. She nodded, and all three got ready to leave.

"Sorry, dear, looks like I'm not off today." Sky went into her bedroom. "There's lasagna in the freezer!"

It took very little time for her to get ready, but they were quick to leave. Printer stood there with his arms crossed, thinking. Then the idea hit him. She still had those choc-

The door opened and she looked in. "And no eating my chocolate cherries!" Sky closed the door and he cursed. This was the cost of dating a clairvoyant. 

‐-------- 

The lady horse hummed as she watered her garden. The green house was now in full swing after surviving a harsh winter in Ranchtown. Once Hearth’s Warming rolled around, her daisies were having a hard time with so little sunlight, so she had to put in another UV lamp. Then her roses started to lose color in their stems, so she had to get them a bit more of a specialized growth chemical. However, all of her worked paid off. Spring was in bloom and now her plants were having happy pedals all over. 

Princess Lemniscate took a step back as she finished watering, and saw all of her lovely plants in full. It was always her favorite part of the day to get a long gaze at her lovely plants. She only wished that she had more time to do so. She hated the fact that she had to give them care near the end of the day. Her mornings were just too busy.

The princess brushed her luscious red, yellow and white hair off to the side of her ear, getting it out from in front of her face where it hung from her single horn. Her royal blue fur was in perfect form that morning, now it was all messy and grimy from the day. It was such a pity that she had to leave, but her responsibilities called her elsewhere.

“Your highness.” A man walked into her greenhouse, causing her to furrow her brow. “Mr. Star is here to see you in your main hall.” He bowed to her in utmost respect and admiration, but she did not even turn to acknowledge him. 

“What does he want?” She asked, obviously not wanting to see him after she’d already paid such attention to her lavish garden.

“He says that it is a matter of two problems getting closer and a third one newly discovered.” The stallion was dressed in a suit of the finest fabric. It was a deep purple with a green shirt underneath that gave him something of a renaissance vibe. His tie, however, was blue. Out of her peripheral vision, she could see that tie stand out. It clashed with everything in his suit and she sneered. 

She took a deep breath then. She put her water can off to the side and took off her work gloves, which went with her beautiful purple dress, laced with gold twine and toggles.  Lemni fixed her hair as best she could and straightened her blouse. In an instant, she put both of her hands onto the stallion’s tie, one on the knot and one on the stem. She pulled it as tight as she could do it in one jerking motion.

His eyes went wide as it became tight enough to choke him. Her eyes glared down at him as he leaned forward and tried to breath and his complexion became very red. 

“After you gain back some airflow, would you be so kind as to never wear that tie again? It was an eyesore that I will no longer allow it to exist.” She watched as he untied the tie and began to remove it. “Now, leave.” 

She stepped around him and walked out of the door to the main part of her residence. She walked down the hall to the main room, where two guards stood with scimitars at their waists. They were dressed in the appropriate attire. They meshed with the white walls in their red jackets and white button-up shirts. As she approached the very large blue doors, the guards opened them to reveal a beige stallion with a silver mane waiting by her bejeweled throne. 

The main hall was as empty as she could make it. The walls were lined with sconces full of jasmine flower plants that were replaced every week. Pillars lined the path to her throne and a great fireplace centered the wall on the other side of the room. Her sour expression softened only a little bit as she approached the chair in the very center of the black and white checkered floor. 

Noble Star knelt before her, the knuckles of his left hand touching the floor as he bowed his head. The man was a depiction of regal splendor in his attire. He loved putting black, red and white together like playing cards. Whether he wore spades, hearts, clovers or diamonds in his suits seemed to change as often as the moon. It wasn’t his clothes she was worried about, though. 

“I am forever in your service, my queen.” He said to her, and looked up as she rolled her eyes at him. 

“You mentioned three problems, Noble. I will not have you mince words. Tell me what we are dealing with. I would very much like to sleep tonight.” She turned and sat in her throne as he rose to his feet. 

“It seems the pink pony was a bit more resourceful than we originally thought. Whoever she has at her beck and call, they have already thwarted our collection at the warehouse. Because of this, we are forced to expedite our original plan.” Noble Star kept himself as straight as possible in his stance as he spoke. 

“Who are they?” She asked, already growing frustrated with his speaking. 

“We don’t know.” Noble admitted, his face bracing. “What little info we have on them is questionable by itself. They obviously have great combat prowess which includes stealth, use of weapons and a database that was tracked but promptly lost.” 

There was a long pause. The stoneface she gave him made him more than a little nervous. Then her expression softened as she looked off to the right, thinking. She hummed a bit and took a deep breath, shaking her head. 

“What of the necklace?” She asked, still wishing she could hold it in her possession. The implications of it being in her own chateau were entirely too dire, though. Any chance that they could find her were unthinkable to say the least. That was when she got a glimpse of his trousers and gave a small grunt.

“It is safe. We know they are looking for it. As for their database, she has gone silent.” His face turned grim then. “There were… complications.”

“And you are mincing words again.” Lemniscate furrowed her brow at him.

“The information on the event is scanty, but the task force involved could only describe it as ‘a nightmare.’” He saw that he had her full attention now. “They said it was an automaton of some sort. Like a monster.”

“Noble,” She said as soon as he was done talking. That was when she lifted her skirt and revealed her thong that barely covered her naughty bits. “Come service your princess while I tell you what is going to happen now.” 

Without a single word, he knelt down in front of her and spread her legs wider. Her purple lace thong perfectly wrapped around her mound that framed her very pink lips. He stretched the thong off to the side and lunged his tongue against her labia folds. She didn’t even utter a small groan. Her eyes, however, went half open. 

“Whoever these neusances are, they are to be taken care of…” She drew in a sharp breath as he began to work her upper lips. His tongue nestled into her inner labia, just under her swelling clitoris as her legs twitched. “First, what was that about a… ‘monster?’”

-----------

Focus had already gone over all of the data twenty times. The pictures of the Crimson Magic residue were spread all through out her coffee table. On top of that was the broken bottles of perfume that she could still smell on the clothes she had on that night. Then there was the destroyed truck and the suspect in custody that was giving literally no statement without a lawyer. So, no statement at all, more or less. It all pointed to very large and wealthy resources pulling off these crimes. All of them seemed to be targeting Pearl Necklace herself. When Focus tried to get in touch with her to ask her some questions, she was not available for comment. 

Already, Focus had grown quite fond of Coin Purse, Miss Pearl’s lovely assistant. The three sentence conversations they had were a high point of her day. Already, she was wanting to go to her favorite club and just unwind for a bit. However, that club was now a reminder of him.

Rain Shadow hadn’t spoken to her since their run-in at the precinct. The mere fact that he was actually a part of all of this was beyond coincidental. It was these sort of coincidences that drove her apeshit. She was taught to never believe-in coincidences but this was just too much of a sharp edge to even think of it as a setup. It was, however, a potential blessing in disguise. Rain’s number was on her phone now and she had the ability to ask him for more information, but what kind of bitch would she be to ask him?

Conflicts of interest existed for a reason, after all. Asking him to sell out his own brother could blow the whole deal for her. Both in professional and personal terms, she was damned either way. The mere thought of going back into that wormhole brought a serious migraine. Her lights were already turned off. She couldn’t look at pictures anymore. She didn’t want to get drunk and she didn’t want to watch people dance with glowing paint all over them. 

This would all be so much easier if she could just build up the energy to make one damn phone call and--

She yelped as there was a knock at her door. Focus blinked a couple of times and shook her head. She placed the photo back on the coffee table and got up. As she opened the door, her heart caught in her throat. There was Rain Shadow standing there with a box in his arms. His face looked somber, but for the most part, he didn’t look angry. He held up the box toward her and shook it a tiny bit. 

“This is what you asked for. This is everything I could find in his apartment. There wasn’t a lot, but some of the books looked like they might be what you’re looking for.” He said as he pushed it toward her, and she took it from him. She looked into the top, and there were some smaller books that looked like they were rather old, as well as what looked like a journal. 

Focus Sight looked at all of the items in the box then looked back up at him. He shrugged.

“Yeah, I’m not leaving it here. So, if you want to do your investigation things, you’ll have to bare with me.” Rain said as he looked off to the side a little. His chin drooped a bit as his lips pursed. “I’m sorry about--”

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked in the first place. Come in.” She left the door open for him as she put the box on her coffee table. He closed the door behind him and followed her to her couch. He watched the purple bat pony as she began to pull out the books and examine them. 

She noted that they were quite old, about as old as they looked. The binding on them wasn’t made with a process that was used nowadays. The paper also sounded like it had been made many ages ago. It must have been worth well into the tens of thousands of bits. The cover was raw leather. It looked as if they didn’t even bother to make it pretty, just made sure that it was sturdy and functional. It looked like it was both burnt and rotten from age.

“Your brother had very expensive tastes in books, it looks like.” Focus said as she looked over at Rain, who sat beside her, studying the book as well. “Was this hidden?”

“It was the last in a stack of books. He was never really good at hiding things in his room. I always found whatever it was.” Rain said, then he noticed a small symbol on the corner of the inner cover. “What is this?”

They both looked closely at it, and it was the brand of a pony’s head with a mane of flame. If she didn’t miss her guess, that meant that it belonged to Ranchtown way way back in the days of its founding. That meant it could only come from one place.

----------------

Diamond Sword opened the door for the two ladies to walk through. All three of them were hit with the smell of stale pages from books, incense, petrified wood and oils from all over the world. The shop looked like something of a pawn shop from the 18th century. There was very little light other than a few dim ones in two sides of the very large room, and the windows were covered up with black to keep the sun and heat out. Everything was scattered. There was no organization that they could see. There were pieces of armor with the sage, and knives with the books as well as carved statuettes with the shiny stones. 

Diamond Sword stopped to take a gander at one of the clear crystal balls, but was interrupted as an older blue unicorn stallion came from the back. His hair was black with tiny lines of gray in it. His eyes were purple and they widened at the sight of Sky Blue.

“Sky! Hello! Welcome to my sho--” He looked over at the two guards and frowned. “What’s going on?” He turned a skeptical eye over to Sky, who grinned. 

“Hello, Red. I need some information from you, and I thought I’d bring some friends to come and look for a few items of interest in your shop.” Sky said as she fiddled with a letter-opener on his front counter in the shape of a broadsword. 

“What sort of items do you mean?” Red’s skeptical glare grew a bit more furrow browed. 

“You got a crystal ball that’s more of a purple shade?” Sword asked as he picked up the clear ball.

“Other side, by the wind chimes.” Ruby Red said, pointing to the far side of his shop. Then Sky pulled out one of the pictures in Grem’s file. It highlighted the residue that was left by the Crimson Magic on the concrete floor. Red took the picture and studied it. “Well, this is a rare find, indeed.” 

“We were told that you would have some information on where a couple of crooks had access to such forbidden magic. I want to know which scroll it came from and where that scroll is now.” Grem interjected, noting his false ignorance that he attempted in his voice. “We’re not here to get you in trouble, we just want to know where they got this.”

There was a long pause as Ruby Red stared at the picture. It wasn’t clear what exactly he was thinking, but he also didn’t look worried. He turned the picture upside down and kept looking closely. Grem looked over at Sky, who she could see was growing physically agitated, her fingers tapping on her arm as they were crossed over her chest. The blue unicorn brushed her red hair off to the side and then grabbed the picture from him. 

“You already know where it’s from. Now you’re just wasting our time.” Sky looked at him, and then looked off behind him, toward his back room. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

“Crimson Magic is not something to be taken lightly. Its very existence is forbidden and the teaching of it is considered treason or even terrorism in some cases.” Ruby Red said. Before he could open his mouth to say anything else, Sky stepped up to his counter and leaned on it closer. 

“You’re stalling. We didn’t come here to talk about the punishment for using the stuff. We came here to learn who taught it to a suspect in custody. You don’t happen to know a Lime Grass, do you? He was able to use Crimson Magic at the age of twenty two, making him something of a prodigy in the arts.” Sky looked at him and saw that his expression was not changing. In fact, he seemed to know exactly why they were there from the start. The fact that he was not sweating it meant he had an ace up his sleeve. 

Then both Grem and Sword twitched their ears and snapped to their guard as they heard something in the back room. Red lifted his hand upward, but was promptly stopped by the letter-opener in Sky’s hand going straight up to his throat. The point of it barely pricked the skin. It didn’t draw any blood, but it made sure he knew it was there. His jaw locked up and he drew in a strained breath as he gritted his teeth. Sky couldn’t help but smirk as his arrogant smile left his face, as well as a great deal of his complexion. 

The ones in the back room were all dressed in black armored kevlar, and came out wielding swords and daggers. There were what looked like five unicorns among the eight of them and they revealed themselves in force. 

“Looks like we ruffled some feathers.” Sword commented and Grem hummed her agreement. 

Every one of them glared toward Sky, who was holding Red by his shoulder and keeping his neck nice and close to her tiny blade. 

“One move or start shining your horn and this guy goes down first.” Sky growled at all of them. “Don’t think I won’t because once he goes down, one of you will be next.” 

This brought a smile to their faces and they all began to chuckle. Sky arched an eyebrow. Their apathy was genuine enough, it seemed. 

“Go ahead, whether he lives or not, we still get paid.” The mare in the center of all of the kevlar armored team said as she angled a throwing dagger aimed straight for her.

Sky blinked at her, then glanced over at Ruby Red, who seemed to sweat even more profusely than before. All the sudden, he was wondering what he got out of this deal other than a whole lot of trouble and exposure of his dirty laundry. The sudden image of his throat getting slit or his head getting stabbed came to mind and he began to shake. 

Then the instant came when the center mare’s horn began to shine. In one instant, the whole thing was driven to chaos! Sky Blue stopped her casting immediately as a green energy caged her horn. The mare’s face strained as her magic was stopped in its tracks. Before any of the other unicorns began their own casting, Diamond Sword pitched the purple crystal ball in his hand directly into the face of a stallion whose spell almost went off. His snout was pushed in and the back of his head smashed into the back wall. 

Both Grem and Diamond drew their swords. Spells began to go off in both directions, two of them blasted Ruby Red in the back as Sky used him as a shield, and then lit them up with one of her own. She quickly powered up a large beam from her horn and blared a gigantic purple energy into them and the backroom. They were thrown in all directions, and the door to the backroom was now a gigantic gaping hole in the wall. 

Grem locked sword with one of them immediately, a young pegasus stallion who swiped his blade off of hers and was about to strike until she used her wing to slap his face with its edge. With one swift move, she jabbed the base of her sword handle into his wrist, rendering his hand temporarily useless. Her other fist came around in a haymaker that smacked him where his cheek met his jaw, knocking him out. 

Diamond brought up a shield as he jumped in front of Grem in order to catch the last enemy unicorn’s spell. He was knocked back some by the spell some, but the shield held strong. With a push, he thrust the shield straight into him and smashed him against the crumbling wall behind him. He was forced to end his shield spell, though. It took a great deal of concentration to keep charged. 

The unicorn left standing kept his footing, though, and Sword kept his sword in the guarding position. Both he and Grem were caught in a standoff with the unicorn. Before he could charge for another spell, though, Sky stood up and cast a green holding spell, shooting spikes into his sleeves and pants. Then with one flick of her horn, she caged his magic like the others. 

“You bitch! I swear, when I get out of this--” He was interrupted by Grem’s right cross, which promptly knocked him unconscious. Grem cursed and shook her hand, having punched one too many chins in that little combat.

“I was wanting to keep him as a talker.” Sky said, but then heard the shaking and whimpering on the floor. That’s when she remembered Ruby Red was still semi-conscious. She grinned and lifted him off of the floor with her magical aura surrounding him. Lo and behold, he didn’t seem to high and mighty anymore. In fact, he was a bit more of a manchild now. “Oh, hi, Ruby. I think we should have ourselves a bit more of a truthful interview.”

Ruby gulped.

------

Sharktooth let out a loud kia as she smashed the hatch down into the small structure. Circuits, wires, power grids and maps lined every wall. In the rows of machines all through the room, little lights and buttons flashed on and off while shining lines connected them to one another to make a complete link. Vertigo slid down the ladder and looked around for anyone who was alerted to the intrusion. She slapped down her visor that changed all of her sight into heat vision. 

“Clear.” She called up to Shark, who was already making her descent down the ladder. “Man,” She looked at all of the machinery. The humming was nearly deafening and the constant beeping all around them was a tad unnerving. “You’re sure none of this is on the power grid?”

“Not in any conventional sense. This is all privately owned.” Shark took two looks around. “Someone’s bloody loaded, it seems.” 

Vertigo pulled out her handheld computer and turned it on. She clicked it a couple of times, typing in the IP address that Proxy sent them. She lifted her finger, keeping an eye on the location very closely. Verti pointed off to the other side of the room, making Shark look.

“It’s in that vicinity.” She looked up to see that there were, in fact both of them let out an “Ooooo…” as they both saw two candybar wrappers and three empty cans of Strawberry Squish.

“I’d say this is a safe bet.” Sharktooth pulled out a USB port and connected it to where the computer was at one point. “There we go, now we just need to--” Her eyes went wide open as she saw the statistics come onto the screen. Shark and Vertigo gazed at the handheld. All of the data levels came, as well as the powergrid. “Is that thing for real?! All of that power and data going to two locations?!”

“Yeah, and whoever did it did their homework. One location is encrypted out the wazoo. It’d have to be if this thing doesn’t locate it. The other one is taking up ridiculous amounts of filespace, not to mention sucking enough energy out of the grid to power half the city.” The blue pegasus honed in on the location in short order. “Bingo--oooohh, wow. That’s new.”

“You’re fucking kidding me…” Sharktooth said as she made sure the address was right. “You’re telling me these bastards have been coming from--”

“The magic school, Moon Beam Academy. All of this crap is happening inside one of the most prestigious schools for unicorns in Equestria. My guess? The necklace is there.” Vertigo wore the same grim expression that Shark did. They both looked back at the screen as the data finally capped off at 60 exobytes. 

An academy that you not only have to pass a nigh impossible entrance exam. The kind of school that you need to be making six figures a year to pay for tuition and even then, the chances of passing are sketchy at best. The security in that building would be blindingly difficult to break through, let alone find a necklace in a safe and crack it. Escaping the place after breaking in would be just as impossible. 

“Bloody hell.” Shark muttered.
> Breakthrough
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you think big muscles, you normally thought of bodybuilders with bulging masculinity. Normal muscled biceps measured around eighteen inches or forty-five centimeters. Regal was a changeling who had eighteen inch biceps without flexing them. He towered over normal ponies and his wide frame was beyond brutish. He was not a normal changeling to say the least. Today, though, he was wearing his black suit with a nice, conservative red tie. His custom made watch told him that he was on time as he walked up to the door from the stair steps outside the building. 

Crystal Ball Inc. was bustling, as always. The corporate building was the center of Ranchtown. Ever since Rich Co. went belly up because of the scandals a few years ago, Pearl Necklace has kept up with the businesses all through the city. The prospect of becoming a business associate with her directly was an astounding notion that he was not going to pass up. Though, being thirty minutes early was a bit much, he was willing to wait as long as it took. 

Regal’s blue and yellow hair was slicked back down below his neck. His tail was groomed and his wings were nice and shiny. Not a single piece of his attire was out of place. He even wore his best cufflinks. The elevator was big enough to hold him, but didn’t leave a lot of space for the other four ponies who crowded around him. He could feel their awkward looks on him as he towered over them in their ascent. It was a very long elevator ride. The ponies exited the cart with a glance back at him, but he pretended not to notice. He got off on the top floor, and it was nothing but a secretary’s office with a large door behind her. 

Before he even got off the elevator, the large door leading into the back office opened. A dark brown unicorn with flowing blonde hair stood in the doorway. Her business dress did very little to hide her thighs, and her pantyhose were a beige color that accentuated her leg muscles. She stood with her tablet in one hand and a stylus in the other as she motioned for him to come hither. 

Regal’s heart jumped some. He thought he arrived with enough time to gather his thoughts in the reception area. Pearl was more than likely very busy, he thought there would at least be a ten minute wait. He walked to the door, however, and she had to get out of his way completely as he walked through. His shoulders took up most of the space in the threshold as he walked through. 

He had no time to look over the very large office. As he stepped inside, there stood Pearl Necklace at the window that covered her far wall. It was shaded digitally to reflect the sunlight with shades as it came. With the sun at its zenith, Pearl Necklace held her teacup, complete with saucer. She sipped it and kept looking out past all of the buildings in her view.

“Mr. Regal, thank you for coming early. Time is very much against us.” Pearl said as she sighed. He could see her in the reflection of her window. The bags under her eyes could never be fully covered with makeup. The bewilderment on her face could be measured in miles and her stance made her look like a small gust of wind could have knocked her over. “When I caught wind of your resume in our files, I began to think of the possibilities. Are you quite familiar with this city?”

“Umm, yes, I know this city well.” Regal said, trying his best not to stifle or stutter. Such a large changeling being intimidated by a small earth pony seemed ridiculous but given the circumstances. “I’ve been trying to start a little business of my own.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard.” Pearl placed her teacup back on its saucer and turned toward him. “Well, I’ve been known to make more than one deal with potential business owners. Many of them were very successful. In your case, though, I’m willing to make a much better deal. However, what you would be doing is very much not business oriented. In fact, I will be asking you to act outside the law.”

Regal Drennan cocked his head to the side. All the sudden, his intrigue skyrocketed and he looked over to her assistant, Coin Purse, who glanced at him, then looked him over to measure him up. She smiled and nodded for him to listen to Pearl. 

“These are troubling times for me, Mr. Regal. I’ve been threatened by a much higher power than my own, and am in danger of losing everything I worked so hard to build. Losing something that I had to take down my own father to obtain and I am scared. Every legal action has failed for the simple fact that I do not have any hard evidence to enforce my claims. So now I must result to illegal actions to see that this pulls through.” The smaller, pink colored pony sat down at her desk and sighed. “If I do this, I need to know that I can trust you. I am taking a very great risk in simply telling you how deep this all has gone.”

There was a bit of a pause and Regal couldn’t help but open his mouth for a question. 

“What does this all entail?” He scratched the base of his forehead, next to his black horn. “If I didn’t know any better, you weren’t so much asking about my business sense, but more my physical prowess.” 

Regal wasn’t blind to his appearance. This also wasn’t the first time someone offered him money in order to gain his arm strength. The thought made him feel a bit torn. On one hand, he was hoping to pick up a pen instead of a fist. On the other, this was the most powerful woman in the city asking him to do something in order to get into his good graces and such an offer could not be overlooked.

“Not only your physical prowess, but also your innate ability to change your appearance. I’ll need both attributes for this. Before I tell you anymore, I need to know that I can count on you when it really matters. Not only that, but I need to know that your loyalty cannot be bought by conventional means. If you agree to all of this, I can continue.” Pearl said, then looked over to her assistant who was making the googoo eyes toward the walking mass of muscle in her office. Coin Purse turned to Pearl with a nod, and the red maned pony merely shrugged.

“Whatever you need me for.” Regal said, then heard a zipper to his left as the brown unicorn slid her skirt off to reveal she was wearing nothing underneath it aside from the garter straps holding up her hose. His eyes widened as she pushed him back into a very large and very comfortable chair. 

“Excellent. There is a great deal that needs to be done.” Pearl said, obviously not wanting to waste any time. As Coin Purse undid Regal’s pants and brought out his long, hard and bright green cock, Pearl Necklace continued. “I need you to infiltrate Moon Beam Academy for me.”

“Whaaaat?” Regal exasperated as Coin Purse very easily swallowed his cock and began to jerk him into his hardest state. “Moon Beam? But I don’t have a whole lot of talent with magi--nnnn!” 

“It’ll take too long to actually enroll you as a student there, so we will need to use other avenues to meet that end.” Pearl massaged her temples and sighed as she slumped over in her chair. “There’s another, much more dangerous way to do it. We’ll have to go with that.”

As she spoke, the blonde haired, slender unicorn was already straddling him and sinking him deep within her. How she could handle his massive size so easily was a sight to behold, but she bobbed herself up and down on him and opened her blouse to let her nice large tits bounce directly in front of his face. Coin Purse whispered for him to pay very close attention to Miss Pearl.

“My wife has already located a very important asset to this plan. The one pulling the strings is also after this asset, but it is imperative that we get to her first.” Pearl looked over at Regal, whose person was slightly obscured by the unicorn riding him in the chair, but he could still see Pearl from his vantage point as Coin Purse did very little to hide his massive scale. “She is going to need your help and I have a feeling that this is going to need to happen very soon. Do this for me and you can have whatever business venture you wish to pursue. I’ll back anything you want as much as you want, so long as you make this all a reality. What do you think, Mr. Regal?”

Before he could even ask why she was using his first name after a surname function, he could feel the jiggling ass bouncing on him like a basketball and milking him. He sputtered a bit, his eyes clenched and he strained against his words hard.

“Y-y-yes!” Regal shouted, and Coin could feel his seed reach deep into her as she bit her lower lip. Her face turned red as she flushed hard and looked down as her legs began to buckle.

“Excellent…” Pearl managed a grin. 

--------

She’d finally lost the large, black SUV and entered back into the Ranchtown city limits. Having to dip her nose into the danger just enough to keep close, but staying far enough away to not get caught was starting to exhaust her. Her little car sped through the interstate that was busy as hell with cars going home for the day or the night shifts heading to their places of business. She had to weave in and out of lanes to speed through the streets. Proxy couldn’t go too fast, or she’d attract unwanted attention, but she also couldn’t go too slow, or her tail was going to catch back up to her. 

The constant need to move was beginning to weigh on her a great deal. She just had to keep at it for a little while longer and find a safe place to hold out. She felt yet another speed reader aimed toward her by the highway patrol, and with a bit of digital signalling, she made their little traffic gun read a decent speed that wasn’t over. Her non-robotic arm was shaking from all of the strain she was putting on her body. It wasn’t going to be long before she needed a charge, but she had to keep going. Her red dreadlocks bobbed in front of the right side of her face. The side of her face that was normally covered with cybernetics. For the moment, though, the potion she splashed onto her face kept her true form hidden. Even that was running on fumes, though. 

Sweat beaded down the left side of her face. Proxy was certain that she smelled awful, as she had no cleaning materials for herself. The GPS in her sensors told her to exit to the left, the side of town that it brought her to was not what society called “savory” but that worked more in her favor. There were less cars, leaving her exposed, but that meant the same for her pursuers. Most of the houses were broken down husks of house frames while some of them were old with very little upkeep. 

Sure enough, her sensors picked up the clean gas fumes of a very expensive sport utility vehicle making its way toward her. However, that’s when it picked up two more on their way toward her from the other side of the street. Like predators, they were waiting for her to get off of the highway and into the city limits. The SUV behind her was approaching fast, way over the speed limit but she found her turn and did not slow down to make it. 

“Come on!” She shouted at her car to stay on all four wheels as she peeled her tires and got herself straight. All three vehicles lined up in a row as they caught up to her right on her tail. How these gigantic tanks had the capacity to reach such speeds was beyond her. They must have been top of the line to keep up with her little speeding bullet of a two-door. 

She slapped the top of her console and made the very top of it flip over to reveal a keypad. Using her hand’s cybernet reflexes, she typed in a six digit code. Six holes were revealed in the back of her car, four beside the back window and two on her bumper. All of them splattered a gush of white paint into the SUV’s windshield, completely blinding them. To her surprise, they simply slowed down and allowed the other two behind them to take point, passing them up as they attempted to use their windshield wipers to wipe it off. 

One down, two to go. She made yet another turn on the street. This time her back bumper curb checked the side of the street at her immense speed, bending it inward. The car was built with durability and speed in mind, but both were limited. The punishment it had already taken was beginning to whittle it down. Not to mention, she had already exhausted two gas tanks and was below half on her third and last one. 

With her destination dead ahead, she picked up the pace to seventy miles per hour. With all of the noise they were making, there were many bystanders in the neighborhood, watching from their front lawns. The possibility of them being in danger was starting to heighten and she could not risk being seen in her natural state. 

Her pulse was sporadic, and her breathing was bordering on hyperventilation. Her natural left hand was gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles and dripping sweat from the constant squeezing. 

Then the alarm picked up as her sensors caught sudden movement from her peripherals. The cross streets came and there was a vehicle on her, speeding into the front of her car and knocking her car off its course and sending her careening into the curb with a deafening crash. The car she drove was much more durable than it seemed, being made of an alloy she designed to be not only light but also hard to damage. However, a head-on collision still bent the frame enough to cause her engine to sputter out. Her head crashed against the left window and caused her vision to dull. Her elbow struck the door, but her sensors read only bruising damage. 

Then, to her surprise, yet another crash happened before her eyes. Another SUV swerved into theirs before they even had a chance to get out of their vehicle. Two more of the black sport utilities arrived on the scene as Death Metal exited her car. The white furred, black maned earth pony got set her hoof onto the asphalt as the stallions in black suits began to approach the crash site. She flicked her hair as she opened Proxy’s passenger side door. Her green eyes glared toward the men as they approached with caution.

“You alright?” She asked the cyborg pony as her eyes furrowed in a scowl. Seeing that they were not stopping their tracks, she unbuttoned both of her sheathes. 

“I’ll be fine.” Proxy gasped for breath as she took off her seatbelt. “Do you have a plan?” 

“Working on it.” Death said as she pulled out both of her very large daggers. It had been a while since she employed the likes of Slayer and Overkill. She still kept them pretty, but they mostly just stayed in her room in her nightstand. The nostalgia of wielding them again was hard to deny. To her dismay, though, two of the five approaching stallions were unicorns, and they were already powering up their horns. 

“Avert your eyes!” Proxy urgently whispered to Death as she pointed her right fist toward them. As Death did as she was told, a compartment in her arm unlatched and released a small pellet. The sphere that was no larger than a bouncy ball shot directly toward them, but stopped in midair as a flash popped in front of their eyes. 

They were stunned, blinded as they tried their best to cover their oculi after the fact. They were barely reacting to their collective blindness when Death Metal was already on them. Her hoof connected with one’s hand, kicking his small hatchet from it. Then her dagger’s handle connected to his forehead, knocking him flat. 

A blast from a unicorn shined out in front of Death, mere inches from her face as he shot blindly. She wasted no time in cutting his thumb to the point where he had to drop his rapier. Then she connected her fist with his muzzle. Proxy got from her car, and employed her robotic arm in smashing the next unicorn in the gut, knocking the breath out of his lungs. The next thug began to attack her, but she was quick to open her palm toward him, making it spit out a net that wrapped around his body and emitted a small shock to his system that rendered him immobile. 

Death Metal took down the next two. Catching one’s dagger with her own and headbutting him straight in the snout. Then she kicked backward, connecting her hoof into the last one’s balls. 

“Come on.” Death Metal started searching the jacket of the last one, recognizing him as the one who stepped out of the driver side seat. She couldn’t find the keys on him, so she figured correctly that they were still in the ignition. They got into the SUV and Death floored the pedal, peeling off. 

They drove for one full mile before they started to hear sirens. Death took the route back onto the highway and began to speed toward one of Pearl’s houses. 

“You good, Proxy?” Death asked, looking at her as she pulled a handkerchief out and handed it to her. She nodded to the white pony and took it, putting it against her bleeding head. Then Death did a double take. The skin on her face was now warping back into its semi-robotic form. The big red eye glowed, and her metallic exoskeleton took shape over the right half of her body as the potion wore off. 

“I’ll be fine.” She turned her face away from Death, pulling her hair over it just to be certain. 

Death tried her very best not to stare, or look surprised. Even an introvert such as herself couldn’t help but show extreme interest in such a spectacle. Pearl had warned her of Proxy’s disposition, but seeing it was something entirely different. 

Tears streamed down Proxy’s face from her left eye. She had no other free hand, so her metal hand covered her eyes as she began to sob. The adrenaline coursed through her veins as her systems tried to doctor her with meds to stint the bleeding and regulate her heartbeat to a nominal level. 

“I’m sorry you have to see me like this.” Proxy heaved in a sob then. A fresh wave of tears streamed down her cheek and dripped onto her legs. 

“Don’t talk like that.” Death reached up and tapped the spike ear plugs in her lobes on top of her head. “I got a bit of metal myself. Now, where do you need to go?”

“I need to be taken to a shady motel on the edge of town. It’s cheap and inconspicuous and that’s where my cohorts will be. But I can’t be seen like this or I’ll compromise everything. Anyone I am exposed to will be sure to notify the authorities of our whereabouts.” This brought on a fresh batch of sobs.

“Boy, you don’t handle adrenaline well, do you?” Death Metal dug a cigarette from her pocket and lit it. She offered it to Proxy, who politely declined. “Anyway, we got some new players on the field. And we have a place they may be hiding the pearls.” Death was happy to notice that that got Proxy’s attention. “It’s a magic school. Beaming Moon or whatever.”

“Moon Beam Academy?” Proxy instantly began to pull up every file she had on the school. Her tears were promptly forgotten as she pulled up her virtual console in front of her from a small beam emitting from above her red eye. The projected image of a screen and keyboard took Death Metal a bit by surprise. She typed on the keys illuminated in red faster than the eyes could follow. “According to my data, it has far more security than would be necessary to hide such an item, not to mention its many practical uses of obedient pupils gifted in magical craft. Yes, the chances of them housing such a high profile item are 85.9 repeating.” 

Death just trained her eyes on the road, though they were as huge as they could get with her pupils shrunk down to the size of needle points. This seemed so unreal. 

“Ummmm… You got any computer games on that thing?” Death Metal asked, clearing her throat. 

“Approximately seven thousand, nine hundred games.” Proxy’s robotic change in tone was more than a little jarring. Death tapped the steering wheel with her pointer fingers and blew out a quivering breath. She cleared her throat once again.

“That’s cool…” The white mare just kept driving. She figured that was for the best.

---------

Her wings were folded behind her, while her gown exuded the royalty she was born into. Her royal blue fur was accentuated by her deep red attire with gold buttons running down either side of her large chest down to her obliques. Princess Lemniscate did not appreciate being summoned, especially with such short notice. Their so-called “urgent meeting” was cutting into her time, and her time was precious beyond anything else. The room was dark and among the smallest in her residence. It was built not unlike a small council room. Her chair was the largest and most comfortable in the center of a long table that had many more chairs around it. However, no one was there. As she sat, she pressed a button on her armrest that opened the wall opposite her. 

The wall parted both ways to reveal a large screen, which lit up into several smaller screens within it. Each of them had silhouettes of ponies sitting in front with their arms crossed or their hands clamped upon them. It took only a moment for all seven of them to show up. She noticed that all of them were in attendance for the first time in a very long time. 

“I trust you all have very good reason for calling this meeting.” She said, more a statement than a question. “To what end was my presence requested?”

“Several reasons, Princess.” The top screen held a much larger stallion’s head moved, but the rest of his body remained very still. “We have never once questioned the reasoning behind your actions, as they have never affected our routine. However, it has become apparent that your personal spite to one Pearl Necklace has been a catalyst to events that have grown into proportions that are causing some alarm.”

Her eye twinged.

“The operation you told us would cost hundreds of thousands has just crossed into the multi-million territory, and the number only grows.” The mare shadow spoke down in the left corner of the screens. “Several of your assets have inflated in scale that has caught the eye of authorities beyond your control and keeping these numbers a secret has all but dissolved in likelihood. Anyone who looks at them in just the right way could discern your trail.”

“In light of these recent events, the council has determined that your actions have become self destructive,” Another voice spoke, but the Duchess had grown tired of listening already, as her fur only became more frigid. “The danger levels have developed to the point where we must call into question your methods and your ultimate goal in this course of action you have taken. The wasted money, the assets you have gone through and personnel you have jeopardized has got the attention of this council.”

“Do not dance around the subject.” She finally spoke, the underlying agitation very visible. “One of you get to the point.”

“Very well,” The first voice spoke again. “The protection you have lived under this whole time has grown brittle and as such will now be nixed. Your belongings are now your own and your businesses will no longer be cushioned. As of right now, we have no prior knowledge of you.” 

“What?! Without warning, you’re pulling the plug now?! How dare you!” She growled as her wings spanned out in full. “I gave you all enough money to buy and sell you three times over! This is how you repay my generosity!? I made you into what you are now!”

“Dully noted.” A higher pitched, nasally voice said from the top right corner. “But your actions have compromised your operations, thereby putting our positions in question as well. If you stay on this destructive path, you will meet with disaster, and soon.”

“I can handle this! I have the upper hand still!” She pleaded with them, her fists clenching and her speaking through gritted teeth. “You cannot abandon me now!”

“We can, and we will!” The mare spoke once again, her stern tone taking the Duchess off guard. “Our suggestion to you, if you would like to make it out of this situation in tact, you should try reconciliation. Give the item in question back to where it belongs and--”

“Enough!” The princess swiped her hand through the air. “Her arrogance and hubris forced me to act in taking her down a peg or two, and I have done that! Nothing they can do will bring me down. I will not allow it! If you want to end our longtime partnership, then go! I wash my hands of the lot of you!” She screamed in unbearable fury! As the lot of them began to disappear from the monitor, she lifted her chair over her head and thrust it into the wall that held it. It smashed the screen. Shards of glass followed the chair down into the floor as sparks snapped and flared into the carpet, even starting a small patch of fire. 

Her shriek of rage could be heard all throughout the mansion.

--------

Death Metal opened the door to the crap-ass motel room, followed very closely by Proxy. She wore a trench coat and a fedora that they found in the back of the car. Both Sharktooth and Vertigo stood up from their sitting position as they entered. 

“Proxy!” They said in sync and went to her as she closed the door. Both of them hugged onto her as Death stood out of the way. They embraced for a good long moment. 

“I was so worried!” Vertigo said as Shark stood back and looked over to Death Metal, who nodded to her. The blue pegasus led Proxy over to a power outlet for her systems to recharge. It was a crude, inefficient way to power her systems, but it was far better than nothing. She sat in a chair and sighed as she felt her diagnostics began, feeding power to all essential applications.

“So, been a while, Death.” Sharktooth said as she sat on the couch and let a small grin come across her face. “When am I going to get that rematch?”

“Not now, that’s for sure.” Death Metal said as she stood, lighting another cigarette and closing her lighter. “Looks like we have our work cut out for us.”

“Bit of an understatement, love. We’ve broken into some high security dives, but this seems a bit more tightly knit than some prisons we’ve infiltrated. Not to mention, there’s no way we’ll catch them unawares. So, surprise is out the damn window.” She held up two fingers to Death Metal, who rolled her eyes and handed over the cigarette. Sharktooth took in a drag. “Me head’s still bumpin’ from the little love tap that bloke laid on me.”

There came a knock at the door. All of them passed the door a suspicious look. The four of them readied themselves as Sharktooth approached the entrance. 

“Who is it?” Shark asked, sliding her combat knife halfway out from the back of her pants. 

“Hookers.” A male voice said, and the green pony widened her eyes. Immediately recognizing the voice and opened the door. Shark’s jaw went completely slack. Diamond Sword stood with both Sky Blue and Grem on either side of him. However, her vision was drawn behind them. There stood a very large, very tall changeling male that looked like he belonged as a strong man in a circus. 

“Hi.” Regal said with a tiny smile on his large person. 

---------------

The tiny motel seemed crowded when it was just four of them. Now seven of them sat in a very tight circle, while the huge, hulking changeling took up the bulk, sitting on the floor of the kitchenette. All of the events of the past few days were brought to light and many mysteries were solved as to the very strange scenario they were locked into. Then there came the subject of the school and the conversation was brought to a screeching halt. They turned it over in their brain. They even had the idea of using a glider to drop into it. However, that idea was bombed once they remembered that a glider and a parachute would both be noticed in a millisecond. 

“Well, there has to be a weak point in their security. No one is ever truly secure.” Regal said, making them all turn to him. “Can’t you unicorns burrow a tunnel underneath the building? They can’t see all of us coming at once. If we attack it from different angles…”

“Uh huh, and just how easy do you think clearing a big enough hole to crawl through is?” Sky asked, giving him an odd look. “You have to remember, any broad act of magic is going to get noticed, if not by their detection field, then the vibrations we make underneath them. It’s a school of magic, and their craft is very advanced. I may be a master of magic, but that doesn’t mean anything when I’m being attacked by four hundred and seventeen students, not to mention their instructors. The dean himself is a highly renowned unicorn. A direct attack is suicide.” 

“Well, there’s a wet blanket for you, ain’t it?” Shark grunted a small chuckle and drank her disgusting tap water. “You gonna write a song with those sour notes, love?”

“I’m being realistic here.” Sky said with a downtrodden voice. “We have two magic user-- wait, what about your magic?” She asked Regal. He blinked once and teetered his hand in an “eeehhh.” She shrugged. “Two full magic users here. Even if all of us stormed the front of the school, we’d be overtaken in moments.”

There was another silence after this. All of them looked at one another. Diamond looked at Grem, who shook her head. They couldn’t get the royal guard in this unless they had some extremely solid evidence and even then, it’d be a nightmare to prove it to the royal council. 

“We can still do the glider idea…” Vertigo said, drawing some annoyed looks, especially from Sharktooth. “Just sayin’...”

That’s when Diamond Sword’s phone went off. He checked the ID to see Focus Sight’s name, and he answered. 

“Yeah?” He asked.

“Sword, is Grem with you?” She asked, he could hear the car she was driving. 

“Yeah, she’s right here. What’s up?” Grem gave Sword a quizzical look.

“Put me on speaker.” He complied to her and she continued when he gave the go-ahead. “Hey, I have a bit of an update. I did some digging on our location problem. Apparently, the school owns a bar right across the street.”

Sharktooth took notice of this more than anyone. The thought of having a cupper was quite an entertaining notion to say the very least. If for no other reason than to sit at the far end of the bar and tell the waitresses that she had an itch that only they could scratch. 

“Wait, a bar?” Grem asked. “As in a fully loaded facility for alcohol and pretzels?” 

“As in whiskey, rum, vodka and beer. Yes, that bar. They built it there when stress levels reached heights that were growing harder to deal with. This information was ridiculously difficult to come by. I had to trace every account they had and some accounts were not on the main record.”

Focus Sight thought about regaling them with the story of how she actually visited the bar. She was forced to put on her sorority girl routine and sweet talk the bartender to let her in the backroom. When she was finally back there, she found plenty of illegal substances and flashed her badge. She sweated the rest of the information out of him quite easily at that point. After that, the paperwork was as clear as day. 

“Sweet mother of cock!” Sharktooth exclaimed, drawing some odd looks. “I just had a bit of a visit from the idea fairy…”

“Was it about--” Verti started.

“Say glider one more time and I’ll buy one and never let you play with it!” Shark scowled at her counterpart, who shrank away.

“Who has the cockney accent?” Focus asked.

“Uuuhh… no one.” Diamond Sword was in no mood to explain.
> The Sting
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday nights were no joke in the campus side of Ranchtown. Ranch U was in full swing with all of their school semesters restarting. The pop quizzes, the assignments and the essays were put on hold for a jolly old end of the week bender. The booze ran rapid and the frat boys whooped through the night, going after sorority girls like positive and negative magnets. 

The Lunar Glow opened its doors as soon as classes were completed in the academy. The regular crowds were followed by the irregular crowds and they were followed by everyone in between. Orange Slice stood behind the bar, getting drinks out with surprising skill to anyone who had never seen him in action. The part time waitresses snuck drinks when they thought no one was looking and three billiard games were already in full swing. 

“Oi!” Sharktooth said from the far side of the bar. “I saw that one, love! I got a big mouth, but I’ll gladly keep it shut if you want some sugar with it!” She whistled and downed yet another beer, belching to where all of the tough, hunky unicorn boys could hear her clear as a bell. 

On the other side of the facility, the darts flew in quick succession. One partial bullseye and two dead on. The pegasus started to dance to the music as she hustled yet another twenty bits and a free drink out of the poor academy students who so obviously wanted to get into her pants. 

There, at the bar, sat the very quiet Sword Knight. The tall, gray pony with silver hair sat with his beer half drank and his eye twitching as he gazed off in deep thought. He waved at Orange as he gave a thumbs up, asking if he was cool, and Knight nodded. The dorm captain seemed to remember his drink as he looked down at it and took a long swig. 

“You look perplexed.” Sword Knight heard a mare say beside him. He glanced at the yellow young woman pony with the golden mane that swirled in its long, luscious strands around her neck and shoulders. She looked like she was a sophomore by her age, but he couldn’t remember if he’d seen her around. “Something you need to figure out by yourself? Or are you open to comment?” The young lady asked and slid another beer over his way on the bar, with her fingers on the coaster below it. He raised an eyebrow at her, then looked around.

“Did someone put you up to this?” Sword Knight could smell a scam from a mile away, and this had all of the earmarks of just that. 

“Of course,” She motioned over toward the corner of the room, where the tables were all lined up between the bar and the pool tables. There sat Sky Blue, her martini glass between her thumb and forefinger. She was grinning toward Sword Knight with a toothpick sporting a green olive in her other hand. Sky slid the olive off of the toothpick with her teeth as she waved her pinky toward him.

Sword Knight blinked at this, then looked toward the golden blonde pony next to him. 

“Ummmm, do you want to have a few more?” He held up his old beer, drained it quickly before going after his newly acquired beverage.

“Oh, I plan on it.” Goldie watched as the bartender placed a short glass with a red liquid and tiny umbrella in it right in front of her. She nodded her thanks and clicked her glass with his bottle. Then she turned her head to see Sky Blue approach her and wrap her arms around her shoulders. 

“What’d he say?” Sky whispered loud enough for him to hear. 

“Don’t rush.” Goldie giggled and smiled as they both leaned their heads together.

Sword Knight blinked, and then started to gulp the beer. Then all three of them turned to the other end of the bar where they heard a strong Trottingham accent.

“Ey, barkeep! Got another Blue Mothafucka in them shelves? I’m bone dry here!” Shark shouted, physically irritating the barkeep, who started to begrudgingly make her drink. As he slid it down the bar to her. She nodded her thanks and down half of it as a waitress caught her eye. Sharktooth measured her out, seeing her unicorn horn and the fact that she was especially tired, having to work after classes. Bingo.“Oi, little lady. You fancy company?”

The gray mare with pale brown hair looked over at the shark-like pony with deep blue eyes that made Shark’s grin deepen. Already, she could see the wheels in her head turning. The supple shape of her body was enthralling to say the least. She could just hear the creaking joints of her body aching for a little relief.

Dazzle Mane, the lovely waitress, combed her long hair behind her shoulder and couldn’t help but give a meek little smile. She put her tray onto the bar and pulled the notepad of bar tabs and scribbled something.

“I get off at eleven.” She said as she slid a phone number over to her. 

“Brilliant.” Sharktooth slid the note off the bar and put it in her shirt’s chest pocket. 

---------

Sky and Goldie laughed as Sword Knight opened his dorm room door and turned on the light. They both ogled his room as they walked in. It did not look like a dorm at all. It looked more like a luxury hotel suite. The whole place was lit with spotlights shining different colors on the white walls. There were two lava lamps, a ridiculously huge TV with all of the movies one could ever want. His bed was a king size, and it didn’t even take up a fraction of the room. The kitchen was more or less full size, and he had a walk-in closet. 

“Sweet babies!” Sky exclaimed as she gazed at his video game figures. They were the ones with ridiculous detail that went for hundreds of bits on collector sites. “How much do they pay you to be a student here?”

“Can’t say I get a paycheck.” He chuckled as he went to his kitchen and opened his fridge to pull out some cold coffee espresso bottles. As his back was turned, both Goldie and Sky shared a look. Then their big fake smiles returned to their faces as he turned back around. He gave them both bottles and they all sat down on his roundish couch that wouldn’t fit in most apartments. 

“Well, I have to say, you’ve got it pretty good. You must be pretty good at magic, huh?” Sky said as she drank the astoundingly good cold coffee. 

“I’m good at a lot of things.” Sword Knight chuckled and drank his entire cold coffee bottle in a hurry, then with a twist of his fingers, a bit of a hand trick, made it disappear.

Being more than adept in the ways of the craft, Sky saw every single flaw in that little trick. Nevertheless, they both played it up as if they were amazed. Then they giggled like school girls. 

“Wow, what else can you do?” Goldie asked, brushing her blonde hair to the side of her face and looking at him with half open eyes. “Do you know the heat spell?”

“The heat spell? We’re not really supposed to do that.” Sword Knight chuckled a little bit, but then noticed that he was sweating a bit. Then it came to his attention that his privates were feeling a very strange sensation. 

“Well, it’s not so much that it’s forbidden, it’s mostly just frowned upon. However, giving the right nudge without going overboard usually brings about the desired effect for both parties.” Sky Blue grinned as the glow on her horn became visible. He began to shiver a bit. His skin broke out into goosebumps and his hands gripped the edges of his couch cushion. Sword Knight’s breath became very harsh and he looked at her with google eyes.

“Wow, not even attempting a counterspell? How much do you want it, kid?” Sky could already see a wet spot appearing in his khakis as his precum dribbled from the tip of his twitching dick.

He couldn’t even speak, he just pulled his pants and underwear straight down, showing off his ebon cock to them both as it almost reached his naval. For once, Sky was actually quite impressed with this young man. 

“Wow, I know he wanted it, but I didn’t know he’d want it this badly. This spell works best when they’re already willing.” Sky grinned over to Goldie, who finally gave out a sigh of relief. “We have to keep a schedule, but we have a bit of time if you wanted to stay like that.”

“No,” Goldie said, then suddenly her body began to change, and she ripped out of her clothes as he got much bigger in size. Regal’s disguise changed into his very large, hulking form with his bright green cock dangling down to his thighs. “I prefer to be top.” The gigantic changeling grinned as he stood over Sword Knight. 

The young unicorn stallion’s jaw dropped to the floor. 

----------

Dazzle began to sweat as Sharktooth’s tongue pressed hard against her labia. She was propped up against the headboard of her bed, grabbing onto its corners with her arms spread across its length. Just by the way she was shivering and moaning, Shark could tell she hadn’t gotten any good tongue in a long while. She could only guess that her studies and her job made it nigh impossible to hold down a decent relationship. Her button up blouse was unbuttoned all the way down to her belly with her smallish tits exposed. Her pants were off and her panties were hugged against her right knee. 

Shark was naked as the sun. Her tits bobbed back and forth as her tongue rocked against the young college student’s clitoris down to her honey hole. Her hands made sure her legs were as spread out as they could go as her mouth engulfed her drenched pussy, sucking hard.

“Sh-shark! I’m gonna-- again! F-f--ffuck!” She squealed in higher and higher pitches. Her exposed genitalia felt every swirl, every skillful flick of the wet muscle that invaded her crevice. She was so tight, and her pussy muscles twitched as her legs spasmed. A high pitched squeak signified another orgasm. This time, she squirted and it shot against Shark’s upper chest, making the green pony grin. 

She reformed her gusto and started to slather her tongue. Grinding and worming her way all over the pink inner skin, Dazzle began to squirm. Her sleek body was trembling as she tried to tell Shark to go easy, but that was ever so hard. She didn’t actually want her to stop, just slow down so she could catch her breath. However, that message was lost in another fit of squeaks and sounds of yearning. 

Two more orgasms happened in very quick succession and Dazzle Mane was dulling down into harsh gasping. Shark finally released the piping hot quim, leaving the younger mare in a pile of sheets and comforter. She was covered in sweat that streamed from every surface of her body. There came a serene smile of relief, exhaust and satisfaction from the shagged out girl. She tried to utter something, but it was just a haver of nonsense. Within seconds, the girl passed out. Her throat closed so her snores were a bit loud, but cute all the same. 

Shark licked her lips, a bit disappointed she couldn’t spend the night. The first phase of entry into the school, however, was complete. She got dressed and tapped her earpiece as she put it in. 

“Sea Demon is in. All you wankers, report.” Shark whispered.

------------------

Both Focus Sight and Vertigo stood over a pile of frat boys in one of the dorm common areas. They’d played beer pong to the point where the stallions were already dazed. One tiny spray of knockout gas killed off their consciousness. Focus took the phone number from her pocket and crumpled it, tossing it onto the owner as she walked toward the door. She took off her outer garments and revealed the thin black layer of clothes. 

“Winged Dames getting in position.” Vertigo replied as Sharktooth chimed. “This was a lot easier than I thought. How we looking, Data?”

“I am reading all of your tracers and video feeds at a nominal rate. It is almost clear to proceed. I cannot tell what they have in their security feeds yet. So keep vigilant of any security cameras.” Proxy said as she typed. “Both guards are poised in their point of contact.”

Vertigo got up to the door with Focus nearby. The bat pony kept her wings hidden behind her back, as did the pegasus. 

“Alright, well, what’s the hold up?” Shark said over the com and there was a pause. The sudden, they could hear a distant male mewling and groaning in the device. 

“This is Stealth, we’re a bit… delayed.” Sky said as she looked over at the very large stallion pressing his cock harder and faster into the young man’s asshole. As it turned out, Sword Knight had a very stern front as a lady’s stallion, but he preferred men by far. He laid his back against Regal with that big penis lodged deep into him as his own cock flopped back and forth. With his powerful arms, the changeling pushed and pulled him onto his dick. Sky joined in, tentatively by licking and lusting all over the young male’s shaft, even sucking on his balls. He’d already cum once, but his stamina was uncanny, begging Regal not to stop. 

Just a few pumps later, and Regal started to pulse copious amounts of cum into the very lively gentlecolt, who spewed a good deal of spunk from his own cock once more. Regal had the ambition to go on, but the way Sky was talking, they had run out of time. He pulled out his leaking dick from his tight ass and rolled Sword Knight onto his side on the floor. The stallion gasped for breath and seemed immobile, having taken a great big cock like an absolute champ. 

“Good show, Regal.” She stepped over to the young man dripping buckets of sweat onto the floor. She placed her hand onto his horn and made it emit a flash of light before he went limp and unconscious. “You ready?”

Regal was able to find a dish towel from the kitchen and grunted his approval as he wiped his genitals of juices. 

“We’re up.” Sky said into the comm unit.

“Then get moving. Now we’ve got ten minutes to start phase one.” Shark said to all of them as they positioned themselves in front of their respective doors. “Go!”

-------------

There were four floors in the very large, broad building. The first two floors were dormitories, while the top two were classrooms and administrative offices. They were lucky to get into the dorms that were on both the east and west sides of the second floor. The live security was light, as it was a Friday night and most of the students were out and about around the city. Some lingering souls stepped out of their dorms to do some laundry or visit the library on the third floor, but they were counted as only three for the moment. 

Vertigo instructed Focus to wait outside the stairwell on the far east side of the hallway while the pegasus worked her magic. With a keen eye on the light switch on the landing wall, she knelt low of the door’s window, which was interwoven with protective wiring. There was a moment for Verti to hold her breath as Focused watched with great interest. The blue pegasus opened the door and immediately brought up her arm, flinging a device into the surveillance camera. The tiny chip latched onto the recording device and immediately took a picture of the empty landing, freezing that frame onto the screen.

Whoever was on security lookout that night would have had to have been watching that particular screen intently to notice. She got to the light switch and turned it off, bringing darkness to the portion of the stairwell she was in. 

“Tag.” She whispered into the device. 

“The silent alarm has not been tripped.” Proxy said, making Vertigo sigh with relief and signal for Focus to follow her. “Accessing security mainframe.”

Veritgo didn’t wait, though. She jumped to the railing that led to the ascending stairs and flapped her wings once. She slung yet another device onto the next camera for the same affect and then did the same for the next on the fourth floor. It was Focus who flapped her batwings onto each landing and turned off the lights behind the agile, dangerous fighter as she reached their goal. The fourth floor was there and, as expected, the door was locked. 

“Access affirmed, gaining all surveillance and schematics.” Proxy said as her screen lit up with surveillance footage of thirty five cameras. “Vertigo, stop where you are.”

“I see them…” Vertigo said in something of a petrified voice. There were four very heavily decorated individuals in the fourth floor hallway. All of them wore different uniforms to signify their standings with the school. All of them looked like especially high ranking individuals. The kind of individuals that could cast a world breaking spell within minutes. She ducked out of the way of the door’s window without a sound and signaled for Focus to do the same. “We’re stuck, they’re out in the hallway, talking.”

“Bloody hell…” Sharktooth whispered over the device. “Looks like things will have to get messy. Everyone, move. We need to find a way in.” 

Sky and Regal moved down the second floor hallway, opposite side of the building to Vertigo. They no longer had to worry about the surveillance cameras as Proxy had disabled them in a way that the security monitors would not notice. To them, it would seem like a single blip on their screens with no activity at all. This would work for a time, but then they would have to wonder why none of the students were exiting their rooms or entering them. 

Both of them listened intently for any of the dorms to make noise. The laundry room was located in the center of the building. They heard a few of the units working, but no one was inside. On the other side of the laundry room was the elevator. It was stopped on the second floor, but the only way to access the fourth floor was with a special key card which neither of them possessed. They pressed the up button on the panel anyway.

As soon as they did, a door opened for one of the dorm room residents. Both Sky and Regal paused. The elevator took its sweet time opening the door, and the young stallion who exited came strolling out with his laundry basket, along with a large bottle of detergent in his other hand. 

He caught movement out of her peripherals and looked down the hall to see Sword Knight along with a lovely blue unicorn that he didn’t recognize. His facial expression turned downward, as it was obvious he didn’t like Sword. The cocky unicorn stood with the mare as both of them entered the elevator. With a glance, he eyed the student with a grin. The unicorn with the laundry basket simply scowled at him and went on about his business as he trotted toward the laundry room. The door soon closed. 

Both of them breathed a sigh of relief at this, but now they could only go to the third floor. 

“Looks like we’ll have to get through the top of this damn cart and force our way through the fourth floor doors. I could use some magic to do this. Both ways of force would arouse suspicion, but at least mine is quieter than slamming your fist through them. 

“I suppose so.” Regal said, still in the form of Sword Knight. Thankfully, they knew they wouldn’t be hearing from him for a while. Then he eyed the control panel. There actually was no place for a key card access. Instead there was an occular scanning device. Apparently, they were tired of their administrative team losing their identification and not being able to access the upper level. “Hold on, let me try something.”

Sky cocked an eyebrow at the disguised changeling as he leaned his face over the small scanning unit and opened his right eye wide. He glared at it, unblinking as it scanned over his pupil and iris. The scanner bleeped and turned green as the words “access granted” came up above the control panel. The cart began to move.

“Wow, who the hell is that guy?” Sky asked and Regal shrugged, quite proud of himself. 

As it neared the fourth floor, though, he began to stagger a bit as if he were dizzy and walked over to her. He placed his hand on her hip and kept his face close to hers as they both began to cuddle. 

The foors opened to the three ponies in uniform. All three of them gocked at the sight of the two of them in their blatant show of affection. The way he leaned over her made it clear that he was drunk and her giggling only spoke the same for her.

“Sword Knight?! What is the meaning of this?” An older, bearded stallion said. Given the ensignia of the sword and shield on his red vest, he must have been a teacher of magical combat. “Your father is very busy and has no time to be disturbed! You know the rules! Why in the hell have you brought this mare into a restricted area?”

“Oh, sorry, sir.” The last word was brought out in a very sharp, disrespectful manner. The word “father” explained a lot. “But tell dad that I’m getting engaged.” He said as he kissed Sky on the lips and she hummed her pleasure, returning the kiss with a brainless giggle.

“Engaged?!” All three of them said in a synchronized fashion. There was one younger stallion with a bubbling beaker on his blue vest while the mare to his right had a blue vest and a wolf’s head ensignia. 

“Yup! So tell him to break out the champaign and clear his schedule for the fall!” Sky proclaimed, much to their palpable dismay. They gave each other glances as the two of them almost seemed to dance out of the elevator. It was a stumbling, clumsy dance of lust as she grabbed his ass and kissed him once again. 

“This is outrageous! Sword Knight, you have picked the wrong night to bring this to our attention! Your father left strict instructions not to be disturbed. Return to your room immediately and we will deal with your discipline later!” The older stallion said as he wagged his finger at the younger. “This will be going on your record, young man! Now, who is this woman?!”

“I’m just a friend.” Sky said, but then her horn began to glow. Her arm was around Regal’s shoulders, and her hand opened toward the window at the end of the hall. 

This window was reinforced on all sides of the window sill. The outside of it was impregnable because the edges were covered by a thick layer of cement. The armored glass was hard enough to drill through in a hurry, however, the inside of it had the metal hinges showing. This made it much easier for Sky to wrap around it with her magical aura’s grip. The blue unicorn closed her hand tight, and the window cracked on all of the edges. She cringed as she concentrated, seeming to strain under the pressure. 

Before the three magical teachers could react to this, though, their eyes were drawn to Sword Knight, who was no longer Sword Knight. Regal showed his true form before all of them and they gawked. The brutish changeling surprised all of them, but he did not expect such a quick reaction from any of them. 

The mare produced a card from between her fingers in an instant and threw it to the ground in front of the large changeling. Regal looked down at it, and from it came a dire wolf! Its fur was white with red outlines on his paws and pelt. The large, snarling beast jumped from the card as she conjured it with her hands clapped together. It snarled as it lunged directly for the brute. To him, it was about the size of a german shepherd by comparison. He pushed Sky out of the way of his onslaught and caught the beast before it could get within arms length and its jaw snapped at him hard. 

“Easy, pooch!” He growled as he heard Sky go sprawling to the ground and lose her concentration. Her grip was lost, and she could only crack the structure around the window a little bit. “I don’t want to hurt you!” He shouted.

“Did you really think you could take on the most powerful magic users this side of equestria?” The younger man grinned as he removed a vial of blue liquid from his pocket. As he did this, the older stallion began to ready himself by putting out his hands, letting a conjured axe appear in it as he wielded it toward the disarrayed changeling.

The potion expert flung the small vial directly at Sky as she seemed to ready herself for another assault on the window. However, she caught the vial in midair with her aura around it and looked at it. 

“Ooohhh, thanks for the help!” She smiled at the young stallion and then shot it straight at the window. It shattered against the armored glass and it began to sizzle. The metal began to rust over and glow dark red. Sky scowled at this, knowing that the potion was meant for her. Of all things, these guys were using crimson magic with the intent to kill. 

There came a very sharp flash of light on the outside of the window. As it did, the window sill finally came loose enough to shake. From the outside light, one could see the silhouette of a fast approaching, winged figure approaching onslought. Grem kicked the armored window in and it tumbled from its mounted place onto the floor. The cracked window warping inward and cracking against the ground in a wobble as the gray bat pony stood on top of it. Behind her came Diamond sword. Both of them were decked out in their armor, drawing agasted faces from the magical school teachers. 

“Well, already, I have you on charges of the use of crimson magic. Would you like to compound your offenses or will you stand down and allow us to put you all in cuffs?” Diamond sword asked as he drew his blade, Grem drawing both of her black bladed swords and wielding them at her sides. 

All three of the magic school teachers wore very visibly worried faces. Their enthusiasm seemed stunted to say the least. The wolf that Regal bouted with was finally called off, going back into the cards. Then there came a very harsh light from the far side of the hallway. Regal, Sky, Grem and Diamond were locked in place by a surrounding aura that was emitted from a unicorn’s horn as he walked toward them. 

There was Noble Star, walking in his red, white and black robe covered in spades and diamonds from playing card sets. He gazed at his subordinates, unamused by their performances. They shrank away at his arrival. 

“Well, it’s nice to know that your incompetence would very easily take down my efforts at the drop of a pin.” Noble scoffed and turned his snout up at the uninvited guests. “Seems we will not only have to dispose of trespassers, but also royal guards. This is going to be a busy week, for sure.”

Grem tried to move, but the magic was entirely too locked into place. Even Sky Blue couldn’t manage a single spark from her horn. Such power should not have been able to exist. That was, until his horn darkened black as the aura turned a deep, sinister crimson. The crimson magic began to withdraw from his horn as he pained himself to make it seep toward his captives.

However, that was when all of them heard their earpieces chime in. 

“Death Metal, Vertigo,” Proxy said to both of them as there was an audible pop coming from the stairway door as Verti picked the lock. “Phase two. Execute!”

From outside the building, Death Metal sat in a van on the other side of the road from the school. She opened a small box from the back of the van, and there came several little bugs that flew out of it. All of them were remote controlled, buzzing directly from the box all the way around the side of the building and going through the thoroughly broken window. As the three high ranking magic users were finally gaining up the nerve to follow suit with their leader’s attack, the bugs began to swarm them and land on them in thoroughly unreachable spots.

Vertigo burst through the door, before any of them could react. Before the crimson strings could reach the auras holding her friends, she pressed the button on a remote in her hand. Just then, right in their ears, a deafening high frequency howl emitted and broke their concentration hard! Their hands went up to their ears, and Noble’s horn aura dispersed in a hurry. The crimson magic floating through the air did not dissipate, however. It retracted back into his horn, seeming to cause him a great deal of pain.

Noble Star held his head as his horn seemed to crack under the horrific pressure of the forbidden art. Losing concentration on such a dangerous spell had immeasurable consequences which he was feeling full force. 

Unnoticed by any of them was Focus Sight, who made her way around the distracted crowd and made her way toward Noble’s office. The blue bat pony knew she had to hurry. The way things were going, they could bring the whole building down around their heads at any moment. She started tossing through his office, uncaring of anything she broke. 

Before the young stallion could uncork another one of his weird concoctions, his hand was suddenly pinned to the wall by a very hard, very crushing fist cracking his hand. He dropped his vial, cringed and howled in pain as a sharp-toothed, stinging glare got very close to his face. His shoulder was pressed into the wall as well as Sharktooth neared him. Her snout was mere inches away from his cheek as she snarled. 

“You’d do best to stay put, ya fucking tosser! Unless you want to find out how many of those little bottles can be used as a suppository.” Her breath caused him to break out in goosebumps as well as a cold sweat as she took in a deep whiff of his fear. 

Diamond Sword sliced the head off of one of the older stallion’s halberds before whipping it around and directly poking the side of his jugular. Frozen in place, Diamond very quickly blasted his own horn into the teacher’s, rendering it temporarily useless. 

With Regal picking up the mare with one hand, rendering her helpless to throw anymore spells, and Grem tossing Noble to the ground with two swords coming very close to scissoring his head clean from his body, they were subdued quite readily. 

“Every one of you are now hereby under arrest.” Grem said, more to Noble than any of them. “And your school will be closed for the foreseeable future.”

The magic headmaster scoffed at this as if to brush it off. The grin crawling across his face.

“Pitiful royal guards. My friends will not let a single thing happen--”

“Until I found this little beauty.” Focus Sight said as she walked out of his office. The vault behind his desk, hidden in the wall was wide open. She walked out without a single care except to hold a dazzling, pinkish pearl necklace between two of her hands. Her hands held it with delicate fingers as Grem gawked at it with some majesty. “I’d imagine this can now be linked to your so-called ‘associate’ now.”

Noble’s face twisted with the realization that he had dug himself entirely too deep as the approaching sirens began to wail in the distance.

---------

The operation that the Duchess was running was stripped down to its very core, with her in the center of it. With no one else backing her anymore and all of the evidence at her doorstep, she was given a trial like any normal pony. Princess Lemniscate was stripped of her royal title by order of Princess Luna herself. All of her assets were frozen until it could be sorted out as to what was hers and what was ceased under her power. Entire fronts in Ranchtown were taken down along with her. While the political parties sorted out all of the chaos, she was charged with misuse of power, tyranny and extortion along with other, smaller charges. 

“So, that’s it, is it?” Sharktooth said over the screen with Vertigo sitting close beside her. “Seems like a while since we started this whole gig. I can barely remember taking the job.” 

“Probably because you hot hit in the face with death magic.” Diamond Sword said as he filed the last of the paperwork.

“Or thrashed through a truck.” Grem said, kissing on his neck to ease his tension with the paperwork. 

“No, that was me.” Vertigo said, thumbing the bandaid on her leg. “That was a fun time.” Her tone did not match her sentence. “Speaking of which, whatever happened to that guy that I crashed the truck around?”

“Still in hospital jail. He didn’t take any deals, so he’ll be going away for a while.” Diamond Sword said as Grem got out her boobs and started rubbing them against the side of his face. His face went slack as he felt those wondrous boobs caress his cheek. The gelatinous pillows slid their nipples between his lips, almost forcing him to kiss them. “You’re making it very hard to concentrate, dear.

“It’s my job, dearest.” She grinned at him as his cheeks flushed very red. “Not to mention, I think our friends are having a nice show of it.”

“You got that right, love.” Shark grinned big on the video feed, as did Vertigo as she smiled over at Shark. 

“Oh, would you like some too?” Vertigo snickered as she lifted her shirt and pressed her chest against Shark’s head. There came a frown on Shark’s face as Vertigo began to bop her breasts onto the earth pony’s cheeks and the side of her head. “Ooooo! Look Shark! Boobies!”

“You all know that I’m still here, right?” Focus said from the back of the room, sipping her coffee. 

“Yep!” Both Grem and Vertigo answered at the same time. 

“Damnit, Verti! Put your tits away, you tart!” Sharktooth finally started to resist, only making the pegasus push harder onto her. “Oi!” The struggle mounted as the two of them began to get rough and knock over the camera, ending the feed.

“Ummmm…” Rain Shadow stood at the office door, gazing at the bat ponies in the room, plus the lucky unicorn sitting at his desk. Diamond Sword’s eyes widened a little as he looked to the black furred earth pony. “I can’t help but feel I’m interrupting something.” 

“No, actually, you’re right on time.” Focus said as she gathered her things into her purse and pulled it over her shoulder. She walked to the door where he stood and he stood out of her way, motioning for her to go first. She smirked, then looked back to her two companions who were now gazing toward her with incredulous looks. “Don’t wait up.” She closed the door. 

“We have really got to start closing the door at some point.” Diamond Sword said and Grem shook her head with a giggle. She began to strip down in front of him.

---------

After everything that had happened. All of the stress of work and all of the wedding planning that went critical, as well as all of the events after, there was finally a sigh of real relief. Without a single word of protest, there was another try at a honeymoon. They skipped all of the trouble and all of the set up, and took a vacation without a single word to anyone. Coin Purse handled Regal Drennen’s business arrangements, as well as a large sum paid to Sky Blue for her help with everything. 

Pearl Necklace was done worrying about anything. She lied in bed, completely naked along with her new bride as they rented the same room onboard the ship that cruised through the ocean. The festivities on the deck and all of the merriment were miles away as far as she was concerned. The schools of fish outside of their room and the beautiful glowing blue sea was all that they could perceive as they stayed in each other’s arms. Room service came with frequent meals and a beautiful, calming melody played on the speakers throughout the very large royal suite she had procured.

Their reality glowed a beautiful aquamarine as the bed became their main point of residence. Death Metal held her against her bare chest as they stayed in that place. All of her troubles had finally been laid to rest for a time, at the very least. Even the uneasy worry that something else could go wrong seemed like it didn’t exist. It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. 

“I love you.” Death Metal whispered to Pearl, causing her to break out in goosebumps. A genuine smile came across her face as she looked at her pink bride glow in the blue depths that illuminated their being. She didn’t have to say anything. They were there in that moment. However long that moment lasted was none of their concern. 

It was just a moment of healing. That was all that they could ever ask for.