A shocking discovery changes the lives of everyone involved.
Officer Shining Armor was expecting a completely routine day, a few traffic stops, some vandalism cases, maybe a robbery if he was lucky. The only difference is that he's got his future brother-in-law riding along with him. What actually happens is anything but routine.
Contains censored profanity and sexual references (no actual sex).
Flash Sentry let out a whistle as he took in his surroundings.
“Wow, I’ve never been inside of a cop car before,” he said to the older man next to him at the driver’s seat.
“Good,” Shining Armor replied, starting the car, “because if you had, well, I’d be having second thoughts about letting my baby sister marry you.”
Flash chuckled at that.
“Remember,” Shining sternly continued as he pulled out of the police station’s secured parking area, “don’t touch anything except what I explicitly say you’re allowed to touch and follow all my instructions. You make my job any more difficult than it already is, and you won’t get to do this again. Got it?”
“Got it,” Flash replied with a nod.
For the first few minutes of the drive, the two soon-to-be in-laws just sat in silence with Flash looking out the passenger window and Shining looking straight ahead out the windshield. Shining Armor decided to be the first to break the silence.
“So,” he began, “what made you decide that you wanted to look into police work?”
“Well,” Flash answered, “I figured that with me and Twilight getting married in the not-so-distant future, I needed to be more intentional about figuring out what I want to do for a career. I was leaning towards a job that involved protecting people, and I narrowed my choices down to either this or the military.”
Shining Armor nodded approvingly. “You wouldn’t be half-bad in the military. I just hope that you’re prepared to have your hair cut shorter than it already is.”
The two of them laughed again before Flash replied, “My aunt and my grandmother think so too, and I actually thought about just joining straight out of high school but decided against it.”
“Oh?” asked Shining.
“Yeah, I didn’t like the idea of having to be away from home a lot and potentially having to always move from place to place,” said Flash. “Now that I’m about to get married, that kind of a lifestyle is looking even less appealing to me.”
“Yeah, I getcha. The long periods away from home are probably the biggest reason why I decided not to reenlist after my tour of duty was over.”
“So, you decided to become a cop instead.”
“Yep,” Shining replied. “Okay, I don’t know what you’re expecting out of this ride-along, but more than likely, today’s going to be a pretty routine day, going out on patrol and maybe a few traffic violations and such, so don’t be too disappointed if you don’t get to see a lot of action.”
“I’ll try,” Flash said with a smirk.
For the first hour and a half or so, everything seemed to go as Shining Armor had predicted. Flash didn’t mind. The peace gave him time to get to know Shining Armor better and gave Shining Armor time to teach him about all the equipment in the car.
“So, how’s fatherhood treating ya?” Flash asked as Shining Armor drove along the freeway that lead into the woods.
“Oh, it’s great,” Shining replied with a proud yet lopsided smile that only a new father can give. “I mean, don’t misunderstand. It’s hard, like insanely hard and unbelievably stressful. Cadance and I don’t get as much sleep as we used to, and the little pink macaron makes quite a mess for someone who does nothing but eat, sleep, cry, and poop all day, but somehow, just seeing her happy and healthy every day makes all of that worth it.”
Flash snickered knowingly as he gestured to the teeny tiny bottle in Shining Armor’s cupholder, “I’m guessing that the 5-Hour helps you cope with the less sleep.”
Shining Armor just rolled his eyes as he pulled up at the shoulder and rolled down his window. Just as he finished positioning his speed radar, a small moving truck passed. Shining raised his eyebrow at the number on his radar, sighed exasperatedly, and turned on his lights and siren, pursuing the truck.
Meanwhile, inside said truck, a young man in his mid-20s was behind the wheel. He had golden brown skin and soft, fluffy blue-black hair styled with a forelock that fell just short of his eyes. He had a patchy beard and mustache that was a darker shade of brown than his skin tone and wore an equally patchy, red trench coat and a pair of khakis. His most notable feature were his eyes. His sclerae were tinted a light green, and his irises were also green and eerily luminescent. From a close enough distance, one could look into his eyes and see that his pupils had a slight slit-shape to them.
On the passenger seat was a similarly aged man with the same unusual eyes, except that the his were blue instead of green. He had light gray skin with black hair and immaculately trimmed black sideburns and wore a dark gray hoodie with shredded jeans.
“Chummer, I have a bad feeling about this job,” the driver said to the passenger. “Let’s just turn back and tell Verko that we can’t do it.”
“Capper, we can’t pull out of this job,” Chummer replied. “Verko said that if whatever is in this truck doesn’t get to the location by the designated time limit, we’re paying for it with our lives. Besides, we’re getting paid good cash for it, so what’s the problem?”
“Chummer, knowing Verko and The Swarm, we’re probably doing something incredibly illegal. I know we’ve pulled jobs like this for them before, but something about this one just feels extra wrong. Besides, we might have dodged the police before, but how long do we have before our luck runs out?”
Chummer smirked menacingly as he took a handgun out of the pocket of his hoodie and loaded it. “That’s not going to be a problem.”
Capper’s pupils widened as he nearly screamed, “Are you serious?!”
“Hey, Verko said, ‘Don’t get caught, whatever it takes.’”
“I can’t believe you’re actually even considering using that.”
However, before Capper could continue, his and Chummer’s conversation was interrupted by the sound of sirens. Capper checked his mirrors and saw red and blue lights flashing behind him.
“Keep cool,” Chummer hissed as he put the gun back in his hoodie. “Maybe they’re going after some other car.”
“Who? There’s nobody out here but us and them.”
The police cruiser continued to follow them, sirens wailing and lights flashing. Capper sighed dejectedly as he pulled the truck over at the shoulder. The cruiser pulled up behind the truck and turned off the siren. However, the lights remained on.
Capper saw Chummer reaching for the gun and sternly commanded, “Don’t even think about it. Let me talk us out of this first. Maybe we can get out of here without anybody getting hurt.”
Chummer scowled at his partner but complied. Capper nervously bit his lip as he watched the officer exit the car. The cop did not look like someone who could be easily persuaded into giving him leniency.
As Shining Armor stepped out of the car, he turned to Flash and ordered, “Just stay in the car, alright? Don’t get out unless you’re dying, or you’re dead. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Flash replied.
Shining Armor shut the door behind him and went up to the truck’s driver.
“Sir, the speed limit on this road is 65 miles an hour. Do you have any idea how fast your vehicle was going?” Shining Armor said to the driver.
“Oh, many apologies, Officer,” Capper purred. “You see, my buddy and I were transporting some time-sensitive goods for our boss, and I was in a bit of a hurry. We won’t let it happen again, on my honor.”
“As good to hear as that is, I’m afraid that I’m still going to need to see your license,” Shining replied.
Capper sighed as he pulled the plastic card out of one of his coat pockets, complying with Shining’s request. He felt relief wash over him when he realized this was nothing but a normal traffic stop, which should be over quickly.
“Alright, Mr. Dapperpaws, you have ten days to go to Canterlot PD and pay the fine, and—,” Shining Armor saw something from the corner of his eye as he was handing Capper the speeding ticket. “What is that?”
Capper followed Shining’s gaze toward the truck’s cupholders and mentally facepalmed himself. Stupid open container laws!
“Oh, that?” Chummer answered, also taking notice of the open green, glass bottle with the two red Xs on the neck. “Must have been from the last guy who used this truck. We swear it’s not ours, Officer.”
Shining Armor raised his eyebrow skeptically as he glanced from the bottle to Chummer to Capper and back the other way.
“Officer, come on, be a pal,” Capper continued to sweet-talk. “It’s still pretty early in the day. Besides, do the two of us even look like we’ve been drinking? Do we SOUND like we’ve been drinking?”
Shining Armor’s face remained stern even as it softened ever so slightly. “All the same, Mr. Dapperpaws, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the car.”
“Officer, this really isn’t necessary.” Capper knew that none of his attempts at charming Shining Armor have worked so far, but he had to diffuse the situation quickly before Chummer’s itchy trigger finger decided to do the talking for them. “Besides, I’m sure a busy man such as yourself has other responsibilities to attend to, like a bank robbery or some vandals or maybe a wife who needs a kiss from her big, strong man.”
“Mr. Dapperpaws, it is imperative that I make doubly sure that it’s safe for me to let you drive this vehicle,” Shining insisted, his face and voice unmoving, “for both you and your friend’s safety as well as the rest of the public’s.”
Before Capper could get another word, however, some banging noises were heard from the back of the truck.
“What was that?” Shining Armor questioned, again raising his eyebrow in suspicion.
“Oh, probably just the cargo settling,” Capper replied. “Between you and me, Chummer and I don’t really know what’s back there. Our boss didn’t tell us.”
“Where am I?” a small, muffled, and clearly human voice cried out from the back of the truck. Both Shining Armor and Capper’s eyes went wide at the sound.
From his peripheries, Capper saw Chummer reach into his pocket and whip out a small, black, handheld object.
“Chummer, no!” Capper cried as he pushed Chummer’s arm to the side. The sound of a gunshot burst through the air. Thankfully, Capper’s push caused Chummer to completely miss Shining Armor. However, the sudden attack was enough to startle Shining into stepping away from the truck.
“Drive, you idiot! Drive!” Chummer screamed, wanting to take advantage of Shining’s current confusion as much as possible. Capper shifted the truck into drive and slammed his foot on the gas, speeding the truck away.
Shining quickly regained his bearings and raced back into the police cruiser. He buckled himself in, turned in his siren, and sped after the truck in pursuit.
Flash watched with wide eyes as Shining Armor grabbed the radio and began barking a string of words that he didn’t understand into it.
“Shining, what’s going on?” Flash asked once Shining Armor was finished with the radio.
“I’ll tell you the long story later,” Shining Armor panted. “The short story is that we’re chasing a couple of criminals. They’ve got something in that truck that isn’t supposed to be there, and one of them just tried to shoot me.”
Flash’s eyes practically popped out of their sockets at what Shining just told him. So much for a routine day.
Shining Armor caught up with the truck and said to Flash, “Kid, you might want to keep your head down.”
Flash turned from Shining Armor to the front of the car and realized why Shining was telling him to keep his head down. The truck’s passenger had stuck his head and torso out of the window and was pointing a gun at them. Flash wasted no time putting his head between his knees and covering his ears with his hands. He could just barely make out the sound of bullets ricocheting off the cruiser’s hood and windshield. After a few seconds, the terrifying sounds stopped.
“Okay, kid, you can get back up again,” Shining said to him.
Flash sat up in time to see the gunman angrily throw his gun down into the road before slipping back into the window. The nutjob must have wasted his whole clip trying and failing to hit Shining Armor. Thank God.
“Crap!” Chummer cursed as he sat back down in his seat. “I couldn’t get a good shot, and that lousy cop is still on our tail!”
Capper didn’t respond. He barely registered Chummer’s exclamation over the sirens ringing in his ears and the shrieks and whimpers coming from the back of the truck. Whoever he and the officer had heard earlier did not sound like she was alone. Gosh! What are Verko and The Swarm even doing with—?
Capper felt utterly sick as realization dawned on him. Now more than ever, he wanted nothing more than to just quit this job, run as far as he can, and never look back. However, the sirens screaming from behind him and the flashes of red and blue in his mirrors told him that simply quitting and forgetting this experience just wasn’t an option anymore. It was his freedom or his conscience now.
“I want to go home!” Capper heard a different yet also clearly human voice cry from the cargo area. The cry was followed by a series of sobs that he somehow managed to hear over the chaos. That was all it took for Capper’s conscience to win out over his survival instincts.
Without even thinking, he took his foot off the gas, veered the truck towards the shoulder, and pressed the brake.
“What the [censored] are you doing?!” Chummer screamed at him.
“I can’t do this, Chummer! This is not what I signed up for!” Capper screamed back as the truck came to a stop.
Enraged, Chummer pulled a switchblade out of his other hoodie pocket and pointed it at Capper menacingly.
“You [censored] start this truck back up right now, or I—!” Chummer threatened.
“FREEZE!” Shining Armor’s voice interrupted Chummer before he could finish the threat. The two men looked up to see the young officer just outside the driver’s side door pointing a gun at them.
“Drop the weapon and put your hands where I can see them!” Shining continued.
Capper complied and raised his hands in the air while Chummer tightened his grip on the knife and scowled at Shining Armor.
“Drop the weapon, or I shoot!” Shining Armor emphasized.
Reluctantly, Chummer did so and raised his hands as well.
“Now, slowly step out of the vehicle and put your hands on the side of the vehicle,” Shining ordered in a much calmer tone.
Capper let out a mewling groan and did as he was told. Chummer reluctantly followed suit. Shining Armor cautiously approached them, and once he was close enough, he handcuffed Chummer first and Capper second. Within five minutes, three other police cruisers had arrived at the scene.
“Uh, hey, Officers, aren’t you going to read me my rights?” Capper said as Shining and another officer brought him and Chummer to the back of one of the cruisers. “I’m not telling you nothin’ until I get my rights read to me.”
Shining Armor glared holes into him. “Oh, you’ll have your rights read to you alright! Once you get to the station right before we interrogate you!”
He slammed the door behind Capper and walked away as the cruiser drove back to the station.
“Geez, Armor, ticked off sure doesn’t look good on you,” the other policeman joked.
“That snake-charmer wannabe tried to sweet-talk me,” Shining replied, still scowling. “I don’t know why, but something about guys acting cute to get me to let them off just makes me sick.”
“Probably because it’s not a girl doin’ it,” the other officer laughed.
Shining just rolled his eyes.
“So, you wanna check on your ride-along while we check what’s in the back of this truck?”
“Yeah, I guess I should do that.”
Shining Armor approached the passenger side of his police cruiser and opened the door.
“Hey, kid, you okay?” Shining asked Flash.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Flash replied, “but I do have a lot of questions though. I still have no idea what’s going on.”
“Well, we’ll have a better idea once we get that truck open.”
Flash and Shining watched as the other officers broke the lock to the back of the truck. When they opened it, Shining Armor and Flash’s jaws hit the floor, and their eyes exploded.
Ten to 20 women from their mid-teens to their late twenties stared back at Flash and police from the back of the moving van. Some of them were dressed in casual everyday clothing; others were in tatters. However, quite a few were dressed so provocatively that Flash had to cover his eyes a few times out of a need to preserve their dignity. Every single one of them wore an expression of complete and utter terror.
An officer radioed for a transport vehicle while another, a woman in her thirties, coaxed the girls to come out of the truck’s cargo area. As more women stepped out of the truck, Flash got a better view of the far corners. He could just make out a group of three girls, much younger than the rest, huddled together on his far-left corner. The three of them stepped into the light together, giving Flash a better look of their faces. He gasped in recognition and quickly undid his seatbelt.
“Hey, hey!” Shining Armor yelled, pushing Flash back into his seat. “You’re supposed to stay in this car.”
“I know those girls!” Flash argued back, pointing at the group of three. “I know you told me not to get out of the car, but gosh! I have to know if they’re okay, and I can’t find out if I just sit here.”
Shining Armor turned to where Flash was pointing and looked at the trio intently. The oldest was about thirteen years old with black and blonde hair, tan skin, and icy blue eyes. The youngest looked about between eight to ten years old with long brown hair, light gray skin, and the most expressive gold eyes Shining had ever seen. The middle girl had pastel purple skin, her hair was brown striped with cream, and her eyes were gray.
“Just sit here, okay?” Shining reiterated. “I’ll bring them over and offer to take them to the station with us. Then, you can ask them whatever you want to ask. Capeesh?”
Flash let out a growl as he complied. “Fine.”
Flash watched as Shining Armor approached the officer who was watching over the three girls. Shining Armor and the officer exchanged some words that Flash couldn’t hear for a few minutes, and then, Shining began walking back to this cruiser with the three girls following.
The youngest saw Flash from a distance and began running towards the cruiser. Flash opened the door, and the little girl threw her arms around him.
“Mr. Flash!” she cried in joy and relief.
The middle girl caught up soon after, and Flash also pulled her into the hug.
“Gale, Gypsy,” Flash cried, glad to see that, as far as he could tell, the girls were physically unharmed. “What happened? What were the three of you doing in the truck?”
“Would you believe us if we told you?” the oldest girl caught up with the rest of the group and retorted.
“Bee, are the three of you okay?” Flash replied. “Did anyone try to hurt you guys?”
“A suspicious man gave us suspicious Kool-Aid, and we suddenly woke up on the back of a moving vehicle, but other than that we’re fine.”
“Ladies, Flash,” Shining Armor interrupted. “You’re going to have to continue this conversation on the way to the station. We’d have a little more privacy in the car. Also, is it okay if I record you guys? What you have to say might help us bring to justice whoever did this to you.”
Flash and the girls agreed, and the girls got into the back of the car.
“Yow!” Bee exclaimed, shoving Gypsy hard. “Scoot over, Gypsy. This squeeze machine on wheels is tight enough without you in my space!”
“Sorry,” Gypsy apologized.
“Oooh, yeah, I probably should have warned you girls that the back isn’t very comfortable,” Shining realized as he turned on the cruiser’s recording camera. “Sorry about that.”
After Shining Armor drove away from the crime scene, the girls began to tell their story.
“A few days ago, two men came to the home and asked to see Ms. Chrysalis,” Bee began. “Then, Ms. Chrysalis sent Mr. Thorax out to buy groceries and told everyone to leave the three of them alone.
“She said that anyone who interrupted her was going to have to clean the bathrooms,” Gale added, “twice.”
Bee gave her a glare and continued, “Anyway, they were in Ms. Chrysalis’s office for quite a while. About twenty minutes later, the three of us get called in her office, and she tells us that these guys are adopting us.”
“Wait. Just like that?” Shining Armor asked, several red flags going up in his mind. “She didn’t even have you meet them first?”
“No, not at all,” Gypsy answered, “which is weird because whenever Mr. Thorax sends us off with a potential forever family, he always has us meet them first.”
“Yeah,” Bee agreed as her face twisting in thought. “The weirder part is back before Mr. Thorax started working there, Ms. Chrysalis used to let the kids meet their potential forever families too except…”
“Except what?” Flash asked.
“This is going to sound crazy, but whenever Ms. Chrysalis had a teenaged girl living at the home, she’d have her sent to a forever family within a month,” Bee finished.
“Without meeting her potential family?” Shining asked.
Bee nodded.
Shining Armor and Flash shared a look, their mental red flags now accompanied with figurative flashing lights and sirens.
“Girls, what happened after she told you that you were getting adopted?” Shining asked.
“I asked her why Robby wasn’t with us,” Gale answered. “Then, she says that our new dads didn’t want Robby, so then I said, ‘I’m not going anywhere without Robby!’ Then, she said that I had to go without him because she already gave me to them, and I said, ‘I can’t just leave Robby here. I’m his big sister.’”
“Long story short,” Bee interrupted, “She made a scene, so Ms. Chrysalis kicked us out of her office to talk with the two creepy guys some more, and she managed to convince them to take Robby too.”
“Robby was with you guys?!” Flash exclaimed as he mentally scanned the faces he saw in the truck for one of a 7-year-old boy. To his dismay, he couldn’t remember seeing a boy of any age come out of the truck.
“He was when those guys took us home with them,” Bee replied. “I didn’t see him anywhere in the truck when I woke up.”
“Oooooh,” Gale shifted in her seat, looking like she was about to cry. “What do you think they’re doing to him? I hope he’s okay.”
“So do I,” Flash and Shining thought to themselves.
“Don’t worry,” Shining Armor reassured the little girl. “I’ll get your story to the rest of the police, and we’ll do everything we can to find him. Now, what happened after the two creepy guys took you home with them?”
“They took us to this rundown building in one of the seedier-looking parts of the city,” Gypsy continued. “They took us into an apartment that smelled like smoke and whatever was in those bottles on the dining room table, put us in a room that only had a mattress in it, and gave us cold pizza and water from the sink. After that, they pretty much left us alone.”
“Robby was about to eat some of the pizza, but then, Bee was all ‘Don’t touch it, you idiot!’ So, Robby says, ‘But I’m hungry.’ Then, Bee says, ‘Listen, whoever those guys are they’re really bad people. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do,’” Gale added. Then, she turned to Bee and asked, “By the way, how did you know?”
Bee bit her lip and huffed, “I’d rather not talk about it. Anyway, we overheard our so-called dads talking on the phone with someone. I can’t remember everything they talked about, but I did hear one of them mention someone named Verko.”
Shining Armor’s eyes went wide at the sound of that name. He had heard that name thrown around several times at the station, mostly from frustrated detectives trying and failing to get evidence on him for a crime more serious than a traffic violation or having the wrong kind of license for a business that many in the force suspected was just a front for something less legal. The look did not go unnoticed by Flash.
“The next day,” Bee continued, her breathing getting faster, “they brought three pasty, bald men into our room. The leader was wearing coke-bottle glasses and a red three-piece suit.”
“Actually, it was a little more maroon than red,” Gypsy corrected.
“Whatever!” Bee shouted, elbowing the 11-year-old roughly. “Anyway, the guy in the suit looked us over, and he got real mad when he saw Robby with us.”
“He was all ‘What am I supposed to do with the boy?’” Gale interrupted. “Then, the guy Ms. Chrysalis gave us to says, ‘She says figure it out and that it’s not her problem.’ Then, the bald guy told Bee to get up, and he looked her over again. Then, he touched her face all icky-like and told her to take off her clothes. Robby and I got really, really scared because Daddy told us that we’re not supposed to take our clothes off in front of anyone except for when he’s helping us change or if the doctor needs to look at something. Gypsy looked scared too, but Bee just looks at the bald man all tough and says, ‘Are you a doctor?’ The bald man said no, so she said, ‘Well, then tough nuts.’ So, he slaps her across the face and says, ‘That wasn’t a request. Take off your shirt and pants, or I rip them off you.’”
Flash looked at the girls through the grate as Gale told her part of the story. Her eyes were glistening, and she was wringing her hands as if she was trying to squeeze her emotions back inside of her. Gypsy was rubbing her forearms and shaking, and Bee had her eyes squeezed shut and her teeth clenched.
“Bee looked really mad and embarrassed when he did that, so I covered Robby’s eyes and shut mine,” Gale finished.
“He looked over each of us one at a time and made us take off everything but our underwear each time,” Gypsy continued. “He even looked under Robby’s underpants, and when he did that, Gale got up and screamed at him not to touch Robby there. Then, he kicked her in the stomach.”
“It really hurt,” Gale exclaimed, some tears finally leaking out of her eyes. “Then, he got mad at the guy Ms. Chrysalis gave us to and said that Robby was too small to do anything with, and the guy Ms. Chrysalis gave us to says that they’ll figure a way to make money off him somehow.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Flash thought to himself, trying to imagine the horrors that the girls had experienced in such a short amount of time.
“Then, Baldo leaves and doesn’t come back,” Bee continued as she stared out the window. “A couple of hours later, New Legal Guardian #1 comes in with what he says is Kool-Aid and tells us to drink it. I told him no.”
“And then?” Shining asked. The whole time the girls had been talking, he had been trying to hide his ever-growing disgust. Despite his otherwise professional demeanor, his white knuckles gave away his emotions.
“He starts choking me and said that if I didn’t drink it, he’d find another way to get it in me,” Bee finished, rubbing her neck uncomfortably.
“We thought he was going to kill her and the rest of us,” Gypsy added, “so we drank whatever he gave us.”
“I managed to get away with only taking a few sips,” said Bee bitterly. “It was still enough to knock me out long enough for them to load us in that truck.”
“I’m assuming you were the first one to wake up,” Shining Armor replied.
“Probably.”
“What was the first thing you said when you woke up?”
“What any normal human would say if he or she woke up in a strange place, ‘Where am I?’”
Shining Armor nodded as he mentally pieced together all the information he gathered from the girls’ story.
“The two men Ms. Chrysalis adopted you to, do you three remember what they looked like?” Shining questioned.
“I do,” Gypsy answered. “The one that did most of the talking was big and fat with puce skin, greasy white hair, beady little eyes, and a face that reminded me of a pig. The other one was long and thin with dull silver skin and a dark blue mohawk, and his eyes were even beadier that the first guy’s. His face was so thin that his nose stuck out of it like Pinocchio’s. They were also both wearing black leather jackets with an insignia that looked like the mouth of a bug.”
“Hey, Mr. Flash, Mr. Policeman, what’s a [censored]?” Gale asked innocently.
The two young men’s eyes widened when they heard the last word come out of the sweet little girl’s mouth.
“Okay, first of all, where did you hear that word?” Flash demanded, forcing himself to stay as calm as possible.
“The fat man called Bee that when she wouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid,” Gale replied.
Flash sighed, explaining, “It’s a word meaning girl dog, and you should never ever use it on a girl human or any other human for that matter.”
“What does it mean when people use it on a human?” Gypsy asked.
“Well, it depends. Sometimes, it means that someone is being mean and nasty like a dog. Other times, it means that someone is helpless and easy to hurt like a dog. Either way, it’s a way of saying that someone isn’t worth being treated like a human being.”
“Like how those awful people were treating us?” Gale asked, hugging herself.
Flash felt his heart break as he looked at each of their fearful and shamed faces. He looked away from them, trying to force down the lump forming in his throat, and nodded.
As the cruiser got off the freeway and into the outskirts of Canterlot, Flash took out his cellphone and called Thorax’s number.
“Hello,” Thorax answered. “This is Thorax.”
“Hey, Thorax, it’s Flash,” Flash replied, suppressing his outrage at what had happened to the girls. “So, weird question but do you know where Honey Bee, Gypsy Scarf, and Nightingale are right now?”
“I can’t say I do,” Thorax replied obliviously. “Ms. Chrysalis adopted them out a few days ago while I was out shopping. She wouldn’t tell me anything else about them or even show me the paperwork. Why?”
Flash took in a deep breath and slowly let it out before continuing, “Because I know where they are right now and where they were a few minutes ago.”
“Hold on,” Thorax cried. “Did something bad happen to them? Are they okay?”
“Thorax, I know you’re probably all over the place right now emotionally speaking, but I’m going to need you to calm down. Just get to the police station as soon as possible and don’t tell Ms. Chrysalis where you’re going. Ask for Shining Armor.”
A long silence answered him through the phone.
“Uh, Thorax?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll, uh, I’ll just get there as soon as I can,” Thorax said far too calmly, which can only mean that he was internally flipping out. Flash’s suspicions were further confirmed when Thorax hung up on him without a proper goodbye.
“So,” Flash turned to Shining Armor questioningly, “you really think Thorax is going to be able to give you more info on whatever shady dealings Ms. Chrysalis might be involved in.”
“If little else, his testimony will at least support the girls’,” Shining replied. “If she did do something, she’ll be a lot easier to put away.”
When they arrived at the police station, Shining Armor took Flash and the girls into the cops’ break room and gave them each a cup of water.
“You guys just wait here, okay?” Shining requested. “I’ve got to talk with the chief, the other officers, and most likely the social worker about how we are going to handle this.”
“And then?” asked Gypsy.
Shining Armor sighed clutching his head by the temples. “We’re probably going to have to figure out where you and all the other girls younger than 16 are going to need to go.”
“How come?” Flash asked.
“Well, the homeless shelter isn’t going to take them in without an adult. Calling their legal guardians is definitely out of the question, and letting them stay at their old foster home could be just as dangerous. We’re going to need to find a place for them to go.”
“Hey, Armor,” an officer popped his head into the room and gestured for Shining to follow him.
“Okay, I’ll be right there,” Shining replied before turning back to Flash and the girls. “I’ve got to go. Flash, you’re watching them. Just stay here, okay?”
All four of them nodded, and Shining took off.
The four just stared at one another in silence for a while, breaking eye contact only to take sips of water. Finally, one of them spoke.
“I’m a bad big sister, aren’t I?” Gale squeaked out, tears threatening to escape from her eyes.
“What?” Flash gasped, getting down to eye level with her. “No, of course not. Why would you say something like that?”
The poor girl began sob as she replied, “I, I, I let them, take, Robby. Good, big sisters, don’t let, bad people, hurt their little, brothers.”
Flash pulled her into a hug as she continued to cry into his chest, his already broken heart shattering even further with every tear.
“Hey, hey, you didn’t let them do anything,” Flash reassured her as he gently stroked her hair. “You didn’t let them do anything. It’s going to be okay.”
“Yeah,” Bee sarcastically added, “I’m sure the police will find him before they do anything too terrible.”
Bee’s comment only made Gale cry harder, causing Flash and Gypsy to glare at her.
“Okay, that was really uncalled for!” Gypsy snapped.
“Yeah? Well, so was getting slapped across the face and called a [censored], but you don’t see me crying over it,” Bee scoffed. “Besides, you want to know why we were on that truck? Because Ms. Chrysalis and those guys knew that if anything happened to us, no one would miss us. They could have gotten away with killing us if they wanted to.”
“Oh yeah? Well, they’re not going to,” Flash resolved. “Get away with this I mean. Shining Armor and the cops are going to see to that.”
“Yeah, sure. Assuming that some other crime doesn’t make them too busy or that no one bribed the judge or anything like that.”
Flash wasn’t going to bother replying to that.
For the next few minutes, no one talked. The only sound in the room was of Gale crying as Flash held her. As Gale’s sobbing began to die down, Shining Armor returned followed by a younger man with chartreuse skin and orange hair.
“Girls!” Thorax cried, opening his arms as Gypsy and Gale ran into them. “Oh, thank goodness you’re alright! What in the name of all that is good happened?!”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Bee replied bitterly. “The sick, twisted, evil woman we somehow trusted with our safety and wellbeing sold us off to some bad, bad people.”
“Wh-what?” Thorax gasped, his face contorting in complete, utter confusion.
“Look, I know you probably have a ton of questions,” Shining Armor interrupted, “but if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you some of my own first.”
“Uh, okay.”
“Firstly, where were you when you last saw these three girls?”
“He’s got nothing to do with this; trust me,” Bee butted in. “The only crime he’s guilty of is being Ms. Chrysalis’s workhorse.”
“Excuse me, but please just let him answer the question and let me do my job, please.”
Bee just rolled her eyes in response.
“Anyway,” Shining Armor returned to the matter at hand. “Mr. Thorax, where were you the last time you saw the girls?”
Thorax looked back at Shining Armor with some fear starting to show itself underneath his confusion. “I was in the kitchen, putting a snack together for the kids.”
“Go on.”
“My boss, Ms. Chrysalis, comes in and snatches the plate I was working on out of my hands. Then, she tells me that she’s having business associates over. She looks at the plate she’s holding all disgusted and tells me to go out and buy more food because her guests can definitely eat more than what I’ve made.” To Flash’s surprise, Thorax sneered, “Which is funny because the money she allocates for groceries is just barely enough for me to feed the kids with.”
“Go on.”
“Well, I went out and bought what we needed, and when I came back, I noticed that four kids were missing—,” Thorax suddenly stopped and looked at each person in the room. “Wait a minute. Where’s Robby?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Shining replied. “Now, what happened after you noticed that four kids were missing?”
“I asked Ms. Chrysalis about them, and she told me that her business associates decided to adopt them.”
“Does your employer normally adopt kids out to her business associates?”
“Well, no, no. In fact, she hardly ever oversees the adoption process at all. She usually has me do it.”
“I see. What happened next?”
“I asked her if she needed me to look over the paperwork, and she said no. In fact, I tried to get them from her, but she wouldn’t even let me touch it.” Thorax’s eyes widened as realization crashed into him like a speeding car. “Which was weird.”
“Does she normally allow you access to the home’s paperwork?” Shining continued, the stern yet expressionless look on his face remaining completely unmoved.
“All the time,” Thorax exclaimed. “In fact, if something, paperwork or otherwise, doesn’t involve finances or house chores, she doesn’t seem to care about it at all. Oh gosh! What has she done, and how could I have been stupid enough to not notice anything weird about what happened?!”
“Hey, hey, sir, please calm down. Whatever happened wasn’t your fault. Blaming yourself isn’t going to help us find Robby or get justice for these kids. If you want to make things right, you’re going to have to tell us everything you know. Understand?”
Thorax nodded as he forced himself to breathe slower and more deeply.
Then, he continued, “I took her at her word and went back to my job. Two days passed, and next thing I knew, I was getting a phone call from Flash about girls.”
“Do you remember what she did with those papers that she had?” Shining asked.
“There’s a safe that she keeps under her desk in her office that she told me never to touch when she hired me,” Thorax replied. “I think I saw her put the papers in there just as I was heading out. Is that everything you need?”
“Just one more thing,” said Shining Armor. “How long have you been working at the home?”
“This would be my third year.”
“How long has Ms. Chrysalis been running the home?”
“Not sure but definitely longer than three years. When she hired me, she told me it was to quote ‘keep the stupid social worker off her case’ unquote. Not entirely sure what she meant by that.”
“I see,” Shining Armor nodded twice before finally allowing his face to soften. “That’s all I wanted to know about your boss. There’s actually something else I’d like to discuss with you.”
Thorax stared back at Shining Armor, exhaustion showing in his face and body language.
“As you know,” Shining Armor continued, “sending the girls back to their legal guardians could potentially be dangerous. We also can’t send them back to the home because your boss is under suspicion. Do you know anyone you trust to temporarily look after the girls who you can recommend to our social worker?”
“Ugh, I wish I did,” Thorax replied. “I can’t stand the thought of the girls having nowhere to go.”
“Uh,” Flash hesitantly cut in, “they could stay over at my place.”
“Your place?” Shining Armor asked, turning to Flash.
“Yeah, I’m sure my aunt wouldn’t mind having them over.”
“Are you out of your mind?!” Aunt Flare screamed from the telephone.
“Oh, come on, Aunt Flare,” Flash pleaded, “it’s just until they have a less temporary place to live. Besides, the social worker doesn’t see a problem with it. She even had the cops background check you and everything.”
Flash could hear his aunt sigh from the other end of the connection.
“Kid, I don’t know a thing about taking care of anyone younger than 13,” she replied. “On top of that, we’re going to have to get creative with the sleeping arrangements, and I can’t guarantee that we’re all going to fit comfortably.”
“Okay, how many kids do you feel comfortable taking in for a little bit?” Flash asked.
Silence answered him.
“Helping those kids really means that much to you?” Aunt Flare finally replied.
“Yeah,” said Flash, the urgency in his voice giving way to desperation. “Especially since I actually know them.”
Aunt Flare sighed again. “I’ll ask the neighbors and see if they can help out. I can take in whoever they can’t, but I don’t think I’ll be able to handle more than two, okay?”
“Okay,” Flash conceded. “Just text me when you’ve made a plan, and I’ll tell the social worker.”
“You really are your mom’s kid, you know that?”
“Thanks, Aunt Flare. Love you too. Bye.”
“But why?” Gale whined. She, Gypsy, and Bee were in the car with Flash, who was driving them towards his neighborhood.
“Because you’re loud and annoying, and Mr. Flash’s aunt doesn’t like you. That’s why,” Bee retorted, her voice utterly sticky with artificial sweetness.
“That’s not what I said, and you know it,” Flash scolded before answering Gale, “My aunt just feels as if Mr. Micro Chips’s parents will take better care of you and Gypsy, so the two of you are staying with them while Bee stays with my family, okay?”
“But I want to stay with you,” Gale whined louder.
“Oh, sweet girl, it won’t be so bad,” Flash reassured her. “I mean, you’ve already met Mr. Micro Chips, and you know that he’s nice. I promise you that his parents will be too.”
Then, he smirked as if he was about to reveal the secret location of the greatest treasure in the world to his closest friends.
“On top of that, Mr. and Mrs. Chips are amazing cooks,” Flash added. “You two are definitely going to be eating better tonight than you have in a while.”
“What do they normally cook, Mr. Flash?” Gypsy asked, her curiosity piqued.
“Mostly Mexican food or Texas barbecue or something like that.”
“I hate Mexican food,” Bee butted in.
“Then, it’s a good thing you’re not staying with them,” Flash crossly thought to himself, trying not to let the rather ironically named girl’s bitter attitude wear on his patience. “Gosh, I hope she doesn’t end up setting off Aunt Flare’s drill sergeant mode.”
Flash drove into the cul-de-sac where his house was. However, instead of pulling into his house, he parked his car at the house directly across from his.
“Well, here we are,” Flash said as he took his key out of the ignition. “Gale, Gypsy, this is where you two will be staying.”
He and the two girls got out of the car while Bee waited for Flash to return. Flash inhaled deeply.
“You girls smell that?” Flash asked. “That’s the smell of your dinner tonight. Doesn’t it smell great?”
“All I’m getting is a lot of smoke,” Gypsy replied, sniffing the air.
“Well, maybe it’ll smell more edible the closer you get to the house.”
Flash went up to the front of the house and rang the doorbell. The door was opened by a thin man about Flash’s age with light purple skin and soft, gray-blue hair. He was also wearing glasses.
“Micro!” Flash greeted exuberantly as both men pulled each other into a bro hug.
“Nice to see you, Flash,” Micro greeted back before taking notice of the girls. “Oh, hello.”
“Hi, Mr. Micro,” greeted Gypsy.
“Hi,” Gale squeaked out.
“Mijito!” a loud, feminine, lightly accented voice called from inside the house. “Are those the muchachitas who are going to be staying with us?”
“Yes, Mamá,” Micro answered.
“Oh, good. I’m still working on dinner, so I can’t leave the cocina right now. Can you ask them if they’re hungry? If they are, there’s galletas on the table and paletas in the freezer. You also know where Papá and I keep the leftovers from the lunch rush.”
“Leftovers from the lunch rush?” Gypsy asked.
“My parents run a food truck,” Micro explained. “Anything they don’t sell, well, we eat. Anyway, you two want anything? Cookies? Popsicles?”
“Oh, mijo, if they’re thirsty, there’s agua fresca in the refrigerator,” Mrs. Chips called.
“A cold, refreshing, sweet drink?” Micro relayed to the girls.
“I’m not feeling very hungry right now,” Gale replied dejectedly.
“Speak for yourself, I’m starving,” Gypsy exclaimed, once again sniffing the air. “Wow, Mr. Flash, you were right; something smells amazing in there.”
“My dad’s upstairs fixing up one of the guest rooms for you two,” Micro continued. “Let’s wait in the kitchen for him. He’ll be down when your room is ready.”
Gypsy readily followed Micro inside, but Gale kept clinging onto Flash.
“Hey,” Flash said to her as he bent down and looked into her eyes, “it’s going to be okay. Micro and his family are going to take the best care of you, and if you need anything, I’m just across the street, okay?”
Gale reluctantly let go of Flash and nodded before following Gypsy and Micro inside. Flash sighed and returned to his car.
“So,” he said to the car’s lone occupant, “you ready to meet my family?”
“Are they as annoyingly nice and happy as you are?” Bee retorted.
Flash elected to ignore that, driving his car around the cul-de-sac and pulling into his driveway.
“I’m home,” Flash announced as he and Bee walked into his house.
“Hey, Bro,” his brother First Base greeted as he looked up from setting the table. The smile on his face quickly faded when he saw who was with his brother.
“Bro, you’ve already met Honey Bee, right?” Flash introduced.
“Uh-huh.”
“And I’m sure Aunt Flare already told you she was staying with us.”
“Her exact words were that ‘some poor kid your brother ran into during his ride-along’ was going to be staying with us.”
“What’s the matter?” Bee sassed. “Not pitiful enough for you.”
Base quickly shook off his shock and replied, “Uh, Bro, did you see that thing in the garage?”
He quickly grabbed Flash by the arm and dragged him to the garage.
“She’s the ‘poor kid’ Aunt Flare was talking about?!” he cried.
“I know,” Flash countered, his pent-up frustration about to reach a breaking point. “I know that she has a bad attitude and that she’s hard to deal with and that she seems to go out of her way to be as irritating as possible, but a horrifyingly inhumane thing just happened to her, and gosh, it’d be wrong to leave her to suffer through that alone.”
Base groaned as he pressed his palms on his forehead.
“You know,” he retorted, “for someone who just when through a ‘horrifyingly inhumane thing,’ she seems as much of a pain in the butt as ever.”
“It’s probably just her way of dealing with her problems, Bro,” Flash said with a sigh. “I know it’s not helpful or healthy, and you know it’s not helpful or healthy. Heck, she probably even knows it. She probably just doesn’t know any other way to deal.”
“Well, I hope for our sanity’s sake she finds one.”
Flash and Base returned from the garage and introduced Bee to the rest of the family, which consisted of Aunt Flare and Grandma Birdie. The two women had brought out their dinner for the night, which consisted of some form of chicken breast, a fancy salad with balls of some kind of white cheese, and dinner rolls.
After the family plus guest said grace together, Base frowned when he got a good look at the salad.
“Aww, come on, Aunt Flare,” he complained. “A SPINACH salad?”
“You need your greens; I don’t care if you don’t like them,” Aunt Flare sternly answered. “Besides, you ate them just fine when I hid them in the meatloaf last week.”
“That’s because I didn’t know they were in there.”
“Hun, you best just do what your aunt tells you,” Grandma added. “You’re almost fifteen; we can’t be hiding your vegetables from you forever.”
First Base sighed and put a small serving of salad on his plate, grimacing as he forced down a bite.
“So, Bee, what do you think of dinner?” Aunt Flare asked, changing the subject.
“It’s fine, I guess,” Bee huffed, savagely biting off a roll. “It beats the slop Thorax feeds us every week. I can’t really blame him for it though. There’s only so much he can do with the budget that the ugly, mean, old bat gives him.”
The dinner table suddenly became uncomfortably quiet. Thankfully, the silence was shortly interrupted by the doorbell.
“I’ll get it,” Base offered, getting up from the table and opening the door. Shining Armor was standing on the other side, his forehead wrinkled with fatigue. A teenage girl with light ice blue skin and a soft pink pixie cut stood next to him. “Oh, Shining, hi.”
“Hi, Base,” Shining replied, the fatigue seeping into his voice as well. “Is your aunt home?”
“Aunt Flare!” First Base called.
Flare got up and walked towards the door while Base returned to the table.
“Yes?” she said to the officer.
“Ms. Burst, I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’m afraid the homeless shelter ran out of beds, and I didn’t really know where else to send this girl,” Shining apologized. “Flash mentioned that you had room for two, so I was wondering if she can stay here for the time being. If you can’t take her in, I can always ask my parents.”
Flare Burst took a moment to contemplate what Shining just told her, looking over the girl as she did so. She was hugging herself and running her hands up and down her forearms as if she was trying to rub something off. Her big, light cyan eyes stared out in fear.
“Sure, we can take her in,” Flare replied. “I’m afraid she’s going to have to share a room with Honey Bee though.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” the girl answered timidly. “I don’t mind at all.”
“We just started dinner. Why don’t you join us?”
“Oh, that really won’t be necessary. I mean, I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“We have plenty. Don’t worry about it,” Aunt Flare assured before turning to Shining Armor. “What about you, Officer?”
“Thanks plenty, Sarge, but I think I’ve kept my family waiting long enough,” Shining replied.
Then, he turned to the girl and said, “Don’t worry about a thing. These people are going to take good care of you. I trust them with my life.”
The girl nodded and allowed Flare to lead her inside. Shining Armor gave Flare a quick salute before returning to his car.
“Everybody,” Flare announced to everyone at the dinner table, “we have another guest from the police department.”
“Oh, hello there, dear. Please, please have a seat,” Grandma Birdie greeted as she pulled a chair for their new guest. “My name is Free Bird, but you can call my Grandma Birdie. The two boys are my grandkids Flash and First Base, and well, you’ve already met my daughter Flare. Oh, and this is Honey Bee. She’s staying with us from the PD, too.”
“Just don’t call me Honey, and we shouldn’t have problems,” Bee nonchalantly added, not even looking at the new girl.
“Oh, but where are my manners?” Grandma continued. “What’s your name?”
“Ocellus,” the girl shakily replied. “My name is Ocellus.”
Flash lay awake in his bed staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. His mind replayed the events of the day before, focusing on the terrified, shamed faces of the two girls across the street and the two staying in his grandmother’s room.
Grandma had moved from her room to the room that Aunt Flare used to share with his mother back when she was still living so that Bee and Ocellus could have a place to sleep. Flash had offered to sleep on the couch so that the girls could each have a bed to herself, but Ocellus had insisted that she didn’t mind sharing, and Bee seemed almost disgusted at the idea of having to sleep in a boy’s room. Well, Grandma’s bed was big enough for two people, so they should be comfortable enough. Despite that, Flash couldn’t help but wonder if they were having as hard a time sleeping as he was.
Flash got up and began pacing around his room, hoping that fatigue would set in and bring sleep along with it. However, the faces in his mind were refusing to give him any rest. He eventually stopped in front of one of his shelves. On this shelf were two framed photographs of his family, one from last year and the other from roughly six years ago, his old plush lion Simba, and Twilight’s plush owl Owlowiscious. The sight of that toy owl staring back at him with its big, brown, plastic eyes made him think that maybe he should call Twilight about his sleepless night.
Talking to someone about his earlier experience would be nice, and naturally, as his fiancée, Twilight would want to be the first to know about and if possible, help him with his problems. At the same time, Flash felt rude for wanting to wake her so late in the night. What time is it anyway?
Flash grabbed his phone from his nightstand and checked the time. A little past 12:30. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t THAT late.
Flash sighed as he scrolled through his contacts. He found Twilight’s name, selected it, and pressed the call button. He placed the earpiece next to his left ear and listened to the phone ring.
“I know,” Flash replied. “I, I just couldn’t sleep; that’s all.”
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to tell you.”
“Your ride-along with my brother yesterday?”
“You, uh, know about that?”
“Not all the details but I get the gist of it. I also know that Gale, Bee, and Gypsy were there and that Robby is still missing.”
Flash sighed as he slumped forward, resting his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees. “I just can’t their faces out of my head. They were just so, so, ugh! It was like they were on the edge of losing any hope of getting out of that situation. Also, did you know that Bee got cussed at in front of the other kids and that Gale was blaming herself for losing Robby? Gosh, it just breaks my heart. I wish I can do more.”
“Do more what?” Twilight asked.
“I don’t know. Something, anything. I wish I can find Robby and bring him back. I wish I can stop the guys who are doing this. Darn it, I wish I can keep this from happening to other people.”
“You know, maybe you can,” Twilight replied. The sound of her voice told Flash that an idea had taken form in her head and was about to break out like a baby bird.
“What do you mean?”
“Just give me a minute.” The other line was silent for a while. However, Flash could just barely make out what sounded like typing.
“Hey, Flash, you ever considered working for the feds?”
“You mean like as in a career?”
“Well, yeah, apparently the FBI handles human trafficking investigations, and I just searched up their prereqs,” Twilight replied. “I think with a little time and hard work, it’d be a pretty good fit for you.”
“I,” Flash paused, biting his lip, “I don’t know. I mean, it would help me do the stuff I just said that I wanted to do, granted, a lot farther into the future than I’d like, but at the same time, it’s a pretty demanding career path.”
“And?”
“Well, don’t you have your own plans and dreams? Ones that you’ve had long before we even started dating?”
“And?”
Flash blinked twice in surprise. “Twi, we’re going to be married within the next year, within the next two years at the latest. I know for a fact that marriage is going to be a major wrench in your plans. Having me go after a career with the feds is going to be an even bigger one.”
“Oh, I know that.”
Flash blinked several more times. “So, how is it that I’m freaking out about it more than you are right now?”
“Because,” she paused and then continued, “I’ve been freaking out about it since last December, and the freaking is mostly out of my system now.”
“Wait, last December?”
“Oh, you know, when you started asking me about my plans for the future, where our relationship fit into them, and my opinions on marriage. By the way, you were about as subtle as Pinkie on a sugar high juggling chainsaws on unicycle.”
Flash couldn’t help but snicker to himself at that last statement.
“I mean, it was pretty obvious that you were thinking about marrying me,” Twilight continued. “At the time, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to marry you. I mean, I wanted it; I just wasn’t sure where it was supposed to fit in my plans. I kept imagining you proposing to me, and it hurt me to say no, but I was too afraid of how my other plans were going to change if I said yes. I can’t even tell you how many times I called my brother, Cadance, and Sunset Shimmer up in the middle of the night just to freak because of that.”
“So, what helped you get over it?” Flash asked.
“One night, I called Cadance and said, ‘This is so unfair! Why do I have to choose? Why can’t I just have it all?’”
“And she said?”
“She told me that I might not have to but that I’d be wise to prepare for that possibility, which only upset me more. Then, she asked me, ‘Twilight, in the event that you have to make a choice, would you rather have Flash by your side as you face all the ups and downs life will inevitably bring or would you rather have all your plans and dreams just handed to you on a silver platter?’”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I told her I’d think about it, and boy, did I think about it!” Twilight exclaimed. “It took me a while, but I realized a few things. The first thing I realized was ‘Since when has my life ever gone the way I planned it?’”
That last statement made Flash laugh, and Twilight couldn’t help but laugh along with him.
“Oh sure, it’s funny now, but at the time, I was losing major sleep over it,” Twilight giggled. “The second thing I realized was that my plans and dreams aren’t going to mean much if I didn’t have you to share them with. I know that sounds like something straight out of Disneigh movie, but I really did make that realization.”
“You know, you’re the second woman who has ever made me feel like a prince,” Flash said with a chuckle.
“Second?”
“The first was my mom.”
“Oh,” she giggled.
“In fact, that was her nickname for me up until I was nine.”
“She used to call you ‘Prince’?”
“Well, actually she used to call me ‘Little Prince,’ but we’re getting off topic,” Flash replied. “Anyway, did you realize anything else?”
“Yeah, just one other thing,” Twilight continued. “I realized that if I took the time to look and do my research, I can find a career that I can be satisfied with anywhere. It may not be my plan A, but it’ll be something.”
“She IS good at doing research,” Flash thought humorously to himself.
“Still, Twi, a career in the FBI is only slightly more stable than a career in the military,” Flash said to Twilight. “Are you sure you can handle that demanding of a lifestyle?”
“If I was by myself, of course not,” Twilight bluntly answered, “but I won’t be by myself. I’ll be with you.”
Flash didn’t say anything at first. He just sat there allowing Twilight’s confidence and support to sink into him. After a while, he noticed that he wasn’t as restless as he was before.
“Hmm, that’s weird,” he thought to himself out loud.
“What’s weird?” Twilight asked from the phone.
“Oh, huh? Sorry, I was just thinking to myself.” Then, Flash smiled to himself and said to Twilight, “I don’t know what it is about what we talked about, but I do feel a little better about what happened. I mean, I’m still bummed that there’s not much I can do about it now, but you know, someday.”
“That’s right,” Twilight agreed. “By the way, Shining had some choice words to say about you and the ride-along.”
“Oh? What did he say?”
“He said that you had a good heart and good protective instincts and that you’d make a good cop because of that.”
Flash beamed at Twilight’s praise, well, more accurately, Shining Armor’s praise coming from Twilight’s mouth.
“He also said that you just need to get a better handle on your emotions, and you’d be an even better one,” Twilight added, deflating Flash’s ego a bit.
“Yeah,” Flash agreed with a laugh, “yeah, that sounds about right.”
“So, you feeling better enough to go to sleep now, or do you still need to talk?”
“I think I’m good. Thanks for the talk, Twi. I love you.”
“I love you too, my prince. Sleep well.”
Flash felt his face grow warm at the sound of Twilight’s new pet name for him but didn’t say anything, not that he could have said anything since Twilight had already hung up.
Flash was about to put his phone away and lie down when suddenly…
“Immooooooor-Immortals!” his phone screamed out.
Flash didn’t have to check the caller ID to know who it was. There was only one person on his contacts list assigned to that ringtone.
“Dude, it’s past one in the morning. What’s going on?” Flash spoke into his phone.
“Gale and Gypsy woke me up because they couldn’t sleep. I made them some warm milk with honey, cinnamon, and vanilla, but they refused to drink it, so now, I don’t know how to get them back to bed. None of us wanted to wake my parents, so I decided to call you,” Micro Chips rapidly explained from the other end of the connection.
Flash frowned and blinked a few times, trying to process everything Micro just info-dumped on him. Once he finally understood why Micro was calling, he realized what the problem was.
“Were they looking at you like you were about to poison them?” Flash asked Micro matter-of-factly.
“Eh, now that you mention it, yeah, they kinda were looking at me like that,” Micro replied. “Why?”
“Because the last time those two drank something that made them sleep, they woke up on the back of a moving truck.”
“Oh.” A long, sheepish pause followed. “Whoops.”
“Don’t worry about it. You didn’t know.”
“So, now what do I do?”
“Well, you’ve gotten up in the middle of the night before as a kid. How did your parents make you go back to bed?”
“Warm milk with honey, cinnamon, and vanilla. You just told me why not to do that. Before you ask, their alternative method was chamomile tea, honey, and warm milk, but I think we’re going to run into the same problem with that one.”
Flash opened his mouth to reply but paused when he heard what sounded like gulping on the other end.
“Are you drinking the milk you made for the girls?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“What? They don’t even want it, and there’s no point in letting perfectly concocted warm milk go to waste,” Micro retorted defensively, gulping down a few more swallows of milk afterwards.
“Okay, did your parents ever try anything that didn’t involve beverages to get you to go to sleep?”
“Well, my mom did used to sing me to sleep, but I can’t do that for two reasons,” Micro explained. “One, all the songs she sang me to sleep with were in Spanish. Two, I’ll wake my parents AND the rest of the neighborhood doing that.”
Flash silently agreed. Micro wasn’t an awful singer, but he wasn’t a very good one either.
“I’ll tell you what,” Flash answered, “why don’t you put me on speaker, and I can sing them to sleep for you?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s a great idea,” Micro wholeheartedly agreed. “Let me just take the girls back to their room.”
A few minutes later, Flash singing the closing lines of a song into his cell phone.
“So we sing a lullaby/To the lonely hearts tonight,” Flash sang soothingly. “Let it set your heart on fire/Let it set you free/When you're fighting to believe/In a love that you can't see/Just know there is a purpose/For those who wait”
After closing the song, Flash waited for a few seconds for an answer.
“Okay, they’re completely out, and I just tucked them in,” Flash heard Micro say. “I had no idea that song could work as a lullaby.”
“Neither did I,” Flash replied.
“I’m really hoping that we won’t have to do this again tomorrow night, but I’m not going to count on it. Ugh, I can’t imagine just how bad what they went through was; I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to be in your shoes. Speaking of which, how are you holding up?”
“Fine, I guess,” said Flash. “I mean, I was pretty shaken by what I saw, but I feel better now.”
“That’s good. You’re probably pretty tired, so I’m just going to hang up and let you get some sleep now. Thanks a million.”
“You’re welcome. Bye.” With that, the two friends hung up.
“You have a really nice voice,” a small voice said through the door.
Flash got up, opened his door, and saw Ocellus standing on the other side.
“You couldn’t sleep either, could you?” he asked her.
Ocellus shook her head. “Bee’s still awake too. She’s just lying in bed, pretending to be asleep. I tried talking her, but she just told me to shut up and leave her alone. I was hoping that getting up for a walk would help, and I sort of heard your phone ring, and then, I heard you sing. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop or anything.”
“It’s okay. My friend and I weren’t talking about anything that private,” Flash assured her. “So, did listening to me sing help calm you down enough to sleep?”
“Yeah, it helped plenty. I think I’ll just be going back to bed now.”
“Hold on a minute,” Flash stopped her. He took his plush lion off the shelf and said to Ocellus, “This guy here is Simba. Back when my brother and I were kids, I used to let him borrow Simba whenever he got up in the middle of the night or had trouble sleeping. You can hold onto him for a while if you need to.”
“Oh, gee, thanks,” Ocellus replied, timidly taking the toy from Flash. She tilted her head and looked at the shelf Flash had grabbed it from. “Where’d you get that stuffed owl?”
“Oh, Owlowiscious?” Flash replied, turning to the direction Ocellus was looking. “He’s my fiancée’s. She got him when her brother left home for the Marines.”
“He sounds pretty special, so why do you have it? Did she want to get rid of it because something bad happened to her brother?” Ocellus asked, her curiosity piqued.
“Oh, no, it was nothing like that,” Flash explained. “Owlowicious is just part of a pact we had back when we were just dating. We were about to leave for different colleges, so I gave her something special to me, she gave me something special to her, and if we ever got our stuff back, we were going to take it as a sign that one of us wanted to break up. Also, nothing bad happened to her brother. You’ve actually met him.”
Ocellus raised her eyebrows as she tried to think of who she had met in Canterlot that would have a sister about Flash’s age. Then, her eyes widened.
“You’re marrying Officer Armor’s sister?” she asked Flash who nodded. “So, that’s why he trusts your family so much.”
Flash nodded again.
Ocellus frowned again as another thought occurred to her. “So, how are you and your fiancée going to get your stuff back if you can’t return them to each other without breaking up?”
Flash chuckled to himself as he answered, “Oh, we’ll be getting our stuff back alright. We’re just going to be getting each other along with them.”
Ocellus didn’t understand what Flash meant by that answer but nonetheless, accepted it. She looked from the toy lion in her arms to the toy owl still on the shelf. Then, she looked from her and Bee’s room to Flash.
“Hey, this is going to sound weird, but is it okay if I borrow the stuffed owl too?” Ocellus asked. “I know he’s not yours to lend, but I promise I’ll give him back tomorrow morning.”
Flash turned towards where Owlowicious was perched and thought hard. On one hand, Owlowicious didn’t belong to him, and he really should ask Twilight first before he lent him out to other people. On the other hand, he really didn’t want to wake Twilight with another late-night phone call.
He turned to Ocellus, her light cyan eyes wide and trembling. She was clutching Simba in her arms as if she was trying to squeeze every bit of comfort as she possibly could out of him. Flash sighed and took the toy owl of the shelf. Twilight would understand, and if she did get mad at him, well, they’ll work it out later.
“I want him back by morning, okay?” he emphasized as he handed the plushie to the girl.
For the first time since he met her, Ocellus smiled, eagerly hugging the plush owl to her hearts content.
“Hey, Flash,” she began, looking back at him, “Officer Armor must think a lot of you if he’s letting you marry his sister and letting your family take care of me.”
“Yeah, I guess he does,” Flash replied with a small smile.
“I hope for both your sakes that you don’t end up letting him down.” Ocellus looked at the floor, a sadness covering her face. With the plush toys still clutched tightly in her arms, she turned from Flash and went back to her room without another word.
Flash blinked a few times, completely taken aback by Ocellus’s surprisingly hurtful and bitter statement.
“Now where did that even come from?” Flash thought to himself.
The next morning, Thorax was in the kitchen giving the breakfast dishes a final rinse while the kids either watched TV in the living room or played with whatever few belongings they had up in their rooms. He was using every ounce of willpower that he had just to pretend everything was normal. Unless discovering that the wicked lady that signs your paychecks could have ties to a trafficking ring is a completely normal occurrence now, the last few days have definitely NOT been normal. He was so agitated that the sound of the doorbell nearly made him jump out of his skin.
“Thorax! The door!” Ms. Chrysalis called, further rattling his nerves. Thorax slowly let out a breath through his gritted teeth.
“I’m still finishing the dishes, ma’am,” he called back.
The doorbell rang again. He could hear his employer angrily stomping down the stairs. How she can stomp in heels and still have functional ankles he will never know.
On the way to the door, Ms. Chrysalis ducked her head into the kitchen and spat out, “You lazy bum, just what do I pay you for?”
When the bell rang a third time, she click-clack-stomped towards the door, yelling, “Oh, I’m coming! I’m coming!”
She yanked open the door and found Shining Armor and three other officers standing on the other side.
“Oh, why, Officer,” she said pleasantly, too pleasantly, “to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“Ma’am, I have a warrant to search the premises,” Shining sternly replied, producing the said document. “Could you step out onto the porch and wait with two of my associates?”
If Chrysalis had felt any fear from that request, she didn’t show it. She smiled suggestively and leaned in close to Shining.
“Officer, I assure you there’s no need for that. I’ve been a very good girl,” she purred in a sultry voice. She leaned in even closer to Shining Armor and slowly ran her hand up Shining’s chest. “But if you would like me to be a bad girl, go ahead and step inside, and I can show you just how bad I can be.”
Thorax had finished washing and had walked in right as his employer was attempting to seduce the policeman. Thorax’s eyes popped out of their sockets. His face turned a shade of green that was drastically sicklier looking than its normal color, and he could feel his throat and stomach spasming in disgust.
Shining Armor just casually pushed Chrysalis off him and said, “Ma’am, I’m on-duty, and what you’re suggesting is NOT part of my job. Furthermore, I’m MARRIED.”
Chrysalis’s face fell slightly before she resumed getting close and personal with Shining Armor.
“Are you sure you can’t have me for just a little bit?” she cooed, throwing Shining Armor the sexiest pout she could muster. “Surely such a fine, upstanding gentleman like yourself deserves to relax once in a while. Besides, you must get awfully bored wasting your youth on the same woman night after night.”
“I’M HAPPILY MARRIED!” Shining nearly shouted, his face turning fiery red as he once again pried the older woman off him. “And how DARE you talk about my wife that way! Now, step aside. My partners and I have a job to do.”
Shining yanked her out of the doorway and stormed in with one other officer while the other two kept watch over Chrysalis.
As Shining and his partner began their search, the other officer began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Shining snapped, his face still red from the earlier encounter.
“I know she’s too old for you, Armor, but come on,” the other officer joked, “don’t tell me you didn’t find her even a little bit hot?”
Shining gave his partner a withering glare. “I will neither confirm nor deny that suggestion, but even if I did, the fact that she possibly trafficked children outweighs everything else. Ugh, just having that on my mind makes me sick.”
After searching the entire first floor, Shining and his partner made their way to the second, and the first room that they entered was Ms. Chrysalis’s office. Shining Armor looked under the desk and found the safe right where Thorax told him it would be.
Shining and his partner had Ms. Chrysalis brought up to the office, and Shining Armor said to her, “Ma’am, I’m giving you two choices. You can either open this safe for us, or we can call a locksmith, your choice.”
“Does your warrant allow you to search safes?” Chrysalis retorted smugly.
Shining’s partner gave the warrant a quick glance, mostly just to spite Chrysalis, and replied, “Yes, yes it does.”
Chrysalis scowled and snapped nastily, “Open the [censored] thing however you want. Just don’t expect me to help you.”
About ten minutes later, the locksmith arrived and opened the safe for the officers. Shining Armor took out the safe’s contents. He found several ledgers, folders with legal documents, stacks of cash, and twenty-year-old copies of family-unfriendly magazines. Inside the ledgers were what look a list of names and ages along with numbers with dollar signs. The most recently written names in one book were Honey Bee’s, Gypsy Scarf’s, Nightingale’s, and Robin’s.
“What do you think?” Shining whispered to his partner. “Do you think this is enough to arrest her?”
The other officer looked over everything Shining Armor took out of the safe and nodded.
Shining’s partner turned to Chrysalis, took out a pair of handcuffs, and said to her, “Ms. Chrysalis, you are under arrest for child trafficking.”
He handcuffed her and continued, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you.”
As Ms. Chrysalis was being led away, she looked back at Shining Armor, her face like a stone, and mockingly said, “Shame. You looked like you would have been such a good time too.”
Once Shining Armor was done shuddering, he exited the home, thankful that Ms. Chrysalis was already en route to the station. Thorax ran out and called out to him.
“Officer, is she really being arrested?” Thorax asked.
Shining Armor nodded. “We’re going to hand over what we just found to the feds to investigate more thoroughly, but from the looks of it, she might be put away for a long time.”
“So, if she’s going to jail, who’s going to run the home now? What’s going to happen to the kids?”
“We did discuss the case in further detail with several social workers, and chances are she’s not going to be allowed to be part of the foster system for really long time if ever. It’s possible that the home might have to be shut down and the kids sent to new foster homes.”
Thorax groaned as he put a hand on his face. He was afraid Shining Armor was going to say that.
“Or you could step up and give these kids the caretaker that they need,” Shining continued.
“St-step up?” Thorax stuttered, eyes growing enormous. “You mean, as in run the home by myself?”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but—”
“No, no, it’s not that,” Thorax interrupted. “I’d be more than happy to run the home by myself if it gives the kids safe place to live. It’s just that I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle all the responsibilities. Last year, the home was at max capacity with 16 kids.”
“You’re not at max capacity now, are you?” Shining asked.
“Well, no, but the home could get assigned new kids,” Thorax explained, “and I don’t know how I’m going to keep up with everything if that happens. I mean, it’s not a problem now, but it’s still something I have to think about.”
Shining Armor sighed and looked at Thorax with sympathy. “Look, I know this has been a rough few days for you, but I’m afraid that your problem is a little out of my jurisdiction. This is something that you’re going to have to either figure out on your own or get advice from someone else.”
“I understand,” Thorax replied with a nod. “Thanks for everything.”
“No problem.”
Shining Armor was about to turn and return to his cruiser when Thorax stopped him.
“Hey, I don’t know if the PD is still handling this or if it’s the feds’ responsibility now, but please find and bring back Robby. I’d be able to sleep a lot better at night if I know that he’s safe,” Thorax pleaded.
“You and me both,” Shining agreed, “and don’t worry. We’ll do everything we can to find him.”