01-Here We Go

“Least we’re coming by train,” Rainbow said.

“Mmm?” Rarity blinked, looking up from her sketch pad. She stared out the window, realising the countryside was starting to develop houses and streets. “Oh, we’re almost there, then.”

Dash grunted affirmatively. Rarity tutted to show disapproval, but it made a change from the Radio Rainbow classic ‘I Hate This’ which had been playing on and off over the balloon, train, zeppelin, and this final train ride to get here.

“How do you mean?” she asked, beginning to telekinetically slip her things back into her carry-on.

“Just something somepony told me once. If you’re gonna go, do it by road or train. Otherwise it tricks you into thinking it’s civilized.”

“Oh, tosh!” Rarity indicated a passing clocktower, surrounded by green trees and charmingly suburban thatched roofs. “Looks perfectly civilised to me.”

The train took a bend slightly harder than necessary, rattling their carriage as it took its turn, changing the scenery outside their window like a mismanaged film reel: thatch and wood giving way to slates and stones, the odd metal railing, more roads, all leading to a crouching sprawl they could see across the bay as the train crossed a bridge.

It always looked so different in the daylight, of course, and there were more deco towers than Rarity remembered. Some of them were clearly new, it was that kind of energetic place. Maybe that was why you kept coming back.

But she could see Dash’s point. Even in daylight you couldn’t help noticing warn tenement blocks at the edges, in the shadow of all those fine towers. Empty, skeletal docks. An undeniable…jagged quality to the skyline, certain older towers that wouldn’t light up when the newer ones did.

Areas of the city that would never light up, patches of waiting darkness.

And of course, over the old town and nibbling at the borders of the new, a large taupe bruise across Celestia's cyan sky. A difference in the city’s background magic, an undeniable testament to how different the place could be, which would shift to crimson as night fell. Eventually the tourism board had given up and started referring to the blocks under it by the local name: ‘The Red Sky District’

“I hate that map,” Dash sighed for the 52nd time since entering this particular region of Equestria.

“No you don’t, darling,” Rarity chuckled. “You know it wouldn’t send us somewhere we couldn’t do some good. Think of it as a challenge!”

“I think it’s weird you’re so into this.” Dash sat up a little straighter, realisation overruling the sulkiness she’d been rocking since getting off the zeppelin. “Hay, I can’t believe you’ve been here before!”

“So it’s probably calmed down a tad since then,” Rarity cooed, although they were both fully aware this was tempting fate.

Dash shook her head. Rarity resisted the innate big sister urge to either console the Pegasus or really give her something to sulk about.

Taking an airship had meant a longer journey and two hectic changes to meet their train rides, but at least it got them there in two days (read: during the day), and a Rainbow Dash who could at least get some air and flight practice on an open zeppelin deck was preferable to a Rainbow Dash who’d have been cooped up for at least seven hours on Celestia knew how many trains.

Though Rarity had to admit she probably wouldn’t have been much better, either. Even if everypony clubbed together it was doubtful they’d have been able to guarantee every ride being first class.

“At least we’ll be staying in style,” she tried, levitating out the key with the royal crest. “Princess Luna’s personal town house!”

“That’s at least four of the stars somepony like me deserves,” Dash allowed. “On the other hoof, betcha it’s somepony’s evil lair by now.”

“Oh do come on!”

“It’d save time! We’re totally gonna have to break into one.”

“It’s not as bad as it’s reputation, darling. You of all ponies should know how fickle those can be.”

“Fickle,” Dash echoed bitterly.

She sat up in her seat, digging around in the overhead compartment until she extracted her saddlebag, Rarity trying to ignore the looks this was getting from their fellow passengers.

Dash made it impossible for them not to stare by loudly slamming her bag down on the table, making Rarity’s cucumber water jump in its glass, and rummaging until she was holding a warn half journal/half magazine number into Rarity’s face.

It was a copy of that indispensable friend to all adventurers everywhere, the Planetary guide. Rarity, an infrequent subscriber at the best of times but also an incorrigible snoop, noted the cover date. Almost as old as both Elements combined, explaining why this one was so dogeared.

Dash made a show of flipping to the right section.

“And I quote: Old as Manehattan, founded on the east coast of Equestria and originally designed by old world Unicorn masons on salt—”

“Darling--”

“—exacerbated by zap apple jam fiend local architects in the 20s, basically unsuitable for equine habitation.”

She slammed it shut as the train began to rattle past concrete and glass. Equestrian greenery gave way to iron coloured water as they crossed through Seagate, over the bay, and into the biggest of the multiple islands that made up one of the kingdom’s most outré conurbations. In greeting, they could see the bridge’s arch as the rails entered the city, framed by two king sized statues of minitours in Anubis masks.

“Gotham City,” Rainbow Dash finished grimly.

Paradise Port annoyed Rarity.

Not as much as Gotham’s general existence seemed to annoy (offend…?) Rainbow Dash, but the newly minted tourist district represented everything she felt was self-defeating about the Big Gargoyle.

Had the map summoned Twilight along she’d probably have chimed in with how it wasn’t actually a port. It was too far inland for one thing, too big for another, city hall rewriting things to hastily brand as many neighbourhoods with it as they could. The sole survivor, and possibly one of the reasons for the gratingly cheerful name, was Terminus, so called because it was an entire district for off loading the mainland bridges, railway and ferries that used the edge of Miagani Island.

Rarity found it irritating to have stepped off their train, out of the majesty of Buccaneer Station into the somewhat faded but still respectable, dare she say sassy, Art Nouveau of Terminus and then turned a corner to be met with this….this…this!

Part of her wanted to say-think ‘theme park’, like it was a slur, but Gotham had quite a few of those and, even if, yes, they were routinely co-opted, they were perfectly fine institutions.

“Geez!” Rainbow Dash finally managed to dig her shades out of her saddlebag and flip them on. “And I thought Kingston was trying too hard.”

“And what were you doing in Kingston, darling?” Rarity half-teased.

“Not drowning in tackiness, I’ll tell ya that.”

Yes, Rarity reflected, glaring at a wall of Soder Cola advertisements, that was a good analogy. Drowning in tackiness. It summed up the personality of the new district and what it actually did to you.

Rainbow had the option of hovering a few feet off this still fresh faux wood she had no choice but to stand on, processed smelling stuff designed to mimic boardwalk planks. Their synthetic smell, nothing like wood, felt like it was traveling up her legs and into her taste buds.

And the architecture! Flattened, meaningless, charmless…

“What was that word you called Trixie that one time?”

“What time?” Dash asked, head turning this way and that in search of a cab.

“That time she was possessed.”

“Uh huuuh…?” Dash rolled her hoof at how little that narrowed it down and for the need to elaborate, but she was smiling now. Just a little.

“You know, that…him with that…” Rarity chuckled, even as her third spinner case struck one of Paradise’s silly rubber palm tree bins. “The little thingy. The makeup. The daft little hat!”

“Trixie’s got a stupid big hat.”

“They merged!”

“Oh, him! Equinox.”

“That wasn’t it. Him with the gem? Eclipso! Eclipso, that was it!”

“Oooh!” Dash nodded, loop-de-looping around some bunting hanging between buildings, just for something to do. “Basic. When I was trying to distract her so you girls and Doc Fate could do your thing. I called her basic.”

“Ah, quite.”

“’Cause she is.”

“Oh, quite, quite.”

Yes, flattened, meaningless, charmless, basic blocks! All open storefronts and pointless spaceship railings, the only hint of personality being the occasional depressing looped upper floor. And the colours! Florid oranges, greens and pinks, the odd barbershop black and red. Trying to bring a desperate, sandy seaside feel to the district.

It was insulting, as if Gotham needed to hold the hooves of every pony who stepped onto the islands.

It didn’t even work, not if you had the sense to look up. This was the Old Town, built with spires and domes and spikes and towers and gargoyles, all to ward off Nightmare Moon or anything else that might be out there. Even from here, as they finally turned onto a street that had real cobbles, you could see the steeples of the Penitence and Fürst neighbourhoods.

***

The cobbled area turned out to be an almost block length outdoor dining patio for the district’s restaurants. The Elements had to weave between what felt like an Escher sketch’s worth of white sunbrella covered tables to finally find an exit, in a length of raised metal fencing that cut Paradise Port off from an actual avenue.

And that was what it was for, Rarity realised. Just one more part of the clumsy disguise.

One of the many irritants of Paradise Port was it threw off her bearings, because she remembered when it had been perfectly decent rows of storefronts and the odd waterfront building. She’d found a charming antique snuffbox around here somewhere, still kept tools in it!

And now, those storefronts were gone, even the areaways buried under all that wanna-be Las Pegasus UGH-ness! She could still hear organs playing competing versions of To Be Beside the Seaside and Once I Caught a Fish Alive.

On a trip with the fillies from college she’d bought a bottle of something around here, and there’d been a pleasant tinge of wax around the cork when they’d worked it open. Paradise Port had smelt like the inside of a plastic cup, and she was grateful to get a whiff of sea breeze and old stone now.

Paradise Port aspired to an idealized seaside atmosphere, the splendour (and safety) of mainland Gotham, and it didn’t even manage that because it stretched so far it cut you off from that lovely view. With a slight tug in her chest, Rarity realised that pale crystal blue glow around the mainland’s Sea and Founders’ Gate districts would never be visible from here again.

Probably a small price to pay to cut off enough of Old Town to convince tourists it wasn’t as bad as they’d heard, that it was all Cathedral Square and Jezebel Plaza and Amusement Mile until you crossed the river into New Town. Where all the hotels would be.

Come to that, how much of the money raised in Paradise went into Old Town? The East End? Or across the bridge into Narrowborough? She reckoned the unsmiling ponies working the Port, some of whom had to live in the neighbourhoods here, yes dammit, even the one’s with the Nightmare architecture, would know. And wouldn’t have been working there at all if Gotham had given them a choice. Treated their neighbourhoods like actual places.

Ha ha!, Paradise Port seemed to chuckle desperately, See? We’re normal! Normal! No clowns here!

But you aren’t, Rarity wanted to shout. Not if normal means boring, soulless.

So nopony would dare be in Park Row after dark. So the Riverwalk passed through Ghost Dragons territory. So she was pretty sure Etrigan had a summer place somewhere in Fürst!

So there was some bloody legend about how the worst of the city founders had been so desperate to keep the sisters from cutting into their plantation profits they’d tried to summon a demon to give them eternal wealth, that it had worked and the thing had leached into the very bedrock of the city?

You’re a lot of things Gotham City, and some of them ARE bad, worse than sandals and socks, but you’ve almost never been ashamed of half of them. Even when you probably should.

Maybe you’re not what people think of when they hear Equestria, but I know for a fact Princess Celestia has a soft spot for you. I know Metropolis and Keystone can’t help but respect you.

You built your spires and spikes to keep Nightmare Moon out, and for the past few years Princess Luna has walked among you.

You’re ballroom dancing, and-and old snuff boxes, and-and-and dirty factories, and almost—ALMOST!—nothing fits so it’s a long walk, which is good cardio anyway!

You’re a green glass, black velvet, back biting mess, Gotham City, and I love you for it! I love--

She stopped herself.

More accurately, she was physically stopped by Rainbow Dash throwing a foreleg across her chest and preventing her from walking into traffic.

“What?!” Rarity almost fell over, saved only by the barrier of her three cases. (She’d packed light because they were in such a rush.)

A metal cart–no, a van, one of those automated numbers that had shown up a few years back, angrily blared its horn as it continued down the avenue.

“I know we’re desperate for a ride,” Dash said dryly, “but you wanna be inside, not riding outside with your horn in the fender, yeah?”

“Uh, y-yes, indeed, darling. Thank you!”

“Hey, you’re the one who knows this sun forsaken dump like the back of her hoof. Anything happens to you, I lose my tour guide.”

“Thanks ever so,” Rarity frowned.

It wasn’t until they finally did get a hansome (it had taken a while for Rarity to realise they were waiting in front of the Warrenburg bath houses, an institution amongst Gotham’s old money, so all the carriages were exclusive rides) that she realised what was really bothering her about Rainbow’s little barb.

Rarity knew her friend had been to Gotham as well, on Wonderbolt business--

Huh. Or at least, Spitfire had been the Wonderbolt who showed up, which could mean official in some capacity but not necessarily Wonderbolt business. And Dash would sit through ten hours of jazz flute in a field of dandelions if Spitfire asked her to.

Well, if she asked politely. Perhaps added some Five Feather Death Punch tickets as a little incentive.

Spitfire hadn’t seemed happy to be asking for a private chat, now that Rarity thought about it. Could that have been just because it was a Gotham event?

Point being, Rainbow knew the city well enough to make that dig at Paradise and Kingston’s mutual expense. That level of familiarity meant she probably didn’t need a ‘tour guide’.

So what did she need? What exactly was her relationship with Gotham? Dash had been “Classified” this and “What part of classified do you fillies not get?!” that since she got back.

How best to finagle it out of her? Given how much the Pegasus complained about the roads on the ride to Luna’s townhouse, perhaps Rarity could offer to handle this all by herself and let Dash wind her bratty way home in exchange.

Their driver seemed of a similar mind as, after taking a hard turn that almost threw them both out of the cab, she began trotting them through Old Town’s Persephone Park, a nice flat area that would take them into Little Odessa. The long way ’round to their destination and mixing with heavy Cathedral Square traffic, but it’d shut Dash up for a bit.

“Now this’s more like it,” the Pegasus yawned relaxing back, hooves behind her head and hind legs on the barrier.

Rarity had to concur. While she’d always cherish Gotham most of its islands were a bumpy ride, especially lacking local navigation tricks.

The city’s urban cluster was partly an attempt to get around its steep inclines and sudden curves, cramming as much of what citizens would need into single spaces as possible, which ironically added to the congestion problem. Part of her hoped this friendship mission would take place in Miagani’s smoother Trigate district, or on the Escutcheon or Burnside islands.

…perhaps not Escutcheon.

“A lot more of Gotham is like this than you’d think,” she said, trying to take her mind off it.

“A Gotham is a Gotham,” Dash countered.

Rarity was tempted to ask if her friend even knew what a gotham was, but settled for, “That’s rather uncharitable, darling.”

“Rarity.” Dash gestured eastward, where a tower block topped by a statue of a blindfolded Alicorn loomed against the slash of the Red Sky District’s namesake. “The sky is brown.”

“Taupe,” Rarity and the driver corrected in sync.

“Huh.” Dash uncurled so she could lean over the barrier and talk to the driver. “So do you guys call it the Taupe Sky District when it’s daytime, or…?”

“No ma’am. That’d be lame.”

“I can respect that! So. Seen anything weird lately?”

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity squealed.

“It’s Gotham, ma’am,” the driver replied, unperturbed.

At least Rarity hoped she was. She’d defend Equestria’s brashest burg any day of the week, and she’d hate the reward for that to be trotted down some alley and sold as glue because Rainbow Dash just had to be the designated sassy one.

“Like ponies falling out or whatever,” Dash pressed.

“Things’ve been pretty cosy since the last gang war, actually. You ladies with the press or somethin’?”

“We’ve been in The Derby Planet once or twice,” Rarity said quickly, before Dash could sass them into any trouble.

The driver didn’t roll with it. “You with social services?”

Her tone made it clear her next question was going to be along more authority related lines, which might result in anything from requests for I.D. to a premature end of the ride. They weren’t even out of the park yet.

“Something like that,” Dash said before Rarity could come up with anything. “It’s a long story. I’m a Wonderbolt, but this isn’t business.”

“Huh.” The cab slowed slightly. “Like Roxy Rocket? Or Fire Eyes?”

“The arsonist?” Rarity asked.

“Hey, he was kicked out!” Dash snapped. “It was all over the news! And c’mon, he was totally a tweaker before he got anywhere near the ’Bolts! Dunno why he picked your town to set up shop, but it’s nothing to do with us!” She looked askance at some passing satyr hedge sculptures. “And Roxy’s just…special.”

“Fair enough,” the driver said, picking up the pace. “I’m more of a buckball gal, m’self.”

“To each her own,” Dash agreed, then smirked impishly. “Soooo. Whaddaya think of the Knights’ chances next month?”

“Oi, the Knights! What is Roughshod even there for?”

“Right?!”

“You see ’em against the Combines?”

“Keystone or Central?” Dash asked.

What is happening? Rarity silently asked herself.

“Keystone, who else!”

“Heard it on the radio. Swear to sun, I couldn’t eat for a week. It was like listening to a live autopsy!”

“Tellin’ me! Guess who had tickets?”

“Aww man!”

“Courtside!”

“Whaaaat?!” Dash covered her outraged mouth with both hooves as she and the driver burst out laughing. Dreamlike, Rarity wondered if a passing clown had poisoned them or something.

“I am so sorry for you!” Dash resumed leaning on the barrier. “Seriously, I wanna swear vengeance on your behalf. Hey, speaking of, there anything on tonight?”

Ah, Rarity thought, smiling as the Pegasus winked at her.

“Eh, not much. Scene’s dead until the Knights and the Legionaries in September. Right now, they’re doing the stadium up for Countess Coloratura. Now for that I’d pay courtside prices!”

“Narrowborough or Bristol?” Rarity asked, sharing glances with Rainbow.

Bristol was all the way back on the mainland (and she’d prefer to avoid it for the same reason she was less than enthusiastic about Escutcheon), but it wouldn’t be the first time the Cutie Map led them to somepony they already knew.

“Narrowbrough, they’re savin’ Bristol for Mister-what’s-his-face. Guy with the cape. Wife the size of two buses standing on each other’s shoulders. Anyway. There’s the opera house—”

“Pass,” Dash said instantly.

“—or you could try Precipice, the street, not that Soho club. If you’re strapped for gems you could always hang around Gazette Square. Don’t get as many streakers as we used to but sometimes there’s a protest, the kids from the art schools do some good chants. Or somepony tries to prove the ol’ Barbatos legend’s true with a lil’ conjuring. An’ nothin’ beats it when one of the locals just looses it and kicks the stuffing outta a busker for playin’ one too many flat notes!”

“Thanks anyway,” Dash said. She contemplatively drummed her hooves on the barrier. “Okay, I got some ponies I could look up in Little Odessa. What about nightclubs? They can’t all be crooked. What’s that one place, Heavenly?”

“That’s in New Town,” Rarity countered. “We’re barely halfway through Old Town. And I hope you don’t mind me saying so but that seems a tad hasty, darling, even for you. Let’s get settled in and a good feed first, hmm? Sweet Justice for dessert, my treat.”

“Sweet talker,” Dash smirked, settling back in her seat. “Eh, sure. Just figure the sooner we get a lead, the sooner we can get outta here, y’know?”

“Without seeing your friends in Little Odessa first?” Rarity smirked back.

“Hey now, I didn’t say friends. Huh. Now you mention it, which part is Luna’s place in anyway? New or Old? I swear, if it’s one of the other islands I’m Rainbooming back to Ponyville. Right now.”

Uh oh.

“The House of Reflection?” Rarity made a show of patting herself down. “Oh, do you know I had the map here, oh dear, do hope I haven’t mixed it up with Opalescence’s tray liner again, or--”

Of course she knew where the damned map was, safely in her tail, but she'd asked the driver for “Anywhere close to the People's Palace, please,“ so she could pretend they’d accidentally overshot their destination and lead Dash through some nice neighbourhoods before it turned out they were bound for--

Both Elements grunted as the cab came to a sudden stop that almost knocked the frozen driver over.

A few curses bounced around their ears as other road users were forced to surge around them. An automobile grumpily buzzed past, the passenger waving a clenched hoof as the driver fought not to mount a slanting curb and crash into any bollards, sculpted to resemble owls.

“The House of Reflection,” the driver said slowly. “Princess Luna’s headquarters?”

“She prefers to think of it as a winter get-a-way,” Rarity said quickly. She was scanning the streets for a lot of things, curious constables, perturbed pedestrians, any kind of escape route because she could feel Rainbow’s response coming like a bolt of lightning with her name on it.

“Princess Luna’s headquarters in Selene’s Stable?”

“Where?” Dash squinted, turning to Rarity.

“Now darling, before you get cross--”

“And why would I do that?”

“It’s not actually in Park Row,” Rarity gambled. “It’s really more a tad, a little bit, really a little bit, you’ll laugh such a little bit, adjacent to--”

“Park Row,” Dash said from a great distance.

Oh bollocks, Rarity thought, going an almost grateful kind of limp. She knows.

“A fare’s a fare,” the driver said hollowly, starting to trot in place to warm up to a hurried gallop, “but nopony does the Alley. Not even in daylight. I’ll let ya out on Belladonna. Can’t say fairer than that.”

“Park Row?” Dash snapped.

“Don’t say it!” Rarity warned. “Really, you’ll just upset everypony, yourself included!”

“Crime Alley?!” Dash practically spat.

“She said it,” Rairty sighed, sinking into her seat.

“You expect me to put my hooves up in Crime Alley?!”

CUT TO:

“I take it all back, this kicks six different kinds of ass,” Dash said distantly, craning her head back to take it all in.

Rarity had to admit she hadn’t quite been prepared for the House of Reflection either, and that it was…very Luna. For better and worse.

Better because, all qualms about Gotham’s particular brand of gentrification aside, it was like somepony had carefully sliced up a Canterlot tower and remade it into a house. Large suitably gothic windows, ornate livery like patterns, high columns, higher buttresses, just the riiiight amount of pointy turrets.

Worse because it still felt like a haunted house.

And honestly if Selene’s Stable hadn’t been, let’s be honest here darlings, a gated community it still mightn’t have stood out from the general…Gothamness. A lot of these houses weren’t actually houses, beginning life as Unicorn workshops when this was one of the city’s magic quarters. Hence the high walls already being here when the developers of a century ago finally got into the place and overhauled the facades (and only the facades) to look like then-modern townhouses.

And what was undeniably a bunker in the middle of the estate. Well, kind of. They’d built a communal garden around it, but that centrepiece was still patently a reinforced hatch.

Rarity looked over her shoulder, almost at the same instant the Stable’s gilded gates magically closed themselves. Even through their bars she could see fragments of weathered office buildings and an occasional spire, helping to hem in this little slice of…well, you wouldn’t call it normality exactly, but it was different from what people thought this part of the city was.

Rainbow was wrong. Even without Selene’s Stable walls you’d still have to weave around those empty offices, up and down a few short inclines, past an obnoxious nightclub Rarity couldn’t remember the name of right now…what else, a plaza? Something you had to take a right past.

Then you’d be in Crime Alley.

***

It had been Park Row once, bordering Benison Park.

Rarity’s mind filled with the scents of the park, a strong leg around hers, and the way he’d almost tried (gently, always gently) to steer her away from that side and its shadows, its slight tang of mildew and ash hovering even in Benison’s fragrant air. A sad, wrong note in a symphony.

A reminder that those sunset-coloured apartments she’d seen in a distant aunt’s postcards every Summer Sun Celebration were manky shadows now, an almost ten mile stretch of what people thought Gotham was directly into the poverty-stricken East End.

We used to live there, he’d told her once. After they got close enough for their talks to just sort of drift into stuff like this.

What was it like?, she’d asked gently. I mean. You know. Then.

He hadn’t answered. He’d been looking at the skyline. An irritating green winking from the top of one of the semaphore towers.

He’d had to leave. Later the papers would tell everypony it had been mores code. Backwards, because why not?

A few weeks before that a burning pony, practically a living skeleton, had tried to poison the water supply. There’d been this party she and good old Belle Sleeves had talked their way into, and leaning over the railings…had they been on a boat? She’d been looking at the moon on the water anyway, and on the shore, figures, shadow and light dancing around. She’d looked up and seen--

***

“Equestria to Rarity!”

“Bwugh?!” Rarity accented, blinking as her mind was slapped back into her present-day skull like a lump of wet clay.

“The key.” Rainbow Dash gestured irritably to the door she was flapping in front of.

“Uh, yes, right, hang on…” Rarity began telekinetically patting herself down.

“You’ve been zoning out a lot today. Was there something in that cucumber water?”

“I don’t have the key,” Rarity remembered.

“Gimme that return ticket.”

“No, no! This—” Rarity held up the one still in her field. “—is for the gate. It’s such an important building they can’t give it out to just anypony, there’s rules about the house set or she’d’ve just mailed them to us, we have to meet the…realter or caretaker or what have you.”

“My b-b-brother.”

Both Elements spun, yelping. A portly pony, who’s general characteristics they’d recognise in subsequent encounters but who’s exact breed they’d afterwards never quite be able to recall, warble-hollered back, their legs trying to be in different places while they stayed in the same one.

“Uh…sorry?” Dash tried. She landed, squinting at a charcoal grey coat wrapped in a silver lake blue suit of an indeterminate era, then glanced at Rarity to see if she was having better luck figuring out what the response was here.

Rarity wasn’t, still trying to figure out why it was so hard to place what kind of beard and mane style the ___ -Pony had. All she was getting was that they had a beard and an impression that their ears were maybe pointier than the equine norm. It wasn’t helping that the figure was dabbing at it's forehead with a handkerchief. Was that a horn or just their fringe?

“Q-quite alr-right, quite a-a-al…” The figure cleared their throat. “You’d, ah, b-be her Majesty’s guests, y-yes?”

“Yes,” Rarity said carefully, half wishing Fluttershy were here to comfort the poor thing by speaking a similar language, half grateful Twilight wasn’t here to lecture them about answering seemingly innocuous questions from mystic(?) parties they didn’t know.

“Oh, good, good,” the figure said, sounding a bit too relieved over something so simple, and there was now an impression of patting themselves down. “Just a mo, got her key here s-somewhere. Oh, I do ho-hope I d-didn’t leave it down the p-pi-p-pit…”

“The what now?” Dash asked pointedly.

“Well, you know ho-how it is between s-s-siblings.” A note of hastily gathered cheerfulness and an undertone of wistfulness that made Rarity feel almost horn-droopingly sorry for whoever this was.

“Your brother put you in a pit?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“Uh, y-yes.”

“Why?” both Elements asked instantly.

“Oh, d-don’t worry, I mean, if he r-really meant it I wouldn’t have been a-able to get out s-so qu-qu-quickly! P-Princess Luna said he wasn’t to b-b-bo-bother you and, w-well I shouldn’t t-tell tales out of s-sc-school, but he’s been su-sulking about it all d-d-day. Ah, h-here we go!”

A very…aesthetically Luna key, winding barbs of violet blue steel that sprouted from their handle until coming together at its head, appeared before them. Rarity took it in her field, realising a few hours later that she couldn’t recall if the figure had used Unicorn telekinesis or passed it to her by hoof.

“Who even are you again?” Dash asked, squinting. Rarity would have phrased it differently but did appreciate the bluntness of the question. Establishing identity in magic (or this unspecified hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck feeling) could be important.

“What you s-said…”

Rarity blinked before registering Luna’s key, still bobbing in her field. “You’re the realtor, you mean?”

“Yes!” An impression of a swelling chest and grasped lapels. “B-by royal appointment!”

“So that’d make your brother the caretaker?” Dash pressed.

“…in a s-sense. He, um, p-probably wouldn’t c-care for that…term. It’s n-n-no-not really something he...d-does.”

“Caretaking?” Rarity squinted.

“Caring.”

An awkward beat. Nothing but distant city sounds from over the walls.

“Well thank you,” Rarity said, waving the key as if to batter that awkwardness out of the air, “would you like to come in? Have a cup of tea?”

“That would b-be most kind of you, but I’m af-fraid I must decline.” There was suddenly an impression of the figure holding a pool skimmer. “I have other d-duties. Most essential part of the philo-o-osphy of life, and all that. Besides, G-Gregory g-got…out.”

“What’s a Gregory?” Dash asked sharply.

A hulking but not precisely menacing reverberation from the hatch shook the paved walkway under Rarity’s hooves. A nearby satyr statue vibrated from this underground whatever until its head came lose and dropped into a birdbath.

“There we are,” the figure sighed. It waved as it turned from them and began slouching towards the hatch. “Goodnight, my l-l-little ponies, and g-g-good luck.”

“It’s day,” Rarity said uncertainly, vehemently resisting the instinct to look up at the sky for confirmation.

“T-true.” The figure was a sartorial shade drifting into the dense–had it been dense?–foliage of the garden. “But…well. It’s Gotham.”

And then the two Elements were alone on the doorstep. With a key they knew full well that they’d received and, dream like, simultaneously uncertain how.

Two guards walk into a diner in the Narrows and one of ’em sez: “You gonna eat that?” An’ the other one, she sez…

Well, okay, see, they ain’t guards exactly. They’re E.U.P, G.E.U.P. specifically but they’re, ah, whaddaya call ’em? Sounds like a fancy way’a sayin’ gazuntite?

S.C.U! That’s it, they’re S.C.U. Whazzat? Whaddaya mean what’s an S.C.U? Special Crimes Unit, ya mook!

Nah, nah, listen. It’s Gotham, right? You gotcha crimes, rustlin’, boostin’, dopin’, tax evasion, whatever. Crime, yeah? An’ then ’cause it’s Gotham, y’gotcha What-The-Ever-Lovin’-Hay crimes.

Question marks, cats, plants, birds, eggs…Yeah, no, for real, man, eggs. Not even dragon smugglin’, I mean what is this, Blüdhaven? But that’s what I’m sayin’, man. Special crimes.

So the E.U.P., they gotta have somethin’ for those, right? So ya gotcha Special Crimes Unit.

Whaddaya mean whadda they do?! Look, ya heard of the freak beat, right? Yeah, that’s those guys. Try an’ figure out what kinda new magic or hardware which boss is using or if one of them Arkham Acres fruitcakes read the wrong library book and got all inspired this week. Or if somepony, sun knows why, decided they wanna be one of ’em.

Ya see the Bat-signal, they’re probably the ones who lit it.

Anyhow, there’s these two S.C.U. ponies coolin’ their hocks inna diner in the Narrows and one of ’em sez:

***

“You gonna eat that?” Bulwark asked.

“Nah,” Montoya said, apathetically looking out at the city through the slightly scratched windows, “it’ll blow my cover.”

“Not eatin’ in a diner is gonna blow your cover?”

The Latin Equestrian Unicorn finally looked away from a buck ball game in a court across the street to smirk at her partner. “Eating anything in this diner’s bound to make ya blow something.”

S.C.U. humour is the type favoured among most of the bedraggled, sleep deprived Equestrian rescue services: the kind that doesn’t have to be funny.

“At least drink that coffee. Last thing I need’s a drowsy partner.” Bulwark took a swig of his own then returned to the small–and continuously reducing–mountain on his trey.

Montoya watched his wings flap occasionally, a sign of enjoyment. Bulwark’s wings weren’t stubby, he was just so…let’s go with copious that his torso had outgrown them. Even going flat out to tackle a fleeing suspect, the senior detective would always look like he was being held in the air by a pair of empty, waving Mickey Mouse gloves.

Bulwark’s broad shoulders meant his wings couldn’t reach somepony unless they were coming right at them, but he could still deliver as sharp a wing-slap as any of the more aerodynamic looking Pegasus officers, and most breeds of perp from here all the way to Vauxhall at the other end of Narrowborough had learned to fear his more readily available kicks, headbutts and broadsiding.

He owned a decent sense of deduction and almost two decades of intimate, bipolar familiarity with the city, so Montoya was prepared to accept (not overlook) little things such as:
–his near biblical slovenliness
–his apathy towards Equestrian etiquette
–various noises he made near constantly, which presumably served some kind of function
–the mystery of why for an herbivore currently masticating an entire plate of turnips he always smelled like a Bellgrove meat packing plant.

“W’gh’?” Bulwark asked, moving his current mouthful to one cheek so he could free up the other for a spoonful of carrot hash.

“Just wondering if this snitch of yours is ever gonna show up is all.”

“’E ain’a sh’n’ft.” Final crunch, followed by swallowing. “Not unless he knows somethin’.”

“And you know he knows how to get to the Broker…how?”

“I don’t, but if this is what we think it is then a direct line to Gotham’s number one secret HQ dealer sounds like a good thing to have.”

“Officially we don’t think this is anything yet,” Montoya countered gently.

“Don’t talk like a rookie, Rubí, y’know better than that.”

She let it go, waving a surrendering hoof. The respect under that unprofessional shot was why she was grateful to have him for a partner. He was right, too. She’d lived in Gotham her whole life, just long enough to have a clear picture of life before all these patterns developed.

Meaning despite E.U.P. confirmation policy, she did know better.

***

Last night, somepony set a trap for the Batpony in Miagani’s Cowcadden district. One different from the usual Rogues Gallery numbers in several very lethal respects. Which sounded identical to another such incident in Cowcadden almost eight years ago.

And there’d been another case of repetition in Ranelagh, the neighbourhood right next door to the Narrows, dating back even earlier in the vigilante’s career.

Gotham’s Rogues, the reason for the S.C.U.’s existence, had their assorted murderous motifs but usually didn’t repeat themselves. Why have only one way to make life in Gotham difficult? And both traps had been the brainwaves of long disbanded syndicates.

Both traps had also been as dangerous as before with added twists, a Ranelagh prop storage warehouse experiencing a power surge that caused a localized fire and a Cowcadden parade float storage warehouse now sporting balloons full of acidic magi-mist.

So. About a month between each incident, plenty of requisite Gotham property damage, extra destruction to put passing civilians in danger as well as the E.U.P. responders who’d have to contain it, and to top it off not only were most leads in the original cases cold as a Crystal Empire toilet seat, but those little additions also conveniently disfigured both crime scenes.

If there were any tell-tale clues, they’d most likely either been destroyed or lost among any evidence that would be identical to what G.E.U.P. already had on file. And then there was the time and pony-power it would take to secure both scenes.

Cherry on top, who even had first dibs? Fire usually went to Gotham fire brigade’s arson investigation unit, which, sure, a no brainer, but were probably too specialized compared to S.C.U.’s intuitive methods. All investigating for arson would tell you was who owned the scene and how the fire had been set. Which they already knew, the flash of exploding power breakers visible all the way to Archer Park.

By that same token, what was S.C.U. or your common or garden C.S.I. supposed to find that’d be any different?

Cowcadden was even more convoluted: technically the presence of weaponized chemicals, not to mention magic, could be classified as terrorism. (Terrorism, Montoya’s mental notebook scribbled for the umpteenth time, Scaregoat?)

Terrorism could get turfed all the way up to the royal guard, including putting Gotham under martial law if they thought they had to. Good luck with that. The original prop warehouse case had involved a Changeling, arguably meaning it was up for grabs by those dorks in S.M.I.L.E. Who’d insist on operating discreetly while dressed like they were going to a Spy Vs. Spy convention.

And then again, weaponized chemicals, not to mention magic, were hardly foreign to the City of Mysteries so it could just as easily wind up one more thing for G.E.U.P. to budget for.

Fun thought: this kind of departmental horse trading could be the real masterplan, tie up as much of the E.U.P. as possible. The flicks and radio serials had it wrong, Equestrian law enforcement didn’t try to snatch cases from each other. Well, not much. 90% of the friction came from overworked departments trying to turf a case to another.

And somepony was out there, planning to do it all over again.

E.U.P. policy was that at least three identical incidents had to happen before they could be considered linked. Montoya was Gotham born and bred and knew they’d get that confirmation. The royal sisters and their pets probably knew. Nobody would go to this much effort and not have more to show off.

Somepony was meticulously re-creating Gotham death-traps and adding deadly new features. And foreknowledge wasn’t much of a weapon when, confirmed or not, old case or not, G.E.U.P. and the Commander’s friend in the cape had to take it deadly seriously. Too many lives at stake not to.

Gotham had just about every kind of criminal, normal and not remotely, that Equestira could conceive of.

And now it had a copycat.

***

“Tell me about this not-snitch of yours,” Montoya said, already feeling exhausted from the invisible scale of a case that wasn’t even confirmed yet.

She took a sip of coffee, and while it felt like pouring half curdled cheese down her throat the warmth and bitterness did spark her brain back into gear.

“Ah, good ol’ Solly the Cuss,” Bulwark said, mouth currently empty enough for prolonged speech.

“Sounds family friendly. Old school?”

If so, she wasn’t sure how useful this’d be. Gotham’s traditional underworld (what was left of it, which sadly meant the most tenacious) practically never mixed with the Rogues except perhaps providing muscle for a cut, and even that was a shaky, tacit replacement for the Destrier’s ‘Never in a million years, you freaks!’ policy.

Bulwark shrugged. “Old enough that he was tryin’ to get in on the ground floor when everythin’ started gettin’ weird.”

“Huh, okay.” Montoya nodded to herself. “So one hoof in the business, the other in the Rogues’ Gallery?”

“Tryin’ to, yeah. Always on the lookout, always climbin’. They also call him Vic in the Inny ’cause he’s always tryin’ to get in somewhere. Which means keepin’ his ear to the ground.”

Something about that prickled Montoya’s scalp, just at the base of her horn. “Would I have heard of him before?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of stories about ol’ Solly. So, A) he’s been around long enough he might remember one of his old gigs, give us a heads up on what our copycat might try next, an’ B) he’s so desperate to be in the Gallery he might’a heard if anypony’s movin’ anything big. Gotta be if they’re usin’ old freak traps.”

“The Broker, though,” Montoya countered. “She might cut corners in her day job but she likes working with quality materials when she can, and if this guy’s bounced around so much--”

“He’s been one of her bag boys a couple times!” Bulwark cut in sharply, just as instantly getting control back. “See, Solly got more pride than sense, yeah? So a good way to tell where he is on the totem pole is how much pay he’s flashin’ around.”

“A clotheshorse?” Montoya asked, trying to sound interested, not patronizing.

Bulwark was a good partner, but her other partner meant he occasionally felt the need to prove it. To himself if not her.

Plus, prickling intuition aside—why did this guy sound so familiar?—a clotheshorse could be something.

“When he’s got the scratch, sure,” Bulwark grunted, sprinkling a fresh layer of salt on what was left of his order. “He comes in here lookin’ like a used gym mat, I’ll eat crow. But he struts in lookin’ like Bruce Rein…”

“Then he’s working for somepony right now,” Montoya acknowledged.

“Yeah. Flashier the threads, bigger the wad, bigger the player.” Bulwark stuck a carrot in one side of his mouth, waggled his eyebrows at her, and bit down hard.

Montoya took another sip of coffee and began ruminating to avoid thinking about the taste. Half baked as the plan was, it was a typical Heavy Bulwark plan. It would only be half baked if Solly turned out to be clueless. If he had some kind of link to anything, then ergo anything could happen.

Clotheshorses were similarly half useless, half worth a Princess Celestia’s ransom. They’d evolved their street name by showing off every time they received a fat payday, sporting not only threads far classier than they’d ever be but watches, jewellery, the latest fads, the whole bail of hay.

Grill them about it enough and they’d give up something eventually, either out of fear of being taken down when you (or the Bat) found their benefactor or just so you’d go away and let them get back to enjoying themselves.

Montoya was too much of a Gothamite to believe for a second they were going to bust the Broker on this case, a perpetually smiling yuppy from the mainland who’d cut her teeth cooking her family’s crooked construction company books before graduating to one of the slickest operators in the city, but if she wasn’t supplying the copycat then they’d be horning in on her supply of warehouses and substations. That was decent incentive before you got to how the Rogues delivered a complaint.

Which added to the list of things that made this a lowkey timebomb: Gotham’s egomaniacs did not consider imitation to be flattering. How long until the copycat copied the Riddler, or whoever, and they started setting fire to random parts of the islands to smoke them out?

“So gimme his résumé,” Montoya decided.

Gotham had almost as many stool pigeons as actual pigeons, so it was fair enough that she wouldn’t have heard of somepony an old street monster like Bulwark thought of as wallpaper. Cons with more than one street handle weren’t uncommon either, but there was something about Solly’s name that was still prickling her.

“Oh boy.” Bulwark rolled his eyes and swallowed his own slug of coffee. “Just about everypony in the Gallery ’cept the Clown. Low level stuff for the Griffon mostly, which is what got Solly put away last time. Thing is, word from Gazette Square has him struttin’ ’round buyin’ high end stuff.”

“Second hoof?” Montoya asked, raising an eyebrow.

If it had been Cathedral Square over in Old Town that would temper Bulwark’s hunch a fair bit from the amount of thrift stalls in Cathedral’s open market, higher end chains having moved across the river into the New Town long ago. Gazette Square stores could be pricey, but there were plenty of thrift stores and pawn shops on the surrounding blocks.

“Nope. Couple’a stalk-chewers I know spotted him comin’ outta the Monarch Mall. In a Spurs Brothers suit.”

Montoya whistled. “Cufflinks?”

“It’s like you wuz there.” Bulwark smirked, then turned aside to belch so he could continue. “Now does that sound like double glazzin’ dealer money to you?”

“Maybe he’s just got a real good pitch,” Montoya half teased. “But I hear ya, even if he’s dipping into some kind of stash that’s a lot of clothes for somepony who just got out.”

“He ain’t a pony,” Bulwark said through yet another mouthful.

“Heavy,” Montoya mock sighed, “we talked about this: perps are people too. But no, for real, what breed’re we talking about here?”

“Give ya a clue, detective.” Bulwark smirked, dabbing at his muzzle with a napkin for effect. “One of his other purchases was a monogramed collar fer his girlfriend.”

A beat.

Eventually Montoya managed, “I’m…not sure our…jurisdiction…covers…that…?”

Bulwark had been finishing off more turnips and cracked up, automatically bursting into his archetypical “HAW-HAW-HAW!” bellowing, which sent his turnips down too fast and hunched him over with guttural plumbing sounds. The other patrons stared as Montoya took an unsympathetic sip of coffee.

“Dhi’m’dgh,” Bulwark wheezed after the application of several cannonball hoof punches to his chest. “Hugh…whoo...diamond dog, Solly’s a diamond dog!”

That prickling sensation whipped violently through Montoya’s mind, snapping intuitions and memory together.

Solly. Solly the Cuss and Vic the Inny. Two aliases for one name, one name too hoity toity for the Gotham fraternity.

Diamond Dog, a mismatched voice calling his name. Solly. Sol. Short for Invictus Sol...

“Does he have a brother?” she asked urgently.

“He’s got enough of a brother fer four whole broth--”

“Sirius Business?”

“Yeah,” Bulwark agreed, frowning.

The memory of large paws clamping around her, hauling her into the air like she weighed less than a soft toy. The muscle to his brother’s speed, Sol wearing black gangster cosplay like he’d escaped from a movie and Sirius wearing a white (or at least very light grey, to be expected after even five minutes in Gotham) hoodie like he’d come from the gym…

The Binary brothers. Sol and Sirius. Invictus Sol. Named after a binary star by an overly ambitious mother, too much of a pretentious mouthful for most Gotham hoods, hence the dual nicknames. Their outfits hadn’t matched but that wouldn’t have mattered so much to their boss, it was the duality that counted.

“What’s the problem,” Bulwark demanded as Montoya began pulling her windbreaker back on over her E.U.P. armoured vest, “Sirius sit in front of ya at the movies or somethin’?!”

“Solly can’t see me,” Montoya insisted, fumbling with her badge. Should she pin it and get out or stash it in a pocket?

“Yer mane ain’t that bad an’ hey, who has time to brush their teeth these days?”

“Heavy, Solly knows me.”

“Great!” Bulwark spread his forelegs and wings, bugging uncomprehending eyes at her. “So we grab a few drinks, catch up, find out what the hay’s goin’ on, stick Solly with the bill. Ya wanna plan, there ya go.”

“Heavy…” Montoya had elected to stick her badge in her mouth to free up her hooves and readjusted her slack field kit bag.

A hoof almost the size of her face wrapped around her foreleg. Strong but trying to steady her, not force anything. “Rubí,” Heavy Bulwark urged. “What?”

Montoya glanced at the other diners, who were suddenly preoccupied with their menus and the grease stain to knothole ratio of the counter. She held up a placating hoof then used it to grope blindly for her E.U.P. cap.

“The Binary brothers were working for Two Tone, Heavy.”

Bulwark’s hoof involuntarily released her as he sat up sharply.

“Awww man,” Heavy murmured, putting it together.

“Yeah. That day.” Montoya tried to convince herself she was tightening up her gear instead of just avoiding eye contact. “Which means if he sees me and rabbits, and he does have something? I’ll have maybe cost us a good lead.”

Bulwark rubbed at his tangle of a mane, champing and puffing slightly as he tried to come up with a plan on the fly, or say something, anything, about that day. One of the worst days of her life.

Things had gotten better since. They really had. But there would never be anything good about that day, what Two Tone had done to her and why.

“Could grab a booth at the back,” Bulwark suggested.

They both looked around, aware there weren’t nearly enough customers on that side of the diner this early in the day. Add to that, now she no longer had to wear your standard guard kit Montoya favoured a red E.U.P. jacket with a blue cap. Even accounting for the pastel variety of pony coats at the counter and the street side booths, it would still draw the eye in a place as weathered by steam and grease as this.

“I’ll slip out the back,” Montoya decided. “That court across the street, if I stick to the bushes…”

“An’ here I was gonna suggest ya just hide behind me.” Bulwark stood on his hindlegs and flexed. He winked at her which made her crack up.

The spontaneous release of tension was like suddenly finding herself in zero gravity and she had to grab the table to stop herself from falling, laughing to the floor. The other diners were going to think she’d been Clown poisoned.

Say what you want, Heavy Bulwark was a good partner.

Something large and fast registered in her periphery, through the diner window, on the street outside, and then it was throwing the door open hard enough to almost crack the glass.

“YOU!” roared a muscular Rottweiler diamond dog.

For a moment of vertigo Montoya wondered if he was talking to her, Two Tone’s punishment for daring to forget what he’d done to her, even for a moment. Then she realised the dog was lunging across the diner, bowling over unfortunate customers at different tables as he charged between them, for Bulwark.

***

Montoya sprang back, trying to get a bead with her horn, indoors, with seconds they didn’t have anyway. Bulwark spun and reared, presenting his side, planting all three remaining legs as he brought up a protective foreleg and flared out his wing. A solid Pegasus fighting block, but the size was off.

The flaring wing that should either have caused an attacker to instinctively pull up short or get a whipcrack in the face glanced off Sirius’ chest, completely failing to stop him bearing Bulwark down hard, raking at the detective’s shoulder and neck with one paw as Bulwark scrabbled for leverage.

Montoya had hesitated from the shock of their collision and their wild flailing glanced her, sending her spinning to the tiled floor. Great Pony in the Sky, the smell…!

One of Sirius’ clawed feet raked the floor inches from her snout, gouging tracks in the lino. Montoya covered her head and tried to roll into something that wasn’t another customer as wet impact sounds rang above her, carrying over the yelling and clattering of startled customers.

She bumped into something that didn’t bump back, head swimming. The dog was clawing at Heavy, why wasn’t he crying out, even he wasn’t that stubborn…

“Where is he?!” Sirius yelled, an arm locked around a struggling Bulwark’s neck to haul him up, onto his unbalanced hind legs, as they staggered in mutilated circles in the remains of some overturned tables. “What have you done with him?!”

“Worry…’bout what’m…gonna do to you, ya–!”

Bulwark flared his wings, balancing on only one leg now so that the force and his weight would catch the Rottweiler off guard. Sirius’ hold broke and Bulwark hit the floor, kicking backwards. Three ponies trapped in a booth by the chaos cried out as Sirius crashed down onto their table.

Bulwark scrabbled until he could face the correct way and line up another shot, but the sight of the cowering civilians made him hesitate. Sirius gripped the table and brought his feet swinging up with almost balletic speed and grace. The force sent Bulwark flying backwards to crash into the counter.

Montoya jumped in front of her downed partner, horn glowing. Growling, Sirius skidded to a sharp stop in front of her. Dreamlike, she ran her eyes over him—

***

Teeth. Big teeth.

Knights sports jacket, sleeveless
Edges frayed, did it himself?

No gang runes…and no collar.
Don’t they have family crests on those?

Dressed in a hurry?

Man, those are some big teeth…

Fur looks like Heavy’s mane.
Not grooming? Out all night?

Big teeth…claws.
Heavy’s not scratched. His claws are clipped. Working on instinct.

Clipped claws. Fresh out?

Out all night. “Where is he?”
Searching.
Brother. Looking for his brother?

Instinct. Angry. Growling.
Scared.
Teeth.

***

—and danced back to avoid both those fists coming down on her. The floor didn’t crack, Sirius wasn’t a meta, but he’d just thrown a pony three times her size and weight across the room, so cold comfort.

“Solly!” she yelled.

The Rottweiler froze mid-swing.

“You think something happened to Solly?” Montoya pressed, trying to keep her voice steady enough for de-escalation. “You’re looking for him, right?”

Another growl. Sirius’ shoulders (hackles?) were rippling so hard his jacket was threatening to split. “If you’ve done anything to him…!”

“He was supposed to meet us here--”

“I knew it!”

“Not like that!” Montoya let some magic start to build in her horn, which was dumb, he’d see the glow as a threat. She didn’t know if a stun-bolt would do anything to someone this big who was this mad. Maybe if she aimed for his face. “Who told you we’d be here?”

“Hey…” Sirius was still breathing hard, but the growls were subsiding, his clawing paws lowering as something snapped him out of his attack stance. “Have we met?”

What was she supposed to say to that? Yeah, when Two Tone’s bit decided it’d be great to take his obsession with me to the next level and ruin my life, you pulled me out of a prison transport by my tail, small world, huh?

“Look,” Montoya elected, “let’s just--”

The dog’s head snapped up from looking at her to growl in rage at something behind her.

“RUBI! DOWN!”

She spun at Bulwark’s voice, instinctively sinking into as much of a crouch as she could. She had just enough time to register the Pegasus hefting one of the overturned chairs before it was soaring over her head.

She ducked then hesitated at an interrupted impact sound above her, not the shattering of timber and furious barking she’d expected. Looking up she saw Sirius hefting the chair. He’d actually caught it…?

And then Bulwark was there, launching himself across the room, wings a furious blur that just missed scratching out the trapped customers’ eyes as he tackled the Rottweiler, chair and all, straight through the window and out into the Gotham streets.

***

And just as instantly they were rolling into hoof traffic. Ponies and other assorted creatures hollered in protest, dropping items as they tried to scurry out of the way of the two rolling behemoths.

Bulwark came out on top…for all of five seconds before Sirius nailed him in the gut. Nothing the average Gotham palooka hadn’t tried before, but only a few of them had grown up in the Equestrian mountains hefting boulders. As Bulwark hunched over, gagging, the Rottweiler added insult to (possibly internal) injury by grabbing his wings and using them to flip the Pegasus over him to come slamming down onto the sidewalk.

Which was what saved Bulwark’s life.

As Montoya sprang over the table, its bewildered customers still cowering there, she watched as an Ace Alchemy cart came barrelling out of an alley, its probably late drivers trying to take one of the Narrows’ many shortcuts.

Both stallions cried out as they tried to skid to a halt and avoid being mown down by their load at the same time, one of them tumbling out of the reins and leaving the other to struggle with the momentum, sending the cart swinging. Right into Sirius, still in the road, and inches from Bulwark’s head.

The edge of the cart rammed into the Rottweiler, almost the same size as him, and sent some of its steel drums cascading into him as if for good measure.

Hoping through a nonplussed daze that this hadn’t given the guy superpowers, Montoya weaved her way through rubbernecks and around the cart to pull up at Bulwark’s side. The Pegasus detective was on his back, head lolling but one eye open, wheezing. She could almost smell everything he’d eaten a few minutes ago on his breath and couldn’t be more relieved.

After all, it’d be a shame if he lapsed into a coma before knowing how mad she was.

“I was talking him down!” Montoya snapped, trying to help haul her partner into a sitting position.

“Ch-ghhh-c’n talk inna cell…” Bulwark managed.

“Heavy, for Celesita’s sake!”

“’Ey, he came at me!”

“So you threw a chair at him?!”

“Yeah!”

“With me in the way?!”

“Toldja to get down, didn’t I?” He sounded like he was wagging a hoof at her for forgetting such a simple detail.

“You put him through a window!”

“Put the crazy fleabag down is what I’ll do! Assualtin’ an officer! Fer starters!”

“Did you even think to tell him to stand down?!”

“Been kinda busy!” Bulwark demonstrably grabbed his now smudged trench coat and gestured to the ongoing carnage in the road. Somewhere a baby had even started crying.

There was a groan from the other side of the cart as they began trotting around to the other side. Both detectives glanced at each other with Gothamite ‘ya-gotta-be-kiddin’-me…’ looks, then ducked as something rammed into the cart hard enough to turn it almost completely around, almost hitting them. Steel drums banged around them, the air stinking suddenly.

Montoya scrambled up, watching as Sirius limped from where he’d shoulder charged the cart towards its rear. He glanced at her, his breathing ragged, then he was putting his shoulder to the cart again, not only dislodging more drums but actually making the wheels turn.

“What is this guy, on venom or something?” Montoya wondered to nopony.

The Diamond Dog’s efforts had the cart angled at one of the Narrows’ sloping inclines. Just before it dipped, Sirius grabbed the rear and hauled himself up into it, riding in the space between two remaining drums as it picked up speed. Pedestrians scattered as it clattered down the incline towards them, both detectives right behind it.

Bulwark let out a strangled noise as something grey emerged from under the wheels, skidding to a halt in front of it.

“Heavy,” Montoya cried from further up front, “what the hay—?!”

A sound of shattering timbers grabbed her attention. Spinning, she saw the wreckage of the cart half in the air, having crashed into a lamppost so hard it had almost uprooted it. Sirius dangled in front of it, seeming to levitate. Montoya was thrown by the sight until she realised he was dangling from one of the street’s overpasses, scrambling for purchase.

Even after a bout with Heavy Bulwark and getting hit by a freakin’ cart this guy was pulling movie stunts. Nothing quite in the Rogues’ or the Bat’s league, but how exactly were they going to bring him in even if they caught up?

“My hat!” Bulwark screamed. He rammed what was left of it on his head and hurtled furiously through the air as the Rottweiler finally managed to haul himself up onto the overpass, staggering away. “That was my hat, you mangy mutt! When I get MY HOOVES ON YA, I’M GONNA—!”

Okay, Montoya reflected, jumping for a fire escape in a nearby alley so she could cut across the roofs and, assuming she didn’t break her neck first, drop onto the overpass to give chase, so now it’s just how do I stop my partner from killing our perp, if that’s even what he is, or himself in the process. Cake.

She managed to catch herself in somepony’s washing line and tumble onto the top of the steel mesh covering the overpass. Below her, Sirius bounded past, scattering ponies.

“G.E.U.P!” Montoya yelled, for some pretence of procedure, as she galloped along the top after him. “Freeze!”

“Salford Stalworth, as I live and breathe!”

Salford Stalworth, living and breathing despite the best efforts of her Majesty’s intelligence sector, looked up from his copy of The Gotham Gazette. A olive green feline in a suit was approaching from the steps he’d been planning to climb once finished.

“Homberg, old man!” Salford sat up, holding out a foreleg for his old acquaintance to grip, mildly interested as ever at how those stringy things on the end wrapped around his ligaments. Splendid! “Good to see you.”

“You too, you too,” the cat agreed. “How’ve you been since…ah…”

Since Tirek’s rampage through Equestria.

For once, as a certain kind of unthinking public intellectual had made a big show of pointing out, Gotham hadn’t been ground zero. Tirek neither came from ‘Equestria’s Biggest Nightmare Night Party’ or had even set hoof within city limits. Salford didn’t see that as either flattering to his adopted home or considerate of the towns and cities that were caught in the Centaur’s march towards Canterlot.

The hardest hit were Manehattan and Central City, both evacuated by Equestria’s heroes as attempted traps for the tyrant, neither of which held because of who he was working with. Mercifully, a spontaneous rainbow had repaired most of the damage as well as restoring the victims of Tirek’s hunger.

Most of them.

“Well as can be expected,” Salford supplied.

“And how well is that?” Homberg pressed.

Gentlemen’s gentlemen in Gotham strove to keep most things professional, stoic even in the face of everything from a gentleman laughing too much while they tied people to railroad tracks to consciously choosing to combine socks and sandals, so Salford was touched by his old friend’s open concern.

“Well enough,” Salford assured, holding up the cane he’d been using for the past two months.

“Your lad doesn’t have you out and about, does he? Duty, certainly, but really--”

“Mr. Rein has…” Salford paused, both to consider an actual response and to keep his tone in check.

Both he and Homberg had seen enough of their fellow domestics subjected to impersonal cruelties that belonged to another century, by old and new money alike. He couldn’t blame Homberg for grasping the wrong end of the stick, and better for everyone the feline remained unaware exactly what kind of forest he was missing for the Rein family trees.

Eventually he elected for, “Managed in my absence.”

Not untrue! In fact, following Grace Swansdown deciding to move to the Big Apple with her new Titan friends Salford’s ‘lad’ had forgone the expected brooding period and offered his considerable expertise to the League and several other parties all around Equestria, even the world.

It had been a right lark helping him concoct assorted covers to allow for this. Such as arranging for an over enthusiastic Bruce to get lost while attempting to row the city’s winding Jacquard River totally unaided, his plans to use a sneaky shortcut through the old, crashed weather factory sent awry by that same shortcut.

Fortunately, the errant millionaire had, by complete accident of course, grabbed his faithful retainer’s saddlebag instead of his own, supplying him with days of moreish sandwiches, a thermos of tea with a hotel room’s worth of bite sized cream and sugar packets, an old but trusty umbrella, and an overdue library copy of The Complete Canterlot Tales.

As far as Equestria was concerned these had sustained Bruce Rein in his almost weeklong absence, until he was miraculously found on the outskirts of the little farming town of Ponyville, drifting listlessly along the White Tail River engrossed in The Shipmare’s Tail with a panini that was beginning to go a bit hard around the edges.

Salford’s favourite part of the charade had been making sure to be found in his employer’s ermine dressing gown with his hooves up on the coffee table and a glass of wine, which a seemingly oblivious Bruce had grabbed and swigged as he rambled extatically about how at one he was with nature now to a rapt mix of Gotham press and social hangers-on. Which of course had been the point.

Batpony’s only contribution was spending that near week helping the magician Zzazzip take apart one of Equestria’s most complex magical smuggling operations in nearby Fillydelphia and not shaving or doing three days’ worth of mane maintenance, for that proper ‘Overgrown school foal who’s too dense to realise he should be dead’ look.

Salford was still half hoping they’d try out the wheeze they’d cooked up where Bruce would catch a case of head trauma induced amnesia. They only had to find a good job for him to be found in. Of course, there was always a hobo…

“Treat you to lunch?” he offered Homberg, indicating the doors of the Elder Pasiphaë Club with his cane, an inadvertent benefit to having the thing. “Or…?”

“Actually, I was off to the Clàr Mòr. Care to join me?” Homberg eyed the cane.

“Well…” Salford began.

He’d actually been looking forward to a sit down in one of the club’s weathered but still sumptuous chairs…alright, fine, another sit down, even though he’d been sure to take the Bristol ferry and the Terminus tram to get to the city centre but one of the best mixed grills in Gotham, which did an excellent fish course, would do just as well.

He was as equally determined to get in as much restorative walking as possible (proving he didn’t need this bloody stick long term) as he had been to look at the Pasiphaë’s books and get himself up to speed. It had never hurt for Equestria’s greatest detective or Gotham’s biggest bon vivant to be aware what those below stairs thought of his fellow higher ups.

On the other hoof, intel or no intel Homberg was looking at him carefully, like he might collapse at any moment, and the Clàr Mòr’s grub was among the most nourishing in Gotham.

“Ah, it’s only gossip,” he decided, smiling to take off any edge to his voice. “I’d be delighted.”

***

“So why did you drop by the old hallowed halls?” Salford asked as they began to navigate crowds crossing Empyrean Street. Was it his imagination or were they thicker than normal for a Wednesday? Looked like more carts about, too…

“Nothing that needs saying outside those four walls, me old mucker, as you well know.”

“Oh do us a favour, Bergers. I’ve been reduced to using a walking stick, I need something to get the old blood pumping! And you were just asking about my lad.”

“Alright, alright,” Homberg conceded, holding up a paw as a beleaguered traffic cop waved their crowd to hold still for a salmon shoal of cabs and carts. “If you must know, I dropped by for a stiffening pre-lunch pint and to sign up for training.”

Salford blinked. “You were in the top ten of your year at the Bespoke Bureau.”

“And don’t you forget it, m’laddio!” Homberg winked as the second of a four-wagon train of building supplies went past.

Salford blinked again before breaking into a broad grin. “Teaching, y’mean? You?”

“And what of it?” the cat mock-demanded, running a paw through his own greying mane.

Salford transferred his cane to his other hoof for a shake. “That’s splendid, Bergers. Those new bugs don’t know how lucky they are, and the craft doesn’t know what it’s losing!”

“Blow that,” the cat smirked. “When I do step out of service permanently I’m having a leaving bash from here to Rainbow Falls.”

“You just need a brief sabbatical?” Salford asked carefully.

“I need some make-do salary while I’m at it, because if I’m expected to go back to domesticity after that jumped up--”

Homberg was cut off by a blast from an E.U.P. issue whistle, making both butlers flinch and look up. The cop had pounced on a sufficiently long gap between oncoming wheel traffic and was now frantically waving to get hoof traffic moving.

Salford watched the Earth mare remove her helmet as he passed, wiping her brow. His heart went out to the lass. She looked as if she’d gone five rounds with Griller ’Gator, and the looks on the drivers’ faces looked about as pleasant as Gotham’s premiere dragon desperado. An automobile driver, probably some Bearsden yuppy who’d taken their new toy our for a spin and tried to take a freight route as a short cut, honked their horn irritably.

“Are they routing around Polmadie again or something?” he asked once he and Homberg were on a packed Cathedral Street sidewalk. “The ferry pony said there might be a bit of a wait but it’s been like this ever since I got off at Terminus.”

“Not availed ourselves of Paradise Port, have we?” Homberg leered.

“One more crack like that and you’ll be paying for lunch,” Salford teased, then raised an eyebrow. “Unless you’d rather not? It wouldn’t be any trouble, and if you’re needing some interim bits…?”

“Mmmm? Oh, nothing like that,” Homberg clarified, waving a dismissive paw. “You know how you’ll get one and you just need to get off the pitch and collapse in the stands for a while?”

“Unfortunately,” Salford agreed grimly.

He’d been lucky his ‘one’ after returning to civilian life had been his fellow E.U.P. medic and best friend’s twin brother, a good-natured, leonine maned and shaped goliath who was in desperate need of somepony who could keep track of his taxes as well as his shoes.

A little before that, Salford had the ‘honour’ of serving the Fine Line family, one of Equestria’s most notorious royal offshoots, and the Bramble Clan, to say nothing of certain customers during his time at assorted Canterlot hotels and restaurants when he was waiting for Equestrian theatre to Discover him.

Stars above, his grandfather had told him Nightmare Night worthy stories about the Cobblepots, the reason Salford’s father had striven to become a doctor and vowed his son would have at least some passing skill. Butlering and acting, much to his son’s regret now, had been combined forms of rebellion, the former in the name of his father’s dismissal of the latter.

And look where it had all led him. Or, perhaps to be more accurate, where Salford’s myriad connections in both fields had led his best friends’ son.

“This new lad of yours. Not a lawn jockey, are they?” he asked Homberg, thinking of the Cobblepots and using the nom de abrutir Gotham domestics had chosen for residents of Babylon Towers.

In fact, he was fairly certain that if the Hex Corp building wasn’t in the way he’d be able to see the Towers from here, pompous, livered fountain pen things jutting up out of Kingston. Residents of those exclusive suites inside each tower tended to be some of the worst in the city, the kingdom, and the world.

Bruce kept a suite for appearances sake and another under one of his many aliases, so he or any allies could lay low. Princess Celestia, much to her credit in Salford’s eyes, had attended the opening of the towers’ titular garden floors and then had nothing else to do with the place.

“No, but he wishes he was,” Homberg explained. “Acts accordingly. Writes crime books. Those kind of crime books, if you follow me.”

“I wouldn’t know,” lied Salford, consummate scandal rag junkie.

He had an idea of what Homberg meant though. Gotham both grew and attracted opportunists, which sometimes wound up in the spotlight thinking they’d come up with a ‘solution’ to the city everypony else was too short sighted to think of.

In reality ponies who had to live here had thought of it, found out why it wouldn’t work and so didn’t do it, often leaving it to Batpony and Ricochet to rescue some self-satisfied snake oil seller who thought they were pulling off a coup while actually just cheating on their homework. Badly.

“Done anything anypony’s heard of?”

“A few plays, then he must’ve gotten into books because he doesn’t boast about the former as much.” Homberg hesitated, squinting up at some nearby cable car platforms bolted to rooftops. “Sainted whiskers!”

“Bit of a que,” Salford agreed, tipping his hat back to take in winding rows of pony colours, interspersed with minotaur, Diamond Dog, goat and feline residents, even the odd zebra.

Now that he was looking properly, he realised pedestrians grumpily swarming down the metal staircases were giving up and leaving instead of dismounting any of three cars he could see from here, which all seemed to be just idling on their rail.

“Been like this long?” he asked, aware now how much time he’d spent since waking up in a hospital bed in Rein Ranch’s Bristol neighbourhood. Like many settlements on the mainland Bristol could feel like a town unto itself and it was easy to lose track of events on the fragmented islands of the urban centre if you didn’t have to work there.

“Long enough,” Homberg muttered, checking a pocket watch. “Somepony in transport got caught with their hoof in the till, there’s an investigation (apparently), and they’ve had to close some building somewhere.”

“Anypony hurt?” Salford asked automatically, instantly chiding himself for the species centring.

“Dunno.” Homberg shrugged, his tone making it clear he had noticed but didn’t blame his old friend by any means. “Termites or something.”

“In a transport building? Aren’t they all made of brick and steel beams and whatnot?”

“Or something,” the cat muttered, gazing across the intersection. “Look, this is almost as thick as her majesty’s favourite nephew. It’d be a bit of a walk, but if we cut through Cathedral Square we can be on Penitence and round the corner to West Regent before the next princess is crowned.”

Somewhere in there Salford picked up the unspoken question of whether or not he could handle it. He pointed his cane towards the Triforium which loomed over the writhing outdoor market.

“Lead on, McGruff.”

“McGruff was a diamond dog, you ignorant swine,” Homberg smiled without a trace of malice.

“I know,” Salford said cheerfully as they began to descend.

***

Neither butler was in the bloom of youth and Cathedral Square’s market had three winding stairways for every one pony working in it, so the conversation paused there until both old friends were on the solid stones that would have made up aisles and napes for an oversized house of worship.

Salford took advantage of Homberg pretending to simply adjust his coat while catching his breath to get his own back, looking around at waves of colour against old stone stained by rain, soot, and time. The manes, coats, tails and clothes of ponies moving around this cavernous space in the middle of one of Gotham’s largest squares, mixed with those of delightfully stylish or homemade banners for stalls set between piers or in half finished arches. They matched the remaining stained glass in the Triforium’s windows. He liked that.

He could smell different kinds of coffee brewing all over the market even from here, further alleviating the space’s self-serious imposing, pious atmosphere. And making him hungry.

“Speaking of,” Homberg resumed, in the way of old friends, “tread the boards yourself recently?”

“In a way,” Salford said, tipping his hat as a nice minotaur lady pulling a cart full of gewgaws stopped to let him pass. “Only directing, on doctor’s orders. The Bristol Amateur Dramatic Society!”

“And were they living up to their unfortunate acronym or have you finally helped them earn it?”

“Go play in traffic Bergers, there’s a good chap.”

“Not likely with these delays, but anything for you, Froggy.”

(Gotham naming culture, or at least Gotham naming culture about forty years back. Salford Stalworth. Salford made it clear from the off that he detested ‘Sal’, so that left the end of his first name and his second to work with. ‘Ford’ was fair game as far as he was concerned but nobody could really get their teeth into it. ‘Worth’ maybe. Worthy. Everyone liked a ‘y’ sound. Stalworth. Other word for Stalwart. Wart. Warts. Toads. Frogs. Froggy. You see? Of course you do.)

“Subway still working?” Salford asked as they wove their way through the crowds towards the Triforium. Proving to himself he was recovering perfectly well thank you was one thing, walking all the way back to Terminus to catch a ferry across the bay to Seagate and Bristol was another.

“Standing room only but yes, no worries,” Homberg assured, touching his forelock to thank a maintenance pony who’d paused to let him by. “It’s really just this side of Miagani, bit more traffic through Escutcheon and the Narrows to cope. Cabs are still running if you don’t mind a bit of a wait.”

“Oh to have the time,” Salford intoned with mock gravitas.

If anything, he’d had too much free time lately. Enough that he was behind on the Elder Pasiphaë’s books and could devote energy helping nervous Bristol housewives and high schoolers (or worse, overconfident ones) understand what ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ meant.

‘How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?’

“Here, is old Benchmark still doing for whatshisname, the head transport fellow?” Salford asked to drown out the quote that had risen unbidden in his mind.

If she was then that might be a potential source for this seeming city transport investigation. While there were always the rooftops, his employer very much enjoyed his custom kart and gridlock would be an unwelcome delay, especially if this trap situation were to escalate.

Homberg paused, looking down at Salford. “You didn’t hear?” he asked, surprised. “I mean, that is, no one told you?”

“Told me what?”

Homberg ran a paw through his hair. “Ah…”

“Oh no. Not Benchy?”

“Well…it’s touch and go,” Homberg sighed. “She hasn’t woken up yet. After. You know.”

After Tirek’s rampage through Equestria.

“Has a sister in Saddle Brook, doesn’t she,” Salford said gently, remembering now.

“Yeah. Visiting.” The lovable wag had gone out of Homberg, just like that, his paws in his coat pockets as their mutual pace slowed contemplatively. “I tell you Froggy, you spend half your life in this madhouse, picking up after saints and snobs alike and never see one of those circus freaks, or the so-called heroes—” His voice dripped with contempt. “—and what happens? You visit your family and some fairy tale you thought that Equestria First bunch took out of context decides to be real.”

Salford didn’t say anything. He respected his old friend too much for epitaphs and platitudes. They crossed Cathedral Square in silence, surrounded by laughter and chatter.

“Couple years teaching and that’ll be me,” Homberg said as if finally coming to a long time decision.

“Hmm?”

“Breymuda, I think,” the cat continued, nodding to himself.

“Leaving Gotham? If that’s what you want then of course…”

“Oh don’t worry, we’re still having lunch.” Homberg looked down, some of his old smile coming back. “Came all this way didn’t we?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. Thank you. You could come with me, y’know. When I do decide to pop off.”

Salford looked up at him, almost missing a step with his cane.

“I mean,” Homberg explained, “we’ll be even further on then than we are now. Our time of life, well.”

“Thank you but no,” Salford said, unable to keep determination spreading through his voice like frost on a windowpane. “I’m not done yet.”

“Not much further,” Homberg said, for something to say, indicating a tangle of staircases winding around the Triforium and up out of the market, into the square proper. “Soon be treating ourselves to the best saumon à l'oseille in Gotham, assuming these traffic jams haven’t mucked up their deliveries. I tell you, Froggy, what those city hall types need is a nice, hard--”

“♫Friendship adviiiiice!♫”

Homberg cut off mid-expletive, startled first by the absurd caterwauling then his friend’s absence. He turned back to see Salford’s cane rolling slightly away as the Unicorn stared, eyes so wide they forced what was left of his hairline even further back, up at one of the upper floors of the market.

“♫Frieeeendship adviiiiice!♫” the lyrical voice repeated. “Getcha friendshiiiip adviiiiice he-yuuugh!”

As if sleepwalking into a nightmare, Salford began to trot, unaided, up a staircase to one of the half-finished stone slabs that would have been a cathedral’s upper floor, where the sound was coming from.

“Froggy? Here, Froggy! Sal!”

Homberg stared himself at the complete lack of reaction to the hated nickname, then helplessly scooped up his friend’s cane and danced through the crowds after him. He almost ran into Salford, who’d paused to peer through iron fencing the city had salvaged from the royal gardens to act as safety railings for the most bizarre bazaar in Equestria. Homberg got the impression Salford was peeking over it as if into an enemy trench in a warzone.

“♫Frieeeeendship adviiiice,♫” the voice blared again, although it sounded like it was losing enthusiasm.

“Salford?” Homberg whispered, unsure why.

As far as he could tell the voice only belonged to a Unicorn. Quite a pair of lungs on the lass to be sure, but she now had her chin in the pad of one hoof and was making pointless circles on the table of her booth. Her horn wasn’t glowing or anything. Above her head a sign displayed two caricaturist pony faces, laughing as they orbited a lopsided heart. Homberg wondered if her yelling was because this tubule left no space for letters to spell out her apparent service. Bit counterproductive, that.

“Salford,” he hissed, prodding the old pony in the shoulder blades with his cane to no reaction. “What’s up?”

“Bloody hell,” Salford said distantly, voice devoid of any finesse or polished accent. “It is her…”

“I don’t understand why he doesn’t just kill them all!” the other mare said again.

“I didn’t ask,” Rainbow Dash growled.

“That’s not an argument,” the overgrown filly said smugly, chest swelling with pride at this practiced bit of intellectual jujitsu she’d stolen from somewhere else. Probably the back of a cereal box.

“Hooh-kay.” Dash took a fortifying breath, shutting her eyes. “Extrajudicial murder.”

“What?!”

“Ya down with that?”

“Are you threatening me?!”

“Oh hey, your ride’s here,” Dash noted, indicating a passing garbage cart.

The mare stared after her, mouth opening and shutting as she fought for the perfect mots justes that would prove she was too a grown up, and right, and smart and-and-and… And Dash was outta there, flapping into formation with other Pegasi using a free air traffic lane.

“Gotham,” she muttered to herself, although not too loudly because she was surrounded by crowds of probably decent locals. Everything about little Ms. ‘Only MY Boundaries Count’’s accent and wardrobe had screamed Tourist™.

Adding to Dash’s wish to avoid receiving a righteous beatdown was that one of her forelegs was full. Kinda hard to put up a decent block when both wings are already comping for your saddlebags and your other hoof is cradling groceries. Though, know what, she could maybe hit somepony with her groceries, but that’d be a waste of bits.

Neither Element was especially hungry right now, but Princess Luna had apparently given any staff the day off and hadn’t made sure her fridge was stocked. Unless you counted jars full of what they were uncomfortably sure were lil’ dreams and a bottle of Whinnyshire sauce that was starting to look as old as the Princess of the Night herself. Which Dash and Rarity didn’t.

Their hasty care packages of Spike’s cooking with some potluck elements courtesy of Sweet Apple Acres and Sugarcube Corner would still last, but they could be here for a while and eating out was expensive, no matter how many coupons and promissory notes they had between them. Their pallets were almost as far apart as Gotham and Metropolis, so making a grocery list was the most diplomatic option.

Rarity, with Twilight-ian perkiness, had suggested using the jaunt as a chance to “do a little reconnoitring, darling!”, although Dash had enjoyed the look on the Unicorn’s face when she’d stopped Rarity mid-explanation to point out, uh, yeah, she was an ex-filly scout and training for Wonderbolt missions, she knew what reconnoitring meant.

That vibe hadn’t lasted long.

***

Her one remaining contact in Infantino had been out, so she’d at least been able to use it as an excuse to score some things off both their lists from local grocery stores. She just hadn’t expected to have to spend HOURS* ferrying them across town!

*(Almost fifteen minutes, the big baby.)

She hadn’t noticed what was up with the traffic when they were heading for Luna’s crib because Terminus was always busy, and nopony wanted to be in that part of Gotham unless they had to be. Selene’s Stable was classy, sure, but it was still next door to Crime-freakin’-Alley.

It got worse the further into Old Town you got, sidewalks heaving and roads either log jammed or so full it was like watching a low stakes Breytonia 500. Vans and trucks were adding to the problem, forced to cruise in case they accidentally ran down hansom cabs or rear-ended loaded wagons.

Ponies couldn’t just move around them, an ironic reversal of all those complaints she’d heard from passing gearheads in Ponyville’s taverns, because every lane was packed, which just slowed up more road users even when things were moving.

Every once in a while carts would try to cut through one of Gotham’s bazillion alleys, almost running into pedestrians who’d had the same idea. Looked like it was working out for those who got the chance but the space closed up almost immediately, and the autos didn’t dare try it. Worse a cart-puller got for a sudden stop was a smack in the tail. If somepony outside that metal got in the way, it wouldn’t be the sucker behind the wheel who’d get hurt.

Something coming out of the machines’ tailpipes stunk worse than Discord’s patter, building up over the tarmac because of how slow they had to take it, so much so that Dash could almost see it, like a heat haze. Gotham could give Manehattan a run for its money in the Whatever-You-Call-Halitosis-For-A-City bracket, but Spike’s breath didn’t smell this bad after that time he’d had to eat a Sombra-grenade!

Normally Dash would just fly above it, even take advantage of her newly minted Wonderbolt deets and cut through an E.U.P. air tier a couple of glorious feet above civvy airspace, but for once (Good lord, >choke!<) she didn’t wanna draw attention.

A) Local E.U.P. could probably run the siren over simple stuff like that, but she wasn’t local.
B) Much as Dash’d like to get it over with, Gotham had something out there waiting for her and Rarity. It could wait until she’d had some takeout and a Sweet Justice sundae.

***

She indicated with her free foreleg and pulled out of the flow, circling down to land on an awning covering one of those weird walkway/outdoor staircases Gotham had between random buildings. You probably weren’t supposed to, but enough locals were doing it, three Pegasi and one dragon in a business suit on her makeshift landing pad alone, that she doubted any passing guard would kvetch.

“’Scuse me,” she called once she’d made sure the groceries wouldn’t fall through the awning and she could work some life back into her stiff foreleg. “Uh, this the way to Cathedral Square?”

“Walking or flying?” the dragon asked, looking up from her paper. She was way shorter than a minotaur but Dash was still caught off guard by how, like, not deep and croaky her voice was, almost Fluttershy-like with that kinda Stallidonian accent some Gothamites just had. Cool!

“Flying,” Dash specified.

“You lookin’ for the market, hon?” one of the two middle aged Pegasus mares asked in Gotham’s other accent, the one kinda like Rarity’s parents. Dash liked that one, too.

“Yeah, actually! Friend said to meet up. Sorry to bother you, just outta town and no offence but this part of the city, everything’s kinda, well…”

“Turned around,” the other older Pegasus agreed, nodding. “Preachin’ to the choir, sweetie. Lil’ Gotham humour for ya there.”

Dash did chuckle despite herself, helped by the gives-no-bucks way the mare indicated one of the district’s spikey steeples. So much of Gotham did just turn into a church every time you turned a corner.

If the other Pegasus had anything to say in defence of the city, which she maybe coulda given her goth look, she was too busy nodding along to whatever was on her headphones to say it.

“See ol’ Aiyana over there?” the first older mare said, pointing somewhere to the northwest.

“No…?”

“The big tree,” the dragon specified.

“Oh, that thing!” Dash nodded hurriedly at a curling shadow rising out of Kingston. “That’s way on the other side of the island though? I swear I’m not with those weird tent people, I’m just looking for my friend.”

“All good, hon,” the second older mare assured. “You wanna point right at her for starters.”

Dash looked at the almost Statue of Destiny sized tree, wondering if this was another kind of tree’s way of telling her something. She’d been dreading that would be it, that this would be a Griffonstone replay.

Oh Great Pony in the Sky, what if it is? What if Gilda signed up with that posh wannabe who runs the Ice Palace Lounge?! What if MY second chance is forcing her to realise HER second chance isn’t being a proper member of society but a busta for a Slippery Whiplash cosplayer?! What if we have to sword fight on top of one of those blimps?! Why does my life have to be so awesome?!

“Sorry, say again?” she said back in the real world.

“Straight on for Aiyana,” the dragon repeated patiently, “then a hard right at Scout’s Park--”

“The one with the Lantern statue,” supplied the first older mare. “Y’know, the old one in the cape, ya can’t miss it.”

“Right,” Dash agreed carefully. She’d actually met the dude, back when a recently free power ring couldn’t choose between her and AJ. He and his other ring slingin’ buddies had gotten together to help them out. One of them, the lunkhead, even owned Warriors over in Manehattan. Small world.

“Then you follow the road until--” the dragon continued.

“Or just go straight over the giant typewriter.” They all turned to look at the goth, who’d removed her headphones. She shrugged at them. “Everypony does. Everypony who can fly, anyway.”

Dash stayed still, eyes moving from one local to the next and back again for a beat.

“Clerk’s guild,” all four explained in sync.

“Ooooh!” Dash nodded, remembering now. That was a thing Gotham did, along with the blimps and the churches. Giant things on roofs. Because why not.

“And from there you’ll see the cathedral itself,” the dragon finished. She eyed the two older mares, then the heavens when no addendums were forthcoming this time.

“Got it, thanks!” Dash scooped up her groceries and sprang against the closest wall, using it to push herself into a launch.

“Our pleasure, hon,” called the first older mare, waving. “Love yer hair, by the way!”

“Thanks!” Dash called over her shoulder, weaving around local flight traffic to shoot through a gap between two gargoyles and really punch it towards Aiyana, green against the horizon. And still wondering if the tree was an omen, from this, the city of omens. Also, whether she’d just been complimented by two ladies of negotiable affection from Jezebel Plaza.

***

The advice held up. Once she’d spotted the statue of good ol’ Challenger ‘Please dear, call me Allen’ Scout she even swooped down to circle it and get a better peek at Gotham’s first hero and Equestria’s first Green Lantern.

Some folks called him the Magic Lantern nowadays to distinguish him from the others. Allen didn’t seem to mind, and his call, but Dash didn’t know if that was so much of a solution. This was Equestria, what were you gonna do when our guy had to go up against a lantern that was also magic? Which there’d be a bunch of? Because it was Equestria?

Cool statue, though! It looked almost as old as Allen, and probably was now she thought about it.

She liked how they’d styled its cape to look like tongues of flame, which the real deal had started rocking after he came out of retirement. She knew from Planetary that the lantern this stone version of the Unicorn was dramatically holding aloft lit up all green at night but didn’t remember or care how.

Huh. Wasn’t the Justice Society’s clubhouse in Gotham too? So how come they couldn’t deal with whatever this was gonna be? Allen ran a radio company around here and hung out with the first Flash, good ol’ Grey Garrick. Maybe she could call them up and…

And do what, make ’em rip the band aid off FOR you? We don’t even know why we’re here yet!

Buzz killed, Dash snarled to herself (at herself a little) and used her last loop around the Lantern to sling shot herself across his park and back out into Gotham’s air. Follow the road, right? Windows and spires were starting to flicker past her in a way that made her feel good, which meant she was accelerating and should cool it. Not like she’d ever outrun feelings before, and she wasn’t even sure what she was feeling, other than annoyed at being back here.

And, y’know. Guilty.

Fortunately, the clerk’s guild building was as awesome and dorky as described, and awed gasps and cries of admiration when she wove around the giant stone typewriter’s D and R keys, followed by loop-de-looping its roller was just the boost she needed. And hey, there was Cathedral like they’d said! Or at least, the cathedral the square was named after, poking out of the skyline between spires, radio towers and a building whose upper façade was trying to look like a giant champagne bottle.

Dash shook her head and swooped down into civilian airspace, gliding over areaways, grates and storefronts towards one of the most Gotham parts of Gotham City. Worst part, next to how this town should be her kind of place and wasn’t? She did actually know why the Big Gargoyle was like this.

It’d been part of the briefing. Y’know, the one for her mission here. The one that was why this was the last place in Equestria she wanted to be long term.

So you’re a newly established city, multiple islands each with their own factions and a bunch of farming and mining towns on your mainland agreeing to come together. Awesome! Then, couple centuries later just as you’ve started getting the hang of everything, the Princess of the Night has a hissy fit and turns into the devil. What do?

First you panic, because at this point Las Pegasus doesn’t exist so outside of Canterlot itself you’re the sleazy rich kid central of Equestria. If anypony deserves to be laid waste by demons…

Then you build a bunch of heavy-metal-as-all-get-out towers and such to ward off Nightmare Moon, until somepony (or maybe a goat because a lot of them were either here first or helped you little ponies find these islands) points out…isn’t making everything look like this more likely to attract Nightmare Moon? Because 90% of stone structures look like her face now?

So now you’re going in the other direction with lots of sun iconography that’s still kinda too spiky and, because this has been bothering another pony/goat/whoever…isn’t this just the same problem? Because Nightmare Moon’s whole thing is stomping anything that looks like Celestia’s face?

By the time you’ve finished arguing about it Gotham is one of the most bipolar looking cities in pre-Renaissance era Equestria and you haven’t been drowned in eternal darkness for about four decades now. Sky isn’t even red yet. You thiiiink you might be okay…?

In the meantime, though, a bunch of farmers, builders and rangers on the mainland have gotten sick of the fact your fear and your money allowed you to put their lives into a mad spin for this long, so they’ve banded together and done pretty well for themselves. Because they do things.

You now have dozens of newly rich, old grudge carrying families on your mainland who’ve been building better roads while you’ve put all your gems into demolishing and rebuilding the same temples for decades. They’ve got the roads and the farmland with ties back to the rest of Equestria over the mountains, so your only options are trying to clamp down sea freight or buddying up to them so you can get, y’know, food.

Celestia has to put her hoof down about this a lot over the years. Some cheeky sods will even joke the riverwalk of modern Gotham is a squiggly horseshoe shape because it’s the grooves from how often she had to do it.

***

Fast forward another couple centuries, a little past the industrial revolution. All this has resulted in two ponies who will have maybe the biggest impact on Gotham until superheroes are invented. One of them is Stygius Belfry, a distant descendant of those original aristocrats who’s grown up artsy, studious, and convinced that every sin in this ill-fitting piece of Equestria is his forebearers’ fault. His fault.

Stygius has exactly one real friend amongst the children of his distant, overly officious parents’ friends. Her name is Unity. She is kind and as they grow she makes Stygius feel that maybe, just maybe, he’s worthy of that kindness.

One night after they’ve turned twelve, Unity goes to sleep like she always does. And the next morning she doesn’t wake up. Can’t be woken up, no matter how hard her parents shake her or how loud they call her name or how softly they beg.

Unity and thousands across Equestria, the world, are victims of what comes to be known as ‘the sleeping sickness’, something so powerful even Princess Celestia’s own borrowed dream magic can’t cure it, only ease the twisting, dreaming, fading minds afflicted with it.

Celestia will not have an answer behind one of the greatest mysteries of this world, which she considers a personal failure, for decades. When she finally learns of the true cause of the sickness she will have answers, and the Dreaming will give them to her.

For all that, even the fact she is something of psyche shattering magnitude and arguably destined to die, Unity’s story has a happy ending. When she miraculously awakes along with the few remaining sleepers, she finds herself with a family fortune she could never conceive of and a daughter. Grandchildren, even!

It takes a long time, but it comes out alright in the end.

But back in her own time her best friend looks down at her almost lifeless body, then at his own face in the mirror and knows with primal certainty that this is his fault. What’s in his blood, the very stones of Gotham. This is Equestria’s punishment for thinking he was anything else. How could he ever have thought something like him deserved friends? But he might still have purpose…

He studies harder and harder, eventually using his family’s construction business as a way to peruse architecture. He knows it’s the only way. He will use the art of the past to pull the city into a glorious, perfect future. A city where greed will have no place and where nopony will lose anypony. Ever.

By the time Stygius is old enough to succeed his late father he has the exact style, a city of sketches, enough to fill a small Canterlot granary.

Harsh, rigid angles to focus the will, curves showing the willing the path to absolution. Nooks for the weary to rest on this journey, with nave like squares where the citizens can gather. Presbytery style offices so the city leaders can have solitude and think of ways to make the city even better. Tall, eternal towers so the righteous of Gotham can look down at the perfidy below and vow to never let it drag them down, and so those trapped below can look up at those same towers and know they can begin the long climb to salvation!

And statues, yes, statues everywhere. Figures to aspire to and as a warning of what’s coming for you if you don’t…

His Gotham. This will work. It has to.

All he needs is trivial things, like money and, oh confound it all, planning permission.

Despite her role in Belfry’s fervour, Unity isn’t the second figure in the story of ‘Old Gotham’. His eventual benefactor is.

***

While there’s only about four of them really left in present day Gotham, the families founded by coalitions of fed-up mainland workers would produce several influential heirs even before Celestia granted them peerages, which arguably made them what they originally rose up against and would inform what certain of their descendants got up to, but hindsight across centuries is only 20/20 if you’re immortal or cramming for a history thesis.

One of the strongest of these families is the Skein clan, named after their ranger/rancher ancestors who used their mutual skills with ropes against everything from stampedes to assassins.

Some say Princess Celestia was also sneakily acknowledging their greatest trait when she granted them the name; while prone to forming strong bonds and being incredibly stubborn about them, the proto-Skeins were also sensibly flexible in just about everything else, a lot of their influence coming from not only saving other mainland workers but acting as mediators when disputes broke out between their neighbours.

As a result of this and good old fashioned Equestrian naming conventions, words relating to strength, bonds and even literal ropes have always featured in the family, and our other star Judge Solstice “Stoneface” Strapper was no exception. You can probably infer what kind of a judge he was from that nickname, but this is a story partly about why he was like that and why, in turn, Gotham is like this.

The eldest of four siblings born to his century’s version of the clan, Solstice was made keenly aware how much his family owed Princess Celestia, but what stuck with him from those stories was what the Gotham of over a hundred years ago was like. He came to see it as a divine duty to make sure the city, and Equestria itself, would never fall that far again. So he became one of the most devoted judges Gotham would ever see.

And by devoted, we mean he carried out sentences of such pious magnitude that even the Spectre itself would drift through a wall in the middle of sentencing and go, “Oh I say, hang on!”

Pleas bounced off old Stoneface as if he’d come from Krypton. For every technicality a defence or prosecution sited he’d have a ruthlessly exact wording of the law, often with corrections. The most lenient sentence Judge Strapper is on record passing was a year long stay at a labour camp for both parties, because their dispute, which had descended into hoovesticuffs, took place on New Year’s.

His own class hated him because of how often they wound up in his dock and Judge Strapper cared about this about as much as he cared what became of his beard trimmings, but it weighed on him that he saw a more genuine…hurt in the common ponies. Didn’t they understand he was doing this for them?

Eventually even his commitment to the law offered less solace; Strapper knew intimately how truly terrible members of his circle could be, unworthy to polish Celesita’s shoes some of them, but the law was the law. For every wealthy offender he sentenced there were scores of working class, even destitute ponies whom he sentenced on his peers’ behalf.

So while his namesake never visibly wavered, old Stoneface was in need of a bit of a boost when a nervous young Unicorn approached him over a planning dispute. Mr. Stygius Belfry wanted quite a lot of land, central islands land, to build…well, it’s hard to explain, perhaps he could show your honour some samples?

***

The end of Stygius Belfry and Judge Strapper’s partnership is not a happy one.

Inspired by the idea of a city architecturally devoted to purity (and yes, the word in that context should make you uncomfortable), Strapper fought to turn as much of the islands and the mainland into Belfry’s vision as possible, which is why most of urban Gotham has at least two Belfry-style districts with all those signature pointy bits and gargoyles.

There were problems almost immediately. While Strapper was able to whip up plenty of support among fellow ‘right-thinking’ gentry, just as many of their peers refused to sell any land to this preposterous whatever-it-was. Some of it was old money grudges against Strapper’s family or the judge himself, others just didn’t want anything to do with the undertaking.

By the end of negotiations the partners had approximately half of Miagani island, a large mainland area that would become Seagate, and a scattered assortment of lots on the other islands to work with. The first of the new districts was appropriately named Fürst, both in honour of the new beginning it was to herald and Stygius Belfry’s most treasured architectural mentor.

Almost every problem Fürst created in its year long construction was mirrored in the other would-be districts. Most common was scale, as Belfry’s designs centred around intricate connections between structures, meaning a single mistake could cause weeks of delay. More to the point, the higher the new buildings grew the more difficult it was to go back and correct any mistakes later, and builders were constantly running into new ones as each floor was completed.

Those that survived, that is.

By the end of the third month farmers and weather workers were complaining about how these half-completed towers interfered with light. Stygius was embarrassed to admit he’d overlooked this, designing for solitude more than any other atmospheric concern. A hasty solution was to cease construction of walkways, repurposing their doorways as windows. It mostly worked but did give an incomplete look to the district.

Some upper floors flooded when it rained because of this, which was to be the least of their problems. Gotham was a city and cities are almost always in motion. In addition to old rivalries preventing Judge Strapper’s project having as much room as it probably needed, the new Belfrey districts were surrounded by roads and ponies who needed to use them.

Different construction projects didn’t stop even for Skein dynasty money, either. By the time they’d finished construction of Penitence’s isolated square it was technically next to one of Gotham’s busiest thoroughfares, right outside a wagon repair shop that would eventually become the first Terminus bus depot.

They couldn’t even finish expanding the main street of the Jubilee district because their rights to that land expired and another party brought it to make a new magic school. The complaints about this led other magic quarters like Selene’s Stable to erect high walls, not like the Stable’s blast shields but for fear of being torn down. And ordinary citizens needed somewhere to live too and weren’t about to give up their neighbourhoods.

Belfry and Strapper hadn’t even intended to ask for such a thing, but then they didn’t intend to turn the north side of Miagani, Gotham’s city centre, into an odd-angled mess who’s roads are still impossible to map to any kind of grid to this day and it still happened. Similar problems, partly caused by the city giving up and just building around the districts, meant many builders left to find other work, founding almost every residential neighbourhood on Narrowborough island.

Belfry vanished in mysterious circumstances not long after and, naturally, the money ran out. The incomplete structures were hastily finished by outside Unicorn artisans or bought by Strapper’s rivals for the purpose of gloating. The elderly judge was often found at the family castle’s highest turret, gazing pitifully out at the jagged skyline that was supposed to represent the greatest Equestrian virtues.

It probably says everything about how awry his and Belfry’s plans went that to cover the insane costs of the endeavour he was forced to sell the commissioned statues that would remind ponies of vice and virtue. Almost all the ‘virtuous’ statues found their way into other structures or mostly private collections. Nopony wanted the gargoyles.

Some say Twilight Sparkle with the help of Batpony, Allen Scout and the demon Etrigan was able to free the tortured ghost of Stygian Belfry from one of the most squalid neighbourhoods in Gotham, ironically meant to be his own private sanctuary. She will neither confirm nor deny this. It would be nice to think it’s true.

***

So that’s why Gotham looks like that! And why Cathedral Square market looks like it does.

Cathedral Square was originally designed to be Belfry’s masterpiece, the biggest cathedral of it’s time with a square right outside for all those saved ponies to gather. (Which raises the interesting question whether or not Belfry and the judge thought Gotham’s non-pony population deserved saving.)

As with many of the custom designs this required extensive digging for a foundation, resulting in what was basically a large rectangular hole in the street, intended to be the basement level. This is why there are so many convenient staircases down into the space, those in the middle leading up to the triforium that was part of the under-construction front door and which became referred to as the Triforium, with a fancy upper case T.

As we discussed extensively Belfry’s plan fell through, leaving Gotham with a gaping concrete depression in what was going to be one of its biggest public squares, which ironically had been completed. Wonderful engravings, too. Lots of sun and angel imagery.

A more sensibly proportioned cathedral was commissioned and built across the square, charitably designed to face the Triforium for a mirroring effect that could almost trick you into thinking the hole, which nopony knew what to do with and was too big to be filled in immediately, was intentional.

While these ancient, overdesigned, gargoyle infested parts of Gotham are still a problem modern Gothamites have made the best of it, even occasionally managing to knock a usable thoroughfare through one of the deserted chambers. The Cathedral Square Market is one of their greatest triumphs over Gotham’s oppressive, well, gothic atmosphere.

Since nopony other than bored teenagers and thieves trying to outrun the guard ever passed through the space, yet the square itself had several visitors, and there technically wasn’t any law saying they couldn’t, a nervous couple set up a food cart in it. They made sure to have plenty of colourful banners to attract curious glances from passers-by and what the hay, they could always sell something to the guards whether they caught a thief or not, right?

Other sellers followed and a few years later Gotham was happy to grant the space a licence. (Without being bribed, even!) Now the market is a bustling institution unto itself full of anything and everything for sale, except what they offer up in Jezebel Plaza, wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

This is where Rarity has set up her friendship advice stall, on one of several platforms made from bits of half completed upper floor, and where Rainbow Dash is racing to meet up with her so they can figure out why they’re even here.

This is also where Salford Stalworth is staring at Rarity, wondering what the devil he’s going to tell his employer now that she’s back in town. In a few minutes this is also where detectives Rubí Montoya and Heavy Bulwark are going to crash down while pursuing Sirius ‘Business’ Invictus.

Gotham. You’ve gotta love it.

“♫Friendship adviiiice,♫” Rarity called again, although there was a sign in it now.

She turned her still cupped chin so she could cast an Eyorish look over the rest of the market. Full of creatures from most stripes of east coast Equestrian life, selling, haggling, browsing, doing something suspicious by the bins she hoped was just some kind of exchange of hooky gear rather than a, uh, hook up…

She let out a yelp as a cyan face dropped upside down into her vision. At least some Gothamites were looking up at her now.

“So how many people’ve hit on ya so far?” Rainbow Dash asked with an upside down smirk.

“Don’t start,” Rarity warned.

A dull rapping noise as Dash knocked on the marquee. “We keep telling you, it’s gonna give folks ideas.”

“Not at this rate it isn’t,” Rarity sighed.

“Fish ain’t biting?”

“Don’t even know we’re on the menu.” Rarity glared out at the undulating carnival throng spread before them, but it didn’t last. It was so Gotham, the part most of Equestria refused to see. “Talking of menus, did you…?”

She levitated a shopping bag from behind her table. Dash flipped off the awning, perched on some safety railings to tap her own bag before springing down to the stone.

“So we shan’t starve, at least.”

Rarity looked around. Other than an unattended council kiosk full of tourist pamphlets and a stand offering yolks that could have your name embroidered on with shiny plastic beads, the owner’s hind legs up on the desk as they read this week’s New Frontiers, they were alone.

“Maybe it’s how high up we are. These upper bits don’t get as much action, but it was the only free space…”

“Or maybe it’s ’cause they know they can get what they think you’re offering after dark up in Jezebel Plaza,” Dash countered, leaning against the table. Gotta meet that cool pose quota.

“It’s Jubilee Plaza, darling.”

“Yeah, and nopony calls it that ’cause of what they use it for.” Dash leaned closer, raising an impish eyebrow. “Oooh, is that lil’ blush ’cause you know what they use it for?!”

“You know what’s going to give folks ideas, darling?” Rarity countered, hating that her cheeks had briefly reddened and how her coat meant that would show up more than it should. She leaned towards her friend, lowering her voice. “The two of us. Looking like this. While you. Lounge. Like. That.”

She finished by fluttering her eyelashes and cracked up as Dash tried to turn a guilty recoiling into assuming an anime forelegs folded pose. Dash lost it as well, too caught off guard and too respecting of Rarity’s own game to be mad. Their unconscious dynamic at its finest.

They settled and looked out at the city again, Rarity seeing the Gotham she remembered from her apprenticeship, all moving life against the scale of the concrete and steel, almost in defiance of it, Dash a take-no-bull people she could respect because they’d been born into Equestria’s darkest urban jungle and managed to force it into a legit cool place to live. During the day, at least.

And both of them were thinking ahead to early evening, when the winds would be higher and all these stands would be gone with only a few wanderers trying to drag out the day walking around looking at nothing. When Luna’s moon would finally be up all of Cathedral Square would be vast and empty and lit only by starlight off dank puddles, covered in long shadows from spires backlit by a red sky.

A gaping concrete moon crater, with only distant dog barks, breaking glass and the occasional screaming of sirens from blocks away to suggest there was still life going on outside it.

“Did your, uh, contacts--” Rarity began.

“Over in Infantino? Nah, all moved on forever ago. There’s one left, got themselves a fancy lil’ walk-up, actually.”

“That’s nice?”

“Not for us it’s not, the lazy bum’s off on a fishing trip!”

“Where?”

“All the way over in Fawcett County!”

Dash could’ve probably made the flight in under four hours back and forth if she’d gone sub-Rainboom, but it’d be a lot of effort to track down somepony who might not even know anything. The only landmarks she really knew up there were the county’s famous Rainbow Falls, its biggest city named after the county with its own menagerie of magical defenders, and a Wonderbolts fastness in the nearby mountains.

She doubted good old Bean ‘-Everywhere’ Counter was gonna sack out at the other two, and she was pretty sure it was illegal (if not downright suicidal) to eat any kinda fish that could survive being in a liquid rainbow.

“Where did you say your other ones were?” Rarity tried.

“Little Odessa, and no way.” Dash waved irritably in the general direction she’d come from without turning around. “Even if I felt like trekking halfway to the bowery to find ’em, most of the island’s backed up.”

“Yes, I’d heard that too,” Rarity mused, looking out at the crowds crossing the square.

“Oh c’mon.”

“Hmm?”

“Rarity, we’re Elements of Harmony. We kick tails and flick manes. An ancient empire’s missing: we find it. Some old legend decides to come true: we write it’s ending! We live next door to the Everfree Forrest and the Justice League asks for permission to play in our yard.”

Dash, who’d drifted further off the stones with each part of her rant, slammed her hooves down on the table so she could lean in close.

“So whatever the map sent us down here to do, it wasn’t to play meter mares!”

“And I didn’t say it did, darling,” Rarity countered leaning in. “I was thinking how much of a pain it’s going to be getting around if the sky trams are out of order as well! À bon chat, bon rat as our signature styles might be I don’t think you carrying me everywhere is going to be a good look.”

“Oh yeah?! Well I say—”

Dash somehow managed to lean even further in, forcing Rarity to back up a bit, and lowered her voice. “—that there’s somepony checking you out.”

“Don’t start that again!” Rarity snapped, although she’d instinctively matched Rainbow’s tone. “That one mare was simply conducting a survey, even if yes, there was somewhat of a misunderstanding regarding what I meant by friendship advi--”

“First,” Dash overruled, “not like that, second, that’s hilarious. Two creeps in black. Clocked ’em earlier but didn’t realise ’til now.”

“Ah,” Rarity acknowledged, conjuring her compact.

***

Rainbow’s in-flight awareness had come in useful a time or two but it wasn’t something the Elements could game and, helping with exams aside, all agreed it would be creepy if they could.

As far as Rarity could understand it there was “obvious” stuff a flyer could pick up, like somepony diving into a bush with two other ponies coming from either end of a path. Pretty obvious what was going on in that scenario even if bush-pony wasn’t packing flowers and candy, but stuff like that helped.

Or, say there’s a festival. There’s a food cart, there’s a row of porta-potties, here come a bunch of ponies running at high speed towards them. There’s a bunch of carts crammed into the same spot a couple streets up, bunch of waiting lines outside them, and all the ponies behind on the grills are wearing hats and aprons.

If the guy on the first cart looks bored and isn’t decked out for health and safety, not even a uniform to go with his cart, then what you’ve probably got is some opportunist selling expired whatever so he can ditch a surplus and score some cash from this festival, which is why he’s made sure to be well away from the legit chefs, where he’s more likely to get spotted by hungry rubes first and also avoid any rent-a-cops. Bonus points if you spot a taped off food processing plant in the vicinity.

Height helped too, allowing Dash’s awareness to take in different parts of a tubule and connect them. Her avian eyesight, on par with Fluttershy’s own ability to zoom in on different wounds and spot abrasions even under an animal’s coat, helped her pick up details to add to the process. Apparently both their eyes automatically zoomed in on any motion from a distance, one of several things a Pegasus’ body instinctively did in preparation for a potential adjustment.

Rarity wouldn’t change anything…well, at least not permanently, about her friend but did sometimes wonder if part of Dash’s impulsiveness came from how automatic these ‘adjustments’ were. Magic could be like that too, something you did because you did it. The result in this case being Rainbow spent a lot of time walking around knowing things she didn’t realise she knew. Maybe even acting on it, then having to go back a few steps because what she was preparing for wouldn’t happen now, because she’d prepared for it but hadn’t realised she had. And what if it wasn’t cool, why should she bother remembering it?

And a million other rotations down that rabbit hole. Rarity could understand why Dash would prefer just to do things, thinking like this was like digging in quicksand.

On certain occasions they’d used mesmerism to aid Dash’s recall, but she didn’t like experiencing her memories that way and Twilight hadn’t liked doing it, point blank refusing to use any kind of magic for such an effect beyond perhaps mild sedation in preparing a trance.

The second time they’d tried it, Applejack had stopped Rarity from investigating their hotel room for what she was certain had been the sound of the Pegasus vomiting. Apparently: “She needs to climb back into the saddle on her own or she’ll hate tonight that much more.”

The most successful instance of…Rarity wasn’t even sure what you’d call it, they’d never come up with a name…had been with the telepathic Martian Mindhunter. Dash had sprung to her hooves shuddering after waking up, but she didn’t seem to resent the Mindhunter reaching into her mind and beaming a replay of the case into her friends’ own. Then again, you had to be a member of the Legion of Doom to dislike that charming Mr. J’ozz!

Her constant sniping about this particular city aside, one of Rainbow Dash’s favourite things to do when visiting urban Equestria was to watch construction sites or train stations. She liked being able to watch all that motion going on at once. Figures that would be one of the few ways to get her to sit still.

Rainbow Dash might overshoot a lot of things but she wouldn’t bother doubling back if she didn’t think it was important. So Rarity didn’t ask any pointless questions like, “What are you talking about?” or, “Are you sure?” She just flicked open her compact and began making sure they weren’t about to be jumped by the mob.

***

“Where?” Rarity asked quietly, making a show of checking her makeup. (Which was still holding up splendidly.)

“On the right.” Dash stretched, flapping her right wing harder than the other. “By the tacky stall. One of ’em climbed the railings, the others probably still down there.”

Rarity half turned to angle her mirror properly. “♫Tra-la-la-la, I am aging like a fine wine, which incidentally I have a decently hefty bottle of amongst my shopping, dooby-doobidy-dooo…♫”

“Cool.” Dash was making a show of admiring her right wingtips to hide her left foreleg digging into her own groceries. “You good for the old guy if I take the cat? I mean, I could do both if you wanna asks the questions all casual like.”

“Old guy…?”

Rarity squinted into her mirror, glow wavering around her horn from confusion.

An old Gothamite? She knew she’d rubbed enough the wrong way all those years ago but she was sure most were either in jail or, well, dead. And a cat? There had been that feisty filly with the shifty eyes but nopony who’d shown her the shelter where she’d found Opalescence could be all bad! Who’d…?

Ah ha! There was the shifty bugger, trying to peek at them from around the yoke stall now the proprietor had adjourned somewhere else. She saw what Rainbow meant now from a confused olive green furred and silver haired face bobbing up and down uncertainly between the railings: cat as in the bipedal variety.

Not as many people had sent hired hooves after the Elements of Harmony as you may think but that bobbing, the indecisive flitting of it, was what made Rarity hesitate. Would-be kidnappers wouldn’t be such…nerds about it even in Gotham, home of every overachieving niche neurotic that wasn’t cluttering up Metropolis.

Alright, so Twilight used to TA for the Riddler’s class, but they hadn’t even known they were coming to the Red Sky City until their hips started flashing, how would he?

Then she saw the moustache and felt like the hole puncher of the gods had just thunder-clapped two nice, neat simultaneous holes in the A4 liability waver of her soul.

***

“On three,” Rainbow whispered, finally getting a grip on something heavy.

“Salford?”

“Say what?” Dash blinked.

“Salford?” Rarity called, whipping around. Her compact clattered off the stone, sliding back into its holding dimension even as it began to descend from rebounding.

Dash flapped backwards, startled as Rarity vaulted over her stall, galloping to her neighbour.

A beat.

Then, trying to adjust his jacket over his sensible black suit and removing his hat, an oxblood coated Unicorn stepped out from behind the stall with the air of a general who’s just watched the last of his forces trip and literally fall on their swords but has decided, even in surrender, that he’ll keep up appearances if you will.

“Ms. Belle,” he said in a warm twang Dash could understand just fine but instinctively knew she didn’t have a hope of placing.

“Salford Stalworth, you old dear!”

Rarity laughed the near shriek of the truly childlike delighted, throwing her forelegs around the older Unicorn hard enough to almost bowl him over with her sudden weight, although he was spontaneously chuckling along and patting her back.

His cornflower blue eyes sparkled with…something or other, Dash wasn’t good at articulating mushy stuff. His hair might’ve been blue once too, probably a nice shade’a navy. It was mostly various paler blues shading to silver now, lined with a few nice strands of that navy. His moustache was one of those nice comb shaped numbers and was the reverse of his hair, a few neat silver flecks against a faded navy mass.

Dash’s first impression woulda been…Well, her first impression was ‘What-The-What?’ and fluctuated through various stages from ‘Accent coach?’ to ‘Gay older mentor?’

Salford’s moustache gave her something to focus on, as other than being a nice piece of face work it also reminded her of some of the less stuffy Wonderbolt vets who’d drop by the academy and teach everything from parade manoeuvres to stripping a siege-cloud. In mid-air, even!

Now that Rarity had let him go and he was on his hooves Dash could better make out Salford’s build. Yeah, that might be it. Ex-E.U.P. Too old to still be in service but she wouldn’t be surprised if there was a sword in that cane. One of the Badlands conflicts, maybe?

Oop, he was looking at her looking at him now.

“Afternoon, ma’am.”

“Yo,” Dash settled.

“Oh, what am I doing?” Rarity chided herself, waving in the Pegasus’ direction. “This is my friend Rainbow Dash, Element of…No, I’m doing this the wrong way around, aren’t I? Darling, this is Salford Stalworth, the best…um, in Gotham!”

Dash raised an eyebrow. “We related?”

“I don’t believe so,” Salford said carefully.

“Then I got my doubts about best but hey, any friend of Rarity’s…” She held out a hoof, smiling as he shook and glad he didn’t, like, try to kiss it or something.

“A privilege, I’m sure,” the old man said, with just enough of a cheeky wee so and so in his polite smile to make Dash decide, yeah, he might be Gotham but he was her kinda Gotham. Even his fancy accent was the right kinda fancy, cool Celestia-Luna kinda fancy.

“Do you still…?” Rarity was awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck. “It’s just that I saw in the paper, he sold the castle? So I wasn’t sure if you still…?”

“I still buttle, yes, miss,” Salford smiled, nodding, even adjusting his lapels with low key pride.

Rarity cut off the instant burst of Dashian laughter with a smile like a porcelain doll and elbow to the ribs like a Yakistanian bar fighter.

“Can I come up now?” the cat complained from the stairwell.

“If you must,” Salford called over his shoulder without turning around. “Please allow me to introduce my long-time friend and colleague, Mr. Homberg.”

“You, ah, buttle too?” Dash asked, shaking the cat’s paw after Rarity was done.

“For my sins,” Homberg smirked back at her. His eyes were cheekier than Salford’s smile, so she decided to only trust him so far. Felt like he’d respect that kind of consideration.

“And what’re those?”

“Coming to Gotham, mostly,” Homberg said, selling it with a wink as she laughed. “Listen, I would simply hate to break up what appears to be a reunion and I’ve been trying to find a polite way to inquire into this stall–” he waved at it “–so if m’colleague wouldn’t mind I would like to extend you ladies an invitation to join us for lunch at the Clàr Mòr.”

“Oh, we couldn’t possibly--” Rarity began on instinct.

“Refuse such a generous offer,” Dash overruled, in need of a hay burger and dessert even if they would probably be those whimpy kinds that came on square plates. She could always order seconds and it’s not like two butlers weren’t gonna insist on going halfsies on the bill.

“Fine, fine,” Rarity sighed, although she smiled genuinely at Salford, “let me just pack up my--”

A shadow tumbled out of the sky, breaking into two shadows as one of them used kicking the other to both break apart and land paws first on top of an airduct running just above them, while its opponent crashed down through the:

“Stall…” Rarity finished distantly.

***

One second, Montoya was galloping through a sky cart lounge, one of the cheap ones on the Cathedral line, hurling herself off a table to grab at Sirius’ back as he and Heavy grappled for the Celestia knows-teenth time.

The next, wind was stinging her eyes and Heavy was gone. There’d been a ledge they’d gone over at some point.

“Off!” roared the Diamond Dog. He might be declawed but that didn’t mean feeling his grasping fingers sandpapering their way over her forehead and horn was any fun.

“Maybe if you calm--” Montoya’s view past his ear began to tilt from taupe sky with blue on the horizon, past blurred cathedral spires and a way-way-way too detailed top-down view of colourful market awnings.

“DOW-OW-OWN!” Montoya squawked, horn flaring as gravity grabbed her stomach.

She didn’t love or hate teleporting beyond getting the creeps from that kind of nothing feeling in her mouth after a long range one, but it was a useful field spell once you got the hang of it. Montoya was glad she’d taken the commander’s advice and stuck with it in boot camp, because it meant that when Sirius’ weight finally did tip him over it was into someone’s stall instead of two stories up and another story to the bottom of the market’s stone floor.

Sirius doubled over, gagging from the shock of momentum stopped that suddenly by a trip through un-space, and right now Montoya needed every advantage she could get.

She hammered the rottweiler’s ears with the flats of her hooves once-twice-three times! If she could keep him disorientated, even get him to fall over--

“Leave me alone!” Sirius bellowed, turning a pained droop into a forward charge, crashing through the remains of the stall and scattering ponies.

As they began to whirl in circles, Montoya caught flashes of the Triforium between the carnival blur of stall awnings. Bad enough they’d chased a suspect all the way from Ranelagh across the river, now she was riding a suspect who they’d only get on assaulting an officer through one of the most beloved institutions in central Gotham.

Maybe the commander would let her keep her jacket at least, if she asked nice enough.

With nothing to lose except the structural integrity of every bone in her body, Montoya focused her body’s bio-magical field into the one coming out of her forehead and loosed a pulse bolt into the Diamond Dog’s head. The cry of pain nearly blew out her ear drums.

“HEY!”

Montoya blinked as she spun towards the voice. It reminded her so much of school yard scuffles back in Burnley that she wondered if they’d spun so fast she’d been shot back to her foalhood…

She wondered why she saw the flash of colour before she felt anything.

It was because Rainbow Dash headbutted her off Sirius so fast her nervous system needed a second to catch up.

“He said leave him alone,” Rainbow Dash quipped, having knocked Montoya not just off her opponent but out of the narrative driving seat. She flapped above the gasping Diamond Dog. “You okay, buddy?”

“I got hit by a cart…” He sounded too woozy and self-pitying to be talking to her.

“…for real?” Dash blinked. “That’s awesome!”

“Ms. Rainbow!”

It took her vital seconds to realise the unfamiliar cry using her name was Salford shouting a warning as a slab of something in a suit launched itself from the stairs she’d just used for the same purpose. Coming for the dog dude!

Dash pulled back her right foreleg for an open-pad strike, flaring her wings hard to snap the air in front of her and pull this runaway freight train up short. She half succeeded as her new sparring partner flared his own wings to counter her air jet, cancelling it even as it forced him to drop.

It wasn’t just the surprise of the other pony knowing what he was doing that stopped her mid-dive towards his head, it was the size of his wings and the fact she knew who this must be even through her BRING IT haze.

“Heavy?!”

“…kid?”

Dash stared into her own reflection in those big ol’ ball bearing eyes.

It made total sense to run into him here, this was his home turf and all, but…So much between them. A mutual something or other forged out of only knowing each other from nothing good. She wasn’t even really sure they liked each other, there was just so much around them they both equally hated.

Worse things to look for in a handler.

…what was that shadow behind her reflection in Heavy’s ey–?

Bulwark’s meaty hooves gripped her shoulders, spinning them around so he could get her out of the way as Sirius’ fist barrelled towards them. He still managed to keep his grip on her even as the blow caught him in the side, meaning he carried her with him as he sailed back almost to the foot of the stairs they’d come from.

Later Dash would congratulate herself for building up all that endurance with all those craters, because she was pretty sure that was the only reason her ribs could take the impact and not break.

Snarling and wheezing, wild eyed, Sirius lurched clumsily towards the two stunned ponies. Only the fact the smaller blue one had tried to help made him hesitate. It might have been enough to snap him out of it, but we’ll never know.

“Oi!” Rarity cried, galloping towards him, her bottle of wine levitating beside her. She sprang off the middle of the steps, sailing over the bewildered Rottweiler’s head to come to an Akira slide halt behind him.

“That was my stall, you…you…you shabbaroon!”

Sirius blinked, utterly unable to process anything as she began to telekinetically shake her wine bottle, also violently jerking her head to the side.

A shadow and a snapping, flapping fabric sound! Right behind him!

Sirius spun, paralyzed by the instinctive fear of Gotham’s ultimate boogey-pony that lived in the heart of almost every hood, and took what was simply the torn awning from the tacky yolk stall to the face.

As he thrashed, trying to shred his way out of the engulfing dust and old paint reeking folds, Rarity finally managed to pop the cork of her bottle and telekinetically sloshed a generous measure around the Diamond Dog’s scrabbling feet.

Already off balance Sirius slipped in the sudden puddle, tumbling into an uncontrollable skid through a stall selling metal goods, enough of which hit him hard enough to flip him completely over into a roll, which carried him with cosmic irony through another stall selling homeopathic headache remedies and ended with a hard slam into one of the market’s port-a-potties. It rocked from Sirius’ weight enough to both swing its door shut and tip the whole thing onto it’s front.

The click of its lock somehow carried over all the yelling.

***

Rarity tossed her mane, her contribution to the universal That’s-What-You-Get body language, before the spell broke and she realised where she was. A small riot in the middle of one of Gotham’s most charmingly bohemian institutions. That she may not have started but had certainly made a fair contribution to.

She looked up at Salford and Homberg who were frozen halfway down the stairwell, staring at her. Gads, what they must think of her…

She realised she was still levitating the wine bottle at a titled angle, splashing the cobbles with something just dark and red enough to be mistaken for something else, and self consciously righted it. The pool around her hooves, complete with an accusatory streak all the way to the overturned potty, continued to spread.

Rarity looked up as the heavy-set Pegasus in the manky trench coat made his way carefully towards her, carrying a recovering Rainbow Dash over his shoulder in a firepony’s carry.

“I’m gonna need’ja both to come with me, lady,” he said, voice hoarse, probably from a lot of macho yelling.

“Now see here–!” Rarity’s narrowing eyes flicked all over his disgraceful coat, his even worse hat, and settled on a badge icon on the inside of his right lapel. “…officer, we are simply guests in your fine city--”

“He’s cool,” Dash groaned, still slumped over the bulkier Pegasus’ shoulder. “Did we win?”

“Uh…” Rarity looked at the chaos of the market. A few hooves were being pointed in their direction, those that weren’t digging through broken timbers or thrown in torment to the heavens. “Kind of, darling, kind of.”

“Sweet. Bulwark, just a heads up, if I throw up on ya it’s nothin’ personal.”

“Oh you wanna get personal?!”

Montoya half limped, half stormed towards them, covered in produce shrapnel and jamming her flattened cap back on.

“Rubí,” Bulwark began, holding up a hoof.

“This another source, Heavy? No? Then don’t.”

Montoya pointed to Rarity. “Interfering with an arrest!” Then to Dash who’d worked up enough energy to crack one eye open for glaring back. “And assaulting an officer!”

“Love tap,” Dash wheezed. “You want assault wait ’til I get feelin’ back in at least one foreleg…”

Rarity slid between them, smiling the way she did when she noticed Pinkie Pie unattended with a pair of her scissors. “And my, aha-ha-ha, dedicated friend in the civil service here will be delighted to produce her Wonderbolt licence!”

Montoya squinted at what stuck her as the limp lovechild of a lava lamp and a certain tacky rug from her moonchild aunt’s apartment. “That’s a Wonderbolt?”

Rainbow Dash vampire hissed at her for lack of any upwardly mobile option.

“Wait,” Bulwark said, turning his battering ram face to Dash on his shoulder. “You made full ’Bolt?”

Rarity blinked. She shouldn’t be surprised Rainbow knew ponies in the G.E.U.P., in several contexts, but was that a sheepish smile on her darling’s face or was a concussion just catching up with her?

Montoya took a breath. “Alright then. If you’re legit then grab this licence and we can maybe--”

“That is HER, officers!”

They all except for a resigned Rainbow whipped their heads up to the Triforium’s staircase. A filly in a full grown mare’s body was pointing an accusatory hoof at Dash, flanked by a group of beat guards looking like they wished their helmets came with some kind of noise cancelling feature.

“That is the one who threatened me with extra-juicy murder!” the mare-child shrieked. Some of the remaining crowds oooooh-ed at this intriguing twist.

“Get me outta here before I actually do it,” Dash grunted at Bulwark.

“We were gonna take both of ya down the station anyway,” the detective confided.

Dash perked up slightly as he began to plod towards another exit, still carrying her. “Cool, you guys still do those lil’ marshmallows in the coco?”

“Don’t push your luck, kid.”

“Both of us?!” Rarity protested.

She followed Montoya’s gaze down to the puddle of wine then over to the overturned potty, which echoed with groans from inside.

“You follow us now, it’ll…” Montoya hesitated, registering that stunning white coat, that amazing hair and the look of uncertainty in those true-blue eyes, but duty was duty. She cleared her throat. “Hem-hem, it’ll be just taking a statement.”

“That’s not too bad I suppose,” Rarity agreed. She turned at an approaching shadow, expecting Salford. And finding a different crop of beat guards, who didn’t look too proud to be doing this particular duty.

“’Scuse me ma’am,” said the apparent leader in one of those delightful slight Stallidonian accents. “Is this yours?”

He held up the two cracked halves of her advice stall marquee, carefully accordioning them together so the rather scuffed heart logo was visible. It still had a big old thunderbolt crack down the middle, though.

“Why yes, officer, thank you, you’re a lamb!” Rarity attempted to telekinetically take it. And was confused when the officer didn’t let go.

“I’m afraid in that case we shall have to ask you to accompany us to the station, ma’am.”

“Whatever for?”

“We’ve had complaints.” The guard cleared his throat. Was he blushing? “This is Cathedral Square, ma’am. Not Jezebel Plaza.”

A beat.

Montoya had no idea what she was currently standing in but she knew it wasn’t…that. She could hear Bulwark barking orders to get a cart for Sirius no matter how bad the roads were and decided the other out-of-towner, the one who didn’t have a forehead that moved as fast as her mouth, deserved to have this little detail left out of the report to the commander. The one she and Heavy were really gonna have to sell if they wanted to have jobs tomorrow.

“I’ll take it from here, corporal,” she said, carefully putting her hoof on the other Unicorn’s shoulder, more in the manner of leading a cart crash victim to a nice patch of grass to sit on than a walk of shame.

Rarity looked at her then gave a wobbly, slight smile of a sort of gratitude. The leader saluted and began leading his squad to join the effort to hoist Sirius’ makeshift cell somewhere useful and clear the rubberneckers, who’d heard there was a mare of negotiable affection involved now and were on tenterhooks!

“Officer,” Salford said quickly, trotting alongside as they began to head after Bulwark, “I represent Sir. Bruce Rein--”

“Oh Salford, please don’t,” Rarity said, far too quickly and hoping that didn’t give the detective any ideas involving basements and ripped nightdresses and…what all!

“Thought I recognized you,” Montoya said, not looking at the butler. “This is complicated enough Mr. Stalworth, I gotta go with the lady. No offence to Mr. Rein but we’ve got enough citizens in the way of G.E.U.P. business here as is.”

“I only meant, ah, in the matter of bail…” Salford had to slow down, both to catch his breath and avoid tripping over his own cane.

“Give it a few hours, sir,” Montoya said after giving him a once over. “Miss, ah…?”

“Oh, B-Belle, officer, Rarity Belle. My friend is Rainbow Dash, you’ll find her in the Wonderbolt reserves records I’m sure!”

“Right. Thanks for co-operating.” Montoya indicated the stairway up out of the market pit.

“Ms. Belle, if you’ll just hold on for a bit,” Salford insisted as they began to climb, “there’s a bank around here I'm sure, and I know how things went but I’m certain Mr. Rein would want to…well.”

Montoya turned as she sensed Rarity slowing to stop, but she also sensed the other Unicorn wasn’t about to make a break for it or anything like that. Poor thing suddenly didn’t look as if she had the energy for much.

“Alright,” Rarity sighed, turning to look the older Uniron in the eye. “If you must, then tell Bruce…tell him this still doesn’t change things. I’m sorry but there it is.”

A beat. Then Salford just nodded carefully.

Montoya waited until Rarity had trudged past her on the stairs before tipping her cap to the butler and heading up after her. Homberg walked over from where he’d been hovering to look around at the devastated market, his suddenly grim old friend and up after the strange young mare’s who’d just entangled themselves in a G.E.U.P. chase and downed a mad Diamond Dog in a portable bathroom. And it was still only lunchtime.

“I have to send some very expedient semaphore messages,” Salford said with sudden determination but an apology in his voice. His eyes never left the shrinking foursome heading for the streets of Gotham.

“I’ll save you a table,” Homberg agreed.

“You’re a pal, Bergers.”

“Oh, not at all,” Homberg said as they both began to climb up towards the Triforium. “Dashed nice people, I thought.”

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes:

CHECKLIST:

'Tricks you into thinking it's civilised' paraphrased from, of course, Frank Miller and David Mazzucchellie's Batman: Year One.
Dash's oh so complimentary description borrowed from Warren Ellis' Batman/Planetary.
Luna's realtor is Abel , keeper of the House of Secrets, master story teller, a true gentleman, and frequent fratricide victim.
"The Destrier" is a poyfied version of Carmine "The Roman" Falcone
Montoya's history with Two Face is a lose adaptation of the Gotham Central storyline Half a Life, from Gotham Central #5 to #10 (the Binary Brothers exist only for the purposes of this story and do not appear anywhere in the DCU)
Warriors is a superhero catering, primarily Green Lantern themed bar owned by capricious fan favourite Lantern Guy Gardner.
The history of Gotham's unique architecture is a loose, ponyfied adaption of The Destroyer storyline, spread across Batman vol 1 #474—Legends of the Dark Knight vol 1 #27—and Detective Comics vol 1 #641, because superhero comics love being as pointlessly hard to follow as possible.
Unity comes from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series and her part in Gotham's architecture is an invention of this specific story. (After a while it's just assumed Sandman doesn't take place in the DC continuity and it's been nebulous about it ever since.)

Ponyfied names
Fire Eyes-Firefly
Two Tone-Two Face
Scaregoat-Scarecrow
Grace Swansdow -Dick Grayson
Zzazzip-Zattana
Griller Gator-Killer Croc
Allen Scout-Alan Scott
Grey Garrick-Jay Garrick

02-Round and Round the Floor (Sorta. Explanation inside.)

View Online

It had been Park Row once, bordering Benison Park.

Almost fifty years after Stygius Belfry and Judge Strapper’s failed attempt to turn Gotham into a city state sized church, resulting in miles of odd angled and spikey urban sprawl, an eccentric artist arrived in the City of Secrets. Such figures weren’t unusual even back then, Gotham’s elite sponsoring them from all over Equestria and even abroad, but few would have as equal an impact upon the city as Gallivanting Gladstone, more commonly known by his insisted sobriquet ‘Gallivanti!’

Apparently this was because he thought it sounded like “Avanti!”

Born to Italstallion artificer parents, educated at one of the finest non Equius-Magi helmed magical arts schools in the still then kingdom of Groomhemia, and even rumoured to be a distant descendant of Pegasus sky-pirate Dire ‘Fortune’ Potence, Gallivanti compounded his lineage by being one of the most unconventional playwrights and sculptors of his century’s Equestria.

The (somewhat) more open-minded ponies of his time ate it up. Gallivanti’s ‘Changeling Caught Unawares Mid-Centaur’ has been one of the most popular statues in Canterlot’s national gallery for two centuries and his plays are still part of the Equestrian syllabus. His comedy Apparent Apprentice to a Master of Disguise later enjoyed a slight vouge over his other works when newly crowned Princess Cadence listed it as her favourite for a Derby Planet interview in the mid-90s.

For all his success, what Gallivanti really wanted to try his hoof at was architecture. While almost every public park in Equestria sported at least one of his sculptures, clients were hesitant to pony up the seeds (predecessor to Equestrian bits) needed for his dream buildings. Something to stick in the gardens of their ancestral homes was one thing, but this…

“Dashed nice sketches though, old boy, gads yes! Very nice…mmmm, you know? Quite.”

Gallivanti’s other problem was that even though he loved his city, it was Canterlot, capital of Equestria. This was a few decades before its New Town would be built, and in the meantime nopony dared tamper with the general look of what would eventually become known as the Old Town. Bricks in various shades of white, maybe a few spires here and there but…listen, it’s Canterlot, alright? Embodiment of pony civilization, jewel in Princess Celestia’s crown? So we don’t want to mess with a good thing. White stone, green grass, steady pulse rates.

Celestia didn’t quite agree or disagree, but after becoming aware of Gallivanti’s sketches she commissioned him to design a diorama of his ideal metropolis. She was very taken by what she saw, and it remained a treasured part of her personal holdings before being bequeathed to Gallivanti’s family following his death.

At the time, while she didn’t see this dynamic, detailed miniature as a new Canterlot, Celestia did know quite a few younger members of Gotham City’s upper echelons who always confided, sometimes even directly to her, how glad they were to be invited into the “sensible” cosmopolitan atmosphere of the capital. It was a relief from Gotham’s strange streets and the perpetually looming Belfry districts.

Subtle introductions were made in front of the commissioned diorama at that year’s Grand Galloping Gala, and just like that Gallivanti had a new project and ample funding from three of Gotham’s richest families.

Yes, Celestia could’ve easily had them all to tea. But using actors, deliberately misleading rumours, specific orders to certain waiters, even her own telekinesis to cover one of Bruce’s great-great-etc grandmothers in sherry so she’d have to make for the washroom and happen to be passing the diorama at the exact right moment…well, it was something to do.

***

Equestrian history books are full of Gallivanti’s exploits, both in Gotham and all over the kingdom, but most of his stories that ponies still talk about inevitably tie back to the Big Gargoyle. Gallivanti is said to have wept at his own welcoming reception at the mainland’s Renfew Hall, because even from here he could see that the city was, “perfect, just perfect!”

For what nopony was quite prepared to ask.

Whatever he’d meant, the Great Gallivanti went to his work with the zeal of Princess Celestia in a Brabançonian cake factory. When not making audiences across Equestria burst out in scandalised laughter with his plays or solving trifling matters, such as locked room assassinations or blood diamond mysteries, Gallivanti was designing his new Gotham.

His opening move was two acts designed to endear him to the city as well as enthuse it, hosting his latest sculpture exhibition in Kelvingrove and…finishing the Corolla building.

The Corolla? What, the Corolla? That huge thing that whatshisface, Belfry, that thing he said was supposed to unify all of Gotham or something weird like that? The one they never finished, just left the foundations up like with that pit in Cathedral Square? Hay, said Pony Q. Public, I’d lay down some serious seeds to see that!

One of Stygius Belfry’s more optimistic designs and named after an experimental, flowing construction style he developed from studying natural formations, the Corolla building is a pistil shaped glass observation tower, seated upon a sturdy base of winding steel beams and ringed by stamen like ledges. Legend has it these upper features were shaped as such to host more of Belfry’s gargoyles (or, some kinder observers point out, his virtuous statues) but along with the rest of his later projects they were never even constructed. In fact, the skeletal iron beams for its foundations had become a city landmark in their own right.

Gallivanti didn’t see a need for that to change. He surrounded the sort-of-panopticon formed by the beams with four large steel and stone pillars, carved to resemble the four pony breeds leaping over wildflowers. (The Alicorn one was out back, by the bins! But then it wouldn’t be a Gallivanti production if it wasn’t as cheeky as it was sincere.)

This allowed the space to retain that outdoor feeling, the front pillars now supporting a see-through glass roof while the two sets at the back would now take the weight of the tower proper. While that was under construction Gotham began to buzz, drawn to the site by these exciting new additions to the familiar. There was even a café, set up so builders and curious onlookers could intermingle over mediocre coffee and decent bread with vegetables on their lunch breaks.

Those ponies who became regulars were surprised to receive invitations a week before the grand opening. How Gallivanti tracked them down is a mystery, though some suspect he may have been disguised as one of the caricaturist old mares who served behind the counter. It wouldn’t be the first time he walked the streets of Gotham dressed as a member of the opposite sex. Sometimes there was even a reason.

***

The opening party technically took place on a roof terrace opposite the Corolla, everypony in their glad rags wondering what was taking so long as the temperature began to drop, sunset drawing closer and closer. Some of them even grumbled it was a wind up as apart from the Skien family there weren’t any toffs. What sort of party didn’t have toffs?

Then as Celestia lowered the sun and raised the moon, they saw. The Corolla Building slowly lighting up in soft pinks, golds and blues, a luminescent flower blooming in the Gotham evening. Where Gotham’s most infamous architect had planned to place gargoyles, her newest had lined it with coloured glass and strategically placed lamps. Discarding his disguise of a doddering butler, the Great Gallivanti invited his guests inside for the real show.

The elegance of the new Corolla, even just the staircases, blew the little ponies away. Gotham by sunset through the observation deck’s windows would transform them.

It was a gradual process, but it was impossible to take in the spread of the city and not begin to feel something. You have to understand, even the Pegasus-ponies among them were normal workers, factory hooves and cart pullers. They’d never had something like this before.

Gotham didn’t look half bad by starlight from twenty stories up, even the creepy Belfry districts taking on a certain kind of splendour. The stunned ponies began to think about that as they took in the opulent towers…and the parts of the city that weren’t lighting up like they were, and were only going to get darker.

They began to think about the ponies who lived in those parts of the city, ponies just like them. And they began to think about the kind of person who had a view like this almost all their life, to the point they probably didn’t even really see it anymore. Or saw those parts of the city and just didn’t care.

And they began to form opinions about those people. And, slowly but surely, to get angry.

The toffs did eventually arrive, grumbling about conflicting directions on their invitations, and were confused to pass a contemplative group coming down the stairs they were ascending, talking quietly amongst themselves in their unsophisticated voices. They even started talking to the two Unicorns who worked the elevator, in these days just before the advent of hydraulics. Who were these ponies? Staff, just leaving?

In coming years, the elite of Gotham City would become very familiar with the faces of Gallivanti’s first guests but, tellingly, never remember where they’d first seen them even if they did seem familiar. Those ponies would be the ones that began asking impertinent questions about labour conditions and finish with leading protests against those conditions, the amount of real estate they owned, and just their very existence in general.

Even had they eyes to appreciate the view, Gotham after 6-o’clock in the dark wasn’t quite the same as watching those oranges and reds fade to delicious darkness, sliding between buildings and pooling in the streets, a patch of dark navy filling the middle of the sky, heralding the eventual Red Sky District. “Too ruddy dark now!”, as one mutton chopped ex-brigadier put it.

As far as the rich, non-Skien clan guests were concerned the appeal of the Corolla, next to their expected status of being there exclusively, was its lavish interior. In addition to the observation deck the new tower housed a restaurant, a lounge, an indoor theatre, indoor garden, and indoor thermae. And behind each were suites of sumptuous rooms, heads and shoulders above the fading ones in their aging mansions.

How much did the Great Gallivanti want for them?

What did he mean they weren’t for sale?

…what did he mean they were for the staff?!

With the Skiens behind him trying and not entirely succeeding to keep straight faces, Gallivanti pantomimed polite confusion to their rivals (and even some of their close friends.) “Well, m’lords, if somepony asked me to look after all this I’d expect somewhere nice to put my hooves up. But then, I have most sensitive hooves.”

***

Princess Celestia was told about this line a few weeks later and smiled to herself. She thought back to when she’d asked about Gallivanti’s diorama, where the normal ponies would be sleeping. Genuinely confused, the artist had indicated the same near-palaces he’d just finished showing off, opening up miniature roofs to better convey what he meant.

To Celestia’s delight Gallivanti’s dream city would look like a city of palaces but it would be the ponies who cleaned and kept them who would live like kings. The rich would only inhabit the luxuries of places like the Corolla Building for a few hours every day. By late afternoon, early evening at the latest, they would become the private playgrounds and essentially the property of the ordinary residents of those suites. They would own them in a way the holders of mere property deeds never would.

That was the sort of city the Great Gallivanti wanted to make.

***

Historians are still arguing over whether or not the Gotham City of Gallivanti’s dreams ever really came to be. One school of thought argues he only achieved a mere aesthetic presence. Another insists he was vital to Gotham’s eventual pushing back against the stagnant elements of its nobility, a stretch of history resulting in such legendary activists as Waxen Wings, Sturdy Steed, Shadow Sanctuary and Heavens Henceforth, though others argue they perhaps didn’t achieve as much as they could have either. Gotham City likes to tie itself in knots like that.

Gallivanti’s aesthetic presence is inarguably one of the most enduring parts of his legacy, still a must-see recommended by most guidebooks for the region. Including the Corolla Building only nine of his envisioned structures were completed, though that’s going by Gallivanti’s definition of what constituted his own creations. In his eyes, simply attaching statues to pre-existing structures didn’t count.

He was far prouder of his public squares, designed to act as both rest stops and throughfares for ponies trying to make their way through Gotham’s convoluted streets. The city in turn prides itself on many famous frescos he created for these, incorporating many elements from them into its iconography and advertising.

Artists always question the exact intention behind these frescos, which often depict Equestrian mythological characters either having secretive meetings or in the act of running. Some poses are clearly meant to be action orientated, heroes lunging towards opponents or bravely towards a symbolic new horizon or so on, even just a joyful racing about between friends, but it’s difficult not to view these scenes through that context once you’re aware of it. Motion and the feeling of being caught at something are also consistent themes of Gallivanti’s sculptures, adding to that sense. Even figures giving you come-hither gestures in the act of dancing feel like they’re dancing away from the viewer.

Gallivanti was the exact opposite of repressed and revelled in it, so Equestria’s art community will always be curious just what exactly he may have been running from.

The one arguable exception to the question is the imposing, rearing statue of the Heliograph tower, which combines both Gallivanti’s artistic and engineering genius. Its certainly in motion but definitely isn’t attempting to hide.

Commissioned to design an iconic front for what was originally home to the Gotham branch of the Equestrian royal guard, Gallivanti first designed and implemented an elaborate support structure to house the finished ten story product. His intention was not only to totally secure the statue for the safety of ponies on the streets below but to allow for its removal, “in the happy event somepony comes to their senses about the ridiculous thing.”

The concept of sculptures that could be easily removed and repurposed greatly intrigued the city and would go on to be implemented throughout Equestria in many interesting ways over subsequent decades, which was of course what Gallivanti had wanted. Why should any one pony’s work define a space just because it had ‘Always Been There?’

His Heliograph statue would, ironically, be the only one of such transient works to never be removed, continuing to loom over Gotham to this day. Its eyes were originally complex crystals, carved and lit like the variety Gallivanti used for the Corolla building so it would reflect light into two stain glass windows he personally commissioned to install in two of Stygius Belfry’s original towers. This strategic lighting effect, which gave those districts a wonderful night time ambience (but were hard on the eyes during especially bright summers, it must be said), features often in Gallivanti’s more ambitious architectural work.

And was completely ruined when they built the first tower block of New Town, blocking what he regarded as the Heliograph’s one redeeming feature forever.

Gotham’s New Town is one of its most favoured districts, close enough to Old Town’s Kingston financial district and the combined theatre and fashion district of Schumacher for residents (and tourists) to reach anything important without leaving the safety of it’s art deco confines.

It’s even far enough away from the Red Sky District’s signature effect that it can pretend the crimson clouds slashing into its borders like dragon claws are a feature, a charming view of the Old Town skyline with the reassurance that you’re living on the right side of the Gotham River. The safe one.

This intention hasn’t stopped Gotham’s supervillains from using the district for their deranged purposes, especially since, as mentioned, the largest financial and theatre districts are practically right next door to it. Even the presence of G.E.U.P. central on Steward Street a few blocks away doesn’t overly concern them, not with the number of sharp curves and sudden inclines any response will have to navigate.

Throw in waves of party ponies trying to get into or out of New Town and onto Grand Avenue, especially on weekends, and all you really have to worry about is how conducive to roof-running New Town buildings are.

Y’know. Because that’s how the Batpony will come for you.

Designed during the post-World Storm boom, a period of magi-political stability and technological/cultural development following the war for the 19^th century Storm King’s staff, New Town was Gotham’s attempt to convince Equestria that it could swing dance with the best of them, providing a slick, classy alternative to the gothic/Jugendstil stagnation surrounding it.

A Schumacher worthy show was made of how it would use ingenuity of Gotham’s past for the innovations of today: to one up newly popular neon-chanted signs they used the Great Gallivanti’s Heliograph construction system to create elaborate and, most importantly, replaceable neon billboards.

Thankfully New Town has been the site of enough genuine works of art, mostly music, to have redeemed itself in the long dead Gallivanti’s eyes, but its complicated, almost insectile lengths of metal signage are still there. They are considered wonderful to look at by night and unsettling to see weaving around, sometimes even between buildings during daylight.

Not nearly enough Equestrian companies make use of that kind of advertising these days to pay for the cost of enchanting the signs, leaving an embarrassing amount of them blank even at night, and the entire network ironically echoes Stygius Belfry’s districts by being too elaborate and expensive to simply pull down.

Still, combined with genuinely charming art deco architecture and an energizing atmosphere, these signs nowadays conjure nostalgic feelings even in ponies far too young to have seen the period New Town embodies anywhere but in old movies, rerun during slumps in pre-summer sun celebration matinees. It is that almost unidentifiable “Those were the days” feeling New Town and city hall are constantly trying to recapture, with mixed results.

And it was that energy the Gotham real estate business of forty-plus years ago was trying to tap into when it decided to build a whole new neighbourhood next to the city’s then most recent park. New Town isn’t even on the same side of the river as Park Row but is responsible for its creation. Perhaps even, however indirectly, for what it became.

While far from the root of all evil in the City of Secrets it was hard, working your hooves to the bone for just enough to eat, remembering the taunts of other foals about your ma working up in Jezebel Plaza just because of how close your tenement was to it, not to look across the river at all those glowing signs and sparkling windows and think about all the ponies behind them, who could enjoy themselves. Like that. Every night.

It was hard not to think about it. All day. All night. And, slowly but surely, to get angry.

***

Benison Park was founded by one of Gotham’s most prestigious goat families, the Baaramewevilles, as a memorial for those working class Gothamites lost during a terrible accident that tore the city’s own weather factory out of its magical orbit.

The image of all that green gradually replacing scorched cobbles and piles of rubble genuinely helped aid the city’s recovery, resulting in the creation of Benisonville, a prosperous district built between the park and a hospital the Baaramewevilles founded to give beleaguered residents more immediate access to care. With an industry boom as companies rushed to stake a claim in what would become the Charnel industrial district, Gotham recovered, even gradually adjusting to its strange new red sky left behind in the weather factory’s wake.

Survivors were initially moved to Miagani Island’s east end, redeveloped by the Baaramewevilles, the Skien clan and likeminded philanthropists into one of the largest residential neighbourhoods in the city. While well intentioned, Gotham’s constant space shortage meant compromises had to be made, which is why so many East End apartments are above storefronts and most of its civic offices were crammed together...before they inevitably fled to richer parts of Old Town.

Lack of immediate jobs left many of the new East Enders with little choice but to venture into the already crowded markets of the city, or make hard, early commutes all the way across Miagani and Narrowbrough for assembly line work in flourishing Charnel plants.

Despite this, the situation settled. So much so that in a few decades Gotham enjoyed yet another period of economic growth (which required another period of civil rights campaigning, because ponies who’d been raised in the East End and worked at Charnel weren’t about to be caught off guard again), bringing with it a longing for the black tie, jazz band, neon lit glory of New Town’s heyday.

A pair of entrepreneurs who would become known as the Monarch Brothers attempted to seize on this when they realised their comedic misadventures, which they later used as the basis for a beloved series of movies, had left them with failed properties stretching almost in a straight line to the East End…and effectively in a row across the eastern border of Gotham’s most popular new park.

With nostalgia in the air, opportunity almost literally on their doorsteps, and bills from their previous adventures piling up, the Monarch bros. called in every possible favour to turn their failed storefronts into trendy new, Stallifornia-esque masterpieces, just like the then popular kind east coast Equestrian cities were looking for.

Businesses flocked to these but the Monarch’s didn’t stop there, buying and converting more properties until they got city hall’s attention. The rest is history and the Monarchs went on to become legends, even having a district in modern Gotham fondly named after them.

Park Row’s construction took almost longer than Benison Park itself but the result, a ten mile stretch of sunny Applewood-ian glamour nestled comfortably in Gotham’s damp concrete grotesqueness, was a near instant success. While most of the focus on its glory days is largely commercial or the pedigree of its residents, its less prestigious bookending neighbourhoods, Infantino to the west and the East End at…well, y’know, treasured the neighbourhood for a different reason: the Gotham City Free Clinic.

Founded by two doctors and a lawyer who couldn’t help noticing the, uh, dragon sized economic disparity between those that flourished after Gotham’s misfortunes and those that didn’t, the Free Clinic saved hundreds of the latter a long journey into the city for aid they might not have been able to afford. More than that, it often offered sanctuary and, with the lawyer’s help, sometimes justice.

Because of adventures like those one of the doctors fell in love with her, and she with his endless compassion for others, the equal of her own. Within the clinic’s first year they solved a conspiracy framing one Monarch brother for the attempted murder of the other, an elaborate scheme to turn Park Row from a neighbourhood into something more exclusive and lucrative.

By its third they were engaged. The second doctor, who’d always had a thing for the lawyer herself, wished her friends well and was even the lawyer’s mare of honour.

Shortly after this the lawyer and her new husband moved into a perfectly respectable house in Park Row itself, cementing residents’ view of them as a vital institution, fighting to keep their former class from preying on their new neighbours. Two years following this happy new status quo they announced that their first child was on the way.

Almost a decade after that they were murdered, right there in Park Row.

All because somepony who’d grown up seeing the distant lights of New Town, watched its successor take shape and the glossiness of its residents’ coats, their fine clothes and jewellery, the smiles on their damn faces, had looked at the squalor surrounding them…and gotten angry.

***

The transformation of Park Row into Crime Alley wasn’t instantaneous but took less time than the neighbourhood’s construction, with the deaths of Thomas Thane and Aurora Flame at its epicentre. Enough ponies deserted the area that by the time Gotham recovered from her subsequent periods of economic upheaval, funds were in no way considered to resuscitate it.

As one public intellectual put it at the time, Gotham had taken everything from the ponies of Crime Alley but hope. Did they mean, The Gotham Gazette asked, that they thought something could still be done?

“Sir, you misunderstand me: I mean that there is no hope in Crime Alley.”

This neglect and several gang wars during the Destrier’s rise to power contributed to the squalor that earned the name change, although street historians are still arguing if the ‘Crime’ part derives from Gotham’s new kingpin taking full advantage of ten miles of fresh battleground, with a direct line into the East End from his native Infantino, or the first murder ever committed in Park Row.

With hardly anypony living in ‘The Alley’ and its body count already the stuff of urban mythology it wasn’t long until even sanitation workers refused to enter it, leaving the East End to fend for itself. The only advantage of being next to Crime Alley it enjoyed was reliable subway services as drivers raced straight past the deteriorating Park Row station, but they were still now stuck taking long rides into the city centre to look for work that wouldn’t come to them. Not if it had to take Crime Alley.

Why does Princess Celestia or Bruce Rein not simply buy up the area? Because putting aside the question of whether you want anypony to have that kind of power, so much of Crime Alley went for cheap prices you never saw in a city Gotham’s size, even adjusting for inflation, that hundreds of different factions soon owned entire stretches of it.

That was over twenty years ago. So many claims have switched hooves by now that you’d have an easier time deducing why a raven is like a writing desk than who actually owns what in Crime Alley. A few years ago, local business pony Almond Agate tried to solve this problem…by blowing up the entire street. Fortunately, this was prevented when local vigilante the Batpony stopped the renegade demolitions experts who just happened to come from Agate’s own construction company.

Unfortunately, just because Agate’s plan to build a New Town clone never happened didn’t mean Gotham City paid that much more attention to the Alley. The most that came of it was Bruce Rein buying demolished buildings to make a new homeless shelter, meaning that now at least a mile and a half of Crime Alley is actually occupied. In addition to the new shelter, this includes a warren of tenements bordering the East End, unflatteringly dubbed ‘Alley Town’, and the still operating Free Clinic.

The clinic’s doors are always open, recognized as neutral ground by residents and gangsters alike. Even running on fumes, surviving founder Dr. Pumpkin Lily has done everything she can to prove that pretentious quote wrong. An old joke goes that half of Gotham is walking around with at least one of her stitches somewhere under their coats.

Once the best Lily could offer (you know, besides the free lifesaving health care) was a bowl of cereal and a lukewarm shower, with a golf club upside the head for those few Gotham hoods desperate enough to try raiding her pharmaceuticals. With Bruce Rein’s return to Gotham her resources were vastly expanded.

New equipment, first class facilities, constant supplies from Rein Enterprises’ own medical offshoots, magi-tech locks courtesy of Lupinus Flax’s R&D division, and even an entirely new wing made from a redeveloped workshop next door to the clinic. Its extra bed space is a miracle, a stable allowing the clinic to host two mobile hospital wagons, with enough floor space left over to serve as an honest to sun operating theatre, borders on absurd decadence.

Something like hope has slowly grown, or at least congealed, in Crime Alley since the Free Clinic opened its doors, and Dr. Pumpkin intends to keep them that way whatever the circumstances, whoever needs its help.

Which doesn’t mean she hasn’t had second thoughts about this policy now and then. Case in point—

Dr. Pumpkin Lily resisted an urge to drag her hooves down her face.

“Say that again please, dear,” she said patiently to the younger mare in front of her.

A pair of large blue eyes blinked at her. Lily got the impression it wasn’t so much that the Earth Pony was off in her own little world, it was that she thought the logic of the various non sequiturs she’d said over the course of this interview was so self-evident that it must be the world outside hers that was strange.

“Uh, alrighty,” the mare said in what sounded like a kind of Manehattan drawl and cleared her throat. When she spoke, it was indeed in the exact same way as when she’d first delivered the statement. “We don’t want any head meds…wink!”

And she did, beaming.

Dr. Pumpkin looked to the mare’s companion, which wasn’t much help since they were bundled in so much winterwear, even a surgical mask like stretch of fabric across their muzzle, that she couldn’t discern anything about them. Not even if they actually needed a pair of eye obscuring glasses protruding from the darkness of their hood. Dr. Pumpkin elected instead to glare at the other mare leaning against the corner of her office.

Savanah Style glared back, forelegs folded and one of two cat-like stripes on her coat changing shape to match her furrowing brow. She was an East Ender, for starters, but prior to repairing damage from Gotham’s decade spanning war zones Lily had been born in Possilpark. It was going to take a lot more than a full-grown mare wearing a black leather jacket in their late 20s to intimidate her. It helped that she’d known Savanah since she was a filly, which meant she should expect things like foisting two weirdos on her.

“Are you asking me for tranquilisers?” Lily asked outright. She needed to start making a point.

“Huh? No!” The blonde mare’s blue eyes crossed for a second. Lily noticed a white streak at the corner of her right eye. Makeup? “That is, we’re not not askin’! If ya catch my drift. Wink!”

She craned sideways to take in an array of doctorates on Dr. Pumpkin’s office wall. “Ma’am. Doctor ma’am. Wink?”

“Good.”

“Sweet!”

“Because then I don’t have to tell you I can’t give you any.”

“Say what?”

“What about potions?” Savanah asked.

“Same difference,” Dr. Pumpkin said firmly. “Not without telling me why you may need them at any rate.”

“I thought this place was free,” the other mare half whined, making a pouting expression her face seemed genuinely built for. She clutched her hooves placatingly, one sleeve of her blue University of Gotham hoodie sliding down her foreleg a little. Lily, having met a larger number of runaways in the course of her career, one of whom was still trying to look cool in the corner of her office all these years later, wondered if the hoodie was too big for the Earth Pony, how quickly and where it may have been salvaged from.

“Yes, but we’re also a hospital,” she said firmly. “We can’t hoof over any kind of medication just like that, especially when we don’t know what it’s for. Neither of you has even assented to an examination.”

The bundled-up figure shuddered, or at least some kind of motion took place under their overlapping fabrics. The blonde mare jumped to all fours, balancing perfectly on her chair, and patted the closest of several lumps protruding from her companion’s hood. (Or possibly multiple hoods stuffed inside each other like Stalliongrad nesting dolls.)

“Hey, hey,” the mare soothed, “it’s okay Mistah V…uuuuuuh…” Her eyes darted back to Dr. Pumpkin. “Veeeeee are not beingk vheeeeerry interesting, ja? So is no need for examination!”

“Where did you say you were from again?” Dr. Pumpkin asked in a deadpan. It wasn’t a nice thing to do but she’d put up with a lot in a very short amount of time, a fake accent felt like an acceptable place to stop being nice.

“Uh…”

“They’ve been crashing at my place,” Savanah supplied.

“I see. For how long?”

“Three days,” the blonde and the East Ender said in sync, one far less enthusiastically than the other.

“And you just now decided you needed medication?”

The bundled figure hung their head, though this may have been from the weight of their hood(s).

“Nah, but since we wuz in the neighbourhood…” The blonde shrugged.

“They’re looking for a new place to stay,” Savanah said, a bit too quickly.

“Ah.” Dr. Pumpkin rubbed the space between her eyes, squeezing them shut from visions of this pair in her clinic for three minutes, never mind three days. “We do have some cots available, yes, but…”

But they were clumsily trying to solicit medication which she suspected was meant to supplement, very probably substitute, a pre-existing prescription. The term ‘head meds’ was new to her but felt self-explanatory and could mean anything from a careful-now-potion to antipsychotics.

“Well, is there anypony you’d like us to contact?” she stalled.

“Nope,” Savanah said firmly before either of the two, one of whom had yet to say anything at all, could respond.

There was a rattling at the door and a stack of folders walked into the room, like the universe reminding Lily she had oh so much more to worry about.

“I’m with somepony right now, Cloud,” Dr. Pumpkin said with attempted politeness.

“Sorry Doc, it’s a twofer, came in just this second: grant stuff and pharmacy stuff.”

“Both stuff we very much need,” Pumpkin allowed wearily, gesturing to her desk even though she wasn’t sure the boy could see it.

She was startled by the blonde mare leaping up onto her seat with almost in-equine agility, balancing on the seat with only her hindlegs while she enthusiastically rubbed the hooves of her forelegs together. “Pharmacy, ya say?” she announced. “Whatta coinkidink, let’s have us a lil’ pharma-looksie!”

“Honey!” Savanah snapped, finally straightening out of her slouch. The hooded figure moaned softly.

Savanah’s snap startled the blonde, making her rock and her chair sway with her. The volunteer turned, drawn by the noise the two younger mares were making, managing to lower their paperwork just as ‘Honey’ loomed towards them. As Dr. Pumpkin sat up to try and take some kind of control of the situation, the poor lad yelped at the sight, reflexively hurling the papers into the air. This made the hooded figure moan even louder, clasping their mitten covered hooves(?) to the sides of their hood.

Lily instinctively threw her own hooves up first to deflect and then, mercifully, to catch one stack of paperwork. Simultaneously, Honey yelped back hard enough to send her and her chair toppling backwards. Lily would swear there was the briefest moment when the poor creature was in mid-air, but just as that registered there was an impossible blur of limbs, and she was balanced on the legs of the now upside-down chair. Just as impossibly, the remaining paperwork dropped in a perfect stack into Dr. Pumpkin’s in-tray.

“HA!” Honey cried triumphantly.

It wasn’t clear if that had anything to do with the entire chair snapping under her weight, sending her faceplanting into the floor, but timing is the most important part of any good joke. As a perfect complement the impact caused the new stack to topple sideways, smacking into the one in Dr. Pumpkin’s hooves and sending all of it billowing.

“Savanah,” Lily said, calmly but loudly.

The volunteer was pointing at both of her guests, trembling almost as much as Honey’s bundled up companion. “Wh…wh…wh—?”

“They were just leaving, Cloud,” Dr. Pumpkin assured, glaring at Savanah, who was still frozen in the act of reaching for Honey. “We were attempting to arrange alternative accommodation.”

Cloud blinked. “For real? Oh. Uh…I…could…help?”

The moaner, who’d fallen silent, looked up slowly. Honey pulled a sheet of paper off her head to look up at the volunteer. “Really?”

“Cloud…” Dr. Pumpkin began, worrying what she might be responsible for.

She was cut off by Cloud finding himself grabbed by the most attractive mare he’d ever been close to outside of certain private dreams. She was even wearing leather, kinda! If he wasn’t still slightly stunned he would have gulped.

“Really,” Savanah Style said with a grin that showed almost as much teeth as desperate hope. It wasn’t a question.

When Montoya and Bulwark ushered them through G.E.U.P.’s front doors Rainbow Dash whispered, “They got nothing so don’t give nothing away!”

Rarity assumed this meant keeping mum about why they’d come to the Big Gargoyle. No problem.

In fact, part of her was hoping the local guard would drop some kind of clue, preferably with an itinerary and directions, so they could get this over with and get out of here without him showing up. She wouldn’t be surprised though; even if Salford wasn’t having a discreet word in his employer’s ear G.E.U.P. central had the giant spotlight they used to tell him things mounted on its roof.

The new G.E.U.P. central, rather. Rarity was impressed. She’d wound up in the…what term to use? Classic? The classic guard HQ once or twice back in the day, sometimes in similar circumstances. It was a traditional Gotham building with a lovely, intricate circular window, and she’d been surprised when their escorts led them past it, into New Town, then onto Stewart Street where the new building rose over everything.

If she had to guess she’d say the E.U.P. had commandeered then overhauled that old airship factory. Even from here she could see an open shutter on one of the higher levels, a few zeppelin noses poking lazily out into the sunlight. No sign of the signal, but she did note a large steel landing pad like thing jutting out of the side of a structure shaped like an observatory. Hmm.

She was trying to remember if this factory had been the one built by one of the more paranoid boom-time magnates. She knew there was one who’d been obsessed with building small cities into the top floors of all his buildings, because —yes, Zesty had told her, hadn’t she?— because he’d been a sailor or something, anyway he’d had this mad idea the sea was out to get him, so he lived like a hermit (although a hermit with room service) at the top of his businesses. If this was who she was thinking of, an airship factory made sense: should whatever his delusion be come to pass he could just fly away.

Rarity was reserving sympathy until she could look up how he’d treated his employees, but it must have been a real boon to Commander Autumn when the old boy…retired or became a supervillain or even just passed in his sleep, whichever it was. She could count on Sweetie Belle’s horn fluting how many Gotham aristocrats would willingly bequeath property to the city, especially a beauty like this.

G.E.U.P. central gave the impression of two buildings in one, a New Town deco style for the base, an Escutcheon Island style glass and steel beams complex rising out of the top. To bridge the two, a series of metal gantries had been embedded just where the art deco portion of the tower block began to run out, supporting a giant metal reproduction of the E.U.P.’s phoenix symbol.

It seemed appropriate, as once inside the building’s large, high walled courtyard they could see most types of E.U.P. operatives in full uniform. Guards were obvious, traditionally armoured ponies mixing with ones in E.U.P. plainclothes fits like Montoya. Some of the Pegasi looked like either weather workers or a bomber jacket and cap wearing sky patrol. Paramedics and firefighters rounded the roster out, sticking close to renovated stables housing all sorts of carts and automobiles, even an impressive mechanical fire engine, fed by a hose connected to one of two large water towers.

Apparently Commander Autumn had decided to combine the city’s rescue forces rather than simply trying to coordinate things with an haggard, understaffed stable of detectives and some mildly (but still) corrupt guards. Rarity wondered how that was working out.

And how much longer they were going to have to sit in his also impressive lobby, waiting to find out what he was even going to do with them.

***

“Seriously,” Rainbow Dash hissed, “noth-ing.”

“Quite,” Rarity murmured, wondering which nothing this third or fourth entreaties was referring to.

Bulwark and Montoya hadn’t been gone that long but Rainbow kept doing this so much Rarity was starting to feel time stretch. It was a mix of annoyance and uncertainty born of their surroundings: the detectives hadn’t placed them in a cell but a sort of corral past the front desk, marked by a large yellow circle of flooring and fenced in by tough looking slats that came up to average pony neck height. There were benches, painted the same yellow as the floor, all of it topped by elaborate gabbles to prevent a Pegasus or other flyers leaving that way.

So, Rarity mused, they hadn’t been arrested exactly. This wasn’t a processing cell but nothing in here said ‘waiting room’, which she was pretty sure was what was on the other side of a series of saloon style doors she could see across the foyer. G.E.U.P. wasn’t sure what to make of them, which meant they could still be here a while even if they weren’t under arrest.

Despite the seats she and Rainbow felt compelled to stand, listening to the bustle of Gotham’s finest. It added to the mild disconcertion of the corral, which felt like it should be cutting them off from all the voices, scratching of quills and clanking armour but was so open they still felt like they were in the middle of it. Eventually Rarity sat in one of the seats, which prompted Dash to start doing push ups rather than impotently flutter around the ceiling.

“They might have nothing,” she grunted from the floor, “but you’d think they could give us something to pass the time.”

“I used to bring my own newspaper,” Rarity concurred, staring pointlessly up at the ceiling. “Gads, I have gotten rusty.”

Dash turned to look at her without breaking her routine. “For real?”

“Oh yes, the Gazette, the Planet, Showcase, Kingdom Come...well, those’re magazines, but you know what I mean.”

“Nah, I mean you’ve done time?”

“Only if you mean time in their lobby, darling.” Rarity winked at her. “Ask nicely and I may tell you about it.”

“Another couple centuries and I just might,” Dash muttered, changing to wing-ups. “They’re taking forever!”

“Thereabouts.” Rarity shifted irritably on her seat. “Actually, forget passing the time, a magazine or some such would give these things some much needed padding. Say what you will about those old G.E.U.P. benches but at least they had some form of lumbar support. In fact, last time I was waiting this long they…Oh Great Pony in the Sky.”

“What?” Dash froze mid-up, whirling to look at her. “Didja sit on something? Is it a body?!”

“What?! No!” Rarity sprang off her seat then hesitated, instinctively turning to check because it was Gotham, then shook her head. “No, I mean last time I was here it took so long because Commander Autumn wasn’t even in the building. Just had a thought, what if he’s not now?”

Dash blinked at her, still balanced on her wings. “What, Autumn Winds? The big noise himself? You think he’d get in on something like this? Whatever this even is.”

“He will when they tell him it’s us, darling,” Rarity smiled wryly.

“Point.” Dash resumed her exercises. “Your butler was talking about bail?”

“Salford’s not my butler,” Rarity corrected, “more’s the pity. Spike’s a lamb, but if I—we had a Salford…”

“Yeah-yeah, whatever, he bailin’ us out or not?”

“Depends on whether or not we need to be bailed out, I suppose.”

“Did I hear him say his boss is Bruce Rein or was that just the concussion?”

“…yes,” Rarity admitted.

“Huh. Well, that’s a shame.”

Rarity almost reared up from shock. “What?!”

Did Rainbow know? How? Was that why they were always bantering during those team ups? Had she been one of his sidekicks?!

The sheer incongruity of that thought was like a bucket of water to the face, startling her out of her panic more than actually calming her. The logic, how much she knew the two individuals concerned and how both of them would make most versions of that scenario utterly impossible, did help steady her somewhat.

“Guy’s a goofball,” Dash continued causally, “but he’s a loaded goofball. Could use that kind of money in our corner.”

“I meant you’re not concussed,” Rarity clarified, immediately wondering if that was accurate.

“Oh, sweet. Hope he gets a move on then.”

“I’d rather we kept a low profile,” Rarity said hurriedly.

“Rarity, we’re in jail.”

“Not technically!”

Dash was looking up at her while keeping her rhythm this time. She paused only long enough for comprehension to dawn on her face, followed by a smirk.

“Don’t you dare,” Rarity warned.

“How am I supposed to resist?” Dash shot back, smirk still rising and falling. “You and him? That’s big!”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh c’mon! He can’t be worse than Blueblood!”

“How did this become about my taste in men, exactly?” Rarity demanded, feeling her temper rising with the Pegasus’ shoulders, and not falling.

“Gotta pass the time somehow.”

“Well I don’t want to pass it this way because I don’t want to talk about it.” She pointed an accusatory hoof as Dash began to protest. “Up-bup-bup! Pinkie-Promise me!”

“Awww, cheap shot!” Dash moaned but stopped to balance on her wings and go through the motions. “Ugh, fine. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupca--”

“And while you’re at it,” Rarity snapped, knowing Dash would eventually default to her new catchphrase and knowing she’d be even less in the mood, “promise you’ll stop saying that over and over!”

Dash blinked an eye, the other still covered by her hoof. “Saying what now?”

“They don’t have anythiiiing!” Rarity mimicked, more of a whine than a rasp. “Honestly, yes, I wish there was a magazine or something in here, so I could gag you!”

“…I didn’t say that!”

“…yes you di—!”

“I said,” Dash retorted with almost Twilightian primness, “they don’t have nothing.”

Rarity spun on her heels, rammed her head into the yellow, musty smelling seat material, and roared into it. She hoped this foul stuff muffled it enough not to have the guards burst in on them but also didn’t really care.

“Hello there, ladies!” announced a voice oozing with…no, enough to say it oozed.

Rarity raised her head, blinking, as did Dash, still on the floor and with a hoof over one eye. A stallion had approached them from one side of the corral, smiling in at them from a neck level opening. He was having to stand on tippy-hooves to make it work as an interview window. His smile was attempting to be charming but there was a slight wobble at its corners which suggested strain, either from maintaining his affectation, his position, or both.

At first Rarity wondered if she was looking at a foal’s face, so close that it distorted, but realised he was probably around their age, just with an adolescent air. That might have something to do with a black leather coat and matching wide brim fedora he was wearing. Matching as in both were black, that is. You’d need to stick bamboo under her pony-pedi to get her to admit they went with whoever this was and whatever kind of image they were trying to project.

“I…happened to be passing,” their guest said when enough seconds had gone by to indicate neither Element was sure what to say to him, “and thought we shouldn’t…pass up this…opportunity.”

He held out a hoof towards Rarity, his jacket sleeve slipping back along his wrist from how much he had to lean further into the coral, which didn’t go with how casual he was trying to make the gesture.

“I see,” Rarity said noncommittally.

“Hah,” breathed the Unicorn, actually (over) pronouncing the sound instead of making it and sliding into what he probably thought was a deep, significance laden voice, “I bet you see more…than people would…like to hear about.”

He was still holding out a hoof. Rarity wasn’t sure if he’d try to turn shaking hers into kissing it but had a vision of him inadvertently dragging her face into the slats (or, not a wholly unpleasant thought, her horn into his eye), and threw a foreleg around Rainbow’s shoulders. The Pegasus cottoned on immediately and mirrored the move. It was a tactic Rarity had learned from models, a way to ward off overly obsequious fans or other types of personal space intruders.

“Well, this is my friend,” she beamed, initiating the other part of the strategy: not giving this weirdo their names and making it clear there were more of them than him.

“And you are?” Dash asked pointedly.

The stallion in black held his proffered hoof out for a few seconds, smile wobbling slightly from the strain of reaching into the coral. It allowed Rarity to observe that there was indeed a slight youthfulness to his face, a cherubic quality. If he’d approached them in a pair of suit lapels or a sweater vest, even just a t-shirt, that would’ve been perfectly fine, but his choice of black accoutrements turned that youthfulness into...not so much a cry for help as ‘Look-how-much-effort-I’m-putting-into-looking-effortless’.

The stallion turned finally having to pull his foreleg back into casually sweeping his fedora off, managing to catch it before it toppled to the floor. Rarity realised part of the cherub association came from the curls of his mane. “Hah,” he said again with a sweep of his hat, “how…uncharacteristic of me. I’m Garth Meringue. Author. Dreamweaver. Visionary. Plus--”

“Garth?” Rainbow Dash asked incredulously, trying to pronounce the name.

Meringue didn’t miss a beat or drop his affected cadence. “It’s a grassy quadrangle. Surrounded by…cloisters.”

Rarity rubbed her temple with a free hoof. Talking to somepony in a police station can be awkward enough. Talking to somepony when they’re unconsciously showing you exactly who they were in high school and how far they probably haven’t come? That can make you grateful for wooden slats between you and them.

Unfortunately, she and Dash were the ones inside the corral, meaning they had nowhere to go. Could they stonewall him until he took the hint and just went away? She didn’t have high hopes, somepony this unaware of the dissonance of their wardrobe choices on themselves (or worse, aware and trying to force it to work anyway) probably wasn’t going to be able to tell when they weren’t wanted. And there was always the risk of whatever their reaction would be if you actually said something…

“I thought we might…tet the old—” Meringue flipped his fedora back on, managing to follow up the admittedly impressive move with catching it by the brim before it slipped off. “—a-tay-tay.”

The polylingual part of Rarity was too offended by this use of her favourite language to form words. Rainbow Dash, who’s first language was Istallion, could get by in Spanish and knew the meanings of a few Latin words (only ones she found cool, of course), just thought he was even more of a poser than she’d first guessed. “Cool. And your badge number would be…?”

A pause as Meringue hesitated and Rarity recovered, grateful for the tactic.

“Come now,” Meringue tried, with what someone who’d only ever read the word ‘a chuckle’ thought it would sound like, “do ponies of our calibre really need to play that kind of Monopoly game? We’re all…top hats here.”

He adjusted his glasses as he looked contemplatively off to the side.

“Or wheelbarrows, I suppose, if they were made of actual silver, since they’re pretty bloody big.”

“What?” both Elements made the mistake of asking incredulously.

Meringue pounced. “Alright, it’s a—A-heh!—fair cop. I’m not an officer of the law, if such a thing as law even exists in Gotham. If I applied, I’d…probably fail the eyesight exam because I…see too much. And…too hard. I write about the truth which is why you could also call me a horror writer. Been to Cathedral Square lately?”

“I don’t see how it would be your business if we had,” Rarity said, increasingly fed up.

It wasn’t just Meringue’s silly, breathy affectations, his voice in general was getting on her nerves. She’d place his accent from one of the southern Canterlot broughs. It wasn’t unpleasant by any means, but in addition to his annoying over emphasis of certain buzzwords Meringue’s adolescent persona leached into his voice, making it puerile and cloying when it it should’ve been cheerful.

“Come now,” Meringue insisted, smiling and placing his hooves on his hips. “Word travels fast in Gotham and somepony like me always travels…first class. Every good book needs sources.”

Rarity and Rainbow exchanged looks. Somepony writing about them appealed to both of them a lot, and Twilight was still hemming and hawing over whether to eventually publish their journal, but if Garth Meringue wrote as well as he dressed himself what would that make them sound like by association?

“Do you, ah, often interview prospective ‘sources’ while they’re in the middle of an E.U.P. station?” Rarity asked.

“Oh,” Meringue said, dropping the affectation and replacing it with a casual tone that made the following somehow worse, “normally I just send someone out to learn all about it.” He adjusted his hat, as if the motion somehow clicked him between personalities. “But sometimes when the going’s getting good on some…bad mojo, the only thing to do is to call yerself a spade and…dig.”

Rainbow Dash put her head on one side, probably considering the best angle to hit this person. “You sure are digging something right now.”

Meringue made the mistake of smiling. “Well, when my man told me about the two lovely ladies up in--”

“I’m counting from five and then I shall scream for a guard,” Rarity said simply.

Rainbow Dash tapped a space between slats. “Me, I just want you to know I can 100% pull somepony your size through here. Nose first.”

“Come now--” Meringue began.

“Five,” Rarity snapped. “Four.”

The alleged author threw his hooves up as if at crossbow point. “Alright, alright! You two just sounded…interesting. I figure whatever your deal is, maybe there’s a book in it.”

Rainbow growled.

“Look,” Meringue said, even as he took a slight step back and almost tripped over the hem of his coat. “We could help each other out, know what I mean? I might have a, uh, a little tip something big is going down in old Gotham soon. Charging by the word when there’s three of us is a lotta bits.”

Rarity shared an uncertain look with Dash’s utterly unconvinced expression. This lummox was trying so hard to be…something that he’d dressed himself up in its clothes without making sure they fit, but they’d been in the city for hours now with no clear reason why the map had sent them here.

“Something like what?” she finally decided. “A tip from who?”

Meringue leaned forward conspiratorially, then back to stop his glasses sliding off. This sudden motion made his hat fall off instead. It landed in the pad of Detective Rubí Montoya’s hoof.

“This pony bothering you fillies?” she asked, her stare reflected in the writer’s now steady specs as he registered her.

Dash was at the slats, hovering off the floor and gripping the edge of the top row in lieu of bars. “Listen, if he’s some kinda enhanced interrogation tactic it might be a Gneighva Convention violation, but it’s working. I will confess to an-y-th-ing as long as I don’t gotta hear this guy speak! The purpose of aglets. Area 52 is real. Princess Celestia is just three lizards in an Alicorn costume. Seriously, sky’s the limit.”

Meringue looked as if he wished he had his hat back for something to hide behind. “Ah, Detective, I’m--”

“I remember you, Meringue,” Montoya said, not sounding happy about it. “Do you remember the part about having an officer present if you’re going to try this with suspects?”

“Come now--” Meringue began.

“Because even if you did these two aren’t suspects.”

“Ah,” Rarity said carefully. She wasn’t sure if she should feel annoyed about the E.U.P. Unicorn interrupting a potential avenue of investigation before it even had construction permits, although on reflection she was probably just annoyed at Garth Meringue. And she suspected she knew why the detective had come to their rescue.

“Commander Autumn would like to talk to you two,” Montoya said, passing Meringue his hat back in a way that forced him to step to the side, allowing her to hold her badge up to a small phoenix icon on one of the coral’s front gates. Both shimmered with matching magical frequencies and a row of slats at the back, which Dash and Rarity hadn’t realised were a rear gate, swung open.

“The big noise himself,” Dash said as she swooped out, revelling in being able to finally hover above the ground, “makes sense.”

“He knows it’s us,” Rarity concurred. “Goodbye, Mr. Meringue.”

Their would-be interviewer began to say something (probably a hasty “Come now.”) but was drowned out by the coral gates swinging shut.

***

Rarity and Dash made their way down a wide corridor since it was the only direction they could go in and, praise Celestia, it was away from Meringue. Rarity began to wonder what he’d been getting at about something going down, if he’d just been talking up some Gazette Square doomsayer’s ravings or outright making up a conspiracy to hit on them. She lost that train of thought when they rounded the corridor and she realised they didn’t know where to go.

The floor of this new hall was covered in different coloured lines, the kind you sometimes followed in hospitals, municipal buildings, or clandestine research labs the Elements had found themselves in over the last four years. The one leading out of the corridor they’d just come from was the same yellow as the corral floor, notable because while it led to certain spaces it was the only line that didn’t cross or align with red, blue, green and purple ones. Guards and first responders strode along these, entering and exiting different offices.

Rarity’s theory that this had once been that dilapidated Stewart Street airship factory was confirmed for her when she looked up. Those circular steel beams in the roof were good old fashioned Equestrian industrial. The room went on for what felt like miles and an array of catwalks stretched from the upper levels, crisscrossing each other. With the number of staircases climbing the walls it was like being inside some kind of life-sized diorama, which was very Gotham approach to architecture.

The hall and the rooms beyond it echoed with the bustle of hundreds of E.U.P. workers, moving between workshops converted into offices. As the Elements watched a team of paramedics raced by, and Rarity felt a sudden terror for Spike when she realised the poor figure on their gurney was a dragon. Probably teenaged at most and their scales were teal on olive, but the species was enough to bring the drake to the forefront of her mind. Their eyes were closed and some kind of oxygen mask was over their muzzle.

Being penned out front and clumsily badgered by somepony like whathisface had made Rarity feel impotent. Seeing someone like Spike hurt, thinking of him and how many miles from home she was with no clue why and surrounded by creatures of purpose, who could help the hurt and were now having to waste an afternoon trying to account for her…that made her feel helpless.

Montoya emerged from a pair of gates further along the wall, where every line except the yellow ones started from. The Elements’ yellow variety came from only two corridors and formed into little yellow boxes along the walls, probably designated civilian areas since they were occupied by nervous looking un-uniformed ponies. Rainbow Dash was the only Pegasus in one of these boxes who was hovering above the floor.

“Yeah, you’re a ’Bolt alright,” Montoya said as she reached them…no, Rarity realised, passing them and flicking her tail to indicate they should follow.

Dash flapped after her, forelegs folded. “That why you took forever? Looking up how awesome I am? ’Cause that I’d understand.”

“And here I was about to apologize for the real reason,” Montoya drawled as she led them past a semaphore message office, its open door letting out endless clickings and dingings. “Looking up both your records did take a while, yeah, but we had the Ratcaster in here last night. He tried to bust out and his pets got into the walls, messed up the elevator wiring. We’re still waiting on repairs.”

Rarity glanced up as the detective led them into a space beyond the hall. The roof opened up into an even higher space, with even more stairwells and catwalks. “Ah. Well. Any cardio one can squeeze in and all that.”

“That’s the spirit,” Montoya said, turning towards the least crowded of the stairwells. All three hesitated when they realised this was because a troupe of guards was trying to haul a set of giant dice up to the third floor.

Rainbow Dash sighed, then popped her neck. “Hey, the Commander’s office is still up top, that big foreman’s box, right?”

“Yeah?” Montoya said warily, then yelped as the Pegasus looped a foreleg around her waist.

Rarity went limp with the resignation that came from knowing somepony like Rainbow Dash for as long as she had, making sure to tuck her legs in as Rainbow soared up between the catwalks, carrying both mares up to Commander Autumn’s office.

On the 27^th floor.

To be Continued and possibly updated. Notes below.

Author's Notes:

Okay. So.

This is mostly just to post something, because I was getting back into this after a lot of real adult life stuff. There's more under construction and I genuinely did have this specific chapter planned out in my head, complete with a killer of an act break. For starters, our main guest star would've actually put in an appearance.

But life is what happens when you're making other plans, so now I'm off to the old country (although not the old home town, which would be pretty nice since so much of Glasgow and how the rest of the world has arbitrarily decided to perceive it is a big part of this) where I'll be down to my phone's online capabilities, a Premiere Inn's local wi-fi and no access to my word processor for at least a week.

One reason for the trip is good (the Edinburgh book festival!), the rest isn't because I have to pay some last respects to someone, and now my family and I are having to smush a lot of plans together. No one's fault. Things happen.

But I don't wanna lose any of the energy I was getting back writing Dash and Rarity's adventures in Gothamland, so I'm compromising. Posting what I have and playing fair about it. I'm either gonna make the under construction stuff Chapter 3 (which'll also be named after the lyrics of a song, the same way the first two are, let's see if you can figure out which one before I add it to the soundtrack) or do what I did way too much of over in Super Pony Roomies and add it into this when it's done. We'll see.

Distinguished Competitors: Red Skies at Knight's

by TheManehattanite

01-Here We Go

02-Round and Round the Floor (Sorta. Explanation inside.)