The Equestrian Hitcher

Chapter 3:

Horse of a Different Color

'Schoooom.' If I had to describe the sound, it would have been that.

I had never been that agile before. Don't get me wrong, I was no slouch, even fairly athletic if I did say so myself, but the twist I performed after that first attack was something else entirely. The blast came from behind and to the right, I didn't have a chance, and yet I did.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I kicked off the wall next to me into a back-flip and twist that shouldn't have been possible. My gun was in my hand before my boots hit the ground.

My head was starting to pound, and my mouth tasted of cake.

I saw the glow of unicorn magic charging up in the darkness; a second attack. So he wasn't done, well neither was I. Snapping three shots off, I heard them skip off the brick wall, and saw the unicorn's aura dodge to the side as it faded out. This one must have been a heavy hitter: most unicorn combatants would be able to keep their spells up during a simple evasion like that, but this one had to shut it down.

That was old-school magic. He was either unskilled, or trained in the old style: hit them so hard before they see it coming that they don't get up. This was fine for anything within the EU, but against human and high-tech opponents, a quicker, less powerful but more agile style of magic was needed.

Still, I had to wonder what his game was, and who he was. This was nothing like Explodey-the-Unicorn, who had been unskilled and frantic, but fast. The hair on my neck stood up again, and I jumped backwards as a dumpster crashed into the ground in front of me.

Okay, he knew exactly what he was doing. I hadn't expected that. I snapped the rest of the magazine out into the alley he'd ducked into, and kicked the magazine out of the gun as I sprinted towards him. I could hear the static buzz of magic charging up--I had one chance at this.

I slammed the backup magazine into the gun as I crossed the threshold of the alley, the slide fell with a click... and my feet left the ground. My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the alley and my gun snapped upwards to line up with the glowing horn in front of me. And he was... not a small pony. Not as big as the red horse down the other alley, but thick. White coat, blue hair.

He was definitely trained in the old ways: he was holding me in the air, could crush the life out of me in a second if he'd wanted to, but he hadn't thought to immobilize me. He didn't know anything about fighting humans, he couldn't have been involved with--

"Texas Ranger, put me down!" I forced out as I felt his magic start to squeeze around my midsection. All the blood rushed into my head, I started to get dizzy as I struggled to hold the gun steady, if he didn't let me go--

Gravity took over and I dropped like a lead rake. I landed on my right foot but lost my balance and ended up directly on my ass as I dropped my gun. I took in a sweet lung-full of air as I leaned against the brick wall, looked over at the pony. "It's been... Well I don't think I've ever pushed myself that hard," I offered with an exhausted half grin.

He looked at me, and I could tell his magic was just on the edge of lashing out again: I could taste the ozone in the air. He'd been holding back. An exceptionally powerful unicorn gives off ozone like that when they set off a spell. I couldn't say why but I'd always been able to sense it.

And as strong as the smell was, I didn't doubt he'd be able to level the city block if he wanted to. I decided to break the silence, since he wasn't likely to, "Detective Victoria Jensen, and you are?"

He shook his head, his two tone electric blue mane brushed across his forehead, the lighter stripe matched his eyes. I blinked, hesitated. "Equestrian Secret Service, Captain Sh-"

"-ining Armor." I finished for him. The name had popped into my head immediately 'Pinkie?' I thought quickly as Shining looked at me with confusion.

'That's Twilight's brother!' Pinkie practically yelled into my head.

"You've heard of me?" He asked apprehensively, as he took a step back. How was I gonna play this one?

"It seems we have a mutual friend. I'm looking for a pony who has a thing for rodeos. To be honest, her friend told me she was in trouble." I answered, hoping he'd take the hint. It seemed obscure enough to go over his head if I was wrong about his involvement, but there wouldn't be a lot of reasons for E.S.S. to be in Fort Worth otherwise.

His expression flash recognition and I knew that he knew. "So, this friend, where is she?" he asked as he edged closer.

I pushed myself onto my feet and collected the pistol from the ground, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but she's safe. I'm guessing big red over in the courtyard is a friend of yours?" I asked as I jerked my head towards the direction I'd come from.

"He's got a personal involvement in this... as do I," he answered slowly. He looked me over appraisingly, "So why are you involved?"

"I blew up a unicorn and a house and myself. Been a really interesting forty-eight hours for me," I shrugged and turned towards the fight still going on down the way. "I'll tell you more about it later, but let's go stop your friend from getting a body count."

I started walking, and the hoof-clops behind me were all the answer I needed.

~~~

"You've been quiet, Pinkie," I whispered under my breath while I watched Shining and the big red one 'talk' to one of the ponies that the latter had beaten to a pulp. The big one's name was Big Macintosh. I knew this because Pinkie knew this.

'Sorry Vicky, I kinda wore myself out helping you out with Shiny,' she answered. I couldn't just feel the tiredness in her tone, I could actually feel how tired she was.

"Well don't worry about it, just get whatever rest you can. We'll figure this out; find Applejack, get you out of my head. Have a party, with cake, balloons, streamers..." I hesitated. That wasn't my thought process. She must be rubbing off on me.

'Sounds fun!' she said with a little more energy. 'Shiny's coming back!' I looked up. He looked upset. I stepped away from the car I was leaning on and approached him.

"He doesn't know enough to be helpful. He doesn't know where Applejack is, or Pinkie, or..." he trailed off, and I could see him fighting back something, "Twilight..."

His sister. He didn't tell me, I knew. That would put anybody in a bad way. I began to hear sirens in the distance. I turned back to my car, and then to Shining, and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, "Look, she's not dead, I can almost guarantee it, but I get the feeling you're not here on official business. I'll explain what I know, but right now we've gotta get out of here. Grab Big Mac and let's split."

"How do you know his name?" He asked, as his expression shifted from upset to confused.

"Like I said, I'll explain later, let's go," I repeated.

Shining whistled and Big Mac's head turned towards us. There was some kind of unspoken communication between them, and Mac struck the captive pony across the head and knocked him cold.

"That's... one way of handling it," I said slowly with a raised eyebrow as I watched Mac stomp his way over to us. "I thought you ponies were supposed to be all gentle kindness and friendship."

"They kidnapped his sister," Shining said flatly.

"Touché."

I turned to look at the Buick and frowned. Shiny could probably fit in the front seat, but Big Mac was... well, Big. I opened the back door, "Shiny, you've got shotgun, the biggun's gotta sit in the back. Gonna be a tight fit."

~~~

"This was a terrible idea."

The first words I'd heard the big guy say. I couldn't fault his logic. "Just don't break the seat, okay? I didn't have a lot of options, and you're not exactly small," I complained back. I shifted the car into fourth as I merged onto the interstate. The engine let out a throaty growl as the speedometer needle crept up over seventy.

"Where are we going?" Shining asked as I settled the car into the left lane.

"Insane," I muttered under my breath as I signaled and changed lanes, "We're going back to where this started... or at least where I became involved. I kinda left in a hurry." That was possibly the understatement of the century.

"So what do you know?" I asked as I glanced over at Shining. He'd been there longer than I was, the fact that he and Big Mac had found time to rough those guys up was proof enough of that.

He leaned back in the seat, he made the act look natural despite the equine propensity to avoid that very position. Maybe he'd spent more time around humans than I thought. "They got Pinkie on the way to the vendors, caught her on a corner with no camera coverage, so they did their homework. From what we were able to tell, he wasn't..." he faltered.

"She's alive." I answered, the question he didn't ask but the suspicion was obvious. He gave me a suspicious glance, "Trust me, she's alive."

"Applejack got away, or at least that's as much as they know. They were hoping to jump whoever came looking for Pinkie in order to find her, they got Big Mac instead," he said with obvious smugness.

"I'm guessing you're not E.S.S.?" I asked over my shoulder to the pony in the backseat.

"Nope." He replied flatly.

"How verbose," I deadpanned, "So, here's where I come in then, the short version: I was investigating a horn harvesting complaint, figured it was bogus and I was right. Ended up in Kaufman, at the address given, broke in the door when I heard a scream. No vic, but I got ambushed by a black unicorn. I shot him in the horn while he was trying to kill me with magic and he exploded and turned inside out. This lit the house on fire, and then it exploded."

Shining stared at me slack-jawed as the scenery passed by the window. His glassy eyed stare broken only by the sound of a siren in the distance. "Wow."

"Yeah, like I said before, rough two days." I offered as I watched him rub the base of his horn.

Oh yeah, I had been shooting at him.

"And missing" Pinkie added helpfully.

That was a good point, and she probably had something to do with it.

I downshifted to merge onto I-20 eastbound, my eyes flicked to the mirror, there was a black van three cars back and two lanes over. My cliché sense was tingling, but I wasn't going to act just yet. Black wasn't exactly an unheard of color for vans, I'd just have to see how long we ended up going the same direction.

I signaled the turn and they got over into my lane as I hit the changeover, cliché sense was getting stronger. Maybe they just noticed the turn off at the last second, but I didn't hold out much hope for that one. Unhelpfully, Pinkie was completely silent on the matter.

"Shiny, Mac. There's a van that might be tailing us, old black Chevy, right lane, two cars back. Keep an eye out would you?" I asked as I accelerated back up to eighty, speed limit be damned.

I caught the glow out of the corner of my eye, Shiny's horn was lit up, a second later i heard the squeal of tires and watched the van pull onto the shoulder. "Shouldn't be a problem anymore," he answered calmly.

"What the hell?" I asked with an accusatory glare. They might have been tailing us, they might not, but innocent until proven guilty (or until they prove they're trying to kill me) I was still a cop after all.

"What? It's a very hot day, something that old, probably had old tires, these things happen..." he said innocently.

I wasn't sure if this was an indication of a guy with a can-do attitude who does what it takes to get the job done... or a loose cannon ready to take out the rest of his team.

Either way, I had this nagging feeling it was going to bite me in the ass later on.

Or... It might rub off on me.

Author's Note

So here's another chapter, cool things will be happening sooner than later. Plz do the read and comment thing. thanks.