Trouble in Detrot

In most cities, the streets come alive at night. The city lights brighten the sky and outshine the stars. Detrot is not most cities. The lights here haven’t really shined for a while, save the street lights. The nights in Detrot are quiet. The few bars that we do have usually only have a few patrons at night. It’s honestly a miracle that they’re still in business.

Tonight must’ve been special though, because there was a mare I hadn't seen before that walked into the Stumbling Pony. I was already closing in on that magical phase called “roaring drunk”, so striking up a conversation was simple. I would love to say I’m a masterful pick-up artist at any level of sobriety, but I was too drunk to remember how I started our chat. Even now, I only remember pieces of it. I can sum it up in one sentence.

I’m Nimbus, she’s Opal Rain, and for some reason, I said I’d get her out of the city.

That should’ve been the first red flag. The outskirts of the city are poor as dirt. The gang I run with controls the entire district. Nopony leaves Detrot without their consent, and nobody that would come to the bar we were sitting in would possibly get consent. Of course, decisions are hard when you’re inebriated, so I promised I’d help her out.

I have a slight bit of influence in the gang. I pick the locks, plan some out the heists, and make sure that we can’t be connected to the crime. I even have—or, well, had—an official title. I was the “Lock Jock”, the expert in all things lock. But letting people out of the cities is serious business. The majority of the gang’s influence comes from keeping information under our control. Officially, the Equine Nation doesn’t exist. Every heist is made to look like an independent crime. That way, the guards never catch wind of us.

We control the slums, which happens to be everything in Detrot besides the upper-class housing district that surrounds City Hall. How do we trap an entire city? Well, we don’t. We take from the rich, keep for ourselves. Leave the poor alone and give them funny news stories about the nobles getting their stuff stolen. It might inspire more loyalty if we gave to the poor, but we decided as a group that they can just work for their own money like we “work” for ours. No one has any reason to leave.

Police reports say the slums of Detrot have a high crime rate, but it isn’t random crime, it’s organized. We have the influence to sway just about any situation our way. All the right ponies in all the right places, if you catch my drift. In the event one of our guys gets caught, we can typically get him or her out pretty quickly without many repercussions.

Would you believe the gang that is currently running most of Detrot got its start as a local pranking guild?

We used to get a bit of coin to steal something for somebody like, all the mattresses in a particular villa or all the plates, give them back a day later, everypony laughs and life goes on. Then things started getting malicious. Someone forgot to give the cups of some snobby noble back in time, so he buys a new set and hires guards. The gang takes it as a challenge and robs him blind. Charges are filed, ponies are disgruntled, and suddenly there is some sort of mafia like the one in Griffonia. Granted, all this went down before my time, which means like two decades ago. Now it is just another part of life here in Detrot. A petty war being fought over the mistake of a forgetful pony and the subsequent overreaction of both parties involved.

But those kinds of things don’t happen often.

Wow, we got sidetracked. Bottomline, the gang is part of the city now and remains under the nose of the crown by way of controlling information. And this mare wants me to go against all that so she can leave the city and go on an adventure or something. She must have thought I wanted to get out of the city too. I apparently look a bit depressed when drunk. My agreement, however, didn’t stem from a desire for me to get out of the city. Rather, it came more from a desire to get in her. Yelling out my answer probably contributed to getting caught so quickly, seeing as there were only me and some of my fiercely loyal gang mates in the bar. They took exception to me expressing the intent to break the rules. Lesson of the day, my little foals, never make life choices when you’re drunk or horny.

I was a bit of both, of course, so I guess I’m a hypocrite.

The sound of toppling chairs and glass cups shattering on the floor filled the bar.

“Just what are you tryin’ ta pull, Lock Jock?” one of my apparently now former gang mates exclaimed.

A calm silence filled the room. Nopony moved; each side eyed the opposition waiting for the slightest twitch.

The moment dragged on for what seemed like hours, till one of my former mates made a move to go block the exit.

I wasn’t in the best state of mind at that time, so when I heard somepony yell run, I bolted out of that bar faster than a fat pony to a cake buffet.

Opal and I beat him to the door and lost the bar patrons once we got outside. They were Earth ponies. We’re both pegasi. They really didn’t have much of a chance once we got into the open.

The damage was done, however, and in about ten minutes, news of this would reach the top. Since they don’t really take kindly to rule-breaking, I would get disciplined.

If I was still there anyways.

I would rather not get shaved, so leaving seemed the best course of action.

Ok, in retrospect, hair grows back, and I would have been fine, but I was drunk and it was cold that night, so being shaved seemed like a fate worse than death.

“We have to get past the city limits quick,” she said, “before they close them up.”

They didn’t physically close the city up.They just put more guards out and they sent out pegasi with homing devices to follow anyone who left, then more ponies would follow the homing beacon and deal with the runners.

She was right, however, the difficulty of the escape would be doubled if the gang got the chance to put more guards out.

I nodded to her in response, and we both took off into the sky, heading towards the edge of the city.

The night sky was cloudless, meaning we were easy to spot. I didn’t see the flash of any magic from the ground, however, so I figured the news of our escape attempt hadn’t yet reached the unicorns of the gang. If we added having to dodge spells being shot at us to the laundry list of things we had to avoid, tonight might have turned into a real bummer.

All seemed to be going well until one of the trackers came up behind us.

There was no way for him to hide from us, the cloudlessness was a double-edged sword.

I split off, hoping to draw him away. I succeeded, but didn’t know where to go from there. Stopping and trying to explain myself seemed as good an idea as any.

“Wait,” I slurred, “thish is all just a mishunderstanding.”

“Lock Jock, are you drunk?” the tracker whose name I could not place asked.

“Maybe.”

“Thank Celestia, I was worried you were actually tryin’ to leave us, br—” The tracker was cut off by a blue blur slamming into him and carrying him all the way down to the ground.

My intoxicated reflexes took a whole seven seconds to react to this. By the time I registered what was happening, Opal was flying back up to me.

“Nice distraction, that gave me the perfect opening,” Opal said. “We make a pretty good team.”

I was excited to be moving up from the “Guy I met at a bar” level to the “Guy I make a pretty good team with” level, so I just smiled and followed her after we began to fly off again.

Our pace was solid due to Opal being surprisingly fast. I am no slouch when it comes to speed, but I was being weighed down by large amounts of alcohol.

Everything was going great. Till a wave of nausea hit me. I don’t know if you've ever tried it before, but take my word for it, flying and barfing can’t be done simultaneously.

We had to touch down behind a tree, a little bit outside the city limits. Way too close to the outskirts to be considered safe. I released all the vomit I could’ve possibly contained in my body, then dry heaved for a couple more minutes after. I was relieved for it all to be over. Then I saw that we were surrounded by ponies whose approach was probably masked by the sound of my body trying to turn itself inside-out.

The world must hate me.

If an oath to never touch alcohol again would get Opal and me out of this, I would make it, but it wouldn't, so I won’t.