It’s Poetic, Really

“Manehattan PD” was not a phrase that inspired confidence in many of the city’s citizens. It might have had something to do with size, both the department’s and the city’s. The city was a vast, sprawling landscape of concrete and brick, filled to the brim with ponies and their vices. Manehattan Police Department was a handful of buildings scattered throughout the city, each carrying only the bare minimum of ponies needed to keep the peace.

That statement itself was something of a joke. With the influx of residents from all races and all walks of life, the crime rate was rising, and politicians who cared more about their approval ratings than actually having a better city found the police to be a convenient scapegoat.

Budget cuts were approved monthly, taking a bite out of salary and benefits each time. Every week, more police ponies left the department for better work or began taking payoffs just to keep afloat. And so, what was supposed to be a beacon of peace and order was rapidly becoming another corrupted and diseased portion of the landscape.

Of course, this was all opinionative.

The opinions in question belonged to a mare who struck fear into the hearts of those that have had the misfortune of meeting her under non-legal circumstances.

Poetic Justice was a criminal’s worst nightmare: a cop who couldn’t be bought, who didn’t leave things alone, and who mostly just got pissed off if you shot at her. She looked the part too, what with her closely cut, reddish-brown mane, her gunmetal grey coat that accented nicely with her police jacket, and the stylized golden badge on her flanks.

Detective Poetic Justice

Hard Flank

And at the same moment that Vinyl Scratch was going down a narrow street at far too great a speed, Detective Poetic Justice was leaning back in her chair, her hooves propped up on her desk, her head reclined, eyes closed, smoke curling upwards from the cigarette clutched between her lips.

The mare inhaled and exhaled slowly and smoothly, the taste of her special blend always soothing her. She needed soothing today. They were giving her a new partner today, on account of the last one getting shot. She didn’t see what the big deal was; they could easily reattach it.

Of course, such tranquility could only last so long before the universe got bored and decided to get things moving.

“Hey, Poetic!”

Poetic pulled her head up and looked over her reflective sunglasses at the source of the call. Her emerald eyes were greeted with the sight of one Harry ‘Cowlahan’, a cop that was fairly new to the district. Cowlahan wasn’t his actual name, she knew that much, but she never actually bothered learning his real one. She imagined he got it from the brown splotches on his white coat.

Harry Cowlahan

*Snicker*

Poetic sighed and tilted her head back again. “Hello Harry,” she replied.

The all-too-cheery Harry practically skipped over to her and plopped down in the chair adjacent to her desk, setting the steaming mug of coffee he had on the corner of the desk.

He was the son or nephew or something of somepony important, which gave him some degree of pull in the Department’s bureaucracy. Not that he mentioned or even used it. The kid was annoying at times, but she knew he meant well. Why in Tartarus he had taken such an interest in her was a real mystery.

“You know smoking isn’t allowed inside the building,” Harry said.

“Bite me, Harry,” Poetic said casually.

The police pony chuckled. “Hey, I’m just trying to do you a favor.” he began reaching for a file on her desk. “Don’t want to give the Captain another reason to suspend you.”

“If you see the Captain, you tell him to bite me too.” Poetic slapped his hoof, not bothering to look up. “And don’t touch my files.”

Harry winced and shook his hoof. “Ouch, that’s my gun hoof. I need that, Poetic.”

“Then don’t touch my files.” she rolled her head forward and eyed Harry. “Do I come to your desk and touch your files?”

“You know I don’t have a desk.” he coughed as some of Poetic’s smoke rolled his way. “And would you put that out? For my health at least?”

Poetic gave Harry a look and dropped her cigarette in his coffee. “Better?” she asked.

“Better.” Harry sourly looked at his coffee, pushing it aside. The expression didn’t last long and he was soon talking again. “Now that the air’s clear, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“I’m not going out for drinks with you, Harry. Even if you do buy.”

The young stallion laughed. “Wow, why don’t you just take my pride out into an alley and shoot it?”

“Too much paperwork, like everything else. You were saying?”

“Yeah, you know how the evaluations are coming up next month?”

“Yeah, and?”

“Well, I was thinking about maybe pulling a few strings and getting you a good one this year.”

“I don’t need any strings pulled, Harry. I’m good at my job.”

“Yeah, but you piss off the Brass.” Harry leaned forward. “Come on, I do my string pulling and maybe you make lieutenant this year.”

“I don’t want to be a lieutenant, Harry.”

“Why not?”

“I like being on the ground, making progress, not back at HQ, making coffee.”

“Come on, Poetic, think about it. You spend a few years making coffee and then you’re captain and you’re the one busting chops and giving ponies forty-eight hours to finish the job.”

Poetic sighed and leaned forward, resting her hooves on the desk as she pointedly eyed Harry. “I know you mean well Harry, but believe me, I do not want to be Captain. The higher up I go, the worse the fall is, and they’ll push me off if I don’t toe the line.” she leaned back in her chair again, head returning to its previous position and hooves absentmindedly going through her pockets for her pack of cancer sticks.

Harry remained quiet for a time before… well, Poetic wasn’t sure what to call it, but she thought she heard him giggle.

“Wow, Poetic, that was great!” he said excitedly. “Did you come up with that just now or did you write it beforehand?”

Poetic sighed. “You give me a headache, Harry.”

“You haven’t asked me to leave.”

“Harry, leave.”

Harry chuckled. “Come on, Poetic. I come over here trying to be helpful and you turn me away?”

“Yep.”

Harry chuckled again. “Alright, alright. I can take a hint.”

Poetic felt a faint smile on her lips.

“However,”

And there it goes.

“There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

Poetic sighed and rubbed her temples as she leaned forward again. “What is it, Harry?”

“How bad is Equiscide going to be, really?”

Poetic blinked in surprise. That wasn’t what she was expecting. “Going to be? Did you get transferred?”

“Yeah, I’m, well, I’m your new partner.”

Poetic blinked a few times and then brought her hoof to her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “Really?”

“Yep. It was made official this morning.”

“Did you request this, Harry?”

The stallion looked a little nervous. “Well… I said that since I was moving up in the department I should work with an experienced cop to learn all the stuff they can’t teach you in the academy. The brass agreed with me and when I saw that you were in the market for a new one…” he shrugged. “I couldn’t think of a cop that seemed more knowledgeable than you.”

Poetic sighed again and looked at the stallion. “Well… I’m certainly flattered, Harry, but if Equiscide is the department you want to go into, you’ll want to ask for a different partner.”

“If you think that rolling with you will ruin it for me, believe me, I can stomach the-”

“It’s not that, Harry. I’m, not in Equiscide anymore.”

“No?”

“I was transferred after Rodriquez got shot.”

Harry snorted. “The big baby. It’s not like they can’t reattach it.”

Poetic couldn’t help the grin that came to her face. “Thank you. But the fact remains I’m not in Equiscide.”

Harry shrugged. “That doesn’t bother me. It’s not the department, it’s the cop. Wherever you roll, I’ll roll with you.”

Poetic rolled her eyes. “I’m flattered Harry. I really am. And you can, eh, ‘roll’ with me if you really want to.”

Harry beamed. “Awesome. So…” he began reaching for the file on her desk again. “If it’s not Equiscide, what are you into now?”

Poetic slapped his hoof again and snatched up the file, shoving it in a desk drawer. “Don’t touch my files.” she said. “And I - well, we - are in Gangs.”

Harry had been sucking on his hoof to alleviate the pain, but he quickly stopped and stared at Poetic with a look of concern mixed with fear.

“Did you say Gangs?”

“Yep.”

“I’m calling the Chief right now.” Harry reached for the phone on her desk. “Transferring you to Gangs?” he muttered with a hint of anger.

“Harry.” Poetic snatched the phone away before he had even begun to dial. “I requested to be transferred to Gangs.”

“You requested? Who in their right mind requests to be transferred to Gangs?!” Harry leaned forward, his voiced slightly hushed now. “Poetic, I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but there are two kinds of cops in Gangs: those that are on the payroll, and those that are on the hit list. And no offence, but you don’t seem the payroll type.”

“That is exactly why I want to be in Gangs, Harry. I grew up in this city. It’s my home. And I see it going to Tartarus in a damn hoof-basket.” she began ticking things off on her hooves. “I have griffins moving in ever since the ‘Fatherland’ became less profitable. I have cider smugglers bringing shipments in three times a week and having shootouts with the griffins four times a week. And in recent news, there is some psychotic Prench bitch in a ski mask stabbing her way through every vice this city has.” Poetic brought her hooves down on the desk. “These fuckers are carving up my city and I’ll be damned if I am going to be trudging behind them cleaning up their mess. That’s why I transferred to Gangs - so I can prevent the bodies from dropping, rather than finding out who dropped them after the fact.”

Harry stared at Poetic like she was crazy, but with a hint of awe mixed in. He sighed and nodded. “I can’t argue with that.” he shot her a grin. “When do we start?”

The phone on Poetic’s desk began to ring.

“Looks like we just did.”

Author's Note

New characters! And yes, Poetic is related to another character in one of my stories.

Also, in case anyone was confused: Equiscide = Homicide.