The Crimson Crucible

Manehattan – 20:36 – Day 0

Four armed ponies climbed the stairs. One of them carried a gun, another had a crowbar and the other two had knives. When they reached the flat that they were looking for, they broke the lock with the crowbar and forced their way in.

Target acquired: unicorn, late twenties, small, blue and sporting a cerulean mane. It looked like they were just in time; she was packing a bag to leave.

She saw them: intruders. Gun pointed; crowbar waving, knives at the ready.

Screams.

Struggle.

They held her down while they ransacked her bedroom, tearing it apart. The gun-wielding stallion bellowed at her repeatedly: “where is it?”

She sat there and shook, paralyzed by fear.

He seized her by her mane and twisted it, peering into her face. Once more he demanded: “Where is it?” He struck her across the face with his gun and threw her down onto the bed.

As they continued to pour her possessions out onto the floor and lay waste to her small flat in their search, she saw her opportunity as the stallion’s back was turned.

In a sudden explosion of courage, she grabbed the lamp from her bedside table and smashed it against the back of the stallion’s head, knocking him to the ground.

She bolted.

Two pursued.

One stallion grabbed her from behind as she tried to get out through the door.

Her panic quickly turned to determination. Fuelled by adrenaline, her actions were no longer held back by her fear. She struggled against the stallion’s grasp and drove her elbows one after the other into his stomach, forcing him to let go. She followed up with an elbow strike to the face, splintering one of his bottom teeth. As the second stallion approached her, she kicked him in the groin as hard as she could and ran, through the corridor and down the stairs as fast as she could, using her unicorn magic to topple objects to hinder her pursuers.

By the time the three ponies were in a position to chase her, the unicorn had already gone. They stood outside the building, looking around for any sign of her, but the darkness and the rain reduced the visibility. They could barely see to the end of the road.

“Sea Swirl is gone,” one of them said.

“Shit,” moaned another stallion, trying to contain the pain that raged in his crotch, “What are we going to tell the boss?” He looked over in shock at his partner who was holding the broken tooth in the palm of his hoof.

The stallion who held the gun didn’t have an answer. There wasn’t anything to say. They only had one option: find her and retrieve the lost package by whatever means necessary.

Manehattan – 21:52

Fear.

It was all that was driving Copper Cage forward. It was all that was keeping him going.

It was all that was keeping him from dying on his hooves.

His heart thumped against his chest as he staggered through the crowded street. Those who saw him parted to allow him through, those who didn't kept on walking, as if he wasn't there. Frequently, he turned to peer over his shoulder to check to see who or what was behind him.

Was he being followed?

Did he dare stop to find out?

Darkness had descended on the city and a cruel fog was starting to envelop the streets, parting only for blazing sets of headlights that roared through the dark mist. Everywhere was surrounded by the oppressive grey towers that reached for the black sky.

He stumbled around a corner into an empty street and started to walk a little more quickly.

Nearly home.

The words rung in his mind. What if he didn’t make it? What if they found him before he arrived?

What if they found him?

He started to run. Heavy, laboured steps that slapped against the pavement that took him across the road, that narrowly missed an oncoming cart and steered him back onto the pavement. He stopped to catch his breath, leaning against a lamppost for support. He could hear dogs barking in the distance. Were they after him too? Were they getting nearer?

They were coming. He knew it.

Copper Cage started running again.

Eventually, he approached the towering block of flats where he lived. The metallic grey brickwork became one with the black sky as the tower reached upwards, lights from the windows searching for him as he stumbled through the building entrance.

Inside, the dirty walls were covered with graffiti that had been smeared over the peeling wallpaper. Broken glass bottles lay on the floor in abundance. Lights flickered above and exposed wires hung from gaps in the ceiling. Packs of youths loitered around both inside and out, wearing hooded tops, smoking cannabis and flashing their knock-off firearms. None of that mattered; it was still safer than the street.

He rode the elevator to the eighth floor and stepped out into the corridor as soon as he could. He walked briskly along the stained, yellow carpet until he reached flat 817.

With a shaking hoof, he unlocked the front door and pushed his way inside.

Inside his flat, he crossed the hall and made for the cramped little kitchen. He seized the kettle with a shaking hoof, filled it with cold water and switched it on to boil. He dropped a teabag in a stained mug and went to retrieve some milk from the fridge. As the kettle boiled, he sat on a stool rubbing his temples. His hooves were trembling violently, and his hooves were tapping nervously against the ground.

Copper Cage was breathing hard, short, raspy breaths that punctuated the flat’s empty silence.

Silence.

Except for the boiling kettle and rain that was now coming down hard against the kitchen window.

The kettle finished boiling.

There was silence once more.

With a sigh of relief, he stepped forwards to take hold of it.

Copper Cage didn’t even notice the rope until it was already being pulled against his windpipe.

Trottingham – 22:34

Sapphire Lounge was a spacious bar down by the quayside. It offered comfy sofas and clean toilets. It sold cheap trebles, wines, cocktails and offered a modest selection of real ales and ciders on tap. Its main source of income came from the students of either of Trottingham’s two Universities, who came by the cartload, pumping their student loans into the city’s nightlife revenue.

Tonight was like any other: the bar was crowded with students, graduates and other members of the young, middle-class demographic. Of the four ponies who were working the bar that night, earth pony Crimson Cage, was the eldest and the only one who was a stallion. The red-maned Crimson, stood behind the bar, pulling cider through the pump into pint glasses. He smiled and nodded at customers as they leant forward and screamed obscure orders at him, or thrust menus into his face, pointed to products and grunted at him.

As the last of the group he was serving returned to their seats, Crimson wiped his face with a heavily tattooed, light-grey forelimb. As he turned around, he could see another group of fillies approaching. Some of them ogled the ruggedly attractive, gruff-looking barman, who stood out amongst his female colleagues.

“Crimson, I’ve got this. Go and help Pink Lloyd on the floor.”

Crimson looked to his left.

The bar manager, Nancy Napes, was a pegasus and a Trottingham University graduate who had opted to stay rather than return to Swindon and face her staggering student debt. She swooped down next to Crimson and swiped her card on the cash register.

“Go on,” she said, “I want an early finish tonight.”

“Define early.”

“As in home before two,” Nancy replied, “Get going.”

“Alright,” Crimson said.

He followed the length of the bar, squeezing passed a fresh faced filly who was serving trebles to a young stallion that could barely hold himself upright.

Crimson pushed his way through the revelling patrons, collecting glasses from tables. Hooves full, he was almost oblivious to the vibrating phone on his person and paid more attention to the large quantity of glamorous young girls who were standing around a table talking to an overweight doorpony who was on his way back from a toilet break.

The bald-headed doorpony shot a crooked glance at the stallion with the tattoos who was carrying around a tower of glass. They’d never spoken, and the middle-aged doorpony wondered, without a hint of irony, what somepony like that was doing in a bar like Sapphire Lounge, hanging around with students who were half his age.

When the tower of empty glasses he had accumulated was so tall that could no longer place another glass on top of it, he carried it back to the bar and divided it into stacks. After this was done, he went out and repeated the same process, completely forgetting about the phone.

It was only after he had completed his third round of glass collecting that Crimson finally checked his phone.

It was an unknown number, one that had called four times and left a voicemail.

Crimson went into the back office, away from patrons, colleagues and loud music. He dialled his voicemail service on the way and pressed his phone to his ear.

“Crimson, it’s Sea Swirl.”

Crimson was instantly hit by anxiety when he heard the unmistakable sense of panic in his sister’s tone. He listened intently, with a growing sense of dread as her recorded message continued.

“Look, I know this is out of the blue, but something awful has happened, and there are ponies coming for me.”

The faint sound of Sea Swirl’s racking sobs came through the speaker. “I’m worried about Dad... Oh God, I think they’re going to come for him as well.”

Crimson felt his mouth go dry. He tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

“I can’t stay here anymore, Crimson, there are ponies after me,” Sea Swirl’s voicemail continued, “I’ve got something to take care of and then I’m getting the train to Trottingham.”

Crimson’s heart rate quickened.

“I’ve got to go,” was the last thing Crimson heard from his sister before he got the audible sound of a receiver clicking back into place, and the post-voicemail options.

The realisation set in that his sister was in trouble and he was four hours away at the other end of the country. Crimson was overcome by a monumental sense of guilt. How long had it been since they had spoken, four months? Five? Not for a while, anyway. Not since the day that he turned up at her doorstep, broken and shivering, a shell of the stallion that he was. His exile had briefly allowed him to escape his self-loathing, but there was no escaping the crippling senses of fear, guilt and dread that were now festering within him.

He tore the phone from his ear and keyed in Sea Swirl’s mobile number. He paced the office room anxiously as the phone proceeded to ring.

“Welcome to Ponyphone voicemail...”

Frustrated, Crimson ended the call. He tried again. And again. And again. On the fifth try, he left a message.

“Sea Swirl it’s me. Whatever you do, don’t leave Manehattan. The last thing you want is to be stuck on a train with nowhere to run. Find somewhere to stay, text me the location and wait for me,” he went to fetch his black leather jacket from the store cupboard, “I’m coming to get you.”

He ended the call and put his phone in his pocket.

Nancy came through into the office and looked at her employee in surprise. Her mane was tied up out of her face, and she wore a concerned expression.

Crimson acknowledged her entrance, as he pulled on his leather jacket, but he said nothing. He simply checked that he had everything in his pockets.

“We’re still serving until one,” Nancy said. She spoke without prejudice and without expectation, as if she was merely stating a fact.

“I’ve got to leave,” Crimson told her, still without looking, as he walked towards the door, “family emergency.”

“Can I ask what?”

Crimson stopped. Only now, as he was about to pass her on his way out of the office, did his eyes meet with hers.

The expression on his face was unlike any Nancy had ever seen before. His cold, steely eyes were pools of fear. His face told her all she needed to know, so she just nodded at him, “Go then. We’ll be alright.”

“Thank you,” Crimson said, as he passed her on his way out of the office. He left Sapphire Lounge through the front door, walking passed the two doormen without as much as a glance in their direction.

As he made his way towards the train station, he was a raging cauldron, bubbling with a concoction of intense emotions that he had forgotten how to feel. It was a stark contrast to the past few months of feeling nothing at all.

Worst of all was the uncertainty, the not knowing. The insidious feeling of powerlessness that came from being four hours away from being useful, and the sinking feeling of dread that by then, it might be too late.

But amidst the sea of confusion, one thing was certain. Crimson was an ex-Equestrian Navy SEAL and Navy SEALs had a code:

Domus auxilium, tuum patriae, tuum protégé.

Protect thy family, thy country and thy friends.

As well as this, every SEAL was taught to live by this code:

Neque deditionem; neque receptus.

Never surrender; never retreat.

Retreat and surrender were out of the question: Crimson knew had to protect Sea Swirl from whatever it was that was about to hurt her, no matter what the cost. Throughout his long career as a soldier, his family had never turned him away; he had abandoned them in a futile quest to slay the malignant demons that had tormented him for so long.

Well, for now at least, the demons would have to wait.

Manehattan - 00:12 – Day 1

Phone call.

“It’s done.”

“Did the old stallion know anything?”

“If he did, he took it to his grave.”

Laugher.

“I’m not laughing.”

“Sorry, boss.”

“No, I don’t think you realise how important this is. You let the target get away.”

“I’m sorry, boss.”

“How close are you to finding her?”

“I’ve got ponies watching her house, boss.”

Short pause.

“Boss?”

“I want this done in the next twelve hours, do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t cock this up, Crusoe. There’s far more at stake here than you could ever realise.”

End of phone call.

Manehattan - 00:19

The streets were oppressive. It was like every building had eyes.

Sea Swirl trotted as quickly as she could, her little blue hooves slapping on the wet ground. She dipped her head as she crossed the road and slipped down into the underground. In the toilets, she splashed her face with water and used a paper towel to clean away the blood on her lip and the remnants of the make-up she had applied around her eyes. She pulled her long mane into a tight bun and took her spectacles out of her saddlebag to wear. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but it would do for now if she kept her head down and kept on moving. The pony who was looking for her would cast his net wide. She had to keep moving, at least until morning.

When she left the toilets, the train rumbled into the station. When the doors opened, she got on and sat down next to an elderly mare. It didn’t matter where the train took her; right now her only priority was survival, which currently ranked ahead of grieving for her dead father.

As the tube train moved out of the underground station and trundled into a tunnel, Sea Swirl felt a rising sense of dread, as the gaping mouth of darkness swallowed it whole.

Trottingham – 00:53

Never surrender; never retreat.

As the night train bound for Manehattan rolled into Trottingham Station, Crimson Cage stood up from the bench and walked towards it. In the interim period between leaving Sapphire Lounge and arriving at Trottingham Station, Crimson had tried to call Sea Swirl a further four times, each to no avail. He stepped inside the train and located an empty two-seater right at the back of the carriage, where he sat with his head against the window and gazed out.

In the six months since he had returned from war, Crimson had visited his family exactly once, and that was purely to tell them that he wasn’t dead. It was an act that had taken monumental courage, not just to see his family, but to visit Manehattan itself. The entire city was like a demonic creature whose insatiable appetite for pain and suffering was matched only by its thirst for madness and despair. Manehattan was a ravenous beast that had been tamed by those on top, while those underneath were kept firmly in their place. It consumed the lifeblood of all who entered and drained the colour from the world around it. Crimson had hated Manehattan since he first laid eyes on it. Two decades on, his feelings hadn’t changed. He would always associate it with death and misery.

Locked to his thoughts for the next few hours, Crimson started to wonder what sort of trouble his sister and father might be in. He had tried calling repeatedly, but neither his father nor his sister answered their phones. Sea Swirl had initially made contact without hers, which meant she probably didn’t have it with her. Sea Swirl knew his number and could the best he could hope for was to keep the line open. At best he had slightly over twenty four hours of charge in his phone. He needed to find Sea Swirl before then. Crimson worried about what dreadful circumstances would separate a young mare from her mobile phone.

Then he told himself there wasn’t any point in speculating or prophesising worst-case scenarios; he had to keep his mind focused on reality. His sister was in trouble, possibly in danger, but she was intelligent, streetwise and capable. She was a survivor.

She was also the sister of somepony who had once worked for an organisation who tended to hold grudges, and Crimson started to wonder if that might be the reason she was in trouble in the first place.

Manehattan - 01:28

Victim: male, early sixties.

COD: GSW to head.

That was what Cloudchaser had written down on her notepad. Everything else could be explained through photographs.

The blue pegasus pony stood in the centre of a tiny living room whilst the forensic officers busied themselves dusting every available hard surface for a set of fingerprints. She was aware that she was blocking the old stallion’s view of the television, but at this hour, she doubted that there would be anything on worth watching.

The old stallion was sitting on a chair with a towel shoved into his mouth. His wrinkled face, now barely recognisable, had suffered multiple bruises and lacerations. His thin hooves were locked behind the chair, bound together by a tie. His body, as equally bruised as his face, sported a series of deep slashes that looked as if they had been made with a sharp knife. A particularly ghastly wound had been cut across his belly, just above the naval and now yawned open, dribbling blood onto his lap.

The cause of death was evident. A light coat of blood had splattered against the wall behind him, an unfinished Jackson Paddock, which had ejected from the back of his skull, along with bone fragments and brain matter that now occupied the floor beneath him. The culprit had left a bullet hole in the centre of the stallion’s forehead; the bullet itself had lodged in the wall behind him. Judging by the charring on his fur and the large, circular indentation the gun had been fired at close range, probably from a suppressed pistol. Cloudchaser tried to visualise it, and she saw the old stallion, looking up at his killer, unable to speak, unable to beg for mercy.

As Cloudchaser extracted the bullet from the wall with a pair of pliers, a junior police officer was talking to her. She listened whilst examining the bullet.

“Old fellow’s name is Copper Cage, sixty-two. Unemployed. That’s about all we have at the moment.”

“Forty Smith and Wesson, hollow point,” Cloudchaser said to herself as she slipped the bullet into an evidence bag. She turned around to face the uniformed police officer, “the emergency call came in at eleven, right?”

The officer nodded, “a neighbour called and reported a dispute. We got there ten minutes later and found that. He was still warm.”

“A dispute? Did they report shots fired?”

“In this neighbourhood? No ma’am,” said the uniformed officer.

Cloudchaser nodded, “Was there any sign of forced entry?”

“Not until we came,” the officer replied, “door locks from the front once it’s shut.”

“I see.” Cloudchaser bent down to examine the stallion’s neck. It was heavily bruised. “So he either let the killer in, or the killer had a key.”

“Yeah,” said the uniformed officer. “Seems that way. But knowing this area, I wouldn’t rule lock picking out either.”

Cloudchaser continued to examine the corpse. “It looks like Mr Cage was made to suffer before he was killed. I reckon they only shot him when they heard the sirens, because he’d have bled out within about twenty minutes of getting that stomach wound. Probably couldn’t have saved him.”

“If that’s the case then we must’ve just missed them,” the officer said.

“Always the case, isn’t it?” Cloudchaser said as she took out her smart phone and took a series of photographs of the old stallion’s dead body. Satisfied, she returned the device to her saddlebag and hefted it onto her shoulder.

As she walked out of the room, she touched the senior forensic officer on the shoulder. “I’m done for now,” Cloudchaser said sleepily. “I’ll be back later when your team has moved the body.”

He nodded at her.

She left through the doorway.

Manehattan - 01:45

Cloudchaser sat outside. She drank from the cup of coffee that she had bought from a nearby 24-hour shop.

Having failed to graduate from the Wonderbolts Academy, Cloudchaser had moved to Manehattan and joined the Manehattan Police. Now a rookie detective, she was a recent transfer to the Murder Investigation Team, and this was the third time this month that she had been up at some unearthly hour responding to a gruesome murder.

Poor old bugger, she thought. He probably didn’t even see it coming. And then they had to beat the shit out of him for God knows how long until they decided to put a bullet in him.

Despite herself, she yawned, opening her mouth so wide that she felt her jaw cramp. She snapped her mouth shut and rubbed it slightly, feeling the pain subside, wondering if that was her punishment for yawning on the job. It was only Thursday, but already she was feeling the strain of having had a long week. She was looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday morning and spending the entire day watching drinking hot-chocolate and watching boxed sets.

But before she could do that, she had two hurdles to cross called Thursday and Friday, and they were ominous foes she had faced before.

She decided that she would go back to the station, write up her report and then go back to bed until lunch time. Hopefully by then somepony else will have filed all the paperwork and she could tag along for the arrest.

She stood up and stretched her wings. They didn’t seem to get as much exercise as they used to now that she was no longer training to become a top-class flier. She gave a weary sigh as she tossed her coffee cup into a nearby bin and started flying back to the police station.

As she flew away from crime scene, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Something really bothered her about the way that Copper Cage had been beaten and slashed up before he’d been shot.

It was then that she felt it in her gut and wondered if the coming day was going to be a very big hurdle in a very dangerous race.

Manehattan – 02:28

She had never felt fear like this before.

The young mare was tied to a chair, helpless while they ransacked her bedroom, tipping her belongings on the floor and rummaging through them; she watched in horror as the leader drew closer and closer with the knife in hoof. He was a well-built earth pony with a fearsome pair of eyes and an even more ferocious set of teeth.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the mare wailed. “Please let me go! I won’t tell anypony.”

“I know you won’t, sweetheart,” the stallion said, running his hooves through her matted brown mane. “But if you don’t have what I came for, then you know where she is.”

“I swear I don’t!” the mare protested, struggling against the bindings that dug painfully into her wrists. “Please, just leave me alone.”

“We will,” he said, “when you tell us where she is. Until then…” he rubbed against the smooth flesh of her thigh with the flat of his knife. “Looks like I’m staying.” He flashed a cold smile at her, and then dragged the sharp blade along her thigh, opening up a long, narrow cut. She squirmed, making involuntary crying sounds as blood seeped from the wound, running down her leg and onto her carpet.

“Where is she?”

The young mare was sobbing now, tears flowing down her cheeks and onto her naked torso.

“Where is she?” he stabbed the knife through her thigh until the blade touched her femur. She let out a sustained shriek of pure agony. He released the blade, letting it stand up inside her leg. He struck her across the face twice with his right hoof.

“I swear,” she sobbed, “I don’t know where she is. If I did, I would tell you.” She sat there, snivelling in desperation, naked and slowly dying from blood loss.

He stood and stared at her, his eyes wandering from her bruised face, to her naked torso and wounded thigh.

“Please,” she wailed, “please. I can’t stand the pain anymore.”

He held his stare, contemplating what to do next. He was about to reply when he was interrupted by one of the ponies behind him.

“Crusoe?”

The stallion turned around. “What?”

“It’s not here.”

He nodded, taking out a pistol and affixing it with a suppressor. “We’ll proceed to the next target.” He raised his pistol impassively and shot the mare through the head, silencing her sobs and screams once and for all.

He holstered his weapon and turned around to his colleagues. “Get rid of the body.”

Manehattan – 03:14

Phone call.

“Nopony knows where she is.”

“Somepony has to. Keep trying.”

“Six ponies are dead.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No but I…”

“We need results, Crusoe. Don’t disappoint me.”

“Boss, it’s three in the morning, we’ve been up all…”

“You can sleep when the bitch is kneeling at my hooves. Until then, you’ll do as you’re told. Find her, before I send somepony to find you.”

End of phone call.