October 1, 2014
8:32 AM

Rainbow and John Wick were sitting in the van, outside an apartment block in Miami. The heat and humidity, even inside the van, were bothering her a lot. How Wick, in his black leather gloves and suit, was able to cope with it was beyond her. She tried to blow her mane out of her face again, but it had slicked downward too much, and even pushing it away with a hoof didn’t work very well.

The crates had been arranged for them at short notice in a warehouse, which the four clowns had entered with their masks off. A few minutes later, they were taken away by the Russians, whom Wick had tailed in the van. She suddenly heard the door open, and heard Wick talking to a man outside. “What the fuck are you looking at?” the strange man said.

“I’m here to see Mikhail Kraminsky.”

“Never heard of him. Shove off.”

“The Commissar?”

“Oh, the Commissar. Yes. Hey, what do they call you?”

“Names are for friends, so I don’t need one.”

Two loud crashes were heard before Wick knocked on the van’s back door. “It’s all clear. You can come out now.” The man in the white suit was unconscious behind a now-open cast-iron gate, leading into a courtyard. A man with a bright orange beard was tied up on the ground. From below, she suddenly heard a few gunshots, the source of which was revealed as the masked-up Payday Crew emerged from a basement.

“Alright, you got the C4?” Dallas asked, and Wick nodded. “Good. We’ll blow the front door open, charge in and kill the guy.” They all walked into a courtyard, and Chains began to fire up at the windows as more of the white-suited men appeared, pointing guns downward at them.

“Rainbow, stay here. This shouldn’t take long,” Chains said as he directed the crew to stack up behind a large metal door on the east side of the courtyard. Wick placed a single brick of C4 on the door and stepped behind Hoxton and Wolf on the right side. Dallas and Chains were on the left, and Rainbow followed them to get out of the way of the explosive’s backblast.

“And remember, guys,” Wolf added, “no Russian.”

“...really?”

With a single protracted beep, the C4 exploded, and Dallas and Wolf pointed their guns inside. The Commissar was in an elevator, and called out “Dasvidaniya, motherfuckers!” as he rose into the air. The two robbers tried to shoot him, but he disappeared from their sight too quickly. As the two men in white who had been knocked back by the explosion stood up, they were shot instead.

“Guys, you can’t lose the Commissar now!” Bain shouted. “If he escapes, Hoxton will rot, so get your asses in gear!” The crew all charged up the stairs one by one as Rainbow launched herself straight up, heading for the top floor. Through a window, she could see the Commissar getting out of the elevator, heading for the penthouse apartment on the north side.

She tried to follow him, but a sudden hail of bullets filled the air. “Shit!” she cried as she started pulling manoeuvres in the air, trying to get away. “There’s too many of them! I can’t get close! Sorry, guys, looks like you’re on your own here!”

“Damn, this place is built like a maze... So many collapsed walls and barricades,” Bain added. “Don’t get lost, guys.”

“Hey, why don’t you try splitting up?” the Commissar taunted over a PA system. “One of you might actually find me!” Though the laugh wasn’t over the PA, Rainbow still heard it through the roof of his apartment, which she was lying on for cover.

Suddenly, she heard a noise outside, and took off again to investigate. “The police are here!” she called out. “Must want to talk about the motel battle last night! If they find you here, things could get a little rough!”

“Hey, over here! I found the stairs!” Hoxton called out. “Let’s get to the next floor!”

“Holy shit, guys. You’re not gonna believe this,” Bain suddenly cut in. “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is, I’ve gotten access to the cameras, and I can see a huge stash of cocaine in the Commissar’s apartment. The bad news? He’s ordered his men to flush it, just out of spite! The sooner you get up there, the more of it you can save, so get a move on!”

“Uh, that might be a little difficult,” Dallas said. “There’s a locked gate here.”

“Wolf, where are you? We need the drill!” Wick shouted.

“You’re going the wrong way!” the Commissar suddenly added. “Or are you? If you’re lost, way out is straight down. Try jumping out window!”

Rainbow heard the drill coming from the west side of the building through the badly insulated walls, drowning out the response. “The police are coming up! Stand them down!” Bain shouted, and gunfire followed the drill, the two fighting for dominance for a few seconds before the drill broke. A lot of loud profanities followed through the walls, but Rainbow couldn’t wait around for one of them to finally fix the drill.

Diving in through a window behind the gate, she grounded her forelegs and bucked the gate as hard as she could, sending the gate flying into one of the blue-armoured police officers. Chains was freed from the electrocution and returned fire with his Desert Eagle, sending his helmet flying with no head left behind on the body. “Come on, there’s no time!” she shouted, leading the group through the corridor to the eastern stairs.

The stairs were already barricaded when the group arrived. “Shit, we’re not getting through there anymore! There must be another way up; look for it!” The group split up into three groups and ran through the nearby apartments; Dallas covered Rainbow, Wick went with Chains and Hoxton followed Wolf. Heading to the left, Dallas noticed a ramp made from a collapsed floor that Rainbow hadn’t noticed, and called it out to the others, telling Rainbow to stay below and mark it for the others before heading up himself to investigate.

Hoxton and Wolf were the first to arrive, followed by Wick and Chains a few seconds later. “Guys, I don’t mean to tell you your business, but you just lost another bag of coke! I don’t know if I can even watch this anymore...” Bain said, and Rainbow couldn’t tell if he was actually having a panic attack or was just trying to motivate the crew.

“Hey, we’re doing the best we can here,” she replied. “Can you actually help, or are you just going to criticise us?”

“Well, for starters, that door seems magnetically sealed. Looks like they haven’t had time to hide the wiring, though. Don’t waste your C4, just follow it back to the source.” Looking down at the cable, Rainbow was the first to trace it, hovering above the cable slightly. As she followed it into a room, another door suddenly slammed shut behind her, darkening the windowless room except for a spotlight which suddenly turned on.

Under the spotlight was a man tied to a chair. She couldn’t see what he was wearing under the vest he’d been given, with some beige blocks attached to each other with lots of wires. Too late, she realised she’d been led into a trap, and it was full of C4. “Pretty pony is very curious, no?” the Commissar taunted. “Well, pretty pony can go join the cat for curiosity!” The C4 vest beeped once, and a number appeared on a screen: 1:00, which quickly became 0:59.

“Fellas! I’m trapped in a room with a guy who’s wired to blow! What do I do?!” she shouted. The timer had gone down to 0:53 during the rant.

“Cut the red wire!” Wolf shouted. Everyone else quickly began giving instructions over the top of one another while banging on the door.

0:46

Rainbow, listen to me. This isn’t hopeless. Just focus on my voice.

0:41

“Twilight?”

0:40

Don’t try to cut any of the wires near the timer. You need to find the detonator.

0:35

“How do you know any of this?

0:33

Just do it, Rainbow. I won’t let you die here. Go around the back.

0:29

There was a metal case holding the vest together at the back. Rainbow took off the cover and looked at the bundle of wires inside. Okay, you need to take out the wires...

0:22

“Which ones? Just take them all out?”

0:20

No! That’ll just detonate the bomb due to tampering!

0:17

“So what order should I take them out in?!”

Ah, I don’t know!

0:14

“I’m running out of time here! Just give me some kind of clue!”

0:10

I don’t want to give you any bad advice—

0:07

“Damn it, I need at least SOMETHING!”

0:05

Tear out the red wire!

0:03

Biting down with her teeth and closing her eyes, Rainbow Dash tore out the red wire from the detonator.

0:00

The bomb beeped once, and she pulled herself inward, hoping to shield herself against the explosion. It never came. She was stuck inside for about half a minute before she finally let out the breath she’d been holding, suddenly laughing. “Guys, I’m okay!” she shouted. “The bomb didn’t go off!”

“Hey, what’s all the noise about?” the guy in the chair suddenly asked, muffled slightly by a cloth bag over his head. “I already told you dickbags everything I know...”

“Wait a minute. Who are you?”

“Get this bag off me. Who the hell are you?”

“I don’t think I should. If you saw my face, you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Stop fucking with me, lady, just get the fucking bag off before I—”

“Alright, alright.” Despite her reservations, she pulled the bag off the man’s head, and found herself surprised by what was underneath it. The man had been beaten raw, with two black eyes and multiple cuts across his face, some of which were still open. He eyes seemed barely open, but he saw the pony across from him, and he blinked a few times. “Is this real? Pinch me, I’m gonna wake up and be tortured again...”

“Hey, Rainbow, what’s the hold-up?” Dallas asked over the radio. “You okay in there? Can you just get the door open so we can move on?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry, just a sec.” She returned to the cable on the ground and followed it to a box on the wall. Feeling lucky, she tore off the cover, then ripped out the cables inside, trusting they weren’t attached to a bomb. Chains shoved the door open, letting some actual light back inside. “Sorry about that. Things were a little tense here for a while, but it should be okay now.”

“Well, get back in gear. We’ve got a Russian to kill.”

“Hey, you guys are after the Commissar too?” the man in the chair asked. “If you untie me, I can help you out with that. I’ve got a score to settle.” Chains paused for a while, before waving the others on and entering the room. He slowly took off the C4 vest, then untied the man’s hands. “Thanks. You won’t regret this.”

He picked up a rubber chicken mask and a bloody baseball bat off the ground, putting on the mask completely over his head unlike the team’s masks. “Alright, let’s put this guy six feet under,” he said, his voice seeming to drop an octave. Before Rainbow could react, he was already running, following the cable like the others. Chains pointed in the direction he was running and took off as well. Without much choice in the matter, Rainbow followed.

The group met up again at the stairs to the fourth floor, directed through the maze by Bain, who had managed to piece together the camera coverage to help. “Looks like the Commissar is through those doors,” he said. “Wick, get the C4 ready.”

“You fucking Yankee dicks! Everyone, don’t let these assholes through!” the Commissar shouted through the doors as Wick set the first charge. When all three of his remaining charges were set, he directed everyone to step back, stacking up as they had before, only now with ‘Jacket’ in the lead instead of Dallas.

The charges blew and the doors were blasted off. Jacket charged in first, breaking open one of the Russians’ heads with his baseball bat before grabbing the dropped gun and firing down the corridor to the left. Rainbow didn’t watch any more, flying through a skylight to get away from the massacre. As the crew cleared the apartment, Bain suddenly asked, “Nice job saving that cocaine, but no sign of the Commissar anywhere... Did the bastard jump? No... Wait a minute.”

With all the men in white suits dead, the crew stopped in front of a large vault door on the west side of the penthouse. “Tricky bastard’s using his vault as a panic room! Knew it seemed too easy! Hold on, I’ll get Alex on the line to drop off a thermal drill.”

“How long is he going to be?” Rainbow asked. “Because the police are climbing the building right now!”

“Shit, crawlers?!” Hoxton exclaimed. “Everyone get ready! This penthouse is about to get a hell of a lot more crowded!”

“How the hell did they even get here so fast?!” Chains asked.

“Oh, that’s easy,” the Commissar suddenly said, again over the PA system. “Every cop in Miami is on my books. They’ll get you long before you get me. They’ll fuck you, and I will walk away a fucking hero!”

Rainbow suddenly heard a noise outside that reminded her of the helicopter that had come after her on the Murkywater job. A helicopter was approaching, but it didn’t have any police markings, and the weapon underneath didn’t seem like what the police would use. “Shit, the Commissar’s got a gunship!” Bain shouted. “Everyone, get to cover!”

A missile detached itself from the gunship, quickly followed by two more. The police, who were still climbing the walls, were thrown off by the impact. She didn’t see any of the Payday Crew thrown out the windows or caught in the inferno, though.

“Everyone check in!” Bain shouted. “Who’s still here?”

“Dallas, alive.”

“This is Wolf, I’m still okay.”

“Chains. Gonna hurt tomorrow, but I should be fine for now.”

“Fuck me... I’m hit real bad here. Shrapnel in the leg...”

“C’mon, Hoxton, you can pull through this.”

“This is Wick. I’m fine, so’s Jacket. Looks like the only casualty is Hoxton.”

“Well, you’ve gotta get those fires out, and fast. Don’t want to risk the Commissar getting away in the chaos. Look for a sprinkler system.”

“And watch out for the snipers! They’re all over the nearby buildings!” Rainbow added, dive-bombing one that was about to take a shot at Wolf. She didn’t push him off the building, but she did manage to knock him out and relieve him of his rifle. Wolf turned a valve on a pipe and returned to the room, where the sprinklers were running.

“Okay, that’s that taken care of. Hoxton, you doing okay?”

“Should be fine... Don’t think I’ll be doing much else, though, with an injury like this. And that fire before burned all our cocaine anyway... Fuck, so much for that payday.”

The PA crackled to life once again. “And tell me, my American friends, how exactly do you propose to get in here before the police return? I can last a year in here, and you have no drill, no explosive, no nothing! Admit it, you pig-fuckers, the Commissar has outsmarted you once again!”

Jacket tapped Chains on the shoulder, and the latter said, “Why doesn’t someone go get that vest made out of C4 that Jacket had on before? That should be enough to blast the vault.”

“On it,” Rainbow said. “I don’t really wanna hang around in that apartment anyway...” She flew down to the third floor and charged through a window, surprising a pair of SWAT officers. Thinking quickly, she pulled a flashbang off one’s vest, pulled the pin and flew ahead, letting it explode on them to slow them down further. The vest was still there when she found it, and she quickly pulled it back out the window and up to the top floor.

As she threw it through the skylight to Wolf, she suddenly saw the gunship turning around in the distance. It still had a few missiles attached. As she looked up, she got an idea that, though she abhorred it, wouldn’t leave her alone. Though it went against everything she knew, she flew up above the cloud layer, pulling one off from the rest.

The gunship was heading back towards the apartment, and she started quickly rubbing her hooves on the cloud. It’s just like starting a fire with two rocks, she reminded herself, going back to one of her lessons from Cloudsdale. All it takes is some friction and a whole lot of practice, but once you can do it, you’ll never find yourself wanting again...

Though it wasn’t a storm cloud, she could feel the static electricity building up. Yes, that’s it, I just need a little more... Just before the gunship fired, she shoved her hooves straight down on the cloud, launching the electricity she’d built up in the form of a lightning bolt, seemingly from the blue. The bolt hit the gunship’s cockpit, breaking a hole and throwing the pilot off-balance. It started to spin out, firing its missiles wildly.

“Gunship’s firing again! Move!” Bain shouted, and everyone ran out of the apartment again as one of the missiles flew in. It struck the C4 that Wolf had been setting up, and the combied explosion completely demolished the door. There was a short pause before Bain reported, “Looks like that did the trick. Vault’s open. Time to close this caper.”

“Did you really think it would be so easy to stop me?” the Commissar began, snarling through the smoke cover from the explosion. “I am like fucking Rasputin! You will never kill me!” A sudden hail of bullets came out of the smoke, and everyone was forced to take cover, ducking to avoid the bullets ripping through the walls of the penthouse.

“He’s got a fucking LMG! Even this armour can’t take that shit! What do we do?!” Chains shouted. Nobody had an answer, but as the smoke cleared, Rainbow could see something happening in the apartment. Behind the man in the green suit, the Commissar, Jacket was sneaking up with his baseball bat.

Before the Commissar could turn around, Jacket had swung the bat, knocking him backwards. The gun fell out of his hands as Jacket wound up for another swing, flooring the Commissar completely. “You thought you could stop me with torture?!” he asked, kneeling on top of the prone Russian. “You thought wrong!”

Before Jacket could swing his bat down, the Commissar managed to shuffle out and kick his attacker away. Both of them stood up, Jacket raising his bat into position. The Commissar looked down at the gun, crouching as though to pick it up, before diving at Jacket—

Another gun suddenly fired, and three bullets ripped through the green suit. A fourth hit the Commissar’s head, and he stumbled, spun around once, and then fell to the ground, dead. Jacket kicked the body once to make sure, then raised his bat again. This time, Rainbow didn’t look away from the spray of blood and brain matter all over the floor of the apartment. She didn’t even think about it.

“Looks like that’s that,” Dallas said, holstering his gun. “You okay there?”

Jacket breathed out before dropping the bat. “Yeah, I’m good.” He walked out onto the east balcony and lit a cigarette as Wolf and Chains entered the vault.

“Hey, you could join us, you know. You even have a mask of your own already.”

He took a drag on the cigarette before replying. “You’re the guys from D.C., right? I’m sorry, but my place is in Miami. Besides... There’s still plenty of cops around. I can cover for you. My job’s done.”

There was silence for a while. Jacket threw the butt of the cigarette over the side of the balcony, and Dallas turned to the rest of the crew, who had taken the Commissar’s phone, the remains of the cocaine and some cash that had been inside the vault. “If that’s what you want. Bain, how long until you can get us out of here?”

“Already hired a local helicopter pilot. Should be here in just a minute.” Rainbow looked up from the scene below and saw the chopper approaching. She looked down at her hooves again. Though they were the same as they’d ever been, she couldn’t look away from them. She’d killed. It was to help her friends, and they were working for the Commissar, an undoubtedly evil man. But it didn’t change the fact that she’d killed for the first time.

The crew piled into the helicopter, and she followed, still staring at her hooves, wondering,

Who have I become?

~~~

As the crew returned to the safehouse, Bain hacked into the phone, digging out whatever he could. Along with a few slush funds, which he quickly liberated to add to the payday, he found the hotline to the District Attorney. He gave the number to the Dentist, and when the crew arrived, they found another package containing a cassette tape.

It began with a phone ringing, then a man said, “Mikhail, what the hell do you want?”

“Perhaps the evening news has not found out yet, but the Commissar is dead.”

“What the—Who the fuck are you?!”

“My name is of no importance. What is important is the request I have to make of you, just like the Commissar would have before his untimely death.”

“...What do you want? Don’t waste my time.”

“A retrial for James Hoxworth.”

“The fuck?! No fucking way, man! He’s a mass murderer, bank robber... Even if I did get you the retrial, there’s no way he’d be found innocent! You’re wasting your time!”

“Then let me phrase it this way. Before you lies a choice. You can either arrange a retrial for Hoxton. The trial will end quickly, the same way as before. You will be ridiculed for the decision, and forced to retire, but you will be able to keep the money you made in public office and retire in relative anonymity and luxury. Or, I will release the phone records you had with Mr. Kraminsky, along with all the other records of your collaborations. There will be investigations, and you will be arrested for aiding and abetting organised crime in public office. Your retirement, I expect, will be in the same block as Hoxton—”

“Alright, alright, I get the idea! Fuck me, you’re a fucking loony. ...Okay, looks like the soonest I can get you the retrial is the 27th, this month. But you know it’s not gonna get you anywhere, right?”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll see. Thank you for your cooperation.” A phone was hung up, and the Dentist continued into the recorder, “Fear is a powerful motivator. The District Attorney is now properly... motivated. You are one step closer to the release of your friend. I suggest you use the time between now and the retrial wisely. On the 27th of October, you will have your only chance to free your friend. I will be in touch.”

Author's Note

Actually, I'm as surprised as you are I've got this done already.

The offer from the last A/N is still open, but if you want that omake chapter done before the hiatus, someone had better solve the riddle pretty quickly.