The train departed from Las Luna Penitentiary hissing like an overexerting pack-animal, its metal muscles beginning to pound the rails. The railcars swayed and creaked along behind it, most violently the two cattle trucks at the back that had been hastily coupled on to accommodate the recently released prisoners. One car held the stallions, the other held the mares and both smelled of straw and livestock piss. About thirty members of each gender were crammed into these shoeboxes shackled limb to limb and joined by a long chain connected to a bracket in the floor. One mare in the rear car stared straight ahead not looking or paying attention to anypony. Her name was Applejack but all the inmates had taken to calling her “Captain” as if Captain Jack wasn’t getting as old as the sun any time soon. Still her brother was often called “Big” Macintosh as if he were some sort of railboss or something so I suppose it was karmic that she get a nickname as well. So this was it she soon found herself thinking. She was finally going home, to Charming City. To The Candied Apple. That had been her family bar back in the good old days when they were still a family. She and Big Mac were there of course as well as their little sister Apple Bloom who had been virtually like her daughter to her. Then there was the patriarch Granny Smith the founder of this establishment virtually as old as the city itself. Literally. She’d built the family business up when the town was established in the frontier days as an outlet for the families apple orchards. Then of course there were their parents Sturmer Pippin and Summerfree. Those bastions of childhood and relic of a golden age. Who’d always sing them to bed at night, teach them about the family business and let them play hide and seek in the alcohol cellar. If only those days could have lasted forever. But of course they didn’t the government had to go and get into a war with the Griffin Empire meaning their parents were drafted into the army. They promised they’d be home by Christmas. After all her nations populace could fly and do magic. But the griffins could also fly and their advanced technology more than made up for not being able to do magic. The earth pony landing parties had to tunnel their way to the capital while the other two races kept them occupied. Their father never made it to the capital he was killed when a tunnel he was working on caved in while their mother was killed when the griffins bombed a field hospital where she was working. After the war ended the four of them had to keep working the bar by themselves. But then some busybody fuckwits came up with the marvellous idea to make alcohol illegal. All about preserving the morality of the nation and all that malarkey. They called it The Foalstead Act. Of course the Apple’s weren’t going go down without a fight. And a fight we got. Soon the blue devils got tired of asking nice and they came with an arrest warrant. As usual Granny had started slinging abuse at them but this time the officers came with truncheons and one got rather excited. She died in hospital two days later. Meanwhile Apple Bloom was wrenched from her arms and placed in an orphanage while she and her brother, her last legal family, were carted off to prison for five years. So to sum up, a family destroyed, three ponies murdered and her being left to rot in the can for half a decade. Life sucked. But at least now she and her brother were going home. They’d pick up her sister and then they’d be a family again.
“What are you staring at” sad a condescending arrogant voice.
Applejack looked up. A unicorn con-mare with light blue femme-fatale hair and coat she’d met in the can sat a couple of blocks away. Applejack couldn’t really recall her name.
“It’s Tracy ain’t it?” she asked.
“Trixie. And what were you doing, Jack.”
“Anypony calls me by that name one more damn time…”
“Just answer my question.”
“Ah was just looking out of the window. Waitin’ to see the ol’ hometown again.”
“I’ll just leave you to do that then.”
Well, Applejack thought, she’d better do it then. For a while all she could see was the light brown and green of the prairies. Then suddenly she saw the tenement halls and factories of South Bank coming into view, the smell of chimney smoke and refuse entering through the windows like mustard gas. It got stronger as the train entered the shunting yards and finally entered the station platform. It was the afternoon rush and the station was packed with noise and bustle coming from faces Applejack couldn’t really see from inside the converted freight car. Presently the door slid open and a cop in a blue peaked hat and jacket entered. He undid the chain and fastened it to his harness while yelling “Cum’on ladies. It’s time to move.” He gave a sharp tug and the prisoners followed suite. As both lines moved out of the wagons the ponies on the platform turned and stared at them. Save for a few whispers everyone was silent as names were called in alphabetical order and ponies went into the station masters office. Applejack managed to catch the eye of Big Mac in the next line over. He nodded curtly as a way of greeting which she returned. Even when the train gave a sharp whistle and departed everypony went about their business in silence, obviously scared of the prisoners.
Soon, very soon since their name began with an A, the guard called “Jack and Macintosh Apple, charged with the crime of breaching the Foalstead Act. Sentence: five years.”
Both ponies called “here” and they were unshackled from the main line and ushered into the office to be discharged. The discharge officer looked an assholish sort with a dirty brown coat and brown moustache. He wrote their names, crimes and sentences on two small cards then slotted both cards into a box marked with an “A” as record of their criminal activities. He then bade them farewell with the words “The dry law may be an ass but there it is. Don’t fuck with it.”
***
The two siblings now stood on the street outside of the station. The stench of the factory fog was worse now that it wasn’t competing with the old piss-and-donkey-sweat of the railcar. The sky was darkened as well turning the slums a depressing grey. A few taxi cabs galloped here and there while working pones in flat caps and overalls trotted dutifully along the sidewalk adding to the depressing atmosphere.
“Lets just find a cab and get outta here” said Applejack.
Her brother responded with his usual “Eyup.”
They eventually hailed a cab pulled by a stallion with a thinning black mane and matted fur. “Where d’youz wanna go” he asked.
“Oldtown. The Candied Apple. D’ya know it.” Applejack replied.
“Ya, I knows it. Vaguely, from before the law” he replied and soon he was trotting through the straight streets of South Bank towards the river and Oldtown. The air got cleaner once they reached the river bridge. Probably cause this was where the historical and cultural buildings were being the original town build by Mr Charming Smiles back in the territorial days. As one of the first buildings built in the city this was the district the family pub was located. Only it wasn’t quite, as the two siblings found out when they stopped outside. The old pub had been an ordinary brick building with green window panes and a sign on a chain bracket with the establishments name on it. Now the building was a beacon of pink and mauve with the name now across the top canary yellow. The windows now covered all the walls either side of the pink door rather than being up in the top half and hidden by plant pots and a strong sugary smell radiated from inside. Speechless they paid the cabbie with their already thin discharge fund and watched as he drove away.
“Have we come to the right place?”
“Eyu…no…I’m not sure.”
Still confused they entered the bar. The polished bar was still there but the different beverages had been replaced with jars of different coloured cakes and pasties and the bare wood floor was now paved with black and white checks. Tables and seats were arranged win booths opposite the bar which was being operated by a pony with a pink coat and mane done up in a perm.
“Why good day cousins” she said in an excited voice seemingly teleporting through the counter to embrace them in a tight hug.
“Who are you and how d’yall know who we are?”
“Pinkamina Diane Pie at your service. I’m a distant cousin of yours, that’s how I came to inherit this place when you guys were…evicted. I wa”
“We weren’t evicted, they arrested us for breaching some sundamned law plain and simple. Also what have you done to this place.”
“We had to go legit silly, can’t sell cider in this environment. And I’ve always had a sweet tooth myself so what better solution than turn this place into a bakery.”
“This is a bakery. It looks like something I’d see if I put on ruby horseshoes, clicked my hooves together and said there’s no place like fuck.”
“Eyup.”
Pinkie looked shocked “Language aside, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been run this place on my own for the past year and a half. Not been so bad just been doing sales and keeping inventory. I haven’t minded, I’ve always been able to handle it for…reasons but it would be nice for some help around here. Why don’t you just go down into the cellar and take stock.”
“Really you’re giving us a job just like that.”
“Well seeing as how it’s gonna be hard for two… recently discharged ponies to find a job in the town I might as well do you a family courtesy. Also I'm not very good at it myself. Now chop chop.”
“Actually we were going to pick up our sister from the orphanage. D’you know which it is.”
“ She’ll probably still at school. I think that’s a few blocks down this or that way. See you in a bit then.”
As the two Apple siblings left the store, Applejack looked over her shoulder and called “If you’d been stewing in a can for the past five years you’d use language like that too.”
“So what makes you want to join the force” Commissioner Shining Armour of the Charming City Police Department asked from behind his desk.
“I dunno” said Rainbow Dash “I was in the Flying Corps during the war and I guess I still want some action in my life as well as fighting the bad guys for once.”
The two ponies were sitting in the commissioners office alone in a confidential meeting. The former airpony had recently applied to join the CCPD after coming back from the Griffin war but had recently failed her entrance exam. By a small margin of course. Okay a pretty big margin. How could she help it if she just couldn’t study? Didn’t it matter that her heart was in the right place? Anyway that whole malarkey was why she’d been told to come into the chiefs office.
“Then why not just become a stunt pilot like Amelia Strongheart or Charlie Spitfire?”
“I guess I just felt called to be a police officer. I was among Spitfires potential recruits actually but I didn’t agree with her politics. So I quit and wandered from town to town until I wound up in this place and saw an advert in the news saying “CCPD still recruiting” and thought I’d give it a whirl.”
The commissioner sighed and looked at the paper in front of him with a big red E+ on it. “Well you did show great aptitude in physical exercises it’s just the theory where you stumble. So I took the liberty of looking through your old war records and thought it would be a shame to waste such a talent as Wing Commander Dash, two times winner of the Equestrian Eagle Medal for Arial Valour.”
Rainbow Dash looked up looking hopeful as the commssioner laid down the paper and seemed to make up his mind. “Bad news is you needed at least a B- in order to get into the force and you didn’t even come close” he said as Rainbow looked on defeated. Then with a smile he withdrew something from a desk drawer “but the good news is that there’s always a place for somepony like you. You know everyone in Charming City is in the pay of its numerous mobs and corruption runs from the street to Mayor Mare’s office. I’m forming a new division built specifically to tackle these problems, the Vice Squad. What do you say, Miss Dash?” Rainbow could now see that the thing on the desk was a badge labelled Vice Squad and leather case embossed with her name, age, residence and her new rank of Detective.
“Yes sir. Thank you sir.”
***
As a relatively new programme Vice Squad had to convene in an old premise they bought cheap. Ironically it was an old pub “The Washed Bison”. Heading up the team was ex-police sergeant Flash Sentry. He wasn’t that particularly good an officer but he was in a relationship with the chief’s sister and nepotism could get you far in this world. So calls had been made, knobs had been pressed and the CCPD’s resident white knight got landed the job as well as the new rank of captain.
Rainbow stood at Cpt. Sentry’s desk in the old wine cellar. It was still bare due to finances being unable to afford floorboards and so he’d had to make do with just cleaning it. The result was a bare concrete room that smelled of soap and stale beer and lit only by a single firefly. She tried not to grimace at the smell as the captain sifted through papers.
“So you’re the new pony my boss’s been talking about?”
“Yeah.”
He then his papers down and chuckled. “Then its glad we’ll be to have you on board” he said “what say we go upstairs and meet the rest of the team.”
“Really that’s it? You’re not going to lecture me on how we’re the best of the best and this is our own little war we’re fighting.”
“I think you already knew that. Besides a decorated, morally-upright mare like you could handle what we do.”
Rainbow nodded and to they went upstairs to the main bar. This was where the rest of Vice Squad gathered in their down time. Smoking, playing pool, piecing together clues but no drinking whatsoever of course. Right now there were five other ponies in the bar. Flash pointed them out “That’s Champion over by the window (he motioned to an old stallion with a grey, grizzled mane and moustache), Frank Dobbin over there (drawing attention to a slightly younger one with a closer cut mane focused on throwing darts the wrong way round), Moondancer, our forensics officer (a mare about Rainbows age with bubblegum pink hair over by the corkboard) and of course the brothers Thunderlane and Rumble (two greyish male pegasii over by the pool table.)” He then turned and coughed “Everyone say howdy to our new recruit Detective Rainbow Dash, formerly of the Equestrian Flying Corps.”
Rainbow blushed “Please chief you’re embarrassing me.”
All the squad said Howdy in return and Rainbow eventually wondered over to the corkboard where Moondancer was standing.
“Watcha looking at, Doc?”
“The usual suspects. We know who they are I just wish we could pin them down.”
“Who?”
The forensics officer turned towards her “You know our job is to hunt down the scum making a living out of the governments moral incompetence. Well these are the big four. At least three. We know who these are but we haven’t been able to focus on our fourth one.” She pointed to a photo of a question mark over a black outline of a pony. “We’re merely referring to him as “The Kaiser” ” she said.
“Can you tell me about the others?” said Rainbow.
“Certainly. I already mentioned the Kaiser, but this one” Moondancer said pointing to a photo of a hard staring mare with a curly orange mane “is our main focus. Golden “Carrot Top” Harvest. Owns most of the cider and vice racket in the city and runs it with an iron horseshoe. Also dabbles in extortion and unlicensed horse-fighting. Used to own a small pub back when the Apples had a monopoly that specialised in carrot wine. Then Prohibition happened. But while the Apples fell, she adapted and spread like a cancer into every sector of the city but none of its good enough for her.”
“What about the other two?”
“Well this is “Cherries” Jubilee (a coquettish looking pony with a messy beehive) she’s the city’s vice queen and these are the Flim Flam Brothers (two unicorn in hats and suits, one moustached the other shaven) two recent arrivals with an eye for mass production. But like I said they’re small fry compared to Carrot Top.”
“And you’re closer to bringing them down?”
“No. We know who they are but we’re no closer to bringing them down. And things could get a whole lot worse now that the Apple siblings have returned.”
Apple. The name stirred something in Rainbows memory. Speeding down Fifth Avenue, ducking through the adults legs as they went. Cool mugs of grape juice on a hot day. Rough and tumbling in the dust in the alleyway. These events and others flashed by. Memories of old friends and simpler times.
“Detective Dash, are you alright?”
Moondancer was calling back to the present. She shook herself getting rid of the memories.
“No doc everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”
But as Rainbow turned to walk away to get a glass of water she knew everything wasn’t fine. So Applejack was back in town was she? Might have to catch up with her old friend before things got really out of control.
