Colts will be Thieves

Chapters

Prologue & Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
Chapter 4

Prologue & Chapter 1

Princess Celestia was bringing the sun to bare on another day over the vast cityscape of Los Pegasus. A golden chariot led by Her Royal Guards visibly stood out in the sky as it slowly descended within the buildings. Because the city doesn’t get fairly busy until an hour later, only a small crowd of ponies gathered trying to take a closer look at the blocked off area at a small park, known as Heartstrings Memorial Park, which they were landing.

“Detective Songbird, sir, we’ve arrived.”, one of the white pegasus Royal Guards affirmed with courtesy.

“Thank you, Royal Guards. We’ll be leaving in about 20 minutes, I’ll only have to talk with an associate.”, the detective replied. It felt pleasant for Songbird to be addressed by that for the first time by somepony else other than his colleagues, especially for being one of the younger detectives around Equestria.

As the gray coat of the blue unicorn slid off the chariot as he did, another pony of similar outfit paced towards him.

“Ah, Songbird, good to see you. Glad you were able to come before the city would wake up.”, the other detective said.

“Likewise, Kingfish. I was able to get your report on time.”

By now, Kingfish knew he wouldn’t have to tell Songbird where they had to go. He made a sign with his hoof to follow him.

It was only about 20 seconds, walking deeper into the park, until the both of them walked over to their destination. In front of them, was a cloak concealing a corpse. From the report, Songbird already knew who this would be.

Kingfish used his magic to lift the cloak off. At the sight of a dead, blue pegasus, beaten beyond recognition, Songbird made a small grimace and attempted to cover his nose with his front leg.

“Yup,” Kingfish said mournfully.

“Tell me when the body was reported.” Songbird managed to speak out.

“It was just around two or three this morning. The coroner says his best guess about the time of death is midnight. Also, as you could see, he has a bullet wound in his wing and his stomach and multiple bruises around his body.”

“You think he could have been shot in the wing first, then the suspect, or suspects, could have jumped him to their advantage, then finishing him off with the bullet to the stomach?”

“Seems pretty clear that could have happened.”

“Okay, Kingfish, what else is behind the report I was given? Other than to come to the crime scene.”, said Songbird, finally starting to break his trance staring into the corpse. The two of them started to move away to cut off the disturbance.

“A pony named Cerebrate Beat, if you remember his name, was found here at the scene as well. He was just about as injured as the dead pony back there, I suspect he was involved with this case. But he was unconscious and is at the hospital as of now.

“Who? How could have he been possibly connected with this? ”

“Well, as you know, my assignment over the past few months was to analyze into the actions of this particular suspect and his other accomplices, since I once investigated into a crime that they might have committed, and THAT case has been abandoned since. And the last few days, I was able to find the addresses of the three others.”

“Just let me get a guess on this,” Songbird interrupted, “it’ll be up to me to interrogate all four of them.”

“Well, I was just about to tell more on that. I am thoroughly aware of how potentially dangerous these colts could be, but I arranged for royal guards to pick them up by tomorrow morning to be taken to Canterlot, and use force if necessary. And yes, as you said, I’ve appointed you to interrogate them. I’ll also send in Mr. Cerebrate once he comes back to his senses. You’ll have get to know of what happened here, and the various activities they did. I’ll also have a pegasus mail a copy of the all the info I could get on them too to use, along with reports on notable crimes they’ve committed. After all of it’s done, you’ll have to mail back everything you’ve written, then it’ll be up to me to conclude what will happen to them.”

“Got that understood, but...why choose me?”

“Well,” Kingfish chuckled a little, “because you were promoted only pretty recently and I wanted to give this to you as the first big job. Plus, I have a bunch of other assignments to deal with, a jewelry store robbery, a murder case, a string of burglaries, a huge clusterfuck, really. And keep in mind, these colts aren’t Discord-evil, so no need to get nervous about it.”

“And, that’s it?”

“Assuming you think it’s a cakewalk, it is. Well, that’s all I needed to say.” Kingfish held out his hoof, “Good luck in this, Detective.”

Songbird held his hoof out as well and shook. He went back to the golden chariot, where he saw that the scene has evoked even more attention by now.

“Guards,” he called with a sigh, “Let us go back to Canterlot.”

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“Rappin’. Rapping is like street poetry, it lets you express your feelings inside, or the way you are! It’s like yo-”

“Fucking foal advertisements.”, Speck grumbled from bed, blindly slamming his hoof on the alarm radio on the nightstand. After some feeble attempts, he decided it would be simpler to just open his eyes and then turn it off. In a brief moment, a wave of reality crashed on his mind and almost fell out of bed trying to sit up.

“Cerebrate was supposed to be here already.”, he thought. There’s no way that Cerebrate wouldn’t forget. Unless...no, Speck doubted that would happen. Assuming he did forget and just stayed home, being the best case scenario, he started to get dressed to meet him.

Speck tried to grab on his sweater from the drawer with his horn...to remember again for about the 200th time that it was broken and that he could hardly use his magic. He didn’t want to waste his energy using a simple telekinesis spell and manually put it on.

Just as he began to get the door, a series of loud, sharp knocks banged on the door.

“OPEN UP!!!”

Speck immediately distinguished that voice. It was that of a royal guard. He had about 5 seconds to think what he had to do before the guards would kick in the door. He could quickly grab the handgun back in his bedroom and then dispose of them, but there could be a lot more outside than he would expect. Or he could jump out the window then make his escape, but he was on a floor, at enough height, would injure him.

Instead, he instinctively grabbed and opened the door in a brisk movement to find only two white pegasus ponies outside in the hallway looking at him as if they could’ve already seen him through the wall.

“You are Mr. Speck, is that right?”, one of the royal guards asked with their usual harsh tone.

“Yes...”, answered Speck with little emotion with a hint of bitterness.

“Sir, we’ve been ordered to take you to Canterlot.”

“Give a reason why?”

“That is not of our business, you will be informed when you get there.”

Speck knew he would gain nothing from asking the “Why” questions at the moment, so he just went with it and walked out the door with them. Hopefully, he would only be back by noon.

He was taken to the golden chariot outside, but with an enclosed stagecoach in the back, where there was another stallion locked in the back. He was a lightly-brown earth pony with his mane tied in dreadlocks. He seemed very familiar to Speck until he was inside the cage inside with him.

“Cise?”, he asked surprised. “How’d you manage to get in this too?”

“Pff, I don’t even know.” Cise replied. “They finally caught on to us, probably. Since you were taken too, I guess they’re going to try to take Scept and Cerebrate. Unless they actually try to make a move unlike us.”

“Even if they did, I doubt they’d keep running for another 5 seconds.”

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20 minutes later, they stopped in the neighborhood Scept lived in, which was different from Cise and Speck, since they lived in apartments. The two pegasi marched up to the front of the house, when a blue unicorn already opened the door and walked up to them before they were close enough to even knock. He seemed to keep his head down until he looked surprised when he made eye contact.

From Cise and Speck’s view in the stagecoach, the unicorn was listening to the guards, when he suddenly threw a punch at one of them and booked it at a random direction while he was attempting to conjure a teleport spell. He wasn’t given 5 seconds after the other standing guard bolted toward him with a vicious tackle, knocking him out until they chucked him into the stagecoach.

When he came back to his senses, Scept stared at Cise and Speck. The exchange of looks seemed to already be enough of a greeting for the three.

“Wow, did you see that?!” Scept asked bluntly, “That guy hit me with the force of an apple farmer’s buck, for fuck sake.”

“Dude, you were the one who hit first, don’t be a smart-ass.”, Speck remarked.

The two pegasi guards now took off to the skies on the way to Canterlot.

Making a realization, Scept suddenly asked, “Wait, if they have the three of us, don’t you guys think it wouldn’t have been a coincidence to get Cerebrate next?”

“Yeah, I was thinking that too.” Cise answered, “I don’t know why we’re going to Canterlot already, though. Maybe he was taken there before they tried to get the three of us at the same time?”

“Whoa, you’re assuming he rat out on us, right?” Speck almost interrupted, “He wouldn’t ever do that.”

“No, I wouldn’t think that either. Remember when I said they might’ve finally caught up to us before? Well, maybe that just happened. How long is this trip going to take anyways?”

“About half the day.”, one of the guards answered from the front.

“Wow.” Scept said sarcastically, laying down on the ground. “I’d really hope for somepony to hijack this halfway and fly this towards Manehattan right about now.”

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After half the day, as the royal guard said, they finally made their destination. Cise, Speck and Scept, now put into hoof-cuffs, were being escorted further into Canterlot, now by a different set of guards.

Having seen Canterlot only once or never in their lives, everything had a huge contrast compared to Los Pegasus: the way ponies went on about their lives, how they talked with each other, especially the architecture.# For a high-class city, Speck wasn’t surprised to see many other ponies staring disdainfully at him for having a broken horn.

They stopped when they reached a building connected to the Royal Castle by a low-ceilinged corridor. The inside of the building had a near-similar layout to police stations back in Los Pegasus. They were taken into a lower level of the building, where they were put into cells.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!”, Scept yelled urgently at the guards as they walked away. “What’s going to happen now?”

“Tomorrow morning, you will be taken for interrogation.”, was all one of the royal guards said. They then marched back up to the upper floor.

“Fuck them, I’m not going to say a thing.” he muttered.

“I’m going with Scept on this. Will you keep your mouth shut, Speck?”, Cise asked.

Speck didn’t respond, he looked away uneasily. “Well...”

“...You’re seriously going say everything they’ll ask?”, Scept asked in disbelief, “You’re lucky we’re in separate cells right now.”

“What else do we have to do?! I don’t want to spill anything as much as you guys do, but not saying anything isn’t going to get anywhere either. Maybe lying could be an alternate route through this, but I guarantee that they already know enough about us to call us on our bullshit.”

Scept remained silent while Cise sighed in agreement.

Speck then layed down on the bed in his cell, “Anyways, it’s been a long fucking day. Mind as well sleep now.”

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“Right this way, Detective.”, a voice echoed through the halls of the cells, waking the three up. In their view were the same two guards who took them to cells, followed by a red unicorn in a brown coat.

“Hello, gentlecolts. I’m Detective Songbird.” said the unicorn modestly, he turned around to the guards, “...They are the right ponies, am I correct?”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“Ah, then.”, he walked up to Scept’s cell, who was wide awake and standing right at the front of the cell. “I guess you already know what you’re here for?”

To respond, he slipped his hooves through the bars, grabbed Songbird’s head, and promptly slammed his face against the cell bars. Without delay, the guards used the end of their spears to thrust Scept to the back of the cage again.

Trying to make Scept feel like he didn’t accomplish anything, Songbird got back up on his hooves without looking back and walked over to Cise’s cell. He gave a facial expression to him that asked the same question.

Sighing, Cise insolently said with a shrug, “We were taken here because we’re going to be interrogated. And now we’re here...at Canterlot... and we’re about to be interrogated.”

Giving a sullen stare, the detective now walked along and continued to speak.

“It’s close to obvious you stallions already knew by now, but you were tracked down to your houses and picked up. It was originally up to Detective Kingfish back in Los Pegasus to take responsibilities for interrogating you three, but it was then that the assignment was handed down to me, making allowance for working on other cases. And I guess you’re also wondering where your friend, Mr. Cerebrate, is?”

The three peaked their ears with suspense.

“He’s been found in a park in L.P., along with a dead pony, whom we couldn’t identify yet. We don’t know how he could’ve been connected to the scene, for now, since he’s being hospitalized as we speak. My best guess, according to Detective Kingfish, is that he will be taken here as well by the end of the day.”

“Mail for Detective Songbird!”, a voice echoed.

“I’ve been expecting that. Guards, take each of them to individual interrogation rooms.”

After receiving the envelope from the Mail Express pegasus, he opened it without hesitation. Inside, was the letter he’d been expecting, along with parts of archived newspapers dating from weeks ago to even months.

“Dear Songbird,

Listed, are the major crimes these colts have been reported for. Notice how there are only 4 listed, as much as I’m aware that there could have been more. Also acknowledge the fact that they were NOT taken in for any of those listed. You’ll have to get as much info from each perspective as you can about each one. You won’t have to worry about Cerebrate Beat as you get this, as he will arrive by about 6 PM on the day you recieve this.
Mr. Speck and Mr. Scept accused of assaulting Olympus Optic, eventual admin of Laserteeth Crime Family
Theft and illegal trade of stolen gems from Bank of Los Pegasus
Train Robbery, including with possible accounts of massacre
Public shootout with members of Laserteeth Crime Family

If you’ve noticed, there are cuts of archived newspapers considering those events included with this letter. You may use those as evidence from the perspectives of witnesses as part of the interrogation.

Zebras,

Detective Kingfish”

He flipped through the newspaper headlines, they displayed as: “INNOCENT STALLION BEATEN AND LEFT FOR DEAD” “DISAPPEARANCE OF GEMS FROM THE BANK OF LOS PEGASUS” “TRAIN TO APPLELOOSA ROBBED; DOZENS KILLED” “PUBLIC FEAR CAUSED IN UPPER LOS PEGASUS AFTER SHOOTOUT”

Sending a shiver through his body, Songbird now had a new outlook of the four ponies. He now walked back in the building to the hallways where the interrogation rooms were contained.

“Guard, I’d like to know which pony is in which room.” he requested.

“Yes, sir. Mr. Scept is in Interview Room #1. Mr. Cise is in Interview Room #2. And Mr. Speck is in Interview Room #3.”

“Okay then. Thank you.” he then walked into Interview Room #3 straight away.

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“Ok, Mr. Speck, we’re not going to waste time with the introductions, so let’s get to it.”, Songbird said as he drifted to take a seat. Speck only gave a look in response.

“Were you and Cerebrate Beat friends, family, etcetera? How were you four connected, for that matter?”

“Well, Scept and I were good friends. He then introduced me to his cousin, Cise, I only saw myself as his...acquaintance, I guess, with him even though I did hang out with him a lot. Cerebrate, though, we’ve knew each other since he was a foal, before Scept, that is.”

“How often did the group communicate with each other?”

“The thing is, that I haven’t really met with Scept and Cise, nor have they with Cerebrate, for months. Cerebrate and I remained close friends, though.

“Do you any idea what happened to him prior to the crime in Heartstrings Memorial Park?”

“We were having an argument about...”, Speck looked down nervously. “Ok...he wanted to kill another stallion named Olympus Optic. We-”

“Olympus Optic.”, he interrupted, looking at the letter. “About two years ago, you, along with Scept, were accused of assaulting him. You were not arrested for it, however. Considering you and Cerebrate were close friends, as you say, I’d like you to explain the backstory about this.

Speck now started to feel uncomfortable as he tried to remember.

“Back when I was a foal...I was...jumped by him. He was barely a full-grown colt, too. I-I don’t even know what his motives were, or if he thought he was accomplishing anything in his shit life doing that... but... no, I don’t know.” He pointed his hoof at his broken horn. “Yes, he did THAT to me.”

Songbird couldn’t imagine the horrible thought of somepony’s horn, especially as a foal, in two through a physical beating.

“I assume that the assault against Olympus was an act of revenge?”

“It was, except I didn’t get to cut off his wings in return.”

Chapter 2

“How did you take your approach to Olympus? Was it like an ambush or you confronted him verbally first?”
“It was sort of an ambush, I’d say. I had a feeling he was expecting it, but didn’t think it would actually happen.”
“What made you think he was expecting it?”
“Sometime before it happened, he had actually invited me to have a drink with him, so he could try to apologize.”

Although it was late at night in Los Pegasus, the city was still as busy as it is in the day, taking on a more recreative atmosphere than the commercial counterpart.

“I’m still going to drive, since I have a working horn.” Scept said jokingly as the two walked out Speck’s apartment complex to get in his automobile.

“Hilarious.” Speck said sarcastically. “I’m going to be homeless out of insanity because of how clever that joke was.”
After they got in, Scept gave a small bolt of energy from his horn and started the car.

“What was the name of the place you were going to?”
“Spit of Fire, some bar I would occasionally go to. It was in Upper Los Pegasus, pretty far from my apartment.”

“So what more do you know about the stallion?” Scept asked as he drove. “Well, other than him breaking your horn.”

“Shut up. Nah, there wasn’t much else than that. I don’t think he was here in the city his whole life, though, because in the letter he sent me, he said he was visiting from Ponyville.”

“Ah, Ponyville.” Scept smiled. “I remember fucking some mare at the b-”

“Yes, that is TOTALLY an appropriate thing to bring up. And what a nice way for transitioning to such a topic.”

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to get that off my chest for a while now, I didn’t even tell Cise about it.”

“Yeah, because it’s even a little reasonable to share one-night-stand stories, even with your cousin.”

“It wasn’t even a one-night-stand. We got to talk to each other a lot for a few days, then I stayed after hours one night, then I-”

“DUDE!”

“What?!”

“I’m about to confront some asshole who basically traumatized me my whole foalhood, then here you are, casually going on about how you got to fuck some mare in Ponyville, whom you probably never even saw again after that. Ok, just shut up, we’re almost there anyways.”

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After 10 minutes, they arrived at the Spit of Fire. Between two stores, which were closed, the whole street didn’t look so busy compared to inside, which were filled with merry or sad unicorns, pegasi and/or earth ponies, depending on whatever or whoever they drank to.

“You’re gonna stay here.” Speck said sharply, as he stepped out the car.

“Aw, why?”

“Because I don’t want you to somehow segway to a story where you fought a dragon in Fillydelphia.”, he slammed the door and walked inside.

After he greeted the bartender, he walked around the bar, looking for Olympus, where along the way, he was greeted by other ponies he has met.

“Hey Speck!” a voice called out from the back of the bar. He looked behind him to see a bright-red pegasus looking at him, sitting with a blue pegasus, who looked jittery when Speck looked at their direction. The sight of the blue pegasus evoked a small feeling of anger rising over fear. He knew who this stallion was.

“I guess you were looking for this pony?”, the red pegasus said, “He seemed to mention your name a lot when I came to talk to him.”

“That’s right.” he replied. He was still staring at the blue pegasus as he took a seat. “Thanks, Hotfoot. This is going to be a private conversation, if you don’t mind.

Hotfoot now noticed the way Speck was staring at the other pegasus.

“Uh, I don’t mind at all. Don’t let me bother you two.” he walked back slowly. Speck continued to stare at the pegasus.

Even though Hotfoot was out of range, the two still stayed silent. Both of them expected the other to speak first. Speck’s constant glare started to persuade him otherwise.

“We’ve grown to be pretty big, have we?”, the pegasus implied softly.

“We have, Olympus. I didn’t know I’d end up being taller than you, too.”

He then slowly looked up at Speck, while he was still holding his stare. He noticed how his horn was broken.

“Oh... uh... up until now, I thought horns did grow back...”

“So did I.”

Speck was getting tired of Olympus trying to start with small talk, so he cut him off the next time he was about to say something.

“What was going through your head at that time?”

Olympus didn’t answer.

“Did you think you would have won anything by doing that?”

“No, I di-”

“Look at my horn.”

“I alre-”

“Well, I want you to take a good look at it again.”

Olympus then took a 10-second stare at Speck’s broken horn. The wave of shame slamming into his mind was stronger than he thought.

“Yeah, you know it’s pretty much a large part of a unicorn’s lifestyle to use their horn? Well, I never got to. I would try to use something as a simple telekinesis spell to lift a something as light as a book, but no, that would already make me exhausted.” Speck then exerted a sigh of contentment. “Ok, I’ve pretty much vented myself right there. Go ahead.”

Olympus was having trouble listening with the events finally catching up to him.

“Alright, Speck.”, he affirmed, “We were both very young at that time, though I was slowly growing to a colt first. I had those ridiculous foal-thoughts that I would use actions like that as a story to make me look ‘great’ and ‘powerful’, then I realized that it just made me some stuck-up, braggy prick. I also had no idea of the long-term consequences I would leave. If, and that’s an if, you did have those same motives, you would want to do what I did.”

Speck was listening to every word he said. “Well, it is reasonable to have those thoughts, but, no, I wouldn’t go as far to mercilessly beat another pony for it.”

“And we both know, we got older, and what we’ve experienced got our mind more mature. I grew up past those sick thoughts years ago, but it’s completely understandable why you’re still antagonized about it.”

“So that’s it?”

“Yes, I know just saying that couldn’t have possibly redeemed myself, but it’s all I have in my defense.”

“Ok, then.”, Speck started to get up from his seat and held out his hoof to Olympus. “It’s... nice we were able to settle this.”

Olympus was very surprised to have him give this gesture after only being barely able to give anything close of an apology. He shook his hoof with a nod.

“So, how will you get back to wherever?”

“I’m staying at a hotel a couple blocks from here, I’ll just be waiting outside in a few.”

“Alright, then. Have a good night.” Speck strolled out the bar.

When he got out, he quickly paced to the car, where Scept was barely falling asleep.

“Oh shit!... oh.”, he muttered drowsily. “Are we going now?”

“Not yet.” he answered with a dark look on his face. “We’re going to wait for that piece of crap to get out the bar.”

“Whoa, I thought you two made up?”

“He thought he did. To me, he just made the half-assed, ‘I was young and stupid’ excuse.”

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Just a minute later, Olympus got out the bar and started walking across the street. He didn’t see Speck get in the car, so he was oblivious that he was being stared down.

“Start the car now.”, Speck commanded. Scept used his horn to get the engine started.

“Uh, okay. I don’t know what you’re going for but-”

Speck then stomped on the gas pedal and steered towards Olympus. He didn’t have any time to react, so he just stood there as he was slammed by the car.

“What. The fuck. Is wrong with you!?”, Scept yelled in shock, “And my car, my car has a huge dent just right there!”

“No matter what he said,” Speck muttered as he got out the car to Olympus’s body, kicking him in the head unconscious before he could barely get up, “expecting an apology from me wasn’t going to make things even. Help me drag him to that alley way over there.”

“Arrgghh!... Fuck it. Ok, I will.”

The two then dragged Olympus’s body out of the streetlights into the darkness. Once they were far enough into the alley, Speck shoved his body away from Scept’s front legs and threw him against a wall.

He then proceeded to buck-kick and punch him in the face, going all over his body. Years of fear vented upon this beating. This whole time, Scept stood back, blown away at how violent he could ever get.

“DOES! THIS! FEEL! GOOD?! I! HOPE! SO!”, he shouted with every kick to the body. “Give me that switchblade you carry around.” he ordered.

“Wait, why?”, Scept took only a few seconds for him to become aware of what he was going for. “No!”

“Fuck you, I said give it!”, he charged towards him.

To keep him back, Scept used a strong force spell to send him against the wall. The impact seemed to finally take all the energy from Speck.

“I understand you’re pissed. Hay, I even understand you’ve been wanting to kill this guy for years, but if you don’t want to have to talk about this in a police station, we’d better get back home right now.”
After staying down for half a minute, Speck silently got up and started to walk back to the car, with Scept soon following. Neither of them didn’t look back at Olympus as he laid there bleeding.

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“How long has it been since you would hear of him again, media-wise?”
“Well, that story didn’t catch much attention around other than on the newspapers, where it was only on the front page for a few days, then it was just shrugged off. The police officers and detectives did jack-shit about anything unless it happened right in front of them, which is funny, considering those ‘Report to the L.P.P.D. anytime, anywhere whenever you see a crime’ advertisements which were all over the place.”
“It says on this letter,” Songbird read, “that he eventually became part of the Laserteeth Crime Family. Tell me who they are.”
“Wow, haven’t heard that name for a while. As far as I knew, they were originally just a group of unicorns that followed their own code of conduct that formed way back in Manehattan when was almost growing to what it is now. They then generally migrated to Los Pegasus, where the name suggests, they conjoined with pegasi. The word ‘crime’ was naturally added to their name when they started doing things like forcing store owners to pay for protection. They kept their main base of operations in L.P., while they had small associations to Fillydelphia, Manehattan and even Cloudsdale, according to Scept and Cise, that is.”
“You mean Scept and Cise know where they work? Or that they knew everything you just mentioned.”
“Yes, they knew where they were.”
“How long after that night would you hear of Olympus taking part of their organization?”
“Seven months... after we traded gems that we... had.”
Songbird smirked looking at the letter, “As in ‘had’, you meant stealing and trading gems from the Bank of Los Pegasus?”
Speck sighed, “...that’s right.”
“Tell me how this plan came to mind.
“Speck, Cerebrate and I were having lunch one noon a month before that, then Cise meets us to tell us about some ‘amazing’ way to get rich...”

Chapter 3

The sun was at its peak through the blue skies as it shined over the colorful buildings of Los Pegasus, from small diners to vibrant marketplaces to towering office structures. Speck, Scept and Cerebrate were at a muffin shop while they waited for Cise.

“So have you guys heard of E.Y.E.S?”, Cerebrate asked.

Speck was too busy eating his blueberry muffin, Scept answered, “Eyes?”

“Yeah, but it stands for Educating Your Experimental Sense.”

“Ah, okay. I’ve think I’ve only heard of them mentioned once some time ago, though. Tell me who they are?”

“They’re this sort of alternative hip-hop and rap, if that’s what I can call them, music group from Fillydelphia, my hometown, thank Celestia for that. I just started listening to them a few days ago, and wow, their music blows me away. When I hear them, I just completely forget music from other ponies like DJ-PON3. In fact, fuck her, I’ve hated her music anyways.”

Speck broke from his trance into the muffin, “Whoa, yeah. I listen to them too.”

“What do they usually rap about, anyways?”

“Well, that’s something that can’t be answered so easily.” Speck said. “Let me ask a question for you, first. What does Half Note sing about?”

“Uhhh... I’d say she usually sings about urban lifestyle in Equestria?”

“Yeah, Eyes also writes down raps about something like that, they would write about things from simply starting the day, to growing up, but they express it so metaphorically, it’s so damn good and unique. Along with that, they also talk about issues not many other musicians would try to talk about. Not to mention the great music they produce themselves.”

“Like what ‘issues’?”

“There’s this song they have, that’s talks about how most ponies need to realize that we need to take a break from the fast-paced life we have and just think about it. And another one, that’s about how an naturally free, Equestrian-born pony, would end up being a sort of slave of the vices of society, which is crazy because we don’t even think about it that much unless we actually look into it.”

“Huh, I don’t think I’ve heard about the first one before.” Cerebrate answered interested.

“What’s it called?”

“Oh, it’s called ‘Paradise’. It’s one of my favorites from them, and come on, you should actually listen to them sometime.”

“I think I’ll go do that. And hey, I kind of liked DJ-PON3’s music.”

Speck and Cerebrate gaudily laughed in his face for his ludicrous remark.

“Hey, she can be pretty creative with what she makes... even if it can, well, sound shitty.” Scept defended.

“Please,” Cerebrate snickered, “I can shit on a bagpipe, and it would ALMOST be the equivalent of what she makes.” Him and Speck then proceeded to cackle louder. Scept at first scowled at the insult, then gave in chuckling.

As if on cue, Cise walked up to their table, with a huge grin on his face.

“Gentlecolts.” he greeted as he took a seat, “Sorry if you had to wait a while longer.”

“Alright, what’s this about?” Scept asked. “All you told me this morning was to wait here at this muffin shop with these two, only telling me that ‘we have this thing we can do tonight’.”

“Okay. Okay. I have this friend who has other friends. And she told me about this box of gems, and I’m talking about rubies, sapphires, garnets, just any kind you can think of. And this box that was just sent to a deposit box in the Bank of Los Pegasus, waiting to be sent sometime this week.”

“Why would something like gems be in a deposit box?” Cerebrate asked, “Shouldn’t it be in that huge vault thing they have?”

“She tells me it apparently belongs to some form of royalty or whatever from Canterlot. And there would definitely be other ponies trying to rob the place on some high-level scale, so I guess they would put it there hiding where they would least expect it.”

“How would she know it’s in a deposit box?”

“Like I said, other friends. Hey, I don’t know everything. Anyways, there will be a ‘night shift guard’, who will be waiting for us, and he’ll give us the key to this said box. Tonight, around midnight, we grab the package, then we walk out to sell it to her next week. Nothing Daring Do-like.”

“That really doesn’t make sense, though.”, Scept remarked, “Why can’t she go there if the guard is waiting for whoever in the first place. In fact, why would all four of us even need to be there?”

“Well, this is one thing I should’ve mentioned... she, or mostly anyone else she knows, can’t go there because other guards there would have her arrested.”

“And why is that?”

“Because she’s part of the Laserteeth Crime Family.”

Scept gaped at Cise in astonishment.

“We’re working for them?! Cise, do you realize what could happen if we manage to ever so slightly fuck up on this? Even though it sounds like a picnic?”

“Okay, just, just hear me out on this. I’m on good terms with her, so if we were to make a mistake, she would let it go. After all, this isn’t something that has been planned for more than a few months, this is something that only came up a couple days ago, and the opportunity is right there, so it’s more like ‘Nothing to lose, but everything to gain.’”

“Now that I see it that way, I’d be up to it.” Speck said, feeling more content now, “How exactly will the four of us be involved, anyhow?”

“Cerebrate will glide above the bank for a while, being as a scout to watch for other possible thieves. Speck and I will go inside to pick up the package, and Scept will be the one driving, of course.”

“Because my horn works.” Scept coughed out. “So after this thing is over, how much will we get paid?”

Cise began grinning again, “Uhh... I’d say about a half million bits.”

The sounds of three jaws smashing the table echoed throughout the blocks of Los Pegasus.

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Moonlight shined over the sleepy streets of the city as Scept’s car pulled up in front of the Bank of Los Pegasus. Sitting in the front passenger seat, Cise turned back and gave a nod to Cerebrate to fly up to the top of the bank#.

“What kind of guards are there?”, Speck asked.

“Only Earth ponies,” Cise replied, “You’d think they’d at least hire guards that were unicorns and pegasi, though.” He turned to Scept. “And you better stay here.”

“Really, how long are you going to assume I’m going to stray off to a strip club or some shit everytime I’m by myself? That was just one time.”

“Whatever.”, Cise and Speck then walked up the steps to the entrance of the bank.

As expected, the only ponies inside were a group of 6 security guards minding their job, some in one spot conversing while the rest roamed around. The two walked up to a uniform, reading a newspaper sitting behind a counter next to a wooden door.

“I’m here because of Ms. Crescent.”, Cise said.

“Okay, but what is the password?”, the pony answered without looking up.

He gave a quick look back to Speck, then back, “Uh, no. I know that no password was included for taking the damn key. All I’d need to say is that, she, Ms. Miasma Crescent, sent me.”

“Well, you thought wrong, you witling faggot.”

Speck couldn’t help but giggle at the creative insult.

“Are you serious, did you just say that?” Cise was trying to keep his temper cool.

“I don’t need to answer that, since you responded in the first place.”

“... Look, you and I both know who she is. And we both know that she told us that the only thing I’d have to do is say SHE sent me. So stop fucking around and just give the key.”

The guard then looked up at the both of them with a threatening stare, then burst into a chuckle.

“I got you both there, heh heh. Yeah, here’s the key.” He flung it at Speck’s face, making him flinch. Cise only responded with a look of revolt as they walked into the room of deposit boxes.

Scept was barely falling asleep back at the car. At this point, he was actually considering if he would make a quick stop at the bar across the street for a cup of coffee.

He was about to open the car door, until he heard a loud gunshot echoing from the exterior back of the bank, followed by a loud scream. Immediately, five guards dashed out of the bank to the scene.

In the midst of the sounds of the yelling, Scept saw Cerebrate flying from the roof of the bank towards the car covering his face.

“Motherfucker, I think I was shot in the face!!!”, he muffled through his legs.

“Shit, let me see.” he said in a panic running over to him. “There’s no way you could’ve been flying here if you were.”

Taking a look, Scept saw a long, bleeding gash running along the left side of his face.

“Wow, you are fucking lucky they only grazed you. Looks like something that would be a scar at the end of the week.” He helped him climb into the back then sat in the driver’s seat.

“What happened up there?”

“I was waitin’ up there as Cise told me to, then a few minutes later I see the shadows of what looked like other security guards, I don’t know. Then one of them saw me and shot at my head.”

“To be honest, it’s good that they shot at you sooner, or whoever they are would’ve actually got into the bank by now.”

Only 5 seconds later, Cise and Speck strolled out of the bank, holding a large silver box.

“HURRY THE FUCK UP! WE GOTTA GO!”, Scept shouted impatiently through the window.

Confused, the two hopped into the car without hesitation and Scept stepped on it, speeding through the streets.

“What was with the rush?” Cise said unconcerned, “We got the stuff, and there was a somewhat convenient distraction outside.”

“The ‘distraction’ did THIS to my face!” Cerebrate snarled, smacking him to get his attention. The sight of the cut made him heave a little.

“Ah, shit. How did that even manage to happen?!”

“I was up there because of the pointless job of ‘scouting’, or whatever the fuck you called it, and other guards saw me from the back of the bank. I was that fucking close to having my brain blown out!”

“That wasn’t my fault!”

“Guess what, it was, you daft cunt! YOU should’ve known there were other guards outside and that they act like fucking zebras with guns!”

“Whoopity-doo, I’m sorry that I don’t know that-”
“YOU TWO JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP! I’M GETTING A WORSE HEADACHE THAN CEREBRATE HERE!”, Scept interrupted.

Another 30 minutes were spent silently driving towards Scept’s house, until Cise starting speaking again.

“You know,” looking into the box of beautiful gems, “things turned out to be pretty outstanding. Well... despite what just happened.”

“No, it didn’t.” Cerebrate scowled back, covering his wound.

“Do you realize what I’m holding here? We got away with stealing half a million bits worth of gems. We could probably even fix that cut you have and still have the same amount.”

“Fine.”

They finally arrived at Scept’s house, a modest design among the dozen others lined up#.

Stepping out and walking to the front door, he said, “You guys can stay over or just walk home, I don’t care.” They then followed him inside as he made a beeline to his bedroom.

“I’m going to have the gems kept here.” Cise said as he walked into the kitchen.

“When are we going to trade them again?” Speck asked, wrapping a cloth around Cerebrate’s head, “I’m pretty sure the other guards could have at least suspected us to taking them.”

“This week, I guess a couple days from now, don’t worry.” he explained as he placed the box in a low counter. “Scept and I will meet my friend at some parking lot, we only trade it, then we drive back. I’ll have Cerebrate’s cut fixed courtesy of her, as well, then we split it between the four of us.”

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“Mr. Cise,” Songbird greeted as he walked into Interview Room #2. “Your friend, Speck, has told me about a robbery the four of you have committed in the Bank of Los Pegasus over a year ago.”
Cise cursed Speck under his breath, then sighed. “Yeah, that’s right...”
“He’s already told me about how you managed to walk off with those ‘half-a-millions worth’ of gems from the bank. I want you to explain what happened after that, he said it was only you and Scept this time.”
“Ok, uhh...”
“Mr. Cise, I can practically hear you producing lies in your mind right now. You mind as well tell the truth. And what else do you even need to lie about? Speck has already told the most for what happened. All you need to say is HOW you traded the gems.”
“Alright, alright. Two days from that night, I get a letter from Miasma saying we will have to meet her at the Heartstrings Memorial Park to trade the gems. Scept was with me so he could drive.”

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“Alright now, where is she?” Scept wondered, “We’ve been waiting here for, like, ten minutes now.”

“Maybe she’s already here? I have no idea whether she’d come by a wagon, car, or walked here... ”

A wagon then conveniently landed beside their car, flown by two pegasi. In it, was a white, mare unicorn with a green and light-blue colored mane tied back with bangs. Complementing that, she was wearing a black cape and golden bracelets on her front legs.

“There she is, hand me the gems.”, he stepped out the passenger seat.

Scept stayed in the car as he observed him speaking with Miasma. She didn’t seem so pleased when Cise looked like he mentioned the accident with Cerebrate.

“It’s your fault, you know how stupid the security is there!”, he heard her scold.

But it wasn’t what they were talking about which stuck out to him. It was the pegasus who was leading the wagon she was in. He looked way too familiar to just be an insignificant pony in his life. He stared at the pegasus until Cise sat back in the car with a large suitcase.

“It’s ours, cousin.” Cise smiled as he held up the suitcase.

Scept only chuckled as he kept glaring at the pegasi as they flew Ms. Crescent away.

“What? Not too thrilled that we’re rolling in it now?”

“Huh? Oh, uh no! I’m happy about that. Did you see that pegasus flying her wagon?”

“What do you mean? There was two?”

“The blue one.”

“What about him?”

“I have a feeling I’ve seen him somewhere... could have been a few months ago, I think... “

“So what? You just saw somepony you don’t know, again.”

“No, it wasn’t the kind where you just walk by them. I think I saw him when... “ Scept’s eyes widened. “Ah, shit... “

“Just say it!”

“I-I... I remember him when Speck made me run him over and beat the living shit out of him in an alleyway.”

“Whoa, that Olympus stallion he used to talk about?”

“... Yeah, yeah, that’s EXACTLY him!”

“Should we tell him?”

“Maybe. Crap, I don’t know how he’d react, though. He still has a grudge against the bastard.”

“We’ll tell him later on, just drive for now.”

Chapter 5

Olympus looked out the window from inside the house as a car screeched to a stop in the front yard. From inside the car, exited a unicorn in the usual taxi driver uniform, but in a darker color scheme. He continued to watch the taxi driver as he gradually approached the front door.

“Uh, is that supposed to be our ride?” Olympus called out. His friend walked into the room in a business jacket, similar to the suit he was wearing.

“Oh, yeah it is.” he exclaimed with a grin on his face. “Just in time, go ahead and open the door while I finish suitting up.”

As he swung the door open, he was already face to face with the unicorn.

“Are you Zenith Zonal?” asked the unicorn.

“That’s me!” Zenith called from across the house. He trotted back, now in his suit. “Let us not waste anymore time!”

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“Wow, I don’t remember the last time I was in a car.” Olympus said while he admired the interior of the car as it traversed through the luminous streets.

“Why, were there absolutely no cars in Ponyville?”

“Yeah, you’d hardly see any there. Although I do remember seeing something that looked like a car, except it was way bigger and made apple cider. Other than that, life there was generally simple.”

“I guess there weren’t any hang-out places like the club we’re going to?”

“Well, there was this bakery place called the Sugarcube Corner, but not even close. That was all, I think. The ponies there can find literally every place to have a party, though. Like when I heard of one going on in a library, I wouldn’t expect anything like that.”

“Aren’t parties there all balloons and cake and crap?”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t be surprising if the only pony who ever arranged them was some miserable filly who grew up with rocks.# Damn, and now that I look at it, I’ve been there my whole life so far, and it’s weird seeing how insanely different this city is compared to then.”

“If I had a short way to describe Los Pegasus, I’d just say it’s like Manehattan, except everypony there is a traditionalistic cunt. And enough reminiscing, I need to talk about who we’re meeting here.”

“Go ahead, I could feel a wave of depression drowning me.” Olympus said jokingly.

“First off, there’s the boss and founder himself, Volonté Laserteeth.”

“Founder? And he’s still alive?”

“Believe it or not, yeah. He’s at least forever, I’m guessing. He is so old that the only way he ever moves is in a wheelchair being pushed by either me or his other right-hoof pony. I wouldn’t recommend being a smart-ass towards him, he’ll act like that typical old and angry stallion. But if anypony would go further on that, he or even she, would get fucked by a barrage of bullets, mostly on the spot. Not that I will to you, of course, but that depends on other ponies in the room. In other words, you know who you’re fucking with, so just don’t.”

“And you’ve mentioned this ‘other right-hoof’ pony?”

“Right, she’s a unicorn, I think a few years older than me, named Miasma Crescent. I’ve seen her to be on his side for a while before I got where I am.”

“How was she connected to him?”

“I actually have no idea about that, but I don’t want to ask the both of them, either. Though, I did always think she might have been a grand-niece. If there was a family connection like that, it would have been a good reason as to why she has never had to do whatever I had to do. I’ve never seen her in any sort of fight, or even doing an errand, much less.”

“And what did you do?”

“Oh, it really wasn’t shit like whacking other ponies. I would just be there, like backup, when the other ponies do protection racketeering. But that was a long time ago, and how I got ‘there’, was because those other ponies progressively thought that there was nothing to stop them in whatever crime they did, and, of course, had themselves killed or thrown in some dungeon. I was the only alive one in that specific ‘generation’ of members of the family, and the boss himself chose me eventually... And before you ask, you were in Ponyville this whole time, so I never did tell you about that, and it doesn’t seem like a pleasant thing to share in the first place.”

“Mr. Zonal, we will arrive in about 10 minutes, just as a reminder.” The driver called from the front.”
“Thanks, and look for a good station on the radio for the rest of the ride, would you mind? I heard about this group called E.Y.E.S. and I want to give them a listen.”

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When the car pulled up in front of the lively and jazz-emanating Celestia’s Needle, a huge grin grew over Zenith’s face.

“There it is. That new neon sign really matches with the brick exterior, doesn’t it?” He pointed at a neon sign shaped as a horn rising through a swirl of colors matching Princess Celestia’s floating mane. “Miasma designed the logo herself. Driver, go around. We’ll be entering through the back.”

The two were taken around the corner of the block to a dimly-lit narrow street leading back to the club. On the street, were either young couples or small groups of Laserteeth gangsters conversing.

“Huh, good there doesn’t seem to be the occasional rape going on tonight.” Zenith said with a small feeling of surprise.

“Really, second time that had to be brought up the past few weeks.”

“The first time?”

“When I was in the hospital, two detectives came to my room and asked me questions about what happened. One of them asks me if I was raped, then they start arguing like foals.”

“What would be the point of them asking you shit, anyways? Their attention span to any crime in this city is as short as a blink.”

“One of them did say they’d eventually track down Speck and-”

“Call bullcrap on that.”
“Yup, they would have forgotten by now, of course. You’d think they could just look up a record of him in the station and go to his house. But no, fuck prostitutes and eat donuts, I guess.”

“Even if we didn’t have any records of the dude, it wouldn’t be much of challenge to find him through word of mouth, although it would take months. But that’s something we can discuss with the boss and Miasma, come on.”

After giving the driver a generous tip of 50 bits, Zenith led Olympus into the back door, entering through a long hallway, with a set of two solid-looking pegasi standing every few feet. As they continued walking, the soothing sound of jazz from the widespread dining hall at the front of the building grew louder. And the end of the hallway, was another couple of pegasi, but now standing side by side of a door. Unlike all the doors they have walked past along the way, this door had small marking and and a obscurely different design.

“In case you’re wondering why this door’s different, was so it wouldn’t exactly scream something, like ‘the fucking boss of a crime syndicate hangs out here’, but on a good level of subtlety that shows some significance.” He opened the door. “After you.”

As soon as Olympus entered the room, he instantly felt a strong glare from two heads facing his direction. He looked up to meet eyes with a very elderly, stern looking Earth pony in a wheelchair. It was hard to determine what color he was because of the physical toll time has taken on him. Sitting on his right, was a blue, mare unicorn. Her green and light-blue mane was set loose on her back, danced around her neck as she fixed her gaze onto Olympus. Compared to the old pony’s deadpan stare, she gave a feeling of contentment. He was so drawn away by the two, that the walls around him seemed to collapse, with the only sound in the room being the small sound of wheezing.

“Boss... Miasma.” Zenith introduced himself as he took a seat aside Volonté Laserteeth. “This here is my foalhood friend, and he’s... interested in what we do, if that’s how I can put it.”

An awkward breeze drifted through the room as the three young ponies waited for the boss to speak, as he was still wheezing.

“So... “ Right after uttering the one word, Mr. Laserteeth went into a brief coughing fit. “Hurgh! Hurgh!... shit, ahh.... So. Did this young little prick... ?” He slowly lifted his frail hoof to Miasma for a second, then confusedly shifted to Zenith. “Did he... give a good job telling who we are?”
Zenith rolled his eyes and answered for him, “Yes, I did.”

The boss glared back and grumbled to himself. “But... “ He then locked on to Olympus. “Do you know what you’re in for?”

“Yes, I-...”

“So you don’t?” Miasma spoke up. She practically sang with the smooth, but irritated tone she had. “Say you have no idea and leave it at that.”

“Miasma, you have done literally 0% of what this whole organization did in the history of ever, so don’t even attempt to be a smart-ass defending something like that. You wouldn’t even be able to handle a single parasprite.” Zenith snapped back.

Miasma sighed then made a defensive gesture with her front legs, “Fine, you have a point.”

“I hope you... realized that not many ponies... griffons... or whatever race, get to see me.” Mr. Laserteeth growled. “They only see someone below Zenith or Miasma here... then they do a small-time job... like protection racketeering or performing a hit. You... on the other hand... you’re a good friend of Zenith, and he’s willing to not let you go through a world of shit, so be grateful.”
To back it up, Zenith gave a smile and nodded to Olympus.

“That doesn't mean you’ll immediately be in this position, or that you won’t do shit... the only good thing between you and me so far is that you’re trusted.”

“What he means is,” Miasma explained, “is that there’s no huge risk of getting yourself killed, or arrested in whatever you’ll do, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

At that moment, a disgruntled Earth pony burst through the door with an envelope in his mouth. All heads in the room turned towards him.

“Is this some fucking joke or what?!” He threw the envelope as he got himself a seat next to Olympus, making it slam into the round table which they were sitting.

“Mr. Haze, that was all we needed to pay for the month.” Miasma assured.

“Not even close. No. All your other ponies or griffons get drunk and vandalize the bar. Have you even heard the bartender’s complaints about those shit-heads?! There’s a lot more you need to pay if this club can still be considered as the ‘Laserteeth hang-out’ spot or whatever.”

“... What those other ponies do is through no fault of our own... and the bartender is just too incompetent for his job if he wants to complain... you better watch your mouth... colt.”

“Yes.” Miasma defended. “The required payment was 700 bits. We paid 500 bits, because we are only paying as the family as a whole. What those other ponies did, isn’t any of our concern because they are not directly affiliated with us. You want the other 200 bits? Ask them.”

“If you ponies are actually as hard-ass as you claim yourself would be, you would confront them your own damn se-!”

Mr. Haze abruptly stopped talking after he felt a kick of pain in his stomach. He gasped when he looked down to see a knife lodged in his belly. He continued to pant as the room stayed silent. He started to fumble his hooves into his clothes for a few seconds, causing more attention to the other pegasi in the room.

Then, in one fast movement, he brought up a revolver from his coat to point at Mr. Laserteeth. Just as Zenith quickly retaliated by pulling out his pistol as well, Miasma used her horn to grab it from his grasp and fired.

In a split-second, blood sprayed all over the door behind him, as well as Olympus’s face. Olympus turned next to him, to see a huge bleeding hole in the center of Mr. Haze’s forehead, and both ponies, dead and alive, dropped their jaw.

Gradually, Mr. Haze’s corpse leaned back too far to fall from his seat, flopping on the ground with the knife still implanted within him.

It took the room a whole 10 seconds to realize that it was Miasma who responded fast enough to save Mr. Laserteeth. She was still seen holding Zenith’s gun with her magic and staring in one
direction with a thousand-mile stare.

“Zenith... give me back my knife.”

“That was your knife?”

“The one that’s in Mr. Haze’s stomach, yes, that knife. ”

“Whoop-dee fucking doo.” He said in wonder as he looked over the pony’s corpse.

“... It could have been your fault that I would have been killed, if Miasma didn’t react.” Laserteeth snarled.

“Well, I had no clue he was even loaded. This was the first time he tried to confront us about this kind of thing. What happened, happened.” He impatiently looked back at Miasma. “My gun?”

Miasma dubiously tossed the pistol back to Zenith, to put it back in his satchel. He picked up the revolver from the spreading puddle of blood and placed it on Olympus’s hooves as he was still staring at the body.

“You can have this, as a sort of welcome gift or something.” he casually said as he awkwardly thrust out the knife from Haze’s belly.

“Um, don’t you think anybody would have tried to get the cops after hearing that gunshot?” Olympus finally spoke out.

“Here?” Miasma replied. “Nopony would ever dare to do that.”

“You know, we’ll need to hide him.” Zenith claimed. “Ponies tend to notice things like other missing ponies having their head blown off.”

“I know, get Nefario. We can stash the body in the trunk of his car while we look for a place to dump the body.”

“Who’s he?” Olympus asked.

“He’s part of the group that Mr. H was complaining about. Kind of the co-leader of a sort of flying gang that’s connected with us.”

“Why’nt you go and have a drink or something at the bar?” Zenith said as he dragged the body. I’ll meet up with you in a minute.”

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The club was filled with jazz, the place was blooming with peace of mind. All handsome stallions, one drunk with all his buddies, and there was that one mare with the prominent dress attracting attention to all those in the vicinity. The rhythmical drummer of the performing band smiled down upon his audience, the same he would smile up at a beautiful, starry sky, as each hoofstep heard seemed to tap along with the music. At the same time, a soft harmony of trumpet notes drifted across the room, penetrating through the ears of every pony or griffon alike.

“You okay?” Olympus suddenly heard from beside him to see Zenith. He’s been sitting at the bar, blankly staring at the band the whole time. “You still look a little shook up.”

“Well, yeah. Having a head explode next to you would do that.”

“Don’t get too gushy. I can tell you, you won’t have to deal with anything like that.”

“What did Miasma mean, exactly? About how I wouldn’t really get in harm, like, what would I do?”

“You’re a pegasus, well... obviously. So my best guess is that you’ll only be there for transporting ponies and such.”

“Hey, I’m fine with having anything to do. Opposed to nothing back in PV.”

“And I need to ask again. You’ve decided to live here again, and even work with us, while we look for this Speck dude, and you don’t even know what you’ll do when you see him again?”

“Really, I don’t. Maybe he’s scared of me now, like how I was when I got him. Maybe he still has a death wish against me, I don’t know. I will just face him with an attitude of tenacity, and we’ll both see how we’ll react.”

“It’s your battle, wh-” Zenith cut himself short when he saw a unicorn and a griffon clumsily hauling what was clearly seen to be Mr. Haze’s corpse covered in thick sheets.

“Hey!” He snapped angrily, but not loud enough to draw attention. The griffon looked around dumbfounded until he looked back. Zenith made an exasperated gesture for him to approach. The feathered creature dropped the corpse on its head then flew over.

“Axel, I told you to fucking go around the other way.” Zenith stressed with his teeth clamped.

“His car’s at the front!” The griffon contested stubbornly.

“That’s all you have to say, you fuck-noramus? That body is Mr. H, you know, the owner of the Celestia’s Needle, the place we’re standing in right now? Seeing that pony walk through the door and exit out covered in sheets by two guys can probably, yeah, that’s the word, probably cause some suspicion.”

“Oh.. uh, I-”

“Just be quick about it. Jeez.”

Axel then flew back to assist in transporting the late pony’s body, foolishly bumping into other ponies along the way.

“That griffon,” Olympus questioned. “He’s part of that ‘flying gang’ you mentioned, right?”

“Yup, they call themselves “Nicers”, from the ‘Valley’ part of the city. Pretty ironic name for how they actually act, a reason why we made a truce with them a couple years ago. I’m tired of talking so fast now, about time we just end the day listening to tasteful music. I need a damn beer, I don’t care what brand it is.”

Chapter 4

“... if you don’t want to have to talk about this in a police station, we’d better get back home right now.”, a muffled voice said as Olympus was regaining sensibility. Actually, he wasn’t sure if it was the voice that was being covered or that he was just too blacked out to properly make an understanding. All he remembered was flying across the street from the Spit of Fire, until he was hit by the side of a speeding car.

Once he was finally able to open his eyes by a crack, he saw the silhouette of two ponies walking away only faintly illuminated by street lights. He made an effort just to take a look at his own body to see the aftermath. He was so dismayed by the swelling throughout his body that he dropped his head back on the floor, with that smack seeming to awake his nerves, reminding him of the pain he received all together.

Olympus felt he had no choice but to lay there, it mind as well have been hours for him. He also couldn’t help but think it was finally payback against him, especially for giving such a lousy apology to Speck just ten minutes ago. All the conflicting thoughts became too much for his state of mind, slowly putting him back to his slumber.

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“Detectives, you may come in now.”, Olympus heard as he regained consciousness. He opened his eyes to find himself lying in a bed in a hospital room.

“Err, how long has he been in a coma, nurse?”, he heard a stallion ask.

“For about a week and a half, detective.”

A week! Olympus was supposed to be back in Ponyville two days ago. He turned his head to see two unicorns walking in his room, both in trench coats.

“Ah, now he’s awake.” said one of them. “Olympic... Optis? Is it? Are you feeling okay enough to hear me well?”

The other unicorn standing beside him facehoofed himself and said, “Seedsnipe, his name is OlymPUS OpTIC. It even says right there in the notebook you’re holding right now.”

Pretending he didn’t hear the other unicorn’s correction, Seedsnipe continued.

“Mr. Optic, we are Detectives Seedsnipe and Kingfish, L.P.P.D., we’re here to ask some questions regarding the incident you were in over a week ago. Are you well enough to speak?”

Letting out a groan, he answered as he sat up.

“Yes, detectives.” he didn’t expect himself to talk so effortlessly.

“You’re not originally from Los Pegasus, are you? Most citizens would know enough to avoid getting attacked.”, Seedsnipe asked.

“Yeah, I was born here, and uh, I then moved to Ponyville when I grew to be a stallion. I was just visiting here for a week.”

“Ooh, Ponyville, I hear that place is-”

“Seedsnipe... ”, Kingfish scolded.

“Ok, ok, shit. And what was your business here?”

“I was going to meet a... I mean an acquaintance.”

“Alright, err... “ Seedsnipe looked into his notebook again. “Ok, so when you exited the bar, the Spit of Fire, there were reports that you might have been hit by a car.”

“Yeah, that’s what I remember.”

“Remember anything after that, at all?”

“After that, I woke up, covered in bruises in some alleyway.”

“Yes, and just an hour after that, some ponies found you, then carried you to this hospital. Talk about slow response, huh?”

“I guess.”

“Just to be clear, you were completely unconscious during this battery?”

“That’s right.”

“You think you might have been raped? Date rape, to be precise, maybe.”

Kingfish sighed then walked to the back of the room.

“Rape? I... I don’t follow you.”

“You know... rape... when one pony wants to have, uh, sexual intercourse with another, and the other one won’t let them? And then the said rapist attacks the other one? With said rape?”

“I know what that means, but-”

“Rape would be more common with a stallion against a mare, but for a stallion to rape another stallion, his dick would be up his asshole and he’d shit in his mouth and/or laugh and-”

“SEEDSNIPE, REALLY?!” Kingfish strode to his fellow partner. “Why would you... why would that question be even... you know what, just give me that fucking thing! No wonder it took you a year to get promoted.”

He snatched the notebook from Seedsnipe’s magic grasp.

“Oh, like that's necessarily a bad thing.”

“Did you just imply that rape isn’t a bad thing?”

“... How much time do you devote to yourself in order to be a fucking asshole to me each day?”, he retorted innocently.

“No, it’s that you act like an idiot every damn time it’s your turn to give the interrogation. And you’ve screwed up this time, so I’m giving it.”

Seedsnipe glared back at him.

“Mr. Optis, ca-”

“Tick!”

“Mr. Optic, can you excuse us for a moment?”, the two of them were completely oblivious to the fact that Olympus was still in the room.

He only nodded back in response. He didn’t believe how unprofessional they were acting.

After about two whole minutes of cursing and arguing, the two detectives then walked back into the room, with Kingfish leading.

“Ok, Mr. Optic, sorry for the interruption.”, Kingfish said.

“Not a problem, I guess.”

“Were you able to identify whomever atta-”

“... Uh, I think the correct wording is whoever...?”, Seedsnipe interfered again.

“Well, I don’t know, at least he’d get the message.”

“No, it matters. Whomever would have to apply to a certain subject, and whoever would apply to
anyone.”

“Who cares, let’s just agree it’s a word made for those Canterlot ponies, whatever.”

“Fine.”

“So, were you able to identify, whoever, attacked you?”

“No, I couldn’t. I was only able to catch a shadow of two ponies.”

“And you couldn’t identify them by race?”

“No, sir.”

Kingfish murmured to himself as he continued to write down on the notebook.

“Tell me about the ‘acquaintance’ you met at the bar.”, he asked after a five second pause.

“He was this unicorn, I only knew him by the name, Speck. He’s green-coated, and has a broken horn. Er, that’s pretty much all I know of him.”

“Explain what was the purpose of this meeting.”

“I was going to talk with him to ask him to forgive me about... something.”

“And this thing... ?”

“Well, I was the reason his horn was broken.” he answered straightforwardly.
The two detectives gave a look of bewilderment. The plot thickens, they thought.

“How long ago has this happened?, Kingfish questioned.

“Way back when I was, about 15 or 16? It was actually that reason of why I moved, or fled, to Ponyville once I was old enough.”

“Do you think it was possible that it was Speck who attacked you?”

“No, it cou-” Olympus cut himself off when he started to finally make sense of what happened. As he started to connect the few puzzle pieces in his mind, his look became more darkened.

“Yes... I wouldn’t doubt that it was him.”

“Okay, alright, yes.” Kingfish expressed with the anticipation of progress as he continued writing into the notebook.

“And you say you know nothing else about him? You don’t know where he lives?”

“Yes, only his name and how he looks.”

“Alright now, Mr. Optic. This proves a boost in finding the suspect now.” He closed the notebook and began walking out the door. “However, it could take weeks to months in finding whomever this stallion is. Goodbye for now.”

“Whatever it takes.” Olympus returned.

Just as Kingfish was about to exit the room, he stopped and turned.

“Oh, and is there anypony you know in this city who will pick you up once you are better enough to leave?”

“I have a friend around this city.” was all he answered. He didn’t say the name because doing so could have this friend arrested.
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It has now been another week until Olympus would be released from the hospital. Even though he has been waiting for word from Detective Kingfish, all he’d be faced with are journalists looking for a good story, only to be put down.

One of the other several things he’s thinking been about, however, was Speck. Sure, what he did to him could have easily been justified, but he couldn’t help but think the physical act itself seemed unnecessary, since Speck was mature enough to rationalize what he could have done, unlike Olympus’s personality in the past. Whenever he’s about to conclude to one side of the conflict, he would again realize the flaws and think about the other side, making an endless cycle back and forth.

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Once he was escorted outside the hospital, he was met with a yellow, blue-haired pegasus waiting for him with a wagon.

“What, you thought my wings became completely crippled?” Olympus chuckled as he extended his wings to hover in the air.

“Well hey, just wanted to show a sign of sympathy.” returned his friend. “Shall we go?”

The two pegasi then took flight to the skies.

“So... whatever happened...” the pegasus awkwardly went on. “...feeling better about it now?”

“Yup, because I know exactly who fucking did it.”

“Damn, it was that Speck pony, wasn’t it?“

“You know, are you still holding that offer on bringing me to uh... that club you told me about?”

“Club?”

“You know, it’s like a bar, but with that shitty, electronic-whatever, ‘PFF PFF’ music?”

“What?... Oh, you were talking about Celestia’s Needle, right?”

“Yeah, that.”

“I never even described it as a club with music like that. It’s more of a Cabaret club.”

“Well, that was just me saying how much I hate that music. Anyways, I’m taking that up.”

“So you really have thought about that offer?”

“Yeah, I have. Especially decided to ditch my life in Ponyville. But no, whatever you think, it’s not for the sole reason of the ‘respect’ and ‘honor’ crap. Plus, I feel that I need to track down, or hide from Speck again.”

“But have you thought about your other life back in Ponyville?”

“There? Well, it was generally ok there. Had some friends and whatever. Couldn’t really relate well to others most of the time.”

“And wait, you said you want to find him again? You attack him when he’s a colt, then he jumps you years later, making it even in a way. You basically had it coming to you.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking. But when I see him, I’m not even going to do anything real physical to him.”

“Yeah, some real nice talking between you too, heh heh.”

“That’s ri-...wait... wha-... Oh fuck you, I didn’t mean it like that. But seriously, that’s the thing. It’s hard for me to explain. Ok, what I mean is, if he does see my face again, I just want to see his reaction.”

“So all it is, really, is just to see him?”

“Hey, it’s something I can’t really explain myself. And where are we even flying, anyways?”

They both looked down to realize that they were still above the hospital, flying in circles.

“Well, shit. I was originally going to take you to the train station, but now that you did say you want to join, I guess I’ll have you stay over at my place for the day while I arrange the meeting.”