In The Money

Number 13 - Flash Cards safehouse and HQ 8 months ago

Walking in through what he hoped was the last door he'd see in a while, High Rise took in his surroundings as quickly as possible. A rather drab office with sparsely populated bookshelves lining the wall on his left, on his right... 'Why is there a bed there? Talk about addicted to work.'  Following the right wall along, there was a moderately sized dresser, and a waste bin was tucked into the corner next to him with a few balls of paper littering the surrounding floor, likely missed shots from the desk in the opposite corner. 'Could always move it closer...'

Sat behind the cheap looking desk was, much to the stallion's surprise, a thestral mare leaning back in a padded folding chair. The bat-pony sported a rich purple coat that was on the darker side, paired with a navy blue mane. Her face showed a noticeable interest in High Rise's arrival, yellow cat-like eyes assessing him quickly while the pegasus' did the same, picking up on how the other pony seemed to have a small snippet of flesh missing from the side of her right ear. High Rise then caught sight of the mare's cutie mark, a white grid with a red 'X' filling the top right box, and a black one in the bottom left. The pegasus reached his conclusion soon enough all-in-all.

'That is one good looking mare, I can see business being smooth with a face like that around. Never would of thought I'd have a thing for fangs though...'

Said mare had apparently finished her analysis around the same time, and opened her mouth to speak. "Good too see you made it over here, wouldn't have been surprised if you made to bail when Lockpick led you into the first alley. Two things you should know already, but I'll recap for you: My name is Switchboard and this little back-alley bunker is my business. That, and I've asked for you to be brought here because I have an offer to make."

High Rise moved into the 'office' properly, heading to sit in the chair that was placed on his side of the desk, although it was suspiciously identical to the chairs he'd seen downstairs.

"Yeah, though I don't know much else other than that I'd like to point out. I walk out of a casino and end up being led here, that's a rather odd turn of events if you ask me." He finished by eyeing the pony in front of him with suspicion.

Switchboard nodded in agreement. "That's true enough, but you actually drew a crowd in that casino, to a poker table. Seeing how a member of my group was in said crowd, you got my attention. You tell me then, just what did you leave that betting house with?" She asked.

High Rise's expression went flat. "Money," He informed her bluntly. "my money."

"That you did, and that it is." Switchboard said with slight defensiveness. "But how much money?"

The pegasus didn't immediately respond, wondering just where this line of questioning would lead. "In profit? Around 2300 bits." He told the thestral neutrally.

"Well I was told it was a lot but bloody Tartarus." She muttered to herself, causing the stallion to smirk for a moment. "And that, is why you're here, uh, High Rise?" A nod. "Right, that's a ridiculous amount to win in one game of poker. That takes not only a lot of skill in the game, but a keen eye for the situation and the nerve to not just back off after winning a few good deals. By now I think I should explain what it is we do here. Answer me this, you're evidently an avid gambler-"

"Meh, I prefer fortune-hunter." High Rise interrupted.

"Either way." The mare continued dismissively. "Answer me this; have you heard of a group called 'The Flash Cards'?" She inquisitively asked.

High Rise narrowed his eyes when he heard the name, admittedly curious, but all the more suspicious of where this was headed. "Yeah, more than once. They run the show on the Red Strip, have roots planted in all the casinos, clubs, and bars, but don't say so openly. In fact, as far as I could tell, they're a quiet bunch in the first place, and the common opinion is that the group is nothing more than a rumor, or legend really."

Switchboard smiled sadly as the pegasus recounted what he knew. "That's pretty much all true, except it's changed now. We don't run the show so much anymore, but we definitely used to." Was her affirmation.

The stallion took those words into consideration before his eyes widened. "What do you mean we? You've gotta be joking right?"

"Well," Switchboard began with a small laugh. "it's good to see you can put two and two together quickly enough. Otherwise it's no joke High Rise, welcome to Number 13, Flash Cards base of operations and my little piece of work!" She finished with a grin, gesturing with hooves spread wide to their surroundings.

High Rise felt his jaw slackening, and tried to school his expression, but failed for the first time in a while. "W-what? You're telling me I'm sat in the main office of the most talked about, if not necessarily believed in, underground group in Las Pegasus? Okay, come on, that's a leg pull if I ever heard one." He stated in denial.

The thestral raised a brow. "Really? Can you tell me of  any other organizations that would try to recruit you because of skills with gambling?" She challenged. The grey stallion shook his head, trying to rein in his now wild thoughts.

"Okay, so what, why I am here? You guys are the most lucrative unofficial business in the city, shit, maybe just the most lucrative business. What do you want from me?" He asked disbelievingly. This time the mare's laugh was louder.

"Oh, and I thought you could put two and two together." Switchboard joked. "Think about it Rise, come on. You pulled a haul from one three hour poker game that the Cards would be happy to make in a day! You were already told that you were invited here because a business wanted to make a proposal, what's there left to question?"

High Rise sat still for a while as his mind blurred with possibilities of being in the best place he could ever hope to be, visions of just how well off he could end up forming clearly in his head. After a minute of sitting there with an expression that made it look like he was broken, he merely smiled wide.

"Sounds like this is one proposal I'm really gonna like, but I do actually have more more question..." The smile became a grin.

"When do I start?"

Number 13 - Switchboard's Office 23:45

High Rise's eyes refocused, and looked to the mare sat across from him.

"I won't lie, you really turned this place around Rise. We're closing in on how things were here originally." Switchboard told him, and for once, jokes were on hold and she sounded the most sincere he'd heard her in a long time.

Giving her a look, the stallion developed a wan smile. "Still not sure if I've forgiven you for making me think I was getting a better deal, never mentioned how you wanted me to pick this place out from the dirt."

The immediate response was a small snort. "All your flirting seems like enough proof of forgiveness to me, unless your constant pestering is some kind of payback. Besides, what better way to get in you in than make it seem like a golden opportunity?" Switch asked honestly.

"Well if you look at it now, it kinda was." High Rise responded, laughing warmly. "Anyway, I'm still lugging 563 bits around, well 565 I guess." He added the second figure with a chuckle.

The thestral raised an eyebrow at the change. "565? When'd the extra two get in there?"

"When I plucked two bits off of this pair of clowns who tried to jump me on the way back here." The pegasus answered.

Giving a contemplative hum as she looked the stallion over again, Switchboard mulled over the information. "You don't look like you've just come back from a two on one fight, who were they? Do we know them?"

"Haha, well of course I don't, I'm just that good aren't I?" Another snort with an accompanying eye roll from across the desk. "But in all seriousness, I don't have a damn clue Switch. I've never seen them before, but it sounded like they'd planned their little 'outing'. More still, if the way one was talking is anything to go by, I'd say they belong to some kind of gang." High Rise explained.

"Pff, Las Pegasus doesn't do gangs Rise. That's a Manehattan thing in any case. What made you jump to that conclusion?" The mare asked, her tone suggesting she found the idea silly.

"I understand that much." The stallion replied. "But one of 'em made to do a runner after I knocked his buddy out cold. Went on about how I 'would've been fine' if I'd given him my bags before he ran off. Thing is, he said that someone called 'Blacklight' wouldn't be happy with me, that the guy didn't like it when his patrols came back without any goods."

Now the mare just looked confused, shaking her head before responding. "'Patrol' is a funny term for organized mugging, but that's not what's weird. Well... Blacklight is, funnily enough, the name of the pony who runs Blacklights, a company that deals in industrial and domestic electronics, they've been on the rise over the last month. Their influence has been expanding, but nopony knows where the company suddenly got all the extra bits to fund the growth." She explained with an increasing frown.

"Well let's be honest." High Rise began. "If the guy is sending out ponies to rob whoever they can find, it would explain his raise in income."

Switchboard let out a sigh and nodded slightly. "That it would, but if that's true, then it's also true that Blacklights is actually a gang organization, and if you've interrupted his 'patrol' then he might come after you." She warned.

Rising from his seat, the stallion smiled reassuringly. "You know I can handle myself." Then glancing back to his packs. "So is this going to be the usual split? It's still 35 right?"

"Yup, 35 percent for the Cards, rest goes to you. Unless you owe 'Zix anything?"

"When do I ever get into trouble?" High Rise grinned. "But I'll leave this with you, you can drop my stack by my room when you're done. I've got more than one set of bags so don't worry about taking too long to get these back." Sliding his saddlebags onto the floor as he spoke, the pegasus nudged them to rest at the side of the desk before making a move for the exit.

Switchboard's voice made the stallion stop at the door. "I feel like I should say High Rise, I do know you can handle yourself, but if this does turn out to be a real deal, you can only take care of so much and I don't really want to lose you because you got into a fight with twenty gangsters. At that point it's a problem for you and me, so... Try and be careful yeah?" She asked softly.

"Gee Switch, I didn't think you cared so much. I joke around I know, but I can be careful too. Later." With that High Rise left the thestral alone once more.

"If I ever told you how much I cared..." The mare sighed, looking away from the door sadly and getting up from her position behind the desk.

"I need to hit the gym." She muttered on the way out of the office.

Quincy East Warehouse - Striker Gang HQ 00:09

Kicking the basement window closed, Flint Strike shuddered from more than the nighttime air. When it came down to it, Blacklight may not seem big or much of a fighter, but the stallion was scary. The unicorn showed up a month ago, waltzing into the bar that Flint's gang had taken over like he owned the place. One gang member confronted him on being somewhere he shouldn't, and while Flint Strike wasn't there at the time, he knew the story all too well. Apparently the argument had gotten more and more heated before the gang member's head lurched sideways with his neck giving a sudden crack, a sickly black aura surrounding the unicorn's horn. Afterwards Blacklight asked again to see the gang's leader, and stated "I'll wait as long as I need to." when told Flint wasn't around. The auburn pegasus had returned some time later to find a corpse in the middle of the floor, while Blacklight waited at a nearby table, everyone else sat nervously at as large a distance as possible.

The following discussion had been interesting to say the least, Blacklight had explained how he wanted a partnership with the gang. When Flint Strike had pointed out that he had a funny way of requesting an alliance, he could swear the gaze aimed at him was cold enough to freeze Tartarus over... Twice probably. By the end of it all, Blacklight had put forward a new base of operations at the warehouse, arranged for the gang to act as his companies' thug group, and scared the pegasus shitless. Now Flint Strike was out of a leading position, and instead stuck doing grunt work.

"Grind better not be lost somewhere." He muttered, turning to the north before taking off with a pump of his wings. 'It's too late to be doing this crap, I should be in bed with Ruby right now'.

The flight back to 49th only took the disgruntled pegasus twenty minutes, but finding the right alley took another five, the easiest way of identifying it being Meat Grinder's inanimate form in the middle of the floor. 'Well I can't really complain that he's still here, knowing him he probably woke up having forgotten where he was, then fell asleep.' Flint thought with a laugh at the likelihood of that being the case. Landing beside the green earth pony and checking him over, he spotted the opened shoulder pouch and discarded wallet.

"Great, you went and got yourself filched too." He groused, giving Grinder's ribs a kick to wake him. The downed stallion made a few lamenting noises as he blinked his eyes, before lifting his head to spot Flint Strike stood over him.

"Did ya get 'im?" The larger stallion rumbled.

"Oh sure," Flint answered disparagingly. "left him out cold a few ways back... Of course I didn't get the bloody prick, he knocked you clean right through your thick skull, you think I'm gonna stick around to fight him on my own?"

Grinder slowly rose to his hooves and shrugged leisurely. "Dunno, did you?" He asked while he tried to loosen his stiff muscles.

"I stuck around long enough for him to try and break my ribs, after that I was outta here." The pegasus answered, leaning back to show his now bruised stomach.

If Grinder felt any sympathy upon seeing the bluish-yellow hoofprint on Flint's stomach, the earth pony didn't show it. "Huh... So what are we s'posed to do now? Go after him?"

Swiftly facehoofing, the other stallion shook his head before offering a reply. "My god you've been out for nearly forty minutes you idiot." He muttered irritably. Deciding he'd had enough, Flint Strike removed the hoof from his face and passed his green companion to head down the street, speaking over his shoulder. "The Boss wants us back at Quincy to get all the information from us, whoever that colt was, he wants to know. I can only guess a certain pegasus is goin' to be in the Boss' cross-hairs pretty soon, poor kid won't know what hit 'im."

Grind used a hoof to gently rub the back of his head, mumbling while he picked up his wallet and dropped it back into his pouch. "Bastard deserves wha'ever he gets..."  With that he moved to follow the auburn pegasus.

Flint Strike however, had retreated to his thoughts as his legs did the work of navigating the way back to the warehouse. Just who was the pegasus that they ran into? There aren't that many ponies who can take out two opponents without breaking a sweat, and the kid sure was carrying a lot of money with him. Does he work for some kind of group? Or was he an independent criminal on his way back from a successful heist?

'Oh well, Boss'll find out I guess. That crazy stallion's got as many connections as bits in his account... Or something like that. Meh, metaphors are a waste of time anyway.'