Pinkie Pie stretched out on her bed in the fancy suite that Rarity had graciously paid for. Each of them had their own bedroom, leaving her a little perplexed, for she’d been expecting to share a bed with her sister like they had used to do back home. The sounds of the bustling city had already faded away into the surprisingly calming hum of the night. She heard a group of ponies outside trot past their room a few floors down, almost tempting her to go out and experience the exciting nightlife the city had to offer. It wasn’t often that she got to spend a good deal of time in a large city like Manehatten, but they were planning on spending a few days there, so she knew that they’d have more time to party later.
Pinkie’s muscles ached from walking around all day and her little hoovsies felt all worn out. A yawn forced itself past her lips, and after she slid under the covers to get a good night’s rest, she reached for the lamp to turn it off. Though just before her hoof reached the switch, she felt a pinch on her left foreleg’s knee, then felt another on her right.
And another.
Uh-oh... something scary’s about to happen! “M-Maud?” she called out, rolling onto her side. She curled up into a ball and held her hind legs with her forelegs, then pulled her tail close. Pinkie propped her head up on a pillow and looked towards the door, which opened a few seconds later.
“Yes?” Maud asked as she stuck her head inside.
“C-can you come in, please? My Pinkie sense is telling me that something scary is about to happen, and, well...” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t wanna be alone right now.”
Maud cracked one of her rare smiles and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. “What do you think it is this—” A loud knocking on the hotel’s door cut her off.
“This is the Manehatten Police Department! Open up, or we’ll open the door for you!” Pinkie heard a loud, gruff voice yell. Her eyes went wide in shock as she bolted upright, the sheets slipping from her weary body. Pinkie Pie pushed herself out of bed and trotted into the small living room to find Rarity already nearing the door. “W-wait!” she called out, her legs a-quiver.
“Oh, whatever for, darling?” Rarity asked with a light giggle. “Surely there’s been a mistake! The sooner we can sort things out, the sooner we can all get some much-needed beauty sleep.”
Pinkie watched breathlessly as Rarity lit her horn to open the door. The moment that it opened an inch, two strong unicorns pushed their way inside, making the door against the wall so hard it left a hole where the doorknob had struck it.
“H-hey! You ruffians! There’s no need for such—” Rarity was silenced by a look from a rather burly officer that stepped in. Three more officers walked inside after him, ignoring her. Briefly eyeing the damage to the wall, Rarity shook her head and followed the officers into the living room. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded with an unladylike snort and a stomp of her hoof. Nopony responded as they scoured their room. Noticing that one of the stallions had just trotted into her personal bedroom, Rarity followed him inside to find him upending her suitcase on the bed, revealing some of her more intimate pieces of clothing. “H-hey! Stop that!”
“No.” The officer ignored the contents of her suitcase and yanked open the empty dresser drawers, obviously looking for something.
“Sir, I found it!” one of the officers yelled from another room.
Rarity lifted an eyebrow as she followed the one back out into the living room to find Pinkie Pie’s party cannon sitting in plain view. “Oh, that’s what you’re here for? Please, let me explain.” All eyes turned towards her, making her take a step back and giggle nervously. “Pinkie Pie just likes to use her party cannon for fun, and, um...”
“Did she use it at any point throughout today?” another officer asked.
Rarity’s eyebrows furrowed, pausing for a couple of seconds as she chose her words carefully. “Well, yes, she did, but it always made those around us smile! Why is she being arrested?”
One of the officers chuckled. “Dang, sir! We found the evidence and we got a confession outta one of her friends! This has gotta be the easiest case we’ve ever had to do!” he said with a typical city accent.
“Damn right!” the officer in charge said. “Cuff her, boys! We’re outta here!”
Unable to form the words that danced on the tip of her tongue, Rarity watched as another officer put Pinkie Pie in hoofcuffs. Her jaw dropping in shock, she blinked several times before she managed to say, “I demand to know why you all barged in my room like this!” She stepped up to Pinkie and stood in front of her, blocking the officer from getting near her again. “Surely you have the wrong pony! What did Pinkie Pie do?” She glared up at the imposing officer without fear, waiting for him to make an argument that she could poke a hundred holes through.
“Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to step aside. This earth pony has been arrested for crimes against the city of Manehattan.” He looked at the officer behind him, then nodded once. “Take her away!”
“No! I demand to know what she is being charged with!” Rarity said with another stomp of her hoof.
The officer stepped up and looked down upon her, then cleared his throat. “Miss Pie has committed several terroristic acts throughout the city, and she has eluded capture all day. We were lucky we were tipped off, otherwise we wouldn’t have found her.”
“But- but- You can’t just do this!” Rarity moved to block the officer from leaving.
“Watch me.” The officer shouldered Rarity aside and followed the rest of the other officers out into the hallway.
“Don’t you know who we are?” Rarity screeched.
The officer stopped and glanced over his shoulder with a snarl. “Yes ma’am. Do not interfere any further, or you’ll be brought up on charges of disorderly conduct!”
With that being said, he disappeared down the stairwell, leaving Rarity standing alone. Rarity couldn’t believe what had just happened. Hearing Maud step up beside her, she felt a tear form in her eye as Maud laid a comforting hoof on her back. After wiping the tear away, Rarity looked at Maud and said, “Come on, we have to find out where they’re taking her!”
Thin trails of stale cigarette smoke hung in the air like a morning fog in the dimly-lit room, fueled by the smoldering butt that lay in the ashtray on the table. Pinkie Pie sat on a cold steel chair, quivering as her eyes darted from side to side. There were no windows in the room, and a single flickering bulb hung from the center of the ceiling. She’d been in that same room for what seemed like hours, being interrogated by a few different ponies. Pinkie couldn’t stop her left hoof from twitching incessantly, which only added to her fear of the unknown.
She heard a door slam shut outside, making her jump. Her heart raced in her chest and her breaths came in quick, short pants. Pinkie heard a single set of hoofsteps walk up to the door, then they stopped. The near absolute silence was broken only by the sounds of her breathing, and after a couple moments of silence, the door to the room opened, revealing the shifty-looking pony that she’d traded her party cannon to. Her eyebrows furrowing in confusion, Pinkie licked her dry lips as the stallion stepped inside with a manila folder under his leg.
“W-what are you doing here?” Pinkie asked as he sat down on the other side of the table. “Did they arrest you too?”
“Actually, no. You see...” The stallion sat down and opened the saddlebag on his back, then slammed something down on the table. He cleared his throat and nodded once, looking pointedly at the object.
Pinkie Pie stared in shock at the police badge that glimmered in the faint light. Her eyes going wide, her mouth grew dry as the silence grew awkward. “O-oh...” Her ears flicked back and she slumped in her chair.
“Yup, I’m an undercover cop, and you interrupted an operation that had something to do with the mafia. It’s classified, so that’s all I can really say.” He opened up the folder and spread out a few sheets of paper. “I dunno what backwards town you come from, but we do things differently around here. You see, you nearly ruined the case that I’ve been working on for the past five months! I’ve had to do unspeakable things to gain the mafia’s trust, and you came so close to destroying all of my hard work.”
Pinkie lifted an eyebrow. “Uh... how?”
“Well, when you pestered me about buying my rock pouch, I was waiting for the head honcho, the top dog. I couldn’t break character, so I did what any other thug would naturally do: get your weapon so that the crew could use it in a future operation. When I checked in with my superiors at the end of the day, they told me they were looking for a pony that fit your exact description. If I hadn’t tailed you and your friends back to your hotel, we would never have found you.”
“So, uh... What do I have to do to get out of the slammer?” Pinkie asked hopefully.
The police officer whistled, then grinned at her. “Oh, you ain’t getting out anytime soon! Your status as an Element of Harmony ain’t helping ya, either! Everypony here thinks that yer one of them terrorists now, so you’re gonna get railroaded to the slammer.”
“A terrorist?” Pinkie slumped in her chair and rolled her eyes. “Suuuuuuure, okay... Wooooo!” She waggled her forelegs at the officer, then made a funny face. “Am I terrorizing you now? Are you terrified by my little hooves?” she asked in a sing-song voice.
“Uh...”
“Oh, wait... I’m not? Wow... Now come on, stop wasting my time. What are my charges?” Pinkie Pie giggled and sat back in her chair. She flicked her tail around to lay on her belly, then stroked it like it was a pet cat.
The officer’s smiled faltered for a moment, then looked down at the documents. “We got quite a list here. We have multiple counts of you using a firearm in the streets of Manehatten, the Statue of Harmony, inside of properties for sale, on the ice rink... of all places, the ice rink? Seriously? There are families there.” He simply rolled his eyes and flipped to the next page. “Next is battery on a police officer, selling a firearm on the black market, multiple counts of noise complaints, multiple counts of littering, possessing a concealed weapon without a license, and lastly, eluding arrest. You’re looking at a lot of jail time, Miss Pie.” He tossed the documents back inside the folder and sat back with his forelegs crossed, a smug look upon his face.
“Oh, that’s it? Ha! I do that all the time back in Ponyville!” Pinkie Pie sat back in her chair and propped her hind legs up on the table. “My ‘firearm’ only shoots confetti, which disintegrates in minutes, so those charges are baloney. Battery on a police officer? I shook them; I didn’t hit them or anything like that, so that one’s out the window... And eluding arrest? Puh-lease! Just because you didn’t know where I was at all times doesn’t mean that I was running away from you guys. I didn’t even know that you guys were looking for me! I was just doing what I do natural: making ponies smile!”
“Oh... kay then.” The officer leaned over the table and rubbed the bridge of his nose with a hoof, then opened up the folder. He inspected each one for a few seconds, then the door opened. Another officer walked inside and whispered something into his ear before he left a few seconds later. “So it seems like your friend showed up, and is willing to testify for you.”
Wait, friend? As in, just one pony? What about Rarity? Or about Maud? Why did just one of them step up to testify? “Uh... who?” she asked.
“His name is Boulder. Quite the unique name for a pony, if I do say so myself.”
“...Oh, him? He’s as dumb as a rock!” Pinkie rolled her eyes and let her legs slip to the floor. “Well, it’s been nice and all, but...” She looked towards the door and gasped, her eyes going wide. “Princess Luna?? What are you doing here?”
“Wait, who’s here?” His eyebrows furrowing in confusion, the officer’s head whipped around to look behind him. When he didn’t see anything, he turned around further in his chair. “Huh... I think you might be seeing things, Miss— woah!”
He was completely and utterly alone in the room.
As his heart sank into his stomach, he checked under the table to confirm his suspicions. He stood up in a flash, the chair slamming against the floor. Yanking open the door to the interrogation room, he yelled, “Hey, did you see a pink pony leave in the last twenty seconds?”
"Nope!"
Rarity paced back and forth in front of the police station in the middle of the city. “We can’t just leave her here! The Manehatten Police Department has a reputation for being the most ruthless, vile, and corrupt police force in all of Equestria! It astonishes me that Princess Celestia hasn’t done anything about—”
“Hey guys!” Pinkie exclaimed from behind Rarity.
Rarity jumped up out of reflex, the hair on the back of her neck standing straight up. Turning around, she found Pinkie sitting on the bottom-most step of the police department, a wide smile on her face. “H-how did you, when did they...” she sputtered, unable to form a coherent sentence. “I thought that they were going to—”
“Oh, they were just trying to charge me with all of this schist, so I decided to leave. I was getting tired of their silly games, anyways,” Pinkie said with a wide grin. “Anyways, I think we should go home now. Like right now. They didn’t exactly... let me out, if you catch my drift.” She draped a foreleg over Maud’s and Rarity’s neck and led them down the road. “Oh, and Maud? Did you really tell the police that your pet rock would testify for me? If I’m ever between a rock and a hard place, I’d rather have you on the stand instead of Boulder.” She let her forelegs fall to the ground so she could stifle her giggle with a hoof.
“Huh?” Maud asked, cocking her head to the side as she eyed her sister with a lifted eyebrow.
Pinkie grinned and nuzzled her sister. “Oh, it’s alright, Maud! I can’t help it if some jokes fluorite over your head!”
