Stable

Zaed Peace had been waiting all morning for Nick to wake up, aside a few hours when she had taken a nap herself.

She heard a groan and somepony calling her name as she rose up from her slumped position in the chair.

"Zaed! Wake up!", Nick demanded of his marefriend as she shook herself from the uncomfortable position she'd been in.

Zaed motioned for him to lower the volume, then cracked her neck as it needed some readjustment.

When a satisfying pop was faintly heard, she sighed in relief.

Then, got up to stretch, filling him in as she did so, "You've been out for awhile."

Nick rubbed a cheek, wondering, "Still the same day?"

Zaed heard more elating snaps a she cracked her back, "Nope. Tomorrow, babe."

Nick moved to get out of bed, expecting something to suddenly sting or hurt.

To his delight, appears all his ailments were minor.

He asked of her, "Why keep me in the hospital if I wasn't even injured that much?"

Zaed pointed out bluntly, "You were thrown out of a museum. Literally thrown. They were checking for brain damage, baby. I wonder...do Unicorns have thicker skulls since your kind have horns?"

Nick shrugged at the suggestion, guessing as he jumped to his hooves, "Maybe. I do have essentially what amounts to a weight cuddled up to my brain."

Zaed ended the aerobics routine by gently pushing her wings up as far as she could, then punctuated it by hugging Nick as he walked up.

Nick let her hug him, then asked with puzzlement, "Since when does Vain hold up museums?"

Zaed broke from the hug as Nick stood still, staring at her as his brain bounced all manner of ideas in his head.

Zaed could almost see the gears turn in his head, ending the production of new ideas by explaining, "Let's get going. I've got a few leads."

They strolled down the road as Zaed stayed by his side, whispering almost directly into his ear, "Okay. So, last night, I went-"

Nick chuckled to himself, questioning her as to the low volume of her voice, "Why so quiet?"

Zaed had been slightly darting her eyes whenever ponies got too close.

"Nicholas. You know how sensitive my work is."

Nick grinned to himself as he openly stated, "I know you hate crowds."

"...Maybe so. But, regardless of my...phobias, this is still highly classified info. Hush-hush sort of stuff."

Nick heard his stomach growl, remembering he hadn't eaten much the previous day. He also doubted he'd been given much in the way of food whilst unconscious.

He wondered as he began looking up at signs for food places to eat from, "Think we could stop for a bit? I'm...very hungry."

Zaed's ears went down, demanding, "Fine. Inside though. Table...in back."

"Table in back it is, then!", Nick gleefully cheered as he took her hoof in his, running into a nearby pizza restaurant.

She slipped her hoof out of his as he attracted eyes to them via excitedly hurrying in line.

She breathed out nervously to him before dipping away, "I'll get us a seat."

Nick didn't seem phased, knowing the ponies ahead of him would simply stop looking after awhile.

As they did, he grinned to Zaed, who sat at a table that had vacancies on both sides.

...

Nick and Zaed shared a steaming hot pie of melting, molten-hot cheese, flaky crust, and seasoned sauce.

As they dug in, Zaed ate a single slice by taking little nibbles out of the sides before focusing on giving Nick the run-down, "Mmmm, this is tasty. But, aside the delicious food, I brought us to this particular district for a reason."

She nudged the plate away without even making a sound, cupped her hooves together, then detailed out what her suspicions were, "I believe Vain is going to sell the book at that museum to somepony. Or, try to figure out how he can use it himself."

Nick took a crunch out of the pizza, seemingly unhurt by the recently hot-from-the-oven piece of his own pie portion, "But...he's incapable of spell-casting. Last time I checked, Griffons were more akin to Pegasi with their similar control over the weather. But, I could be wrong here."

Zaed shrugged, almost as clueless as him, "It's a spellbook that can't be used by Unicorns. Least that's what the museum curator told the investigators and I."

Nick ate almost half the rest of his slice in one chomp, making Zaed narrow her eyes.

He chewed innocently, swallowed, then whistled as if he'd been a perfect little pony the entire time.

She shook her head in amazement, then pointed out more of why this bothered her, "He must have been in a hurry. But, didn't do his normal stunt of making a big scene, then simply flying off. He teleported out."

This caught Nick's attention as he seemed genuinely surprised, then upset as he threw his hooves up in the air in disgrace, "He learned how to teleport before I did?! Dammit!"

Zaed shushed him before he caused a scene.

Nick crossed his hooves, still ashamed he had been beaten at such a basic spell by somepony not even capable of teleportation...seemingly.

Zaed finished off the plan of attack by bringing a hoof onto the table as if she were showing a map, making circular tiny circular motions on the wood, "He probably exited by way of Gatekeeper. And, they've been growing in popularity around the Dine-And-Dash district for some time. So, we just wait for somepony to-"

At that moment, by the power of ironic fate, a robber at the front of the order line yanked up the cash register, then charged out of the pizzeria like his life depended on it.

The employee that had been working the front exclaimed, "Come on! That's the third time this week!!!"

"I really need to talk with the police chief for some added security around this area," Zaed noted before sliding under the table.

Nick greedily shoved a whole thick slice of pie into his maw before dashing off to stop the criminal's theft.

The robber wearing a hoodie to hide his face thought on his hooves, launching the sturdy cash register into a side window of a building he explicitly stopped at.

As he pushed in the remaining glass to lessen the broken skin he'd have after diving inside the apartments, he was unaware of a blur of red darting right for him.

With an unexpected tackle by Nick, both were sent tumbling into a not-so-spacious hallway.

Nick groaned as he drew himself up from his rough ride in the sky, hopeful his head was thickly lined with extra layers of bone as he clutched it from the throbbing pain.

The robber too held his face in confusion and injury, but didn't seemed too desist from seeing his crime through.

Picking up the cash register in one hoof, he glared at the pony who shook him up.

Nick broke out into a fighting stance as he noticed the pony walk calmly forward, not a care in the world.

The Unicorn wanted to take this pony down quick, so he rushed him with another Accelero spell.

In only seconds, Nick's hoof collided with the criminal's skull.

And, it was perhaps the dumbest thing the hero could have done.

Holding his hoof as tears streamed down his horrified face, Nick delivered a stammering response towards the pony standing above him, "O-owww!!! What in the buck are you made of?! Brick?!"

The pony said deeply with an air of merriment, "Nope. Earth."

The Earth-Pony then turned around, and smashed Nick's chest in with a powerful back-kick.

As if the pony needed anymore feeling of being a leaf in a tornado, Nick rolled back a couple hooves from the sheer strength of the counterattack.

Note to self, Earth-Ponies are very...solid.

Nick was sorely getting tired of having to pick himself off the ground these past few days, immediately fighting the urge to regain his breathe.

In hindsight, the appropriate judgement would've been to simply curl into a ball.

As he had not done so, Nick was soon launched straight up in the air like an arrow, being shot through the ceiling once the Earth-Pony uppercut the downed hero.

The ringing in his ears stopped him from hearing the Gatekeeper scream out in shock at the aftermath of his surprise appearance in the hideout, "You're not my contact at all!"

Moments later, the Earth-Pony from the previous room jumped up through the convenient hole Nick carved out, register in hoof.

As the Gatekeeper sighed in relief, the robber said to his accomplice, "Hold on. Let me get my licks in before we go. This dude pissed me off."

Frustrated, the teleportation-expert growled, but didn't impede on the Earth-Pony's prospect of retribution.

Nick felt his body desire a return-to-sender trip to the hospital, but he was instead shown a look at the robber's face.

Up close and ponysal, the thief bellowed out, "You some sort of wannabe hero?"

Nick declared as he slurred out, "Certitied by Princess Celestia herselv."

"Yeah?! Well, why don't you go send her a friendship report where the sun refuses to shine!", the angered raider smartplot-ly responded as he tossed Nick out the window in a spear-ish fashion.

Nick, for the second time these past few days, was sent straight out of a building with a single question igniting in his thoughts before he fell...and fell unconscious.

Where'd Zaed go?!