Of Broken Hearts and Merciful Hooves

Unforgivable Sins

Time Unknown

I don’t know at what time I awoke; all I know is that it was bright and that it was morning. The sun was shining above and ponies were milling about on the street in front of me, going about their business.

Me?

My head was pounding like it was being hit by a jackhammer. I was naked, musky, and from what I could tell in a completely different part of Manehattan. Particularly, I was in Sheol’s Kitchen. I was home.

“Oh crap.”

I got up and shook my head, my vision blurry for a reason that I couldn’t fathom at the moment. It was then that I began my long trot back to Xingtown and to my office, where I hoped I would get a chance to lick my wounds.

Overall, it was a disaster of an evening. I underestimated my target, thinking it was just some thug, but then he showed a capacity to harden his skin and increasing his strength by saturating his bones, muscle fibers and skin in eather. He must have been trained; those are not lost arts by any stretch of the imagination, but they are usually found in Earthen monster hunters than the average Earthen pony that roams around every day on the street.

I let myself get too drunk to have access to the Aether, and it had dulled my senses. I was too relaxed and apathetic; I was sloppy. I should have kept my guard up even if it would have ended in wasted effort.

The Shiba Warriors that I slaughtered by the dozens were three times better in raw skill than that bastard and easily a hundred times better than him in character.

Yet I let that thug escape me because I was drunk. Oh, that I could not let stand. I wanted to capture him, for--if anything--I wanted a chance to regain some dignity.

9:04 AM--Xingtown, Manehattan

I arrived in my office over an hour prior. I had cauterized and sewn my small stab wound--and luckily it was only a flesh wound--but the chemical incapacitating agent used must have been made with the needs of a kidnapper in mind. Sure, one could wet a handkerchief in chloroform and force the victim to breathe it in, but that doesn’t always work, and sometimes getting the dosage wrong can be lethal.

No, having a poison that is powerful enough to incapacitate with a small cut is far more effective. Having access to anypony with a decent understanding of herbs, snake poisons and chemistry was a must. There was also the issue of him just smashing through the window, but that was probably because he didn’t expect his victim to already be there expecting him and on guard.

I couldn’t help but feel like crap. I didn’t take the case seriously enough and I just drank myself into a stupor. Sure, I remembered what happened, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t drunk. In fact, I was so drunk that I didn’t have the focus to access the ether.

Now there I was, stripped clean and with a small flesh wound, a couple of broken ribs, and a swelled right forehoof--probably due to a fracture, in addition to the fact that it was dislocated until I snapped it back into place.

I didn’t have much time to lose, so I injected myself with some Bone Regen to fix the fracture and took some opiates to deal with the pain afterwards. Then I fixed myself nice and good, Tartarus, I even shaved.

I took a spare fedora and trenchcoat from a suitcase under my desk and armed myself with my Kurdish dagger and a pack of Jade Dragon cigarettes. Then I headed out with purpose. I needed to get back to my client’s apartment and gather some clues, go to Xingtown and then to the Fairy Market under the Brickling Bridge.

I needed answers: who took me to Sheol’s Kitchen, who was that perpetrator, and finally, the whereabouts of my client. With that in mind, I left my office quickly.

As I left the entrance of the rather small four-story office building, I noticed that the smells of Xingtown and the milling about of ponies was already underway. The shops were already open and the steam from the Edition Company heating pipe network was coming out of the ponyholes.

Since I was already in Xingtown, I figured that it was best for me to search for who made that custom poison. I already had a good idea of who it was: the Viper of the Streets, better known as Dr. Xi. He didn’t have a medical degree--or any degree--but he was a practitioner of Xing Taoistic Medicine, and he often sold poisons to the assassins of criminal syndicates, the Ax Gang being his personal favorite client.

I knew he wasn’t going to talk at first, but I had a few tricks up my sleeve...

9:33 AM--Xingtown, Manehattan

< > Translated from Cantonese

There it was, ‘Xi’s’ little operation. Hidden away in some out-of-sight corner in town, the front, while ornately Cantonese in appearance, was derelict in state. A wooden sign hung over it, with big Xing Script characters written in fading yellow paint, reading ‘Medicine’. The irony of that written over the shop of a quack that made his living torturing and dipping the weapons in poison for the Ax Gang didn’t escape me.

I stepped forward but then I noticed it--the half-dozen paper talismans with the flow of the ether impeded in the ink he used to write them. It wasn’t bad--they were even made specifically to just electrify me if I came too close. How thoughtful he was to have had that sort of welcome ready.

I kindly responded with haste; I placed one of my cigarettes in my mouth and then proceeded to gather the surrounding ectoplasm to break the shock spell. Afterwards I trotted over and I bucked the door open, incinerating the talismans with my pyrokinesis, while also lighting my cigarette in the process.

Xi was sitting at his counter with that look of smug self-assurance that he usually carries, looking at me as if he had the faintest idea of why I was here. I won’t lie, I’ve come to Xi’s shop for ingredients regarding ritual magic, and the occasional tissue revival experiment. But that was back in my teenage years. Once I was granted access to the Fairy Market under the Brickling Bridge, his store became redundant to me, I only showed my face now a days to keep an eye on Xi and spy on his customers.

<“Ah, Folklore! You must be here for the preserved cobra, right? You could have just trotted in, you know.”>

I gave him a glare, a rather nasty one. He knew what it meant.

<“I know that those talismans were made specifically for me, Xi.”>

His demeanor changed completely; gone was the patient Xingese pony who owned a Taoist medicine shop. Now came the gangster.

<“Die!”>

He sent a pyrokinetic blast my way; I dissipated it in an instant. He did it to get his Albion-made shotgun that he kept under the counter, though. He didn’t pull the trigger fast enough as I, in an instant, telekinetically grabbed the gun and flipped it to aim at his face.

<“You are barely a wu, Xi, and you have not spent a single moment on a battlefield. I, on the other hoof…”>

He looked at the barrel intently, but he knew that I was faster. So he wasn’t going to bother trying anything.

<“Fine, I guess that it was only a matter of time before you went after all of us.”>

I couldn’t help but grin like a hungry wolf. A bad habit that I wish I could just get over.

<“Oh, but I am not after the Ax Gang. You see, I am after much smaller prey. So considering your luck, I want to know--”>

I telekinetically threw the small knife that knocked me out last night to the counter.

<“--who you made that for. I know that it’s your hoof work, and I know already that you will make these for anypony who pays you enough. So who was it?”>

Oh, the reply did come quick.

<“He never said his name, but he wasn’t Xing. ”>

I floated over the shotgun to me and away from his face.

<“Now was that so difficult?”>

I could practically feel his blood pressure rising from where I was standing.

<“The Ax Gang will have your head.”>

I walked away as he said that. No need to hear the list of ways he was going to have me killed. There was no point, especially considering I could just leave an anonymous memo saying that he was providing his services to non-Xing folk. The Ax Gang has no mercy for traitors, after all.

With that, I concentrated on going back to Sunspark’s apartment. For all I knew, she could have been fine, or at work, or maybe even just waiting for me with a look of sheer annoyance, ready to fire me and demand a refund of the advance pay she provided.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

10:21 AM--Brickling

I arrived at the apartment, only to notice that the door was slightly open. I readied my Kurdish dagger, perhaps with the hope that there would be a fight. But there was no one there; the glass shards and splintered wood of the broken window were still there.

The place had all of its relatively modest furniture in place--nothing of note until I reached the bedroom; the bed was a mess and the drawers were searched without much subtlety.

The large mirror that was next to the bed was cracked and had some blood stained on it like somepony’s face was smashed there.

I also noticed some dried blood on the floor and what looked like dried semen. To me that meant that what happened, happened hours ago.

My blood chilled at the implications and I searched for anything that might help. She could have been dead or worse by that point, and I let her suffer that. I wasn’t prepared to have that in my conscience, so I went about the search with little subtlety and tact.

Eventually in the kitchen counter I found it. A pink business card, blank except for the gold engraving of the astrological symbol of the planet Venus dead on its center.

I knew who gave bussines cards like that. It was none other than the Mistress.

So I left, for if I knew anything about Mistress, it was that she always talked to her girls and her clients. And if my hunch was correct, Sunspark could be either.

Sheol’s Kitchen--1:02 PM

I knew where Mistress lived. She didn’t know that I knew, but just in case I needed to find her quickly and outside of her house of pleasure, I took a little time a month or so ago to track her routine. I had the time, after all, last month was surprisingly low on business despite Nightmare Night. Though to be fair, I did blow up a whole feral ghoul community a month before that. I must have made it difficult for them to come out to the surface like they normally do during Nightmare Night.

And speaking of bloodthirsty monstrosities…

Mistress was a mare deserving of varying degrees of both admiration and fear. She came from nothing; a poor Celtic mare with little more than a few bits to her name when I first met her. I wasn’t a soldier or a detective back then, just some clerk working in a pawn shop and a student at Athena, and she was going to be eaten by a ghoul. I did what I felt right at that moment and got her out of that problem. She wasn’t Queen of Knives back then; we were just friends, and I knew she wasn’t a bad mare.

But between the time that I went to war and came back, something changed her, and she formed a gang quickly. And by the time I was wondering what happened to her, I realized that she was the same mare that left a bloodied path through Sheol’s Kitchen while I was away. She was Manehattan’s Queen of Knives, and somehow I felt that I lost something when I learned that. I could never place what, but in a way I felt responsible for her to become that way. But when I talked to her again about it? I realized that Mistress was gone, and only the Queen of Knives remained.

Now she lived in some three story building near the West Side piers; it wasn’t fancy but it was certainly well kept. She naturally lived on the top floor. I used a little trick that I picked up in Shiba that allowed me to perform Perception Dampening to get to the door undetected and then some Ectoplasmic Manipulation to easily pick the locks.

I entered without much incident; the mares under Mistress’s employ were milling about. They weren’t in ‘business’ hours but they were all moving about going through their routines. They were mostly Celtic unicorn mares, some Cantonese Xing, and even a few zebras.

Were I a lesser stallion like a certain chemist and optical specialist named Optic Glass back in 977 (he discovered the means to turn invisible without using a horn and instead managed it by using a solution and machine to summon up the ethereal energies), I would have already started my own little reign of terror on that building much the same way he did in Albion.

But I wasn’t. I had a mission and Mistress had the answers that I needed, so I kept going.

The door to Mistress’s room was already open, so I just trotted in, closed the door behind me telekinetically, and locked it.

The moment I did, a silento came flying at my face. I telekinetically stopped it, only managing to do so about an inch away from my left eye. I deactivated my Perception Dampening, took the silento, and placed it in my trenchcoat.

“Only one silento this time, Mistress? I must have left quite the impression last time I was here.”

And there she was, on a bed, laying on her side wearing a white silk bath robe that clung to her figure in such a way that it accentuated her feminine features. She was a unicorn; her raven black mane, golden eyes, and light pink color were slightly more noticeable, and her mane was well combed and long, much like her tail. Thirty, and she didn’t look a day over twenty.

She was taking a long drag of her red opium pipe; when she stopped, her eyes opened, and they had a glossy, almost absent look to them. And as she blew her puff of smoke, she turned her head over to me, finally acknowledging my existence. There was a slight smile there, but I wasn’t sure it was genuine.

“What brings Mister Dark And Handsome to my door? I have to admit, Folklore, you certainly know how to scare a girl. Not even bothering to knock before showing yourself in here? That is just rude.”

I took one of my Jade Dragons and I pyrokinetically lit it. I was going to have to be on guard here; just because she was in an opium high didn’t mean that she was harmless.

“I have a question: do you know a Sunspark?”

She looked away from me and turned on her bed, refusing to look me in the eye.

“What’s it to you, Folklore? Did you finally stop being such a prude? If you are looking for a mare, I’m sure that any of the girls outside the door would love to attend to you. Granted you came prepared to pay, of course.”

I smirked, and had a look in my eye like a shark smelling blood.

“Sunspark is an androgynous name, Mistress, how did you know that I was talking about a mare?”

I heard her childishly pout at me, but I knew that underneath that she was pissed. That mare may not have looked it, but her hooves were drenched in blood. I’m well aware of her days as an assassin before she graduated to full blown crime boss. She would have tried to kill me already if she didn’t already know of my wartime reputation.

“You are a real pain in my arse, and not the good kind. But I’ll have to tell you that Sunspark is no longer in my employ. And what she does with her life is none of my concern anyway.”

I may have been taking advantage of her, since I knew that it was at this time that she smoked and had her pipe dreams. But the good thing is that she couldn’t really lie very well in that state. And as long as she was in that high, she was going to sing to me like a canary.

“What about clients? Did she ever attend to an Earthen stallion; copper brown with a blond mane and grey eyes, and a rope knot for a mark?”

Her ears twitched slightly at that. She quickly got out of bed, turned to face me, and trotted right up to my face.

“Why are you so interested in her? How did you even know to come here!?”

I gave her a glare.

“Your card was in her possession; she was either a client, or she used to be one of yer girls. And now she’s my client.”

Her eyes widened, and it was then she had an idea of the situation.

“She’s missing; she hired you for a job and now she’s gone. It’s actually funny, you failing this badly.”

I could feel one of my veins getting ready to pop. I was starting to lose my patience.

“What do you know…”

She closed her eyes.

“That pony you mentioned? His name is Docks; he’s a crooked copper that used to frequent here. He was a real piece of work, had this obsession with Sunspark. She needed the money so she didn’t refuse but I could tell by the state she was in every time she left the bedroom that he wasn’t gentle nor was he normal. He liked to beat mares as he ravaged them; didn’t give them a time to rest until he was done.”

I gritted my teeth while chewing on the cigarette that I had placed in my mouth; for all I knew, she was already dead. Though it seemed that Mistress had more information for me.

“She couldn’t take it anymore, so I gave her a hefty loan and let her go. When he came for his usual, I told him that she was no longer working here. He didn’t take it well but I put him in his place. I should have killed him. I found out later through our mutual acquaintance, Sig, that he had killed several ladies of the night already. ”

Oh, she should have.

“Yeah, you should have.”

She threw herself onto the bed and began to stare at the ceiling. She wasn’t sure, but she gave me one last piece of information.

“He did it in the warehouse district of the West Side piers. You should--”

I didn’t hear the end of it, for I had already left.

______________________________________________________________________________

Warehouse District, West Side Piers

I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I searched the whole of the warehouse district; every warehouse, every nook and cranny. I was like a pony possessed, searching for a single pony among every warehouse I could find. Minutes turned to hours as night fell and I was still searching, my mind frantic with the various possibilities, and the dock workers constantly refusing to cooperate.

The guilt continued to make me nervous, my brow sweating with more stress that actual physical fatigue.

And considering the size of the entirety of the West Side Piers, I could have been there for days. I was starting to feel like it was a lost cause, especially because I made the stupid move of leaving before Mistress could finish her last sentence.

Until the last one I tried. At that moment, I knew that the cause was quite beyond any form of salvation.

I lit myself another cigarette before going through the personnel door. The industrial lights were on and the smell of death permeated the air like a fog. With that came other smells, the smell of sex, blood, and booze.

And there she was: Sunspark, decapitated, splayed open on the cold concrete floor, her cunt filled with semen, her body covered in it, and her bruised and beaten head impaled on a hook at the end of a chain over her body. The entire scene had played out in a warehouse filled with wooden crates and dusty bags. Looking at this was bringing back memories that stirred inside me like moldy bread mashed down with stale beer.

The weight of my failure was hitting me, hard. In a way, I might as well had done that to her myself, but I couldn't afford to break down. I needed to at least track down the perpetrator, the looks of her body indicated to the possibility of several, or at the very least a very damn near unnatural Earthen.

So I steadied myself and trotted closer to get a better look. And then HE jumped me.

I looked up for just a second to see some lead pipe, and he smacked me in the left eye with it, leaving me disoriented.

I telekinetically threw him a random crate as I was trying to get a better bearing of my surroundings. I heard him smash right through it, making the sound of splintering wood and glass.

That got me back to the world of the living. And as I saw him coming at me drenched in vodka, I telekinetically threw my bent cigarette at him and I pyrokinetically engulfed him in flame.

He stopped and started to roll and scream in blood-churning agony, his eyes wide open with a crazed, almost cornered, wolf sort of appearance, all accentuated by the smell of burning hair, skin, and flesh. I increased the fire's intensity. I didn’t care at that moment about pay, about getting the bastard to prison, nor did I care about anything except having that motherfucker die in the single most agonizing way that I could muster at that moment. And when I thought it was enough, I simply trotted off, all but ready to go outside of the warehouse to take my Kurdish dagger and stab my own heart with it, hoping that my death would somehow make up for my abysmal failure.

And as I opened the large metal parting doors, I heard him galloping towards me, and I looked back to him. He looked at me with those crazed eyes, still engulfed in flame, and still screaming.

I managed to quickly shield myself with a piece of sheet metal that I was able to telekinetically rip off one of the large double doors.

As he tackled me, I noticed that that the warehouse was on a pier, and that both of us were now falling into the Houseson river. The current wasn’t strong but the waters were dark; I had lost him.

I then concentrated on swimming to the surface. I eventually found a ladder and I climbed my way up to a pier further down the Houseson. My hat was lost, but I had little else to care about at that point.

Eventually, I just wandered through town for a while, barely even noticing as the rain hit, and eventually I made it here to Grain’s Diner, broken, defeated, and humiliated.

The worst part?

It’s all my fault that she died. Had I given more of a damn from the start, none of it would have happened. And now, I have to live with that.

Just like I had to live with the thousands that died to the weaponized gas that I was forced to create, and the nearly one hundred or so zebras that died by my very hooves and magic when we were trapped in the ruins of Urassan because I couldn’t bring myself to face death.

I’m sorry, Redheart, but the stallion you see before you is nothing more than a monster.

And I deserve no pity…