Money Is Everything

Chapters

2 - Strangers and Adjustments
3 - Welcome To Ponyville
5 - House Hunting (With a Princess)
6 - Slipping
7 - Breaking News
8 - The Crystal Empire (Part One)
9 - The Crystal Empire (Part Two)
10 - The Crystal Empire (Final)
11 - Welcome to The Family
12 - Pain In The Side
13 - You're Free to Go, Inmate
14 - The Stone-lined Path
15 - The Great Moonshine Manor
16 - Rekindled in The Flames
17 - Return to Ponyvile
1 - Criminals
4 - Meeting The Element of Magic
18 - A Business Proposition

2 - Strangers and Adjustments

The morning came and went.
The bulky pegasus and I hopped onto a train and went straight to Appleloosa.

The bulky pegasus spoke to me as he looked out the train window, the landscape passing by.

"You know, it turns out that on her father's side, my sister is Granny Smith's third cousin three times removed. Which means she's an official member of the Apple Family."

After a moment of thinking, I finally responded to him. "No, I didn't. I never knew you two didn't have the same father either, but then again that would explain the wings."

The pegasus chuckled and looked at me. "Oh, you think so?"

The sarcasm in his voice spoke enough volumes to let me know it was safe to ease up a little.

"How long have you two known that she's a member of the Apple Family?" I wanted to keep this conversation going, and learn a bit more about their family relations.

"I'd say only a few months. We found out at the same time, two days before I left for 'vacation.'"

I simply nodded as a response.

It was a long, long, train ride to Appaloosa. We had taken turns sleeping alternately for the first day and a half, then upon the second day we waited for the other to fall asleep first. For a good eighteen hours we were up, until we both crashed like a brick thrown into a pond, that is. We didn't wake until the train had jerked upon stopping.

Once we stepped out of the train, with no luggage, we were able to pick up on the fact that it was about mid-afternoon and the sun was directly overhead in the sky.

"Hey, Cross."

The pegasus looked over at me, with that same worrying grin- leaving me completely unsure as to what might come out of his mouth next.

"Beat you there."

Just like two foals on the school playground, we busted into a sprint without a thought for anything but winning.

The ponies walking around in the small town were in the middle of our 'obstacle course,' and we didn't really care. I had slid right under a carriage full of apples being drawn by a pony, just barely missing my head on a back wheel.

The pegasus had practically barraged through a stand of fruits-
Well, barraged is a bit of an exaggeration. He 'vaulted' over the fruit stand, only ruining about half of the produce.
Nonetheless, we still were at a break-neck tie when we reached the end of the line of buildings in the town. Now we just had to go for a good quarter mile to the houses in the distance slightly to our left.

The houses around this town, from what I gathered since my first visit, were just built in one direction from the town. Like a little community or a suburb. Lucky for us, the house we were racing to was the furthest away from the town and the furthest back of the houses currently built.

Being afternoon most of the houses were empty, as ponies were either working or were on lunch break.
This made our race that much easier, as we didn't have to worry about bumping into anypony. So we just put all of our strength and focus into our goal. We made it all the way to the gate around our destination and vaulted over it. The first pony to touch the ground was to be the winner, and lucky for us, we both lost momentum upon vaulting and fell on our sides and stomachs.

We groaned and rolled for a moment before shakily standing up, laughing as we got to our hooves.
At least we were laughing, until the bulky pegasus' stepfather came outside.

"What in Tartarus are you two doin' here!?"
The stepfather looked like he hadn't bathed in two days. His mane was short and mangled, his overalls were stained with sweat, and his eyes were slightly groggy- yet all the same still piercing.

That was when I remembered he had a tendency to get drunk. The bastard stumbled forward, keeping a slight glare on us.

"This is Rose' coltfriend, and I'm your-"
The pegasus was interrupted by the drunkard, who staggered towards us with an angry look in his eye.

"I knows who- who you is. I don' want'cha around. So big and fancy for a vacation that' you left us ta' do the work!"

The pegasus moved and let the drunkard fall over as he advanced, and then we both made our way over and inside the house. The whole place was spotless- all of it. The shelves and counters were dusted, pictures were straightened, furniture was rearranged- it was almost as if a remodeling crew had come in.

We walked through the living room and stepped into the kitchen, hearing running water and the sound of dishes being moved. The moment we turned to face the direction of the noise in the kitchen, I was hit full force with a strong hug and the sound of a plate shattering against the floor, which echoed through the house. Rose was in my arms, where she belonged, and this time it was obvious that she wanted nothing more than to be far from this place.

"Are you okay, he hasn't laid a hoof on you has he?" I began to question without even fully realizing I was consciously doing it.

Rose lifted off of me a little and shook her head up at me with tears in her eyes. "No, but he's not been kind. I'm sure you know that he's been makin' threats.."

The bulky pegasus- Rose' brother, looked like he was growing more angry by the second. "Why don't I just go out there and beat that poor bastard's head in? After all that work to stay sober!?" He was beginning to slightly show veins, he was so angry.

"Because you don't want to go to prison on your first day back from vacation," I reminded him, comforting Rose.
"Besides, won't alcoholism kill him within four years anyways?"

"That's not the point." The pegasus closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.
"You know, you're right. Fuck 'em, I'll let him run his self into the dirt. But for now, let's just focus on getting you out of this shithole."

With that, she broke from my embrace and gathered things together in a bag, not needing to be told twice by her older brother. Once everything was in order, the three of us walked out of the building and got the Sheriff to arrest the drunkard who was still struggling to get up from his fall in the front yard.

The incoherent pony mumbled as he was led off, and the three of us went to the local saloon for a snack and something to drink.

"I'm sure that my brother told ya' about my new found family line while you two met up on the train?"
Rose looked over to me with a glass of water in one hoof, resting it on the bar counter.

I nodded at her with a slight smile, letting my glass of cider sit idle out my hoof while we talked. "Indeed he did, I can't say I'm wholly surprised, but it did make some some things more clear."

She offered me a small smile. "I was hoping we could go to Ponyville so I can meet them properly. I don't want to live around here anymore, either.. So maybe I could move there too- once I get enough money built up."

She sounded so innocent, like a pony who just got their cutie mark and was figuring out how to go about the rest of their life with their new found talent.

I took a glance to my left at her brother, then looked back to her. "I think I can help with that. Ponyville isn't too high on house prices."

Her eyes widened a little in excitement.
"I don't- are, are you sure?" Those eyes suddenly changed to unsureness.

"Sure I am, it sounds like a great place to be, and maybe to start a family one day."
I smiled softly and turned to my drink, downing the glass of apple cider without taking my maw off it.

When I turned to look back at Rose, she turned her head away from me a little with a light blush on her face. "Well.." She seemed to be thinking it over.

"Okay, Ponyville it is." Rose spoke decisively, with a smile on her face.

"Then it's settled." I grinned and payed for my tab, once the bulky pegasus finished up his conversation with the bartender.

"You ready, big guy?" I asked him as if we were truly good friends.

Instead of responding in the same way, he just shrugged and said, "If you're done here, then sure."

So we all got up from the bar counter, and went over to the train station. It was there that we paid for three tickets to Ponyville, and waited until the next afternoon.

When the train arrived the three of us hesitantly got on, prepared for the day and a half long trip, though not exactly looking forward to spending so much time on a train. But hey, what can you do. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, and accept what you can get.

The train ride began almost as soon as it was loaded. This time since there were three of us, we sat in the section where the seating was more like a cubicle. Rose and I sat side by side, with her brother across from us.

We didn't really talk too much about anything important for the first eight hours, just casual chat about the scenery, mostly.

The next eight brought about more conversation. We had talked about the train cart attendant and the food that was offered, as well as how our family's would cook breakfast or what they'd eat for breakfast- and who might have done it better than the other. But it was once again mostly another uneventful day.
But then the morning came, and I woke up with Rose resting against me.

Her brother was already up and was staring out the window until he saw me stir.

I expected a threat, or a smartflank remark.. An eye roll, maybe.
But instead he just smiled slightly at me and shrugged. I didn't like how suddenly he changed attitude about it- then again it does seem like he acts nicer around Rose, so it kind of made sense.

Glancing down to my right at Rose, I carefully withdrew a hoof and rested it around her. Luckily she just snuggled up more and I smiled. Upon looking out the window, it was apparent that it was roughly noon.

After a few minutes Rose stirred lightly and sat up slightly to look at me, before leaning against me again.
"What time is it..?" She asked with a small yawn.

"Now, it's a few minutes past noon."
I answered her, but continued to watch the scenery pass by.

"Oh. Well that's good, only an hour or two longer."

I could feel her tense up a little bit under my arm.

"Do you think that they'll like me?" She asked in a soft and unsure voice. If I could guess, I'd say the look on her face was concerned, maybe even uneasy.

"They've never even seen you before. I think that they'll be pretty excited to meet you."

She nodded a little bit and eased up some. "But do you think they'll like me..?"

"I think they will. I mean, I like you, so why not."

She sighed and sat up to kiss my cheek.
"Thanks," Rose whispered with a small smile and closed her eyes, resting her head against my neck; I'm not gonna lie, her burgundy mane tickled at first.

An hour later, we were at Ponyville. I gently rubbed my hoof up and down against Rose's shoulder to let her know that we were there.

She got up and looked at me with a sleepy yet joyous smile. Her eyes twinkled with excitement as they quickly took their gaze off of my face, and were focused towards the window. It was beautiful, and I knew that it was going to be a fun day.

So we got off the train after Rose grabbed her luggage, and immediately made our way to Sweet Apple Acres. It was easy to find after we asked somepony in the market, who pointed us in the right direction.

We all made our way there with feelings of excitement, happiness, curiosity, and wonder. When we walked through the gate, a certain orange mare with a stetson called out to her brother, who was back at the barn behind her. "Hey Big Mac, we've got custom-"

She pauses and looks at the luggage, speaking at a normal volume now.

"Ah' mean.. visitors?"

3 - Welcome To Ponyville

"Ah' don't believe I've seen y'all before, new ta Ponyville?" She was oddly welcoming. At least I found it odd, but then again I'm not exactly sure if I'd react the same way if strangers were to show up at my home with luggage.

I looked to Rose, who seemed a little nervous and quite hesitant. "Yeah we're new.. But we um, we came- I mean, I'm here to see you." Rose blushed as she staggered to get her words out.

The orange mare seemed puzzled.
"Uh, me?"

I nodded instinctively and cursed myself in my mind for volunteering. "As it turns out miss, Rose here might be Granny Smith's third cousin, thrice removed."

The orange mare cracked a smile. "Well shoot, why didn't y'all just say so? Granny is inside, why don't y'all come in so we can talk. The name's Applejack, by the way."

We followed Applejack away from the barn to her family's house, where she welcomed us in the door and sat us down at a table.

"So you're tellin' me that she was left with an alcoholic father and no mother? While her brother was on vacation and you were.. well.. where exactly?" Applejack questioned me as we stood outside of her house talking.

"I don't believe that's any of your business, miss. But if you truly want to know, I was on a final business trip in the city."

"What kind of business trip, if ya' don't mind me asking? Ah'm still havin trouble trying 'ta figure out what sane stallion would just leave his mate back there, knowing what's goin' on." She raised a brow in my direction, and I let out a sigh.

"Is this really necessary?"

She nodded in response, not taking her gaze off of me. "You can stay out here to talk a bit, Granny's still tellin' her about the family line.. ah still haven't figured you out."

The tone of annoyance in that last part made me smile like a smart aleck.
"Not everypony does. I'm just not all that easy to read."

This clearly was starting to aggravate her, or at least I thought it was upon seeing her adjust her stetson. "Ah'll figure you out soon enough, outlaw."

"Outlaw?" I turned to look at Applejack, wondering what made her think to call me that.

"Yep. Outlaw," She returned the look with confidence. "Trying to escape your past. That's why y'all are moving here, ain't it?"

I was most definitely impressed, but wasn't going to let her know it. I didn't want to give her too much credit, so instead I just sat down on my haunches against the wall of the house.

"Yeah, sure.. You've got me."

"Oh, ah-.. Ah'm sorry, ah didn't mean anything bad by it, sir."

After a second I shrugged, still not looking up at her, but rather just off. "I guess shit just happens, huh Applejack?"

She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but instead just closed her mouth and took off her hat.
After a minute of silence, I spoke up. "You know.. You have a beautiful mane."

Applejack blushed and looked at me a little surprised. "Excuse me?"

"Surely the stetson isn't just for the sun?"

She nodded and kind of looked away. "It's complicated.. Ah'm sure you'd understand, family."

I looked up at her. "I do, but not from personal experience. When you're around somepony, better yet in love with somepony who's lost a lot, it tends to rub off on you.. Sometimes even a little too late."

Applejack nodded seeming to understand.
"I reckon they'd be done talking by now, if ya want to come in."

I got off my hooves and followed her inside. "I appreciate it, Applejack."

She shrugged and headed up stairs, leaving me to wander into the kitchen where Granny Smith and Rose were seated at a table.

Rose was beginning to talk about what happened to her family- i.e. why we were planning on becoming residents of Ponyville. I already knew that this was about to get personal, so I leaned against the doorway in preparation for what would either be a short talk, or a brief monologue.. Maybe an in between phase, assuming she'd already explained how her brother isn't of full blood.

Rose acknowledged me out of the corner of her eye, but continued to talk.
“My mother, Lily Briar, died when I was a filly. It hit us all pretty hard – but nopony was affected by it quite as badly as my father, Mr. Bush.”

She frowned slightly and her gaze seemed to wander in thought.

“He's a heavy drinker. Wasn't before ma passed, but now it's all he knows. It took his good side away completely. The stallion who used to call me his little filly is long gone, and hopefully he gets the help he needs.. But I don't think that'll ever really happen, if I'm being honest with you Granny.”

Granny Smith smiled and placed a hoof over Rose's, resting on the table between them. "Don't let it get ya' worked up deary, no pony is perfect."

Rose's gaze is met with mine finally, and Granny doesn't hesitate to turn and look me over again, for the second time since I've gotten here. The first was when I left to let them have some alone time.
I was starting to wonder if Granny Smith wasn't checking me out, which although was a flattering idea- it made for a creepy thought. I knew with certainty that she was just sizing me up, making mental notes to decide whether she thought I was worth Rose's time.

Something in her eyes told me that she knew I wasn't exactly always a nice pony, and that I might've had a bad past.
She wasn't wrong, either.

The Bank Job was the last of my 'incidents.' In fact, it was the only one that I felt comfortable doing. Everything else I didn't really want in on, but with influence it was hard to say no or back down.
Especially with a gun to your head, both literally and metaphorically.

"Eyep, I think I can allow you to become part of the family." Granny Smith finally determined and Rose giggled lightly.

It was at this point that a young filly came galloping down a staircase, as if ready for an adventure. Bad timing would prove to be more powerful than her little legs, as Rose's brother came back inside from a walk with Big Macintosh just as she reached the door.
"In a rush Applebloom?" Granny smiles.

Applebloom backs away and looks up at the pegasus, deaf to her grandmother. "S- sorry, sir.."
The pegasus chuckled lightly and assured her that it was no inconvenience as he made his way over to me.

"I'm leaving soon."

Rose looked at her brother as he spoke, concerned. "So soon? Can't the city wait another night?"

The pegasus sighs and leans against the dining room wall. "No, I'm afraid not. It's time for us to split ways and finally start our own lives. I love you sis, you know that." He came over to hug her briefly before trotting to the door, thanking the Apple Family for their hospitality on the way out.

"Just like that, huh?" Rose said as she looked up at me.
Celestia that look.. That damned look. Makes me weak every time, and now I'm left to feel like the asshole for not stopping him from going.

"I suppose so, nothing more left to say.." I hugged her gently and let go shortly thereafter.

Granny Smith looked at us, from one to the other. "Don't either of you have a place to stay yet? Ya just got here right?"

The reality dawned on us that we hadn't even looked at houses. In the heat of the moment, we just hopped on the train and left. "Well, sh-" I had to take into account the filly in the room. "I mean, darn- we didn't even think about it until we got here. Spur of the moment, you know what I mean?"

Granny grinned wide at us. "You two can sleep in the barn for the night!"
"What?" Big Macintosh's eyes widened and he looked at Granny. "But- but"

"I'll have no buts!" Granny exclaimed, and Applebloom giggled.
"Just no playin' around, ya hear?"

Without a second to think, Rose and I accepted her offer graciously.

"Good, Applebloom would you be a dear and get them some blankets?" The filly nodded and went up the staircase, returning shortly with a pile of folded blankets on her back.

Big Macintosh, still assessing the situation, looked at all of us and sighed. "I'll sleep on the couch tonight."

Author's Note

Sorry, this chapter was a bit of a drag to get done. Schooling is keeping me busy, and although I have a lot of ideas for this story, it's just a matter of time and motivation. This story will get finished, but I'm not sure how long it will take. Stay tuned, because I'm not going anywhere.

Also, a little foreshadowing for some future insight about Cross's past. :twilightsmile:

Especially with a gun to your head, both literally and metaphorically.

5 - House Hunting (With a Princess)

Despite my lack of exposure to the Royalty of Equestria, I still knew the etiquette for being around them. So when Rose bowed I felt a little like a fool, but I definitely wasn't going to show it.
Instead, I quickly followed in suit with Rose and bowed. Proper form and all.

Twilight giggled, but it was a clearly nervous one. "Thank you, but you don't have to bow."
Rose and I understood what she meant, but we apologized anyways. For me, it was to be courteous, but I think Rose just did it out of instinct.

"I still haven't gotten used to it yet, is all. It's nice to meet you." Twilight said with a smile.

I extended a hoof and shook when Twilight took it up. Rose just continued to smile, probably still shocked.

Personally, I expected what would ensue to be awkward conversation-wise. I kept thinking back to what Applejack had said, about how Twilight may be able to help Rose and I find a home.

How? This may just be me making assumptions, but she's a librarian, a scholar, and a princess. But a real estate pony? That, is debatable.

Applejack spoke up and stood to the side, between us. "Ah was hoping that if you get a free day, ya might be willing 'ta help these two find a home in town? Maybe show them the houses up for sale not far from the orchard and town square?"

Her eyes seemingly pleaded, and Twilight gave in. "Well, alright. I guess it couldn't hurt."
She said, smiling sheepishly at AJ. "Tomorrow is fine with me."

We all thanked her close to the same time, and shortly after a few little conversations we left.

When we got outside, I turned to Applejack and asked her what we were going to do until tomorrow. Keep in mind, it was still early in the day.

"Ah' suppose I could use a hoof or two at the farm, if y'all wanna help?"

I was eager to accept that offer, needing something- anything, to do for the rest of the day.
Rose was a bit behind, thinking about it before giving an answer. To be honest, I think she just wanted to make Applejack consider whether or not she would say yes...
Yes, she agreed to help out.

We worked until it got dark, and then went to bed in the barn. Rose had dinner with the Apple family, but I just wanted to get some sleep.
It didn't last long, though. I woke up in the dead of the night, and when I couldn't get back to sleep I eased myself out of Rose's embrace to go for a trot.

The orchard was beautiful at night, far more stunning than during the day. I guess I just liked the night better anyways when it came to relaxation and sight seeing. All of it was just amazing. The full moon shined it's light across the orchard, dancing across the ground here and there, and leaving mostly silhouettes in the dark.

I was aimlessly wandering, just taking in the night air. After a little while I got bored and left to take a stroll through the town, instead. I must say, the town was just as pretty as the orchard was at night. The moonlight was the main reason it made it so pretty in my opinion, as it would reflect off some of the building windows.

Without even thinking about it, I realized I had walked right into town square. No ponies were in sight throughout the town, which gave it all a surreal, calming vibe. So much so, that I wasn't even fully surprised when the outline of a mare came into view walking around the side of the town hall building.

"Princess?" I spoke softly, looking at the purple alicorn.

"This time of night is nice, isn't it?" She returned the gentle, calm tone I had spoken with. "Couldn't sleep?"

I nodded and walked over to her. "Yeah, couldn't get back to bed. Decided to take a stroll."

Twilight nodded as well and slightly looked up to the stars in the sky for a moment. "Sometimes I'll be reading when I can't sleep, and I don't feel like drinking anything or using a spell to pass out, so I wind up doing the same thing. It's a habit that I should probably break."

I chuckled lightly and looked up as well. The stars numbered in the hundreds, all of which were sparkling and twinkling alongside a big white moon, giving the night a finishing touch.

Something about this just felt a little odd, though. And I realized why, when I turned to see Twilight studying my face.

"Is.. Something wrong?" I asked, "Do I have something on my face?"

"No, no- well, yes, you had this expression on your face. Like you were thinking about something, and it was- upsetting you?" She raised a brow at me, waiting for a response.

I didn't want to do this. Oh gosh I really, really didn't want to do this. But it had to come out some time, I suppose.

"Princess, I've got a.. confession, to make. But it needs to stay with us. I'm conflicted, and I want to make things right with myself, but it's complicated and-"

"Twilight. Just Twilight, is fine. Go on, I'm here."

I looked at her eyes, and had to force myself to glance to the side when speaking. I just felt wrong about it.

"I was with this, gang of sorts in my youth. I never saw my father, and my mother disappeared when I was just old enough to start schooling. An older pegasus took me in, and kept me off the streets."

I looked back to her eyes, to be sure she was listening. Sure enough, the gaze that I was met with was one of anticipation, waiting for me to continue.

"I figured he was an older local, but he was a criminal. Once he had me in, there was no getting out. He had ponies who watched every where I went in town, they were paid off to spy on me and be sure I wasn't going to rat him out or attempt to get away." My eyes drifted from hers once more as I continued to talk.

"He'd rob little shops around the suburban areas of the city, and then take me with him to the more rural areas after to hide out. There, we'd rob richer ponies who came in for cheaper prices or were looking for dealers.."

Twilight nodded and went to speak, but I continued.

"Eventually Rose's older brother got caught in the mix, and he was introduced by the old pegasus, around the time I was just hitting growth spurts, as the strength of the group. I was the bait, and the older pegasus was obviously the brains."
I cleared my throat really quick.
"We lived like that for awhile. Rose's brother was allowed to leave us for a year or two off and on, up until the older pegasus got all of the right equipment and ponies in line for a real score. A bank, in the downtown part of the city. This was my way out of the group, to be independent and have a real life away from all of that. If we could pull this off, the older pegasus and Rose's brother wouldn't bother me again. More specifically, they'd leave with their cut and the older pegasus wouldn't worry about me turning to the police, because after that I'd be making a risk just talking about it, without getting myself in deep shit. So I- well, I went with it. That was only half a month ago."

Twilight was frowning now, and she scanned my eyes. After a minute of looking at me, she sighed and looked away- annoyed that she couldn't find anything to say.

"You said you want to make things right?" She eventually turned back to me, and spoke.

"I do, I was a coward for not just running and risking-"

Twilight interrupted me by putting a hoof to my mouth.
"You make it right, then. Make the money back, give to the bank, and turn in that old pegasus. I'll back you up, one-hundred percent, Cross."

"Prin- I mean, Twilight- you barely know me though, would you really do that?" I felt my chest rise lightly, and then get real heavy. I was starting to feel emotional. Damn it.

Twilight nodded and swallowed. "Of course. It sounds like you need this chance to redeem yourself, and I know that you can do it. I'll be at the library for the rest of the year anyways, Princess Celestia doesn't need my assistance any time soon. That means you can report to me for this, and I can help you get your life back on track, as well as make that money back to the bank." She maintained a serious expression.

"I- thank you, thank you so much." For the first time in I don't know how long, I actually shed a few tears as I gave Princess Twilight a quick hug.

Shortly after that, we went our separate ways to bed. The next day, Twilight helped Rose and I set up a payment plan for a house that was only a block from Sweet Apple Acres.

My life was finally starting to get to where I'd always hoped it would be, and I was ready to take on the challenge of trying to pay back the bank I had helped rob.

Author's Note

I try to add an author's note to (at the least) once every other chapter, whether it's a quick update or just thoughts.

This chapter came after I started writing down ideas for how the story will play out and where the next places the story takes us will be. With that in mind, I know where I want to take this story in the next two locations, after that there is to be more, not sure how much yet but for now I'm focusing on the next two. I'm so excited to tell the story that I have planned out. So excited, in fact, that when it came to this chapter I had to just sit down and start writing, so that I could finally get to that point of the story where it really takes off.

To my readers, thank you. Expect more soon- after all, I have an idea for a sequel already, and this is only a quarter of the way done!

6 - Slipping

Three days had passed since the night Twilight and I met by chance in town square.

Rose and I were settled in the house now. I was also officially working on and around the land that made up Sweet Apple Acres, and Rose had taken up baking. She likes assisting Granny and Apple Bloom in cooking, and sells various baked Apple produce every weekend. Because of this, she has even taken up some classes (more like hooves-on lessons) from Mr. and Mrs. Cake.
Through them she made friends with a bubbly pink pony, named Pinkie Pie.

As for money, we're trudging along nicely. The payment plan is to help set up a system that allows me to put money towards the bank and the house at the same time, without dropping it all at once. Rose has no idea that we put a payment plan for that exact reason. At the moment she assumes that what I have is decent, but just isn't enough to pay off the house, and I feel pretty guilty about it.

Even though things are going smoothly, I can feel myself slipping a bit. Not letting Rose aware of my past and what I had had to do was starting to get to me. I just couldn't tell her, not yet. It had to be soon, though.

With a sigh I closed my barkcloth journal and set it aside. The house felt empty with just myself occupying it.
It didn't dawn on me until after a few minutes, that I was actually considering having a foal.

"What the hell is wrong with me? Can I even afford that?" I whispered to my self.

"Afford what?" Rose turned the corner into our bedroom, just getting home from work.

Apparently I didn't hear her come in from downstairs, because I jumped slightly as she appeared. "I don't know... well I do, but-"

"If something's bothering you, tell me. I'm not a stranger, Cross." Rose trotted over and climbed on the bed next to me, moving the journal out of the way and sitting on her haunches.

I rolled onto my side from a laying position and turned my head to look up at her.

"Don't get any funny ideas, but I was wondering if you ever might consider having a foal."

She covered her face with a hoof, and sighed. "Seriously? Cross!" Her voice cracked as she said my name, and couldn't knock off a smile. "How can I not get any funny ideas!"

Rose moved her hoof, and revealed that her entire face was red, and her eyes were slightly teary from embarrassment (as well as trying so hard not to laugh).

"I didn't hear a no." I chuckled.

She shook her head and got out of bed, still blushing intensely as she made her way around it.

I rolled back into a laying position and turned to look at her as she went to pass by, but before she continued I was pulled into a kiss.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get a shower." Rose winked at me and continued on into the master bathroom.

"Hey, I could always join you with that."

"Oh, shut up." She laughed and closed the door.

When I heard the water start I grabbed my journal, propped my back up on a pillow, and began sketching on a new page.

By the time I finished, the water stopped running. I was satisfied with how it turned out, and looking at the sketch of an embarrassed Rose standing over me with her face covered made me smile to myself.

As I closed the journal, Rose stepped out of the bathroom. Her mane was still a little wet and rested on one side of her head, hanging in the front across her chest. I personally liked it a lot, since her mane normally only curled at the end; whereas when it's not been brushed or teased all of it is naturally curly.

"Why don't you keep your mane natural?"

Rose turned her head to me and shrugged, climbing over me, just to wind up plopping down beside me. "I dunno, I guess it just looks more presentable. Otherwise I look like I'm going to a party, and not the formal kind, either."

"Nothing wrong with that," I laughed a little. "Nor is there anything wrong with letting it hang in the front like you have it now. I like it."

"I'll keep it like this at home." She put a hoof over my chest, and laying on her side, cuddled against me.

"You could have at least dried off completely." I rested my muzzle against the top of her head, and on her damp mane. "You're still a little wet."

"Either let me love you, or shut up." She grinned and pressed against me, so that her cold damp coat was up against mine.

With a shiver I put a hoof around her, and held her close to me. "That's not fair, but I'll take it."
Rose giggled and closed her eyes.

"I assume that tomorrow will be a good day for business?"

"Well.. We've got everything in order to set up stand tomorrow. Mostly it'll just be sweets like apple fritters, apple pies, and so on," She shrugged. "Then we'll set up stand for more healthy produce in a few weeks. Until then I'll be baking with the Cakes."

I smiled and lifted my face from her mane. "A few weeks oughta' give us some time together."

"Mhmm," She yawned.

A few minutes go by as we lay there, relaxing.
It was a nice change from one (or both) of us constantly going, and I let myself get lost in it. I took the time to just focus on her presence, every time she exhaled through her nose I felt her breath, along with the rise and fall of her chest on my side.

"Cross?" Rose said softly, "Can we have a foal?"

I don't know what it was, but something about that broke me. It only made things worse when she looked up at me. All I could do was stare at her.

"Cross?" Rose looked at me worriedly.

My eyes must have shown some sort of sadness, or desperation.

"I need a moment.."

Once I wiggled my way out of the bed, I went into the bathroom, closed the door behind me, and began to softly cry.

"You're an idiot." I whispered to myself, resting my head on the sink counter with my face buried into my foreleg. "You're broken. You're weak, you're.. you're..."

I slammed my hoof on the counter and looked up in the mirror.

My eyes met, and from my own point of view I saw nothing but a criminal and a coward.
"You don't deserve this." Tears rolled down my face, and I shook my head slightly as I looked towards the bathtub.

I don't remember climbing in the tub, nor do I remember starting the water and laying back.

What I remembered in that moment, that minuscule frame of time, was that officer pony with the shotgun. If he wasn't shot, would I have beat his skull in with the stock of that shotgun? Would I have been the one to kill that pony, that pony who probably had a family just like the one I dream of, like Applejack has with her siblings and grandmother?

I hadn't realized I was uncontrollably sobbing at this point, until Rose came in. She didn't say anything at all, instead she came over to the tub, got in it, and cradled me.

All I could do was cry, cry like I just threw my life away. "I'm worthless," I sobbed into her coat. "I hate it."

Rose clinged onto me tightly. "No, you're not. You mean everything to me, Cross. You're all I've got."

Author's Note

I apologize that this chapter is so short, I just really wanted to split it into two parts to hopefully make it come together better. :pinkiesmile:

7 - Breaking News

My eyes continued to push out tears, even though I kept them shut.
I stayed quiet for a bit, calming down and gathering my thoughts on how to proceed.

"I've had to do some bad things..." I spoke softly, "To get away.."

"Get away? From what?" Rose let go of me and got up to turn off the water. "Cross, what's this about?"

I sat upright and the water evened out to cut off right below my stomach. "It's about my upbringing-"

"Your family?"

I winced and Rose lowered her ears.

"I thought of it that way— at least for awhile there.. My parents weren't really in the picture. One had passed, and the other disappeared." For a moment I was silent, remembering memories I had liked to forget.
"I lived on the streets until a stallion picked me up and saved me from the cold; and from malnourishment. You'd be surprised how many ponies can pass by a nearly starving colt in a busy downtown city."

Rose searched my eyes, her own reflecting sadly. "And.. You say you did bad things?"

I nodded and lowered my head, "I didn't find out that stallion didn't really care about me until I was roughly near the age of getting past colthood.."

"Hey, Uncle Dwight! Uncle Dwight!" A young colt comes galloping up to a much older pony, his call no more than a whisper compared to the busy city bustling along just outside the alleyway.
"Look how many bits I made!"

The middle-aged pegasus nodded. "That's great kid, but before you can rest I need your help. I found some ponies we can 'borrow' from."

With a worried look, the colt tilted his head up at him. "You're not going to hurt them, are you?"

"No, not this time," He retrieved a knife from his satchel and held it out for the colt. "You are."

The young colt shook a little and eyed the blade.

"Well?" The pegasus raised an intimidating brow.

"I can't do it–" The colt glanced up at him with pleading eyes.

"You can't? Why not?"

The colt closed his eyes tightly and turned his head so that he didn't have to face him. "I can't hurt them-"

The pegasus growled and struck him. Hard.

After the colt got to his hooves, having struggled to raise himself off the ground, he felt the pegasus place a hoof on his shoulder. He was still trembling.

"Now, go and beg them for money to take a cab. Lie and say it's to get to your older sibling, since your parents are abusive." The pegasus proceeds to put the knife back up.

With tears rolling down his cheeks, and blood dripping from his muzzle, the young Cross gallops out of the alleyway and up to the two ponies.

"Did you ever hurt somepony when he asked you to after that?" Rose questioned softly, her eyes still sad.

It took me a bit to think of the right way to word that. "I.. I didn't ever want to. I did when my life depended on it, that was the only time I ever seriously hurt anypony. When he asked me to hurt ponies after that, I did. But never badly, and whenever I could I used the least amount of force possible-"

"Would you ever hurt me?" She frowned.

I paused for second, stunned. "No. No, no, no, no," I pulled Rose to me and embraced her, "Of course not. You're one of the biggest reasons why I had to get out of that manipulating bastard's control."

"Promise?" She buried her muzzle into my neck.

"I've already made that commitment, Rose. If you asked me to marry you tomorrow, I'd say yes without a doubt."

I felt her muzzle form a small grin just before lifting her head up to plant a gentile kiss on my cheek.

"One more thing? I.. Think it'd be best if we got it out of the way now."

She pulled her head back to look into my eyes. "If we have to, yes."

"It's about your brother, Rose." I whispered with a slight frown, "He was dragged into it as well."

Rose's eyes teared up a little as she tilted her head down, and upon closing them, let a few trail down her cheeks. "I guess we should get that out of the way, then."

I wiped the tears from her face, and she grabbed my hoof to hold it in place on her cheek.

"How did it happen, and why didn't he stay?" She said softly, opening her eyes to look at mine.

"Let's get dried off, and I'll explain."

"The old pegasus, who was just at the age of being considered 'old' had wanted to do a big job, a final score so that he could, in his own words, 'live the rest of his life mostly worry free'. But that required more than just two ponies, and not just any would do, he needed ponies with specific qualities. He was the Mastermind and I was the Peacekeeper. All we needed was a Brawn and a Tech. That's where your brother came into play; the Brawn. This was roughly four years ago.

I was reading a magazine when the nearly old pegasus whispered to me from my side. "That one looks useful."

I glanced up slightly and towards the direction he had nodded in. "Indeed, he does."

We had both witnessed a fairly large pegasus come into the market carrying four crates of fruit on his back (two stacked next to each other) and a basket of a dozen fruits in his mouth by the handle.

"Give me a magazine so we can pretend to read and eavesdrop."

I sat the newspaper down and handed him a fresh bundle of papers from the stack next to us, and made sure to drop at least one bit into the metal container for purchase. The soft metal clunk-kitinnng satisfied my ears.

The two of us leaned against the wall of the Tailors Shop and discretely watched and listened to the conversation going on across the way.

The big pegasus sits down the basket, and an elderly earth pony gets his two sons to retrieve the crates from the pegasus' back. Once that's taken care of, the sons disappear around the side of the house.

"I appreciate your step-daddy loading you up and sendin' over food, my sons are so busy trying to get crops of our own to grow, that they haven't had time for much else."

"It's no trouble. Surely this'll be enough to keep you at bay until your crops grow, which should be done by the time I get back from vacation in Baltimare."

Rose looked into my eyes from her side of the bed. "So you knew my brother before you had met me?"

"Kind of, we weren't too fond of each other after Baltimare.. And after you and I hooked up, he definitely wasn't fond of me for quite awhile."

She pulled her foreleg out from under the blanket and rested it over instead. We were both laying on our sides, and had gotten pretty comfortable.

"We're almost there, Cross," The aging pegasus was looking out the train window, "You know the plan."

I nodded and kept my gaze forward. "Let him get in his apartment and pay him a visit a few hours later, see if he's interested."

Uncle Dwight nodded and pushed his hat up to make sure I could see his eyes.
"To put it simply, yes," He leaned in to whisper to me, "But we don't go into detail unless he is interested."

I glanced to my left at him, out of the corner of my eyes. "Do I look stupid to you?"

"Watch your tone, boy." Dwight growled under his breath and motioned a hoof to his wing, which concealed a knife under it, tucked in an invention that served as a pouch. It's made up of a fine velvet, it's the exact same shade as his coat, and to make things worse, the pouch itself is literally hidden beneath his underfeathers.

I looked at the pouch and then his face, "Since when is a question a threat, in your eyes?" With a shrug I turned forward once more.

Dwight shook his head slowly and realigned his hat. "When we get there, try to let me do most of the talking, or I may just cut your tongue out."

We both grinned and started to laugh. It didn't matter, the train was full of commotion, and practically everypony was in their own little world. Talking, planning, napping, and sharing their own little inside jokes, just as we were.

Within an hour we were pulling into the train station. Within three, we were following Rose's brother discretely into a hotel, and from a distance.

We were dressed up, wearing everyday dress shirts and everyday vests. Kind of like stories of old cowponys? Except I didn't have a hat on, let alone a cowpony hat like he was wearing. No, I just had my course mane slicked and combed back. I did however fit the part still, since I had an old satchel over me. It was in brand new condition, but it was made around the time my father was a colt. How I got lucky enough to find it when I was still a colt learning the ropes from Uncle Dwight, is beyond me. Hell, we were even wearing shoes.

Uncle Dwight rented a room with separate beds, and when asked about our 'business' he came up with something on the spot.
"We're probably gonna be here for a few days, trying to find some old friends and help out with an investigation."

The pony behind the lobby counter just nodded and handed Dwight the key.
We made our way up the staircase and checked into the room on the third floor, opposite end of the hall from the large pegasus. The next morning was all that really mattered. To go ahead and barge into his motel room right now would do nothing but cause problems, despite the fact that it'd probably be easier.
So once we took off those god awful dress shirts and shoes, we both hit the hay and slept until it was roughly noon.

"Hey, Cross." Dwight called as he walked into the motel room with a tray of food, "Brought breakfast, today might be a long one."

With a groan I stumbled out of bed and onto my hooves. "A long one? You're telling me we have more problems than just trying to recruit our Brawn?" I grabbed the tray from him, "Thanks, by the way."

"Big guy left this morning, apparently on some tourist trip, some bullshit like sightseeing. Might not be back until tonight, who knows.. When you're done eating, put on your clothes. We're gonna do some sightseeing of our own, enjoy a few drinks while we're here."

Three hours later.

Dwight lightly shook a half-empty glass of something strong smelling. "You know, I sometimes wonder why I take you drinking..."

I looked over to him.

"But then I remember that if you don't get something alcoholic in your system, you might be too impulsive. If I had known a year ago that beer would have similar affects to opiates when you drink, I'd have gotten you hammered wayyy sooner!" Dwight flipped the glass up and swallowed down his drink, leaving just ice left inside.

"Oh, yeah?" I chuckled, "Well if I had known you could drink like that, I think the first drink I bought you wouldn't have been a few mere shots." We both laughed and waved our hoof in a circular motion to signal for another glass.

Dwight waited until our glasses were filled before he spoke again.
"Would you mind being bait tonight? I'm starting to rethink the idea of a shady old fart like myself claiming to know the way to riches.. All I'm asking of you is to pretend to be a part of a plan in development, that just so happens to need a pony of fortified stature."

I shrugged and took a swig of the glass in front of me. "If it'll make you happy, boss."

"Oh, it'll make me happy alright," He nodded and took a big gulp. "So long as you leave the details to me. No mention of the actual action, whatsoever."

"You got it."

That night I sat in the hotel lobby while I waited for the big pegasus to show up. The second he walked into the room I nonchalantly went up the staircase and stood out of view to the side.

"Excuse me," I spoke out when he slipped by me, "You look like you could use a hoof or two."

The pegasus raised a brow and turned. "It was only a few drinks."

"I meant around the city, and possibly making some money while you're at it."

"Do what now?" He looked me up and down. "The hell are you talking about, 'making money' pfft. Do I look like a prostitute to you?"

I masked a smug grin, to avoid revealing my aggravation. "That'd be the last thing on my mind, but thanks for the offer. You see, there may be a way to make you a few thousand richer within a few years."

This peaked his attention. "Through a business deal?" He asked with curiosity.

I shook my head. "That's one way of looking at it, big guy. My boss could fill you in, if you're interested?"

At this point, he must've figured that he'd try his luck. After all, at his size, he wouldn't have to worry so much about getting mugged. So I sent him down the hall to Dwight, whom I introduced upon entering the room.

"So you're interested in making some cash?" Dwight stood relaxed and dressed.

The bulky pegasus nodded.

"Are you willing to make a commitment?"

The pegasus shrugged. "I've made 'em before, I'm sure I'll make them again."

Dwight shook his head slightly. "I mean a real commitment. Something that has to be abided by."

"I can do it. The family needs money, and I need money." He looks Dwight in the eye, "What's your business deal?"

Dwight looked to me, "Business deal, really?"

I shrugged and took a seat. "His words."

Dwight sighed and put a hoof to his face for a moment before looking back at the pegasus. "We're getting a team together to rob a bank. It's a plan that's been in the works for about half a year now."

"Where, exactly?" The pegasus stretched his neck.

"Manehattan. I'm still working out the schematics, but we could use somepony of your stature." He waved a hoof from the pegasus' head to his hooves. "A well fit and highly intimidating pony, who has the potential to do some of the heavy work and help carry the necessary supplies."

After a minute of thinking, the pegasus said fuck it and agreed to join us. "If that's how it's gotta go, then I can do it."

Dwight looked at us and nodded. "All we need now is a Tech."

Once more, the newest addition to the team spoke up. "I know a guy, crazy enough to do it for free if you'll let him handle some wire and explosives. Been talking with him while I've been in town."

Dwight grinned and clapped his hoof with the pegasus. "That, my friend, is about as perfect as perfection can get."

"Not too long after that was when your brother came home, and I accompanied him. Boss had said it'd be easier if the two of us were in the same town while he and the Tech planned out the rest of the schematics."

Rose smiled a little. "At least you didn't lie about having come to town with my brother. I enjoyed having met you in Appleoosa."

"It took a few months, but getting away from your brother sure was fun."

She sighed lightly and pulled me into a hug. "So.. You and my brother were a part of that huge heist in Manehattan."

"I'm afraid so. It got to the point where I knew it was my only way out."

Rose traced a hoof on my back and whispered in my ear. "Who else knows?"

I frowned slightly. "Nopony, until recently. In one way or another I reached out to Princess Twilight about it. I needed help, and something about it let me know that she could be trusted. I was going to tell you this soon anyways, but she helped me put a down payment on this house. I'm anonymously trying to pay back the bank."

"That sounds crazy Cross- I don't know how, but I know that you'll get it done." She pushed back and was about to pull me into a kiss, when a knock on the door froze us in time. After all, who would be knocking a few hours past midnight?

We went downstairs and I cautiously opened the door, Rose standing behind me.

In the doorway was Princess Twilight Sparkle, but something was wrong.

"Twilight? Is everything-"

"I have to leave and I don't know when I'll be back. It might be a few days, or weeks, or months.." She Interrupted and began to babble.

"What's wrong?" I searched her worried eyes, and soon enough Twilight sighed in defeat.

"May I come in? I'll make this quick."

Rose and I let Twilight right in, and she immediately headed over to the dining room table, turning the light on as she moved. "You trusted me, now I need to trust you. I'm leaving town for a bit because there's a problem going on up North."

Rose and I looked at each other and made our way over, while Twilight unrolled a scroll with her magic.

"Ponies are going missing in the Crystal Empire. Nopony knows why. Not Cadence, not Celestia, and not Luna."

My face had gone sickly pale the moment she had said 'Crystal Empire'.

"It's not Sombra or Chrysalis, we know that much for sure.. If this news got out to the public, it'd be a serious problem. The emotions that the citizens of the Empire express, reflect on the rest of Equestria. If they knew that they were starting to disappear..."

Rose stayed silent, but I couldn't.
"Let me come with you.. I think I know who's behind this."

Author's Note

Mastermind: Crew size, weaponry, course of action. Works out the timeframe for the heist, determines what weapons will be brought, how many ponies will be needed, and how each step will be played out.

Peacekeeper: Overall sanity and social relations of the crew. Keeps the crew on good terms, makes sure everypony is on the same page with plans, resolves conflicts amongst the group up until the heist is finished.

Brawn: Equipment, intimidation, vault breaker. Carries the heavy load and supplies such as plastic explosives and ammunition; serves as the vault breaker, lays explosives according to the layout the Tech has made.

Tech: Explosives, hacks, the technical stuff. Turns the cameras blind eye, gives the crew extra time to work with, delays police signal, and plans the layout of fuses and explosives for the vault.

Delay on this chapter for good reason, it's a long one! :rainbowwild:

8 - The Crystal Empire (Part One)

Twilight rolled up the scroll and turned to look at me. "Cross I appreciate your support and willingness to help, but-"

"Twilight," I interrupted, "Let me help.. Please."

She bit her lip nervously and contemplated it for a moment. "I don't know if this is the best idea, Cross– I mean, you're still at large!"

"Not necessarily, but you're right... That doesn't mean I'm giving up, though."

Twilight nods and sighs deeply. "Alright, alright. You can help."

I smiled, "I might be your best bet, Princess. I won't let you down."

Rose giggled lightly. "Wow! Go and be a royal guard for her, why don't you?"

Twilight smirks ever so slightly and tries her chance at poking some fun.
"Yeah, you're right. Cross definitely doesn't come across as the kind of stallion who'd become a knight and then make an oath to a princess."

At some point between their teasing, my face turned slightly pink. "What, what is it? Is it the mane?"

"Your mane?" Twilight chuckled, "No, it's the 'outlaw' impression you give off."

Rose poked at my cheek, and a small grin formed across her muzzle.

I looked at Twilight for a second while my brain processed what she just said.
"Outlaw? Geeze, is it really that impressionable? I've already–"

"Been called that once before?" Twilight rolled her eyes jokingly and giggled with a smirk that seemed to taunt me. "Don't you know girls talk?"

"Well next time you 'talk'..." Rose butted in with a glare.
"Count me in!"

Twilight and Rose began to giggle.

I just tried to trot away. That is, until Twilight got serious again.

"Hey, Cross?" Her smirk relaxed into a small smile, which slowly faded. "We can head out in the morning. I didn't expect you to end up tagging along, so I figure you could use some time to prepare, should you need it."

I nodded and returned the smile.

For a few minutes we talked about distances of travel, and how this could last a few weeks if the days on the train are counted; then Twilight left.

"Can we go back to bed now?" Rose turned her head to me, away from the door Twilight had just closed behind herself.

"I thought you'd never ask," I joked with a chuckle and made my way upstairs with Rose not far behind me.

When we got back into our bed, Rose gently pushed up against my side.
"Cross, why don't we have a foal?"

"What?" I muttered with a momentarily stunned expression.

Rose lowered her ears a bit. "I'm sorry, Cross. I don't know why I said that, I just-"

Interrupting her with a kiss seemed like a good idea at first... and it was. In fact, up until this moment, it might be one of the best moves I've ever made in the history of our three year relationship.

When Rose slowly pulled away from my face, she paused for a moment to look at me. Her face was living up to her name, and her mouth hung slightly open, as if she wanted to say something.
But she was speechless, and to make up for it she pressed a hoof down on my chest and she lay her body over me.

The following morning I had awoke to find that Rose was still asleep on top of me. I felt the need to let her sleep, but I knew that I had to get up.

"Rose, love.." I tapped a hoof on her back gently, "I've got to get up."

"Just stay here.." She groans and mumbles.

Oh how I'd wished I could...
"I won't be gone as long as I was when I left you last time. I promise you that much."

She raises her head from my chest and rolls off of me. "Don't get yourself killed, Cross."

"Don't spend time alone while I'm gone, and we have a deal." I climbed out of bed and made my way around it to bend down and hug her. "Your Apple Family, Pinkie, and the Cakes aren't going anywhere."

"Yeah, but they're not you."

I let her out of my embrace, and when I didn't kiss her she complained...

"You're leavin' me and won't even give me a farewell kiss?"

So of course I went back to her and made sure to make it a long one. After we both caught our breath for a second, I smiled softly and whispered. "Saying farewell implies that I'm not coming back, and you'd have to kill me to keep me away from you. Especially in the event that you get pregnant."

She rolled her eyes, as if the dark color of her face wasn't enough to tell me that she was just teasing anyways.

"I'll be home in a week, maybe three at most."

On the way out the door I grabbed a recently purchased black bandana (since I managed to lose my own between Appaloosa and Ponyville), and stopped to call back to Rose before I closed the bedroom door. "The scroll specifically asked for Twilight to NOT bring her drake, so I'll talk with him. He might be able to send me your letters, should you have something important to tell me."

As I approached the library, Twilight came out of the door with a somewhat bulky satchel. Behind her, is the little drake.

"Are you sure you've got everything? Paper? Books? Toothbrush? Soap?" He asked, trailing her.

"I've got everything I need, Spike." She assured him, and made eye contact with me. "Hello, Cross. Ready to head out?"

I nodded, "Yeah, but I have a question for 'Spike' first."

"Me?" He raised a brow and came up to me. "Yeah?"

"Can you send letters with your breath? I know there are dragons who can, so I figured I'd ask."

The little dragon nodded. "Sure, but it'll cost ya."

"Spike!" Twilight scorned him.

I apologized on his behalf. "No, no, no, it's fine. I mean there's usually a fee for that anyways.. I was just asking because I wanted to know if Spike here could be the messenger for Rose and I, while I'm gone. We won't write unless it's important."

"Normally Cross, the letters can only be sent to and from Celestia." Twilight informed me, "But you're lucky, Celestia will be at the Crystal Empire until we figure this out. I'm sure if I ask she won't mind receiving and sending a few messages!"

I excitedly smiled at Twilight and Spike. "That's great, thanks! Both of you."

Spike shrugged and waved a claw. "No problem."

When we left the station, Spike sent us off. The train is expected to chug along for a couple of days before we reach the Crystal Empire.. So in the time between departure and arrival, Twilight and I make small talk.

"So, how did you and Rose meet?" Twilight asks after a few hours.

"It's a long story, but it was basically through her brother."

"Oh? I assume that didn't go over well. With as sweet as Rose is, he must be pretty protective."

"You don't know the half of it." I scoffed, "He literally got his drunken step-father to join him in coming after me, the second time he caught us together."

Twilight nodded and it hit me what she must have been thinking.

"Not like that– anyways, he'll still deny this, but he knew that his step-father was going to try to kill me. The bad part is he didn't care either, not until he saw how it affected Rose."

"So he loves his sister, but hates you?" Twilight looked at me, and I shrugged.

"I mean yeah, I guess. He loves her to an extent, but he didn't stop hating me until shortly after the fact that he had me nearly killed, and he still doesn't like me that much."

"It could've been worse." She smiled again, "Either way, congratulations."

"Congratulations?" I looked over at her.

"For finally telling Rose. She seemed to understand why you wanted to come with me..." Twilight looks at me questioningly.
"Speaking of which, you still owe me an explanation as to what you meant."

I looked over my shoulder for a split second, and then relaxed in my seat again. "I'll tell you what I'm thinking when we get to where we're going."

The next day we mainly just kept small talk going and took a few naps.. Nothing too eventful, but after all how eventful could it be, stuck on a train?

By the third day, we had gotten more comfortable around each other, so at least that was a plus. As the previous night had dragged on, we had gradually began to talk more and more casually, and less cryptically (though we still had to be somewhat careful for other ponies eavesdropping—even in the first class traincar, she's still a princess).

"Cross..?" Twilight had whispered aloud, looking out the window at the passing landscape.

"Yeah?" I whispered back, turning to look at her.

"I'm really worried about the Crystal Empire" She lowered her head and away from the window.
"We've had problems before, but never like this."

"We'll get to the bottom of this, Twilight." I reassured her, "We've got some pretty powerful and intelligent ponies on our side, and you just so happen to be one of them."

She sighs, "I'm just worried we won't find what we're looking for."

I knew what she meant. It's not what we're looking for, it's who we're looking for.. The missing ponies. Finding out what's behind the disappearances is important, but finding those who have disappeared is important too- if not even more so.

I simply nodded my head. "Well... Well I won't sleep, or take a break until we figure out something."

Twilight shakes her head slightly, "Don't be silly, you'll need all the strength you can get."

"Sleeping will just waste time.. Besides, I know you've got an idea of what my lifestyle used to be like. I didn't sleep pretty much at all, used to run without sleep for twenty-eight hours, minimum."

"That doesn't mean it's a good thing, Cross. You know that." She responded with a hint of concern.

"Yeah, I know it. I don't take pride in it, and although there were a few moments where it was from my own stress that I couldn't sleep, the truth is that a lot of the time it was because I couldn't sleep. There were too many things that could have happened while I was out, and I couldn't risk it. I wouldn't risk it." It wasn't until now that I realized just how openly I've become to talking about it.

"One day and four hours was the minimum you went without sleeping, huh. What was the longest you could normally go?"

"I don't think I actually know. When I would be up longer than two days, somepony would usually urge me into sleeping, even if it was only for an hour. The only times I went to sleep on my own terms past two days, was, I'd say.. Maybe past or around the fifty hour mark."

Twilight shook her head some more. "Have you improved your sleeping pattern at all?"

"I'd definitely say so, but only because I feel a bit safer at home and because I let myself get the sleep." I shrugged.

"I guess I just wouldn't understand unless it was me." She said kind of sympathetically, and quickly corrected herself into a somewhat more cheery tone. "But, I'm glad that you're improving."

"It still just doesn't feel right, though. I had to live like that for so long, that I can say without a doubt I know my limit. Five days without sleep, before getting fatigued."

Twilight smiled a little. I found it odd, but whatever.
"It'll take some getting used to, that's for sure," She remarked.

"Heh, you got that right.." I looked past her at the scenery. The green landscape had just transitioned to mountains.

"We'll be there within the hour." She continued, "You plan on coming with me to the Crystal Castle, don't you?"

I looked at her with a concerned gaze. "I don't know if that's such a good idea, I–"

Twilight stopped me, "You'll be fine, Cross. We won't tell them your name, just that I believe you can help."

"No, it's-" I sighed and lowered my voice to a whisper. "If what I'm thinking is right, I might not be safe if I'm seen openly. Do you remember what I said, about my old boss having eyes everywhere he went?"

Twilight nodded slightly. "Is that why you brought that bandana?"

I looked up slightly at where our luggage was tucked in an overhead compartment.
"That's one of the things I brought in preparation.."

She seemed a little concerned about that. "You didn't bring any. Erm.. Weapons did you?"

"How could I not, you have no idea what I might be getting myself into–"

"Cross!" Twilight shout whispered.

I sighed.

"Guns? Knives?! What is it-"

"It's a gun, a parting gift from my boss. It'll help with identification when we get there."

"Well," Twilight sighed too, "Is there anything else in there I might have to worry about?"

I shook my head. "Not at all, just some clothes."

Twilight, relieved, relaxed her muscles and body from the tension it had just held.

My eyes focused for a minute in thought, before I spoke again. "Random, but do you have any spells that could mask my eye color? Teal eyes are a dead giveaway, at least that's what I've been told."

She nods and winks. "Sure, and I can see why. They are pretty unique.. What color did you have in mind?"

I shrugged with a light chuckle. "Look, whatever you can think of will do."

Twilight's horn lit up and for a moment my vision went dark. As it slowly regained, Twilight leaned back slightly so that I could see myself in the reflection of the train window. My dim gray mane was still the same, and so was my livid (blue-gray) coat, but my eyes were no longer teal. They were red. Fire red.

"I thought that they should still stand out.. Just not in the same way."

I stared at myself for a second, still adjusting to the change.
"Twilight, that's badass."

She giggled, and the train began to slow. "Here's our stop, Cross."

Stepping off the train, I immediately put the bandana on my face. I definitely looked awkward, but all in all I probably just seemed like some foreigner, new to the town and handling business with a princess.

The castle stood further away in the center of the kingdom, and gradually grew in size as we made our way towards it. Rather than feeling increasingly nervous as I thought I'd might, I became more intimidating in my presence; as if my gaze meant I had something to take care of, and you shouldn't get in my way.
I knew this, by the look on some of the faces of ponies we passed. Deep down I genuinely hoped that this wouldn't cause a problem in the grand scheme of things. But if I'm being honest, I'd probably feel a little intimidated too.

"Princess," A guard greeted Twilight once we had approached the bottom of the castle. "Mister..."

I raised a brow. "Don't worry about it, my name is of no importance."

Twilight apologized and we made our way past the guard.

We entered a leg of the castle, which was basically just a staircase that led up to the main foundation of the structure itself. There were quite a few flights of stairs, but it wasn't as bad as it seemed.
When we went through the door at the top of the stairs we passed yet another guard. I was ignored, but Twilight was greeted.

After awhile of following Twilight, we eventually came upon the throne room.
I had a strong feeling that beyond the throne room doors, I was going to be greeted by two more princesses... and possibly quite a few guards.
But I was wrong- at least about the guards, seeing as Princess Celestia and Princess Cadence both were there, the amount of guards was more than I expected. Instinctively I bowed, which was proven to be the right move, as I was given a courtesy nod from Twilight.

"Hello Twilight, mind if I ask who your friend is?" Celestia questioned.

Twilight smiled a little bit and looked at me. "Well, princess.. He doesn't go by anything, but he may be able to help us with the 'situation' that you've summoned me here to discuss."

"Hmm.." Celestia looked me up and down. "Do you trust him?"

Twilight gave a single confident nod.

"Very well," Celestia ordered her guards out of the room before she continued. "What have you got?"

I cleared my throat. "I believe I may know who is behind these disappearances, princess. Or, at the very least, somepony who may have something to do with it."

She formed a small smile. "You've got my attention... Tell me more."

"His name is Dwight. Dwight Callahan."

Celestia looked at me with a focused glare.

"He's a wanted criminal, whom until now, was known just by his looks. A little birdy told me that he was responsible for the bank robbery in Manehatten."
I stared back at her.

"He what..?" She asked, somewhat surprised. "Why is he here, then?"

"I suppose it wasn't to disappear after a heist, given the fact that you've come across a problem." I glanced to my left at Twilight for a second.

"And you're certain it's him?"

"No, I am not. But it's what I've come to assume. If it's not Sombra, or Chrysalis, it's a possibility."

She nods slightly and releases her glare.
"This would make sense.." Celestia looks to Princess Cadence, who proceeds to look down slightly before facing me.

"We've found remains." Cadence speaks with a high voice, and straight posture. "Bullet wounds, on both equines.. Nopony within the Crystal Empire has weapons, so an outsider would put things together."

I nodded. "Other than this info I've given, I'd like to add a request, if I may."

Celestia raises a brow.

"I'd like to ask if I could assist you, princess, in taking this bast– er... Jerk down."

9 - The Crystal Empire (Part Two)

Princess Celestia looked into my eyes, and stood up.

Oh fuck, was it something I said?

"Very well," She began. "On one condition."

I raised a brow at her. "Yes?"

"I want him dead."

My jaw dropped, hidden behind my bandana.

Was she serious? No, she couldn't be. I've heard so many good things about Princess Celestia! Probably too good, now that I think about it.. I wonder if it's because she's secretly tyrannical or some shit...

Nah, I take it back. She's probably just pissed about the crap that Dwight might be stirring up. Hell, I know that he pisses me off. So I can't really say that I blame her.

"Auntie–" Cadence frowned.

"I just want him gone. Bring him back to me alive, dead, or even in half.." Celestia looks down at Twilight, and notices the unsureness in her eyes.

With a sigh, she continues.
"I don't mean to be so straightforward, my apologies. It's just that I've seen what has come out of it thus far, and I don't want to see more of it."

I looked up at Celestia and gave her a confident nod.

"I understand, princess. If I get the opportunity to do anything about it, I'll be sure to take it."

"Good, I'll brief you tomorrow then. Surely you're both tired after such a long trip." Celestia glances up at the throne room doors.

"Twilight, would you mind showing our friend here to the Royal Guest rooms?"

Twilight, quick on the command, jumps up and goes to trot off... "Oh, I almost forgot!"

She turns right back around, with a blush of embarrassment on her face.

"Our guest has a lady friend back home, and he was wondering if you'd send messages from Spike, to him?"

Celestia raises a brow and glares, as if she's getting ready to scold Twilight.

But then a smile forms, and she blurts out a chuckle. "Of course I will! I don't mind at all, Twilight."

From there, Twilight leads me to the guest rooms.

I take the room next to her, give her my thanks, and head inside. The only things on my mind are a shower, and sleep.

I'm woken up in the middle of the night by a few knocks at my door.

With a groan, I crawled out of my bed and answered it with a tired mumble.
"Mhmm?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, Cross." Twilight whispers, "I can't sleep.. I've been so restless over everything–"

"Are you asking if you can sleep here for the night?" I ask, rubbing my eyes.

Twilight nods gently. "I don't know what else to do, not even sleeping spells will do the trick, and to be honest– I think I just need a friend."

"Don't sweat it, I understand." With a yawn, I crawled back into bed and over to the far side.

Twilight climbed in after me, and pulled the blanket up to her chest. We lay on our sides, facing opposite directions.

"This isn't awkward for you or anything, is it?" Twilight whispered, making sure I was alright with this.

I yawned, "Not at all, Twilight."

The next morning after I had taken yet another shower, I combed my mane and put on my bandana. When I stepped out of the bathroom, Twilight was already gone; presumably to her room to get dressed like I was.

With no need to waste any time, I figured I'd do a little sight seeing of the castle. I didn't plan on straying too far, and upon exiting the room, I bumped into the side of a guard who had been traversing the hall.

He fumbled and hit the wall.

Before I could apologize, I was pinned against the very same wall that he had just gotten knocked into. Let me tell you, crystal walls aren't cozy.

"What the fuck?" I growled and headbutted him, denting his helmet and freeing myself from his grasp.

Twilight came rushing out of her room with a wet mane. "Stop, please, stop!"

I held one hoof to my head for a second, while the guard got back onto his hooves.

"What happened?!" Twilight, completely thrown off, looked from one of us to the other.

"I bumped into him on my way out of the room– musta' caught him off guard or something.."

The guard, clutching his head, blinked rapidly and took a second to let his vision focus. "This buffoon just came fumbling out of his room like he had a race to win–"

"So your immediate response is to SLAM me against a wall? Wow, so good at your job!"

"Stop it! Both of you need to take a minute to calm down now!" Twilight got between us. A few drops of water plopped onto the floor as her mane flowed with her body movement.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes lightly. "If we don't both have a concussion, then one of us just suffered brain damage."

"Was that an insult?" The guard mumbles.

All I could do was laugh, even though it came out as more of a chuckle.

"You're so damned impulsive. No, it wasn't an insult."

Twilight let out a sigh.

"How long have you been on the job?" I asked him.

"Well I started training about a year or two ago-"

"No, I mean on the job," I chuckled again.

"About three months," He finally said confidently.

"Seriously? Shit, I'm sorry kid.." I looked at the dent in his helmet for a second.

"I'm not much of a kid," He lowered his hooves with a sigh.

"Yeah, and I'm probably only a few years older than you are."

"Heh, I wouldn't doubt it. It's alright, by the way, and I'm sorry too." The guard made sure to look me in the eyes when he apologized.

To be honest, I badly wanted to inform him of just how lucky he is, and how I could've accidentally killed him out of reflex.
But I suppose forgiveness is more civilized, and far less threatening.

"Well, it seems everything else is fine here. Continue your patrol, but be careful, okay?" Twilight convinces him to get back to work.

The guard nods at her, then at me, and proceeds to head down the hall.

A moment after he turns the corner and disappears out of hearing range, I turn to Twilight. Her mane is still dripping, but other than that she's practically dressed for the day.

"Twilight, I'm sorry about that–"

"It's fine, Cross," She said in a hushed voice, staying careful when speaking my name. "That wasn't your fault, there's no need to be sorry."

I nod and look at her mane.

"Well, I won't keep you.. Go ahead and finish up, I'll wait."

She offers a smile, "It won't take long, just drying off and brushing... Where were you going, anyways?"

"I got bored and I'm already fancied up, so I was going to do a little looking around." I told her the truth.

Yeah right, as if she'd ever given me a reason not to.

"Like I said, this shouldn't take but ten or fifteen minutes. You can join me if you'd like, it'd probably be safer than just wandering around anyways."

I shrugged, "Might as well, seeing as how I almost murdered a guy.."

Twilight giggled and retreated back into her room to finish up, with me trailing behind her.

Once we were inside and the door was shut, Twilight cast a spell that sent a magenta aura from her horn and briefly encompassed the door, along with the walls.

"Just soundproofing the room." She said, as she made her way over to the bathroom.

I took off my bandana and tossed it onto her bed. "My god, what the hell just happened."

Twilight, having left the bathroom door open while she dried her mane, raises her voice slightly. "Cross, it was just a rookie making a mistake."

I let out a sigh and sat on the bed.

"I almost made an even bigger mistake, Twilight." I called back in an ashamed tone.

"I've hurt ponies before, Twi.. I try not to think about it, about the life of crime I came from; but when a scenario like what we were just in occurs, part of me doesn't remember the pain that comes from it. My mind goes back to survival, and–"

An even deeper sigh escapes me.

"I could've killed that guard, Twilight. I got ahold of my senses- of course after the fact that I gave him a concussion, but If I hadn't thought so quickly..."

Twilight grabs a brush with her magic and comes back into the room, walking around the bed before getting on it beside me.

"What matters is you did think, and you didn't resort to beating him senseless," She brushes her mane as she speaks.

"As long as you can manage to take a step back for just a second, at least mentally, you'll be showing improvement. That could have gotten really ugly, Cross. I know it."

I lay down, and cross my hooves under my head. "Well yeah, but–"

"You were able to calmly explain yourself right after slamming your temple into a metal helmet."

I smiled at that, and nodded a little.
"When you put it like that, it's hard to disagree."

About twenty minutes later, we were just ready to go see Celestia and Cadence. Instead, one of them came to us. More importantly, it was Celestia and not Cadence.

I was the one standing next to the door when it was knocked on. Twilight was standing beside the bed with her satchel just recently thrown over her, so being the closest I opened it.

"Oh, you're here too. Good. I have a few questions for you." She looked slightly down at me.

I was a little concerned, but instead of saying anything my body moved to the side to let her in.

"We were just leaving to come see you and Cadence to find out what we're going to do." Twilight laughed a little.

Celestia had to duck a bit to get inside.

"Well I was hoping to get a little bit more information from your nameless friend." She looked over at me with a simple smile.

"Like what, princess?" I asked, hoping she'd give me an idea of what she needed to know, and not leave me to guess what exactly it is that she wants to hear.

"Well my little pony, for starters I was thinking something along the lines of what 'little birdy' you spoke of before and a little more about yourself. I'd be a fool to take advice from you or let you help in this case if I didn't even know whom exactly I would be bringing into such a mess."

I nodded, "I'm a bounty hunter, princess. No offense, but the 'little birdy' is of no use anymore. I'm afraid I can't tell you where they are, as I do not know, but they were a changeling who wanted to see mister Callahan gone. Apparently had a grudge or something."

Celestia sighed, disappointed. "Continue, tell me a bit about yourself."

"I'm from Manehattan, or at least I like to think of myself from Manehattan, but the bank robbery affected my hometown city; hence the reason I want to assist in taking care of this problem, for nothing in return. I wear the bandana due to the profession, and this may be the only time you'll ever see me without it. As for not having a name, I was not born at a hospital or a medical center, but rather a forest as my parents were travelers. I have no birth certificate, nor documentation, for a name. My mother died in birth, and my father was killed shortly after. I was discovered from my wails of crying by a hunter, who took me in. He never gave me a name, either... I was just 'kid' to him."

I paused for a moment, and when Celestia didn't say anything, I continued.

"When I was finally capable of learning to read and write, he too, passed away. A smart colt, I took food, a few mementos, and kept moving until I was out of that forest I had been bound to my whole life. I found a tiny village, where I stayed until I was a young stallion. I hunted just like the stallion who raised me, to make money. From there, I was destined to travel to other towns and cities, after I had taken up a talent for hunting down equines that the law could not personally get ahold of. Manehatten is where I found the most business... Is there anything else you'd like to know about me, princess? I'm open to that much, for sure."

Celestia thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. "I suppose not.. However, if you could give me anymore details about this 'Dwight Callahan', I'd be forever grateful. We're all in this together, hunter."

"Sure.. But first, what do you already know?"

Her eyes looked to Twilight, and then back to me. "He's violent, has no care for life, and is somehow doing all of this without being seen in the act."

I nodded, "That sounds like him. Have you considered that his victims are being lured away and into a more seclude place before being killed?"

"Indeed, but that was a very recent conclusion for us. We have not yet sent out a search for said areas or tested said ideas. You might be able to help with that, though we do have guards who could help as well."

"That's great.. But princess, I've gotten more info about this stallion from that 'little birdy', I just haven't gotten to it yet. The most crucial thing is that he's been known to have influencers paid off to spy for him, from just about every branch and class. You will need to be very careful about sending out searches, because the information of a planned search party might reach him before the party has even departed; meaning that even if you're sending a search to the right place, everything could be moved by the time you get there."

Celestia looks a little frustrated and sighs, lowering her head. "This is worse than I thought..."

"But it can be done, princess. Just in moderation."

Celestia raises her head to face me again. "What else do you know, hunter?"

I sigh and rub my chin with a hoof in thought. "There's more, but I can't seem to pull it back to me.."

I made a frustrated expression and sighed again, this time deeper. "I'll let you know as it all comes to me, princess. It was one discussion, so I have trouble remembering all of it word for word."

Celestia nods, "That's alright, just be sure to seek me once these things come back to your mind... And if we're done here, let's go discuss what Cadence and I have so far."

"That's more than fine with me." I looked over my shoulder to Twilight.

"What're we waiting for?" She came over in an impatiently quick trot, "Let's go, then."

As we grew closer and closer to the throne room, Twilight increasingly became more somber. It was blatantly obvious by the time we entered the room. The look in her eyes said it all.

Cadence looked to us as we came in, and let out a small sigh. "Everypony but Ambrose, you are dismissed."

The guards, all of them but one standing to the side of her throne, made their way out of the room.

"Where is Shining Armor?" Twilight asked Cadence.

Cadence responds to her sister-in-law, "He doesn't handle blood or death so well, and after a few days he couldn't take it. I forgave him, and until this is resolved, he's in Canterlot."

Twilight nods and her gaze drifts to the guard that Cadence had referred to as Ambrose. He's a crystal pony with an aqua coat and a brown mane.

"Oh shoot, I almost forgot! I'm sorry, this is Ambrose Aurichalcite– he's my right hand while Shiny is gone. Ambrose, you've met Celestia. This is my sister-in-law Twilight, and this her friend who will be helping us with the case."

Ambrose nods at each of us as we're introduced, and then steps forward.

"We've found more remains.. A single pony."

Celestia frowns, Twilight's face goes pale and me.. I just look back at Ambrose, waiting for what he has to say next.

"I suggest you take a look at the crime scene and autopsy photos–" Ambrose pauses, "But they're definitely not pretty, they made me feel quite a mix of emotions."

Celestia steps forward without hesitation. "I have to. They're my little ponies.."

She gets a small stack of photos from Ambrose, and shuffles through them. I counted twelve total, and four that made her really wince, as well as look a little closer.

"There's a few in here that are... Really bad, but nonetheless important."

Celestia looks at Twilight.
"Do you- I mean are you, wanting to take a look?"
Her voice was enough to suggest she probably shouldn't.

I didn't know just how badly this would get to Twilight, until I saw her shuffle through just three pictures.

At the first one, she let out a pained sigh. The second one turned her face into one of disgust and confusion, and at the third she turned away with a green face, holding the pictures out to be taken.
After a second she caught her breath, having been holding it to avoid gagging.
"Why would anypony—" Her voice broke a little, "They.. They went too far."

I frowned slightly and took the pictures from Twilight. I immediately saw why it was a problem. The first picture I stared down at was of a young mare, probably around the same age as the guard I bumped into in the hall. She was smiling a little bit and the sunlight reflected off her crystal figure. She was alive in this picture.

I flipped it to the next one.

Now the mare was dead, and laying on her side. Judging by the position she was in, the picture had been taken as if they were approaching the corpse, as her back was facing the camera and her front was not visible. What was worrying was that directly in front of her you could see a glimpse of much darker snow, as if coming from the front of her body.
Her back had some bloody gashes, like from a fall, and there was a gunshot wound on her neck that left an open meaty area.

Without preparing myself, I turned to the third picture.

My god was it bad. This one was taken from the front and, needless to say, the mare's stomach and chest were exposed–
Not really the right way to put it.. More like she was eviscerated. Mostly all of her organs lay open in the snow, and her ribcage had been broken. Her heart was gone, along with a few other organs such as her liver. To make matters worse, her face was literally frozen in time, with a look of utter fear and betrayal. The cold temperatures had frozen her eyes, and her crystal coat hadn't returned to it's non-crystalized state. Normally it would have, but she was literally frozen, seemingly just moments after dying.

There was no doubt that her stomach and chest being ripped open was done post-mortem. No, the gunshot is what killed her.

With the hoof I held the photos in, I wrapped my arm around Twilight and gave her a quick hug.

"I've told you before.. We're going to get to the bottom of this, Twi."

I looked at Ambrose and Cadence. "Where was she found?"

Princess Cadence looked back at me sullenly. "Near the mountains at the Southern border of the Empire. The thing is, she's the only one we've found in the snow, and the only one so far South–"

"Sorry to interrupt, but where were the other two found?"

Ambrose speaks up. "To the East, bordering the mountains that surround the empire. Just laying there at the base of the mountain."

I nod and look back to Twilight. "I know where I want to go, then. We leave in the morning."

With one glance to Cadence and Ambrose, I turned to face Celestia.

"Princess.. I've remembered more, if you'd like to stop by my room sometime."

Cadence returns the look and gives one nod.

Without even bothering to look at the rest of the pictures, I return them to Ambrose Aurichalcite. From there, Twilight and I head out of the room, down a few different halls, and into my room; which she sound proofs just like before.

"I want to check the Northern border of the Empire."

Twilight curiously gazes at me.
"Why? What makes you think there?"

"Dwight had a routine, similar to where these bodies are being discovered.. When I was just a colt, I'll never forget it, his plan for robbing ponies in cities was to first hit at the entrance of where people came into the city. Secondly, he'd make his way to the East or West end of said city- whichever one he thought was more populated. Lastly, he'd go North and finish up getting what he wanted. Then, he'd make off with a greater risk job such as a heist in the center of the town. By now, he'd be working on the North- these disappearances didn't start long enough ago for him to already be planning on robbing in the actual center of the Empire itself."

Twilight can't help but smile as I explain this. "You're a genius, Cross. You might have just figured this out, once and for all!"

I shrugged sheepishly. "Aw come on, Twi. Don't celebrate just yet. We've got go to find what we had planned on finding, first. Dwight is our goal, we both know that much... But I also know we mutually have that feeling of not wanting to leave unless we find those missing ponies."

Twilight hugs me back, from earlier, and heads to her own room. "Thank you again, Cross. This means a lot to me, just as much as it probably does to my sister and Celestia."

Before I could say, "I know," Twilight had shut the door.

Twenty minutes later, Celestia knocks on my door and I hurriedly let her in.

"Dwight has a routine. He used to come to cities and start off by robbing people near the city entrance, which in this case is South-Southwest. After a victim or two is robbed he'll head either East or West, preferably which one he believes has a bigger population. Then, he goes North, robs until he's satisfied, and shortly after pulls off a big score in the center of town... Princess, when did these disappearances start occurring?"

I already knew the answer, but she didn't know that.

"About two or three weeks ago, I believe."

"Then he might still be murdering ponies to the North." I reassure her that he's definitely not been here long enough to already be thinking about a big score.

"Or, at the very least, luring ponies to the North. That's a very good place to start, then! Don't you think?"

I nod with a smile, "So long as I'm the first pony up there. Send me with a backup. Maybe Twilight?"

Celestia isn't so sure.

"You saw how she was earlier.."

"But I know she wants to help, and to help find these missing ponies. If you're still not convinced, then send us with a guard."

Celestia thinks on it for a moment, before exhaling a defeated sigh. "Alright, if it's what Twilight wants... I could send Ambrose Auricalchite with you. But I've had my suspicions about him since you mentioned how mister Callahan pays off ponies everywhere he goes. Keep an eye on him."

She leans down and gets in my face with a menacing glare.

"Twilight is like my daughter, and if something happens to her..." Celestia speaks with a growl to her tone, "I'll kill you myself."

I nod without a blink, and give her my word.
"I swear I'll do everything I can to keep her safe, Princess Celestia."

"Good." She says with a smile, stands up, and leaves.

I immediately got another shower to wash out the product in my mane, and went to bed.

"Good fucking luck to me." I whispered as I got comfortable, and soon after fell asleep.

Author's Note

He'll need it.

I hope everypony is enjoying the story so far, and is ready for an even further change in the amount of gore.
(Shocker! :pinkiegasp: )

10 - The Crystal Empire (Final)

The morning came and went, and so did our search party.

We left at around noon without anypony briefing Ambrose, which was mistaken as an accident. Obviously we did it on purpose, but it was clear to see that he didn’t think we were suspicious of him.

We were roughly halfway towards our destination when Ambrose spoke up.

“So, what’s the plan?” He had finally asked, not really directing the question to anypony in particular.

It’s a good thing I had thought of a fake plan before I even departed.

“The yaks; if we can reason with them, they might be willing to help us search around in the North. Without them, we’d be walking blindly through the mountains.”

Ambrose nods and looks ahead at the mountainous region ahead of us. Specifically, at Mount Everhoof.

The path to Yakyakistan supposedly travels Northwest, but starts North. My bet was that Mount Everhoof had a few secrets at it’s base that were being kept from us. Either that, or Dwight himself was living on the mountain.

Hmph, or with the yaks..

“The yaks aren’t exactly easy to make deals with, I hope you’re aware of that,” Ambrose remarks.

I nodded in response. “That’s one of the reasons we have Twilight.”

Within the hour we were at the start of the trail, which was made clear by the wooden sign that pointed up the path, and had ‘Yakyakistan’ inscribed on it.

“Celestia said that we might have a blizzard on the lower half of the mountains by this afternoon,” Twilight warned us.

“But if we can get to the yaks before then, we can probably sleep as guests for the night.”

I simply nodded, turned away from the sign, and went to curiously look down the side of the trail. It dropped off in a steep slope, surely more than a hundred feet, and was clouded near the bottom by snow. The weather was weird around here, but it didn’t concern me too much.

“Ambrose! Don’t–”

Shocked at the shouting coming from Twilight, I turned around just in time to catch Ambrose by his mane.

“You bastard!” Ambrose howled.

My back hooves slid and scrambled to not slide off the cliff.

Ambrose tries to back away from the cliff, while punching at my arm in the hopes that I’d let go. “When I’m done, I’ll get your bitch princess, too!”

I tightened my grip on his mane. “I'm afraid I can’t let that happen!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Twilight start charging toward Ambrose with her horn ready.

My hind legs slid on the ice, and I threw out my other hoof to grab more of Ambrose’s mane. The stupid bastard shouldn’t have let it get so long that it would hang out of his helmet.

“Just go get help, Twilight!”

With my whole body on the ground, I rapidly slid off the cliff with Ambrose in my grasp.

thud

thud

THUD

I blacked out and bounced off the snowy slope a few times on my way down. The last thing I remember hearing was the sound of Ambrose’s body fall beside me. He made a grotesque snap and crack, that let me know he wasn’t coming back again.

I woke up cold, like really cold.
I saw bodies. At least six or seven, but I couldn’t see past that. Just the outline of a dark grey wall to my right, which I assumed to be the bottom of the long and winding trail I just left above me.

With a groan I got up, feeling a little numb in my legs. I started to walk forward, past one or two of the bodies, when a call came from behind me.

“Ohh, ho ho! A live one!”

I muttered and turned around, “Who the fuck?”

“Surely you’ve heard of me,” A griffon stands on a snow covered rock, beckoning to me. He’s literally ghost white, with electric blue eyes... But what I found disturbingly nasty, was the fucking yak skin coat he was wearing to keep warm.

“I am Caelum Exspiravit, the Griffin warrior who was expelled from his own Kingdom!”

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re just some asshole who’s in my way of getting home.”

His blue eyes narrowed into a glare, and he pounced forward at me.

“I will make you remember my name!”

With only a second to think, I attempted to dive out of the way; only to end up tripping over a frozen corpse.

As I fell to the ground, he caught me in my side with his talons, leaving three
bloody and painfully throbbing tears on my body.

The griffon, now angry, turns and looks down at me.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Poor pony need a bandana to hide his ugly mug?”

Just as he was about to swipe his talons down into me, I flipped onto my back; bucking a hoof into his front leg, and snapping the bones within.

With a Griffin screech he fell for a second, and a voice in the back of my head kicked in.

Run, Cross!

I jumped up and started galloping as fast as I could manage. The pain in my side grew increasingly stronger, and I could feel a little bit of blood pour down my body and onto the snow.

I didn’t care, and I kept running diagonally towards the gray wall. That is, until I noticed a perch roughly six feet up the wall that kept ascending until it was at a cave, about twenty feet up from the ground.

I got up to the wall and onto my hind legs. With a strong jump, my hoof grazed the edge of the rock surface.

”Come on!”

I got a little lower and charged a jump, this time grabbing ahold of the ledge.

Climb, Cross, climb!

I scraped my hind hooves against the wall until I finally found a rough edge to rest one of them upon, and with one hard push off the edge I was able to grab onto the cliff using my other hoof as well.

“Aaaagh!” I yelled as I pulled myself up, straining my body and making my side only hurt more.

I hastily made my way up the side of the rocky, snow covered wall.

I muttered aloud, “You made it, Cross.”

The cave was deep, and the first thing my eyes landed upon was a colt in yak skin.
Then I noticed all of the pony bones around the cave.. And one unfortunate yak skull, which was clearly the victim used to make this new ‘trend’ in apparel.

That griffin’s a damned yak-skinning pony eater!

I stumbled into the cave and collapsed onto the cold ground, landing just next to the colt.

For a few minutes I stared at the kid. He was barely breathing, but that was still enough to matter.

Finally, I heard a noise from the entrance, and then a voice that echoed into the cave.

“You hurt me pretty good, you red-eyed fuck! I told you, though... I told you that you would remember my name..”

I could hear his leg drag against the stone, and with what little strength I had left in me, I pushed my front legs off of the ground to turn my head and face him.

“Caelum.. It’s Caelum Exspira–!”

Blood sprayed from the Griffin’s neck. A knife, so fast that it was like a blur, was quickly inserted and pulled out from the side of the Griffin’s throat.

His body hit the ground and continued to spurt blood, but my eyes were still trying to focus on the stallion that stood before me.

“D- Dwight.. You-”

I collapsed again, and tried to make words of what Dwight was saying, all while my vision was gradually getting darker.

“Next time, I’ll kill you too. You ruined my plans.. And had the audacity to come after me?! I raised you, kid!”

And then, just like that, the darkness overwhelmed me.

I don’t know when, but at some point I began to drift back in and out of consciousness.

“Get the colt first. You, bandage...”

“It’s Twilight! You’re going to be okay!”

I remember being carried out of a blizzard, but everything just went black again after that.

The sound of a heart monitor beeping scared the shit out of me, and my eyes opened to a comfy room in the Castle. I figured I must be in an infirmary for a royal guest or VIP.

With a quiet groan, I slowly pulled myself up slightly and lay my back against the pillow. When I glanced down I saw that my torso had been wrapped in a bandage. My side bled through the white of the bandage, leaving it red.

Upon looking to my right, I found Twilight sound asleep in a chair.

I guess she’s been worried sick about me..

As if she could hear my thoughts, or feel my gaze, Twilight slowly opened her eyes.

“Cross!” She exclaimed and sat up with a bright smile. “I’m so glad you’re okay, you’ve been out for a few days!”

“Days? What the hell happened?”

“You.. You had hypothermia, and those griffon talons went deep enough to expose muscle. You were lucky you didn’t suffer any nerve damage–”

She shook her head and leaned forward, interrupting herself. “How are you feeling?”

I gave her a gentle smile. “I’ll be okay, that’s all that matters.”

Twilight gets up and gives me a gentle hug, which I kindly return.

I asked about my cave-friend, with a hint of concern in my voice. “Hey, um.. Where’s that colt? Is he okay?”

Twilight released me from her embrace and looked at me. “He’s... stable. At least, he is now. He had severe hypothermia, and his parents are gone." She frowned sadly. "As it turns out, his parents were identified as the two bodies that those guards had found to the East.”

I looked back at her with an upset expression. “Is there anypony who can take him in? Any other family, family-friends?”

Twilight shook her head slightly, “No, but I.. I was considering adopting him.”

“Really now? Twilight that’d be amazing. Are you sure you’re ready for that sort of thing, though?”

She giggled. “I’ve raised Spike, I think I can do it. Until I find myself a nice stallion, probably one who has a heart like yours, he won’t really have much of a father figure; but with friends like you, I think he’ll be alright.”

I chuckled and immediately winced at the sharp pain in my side.

Twilight notices, and offers to help. “I’ll let a nurse know you need your bandages swapped out, I’ll be right back.”

When she returns, a nurse comes with her. After a painstaking minute of having to sit straight to be wrapped up, the nurse leaves us to it once more.

Twilight picks up a sealed scroll from the bedside table and gives it to me. “A letter came for you this morning.”

I carefully broke the seal and let the scroll fall open in my hoof... I read through the whole thing, stopped with disbelief, and read it again; the second time I dropped it and couldn’t quit smiling. It was like internally I wanted to cry, but externally I wanted to jump up and down in joy.

“I’m going to be a father, Twilight!”

Her jaw dropped and immediately turned into a wide grin. “I don’t know what to say– I.. Congratulations!”

I tried to sit up against the pillow a little further, and reread it one more time.

I smiled, wanting to chuckle badly. “You know what the best part about this letter is?”

“What?” She asked with a giggle.

“It has a written excerpt from Applejack, threatening me in the event that I would leave Rose.”

I laughed, and in between laughing held my aching side.

Twilight laughed with me, and insisted on reading it.

Cross ah’ knew it’d happen eventually, but if y’all leave Rose ahm gonna come find ya, and they’ll have ta be putting more than just one Cross in the ground! -AJ

“Oh that’s rich!” She giggled some more.

The realization slowly hit me, as my memory started to come back.

Next time, I’ll kill you too!

“Twilight, where’s Dwight? Tell me, please tell me that Celestia or somepony found him on the way to the cave.”

Her expression made my stomach sink.

“Fuck.” I slumped in the bed and stared at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry, Cross.. We tried. We followed his tracks but they disappeared as the blizzard got worse.”

“Twi, this isn’t going to get any better. Not now, that was my chance to get him because now— he knows that I betrayed him.”

She frowns at me. “Cross, you’ll get another chance at this. I’ll stand by you, I told you this when we first really started talking. We’ll catch that bastard, I swear on it.”

I turned my head towards her, a little shocked.

“Don’t give me that,” She sighed, “I saw what he and that griffon did.. We recovered the bodies and the bones. We had came with half of the guards in the Empire, expecting the worst...”

“No,” I interrupted her, “You shouldn’t have had to see all of that. Nopony should have, and nobody should have to see it again.. But we both know that it will, it will happen again. We have no idea where he’s gone to now.”

I put a hoof over my face.
“This can’t be happening.. I’ve got to go. I have to find him.”

I looked down at the cords hooked up to my left arm, and carefully took them out myself.

“Cross, you can’t! You’re still too weak–”

She could have said a million different things to me just then, and it still wouldn’t have mattered, because I was already pushing myself out of the bed.

“Cross, you’re gonna get yourself hurt.” Twilight said, as she made her way around the hospital bed.

“I don’t really care, I have to–” My legs felt as though they couldn’t support me, and I slipped. Luckily Twilight was there in time to catch me.

I yelped, and for a moment was panting.

“T- Twilight, I’m begging you.. Please, get me out of here.”

“Cross, I can’t. You need to heal!”

She helped me onto my hooves, and forced me back into the hospital bed.

“I can’t let you go out there and kill yourself, Cross. Rose needs you.”

I clutched my side and looked up at her weakly. “And what about all those ponies out there, who Dwight could just massacre like he did here– we were lucky to get to that colt when we did, Twilight.”

She sighs and holds one of my hooves in her own. “One thing at a time. Nopony could save anypony in the condition that you’re in. There’s being a hero, and there’s being a fool.”

I smiled a little at her.

“Haven’t you learned yet, Twi? I’m foolish, foolish for being a hero. But I’ll take it over being a murderer any day of the year.”

It was the middle of the night, Twilight had me convinced about not being an idiot, and we were both asleep in my hospital room.

That is, until a loud ruckus came from down the hall. Quite a few sets of hooves were resonating down the otherwise silent hallway.

“What is–”

Twilight, wide-eyed and pale, jolts up to her hooves “It’s coming from the colt’s end of the hallway!”

Before I could stop her, she was gone.

I was left there alone for about six hours, and it seemed like almost all of the staff was busy with other patients.

When Twilight came back into the room, she was exhausted and sat down with a slump.

“The colt had a slow bleed internally, they were lucky to have caught it when they did. He just got out of surgery.. I refused to leave his side.”

“My god, Twilight, are you alright? I know that wasn’t easy...”

She nodded tiredly, with her eyes already closed. “It wasn’t, but he’s okay..”

“I’m glad.. For the sake of both of you. I think you both need each other now, fate has put him in your hooves and you’ve taken him in with a warm embrace. If you want to go spend the night with him, don’t let me keep you. Just go ahead, you don’t need to say another word.”

She sat up again slowly and gave me a long, gentle hug. “Thank you, Cross. I’ll come back to see you in the morning.”

“Yeah, sure thing princess. Take your time, and get some sleep.”

Twilight woke me up the next morning so that I could eat breakfast.

I hadn’t had anything to eat but typical hospital food up until now, and believe me when I say that I was thankful for her kind gesture. Eggs, toast, juice (I could have used a shot of alcohol but I didn’t complain), and a biscuit. It doesn’t sound like anything special, but it was the best damned breakfast I’d eaten in quite a long time.

“Yeah, I figured you’d appreciate that,” Twilight remarked with a laugh.

“Appreciate it?” I wiped my mouth, “Twilight, I was dying from all of that horrid oatmeal. You’ve practically saved my life twice now!”

She rolled her eyes, and followed my gaze that had wandered to the doorway.

Celestia let out a sigh at the sight of me wounded and hooked up with wires. “I’m still sorry about the accident, hunter.”

I shrugged slightly, “I’ll be alright, Princess. I’m just grateful you came to my aid.”

“You kept Twilight safe, it is I who should be grateful for you. Even if we have temporarily lost our lead.” She offered a small smile to me, and handed a stack of papers over to Twilight.

“Is this-” Twilight paused and skimmed over the first page.

“Indeed, I went ahead and got all of it together for you.” Celestia tried not to let any tears of happiness well up, but despite her efforts, one little tear streaked down her cheek.

Twilight set the papers aside for a moment to hug her mentor. It was one of those heart felt, one-on-one moments that didn’t require any further discussion.

After the long hug was broken, Twilight sat down and retrieved a quill from her saddlebag to fill out adoption paperwork.

“How are you healing up?” Celestia asked, wiping her eyes of tears with a hoof.

“Far slower than I wanted, but according to the nurse I should be good to leave within a day or two. I just have to get my strength back and prove that I can get around.”

Celestia nods, “I’m glad to know that you are doing better now. We were all pretty worried about the depth of that wound.”

“Yeah, I was too. I’ve never come face-to-face with a griffin before, and after that, I don’t think I ever want to again.”

The princess sighed. “You just happened to meet the wrong one, it seems. I assure you that you’ll meet another one day, who will change your mind.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you again for coming to save me, princess.”

“You’d do the same for me.” She winked, and trotted over to give Twilight one more hug.

“I’ve never been more proud of you, than I am today. I’ll write you in a week, to make sure Spike doesn’t get to read my letter before you do.”

Twilight giggled and agreed that that would probably best.

The next few days after that were annoying. I had to stay two days longer than expected because I pulled my stitches in my sleep, and it had hurt like a bitch. But we were finally on the train, and I had nothing to worry about other than my injured side.

Twilight sat across from me with the colt at her side, letting him have the window view. He was pretty smart for his age, considering he wasn't old enough to attend school, but was already learning to write; though according to Twilight he can't read, and although he can speak, he chooses not to. The train ride felt like it went by faster leaving the empire than it did coming to it.. Probably because things weren't awkward with Twilight anymore. Actually, we were practically family now.

The colt didn't give us any trouble. Throughout the train ride he kept to himself, watching the scenery with wonder, taking naps against Twilight, and snacking on train cart food.

By the time we had arrived at Ponyville, the spell had worn off and my eyes were back their natural teal color. Twilight helped me off the train so that I didn't fall off the steps, and then we went our separate ways.

With a slow and easy trot, I made my way all the way to my house without going through the orchard– since the orchard was uphill to the house, I was making it easier on my side to go around.

A pile of mail was left on the porch, but I barely paid it any attention. My focus was solely on the front door of the house, standing wide open.

"Rose..? Rose, are you here?" I called out upon entering the house, and was initially about to go upstairs to see if she was sleeping– until something caught my attention. Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw something on the dining room table.

It looked like a piece of paper with a feather laid across it, so I went over to investigate. As I grew closer though, I realized that the damned thing was massive! I determined that if it had come from a pegasus, the pony would have had to have been almost twice as large as Rose's brother.

Not expecting to get much else out of the feather, other than guesses, I moved it aside.

Written in large and bold calligraphy were two words that sent chills down my spine.

Find me.

Author's Note

Not the final chapter, just the last in the Empire. Life has me a little busy at the moment so the next chapter could possibly be a little delayed. If you're reading this from the future though, you don't have to worry about that. Carry on over to the next chapter, if you wish! :ajsmug:

11 - Welcome to The Family

I went through every last room in the house searching for Rose, and I came back with nothing to show for it.

In a blind rage, I made my way right out of the front door towards Sweet Apple Acres, trotting through the orchard. I was looking for Applejack, and when I found her, I stopped right in my tracks. “Applejack, when was the last time you talked to Rose?”

“Ah, fuck!” She yelped and turned around to face me. “Cross! You’re back– what tha' hay is the matter with y’all?! Ah just saw her yesterday, what’s wrong?”

I growled and stamped a hoof into the earth with all of my force, ruining the grass, knocking dirt a few centimeters, and feeling a jolt straight up my foreleg and into my side. I closed my eyes for a second, and waited until I was breathing calmly. Needless to say, I was still an idiot, and that still seriously hurt. “She’s gone. She’s not at the house, I checked every room. All I could find was a scroll that said ‘find me’, and it definitely wasn’t in her hoofwriting...”

Concerned, really concerned, Applejack stared at me in disbelief. “That can’t be.. Are y’all tellin' me you think somepony might’ve foalnapped her!” She was starting to get angry, too.

“Look, I’m trying to hope that’s not the case, but... I don’t know, I just don’t. There was a feather left, too, but it’s huge.”

Applejack took a breath while I had been speaking, and calmed herself down to a collective state of mind. “Alright, what color is it?”

I lowered my head. “It’s midnight blue.. Do me a favor? Go get it for me, and bring it to the library. I’ll meet you there.”

Applejack, without having to hear another word out of Cross’s muzzle, nodded and took off.

My blood was still boiling, but my head felt light and my chest was heavy. Despite this, I galloped at a steady pace to the Library.

A few ponies watched me with concern as I moved past them, but I didn’t even give them so much as a glance. Spike was sitting on the edge of the tree’s porch, looking annoyed. As I grew closer to him in my approach, I slowed down. The young drake batted an eye at me, and I returned the gaze, followed by a nod, before making my way into the library.

“Twilight!” I called out, and she appeared at the top of the staircase.

“Cross, what’s wrong?” She focused on my face, finding the look that shone in my eyes to be rather pained and dreadful.

I took one glance up at her, and looked away. There had been so many problems back to back that I was starting to regret coming and adding one more to her list. “Twilight, Rose is gone. Applejack is on her way, we need to talk.”

Twilight came down the staircase and stopped at the bottom of it. When I looked up to meet her gaze, she was just staring with a frown, clearly running thoughts through her mind. I assumed she didn’t have anything to say. Probably that was wrong, and the real problem was that she just couldn’t find the right words to express what she was thinking- until her focus shifted to my flank, and she approached me. “Cross, since when did the color change on your cutiemark?”

“It what?!” I swiveled to try and look at my flank, that normally would have been a black and white rose, laid over a black and white feather.

She sighed and lead me over to a mirror. “There, see?”

My eyes widened and I began to shake my head slowly. “No, no, no... Why? Is, is Rose already gone?”

Twilight turned to me, concerned. “Cross, why would the feather have changed, and not the rose? Surely there’s a reason the rose is still so bland. What I’m more interested in, is the fact that you have a color-changing cutiemark.”

“You think I’m not?” I stared at her with emotions beginning to rise. “Why is it changing with events? Aren’t I supposed to have a cutiemark based on my purpose? I thought it represented Rose’s brother, not.. not that wretched feather!” At this remark, Twilight took a step back.

“Wretched? Cross, is there something you’re not telling me?” She asked, and as if the goddesses heard her question, Applejack burst into the room.

She trotted over to Twilight, and didn’t even look at me. “Twilight, who do you think this belongs ta'?”

Twilight had to do a double take. “My guess would be Luna, but.. There’s no way, she had to be in Canterlot while we were gone!”

“Are you saying that Luna might be responsible? Excuse me?!” I looked between the two mares, dumbfounded. “Why would she want Rose?”

Applejack adjusted her stetson and let out a sigh. “Do ya' think I should round up the girls?”

Twilight shook her head in response. “I don’t see what the elements of harmony would have anything to do with this, it’s a whole different kind of problem, Applejack.”

The orange mare rolled her eyes. “No, Twilight! I meant ta' go after this Princess and settle this like adults! She took a pregnant mare!”

I shook my head and stepped back. “That still doesn’t explain why she would want Rose-”

Twilight started pacing back and forth.

“Welp, here she goes...” Applejack muttered.

“Do you think she found out?” Twilight asked after stopping and pointing a hoof to me, rather than accusingly it was more as a way of saying ‘give me your input’.

My head turned to the side for a second in thought, and Aj looked at Twilight. “What would Rose bein' preggers have anything to do with-”

I stepped forward towards Twilight. “How could she have? Do you think I had a nightmare about it, or maybe Rose?”

Twilight shrugged, “Anything is possible...”

A few flashes of memory hit me like a brick, one after the other. A bright moon shined over two ponies talking at Ponyville’s town square, and one of the silhouettes started talking about what a bad life he had left behind.

“Twilight.. She’s known since we met. That full moon, at Town Hall!”

Twilight looked betrayed, and suddenly upset. “Why would she do that? To get back at you? After all you did for the search in the Crystal Empire.. Why would she even go after your family instead of you? Better yet, why didn’t she contact me!”

Applejack stood between us, and looked from one of us to the other while we racked our brains.

“Maybe she thought you would just rat her out to Celestia? Fuck, I don’t know Twilight..” I scratched my head in thought.

“Do y’all think the mail on Cross’s porch might have a clue?” Applejack guessed, trying to be helpful.

Twilight and I looked at each other, then to Applejack. A consensus was made upon eye contact, and we left the library.

Rose,

I’ve been in a hard spot as of late. I’m in jail,
arrested for running a business without any
permit, certification, license or degree.
Obviously I’m in Baltimare, where I said I was
going to be, if you don’t remember. I hate to
ask, but I need you to tell Cross not to come
and bail me out. Just tell him to go back to
where the fire burned bright and the alcohol
was plenty. He’ll know what that means.

I promise you that I will be alright.
Your loving brother, Shadow Steel

“Shadow? His name is Shadow?”
I paced back and forth at the end of my dining room table, leaving a light tap against the wooden floor with each hoof-step.

Applejack stared at me blankly from the other side of the table, and Twilight, standing at her side, seemed to be at a loss.

“Cross?” Applejack waited for a look to be returned to her, before she continued: “Tell me why I ain’t surprised?”

The tapping of my hooves seized as I came to a halt and for a moment everything fell silent. Without looking at either of the two mares across from me, I took a seat and rested my cannons over my muzzle, successfully blocking my eyes.

I thought that I could feel their eyes on me. Twilight’s pretty dark-purple gaze, and the sympathetic, yet hard stare of AJ’s emerald green glance.
However, my senses were wrong, and they had deceived my thoughts; for when I felt a hoof land around my haunches, my whole body shivered.

“Rose’ll be comin' home, Cross.” Applejack sounded a little upset, but she was doing her best to try and comfort me.

I could hear Twilight’s hooves just barely resonate on the wood as she went around the table. Her wing brushed my side as she leaned over to hug me with a forearm. “I’ll help you through this, Cross... I promised that I would stand by you.”

My chest felt heavy. “I can’t ask you to do that, Twi.. You have responsibilities of your own, and there are other ponies who need you right now more than I do.”

“Then buck it, ah’ll do it!” Applejack said confidently, and patted my back.

“If that’s what you really want, I’d love to have you at my side. Just.. Not until after I get Steel. I’ll need somepony I can trust, for sure, but it’s too risky to let you come with me to get that lunkhead out of jail.”

The realization that Applejack was still unaware of the bank job in Manehattan made me immediately question my decision. I lifted my head and looked to my left at Twilight with pleading eyes. “I think that we need to talk.. Applejack still doesn’t know, and I’m blaming myself enough as is.”

The orange mare’s hoof slipped off my back and she stepped away from me. “Ah don’t know what, exactly?”

Twilight looked up from my eyes and to her friend. “You might want to sit down, Applejack...”

For a few minutes, Aj sat and listened to me talk. On multiple occasions, she was visibly annoyed and angry. She didn’t agree on anything I had done in the past, up until I explained that the bank heist was, in a way, my only escape. It was then, that Applejack seemed to understand a bit better. I didn’t get into talking about what recently happened with the Crystal Empire at first, but Twilight had insisted upon it. “If Applejack is going to consider helping, you should let her know about it. We don’t know where he (Dwight) went, and if you happen to stumble into him?”

I looked up at Twilight with an unsure expression. “In detail, Twilight are you sure?”

The eyes that stared back down at me were bold, and filled with an utmost certainty that left no room for debate.
“The couple from the west– think about their son, and tell me it’s not worth going over.”

For a moment, I felt as though I shouldn’t have needed to ask. It was obvious that this was important, but I suppose it was just too much for me to think about laying on yet another innocent mare. All of that death, and for what? Money? That sick fuck, Dwight, probably wasn’t doing it for anything but satisfaction.

“His bloodlust is unquenchable...” I said, directing my attention to Applejack.

After a long discussion between the three of us about the events that befell Twilight and I these past two weeks, Applejack was finally convinced. She agreed to help me, despite the fact that running into Dwight was a very real possibility.

“Now I have one more problem to tackle. I just need to get all the way to the outskirts of Manehattan, and then I have to go see Steel in Baltimare.”

“An' afterwards y’all come back here to get me, then we leave ta' get Rose back?” Applejack added.

“Precisely.” I gave a firm nod, and stood up from the table with a stretch.

Twilight yawned, and Applejack glanced out of a window. “It’s pretty late, ah reckon tomorrow you’ll be on yer' way to Manehattan?”

A yawn made its way out of my muzzle instead of a legitimate response, causing Twilight to giggle before she gave me a tight hug and left. It was clear that she wished she could help out more, but we knew that there were other things Twilight needed to tend to.

“Ah won’t mind stayin' with ya' tonight, if it’d help make y’all feel safer than being alone.” Applejack made the kind offer to stay, but I politely declined, and went up to bed. Without Rose sharing it with me, the room just felt empty. So to make myself feel better, I added an entry into my journal.

I’m finally home and my side still hurts a bit, but I miss you Rose. We’ll see each other soon and I won’t settle for anything other than your safe return, this much I can promise.

I went to sleep after returning everything to the bedside table, passing out the second my head had touched the pillow.

Little wails filled the room and I stirred in the bed.

“Cross, it’s your turn..” Rose said groggily, laying across from him.

I groaned and slid out of the bedsheet covers, trotting over to a crib at the side of the room. “Shh, shh, daddy’s here.” I cooed, picking up a small foal, completely silhouetted in the darkness of the room.

Once the little figure calmed in the crook of my forearm, I made my way back into the bed, still clutching my foal. “See, I’m not so bad at this, Rose.”

Her body shifted, as if rolling over to face my direction. “Not like it matters..”

“What?”

“You left me alone.”

Upset, I turned to look at Rose, and she was gone... And when I looked down, in my arms was an empty swaddled blanket.

“Hmm..” A voice sounded from the foot of the bed, “It seems as though you aren’t heartless.”

My eyes, upon looking up, were met with Luna’s mocking smile... Though the emotion conveyed in her own eyes, was pitiful, like sadness.

“Cross, get up. Y’all are having a nightmare, sugarcube, get up!”

Upon immediately waking from Applejack shaking me, I stared at her for a second, laying in a puddle of sweat that left my mane drenched.

“Y’all alright, sugarcube?”

She looked at me with a deeply concerned face and I lunged forward, embracing her tightly while sobbing into her blonde mane.

Neither of us said anything for a good five minutes. Something about her embrace was soothing. I didn’t want to accept what I had seen in my head moments before, and Applejack’s whispers of reassurance helped me to slowly pull away.

“Would ya' like to talk about it?” She whispered, her green eyes reflecting from the moonlight that seeped in through the window.

With a sniffle, I wiped my eyes and brushed my mane back– slicking it down with my own sweat in one swipe of my hoof. “Luna.. She’s playing mind games with me.”

The immediate feeling of what it was like to be holding my own foal broke me once more, making me close my eyes tightly in anger to avoid the welling up of more tears. “I had a moment– she let me feel like a father, only to yank it all away from me..!”

Applejack had already embraced me, and was letting me cry into her chest.

“There, there, sugarcube.. Everything’s gonna be alright.”

It took a few minutes, but once I finally got it out of my system, I asked Applejack what she was still doing here.

“I know ya' didn’t want me here, but..” She blushed, a light flush spreading across her cheeks. “Ah guess I was just worried for y’all, an' didn’t want to admit it. Y’all are family, and we need to stick together, Cross.”

With a small smile I nodded and hugged her once more, but quickly pulled away and apologized. “I should probably get a shower, huh?”

Applejack shrugged and chuckled. “Yer' just a sweaty stallion.. between us, most mares don’t mind. We just like to make y’all think we do— now go get a shower, so you can get back to sleep.”

Embarrassed, I got out of the bed and ignored her as I made my way towards the bathroom door. “There’s a uh, guest room down the hall that you can bunk in.”

“If ya' need to talk,” She paused and spoke over her shoulder, “I wouldn’t mind being woke up.”

I smiled a little bit, and wiped my still damp cheeks with a hoof. “I’ll keep that in mind.. Thank you, cousin-in-law.”

Applejack laughed from the doorway as she let her mane down, and closed the door. “Yep! Welcome to the family, Outlaw.”

Author's Note

"The only advice anybody can give is, if you wanna be a writer, keep writing. And read all you can, read everything."

– Stan "The Man" Lee

Updated cutiemark:

12 - Pain In The Side

Morning sunlight flared into my bedroom, aggravating me into waking up. When my hooves touched the floor, I stretched and got my things together.

Apparently hearing me move stuff around, Applejack appeared in my doorway, lightly pushing it open.

“Ah'm guessing ya' slept better, once ya' passed out?” She asked in a protective tone.

I sighed as I looked at the duffle bag on my bed, now filled back up again.

“Yeah, thankfully I did..”

Applejack trotted over and looked at the bag, initially having thought something was wrong with it, only to find out that it was perfectly fine.

“Lemme guess, ya' can't carry it over yer' side, because of.. well, yer' side.”

A chuckle escaped my muzzle and I shrugged in response. “Yeah, I'd say that's definitely the problem.”

She nodded and looked at the bag, thinking of alternatives for a few minutes. “Is it heavy 'cause of the load, or the bag itself?”

I scanned over the bag at least twice before responding to her question. “I mean, it's pretty damn thick, but there are a lot of extra pockets that I'd never need... Why?”

My head looked back to Aj, who in return smiled. “Well.. Ah have a friend who could possibly lighten up the bag a lil' for ya. That is, of course, if y'all would like that.”

The offer was hard to refuse, considering I knew that attempting to carry it in my current state as is, would probably tear the wound open again.

“That'd be great. Just do me a favor, and make sure that nothing is changed too drastically. I still need it to be able to carry a heavy load, if it has to.”

We made a deal, so I removed everything from the duffel bag and gave it over to her. Luckily I hadn't put Dwight's revolver in it yet, since I had planned on packing it last anyways; but something told me that if she knew I was going to bring it with me, then she would worry about me getting caught with it, once I met up with Steel at the jail...

It's a good thing I didn't plan on waltzing into jail with a weapon, anyways.

Applejack returned the bag to me a few hours later, having had her friend 'Rarity' do the work for me. The finished product was so neatly done that it was evident this 'Rarity' knew what she was doing.

The useless extra pockets had been removed, the mouth-pulled metal zippers were swapped out for a much lighter yet still strong material, and the actual strap of the duffle bag was thinned out from pure bark leather, to a lighter, more compact natural leather, using what I assume was just the bark of a more flexible wood that had been reduced to be half as thin as before. Needless to say, once everything was put into the bag (including the revolver that I slipped out from under the bed-side and snuck in secretly while packing), I had it fitted onto my back, and what do you know- a perfect fit.

“That strap is perfectly replaced, if I couldn't feel the difference in comfort, I'd have assumed it wasn't changed at all, and the bag; it's perfect, like it dropped six pounds!“

“Five point seven, ta' be exact.” She wanted to mimic Rarity, but refrained from doing so with the mental reminder that Cross still hadn't met the fashionista, and that it might make her sound insane to do so.

“It took a bit of convincing ta' keep it from lookin' girly, or standin out too much.”

I trotted over to Applejack to thank her again, and had to look down slightly just to make eye contact.

“Thanks, again,” I said with a warm smile, “It means a lot to me.. that you care so much.”

The orange mare flustered and looked down slightly in a failed effort to hide her abashed expression from me, seemingly feeling guilty with herself for even blushing to begin with.

“Yer' welcome, Cross.” Her tone held a clear hint of frustration.

I was going to initially wait a moment for her to say something, but after a few seconds I realized that she seemed rather perturbed

“Alright, what's going on?”

She scowled for a second before faintly and barely looking back to me. “Ah.. Think ah'm just pissed off.”

The look I gave her was puzzled, and queer.

With an impatient sigh she looked up at me fully. “Ah mean, that's tha first time I've ever been intimidated by a stallion.”

My eyes shot open and I had to physically cover my muzzle to avoid snickering.

“Cross...” Aj growled, “Ah swear ah'll beat y'all ta' Tartarus if y'all laugh!”

It took everything in me not to die right then and there, even though I knew it was wrong to laugh at a mare for being so open about something like that– I just couldn't help it. Not under these circumstances... However, that didn't mean I wasn't able to regain my composure.

My hoof lowered from my muzzle and rested back on the floor. “I'm sorry– it's just that, well.. You, intimidated? By a pony who's been such an emotional train wreck recently?”

Applejack rolled her eyes and gave me an unamused stare. “Y'all just ain't gettin' it, are ya?”

I thought for a second, and slowly shook my head no.

“It ain't jus' about being hard, or tough. Y'all are assertive, an' that look in yer' eye a lot of the time'll make any mare forget whatever 'as on her mind. I suppose intimidatin' ain't really the right word, then.. It's passion, Cross.”

The harshest glare can come from the softest eyes, but she already knew that. It was just a wonder to me, if she really understood it.

“Fer' a moment, ah could feel that determination. Ya ain't gonna let anything get in the way now, an' ah respect that.”

“She's my family, and as much as I hate to admit it, so is Steel. So of course I'm not going to let anything stop me now. Just like you said, right? Anything for family. The last thing Rose told me face to face, though, was to not get myself killed.” A smile graced my muzzle again as the memory came back. “Nearly becoming griffin chow just about broke that promise.”

She laughed and returned the smile, then stepped aside. “It's nearly mid-afternoon, ah'd reckon. Y'all should probably be gettin' on.”

Agreeing, I moved past her and left the house with her trailing behind me.

Before leaving Ponyville, I wanted to visit Twilight to retrieve the blue feather, as she'd been studying it for whatever reason since the night before. Once Applejack and I realized we were both heading to the same destination, we looked at each other.

“Sayin' farewells?” She questioned.

I shrugged slightly. “Yeah, that too. I'm also just retrieving the feather, if Twilight doesn't mind... What about you?”

“Jus' personally, ah want ta' talk about the whole 'colt adoption' situation.”

She looked forward, and I nodded.

Twilight was flipping through a book with pictures in it, sitting with the colt and reading aloud, when we trotted into the room. I felt kind of bad about interrupting.

“Hey, why don't you go up and see if Spike will read to you for a few minutes, huh?” Twilight smiled warmly at him and gave him the book.

The young colt struggled a little to get up the staircase with it, slightly leaning as he went, but ultimately still reached the top.

“So, what's going on?” Twilight looked at us, “No new problems, I hope?”

Aj shook her head no, and I spoke up.

“I just wanted to stop by to say farewell for now, and to see if you had gotten what you needed from that feather.”

Twilight retrieved a thin, clear, plastic folder that was serving as a protectant for the feather, and gave it to me. “I was hoping to learn something from it– but nothing that I found, I didn't already know..” She frowned slightly, “There's no doubt about it, though. It's an alicorn feather.”

“At least it wasn't just a random feather,” I said optimistically. “We know exactly where Luna is probably at, it's not like she can go far without anypony noticing.”

Twilight smiled and extended a hoof, which I took up in my own and shook with yet another thanks.

“Thank you, again. Currently I don't know where I'd be without the support of you and Aj.”

She shook her head slightly. “I think I owe you a bigger thanks. If you hadn't come to the Crystal Empire with me, we might not have gotten to the colt in time, and there could have been even more murders...”

There wasn't any reason to remind her that Dwight was actually still out there. She knew it, and at the moment it seemed wrong of me to ruin a good mood by bringing it up.

“Random question,” Twilight said kind of sheepishly, “I was thinking recently and was wondering if you were going to try and get a motel for the night while you're in Baltimare or Manehattan, considering you're still at large around the area of not just those cities, but Fillydelphia between them. It was a large scale bank heist, after all!”

My mind replayed the statement Twilight had just made about how 'it was a large scale bank heist', and I chuckled. “It was pretty magnificent, considering how we're still only known by witness descriptions, despite making it into the headlines of news spanning across half of Equestria.. But no, now that you mention it, I think that when I leave the outskirts of Manehattan and head to Baltimare, I'll be sure to go around Fillydelphia.. I don't want to get recognized and be thought of as trying to nonchalantly flee after months of hiding out. Besides, it probably won't be hard to find areas to rest, when I have to.”

Twilight offered a tent instead, insisting that it'd be a safer option.

I expected it to be a hassle to set up and take down, but that thought was quickly shut down once Twilight explained the simplicity of it.

“My brother gave me an old hoof-me-down guard tent, and with your side like it is, it's a good thing it can be put up with almost no effort.” She waved a hoof over the rolled up tent for emphasis, “The center has a thin line of spring-steel in it, so that the tent has a sturdy top. There's four wooden stakes, an extendable metal rod, and the tent itself. You just take out the metal rod and put it in the ground where the tent's center would be. Then you take two of the wooden stakes and ground one side of the tent, align it so that the center of the tent is over the rod before you extend it, and then you ground the last two stakes.”

To make sure I remembered it right, I repeated it back to her until I had it memorized. Two times was all it took, and I had the rolled up tent resting on top of the duffle bag at my side; the flap of the bag buttoned over the canvas, so that the rolled up mess was secured along with the bag.

“How is the colt doing, with uh.. adjusting.” I said to Twilight, and turned to face her again.

“He's been alright, believe it or not. I've learned something new about him, too.” She smiled a little and glanced up towards the balcony of the staircase. “He's been hiding a horn under that tuft of mane, it's a peculiar shape and I imagine his magic might be a little different from others, but.. I haven't seen him use it yet, and it bothers me a little.”

“What about it is bothering you, specifically,” I asked, “Curiosity?”

Twilight removed her gaze from the balcony. “No, well– yeah that's part of it. The nature of it is what bothers me. Each unicorn is different with how they get to using their magic openly; for some it comes naturally, and they start using it at a young age; but it's not the same for everypony, and that's what bothers me. I can't figure out if he's insecure, not ready, worried, or– goddess forbid.. can't.”

“Ya said it yer'self, Twi. It ain't the same fer' everypony, and ah'm sure that he'll open up eventually.” Applejack reassured her friend with a determined smile.

Somehow none of us neither heard nor saw the colt make his way down the staircase and over to us, up until he said something from right behind me.

“When can I go home?”

Twilight looked at me pleadingly, hoping, praying, that I could some up the words to say something better than she could in this situation.

With a sigh I glanced at Applejack while turning around to face the confused colt.

“How about you and me go for a little walk?” I asked him in a calm, gentle tone.

After a little convincing, the colt and I left the library– in turn leaving Twilight and Applejack to talk.

The second the door closed, Twilight took a deep, almost quivering sigh.

“Aw please tell me ya' ain't gonna cry, sugarcube.” Aj frowned and studied her friend.

Twilight was silent for a moment, before she sniffled and spoke, never looking up from the floor. “This is going to be harder than I thought..”

Applejack went over to Twilight, and wrapped her forelegs around her friend's neck.

“But it's worth it, Twi.. Ah've been watchin' Apple Bloom grow up. She's a real pain in my flank sometimes, but she's gettin' older an' older. Soon she'll be gettin' inta' colts— er.. Maybe even fillies. But all them hard times, they add up ta' somethin..”

I came back into the building about twenty minutes later, after having explained to the young unicorn that this was his new home, the best I could. There would be time for when he was older to explain why his parents aren't around, and I figured that Applejack would help with that better than anypony.

There wasn't really much left that needed to be said between any of us though, so I went on to catch the next train.

I took the train to Manehattan, and paid for a boat ride off the island to the shore. It was pretty late and by the time I reached the sight that we had all drank and reminisced at after the heist, it was two or three in the morning. The plot of dead grass where we had lit a fire was still ashen, and the logs hadn't been moved.

Luna was watching my every movement. I could feel it.. and I didn't care.

For three minutes I shuffled in the dark, for three minutes longer I struggled to reach a hole in a tree. It was just out of my reach and I kept straining my side each time I tried again. My hoof caught the edge of the burrowing hole and with my other hoof I reached inside.

“Come on, God damn it..”

My hoof slid against what felt like knotted fabric and I quickly grabbed hold of it.. Just as I lost my grip on the tree. Whatever I was holding inside that tree was at least half my weight and before I knew it, I was on the ground with gold bits and nuggets falling onto me. They weren't just any gold bits either, they hadn't been engraved and were unpolished. Pure, solid gold.

I took as much as I could carry in the duffle bag without putting myself at risk of injury. Sadly, this meant that I had to leave the gold hanging out of the tree. However, what was on the ground, I buried about twenty yards from the camp for safe keepings.

“Cheers to the lucky bastard who finds this lot..” Before walking away, I took one good look back at the scene. It made me nauseous, remembering that night. It just wasn't necessary, I shouldn't have had to go to such extreme lengths to buy my freedom...

After about an hour of trotting South, I set up a camp and passed out the moment I had stepped hoof inside of it. Upon waking up, I realized that I had pounded two of the corners into the ground sideways.. had a good chuckle about that.

When the tent was packed up again, I continued my journey towards Baltimare. It took two weeks to work my way South, around Fillydelphia, and into the city. To look far less inconspicuous, I had to leave behind the tent set, every gold nugget, my bandana, and the revolver. But one thing was missing, and I realized my problem a little too late. My eyes weren't transformed again before I left Ponyville, so when I saw my reflection in a pond it was an immediate reminder of my infamous status. It would have been a good idea to find something to cut my mane with if I could just get a sharp enough object– hell, I could even make do with something dull if I had too, but if I was still closer to Fillydelphia, it wouldn't be such a problem.

That's when it hit me, and I retrieved my bandana from it's nearby hiding place; in the undergrowth of the ground at a few close trees, where I had the bag's contents wrapped within the tent itself along with the tent's parts.

The bandana I had been using was turned into a makeshift eyepatch. I tore the two corners opposite of each other just slightly, so I could tie them, and folded the other two inwards. From there I managed to unwrap the bandaging on my side, and tear it just enough to wrap it on one side of my head. The torn end at my side was tucked in the wrap of the bandage, making it look thinner than before, and once I had wrapped the ripped away bandage to cover the upper left side of my face and head, I carefully slid the bandana under it to cover my left eye. The torn corners of the bandage, I slightly tucked under the inner wrappings on my head so that it wasn't clear where the ends of the 'eye patch' were. Finally, using pond water, I slicked my mane in a messy manner to make it seem like I did it myself and was trying to look decent despite having a fucked up face.

With all of that out of the way, I hid the duffle bag and the tent pieces once more. It was time to go bail out my former gang accomplice, and brother-in-law, 'Shadow' Steel.

Author's Note

This took longer than it should have, but I had hit a block a few times while trying to balance other things. To be honest, I wanted to keep adding onto this chapter, but I feel as though my writing will flow out better if I continue on in a fresh chapter. It's less time consuming, and although I prefer longer chapters and the fluidity is just the same, it takes me longer to make gaps fill better in longer chapters. It's just one of those things I'm going to be working on better as I go.

13 - You're Free to Go, Inmate

Stone brick walls on all sides isn't exactly a welcoming sight, come to find out. However, it wasn't me who was being contained here, and for that I was grateful.

"You're free to go, inmate." The officer pony who stood before me stopped and spoke into a jail cell, before fidgeting with a bundle of keys and unlocking the cell door.

"So, are you finally going to tell me who bailed me out?" Shadow scoffed and stepped out of the cell.

Almost immediately, he turned to meet my gaze. The look I received from him was a disappointed one, and was followed by an eye-roll to top it off.

"Says he's a hometown friend of your sister's?" The officer questioned, and Steel responded with a sigh.

"Yeah, yeah he might as well be."

The officer nods forward, back down the way we came. "Alright then, move it. We'll get you out of those rags and you'll be good to go. As for you, sir (referring to Cross now), head back up to the lobby."

With a nod I turned and started trotting. Behind me, as I grew further away, I could hear Shadow complain, "Don't you dare try to assist pulling this off me," in his typical asshole attitude.

Once we were out of range of the city, trotting along dirt trails back to where I had left my stuff, Steel snapped at me. He had looked visually aggravated since we left the station, and I knew that it was coming. His anger was building up, all the way up until nopony else was around but me.

"Care to tell me what that was about!?" Steel turned his body into the shout.

I ignored him and kept trotting, which only pissed him off more.

"I fuckin' told you not to bail me out! Did you even go back to the camp?" He remained where he stood until the realization hit him that I wasn't slowing down.

Steel slowed down from a sprint at my side, and snarled again. "Are you brain dead?"

With a deep sigh, I stopped and looked at him.

"I couldn't get all of it. I took what I could carry, and buried a little bit of it too. I'm not as tall as you are, even though I'm above average height; I think you keep forgetting that you're practically among the tallest stallions in Equestria... At least for a pegasus. I literally couldn't reach inside that tree enough to get the whole bag out, and with my busted up side, it was hard enough to get what I did manage to. Otherwise, I'd have been able to get more than what I did, as well as carry more than I have been."

Steel exhaled deeply and relaxed his eyes. "Why did you bail me out, Cross?"

"Can we just go and get everything first, and I'll explain then?" I grunted and started down the dirt path again, wanting to gather my thoughts calmly before trying to make him understand.

He grumbled, and followed along next to me.

After my things had been moved out of the underbrush, I unwrapped the torn bandage on my head (which I discarded), and untied my eye-patch bandana (which I put back into my duffle bag, rather than the rolled up tent). Steel had taken a good look at my bandana and I wasn't aware of his focus on it, until he had said something after I put on the duffle bag.

"It's not like you to tear a bandana." He pointed out.

"Yeah, well.. You don't know me like you think you do, Steel. I'm not a criminal." My chest lowered as I exhaled, literally having got that off of my chest.

Steel sneers, and takes a step back. "Are you telling me– you're a rat?"

"What I'm telling you, is that I didn't bail you out because you're a former accomplice, and I didn't bail you out because I liked you... I bailed you out because I need your help. I didn't ask to get stuck up in all of this—"

"You didn't ask to get into all of this? You helped Dwight plan this all, if I remember hearing correctly!" Steel planted his hooves firmly into the ground.

"I was a homeless colt picked up by a thieving, murdering, criminal mastermind. I had no choice, Steel!" I retaliated, raising my voice.

He got up into my face, and spoke in a low hiss. "I went into it with the idea of making money for Rose to live a life too. The last thing I expected, was to accidentally find somepony who'd do just that. You want to talk about choices? Why did you wait so long to get out, then."

Steel backed up again, thinking he would let me stop and contemplate it.

"Don't try to guilt trip me," I growled, "Do you know what I had to tell myself everyday? Money is everything. But guess what? It's not!" My voice began to escalate and eventually it got to the point where I was so angry, that tears started welling up.

"It only mattered to you, and to Dwight! I kept telling myself this, because getting you and him money, was the only thing keeping me from living my own fucking life!"

Steel looked at me for a second, almost stunned. "I didn't mean to strike a nerve like that so badly–"

"Strike a nerve? Rose has been foalnapped by Princess Luna, Steel! I got her pregnant, and now she's being used against me. Who's to blame, huh? Who? Me, for wanting to live a life worth living."

We were both silent for a minute, and then Steel let out a long sigh. "I'm sorry. Come on, Cross," He patted my shoulder gently, "You're gonna tell me everything you know about this foalnapping, or I'm going to break your legs... Which, now that I think about it, I should have already done since you knocked up my sister."

I nodded lightly and started trotting with him, but before I got to telling him any details, a thought hit me.

"Wait.. Do you maybe think we should go back and get the rest of that gold, now that you're here to help carry it?"

Steel looked at me and shrugged. "Ehh, why the fuck not. But you're still gonna get your legs broke if you don't start talking."

14 - The Stone-lined Path

The plan was originally to hop on a train and take it back to Ponyville, so we went South-West to the nearest train tracks. Once we were there though, we decided that taking the risk of train-hopping with a metric fuck ton of gold was a bit too extreme; so we voted to take a hike instead.

We each had our own reasons. Steel wanted some fresh air, which was easy to understand since he had been confined in jail for nearly a month; for me, I was just hoping that I might could heal faster if I stayed active.

From the tracks, we came upon a pretty ancient trail on the treeline of a forest.

"Appleloosa," Steel looked at a rotting sign, sticking sideways out of the ground. "The hell? That's not close to Baltimare whatsoever. What do you think, Cross?"

"It's probably just an outdated passage, Steel. The thing looks like it's before our life time." I shrugged and started down the trail.

Steel nodded in agreement and came with me. "Yeah, it's possible. We can hold our own, regardless."

The entire environment was just so wild and overgrown that everything seemed to get dark. Trees were so close together that their branches intertwined, roots were growing in and out of the ground, and the only thing keeping us on the path we were travelling was the difference between sunken soil, and vines and weeds.

We must have been moving faster than either of us were aware of, though, because we traversed the forest in what felt like an hour; the sun was still high in the sky, just slightly away from where it had been before, when we trotted out of the woodlands and into a clearing.

A wide river was what we were immediately greeted with, upon breaching the woodlands. The trail we had been following would have faded entirely in the earth, had somepony not taken the time to line it with stones.

In the distance we could see more trees lining the horizon, indicating yet another forest; our attention was too centered upon the old boat coming at us from across the river for us to even think about whether or not the trail extended across the water.

My eyes narrowed to better focus on it. "I can make out a lone stallion, and.. a bunch of jugs? The hell is he transporting?"

"All we can do is wait and see, he doesn't look like a problem," Steel shrugged kind of carelessly. "Even if it is a problem, it won't be a big one. Just something in our way."

Sometimes the way he speaks, seriously bothers the hell out of me.

"Mhmm, just a minor inconvenience," I agreed and repeated him.

He took a few steps closer to the edge of the river and sighed, mumbling under his breath. "Such a fucking smartass sometimes."

The stallion waved over at us as the boat grew closer. When it finally came to a stop and slapped against the river bank, he enthusiastically quipped, "Can I interest you fellers in somethin' special?"

"Alcohol?" I raised a brow, and the stallion beckoned us over to check out his stuff.

Steel and I looked at each other, shrugged, and boarded the boat.

Upon taking one glance, and one whiff of the liquid inside of a jug, Steel turned and snapped at the stallion. "Are you stupid? The hell are you doing selling this stuff!"

Out of curiosity, I ignored the cowering pony and opened one of the jugs to get a smell of it's contents. It was a strong aroma, sure, but it didn't seem like it was a problem in my opinion.

"Just tryin to keep the family afloat is all.. I know it's illegal, I know, but it's my only option. I've been put outta work!"

Steel looked him up and down.. then shuffled to reach under the rolled tent and into the duffle bag to retrieve a little bit of gold.

"It ain't much, but it should put you in a better position. Seeing as how you're already risking a lot by helping to make an illegal substance available to the public, you should know that this gold is clearly not earned. Now, you won't say one damn word about this, or ever meeting anypony today, right?" Steel spoke as though he was making a deal through threats.

"No–"

Steel interrupted to stop him from saying more than he had asked. "Well good. With that out of the way, can you take us to the other side of the river?"

With a quick nod he informed Steel that he'd have to finish his transport, despite having more than enough money to never come back. He swore that after this final delivery he'd give up the business, though, and that was all Steel wanted to hear.

The pony hastily makes his way over to the captain's quarters of the old and neglected steamboat, and slowly turns it around.

Steel and I stayed at the stern of the ship, and began to talk. His actions had kind of surprised me.

"I've never seen you so generous. What was it that changed?" I asked.

With a sigh he looked forward, avoiding my gaze. "My father used to sell Griffon's Brew. Supposedly it was outlawed fifty years ago, or something like that."

This surprised me even more. I'd never heard much about his pops, at least not anything aside from when I was informed that Steel and Rose came from different stallions.

A part of me wanted to ask more about him, even though I was aware that I'd be pushing it... And might've gone through with it, if it wasn't for the great feeling of solemnity that seemed to be possessed by the atmosphere.

It was a reminder that sometimes, it's best not to press into sensitive subjects.

"What you said earlier about Dwight, after we had gone back for the gold..." Steel began, but trailed off waiting for a response.

"What he said in the Empire, or what I told you about my life?" I spoke blankly, unsure of where the conversation was going, but still not liking it.

"Your life–" He shifted but his gaze remained on the water, "I don't mean to intrude, but.. I think I can understand you a little better. We are nothing alike at all, but we have that family problem to relate to. I just wanted to show you that I'm not simply a hollow shell, made up of aerodynamic metal and hatred."

"Like I said, Dwight kinda raised me. He wasn't my father, hell, my dad's been dead for a long time now. I never knew him, not a name, not even what he looked like. But according to my mother, I looked just like him. But then, she left too — not dead, but hell, she may as well be for all I know."

Steel nodded and raised his head up to glance at the sky. "In a way, I guess it does make me more fortunate. But there is one other thing we have in common.. We were both outcasts."

Somehow he managed to catch my interest with this, so I looked forward and perked an ear up to let him know that I was listening more closely. "How so?"

"Well," He sighed, "When I was a colt, the town was mostly earth ponies. Pegasi weren't really around much, and they definitely weren't residents. Eventually that changed, but my father was the first real full on pegasus resident in Appleloosa... I'm sure you can imagine how that went."

For a minute he was silent and I wasn't sure if he was gathering words or just having a moment, but either way I remained patient until he spoke again. "Pegasi weren't accepted as town residents until after my father died– and even then there was mixed emotions on the subject for a few years."

"Was he—" I had began, but Steel interrupted me.

"I don't want to talk about it." He said, in a very straightforward manner.

I slightly shook my head and gazed down to watch the water. As much as I wanted to express my empathy, I felt like he already knew it.

My mind drew back to the alcohol, probably in an ill effort to change the subject, but still it pestered me. "So, what exactly makes this 'Griffon's Brew' so illegal?"

Steels haunches heaved in a sigh. "For starters, it's highly flammable. Secondly, it's extremely potent for us, but for them? It's like a wine. It takes seven pints to get a griffon drunk, and four pints to get 'em tipsy, but it only takes 1.5 pints to give a standard sized pony a hangover."

"Three cups is all it takes? Hell, I'm tempted to buy a jug off of him just for special occasions."

"Just don't let Rose see it," he warned. "Ironic enough, that's the stuff ol' Bush Briar gets shitfaced off of."

One would have to be a downright idiot not to see the hints being given, suggesting just how badly Steel hated Griffon's Brew.

"In that case, I'll stay away from it. The last thing I'd want to do is hurt Rose like that."

The old, creaky boat slowed as it approached the river bank; all the way up until it once again found its place against land.

"Ya keep following the trail from here," the captain said, approaching us. "It'll take ya straight through the forest, and lead y'all to Dodge Junction."

We thanked him as we made our way off of the boat, and resumed our little hiking trip following the stone-lined path.

Author's Note

(For context on this chapter, Griffon's Brew is my take on moonshine.)

In the process of writing this chapter I kind of sorted together the timeline a little bit for both this story and the sequel to it (that I plan on writing after). I figured I would let you all in on it so that it might make a little more sense if you are trying to compare it to the timeline of the show. Basically this story takes place in the normal universe, but I will be labeling the sequel as Alternate Universe. Try to stay with me here, and follow along:
This story takes place after the coronation of Twilight, and before the Tirek event/Twilight gets her castle.
Shortly after Twilight gets her castle in the show, they meet Starlight Glimmer. This will have still happened in the sequel, just under different circumstances.

However... Due to events that will take place, the Cutie Map will be used for more than just one purpose, unlike in the show. More tasks are given to the Mane 6 through it, and sometimes they will have to be split up to take on two tasks from the map at once.

This way, it allows me to have a time jump between this story and the sequel, for literary and story building purposes. Make sense?

Since it's a change from the show, I will have to place the sequel under the 'Alternate Universe' tag, like I said.

Just thought that I would clear this up, since I (personally) wanted it to make sense to an extent, and because I'm trying to really make my own, first, real story. It's more than fine if you don't get the whole timeline idea, you will still be able to enjoy the story regardless! I won't focus on the aspect of the map too much, but it allows me to still keep some of the mane six involved in the story, while simultaneously attempting to stick true to events that take place in the show, even if said events might not be mentioned or might not have an impact on something in the story.

15 - The Great Moonshine Manor

The drastic change between the desert and the dark forest was immediately felt by both of us. In place of where birds were previously chirping in our ears, was now silence.

"Dodge Junction, huh. Isn't that the cherry place?"

Steel nods, confirming my question. "Yeah, one of the biggest cherry exports in Equestria."

"We hopping on the nearest coach or train, or enjoying the scenery?"

"Ya know, we are in a desert.." Steel, ignoring the question, gave me a look. "You ever had peyote?"

"Peyote? Fuck you, Steel." I laughed, "I'll pass, but you can go right ahead."

He shook his head. "Nah, I was just pulling your leg. We can take the train over to Appleoosa, though; there's something I'd like to take care of while we're out here."

"We're not killing ol' Bush are we?"

Steel chuckled. "I'm thinking about it, but no. It depends on whether or not what I'm looking for is still there, but I'll need your help when we get there."

It took about an hour of trotting before we reached Dodge Junction, and then we were on the train for about an hour and a half longer. Looking up slightly at the brightly colored sky, I could tell it was late afternoon.

"Come on," Steel tapped my shoulder. "If he's not home yet, he will be soon, and we don't want to cross paths."

He left at a steady pace, almost jogging, leaving me no choice but to follow behind him without another word..
Instead of heading straight to his home, Steel went to where the old stallion, whom he used to deliver food to, once lived. There, we left our things with the sons of the old stallion; apparently they were dumb as a bag of rocks because they didn't bat an eye with the gold, but were super excited to be paid off with a coin or two each, before we left.

We went around the side of his old house cautiously, peeking through a few windows to make sure his step-father wasn't home, and snuck in through the backdoor.

Rather than saying anything, Steel nodded me over to follow him and went towards a little side door in the dining room, which lead into a rinky-dink cellar.

"I had no idea that this was even here–"

"Then again," Steel interrupted in a whisper. "You never spent much time in the house. Help me out here, smash these jars against the brick wall in the back."

"Why didn't you just let the authorities take care of it?" I asked him, while picking up a jar from the shelf.

"I want to force him to go sober, not get imprisoned."

I turned with a nod and chucked it against the back wall. "I assume we should make this quick, in case he comes back?"

"That would probably be a good idea, don't you think?" He grabbed a jar and tossed it to the back, letting it shatter with a satisfying sound. Before either of them knew it, they were grabbing jars left and right and were just throwing them; throwing them against this brick wall, with all of their contents sliding or splashing onto the dirt cellar floor.

Soon, there was nothing left on the shelves.

"If this is everything you needed to take care of, how about we go get ourselves a real drink before we leave."

"Sounds good to me." Steel wiped the sweat from his brow and trotted with me up the cellar stairs, out the back door, and over to the town saloon.

It was a busy Saturday and ponies were seated at tables with their friends left and right, barely any space was left at the counter, so Steel and I waited until two seats were available before we ordered a shot each.

Everything was going smoothly, even the drinks, until about three shots in. Ponies had began to get up from their seats and walk out of the saloon; following them with my gaze, I could see they were gathering in the street and looking in the same direction.

Steel and I looked at each other, paid our tab, and followed the other ponies to see what the fuss was all about.

Black smoke was billowing from the direction of Steel's old house, leaving an unsettling dark stain on the fiery colors of the sky.

Nothing went through our minds, just action; ponies casually moved out of the way to let us pass, upon realizing we were trying to get to the scene. There was a big gap where it seemed like nopony was in town, until we got to the building itself and found a small crowd at the front gate.

As we passed by them, we overheard some words being exchanged and called out.

One voice said that, "The deputies are cowards!"

"The Sheriff still hasn't come out yet!" Another pony had exclaimed, clearly worried.

Two deputies were at the gate trying to calm down the few concerned ponies, and Steel casually shouldered past them before galloping into the building.

"You can't go in there!" One of the deputies shouts out, but doesn't move an inch; his legs shook nervously.

"Steel!" I shouted out his name, and looked down at my hooves for a second with grit teeth.

Then, something came over me and I charged after him.

I couldn't see shit inside, and the fumes had me occasionally coughing from inhaling too much. Despite this, I pushed on and began looking with squinted eyes.

"Steel! Sheriff?" I called, and a faint response answered.

"Over here!"

My body acted before my brain could, and I forced my way through the burning corridor toward the dining room.

Steel was struggling to get to the cellar door, as part of the ceiling had collapsed in front of it. He was using the back end of a hammer to hack away parts of the top of the door, holding it in his mouth and standing partially on charcoaled wood.

After an agonizing minute of Steel hacking and me pulling out pieces of the door, he spit out the hammer and began to help me pull apart the door.

On the other side, was the Sheriff and Steel's step-father.

"Quick, he's injured, get him out of here first; please!" The Sheriff helped Bush up, leaving Steel and I to pull him out.

Half of his face was burned, and his mane was painfully singed to the scalp. Knowing that Steel was stronger, and could help the Sheriff out on his own, I lead Bush to the backdoor and shoulder-bashed it down, falling with it.

The middle-aged, injured stallion helped me up off the ground as best he could; when he noticed my bandage was caught on the broken door, he tore it with his teeth.

Just as I was getting up, a loud fit of paired coughing came from behind me. Steel was helping the Sheriff to walk, leading him with a cannon wrapped around his neck, and they both wheezed as we made our way around the house.

Cheers of encouragement and joy hit us full force and a doctor rushed up to us, along with civilians offering water... and camera flashes from a reporter.

16 - Rekindled in The Flames

The camera flashed before I could reject, and I ignored the reporter to thank the ponies offering water — if my face isn't covered in dark ash like Steel's, I'm already screwed anyways.

I took a bottle of water graciously. While Steel and the sheriff were drinking, however, I helped Bush to get some of the water in his system while the doctor wrapped a clean sheet over and around his head.

Bush eyed me down, but accepted my help. The look in his eye was one of anger, and surprise.

A few feet behind me, I hear the sheriff exhale and the sound of a bottle crunch slightly.

"Is there anything you could tell us about what went on in there, sheriff? Any clue as to what started the fire?" This coming from whom I can only assume to be the reporter.

"It's late," He starts to speak (with an audibly more gruff sounding voice than normal) but coughed and cleared his throat. "We're tired, hurt, dirty... Everypony should get some sleep. I'll give a statement on the morrow."

He strained when attempting to speak the words "dirty" and "get" without coughing, which reminds me, at the very least, to be grateful I hadn't been exposed to the fumes for as long as he was.

With Bush's injuries tended to as best as could be done with the limited supplies of a small desert town, I finally turned to face the sheriff and Steel.

"Need a place to stay?" The sheriff looked at all of us with understanding.

Surely he hadn't seen us around in awhile, and he knew Steel was Bush's step-son, so by common deduction he must've assumed we were just visiting town.

Steel looked at me, knowing that this was mainly my decision.

"For the night." I answered the sheriff with an appreciative tone. "But only because I want to see how that photo came out."

Steel coughed in an attempt to laugh. "We both look like shit!"

The sheriff chuckles, and notions for us to follow him.

By now, it's incredibly dark out and the crowd of ponies had mostly dispersed.

The two or three ponies who remained did so to give their condolences, or express how glad they were to see everypony make it out. Other than that, there was a long period of sullen silence where nopony made a noise, save for the occasional coughing or clearing of the throat.

The moon was out tonight, but just enough to dimly light the sandy canvas; as well as the desert town's wooden rooftops.

We were led to a house nestled between two others, and as we entered the sheriff's house he pointed out something along the lines of how one of his neighbors just so happened to be the mayor. I heard some of what he was saying, but I wasn't necessarily listening. The inside of the place was more spacious than it looked on the outside, and it kind of took me aback for a second.

The sheriff looked at the doctor and told him he was good to head upstairs with Bush to the second door on the left. When he turned to Steel and I, he also directed us upstairs and to a guest room. "First door on the right."

We thanked him graciously and went to bed. The hallway was dark with the silhouettes of what we made out to be four doors.

First door on the right, I thought to myself and pushed the door open.

I felt the wall for a light switch once inside, flicked it, and the room brightened up to reveal a neatly cleaned room with a tidy bed, and–

The smooth, carpet-like texture of a comfy looking, seductively alluring, dream of a recliner had taken the fullest of my attention.

Without haste I leaned my body into the chair and slumped backward as the front lifted to support my hind legs.
A deep sigh of satisfaction breathed out from the depths of my chest, like the slow stopping of a breaking train.

"This'll do nicely."

"Here, catch." Steel tossed me the bed cover to use as a blanket, and wrapped himself up under the sheet.

"Thanks—"

"We'll get our things and head out tomorrow, after we find out how the fire started."

"Sure, and get a copy or two of the newspaper sent to Applejack's farm." I stretched long and slowly, releasing tension throughout the joints and muscles of my body.

With a satisfied 'umph' I relaxed again, and finished what I was saying. "That way, it'll either be waiting for us when we get there, or it'll arrive sometime that day."

"You talk too much, Cross." Steel mumbled and rolled over.

With a smile, I rolled onto my side and finally let sleep overcome me.

About an hour had passed since everpony had woke up, and thanks to the sheriff insisting we wash the dark smoke stains from our manes and coat, we were squeaky clean when the reporter came knocking.

"Please, come in." The sheriff offered upon opening the door.

"Morning sheriff, you got that statement?" The reporter asked, taking a pen and notepad out from a small saddlebag.

The sheriff waved the reporter, Steel, and I over to a nearby sofa and pulled up a chair for the reporter to sit across from us

"What happened, was an accident." The sheriff began, pausing briefly to let the reporter write down his words.

Two eyes quickly darted up from the paper. He had written down the whole sentence in just a few swift motions of his mouth, and was signalling the sheriff to continue.

"You.. wrote that down, that fast?" Steel sounded surprised, and frankly skeptical.

The pen made a slight ‘thump’ when the reporter dropped it from his mouth to speak.

"Sure did!" He said proudly. "It's my talent, and I put it straight into the printing business. Now, sheriff?"

The reporter picked up his pen with his teeth and got it situated into a firm position to write with.

"Ah yes, as I was saying." The sheriff nodded. "What happened was an accident. I had put the owner of the building on house arrest, and I accompanied him so that he could retrieve a few things."

The sheriff stood outside on Bush's porch and waited for a few minutes, before deciding that it had been long enough.

He slightly held open the front door and shouted into it. "Hey, Bush!"

Nothing gave out a response, so he pushed in the door all the way and trotted into the house.
Before heading upstairs, he went to check all the rooms on the bottom floor and found the cellar door standing open. The thought of being pushed down the stairs pestered him, so he quietly shut the door behind him on his way down.

He reached the bottom at the same time Bush was coming up, and they bumped into each other. Already seeming to be angry over something, Bush started swinging at the sheriff.

Behind Bush, a fire had spread and was growing larger by the second; just out of the sheriff's peripheral he saw the culprit on the ground-crawling fire, a cigarette butt, before it was reduced to ash.

The full hit to the side of the face, that came while he was distracted, had the sheriff reeling back a bit. But more importantly, the momentum caused Bush to lose his balance, and upon trying to regain it he stumbled backwards into the fire.

Acting as quickly as he could, the sheriff pulled Bush out of the fire by his hind legs. Ironically due to Bush's thrashing, the sheriff twisted on his footing at the last second.

The good news was that despite having an injured leg, the sheriff was able to help Bush up. The bad news, was that the fire had practically engulfed the cellar and was seeping through the cracks in the floor to the ceiling.

With nowhere else to go, they climbed up the stairs in a panic, struggling with each step. Half way through their ascension, they had heard a loud crash that nearly caused them to fall, and when they finally reached the door they found that no amount of force would get it to budge.

"And after what felt like an eternity, these two brave gentlecolts came along."

The reporter adds an emphasis on his pens punctuation and flips the note over the pad. "Picking up on your story, now, gentlecolts?"

I cleared my throat and started from the point when Steel and I had been drinking at the saloon.

Happy with his interview and statement, the reporter left with the three of us seeing him out.

"I assume you two will be heading out soon?" The sheriff turned to ask us with a newfound lightness to his step.

"That's the plan, sheriff. Thank you for your hospitality." I said, with a hint of finality.

"Actually, before you go, I'd like to ask both of you to go and see Bush."

With a sigh, Steel turned and went up the stairs.

I really didn't want to waste my time, let alone my breath on Bush, but my better judgement forced me to go with him.

When we reached the door I attempted to follow Steel inside, but he stuck his hoof out in front of me and shut the door.

Bush was sitting upright in the bed, looking at Steel with his one good eye.

"You wanted to see me?" Steel asked.

"You did this." He hissed in a low, dry voice.

"That was never my intention–"

Bush starts coughing, and then cackles. "Your intentions were made clear, when y'all left town an took Rose wit'cha. Now ya come back, destroy my alcohol–"

Steel interrupts him.
"What you were drinking could have killed you, or gifted you a nice and comfy jail cell until you were pretty much on your death bed."

"That wadn't your place–"

He interrupts again. "Would you have rathered me report it to the sheriff? I didn't burn our house down, your cigarette habit, on top of your alcoholism, is what led to this."

With a disgusted look on his face, Bush opened his mouth to speak but no words came out; the sudden realization had finally hit him and he grumbled.

"It hurts me just as bad as it hurts you that the house is gone. So many memories, especially of mom, were made in that house." Steel points a hoof in the direction of the now burnt building.

"But this needs to be a wake-up call for you, I'm just about the only family you've got left willing to forgive you."

"What good will it do, if yer just leaving town anyways?" He countered.

I could hear Steel sigh through the door, and I knew it was about to get personal for them.

"It does a lot of good if it means that you'll get a second chance. I won't lie, the amount of hatred and confusion in my heart and in my head growing up was so large, it's a wonder how I don't get sick by just standing here and looking at you. I felt completely and utterly alone."

Bush scoffed slightly and waved a hoof away. "That last part ain't at all true, ya had Rose!"

Steel clenched his jaw and came over to the bed, towering over his step-father with a hoof pointed to the stallion's chest. "I had to teach her everything she knew! You may have changed her diapers, fed her, and bathed her for the first two years of her life, but when mom died it was all left to ME."

He was so close to him, that when a bit of spit flew from Steel's mouth, his step-father winced.
"Raising a filly by myself before I had even earned my cutiemark was no easy task. I could barely understand my father's death, and when mom died? My world shattered. You helped me, and the next thing I knew you hated me and everything else in existence. I raised Rose because no one else would. Your little filly could never understand why you were the way you were, and if it wasn't for her mother's heart, she wouldn't have had the compassion to have kept trying to help you as much as she could! I was alone, because I didn't get to be a brother to Rose. I had to be her parent, because the slimy, alcoholic, shit-stained stallion who needed to take that role forgot he was supposed to be a daddy."

For the first time in his life, Bush felt like a scared and defenseless animal. He was the injured prey backed into a corner and Steel was the hungry predator who had been licking his lips stalking, waiting, and watching for the inevitable to happen — only he could bare no more and knew that now was the best time to pounce.
This is it, Bush thought to himself.
The end of the line.

Steel leaned in close, pressing his hoof harder against his chest and glaring directly into his eyes.

"And you know where she is now? She's–"

I opened the door and casually came over to Steel, thinking fast on how to keep the cat in the bag.
"Sorry to interrupt. You think we should get going, Steel? Rose is expecting us back by tomorrow, and I don't want the news to reach her before we can break it to her ourselves."

With a grunt, Steel moves his hoof off of Bush's chest. "Yeah, that'd probably be best."
His eyes pierce Bush's morale again and before turning to leave Steel whispers down to him. "I'm all you've got."

Once his step-son is a safe distance from the bed, Bush swallows the lump in his throat and exhales lightly in relief.

Author's Note

(For future readers, this tidbit of input won't be applicable and you may carry on to the next chapter if you wish.)

I was on a bit of a writer block, so this one took a bit longer for me to get out and I apologize for that. Until then, have a good one y'all. :rainbowkiss:

17 - Return to Ponyvile

When we returned to get our things from the brothers, we were pleased to find nothing had been touched. With the bag of gold still ripped, however, I figured it would be a good idea to see if the local general store or train station happened to have a luggage carrier—they didn't, but luckily the store owner was kind enough to offer what he had... a potato sack.

You make do with what ya got, and I'm not ashamed to say we took that potato sack.

The mayor caught my eye as we passed by the Sherrif's house on the way to the train, and when I gave Steel a funny look, he rolled his eyes.
"Weren't you listening yesterday, you fool? Sheriff said he's his neighbor."

I sighed rather than facehoofed, and shook my head slightly. "No, I suppose you're right and I wasn't listening."

He shrugged his shoulders and kept moving.

Once we were on the train, Steel put the sack of 'potatos' in an overhead luggage compartment and took a seat across from me. The train was relatively empty, which was good, since we could talk a bit more openly.

I must admit, I was surprised we didn't get any funny looks for actually using a potato sack to transport our 'luggage'. But hey, we just got on board out of hicktown. Next stop, Ponyville.

Ponyville...
I sighed deeply, closed my eyes, and pressed the side of my head against the window.

"Hey," Steel's broad voice had me opening my eyes to look at him.
"Something the matter?"

I closed my eyes again. "Nothing's wrong."

The feeling of him moving to sit next to me was an annoyance, because I could feel a talk coming on.

"Don't lie to me."

"You wouldn't understand-" I tried to push the topic away, hoping he'd leave it, though I knew he couldn't.

"Bullshit," He interrupted. "You've got something on your mind that you aren't telling me."

"It's Rose." I said abruptly, and he went quiet for a minute.

The sound of the train trudging along, lightly passing over the tracks, was the only sound to be heard, save for the slight discussion of ponies in the background. Until, suddenly, he sighed too, and I opened my eyes to look over at him.

Steel was leaning against the rail to his left, with his knee bent and his hoof raised to support his head.

"I know how you feel," He said. "You're right. I definitely don't understand it on the same level as you do, but I can't help but feel useless, and I hate that."

"We'll get her back, Steel. Princess Luna surely can't be so daft as to fully blame me for what happened, right? Maybe I just need to write to her."

Steel inhaled sharply and sat up. Turning to me, he said, "You know we can't do that, you told me the possibilities of it; what Twilight had said."

"Something has to be done, I've about had enough."

Right where we sat was where Rose and I had the pleasure of enjoying our first ride to Ponyville. It seemed like a long time ago, but it hadn't in fact been all that long. Not even half a year had gone by...
I had wanted to bring her someplace where she wouldn't feel afraid anymore, where we could live happily together, and now she's off in Canterlot with a deranged princess and I'm defenseless to it: like I'm nothing, because I can't really do anything.

A familiar voice from the past came back into my mind, replaying itself.
"No, you're not. You mean everything to me, Cross. You're all I've got."

Before I went to speak, I had to take a quick, deep breath just to ensure that I wouldn't get emotional.

"Or maybe if I just open up to Celestia instead, and let her know the whole truth.. We could all work together to catch Dwight and put him on trial."

Steel thinks on it for a moment, contemplating the idea.

"That could work—but what if it doesn't, and it goes straight down the shitter instead?"

I shook my head. "Twilight said she'd back me up all the way, and she's proved it before. I'm confident that if we play this right, we can make it work."

The unsure look in Steel's eyes that had come with my suggestion fades away and is soon replaced with determination.
"If you think this'll work, well, you've given me no reason not to trust you so far."

"Alright then," I smiled a little at him. "Then when we get to Ponyville we'll talk with Twilight about it.. though we should probably let Applejack in on it too, since she had agreed on going with us to face Princess Luna and directly talk it out, with reason."

He nods again, moves back to the seat across from me, and relaxes a bit.
"No need to explain that one, I get it Cross. Family is family."

"There's nopony I trust more right now than you and those two mares, Steel."

He rolled his eyes and pressed his head to the glass. "I told ya, I get it Cross."

With nothing else to discuss, I closed my eyes once more and drifted off to sleep.

Rose snugly lay with her side leaning against my body for support as she slept.
With a smile, I carefully turned my body towards her a bit, and gently put an arm around her back. In response, she buried her head into my chest.

"I believe it's time we talked." A regal voice, one I instantly recognized, came from the seat across from me.

Not wanting to look up and give her the satisfaction of facing me, I swallowed the lump in my throat and said straightly, "You saw me with Twilight, that night we were at town hall. Correct?"

There was silence, just long enough for things to start feeling uneasy, when Princess Luna spoke up. "That is correct, yes. I did bare witness to all that was said that night between you two."

I grit my teeth lightly, and spoke through the fire that had begun to ignite inside. "Then you should know I've been trying to make amends, paying back the money–" The realization hit me that she had also heard the entire talk about why I did what I did, and why I couldn't just simply get away.

"You should already know my story. So why'd you do it? You took her. Told me to "find you." Yet here you are, you came and found me."

"If you want answers," She began impatiently, seeming to avoid the question. "It would be favorable for you to go find some of your old 'friends', get a new gang, and come to find me like I asked you to do."

Still impatient about how she was being greeted, despite the impression she had previously left on me, Luna cleared her throat in the hopes that I would have the decency to finally look up at her.

I clenched my teeth tightly and nearly hissed my words, but Rose's sleeping body stared back at me. The thought of her, and the thought of her alone, was the sole reason that I continued on with a (apprehensively) respectful tone. "Spare me the chatter, I've done you that much at least. And, I believe I've asked you a question... your highness."

"I'm afraid it doesn't matter why I've taken her, because you won't be seeing her back until you have handled this... mess. Besides, do you think I'd hurt an innocent mare with foal?"

I had to stop and take a mental step back to avoid lashing out at her from the sheer ignorance of that statement.

Feeling less hot headed, I shook my head slightly and asked, "Could you be more specific? Dreams don't last long."

"You know what you have done. You're capable of much more than you let show. Prove it. Get a crew, find me, surrender any and all past loyalties you have, and aid in helping me. Otherwise, your young one will grow up without a father."

When I looked up, the same mocking smile from our last encounter was staring back at me. I took immediate satisfaction in seeing her jeering smile fade away into a straight face, upon noticing that I was glaring daggers back at her. It was short-lived though, since I woke up right after the two of us had made eye contact.

I jerked my head from the window and began to search the clear, starry sky for the moon. Even though it was nowhere to be seen, I still drew the window drapes closed before I stood up and opened the overhead luggage compartment.

I had to feel around a bit, but I eventually found the rolled up tent that contained everything but the revolver–that was tucked inside the duffel bag, which I gave to Steel back at the prison so that he had someplace to store his items.

After a few minutes of carefully sliding my journal out of the side of the tent, I sat back down and flipped it open.

When the pen slid down the bindings of the journal, I picked it up with my teeth and began to write.

Life fucking sucks.
You think things are going good, and then you remember you're a killer, a criminal.
My life isn't a good one, it's tale of blood, murder, theft, arson, and armed robbery..

You may not really know me yet, what I'm capable of, but you will soon. I'm unknown to everyone, yet hated by all who have been accept by the crimes of the members within my former posse.

By the time I had finished revising everything and cleaned up the structure, it was early morning and we were approaching Ponyville station.

Sensing the slowing of the train, Steel stretched and sat up.

"How long have you been up?" He asked with a yawn.

"An hour, maybe two?" I responded.

He nodded and waited for the locomotive to come to a stop before grabbing things out of the compartment, and heading off the train.

"Let's head over to the house, first. Might as well drop off this weight."

Upon walking in the door and sitting down the sack of gold and duffle bag, Steel looked down at me and asked, "We plan on staying here for a few days? I just don't know if I'll be able to sleep in this house, nothing against you, but something about it just wouldn't feel right."

"Sure, I can pitch the tent up against the side of the house for you." I said with a shrug. "Shouldn't be too much of a problem."

"Thanks, Cross." Steel smiled a bit and started to look around.

When I was heading back outside with the rolled up tent, I said, "Hey, I'm pretty sure Applejack oughta be awake by now, if you'd like to go and let her know we're back."

Steel followed me out the door and went down through the orchard while I pitched the tent, which was set up in a matter of minutes.

Still waiting on Steel, I went and drug a coffee table and a chair out into the tent to sit and finish writing my letter, but after a minute of just sitting and staring I realized that I had come to a halt, not sure what needed to be said.

Think back on what she said, Cross. Draw on it. "Do you think I'd hurt an innocent mare with foal...Get a crew, find me, surrender any and all past loyalties you have, and aid in helping me. Otherwise, your young one will grow up without a father."

"Oh, I've got a crew, you bitch." I mumbled to myself and opened the journal once again to finish where I left off.

This may come as a surprise to you, Princess Luna, that the one pony, out of a whole gang that you want help from, is addressing you directly. Writing to you from an unknown place.

I chortled at that last part, poking fun at her for not being able to snoop around during the day. But, I digress.

Well, Princess of the Night, don't get to thinking that I like you or that this is a surrender. You've done something with my family and I shall figure out what, even if it means having you imprisoned in that moon for another thousand years.

This isn't a threat. It's a reminder, as to which one of us has more to lose.

Before ripping the page from it's bindings I made sure to sign it, and I did so with the intent of making myself very clear.

I could hear a set of hoofsteps making an approach, when Steel came into the tent.
"We don't have all day Cross, hurry up writing," This coming from his bold voice behind me, as the light from outside shined in slightly upon his entry.

"Actually, I was just finishing up," I quirked, and as I stood up without the slightest glance, shouldered past him.

The sun had come up without my noticing, and it shone brightly into the tent through the tree gaps as I made my exit.

"Ah've seen the paper y'all sent me. How in the hay do these things jus' keep happening to y'all, Cross?" Applejack smiled and adjusted her stetson.

Pretending to be oblivious, Steel remarks with obvious sarcasm, "I can't for the life of me seem to figure it out!"

"Maybe trouble just follows us." I said with a playful grin.

"Uh-huh," Applejack rolled her eyes. "I'm beginning to think that y'all jus' go around huntin' for it like a pair of foals on a treasure hunt."

"Let's head over to Twilight's," My grin faded as I spoke, getting serious. "There's something we should all discuss, and the sooner the better."

Steel groaned. "We just got here, Cross. If Twilight's still asleep–"

I stopped him when I looked up at his face with unrelenting eyes. "Something has come up. We need to figure out how we're going to go about it. The sooner we make a decision, the sooner we can consider spending a day on just taking a short break."

With a huff, Applejack said, "Stop bein' cryptic. Y'all know better than anypony that with that young colt, Twilight could use the rest, and we don't wanna risk wakin' neither of 'em. So y'all come on back to the farm, an' tell us what's goin on Cross."

Defeated, I tucked the journal to my chest and we made our way down through the orchard to the farm, following Applejack into the barn.

She pushed a barrel over, and seeing this, both Steel and I went to assist her by bringing two more over, when Applejack started laughing. "Cider, ya fools! Not fer' sittin!"

"Good call, it might help." I said while moving the barrel back to where I found it.

"Right, lemme go get some glasses," Applejack sighed, then left.

We sat there in silence with Steel looking like he was trying to place something, and judging by the fact that the look intensified, it seemed as though he was failing.

By the time Applejack had returned, the look on his face had faded, but I could only assume it was because he had given up on whatever it was he was mentally struggling with...

None of us spoke until we had drinks on standby, and even then, it was Applejack who broke the silence.

"Is it really that bad?" She looked concerned, a change from the playful attitude that she had had about her earlier. Though how quickly she would engage once matters became serious was nothing new to me. But it seemed to be new to Steel, and the pegasus took note of it.

Realizing the question she had asked, she added with a sigh, "Forget ah' asked that, ya wouldn't be bringin' it to mah attention if it weren't."

"Luna's trying to make me her pawn. She wants me to get a group together to go and hunt down Dwight. We'll only be getting Rose back once that's done." I responded rather quickly with a bitter taste in my mouth.

"Shit..." Steel took a drink from his glass and shook his head slightly. "I don't like this, not one bit."

Applejack was silent for a second. Then, "Ah mean, that don't sound too bad. With tha Princess's resources at our disposal? He don't stand a chance."

"Applejack," I responded, giving her a condescending look. "Have you ever fired a gun?"

"Well, no, but ah'-"

"Dwight is a criminal mastermind. There's a very high chance that any one of us could die, and I don't want the responsibility of your death on my hooves, should it come down to it."

She slammed a hoof down, resonating through the barn. "Ah can make mah' own damn choices Cross!"

"I never said I was going to abide by her demands." I said, simply looking at her. "Dwight's been my priority since before she had even known his name. At the end of the day, this isn't your call, Applejack."

Guiltily she looked away from my gaze, feeling the weight of my words and the look in my eyes. "Ah know it ain't my call... but I'll put my own life on the line if it means that the bastard gets what is comin' to him and you're reunited with Rose."

Steel looked between the two of us, from me and then to her. I ignored the possibility of his doubt.

"I'll let you come along on one condition," I picked up the glass she had brought me and lifted it to my mouth for a second. "If something goes sour and we're in a bad situation, I need you to listen to me and to trust me, no matter what. I can not risk this, Applejack, and neither can you."

She nodded and Steel downed his glass, already aware that we were about to be going.
"Right. Let's go see Twilight, then." Applejack adjusted her stetson and got to her hooves.

I cleared my throat as I stood up with her,
still holding my journal to my chest.

Author's Note

It's been awhile between this chapter and the last, and I'd like to apologize for that. I hit a writer's block, it seems the last one never really went away and I've got no other excuse for it.

1 - Criminals

Money Is Everything

Life fucking sucks.
You think things are going good, and then you remember you're a killer, a criminal.
My life isn't a good one. It's a tale of blood, murder, theft, arson, and armed robbery..

You may not really know me yet, what I'm capable of, but you will soon. I'm unknown to almost everyone, yet hated by all who have been affected by the crimes of the members within my former posse.

This may come as a surprise to you, Princess Luna, that the one pony out of a whole gang that you want help from is addressing you directly. Writing to you from an unknown place.

This isn't a threat. It's a reminder, as to which one of us has more to lose.

"We don't have all day Cross, hurry up writing," This coming from a bold voice behind me, as the light from outside shines in slightly upon entry.

"Actually, I was just finishing up," I quirked as I stood up and without the slightest glance, shouldered past a pegasus much bigger than I was.

A blinding light shone into the tent as I made my exit.

Six months earlier

A loud bank alarm rings throughout downtown Manehatten.
Inside are four ponies, taking their time with a robbery.

"The police'll be here any minute Cross, and we still have nothin to show fur'it!"
A tall and skinny unicorn with a cloth cover smiley-face shielding his identity had begun to regret his decision and turned his desperation to me, all the while wavering a gun amongst a crowd of hostages.

"They'll pull through, they always do.. Just keep the hostages at bay and don't use our names, dipshit." I responded sort of harshly.

"Yeah.. Pull through with nothing, maybe." The Unicorn turns and keeps a single hoofed gun fixated on the hostages.

"How about both of you shut up."
The older pegasus scolded us as he walked into the room wearing a bandana over his face and a cowpony hat on his head, carrying a bag of bits.
Behind him was a more bulky pegasus, with an even bigger bag of bits and a Shadow Bolt mask on from Nightmare Night.

I estimated that the bits between the two of them totaled at around a few hundred thousand.

"How did you get in and out so fast?"
I asked with an impressed and slightly envious tone.

"I'll fill ya in later, we don't have no time to talk. All of Manehatten had to of heard that alarm." The older pegasus answered quickly.

We all followed him out of the back and into an alleyway, moving as fast as we could.
That was when I heard a slightly rushed pattern of not just four- but eight hooves behind me.

Turning to look over my shoulder, I got a face full of blood as the head of the unicorn practically shattered and fell apart, bullet shrapnel flying upward.

Right where he stood, was now a single officer pony cowering with a double-barrel shotgun, and no ammo.

Poor bastard only brought one shell?

Blinded by rage- and blood, a dazed anger grew over me.
I shoved the officer down, taking his shotgun from him in the process.

I was just about to bash his skull in, when a gunshot rang out behind me.
A bullet flew past my shoulder and went right between the officer's eyes, blood and brain matter pouring out of the back of his skull.

"I done told you we ain't got no time to waste, he's gone. Now hurry up or you can bet your flank that we will be too." The older pegasus nudged my shoulder, and took off.

Obviously I wasn't far behind him.

Catching up, we turned a corner in the alleyway and were faced with an open street, with a hijacked police carriage waiting for us.

Just like that we were gone. All three of us had made it out, although we just lost our fourth. All that mattered was that no money was lost in the process. After all, money is everything... And everything is money.

"How'd that go for a heist, huh Cross?" The bulky pegasus addresses me with a cocky attitude.

"I'd say about as good as your sister. Worthwhile, went on forever, and now-pretty loose," I retorted back at him, and the whole carriage broke into a laughing fit.

I waited a second, and then spoke again.

"Oh come on now, she's not that bad. Aside from having you as a brother, she's got it in bed, the looks."

The carriage continued to laugh until the bulky Pegasus rolled his eyes and let it go.

"Maybe you should marry that mare, Cross," The old pegasus finally said after wiping his eyes.

"I've thought about it." I made eye contact with the old pegasus, before the bulky one's glare caught my eye.

"Her father's blessing is what I need. Even if he is an abusive cunt." That comment was the first time the bulky pegasus had ever agreed with me on anything I had to say.

That night we were all at camp far from Manehatten, counting how much we made off of our score, and distributing it.
The original split was supposed to be 20% to the driver and the four of us. So with one pony out of the picture, we cut his down to 10% and sent it to his family anonymously. The remaining 10% was cut down to 2% for ourselves and the driver. A cut of 20% changing to 22% doesn't sound like much at first, but the total score was 175,000 worth of bits.

Which would you take, thirty-five thousand, or thirty-eight thousand
five-hundred? My point exactly.

It would have been easy to write off the Manehatten Heist as something that was just on the news, like we had anything to do with it.

Us? A reincarnated band of outlaws- with a walking tank and a cab driver?

Nooo.. never.

Surrounded by a small fire, we poured one out for the unicorn, and drank. In between drinks we talked about where we planned on going once morning came, knowing very well that we had different things in mind with only two of us going to the same destination.

The old pegasus went first after a quick swig. "North, maybe. I reckon there's some nice tail up in the Crystal Empire."

I chuckled lightly at the innocence of his gesture.

"Get a clean shave, a shorter haircut, slick it back and I'll be sittin' pretty." The old pegasus gave a single confident nod, satisfied with his plan.

We all took a swig after he finished, and I went next. "Like you said, I think that I'll marry that mare."

I made sure that the bulky pegasus knew I had glanced in his direction before continuing.

"Maybe start a family one day." I then took a decisive swig to let them know I was done.

The bulky pegasus didn't hesitate in getting his part out of the way. "Well, first, I plan on making my way back home to see if I can convince my sister to not marry Cross."

He grinned. The sight of his rare smirk made the older pegasus raise a brow, just as confused– if not as concerned, as I was. I mean, I couldn't tell if he was grinning because he secretly wanted me to marry her, or if he was grinning because he thought he might actually succeed.

"Then," He continued, "I'm hoping to go to Baltimare and start a body and wing building company."
Following in suit, he took a swig as well.

When we all turned our heads to the driver, he looked kind of quizzical. "Well... I suppose I'll just move out to Fillydelphia, and start up a cab business of my own."

We all downed our drinks and called it a night, for the morning was to be a new chapter of our lives. For all I cared about, it was just for mine, specifically.

4 - Meeting The Element of Magic

When I woke up the next morning I had felt like I slept for a week.

I woke up so full of energy and ready to just go. I rolled over on the hay and looked at Rose, who was slowly waking up. Sleepy eyes, frazzled mane, and a big yawn to top it off. Sometimes I felt a little too lucky. Maybe I am, who knows.

"Did you sleep well?" I chuckled and nuzzled her face.

"Considering you don't snore, I think I could give you some credit." Rose smiled at me and kissed my muzzle before stretching out. Sometimes it was all I could do not to pull her back in, but we'll get our moment again one day.

At that very moment Applejack came in and nodded her stetson. "Ah thought ah'd heard y'all laughing! Care to take a visit with me to a friend's place? Uh, when y'all get woke up, that is.."

We politely agreed to Applejack's offer and she grinned. "Good, ah' think she can help y'all find a home around here somewhere, maybe even close to the farm. If y'all need any work, we'd be happy to hire ya. Family is family, after all."

She then left us alone again, and we were thankful for that- as well as her humble suggestion. It felt good to be welcomed again. It was something that I hadn't felt in a very long time.
Maybe if I had felt that at a younger age, I wouldn't have been a criminal.

I got to my hooves and looked down at Rose with a soft smile. Like a gentlecolt, I helped her up and we trotted out of the barn.

The sunlight was blinding at first, so bad that both of us squinted or covered our eyes for a moment to let them adjust. Once our eyes were focused, we made our way over to Applejack who was leaning against a tree. "Y'all ready?" She asked.

I was more than ready, meeting new ponies was always interesting, but more than anything I just wanted to get settled in. To be honest, I was starting to become concerned about everything.
I've never been okay with what I've done, but I know that up until the bank heist it was a necessity. The bank heist was the only way I was going to be let out of relations with the older pegasus and Rose's brother, for good. I had to get them out there. Doing what they desired. It was my only escape at that point.

I was young, stupid, and easily influenced when I was pulled in by the older pegasus. He kept me alive and off the streets once my mother disappeared. I always thought he was just some older pony who lived locally when I was younger, but I would have never guessed he was an actual ex-outlaw. In his youngest years he was apparently the most dangerous in Equestria, and disappeared off the map after a successful heist fourty years ago.

Once he took me in, I was raised doing typical hoodlum crap and I didn't enjoy any of it. But it was all I knew, and I didn't know how to get away from it. He kept an eye on me all the time when I was young, even as far as paying off ponies to watch me as bystanders to be sure I didn't try to get out or rat him out.

I've known better about the things that I'd had to do for a long time, but only a few years ago was I given the chance to get out of his life controlling grasp. After all the threats and examples made to what would happen should I try to rat him out or leave, he decided upon one final score to set him up for a decent retirement in his old age. Should I help him pull it off, he'd let me go without coming after me again.
How could I say no? If I hadn't, I'd either be dead or still committing crimes like a puppet.

"Ready as ever." Rose perked up and the three of us left Sweet Apple Acres.
After a bit of walking we reached the line of town where the houses and shops started to come into play.

"So, who's this friend of yours Applejack?" I asked in a desperate attempt to spark a conversation.
She didn't respond at first, as if debating whether she wanted to tell me just yet. Which in fact, was exactly what she was debating.

"Well.. It's Princess Twilight Sparkle, she still owns the library in Ponyville and loves to visit whenever she gets the chance. At the moment she's on a vacation from Royal Duties for a few weeks."
My stomach kind of dropped at the thought, but I quickly remembered that I had nothing to worry about. She wasn't born an alicorn, so maybe she wasn't all regal after all.

Rose grinned and seemed even more happy now. "The Princess Twilight Sparkle? Element of Magic?"

Oh boy. Well, Applejack seemed to be surprised, to say the least. "You know of her ah' see. Did ya' know I was the Element of Honesty? Just wondering."
Rose felt bad, I could tell, but she kept her happy face on. "I did actually, but I wouldn't have guessed Princess Twilight was in town- it's not every day you get to be introduced to a Princess by one of her friends."

Among this I was staying silent, but looking between them when they spoke. I had no clue who either of them were, really. I knew about Princess Twilight because of her newfound status, but nothing of Applejack, other than her family history of being pioneers of Ponyville. All of this came as sort of a surprise to me. I never really expected this to be how things would turn out once I finally had freedom.
"Geeze, I feel like I've been living under a rock. I knew Twilight Sparkle became a Princess not long ago, but I don't know anything about her, or you Applejack- other than your family history of pioneering Ponyville, that is."

She shrugged and looked over at me with a smile. "Ah' wouldn't sweat it, Outlaw. Yer not the first pony who's not heard of us, surely ya won't be the last."

Well, that made me feel better at least. When I looked forward I saw that we were approaching the library. Once you noticed it; you couldn't miss it.

Applejack announced out loud that this was it, and went up to the library door. As she drew her hoof to knock, the door opened up and a little green drake appeared in the doorway. "Oh, hey Applejack."
His purple eyes looked past her, in our direction. "Who are your friends?"

The orange mare introduced us happily. "This here is Cross, and the newest addition to the Apple Family. Rose is Granny Smith's third cousin three times removed."

The little green drake shook his head. "Okay- well, that's cool I guess."

"Is Twilight home?" Applejack blurted out without hesitation, and Spike waved us in. I can only assume he probably thought that it was important, or that Applejack was just being impatient.

"Hey Twilight, Applejack's here with some friends." He called up, and went back to putting books on shelves.

A few moments later the princess came down to greet us, with freshly preened wings and a recently brushed mane. Something about Applejack's reaction told us that Twilight might not do this often. That thought was confirmed when Applejack spoke, too.

"Wow, ya' getting ready for a meeting or something?" Applejack asked her friend with a smile that was returned back.

"I haven't preened my wings in a bit, nothing wrong with looking girly." Twilight turned her attention towards me and Rose, which seemed oddly natural. It was like she had known us forever, since she greeted us without hesitation or acting like she was higher than us.. But then again, I suppose I just expected her to be more regal, being a princess and all.

Rose was flushed though and couldn't quit smiling. For her, it was probably like meeting a celebrity and being greeted as a friend. "Hi, I'm Rose- it's so nice to meet you!"
I could understand it, but I still had to try not to laugh at how excited she was.

Applejack stepped forward and introduced us to each other. "Twilight, this is one of my distant cousins and her coltfriend, Cross. She's Granny's third cousin, three times removed." Applejack then turned to Rose and I.
"Rose, Cross; this is one of mah' best friends, Princess Twilight Sparkle."

18 - A Business Proposition

The smell of mildew from the morning grass was strong as the three of us made our way up to the fast approaching library. The sun was barely up in the sky, just enough for us to feel its presence.

"Now, ahm gonna give y'all a warnin', Cross.. Twi ain't too happy with ya about the newspaper." Applejack said with a slight glance in my direction.

It's easily understandable, the last thing we needed was more publicity. At the very least, I can be thankful that Princess Luna had nothing to say about the incident.

When we reached the door, rather than knocking, Applejack went on in while we waited. Eventually she emerged, and a few minutes after a tired looking Twilight stepped outside with a rolled up magazine.

She shut the door behind her and looked at me with a slightly disappointed expression.

"I get that it's in your nature to be a hero." She rubbed her eyes and unrolled the paper. "But you're still a wanted stallion. What would you have done if your face wasn't covered in ash and soot in that photo? Either of you?"

Steel and I sort of looked at each other, and I pointed out the stallion in the picture with half of his face horribly burned.

"That's Steel's father..."

She flipped the magazine around and stared at the picture for a second. Rather instantly she noticed that the stallion listed as "Bush Briar" lacked wings, unlike Steel.

Seeming to understand that this wasn't just on a whim, Twilight nodded and looked to Steel. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," Steel said. "There was nothing you could have done. The house is gone and there's not much else to it."

She looked back down at the newspaper for a second before rolling it up once more. "Well, aside from that, how did the trip go?"

"Pretty good, actually." I responded with a slight smile. "We got the rest of the gold back in the process."

"That's good news." She smiled back at me in response, and her door slowly opened to reveal Spike, holding a scroll.

"This one's addressed to Cross?" Spike said, as he handed the letter out to me.

I took the scroll, obviously, but we all seemed to have different reactions to it. Applejack went pale, Steel looked at it disdainfully, I stared at it blankly, and Twilight didn't have a reaction to it until she noticed our expressions and instantly took on a nervous expression. Spike, on the other hoof, looked completely oblivious.

There was silence as I unraveled the scroll.

Hunter—if I should even dare to call you that, we desperately need your help.

I am not one to easily admit it, but you are our best bet to finding the stallion you call Dwight. I would like to apologize for the actions of my dear sister, she has an old-fashioned way of going about things.

I'm asking you, personally, to meet with me in Canterlot Palace at your earliest convenience. As my sister has informed you, it would be in your best interest to get ahold of ponies that you can trust.

"Signed, Princess Celestia..."

I raised my head and we all looked at one another.

Eventually I broke the silence and explained to Twilight what had occured in the dream I had on the train. She seemed to better understand why I worded my letter the way I did... But nonetheless thought it was stupid, and I honestly can't say I blamed her.

"Ah suppose that deals with tha problem of Luna.." Applejack looked at me. "Who all are y'all bringing along, Cross?"

I glanced over at Steel, then back to Applejack. "I've got a few people I'm considering... You, Steel, possibly Skid."

Steel rolled his eyes. "We don't need to bring in anypony that was associated with Dwight."

Twilight looked at me quizzically. "Skid?"

"Skid was our getaway driver. Last I heard from him was right after the Manehattan heist. Said he'd probably work in the cab business up in Fillydelphia."

"Uhh– Ah think ahm gonna have to agree with Steel on this one, Cross. Are ya sure that's the best idea?"

"Skid's a good stallion. He may have made the poor decision of robbing a bank, but he's a good stallion none the less."

Twilight sighed and gave me back my letter.

"The thing is, I think that we'll be better off getting this taken care of now. I see no need to wait a few days, instead of just getting it over with."

"Oh, come on Cross!" Steel groaned. "We've been going for days! I haven't slept in an actual bed in months!"

Twilight, as if suddenly getting an idea, rose a hoof before adding on. "If you give me a day or two, I could find out a bit more on Slick's cab business. Surely that'd be of help! Fillydephia is a big city after all."

I looked at Twilight and then back at Steel. "The Princesses won't wait on us forever, sooner or later they're going to get harsher and I don't want to be idling around when they do... But fine, I suppose two days couldn't hurt."

"Are you serious?" Steel looked at me. When I didn't say no, he pumped his foreleg. "Yes! I'm going to take a nap!"

"I'll probably be back there soon..." I'd said as he trotted off. "While he's napping, I guess I could do some brainstorming and see if there's anypony else I know of that could be of assistance. I'm sorry we woke you."

Twilight shrugged it off. "I was bound to wake up sooner or later. Besides, it gives me a chance to take care of a few things before he wakes up."

Applejack nodded, also turning to leave. "They're a hoof full, that's fer sure. I'll see ya soon, Cross. Ah have a few things I could use your help with."

"Sure thing." I wasn't exactly sure what she had in mind, but I hoped it didn't involve me having to strain too hard to work. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm genuinely tired.

"I'll see you around, Cross. If you need anything, just stop by." She smiled half-heartedly before going back inside.

All that was left was for me to go home, relax, and think...

"I dunno how I'm gonna handle this mess," Skid rubbed the side of his head, stressed. "All these damned papers!"

He slammed his hoof down and watched as the large stack of papers on the top left of his desk toppled over and spilled across the floor of his office. What followed was an aggravated shout.

Suddenly a mare with a pale white coat appeared in the doorway, clutching a clipboard to her chest. Her yellow mane was completely frazzled, barely held together by the tie that was intended to hold it back. It was his assistant.
"B- Boss, are you alright?"

Skid glanced up from his fit of anger, speaking in a calmer voice. "Just.. Do me a favor and get up this damned mess, Chamomile. I'm gonna go have a smoke."

She nodded and set the clipboard aside, moving past him on his way out.

It had only been a month since that mare was stricken by one of his cabs in a freak accident, and yet, he and his company were suffering for it. Money wasn't the problem— no, there was enough of that to keep them going for awhile. The problem was just how many of his employees had quit. There were still enough around to keep the company afloat, but it wasn't anywhere near the massive business it had been. Pretty soon they'd have to sell their current HQ in favor of a smaller location if something wasn't done, and fast.

Taking the pipe out of his mouth, Slick looked at the massive city before him and sighed. It was a terribly rainy, gloomy day. It had been pouring down since he'd gotten up that morning, and yet it somehow made the city look more beautiful in his eyes. For just the slightest of moments, he'd forgotten about his troubles. But, there was no shortage of work to be done, and a little rain wouldn't slow down business hours, so he turned around and went back inside.

It was on his way back to his office that he noticed something in the air didn't feel right. The long hallways with their identical white walls, save for the occasional painting and window, seemed to stretch on endlessly.

As he turned the corner and entered his office he found Chamomile waiting for him in a nearby chair, adjacent to his desk, which now had the recently toppled papers neatly stacked upon it to one side.

"Somepony stopped by to see you, Boss. I figured I'd seat him in the conference room until–"

Skid let out a long sigh as he walked around the desk to his seat, his hooves echoing in the silent room. "Of all days... Sure, bring them in."

Chamomile nodded and got up, exiting the room.

Skid hoped it was just somepony who wanted to "see" him, like she had mentioned, and it wasn't some sort of business proposition, another complaint, or somepony who decided to quit upfront. He just wanted to get back to filing away all these damn papers.

"Thank ya, miss."

That voice... Why was it so familiar?

Skid sat up straighter in his desk, for some reason his body had gone into defense mode. The approaching hooves from down the hall were the only sound heard... And then they stopped. Standing in the doorway was none other than Dwight himself. He looked clean, as though he was about to attend a wedding.

"Howdy, mister big business." Dwight said with a slight smirk.

Skid was speechless as the old stallion trotted over and took a seat, propping up his back hooves on the desk away from the papers.

Dwight cleared his throat and took of his hat. "Due to a set of certain circumstances, it'd seem that we need to have a little talk."

Just before the silence got awkward, Skid realized this was the time for him to speak and he swallowed hard, putting on his business facade. "Talk about what? I owed up to my part of the job, I got paid, I left. Didn't you say you'd be up in the empire, getting laid?"

Dwight took out a cigar from a pocket on his ivory white suit and lit it. "You've got a business goin' under and I have somepony that needs to be gone. Ya make 'em disappear and I'll save your livelihood. Consider it a business proposition, except somebody is stickin their nose in my business and you need help with your own."

Skid put up an ashtray on the table and folded his front hooves behind his head. "I've never been the kind to kill, let alone plan to kill. You know this, Dwight."

"You see," Dwight takes a puff and looks into Skid's eyes, "I've already worked everything out. I've been one step ahead, even had tabs on this pony I want gone. All you have to do is agree. I've been nice thus far, but we can make this difficult." He then pats his side and the slight bulge of a revolver is seen through his suit.

"You needed someone you trust, otherwise you wouldn't have come to me. It'd be a shame if we let it get as far as for that to be necessary. If I might ask, what'd this pony do so bad as to make you need a hitpony of sorts?"

Dwight's mustache furrowed. "He betrayed me, my trust, and everything I've ever done for him."

Skid glanced away from his gaze. "Sounds like this pony don't know how good they had it... It's a done deal." He removed one of his hooves from behind him and held it out for Dwight, who sat up and took it with a grin.