Justice, Integrity, and Service

“Damn it, I’m an idiot,” muttered Bon Bon. The mare had slammed her head down on her desk and covered her head in her hooves.

Lyra awkwardly rubbed her friend’s back, unsure of what to do. “I, uh, I’m sorry?”

“Not your fault. I should have known that would have struck a chord with them.”

“Well how would you have known?” Lyra wasn’t really sure what to say to her. It was becoming more and more obvious that Bon Bon needed to know what happened between the two offices, and it was becoming more and more infuriating that she wouldn’t tell her why. She decided to just bite the bullet and say what came to her mind. “Look, Bon, as much as I enjoy being in a dusty, backwater town, I have to ask. Why are we putting up with these idiots? It’s clear that they don’t want to talk about what happened, so why are we bothering?”

Bon Bon pulled her head up and glared at Lyra. “Because it’s important to me,” she snapped.

“And you still haven’t told me why it is!”

“I made a promise,” Bon Bon replied. “To myself and to my-”

Before she could continue, the door opened again and Braeburn and Daring reentered. “Sorry ‘bout that,” said the stallion.

He was still smiling, but Lyra could see that it was a little more forced now. Daring just looked pissed off.

Braeburn cleared his throat as he sat back down. “Still no reports on that warrant. So, uh, what were we talkin’ about?”

Bon Bon opened her mouth, but Lyra decided to jump in. “Doc Holliday. What happened to him?”

The stallion sighed. “Right, Doc Holliday. Crazy guy. Born right here in Dodge Junction, with three teeth in a diamond for a cutie mark. I remember he got it by punchin’ a guy so hard he knocked out three teeth. He thought it meant he was goin’ to be a dentist, so he went off to medical school to get his degree. But he only did it for two years before he got tired of it. Somewhere along the lines he met Earp, and he realized his mark probably meant that he was a fighter, not a dentist.” He chuckled at the memory. “But anyways.”

He cleared his throat awkwardly, and when he spoke again it was slower and less chipper then it had been before.

The office was quiet for once. Daring was enjoying the silence, finishing up the last few chapters of her cheesy adventure book. “Amateur stuff,” she chuckled. “I can write better than this.”

She shut the book, setting it back on the desk, and looked around. Braeburn was engrossed in a crossword puzzle, something that was apparently very effective at getting him to be quiet. It was a good idea introducing him to those, she thought to herself.

Doc meanwhile had his head down on his desk. His body rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Daring could make out a bit of drool on the papers underneath his head and rolled her eyes.

A mischievous grin fell on her face. She set aside her novel and opened her desk drawer. With a grunt, she pulled out a very thick book entitled ‘An Introduction to the Ancient History of Equestria’ and grabbed it in her mouth.

She trotted over to the sleeping form of Doc Holliday. Once she was next to the desk, the thick book fell from her mouth and onto the desk, right next to the sleeping pony’s ear.

The pony woke up with a yelp, flailing his hooves and falling backwards in his chair. Doc came crashing down to the ground, blinking and cursing.

“You alright there, Doc?” Braeburn asked, stifling a laugh.

Daring didn’t bother, letting loose a hearty laugh. “Sorry! I must have slipped!”

“I swear to Celestia, I’ll have your badge for this,” Doc grumbled as he picked himself off the floor. “I am your senior deputy! You can’t treat me like this!”

The other two just laughed, Daring returning the book to her desk. Before Doc could complain further, Marshall trotted in. “Marshal Earp? There’s some ponies here to see you!”

Earp stuck his head out of his office. “Send them in, thank ya kindly!”

All eyes turned to the entry way as two unicorns entered. The first was a larger white unicorn wearing a suit coat. He held his head up proudly and projected an aura of confidence and assurance.

The purple coated unicorn that followed seemed to be a bit more awkward. She wore a deep blue jacket with the letters ‘RIS’ emblazoned on the back in bright yellow text.

“Good morning,” said the white stallion. His voice was tinted with a Canterlot accent. “I am Senior Special Agent Blueblood, with the Canterlot Office of the Royal Investigative Service. This is Special Agent Twilight Sparkle. We are looking for Marshal Earp?”

“That’d be me,” responded Earp. He trotted up and extended a hoof. Blueblood eyed it strangely before hesitantly shaking it. “Why don’t you come on in to my office, and we can talk.”

“Excellent. Sparkle, please wait out here.” The two disappeared into the Marshal’s office. Doc quickly stood up and followed them.

Twilight shrugged her shoulders and wandered into the conference room. As soon as she was out of sight, Daring leaned over to Braeburn. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That ponies from Canterlot as still as stuck up as they ever are?”

“No! That if agents from RIS Canterlot are here, then whatever case they’re working on must be a big deal!”

Braeburn rolled his eyes, turning back to his crossword. “Reckon so. Guess we won’t know until Earp tells us what’s up.”

“Why wait? The other agent’s still in the conference room. The question is, how are we going to approach her?”

“You askin’ her out? Didn’t know you swung that way,” Braeburn chuckled.

Daring hit him in the shoulder. “Shut up, Braeburn.” The pegasus stood and trotted off to the conference room. She opened the door and went inside.

Daring entered the room to find the unicorn scrutinizing the map. Her jacket was off and draped over a chair, revealing a star-shaped cutie mark. Daring cleared her throat. “Uh, hi! I’m Deputy Marshal Daring Do, with the Marshal’s Office of Equestria.”

The unicorn didn’t respond, instead squinting intently at the map.

“I guess you knew that already, since you’re here and all,” Daring fumbled. “Uh, we’re actually the western office. There’s other offices in other places that aren’t the western office, because they’re not in the west.”

Still the agent failed to respond. In fact she leaned in closer, her violet eyes narrowing and skipping from town to town.

“So where are you from? Probably Canterlot since you work with the Canterlot office. Uh, where do you work- no, I just answered that.” Daring face hoofed with a frustrated groan. Everything made sense in her head until she tried to put it into words. This is why writing was so much easier than speaking.

The pegasus went to the door and pulled it open, pony on the other side to almost fall in. He had been leaning against the door, trying to listen in, Daring realized. “I give up. You’re up, Brae,” she replied as she grabbed the stallion’s jacket.

With a yelp, Braeburn found himself being pulled into the room. He gave Daring a quick punch to the shoulder before cautiously approaching the unicorn. “Quite a map isn’t it?”

“AH!” everyone flinched as the unicorn jumped in the air. She whirled around to see the two staring at her. “Oh! I’m so sorry,” she sputtered. “I was so focused I didn’t hear you come in!”

Braeburn blinked at her outburst. “Uh, that’s alright. Can’t blame you, it’s a nice map.”

Twilight’s eyes lit up at the mention of the map. “Yes! It’s beautiful! I wish we had a wall-sized map in the office. It’d be a great addition.”

“Right. I’m sure-”

“I’m trying to work on my memorization of all the towns,” Twilight cut in. “It might come in handy someday. I know Dodge Junction, but then again everyone knows Dodge Junction so that’s a freebie. Appleoosa is familiar, I read about it in the papers. The others are a bit more tricky.”

Braeburn raised a hoof “Well-”

“I wonder if we’ll ever get an office out here? An RIS Dodge office would be interesting. But I guess that’s more of your guys’s jurisdiction. You know, as a filly I’ve always admired the Marshal Service. ‘Justice, Integrity, and Service.’ I love that motto! Nice, simple, and clean. Did you know the RIS motto was written by Director J. Edge Hoofer himself? ‘Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity.’ A bit too many ‘y’s for my taste. Now, the modus operandi on the other hoof…”

Braeburn’s eye twitched and he turned to Daring. Daring just snickered. It looked like Braeburn had finally met his match when it came to talking.

They both decided to wait until she finished talking before interjecting. “Although, other agencies have more complicated mottos,” she was saying. “Some are even full sentences. Take the Equestrian Secret Service, for example…”

Then, they both promptly realized that this was a fruitless task. The mare seemed like she could go on forever.

Daring looked around the room and spied a book on the conference table. She shoved it off the side, letting it hit the floor with a thud.

The noise seemed to reset her. “Sorry, was I rambling? I do that a lot,” she muttered as she rubbed a foreleg with her hoof. “I’m Special Agent Twilight Sparkle!”

“A pleasure to have you here, Agent Sparkle,” Braeburn replied.

“Please, call me Twilight.”

Daring nodded. “How can we help you today?”

“Well, we need your help. There’s a pony we’re after, and we think he’s fled out here.” The unicorn went over to the desk and levitated some folded papers from her jacket pocket. “Let me explain.”

“Special Agent Twilight Sparkle?” Bon Bon blinked in surprise.

“You know her?”

She nodded. “Yeah, she’s our boss. She’s actually a Senior Special Agent now. I had no idea she came down here before us.”

Daring grimaced at that sentence but Bon Bon didn’t notice.

“Good for her,” replied Braeburn. “She was a damn good agent then, she must be amazin’ now.”

Twilight stuck a mugshot of a brown stallion onto the conference room’s board. “This is Billy “The Colt” Barnstead. Forty years old and born in lower Manehattan. Moved to Canterlot where he dropped out of the University of Canterlot and fell off the map.”

The deputies were seated around the table, listening as the mare spoke.

“Barnstead first came to the RIS’s attention when we executed a raid on a house belonging to a high ranking member of the Outlaws gang. Traditionally the Outlaws have stuck to the western territories, but a few chapters have sprung up in the cities, particularly Canterlot. At the time we pegged him as a low level member. Now we have reason to believe that he’s become a high ranking lieutenant who hides out here from time to time.”

Everyone knew of the Outlaws and how dangerous they were. The Outlaws thrived on robberies and murders, and were once very unified and highly powerful. Now, the gang had mostly split into splinter factions of varying threats.

“What are we nabbing him for?” questioned Daring.

“Murder. A witness came forward in a case a few years old, back when Barnstead was still a hitpony. It’s enough to put him away for life, and it’ll deal a huge blow to the Outlaw leadership.”

“That’s right,” came a voice from the door. Blueblood entered, flashing a charismatic grin. “That’s why we’re going after him. We’ve got the warrants approved, all that’s left is to take him down.”

Blueblood hadn’t planned on meeting with the Marshal. He was looking for one easy case to close to cinch a promotion to Supervisory Special Agent, which meant less field work and a bigger paycheck.

It wasn’t really that he was lazy, more so that he was getting bored and tired. A few years in the same job could do the same to anyone. So, he figured he’d nab an easy target, sweep up a promotion, and set off with a new job.

Twilight was the one who suggested they worked with the Marshals. The mare had begged for a chance to work with ‘Equestria’s Finest’ on the case. Blueblood feared that a joint operation would hurt his chances, but to his relief Earp didn’t really care about credit.

Go in, get the pony, get out. Blueblood smiled again. It would be easy.