Murder Time, Fun Time

“So where are Johnny and the others?” Playa asked.

After reaching the mainland of Stilwater, Carlos left Playa and Pinkamena to their own devices to take care of his own business. Since running around in prison clothes was asking for more trouble than either were in the mood for, the duo hijacked someone’s car and headed for the nearest clothing store.

“Johnny got arrested for attacking Troy who was an undercover cop when he rolled with us. Troy took Monroe’s position as police chief and he’s been keeping you from dying while you were playing...what’s the human equivalent...Rip van Winkle. Lin dropped her flags to be with Donnie; no idea where they went. Julius disappeared after the explosion and Dex traded his purple for an Ultor business suit.”

It wasn’t long before the two arrived at the Sloppy Seconds clothing store. They entered the store and Playa began trying on what little the store had to offer while continuing the conversation. “So we need to break Johnny out of jail, but what’s this about other gangs? Whaddya know about them?”

“Johnny’s at the courthouse standing trial today,” Pinkamena corrected. “As for the gangs, there’s an East Asian gang called the Ronin who have taken over Stilwater’s gambling and prostitution rackets. There’s some Haitian drug cartel that took over the drug market who call themselves the Sons of Samedi. And there’s some gang of tattoo lovers who drive nothing but trucks and SUVs and they have control of Stilwater’s weapons dealing and protection rackets. They call themselves The Brotherhood. Their respective colors are yellow, green and red.”

“Yellow and red again? At least the Samedi chose a different color than the last gangs. Anything on their leaders?”

Not much. Of the leaders, Only the Brotherhood Leader, Maero, has been the most active of everyone else. The guy’s tough looking and he’s been tattooed so much he looks like an escaped painting from an art gallery. The Samedi are peddling some new drug that’s more potent than anything the Colombians can compete against. I don’t know who the leaders of the Samedi nor the Ronin are.”

“We’ll deal with them when we get the Saints reformed.” Playa stepped out of the dressing room. “Right now, we have a trial to attend.”

The drive to the courthouse took a couple of minutes despite Playa driving into cars several times. The duo charged into the courthouse without showing their weapons which allowed them to head into the courtroom while only receiving wary glares from the security in the building.

When the entrance to the courtroom came into view, Playa decided to discard his manners and start shooting at the guards staring at them. The commotion caused a bailiff to head to the door the sounds were coming from which resulted in him getting launched to the back wall while a flying door completed the image of a sandwich. Another guard tried to investigate with his gun held over his shoulder. Playa moved into the room and pointed his gun at the guard, commanding him to drop his weapon. The guard did as told which resulted in the dropped weapon discharging and the bullet ricocheting around the room.

“Anyone hit and need a lawyer?” Legal Lee said before ducking back under a table.

“Mena!” Johnny said cheerfully. “Was starting to think you were gonna run late.”

“Would have gotten here sooner if it wasn’t for this lazy ass.” She pointed at Playa.

“You try getting blown up and surviving it,” Playa defended. He collected the keys to Johnny’s handcuffs and tossed them to the guy. “You okay, Johnny?”

“Yeah, aside from almost getting sent to the chair I’m fuckin’ great...hey you look different, you do somethin’ with your hair?”

“I noticed that too but figured Stilwater PD had some plastic surgeons on speed dial,” Pinkamena remarked.

Johnny unlocked his handcuffs and Playa tossed him a pistol he ‘borrowed’ from a bailiff who was still stuck between a wall and a door.

Before they left the building, the trio paid a visit to the judge’s office. The occupant attempted to defend herself with a shotgun but quickly realized her inability to use one when her hands were cut off. The judge looked down to see the infamous pony holding a knife with her blood coating it and her hands lying at her feet.

The judge crumpled to the floor after receiving a hard punch from Johnny. “Why are you even in here? Shouldn’t you be attempting to escape?” the judge asked.

“I just came here to deliver on a promise I made a few minutes ago.” Johnny took the judge’s gavel and shoved it headfirst into her ass then pushed it deeper until the entire gavel was inside her. The judge cried out in agony as Johnny shoved the object as hard as he could. She passed out eventually which was when Johnny pulled out his pistol and shot her in the head.

With that done, the trio painted the courthouse with the blood of the Stilwater Police Department on their way out.

Pinkie took over and took one of the cars parked in front of the courthouse entrance and drove the three of them to the nearest Forgive and Forget. Then on the way to Johnny’s and Pinkie’s house, Johnny mentioned a couple of things that the pony was not aware of. The first being that Benjamin King wrote an autobiography, a book that Pinkamena considered buying at a bookstore sometime. The other was that Troy was doing his own investigation about the boat explosion. Pinkamena figured that Troy already knew who was responsible and left the information for her and Playa to find when they got around to it.

Johnny and Pinkie invited Playa inside and offered him a beer. The two each reclined on a couch and put their feet on the coffee table in front of them. While they took a moment to relax, Pinkie gave both of them a Johnny-avoided-the-death-penalty-and-Playa-woke-from-a-coma cupcake. Somehow she made all of the words fit on a tiny pastry. While Johnny and Playa washed down their cupcakes with beer, Pinkie had a cupcake as well while tapping into her secret stash of hard cider that she had been sneaking out of Applejack’s cider cellar over the years.

“We definitely need to remind motherfuckers who we are,” Playa said.

“So what’s the plan? Johnny asked.

“We get our crew together, once we got that we can work on how we’re takin’ back our city.”

“Sounds good.”

“I think we need to find a better place than this. If we’re gonna be recruiting a lot of people, we need something bigger than one house to hold them all,” Pinkie pointed out.

Johnny and Playa thought it over for a minute before Playa spoke, “She’s got a point. We need someplace big if we’re gonna be recruiting a gang big enough to reclaim our neighborhoods and hold them. What about the church?”

Pinkamena took over Pinkie’s part of the conversation. “The church is too close to Ultor headquarters. We won’t be able to concentrate on the other gangs if we have that corporation and their private army breathing down our necks.”

“Why don’t we deal with Ultor now?” Playa asked.

“I’ve heard rumors that Ultor has been secretly providing aid to the other gangs. I don’t want to risk the others coming to Ultor’s aid if the rumors are true.”

“Okay, any other suggestions?”

Johnny offered a suggestion, “There’s an old mission house in Old Stilwater that’ll be perfect.”

“Religious buildings are kinda been there done that…” Playa countered.

“We’re not staying in the mission. Now check it out. Years ago an earthquake dropped part of the city below sea level, and rather than clearing out the rubble, the city built over it. There’s an abandoned hotel below the mission that’ll work for us.”

“Alright, what’s the catch?”

“We gotta evict the current tenants…”

“Sounds like fun…”

“And we get to do our civic duty of dealing with the homeless problem,” Pinkamena chimed.

With their plan in mind, the trio got into Pinkamena’s car, which was conveniently retrieved from the coast, and drove to the mission in Old Stilwater.

The descent into the lower levels carried a slight risk as the steps were a little rotten. Pinkamena made a mental note to have the steps replaced at some point. It would be embarrassing if any of the future crew got killed because they fell through the stairs.

Once they reached the lower levels, the group encountered resistance in the form of gang members in green shirts, the uniform color of the Sons of Samedi.

The only matter that frustrated Pinkamena was that she couldn’t risk using explosives or fire while in the area without risking burning the underground hotel down. Instead, she put the handle of her knife in her mouth and engaged the Samedi in close quarters combat.

One of the Samedi attempted to throw a molotov at the madmare which was caught in midair and hurled back at the thug who screamed while ablaze and crashed into a shanty, burning it down.

When some Samedi tried using their guns from as far away from the madmare as possible, she pulled out her gold pistol and shot down their ideas in more ways than one.

With the armed Samedi out of the way, Playa and Johnny began murdering the homeless bums squatting on their new property by hurling them into their shanties, burying them in heavy junk.

The homeless that remained got the message and fled the underground hotel as fast as their legs could carry them.

With the homeless gone, the trio checked out their new base of operations. Playa didn’t think much of the place while Johnny saw plenty of potential. Playa was on board after Johnny had mentioned the idea of putting in a stripper pole.

“So...whatcha think, Pinks?” Johnny asked.

Pinkamena shrugged, “Better than being a prisoner in your own head for ten years. Still this place could house a good number of people. Seems a great place to launch our attacks against the other gangs.”

“C’mon, Mena, I never hear you ask for anything materialistic. What do you think this place needs?”

Pinkamena rolled her eyes, “You’re talking to a pony who was raised by a...what’s that Earth term again...oh ya, Amish family.”

“Seriously? No wonder your standards are so low.”

Pinkamena thought about what Johnny said and realized that for all the effort she put into what she did, a little pampering wouldn’t hurt. After a few moments of tapping her chin with her hoof, Pinkamena decided what she wanted.

“I want a mini bar.”

“A good start...”

“And Pinkie wants a room reserved for her personal party planning room.”

“Uhh...okay?”

Pinkamena wrote a list of what she wanted and gave it to Playa who had more of an eye for luxury than she did.

Playa read the list for a few moments before responding, “We’ll see what we can do, but first we need to rake in the cash before we can make improvements.”

With the requests agreed upon, Pinkamena, Playa and Johnny began inspecting their new hideout.