Pizza, Liquor & Lead

While his boys were away sorting out the root of the mess, Sea Moon had not been idle. He’d called up as much muscle as he could muster, and they had all arrived armed to the teeth. Within minutes, every street around the building had been barricaded with upturned trailers and the like, and gangsters had been working tirelessly to keep the booze mobs – as they had coined them – at bay.

A great number had already succumbed to blunderbuss, musket, rifle and pistol fire, the massive piles of corpses at each parapet testament to the defenders’ willingness to keep their boss safe. And when the mobs suddenly got smart and tried to scale the walls, there were several individuals armed with melee weapons like baseball bats ready to dole out lethal blows as soon as any head poked up.

The boss himself was holed up in the restroom adjacent to his office. With things as settled as they could possibly be, he’d seen fit to take a much needed bathroom break. While sitting on the toilet with that day’s newspaper in hoof, he idly wondered if it would be the last one he’d ever read. He didn’t fear death in the slightest, but the writing had been on the wall for some time. Even if the mess was covered up completely, how long could he keep it covered before Canterlot caught on.

“Son, I need your help! There’s whiskey coming out the sink!”

Sea Moon could barely hear his old mare yelling up through the floorboards, but he really didn’t care about her senile ramblings at that moment.

“Help yourself, ma! I’m on the toilet!” he bellowed back.

After coughing a few times on some phlegm, he muttered to himself. “Old nag.”

Then the pipes rattled in the walls and the toilet gurgled. Plumbing issues were hardly uncommon for the building or the city in general, and it was passed off as a mere annoyance like always. “Damn toilet.”

“Don’t toss your match in the toilet!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He groused while chucking the paper in the corner and fishing out his cigarette tin. He was almost out on account of the stress of the night, but all he needed was one more to get by. He struck the last match in the book and held it to his smoke, which he sucked on greedily once lit. And in defiance of his mother, he dropped the match between his legs into the toilet bowl. The last thing he ever saw was a flash of light when the toilet exploded right under his ass. The fireball consumed both him and the bathroom, and in an instant the plumbing, being back flooded with highly flammable liquid, went up with it.

On the outside, the initial blast in the upper stories had many of the goons running towards the building to save those inside from a potential bombing. Then a much bigger explosion tore through the diner, blowing out all the panoramic windows and the shards of glass along with huge splinters of wood were propelled outward into those who were close. A few were killed outright and the survivors were left to drag themselves away from the carnage. Those who were fortunate enough to still be manning the defenses could only stare in horrified awe at the propagating inferno which was their headquarters not a few seconds ago.

Almost unnoticed against the destructive backdrop was the ponyhole cover which had been launched high into the sky on an eruption of fire from the sewer. As the fire raced through the booze-filled sewers, dozens more covers were sent sky-high and many buildings were consumed by flame along its course. Some paths taken by the blaze led away from the source, but it all eventually led back to the brewery where the nightmare had begun.

The victims of the literal nightmare fuel who were drunkenly licking booze off the floor had been so thoroughly robbed of their faculties that they barely reacted to the light rapidly filling the space, nor the wave of sweltering heat as fire swept across the floor. They did cry out when burned alive, but by then it was all too late as the dormant TNT reached its flashpoint and spontaneously detonated.

After nearly an hour of navigating the rank sewer, Snapper felt safe enough to return to the surface. He gingerly pushed up on the ponyhole cover and slid it to the side as quietly as possible. Propped up on the ladder and with blunderbuss at ready, he pricked his ears and lifted his head just enough to accurately hear happenings above. Apart from the distant wails of klaxons and crackle of sporadic gunfire, he heard nothing immediately alarming, so he inched up to see nothing alarming as well.

“Come on, Snap! You’re holding up the show!”

The impatient shout from the bottom of the ladder pushed the cautious pony to fully extricate himself from the hole, then offer a hoof to his companion. They both brushed the dust, gunk, and gods knew what else off their clothes, and then tried to figure out their next move.

“You could fly, y’know.”

Snapper was right in that regard, but Kure would have none of it. “Nah. Couldn’t live well with myself if I bailed on the home stretch.”

And then, the sky lit up.

With what felt like a second sun to their backs, the duo turned around to witness a light so powerful eyes had to be shielded from it. Once the initial flash leveled off, they could see a literal wall of fire racing down the boulevard towards them. With adrenaline suddenly cranked back up to apocalyptic levels, cries of terror only came naturally and both hooves and paws pounded pavement as they sprinted away from the danger. An unearthly roar assailed their ears and grew rapidly in scope as the fire approached, with an accompanying earthquake following right along. Within mere seconds of being consumed, Snapper spotted a deep ditch in an open yard behind a barber shop and with no more thought both he and Kure dived in.

The splatter of mud was the least of any worries as griffon and pony pressed themselves down as much as possible and covered the backs of their heads with protective forelimbs. The incinerating shockwave was unlike anything either had ever (or would ever) experience when it hit, with a sky shattering concussion being followed by an almighty whoosh of air just over the trench. The sudden fluctuations of air pressure caused painful snaps and crackles in already taxed eardrums, and Kure through it all swore he’d heard nearby buildings being swept clean of their foundations.

Somehow, the little hovel in the ground was protecting them from almost assured death. The ground shook so hard the shockwaves going through it felt like a steady buzz through mortal bodies, and the tartarus above raged on for an indeterminate amount of time before both effects dwindled back down into sporadic shakes and a low roar

“Is it over?”

Snapper’s cautiously asked question was almost inaudible, but it didn’t have to be as Kure had been wondering that very thing. Feeling that it was at least safe enough to open their eyes, uncover their heads, and try to make sense of what had befallen Barrel Bay. The sky garnered attention first and the maroon tinged expanse was filled with massive dark objects tumbling through the sky. Any pony would be hard pressed to identify exactly what had been ejected into the air, but griffon eyesight could easily pick out entire wagons as being some of the bigger ones.

“Oh my goodness!”

Kure flinched downwards as something much lower and very much alive flew over. The cow who must have been sequestered at some urban farm flailed lamely through space, and the griffon had the misfortune of being able to take her horrified and confused expression in before she disappeared from view. He tried not to dwell on her fate.

Other missiles started to impact the ground. Hefty metallic crunches from steam wagons reverberated all around as they smashed on the ground, along with dull cracking of masonry and a sharp crack of porcelain as a toilet met pavement nearby.

For a few seconds beyond, nobody moved. Apart from the roar which seemed to come from everywhere, all was silent. No gunshots, no sirens, no yelling. No guttural moaning or horrified screaming. It was startlingly satisfying, and it prompted the survivors to finally peek out and see. It pulled them out of the mud and drew them past the rubble and to the street, where the totality of that horrible night was laid bare.

A mushroom cloud, so massive the duo had to crane their necks to see the top of hung over the city. It glowed bright red, and lit up the night sky like a miniature sun. The bell of the cloud was still vigorously rolling and expanding, with fire, smoke, and some odd wisps of sickly green phosphorescence dancing around each other in an erratic fashion.

“Sweet Celestia!”

It took a lot to make Snapper invoke the princess’s name, but considering the circumstance Kure was not surprised. As for the tom, words could never describe it. Looking back at the downtown skyline, the skeletal remains of all the proud skyscrapers which had been gutted by the blast were framed in blood red. They hadn’t toppled yet, but by the way a few were already leaning, that was short to last. And then, one by one, they started to topple before the destruction.

The structures buckled and bent as they gradually receded from view, and as they did enormous clouds of dust billowed up to take their places. As the last soaring monuments of prosperity in not just the city but the nation of Equestria as a whole fell to the ground, the force which destroyed them died down as well. Like a sunset, the luminosity steadily dropped until only inky smoke remained to be carried away by trade winds. And the sky itself had been blown clear by the detonation, with the mare in the moon able to uncharacteristically shine down upon the region.

With the explosion no more and major seismic activity having ceased, Kure was able to get his mind back into enough order to string a sentence together.

“Godsdamn. We’re so getting pegged for this one.”

Throughout his stint in Sea Moon’s employ, it was all about being one step ahead in the game. The authorities and the mob itself were always right on his heels, and he knew that if he stayed in it long enough the life would take him out in some form. That day may have come.

“Eh, look on the bright side,” Snapper offered. “There’s no way the boss or anyone in the association survived that. And whatever dirt he had on us likely burned up with him. We’re free agents now, able to start new lives wherever we please.”

Kure was able to flash a grin at that, albeit a sad one. “That’s easier said than done for me. Money is everything to a bird these days, but now I’m out of a job and just about broke. Shit, unless you have a million bits saved up and are willing to share, I-”

A tap of a hoof on the back railroaded any further complaining, and when Kure turned to acknowledge it, he was met with Snapper smiling like a loon. “I don’t think we’ll have any more trouble in our lifetimes. Look.”

Kure followed the hoof, and what it indicated left his jaw on the floor. One of the once-buildings across the street must have been a bank as in the center of the pile of rubble was a boxy looking structure with an unmistakable door. The vault did not survive unscathed as it rested at an angle on its moorings, but far more importantly, the armored door was cocked open with several bags of bits spilling out into the night air.

No more incentive was needed for the duo to clamber over a shattered column and wade into a shifting and settling sea of rubble. It took some work to navigate to the vault, but once there Kure stared down at a single golden bit piece and hummed thoughtfully.

“I guess the gods above wanted to throw us a boon rather than saddle us up with bullshit. If only we had that truck still…”

Acting on a somewhat dangerous impulse, Kure flapped up to the top of the vault and used it as a vantage point to try and find a vehicle which had survived the blast. It truly was slim pickings, but on an adjoining street he saw a battered pickup that looked refreshingly workable.

“I see a truck we could take! May not get us far but that’s all we need!”

Snapper grinned up at him. “Well in that case how about we take a few sacks with us then. Say… six for you. Six for me.”

The pony then picked up one of the loose sacks and held it aloft like a trophy.

“And one for the bar!”

The challenge beyond that was to move all the bits to their waiting ride. With thirteen bags spread out between them it was an arduous task to backtrack out of the collapsed building and to the truck that looked much worse than initially thought. It did have four wheels still attached and an intact bed for the loot, so no complaints could be had there.

“I hope this rig works. Otherwise we’ll have to walk away from this alot poorer.”

Ignoring that jibe, Kure pulled open the door on protesting hinges and slipped into the tattered bench seat. It was evident that most of the damage to the vehicle had occurred over at least a decade or so preceding that night, which also made its controls more antiquated as well. It was still essentially the same process though, check the water level, then build a head of steam. No gauge was needed to know that pressure was building, the excessively loud burner and some popping and hissing from the boiler area already painted enough of a picture.

“Come on. Work. Work!”

Even though he was certain things would work out fine, Kure felt the need to coax the machine on (and the world at large for that matter). There also wasn’t any friendly chime for when it was fine to move, so all he could do was put it in gear and hope for the best. The truck lurched forward harshly once power was allowed to reach the wheels and a quick application of the hoofbrake stopped any more movement. The griffon pumped a balled talon into the air.

“Fuck yeah we can!”