Night in Crystal City

The tiny claws on my chest woke me up. Gummy was waiting there as usual for his morning scratches. I yawned and ran my hoof down the ridges of his back to the tip of his tail.

"Shining," blurted Pinkie in my ear, making me flinch. "I learned something important yesterday but I didn't bring it up because there wasn't a good or… safe time but they're looking for Twilight again."

My eyes bulged and I shot up, grabbing Gummy so he wouldn't fall. "Where?"

A teapot sitting on the hotplate began to whistle but Pinkie seemed indifferent, leaning over the bed, her head propped up on her hooves and her ass swaying like a metronome behind her.

"They're combing the Everfree Forest," she answered.

My heart leapt. "They wouldn't be doing that unless they got a hot tip or… or there was a sighting."

"Yeah," agreed Pinkie, with modest excitement.

I rubbed my face in sudden concern. "What if she's in danger now?" I mumbled.

I never really doubted that Twilight was still alive and free. If Sombra ever got her, the whole empire would be informed. As far as anyone knew, she was the only one left out there that still posed any threat to his rule. If she was brought down, it would quash the last bit of morale any of us had which is a good move if you're Sombra.

"I really need to connect with her," I muttered. "But I can't just leave."

I'd never get travel papers to go to Ponyville without a good reason and If I just disappeared from my job and my apartment to go stowaway on a train, I'd be branded a defector and there'd be no getting back into the relative security and freedom of my new old life. I'd be tossing my hiding spot and privileges out the window.

I'd love to see her again, to tell her I'm not dead, to have her insight and her support… Plot revenge with her. But it was such a costly risk.

Pinkie's face fell at seeing my wrinkled forehead. "You're not gonna leave."

"No," I breathed, cradling Gummy in my arms like a newborn foal.

"I don't know if I would either," she sighed. "And I want to see my family more than anything. I'd understand but I still don't want you to go because I might never see you again."

That was another unfortunate possibility, I nodded to myself.

"If I left Crystal City, it would probably be because it's the only move I have on the board," I assured her.

She stopped swaying and looked despondently into the wadded up bedsheets at the thought. "If you ever do have to go off the grid and you went to Ponyville or Rockville, would you try to find out about my family?"

"Of course," I nodded.

I'd look back on this heart to heart and frame it as some sort of catalyst or bad omen, the way most probably would. It's natural to sift through the debris of a disaster and look for meaning and warnings that we missed.

I believe in fate at my convenience. When it's fake it means I want to pretend to have control over my own destiny. When it's real, I want to absolve myself of responsibility when bad shit happens. At a glance, my life probably looks like a product of fate, but if you look closer, you'll find that it's just a small constellation of bad choices, the very kind I'd like to absolve myself of.

The next couple of days were… fine. I trained in the mines and at home. I went to Pinkie's apartment without the expectation of paying money or even getting sex but the latter still happened. She was right about this. It felt normal and healing.

One night I showed up late at Pinkie's just before curfew. She opened the door and smiled weakly at me, a dark blotch on her cheek.

"What happened?" I asked with worry, walking into her apartment.

She looked away. "Uh, nothing. You mean my bruise? Well I just tripped and fell down the stairs."

"Let me see." I tilted her face back toward mine with a hoof on her chin but her eyes darted away, trying to hide.

"It's fine," she murmured. "It looks worse than it is."

"It's in the shape of a hoof, Pinkie," I growled. "Someone hit you, didn't they?"

She mashed her quivering lips together and turned away on the verge of tears. "No. I just fell."

"You're lying," I accused. "You have a shoe print on your face. Who hit you? You don't have a pimp, do you?"

"No," she shook her head. "It… it was just… an angry client."

Two years and twenty megatons of repressed rage flooded my veins at once and highjacked my brain. That was the moment I was done biding my time in the shadows. I couldn't do it anymore, not this time. I needed to hurt whoever did this. I didn't need the story. Who hits somepony who's already being victimized and only ever wanted to make others smile?

"Who was it?" I demanded, scratching my hoof slowly across the floor.

"I don't know," she wilted. "Some red unicorn… Thorn something."

My eyes narrowed. "Thornwick?" The name felt like worms in my mouth. "Got it," I turned, heading back to her door, quietly seething, pressure building in my face.

"Wait, Shining," she pleaded, pulling my tail. "Please! It's not a big deal… You don't understand."

"I understand that he needs to be taught a lesson," I snapped

"But he's a guard," she countered fearfully.

"I know exactly who he is and you don’t have to worry about him anymore," I tried to put in a level tone but came off as ominous. I closed the door behind me, leaving her fretting alone about whatever it was I was doing.

Thornwick was going to get his face smashed in tonight. That much I knew for certain. It was the details of covering my ass from the fallout that I needed to nail down before I got to him. Blame couldn't fall back on me or Pinkie. If he experienced a seemingly random act of violence, he would likely perceive it as retaliation for something. Luckily the list of ponies with a motive to assault him was not short.

Having been in the business of avoiding Thornwick, I more or less knew where he worked, where he hung out and what his routine was. There were a couple of state run bars that stayed open past curfew to cater to soldiers, and government employees and he frequented the one nearest the mines.

Walking quickly by the glowing tavern, I could see that the crowd was thin tonight but he was there at a table in the window with a group. I passed into the shadows and around the corner where I teleported away to the roof across the street. It was five stories high and gave me an eagle eye view of the front door of the bar. Now all I had to do was wait.

I watched the skies as much as I watched the streets. Winged patrols were always out through the night looking for stragglers and miscreants like me. Thankfully my coat was white and the roof was snowcapped and as the night wore on, it even began to snow more. I couldn't have asked for better cover.

I knew it was serious now because I'd spent over an hour up there and failed to talk myself out of it. At a little after eleven, the doors of the bar opened and Thornwick left in a small group including an earth pony and a pegasus, neither of which appeared to be guards or combatants. I glared down at them, grinding my teeth. I really needed him alone for this to work out best. I didn't know where he lived but I could follow him home. No, that would look targeted. This was going to be an opportunistic mugging in the street. I teleported three roofs down and watched the group pass below. Then I did it again and again, staying on the high roofs. Occasionally they'd cross a patrol, making things more complicated but finally Thornwick broke off from the group. I tailed him like a lion on a sick gazelle. He turned into an alley away from the streetlights and I knew that this was the moment. I blinked off of the roof, appearing on the ground a few paces behind him.

Without a sound, I sent a single diamond cutter zipping through the air. It clipped through his horn just under the halfway point, sending it toppling down his muzzle and into the snow.

"What?" he yelped in surprise, groping the stump on his head. He looked down at his inert horn laying in the snow and then behind himself, only to be greeted with a blast of filthy snow in his eyes.

"Ahg!" he screamed, shaking his head. "Fuck! I'm gonna kill you!"

Without his horn or his eyesight, he was about as capable as a meat piñata. I catapulted him into the air with my magic and slammed him into the side of the alley, then the other side, then back again and again like a tennis ball between rackets made of brick. I held him up high and let him drop on the icy cement with a heavy thud and a groan. I hit his face with another glob of soot-infused snow for good measure. He sputtered and shook his head weakly as he struggled to get up but I pinned him down on his side with my aura.

"Help!" he cried, his bravado all but evaporated.

I opened the ugly little tackle box in the back of my brain where I try to keep everything so carefully compartmentalized and tucked away for the appropriate time and place but it all just spilled out in a pile on the ground. This was no longer a premeditated plan to be soundly executed; it was instinctual mayhem like a shark in bloody water. Injustice, cruelty and the denied catharsis that comes from long awaited retribution that could never be great enough. Thornwick was an analog for everyone who had ever wronged me. The one within reach. The appetizer. Tonight he was Sombra, Pinkie was my family and whoever I was, it wasn't Shining Armor.

I wordlessly stomped a hoof down on the side of his face. He let out a full throated scream as I mercilessly repeated the motion over and over like a machine. His cries and the dull crack of his head between stone and my hoof died in the curtain of white and the sickly gray snow banks around us. I only stopped when he began to cough up loose teeth and blood oozed across the ice from his muzzle like snow cone syrup. I kicked him once in the throat, sending him into a gurgling, choking fit, spraying a mist of more blood.

Then I hit him in the ribs repeatedly, working my way down to his balls. He didn't know today was his last day at work. He wasn't going to be patrolling the streets ever again and he was not going to have a pretext for visiting Pinkie or any other mare for that matter. He could only whimper and spasm as I hammered him between the hind legs.

I paused, letting him marinade in the pain, probably praying that that would be the last of it but fearfully anticipating more. I suddenly became aware of my own panting and the cold air nipping my ears and the snowflakes caught in my mane.

One last thing before I go. I eyed the knee of his left hind leg, the one elevated off of the ground. I pounced on it with my full weight on two legs. The alley echoed with a crack and then a hoarse scream that told me there was still plenty of life left in the bastard.

“Hey, stop right there!” shouted an authoritative voice from behind.

Thankfully I retained enough presence of mind to not turn around to look. I just ripped the satchel from Thornwick's neck and teleported down the block. Then once again. I didn't pause until I was back in my room, panting, heart pounding from an indescribably visceral encounter.

I looked wildeyed into the bathroom mirror to see my face pink with fine red speckles. Looking down at my forelegs I saw that they were the messiest and there was blood spattered across the whole front half of me.

Nice work, Shining. Gratuitous violence won't look targeted at all. Now who’s the psycho? I was shocked by what I'd done but at the same time worried that I didn't go further when I easily could have. I wondered why I didn’t just end his life and toss him in a dumpster. True, his suffering was admittedly more satisfying and I’ve never killed anyone off of the battlefield before but it was an act I thought I'd already resolved to commit. I lost it tonight but I still remembered to keep my mouth shut during the process. So did I also stop myself from killing? Maybe I should just call it a dry run but I needed to be certain that once I was finally at that summit, I would be fighting no holds barred.