Tiger and Demon: A Manehatten Love Story

Chapters

Tiger Without Stripes
Demon Without Horns
Behind Open Doors
Wheels and Bullets
The Bearded Lady
Ails What Cures You
Manehatten Heat

Tiger Without Stripes

Tiger & Demon, Part I: Tiger Without Stripes

Oh this innocence has turned and lost its way,
Retrace the footprints off the path from which I came,
I'm the beast in you, the beast in me
~Passenger, "Wicked Man's Rest"

Memories.

Memories I tried to drown with alcohol, all swimming through it. Swimming desperately. Thrashing about like rats in a sewer flood, fighting for their lives. Some of ’em get lost in all the drunkenness, and I don't mind. I won't miss ’em. But then I start hearin' 'em again. I start seein' 'em again. I start feelin' 'em again. The memories.

"Don't do it!"

Two bodies… at the bottom of a hole…

"Don't do it!"

A silent gunshot… ringing in my ears…

"She's the only good thing I have left!"

A wire… A wire and a throat.

The memories all swirl in their mad struggle, distorting into some kinda mutant nightmare hybrid of tragic events. I find myself swimming away from it in terror as all the horrible things I’ve done come after me. I struggle and scream as I feel them crash into me with the force of an avalanche, crushing my skull, squeezing my lungs, crumpling my stomach and stomping my heart. All at once, I cry out—for somepony. Anypony.

Suddenly, somepony answers.

A long, slender pink foreleg pierces the memories like a bullet through a department store window, hooking itself around my hoof. With a strength befitting a god, that foreleg pulls me up and out. I try to look up at the face of my savior, but my eyes can’t focus. All I see is an impressionist painting of pinks and blues and purples and gold.

A soft, motherly voice calls me by name, and commands me to wake up.

I open my eyes and see a ceiling light, gently filling the room with a ghostly blue. I take a deep breath, inhaling mildew. My ears twitch at the sound of a low hum. I try to stretch my legs, but feel numb—almost paralyzed by a hangover. The taste in my mouth is sour, as if I'd thrown up recently. I ache all over the place, every inch, but my head is hit the hardest, pounding like some big gorilla is usin' it for a jungle drum.

I try getting off the bed I'm on, but wobble. I been drunk last night. That much I recall. More drunk than I'd ever been in my life. Tryin'na forget something. Tryin'na get the alcohol to help me forget. There was lights and cars and sirens... the usual sights and sounds of Manehatten at night. Nuthin' else comes to mind.

I look around. Jail cell.

Shit.

I stagger to the bars, my legs creaking and bitchin' at every step. I open my mouth to say something, but close it again as I feel my throat clench, and a piping hot liquid jumps into my mouth. Reluctantly, I swallow. Just like I swallow every bitter drop of shit Manehatten forces in my mouth.

I stumble, hit the bars with my face. I grumble, not really payin' attention to the words fallin' outta my mouth, burping up what might’a been cussin'. I'm not sure. My eyesight blurs from the impact, everything swirling. Dancing. My ears pick up laughter.

Manehatten's laughter. Bitch havin' herself a good laugh. All the pestilence in this city, eating her away like a fuckin' cancer, and she has a laugh like everything's okay, everything's a joke.

It takes a while for the laughter to stop, for my little legs to feel like standin' again. I force myself back up. That bitter liquid back in my stomach, I call out for a guard, my voice sounding like somethin’ drowning. After a minute, one comes.

"Yo. Got a light?" I ask. He has this expression on his face, the same expression I'm given when anypony hears me talk for the first time. HIs face—that ugly little mass of subtle muscle movement—contorts in order to ask a silent question: "Wait, how does a guy this tiny got a voice that deep?"

I been likened to a kitten sounding like a tiger before, and I kinda like that analogy. I smile at the guard's surprise. The kitten smiles.

His face dissolves from surprise into a smirk. The guard's horn glows, floats over a pack from his table and draws one out, floats it to me. When it's my mouth, he uses his unicorn magic to light it. Would'a lit it myself, but usin’ magic more complicated than levitating objects ain't something a unicorn like me should do while they got a hangover. "Thanks," I tell him. And I mean it. Celestia, I needed that cigarette.

The guard just nods and walks back to his post. He picks up a phone on the wall and dials. I watch him, the cigarette smoke fillin' my lungs, then escaping through my nose, taking my tension and sickness with it. Feelin' 'em both get burned away, burned right outta my body. I use my own telekinesis to pull out the cig and exhale. Watchin’ the smoke dance before my eyes, takin' my tension and sickness outta my body and beating the shit out of it for bein' inside me in the first place. They say smoking’s bad for you—and maybe it is—but nuthin' chases away bullshit better'n Joe Camel.

"He's awake," says the guard into the telephone. I raise an eyebrow. What did I do last night? Obviously, it didn't matter what it was—I was in prison, likely wanted for my involvement in several murders. Yeah, did I mention I work for the mob? Might as well admit it now.

Crime is a disease, like I said. Manehatten's a sick, sagging old bitch—sick but never dying. Just eternally suffering. I'm a part of that disease. I'm a part of the plague. The gang leaders, growin' fat off exploitin' Manehattenites like fuckin' parasites. I’m workin’ for Filthy Rich, and whether I like it or not, I'm workin' for free. My old stallion owed a lot of money to Filthy's shriveled ass, and after he committed suicide, I'm the one left holdin' the bag.

Sometimes at night I just close my eyes and listen to all my sins. The sounds of Manehatten outside, snoring with traffic and crimes bein' committed on rooftops, all distort and become memories. All the muffled screaming from underneath throw pillows. All the gunshots. All the gasps as knives get put in "personal places." Every crime, every sin. I remember them, but I don't... feel them. Almost like watchin’ a movie, watchin’ somepony else's life. As if that couldn'ta been me with the pillow, the gun, the knife.

But at the end of every night, I realize that I did do those horrible things. I did suffocate that stallion with the pillow, I did shoot that mare at point blank range, I did put that knife in her. And every night, at the end of every night when Celestia thinks it's a good time to raise the sun, I hold onto my pillow, or a hooker I'd bought, or whatever I happen to be sleeping on or with that night.

I hold onto it with all my might, like it’s the only thing keepin’ me aloft in a crashing ocean that threatens to swallow me whole. I hold onto it, and wonder if any of my sins are worth havin' on my shoulders. To pay off a debt that ain't even mine? Sometimes I wonder why I don't just end it all. It isn't as if I have any siblings or children the debt would be forced on. Or maybe I do have children, and just don't know it. Plenty’a prostitutes out there I been with, fuckin' away my pain. A son, a daughter...

Honestly? It makes me afraid. I could die. By accident, or on purpose. But then there's the chance somepony else would have to take my place. Somepony would have to start their life'a crime even younger'n I did. Even if I'm the one with the throw pillow, the gun, or the knife, I can't risk forcing this awful life on anypony else. It's the reason I fight so hard not to die. (Well, one of many, but you get the idea, right?)

Of course, it don't matter anymore. I'm in here. In prison. Wanted for murder. Well, murders. Not sure if Filthy Rich knows I broke his Golden Rule. If he knows, well, I'm pretty sure my goose is cooked. If the courts don't get me the chair, he'll probably send one'a the other Choir Boys after me. Either way, I'm pretty much fucked.

I close my eyes. There's no Filthy Rich, no Choir Boys. There's no throw pillow, no gun or knife. There's a wire. The wire. The wire and a throat.

Don't do it! Don't do it, she's the only good thing I have left!

I shake my head, and inhale from my cig, a little harder, a little longer. Sucking Joe Camel's cock, his seed shooting into my lungs, killin' the pain, fuckin' the pain, fuckin' it away. I blow it all out slowly, lettin' the smoke take my mind with it, beat it senseless for leadin' me back down that stupid train of thought. I take deep breaths, my eyes closed, thinking. Thinking. No wire. Just thinking.

The sudden sound of rattling keys breaks me from my thoughts. I look up, and there's a few cops. Both big, brawny guys I'd probably see as bouncers if they wasn't already wearin' the blue uniforms.

I greet 'em with a sneer. Never had much respect for the law. You could say that I think this way because I'm a crook. Well, you're half-right. Yeah, they get in the way, but that makes the job more interesting. They're an obstacle, a hound that chases the fox, and you can't have it any other way when you're in with this kind of crowd.

But I hate Manehatten law for one reason.

It don't really exist.

No, I'm serious. It doesn't exist here. If the law really mattered, Manehatten wouldn't be as sick as she is. She wouldn't be this bloated corpse that don't understand she's already dead, mob dons and gang leaders circlin' her overhead like vultures. The law's just as rotten as the crooks. Many'a these cops done worse things than me—and that's sayin’ a lot. I look at the two big, burly Earth pony guards and wonder how many little guys like me they trampled with those hooves, and how many prostitutes they beaten up, and how many foals they left father- or motherless. How badly they inflicted pain on those they were sworn to protect.

I'm a crook. I'm a monster. I’m a coward. I don't like being any of those, but that's what I am. At least I don't have the gall to wear a badge and pretend I'm a hero.

The looks on their faces could be described as disgustingly pleased, but that's too generous. I seen those smiles on ponies about to rape another pony. How their eyes seem to burn through the object of their dominance, how their nostrils flare in excitement over the thought of getting to rough you up, sink themselves into every orifice.

They look at each other. Then to me.

Oh. Oh shit.

"Hey there," growls the first one as he steps into the cell. That voice, if it weren't comin' from a pony, might’a come from a giant snake instead. His size seems to dwarf the cell itself, his gray coat and silver-white mane makin’ the cell seem even more like a grave. One of his eyes is dull, like he got blinded some time ago. The second guy, just as big as the first but with even less friendly colors, walks in behind him. The jailer looks on in curiosity. He's probably new to the job if he don't understand what's about to happen.

The one thing I've come to understand about this life, this underworld, this diseased little town is that in order to survive, ya gotta know the language. It's a language where the words are intimidation, the sentences are blows, and everything's written in blood. When somepony's trying to intimidate you, you intimidate 'em right back before sentences are formed.

So when these two big fellas come into my cell, grinning like foals on Hearths-Warming Morning about to open up presents, I don't back down. I look 'em straight in the eye. I know their game. And apparently, they know mine. The first guy and I don't break eye contact for a while.

Without looking away, the first guy says to the second, "Whattaya think, Gay Blade? He your type?" He grins.

His buddy, Gay Blade, nods. "He's totally my type, Mookie! Older than he looks, adorably tiny, fetching orange and black mane, sparkly blue eyes..." His voice and body language are both hilariously fey. If he wasn't such a big dude with such a creepy grin, he'd probably be looked at like he's some kind of offensive caricature of homosexuals from the 1970's.

Mookie takes a step forward. My heart begins to beat faster, but I don't dare look away. I'm smaller'n they are—much much smaller. Been tiny my whole life, often mistaken for a foal in his teens. Used that to my advantage sometimes, although it's hard to get in bars unless I grow some stubble. I'm a unicorn, they're Earth ponies; my tiny body is fragile, while just one of these guys could stomp me to mush. I’m a kitten in a nest of vipers.

Gay Blade walks behind me, admiring my form from different angles, sizin' me up like a meal. "You know what I heard, Mookie? I heard he's a murderer. A gangster. He's killed ponies. He's got blood on his hooves."

"Yeah, yeah he does, and that pisses me off."

Gay Blade decides he's gonna lean on me, his chin resting on the top of my head. My heart slams against my chest so hard and so fast it hurts. I feel his throat vibrate as he sighs dreamily. "He pissin' you off, Mookie? You wanna punish him?" He nibbles my ear. "I know how."

Faster than either can react, my cigarette finds its way to Gay Blade's nose and gets shoved in, ash side first. He screams like a bitch as Mookie darts forward. He's big, but I'm small—I slide underneath him and shoot for the open cell door. The guard who'd been watchin' looks at me, impressed. I'm expecting him to just close the door and let these two have their way with me.

But for some reason, he doesn't. I jump through the open cell door, and just as Mookie turns to chase me, the guard slams the cell door and locks it. I look at him in surprise. Mookie and Gay Blade are just as surprised as I am, shoutin' and cussin' at the guard as he walks right by me and places his keys on the wall.

"The fuck you doin', Lockdown?!" Mookie shouts. "We had a deal!"

Lockdown smirks at him. "I was given a better deal. The Commissioner already knows all about your little 'punishment sessions'." At this, the color went outta their faces. I'm not sure how that even works since we all have pelts, but they go pale like a pair of brothers who just realized Mom caught ’em red-hoofed.

Lockdown looks at me, a big smile on his face. He looks like I just won a contest or something. Congratulations, Baritone, you just survived a round of Rape Escape! How's it feel? What’cha plan on doin' next?

He pats my shoulder in congratulations. Then he shackles my forelegs, so quickly they're on before I can think. "Look," he says, "these shackles are just for show. I gotta take you to the Commish. She got somethin' she wants to say to you."

Then he places another shackle, this time on my horn. It's a restrainer that severely limits magic usage. Usually it takes a real fuck of an effort to lift a penny while you're wearin' it. Perfect for unicorn prisoners. I wonder why I hadn't been shackled with it before.

…The cigarette.

If I'd had that restrainer on before, Gay Blade would probably be four inches deeper in me by now. But because I was able to use the cig with ease, I was able to escape. This whole thing was a setup. I chuckle.

"What's so funny, faggot?!" Mookie shouts at me. Gay Blade nudges him with a murderous look on his face.

I shake my head, my chuckle exploding into a whooping cackle. The entire cell block reverberates with the sound of my laugh, distorting it. It sounds almost like a roar. Mookie and Gay Blade shrink down, away from the cell door as they hear my laughter.

The tiger roars.

Demon Without Horns

Tiger & Demon, Part II: Demon Without Horns

"Whenever I approach ANY character, I want them to be likeable, even if she's a murderer."

~Tara Strong, voice of Twilight Sparkle.

The trip to the Commissioner's office is short and wordless. Cops sittin' around, talkin' to each other, perps bein' led about the precinct. Sounds of papers shuffled, phones ringing, droning voices. Before long, I'm at the Commissioner's office. Lockdown opens the door and leads me in.

The first thing I notice about our Commissioner is that she's a fuckin' slob. Probably sleeps in her office a lot.

There's an ironing board outta the wall with clothing on it that I'm not sure was ever washed. Papers and files are strewn all over the place, with filing cabinets stuffed with even more papers and files. Window shades are lopsided, letting in only a few slivers of sunlight. A pizza box sits on the floor with leftovers still in it. A trashcan sits next to her desk, perfectly empty. Pictures struggle to hang on the wall, captured days long since gone. A water cooler is here, but it's almost empty, with a few sticky notes with scribbly hoofwriting stuck to it.

There's a little purple baby dragon in here, strugglin' to maintain some kind of cleanliness in this office, and Celestia's sweet ass, do I pity him for it. He turns to me and there's this look on his face. His green eyes narrow as his lips form this tough-guy frown. Lockdown nods to him, and then leaves.

I look around awkwardly. The baby dragon continues his cleaning for a few moments. "Commish isn't here right now," he says finally.

I raise an eyebrow. "Why not?"

I get That Look for the second time today. After a second, the dragon shakes his head and continues cleaning. Kid's got balls. He's in his boss' office alone with somepony he likely already knows is a murderer and he's takin' it as only an inconvenience. Of course, I'm shackled and can't do a whole lot, and I don't look intimidating. But still.

The adrenaline I felt in the jail cell earlier has finally begun to wear off, and my hangover knocks at my head, reminding me it's still there. I siddown on my haunches while I rub my achin' forehead. I hear some water running. The baby dragon hands me a cone-cup of water.

I forget the magic restrainer that's fastened to my horn and wonder, like a moron, why I'm havin' such a hard time lifting a fucking cup. The baby dragon rolls his eyes and points to his own forehead. I sigh and just grab the damn thing with my hooves. I'll never figure out how pegasi 'n earth ponies handle these things with their hooves; it's not like a cup was made with hooves in mind.

I down the water like I been in a desert the past few weeks. The cigarette from earlier left me thirsty, and while I would'a preferred a nice cup of coffee, the water helps my hangover, however slightly. I hoof the cup back to the dragon and thank him. He don't say nuttin', but puts the cup in the trash bin. There's more silence as he goes right back to cleaning and organizing the best he can.

After a while of waiting, I hear muffled voices outside the door. One'a them's female. I assume it's the Commissioner on her way back to her pigsty-slash-office. I try pressin' my ear to the door, but still can't make out exactly what they're sayin'.

Suddenly, I hear Lockdown mumble somethin'. The Commissioner thanks him. Sounds of hoofsteps coming to the door. I back away just as she walks in, and she enters the room like a shadow creepin' on a wall.

I seen pictures of her before and saw her on the television for press conferences and other bullshit, but it ain't anythin' like meeting her in person. Like most ponies, she has to look down at me, and as she does, she has this grin that makes my gut turn upside-down. When she was in front'a cameras, she always had this "all business" air to her, like she was an angel guarding the gates to Paradise. But this grin that's on her now proves to me she was a demon all along—a demon pretending to be an angel, and those gates don't lead to Paradise.

She's purple: purple coat, purple eyes, even her dark blue mane seems to eagerly push the purple at me like it's cocaine. Other ponies might compliment her color scheme, sayin' she's like a pleasant evening. Maybe that was true once. But now? That hue reminds me'a bruises. She's bruised all over, covered in wounds that refuse to heal or mend.

Her dark trench coat looks dirty but not ragged or threadbare, so I assume she bought a new set instead'a just cleanin' her old clothes. She wears midnight-black boots, all caked with mud 'n muck. My eyes fall to her snow-white scarf, since it's the cleanest article she wears. There's obviously some pride put into that scarf, not a bit of dirt on it. I’m caught afterward by the hat she wears, a black porkpie.

I recall that the Commissioner’s a Bearer of the Elements of Harmony, one of six. Her Element was Magic (I think) and she's a unicorn.

No greeting. Not even a grunt of acknowledgement. She closes the door behind her with her hind leg and walks by the baby dragon like he isn't here either. She removes her coat and throws it on her desk as she makes her way to the file cabinet. She opens it, rifles through the incomprehensible mess.

Suddenly, she groans and slams the filing cabinet shut. She turns to the dragon. "Spike, where's his file?!"

Spike sniffs as he realigns a few of the pictures on the wall. "On your desk? Like where you asked me to put it?" I fight the urge to smile. Kid's got some serious brass.

The Commissioner looks under the coat she threw on her desk and under it is a lone file with the name SANDERS, BARITONE. She gives the dragon an aside glance and grits her teeth. He ignores her. I realize I'm having too much fun watching all this.

"Spike," she says. "Go wait in the safety room." Her voice is one that commands, and the baby dragon obeys.

She grabs the file and opens it up, turnin' the pages inside like she's looking over an old photo album. She looks up at me, greeting my eyes with hers. Hers are purple. Bruises. She looks at me disdainfully, through bruised eyes.

"All right, you're probably wondering why I brought you here. Yes, your being wanted on multiple accounts of murder IS a reason." She flips through the file some more. "But probably not in the way you think." Another page turn. Her lips purse.

Her lips are something I hadn't really noticed before, pulled back by that creepy grin she had, but now that they're there, visible on her face, I wonder why they're not visible more often. They're beautiful lips, the kind I can imagine softly pressing themselves over every inch of an equine body, tenderly, lovingly. They kiss her children's cuts, her lovers' mouths, her parents' faces. They're angelic.

Then the lips disappear and the grin returns and I'm reminded she's no angel. She's a demon smiling a demon's grin. Her bruised eyes shoot back to me as she snorts, fighting a laugh.

"Killed a priest, huh?"

I shrug. "Boss said he wasn’t dependable."

A pause that lasts forever. I'm expecting That Look, the look that Lockdown and Spike have already given me.

But I don't get it. The Commissioner keeps her demon grin, her angelic lips spread too far apart to be beautiful. Her teeth have been yellowed, not by time or by coffee stains. They're hideous—long and bent like bars on a prison cell door left to rot. The worst part is they look like they belong there, in her head, on her face.

Her eyes switch to the file, then back to me. She puts the file down, her hooves on either side of it, and leans over her desk, looking like a crazed judge eager to pass capital punishment. I feel I'm gonna get worse.

Our eyes lock, and I realize he's staring at me with that false coolness most crooks possess. It's the very same coolness they use when they wanna disguise how fucking scared they are. He might not know what I have planned, but he knows, deep in his gut, that it isn't gonna be much fun for him.

The file in front of me, like a book full of his most embarrassing moments. Every paper in it contains all the info I could glean off his friends. When they told me all about his little adventures, I could hardly believe them myself. All the hits and the murders he'd been involved in. Most of his victims could only be found in pieces, with many of them never found at all.

He started out smalltime. Heists. Taking care of dead bodies. He and an associate of his got caught burying one, and he killed the witness and buried her too. It was his first kill. He became better and better at killing, until finally Filthy Rich decided to make him one of his prime enforcers. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do.

It was last night, though, that I saw this guy, this Baritone Sanders, in action. He was piss-drunk, probably having a lousy week. Being that in-debt with a mafia don can do that to anypony. When somepony gets that frustrated and angry, they usually take that out on other ponies—on friends, on wives, on girlfriends, on anypony they can get ahold of.

But the police were alerted to a massive attack on an entire block. All those alarms, all those calls for help... Shit, even I was scared at first. By the time we'd gotten there, there were bodies hanging off telephone poles, bloodstains on walls, carriages and cars and lampposts all bent and warped and gnarled like surrealist art pieces.

This guy was an unstoppable, untouchable beast, just like his friends had said. I saw him that night. His unicorn horn protruding proudly from his head like an erection aching to be stuffed into something soft, glowing like it can't wait for its chance to get buried. Above him was a glowing lamppost, uprooted from its station like a plucked dandelion.

Like I said, the guy was drunk, and he swung that lamppost and proved it. Knocked the head off one of my guys like he was playing golf. He giggled a bit (And inwardly, so did I) as the head bounced off one of our cars. My unicorn boys began firing their guns at him, only to drop a load when none of the bullets reached him.

The bullets all stopped, like they were caught by something invisible. All glowed that same orange that held the lamppost. Baritone laughed, and it sounded like a roar, his surprisingly deep voice singing a drunken song about a fallen god. I was lucky to get down in time to avoid getting ripped to shreds by the bullet storm he threw back at us. Most of my boys weren't so lucky.

"I lost a lot of my boys last night," I tell him. "You tore 'em up like they were nothing. Like they were the nothings they always were. The unicorns, the Earth ponies, the pegasi... Tartarus, you ripped 'em up without even lifting a hoof." I add a chuckle. I can still hear the bullets singing as they tore through Squeaky Clean and Rimshot, ripping through them like a swarm of angry bees.

His expression doesn't change. His strikingly blue eyes, fierce and without any shred of remorse, blink. I'm almost amazed by how blue they are. Like

(hers)

an ocean.

(Just like)

an ocean that rips and rumbles and covers most of a planet. Godlike.

(Just like hers.)

But unlike

(hers)

there's no sense of melancholy mixed with amusement, no daydreams, no smile hiding behind those eyes. There's no constant, almost electrical activity going on behind them. There's just focused, godlike power.

I lean forward more, until my eyes are a few inches away from that pair of ocean-blue gods.

"You," I whisper. "You're a monster, Baritone." I flash him That Grin. The grin I save for intimidation. Most ponies think a scowl can get you the fear you want, but I find the reverse is true. There's something especially... primal... about this grin I've perfected. This grin that has absolutely no sympathy, no happiness, no friendliness. Something about it that makes other ponies shut their fucking mouths and listen.

"You kill other ponies, not because you're paid to do it. Although, that IS what got you started isn't it? The money? All to pay off debts that weren't yours. But before long, you got so good at what you did, that you began to love it."

It's quick and I almost miss it, but I see it. It jumps past his sparkling blue eyes like a ghost, but I finally see it for myself. He's afraid. I almost congratulate myself, but it isn't me he's afraid of. No, he's afraid of himself. The monster that's in him. I giggle, and he knows that I saw it. Saw his fear. Tasted it, fleetingly blissful as it was. He's a kitten, but there's a tiger in him, and it's no friend of the kitten's, and it wants to roar and shred and kill and eat like it did last night.

He isn't there yet, though. He's capable of doing terrible things to ponies, and I saw that last night with my own two eyes. Golfswing decapitation. Hornet swarm bullets. No morals. No restraints.

But he isn't quite "there" yet; he has not embraced his inner monster. The pussy in him probably sobs into a pillow or something at night when he considers all the terrible things the monster in him did during the day.

But the monster that's in him, it's huge and wants to dominate. There's something desirable about that. I want that monster. And I want it bad.

"You love killing others. It took a shitload of alcohol to make you sober, but you realized it last night, so you rampaged through Manehatten. Through my city, killing anypony unlucky enough to get in your way." I giggle again, fighting myself. I want this monster. But not yet. Don't skip straight to the orgasm when there's foreplay to be had.

"You are precisely the kind of pony I'm looking for, Baritone."

I let those words hang in the air. Finally, he asks, "Whatta you mean?" Celestia, I nearly melt at the sound of his voice. It lacks the animal sound of his rampage last night, and if I were younger, less experienced (and more whole), I'd probably have swooned like some teenybopper at a Golden Throat concert. But that voice, deep and rich and powerful, even lacking the ferocity, was a force just like his godlike eyes. When you hear his voice, you fucking listen.

I recline a little, then lean forward and rest myself on the desk, folding my forelegs as I lean downward. I can tell he's trying his damnedest not to look at my raised rump, but I catch his eyes going up occasionally anyway. I giggle, making sure my voice is deep. Sultry. Inviting. Nothing gets a guy's attention quite like the sound of a mare that wants.

"Never mind why I want you," I tell him. "Does it ever matter to you? The why?" I look to his horn again. It's a beautiful thing to see, so solid and proud, even though it's both short and clamped with that ugly and uncomfortable anti-magic clasp. I close my eyes for what I hope passes as a blink and I imagine that horn in my mouth, imagine what this monster tastes like.

"It doesn't matter why I want a monster like you, Baritone. What matters is that you are going to work for me."

Ican't help it.

I burst out laughing.

I try my damnedest to keep myself throughout this conversation (and she's a manipulative bitch, too; clever and mischievous like all the best mares). I held my glare when she tried intimidation, and I held it when she was tryin’na gimme a stiffy.

But this? Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

She's lookin' at me like she wasn't expecting this reaction. Her bruised eyes bulge like zits about to burst. Those angelic lips of hers are twisted into a shape that makes me laugh harder. Suddenly, the lips disappear and those teeth come back. The angel dies again and the demon comes back and she's fucking pissed.

The next thing I know, the desk she leans on is on top of me, its contents flyin’ everywhere, slamming me to the ground with all its weight. The air goes out of my lungs and swims away. My greatest fear jumps to the front of my mind in an instant, that primal fear a pony my size always has. The same fear insects have. That fear of somethin' bigger'n you comin' down, fast and hard, stompin' you and crushin' you before you get any time to think.

I nearly cry out as the desk lands on me. I'm trapped between it and the floor. Suddenly, I feel the air crawling back into my lungs, crawling like an abused lover back for more punishment. The photographs from the file are next to my face. I shouldn'ta looked… but I did.

And there it is.

Proof to her claim. Proof that I'm a monster, that I'm the monster she seeks. Photographs of the bodies and the pieces of bodies. The pieces of the ponies, many whose only "crime" was owing money to the wrong pony. The ponies I killed just to live a little longer. My eyes lock onto one photo in particular as I feel the Commissioner jump onto the desk, her added weight forcing the air in my lungs back out.

With every jump, she lands twice as hard as she did the first time. She's rough, and she's breathing hard, enjoying herself, loving her dominance over me. Over somepony so much smaller than her. I find my breath between stomps and I seize them, wherever I can, as quickly as I can. We form a rhythm, the two of us; we form a rhythm in an ageless song of abuse. She gives and I receive.

She shouts out words between stomps, angry and primal and vicious. "DON'T! YOU! FUCKING! LAUGH! AT! ME!!!"

Most other ponies would just land a smack on your face to get you to understand they're being serious; but she goes miles ahead and just kills anypony who disses her. I open my eyes between her monstrous thrusts and I see the photograph again.

It's a little filly. I remember her. The memory of killing her: that wire I wrapped around her neck, demandin' her mother to pay up or I'd kill her daughter.

"Don't do it!" she pleaded, "Don't do it, she's the only good thing I have left!"

The look of sheer horror in her eyes when her daughter's body, limp and cold, was thrown at her hooves.

The hours I spent that night, staring into my own eyes through a mirror, looking for a soul...

...and not findin' one.

That memory gets pounded back into me by this bitch and her desk. Proof that I'm the monster she wants. Proof that I hurt ponies, no matter how innocent they are, just so I can live another day. Part of me wants to just die here, under this desk, getting pounded to mush by this demon.

The pounding stops, and I hear her panting like she just climaxed. I feel her sit down on top of that desk, recollectin' herself. Even though there's a whole desk between us, I can tell her ass is right on my cock. She's excited, turned on by violence, and strangely, so am I.

A few seconds pass. Finally, she gets off and pushes the desk off me. I feel dizzy and weak, and for a second, I wonder if I'm already on my way out to Judgment. Eyes the color of bruises suddenly pop into my view, that dark blue mane that pushes purple at me like nothing else tickling my neck. I feel soft, angelic lips wrap around my horn as her hooves tenderly hold my face and those bruised eyes close. She moans as she suckles my horn, sliding her tongue up and down like she's gorging herself on her favorite treat.

My eyes snap open as I realize what she's doing. I feel hypnotized, suddenly made hungry by the violence and those angelic lips and that mischievous tongue. She dominates me, dominates this monster, and for whatever reason, I let her. I let her dominate me just like I let everypony else. It hurts, and at the same time, it fees damn good.

Then I see that sometime during her tantrum, her porkpie fell off. I recall again that she's a unicorn.

If she is, where's her horn? This demon don't got one.

Behind Open Doors

Tiger & Demon, Part III: Behind Open Doors

"But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls."

~C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

She holds my face in her hooves, our eyes meeting as she really gets into it. Her tongue seems to slide around my horn as if it's exploring. Searching. It covers as many inches as she can fit in her mouth. I close my eyes and breathe softly, forgetting my recent beating and just existing, for now, in this blissful moment, with those angelic lips on my horn.

It's over too soon. Her mouth lets go of my horn with a dissatisfying squelch. The angel goes away and the demon comes back. She looks into my eyes as her hooves let go of my face.

"Do I have your attention now?" she asks.

I wanna laugh again. Hadn't laughed that hard in a while as a matter of fact: the idea that a cop, the Commissioner herself no less, wantin' me as some kind of henchman or vigilante-for-hire or some shit... Instead, I just smile at her. Brushin' up on that patented Baritone charm, dialing it up. Crankin’ that dial up until I hear a click.

She returns the smile, but not with the demon grin from before. It's a smaller, quirkier one. Like she just got answered with another question. Seems the patented Baritone charm is in need of a tune-up.

"Maybe I wasn't being all that clear," she says, apparently in better spirits now that she's released all her pent-up sexual frustration. She moves over and sits on the floor next to me, not once breaking eye contact. Her face becomes a puzzle for a moment, like she's connecting the pieces of something she had forgotten to do earlier.

"The thing is, I have… enemies. Dangerous enemies. And they've taken something from me that I can never get back."

I look at her head, where her horn ought to be, and all I see is this weird semi-circle, a round red line. The top is faded and scarred, but the lower half is much redder. Like she has a second mouth on her head, frozen in an eerie, constant smile. It's a little red smile. Mocking her.

A unicorn without a horn. No magic. Not even able to lift objects by wanting them near you. Suddenly, everything about her makes sense.

"They took your horn?" I ask. I feel like an idiot, but the words are out of my mouth before I can corral them back in. She has this look, a look that begs me not to remind her. I grit my teeth. “I-I’m sorry, didn’t mean t’say it like that…”

The Commish gives me a surprisingly vulnerable look before turning away, that moment of weakness cast aside like trash on the street.

Now look. I ain’t so macho that I wouldn't never hit a dame. I had to; I don't like it, but I had to when the situation calls for it. And as far as harming foals goes, well, that's what landed me in this whole mess I'm in right now anyways. I wanna think I'm above this kinda thing, this kinda depravity, but as my actions have proven, I ain’t.

But.

Takin’ a unicorn's horn? Who the fuck does shit like that? Why would they do something like that?

"Not just my horn," says the Commish, quietly. She looks around, finds her porkpie, and returns it to her head, pushing her bangs down. The little red smile disappears underneath blue and pink bangs. Hiding her embarrassment.

"Not just my horn," she says again. "My dignity. My talent. My life. Everything."

I think this over a bit. Drink it all in. The Commissioner of Manehatten's police force was once a national hero. Trained by Celestia herself to use powerful magics most other unicorns had no chance of learning. Fought gods. Fought gods and won. But then for reasons never revealed to the press, she disappeared along with a few of her buds. Then outta the blue, she's dumped here, in Manehatten. In Equestria's own trashcan with the rest of the garbage Her Highness has no patience for.

She's a demon, all right. The perfect fallen angel. Wings pulled right off her back, and down she went. For no reason at all, those wings were pulled, and that halo burst into flame. She reached for the goddesses as she fell and they ignored her. Body covered in bruises by the time she came to. Bruises and wounds that won't heal.

She fell. And she don't know why.

"I take it this is where I come in?" he asks me. His rich voice makes my ears beg me to let them melt. I tell them not yet. Too early.

He's still flat on his back, not even bothering to get up after our violent and raunchy introduction. I move around him, eyeing him from different angles. His cutie mark, a microphone head with a wire coming out the back, glistens from the sweat on his flank. His cuffs make both his forelegs combine into a single unusable limb. The clamp on his horn makes it look even more phallic, but at the same time, makes it look like a ridiculous portrait of male impotence. He's breathing heavy and he's sweating so bad his shirt is soaked. Blood is running down his nose, making him look good and roughed.

He's helpless right now. Weak. A kitten. He's a kitten right now. But there's a tiger in him and I saw it. The proof I saw last night is backed up by the proof that's lying around on the floor. I know Baritone is everything I want. He's the monster I want.

But like all things I want, they aren't ever anything I need. The things I need don't ever get replaced.

"If you want," I say, as softly and as businesslike as I can. "You don't have to choose right away." I feel an impish chill ride up my spine. I feel ecstatic, the way I always do when a good plan starts coming together. It's that kind of excitement that's white hot and black cold, where it's hard for you to hold in your squeals because everything's about to get hoofed to you for a job well done.

"However," I continue, "you'll have to choose here in about ten minutes. A mutual acquaintance of ours is coming by to pick you up if you're interested."

An eyebrow raises to greet my instructions with a question. I don't feed it an answer. Instead I invade his privacy more. Get more in his face. Our lips are only a few inches away. Our hips are only a few inches away. Before our mutual acquaintance shows up, I could take him any way I want.

I could beat him.

I could beat him off.

I could do both.

But I choose none of the above. No. Not yet. Not yet. Baritone's a monster. He's a monster, just like me. He's a monster, and a powerful one, and I'm going to have him. But not now.

"By now, you're probably wondering what's in it for you. You don't strike me as the type who'd just come running to help save a beautiful princess, so I'll throw you a bone." I slap his cutie mark, and he snorts in surprise. His flanks are just as surprisingly soft as his face. I want to slap it again, but I hold myself.

"This cutie mark of yours," I say. "A radio microphone. You a singer?"

Silence. I slap his flank again, a little more playfully this time. "Are you a singer?"

"Was," he says.

"Voice like yours could make girls throw themselves at you. In fact, they probably do." This comment earns a smirk from him. I like that smirk. I feel like taking it right off his face and putting it in my pocket for later.

"You have a voice that deserves to be heard,” I say as I lean forward. “Music. Radio. Stand-up comedy. Maybe even a motivational speaker. Whatever you'd want to do, your life should be spent behind a microphone." I realize I'm leaning into his face close enough to kiss him. I back away the moment he starts getting the same idea.

"You do this for me, Baritone. Be a monster. Be my monster. I've already had knights in shining armor fight the dragons that wronged me, and they all failed. This is a job for a monster. Help me find them. Help me kill them. And then I'll give you your life back."

He smiles.

He looks like he's gonna laugh again. What is it with this guy and not taking me seriously? What is it with everypony and not taking me seriously? No matter what the situation is, I get laughed at. My friends laugh at me. My mentor laughs at me. My brother and sister-in-law laugh at me. My mother and father laugh at me. My, my, my monster... laughs... at me. My hoof comes down, my patience at its end. I hit the ground next to his face.

"I have connections, asshole. I have money! I have power! I can clear your debts with my own checkbook. I can arrange for you to leave Manehatten, for good. I know some nice places in Canterlot. Tatarus, I even know a few musicians who'd love to meet you. I, can, give, you, your, life, back."

Ihear the hoof hit the ground before I see it happen. The Commish might not be earth pony strong, but she's fast. She'd be a real bolt of lightning in a fight. But I also hear the sound of metal behind the glove she wears. It's muffled, but it's there. Horseshoes. Highly illegal, yet practical for a hornless unicorn who might hafta get physical with Earth ponies.

She spits at me: connections, asshole! Money! POWER! I know she's serious. I already knew she's a national hero. That the Princess trained her, personally knows her. I wasn't about to laugh, but she's so paranoid, it's kinda silly. I wanna tell her to calm down, that I didn't mean anything, but I already know it's a lost cause. There's no use talking to a fallen angel like her.

I nod. I understand. Work for her. Get my life back.

Get back to singin' in front of appreciative crowds. Hobnobbing with successful musicians. Learn from them. Add to my own music. Sing for them. Maybe even do radio spots. Maybe even start my own radio program. Maybe even become an actor, put myself in front of a camera.

Honestly, it sounds a little too good to be true.

But then again, don't demons often make deals like this?

I lift my cuffed hooves, slowly. I'm not sure if she'll hit me if I do, but I lift 'em. When I notice my face is still in one piece, I use my clumsy cuffed hooves to hold onto hers. I even feel the horseshoe under the leather glove and wonder why I didn't feel them before when she cradled my face. I hold her hoof and she pulls me up. I hold onto that one hoof, the bad memories still on the floor like sticky puddles after some particularly depressing private time, the barely-any-light illuminating slivers of her facial features.

She's the color of bruises, the Commish. Covered in wounds. Wounds that refuse to heal. A horn that will never come back. Wings that were pulled off, a halo that was burned away. A unicorn who'd lost her horn for no damned reason.

And you know what? I almost cry. Not for this fallen angel, but for how much further she still has left to fall.

I nod. "OK, then. Let's say I'm interested. What next?"

The demon grin comes back. "All right," she says. "A mutual acquaintance of ours is headed here right now. If you're interested, when he shows up, he's going to ask you a question: 'Going my way, soldier?'" She giggles at the homoeroticism like she's a teenager. "If you're with me, you say 'ALL the way.'"

She leans in closer, that demon grin filling my entire view. "You say anything else, and he has permission to kill you. And I don't know anything about anything, either way. Ka-peach?"

Her hilariously unnecessary use of Neightalian slang makes me smile. Her demon grin warps for a second. Like before, she reacts she's never seen a thug smile before. Or maybe I accidentally cranked the patented Baritone charm too high. Either way, I nod. "Capiche," I say, accenting it better than she did.

She nods. "All right." Her angelic lips purse a moment as she locks eyes with me. She looks like she's doing some inner calculations. A blink. Once. Twice. I kind of get the awkward idea that she's forgotten me. And that she's forgotten where she is. And that she's forgotten who she is. I feel like makin’ a break for it, jumping out the window or something, when she suddenly comes back.

"But just remember one thing," she says, the volume of her voice as low as she can manage while still sounding threatening. "You don't get to leave my city until this is finally laid to rest." She takes a few steps further, advancing on this little kitten in the demon's den. I don't back down. "Ashes, Baritone! When my enemies are... ashes... you have my permission to leave."

Her angelic lips are an inch away from mine. We got time before this mutual acquaintence of our shows up. If I wanted, I could kiss her. She wouldn't mind it. She would love it. Welcome it. Maybe even invite me to take it further. But for one reason or another, I don't. There's so much lust in the air around us. Too much. Choking us.

Suddenly, there's a crash like a rocket had just shot into space from the next room. I look to the door and hear cops shouting. Gunfire. More crashes. Sounds of crackling, like something getting built way too fast. I notice the Commish is walking around her office, knocking objects over. She even stamps on the pizza box.

"Whatta you doin'?" I ask.

"Hit me."

I blink. "What?"

She nods. "Hit me. Hit me as hard as you can." She stands still, gearing herself for the black eye she wants me to give her.

The knocked-over furniture. The crook coming to pick me up. A beat-up Commissioner.

A planned break-in. And she don't know nothin’ about nothin’, either way.

I smirk. This chick. Commissioner Sparkle. I like her. Clever and mischievous, like all the best mares. I never been one to disappoint a lady, so I give her exactly the beating she wants.

A headbutt. Our eyes meet for a split second before she loses the feeling in her legs.

A swing to the jaw. My cuffed forelegs meet her face, giving her another bruise to go with the rest.

I swerve around and buck her with both hind legs, gettin' her right in the chest, sending her backwards, knockin' that damn desk over again. She slams into it hard enough to break it in half.

She lies there, breathing hard, but a smile on her face. I return it. She gurgles something as she slips into unconsciousness.

I try to focus my telekinesis on the doorknob, but I remember the dampener clamp. I sigh and go for the old-fashioned way, fighting the urge to whoop like a damned cowcolt, like in the movies. The door opens and slams into the wall with a single buck. Running out into the open is almost a mistake, because the moment I feel that chill, I figure out exactly who our mutual acquaintance is.

The entire precinct has become a winter wonderland, like a pack of Windigos had rampaged through here. White as a polished tombstone. Ice coats damn near everything. There's even icicles hanging from the ceiling. Cops have become statues and ice sculptures in various poses: some reach for guns or batons, some are scared—and one even munches on a donut like, y’know, everything's okay, being frozen ain't so bad.

Coldsnap walks through this frozen crowd like the unstoppable Old Man Winter he is. His thick, snow-white bomber jacket is decorated with so many pins and buttons I wonder if local gangs are just paying him to advertise. The jacket does a good job of hiding his half-dragon heritage, but his dark blue scales still speckle the back of his neck and freckle beneath his eyes. His mane, just as dark blue as his scales, hangs off his ice-blue head like the icicles from the ceiling. With his unicorn telekinesis, he adjusts his glasses, his dead, grey eyes both landing on me.

"Going my way, soldier?" asks Coldsnap, his sharp teeth gleaming amidst all the snow white.

For a second, I think it over. My debts to Filthy Rich. No. My father's debts to Filthy Rich. I don't owe him shit. Not anymore. He's the one who took everything from me, forcin' me to become somethin' unspeakable. Killin' little fillies. I don't mean shit to him. Filthy Rich will get plenty pissed, but fuck 'im.

I think'a the life I had once. I think of gettin' it back. I think that the Commissioner is just taking advantage of me the way everypony else does. I think of the Commissioner's plight. Her demon grin. Her angelic lips. Clever and mischievous. Like all the best mares.

Shit. What have I got to lose?

"ALL the way."

Tiger & Demon
~fin~

~Next Episode: Breaking What's Fixed~

Wheels and Bullets

Breaking What's Fixed, Part I: Wheels and Bullets

Ooh, it’s a killing machine
It’s got everything
Like a driving power
Big fat tires and everything
~Deep Purple, “Highway Star"

Police sirens. Shrieking bullets. Squealing tires. Screaming engine. Wind whipping by us like we're shreddin' through somethin' meant to be solid. It's a few seconds before my heart starts pumping blood through me again. I look to the driver of this high-speed monster. The Commissioner's best friend, or so Coldsnap told me before we left the station.

Gorgeous. That's the first word to pop into my head. She's a gorgeous earth pony with a body built from years of physical labor and generous amounts of food. An orange coat covers a chiseled body whose movements are like a song sung by a choir of muscles. My eyes get lost in that long wave of gold that's crowned by a Stetson, and by the time I find my eyes again, they're being hoofed back to me by a pair of stern emeralds. They blink.

"Wake up, sugarcube!" she yells as she puts the pedal to the metal. "We got su'm bigger goin' on here!"

A bullet shrieks as it breaks the windshield. The driver lets loose a long line of curse words. "Such barbaric language," chides Coldsnap. His voice is monotone, dead. Like a December breeze lamenting the loss of November. "Hardly befitting a proper lady, Miss Apple."

I look to Miss Apple, and see the anger in her eyes. That righteous Southern country gal indignation was about to come up. She was ready to blow. I look to her and I shake my head. Don't make him angry, I plead with those angry emeralds. Please. Don't. Make. Him. Angry.

Miss Apple's not one to take criticism sittin' down, but at least she's smart. Deep down, she knows she oughtta keep herself quiet when she's around a total batshit psycho like Coldsnap. But what she don't know is, he's made ice sculptures out of mares before for givin' him fashion advice. The only thing that would keep Coldsnap from haulin' off and freezin' Miss Apple is the presence of his brother Heat Freak, who conveniently isn't in this cab.

Another bullet whips by, shriekin' hello and goodbye at the same time. It takes the rearview mirror as a souvenir for its visit. I feel myself tense up.

I know it sounds weird, but I've never been in a car chase before. Mostly because cars are new technology, and new technology means expensive. Only the MPD and the wealthy have 'em. I been in carriages, I pulled 'em, I've run for my life multiple times. But cars? Damn, they're a different story. Like lightnin' on wheels, charging bulls with oil for blood. When you sit in one, it's like bein' inside another living thing.

Coldsnap's in the backseat, calmly reading a book as if he's got nuthin' better to do. Several police cars are following us now, been following us for close to twenty minutes, Miss Apple doing her damnedest to shake 'em. She'd have better luck finding a grain of rice in the Frozen North during a snowstorm. Wearin' a plastic bubble while she's at it.

"Hey!" Miss Apple shouts as a police car draws close. "Coldsnap! 'Kin ya make with the winter voodoo an' shake these palookas?!" She fakes a swerve at the cops, and they buy it, hittin' the breaks and fallin' behind again.

Poor Apple. She doesn't know Coldsnap the way I know him. This guy is not just a hair-trigger temper without a shred'a moral decency. He's not just a walking winter. He's got this delusion of grandeur. He's ratchet. Always polite, even to ponies he's about to kill. Watches operas. Quotes literature. Uses big words, often improperly. His biggest problem is that he shuts you out if you don't address him as if he's the tragic hero in some fuckin' Shake Spear play.

I groan as he ignores her and flips a page of his no-doubt-a-coloring-book. "I declare, sagely Coldsnap!" I shout over the roar of guns and wheels. "It would be of great benefit to our immediate party's well-being should you decide to utilize your innate, Celestia-given ability to manipulate the hydrogen particles in our shared atmosphere, and prevent these bothersome pseudo-authority figures from pursuing us further!"

Coldsnap looks up from his book for the first time since he entered the car. "By Celestia's mane, Sir Sanders! Do you suggest that I take more lives than our employer has instructed me to?" A bullet rockets by his head. He doesn't flinch.

I nod. "My insinuation, Sir Coldsnap, is that unless these lawmen are dealt with, they shan't cease their chase! Our attempted escape shall be for naught if you merely idle, dear sir! We humbly request for your aid!"

At this, Coldsnap finally agrees with me on something. "Only ask, and you shall receive."

He puts down his book and crawls up the sun roof, glaring at the fleet of squad cars. A cop, probably one of the Commissioner's disposable lieutenants, pulls out a bullhorn and demands we give ourselves up. For once, Coldsnap responds without the use of any words.

In a blur that's too fast for me to keep up with, several squad cars are frozen solid, along with the road. Many crash with random, deafening noise and shouts. The herds are thinned, but still persistent, and the remainder break out bigger guns.

Miss Apple tries to keep her eyes on the road, but she wears this look that's a mixture of frustration and bewilderment. The same look that's on everypony's face when they survive puttin' up with Coldsnap for the first time. "Hey, Tony?" she whispers.

"Yeah?"

"Kin ya use yer fancy language t'tell Snappy t'suck his own balls?"

I snicker. I like this chick. Hard to believe she's friends with the Commissioner. "I'd rather keep that to just between the two of us."

Suddenly, I hear gunshots, and Coldsnap grunts. I look up just as Coldsnap falls between Apple and me. She freaks for a second, swerves, correcting herself and taking a sharp turn down a street into Uptown. Pedestrians dive out of our way as fast as they can, and the sound of the car's engine screaming begins to ring in my ears. The road underneath us isn't built with automobiles in mind. I suddenly feel less like I'm in another living thing, and more like I've been put in a drink shaker.

I take a closer look at Coldsnap. He holds his shoulder as the snow-white bomber jacket around it becomes redder alarmingly fast. "Curses!" he spits. "A stray bullet! Lady Fortune finds favor in our foes, Sir Sanders!"

I feel like smackin' him good. Even when he's hurt, he's still acting like he's on a stage.

"Tony!" Apple cries as she spies a few leftover squad cars coming up behind us. "Check unner yer seat, sugarcube! Shit's about t'git intense!"

So I do as I'm told. Under the seat's a beautiful sight.

A gun. Ghost-white revolver. A barrel longer and harder'n I am in the morning. Six bullets. More'n enough to kill a pony. There's a signature on the barrel: EINE KUGEL, TODSICHER. I don't know what it means, but it sounds... tough. Harsh. Like a real warrior who knows what it's like to live in a hostile world.

I pick it up with my telekinesis. She's a heavy gun. I can taste the metal with my mind, and she's intoxicating. I feel like the slugs in this baby are enough to destroy absolutely anything. I'm in love with this beast the moment my telekinesis grips it. Now I know how the Commissioner felt when I was put in that jail cell. When I was just in her grasp.

With a vigor I didn't think I had, I look out my side window. The cops nearing us see my smile before they see my gun. The one cop in the passenger seat looks like he's about to piss himself as I aim for the tires. I fire, and there's a feelin' of fucking thunder. Not just a sound, but a feeling. There's thunder and fire, like a god's hammer coming down from the sky to strike the earth. The wheel blows and the squad car loses the momentum it had, its driver fighting to regain control as it careens about.

I've used guns before, but they're nothing like this. Just like this car, nothin' else compares. I took a piece of this beast, and I'm holding onto it like it's become a part'a me.

I hear response fire and duck back down. Apple takes another turn, drives through a shopping arcade, honkin' the horn, makin' this beast roar and shout and shriek at anypony stupid enough to just stand there. The squad cars care about the pedestrians even less than we do.

I take careful aim while the cops go crazy with their shots. Lousy marksponies. They don't take their time in aiming. They just fire like a bunch'a drunken hillbillies. I take my time. Line up a nice shot. One shot, and I get the driver. Her eyes cross as they're joined by a third, and it opens to greet the world with a blood-red view. The squad car swerves. Crashes.

I laugh. I laugh at killing another pony. I laugh as her car crushes some unsuspecting sap and crashes into somepony's market stand. I laugh at the madness and chaos I'm causing. It's not the gun. It's me.

Shit. The Commissioner's right. I'm a killer. She picked the right monster for the job.

Suddenly, the car is swerving around like Apple's gone crazy at the wheel, throwing off my aim. I glare at her. "The Tartarus is up wi--?!"

But before I can finish my sentence, I see why Apple is fighting to maintain control of the car. Coldsnap tried to get back up at some point instead of just staying down like anypony else would. He's out the sun roof, quoting Shake Spear or some shit while lathering winter on the plaza around us, freezin' the cobblestone, causin' friction to become near-dreamlike. Idiot.

Apple finally loses her patience with him. I do too. Almost like we had the idea at the exact same time, we swat his stomach with both my gun and her hoof (And an earth pony hoof at that), knocking his ass into the backseat. I hear crashes. Shouts. Cursing. Looking behind me, it seems that in his lucid state, our boy pulled through after all.

A few minutes of quiet. The chase is over. Apple just keeps driving along, trying to find someplace to lay low. Coldsnap is mumbling now. The ghost white revolver goes into my pocket. Apple sees it and smirks.

"Ah take it you an' Mr. Fix-It have taken a real shinin' to each other."

I respond with a smirk.

"Where'd you learn t'shoot like that anyway?" Eyes to the road. Then back to me. "Ah din't hear no more'n two shots outta Fix-It, yet ya took down whole squad cars."

I smile and shake my head. "Pretty much where you're sittin'. When you start runnin' with the mob, you meet guys who are on their own level before too long. If you're lucky, they teach you what they know."

"Oneshot Trotsky?" she asks.

I smile. "Never met him before he got gunned down last year."

"Bullet Bill?"

"Never even looked at me."

"... Silvershot?"

I almost laugh. "He was cool, but he didn't like me very much. Thought I was makin' a move on his girl."

Her lips purse. Hers aren't angelic, like the Commissioner's. I take comfort from the feeling that at least her lips don't hide a demon underneath. They're warrior's lips. Weapons of destruction. She's a warrior, fighting a battle for her friend. Fighting a demon's battle. The same battle I've been pulled into. I'm glad we're on the same side. I'd hate to see those lips on an enemy.

"So what're ya sayin'?" she asks, after some thought. "Yer self-taught?"

Finally, I laugh. It isn't the rolling, distorted roar from the cells. It's short and piercing, like a gunshot. Like it was Mr. Fix-It laughin' instead'a me. "Miss Apple--"

"Call me AJ."

"AJ. Arright. AJ, when you run with the mob, you learn from observing them. The same way anypony learns most'a what they know. I observed guys like Bullet Bill and Silvershot. They didn't mentor me, or at least they never meant to. I just observed them, and other guys that tried to be like 'em. Saw what they did right and what they did wrong."

Some silence. A groan from the back seat. We're out of Uptown now. Into the business area. Plenty'a nice little alleys to hide in until further notice. We settle into one, and AJ's great at just steering this thing. I envy her all of a sudden. In that driver's seat, she's become one with this metal animal. She shares a mind with this beast. Shares its flesh. She flinched every time a bullet pierced its hull, not because it scared her. She flinched because it hurt the car. Hurt her.

She pulls the key out of the ignition. All at once, the beast falls silent. Asleep. It'll wake up again soon. And it'll roar. And it'll ride. And it'll rend. It's a kitten now, just like me. It's a kitten but it'll become a tiger again.

AJ pulls in a deep sigh. "Twi's goons are prolly gunna spread disinfermation. Try her damndest t'git this situation unner control." She rolls down the window next to her.

She reaches over me to a compartment I didn't notice before. She opens it and inside's a first aid kit, a cell phone, and a pack of cigarettes. She reaches for the smokes. She offers me one and I take it. A second cig gets put in her mouth. She's reachin' for a matchbox in the compartment when I light her cig for her. Bein' a unicorn has its advantages.

She smiles. "Well, now, ain't you the little gentlecolt." Her warrior lips make allies with Joe Camel, beating the bullshit out of her alongside him, conquering all the madness that's happened in the past few hours. The smoke comes out her nose, dancing away, dragging her troubles out of her and beating them senseless for being inside her in the first place. The lady enjoys cigarettes almost as much as I do.

As the smoke from my cig joins hers, my eyes fall on the first aid kit again. Then to Coldsnap, still unconscious behind us. "Well..."

"Well, what?"

"... I don't suppose we're gonna patch him up or anything?"

AJ laughs a bit. Takes another draw from the cig. "Why should we? He's, this guy, he's..." Another draw. Another puff of smoke. "He's an ass, Tony. Real liability type. He nearly got us killed. Ah'm not gunna depend on 'em an' neither should you, sugarcube."

I think this over. Yeah. Coldsnap is delusional half the time, and totally dangerous the rest of the time. I wonder why the Commish doesn't have him with Heat Freak, instead teaming him up with an earth pony he'd likely have made into a popsicle at the slightest provocation. Is this the Commissioner's idea of a joke?

First, the cig in the jail. Then, making it look like Coldsnap and I had this breakout planned from the very start. All these setups. All this careful planning. No way the Commish would make such a blatant mistake of endangering her best friend by leavin' her alone with this psycho, with no younger brother around to keep him from killin' her...

...Unless.

Did AJ do something to piss off the Commissioner? If so, why would she endanger AJ? Most of this escape depended on her survival. It just don't make sense.

"What's the Commissioner's game, anyway?" I ask.

AJ finishes her cig and drops it out into the alley. She flips a lever at her side and it causes her seat to recline. She folds her forelegs before she answers. A puff of smoke travels out of her nostrils. "Ah'm sure she's already told you her story. Who we're after, what they did t'her."

Her warrior's lips quiver. It's a discouraging sight to see, such ferocity suddenly burn away. "Twi's... She hasn't b'in th'same since then. Ah cain't figger her out no more. The games she plays, th' schemes an th' plans she makes... juss become more n' more dang'rous. Becomes less steady ev'ry year." She chuckles. "'Sbeen years, arready?" she asks to no one in particular.

I lose my appetite for the cig. I put it out and just chuck it out the window. I wonder how she'd react if I tell her her best friend just left her with a dangerous psychopath. I might'a killed other ponies, but I like to think that was when the situation called for it. Coldsnap tends to kill ponies because they offend him in ways nopony else but him understands. If she'd said the wrong thing at any time, she'd be dead by now. Why would the Commissioner leave her with somepony this unreliable?

Either way, the one rule about the Freezer Burn Brothers is that you can never have one without the other. They're both powerful half-dragon unicorns, masters of destructive temperatures. Should one die, there would be serious repercussions.

Serious repercussions, man. The one time Coldsnap thought Heat Freak was dead, he went on a rampage and plunged everything into an unlivable ice age, nearly killin' himself in the process until Heat Freak snapped him out of it. But Heat Freak? Coldsnap's ratchet, and dangerous, but Heat Freak makes him look like a little lost puppy in comparison. I'm assuming he'd do worse.

I get out the first-aid kit.

"You serious, Tony?" she asks. "If'n Twi asks why Coldsnap's dead, we 'kin juss say it was an accident. Wouldn't be lyin'."

"Wouldn't be the whole truth, either," I say as I remove Coldsnap's bomber jacket. I misjudged where the bullet hit. It's in his chest, not his shoulder. Shit. The wound is getting worse. Blood everywhere. His pale blue coat is soaked with red. I clean him up as best I can. "We need a doctor. Now."

Her Stetson gets lowered over her eyes. "Too bad."

Should I tell her why? That his brother would destroy everything if he died? But then that would imply just how dangerous the brothers are to begin with. And that the Commissioner left her alone with one. How would she react?

"Listen, he's gonna bleed to death if we don't do somethin'! We can't just let him die!"

"Why not? Ah don't care."

I try to patch him up as best I can. So much blood. I get some of it on my shirt. Wonderful. My clumsy hooves and my telekinesis can't remove the bullet that's lodged in him. It's in pretty deep. He's starting to get feverish.

Finally, I'm frustrated with AJ. With Coldsnap. With this whole business. "Take us to a doctor! Take us, or..." I take out Mr. Fix-It. "Take us to a doctor or I swear I'll kill you!"

Her emerald eyes roll underneath her hat. They look at me, shadowed by the Stetson. They become less like emeralds and more like vipers hiding under a rock, just waitin' for some unsuspecting idiot to come along. Not an ounce of concern that a unicorn with prolific psychic abilities, who has killed many ponies before, is threatening her.

She scowls. But from where I'm sitting, it looks like her warrior lips turn up. Those lips suddenly belong to an enemy.

"You sayin' yer telekinesis is faster'n mah hooves, boy?" Her voice is low. Simmering. Waiting for any opportunity to blow, like she was before.

This is stupid. It's pointless. She's the Commissioner's best friend. I kill her, I'll have a Tartarus of a time tryin'na explain myself. No way I'd be able to hide her body and figure out how to drive this mechanical animal and find a doctor, all in time to save the life of somepony I don't even like, all to prevent some Manehatten-ending apocalypse.

Mr. Fix-It goes back in my pocket. I close my eyes and breathe. "OK, look, AJ. I know you're friends with the Commish and all, but I think she's set you up. Coldsnap's too difficult to work with, and too dangerous all by himself, even for you. Gangs that hire him hafta hire his brother as well, because his brother's the only one capable of keepin' him in line. He could have frozen you to death in an instant if you so much as said the wrong thing at the wrong time on your way to the precinct." I throw my hooves out to the alley. "You saw what he's capable of! The Commissioner intentionally left you with him. She was willing to endanger your life to... to... I dunno! But whatever her reason is, AJ, the fact remains that if we don't save Coldsnap, NOW, his brother will unleash fire-and-brimstone Tartarus on our sorry asses. He'll hunt us both down, kill us all, and burn all of Manehatten while he's at it. Dead-ass. So please, for Celestia's sake, let's just take him to a fucking doctor!"

Seconds pass. A minute passes. Minutes pass. I try my best to keep Coldsnap in one piece. Finally, AJ puts her seat back up. The keys go back in the ignition. "Arright, sugarcube," she says. "Arright. Juss this once. But only 'cuz y'told me th'honest truth." She sounds like she's gonna cry.

And why shouldn't she? Her best friend is dead.

The Bearded Lady

Fixing What's Broke, Part II: The Bearded Lady

No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
~The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"

AJtells me the doctor she knows is a previous resident of Ponyville. Used to be a time-keeper for their town. Owned the town clock tower. Operated it until a family emergency had pulled him out of there and into the trash heap known as Manehatten. I recognize Doctor Whooves the moment I see him, but he doesn't seem to acknowledge or remember me.

The speckles of bruises on his hooves tell stories of loss and depression and needles and shame. I don't even need to guess how his family emergency ended. When the ending is, "And then he became a heroin addict stranded in Discord's Kitchen," you know the story leadin' up to it is not a happy one. These days? He talks about these weird adventures he goes on, traveling through time with that one twisty-eyed mailmare who probably doesn't even know he exists.

His voice is as hazy as his eyes. He greets us with his forced Trottingham accent and a wave. He welcomes AJ into his shanty, recalling when he traveled back in time to when she was nine and he convinced her to leave Manehatten and return to her farm in Ponyville. I look at her curiously. AJ just shrugs it off and tells him she'd love to chat, but we got a job for him.

"A paying job?" he asks.

AJ nods. No time to work out the payment details right now. She refers to him as Time Turner. (Should'a known Doctor Whooves couldn'a been his real name!) AJ tells me she's staying in the car. Wise decision. Discord's Kitchen is the gangland none'a the other gangs wanted; the worst part'a the worst town. The local gang, the Daughters of Discord, would probably steal the car. Paint it. Drive it like crazy. Then crash it. Then sell it.

Turner helps me drag Coldsnap into his shanty, where he goes to work. Even when he's higher than a kite, Turner's a real medical wizard. I assist him however I can until he removes the bullet and patches him up. "So, Baritone," he says, breakin' the quiet that's been sharin' the room with us. "How are things? Last I heard of you, Filthy Rich had you do an assignment. Then you disappeared."

I'm honestly surprised. Here I was, thinkin' he'd forgotten we're at least acquaintences. "Yeah," I say quietly, "that much is true."

"I won't ask what it is," he says, "That's not my business. But how have you been, lately?"

Apparently, my rampage last night didn't even make the news. Or if it did, the Commish did a great job in withholdin' most of the details. I try to recall the last few weeks before that, after the assignment. I remember the assignment itself. All too well.

"Don't do it! Don't do it, she's the only good thing I have left!"

I wait a few seconds. Compose myself. Don't lose my cool. "Lousy," I answer, finally.

Turner stops for a moment. "I'm sorry to hear that." His fake-Trottingham accent is dropped. He goes back to work after lookin' at me, observing me like I'm a fish in a jar.

After a few seconds, he starts talking with that Trottingham accent again. "I know I said I wasn't going to pry regarding the assignment, but I can tell it was..." His drug-addled mind searches for words. "I can tell it was a rather shattering experience for you."

He's reading me. Something I forgot about the Doctor. He's good at reading other ponies. Like, scary good. Body language. Stuttering. Eye-twitches. Every subtle motion a muscle makes can't sneak by him, no matter what time period his mind is in. I could just tell him right now. I'm not just a monster. I'm a baby-killer. I took a wire and choked somepony's little filly to death, and she begged me not to, and she was the only good thing in her life, and I did it anyway even though I wasn't even supposed to do it, I was just supposed to enforce the "payment plan", so I tried to scare her into payin' but I went, I went way too far. I could lay it all out for this would-be time traveler to see.

And why not? He's a heroin addict. Half what he says is stuff that's too crazy to believe anyway. He'd believe it if I told him aliens abducted me and painted my muzzle green. If I told him the truth? Couldn't hurt.

"Yeah. Yeah it was," I say, choosing not to elaborate. I look away.

My eyes gravitate towards anything else to look at. Anything. Unfortunately, there ain't a whole lotta that. Any bits he makes patchin' up crooks goes to his favorite pastime, shootin' up and goin' on adventures with his imaginary assistant. This place is just empty and depressing, more like a cell than a home. A ratty chair. A small table. There's a lamp that might shed some light if you ask nicely.

Finally, a hoof rests on my shoulder. I didn't realize it before, but I had sat down on the floor, staring at the rest of this empty shanty with an equally vacant stare. I look up to see the Doctor, this Time Turner lookin' at me sympathetically. "I know it must be hard for you, Baritone. Everything must hurt. But I know you're not a bad guy."

I killed her.

"You're just in a spot where you're forced to do bad things."

She was pushing eleven at the most.

"The things you've seen are horrible."

She would have seen her eleventh birthday if I didn't put that wire around her neck and demand her mother to pay up.

"The things you've done are probably worse."

Her mother had already given me the combination to her safe, where she kept the money she'd been hiding from Filthy Rich, but I didn't hear her.

"But you'll survive."

All I could hear was her daughter choking and that... excited me in ways I didn't expect.

"You're a survivor, Baritone."

The spark of life drained from her eyes, and as I watched, that fading spark took my soul with it.

"You survive because you're strong."

I killed that little filly, even after her mother had given me the combination to her safe.

"Stronger than you realize."

I killed that little filly for no reason at all.

"...Baritone?"

I...

I can't hold it in anymore. I break down. I cry like the whole world is ending. I can't form words, so the tears runnin' down my face continue the conversation for me. I hold onto the Doc like a terrified foal clinging to his father for comfort.

In between beating the memory out of me with alcohol, I've prayed to Celestia numerous times in the weeks leading up to my rampage. I prayed for forgiveness. Forgiveness for an act that can't be forgiven. I prayed to a goddess who won't listen. Who doesn't love me. Who can't love somepony like me. I...

...I just...

It takes me a few minutes to recompose myself. I cry into the Doctor's shoulder. For these few minutes he's my personal Celestia. Understanding everything just by lookin' at me. He doesn't know what exactly caused my breakdown, but he knows how awful it is. He knows what I am, but decides not to judge.

The Doctor pats me on the back. I feel congratulated, but for what, I'm not sure. "That's a strong stallion, Baritone. Even you get moments of weakness, don't feel ashamed."

But ashamed is all I am. Ashamed of what I am.

The ringing in my ears is gone, but the aches stay. I want them to. They're Baritone's lipstick, these aches. I want to remember our first kiss, the first blows I allowed him to give me. The moment I knew I was in love with him for real. I want to remember for as long as I can.

The cleanup after Coldsnap's needlessly dramatic entrance is a long one. Rescue teams are chipping out survivors while crime scene investigators take photographs. I hear talking. Hoofsteps. Chiseling.

I bring the coffee to my mouth as best I can. My hoof fits squarely in the cup's ring, but no matter how many years have passed, it still feels awkward. There used to be a day when I could lift a coffee to my mouth just by wanting it there. The things we unicorns take for granted...

I close my eyes as I feel that scalding-hot bittersweetness wash over my tongue, glide down my esophagus. Like everything good in my life, it's fleeting, but it's blissful while it's there. I feel a poke at my side. Spike has once again managed to sneak up on me. He holds up a phone.

"Hey, uh, it's The P."

I groan and facehoof. Gran Papa is Manehatten's resident number one incompetent douche, most often referred to as "Mayor." He likes to think he won the voters' trust with his empty promises of hope and change, but thanks to my connections, my vote was the only one that really counted. The ponies of Manehatten even know he didn't win fairly. That's why everypony calls him what his political opponents called him during their smear campaigns: "The Big Potato."

I like the title. It's very fitting. He even has the appearance of a potato: fat, ugly, misshapen, tan coat with this hideous white comb-over. I swear he shot out out of his mother one day and hit a refrigerator. But only Spike and I ever refer to him as The P. Why? It's hard to feel intimidated by a Big Potato, but it's even harder to feel intimidated by P. Helps remind him his place is beneath me.

Spike hands me the phone. Pretty neat inventions, phones. Almost negates the use of letters. I threw mine out of my apartment the very first day of having one after my mother called me six times in four hours.

"Commissioner, what is the meaning of this?!" The P's voice comes through the phone speaker like he's dying. His already choked-sounding voice was never one for radio.

"There was a planned attack on the police department," I respond coolly.

"Not to mention the mess those crooks made getting away! You lost a lot of guys out there. AND last night. I'm still up to my bloated ass trying to cover for you there. You know how bad that makes you look?" I roll my eyes as I mouth his next words. "You know how bad this makes me look?"

I really want to just tell him how bad he always looks. But instead, I just tell him to calm his ass down, the best way I know how. "Whinnypeg."

He falls silent immediately. A few seconds tick by before he speaks again, this time more serenely. "Look, Commissioner, I'm not sayin' you aren't doing your job. But the press is gonna see this, and they're gonna portray our police force as incompetent."

"The press is just as powerless as you are," I say. "They're the ones I convinced to think that your little teenage mistress was somehow the guy who directed Edward Scissorhooves. I'll figure something out, I always do. You're worrying about nothing."

"This isn't nothing," he says. "This was that one creep, Coldsnap. Mr. 'I'll-Bring-the-Frozen-North-A-Little-Further-South-To-Avenge-My-Brother-Who's-Not-Even-Dead' himself. The Tartarus was he doing over there?"

"Fucked if I know," I say. I look around the precinct. A policemare gets chiseled out of an ice-block and falls over. The rescue team tried their hardest, but it looks like they were too late for this one. Her body just goes to pink, wet pieces as it hits the floor. Useless in death as she was in life.

"Coldsnap ain't a nopony, so this ain't nothin'. The press is gonna wonder..." Suddenly, I hear somepony else talking to The P. A small voice, squeaky and whiny. His daughter. "N-Not now, Sunshine," I hear him say. "Not now, Daddy's on the phone!"

Ah, Sunshine. An acquaintence I have only ever had to put up with once. A mare closing in on thirty and still acting like she's five. I wait for the two to finish fighting before P comes back.

"Anyway, everyone's gonna wonder what the heck Coldsnap is doing out and about again, and what he's up to. And don't tell me you're not involved in this somehow. I know you are."

"How does the title of Senator sound to you, P?" Silence. "You like the sound of Senator. It's what you've always wanted. Representing Manehatten, talking to the Princess herself, convincing her to change a few rules. I personally know the Princess. She'd never wanna talk to somepony like you, P. Especially if she knew about your time in Whinnypeg."

"Look, stop bringing that up."

"Then let's not interject pointless conspiracy theories over provable facts."

Long silence. I hear a beep that makes me draw my head back. Spike has been watching me this whole time, and apparently heard the beep as well. "The beep means you have another incoming call," he says. I nod.

"Look, I gotta go, P," I say with a chuckle. He groans at the pun. "We'll talk about this later." I look at the phone's buttons as P starts to protest. To Spike, I whisper, "Which of these lets me change the caller again?"

He points. I press the button as I hear P raging on the other end. His voice cuts out. I place the phone back up to my ear. "Commissioner Sparkle speaking."

"Twi."

It's Applejack. She sounds pissed. She figured it out. I inhale slowly and quietly, expecting to really hear it. That this is it. This is finally it. She's had it with me. She wants to leave. She wants to go home. I expect to hear it. I expect that classic, country-girl indignation. That hypocritical right-wing rage. I expect it but I don't receive it.

She starts with a heavy, slow sigh. "...Tony told me everythin'." Tony. Short for Baritone? Cute. I'll have to remember that for later.

"...What do you mean, Tony told you everything?"

"Tony, the little guy. He's sharp as a whip an' he figgered out that you left me with... with that psychopath. With somepony who would'na thought twice 'bout killin' me. An' he woulda, too, if'n Tony hadn't kept me quiet b'fore Ah unloaded on 'em."

A pause. "Ah... Ah'm hurt, Twi. You an' me, out of all the girls, we were th' tightest." Were. Past-tense. I was right. This is it. Get it over with, girl. Quit and leave. Come on.

"We were tight, an' Ah thought, even after everythin' we'd been through since that day, when they took yer horn, when you started... When you started goin' bad, Ah thought Ah could help you. Save you. Keep you from becomin' exactly what made you." I hear her swallow, then hiccup. Oh, Celestia's mane, is... is AJ starting to cry? No anger? No indignation? Just tears?

"Dash... Dash was right 'bout-chu. Yer beyond any help. Ah shoulda taken her advice. When even the Element o' Loyalty herself turns her back on you, that should really say somethin'. That should'a been mah big tip-off. Ah should'a left."

"...But you didn't."

"No. Y'know why?"

"...Why?"

"'Coz Ah was too stupid t'know better. Ah was dumb 'nough to b'lieve you over Dash. You heard all th'jokes 'bout me that floated all over Ponyville: AJ cain't do math, AJ cain't read, AJ cain't do this, cain't do that, she cain't even shit right half th' time. Ain't got no horse-sense. An' you proved it. You proved 'em right. AJ's--AJ's a dumbass, an' she's a dumbass coz she b'lieved she still mattered to you." Her voice cracks at ''mattered."

I hear a sob. This "poor me" act is getting on my nerves. I feel like just hanging up. I heave a sigh.

"Ah'm goin' home, Twi."

I almost laugh. "And where's home, AJ?"

Finally, she hangs up. No response. No angry outburst. No name-calling. Not so much as a fuck-you. Just a click and a long, dead beep.

She knows just as well as I do that Ponyville won't exactly welcome either of us back with open forelegs. Cloudsdale didn't take back Rainbow Dash after she "went home". Might have had something to do with that tidbit of information I slipped their authorities regarding what their little Dashie had been up to since she'd left (leaving out involvement from AJ or myself, of course). If she thinks she can just go home, she's wrong.

Applejack is weak. She was always weak. She hides this by merely acting tough. And why not? She looks the part. The rough-n-tumble cowgirl with a no-nonsense attitude and a kill-em-all stare. But inside, she's a weakling. She thinks she's a warrior, but really, she's the classic bearded lady. Tough looking, but still too emotional for her own damned good.

On the other hoof, Baritone "Tony" Sanders DID take care of her like I half-expected he would. I didn't plan on his figuring out my passive-aggressive backhoof to AJ. He has a "knight-in-shining-armor" side to him and a "rational thinker" side to him, to go along with his beautiful, beautiful carnage and the aches he is able to cause.

So many parts. So many pieces. So much to play with.

I toss the phone back to Spike. He looks up at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of what must be terror and despair. He looks to the phone, then to me, with this look that tells me his childhood is dying one day at a time.

"What's wrong with Applejack?" he asks. "Is she OK?"

My answer is given silently as I walk by him, into the empty pseudo-winter of the police department. I'm alone. All alone. It's as empty and cold in here as I feel right now.

It takes a little while, but the Doctor knows what he's doin', and Coldsnap is OK. I give him a punch to the shoulder for nearly dyin' on us and bringin' Heat Freak's wrath. I thank the Doc.

"Think nothing of it," he says. I'm not sure what I can pay him with, and he interrupts me. "Don't worry, Applejack knows how she can pay me. In fact, I've got something for you."

He removes a floorboard and feels underneath it. Mumbles. Finds what he's looking for. It's a bag'a some kinda pink powder I never seen before. He hoofs it out to me. "A fellow doctor gave me a sample, but it isn't to my tastes. My TARDIS will suffice." I smirk, having forgotten that he calls the heroin his TARDIS.

I take it. Plan on sellin' it later. We get Coldsnap ready to get put back into AJ's car. "By the way," he says, "I have a new assistant."

"Really?"

We start wheelin' Coldsnap out. "Indeed," he says. "She's a real kicker, this one. You remind me of her. Very strong, despite her own moments of weakness. Her name's Rose. I think she'd like you."

I roll my eyes. I miss the mailmare assistant already.

The moment we get back into the alley, I regret leaving AJ all by herself. The Daughters of Discord wouldn't miss a car in their territory, no matter if it was inside an alley or a bottle. And there they were, surroundin' her car, some leanin' on it, one with his face close to the driver's window, talking.

Even among other gangsters, the Daughters make everypony sick. The males all dress in trashy prostitute clothing, although a few add their own (still feminine) duds, while their few female members wear butch biker getup. Honestly, they're even more cartoonish than the Freezer Burn Brothers, and that's sayin' somethin'. Despite that, they're dangerous and they know it. Even in miniskirts and lipstick, their members are the most testosterone-fueled assholes you can imagine. Confrontational and violent, but curiously lacking the self-restraint of other gangsters.

The worst part? All present members are earth ponies. And all their earth pony members hate unicorns.

Shit.

The moment one sees me, he gets the attention of his buddies. A few lean against the brick walls of the alley as others make as mean a face they can. Their leader recognizes me off the bat, and I hold in an exasperated sigh, accepting that Celestia hates the shit outta me today.

He's rather macho. Got a tough-guy build with a tough-guy jaw. Stubble surrounds his messy red lipstick, makin' his mouth look more like a knife-wound. His little yellow eyes dig into the soul of anypony or anything he looks at. His ocean-blue mane is done up in a very ladylike way, almost adding a spot o' grandeur to his otherwise trashy and intimidating presence. Emphasis on "almost".

One end of the knife-wound goes up. "Baritone?" he asks in a forced falsetto. "That you, hunny?" Unlike the Doctor, his Trottingham accent's the real McCoy.

I greet him with a forced nod. "Crest."

Crest. One'a the Daughters' most trusted. He and I used to dispose bodies together, back when he wasn't really loyal to anypony. I still remember the things he'd do with the bodies we were given. He was a sicko then, and he's a bigger sicko now.

He begins to stalk around me in that faux-marelike saunter, swingin' his hips in a parody of female movement instead of an imitation. Walks around us, in a circle. A few of his buds do the same, grinning at us like rapists. (And a good few of 'em likely are.)

"You know," he says, "I always knew you were the lady-killer type. And you have such excellent tastes. She's like every wet dream a stallion could have: those lips, that accent, that mane, those flanks..."

Huh. Maybe it wasn't the car I should'a worried about.

"And there she was, all alone in her car, crying her eyes out!" I feel the tip of Crest's tail whip at my ass as he finishes his sentence. "That's just awful of you, Baritone, leaving her alone like that. You've gone and hurt her feelings."

AJ was crying? I gotta hoof it to her. At least she waited 'til everypony was outta the car before she broke down. She's every bit the tough girl I took her for.

"Who's 'is bloke?" asks one of the other Daughters. I look aside and one of them is poking Coldsnap. He looks him up and down. "Looks right familia'..."

The Doctor pipes up, his forced accent garnering more than just a few snickers. "He's a patient." I facehoof. Great job, Doctor, just tell the Daughters of Discord that you helped out one'a their enemies. I wonder why everypony I meet inadvertantly does things that put me between a rock and a hard place.

Crest gives the Doctor a shove before I can. His falsetto is dropped completely, and his real voice comes out, sounding like something between a classic Trottingham thug and a barking terrier. "Somepony comes onto our turf without our permission, and you just fix 'em up?! The bloody Tartarus is wrong with you!" He smacks the Doctor, hard enough that he draws a bit of blood out of him.

Situation has headed south. I try to think of something, but Mr. Fix-It probably only has four bullets left in him (If he was fully loaded to begin with), and there are several Daughters present right now. I could use my telekinesis. Throw a dumpster at 'em. But they're so close that they might act before I have a chance.

My eyes fall on the car. Inside, I see AJ's back to us, adjusting the rearview mirror, then her hoof goes down to her side. For whatever reason, she hasn't turned to even look at us. I hear the Doctor try to give Crest an explanation, and then I cringe as I hear Crest's rebuttal. Suddenly, up goes AJ's hoof. Gives a signal. A warning. Get Ready.

I like this chick.

The Doctor gets shoved into me, knocking me over. Outta my pocket comes that bag of powder, and it hits the ground with a muted thump. The Daughters all breathe in hard. The atmosphere around us becomes suffocated in anger.

"Fixin' up outsiders... AND givin' away OUR Shard?!" Crest's voice has reached a pitch I've never heard out of him before. If AJ doesn't act quickly, it'll be the last thing I hear. The Daughters pull out pipes and wrenches and heavy chains and meathooks and tire irons. The Doctor pulls out a screwdriver.

"I'm warning you," he says, his Trottingham accent apparently already beaten out of him. "D-Don't come any closer!"

I wrap my hoof around the Doctor's middle as I see AJ grip the wheel a little tighter. Her right hoof goes to the ignition. I get ready.

Just as Crest starts going on about something I think passes for a quip, AJ's car roars to life. The tires shriek like wildcats as it comes awake and backs up suddenly. Daughters get knocked over like bowling pins. Acting as quickly as I can, I use my telekinesis to heave the Doctor and Coldsnap along with myself onto the car's rear as it speeds backwards. Crest roars as he leaps.

I hear him, and that gives me just enough time to dodge his wrench as he brings it down, slamming the car's beetle-black chassis. The car continues to back up, slamming into him, forcing him back, back, back as far as the alley goes. I hear AJ shout, "Hang onta somethin', sugarcube! Hang on an' DON'T LET GO!"

I'm given a second. If AJ doesn't stop the car now, she'll slam into the chain-link fence at the end of the alley. I use my telekinesis to hold all three passengers on the car in place, grit my teeth and hope it'll hold. With a jolt and a short squeak, the car stops, throwing Crest into the fence hard enough to knock it over completely.

Just as sudden as it stopped, the car shoots forward, the engines roaring and the wheels thumping and the road underneath thundering, blowing dirt and dust all over Crest as he tries to get back up. My telekinesis still keeps us glued to the top of the car as I feel a couple Daughters become roadkill, solid bodies thudding against the car, blood splattering the wheels, painting 'em with proof that this car is just as capable a killing machine as any other gangster in Manehatten.

We shoot out of the alley like a bullet from a gun, and outta the tumbles we go. No carriage can catch us, and no cop is interested in this area of town enough to come investigate. We're home-free.

I climb over to the open sun-roof and dump Coldsnap and our out-cold delusional Doctor into it, pushing them into the back seat. I drop in myself and reclaim the seat next to AJ. She closes the sunroof, laughin' her head off the whole time. There aren't any words. Just this long guffaw, a crowing of victory against the odds.

I decide to join in. We laugh so hard it hurts.

Ails What Cures You

Breaking What's Fixed, Part III: Ails What Cures You

“You don’t ever learn the truth. You just pick the lie you like best.”

~Marilyn Manson

It's an hour or so before we get to the hideout the Commissioner picked out for her merry little band of "hired" vigilantes. A neighborhood of Neightalian immigrant families, many that might not be here legally. Most of the buildings are poorly maintained and degraded, leanin' sadly on the shoulders'a their neighbors as if lamenting how nopony remembers this end of town when it thrived. Kids play in filthy streets, kickin' trash at each other. Dogs fight over a female in heat.

We speed through the street, stray cats and stray children makin' way for us. I'm kinda concerned. One, we're in a very valuable piece of recent technology in a very poor and crime-ridden neighborhood. And two...

"Hey, AJ."

She looks up as she turns the car into an alley. "Yeah?"

I think over what I want to say. The Doctor is still out cold from the beating Crest gave him before. Coldsnap, well, I don't expect him back for a while yet. I think over what I want to say before they wake up, while AJ and I still have time alone.

"What Crest said. You were..."

"Ah don't wanna talk about it," she says flatly. At the end of the alley, she pulls the key and sends the car back to Dreamland. We both sit there in that sleeping killer car for a while. AJ's so terrible at lying, I almost laugh. Then again, AJ's already proven she's all about the truth. She said she don't wanna talk about it, but she never said she don't need to talk about it. If she felt she didn't need to talk about it, she'd be outta the car already. So I start.

"Was it something I said?"

"...Not really. But... Maybe, k-kinda." Good girl. Be honest.

I do the math. "It's the Commissioner, ain't it?" The tears that start swimming in her eyes tell me I'm right. She looks away. Good girl. Tough girl. Keepin' it together. Her hoof makes a move to the door's handle.

I think of something to say before AJ opens that car door and leaves. "Y'know, lotsa ponies been in that spot before. We think we got friends. Then they turn on us. I think what hurts the most is that at first, we dunno why."

AJ leans on her door and sighs. "Thass the thing, Tony. Ah arready know why. Iss cuz--iss c--iss..." Her voice trails off as the tears finally stop swimming and start leaving, crawlin' down her face like spiders escapin' a fire. Her hoof goes from the car door handle to her eyes. She swallows. "Iss cuz she's so...eaten up by what happened. She wants revenge, an' she wants it so bad she don't care who she hasta hurt t'get it."

She stops leaning on the door and buries her face in her hooves. I hear a sniff.

I seen mares break down and cry. I seen 'em do that when they really only want a guy to just put it in 'em. So I got a pretty good idea when it's fake. But these tears? They're real. Those shakes and those shivers and the way her voice breaks and warbles and her posture... All of it is the cold, honest truth. AJ is not the type to lie. Prob'ly never was.

That's when I realize I had it all wrong.

"It's not 'cuz she hurt'chu, is it, AJ? It's because..." Do I really wanna say it? The first time I told her anything honest, it tore her world in half. But I already figured out AJ. AJ's all about the truth, even if it hurts. Even when it tears her whole world in half, she wants the honest-to-Celestia, cold, hard, truth.

"...It's 'cuz you can't help your friend. You tried everything you could, but you couldn't help her at all."

Then I hear it. The sniffling stops. I hear the silence, and it confirms everything. Come on, AJ, keep it together. Be the tough girl. I inhale deeply and sigh. Hang my head. Not sure what else I can say. Then I think'a something.

"Y'know. I think it's 'coz she's changed so much that she thinks she doesn't need your help. Or maybe even she thinks she can't be helped or saved." Silence. "When you start doin' awful things, 's hard to take at first. Your sins, I mean. You start out by really thinkin' over what it was you did. Then it haunts you. Then you find yerself goin' and doin' it again. Then they start pilin' up, pilin' until they start to suffocate you. Some of us... finally snap from all the horrible things we do."

More silence passes. AJ speaks up. "True. She's... Twi's snapped. She's not the Twilight I knew back in Ponyville. She's not the Twilight who loved her friends, or loved to read books." She laughs. "Use'ta love crammin' her noodle with any scrap'a knowledge she could find." The humor fades. "Everythin' about her just... came back wrong after they took her horn. Ah think that what hurts the most is that Ah should'a figured all this out a long time ago."

I put a hoof on her shoulder. Despite her natural feminine softness, I could still feel the muscles she's earned from the farm life. "You held onto hope that you could still help her. That's no act of stupidity. Holdin' onto hope is what ponies do to get them through the day. Even stupid, heartless crooks like me."

Her hoof meets mine. Those emeralds shimmer from the shed tears. I get lost in them. They're a labyrinth of emotions, and I'm lost in them, and so is she. I try to lead her back out. "I think the most important thing to remember right now is that, unlike when my hopes get dashed, this ain't your fault." Silence as those tears cease flowing, as she and I both escape that labyrinth she was lost in, closing the door behind us.

"It's not your fault," I whisper. I suddenly notice our hooves are still together. Those emeralds get closer and curtains of orange fall over them as her warrior lips greet mine. They're softer'n I thought, soft but still tough. And hot. She leans into me, melts into me, her tongue finding mine and invitin' it to dance with hers. It's an invitation I can't turn down. I close my eyes, wanting to melt into her. To merge into one.

My eyes close and in the darkness, there's the wire.

Don't do it!

It slips around her neck...

Don't do it, she's the only good thing I have left!

Those warrior lips find themselves pushed away. Those orange curtains snap open and the emeralds they hid become little green dots of surprise. It takes me a second to realize I pushed her off, slamming her against the door. I'm breathing hard and I feel cold and I feel the sweat runnin' down my forehead. AJ looks at me in confusion. The hurt comes back to her. She's back in that labrynth, and I just threw her back in there.

"I'm sorry, AJ," I say. "I-I didn't mean..."

But before I finish, AJ's out of the car. She walks around the side and opens it up, draggin' the Doctor out. She lifts him like she's pickin' up an empty cardboard box. Even for an earth pony, that's just crazy-strong. She pulls him out and takes him to a door on an abandoned building. Before she closes it, she looks at me. Still lost in that labrynth.

The door doesn't just close. It slams. Its sound gets eaten by Manehatten, but it rings in my ears. The slam echoes, sounding like Manehatten's laughter. Great going, Baritone! she cackles. What a total ladies' stallion! Ain't YOU the little gentlecolt?

I groan and throw my head back onto the headrest. You got your laughs, ya stupid donkey bitch. Laugh it up. Hardy-har-har. Fuck you, Manehatten.

The one thing I've come to know about Manehatten is that news is her drug of choice. I could call news Manehatten's blood, but the fact is, the bitch bled dry years ago. She's sick, sick and being pumped full of the drug called the press. I'm Manehatten's doctor, prescribing the drug that keeps her going, gives her the false hope she KNOWS is false. I distort the information however I can, making it all as believable as possible.

I never allow reporters to ask me questions. I tried that a few times in the past--allowing the press to get nosy. A few reporters mysteriously disappeared. Nowadays, I just go up to the stand, state the Facts As We Know Them, then leave while the mob of ambitious journalists murmur and demand a Q & A they won't receive.

I groan as that same mob pushes and shoves their way to me. Always the same. I remember the first time I fed Manehatten her drugs. AJ was there. She was there, in my apartment (She usually occupied the place; I tend to sleep in my office), waiting for me. She'd tell me how utterly disgusting I was. How it was so easy for me to be totally deceiving.

It almost makes me smile as I go back into my car. She's right. She's a dumbass, but she's right. Doesn't use her horse sense, and she can still tell when I'm being dishonest, and she can tell how easy it is for me to lie. Yet she kept with me for years. Even after Rainbow Dash decided to bail, AJ still stood by me. Idiot.

When I get to my apartment, I'm greeted by silence. Everything is meticulously clean, unlike my office. Books I don't read anymore line the shelves in alphabetical order. Furniture, fixtures, and various sculptures and oddities occupy the places that accent them the best. Everything is order. Feels like I just fell through a time portal, into the past...

Walking inside, I feel like I'm trespassing. As if this place doesn't belong to me. Like this is an apartment, not my apartment. It's an apartment the old me would have lived in. A living space for a dead mare.

I don't belong here.

Spike greets me as he walks down the hallway carrying a plate of small sandwiches, breaking me out of my thoughts. Lockdown apparently did what I asked and brought Spike home. We sit down for our lunch and we talk. At first, it's the same question he asks me every time I come home. It's the same question I ask myself when I get up in the morning.

"Twilight, are... are you sure you wanna do this?"

And every time he asks that question, I give him the same answer I give myself.

"Yes, Spike! I want this. You know I want this."

We share some silence, and it tastes sour, and it smells like vomit, and it sounds off-key, and it feels prickly, and it looks ugly. I get to making us some tea to go with our lunch. We try talking a little more. Spike tries to remain as upbeat as he can. Tells me I'm doing well for only being the Commissioner for three years. Keeping up the good fight, whatever that might means.

Suddenly, he asks me about one of my current cases.

"So, uh... any luck on the Plague Doctor case?"

I raise an eyebrow. Chew my sandwich a little, then swallow. "Not much. The only thing we really have is that we've come across a few of his 'cleaners.' They expired by the time we got to the scene. Either he's losing his touch and they don't last as long anymore, or it's some copycat or apprentice." My eyes wander and fall on a scar across Spike's belly. It's half-hidden by his shirt.

He nods. Out of all the crooks and killers running amok in Manehatten, running all over her like ants on a corpse, the Plague Doctor terrifies him the most. A crazed Germane immigrant who fled his home country's law enforcement, he continued his sick experiments here, spiriting away prostitutes and hobos to make into his "cleaners."

Spike saw what a "cleaner" could do one night. It left him a present on his belly. He's had trouble sleeping since. That was a year and a half ago, when the Plague Doctor was the biggest threat to Manehatten since Coldsnap's rampage a few years before that.

I know what I should say. Spike is terrified that the Plague Doctor might be seeking revenge. Revenge on me? Maybe. But I'd never let him hurt Spike. I'd never let anypony hurt Spike. Not even my own monsters. Not even Baritone. I look at Spike for a long time, but for one reason or another, I say nothing. No words of comfort can leave my mouth, no matter how bad I want to say them.

I'd never let anypony hurt Spike.

Never.

Yet.

Yet there's proof that you didn't hold up your claim, Twilight. It's right there on Spike's belly, half-hidden by his shirt. One of the Plague Doctor's toys gave it to him. You were lucky you got there in time before it killed him.

I sigh. Swallow. Go for another sandwich. Try changing subjects to something Spike might enjoy. I try, but I can't think of anything he might like. Swallow. Go for another sandwich. Swallow.

Go for another. Swallow.

Another. Swallow.

Another.

Swallow.

After lunch, I get back in my car and drive. At first I think I'm driving back to the precinct. Get some work done. But then I notice I'm driving to my Laughing Place. It's a name AJ gave it, the Laughing Place. "Everypony has one," she said. "'Swhere we go when we're upset. Mebbe we go there t'think, or relax or whatever. But we all got one, an' juss bein' there sets us up straight." She never showed me hers, but I have a pretty good idea where it is.

My Laughing Place. Over by the bridge connecting North and South Manehatten. At the bank, where the ocean slaps against the dirt, dragging the trash into itself like a greedy diner that doesn't care about his calorie count. My Laughing Place. AJ named it. Or rather, it was a name she borrowed from the Br'er Rabbit stories, since AJ couldn't ever think of something that clever on her own. My Laughing Place.

I park the car in my Laughing Place. Nopony here but me. I rest my hat on the dashboard and get out. I feel the dirt under my gloves and boots. Feel it as it takes my weight, recognizes me. My Laughing Place has missed me. Been too long since I've been here.

I stand there on my Laughing Place.

I scream.

I cry.

Whatever it is I do, I never laugh.

Manehatten Heat

Breaking What's Fixed, Part IV: Manehatten Heat

Burn out the day
Burn out the night
I'm not the one to tell you what's wrong or what's right
I've seen suns that were freezin' and lives that were through

Well I'm burning, I'm burning, I'm burning for you
~Blue Oyster Cult, "Burning For You"

Idon't know what's taking AJ so long. A sigh crawls outta my lungs as I lean back in my chair for what must be the millionth time in the past hour.

I don't wanna leave AJ's car in the middle of this neighborhood. I've already caught some teenagers lookin' her over. Might be just because'a the bloodstains on the wheels and bumper where it kissed the Daughters, but I couldn't take the risk. A single flash of Mr. Fix-It, his ghost-white barrel shimmering in the mid-afternoon light, and the kids backed off.

Besides the curious kids, nothin' was really goin' on. No police in the area. Commissioner's orders, most likely. After all, if she knows where her little HQ-away-from-HQ is, I doubt she'd let one group interfere with the other.

Coldsnap still out like a light in the backseat. I humor myself with the thought that he's already awake but waiting for some Prince Charming to wake him. It'd totally be his style. His whole life is like some ridiculous stage play. I can just imagine it now: the curtains rise against a darkened backdrop. The narrator walks to center-stage as a headlight focuses on him. The band at the foot of the stage quiets.

Many years have passed since the heroic Sir Coldsnap had fallen in his courageous escape, the narrator says with a charming lilt. His allies managed to get away thanks to his selfless sacrifice. However! The world weeps aloud at the sight of their smote hero! Shall none be there to take his place? Or shall he rise again to take his sword to the heavens that dared cast him out?

O treacherous world! How you have spurned your savior! First stealing of him his rightful place by the goddess' side; then his true love! And then his pizza rolls. You bastards.

The narrator walks off, barely containing his laughter. I'm the only audience, sittin' in a chair that looks suspiciously like the front passenger seat I'm in now. The lights go on and there he is, dressed for the dead, lyin' on his back as the world mourns his passing. I almost laugh. The actor playing me is much taller and broad-chested than I am, but that's theater for ya. The actress portraying AJ has her accent all wrong—she sounds more like really bad Cajun.

Really bad Cajun.

The villain in this little play—whom I imagine would be the Commissioner on a fucking broomstick—swoops in and laughs like a maniac. The special effects crew is givin' it everything they got: dramatic wind and thunder that hammers the walls. Just as she makes her deliciously cheesy monologue about how lost the world is without Our Wonderful Hero, I hear the driver's side door open and feel a body fill the seat.

I'm back in reality. I wave goodbye to my imaginary theater, and take a deep breath. Let myself come back peacefully into a reality I want no part of. All this time I spent thinking up somethin' ridiculous, when I should'a thought over how I ought to apologize to AJ. I clear my mind. I get about a second to think over what I wanna say. I clear my throat and start.

"AJ. I'm sorry... 'bout earlier. Dunno why I did that." I clenched my teeth. That was a lie. I know why I tossed her back. And if AJ's all about the truth, it'd be hard to lie to her, almost as hard as it is for her to lie herself. If she had to be honest with me, I gotta be honest with her. It's the only way.

"No, scratch that. I was just—well, to put it bluntly, I was thinkin’ with my dick. There you were, hurtin’ because of… well, everything, and…” I breathe deep. “It was totally wrong'a me to try 'n take advantage'a you like that." I gulp. "Just like it's wrong of me to do most'a the things I do. So... I'm sorry." A pause. I look aside—

shit

Puffy, pink eyes sitting in dark, dank caves burn holes through me. There are pupils—these little black pinpricks—but they only add to his lizardlike appearance, along with the little red freckles of dragon scales framing the dark caves. Around the eyes, a skull-white head is adorned with leather straps like they're struggling to hold this mess together. A fire-red mane, ash-black at the tips, flows from the skull. His thin, almost-dragonlike frame is dressed in enough black leather and bolts and belt buckles to make him look like some kind'a rock star. His bone-white forelegs end with beetle-black dragon claws instead of hooves. His red snake tail twitches in anticipation.

Those little black pinpricks in his puffy eyes look at me. To Coldsnap. Then back to me. A smile, showcasing his crooked brown-and-grey dragon teeth, slowly creeps across his face like a ghost whispering by a window.

Shit.

A breath of hot air that smells like sulfur gets shot into my face. I gag. "Yo, Tonyyyyyy," he drags in a deep and playful tone. His accent's the same as mine. Broncs. Except that, if accents were beards, mine is stubble and his is a ZZ Clop chin-waterfall.

"H-Heat Freak," I say, trying to maintain my composure. It's The Language again. Words of intimidation, sentences in blood. Somepony always dies at the end of the conversation. Gotta stop at the words. Maintain my cool. I'm only in a car with no real way to escape a fire-breathin' psycho, and he just saw his brother unconscious in the backseat, and he's pissed as shit. No pressure, Tony. No pressure at all.

Silence for an uncomfortable stretch of time. I can tell both of us are holding our breaths. We haven't broken eye contact. "Mind tellin' me why my big brudda's takin' a five in ya backseat, ma zigga?"

I clear my throat. "We were escapin' the police. He got shot. I took him to a doctor, got him fixed up. He gonna be OK." My voice cracks at several points in my explanation, and the He gonna gives away my escaping courage.

Heat Freak leans in closer. I can taste the brimstone in his breath. "Dead-ass?"

"D-Dead-ass," I gulp. Just by the look in his eyes, I can tell he knows I'm scared as shit.

More silence. Those pinpricks scan me. He blinks, the pink, puffy eyes disappearing completely in those dark caves, and for a split second, his head looks even more like a skull than it did before. The grin doesn't leave his face. His breath, thick and smelling of sulphur, washes my face, pawing it eagerly.

I do my best not to shit in my seat. I've only ran with Heat Freak once—and once is enough . I seen what he can do. Lost sleep over it. Lost my appetite for days. That strangely nostalgic sound of a heavy metal shriek. For his prey, it's the last sound they hear.

A small gasp from his victim—this one a young mare simply at the wrong place at the wrong time—her pink eyes wide with terror for half a second. Then a burst of fire.

Then smoke rising from where she once stood.

Then the sudden smell of burned meat.

For a few seconds, nothing but a disturbing silence.

Then ashes began descending. The only proof this mare ever existed, fluttering down around me like falling angels. I look aside and see Heat Freak, that sick bastard—he's got his tongue out like he's tryin' to catch snowflakes. He catches a few on that long, black, greasy-lookin’ tongue of his. Swallows her ashes.

Then he turns to me and he grins.

A chill creeps up my spine, playing on it like deft hooves on a piano. I don't break eye contact with Heat Freak. Don't give him any excuse to kill me. Wouldn't matter much, since he doesn't really need a reason to kill anypony. Coldsnap kills for reasons that only he understands. Heat Freak kills because it's fun.

"Didja get 'em?" he asked.

"G-Get who?"

His lips are close to mine—so close I'm terrified he'll try to kiss me. "Da bitch-ass ziggas what shot 'im, ya dumb fuck-wad!" Heat Freak's sulphuric breath slaps me before the diamond-hard palm of his dragon-claw does. I get knocked back—and my back smacks against the door—and I feel heat wash up my face—and I hear ringing in my ears. From a million miles away comes a voice as thick as mud: "Didja kill da muthafuckas 'r not?!"

"Yes!" I shouted. "Yeah, I killed 'em! I shot out their tires! I got one between the eyes! I made ’em pay for shootin’ Coldsnap, I swear! I SWEAR!"

Silence fills the car afterward. I'm disgusted with myself. Jeez, I sounded like a sniveling little puppy whose master just kicked it in the gut. Only a few hours ago, I was killin' off cops, runnin' over thugs, laughin' like I was invincible. And for a while, I was invincible.

But now? Right now, I'm alone with somepony far more sicker and ruthless than me. I'm just as helpless now as I was in the Commissioner's office. The moment all this registers in my brain, I feel both angry at myself and sick to my stomach.

I recompose myself as best I can and look at Heat Freak. He strokes his brother's mane as the most vulnerable look I've ever seen him make washes over his skeleton face, scrubbing it of any hostility it had. He whispers somethin' to him that, even though he's right next to me, the ringing in my ears won't let me hear. He gives Coldsnap a nuzzle. Then he looks to me, his face still pressed against his brother's body. Silence for a few seconds. Then:

"Thanks, Tony."

The tension in the air distorts into awkwardness. Never been thanked. At least, never... sincerely. It's especially weird that a guy like Heat Freak is the one to genuinely thank me. But it might not be a good idea to get friendly with him. Guy's a walking temper tantrum with dragon-fire. I stammer out a "You're welcome" either way.

A few seconds pass. Then a minute, maybe two. The whole time, Heat Freak hangs onto his big brother, the puffy pink eyes disappearing into the blackness of that skull. I raise an eyebrow as I hear a quiet sob escape the Freak.

Then it hits me. I realize how very close Heat Freak was to losing his brother, the only pony he loved. If AJ got her way, Heat Freak would be left all alone in Manehatten… alone in a city eager to devour him like she does everypony else.

"…Need a minute?"

It takes me a second or so to realize that those words came outta my mouth. The puffy pink eyes pop back open. Heat sniffs, then nods. I gulp. Nod. I open the passenger side door, then get out, closing the door behind me.

I breathe in a lungful of that traditionally rancid Manehatten air. I can taste the toxins in her atmosphere, feel them burn my lungs, but it's a reprieve from the madness nonetheless. I really wish I'd remembered to take the cigs out with me, though. Shit, I could so use one right about now.

I look up out of this alley and into the afternoon sky. It'd be a very pretty shade of blue if it wasn't for all the fucking clouds makin' a mess up there. Suddenly, a pink pegasus flies overhead. They're fast, so fast I almost miss 'em as they shoot past my vision. Whoever it was, they were mostly pink, but I caught some yellow and purple on there.

With a clap, a closing door draws my attention behind me. Fillies and gentlecolts, AJ has left the building. I feel like asking her what took her so long, but the thunderclouds that follow her every step glare me down. The moment she notices me, she looks to her car as if trying to avoid eye contact. She’s not pleased with who she sees behind the wheel.

She walks over to me. I'm not sure what I should be doing as her confused stride brings her closer. Part of her walk feels distressed. The other part feels angry. I seriously consider running away. But short legs never won races against a pissy mare, so I throw the idea outta my mind almost the moment it enters. Before I come to any kinda decision, AJ stands next to me.

A few seconds of silence. AJ sighs. "Arright. We're goin'."

I look up at her. "What about your car?"

She shakes her head. "Ain't mine. Cain't bear to look at it no more anyway."

AJ starts walking. I shoot the car a final, pensive look—catching a glimpse of Heat Freak and Coldnsnap crying in each other's forelegs. Anypony who happens across this without any context would certainly come to some pretty entertaining conclusions.

"Comin' or goin', Tony," AJ calls over her shoulder as she walks around the corner. I decide I'm comin'.

We walk in silence for about a street or two. The filth of this area of town is somethin’ you can actually taste: like sea salt sprinkled on something rotten. The very stink of it all clings to hooves unlucky enough to find themselves on the sidewalk. The overall heat of the day shakes hooves with the stench, partners in crime. There are other ponies on the street, but I guess there’s nothin’ weird to them about a pair of unfamiliar ponies wandering around on their turf.

I glance to AJ occasionally. Her stride has lost its anger. The distress is still there. Some kind of uncertainty, too. Struggling with her feelings—either that, or struggling with how to express them.

After givin' it some thought I decide I oughta try apologizing again. But before I can say anything, AJ sighs. “Tony,” she says quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Back there. In the car.”

“Heat Freak and Coldsnap are brothers,” I say quickly. “Wasn’t what it looked like. Swear to Celestia.”

Awkward silence. I hear AJ snort before she quietly giggles. “No, n-not—” aaaaaand that’s about as much as she can get out before her giggles become an outright laugh. It dies too quickly—like anything good in Manehatten—and she turns to look at me. The smile on her face, the corpse of her laughter that died too fast, brings out the best features of her emerald eyes.

She gives me a playful punch on my shoulder. “Not that, ya goofball,” she says, her voice at least in better spirits. “Ah meant… in the car. Between us.” A sigh is shot out from the smile before it opens up again—and I interrupt it.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “It wasn’t right fer me to take advantage of—”

At this, AJ bursts out laughing. Not the gradual bubbling of giggles into a guffaw from before—it just comes out, full-force. She wipes away a tear. “Tony, you—you—come on, you really think Ah’d just let some fella take advantage’a me?” She wraps a foreleg around me—not hard, considering our difference in size—and draws me close, like I’m an old friend she’s known forever. “Ah wouldn’a letcha near me if Ah thought you were no good.”

“So you ain’t… mad?” I ask.

“Fuck no,” she says as she breaks the hug and continues. “Ah try not to get mad over the small stuff. And if Ah do, Ah try not to stay mad.” I follow her as she looks aside to me. “If any of us oughta be sorry, it’s me.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Why?”

AJ glances down to me as we approach a crosswalk. “Fer bein’ a weepy little bitch. This town ain’t fer that kinda nonsense, no how.” We wait for the light to change, and as we do, she turns her head to look at me.

Her green emeralds dance mischievously. Her warrior lips turn up into a wanting smile. “But if you really do feel bad about it…”

The rest of her answer is given in the silent words of body language: her hips swaying in a mesmerizing way that must have taken some practice, her eyelashes fluttering seductively. And that smile. That smile.

I give her a knowing smirk, piercing her emerald eyes with my deep blues. Looks like today’s gonna have an auspicious ending after all—and after all the shit AJ ’n I went through today, I think we’ve fucking earned it, thank you very much.

It turns out that the building I thought was the Commish’s HQ-Away-From-HQ was in fact, not an HQ at all. AJ just knew some folks who lived there, and that they’d be able to help the Doc until the fires in the Kitchen die down.

As for me, the Commish had reserved me a room over at some motel called JOE’S PLACE. On our way there, AJ tells me that the Commish has already sent word to my boss Filthy Rich, and they agreed to wait a week before pickin’ me back up. Gives everypony enough time to clean up after my newsworthy jailbreak.

The motel itself is… well, if I even have to describe it, that only means you’ve either never been to motels at all, or you’ve only been to some nice hotel instead. Any and every motel in Manehatten is infested with vermin, all their sheets smell like sex, and the only thing noisier than the ponies bumpin’ uglies in every single room is the floorboards. At least this one had some cheap rates.

The noises all around us are muffled and ghostly. It feels like I’m gettin’ my downtime in a cramped haunted house. AJ enters the reserved room first. She doesn’t even wait for me to close the door behind us before she starts takin’ off her shirt. I shut the door as fast as I can before her clothes hit the floor, sending some bugs skittering away in the process.

I lock the door as quickly as I can before I feel her teeth clamp playfully on my tail. She pulls me back with a giggle and drags me to the bed. I undo her hair-band, letting loose that wave of gold, and I get a whiff of the farm life. It’s like, even though she hasn’t been home in years, she carries it with her everywhere she goes.

She pushes me onto the bed, then climbs onto it, looming over me. The toothy grin that curves just under her emerald eyes lets out some steam. I reach up with my stubby little forelegs and grab her face—and her face is soft. I know we made out in the car not too long ago, but I get the feeling her face’s softness will surprise me no matter how many times I touch it.

She dunks her head down and we lock tongues, much more furiously and passionately than in the car. All the while, my member’s stiffening. The heat in my loins screams. I can tell AJ’s gettin’ excited too—the speed and sloppiness of our kiss is doubling.

I break the kiss and remove my shirt. She gets a good look at my dick and her toothy grin comes back, coupled with panting. Without even asking—not that I’d say no, mind you—she takes it into her mouth. Her tongue is soft and velveteen, and it works around my penis better than the Commissioner’s tongue did around my horn. She contracts her warrior lips, pounding my pecker with a gentle rhythm, making obscene noises that make me hotter.

I’m small enough that I can reach over and chew her ear. As I gently grind my teeth, AJ moans in pleasure. The vibration is a beautiful thing to feel—the blowjob up to this point was pleasant of course, but the moan was the cherry on the sund—

Aw, shit. I groan in embarrassment as I come in her mouth too soon—and without warning. AJ gulps in surprise and releases my wilting member with a pop. She has this look of shock, as if she’d never swallowed discharge before: eyes as wide as dinner plates, her warrior lips all screwed up into a hilariously perplexing shape.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, the flush in my cheeks now less excitement, more embarrassment. “I—uh, I guess I… shoulda warned you…”

AJ’s face falls. It’s a look of half-disappointment, half-amusement. She looks like she’s reeeeeaaaally fighting the urge to say somethin’ mean. I been heckled by my lovers before for lousy performances, it wouldn’ta been nothin’. Instead, she just sighs through her nose and smiles, shaking her head. “I-It’s OK, Tony. Ah just… was… kinda…”

“…Expectin’ me to last a little longer?”

We were both quiet for a little while longer, the only sounds in the room coming from our noisy neighbors. I watch AJ’s emerald eyes as they scan me. Her warrior lips slowly spread across her face into a wide smile. Finally, AJ facehoofs and giggles. “Tony, quit beatin’ yerself up like that.”

“I wasn’t beatin’ myself up; I was—”

Her hooves hold either side of my member. She looks at me with this mischief-making smile as she slides her hooves up and down. “You’re always blamin’ yerself fer shit, sugarcube. Ah do enough’a that fer both of us.” My member fattens up again, gradually.

She climbs onto the bed, pushing me back a little as she sits down on me, still holding my member like it’s a sacred object. I feel hot again, and the heat of her body—and the weight of her body—make my member ache for some more action. I look up and that face that’s always gonna surprise me looks down at me, with emerald eyes that forgive and a smile that forgets. She wraps her hind legs around my flanks, straddling me.

It should be noted that in Equestria, there’s supposedly such a thing as making love. But in most of Equestria, ponies have sex. In Manehatten? You just fuck. What comes after AJ straddles me is… well, it’s something I can’t even describe. It ain’t fucking. It ain’t even really sex. There’s just this all-devouring sense of connection when I look into her emerald eyes. I’m not too hopeful that this is that “love-making” that seems so glorified in movies or books… but I get the feeling, as we start moving, that it’s pretty damned close.

I last longer this time.

Today has gone on too long.

The cleanup around HQ is taking longer than expected, and Baritone’s escape—while masterfully executed and helpfully bumped off a couple of blues who’d been putting their muzzles where they don’t belong—was all over the news, whether I like it or not.

I try to busy myself with going over files to recent cases, but it doesn’t do much. My mind keeps going from Baritone, to AJ’s phone call, to the scar on Spike’s belly, to my Laughing Place—just going over today’s events, around and around, like a merry-go-round out of control. Somepony stop, I want to get off.

Once a pigsty now a disaster zone, my office is cleaned little by little as I try to once again go over everything—not the things that have gone on today. No thanks. I’ve been on that ride, and it makes me sick. No, instead I’m thinking over my plans.

I light up the moment I see it: a photo sticking out of a folder labeled “PRIME SUSPECTS.” I pick it up with my teeth gingerly, trying carefully to not get my tongue over it by accident. (I’ve done that kind of thing more than once— half of my possessions routinely get drenched with drool.) I look back to my desk—only to see it’s still in two pieces where Baritone had knocked me earlier.

The memory makes me absent-mindedly rub the bruise on my chest where his hooves—not much bigger than a foal’s—had launched me. Remnants of his touch. I want them to stay. Bruises on top of bruises.

I sigh, bringing myself away from my daydreams. I put the file back down, since there’s no desk left to place anything on. I open it. Inside is a list of names, all of which are crossed out. All dead ends. All but one.

Ragtime Annie.

Coupled with this name is a photo of a pretty jenny with a curly mane and pouty lips. She’s in her early thirties and looks like she’s in her late teens. If I were more complete, I’d be curious as to what her secret is. That’s not to say I’m not interested in her secrets: Ragtime Annie is a treasure chest of juicy secrets waiting to get cracked open.

When she was younger, Ragtime Annie had a promising career in music. But of course, like ninety-nine percent of all Manehatten dreams, it was shattered by lost time and dirty money. These days, she works as a Madam in the Red Light District, pimping out mares half her age. On top of that, she’s flanks-deep “in with the in crowd”. If anyone in Manehatten wanted to know anything, she was usually the first one to ask… if she could be found.

And that’s where Baritone comes in. He and Annie used to date. It was rather frowned upon, a unicorn and a donkey. I can imagine a younger, more idealistic and hot-blooded Baritone getting into fights because of it. My notes on Baritone made claims that confirm that he still has lingering feelings for Annie, and hints that the feelings are mutual.

I feel a pang of jealousy. It gets erased when I look at down at the bruises on my chest. Baritone loves me in ways Annie can’t have. I touch my bruises, that tender feeling of wounded arteries recoiling when pressured sending rippling bolts of equal measures pain and pleasure through me. I lick my teeth and growl as I replay that moment—Baritone’ little hind legs bucking me into my desk—over and over again.

I sigh. Baritone loves me in ways Annie can’t have.

I look back down to the file. Back to the plan. I’ll wait a week. I’ll wait until the press gets off my ass. I’ll figure out a way to divert their attention. Maybe “capture” some famous criminals who’re standing around until I give the word. The Freezer Burns might do. Might.

That word—capture—boomerangs back to me. Capture. Why does it come back? What is it trying to remind me of?

An image of the Plague Doctor jumps across my mind like a spider crawling across a windowpane. It nearly makes me jump: his skittering, reed-thin limbs dressed in black boots, his face hidden behind a shadowy beaked mask with glowing red eyes that peer out from under his wide-brimmed hat. His long cloak flies behind him—a screaming mass of nightmares and darkness—as he dashes by mind, cackling.

Yes, capture. Another criminal I must bring to justice. I suddenly intake air sharply as the Plague Doctor is trailed by a pair of mares.

I cut off my scream before it gets too loud by stuffing my hooves into my mouth. Tears of fear streak down my face. I remember.

I remember.

The pit-pat-pit-pat of the Plague Doctor’s muffled hooves. Dark alley. A ghostly light. Two shadows behind him are bathed in that ghostly light, washing the darkness off them, revealing them. One a dead grey with purple eyes and a dark mane. The other a blue mare. Pale mane. They flank the Plague Doctor as he goes on and on about his destiny. What he deserves.

His henchmares. Professional kidnappers.

My tormentors.

My lovers.

I acted too soon then. It was too soon.

When I come to, I’m on my side and somepony is prodding me. Somepony touches my bruised chest carefully. Cautiousluy. “What is it, Spike?” I ask, trying not to sound scared or sick.

“Commish?” comes a gruff voice. “You aright?”

I look up. From under a canopy of black mane, a pair of pink eyes looks down on me from a face of white chocolate, perched on a tower connected to a castle of a body that shares the same color. His XXXL trenchcoat barely covers him. His lantern jaw has a small mouth that forms a smirk.

“I’m fine, Heart,” I growl.

“Ya don’t sound fine,” he says.

“What are you, my doctor?”

He shrugs his massive shoulders. “My brother’s a doctor,” he says. “I can get him to take a look at you.”

I blink

(he jumps across my mind like a spider crawling across a windowpane)

and decide I’ve had enough about doctors for one day. “That… uh, that won’t be necessary, Heart.” I roll over onto my stomach to lift myself back up. Heart offers his hoof. It goes ignored as my legs piston me back up to standing. He shrugs again.

“What did you come in here for?” I ask. “I’m sure it’s not because you were concerned about me.”

Heart smirks again. His pink eyes have a quality to them—a sense of tiring, caring, planning, and analysis. The eyes of your big brother after a hard day. “Commish, this might come as a surprise to you, but there are still ponies in this town who care about you.”

Bullshit. I already know about Heart. About him and his being a hero cop. The media sure loves him—nearly every paper off their press singing praise and hallelujah, we got ourselves an honest cop. He doesn’t help himself to any of the contraband, doesn’t use unnecessary force on perps, doesn’t take bribes… In fact, I don’t remember him ever swearing or drinking alcohol. He’s a total colt scout.

Which is why I tried to have some of my boys send a message to him.

Which is why he beat the Tartarus out of them when they ganged up on him.

Which is why we’re keeping a closer eye on one another.

I know he’s onto me. He knows I’m onto him. My mind once again becomes a merry-go-round, this time running through Baritone—through AJ—through the scar on Spike’s belly—through my Laughing Place—through Ragtime Annie—through… Ah, here we go. This is my stop.

This is my stop. I need a distraction. The media needs a hero. The hounds must give chase.

I straighten myself up. “Detective Heart, I have a new case for you.”

I walk outside into the final hour of the dying sunlight, Celestia lowering her solar charge for the day. Past the bustling bodies around the MPDHQ, I spot somepony leaning against my car. A bolt of dread strikes me where I stand the moment I recognize Applejack.

She leans against my car like she’s posing for a magazine cover. On her hind legs. Forelegs crossed. Looking right at me with a mischievous little smirk. Her hat is lowered over her eyes, the same way she always lowered it to make herself appear more menacing.

I stop a few feet away from her. We continue to stare each other down. Finally, I decide to break the silence. “AJ.”

“Twi.”

Some more silence. “I thought you said we were done,” I say with a disbelieving smirk.

“Oh, we are,” she says as she gets off my car. “We are.” She walks up to me, her menacing smile still on her shadowed face. The way she trots looks more like predatory stalking—the same way the Plague Doctor walked that night when he was flanked by my lovers.

She stops in front of me, not even an inch from my face. I’ve been told I’m damn scary in a fight, moving so fast I’m hard to keep up with. But AJ’s always been the better fighter, and she proves it with one quick movement—causing my legs to go slack—causing me to lose feeling in my legs—causing my ears to ring—causing blood to sprinkle on the ground.

I hear a voice call to me, separated from reality by the whining ring in my ears. “Ah fucked yer boyfriend!” she shouts. “Ah fucked him!”

Tony?

Baritone?

My Baritone?

I growl as my legs are suddenly set on fire. I propel myself forward, crashing into Applejack. I bite. I punch. I kick. But it takes me a moment to realize I have yet to move Applejack. I haven’t so much as left a bruise on this fortress of flesh. I have my forelegs crossed over her neck, ready to cut off her airflow. She looks at me with an aside glance, her eyes—those ominously-shadowed eyes of hers—daring me to do it.

I can’t hurt her.

And she knows it.

She’s figured it out. It took her long enough, but she did.

With another quick movement, she bucks me off her back. I am flung through the air, and crash into my car. My body hits it with enough force to almost knock it over. It now has a dent in the vague shape of my head on the side.

Once again, my merry-go-round goes round and round, circling around me, chirping madly in my ears. I struggle to get back up. I hear Applejack laughing at me. Laughing at me as she walks away.

My mentor laughs at me. My friends all laugh at me. My brother and sister-in-law laugh at me. My subordinates all laugh at me.

Applejack laughs at me as she walks away.

Somewhere in Manehatten, Baritone is laughing at me. All I’ve done for him. All I’ve promised… and he’s laughing at me right along with Applejack and everypony else.

I look at my reflection in my car’s hubcap. It’s just as distorted as I am on the inside.

Breaking What's Fixed
~fin~

Coming Up Next: Silence of Laughter

Author's Note

And with that, the Applejack arc is complete.

I'm putting this sucker On Hiatus until I can figure out how the other Mane Five are going to play into this nonsense noir. Sorry if that's inconvenient to everyone, but rest assured, Jub and I are going to be bouncing ideas back and forth in the meantime.