“―otests continue outside city hall today as creatures demand action in the wake of the scandal which rocked Elysium Property Management Services, leaving the fate of nearly a million residents of the city’s megasilos uncertain.”

The large screen in the Green Room displayed a series of short vignettes showcasing something of a ‘highlight reel’ of the demonstration which had been ongoing on the steps of the city’s primary government building for the past couple of days. Something like two blocks of the city had been rendered effectively impassable due to the throng of bodies gathered on the streets in protest. LCPD officers, decked out in what looked to be every scrap of riot gear the department owned, were arrayed on the steps of city hall in lines two deep, forming a living barrier between the masses and the government officials inside who were―ostensibly―working to find a solution to the issue that had all of those protestors so riled up.

The voice of the reporter went on as the screen continued to display scenes of angry creatures yelling unintelligible epithets at the officers and the sequestered officials beyond them. “Payment for various utilities, such as power and water, are coming due and all indications are that Elysium does not have sufficient capital left in its accounts to make the imminent payments.

“LCN reached out to Light City Power & Water earlier today for comment on the possibility of extending their services to the city’s megasilos in the event of non-payment, in light of what could certainly be considered extenuating circumstances. A representative for the company gave us this statement:

“‘While our hearts go out for those affected by these events, our company’s longstanding policy is clear on matters such as this: In order to continue services on past due accounts, the account holder must request participation in LCPW’s ‘Emergency Relief Plan’ and secure one of our many relief loan options through our partners at Griffonstone Bank & Trust. So far, Elysium has not done so; which leaves our claws tied.’

“The representative then went on to elaborate that any exception to their company’s policies would need to be approved through arbitration and that, thus far, Elysium had made no effort to schedule an appointment.

“Requests for comment from Elysium have not yet been responded to…”

My gaze finally flicked away from the screen, drifting up to the ceiling. It proved to be an ideal backdrop for the illusionary script floating in front of me as I read through another chapter of the book that Daisy had provided me last week. I’d so far found the contents to be…well…enlightening, actually.

I’d be the first to admit that I hadn’t been a great student in school. I hadn’t failed any of my classes, no, but I hadn’t exactly been in the running for any sort of academic honors either. That being said, my ignorance of Equestrian history could not be solely attributed to my lackluster scholastic performance. The fact simply was that not a lot about Equestria was covered in school beyond that it was a place which existed and where it was located on a map. I knew that it was the homeland for nearly every variety of equine―save for zebras―and that it was ruled by Princess Twilight Sparkle.

But that was about it. There wasn’t any deep delve into its history, or its society and governance…come to think of it: news coming out of the continent was pretty hard to come by too. I hadn’t really thought about that too much, I’ll be honest. I kind of had enough going on in my own life that I hadn’t given much thought to what was happening in the lives of ponies living half a world away. Still, now that I was thinking about it, that struck me as pretty odd. There were occasional stories of significant events coming out of the griffon lands, and even the more distant southern continent.

But nothing about Equestria.

So being able to read about the life and times of ponies who’d lived there was proving to be pretty interesting, even if I was finding myself wondering how much legitimacy I was supposed to be giving the alleged ‘journal’. It read more like an anthology of high-fantasy adventures. Ponies using magic without the aid of talismans―most of the time, anyway―fighting giant dragons and hydras, uncovering ancient evils from the distant past…

Funnily enough, it was the parts that presented themselves as being more grounded, with a focus on daily life in the little town which served as the backdrop for many of the chapters, that seemed like they were the most ‘fantastic’, in the less often used sense of the word: they were the stories which felt like pure fantasy.

Ponies helping each other, just because it was the right thing to do? Nopony stepping on anypony else just to get ahead? Throwing parties for no other reason than because it might make somepony’s day feel just a little bit brighter?

It was extremely difficult for me to imagine a world like that. But oh how wonderful it would be if life could actually be that way…

I was drawn away from my reading when I heard the background drone of the reporting on the television suddenly cut off. My gaze instinctively flickered first to the now blank screen, and then around the room. It didn’t take long to spot the mud-colored donkey who was standing nearby, tossing away the remote that she’d picked up. Nor was she alone, I noticed. The rest of the band was with her as well, filing in through the doorway and seeking out seats of their own.

“Good. I don’t have to go looking for you,” Jenny said curtly before striding over to go stand in front of the darkened screen while everycreature else made themselves comfortable.

I blinked in mild surprise at the unexpected interruption as I tentatively rose up from the couch I’d been laying on and assumed a seated posture. Gerry eased himself down next to me in the recently vacated space, flashing me a warm smile and a nod. I returned the gesture as best I could, though I did feel my cheeks flushing slightly as I recalled Daisy’s teasing in the wake of my attempt at ‘flirting’ with the griffon the other day. Looking him in the eye had been a somewhat difficult prospect ever since…

No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than the side door leading to the kitchen opened up, allowing the golden earth pony entrance, balancing a tray on her back that was laden with drinks for the team. The little mare’s eyes almost immediately locked onto myself and Gerry sharing a couch and I saw her already wide smile broaden just a little bit more, her eyes taking on a mischievous glint. She rather hastily passed out the drinks to the others before she approached the two of us.

Daisy’s levitation magic held out a glass to the griffon, who took it with a polite ‘thank you’, and then she gestured for him to scoot further my way. “Make a little room?” She asked innocently.

To his credit, the griffon guitarist did spare a moment to look around the room and note that there were at least two other loungers which only possessed a single creature on them, and would thus prove to be much more accommodating to another occupant than our own already cramped divan. All the same, the gold and ivory tiercel scooched over as much as he could in my direction, flashing me a look of apology as he did so. By the time Daisy was satisfied that enough room had been made for her on the couch, I was feeling nearly enveloped by the griffon, who’d been forced to drape his wing behind my back to keep it from being pinned to his side by my body.

I leaned my head forward slightly to look past Gerry’s chest at the smaller mare, and promptly glared daggers at her. In response, Daisy merely winked at me, looking completely unabashed at what she’d orchestrated.

My head whipped away from her when I heard Jenny loudly clearing her throat in my direction. I couldn’t tell if the donkey’s scowl was because she could also see what Daisy was so obviously doing and didn’t care for it, or if it was simply because she hadn’t appreciated that I hadn’t been paying attention. Either way, I felt myself flushing with embarrassment again. “Now that we’re all finally here,” the donkey began, finally allowing her gaze to sweep around the room as she ensured the rest of the band was paying attention, “let’s go ahead and discuss our next op.”

I received an illusionary alert letting me know that I was being invited into a group seance by Harriet. I acknowledged the request and found myself being presented with all manner of documents and images. Curiously, I found that I not only recognized much of what I was seeing, but that the information wasn’t far afield from what I’d just been watching on the news.

“We’re going to join up with the protestors outside of city hall?” Dandy scoffed.

“No,” Jenny replied, “we’re going to use the unrest as cover to get inside. Once we’re in, we’re going to gain access to the network and we’re going to place a long-distance call. To Canterlot.”

Mine wasn’t the only jaw which made a valiant effort to hit the floor in shock at the announcement. I wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good sign or not, but I at least felt a little less slighted knowing that I wasn’t the only one being kept out of the loop on the lead up to this mission. I also apparently wasn’t the one who was most upset about being effectively blindsided by her announcement either. That award would have gone to Gerry.

The gold and alabaster griffon had sat bolt upright, his wing lightly batting me over the head as he did so. However, he hadn’t seemed to notice through his shock, his attention fully on the band’s singer. “When exactly did you decide this?! Because this is the first any of us seem to be hearing about it, and this says we’re doing it today!” He waved a lawed hand seemingly aimlessly through the air, but from what he was saying I suspected that he was gesturing broadly at the illusionary operation plan he could see floating in front of him.

Dandy was similarly unamused by the short notice and joined the guitarist in voicing his concerns. “City hall ain't a joke, Jen. Even without all the extra security, we can’t just trot in there free as you please! We’d need a plan―prep time. We spent months setting up the Elysium job―”

The donkey stomped her arcanetic hoof, silencing the unicorn with a fierce snort. “We have a plan,” she insisted, “Harriet just sent it to you! I already arranged for the materials and shit we’ll need. And, unfortunately, we don’t have ‘months’ to work on this, because the plan relies on using the protests as cover. We can’t know how much longer the city will let them go on, so we have to act now.”

“It’s not just about getting in,” Gerry pointed out as he held up his own clawed fingers and began counting out the issues he felt remained to be addressed. “We need access credentials for their network, we need to know their communications protocol―what fucking frequency we’re even supposed to use to call―”

Another, much more pronounced, hoof-stomp from the jenny. “We have that, if you’ll all just fucking look at the damn briefing before whining like a bunch of fucking foals!” She all but snarled at us. The room fell into silence, save for a low rumble coming from Barkly’s throat, the diamond dog clearly not having cared for the tone of the donkey’s words. Even this ceased as the singer singled the canine out with a glare.

“You’re all acting like this is my first fucking rodeo,” Jenny sneered, once more panning the room with a glare, allowing it to linger on all of us, but Gerry and Dandy especially. “Do you really think I don’t know what kind of a shitstorm we’d be getting into, trying to break into city-fucking-hall without a solid plan of attack?!” He gaze once more darted back to Dandy. “For your information, I have been spending ‘months’ laying the groundwork for this operation. I’ve got everything covered. As long as we all do our parts, there won’t be any problems, okay?”

The donkey snorted and shook her head, muttering under her breath. “You fuckers act like I’d try to get you killed or something…”

She then cleared her throat and waved her hoof in Harriet’s direction, apparently signaling for the hippogriff nettrotter to take care of the briefing, seeing as she was the one who was sending us the information over the link.

“The operation is pretty straightforward,” the group’s nettrotter began. “Thanks to the protests going on, Light City has called pretty much every cop down to City Center to help with crowd control.”

“And the added security helps us…how, exactly?” Dandy inquired.

“I got us police uniforms,” Jenny announced, glaring at the purple unicorn stallion.

Harriet nodded. “It’s an absolute clusterfuck out there. A thousand officers from a dozen different departments. Nocreature knows anycreature else, and shit’s so fucked up and chaotic that they’re not checking credentials too closely. Which is good, because I could only get us one identity with any actual access to anything. All the other badges are about as legit as something you could pick up for a foal’s Nightmare Night costume.”

“But they’ll hold up at a glance and get us past the barricade, which is good enough,” the donkey assured us. “After that, our one ‘good’ ident card will get us to where we need to go.”

Another nod from the hippogriff. Her eyes flickered for a moment and the imagery hovering in front of my eyes changed to show a broad layout of the tower downtown which housed the city’s government offices, with special attention paid to one of the upper floors which was labeled as being the ‘communications hub’. “For the most part, we should be left alone,” Harriet explained. “City employees have been seeing LCPD officers running all over the place for two days now, so they should just sort of assume that we’re doing something ‘security related’ and not try to stop us from going anywhere we’re trying to get to. If somecreature does try to stop you, for whatever reason, and they’re not an LCPD officer, act like any other cop and be a condescending prick and threaten them with obstruction or something.”

“And if we’re stopped by somecreature who is an LCPD officer?” Dandy ventured.

“Then you tell them we’re on orders from the mayor,” Jenny said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “That should end pretty much any further questions. If anycreature actually bothers to follow up with the mayor about it, we’ll be gone before we’re found out. Mayor’s plate is so full with this Elysium shit, she doesn’t have time to worry about some pissant whining about police officers walking around inside city hall.”

Jenny snickered. “Heck, I bet her and her aides actually have given out so many orders to various officers over the last few days that she’ll assume one of her reps actually did tell us to go to the comms hub and clear us!”

“Once we’re in the hub, just watch the door while I access the system and make contact with Equestria,” Harriet continued. “We have the contact protocols for Canterlot from that info cache Hash Stack got us from way back.”

The group seemed to have most of their concerns fairly well assuaged by this point, and everycreature was sitting more comfortably in their seats. Which left me feeling a little uncomfortable and out of place when I raised a tentative hoof. Jenny noticed me, frowning even as she gestured for me to speak up. “Um…out of curiosity, what exactly is it we hope to accomplish by calling Equestria?” I glanced around the room for any sign that I was posing a question which had an obvious answer I’d somehow managed to miss. Fortunately, none of the others were looking at me like I was a complete idiot. Well, except for Jenny; but she seemed to always look at me like that.

In fairness, since joining up with this crew I had come under the impression that she looked at everycreature like that…

“Light City was founded as a joint venture between Equestria and the Griffon Kingdom,” the donkey explained―with only a hint of mild exasperation in her voice, I noted. “Now think for two seconds and ask yourself what about the way things are being run in this place sounds like it is being influenced at all by the pony that wrote that journal Daisy gave you?”

I balked, blinking several times in shock at the donkey. When it became clear that I hadn't at all followed what the jenny said, her frown deepened into a scowl. “She did give you that Journal of Friendship, right?” Jenny’s gaze flashed briefly to the yellow earth pony mare, who was nodding even as she glanced at me. The singer looked back at me. “And I assume you’ve read it?” I suddenly felt like I was back at school and had failed to do a reading assignment that I hadn’t known the proctor had given us.

“I-I uh…” I stammered, “I’ve started it, yeah―wait, what do you mean ‘the pony who wrote it’?” I accessed the file through my arcanetics and brought it up to see, my gaze darting to the illusionary script. “Hold on, do you mean to tell me that the Twilight Sparkle who wrote this is the Princess Twilight Sparkle who rules Equestria?!

“But I thought the princess was an alicorn, not just another unicorn!”

I found myself the focus of several blank stares. Then Daisy cleared her throat, drawing my attention. “...Did you not get to the part where she becomes an alicorn?”

“You can just become an alicorn?!” I quickly started sifting through the chapters, seeking out the indicated moment, which I clearly had not managed to reach during the course of my reading thus far.

“Damn, DC; spoiler-warning much?” Dandy sniggered at the earth pony.

“Whatever,” Jenny said in a dismissive tone, turning her attention away from me and back to the others. “So, to summarize: we can get past the barricades with the uniforms I acquired for us, get to the comms hub with the ident card that Harriet scraped for us, and get out our message to the princess using the protocols that Hash Stack found.

“If the real Twilight is anything like she claims to be in her journal, she won’t sit idly by while creatures are suffering. And there’re a lot more than the million or so creatures in those megasilos who are ‘suffering’ in Light City.”

I gave up in my efforts to find the events that had been described in the journal for now―there’d be time to look later when we weren’t preparing for a mission to break into city hall. Though it seemed that, for the most part, the briefing was over. At least, that was what I gathered from the fact that the others were all rising out of their couches and heading for the door. Still a little dazed and confused, feeling broadsided by recent revelations, I hesitantly followed Gerry out of the Green Room and down the corridor towards the armory. Sometime between when Jenny had armed me up to play ‘bouncer’ for the Aeriesaka minotaur and now, the room had been stocked with several very-real-looking LCPD uniforms. These were passed out to each of us, along with a pistol that also looked remarkably like those carried by real LCPD officers.

The latter was actually a little less surprising. The common LCPD officer didn’t really carry a proprietary weapon. Most gun stores in Light City offered either that exact pistol model, or similar ones that were indistinguishable at a glance. At least, indistinguishable to an untrained eye like mine, I supposed. In any case, a quick glance at the manufacturer’s mark etched into the slide confirmed that these were, in fact, the genuine article. In short order, six otherwise unassuming creatures were transformed into six members of ‘Light City’s finest’. Or so Jenny had proclaimed, placing air-quotes with her hoof around the last word.

When we finally stepped outside, I found myself grinding to a stunned halt. While I could understand being able to acquire the weapons and uniforms with relative ease―as I knew the pistols to be commonly available, and I suspected that uniforms weren’t exactly hard to buy from a distributor either―I would have been fairly sure that it should have been quite difficult to acquire an actual LCPD vehicle! And yet, I found myself staring at one parked right outside all the same―

No, wait…

I narrowed my eyes at the black and purple van sitting nearby which was emblazoned with what looked to be all of the appropriate decals and markings. It even had a light bar on top of it. However, the longer I looked at it, the less convinced I was that it was the genuine article. LCPD vehicles were armored, for one thing, not unlike that GlimTech SUV from the other night. The windows and paneling of the van outside looked decidedly unarmored though. The van also had a very familiar shape to it that I was pretty sure I’d seen before.

Huh. I’d always wondered what had become of that City Center Cleaners van we’d used to break into Elysium’s offices. I’d just sort of assumed that we’d returned it. Though now that I thought about it, I realized that the hippogriff I’d paid off for the van that night hadn’t acted like he expected it back…

“Move your flank, filly,” I heard Jenny all but snarl just before she headbutted me on my backside, nearly sending me toppling down the stairs. I managed to recover from my stumble and made it the rest of the way to the van without further annoying the donkey.

Climbing into the back of the vehicle filled me with a sense of deja vu as I looked around and saw a bunch of familiar faces wearing uniforms crammed into the back of the van. Conditions were a little more cramped than they had been last time, even without the cleaning supplies nestled around us, as the LCPD uniforms and gear were considerably bulkier than the cleaner jumpsuits had been.

Harriet and Jenny sat up front, the former behind the wheel. Since the hippogriff hen was the only one of us with an identity card that would pass a thorough inspection, it made sense to have her be the one behind the wheel for when we needed to get past the roadblocks that had been set up around the protests. Gerry and Barkly sat across from me in the back of the van, leaving the space next to me to be taken up by―

“‘Eh, luv!”

Oh, fuck me…

The unicorn stallion sat down almost right on top of me, it felt like, pushing himself right up against my side. His arcanetic talisman at the base of his horn lit up and a second later he was holding up a set of hoofcuffs wrapped in the glow of his telekinesis. The stallion’s expression was one of faux disapproval as he commented on them. “Hmm. These aren’t nearly as nice as the ones I have back in my room,” he remarked in an off-hoofed fashion, casting an aside glance at me as a smirk worked across his face. “They’re padded. A lot more comfortable that way.

“You should swing by some time and try them out.” The stallion paused, tapping the side of his muzzle as he feigned being deep in thought. “I can’t quite remember where I put the key for them, but I’m sure that won’t be a problem right away…” Another smile worked its way across his muzzle that left me feeling more than a little uncomfortable as I tried to squirm away from the drummer as best as I could. Which wasn’t easy to do, as he had me mostly pinned up against the driver’s compartment. “...We just might have to figure out some way to pass the time while you’re all―”

“Zip it, Dandy,” Jenny growled from the front passenger seat, abruptly silencing the unicorn.

Both of us looked over to see the donkey glaring at him. Almost immediately, the purple stallion held up his hooves in surrender and scooted himself back down the bench until there was a respectable gap between us. His telekinetic magic returned the floating restraints to the pouch on his duty belt that he’d gotten them from. “Zippin’ it, boss.”

I flashed the jenny a thankful look and breathed a sigh of relief. Though this only seemed to earn me a disappointed glare from the singer for my trouble. I frowned. What was she mad at me for? I wasn’t the one being a slimy asshole. I certainly wasn’t doing anything to lead Dandy on to make him think I was the least bit interested. Honestly, it still boggled my mind that the stallion got any sort of action from mares. At least, any action that didn’t come with an hourly rate attached to it…

The donkey cast one final brief appraising look at the four of us in the back before turning back around in her seat. “Drive,” she muttered to the hippogriff sitting behind the wheel. Wordlessly, Harriet’s arcanetics started the van and we were off.

The drive wasn’t any more scenic from the back of the van in the light of day than it had been at night when we were breaking into Elysium’s offices. There was a bit more discussion though as Harriet set up a group seance to outline what our specific duties were going to be during the operation.

“My ident card will get us past the barricade,” the nettrotter began, “but I’m not sticking with the van the whole time. I’ll need to be inside in order to upload the required access protocols. Barkly, you’ll stick with the truck and come pick us up when we’re done.”

The diamond dog nodded, flashing a wry smile. “Pupsit the van, got it.”

“Just try not to let it get commandeered for hauling away protesters or something,” the hippogriff cautioned. She then shifted on to the next part of her briefing. “The rest of us will head inside. Jenny and I will head for Security while the rest of you get to the comms hub. I’ll crack the system and get us access. The moment I do, you guys get our message to Equestria. The faster, the better.

“Once it’s done, we exfil via the main entrance and get back to the van. Getting back out through the barricade should be even easier than getting in, so I shouldn’t need to be driving for that. Everypony understand?”

We all transmitted our acknowledgements over the link. The hippogriff glanced over at the donkey sitting beside her and gave a short nod. If she noticed it, Jenny gave no indication, keeping her eyes locked ahead of her out the front of the van. Judging from the increasingly more audible sounds that I was hearing through the thin walls of the vehicle, I suspected that the donkey was focused on the rioting citizens of Light City that had to be nearby.

I felt the van slow down and finally stop. I heard the sounds of angry megasilo residents suddenly spike as the driver’s side window was rolled down. A creature’s voice that I didn’t recognize said something, but it was hard to make out over the din of screaming and chanting. Harriet likewise responded with words I didn’t catch. I at least presumed that the conversation went well, since we were slowly moving forward again just seconds later. The sounds of the riot grew muffled once more as the window rolled back up.

“Remember,” Jenny piped us now, “you’re LCPD officers, so be sure you’re acting like it: You’re assholes with guns, and everycreature standing around screaming outside of city hall is scum that isn’t worth your time. You’re chomping at the bit for word to finally come down from on high that it’s time to stop patronizing the peasants and start cracking skulls with all the fun toys the department’s given you that you never get to use often enough.

“Just keep that mindset and none of the real officers you might encounter will think twice about you being one of them.”

I cast an aside look in the direction of the cynical-sounding donkey. That being said, I found it hard to outright disagree with her interpretation of the mindset held by the typical LCPD officer. Outside of the nicer Light City districts, the public’s interactions with law enforcement were rarely cordial in nature.

It wasn’t much longer before the van’s slow crawl ended in yet another stop. This time though, instead of opening just the window, both Harriet and Jenny opened their doors. At about the same time, Barkly leaned over to open up the back. I reflexively winced as I was assailed by the cacophonic din of thousands of angry megasilo residents venting their frustrations. I managed to clamber out of the back of our disguised police van without incident though and step out into the cordoned-off area in front of city hall. I’d only just gotten my bearings when I heard the sound of glass shattering right next to my head against the side of the van.

I darted to the side as droplets of stale beer splashed across my face, suggesting that the bottle hadn’t been entirely empty. My view of the crow was blocked off almost immediately by a fan of ivory plumage as Gerry’s wing extended itself protectively between me and the crowd. I looked up to see the griffon’s eyes darting between me and the crowd of protestors, his expression shifting between concern and annoyance respectively. I quickly issued him a nod assuring the guitarist that I was okay as I wiped away the splattered beer from my face.

Not seeming to care for the affront that had been made against one of their ‘fellow officers’, the line of uniformed members of the LCPD standing between the crowd and city hall suddenly surged towards the throng of creatures. I saw heavy steel batons gripped in talons, paws, and magic, come into view and descend upon those in the crowd who were within reach. The throng’s predominantly angry din became diluted by cries of fear and pain as those protestors within easy reach found themselves being thumped with the blunt weapons of the officers.

Some of those who were subjected to the beatings seemed to take great offense to be punished for the actions of others and retaliated against the officers, themselves lunging at the LCPD’s line. Either unprepared for the crowd, or simply unable to contend with the sheer mass of bodies being levied against them, the uniformed perimeter rebounded back and then began to lose some of its previously held ground. I felt myself recoiling as I noticed that the protestors were getting closer to the van, and became suddenly concerned that I’d end up becoming entangled in the approaching melee.

Either in response to some call that had gone out over their shared link, or because that was what their procedures demanded in such a situation, additional officers swarmed past Gerry and I, the griffon holding me close to his side with his wing, lest I be carried away by the surging officers. The reinforcements proved up to the task of restoring the original boundary lines though, pushing the crowd back with further judicious applications of batons and chemical sprays.

“Into the building, now!” I heard Jenny screaming above the nearby din a moment before Gerry lurched in the direction of city hall, apparently having been not-so-lightly bucked by the donkey. I trotted along with the group, sans Barkly who was looping around the van to get into the driver’s seat. None of the LCPD officers darting past us to deal with the agitated crowd seemed to be paying us any mind as we ascended the stairs towards the main entrance. A pair of officers ushered us inside and closed the doors behind us. I spared one of them a thankful nod as I trotted along in the wake of my companions.

“Get to the comms hub,” Jenny ordered in a gruff tone. “Harriet will ping you when you’re clear to proceed.” Without another word, or waiting for an acknowledgement, the donkey and the hippogriff peeled off away from the rest of us and vanished around a corner.

Gerry led the rest of us towards the elevators. “Well, that was a thing, huh?” The griffon said in an attempt to diffuse the tension.

“Really wish I’d brought my cam with me,” Dandy looked forlornly in the direction of the building’s entrance. “Those would have been some amazing shots for the station’s coverage tonight.” After a moment’s thought, the unicorn added, “not sure how I’d have explained how I was able to get those shots, mind…”

“Maybe you can talk Harriet into scraping some security footage from the building’s surveillance feeds for you,” Gerry offered.

The purple stallion mulled over the suggestion, then grinned. “I just might at that!”

The elevator door opened and the three of us slipped into the empty car. Gerry selected our destination, then he stepped back and took a moment to look me over more thoroughly. “You okay, Pel?”

“Y-yeah,” I assured the griffon, “just a little shaken. I’m good.”

In what I found to be a shockingly rare display of empathy on the unicorn’s part, Dandy managed to say something to me that for once that wasn’t just a crass bit of innuendo that was―I assumed―intended to incentivise me to fuck him somehow. “Covering protests was my first assignment when I started working at LCN,” the stallion said in a surprisingly somber tone. “They make newbies do it because of how inherently dangerous it is. When you gather together thousands of angry creatures for the sole purpose of expressing that anger…it doesn’t take a lot for the shouting to turn to shoving, and then throwing things and punching. Maybe even shooting if some of them brought guns along.

“Protest coverage was the assignment with the highest turnover at the station; and not all of that turnover was because the new hires burned out and quit.” The purple pony regarded me with what looked like genuine sympathy. I thought I spotted a flicker of loss passing across his features, but I couldn’t be certain. It was possible that I’d just hallucinated the whole thing, to be honest, because it wasn’t a moment later that the unicorn was flashing me one of those smiles that he must have believed mares loved to see him use and wiggling his eyebrows. “So…if you think you might have some trouble falling asleep tonight, I’m willing to offer a sympathetic ear and help you with some ‘stress relief techniques’ I learned from a little book called: the pony sutra―”

Just as my glare was starting to manifest on my face, the elevator announced that we’d reached our destination with a polite chime that interrupted the unicorn’s latest attempt at flirting. Gerry none-too-subtly dragged the stallion along behind him on his way out of the car and out into the corridor beyond. “Let’s get to the communication’s hub.”

I followed the pair through the halls until we reached the door whose placard left little doubt as to it being our destination. Our timing was very nearly perfect, as we only just arrived when Harriet’s voice came over our arcanetics. “Took you guys long enough,” the hippogriff mare chided in a playful tone. I cocked my head in mild confusion, wondering how it was that the nettrotter could have known that we’d arrived. Gerry must have anticipated what I was thinking, because the griffon got my attention and pointed out a nearby surveillance camera which had oriented itself in our direction. “It’s clear inside. Unlocking the door.” There was a faint clicking sound of the latch opening from the door. “Gerry, transmitting the access keys to your arcanetics.”

“Right,” the griffon nodded as he opened the door. I moved to follow him in, but the tiercel held up a talon and waved me off. “Pel, stay out here and watch the door. Anycreature tries to come in, you send them packing. Like Jenny said: tell them that access is restricted by order of the mayor or whatever. Just don’t let them through the door or the jig is up.”

I felt my face crease into a cringe at the thought of having to confront a creature who had real power and authority who might happen by, and trying to bluff them off by acting like I had any sort of authority over them. I couldn’t help but feel like that was going to go badly…Still, if Gerry believed that I could do it, then the least I could do was try my best. Besides, I was under the impression that we wouldn’t need to be here long. What were the chances that I was actually going to need to stop anycreature?

“I got it,” I assured the griffon, who favored me with a warm smile before he and Dandy slipped into the room and closed the door behind them. Now alone in the hallway―Harriet’s remote control of the nearby camera notwithstanding―I took a cleansing breath and posted myself in front of the door.

Within seconds, I found myself shifting nervously on my hooves and making all manner of clicking sounds with my tongue as I tried to not to let myself get overwhelmed with stress. After all, we were presently deep inside of a government building that was positively swarming with bodies. We were also encircled by pretty much every single officer employed by the LCPD. If we got found out and had to try and make any sort of run for it…well, I found myself doubting that we’d actually manage to get very far. This mission was easily our most dangerous one to date, in my estimation.

As a means of distracting myself, I brought up the journal and resumed reading. I’d gotten myself up to a chapter about the pegasus who liked to fly fast dealing with her pet tortoise…dying? I think? I wasn’t sure, to be honest. The writing style seemed to be changing dramatically from one chapter to the next now, and not all of them were as easy to follow. Regardless, I had at least picked up on the fact that, whatever was going on with the tortoise, the pegasus was very torn up about it. I could somewhat relate though, as I recalled a neighbor in the megasilo I’d lived in with Hash owning a turtle that had died. He hadn’t taken it well either.

I really hoped the pegasus took the loss better than our old neighbor had…

I’d gotten halfway through the chapter when I heard Harriet send me a clairaudient message. “Look alive; company’s coming.”

I immediately closed out the file and looked around. Sure enough, I could hear booted hoofsteps echoing in the hall. A few seconds later, I spotted a speckled brown griffon tiercel step into view from around the corner. He was dressed in an LCPD uniform, just like mine, except that I saw a trio of golden chevrons emblazoned on his chest. I wasn’t intimately familiar with the LCPD seniority chart, but I knew that I didn’t have anything visible on the chest of my uniform, so it was a given that the griffon outranked me.

Which meant that I was probably going to find it just a little difficult to tell him to piss off if he was stubborn about trying to get through the comm hub door. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that and he was on this floor for some other reason which didn’t involve getting into the one room in this building we didn’t want any actual officers getting into―

Aaaannd, he was stopping right in front of me…

Fuck.

It was all I could do to meet his gaze without looking away. We were on the same team, after all, right? No reason to be nervous. There were any number of reasons the griffon might be up here, right? It certainly didn’t have to be anything which involved Gerry and Dandy sending unsanctioned messages to Equestria.

Honestly, it did feel to me like it was unlikely we’d been found out. I couldn’t help but feel like if anycreature had sensed that there had been a substantial breach in security, I’d have found myself facing off against a lot more than a single officer. Still, that didn’t mean that I wasn’t potentially in a lot of trouble. If I couldn’t bluff this guy away, then I suspected that it wouldn’t be long before I was facing off against a lot more officers.

The griffon glared down at me for several seconds before sneering at me through his beak. “Step aside, officer. I need to inspect the comms hub.”

I blanched. Fear gripped me so tightly that my stomach couldn’t decide if it wanted to tie itself into a knot or drop out of me completely. This had to have been the worst possible thing that could have happened on this mission. The moment this griffon got through the door and saw what was going on inside the hub, it was pretty much a given that we’d be caught. After that, there’d be no escape for us.

The only thing standing between the team and utter disaster…was me.

“You can’t let him in there, Pel,” Harriet unhelpfully reminded me, as though I might have somehow missed that obvious fact.

The griffon, clearly becoming frustrated with my lack of response to his command, as well as my hesitation to obey it, moved to shove me aside with his scaled hand. In that moment, my mind flashed with visions of the inevitable shootout between the band and the LCPD. I saw each of them being cut down by a hail of bullets, in all the gory detail that only a pony’s worst fears could manifest. I saw their perforated bodies lying in expanding pools of their own blood.

Just like Hash Stack. Dying in my hooves, felled by a bullet that I had fired. Whether I’d intended to shoot her or not―and whatever anycreature else might insist, her death was my fault―my friend’s death had been the direct result of my inaction.

I could have confronted Grinder on my own. I could have mared up and taken responsibility. I could have done something―anything―so that a pony I cared about didn’t end up having to shoulder the consequences of my inaction. Hash Stack had died because I hadn’t stepped up when it mattered. Maybe stepping up would have gotten me killed instead, but that would have been fine. At least then I’d have been the one to suffer the consequences of the choices that I’d made in my life, and not somepony else.

Now I was about to watch all of that happen again: Creatures I cared about were going to die, because I failed to do the right thing.

Another flash of pristine white feathers drenched in brilliant crimson…

No.

Not again. Never again.

I smacked away the griffon’s talons, earning a shocked look from the tiercel that very quickly morphed into indignation and anger. Clearly he didn’t think all that much of the ‘subordinate officer’ standing in front of him who wasn’t just rolling over like I was expected to. Somehow, much to my own surprise, I managed not to flinch away from his glare. Lives were on the line, whether the griffon knew it or not, and I couldn’t afford to show weakness or I knew I’d be looking at five more Hash Stacks within the hour.

I swallowed back the solid knot of fear in my throat and fixed my gaze on his. “I can’t do that. I’m under strict orders not to let anycreature in, no matter what.” I paused for a moment, then remembered the recommendation that Jenny had made earlier. “Mayor’s orders.

“If you don’t like it, take it up with her.”

Now the griffon was frowning at me. “Nocreature told me about the hub being ‘off limits’.”

“Well, then I suggest asking whoever it was that was supposed to tell you why they didn’t,” I managed to quip without my voice cracking under the stress of lying for our very lives. “Because I was told that, until I hear otherwise from the mayor, the communications hub is off limits. No exceptions.”

The frown on the tiercel’s face deepened, but I could also spot a glint of hesitation on their face. Presumably I’d stumbled onto an explanation that was at least somewhat plausible, if only at first glance. If I didn’t let the griffon think about things too critically, I could probably get away with this, I realized.

I doubled down. “Look, I get that you’ve got a job too…” I glanced down at the chevrons on the LCPD officer’s chest and racked my brain for what their rank was called. “...sergeant. But I bet my orders come from a lot higher than yours do.” At least, I was pretty sure that I’d cited the highest authority in the city. “Maybe it’s possible they meant for me to still let you do your check inside or whatever,” I elected to concede, though I still held up a staying hoof as I maintained my stare at the larger griffon, “but it’s also possible that they did mean to include you too.”

I broadly gestured at the front of my uniform which was devoid of any rank markings whatsoever. “I’m not in a position to interpret orders; I just follow them as they were given to me. If you think there was a fuck-up, then by all means, take it up with the powers-that-be. But until I get word from the mayor,” I held the griffon’s gaze meaningfully, “I’m not risking my flank by letting you pass.

“Nothing personal.”

It was all I could do not to hold my breath in anticipation. This was the moment of truth. Either the griffon was going to buy my story and leave, or he was going to try and shove me aside again and things were going to get…complicated. Though I ensured that my gaze didn’t waver, my thoughts drifted to the pistol at my stifle. I’d been keeping up with my training in the loft, sure, but shooting at virtual targets was very different from shooting living creatures. I really didn’t want to have to draw on this griffon…

“Yeah, I get it,” the tiercel finally said, letting out a sigh whose deepness alluded to a career full of memories which allowed him to empathize with the plight being faced by the young ‘officer’ standing in front of him. “Fuck it. Neither of us get paid enough for this bullshit.” He turned away and continued walking along his patrol route, casting me a parting wave of his wing. “Carry on, officer.”

“You too, sergeant!”

Only when the griffon left my sight did I permit myself to collapse against the wall and start hyperventilating.

“Damn; not bad, girl!” The hippogriff nettrotter cheered over the clairaudience spell linking us. “That was pretty convincing. I just about bought it!”

“I think I’m going to throw up…” I muttered under my breath. Over the link, I added, “are we done here yet?”

Much to my surprise, I almost immediately received an answer from Gerry. “We have a problem.” I felt my heart leap into my throat, my gaze darting down the corridor in the direction that the griffon officer had gone. If they’d somehow tripped an alarm of some sort, I was pretty sure the tiercel would be the first to respond, and I very much doubted I’d be able to talk him out of investigating the comms hub under those circumstances. What the griffon guitarist followed his announcement up with dispelled that particular concern, at least, but it hardly made me feel any better about the mission overall. “Dandy can’t get any sort of acknowledgement from Equestria. At all. He thinks we’re being jammed.”

Almost immediately, I felt myself overcome with a sense of dread. If our attempt to contact Equestria was being actively blocked, then that suggested that our efforts had been discovered and somecreature was reacting to it, right? Again my eyes darted to the far end of the corridor where that LCPD sergeant would come charging from if he was summoned to respond to our intrusion. Magical energy tingled within the talisman embedded at the base of my horn as I readied a telekinetic field for the pistol at my side.

Harriet’s voice came over the link once more. “Jenny says to scrub and exfil,” the hippogriff informed us. “We’re vacating.”

I could almost feel Gerry’s shock in the seconds of silence that followed the announcement. I suspected that the griffon’s feelings almost perfectly mirrored my own. We were abandoning the mission? Just like that? “We’re leaving?” Gerry all but sputtered in disbelief. “Just like that?”

“If we’re being jammed, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Harriet reasoned in response.

“How about you try and unjam us! Aren’t you at the security terminal? Can’t you see what’s going on? We can’t just walk away this easily; we don’t know when we’ll have another chance like this!” Gerry protested.

“The jamming isn’t coming from here,” The nettrotter responded almost immediately, sounding audibly frustrated over the link. “Jenny says to ‘get the fuck out now’. This is an order, not a suggestion.”

“...Understood.”

A few seconds later, the door behind me opened and a clearly frustrated griffon and unicorn walked out, heading for the elevator. I quickly fell into step with the pair, grateful to not be placed into a position which risked another confrontation with the LCPD sergeant from earlier. Though I did share in their frustration as abandoning the mission so abruptly at the first sign of trouble.

We piled into the lift and began our descent towards the lobby. I glanced between the dour pair. “Do you think they―”

Gerry broke out into an abrupt coughing fit that interrupted my question. I stared at the griffon, and noticed that one of his wings was subtly gesturing towards the ceiling. I glanced up and noted the camera nestled in the corner. I nodded and switched back over to our arcanetic link. “Did they know we were coming? I assume jamming isn’t a normal thing?”

The griffon finished up ‘coughing’ and shook his head. “It had to be targeted,” he explained. “We sent out some test signals around the city, and even to Griffonstone, to be sure. We got responses from the automated systems at every other destination. It was just Equestria that was silent. Somecreature doesn’t want us talking to the princess.”

Well that certainly put a damper on things…

“I’m wondering if it wasn’t Equestria that’s responsible.” This theory was put forth by the purple unicorn stallion. At the griffon’s dubious look, he added, “think about it: that jamming would have to work both ways. Equestria can’t talk to us either. You’d think that if the princess couldn’t raise anycreature in Light City, she might start to wondering what’s going on and pop over for a little looky-loo.

“And yet…” He let the thought hang with a shrug.

Gerry clearly didn’t particularly care for that explanation any more than his own, his expression creased by a sour scowl. He let out a grunt. “Either way, it feels like we gave up too easily.”

Judging from the nod of agreement that the stallion gave, it looked like Dandy and I were both in agreement on that front. Though, that being said, while I’d only known the donkey for a relatively short while compared to the others, I felt that it could safely be said that Jenny was not exactly ‘timid’ by nature, or easily scared off. If she was scrubbing the mission at the first sign of trouble, then I felt that it was reasonable to believe that the donkey either knew something we didn’t, or she already had a fallback plan in mind. I shared my thoughts on the matter over our link.

Gerry mulled over my words, his features melding into a dubious frown at first as he also tried to reconcile the seemingly uncharacteristic order to retreat at the first hint of resistance with what he also knew of the headstrong donkey’s personality. Then the griffon’s eyes briefly widened, before narrowing critically. “You’re right. She probably does know something we don’t.” That was as far as he went with the thought though, electing not to elaborate on any theories he might have as to what it was that Jenny might ‘know’ about the jamming.

Before either Dandy or I could press him though, the doors opened. The donkey in question and Harriet were waiting for us on the other side of the doors. Without a word, the disguised rockerfilly jerked her head towards the building’s main entrance in a silent signal to follow her and the hippogriff. The five of us made our way out of the lobby, none of the other creatures in the room seemed to pay any particular note to the nearly half dozen uniformed LCPD officers heading out towards the waiting throngs of protestors.

It looked to me like the perimeter surrounding city hall had been widened since our arrival. I suspected that the brief surge which the crowd had experienced when we’d arrived had made those in command nervous and they’d imposed a larger buffer zone around the building. I also noted another collection of rather distinctively-attired ponies standing just off to the side of the door, and I couldn’t help but feel like their presence was contributing to the crowd’s willingness to have been pushed back: Max-Tack.

Just saying their name out loud was enough to get some boosterherds to scatter. Mostly because, when Max-Tack responded to a call, it was because the authorities had elected not to bother taking in any of the offenders alive. For all intents and purposes, the creatures of Max-Tack were a government-sanctioned kill team. To that end, they’d been given extensive arcanetic enhancements of the highest caliber to accomplish their job. So it didn’t surprise me that the throng of angry megasilo tenants had thought better of pushing their luck with one of their teams on site. I always got butterflies in my stomach when I so much as spotted one of their sky-carts flying in the distance.

I jerked in surprise when I felt myself bump into something. It took me a moment to realize that that ‘something’ had been Gerry. Apparently I’d been subconsciously trying to widen the distance between myself and the Max-Tack team and had managed to walk myself right into the griffon next to me. For his part, the tiercel seemed to have picked up on what happened, and though he didn’t do anything too blatant which might have drawn undo attention, I noticed that he allowed some of the primary feathers on his wing to ‘accidentally’ droop over my side, providing a sort of nominal ‘shield’ between me and the heavily armed and armored creatures.

In my head, I knew that putting a thin wall of feathers between myself and the Max-Tack officers didn’t actually do anything to change the situation; but it did still make me feel ‘safer’ all the same.

Presumably acting on a cue from Harriet, our disguised van pulled up with Barkly in the driver’s seat. The five of us hurried down the steps, filing inside as quickly as we could so that the painted panel van didn’t linger long enough for any officers nearby to notice that it wasn’t a properly armored vehicle. Fortunately, even with the crowd of protestors not being quite as rowdy as they’d been earlier―thanks to the presence of Max-Tack on the scene―the spectacle of thousands of yelling irate creatures was more than enough to focus the attention of the LCPD personnel forming the protective perimeter around city hall.

Jenny jumped into the passenger side while the rest of us climbed into the back. Barkly was already driving off before Harriet could get the door closed. It wasn’t until we’d cleared the outer barricades and the diamond dog driver had accelerated us up to city driving speeds that I felt the rest of the band members let out collective sighs of relief. We’d gotten into city hall and out again without getting caught, or the LCPD being any the wiser. Even if we hadn’t technically succeeded in our mission, I felt like that counted for a lot and was willing to let myself wear a small satisfied smile as a result.

I’d also managed to not spectacularly fail as keeping that one griffon out of the comms hub and fucking all of us over. So, yeah, I was riding pretty high right about now.

Up front, Jenny was peeling herself out of her uniform. “Fucking piece of shit mule-suit,” the donkey was muttering none-too-quietly under her breath as she balled up her uniform and tossed it into the back of the van, narrowly missing us. I idly contemplated whether it was permissible for a unicorn like myself to remark on her usage of the slur ‘mule’, but thought better of it.

Not that I’d have had time to comment on it if I’d wanted to, as I soon found myself to yet again be the target of Dandy’s attempt at flirtation. “I dunno, boss, they ain’t so bad,” the purple stallion opined as he feigned examining himself appraisingly. “Actually, I think I might know a way not to let these things go to waste.” The unicorn, who had once more managed to find the same bench I was on for the ride, leaned in and leered at me. “What say, when we get back, the two of us play ‘good cop; bad cop’ back at my place? I’ll be the ‘good cop’ and you show me just how bad you can be―”

“Zip it, Dandy!”

Silence reigned in the van, all eyes locked on me. After all, this time it had not been the band’s singer who’d reprimanded the purple stallion. The drummer gaped at me in mild shock, though he certainly didn’t look particularly angry at being rebuked. In fact, I noticed that his lips curled up into an amused little smile beneath dancing eyes. For a moment, I was afraid that I’d only further encouraged the unicorn to be even bolder and more blunt with his advances but, much to my surprise, the stallion instead backed off, scooting himself a respectable distance away from me in the back of the van.

“...Zippin’ it, lass.” He said with a respectful nod of his head.

Across from us, I noticed that Gerry and Harreit were exchanging glances, wearing smiles of their own. The griffon gave me an approving nod. A small bit of motion from the front drew my attention and I turned just in time to see Jenny shifting in her seat to resume looking out the windshield, a hint of a satisfied smile of her own visible on the side of her muzzle. In the corner of my eye, I noted that I’d also received a message from Harriet, in the form of a little hoof-bump animation.

Despite my recent display of bravado, I found myself flushing at the show of apparent praise that I’d received from the whole crew for shouting down Dandy’s uncouth advances. I was fairly sure that when Daisy heard about what I’d done, she’d have something to say about it too. Though, I did have to admit, it had felt pretty good to stand up for myself like that. Not unlike how I’d convinced that griffon sergeant to take a hike outside of the comms hub.

I felt…I wasn’t sure exactly how to explain it, but I wasn’t feeling as much like a spectator in the group as I had been before. There was finally this feeling like I could contribute to the missions, and that my contributions mattered. Heck, had it not been for the jamming that Gerry and Dandy ran into, the operation would have been a complete success thanks to my efforts in dissuading the LCPD officer from poking his head in. I’d stood my ground and not let somecreature trot all over me for once, and they’d actually listened to me! And not just anycreature, one who’d believed themselves to be my boss, basically.

I―Pel―had convinced a superior to let me get my way! For pretty much the first time in my whole life. And I wasn’t going to lie, it. Felt. Great.

My gaze wandered over to Gerry briefly, who was deep in conversation with Harriet. I idly wondered what else doing the whole ‘Assertive Pel’-thing could get me…

Author's Note

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