Of Tacos and Terrorists

Crystal Tower Kitchens

11:37 AM

“I need exactly three point seven ounces of clovers here now!” an earth pony bellowed across the kitchen to a buscolt.

“Right away, Chef Rider.” the buscolt said before scurrying away.

The brown earth pony snorted and turned his attention back to her preparation table. He smoothed back his almost black dark brown mane and set about moving each ingredient to its proper place. He placed the two slices of bread next to each other and beside them, he placed the lettuce leaves. Squares of cheese were stacked haphazardly next to a bottle of some sort of sauce.

“Where are those clovers?!” he yelled.

“Here the are, chef!” the buscolt huffed as he came skidding to a stop next to the chef holding a bowl of the clovers.

“Thank you.” the chef said as he took the bowl. His hooves suddenly became a blur for a few seconds and when they settled into clarity a perfectly made sandwich sat in place of the ingredients. This act certainly made the stallion live up to the sandwich on his flank.

“Amazing.” the bus colt said.

“Thank you, now go take this up to the party on the thirtieth floor.” the chef handed off the sandwich to the buscolt who once more scampered away. “And merry Hearth’s Warming Eve!”

Reuben watched the buscolt go and then suddenly reached out and grabbed a passing cook.

“And just who are you, love?”

The cook, a blue mare, stammered nervously. “I-I’m Fry.”

“No you’re not.” Reuben answered with a near smug tone. “Fry’s a stallion.”

The mare looked confused. “He is?”

“Yeah, I know. He looks really… effeminate. But even if he wasn’t you’ve just admitted to not being him. So who are you?”

The mare sighed and with a small green flash Truth returned to her natural look. She hung her head for a moment before raising it to apologize, at which point Reuben suddenly kissed her.

Truth’s eyes widened and she gave a muffled shout before roughly pushed Reuben away.

“What the buck are you doing!?” Truth shouted at the stallion.

Everything in the kitchen stopped as everypony looked at the pair.

“Hey, I never say anything when any of your ‘friends’ come down here.” Reuben warned.

Everypony began working quickly again, each huddling low to avoid attracting attention.

Reuben turned his attention back to Truth. “So how are you doing, gurl?”

Truth just stared at him.

“Gurl?” he said again.

“Why did you kiss me?” she asked.

“Because last time we saw each other you kissed me. I wanted to be first this time.”

Truth shook her head. “What in Tartarus are you talking about?”

“Last night?” the sandwich maker ventured.

Truth just shook her head.

Reuben sighed. “Okay then. Last night you came wobbling down here some time after midnight. I was the only one down here and you tackled me saying something about being hungry.” he brought a hoof to his mouth. “Come to think of it you also said you were honk and drunky and no wasn’t on the table.” he grinned at Truth.

“I was drunk!” Truth gasped.

“Near as I could tell. For the record, I did try saying no but then you started eating this peach and I was all like ‘That’s my fetish’ so-”

“What?!”

Reuben grinned again. “Sorry. I was just having a bit of fun there.”

“So what did happen?”

“Well you did say no wasn’t on the table and then you got on the table. And then when I tried saying no you tackled me again. So I tried giving you coffee to sober you up and that just seemed to rile you up more. So then you hit me with a frying pan and I woke up sore.” Reuben nodded to himself.

Truth’s mouth just hung open. “What?”

Reuben shrugged. “Hey, there’s only so many times a lady will let you come around before she whacks you with a frying pan.”

“You mean I-!” Truth couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“What? No, no of course not. Quite honestly I was completely fine with some awkward casual late night kitchen sex after what I’ve been through recently. But you were drunk and the one thing I never do is take advantage of a mare. Not that that’s ever stopped mares from taking advantage of me but then again my doctor tells me my pelvis shouldn’t dislocate so easily now.” Reuben smiled broadly like he was having a nice conversation with a friend.

Truth just kept staring at the earth pony. How did a pony this crazy end up in charge of the Tower’s food? Unless… he wasn’t supposed to be here. She shouldn’t be here right now. She should be watching Lovebug, tending to her, not having a conversation about how much of a horny drunk she was with some nut of a sandwich maker.

“Truth? You okay?”

Truth shook her head. “What?”

“You okay? You looked like you were thinking really hard.”

“I, uh,” she needed to find a way out of this now. “I, er, need to go… iron my cat.” and with that she sped off.

“Oh, okay then.” Reuben said as she vanished. “Call me.” he called after her. He really had no luck with mares. Half of them wanted to kill him and the other half would kill him by accident.

He was also thinking about switching to decaffeinated coffee. This new stuff made his head hurt.

********

Crystal Park

12:07 PM

Chrysalis parted some bushes, hoping to see her handmaiden laying curled up within it. But alas, she found not a single changeling. Or another outdoorsy type couple who dared brave the cold. What? She could always do with a snack and searching made her hungry anyway.

The changeling sighed and sat on her haunches. Where would Truth go? She obviously would want to get her job back but she was no doubt terrified of Cadance. Tartarus, she was terrified of Cadance right now. She knew that the princess could get really angry sometimes, but this was just so… so…. Out of character.

(Oh shit, we’ve gone meta! The fourth wall is crumbling! Abort! Abo-!)

Maybe Cadance is pregnant again.

A tap on her shoulder pulled Chrysalis from her thoughts.

“My mistress?” asked a small voice.

Chrysalis turned and saw her Truth sitting next to her, the smaller changeling looking like she had a headache.

“Truth!” Chrysalis cried as she pulled her handmaiden into a rib cracking hug.

“Mistress! Need air!” Truth cried.

“Oh.” Chrysalis released Truth. “Sorry about that. I was worried about you.”

“Understandable.” Truth rubbed her sides. “I need to speak with you My Mistress.”

“About Cadance?”

“Her as well. But ‘m afraid I’ve done something terrible…”

One, I-kinda-sorta-raped-a-guy-while-I-was-drunk story later.

“…And he seemed happy. Just, glad to be. He was so strange.”

“Was he cute?” Chrysalis asked.

“Cute? Oh, yes I suppose he was.” Truth frowned. “But Mistress, that is besides the point.”

“He just seemed… random. And just odd, like he wasn’t himself. I haven’t been feeling like myself either. And my head hurts.”

“Aw, poor thing. Have you had some coffee yet?”

“Yes, that’s why I was in the kitchens. Well, that and trying to sneak back up to the apartment. But the coffee didn’t help.”

Chrysalis nodded. “It’s why I don’t drink the stuff. You become dependent and then you can’t function without it.”

“I thought you said it was because your ex-girlfriend worked at Star-Bucks?” Truth said innocently.

Chrysalis scrunched her muzzle. “I thought we agreed to never speak of her again.”

Truth smiled guiltily. “Sorry, my Mistress.”

Chrysalis sighed. “Well, might as well go see Cadance now. We need to sort out this whole firing you business.”

“Of course, Mistress.”

Chrysalis turned to go when a pony dressed from hooves to head in tight black suddenly appeared. Truth saw the suspicious pony before Chrysalis did and tried to shout as the pony raised a gun towards her Mistress.

There was a soft thwip as the weapon fired a dart that hit Chrysalis squarely her flank. The former queen yelped and jumped a few feet into the air before crashing down to the ground unconscious.

Truth squeaked and summoned her magic to fight this mysterious assailant, but her horn just fizzled and popped.

Truth could only watch in fright as the black-clad pony turned the weapon on her and fired. The dart pierced her shoulder and Truth felt its payload burning through her veins.

Everything quickly went black.

********

Crystal Guard Force HQ

1:00 PM

The office wasn’t Shining’s favorite place to be when on duty. He vastly preferred to be out on the streets keeping the peace than inside this place filing paperwork. But, alas, as the Captain of the Guard, he had certain responsibilities.

Shining made his way through the bustling office as quickly as he could, dodging detectives and uniforms as he made his way to her personal office. Entering, he found one of his officers waiting for him.

“Hello Blind Justice, how’s the,” Shining paused and looked over the heavily bandaged unicorn as he sat down. “Well, everything.”

Blind Justice chuckled. “Har, har, sir. Honestly I am feeling better. Doc’s still amazed I’m not dead.”

“I think we all are, Justice. You know, most ponies would die after getting a giant spike through their abdomen and all their vital organs, but not you.”

“Yeah well, if I die, who’s going to catch the criminal scum.”

Shining nodded, remembering that while Blind Justice had his heart in the right place, (or did, it’s been moved) he was still a tad… overzealous. Hence the transfer here while he recovered. Not too much criminal scum in the Crystal Empire, just a lot of parties.

“Who indeed. Now, what did you need me down here for?”

“We found an illegal shipment coming through from Equestria.”

“Really? What was in it?”

“Peaches.”

Shining blinked. “Peaches?”

“Yes sir.”

“Just peaches?”

“As near as we can tell so far, but I’m not convinced. I’m having some of the grunts go through it as we speak.”

“Oh, okay then.” Shining tilted his head. “And am I needed to supervise anything?”

Justice thought a moment. “No, I don’t believe so.”

“Then why call me down here?”

“The others insisted I did. Something about, ‘The Captain’s not going to believe this shit.’ or something.”

Shining sighed and nodded. “Yeah, or something. Where are the peaches now?”

“Where we found them. Just outside the Crystal Tower kitchens.”

“Alright, well keep up the good work then.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

After Blind Justice had left Shining sighed and rubbed his temples. This whole day was wreaking havoc on him. First, there was Cadance, then there was the whole taking four or five hours to get here. Why in Tartarus had it taken him five hours to get here? He could see the station from the Tower’s third floor, for Celestia’s sake!

He did suppose stopping to watch that four hour Desperate Housemares marathon had something to do with it, but he wasn’t too sure.

******

Crystal Tower Offices

1:17 PM

Cadance shuffled through some papers, idling taping the crystal keyboard next to them. She was still getting the hang of these machines that the engineers had produced. Computers or something. Unicorns in Canterlot had apparently been working on creating such a machine when the Crystal Empire reappeared and some long forgotten knowledge was uncovered. Within weeks, they had their creation up, running, and integrated.

At the moment, it was simply being used as a means of condensed storage and rapid transit of information, but the growing idea was that within a few years, everypony would have one in their house.

Cadance seriously doubted that.

There were two main hubs for the computer’s network. One was in Canterlot while the other was here in the Crystal Tower. She remembered Twilight blathering on about how important they were at the last Princess Summit, but had quite honestly dosed off.

Maplewood popped her head in through the door. “Princess?”

Cadance looked up. “Yes?”

“I’ve got some things to tend to at home.”

Cadance waved her off. “Go home, Mary. The only ponies left here are you, me, and the partiers on the thirtieth floor.” she smiled at her secretary. “I’ll be fine. Go home.”

Maplewood smiled. “Thank you, Princess.”

“Merry Hearth’s Warming Eve.”

“Merry Hearth’s Warming Eve.” Maplewood closed the door and packed up her things.

Cadance went undisturbed for a few minutes before the doors on her office suddenly burst opened, Chrysalis striding in. “Hello, Cadenza.” she said, not sounding too pleasant.

Cadance sighed. “Hello Chrysalis. I take it you didn’t find Truth.”

“Oh I found her.”

There was a long silence.

“…And?” Cadance asked after a while.

“And what?”

Cadance groaned and let her head hit the desk.

“Where is Shining Armor?” Chrysalis asked.

Cadance pulled her head up from her desk. “He should be at Guard HQ. Why?”

“No reason.” Juno said as she sauntered into Cadance’s office.

“Juno? What are you doing down here? Where’s Lovebug?”

“She’s safe.” Juno smiled in an unpleasant way. “At the moment.”

Cadance didn’t like the sound of that. As quietly as she could, she eased open a drawer on desk. Shining had insisted she keep a weapon in her desk for emergencies.

“And what do you mean by that?” Cadance asked as she put her hoof on the pistol inside the drawer.

“You’ll see.” Juno said.

Cadance pulled the gun out of the drawer as fast as she could. Somepony better versed in weapons would have easily cleared the drawer before Chrysalis pulled a pistol seemingly from nowhere.

Chrysalis's gun admitted a soft thwip as it discharged a steel dart. The dart hit Cadance square in her breast and the gun slipped from her grasp to clatter to the floor.

Being an alicorn, the drug’s effects were delayed on her. Cadance tried shouting to Maplewood, but her tongue suddenly fell from her mouth to hang comically out the side. Making pointless noises, Cadance tried casting a spell, to send a warning to Shining, but her magic just popped and fizzled.

The gun thwiped again as Chrysalis fired a few more times, quickly putting Cadance down and out.

“Was that necessary?” Juno asked as Cadance’s head thumped against her desk.

“What, she tried casting a spell.” Chrysalis said defensively.

Juno sighed. “Just call Bennett and tell him Shining is at Guard HQ.” Juno began leaving the office. “And change into something else, these bugs give me the creeps.”

Chrysalis just smiled as she slipped her mask off. Once off her head, the mask reverted to its true form, looking rather crude, with a so-so drawing of the former changeling queen’s face taped to what appeared to be a paper plate.

The unicorn, who still looked like Chrysalis from the neck down, adjusted the grey ski mask that hid her face and lit a cigarette.

“You better not, ‘ow they say, knock them before you try them.” Masque Espion giggled in her Prench accent.

(Oh look, a TF2 reference.)

******

Crystal Guard Force HQ

1:31 PM

Shining was in his office when suddenly the doors of the station flew open as three ponies walked in. Two were earth ponies, big and muscle bound, and the third was a unicorn. An oddly familiar one. His coat was coal black and his mane and tail dark grey. A silver knight’s helmet adorned his flank. He wore a black jacket and sunglasses.

Shining blinked. It couldn’t be.

“Blackguard?” he said as he exited his office.

The unicorn grinned as he pulled something from his coat pocket. It looked like a remote of some sort. With a single big red button…

Aw horse apples.

“Hi Shining.” Blackguard grinned as he pushed the button.

There was an explosion. A massive fireball rose from near the base of Crystal Tower, rocking the crystal structure as well as everything within a block. The wave of force was strong enough to crack the windows of Guard HQ and shatter a good many on the Tower.

To add insult to injury, peaches propelled at speeds rivaling bullets splattered everything within a hundred foot radius and a few even smacked against the windows of the HQ.

It seemed as though the whole building jolted from the force of the blast, causing the unprepared Shining to lose his balance. He reached for a desk to steady himself as he saw Blackguard and his compatriots pull cylinders from their pockets.

They tossed the cylinders, which spewed pink colored smoke. But a few of them didn’t. They simply rolled to a stop. Shining’s eyes widened and her quickly dropped to the floor, covering his ears and squeezing his eyes shut.

The room exploded into light and sound, deafening and blinding at the same time, subduing every pony save for Blackguard and his compatriots.

Shining blinked and shook his head. He could hear the sounds of ponies yelling and screaming, but they sounded far away. His vision was blurry and everything looked far too bright. But after a few rapid blinks things started to sharpen.

One of the thugs was coming for him. Shining, still crouched on the floor, waited for him to get close and then leapt up suddenly, driving his head under the thug’s chin. The pony grunted as his head snapped back. Shining dealt him two sharp blows to the midsection and the pony went down.

The second thug came quickly, swinging at Shining before his friend even hit the floor.

Shining ducked the wild swing and his uppercut caught the pony on the chin. The thug stumbled back and Shining kicked him in the gut, sending him tumbling over a desk.

Shining turned to where Blackguard stood just in time to see the stallion bring up a pistol. There was a thwip and Shining felt a needle pierce his shoulder.

His eye lids suddenly felt heavy and his bones turned to jelly. He collapsed to the ground as Blackguard approached.

“Well well, Shining old pal, how are you doing?” Blackguard said smugly as he crouched next to Shining.