Chapter 3
When You Go Looking for Trouble...

I waited the space of three heartbeats before I made my way back to my desk, and fell back into my chair. I’ll say this much for the princess, she knew how to make a lasting impression. I took a sip of my coffee, now cold. I didn’t care, even cold it’s still the best coffee in the world, and I could feel it’s caffeinated goodness cutting through the ebony fog left by my guests final words.

I regarded the slim envelope before me, but before I opened it, I took out a notepad and replayed the princesses visit from start to finish in my head. One of the things you have to learn as a detective/spy is to be able to spot what ISN’T there. The first thing I noticed was that the princess had traveled here alone. None of the Night Watch was with her. The Night Watch were originally her royal guard, but when she moved to the city and took over, she expanded them into her policing force as well. There was an academy adjacent to the royal palace. The best of the best were assigned to her personally, the rest were assigned area’s of the city to patrol, they worked out of stations that were set up throughout the city. I have to give her credit, it was a good set up. The law abiding citizens felt safe seeing them on patrol, and the less than honest ones were at least somewhat deterred from plying their trade openly.

But none of the Night Watch were with her. That meant that this little endeavor was off the books. Which tells me that Luna was having trust issues with somepony. A fact worth remembering. Another little piece of evidence that supported this was that although she said she wanted to ‘hire’ me, no mention of payment was made. The moment she slid me the note from Celestia, I knew this was going to be on her tab and not Luna’s, but it also lent credence that Luna wanted no record of our little visit to be on any of her books.

Next came the explosives that were used. Even if I didn’t have a photographic memory spell sealed to my foreleg (among others), a pony just doesn’t forget what death looks like when it’s hoovering before his eyes. The bombs were crude, my earlier assessment was spot on, they were excavation explosives used in the mines. But I had noticed something else. There were scratch marks all around the timers and casings. Something with claws, who was unfamiliar with using those timers had been the one to set them. Which oddly enough ruled out my first choice of suspects, diamond dogs.

Diamond dogs, like earth ponies, made up one of the majority of species that immigrated to Luna’s city. Luna’s idea of treating every species as an equal had greatly appealed to them, and many others who had been treated, shall we say, LESS than well in the past. Whole packs had been hired at fair wages to different jobs throughout the city, but the majority signed up for what they did best. Digging. Luna had chosen her city well. Miles deep beneath it there were large deposits of copper and tin, as well as gemstones, and other metals. But copper and tin were what she wanted, so that she had a steady supply of bronze with which most of her steam powered technology was based. Iron and other metals corroded under constant exposure to steam, and silver and base copper were too soft. But the alloy bronze was perfect, not only was it cheap and plentiful, thanks to the mines, but when shined, it was quite beautiful as well. Before long, the elegance of bronze accents had begun to show up throughout the city, wherever it could replace other metals. Some ponies inside the city were already calling it the city of bronze, instead of the city of night.

So when the diamond dogs found out there was a need for miners, and that they would get paid with a generous portion of the gems they unearthed, the packs signed up in droves. Before long they had excavated their own living spaces underground, which they were allowed to use rent free. Not long after, this network of caverns became known as Undercity. Luna was quick to make it known however, that Undercity was still a part of her kingdom. And that all of her rules and guidelines would still be enforced. Some of the toughest and most experienced members of the Night Watch patrolled Undercity, but surprisingly it had one of the lowest crime rates in all of Luna’s domain. Gradually ponies came to understand that most diamond dogs just wanted to be treated with the respect shown to every other sentient species. There were some bad eggs of course. But that could be said of any race, especially ponies. Still, old prejudices took time to shake, and my first instinct when I saw those explosives was to think ‘diamond dog’. But say what you will, they knew there business. And none of them are clumsy when it comes to explosives, that’s a fast track to retirement... permanent retirement. So I was pretty sure our would be assassin wasn’t a member of their race. That left what? Eight or nine others that I could think of off the top of my head. Not really narrowing the field much.

Feeling like I had exhausted that line of thought, I finally opened the envelope Luna had given me.

The first thing I extracted was the writ she spoke of. True enough, it gave me clearance to go wherever I wanted, and even to confiscate whatever I deemed as ‘evidence’ in regards to my investigation. All nice and legal, with her royal seal. Oh, yes, there was temptation here. For a moment I felt like Trottum with the ‘One Ring’. “Ah, my precious,” I said, stroking the gold filigree of the paper for a moment, before removing the rest of the contents. There wasn’t much here. A bio and a picture of Babs, some photos of her apartment with notes attached. A list of relatives, coworkers, and friends. A name on the list caught my attention. Someone I knew by reputation. I’d have to pay her a visit later.

I took out the picture of Babs and studied it. Nice looking earth pony. About late twenties in suntime years. Something about the eyes, she’d seen some things. Tough, smart, could take care of herself. At least that was what my gut told me. I looked though the bio. Lived alone, moved here from Manehatten three years ago suntime. Worked as a waitress at an upscale place called 'La Carrousel'. Gah, I hate Prance style cuisine. Clean record, never got into trouble. But something didn’t fit. I was having the whole ‘why was she here’ vibe. There was something I didn’t know. And I wasn’t going to find out what it was from here. Time to hit the streets. Oops, almost forgot...

The last thing I did before leaving my office was to reluctantly check my messages from the boss. I always hated doing this when I haven’t for a few weeks. All it takes is for me to accidentally miss just one of her messages, for her to start bombarding me nonstop with missives. Which, considering the fact that these candles were supposed to be for emergency correspondence only, seemed to me to be the height of hubris.

But, after all, she WAS the boss, and also I couldn’t help but feel at the same time, that she must be lonely. Add to that the recent destruction of her cake room, and I couldn’t help but feel obliged to make a call to her as soon as I could, which meant now. I proceeded to open each of the drawers in my desk in a certain order. After I closed all but the last one I heard a familiar click as one of the secret compartments of my desk slid open. This particular one contained a supply of Celestia’s special white candles. I removed one, as well as a white gold candle holder from the drawer.

Normally what I was about to do, I usually did from the comfort and security of my apartment. But I had the feeling that home would be a long time coming today. I placed the candle in it’s holder, and lit the wick. It was only a matter of seconds before the first missive arrived, followed a moment later by a second. I decided to wait until the flow of messages stopped before I began reading. I was pretty sure that most of them said about the same thing, except of course the most recent. I wasn’t looking forward to THAT one.

Then suddenly, after the fourth message arrived, a huge gout of flame erupted from the candle and an expensive looking office chair appeared out of thin air and rolled across the floor on it’s tiny wheels, finally coming to a stop on the other side of the room.

“What the hells?” I found myself saying aloud, as I stared wide eyed at the now unmoving piece of furniture.

I got up and made my way toward the chair, as more messages continued to arrive by candle flame. I had to admit... this was one gorgeous chair. Genuine manticore leather with deep cushions, and an assortment of levers designed to make it adjust to almost any position. It was quite possibly the most beautiful piece of furniture I had ever laid eyes on.

Was it a gift? Did Celestia send me a token of appreciation for all of my tireless efforts, and long years of devoted service? I was just reaching out a hoof to stroke the backrest when the smell hit.

“BLEEECH!” Oh by Celestia’s Bountiful Breastplate that was just... straight... nasty... Gahh, it was like a civet cat was doing the ‘bump n yowl’ with a skunk on a pile of rotten garbage. What the hells kind of present was this?

I went back to my desk. The messages had stopped appearing. Starting with the first one I began to skim the contents. As I thought, most of them were just fluff, with a few useful bits of intel sprinkled in. Then I got to the fifth one.

Dear Mr. Too Busy To Write Me Back,

Don’t know when you’ll get this, but sorry about the chair.

I accidentally ‘butt messaged’ you by mistake.

You see, one of my guards, Root Beer Float had recently showed me this trick where you can light your f-”

I slammed down the letter onto the table... REALLY?!? I forced myself to count to ten. Then I flipped the paper over to the blank side, and began writing.

Dear Smellestia,

You mean to tell me that out of all of your agents, and all of your students, you just happened to ‘randomly’ pick MY candle to use for your backfire experiments?!? REALLY?!?

Well, just so you know, I am totally keeping the chair. Expect a fumigation bill for reimbursement in the near future.

P.S. And you wonder why I don’t check my candle more often? Who wants to take the chance of being randomly assaulted with smelly office furniture.

P.P.S. Btw, what the HECK have you been eating? Cabbage stew with a side of onions and garlic? DANNNG!

P.P.P.S. Aww, you know I don’t mean it. That IS a pretty cool trick. (Still keeping the chair though).

Sincerely,

Tegens Meum Capistrum

I lit the letter and sent it off, and jotted down a note for Ori for tomorrow. ‘New chair in my office, DON”T throw it out, just pay someone to have it cleaned. J.A.’

Then I quickly went through the rest of Celestia’s correspondence. The next to the last letter was her warning that her sister was coming, and why. And the most recent was the one I had been dreading.

Dear Soon to be Dead Underling,

If you can spare a moment from your busy schedule, I would be very curious to know just why exactly, ten explosive devices were teleported into my refrigerated private cake room... DIRECTLY FROM YOUR MOTHERBUCKING OFFICE!

Thanks to you I now owe Discord a favor. Do you have ANY idea what THAT means?

You have exactly ten minutes to give me the best damn explanation of your life before I activate your death runes. HAVE A NICE BUCKING DAY!

Sincerely,

Nine minutes and counting...

I checked the time stamp on her message and looked frantically at the wall clock, then added the time difference for inside the city and I still had... FORTY-THREE BUCKING SECONDS?!? AHHH! I quickly turned the page over and wrote as fast as I could,

Dear Sweetest, and Most Beautiful of All the Alicorns,

It wasn’t me! Luna did it! I swear!

Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a motherbucking cupcake in my eye!

Really, really, don’t want to die atm, still working on your case.

Please have Pinkie Pie make you an MMMM on me,

Sincerely...

hoping you can read this really fast.

I fired off the message as fast as I could, and tensely waited, looking at the clock.

As the final seconds ticked away and I found myself NOT enduring a horrible lingering death, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. Moments later one final message appeared.

Dear Loyal Subject,

The lesson we have learned today, is that one should always make a little time to talk with those we love and cherish. Because one can never be sure how many opportunities we may have left to do so.

After all, no pony lives forever, especially those that make a habit of PISSING OFF THE BOSS!

Sincerely...

Looking forward to that MMMM.

P.S. And it was extra spicy Appleloosan chili, if you really must know.

I slowly began rubbing my temples with my hooves. This was the life I led. If the bad guys aren’t trying to kill me, my boss is trying to kill me. Gods, Twilight didn’t know how lucky she had it. I was sorely tempted to reach in the OTHER drawer of my desk. The one containing a fifth of very hard cider, which usually came into play after reading letters from the boss. But I was on a case, and the legwork wasn’t doing itself.

I spent a few minutes destroying the messages, and putting everything up, before I donned my dark gray trench coat and fedora and hit the streets. By the time I got outside a light rain had begun to fall. Unlike in the outside world, there weren’t a lot of pegasi that chose to make their home here, so short of a major storm, Luna just let the weather take care of itself. I made it in time to catch the local steam bus. I settled into a warm, cozy seat in the rear, and let the ‘chug, chug’ of the steam driven pistons lull me into a state of relaxation. I looked out the window and by the light of the passing street lamps, I watched as ponies, and other beings went about their nightly routine.

This was something I could spend hours doing, just watching. (Gods, not like that you pervs.) It gave me hope for the future when diamond dogs and changelings walked down the street past ponies and zebras, and none of them even noticed each other. People, were just people here, no matter what their species. I couldn’t help but think that Luna was on to something with this whole set up.

Before long the steam bus arrived at the corner of the block that Babs had her apartment on. I went to the front desk, and told the manager I needed the key to her place. In a glance I knew his type. Sour and self important. This was HIS building, and he was the ‘man in charge’. After the morning I had, I didn’t feel like playing the ‘mine is bigger than yours’ game, so I just flashed him the writ from princess Luna. Heh, that did it. Suddenly he’s all smiles and apologies, and ‘is there anything else I can do to be of assistance?’ I was so very tempted to ask him to hop on one foot and sing the anthem of the Crystal Empire... you know, just to see if he’d do it. I mean he DID ask... but I had a lot of stops to make, and despite the joy it would give me, I just didn’t want to waste anymore time. I let the frog hop back on his lily pad, and made my way upstairs to Babs’s apartment.

I carefully removed the black tape with yellow stripes from the door, unlocked it, and let myself in, turning on the lights as I did so. The place looked the same as in the pics, everything all neat and tidy. Babs had even made the bed before whatever happened to her. I didn’t waste time going through the same motions as the Watch. Luna was taking this seriously, so I was sure their wouldn’t be any slip ups. Instead I came at it from the angle of ‘what if this were MY place’. Devious bastard that I was, let’s say I had something to hide. Where would I put it. Hmm... The three places all people think of are ‘in’, ‘under’, or ‘behind’. Which is why I didn’t look under the furniture, behind the pictures, or in the toilet, mattresses, or seat cushions. The Watch would’ve already done that. Let’s see now, Babs was an earth pony, so no teleporting something inside the walls, or flying up to the ceiling fixtures. If she did hide something, it would be somewhere she could get to quickly if she had to, but somewhere the Watch wouldn’t have thought to look.

Then it hit me. Babs was from Manehatten. I went to her bedroom closet, sure enough, several sets of fancy looking shoes and boots were in the bottom. I picked the set that looked like it had the most use, turned them over and checked the heels. I was expecting one, but two of the heels were false. One had a key to a safe deposit box, and the other some spending money. No pony that has lived for long in Manehatten carries their bits around in plain sight. No, what you do is put a few in a cheap coin purse, so that you’ll have something to give the nice mugger when you are invariably stuck up. If you don’t have anything for the nice mugger, then ‘bad things’ will happen to you. Best to just pay a small ‘mugging tax’, and let the matter drop. If you have to carry money in Manehatten, you do what this street smart young pony did. My opinion of her went up a notch, as I added the key to my key ring.

I spent another hour casing the place in case Babs left any other surprises, but came up bust. I put things back the way they were and left, replacing the tape across the door. My plan was to let Ori dig around tomorrow to find out which bank that safe deposit box key fit. My next stop tonight, would be where Babs used to work. I returned the door key to the manager, who was still at his post. While I did, I got directions to 'La Carrousel'. Turns out it was only four blocks away. I exited the building and pulled up the collar of my coat, and decided to just walk there. I had only gone two blocks before I picked up a tail. No, I said ‘a’ tail, not a ‘piece of’. I meant that I was being followed. And badly. Some pony was about twenty paces behind me, and every time I stopped so did he. And when I made an excuse to turn around, he was pretending to read a newspaper. Honest to Celestia he really was. Gods... The next side alley I came to I casually went into, then as soon as I was out of sight, I quietly teleported five paces behind him. He was a pale coated earth pony, with a black stringy mane. His cutie mark was hard to make out at this angle, but seemed to be a book of some kind.

As soon as he went into the alley, I tapped him on the shoulder with the barrel of my M.I.S.P.P.L. “Looking for someone pal?” I asked, leveling the gun at his face.

My would be stalker whirled around in surprise. He saw my gun and backed up against the wall next to him.

“W-what... um, n-no, I was just going for a walk.” he said

“Riiiight.” Sweet Luna, I was not in the mood for this. “Okay, just to save us some time, let’s get the obvious out of the way. You were following me, and you suck at it. You were walking while trying to read a newspaper. Who does that?”

“Perhaps I like to read on my way home.” The pony answered defensively.

“You were trying to read a newspaper, while walking down the streets of Whinnyappleous... IT’S BUCKING NIGHT!... IT’S ALWAYS BUCKING NIGHT!” I yell, stating the very obvious.

“Well, I just hold it there until I pass under a street light.” he says unconvincingly.

“You’re wearing sunglasses.” I say.

‘Well, my eyes are really sensi-” he begins.

“IT’S... BUCKING... NIGHT!” I yell again. “Oh screw this!” I say in exasperation, as I press the trigger on my M.I.S.P.P.L. three times. Three quiet chuffs of steam erupt from the muzzle, and a hole appears in the wall behind him on either side of his head and one between his legs.

This finally has the desired effect.

“Okay! Okay! Yes, I was following you. I admit it! Now please put the hole making thing away, I can’t help but feel that it enjoys it’s job far too much.” The pony says with a shudder.

“Oh, you have NO idea.” I reply, a feral grin spreading across my muzzle. “So let’s just cut to the chase shall we? Who in Equestria are you, and, on a more personal note, how can you possibly be so completely inept at following people?”

“Ah, well you see, um, both questions actually have the same answer,” he said, his muzzle breaking into a shifty grin. “You see... I’m the distraction.”

I suddenly felt a sharp pain on the back of my head, and then I was falling, as the night went out...