Firestorm was feeling tired. He had that liberty, since it was his night off, but it was still an awful feeling. Firestorm hated feeling tired, because it was dangerously close to laziness. When one was tired, one tended to make excuses to not do things, to procrastinate, or even seek out the most pathetic of excuses to justify that feeling of awful lethargy. Admittedly, the older stallion had been staying up late for some time, well past sunrise, but that was hardly justification for this malaise of ‘maybe later.’

There were things to do. There were things that he, as an important stallion with an important job, had to do. But he couldn’t. Even with a job like his, which didn’t technically exist, his place of employment had fallen victim to those terrible labor unions. Oh yes. Years and years ago, well before Firestorm was even born, a bunch of yuppies decided to break from their clandestine duties and form a semi-clandestine strike until their demands were met.

Firestorm was certain that records regarding that incident had been doctored. In fact, he hoped they had been, because the events he’d read had been far too absurd to believe. The stallion smiled to himself, imagining that part of the negotiations was that the union’s founders would be remembered as a bunch of dumbasses, although maybe that was actually respectable. Maybe the unionists felt such conviction for the cause that they were willing to sacrifice their own legacies. But on the other hand, ponies didn’t take jobs like these because they wanted to be remembered. Ponies took jobs like these because they were jobs that needed doing.

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

Broken from his naval gazing, Firestorm looked up at the stallion behind the counter, and then back to his purchase. Various crafting materials had been neatly stacked into a brown paper bag, ready to go home and be assembled into a grand testament of boredom. “No. I think that’ll be it.” He then pulled out his wallet from his saddle bags – because some idiot had arbitrarily decided that purses were too feminine for stallions – and gave the cashier the necessary bits. His change was taken and then deposited into one of these ‘feed the hungry’ charity bins.

“Thank you very much, sir,” the cashier said in the way of customer service workers that were only just starting to have their souls sucked by the corporate machine. “Have a pleasant evening.”

“You too,” Firestorm replied, wishing he could sound more sincere for the cashier’s benefit.

Without really thinking about it, Firestorm picked up his purchase in his right hand. This, unfortunately, got him to thinking about his right hand. It was a very good hand. Very reliable. But it was most good in the sense that it was functional. The thing was technically sophisticated, a product of Equestria’s unmatched technological prowess. The crystals inside didn’t even need unicorn magic to recharge. Advanced circuits that connected to his nervous system also provided the crystals with the same energy his body ran on, which was why he always had such an appetite whenever he wore the thing.

Yes, this arm was a good arm, but it wasn’t his. Even after all these years, he’d never truly accepted the thing as his own. Not helping matters was how the gaudy gold clashed with his vibrant orange fur, but no. ‘Gold was light and ideal for energy conversion,’ they’d said. And as bad as the gold was, somehow the synthetic fur they’d wanted to graft on was even worse.

The memory made Firestorm sneer as he walked down the street. The private sector had come up with convincing faux fur coats and sexy underwear that was so soft that it was actually recalled on the grounds of distracting from sexy time; but a prosthetic arm that could get the job done without being an eyesore was somehow beyond his agency’s abilities.

“I’ve suddenly found myself feeling empathetic to those lousy unionists,” Firestorm said aloud to no one in particular, seething with disgust at what seemed like a betrayal of his convictions. Should he file a complaint with pony resources or something? Probably not. The stallion with the brown mane styled like fire had no fondness for having others solve his problems for him. Sending subordinates out to do grunt work was different, because he’d been the one to initiate the action. But asking others for help, even the sensible kind, always left him feeling weak, even before the accident.

A familiar jingle caught the stallion’s attention. His ears turned to face the sound, followed by his face, and then his whole body as the ice cream carriage rolled down the street. The sound alone sparked life in his inner foal, demanding that he rush after the slow carriage to claim its coveted treasure. That he had plenty of ice cream back home was inconsequential. Everypony knew that ice cream from the ice cream carriage was the best, and he’d fight anypony who said otherwise.

The crowd of foals gathering around the carriage’s stop most likely agreed. About twenty by Firestorm’s count, most waving money in their hands. They were accompanied by what looked like five parents while other adults – presumably also parents or older siblings – watched from a safe distance. Though no pony saw, Firestorm nodded to the latter group of parents for enabling their foals this moment of supervised independence. Times like these were important life lessons for foals, ensuring that they grew up to be confident, well rounded adults.

As with the adults who weren’t parents, Firestorm felt a social obligation to keep watching. This many foals gathered in one place seemed innocent on the surface, but only a fool wouldn’t recognize the powder keg just waiting to go off. All it would take is one careless action, like a shove. Then voices would be raised, the aggrieved party might shove back, tears would fall, somepony might run off without watching where they were going, and the whole thing would devolve into a hot mess if no pony intervened in time.

Fortunately, none of that happened. The foals were all very well behaved, given that adults were literally looking over their shoulders the entire time. Money was exchanged for the delicious frozen treats; a bargain by any measure, as the foals said their token ‘thank you’s, went back to whatever it was they were doing, and the adults scattered.

Firestorm smiled, feeling a little less crummy for having participated in the wholesome event, and continued on his merry way through the neighborhood. These apartments were in the lower income district of the city, as indicated by their worn state. Graffiti was everywhere and the road was in desperate need of a good paving. However, no windows were boarded up and the fire escapes all looked up to code, so this place couldn’t be called ‘poor’. No doubt this was a source of pride for the families who called this residence home. These ponies, as far as Firestorm could tell, were doing the best they could and living within their means.

That was how most Equestrians lived. Once a foal got his or her cutie mark, their life was more or less set. A hammer and iron cutie mark led foals to the smithy, but could just as easily translate into the various forms of construction. Generally, the foal would have already been volunteering at the family smithy for some time, or always had a hobby of tinkering, making their Destiny obvious to all but themselves. Some marks were on the ambiguous side, which led to an extended period of uncertainty, often characterized by job hunting in low skill fields while the ponies ‘found themselves’. What was mistakenly believed to be a hammer could actually turn out to be a judge’s gavel. Even then, Destiny might have simply meant this pony to have an exemplary sense of fairness and justice, which they would extol as unofficial community leaders, or even as grand masters of their own home. Yes, a hammer was a truly versatile cutie mark. It could build, enforce the rules, and even… break things.

Firestorm looked down at his own cutie mark. To most, it was a simple ember sitting atop a log, an image that evoked feelings of warmth and comfort. Beneath the glamour, however, was a fireball striking a cloud, which released a pair of lightning bolts. The specifics would likely be lost on most ponies, but the general idea was what necessitated the glamour. Firestorm’s cutie mark was one of violence. A sword might just mean he had a knack for swordsmanship, meaning he’d make for an excellent guard, police officer, rat catcher, or any of Equestria’s lauded protectors, but a sword slashing through a skull had more specific implications. Firestorm’s cutie mark was not one of creation, protection, or maintenance, but destruction, which left most civilians anxious.

Bad ponies destroyed things, just like bad non-ponies destroyed things. It was just common sense. A baking cutie mark gave its owner an itch that could not be scratched unless sufficient baking was done, which was equitable to the itch felt by mares in heat. Action had to be taken, so what sane pony would want to associate with somepony who actually felt the compulsion to destroy? It was an objective fact that there were, and always had been, too many bad destroyers in the world, which Firestorm knew all too well.

Yes, there were far too many bad destroyers in the world, but there weren’t as many as there used to be. In the olden days, when Equestria was still being settled, the land was wrought with bad things. Manticores and other dangerous fauna were bad enough, but actual monsters and true destroyers ran rampant back then. Before, the old tribalism had afforded many with a great deal of power to do as they pleased, as well as excuses. Power kept the peasants in line. The ever looming threat of destroyers was an eternal deterrent to an uprising of aggrieved commoners. But with the banishing of the Windegoes, too many were discontent with the new status quo. A pony with a mace bashing a face could no longer oppress peasants with impunity as they used to. That sort of infighting was all but banned for fear of the chilling terror’s return. So, with their old livelihoods stripped from them and little effort made to present those destroyers with alternatives, many turned to banditry and other symptoms of social ills.

Worse were the unicorns, as was so often the case. While rare, it was not unheard of for a single unicorn to have power to decimate an entire village, whereas bandits usually needed a small army. Granted, there were just as many earth pony and pegasus prodigies with equitable capacities for destruction, but somehow unicorns got stuck with the worst of the stigma, which was probably fair. Far too many unicorns with marks like Firestorm’s decided to turn their powers on the masses, to rekindle the old ways of oppression and supremacy.

As a unicorn, and a possessor of such a violent cutie mark, Firestorm had a visceral and intense hatred for unicorns like those. They all had their excuses for why they did what they did, but Firestorm cared not for their betrayal of Destiny. Those ass hats had to go and twist their gifts into curses, not only inflicting harm on the general populace, but creating a stigma for ponies like Firestorm. Everything had changed the moment he’d gotten his mark. His friends started avoiding him, his teachers got jumpy when he made sudden movements, and even his family started looking at him differently. He hated it, as would anypony. He hated it, and developed a bit of a complex out of a desire to prove them wrong. He was a destroyer, but he wasn’t a bad destroyer. That distinction was important. He was a true destroyer, one whose Destiny wasn’t twisted into something ugly.

It was at this thought that a new sound caught Firestorm’s ear, which flicked to focus in on it. It was familiar, like the ice cream jingle, but instead of exciting his inner foal, the representation of Firestorm’s innocence crawled into a corner, curled up in the fetal position, and wept. Bag still in hand, Firestorm ran in the direction of the scream. He ran down a dark alley, because of course he did, and saw three ponies. The one hunched over with his back to the wall was a unicorn stallion, gray fur that was almost white, and hand covering his bloodied face. The other two were mares. The earth mare was punching her fist into her open palm in an intimidating fashion, while the unicorn smirked in that self-righteous, stereotypical unicorn way.

“You got the money?” asked the unicorn mare.

“N-no,” wept the stallion. “I-I’m sorry. I-I’ll get it next week. I promise.”

The unicorn mare shook her head. “You must really think I’m stupid, don’t you.”

“What!? N-no! I-”

*FWACK*

Having said nothing, the earth mare delivered a fierce blow to the stallion’s gut, causing him to double over in pain. He wheezed and heaved, looking like his stomach was ready to expel its contents.

“No, you do,” asserting the unicorn mare. “Why else would you… would… you?” She staggered, suddenly not looking so smug. Why was the world suddenly spinning? “Wh-whaz happen?” She gripped her forehead and braced herself against the wall.

The earth mare said nothing, but looked very concerned. Then she heard a very distinct jingle. One could only live around unicorns for so long without learning the telltale sound of magic being cast. She didn’t hear the first one, because it was too far away, but this one took place right behind her. Being an earth pony thug in a unicorn city, she knew she had to act quickly. She started with a mighty backhanded swing, spinning around and aiming where the enemy’s head would be. If she could disorientate the enemy unicorn, or better yet, hit the horn, then victory would be certain. Unfortunately, her swing carried on uninterrupted, though she did see the orange figure crouched down near her knees. She’d missed. She’d missed because she was facing a unicorn who knew standard anti-unicorn tactics.

Using his right hand, because he didn’t feel like being nice, Firestorm sprung up and delivered a fierce upper cut right between the mare’s legs. There was a low *thunk*, like a bell being rung, followed by the faintest of cracks. Firestorm had been punching ponies long enough to recognize that this wasn’t the crack of bone, but something far more tender. As such, he retracted his metallic fist and rolled off to the side, away from where the mare was facing. A fountain of liquefied, partially digested meal spewed forth, right where the stallion had been not an eye blink ago. On reflex, he said a silent ‘thank you’ to the alicorns for blessing him with such quick instincts, all the while noting the hunks of carrot amongst the green sludge spreading wide and making a mess of things.

The mare retched, in too much pain to scream. The look in her eyes showed that she was screaming on the inside. No doubt it’d be a deafening shriek if her voice would cooperate, but she appeared too busy fighting the need to blow chunks once more. She heaved, gagged, and lost that fight, adding to the puddle of vomit. She could barely even register the searing pain in her groin, only the violent summersaults her stomach was performing. Her body acted on reflex, jumping back as her hand moved to cover her tender mare parts. The brick wall was cold against her back and she paid little mind to the coarse friction as she slid down to her rump. The jostling causing her to spit up a little more. This time her vomit didn’t have much force behind it, and dribbled down her chin and sullied her fur. Save for her gut, her pain was still mostly abstract, something she knew she should be feeling, but hadn’t quite clicked in her brain. But she went through the motions all the same, doubling over and curling herself into a protective ball in dreadful anticipation of when her senses finally caught up with reality. Then she spewed again.

There was blood on Firestorm’s knuckles. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make him squirm in discomfort. He wondered if he’d gone a bit too far, but a look at the weeping stallion assured him that he’d taken the correct measures. At least he hadn’t fully extended his arm. That might have led to permanent damage. Just because Firestorm wasn’t in the mood to be nice, that didn’t mean he needed to be cruel, not for punks like these.

The unicorn mare, having realized a spell of dizziness had been cast upon her, looked between her cohort and the culprit behind this assault. It took another half second before the whole situation processed, which Firestrom allowed. She seethed with rage. Dizzy or not, she was still confident in her skills, and knew just how to deal with this interloper.

His expression blank thus far, Firestorm stole a glance at the mare’s cutie mark. It was a knife slashing through the air. Given that she was naked without so much as a satchel, he figured she must have a specialty spell to conjure up one or more knives made out of solid magic. Still under the influence of the dizzy spell, it was reasonable that she’d defer to this specialty, no doubt having cast it so much that it had become second nature to her. This made Firestorm angry. Her cutie mark was a weapon, a thing clearly meant to cause harm, and yet she was misusing it. Instead of accepting Destiny and using her talents for the benefit of Equestria, she’d gone and become the very thing Firestorm had sworn to fight.

An inferior destroyer was still a bad destroyer.

The mare’s magic jingled and her trademark knife took shape in her hand. It was only one knife, but it had never failed her in the past. The thing was small, and could easily be manipulated at long range. Most ponies never expected a knife thrown at them to boomerang around and hit them in the back. It was a foolproof plan, so that’s what she did. With a manic grin she threw the knife, aiming just past the stallion’s head. He’d probably dodge. He no doubt had some skills if her cohort went down so quickly, but skills in a unicorn could very easily become weaknesses if they weren’t careful. In her mind she saw him get careless, thinking she’d used up her one trick. He’d think her helpless, bullheadedly charge, never looking back, and then that would be that.

Except, that’s not what happened.

The stallion caught the magical construct in his hand, his right hand. She swore under her breath. Those were some impressive reflexes, but she was still in control and her smirk returned. All she had to do was maneuver the knife to cut his hand, he’d get distracted by the pain, and then she’d strike. Except his grip wouldn’t loosen, and she swore again. Even with all her magic, she couldn’t pull the semi-translucent object free. It was about at this time that she took a serious look at the stallion’s hand. The first thing she noticed was that it was a different color than the rest of his fur. The second thing she noticed was the sheen of the metal plating. After that was the glow of the energy crystals in his knuckles, and then the dispelling of her knife.

The mare felt winded, like she’d just run a marathon, and only barely kept herself from collapsing. She’d invested too much magic in the knife, so its dispelling left her understandably exhausted. And on top of that, she was still dizzy.

The blink of an eye later, Firestorm had closed the distance with the mare. Given that she was the one calling the shots here, Firestorm felt he needed to exercise a bit of equity and – by his standards – punish her proportionally to that of her subordinate. Leaders must always be held to account for their subordinates, after all. So he grabbed her teat with his right hand. His sharpened metallic fingers dug into the soft flesh. Sensation was felt differently in his prosthetic hand, like his brain was being told second hand that a thing was soft rather than experiencing it first-hand. But he could tell when the skin started to tear as his pointed finger tips dug in.

She screamed. She grabbed hold of the metallic appendage and tried yanking herself free. That just hurt more. So she tried to cast a spell, any spell, to make him let go, but he just grabbed her horn with his real hand, snuffing out the magic before anything could manifest. Then she started punching him. Both of his hands were occupied, meaning he couldn’t block her blows to his face. She wailed on him, only for his right hand to tighten and both of hers to reflexively come back to grab around his wrist and a vain attempt to wrestle herself free. Her eyes watered in agony. Glaring at him, eyes burning with hatred, she was stunned by the look he returned. The stallion’s eyes were as cold as a witch’s teat. He was not being cruel or even indifferent, but far worse. The mare jerked back as if struck when it finally registered that this stallion, this absolute brute who had laid her and her subordinate low in a matter of minutes, was staring into her soul with pure, unadulterated pity. It was the silent scold of a disappointed parent; a look the mare was personally unfamiliar with, but still recognized on an instinctual level.

She hated it.

Firestorm would have likely done more and made an example of this shit stain of a unicorn for making him look bad by association of their destructive looking cutie marks, but fortunately for her sake, that’s when the guard showed up. They were the City Guard’s Night Division, as opposed to the Night Guard, which still only patrolled the castle. It was an important distinction for a pony in Firestorm’s position: that position being caught doing things good ponies didn’t do in a back alley.

Fortunately for him, there had been a witness. A pony had seen dealings earlier than Firestorm and had already run to find the guards. Between the testimony of witness and the (alleged) victim, Firestorm was not arrested. He was asked to give a statement, which he did. This included giving contact information for when things went to court. Telling these guards that he had no plans of showing up for something so tedious would just make more trouble, so he agreed like a good pony, picked up his paper bag where he’d left it, and went on his merry way.

Feeling like he’d earned himself a treat, Firestorm paid a visit to Pony Joe, the proprietor of Pony Joe’s, and had himself a doughnut. It was chocolate. He and Pony Joe didn’t say much. One stallion was an exquisite baker and the other was a loyal customer, but their relationship didn’t go beyond that. Had they talked, Firestorm feared he might accidently boast about his earlier scuffle, which would have brought unwanted attention down on his head. So this relationship, like most, was kept cordial, brief, and businesslike.

Finishing the last of his doughnut, Firestorm considered telling his peers at the ‘office’ about what had happened. If they were doing their jobs, they should already know, but he was still a pony, dammit! Destroyer or not, he was a herd animal with an ingrained need to socialize.

After what seemed like forever, the orange stallion with the prosthetic arm finally arrived at his home. Specifically, he arrived at the used bookstore that had an apartment built on the second floor. It was a modest place with a desperate need of a new coat of paint, but it was his. He entered and waved to the pony behind the counter.

Wind Burst, a pegasus who was just blossoming into marehood, straightened to attention. She had a look of quiet panic, like she was hoping her boss hadn’t caught her slacking off again. Firestorm just smiled, and looked around. Shelves filled with old, discarded books lined the walls. Most would be surprised to learn that this place actually managed to turn quite the profit, as a number of these books were out of print, making them valuable among collectors. Plus the neighborhood ponies were loyal and liked to give business to local shops instead of making the long trek to the library in the city’s interior.

In that way of micromanaging bosses everywhere, which Firestorm liked to think he wasn’t, he stroked a finger across the counter and held it up for inspection. He tried not to let on how much he was enjoying Wind Burst’s squirming as she awaited his verdict. “Think this place could use a dusting?” It wasn’t really a question.

“Yes sir,” she bowed and grabbed a rag. “Right away sir.”

Firestorm nodded his approval and took the back stairs down to his apartment. It was a modest place with a decent living area, two bedrooms, a kitchen full of used appliances, and a bathroom that was kept habitually clean. He dropped the bag onto the table, eyed it a moment, and gave in to procrastination. He wasn’t in the mood for building things at the moment. The scuffle in the alley left him wondering if there were better ways to use his time, and it wasn’t hard to think of a few, so he entered the second bedroom.

Now, anypony who looked at the floorplan for this building might realize that the second bedroom was supposed to have a lot more space than it actually did. That was because, after greasing a few palms, Firestorm had installed a staircase behind a secret entrance. No pony would notice, because this place was so perfectly situated in one of the most boring districts in Canterlot that not even a burglar could summon the interest to investigate.

The stairs led down to the basement, which also didn’t officially exist. It was sealed behind a door that was near impervious to magic and could only be unlocked with a key, which had been built into Firestorm’s prosthetic palm. He unlocked the door to reveal what, at first glance, appeared to be nothing more than a study, a den, a quiet place for a pony to relax. There was a desk, a chair, shelves full of books and scrolls, and upon the desk was a crystal ball. Nothing especially unusual. Crystal balls weren’t too common, but they were popular among ponies who needed to make frequent communications across long distances. Their drawback was that they tended to be buggy and often misfired when connecting between more than two other crystal balls. Firestorm rather liked them, because he knew that bug was a result of balls like his being specially enchanted to prevent such misfires, which had a side effect of exacerbating bugs in the rest of the network.

Upon the shelves were a few books from his own store, which, as the owner, he was free to borrow and return at his own leisure. Everything else looked just as worn, but nowhere near as common. There were scrolls and books here that were never meant to be viewed by civilians. They weren’t quite important enough to be locked away in the castle’s private archives – available only to Celestia and whoever she had given direct and explicit permission to – but they were still confidential. There were records on the current migration patterns of monsters that were supposedly wiped out or had never been officially confirmed. There were incomplete copies of magical theorems declared too dangerous for public use. Firestorm had been given these with the understanding that he was forbidden from ever trying to fill in the holes, but use them as a reference in case he ever encountered some other pony with something similar. There were also a few forbidden tomes, spells deemed so dangerous that they were broken up, scrambled to resemble typos in ordinary books, and then scattered across caches like these. Supposedly only the Princesses knew which books did what, and the full inventory was further divided up amongst Firestorm’s superiors, but he had his hunches on which of his own books held those extra juicy secrets.

But none of that mattered right now. What mattered to Firestorm was a scroll entitled “Native Monkeys: Equestria’s History of Displacement.” It was a study that claimed that of all the many creatures displaced by the spread of civilization, monkeys were the most affected. Of course, given the lack of summary at the top, actually figuring out that much was a chore onto itself. Anypony who picked up this scroll would be forgiven for thinking it had been written for the express purpose of curing insomnia. The pony who’d written this masterpiece of long windedness had found a way to stretch a statement as simple as “more monkeys used to live around Canterlot” across ten paragraphs, and that was before going into the whos, whens, wheres, and ‘why are you punishing me by making me read this?’

Of course, to anypony who could read the code so cleverly interwoven into the nonsense, they would find a document detailing everything known about humans, and Thomas in particular.

Humans were myths whose stories seemed to originate in Pre-Exodus pony cultures. The accounts were so old and so varied that scholars actually debated on whether or not they were actually describing different creatures. Humans were said to be tall, towering over ponies, yet there was a story of a human so small he was in constant danger of being stepped on. Humans were more violent than the wildest of adolescent dragons, conquering and subjugating everything in their path, yet they also held levels of compassion that would rival the Princesses.

After watching Thomas, and listening between the lines, Firestorm had adopted the unpopular view that these disparate accounts were equally accurate in their descriptions of the same species. Humans were chaotic in nature, although that word had far too much of a stigma. The stallion had admitted as much in his report, saying that their nature might be better described as varied. He gave a soft, satisfied smile when he came to that particular line in the scroll, glad that his word had been properly incorporated. He’d hypothesized that one could take a sampling of any sapient species on Gaia and make a reasonable guess about their average disposition, but that such a thing was far harder with humans, who appeared to be tyrants and saints in equal measure. They were a contradictory species, to say the least, which just made them all the more fascinating.

Of course, all of this was purely conjecture. Thomas had never admitted to anything under a truth spell, or any other standards that Firestorm’s superiors would deem as reliable. But that’s what he liked about it. He’d always had a weakness for mystery novels, and humans were one of the oldest mysteries in recorded history, perhaps older. Unfortunately, the circumstances around this particular human also made studying him rather frustrating.

Study of humans had very nearly experienced a surge in popularity, only for the crowns to step in and stifle it. Research was allowed, but only with agents constantly peeking over their shoulders. As much as Firestorm hated this, he understood the reasoning. Equestria’s one and only human was a tiny, fragile thing. He was rare, unique, which made him inherently valuable to all sorts of unsavory types, who would inevitably catch whatever well-meaning hype had begun with the scholars. Research was stifled, but only to maintain the integrity of the one living sample.

And all of that was decided before the little guy’s emotional ties to Luna.

Firestorm chuckled sadly. He so longed to read the research and theories of other scholars, all competing in search of the ultimate truth. But as it stood, he, a pony whose profession didn’t technically exist, was counted among the seven or so experts in the study of humans. He counted seven because that was the number of ponies actively researching this enigmatic species who also happened to know the origins of this particular specimen.

Firestorm also understood why this part was kept secret. He’d personally seen the research declaring that this human’s arrival was a fluke among flukes and that the odds of another such incident occurring were practically zero. It was solid, and very convincing to a learned pony like himself, but other ponies would not be so rational. Ponies were a naturally skittish species, prone to avoidance of the new at the best of times, and fits of irrational panic at the worst. If the truth got out, restoring order would be a hassle that Firestorm forgave the Princesses for wanting to avoid. But despite all the successes in keeping the secret, ponies had still gotten spooked.

The seven top researchers, including Firestorm, had been spooked to some degree. Oh yes. Learning that an ancient fable long dismissed as pure fantasy was not only real, but an alien race that numbered in the hundreds of millions had been a very spooky revelation. Likewise, ponies who weren’t counted among the experts had also been spooked; ponies like Firestorm’s superiors. He forgave this, not because it was their nature, but because it was their job. Ponies who spooked in a crowd were just a useless rabble that just made the spooky situation worse. Ponies who got spooked professionally had the task of anticipating the spookiness and creating contingencies. They were the mechanics who maintained the very delicate machinery known as social order, and it was still being determined whether or not Thomas was a bug or a feature.

In fact, while reading the encoded document, Firestorm stumbled upon the contingencies he’d personally pinned. He’d gotten a number of pats on the back, though they were hardly warranted, as what he’d written wasn’t all that creative. Most plans boiled down to the simple premise that if the human could not be secured in an emergency scenario, then it should be incinerated. Naturally, the latter was strictly a last resort, but it would have been kinder than leaving him in the unsavory hands of ponies and other creatures that most Equestrians either pretended didn’t actually exist, or had been convinced of such by ponies like himself or his affiliates.

“Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?” called a soft, shimmery, androgynous voice.

Firestorm looked up from his scroll to the crystal ball. There was a pony head inside. “Hold on. You’re signal’s fuzzy.” He leaned forward and touched the tip of his horn to the sphere. “Is this helping?”

“What? Oh, wait a minute.” The pony at the other end was moving around, causing the image to focus on her teats for a second. Then there was a glow. “How’s that? Better?”

“Much better,” Firestorm confirmed. He sat back and got a good look at the pony in the ball. She was an earth pony, slight of build, but definitely had more muscle than the average unicorn. Her body was covered in scars; pretty nasty things that made it look like she might have fallen into a meat grinder at some point. Given the stories she told, that wasn’t too far off. Hard Knock was her name, though he’d never call her that when they were communicating through their balls. As confident as they were in their security, it was still discourteous to reveal their actual names.

“Handy?” Hard asked, calling him by his code name. “What are you doing there?”

“This is my house. Where else should I be?” he deadpanned.

“What? Oh, dammit.” She started moving again. There was the sound of something heavy sliding across the floor. The crystal ball, desperate to try and keep up with her, focused on her plot as she was bending over. At least her tail kept her dignity. “I was trying to call Ticklish. How’d our signals get crossed?”

“If you’ll recall,” Firestorm said calmly to her round and bubbly ass, “Ticklish is on assignment and won’t be back ‘til Sunday, I think. Was it important?”

Hard straightened up, causing her overworked crystal ball to linger on her teats far longer than was necessary, before eventually remembering to ascend up to her face. “Nah. I just finished my assignment with the bat researcher.”

“The supremacist?”

“That’s her.” Hard leaned down, putting her face right up to the crystal, and giving Firestorm a needlessly in depth look up her right nostril. “Go on,” she urged with an ear-to-ear grin. “Ask me how it went.”

Firestorm rolled his eyes at the mare’s foalish behavior. He already knew how she was going to answer. She always got like this when she wanted to show off. This was going to happen no matter what, so he decided to take the path of least resistance and indulge. “Where’s the new scar?”

“Hey! I never said there was a scar.”

“So there isn’t a scar?” That would have been surprising.

“I never said that either.”

“Stars above!” he swore, though his grin said that he wasn’t that angry. “Just show me already.”

“Well, since you asked nicely.” Hard stood back up, but this time the ball was far less janky as it followed her movements. She stepped back a ways and flexed her right arm as though posing for a magazine. Sure enough, there was a freshly closed gash stretching from her elbow to her shoulder. “One of the little shit’s bat minions,” she boasted. “And I do mean a literal bat. Had about a two meter wing span and crazy sharp claws. Kept trying to bite my teats for some reason. So I crushed its head with my bare hand.” She opened her palm, and then balled it into a fist. “Squirter, that one.” She laughed at her own joke.

Firestorm nodded. “And the target?”

“Well, you know,” Hard shrugged noncommittally. “I’d cornered her and was just about to give her the deal, but I never got the chance. She set her alchemy table to blow up. Sent shards of beakers and flasks filled with alicorns-know-what all over the place. Had to spend the rest of the fight with bits of that stuff all over me.” She pointed at various smaller wounds across her body. Those would likely also scar, as magical wounds so often did.

The bat, Firestorm deduced, was a product of illegal magical experimentation, and so any damage it inflicted would forever mar the victim’s body. Although it was hard for Firestorm to even conceive of Hard as a victim. Regardless, she should definitely get checked after this.

“Then a little of this, a little of that,” she continued. “Somepony might have accidentally broke a support beam and caused the ceiling to cave in.”

“Funny how often that happens on your missions,” Firestorm remarked. “Might be some sort of curse.”

Hard laughed. “Yeah. Might be. Anyway, that’s when she set the bat on me. I killed it, so she tried two more. Those must’ve been prototypes, ‘cause they were all misshapen ‘n’ shit. One I think had a heart attack mid-flap. You should’ve seen it,” she chuckled. “Me and the little shit just stood there gawking for a whole, like, five seconds. We’d gotten so pumped for this big fight that for the thing to give out like that was…” She trailed off, laughing some more. “Let’s just say I think she suddenly developed a newfound empathy for stallions who finish prematurely. You know, before the cave in crushed her head.”

“Last minute epiphanies are always…” Firestorm started to say. “Huh. I had this thing about them being good presents to share with Death or something, but it’s not clicking.” He huffed his disappointment with failing to create an adequate zinger. “Anyway, you sure she’s dead?”

“Head and heart in two separate boxes, and the rest I set on fire,” she recited the routine. “If she can come back from this, maybe we can work on her endurance training.” She snickered. “Anyway, that was my yesterday. You do anything fun?”

Seizing upon his chance, Firestorm recounted his exploits in the alley while Hard listened intently. She was always a good listener, especially when it came to stories about fighting.

“Sounds like a common hustle, or maybe a loan shark,” she deduced. “Any drugs?”

“Not that I saw, and I didn’t hear the guards mention anything. So yeah, this was about as common as they come. But it still felt good doing a good deed.”

“Whatever. What about on the porn side of things? Any news there?”

Firestorm rolled his eyes so hard that his head went with them. “Must you call it that?”

“Hey. I’m not the one being paid to watch ponies buck all day and night with an alien. But seriously, who’s ass did you have to kiss to get that assignment?”

Pleased by her jealousy, Firestorm adopted the smuggest of smirks as he made himself comfortable. “That’s for me to know, and for you to find out,” he said in that way he knew would push her buttons.

She was fuming, but quickly got over it. “I ask because outside the free porn – or since they’re paying you, is that negative free porn? Anti-free porn? Whatever.”

“Commercialized voyeurism?” suggested Firestorm.

“Point is, outside of that, it really seems like the most boring assignment ever.”

Firestorm chuckled. “The job only gets exciting when we buck up and everything goes to shit, like with the roof caving in, so I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Hard’s pouting intensified. Now she was on full lip quiver mode. Amused, Firestorm held out just a little longer before caving, but not before performing one last check to make sure the channel was secure. “Just living life so far. The last major update was that break in.”

“Gotta respect the teats on those dumbasses,” she acknowledged. “I mean, it’s still stupid as Tartarus to try breaking into the bucking castle of all places, but it was still pretty teatsy.”

“Indeed. I didn’t even need to be involved with the cover-up. Though if that particular detail had gotten out, it would most certainly warrant as a buck up.”

“The kind that caves in rooves?”

“Best case scenario? At least,” he admitted dryly.

Hard snickered. “Standing orders still standing, I take it? I ask ‘cause, well, you know what time is coming up.”

Firestorm nodded. “No updates on contingencies. The target is still allowed to move and act without excessive restraint.”

“Excessive, huh?” She asked in a way that Firestorm did not care for. “You know, as agent-in-command, doesn’t that afford you some leeway to, you know, intervene at your discretion?” he asked, though he already knew what she meant.

The stallion’s face hardened. “You believe I should intervene?”

Hard pulled away and held up both hands in surrender. “Hey, buddy. I’m not telling you how to do your job here. I’m just sayin’.”

“Saying what, exactly?”

She snorted. “We got lucky with the hippogriffs. Mostly they get griffon strength and pony mentality. But the kirin, well, they literally start fires if their emotions get out of whack. I’m just sayin’ that hybrids are kind of a gamble.”

Firestorm pursed his lips. He understood her concerns perfectly well. Sexual relations between ponies and other races rarely conceived offspring. When they did, the results were often volatile, to say the least; especially in the beginning. Research into the matter was limited and no real answers had ever been found. No pony really understood why the first kirin born had such unstable powers and personalities. Nor did anypony know why, despite having no blood connections to the first attempts, the further a kirin was born from those first attempts, the more stable they tended to be. Even later first generations didn’t have the same problems as their forebears.

One thing was perfectly clear. While the reason remained elusive, the fact of the matter was that the very first hybrids always tended to come with their own special kind of problems; problems that ponies like Firestorm were often tasked with solving.

“For now, I’m content to wait and see,” he finally answered. “The Princesses tend to get all pissy when we buck up and get noticed, and screwing with Luna’s favorite buck toy sounds like exactly the sort of trouble I’d like to avoid.”

Staring through the sphere, Hard silently imparted her concerns. It would have been rude to remind her friend that it was their job to deal with trouble, to make the hard choices now so that harder choices didn’t have to be made later. He knew well enough. Usually it was him reminding her about this sort of thing. “Okay, fine,” she allowed. “You’re usually right about these sorts of things, so I’ll leave you to it.”

Firestorm nodded appreciatively. “Thank you.” Then his ears twitched. “Also, it sounds like boxes are rattling around.”

“What?” Hard spun around. Yet again, in what was supposed to be a search for her face, the crystal ball opted to focus on the mare’s plot. “Goddess almighty!” There was a vaguely avian screech, and then the signal cut out.

Alone, and without the need to maintain appearances, Firestorm chuckled. The whole situation was just too absurd not to tickle his funny bone. He wasn’t concerned for Hard Knocks. Though it was worrying that her target was resurrecting itself, he knew she could handle it. The scars across the mares body told the story of a hard knock life, one that had persistently knocked her down again and again, and then yet again because she stubbornly refused to stay down. It was her way to always get back up. She’d be fine. This, Firestorm knew implicitly.

Then, remembering his desire to avoid trouble, he tuned the crystal ball to make a connection. “Hello there, Smokey.”

“Firestorm?” Lt. Smokey Iron looked up from his stack of paperwork. The grizzled old stallion was surprised at first, but that quickly shifted to a look of annoyance. “What did you do this time?” he tiredly asked.

Firestorm guiltily pursed his lips. “Nothing bad this time.” At the Lieutenant’s continued piercing gaze, he added, “Really! I just got into a bit of a scuffle with some ponies who absolutely deserved it.”

“Uh, huh,” Smokey said in the way of commanders who had heard far too many excuses in their time.

“Well, do you think you could put in a good word for me with the commander of the City Guard’s Night Division? I’d go through the usual channels, but I get the feeling you-know-who’d drag their hooves, I’d get dragged to court as a witness, and that’s just a bad time no one wants to have.”

Iron tiredly rolled his eyes. “Oh fine. I’d probably get called in to clean up your mess, anyway.”

Firestorm clapped his hands together. “Thanks a lot, buddy. What’s say I take you out to lunch on your next day off?”

“Oh no you don’t.” Iron shook his head. “After this, you owe me dinner,” he said with an air of finality, “and dessert.”

“Deal.”

“And nothing cheap, either. I’m choosing. Got it?”

“Understood,” Firestorm acknowledged, smiling in satisfaction at the preemptive neutralization of the crisis that was him in a jury. Whether on jury duty, the defendant, the prosecution, or even serving as a witness, him in a court of law always seemed to end badly.

With a final respectful nod, Iron’s signal cut out and Firestorm was once more left in solitude. He glanced down at the scroll he’d been reading, and decided a small update was needed. He penned his concerns about the hybrid issue, detailing how he trusted that the abundant security of the castle was sufficient to handle any problems. The odds of a genuine threat were low, and he wasn’t acting on impulse to satisfy his curiosity. This, Firestorm knew for a fact. He was acting in the best interests of the Princesses, the citizenry, and Equestria as a whole. And if worse came to worse, then he’d take responsibility.

At long last, Firestorm makes his return. And boy, was this a breath of fresh air! It’s fun to break up the monotony of slice of life to avoid things getting stale. Equestria isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There’s very real danger in the unseen parts. Moving forward, I hope to explore these darker elements further and administer a solid shake up to the current status quo.

Tier 1: None at this time
Tier 2: Jake Nelson and Magetsu
Tier 3: Drake565