Two weeks and nothing. No hint or leads on the escaped convicts. Every clue about what might be going on had dried up. I hate waiting, and I hate not knowing what’s going on.

Celestia had made sure every bit of detail the scouts found was relayed to Ranger Command. In turn, Captain Crossed had been making darn sure Cort and I were in the loop. The moment any credible sighting was had, we were ready to get under way and try to apprehend the fugitives.

Meanwhile, Jackie’s little venture as a judge went from bad to worse, then a bit better. She and Rarity told me the whole story. Later, Jackie had kind of been upset, mostly at herself for her actions. I reminded her no one is perfect and just take this as a new lesson in friendship and life. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her ‘I told you so’ because, I happen to like sleeping in the bed with her, not on the sofa, alone.

This morning I had to go check on how Diamond and Rich were doing. Needless to say that despite how her mother was to her, the pink filly had taken her mother's death hard. Rich had gotten drunk after he was told the details, I stuck around to make sure he was okay.

We had bonded a bit, I really liked the stallion and I felt bad for him. Hell, I felt bad for Spoiled. I had given the filly and her dad my word that I would bring the murderer to justice, an oath I aimed to keep.

Pip had stuck by Diamond, as we adults kind if knew he would. It was a public secret the two of them were dating, as kids will; nothing heavy. I was glad to see the boy sticking strong to his beliefs and his friends.

Speaking of, he was currently outside my office, pushing a broom along the floor of the bullpen under the watchful eye of Amethyst from her desk. It was the colt’s first day as a runner, slash, gofer. After a talk with his case worker, the princesses and the rest of the Rangers; we’d all agreed to get him started early learning a trade. His cutie mark said it all, didn’t it; he was destined to be a Canterlot Ranger when he grew up.

Jackie had talked to me last night about something bugging her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the fact Big Mac had caught Applebloom and Silver Spoon kissing. Nothing bad, they hope; just a young couple trying a practice kiss, from what I hear. Now, Jackie didn’t seem upset, just more trying to feel out her emotions on the subject. In the end, she agreed it was best to let them learn and if they were right, then things would work out, and if not it was harmless experimenting.

I gathered from our talks that both AB and Sweetie Bell were both seeing the town councilor every other day; trying to work past what they had done during the attack on them. Hard to believe that was less than a month ago. Both perps were in custody up in Canterlot, but under heavy guard. Something was going on there, I just have no clue what.

All three of them we’d arrested had sung the same story; Spoiled had hired them to get her daughter out of ponyville. She had gone on and on about how the influences there were corrupting her potential and turning her into a common mud pony peasant.

We Rangers had grilled them for days and the stories never changed. While they weren’t identical, enough detail was in each to tell me they weren’t total lies. Best we could figure, Spoiled had done this behind the back of whoever was keeping her housed and fed. I had to suspect House Dark, but why? Why were they protecting her up until this event, even after the night of the Gala? Just more questions with dead ends for answers, all because the one pony who knew is six feet under the grass.

I was about to get up and go make my rounds when a knock at my office door got my attention. Golden poked her nose in and then stuck her hoof in, holding a stack of folders. “Reports came in, LT, looks like the autopsy reports on Milk and Private Lance.

She nudged the door open and trotted over, so I gestured for her to dump the files on the mess I call a desk. She set them down and I smiled, “So, second thoughts yet?”

She gave a huff and shook her head. See, in two weeks from tomorrow, in fact; she and Cort’ll be getting hitched. I had been asked to be Cort’s best man, stallion... whatever!

Golden had asked Lightning Dust to be her Mare of Honor. “He drives me up the wall, but I wouldn’t have him any other way,” her smirk lit up her face, “so, when are you going to get off those skinny haunches of yours and make Jackie an honest mare?”

I scoffed and shook my head, “First off, it’s a butt, or ass. Second, when the time is right, and third; quit being a nosey nag,” I grinned at her.

She snorted and reared back onto her rear hooves, then she hooked her right leg at the pastern over her left one at the elbow. It was as close as a pony could get to flipping someone off. Yea, Golden had picked it up from Cort, who had started to do it to me when I flipped him off. Of course, we kept it from Ol’ Nerdacorn, because she would flip her lid over it.

I laughed at the mare and gestured to the door, “Get out of my office,” I said in a good natured tone as I picked up the folders to give them a look.

I sat there just looking down at the folders on my desk, closed now. I didn’t want to look at the pictures anymore; I didn’t want to read the words in there.

Spoiled had been injected with the drug known as Rutt, they found the puncture wound near the base of her neck, right into her spine. As I gather; it would have taken hold of her almost instantly, preventing her from denying… from being raped by at least five, if not more, convicts.

The autopsy report showed she had been alive up until her throat was cut, and the bite marks across her body were almost all post mortem. The coroner ponies and guard corpspony that had worked in tandem had found results that some of the males involved had large quantities of Rutt in them.

My eyes flicked over to the Private’s report. It had read quite the same; rape, a lot of damage back there, large quantities of Rutt in his system... the corner had declared his death to be murder by lethal injection of a controlled substance. Whoever had dosed the stallion had done so with enough of the drug to stop his heart; had his throat not been ripped out, then he would have died of a drug overdose with the hour after he was injected, alive and painfully aroused through most of it.

What in God’s name was going on? What kind of monsters would use such a drug in the first place? Madness, absolute madness! And now I had this to add to the pile of unanswered questions. Why had they killed Spoiled? Why had they killed the Private? Where was his cousin, were they in cahoots?

I had a whole bucket of new questions and not a single answer to go with them. I looked up at my board again and shook my head. Someone up there was covering tracks, a lot of tracks, and they were leaving nothing to chance. Oh, I had my suspect; at the top of the list was that pompous ass of a unicorn, or someone very close to him. However, even with a mountain of evidence gesturing his direction, I had not even one bit of substantial proof.

Even with my temper, I knew better than to throw an accusation around without some kind of proof. Hell, for all I know right now, he could be as stupid as he comes off as. Oh, I have my doubts on that; I think he was playing the fool, wearing it like a mask, but I had nothing to prove that theory.

I picked up the folders and walked over to the small safe they had installed in my wall. Opening it, I slid them in and locked it. I didn’t want someone like Golden or Cort to see the kind of pictures and reports I had just viewed. Better to keep the nightmares to myself than to spread them around. Just as I spun the lock a knock came at the door and it opened.

Cort leaned in and looked at me, then lowered his ears, “That bad?”

I could tell Golden told him the reports came in. I gave a nod of my head, “You don’t want to read them Cort, trust me, alright?”

He nodded and came in, using his hind leg to shut the door. “Ya ok, buddy?” Not LT, not Shane; Buddy. I knew this was Cortland Apple, my friend talking, not my partner.

I shook my head, “I ain’t, not at all. I just don’t even know where to start,” I said as I sat down in my chair, he walked over and sat down next to me on the floor, kind of close to head height with me in the chair.

“Ya need to get away from it fer a bit? How about Ah go talk to Rich ‘n you go home and see Jackie?”

I glanced at him then exhaled, “Yeah, I could use a few hours away from,” I gestured to the safe.

His hoof came up and touched my arm, he looked right into my eyes, “Job sucks, don’t let it drag ya down, buddy. Ah got yer back through thick and thin.”

I gave him a nod and grunted my understanding while lifting my fist, he touched his hoof to it. “Same, Cort.”

That was about as close as guys like us could come to saying we loved each other, that we were brothers. Sometimes, being a guy isn’t as easy as folks think it was.

---

The next three weeks were kind of a wild ride between the official opening of Fluttershy’s sanctuary and last week. Spike had two folks visit, and I got to meet them both once all the stupidity boiled over.

Meeting King Thorax was pretty cool really. He and I had talked quite a bit, he’s a really nice bug… stallion? Whatever you call his kind. He’s very soft spoken, but I could see the confidence building in him, almost like a more technicolor version of Fluttershy, when you got down to it.

He had tons of questions for me in return, so we ended up spending the whole next day talking over a meal and some tea. Of course, Purple Book Pony was there, writing every word down. I even saw the changeling roll his eyes a few times, but it was all in good fun.

I had asked for, and gained permission to patrol the border along his land and ours. He had hinted at wanting to see the rangers patrol the Badlands, but I explained that was way above my pay grade, and we were understaffed for such a task. In turn, I had expressed a desire to meet a few other changelings. Who knows, perhaps some of them would want to learn more about law enforcement.

That was one of the guests.

Ember had been a bit of a surprise, too. While gruff and very blunt, she turned out to be a very open minded dragon and we fast agreed the border between the dragon lands and Equestria should be patrolled. Like King Thorax, she had expressed a desire to allow the Rangers past their borders, in the line of duty. I let her know that was something she and Celestia needed to hammer out, though.

Right now, however, I was off and all alone. After meeting with dignitaries and dealing with my anger at not being able to find the escapees, I had taken a bit of a mental holiday. Jackie was taking the girls camping and Big Mac was going to Our Town to see his girlfriend, marefriend?

Cort and Golden were out on a date, so that left me alone.

Right now, I was sitting on a log on a hill outside of town, just looking out across the Whitetail woods and some of the rolling hills beyond. I had a campfire burning low; it was a warm night, summer was coming soon. For once, I was not drinking to excess, just enough to enjoy and let me ponder all the things I had to ponder.

I feel a presence next to me, but it wasn’t a threat, so I didn’t need to spin and look. Rather, I just held out the small bottle of Apple Whisky with my hand. I don’t know why I was not surprised, nor upset, I just kind of felt there was no threat deep in my gut. The creature took the bottle and finally spoke up.

“I see now, why you come up here to sit and think. While it is not my prefered way, I can see the allure.”

I glanced over at the amalgamation of many creatures sitting next to me. He was dressed in, well that made me blink, because he looks like Marty McFly, right out of Back to the Future. I shook my head and chuckled, looking back to the fire.

“Only the second time you’ve come to speak to me, I was wondering if I had offended you in some way.”

I heard him snort, then pause before speaking, “Offend no, I am, after all, Discord! However, you are... how to put this, hard to be around. Think of you and I like Magnets, you can’t just mash the poles together.”

I pondered that and glanced over, and up, at the taller male. He uncorked the bottle and took a sip. A part of me was expecting some kind of theatrics, but he just exhaled and stuffed the cork back in, offering it to me with his lion paw. I took it from him and set it on the grass along the log.

“So, what brings you up here?”

He was silent for a time, then spoke in a more serious tone than his usual. “I wanted to say something that I don’t wish others to hear me say to you,” he paused to look around, “you listened to me, you took my advice, why?! Others don’t listen to me…”

Discord being deep and philosophical, now that was something I had not expected. I gave a bit of a push on the edge of my hat to nudge it up and clear my view. Reaching down and picking up the bottle, I uncorked it, not minding a bit that a dragonish creature had his lips on it before. I took a good tug on it and recorked it before answering him.

“Honest truth? Because you were right, because a lot of people were right. I guess your words just sank in a bit deeper because they were not asked for, just given as a matter of fact. You didn’t try to judge me or push your thoughts on me. You gave me something to chew on, and left me alone to it.”

He hummed and taped his chin with his clawed hand as he looked into the fire. “Thank you for being honest with me and up front. You know, you remind me of someone quite a bit; my brother, Law. He and you would get along quite well in fact.” He didn’t continue and I didn’t feel the need to dig, so we both just sat there, quietly.

It was him that spoke next, “For what it is worth hu… Shane,” holy crap, he called me by my name and not human or semi-evolved monkey, “you seem to be a good thing for the ponies.”

Well, having the God of Chaos telling me his feelings; this is both a cool and really weird moment for me. He, of course, had to ruin it; but that’s him. I glanced over to find he had changed outfits, now in one that looked a lot like Doc Brown’s outfit from the same movie series.

“Now, I must go, back... to the future!” And with that, he’s gone, leaving twin streaks of fire into the sky. ‘Why me?’

---

“Say what, again?”

Jackie, who was currently laying in my arms in bed, laughed softly. She just got home an hour ago from the camping trip and was telling me all about it.

“Fly-ders, a hole swarm ‘f’m, dun ruined the camp and everything, we still managed to have us a good time campin’ in a cave.”

I felt myself shudder, “Remind me to figure out how to create bug spray here.”

She blinked at me, “What?”

I shook my head, “Nothing, just one of the inventions that would really not go over well here.” I chuckled and rolled so I was facing her, chest to chest. Jackie continued to tell me all about the trip that she, Dash and Rarity had taken the crusaders on. As she did, she brushed her hoof on my chest, sneaking kisses on my lips when she could.

I reached over as her story ended to shut the light next to the bed off, and in the dark pulled my girl close. She whispered to me, “Ah missed feeling you sleeping next ta me.”

I gave her a kiss on the neck, “I missed you too Jackie.”

It’s her turn to smirk, I can see it in the moonlight streaming in from the window as she looked at me. “Ah can feel that.” as she shifted one of her legs so it brushed other bits of me. I coughed and she tugged me down into a kiss; a deep kiss that led to quite the night.