Winona Leads the Way
Dan's Comments
DISCLAIMER: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc.

Applejack wasn't happy that she'd been sent away from her farm to check on the alicorn she and Pinkie had seen. That Winona had jumped onto the train after her had caused a bit of consternation, Applejack had never seen Winona act like that before.

Maybe his special powers are dealing with dogs, Applejack thought as she noted that Pinkie was staring out the train's windows, instead of talking a mile a minute about throwing the alicorn a party, or finish the party she'd been warming up to throw when he vamoosed. Normally, she left Pinkie to be Pinkie, as any sane mare would, but a quiet Pinkie just seemed wrong on so many levels. "You okay in there?" Applejack asked, and braced for any reaction from a word-salad storm, to her head rotating all the way around. The soft sigh was far more frightening that the spinning head.

"Was it the offer of the party, or calling him an alicorn that he said was so insulting?" Pinkie said and sighed again, "Or was it both?"

This was not Applejack's field, applying common sense to Pinkie's moods was always problematic to hazardous. "Considering the varmints we've been saddled with -"

"Almost saddled by," Pinkie added.

"Yep, he coulda taken that as us calling him one of those galoots," Applejack said, then frowned, "And I'll apologize to him when we catch up ta him. What I can't figure is why he led Winona out of the Everfree. If'n he was one of them polecats, why do somethin' nice, and not take advantage of it?"

"You suppose he really is nice?" Pinkie asked, turning to look at Applejack.

"I'd rather bet he's a dragon in disguise," Applejack said, and she and Pinkie shared a laugh about that.

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Posey had never heard of Prance-Neighponese cuisine. It was a lot of noodles made from various exotic ingredients, so a simple noodle salad was a symphony of tastes. The place itself looked like it had been the living room of somepony's house, converted to seat patrons. It would never grace a foodie magazine, but it was still a wonderful experience. "What made you think my name was Squeaky?" she asked of the offhoof comment by her colt friend.

He smiled and paid the waiter, giving a generous tip. "Oh well, perhaps I should explain it."

"Yes," she said.

"Your apartment I think, the health inspector wouldn't like it in a bakery, and demonstrating on this table might get us thrown out of the restaurant." He paused to let the implication sink in, and her to blush crimson. "And before you threaten me into silence, your colleagues already know. It was an interrogation room after all."

Only his gentle kiss on the forehead kept her from curling up and crawling for the door in embarrassment.

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Applejack let Winona lead them, she seemed to know where she was going in this chaotic, crowded and overly loud city. She would dash ahead, then wait for Pinkie and Applejack to catch up, then happily bark and race ahead, sniffing the air, sniffing the ground, and drawn inexorably towards whatever her goal was. "I hope she's got a better idea of how to find that alicorn than I do," Applejack muttered. She glanced at Pinkie who was acting a little Pinkier, but was acting more like Mayor Mare or Celestia than Pinkie Pie.

Too serious, Applejack thought, But no twitches or hair signals, so it's not Pinkie sense. She discarded the idea and continued letting Winona lead them. "Ya'all have any guesses why them varmints are all coming after Ponyville. I know Rarity's a looker, but ah'm as dull as dishwater, and they were comin' after me too."

"Element Bearers," Pinkie said, and kept walking, "That's part of what's bothering me. Why the Element Bearers and not Luna or Cadence who are stronger than we are?"

"They hate harmony?" Applejack offered, "It's all I kin think of."

"Or is it they want more harmonious ponies," Pinkie said, "What if they are Element Bearers, just really different elements."

"From the way some of them talked, about us, and what we were going ta do, I can imagine it ain't Harmony them all are the Bearers of," Applejack said as Winona stopped in front of an apartment building and stared at it.

"This place looks way too working class to be where one of those varmints would hole up," Applejack said.

"Maybe that black one would hide where no one would expect to find him," Pinkie said.

Applejack waited for the 'hide and seek' reference, and was a little worried it never came. "So, walk on in and start nosing around?" Applejack asked, "We are supposed to find him."

"Yeah," Pinkie said quietly, "I just wonder, if he's like Cranky, not hurting anypony, and just wants to be left alone. I was able to get Cranky to be my friend by finding his old flame. But, it's like that alicorn wasn't there. There was no him, despite him standing there. Everybody wants friends, because they complete you. He seemed, a little too complete, if you take my meaning. He didn't need friends or anything else. It was sad, and a little frightening at the same time."

"Isn't that how Celestia is?" Applejack asked.

"No, she needed Luna, and she wanted friends," Pinkie said and waved her hooves vaguely, "This is like, I don't know, imagine Nightmare Moon, who just wanted to stand around and watch. Not do anything, not even be recognized as Nightmare Moon." Pinkie frowned. "Sorry for not making any sense, but it doesn't make sense to me. Some ponies say they don't want friends, because they've been hurt by friends. But I can't wrap my head around something not actually needing friends. Even Opal likes Rarity, although if she could talk she'd deny it. But him, the more I've thought about it, the more I understand he doesn't need friendship." Pinkie looked at Applejack. "How is that even possible?"

"I think you hit the nail on the head, and passed it right by," Applejack said as she opened the door for Winona, "He don't need'em, but by running off when he thought we might see him as one of those bad alicorns, he might still want'em."

Pinkie's face screwed up in confusion as she followed Applejack and a frantically sniffing Winona.

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"That's why I call you 'Squeaky'," he said as he snuggled close and let her wrap herself around him.

She felt utterly spent, and so strong she could race to the Canterhorn and back between heartbeats. A small part of her mind that was ever and always a cop kept asking what his angle was. A stallion like him could have any mare he wanted, why settle for her.

"And I enjoy making you squeak."

Her inner, hard-boiled cop quadruple facehooved and started banging her head on the wall. She felt him moving her tail out of the way.

"More squeakies," he said as that tongue and those incredibly nimble teeth began promising things that the very gods would envy.

But her inner cop had a point, for a different reason. "Cheddar Cheese," she said and he stopped, looking a little confused.

"I've got to be able to walk my beat in three hours and you open your store in two," she said gathering him in to snuggle against her, which she enjoyed almost as much as he did. For a while she was quiescent, her cop accepting that she wasn't bad looking, and a friendly cop would be a good defense against a magistrate looking for the return of 'her' stallion. Or maybe the funny noises really do amuse him, she thought and had her inner cop banging out the Anvil Chorus with her head. The one nagging thing she had to ask, was why he didn't want reciprocation. He was well favored, and although well past high school, where every stallion wanted mares, he hadn't even tried. Focusing on her pleasure and ignoring his own. She lay there luxuriating in the feeling, but uncertain how to broach the subject without an absolute avalanche of other problems. She decided to let the softness of the fur, and the firmness of the body beneath it silence all her questions while she dozed in his arms.

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Winona stopped in front of a door, and seemed to lose her noisy enthusiasm, in fact she had no problem with Applejack clipping the leash on her. Pinkie seemed to be twitching, and so Applejack waited til it was over. "Do we knock?" Applejack asked, it was early evening, and the idea that they could be asleep had occurred and was rejected.

"No," Pinkie said quietly, "We wait outside and watch. There's something, it's not a doozy, but it's important, and something will fall on us if we go through that door."

Applejack accepted and she led the more quiescent Winona back down the hall to the elevator they'd used earlier. "This is getting really strange," she admitted.

"How do you think I feel?" Pinkie said, "I'm just glad that they tried that trick with Celestia first. The poor Cakes would have had a heart attack if that would have happened to me."

"Why ya'all think they got - " she glanced around to ensure they were alone before continuing, "The belief that they're entitled ta us?"

Pinkie shrugged and waited until they got into the empty elevator to answer. "They're all crazy?" Pinkie offered and Applejack had to agree.

She looked at her two companions on this 'quest' and thought, The one they we're chasing wasn't anything like the dozens who'd been showing up in Ponyville over the last months. We might be poking a hornets' nest with a real short stick. She looked at Winona, and considered how to make that stick a lot longer, and more precise.

"Let's get some food and then we can think about what to do next," Applejack suggested, "If this place is like Manehatten there should be something good close enough to watch the buildin'."

Pinkie nodded as they left the elevator and headed toward the building's exit.

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Winona 'alerted' at a black Earth pony who walked down the street out of the apartment building. Pinkie saw that while he was courteous and deferential, it was because he chose to act that way, it seemed to be a party game he was playing, the real him might have been as majestic and commanding as Celestia. Pinkie put on her deerstalker's cap, and headed after him. "He already knows we're here," he told Applejack over her shoulder, and followed him into . . . a doughnut shop. "Impossible," Pinkie breathed as she galloped up and plastered her face on the window. It was beautiful! So organized, and clean, it served coffee, which was a detraction, and it was mainly open at night, but that made sense in a big city. She wiped the window where her breath had fogged it and stared more. Even Applejack tugging at her tail couldn't dislodge her, until the stallion came out, turned her head slightly and broke the suction. Unfortunately Applejack had been quite a distance away so when Pinkie went flying, she took Applejack with, and the two were a few blocks away after several moments.

"I hope those trash cans were that dented before we got here," she commented as she tried to pry Applejack out of another one.

Applejack stared at her woozily. "Granny, there's no school today, it's Sunday."

Winona had approached, but stopped a considerable distance away and seemed to be shying at every breeze that put her down wind.

"Yeah, a bath is a good idea," she admitted, "We should have gotten a place to stay first. We're never gonna get one now."

"Police station," Applejack said, and stared at Pinkie as if trying to force multiple images back into one, "We are working for Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, ya know?"

Pinkie started to facehoof, looked at what was on that hoof and just shrugged. "Yeah, maybe they can call the fire department and have them hose us off. I mean who mixes banana peels and nitroguanidine?"

"The Las Pegasus Alchemic Buereau?" Applejack said.

"Yeah, that'd be one group? How'd you figure that out?" Pinkie asked.

Applejack did an almost face hoof, curled her lip at what was glowing on her hoof, and pointed at the battered sign reading 'Las Pegasus Alchemic Buereau, visitors welcome, solicitors will be experimented upon, grammar nazis will be fed to the glockenspiel'.

"Woo-ow, we have to call Fluttershy! They've been able to keep a glockenspiel in captivity! That's amazing. You see, they almost died out, ponies kept using their rib cages as musical instruments, like the poor A' Phìob Mhòr , hunted to death for their pelts to make bagpipes." Pinkie shut then covered her mouth at the threat of Applejack inserting her hoof in it. "Shutting up now."

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Finding Princess Cadence and a few Crystal Guards already at the local police station was a surprise, but why she was there made sense. "They were investigating Tirek," Cadence said as she helped wash Pinkie and Applejack clean off. The clip on her nose made her sound funny. The Crystal Pony who collected the foul-smelling goop had muttered something about harmless riot control, before descending into full blown 'Twilight (or Rainbow) with a new book' mode, making her immune to the smell.

"The pony who defeated him, my team interviewed and all of the victims saw weird visions when they were drained, so the sighting we have of the black alicorn was probably induced by that pony seeing a wanted poster of the black alicorn."

"So we're back to square one," Pinkie said.

"We still have Winona," Applejack said, "She seems bound and determined to take the critter down."

"Do you have any idea why?" Cadence asked.

"He led her out of the Everfree, gratitude maybe, or maybe he smells right," Applejack said as she rinsed off and smelled like a pony again, "I wish I could ask."

"Maybe Twilight's machines could, shutting up now," Pinkie said.

"I was thinkin' Fluttershy, " Applejack said, "But after what happened to Celestia, she's hidin' out with some of her animal friends. The big ones, with lots of teeth."

"She'll be safe in her cottage soon," Cadence said, "Luna hunted down the last of the elves hiding in pony dreams and spying on us. With luck, they won't even be able to find Equestria, let alone Ponyville."

"That sounds a bit too much like Twi's 'brilliant' plan with the Parasprites," Applejack said, "Sure it lets us rest, but who besides us or the Princesses can deal with those things?"

Cadence gulped, but nodded. "Let's hope that we have other means to deal with them. Or that they'll just want to get to Canterlot or Ponyville." She saw neither of the others were buying it. "Applejack, Pinkie Pie we haven't figured out why they are coming here, the explanations are either ludicrous, gibberish, or both. It's as if they don't fully understand themselves. But one thing they do make clear, we aren't real to them. That's the dictionary definition of a psychopath. They don't see others as real 'people'. Tirek saw ponies as an energy source and something to rule over. He at least gave them value. For most of these alicorns, ponies are toys for foals, and they are almost without exception foals in all but name and power. Twilight hasn't shared this with you, because we didn't share it with her, until just recently. Initially, we didn't know, then we didn't believe it. But an ally who gave Luna a new spell to use on them, we were able to drive one into enough of a state that we were finally able to talk to it. Although it seems once they actually realize that we are people, they sort of collapsed inside. So we sent that one home before he could really give us all the information we need."

"Seems a might ways cruel," Applejack said.

"They'll survive, he used it on Luna first." Cadence ignored the gaps. "She said 'once you're through it, it is actually very insightful.' Although Luna didn't want to talk about what those insights were, nor did she recommend being subjected to the spell without a fair amount of alcohol or something similar to hoof."

"Sounds like somethin' ta avoid," Applejack said.

"I think the alicorn who broke into Celestia's bedchambers while she was napping would agree with you wholeheartedly," Cadence said, "Although Luna didn't give him anything to deaden the pain."

"Yay Luna," Pinkie said, "But what about the black alicorn? The one we were sent to investigate?"

"All we know is there was a report of him being seen, but it was from one of Tirek's victims being attacked. So it's hardly credible, even the witness said that. Oh, Sergeant Posey Blossom!" Cadence hailed the Guard who'd wandered into sight.

She was one of those mares who aside from a few curves and a rounder face, would have been a striking stallion. In both the attraction and the punching meaning. She looked like she could have hoof-wrestled Big Mac and lost only after he really exerted himself. She was also had the aura of a mare who really enjoyed her coltfriend. Cadence grinned to Applejack and Pinkie before returning to 'princess mode'.

"Princess Cadence, I was told to expect you and, oh you must be Applejack and Pinkie Pie, I've read quite a bit about you." She patted Winona on the head, and accepted the answering lick. "I should introduce you to Don, he was just joking about nearly being named 'Bloodhound' due to his sense of smell." Winona wagged her tail at Posey.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to limit my questions to your encounter with Tirek," Cadence said.

Pinkie waved and began moving off. "Glad to have met you," Pinkie said.