“It's not been long Fireflash, but here you are, back again.”

In the time between his last visit, which was only yesterday but had felt like an eternity. Fireflash had been thinking of the words that warden Lethal Force had left rattling around his brain.

“You’re not a tough nut to crack.”

The young but hot headed pony had at least wanted to give her a bit of a run for her money, so today, any sort of cooperation was out the window. How long he’d last though, he wasn’t sure.

“So we finally pulled security footage from buildings across the road and also some from departing and arriving ships that happened to be flying overhead, as well as some drones. All seems to corroborate what little you told me yesterday…” the warden said, she was sitting leaning back in her chair over the other side of her desk toying with a small hoof mounted device that was showing her footage back and forth. Fireflash could only see it from a reverse angle but that was him, vanishing into the branch of Blubber King. The warden replayed it a few times for her own amusement before turning it off and giving him a rather stern look.

“So it seems you were telling the truth.” Lethal Force gave a small smile and turned the screen back on, this time turning it towards Fireflash and replaying the two seconds of footage where he vanished into the building over and over for him to look at. “Rather ungraceful, but for a blob like you, I doubt you could do anything gracefully except maybe eat.” she said with no hint of irony in her voice. She fiddled with a few more buttons, now on the display was his accomplices, just showing head shots of them on each of the screen. “We picked them up not long ago. They weren’t too hard to track down, despite the disguises.” she said, her hooves fiddling again to wipe them from the screen, finally showing the large, fat face of Striving Step. Lethal Force smiled as she watched Fireflash noticeably flinch a little as soon as his face appeared.

“All him hmm?” was all she asked.

Apart from the initial shock Fireflash showed no signs of confirming or denying either way. He was still determined not to crack under the pressure.

“I can’t get you out of the mess Fireflash, you did a very bad thing. But if the bad thing was directed by somepony even badder well...you might get a little bit of your life back for helping us out. I just need confirmation from you that this whole thing was put together and orchestrated by this lardy mountain of a pony.” The warden said, gently moving the device from side to side. Fireflash said nothing.

“Oh come on, don’t tell me a pony like you who loves opening his mouth to eat won’t use it to just say one simple word. I just need some confirmation. A yes will do.” Lethal Force said, she could see he was starting to waver. Perhaps a little persuasion. She always found a reward was better than punishment.

“I can offer food…”

“F-food?” for the first time since entering the room, Fireflash finally spoke up. It was true he wanted to keep himself from cracking to this mare, who seemed to be relishing her power. But he was so hungry, he had eaten only scant meals since he arrived. Prison food was terrible. “Better food than you’ve been giving me?” he asked, hopeful.

“Much better, I know a porker like you wants something a bit better than the rest of your cell mates get. I can promise you a few nice meals a day, maybe more if you’re helpful. You’ve already been so useful…” the mare carried on, her voice was turning from a stern to a more inviting tone. It was so hard to resist.

“W-what do you want?” he asked.

“Just a yes to my question, is this the pony responsible for what you did? Did he put you up to this? Was the whole heist financed and orchestrated by this stallion?” she asked, displaying the face of Striving Step on the hoof mounted display she had again.

There was a moment of silence for Fireflash as he mentally weighed up a lifetime in prison with terrible food, or a reduced sentence with something palatable, and also wondering why he’d even help the pad company anymore. The deal they had now was clearly off, there was no way he was going to get anything else out of them, despite the threats he had gotten as well as what he had made towards them.

“Yes.”

Lethal Force smiled, switching the display off and tapping another button to turn on a communicator.

“You got that?”

“Clear as day” came a voice from the other end.

“Good, I’ll finish up with the prison and be out in a moment.” the warden replied, shutting it off once more. The smile was still on her face. The tone however went back to stoic and cold.

“I’ll see about your food shortly and what we can do about reducing your sentence, for now you’ll be back in your cell until I’ve sorted it out. I can’t promise you’ll be out soon, but you’ll have an easier time of it.” she said, getting up and turning to make her way out the door behind her. “Not a tough nut to crack at all…” she said, watching as the defeated, but slightly relieved Fireflash was once again returned to his cell in the prison complex.

Now that she had what she needed, waddling her way out Lethal Force met with one of her staff on the other side.

“Plan of action ma’am?” a younger stallion asked.

“We get the warrant we need, and we hit them hard. We’ve got the confession, that’s plenty enough evidence to finally put Striving Step in his place. He’s been so careful for years. But now he’s slipped up and we’ve got plenty of ponies here behind bars who will put him behind some himself.” she said, making her way with the stallion to her office, a short trip from the interrogation room. “I’ll be overseeing this one personally, Striving Step has been on my list for a long, long time. It’s personal.” she said, sitting herself down at the desk and immediately accessing the necessary files she needed. “Go and tell the Rollup Division we’ll be needing some of their heftiest ponies. The pad company headquarters is built like a fortress and we’ll need some serious force to break our way in and arrest him, even if he’s not there. Wherever he is, I’m sure he’ll be in a well fortified place. We’ll track him down. I doubt he’s left the colony, it’s not his style.” she said.

“Of course ma’am.” the stallion said, disappearing, leaving Lethal Force alone.

She sat for a moment, looking at her display of his record again. Surprisingly clean for such an unscrupulous business owner. Oh she knew it was dirtier than it appeared, but whatever Striving Step had done over the years that would have sullied it, money had made it vanish. The previous warden was soft and so was the head of police. Colonies were always like this in their younger days, almost like a frontier. Ponies could get away with quite a lot when they were starting up. It would be rather satisfying to see the hefty, round ponies of Rollup Division breaking down his little empire. Or at least, breaking into his his walls, she was sure their size would be plenty. It was what they were for after all, specially fattened and trained ponies used as living battering rams. She didn’t like it but even Lethal Force had to admit sometimes being bigger had its advantages.

She had to admit the pad company was not something that looked completely out of place, in fact being the only one on the whole colony she was amazed it had never faced rivals from startups on the colony itself or from other suppliers offworld, every colony had its fatties and they had to get around somehow. Of course Equestria had the mount famous companies and makers, but even there they had multiple firms. How Striving Step had kept a monopoly on Sleipnir for so long well...that was what all that money did.

She was sure as well there had been some sort of back alley shenanigans to quash other firms or competitors moving in. A few times she had heard of new companies forming only for them to go quiet extremely quickly. Sometimes shortly after as well the firm would announce some new feature or design change that was incorporated into their line. No doubt appropriated from these new but now crushed firms. They probably took any research they had done themselves. Lethal Force could only ponder though, she had nothing hard and it was all hearsay and rumours. Well, she had nothing hard up until now.

But this time he had gone too far, no amount of money would get rid of what the stallion was involved in this time. After all these years Lethal Force had him, finally she had it.

A chance for revenge.