“It’s WHERE?”

Lethal Force was far from pleased.

“Equestria ma’am, that’s what my message said?” a rather confused member of her staff looked up at her with a slight amount of panic on their face.

“But the ship only left a month ago!? How did he get so far away so fast?” she queried. “And of all the places, he went to the homeworld!? If anything that’s the worst spot to escape to! I mean it’s practically like WALKING into a jail! He’d had been arrested as soon as his fat ass hovered his pad out the ship. Unless…”

The prison ponies mind began to run through the possible scenarios. There was only one really which made any sense with the ship having an error code in its bound destination.

“I’ll be in my office on a private call, make sure nopony disturbs me.” Lethal Force said calmly, retreating to her private workspace and setting up a conference call. Striving Step clearly had some contacts on the blubberiest planet in the cosmos. First though she needed some verification.

At her desk a screen came to life and she entered the necessary commands to connect her to Equestria’s own police department. Lethal Force wondered who she’d speak to this time, the Equestria P.D. was so huge often she spoke to a new chubby face every time she had to contact somepony. Each time it was a pony of immense proportions, she’d only be able to tell their true size if she could see all of them which she never could.

When she finally did get a connection to a pony higher up the ranks it was as she expected, a pony she had never spoken to before greeted her. Just as impossibly obese as the previous ones she wondered how any of them ever actually got any work done.

“Lethal Force?” a heavily laboured response came through the screen.

“Yes, who am I talking to?” she asked.

“Roll Call. I’ve been here only a few months. My predecessor got too big for his post.” the stallion replied. He didn’t seem to be too far off it either. Perhaps that was why it was a different pony each time. Lethal Force just mentally shrugged it off and continued with her enquiries.

“I’ve been trying to track down a suspect that fled our colony not long ago. He’s wanted on multiple counts, I’ve transferred the charges across. Obviously now he’s out of my jurisdiction but I was hoping we’d be able to bring him to justice.” she explained. “He’s um, a bit of a white whale of mine.”

“Well I think we’re all whales here, except you - your colony not feeding you enough?” the massive pony on the other end of the call joked causing Lethal Force to frown a little as his multiple chins shook in delight. When he was done he carried on.

“Well in any case. I know of the pony you’re after. But I’m afraid there is little we can do.”

It was the answer she had expected, but she wanted to know. “Why?” was the next question.

“Well your stallion has gotten our attention as well, but not for the warrants out on him. I think his plan since getting here was using whatever funds he amassed on Sleipnir to make himself unmovable.”

Lethal Force groaned. The company funds had been drained before the police had managed to lock them down, it figured.

“Unmovable, how? He’s barricaded himself in a fortress all his money can buy? He used it to get alibi’s from contacts?” she asked.

“Um no.” came the frank response. “I think you misunderstand. Quite literally unmovable. I don’t think you’d recognise him now Lethal Force. Within days he had bought up a chunk of land and as much food as he could, even going as far as to contact local farms near to where his land is situated and have them deliver straight to him. Clearly his ill gotten gains from the pad company he ran I’ve read up about have been put to use. How much did he weigh before he left the colony?” Roll Call asked.

“What does that have to do with anything? He ran the pad company. Like anypony he was large. At a guess I’d have to say he was four of five thousand pounds. Maybe a bit more.”

“Well since arriving on equestria you can add a few zero’s to those figures. He takes up a fair bit of his land now and maybe more, he’s actually become a bit of the envy of the Equestrian’s he borders on here spending day and night doing nothing but eating. We estimate in the short time he’s been on Equestria he’s somewhere between forty to fifty thousand now and growing all the time. Even if we could get to him, extract him and get him back to Sleipnir he’s going to be far too big to move.” came the reply. “He’s the epitome of an Equestrian blob pony and only getting lardier by the minute.”

Lethal Force sighed heavily. That was that then. There was a small satisfaction in knowing that Striving Step would never cross her desk again, it was case closed. There was also satisfaction in knowing he’d had to fatten himself up to such a degree to avoid capture. However it was unsatisfying that he was likely enjoying himself all the while, the giant blob of a stallion never getting the justice she knew he deserved.

“Thank you, I’ll close the case. There is little we can do.” the mare dejectedly replied.

“I know it’s not what you hoped for, but he’ll be observed by us here. We can only see if he slips up on Equestria and put him to justice if he does, like you said earlier he’s now out of your jurisdiction. By the time the charges he had gathered on Sleipnir came through to us he’d already bought the land and started gaining. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it. Now…” the voice of Roll Call was becoming even more heavily laboured than when the call started. “If you’ll excuse me I need my hourly feeding session. I have a mass to maintain.” and with that, the screen clicked off.

It was a somewhat un-satisfying end to case, Lethal Force had been hoping for more. Perhaps some day they might bring Striving Step to justice...or he might get so big and fat he just dies suffocating in his own blubber on the homeworld. Either would satisfy the Warden.

For now, she marked the case as closed in her files and made a mental note to write up a report later explaining why it could go no further. Her attention now needed to be turned to other things.