"Shit! Shit! Crap! Damnit!"

Velocity continued to cycle through profanities as she fumbled with a roll of paper towels that proved laughably inadequate against the spreading liquid. Maybe she could at least form some kind of dam to keep it from reaching the carpet? Ugh! It was warm and sticky and getting all over her hooves! If she wasn't careful, she'd end up spreading it everywhere. How was she gonna get this all cleaned up in time on her own?!

Velocity made her way to the back yard, the same way she did every morning once Mark left for work. She paced with typical impatience by the chain link fence that bordered the neighbor's property, flicking her rainbow tail at each turn as she waited for her friend to come out. After five painful minutes, she finally saw the backdoor slide open and a butter yellow pegasus with a pink mane step out into the yard.

"Morning, Holly!" Velocity called out.

"Good morning, V" her friend smiled back at her.

With greetings out of the way, they got down to the usual business of idle chit chat and passing the time while their respective owners were out. The two had been friends for nearly as long as either could remember. Having both been purchased and rapidly grown to maturity around the same time, Velocity had met Holly within a week of first being let out into the back yard. Being so familiar with the sight of her also made it hard to ignore certain out of place features, such as when Holly leaned down to move one of her rocks in their dirt drawn checkers game and her mane slid aside to reveal several discolored marks along her neck.

"Hey, what's that?"

"What?" Holly's head popped up in surprise.

"Those marks on your neck. Where'd they come from?"

"Oh! The–They're nothing! Just some, uh, bug bites. That's all."

"Bug bites?"

"Yeah."

Velocity gave a long exasperated sigh.

"Holly, do you think I'm an idiot?"

"What?"

"Look, I may not be the brightest pony out there, but there's only so many times even I will buy that you got a black eye or a split lip from flying full speed into a door without looking. I know those are bruises, not bug bites. And they look a lot like fingers. What, he decided to mix up the beating with a little choking now?"

Panic flashed across Holly's face. "It-It's not like that! Really! I-I mean...yeah, he's been a bit more...forceful recently, but Tyler's just been really stressed out lately, what with things at work, he just gets a bit carried away sometimes. And really, it's my fault. If I was just a better companion for him, then he wouldn't need to—"

"Stop it! Stop making excuses for that jerk! It's appalling the way he treats you! Humans are supposed to love their ponies, not brutalize them!"

"He DOES love me. He just has his own ways of showing it. And he gives me plenty of...uh...affection, even if it is a bit on the rough side."

"AAGGH!" Velocity shook her head in disgust. "I DON'T need that in my head!"

"Look! He may not be perfect, but I love him! If a few minor bruises here and there are what it takes to alleviate some of his frustration, then that’s a price I’ll gladly pay. So please, just drop it.”

Before Velocity could say anything in reply, the sound of a car pulling into a driveway marked the end of their time together for the day. She watched Holly trot back inside to greet her jerk of an owner before heading back in herself. She stewed for another fifteen minutes until she heard Mark’s car pulling up and the rattle of a key in the door lock, chasing away some of the gloom from her thoughts.

Even through the joy of Mark’s presence, the conversation from earlier still stuck in her mind like a chip fragment painfully wedged between teeth. That was why, after swallowing another mouthful of cheese covered broccoli, she decided to finally voice her concerns.

“I’m worried about Holly.”

“Huh?” Mark paused, his own cheesy morsel suspended midair on the end of his fork.

“You know, the neighbor’s Fluttershy model?”

“Oh, yeah. What about her?”

“She keeps showing up with all these injuries and...I think Tyler’s been hurting her.”

“What? Really? You’re sure?”

“Yeah, pretty sure.”

“Maybe it was an accident?”

“No, it’s been happening a lot. And I tried talking to her, but she just kept making excuses for him, of course she did! But it’s not right! Somebody needs to do something!”

Mark shifted in his seat, quite visibly uncomfortable with the topic.

“Uhh, well, I mean...Hassenfeld ponies are supposed to have that subconscious distress signal thing, right? The instructions mentioned there being a lot of leeway for...uh...disciplining ponies, but if things go too far, there’s supposed to be some kind of alert sent out. I’m sure if it was really that bad, they’d send somebody out to take care of it, right?”

“I...guess you’re right.” Velocity nodded in agreement.

She saw him visibly relax and continue eating his dinner. She wasn’t entirely convinced, but it was clear Mark really didn’t want to continue this line of conversation. That wasn’t a surprise. Nobody wanted to talk about such a thing. The idea of an owner actually mistreating their Hassenfeld beyond a little light BDSM play was practically unthinkable to most. Nobody wanted to consider the topic enough to even seek clarification on the details of what ‘too far’ meant. What exactly was the threshold for triggering this supposed distress signal? Was it set off by a sufficient level of fear? Physical damage? Did there need to be broken bones or internal bleeding first? And what happened after that? Who came out and actually dealt with it? Did they issue a warning? Send someone to take the pony away somewhere? And what if the pony didn’t WANT to leave, because of course they wouldn’t with their imprinted bond still active. They’d fight tooth and hoof to stay with the asshole, spouting the same excuses Holly had earlier that day.

Hardly anyone actually knew how the whole process unfolded, aside from what little was mentioned in the initial list of instructions. It might just be that such situations were incredibly rare, but hell, for all she knew it was all a lie and there was no signal, or nobody to pick it up. Just an empty reassurance to customers that ‘systems’ were in place to stop anything bad from happening. Whether that little conspiracy theory was true or not, the truth remained that the acceptable tolerance was too damn high if it wasn’t enough to cause somebody to actually step in and do something by this point. Try as she might to enjoy the rest of the evening, she couldn’t get the thought out of her head.

Somebody needs to DO SOMETHING!

The image of the bruises on Holly’s neck endured behind her eyelids as she tossed and turned on her bed.

Velocity paced irritably by the chain link fence. Holly was late. She should have been out here ages ago! It was past noon already! Finally, she saw the door slide open.

“There you are! What’s the hold up?! I’ve been out here for hours!”

“Sorry, sorry.” She replied in an even quieter voice than usual, glancing quickly back at the house as if it might explode at too loud a volume. “Tyler’s still home today. He...he got fired yesterday, and he’s really taking it hard.”

Something seemed odd about the way she approached the fence. It took a few seconds to put the pieces together, but Velocity eventually realized what it was. Holly was being awfully careful to keep only her right side facing the fence, and her left side out of view. Velocity scowled and lowered her voice to a growl.

“Holly, show me your other side.”

“I-It’s nothing, really.”

“Holly! Show me right now, or I swear to god I will jump this fence, grab you, and look for myself.”

Holly shot another glance at the house, bit her lip, and slowly turned. Velocity couldn’t help the shocked gasp that escaped her lips. There was a collection of bruises and what might have been cigarette burns scattered haphazardly across her body like droplets of paint across the canvass of some piece of modern art, but that was all secondary background to the sight of her wing, bent in ways pegasus wings were not meant to bend. Dislocated at the very least, quite probably broken in multiple places. The only word to describe it was mangled. As if someone had grabbed it and just started...twisting.

Velocity grit her teeth, shaking with fury. It was a minute before she was calm enough to speak.

“Come over. I’ll carry you over the fence and you can stay inside with me.”

“V, no. I–”

“You’re not safe over there, Holly! If this keeps up, you’ll end up dead. Do you hear me?”

“It’s fin–”

“It’s not fine! I can’t keep watching this! Please! Just listen to me and come over!”

“I–”

A loud, obviously drunken voice cut through the air, interrupting her reply.

“Holly! Where the hell are you?! Get your yellow ass over here!”

“I’ll talk to you later, V.” Holly whispered over her shoulder as she hurried back inside.

Velocity stood seething. This was it. This was absolutely too far! Somebody had to get Holly out of there, preferably while giving Tyler’s face a vigorous and repeated introduction to a brick wall. She turned back toward the house. She’d call....someone. The cops? Whoever it was, she’d MAKE them listen. MAKE them do something to help her friend. Her hoof was on the handle of the sliding glass door when she heard the sound of shattering glass next door, accompanied by a pained yelp.

“Oh, FUCK THIS!”

She quickly took to the air and soared over the fence, racing up to the door and flinging it open. The bastard stood in the kitchen, holding her friend up against a wall and pulling tight on the belt fastened around her neck. Blood ran down from the cuts on her forehead, one or two bearing fragments of the glass he had broken over her head. Though no sound escaped her mouth, her lips kept shaping out the words “I’m sorry” over and over. Her forelegs reached out plaintively to hug and caress, even as her eyes rolled back in her head and consciousness faded.

At the sound of the door flinging open, Tyler dropped the now unconscious pony and turned to face her.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING A–”

Before she could even process the thought, she was flying straight at him. She didn’t remember consciously seeing it before, but she must have grabbed the knife off a nearby counter, because the next thing she knew, she was plunging it into his throat. Her momentum carried them both further back into the kitchen, slamming into the sink before collapsing into a gurgling heap. Her hooves still gripping the knife, she ripped it out and plunged it back in a couple more times until the twitching stopped. She stood up and took a good half a minute to regain her breath as the world swam back into focus from the blinding haze.

And now, here she was, desperately trying to mop up the blood that was spreading absolutely everywhere. How the fuck was she gonna clean all this up? Holly was going to lose her shit when she woke up. Who knew how Mark would react? They’d occasionally shared casual jokes about being there to help each other hide the bodies, but she never expected to actually put that scenario to the test!

After checking to make sure Holly was still breathing, she set about searching the house for a first aid kit to treat some of her injuries and some towels to tackle the ever expanding pool of blood. Who knew humans had so much of the stuff?! She desperately hoped that the sound of sirens growing louder in the distance was only in her imagination.