Arc ONE: Chapter 3

It was morning by the time they made it back to Manehattan. Pinstripe was tired, less from manning the reins all night and more from listening to The Prankster's never-ending stream of mindless chatter. She prattled on for hours about nothing of substance: the weather, the awful food at the asylum, how well the Manehattan Manticores were doing this season, the best place in the city to buy drugs, the best place in the city to go dancing, her favorite flavor of ice cream, Sapphire Shores’ newest album… She bounced from subject to subject with no discernible break in flow, making Pinstripe wonder how she could string together so many random, unrelated topics with such ease. At one point he had actually tried listening to her, but found the rambling impossible to follow.

By the time they reached the city, the ceaseless stream-of-consciousness jabber flowing from Pinks had fizzled into a steady hum of white noise that was actually rather relaxing. Pinstripe never could think in silence, and like an old, rattling air conditioning unit, The Prankster's chatter provided a useful stream of background noise.

Pinstripe pondered the facts surrounding the emaciated diamond dog. Pinks had claimed the animal belonged to Blood Orange, a truly cringe-worthy thought. Blood was the son of Mandarin and Navel Orange, and the single heir to Manehattan's most powerful, most affluent crime family. The Oranges themselves weren't the problem. They bent over backwards to avoid incurring The Prankster's wrath, same as any other gang in Manehattan. But their son Blood had history with the painted lunatic, and he was one of the few criminals in the city who was too crazy to be afraid of Pinks.

Pinstripe didn’t know much about Blood's methods or motivations. The Shadowbolts and the Oranges didn't always play nice, but they weren't enemies and usually kept out of each other’s business. It helped that their territories where so far apart; the Bolts' influence was strongest in the downtown areas south of Clydesdale Blvd, while the Oranges had a firm grip on all of mid and uptown.

Of course The Prankster's release complicated things. It wasn't likely that Blood Orange would continue to respect the truce between the gangs now that Pinks was back on the streets. He would come after her. Being an Orange meant he had resources, and if he was crazy enough to pick a fight with Pinks, Pinstripe figured he must be dangerous. He wasn't frightened by the thought of tangling with Blood; it was more like a sudden hyper-awareness had struck him. He needed to keep his eyes peeled for trouble.

It didn't help that a great deal of that trouble was currently seated beside him, Tartarus-bent on talking his ears off. When the shit hit the fan, a regular occurrence in Manehattan, Pinks was sure to be right in the center of the madness. And if Pinstripe was still chauffeuring her around town when that happened, then he was sure to be slightly to right of the madness—not high on his list of places he wanted to be.

As they turned onto Clydesdale, heading east toward Blitzkrieg’s main safe house on the other side of town, the wagon rolled over a particularly deep pothole. The jolt jostled the contents of Pinstripe's pocket, making four sugar cubes and a small pouch of bits clink and rustle as they thumped against his chest. Missing was the quiet metallic clink of his trusty butterfly knife. Pinks still hadn't given it back, and Pinstripe had yet to work up the nerve to ask for it. The knife was presently hanging from the corner of her mouth, bobbing as she spoke but showing no interest in falling out.

And while Pinstripe did wonder how she was doing that, he was more curious about her other trick: the one she did with her tail. He could still see the scene clearly in his mind, and the exhilaration he had felt while watching her in action had yet to completely dissipate. It wasn't the violence that had captivated him. He was still young, but his days of getting starry-eyed at the sight of a little blood were behind him. No, it was her command that had impressed him, of both her movements and the situation. The control she exerted was no cheap trick; it wasn't the sort of thing a pony could fake.

They were well into the lower east side now, riding at an even pace through the red light district. The place was eerily desolate during the day. There were no working mares traipsing up and down the sidewalks, blowing kisses and batting eyelashes at passing wagons, beckoning ponies to pull over and sample the city's more vulgar delicacies.

They drove past lonely nightclubs, brick and mortar structures that looked drab and empty without the long, raucous lines of ponies that typically girdled the buildings after dark. The red light district was downtown's beating heart. Its pulse. But during the day, when all the blinking neon signs were dark and still, that pulse weakened to a near flat line.

The odd pair carried on for a while longer, leaving several comatose city blocks behind them as they neared their destination. They were passing a popular gentlecolts’ club called The Ringer when Pinks ceased her chattering and leaned over the side of the carriage. She stared at the receding road for a long time, not saying anything.

"Turn around." The silence shattered under the weight of her severe tone. Pinstripe turned to face her as they halted for a red light. He started to tell her that turning around wasn't an option, but was interrupted by a pair of gloved hooves shoving him out of the wagon.

He let out a string of curses in his native tongue as the sidewalk hopped up to make a fool of him. Pinstripe had never visited his homeland and new little of his own culture, but his mother insisted he learn to speak fluent Zebrican. She claimed it would better connect him to his heritage, and keep him centered in a land whose populace didn't always practice the love and tolerance they so often preached.

A lot of good it had done him. He certainly didn’t feel centered now; he felt like an asshole chasing after a carriage being driven by a bigger asshole.

He chased Pinks for three blocks. At the end of the third, she spun the wagon around and forced him to continuing chasing for three more blocks in the opposite direction, then finally halted the long enough for Pinstripe to catch up. She pointed a hoof at him, giggling as he hauled himself into the passenger seat.

A sour expression met one that was teeming with innocent glee.

“Oh come on, I was just kidding,” she said, her voice syrupy sweet again. “Can’t you hardened thug types take a joke anymore? This town used to be a gas! But look at it now. So much… order.” Moving swiftly, she sprang down from her seat and landed on the back of the pegasus mare, who reared up on her hind legs, startled. “It’s all stopping on red and going on green these days.”

With a loud cry, Pinks gave the mare’s reigns a sharp tug, causing her mount to take off like a shot. Or rather, the poor animal attempted to take off, but the other Tongueless, having received no order to pull, held its ground, causing Pinks and the grey mare to fall flat on their faces.

“See what I mean? Exactly how is this fun?” Pinks whined, rubbing a sore spot on her bruised head.

“Boss, we’re not supposed to be having fun. We’re supposed to be getting back to the safe house. Krieg wants to talk to you and—”

“Not supposed to be having fun?” Pinks laughed at such a ludicrous notion. She freed the pegasus from her reins and re-mounted her, tying the mare’s blond mane around one of her forelegs. Then she gave the mane an experimental tug, testing her improvised bridle. “You’re an outlaw, Hairline Stripe! What’s the point in being a law-breaker if you can’t have fun doing it?”

Stripe looked on, his expression a cocktail of confusion, annoyance and mild amusement, as Pinks gave her mount’s barrel a kick. The two of them soared above the streetlights and began circling overhead.

“Boss, come down from there,” Pinstripe insisted. “It’s broad daylight; what if somepony sees you?” Of course it was already too late to worry about that. Several onlookers had already taken note of The Prankster’s antics.

Ponies gathered on the sidewalk to watch Pinks and the Tongueless perform an array of acrobatic stunts, mistaking the odd pair for harmless street performers. Pinks waved to her adoring public as the Tongueless banked, dipped, then pulled upward into a tight, arcing loop.

So many bright, smiling faces, she mused. So many…

A foal tugged at her father’s tail and pointed at the Tongueless still strapped in her harness, asking what was wrong with that pony.

Pinstripe started to panic.

“All right, boss, you’ve made your point,” he called up to Pinks. “Now can we please leave?”

“How about a game of tag?” Pinks called back.

Tag? Was she serious?

“Boss…”

“Pretty please.”

“Boss, we can’t just—”

“Pretty please with lots of sugar and sprinkles and syrup and sarsaparilla on top!”

Infuriating, thought Pinstripe. That must be how she did it. That must be how she managed to dominate Manehattan’s entire criminal underworld. Not through violence or intimidation, but by pestering the city’s crime lords into submission.

“Okay, okay, but you’ll have to come down, otherwise how am I gonna tag you?” he said, electing to play along if it meant getting back to the hideout.

Pinks flew in close enough to brush Pinstripe’s cheek with her tail, and said, “Nope,” before giving her mount another kick. The two of them rocketed onward, flying west above Clydesdale Blvd, and away from Krieg’s hideout on the lower east side.

Grumbling in Zebrican, Pinstripe cracked the remaining Tongueless’s reins and gave chase. As he followed Pinks, he remembered Wisp’s warning about the police crackdown in the lower east side. The last thing he needed now was to encounter some hero cop who wasn’t on the Shadowbolts’ payroll and to be forced to explain why he was speeding down a major street in a cart being pulled by a brain-dead pony.

Because I’m chasing a madmare so I can take her back to my boss’s safe house, where she’ll likely start planning to murder honest, hardworking citizens like yourself. Is that a problem, officer?

“Heh.” A shadow of a grin tugged at the corner of Pinstripe’s mouth. “Heh heh heh,” he giggled. It actually was kind of funny.

Pinks ordered the mare to slow her pace and flew alongside the carriage, laughing, her frizzy mane dancing as she sped through the air. “You’ll never catch me hauling all that extra weight!” she exclaimed. For the faintest instant Pinstripe was sure the knife would fall from her mouth, but it kept bobbing in place as she laughed.

“No fair!” shouted Pinstripe. “How come you get to ride the pegasus?”

“Because I’m the boss!” And with that she pulled ahead again, though now she flew lower to so that Pinstripe had a fair chance to tag her, that is, if he ever caught up.

They darted carelessly through stop signs and traffic lights.

They weaved in and out of lanes, dodging traffic.

Too fast and too agile, thought Pinstripe. Pinks was right, he would never catch her so long as he was lugging the carriage behind him.

He felt a minotaur's fist clench where his heart should have been. He felt it repeatedly punch the inside of his chest, each blow more jarring than the one before. But the punches caused him no harm. There was no pain in his body, only a lightness in his head and a looseness in the hooves that held the reins.

The reins? Tools for control. For restricting and manipulating another creature. He looked down at the leather straps as if they had suddenly mutated into poisonous snakes. Before the snakes could bite him, he threw them aside and bounded from his seat, landing on the Tongueless’s back with only a fraction of the grace Pinks had demonstrated before. He grabbed hold of the panting animal’s neck with one forelimb, his free hoof working hastily to unfasten his mount's harness.

Just as the straps were falling away, somepony hurled a scream in Pinstripe's direction. His head shot up just in time to spot a taxi barreling toward him.

Shock flashed in the cab puller’s intense electric blue eyes, and she stumbled haphazardly as she tried to swerve around the oncoming carriage.

The Tongueless, now unbridled and free of her heavy burden, zipped out of the taxi’s path with ease, leaving the cab puller and her charge to crash into the wagon Pinstripe had left behind. It was only by luck that the cabbie managed to swerve enough to avoid being seriously injured.

“Psychopath!” shouted the cabbie, popping her head out of a pile of broken wood and shaking her hoof indignantly.

“Hahahahahah!” roared Pinks as she looked over her shoulder and watched two more carriages rumble into the felled taxi, causing a minor pile up.

Pinstripe looked back as well. Something in his gut told him he should be angry at The Prankster’s recklessness, but the lightness in his head had succeeded in pulling the corners of his mouth into an exhilarated grin. He roped both forelimbs around the earth mare’s neck and leaned forward, urging her to greater efforts with kicks and shouts.

Pinks did the same, laughing hysterically as she directed the pegasus to fly even lower. She and her ride were mere inches from the ground now, and only a few paces ahead of Pinstripe and his earth mare.

Pinks leaned backwards, shut her eyes and flagged one foreleg high overhead, holding her improvised bridle of blond mane with the other. She beamed with childish innocence, laughed with real joy. When she noticed Pinstripe and his steed advancing, she leaned back even further, so that her back was parallel to that of her mount.

Pinstripe squinted against a rush of air and focused on her outstretched hoof. He extended one timid foreleg, reaching for the leather glove. But before he could touch it The Prankster’s eyes snapped open, mischief twinkling in her active blues. She stuck out her tongue and made a goofy face, then rocketed ahead again, screaming through an intersection and missing a slow-moving fruit cart be seconds.

Pinstripe let out a surprised cheer as his mount bounded over the fruit cart. “Good girl!” he breathed excitedly, stroking her neck. She responded with a neigh and doubled her sprint, gliding across the cracked road as easily as a fish through water.

The four of them were a bizarre sight: a painted mare riding a pegasus inches above the street, being chased by a zebra riding an earth pony, all of them laughing or neighing, too caught up in their game to pay the city any mind.

Had Pinstripe not been so thoroughly immersed in this moment, he would have noticed the red light district shrinking at his back, and the lower west side budding before his eyes. He would have seen the nightclubs shrivel away, replaced by decrepit apartment complexes that seemed to sprout from the cracked pavement. The slowly thinning traffic would have concerned him, and the unsettling, barely-there aroma of cooked meat now hanging overhead would have given him pause.

But nothing of the sort existed in Pinstripe’s rapidly shrinking world. Not yet. Not now. Now there was only the scarred smile, and the outstretched hoof, and the marrow-deep thrill of the chase.

The Prankster and her mount slowed their pace, flying beside Pinstripe and his charging steed. She licked her lips, smearing her lipstick, and mouthed the words, “Tag me,” before pulling ahead and cornering into a long alleyway.

Pinstripe yanked his steed’s mane, commanding her to follow Pinks down the alley. Without thinking, he rose to his hind legs, performing a peculiar balancing act on the mare’s back. He let out a self-congratulatory laugh, impressed with his own dexterity, then threw himself at the pink mare, tackling her and knocking her off the pegasus.

A tangled mess of limbs, manes and laughs tumbled into a pile of trash beside an overflowing dumpster.

Breath mingled.

One warm chest heaved against another.

Pinned beneath Pinstripe, Pinks blinked and licked her lips. “Looks like I’m it,” she breathed, her overactive eyes softening.

Pinstripe took in the sight beneath him. The frizzy mane splayed against a backdrop of torn trash bags. The hauntingly beautiful eyes. The red mouth, slightly ajar, baiting him with an amorous smile.

Then he blinked and took it in a second time. The scruffy pink mane decorated with rubbish. The hyperactive blues. The scars.

He leapt away with the swiftness of a frightened cat, shuddering. Pinks remained on her back, her hind legs kicking as she clutched her stomach and shook with mocking laughter. “Real smooth, Pins,” she said between chuckles. “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

“Shut up,” he said defensively, straightening his tie.

Pinstripe brushed flecks of trash from his suit and kicked himself for getting swept up in The Prankster's shenanigans. She really was a disease, Stripe thought, and an increased heart rate was likely the first sign that he had been infected. He looked around the alley and mumbled more curses when he realized Pinks had led him to a part of town he didn't recognize. Little Gryffindor.

Little Gryffindor was home to the largest griffin population in Manehattan. Most had come to Equestria hoping to escape their own brutish culture, while others were criminals fleeing from a medieval justice system that still practiced public execution. The latter typically found their new lives in Manehattan quite liberating, while the former found only more brutality, more of the same.

So he was lost in a dangerous part of town with a dangerous psychopath, was he? Pinstripe took a moment to contemplate the severity of the situation, but his thoughts were disrupted by the rank smells crowding the alleyway. The place reeked of trash, urine and something else—something he couldn’t describe.

Covering his muzzle with a suit sleeve, he surveyed the area. He was standing between two buildings spaced far apart. At one end of the ally was a short chain link fence that Pinstripe and his steed must have bounded over while chasing Pinks, though he didn’t remember pulling a stunt like that.

At the opposite end, a thick metal door waited ominously.

Looking away, he spied Pinks and both Tongueless rolling about in the trash beside one of the alley walls. She looked like a filly playing with a pair of puppies. The Tongueless tried to lick her face, but without tongues their attempts resembled awkward kisses. Pinstripe watched her pet them and nuzzle their cheeks. He wasn't sure what to make of this scene.

“Come on in! The garbage is revolting!” yelled Pinks, waving for Pinstripe to join her and her new friends.

Pinstripe shook his head with histrionic austerity.

“Oh, just get a look at you,” said Pinks as she bounced out of the trash pile. “A perfectly good chance to have a little fun, and you just stand there with that sour look on your face. And they say I’m the crazy one.” She bounced to where he stood, as if her legs had suddenly become pogo-sticks. “Why don’t you just admit that you’re having a good time?”

“Because I’m not,” Pinstripe said plainly.

“Yes you are. You like me, Pins and Needles, you really do. It’s all over your cranky, cranky face.” She licked her lips again. Pinstripe wished she would stop doing that.

“Where are we?” asked Pinstripe, quickly changing the subject. Pinks answered by turning her back to the zebra and bouncing down the alleyway. She stopped at the metal door and then beckoned him to follow.

“We’re here to give out the invitations,” she said once Pinstripe made it to the door. “I want all my very special friends to attend this party.”

“Party?” Pinstripe echoed. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“The homecoming party, silly,” she chided playfully. “Didn’t you hear? Those crazy doctors down at the asylum—they set The Prankster free! Hee hee hee hee hee hee…”

There it was again. That joyless, deep-throated laugh; the one that rolled like an ocean wave. Pinstripe didn’t know if it was the rumbling laughter or the smells in the alley, but he suddenly felt nauseous.

“Well don’t just stand there, ring the buzzer,” Pinks insisted, gesturing toward the big red buzzer where the knob of a normal door would have been.

Pinstripe did as he was told. Nothing. No one came to the door.

“What’s the matter, Pins? You seem nervous,” said Pinks, leaning nonchalantly against the wall.

“I’m not,” he responded, adjusting his tie for the dozenth time.

Pinks waved for him to come closer. “Reach into your breast pocket.”

Lacking the energy to question this order, Pinstripe did as he was told. He inhaled sharply when he felt the hilt of the folded butterfly knife in his pocket. But when did she...?

“Little less nervous?” Pinks asked with a wink.

Pinstripe patted his pocket as if it held something precious. “Little less nervous,” he assured her.

He rang the buzzer again, heard a click and watched the door slide open.

“Tell your pets to wait for us outside,” said Pinks, before trotting through the open door.

Pinstripe fed both the Tongueless a sugar cube and told them to stay. He wasn’t positive they would heed his command, or if they even understood a word he was saying, but what choice did he have? Unlike the newly unbridled ponies, he was still very much subject the whims of a madmare.

“Pink Stripes, huh?” he pondered aloud, remembering the title of their two-equine comedy act. It seemed the show was going on the road, and like or not, Pinstripe was along for the ride.