Arc ONE: Chapter 9

Morning light filtered in through Blitzkrieg’s open blinds. He was sitting at the edge of his bed, staring blankly at a note in his hooves. The words on the paper were barely legible, the end result of manic pen strokes. The letters bent and slanted with unsettling aggression; Krieg could almost feel their desire to leap from the page and slash him with their sharp edges.

A sardonic chuckle tried to rumble up from his gut but was strangled by the dread knotting his throat. His impending doom was too bleak to dismiss with a laugh. A bloody coup was on the horizon; he felt in the marrow of his old bones. Soon the empire of reason and order he had worked so hard to build would be smashed and burned before his eyes. Soon the kings and queens of the Manehattan’s court of sinners would be ripped from their thrones, and the court jester would reclaim her rightful standing as the ruler of the city of fools. The thought was a tightly packed ball of maggots in his skull, squirming as it ate him from the inside out.

He could have killed The Prankster, insisted some callow remnant of his far away youth—he could have taken something hard and blunt to her skull years ago. Surely there must have been an opportunity for such work, a moment, even a fleeting one, when he was close enough and her guard was lowered. He pondered a minute, but couldn’t recall such a time.

The idea of lasting order in Manehattan seemed equally ludicrous now. Yes, there was order in Manehattan. It was the vicious order of the rich and the selfish, but it tempered many a lofty ambition and kept Manehattan from being destroyed by its own sinful nature.

Blitzkrieg had played a vital role in establishing this malignant order. After The Prankster’s incarceration five years ago, Krieg proposed a plan to divide her territories among the city’s four major gangs. The Oranges, the Shadowbolts, Filthy Rich and the Choir Boys, and the Daughters of Discord were each given their own section of the city to lord over, and Krieg had made certain that the newly established borders were respected by all. There had still been fighting among the groups, little skirmishes here and there, but over time the intelligent criminals like Filthy Rich and Mandarin Orange had come to live by a simple truth: peace in Manehattan was more profitable than constant war.

But now that The Prankster was free… Well, at least Krieg had done the smart thing and tried to appease her. She was, after all, still the leader of the Shadowbolts. Though he hated her with all his heart, Krieg had aligned himself with Pinks years ago in order to level the playing field between himself and the city’s wealthier, more resourceful criminals. He had been a hungry fool then, and had forgotten that Manehattan fed on hungry fools.

Or was he a fool now? He certainly felt like one as he shook in the morning chill, his hooves stayed by indecision. Almost lackadaisically, he began weighing his options.

He could fight, but then he would surely lose everything.

He could flee, but then he would lose the one thing that still mattered to him.

Or he could yield… It was the easiest choice of the three, and Blitzkrieg was growing too old to make the difficult choices. With his anxiety-induced nausea at its height, he rose from his bed and left the room, dropping the note as he went. He had finally come to terms with its message and no longer wished to look at it.

rInGeR…cOMe…KIlL…MIdNigHT…zEbrA…ALoNE…

were the only words he had been able to decipher, but the message was clear enough. He had done wrong by his son two nights ago when he sent him to retrieve The Prankster on his own. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. With his mind set to purpose, he headed downstairs and prepared to face his ruin.

He had come to a decision. He would pay her a visit tonight. He would go to The Prankster and try to reason with a force of nature.

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Orange Rind Orange scratched his ear and yawned, much in same manner as Spade, the diamond dog hunched at his side. His legs were tired from standing for nearly two hours without rest, and the gear strapped to his belt—a flashlight, a baton, a ring of keys, a canister of mace—felt heavier than it had any right to be.

Also hanging from his belt was a metal rectangular box that resembled a child’s tin lunch pail. The box was a storage unit that housed a length of retractable cord. The cord projected from a button-sized opening on the belt, and by flipping a switch on the belt’s left side (which resembled a light switch), Rind could control the length of the cord, forcing more through the opening or retracting it back into the metal box.

The end of the cord was latched to Spade’s collar. Rind thought it was a rather complicated system for what ultimately amounted to a leash, but according to his fellow Oranges, the Pulley (its informal nickname) was originally used for other things. Some believed that before becoming a mass produced product, the Pulley had been designed by mysterious vigilante, The Mare-Do-Well, as a kind of grappling hook system.

Rind didn’t believe that. There were all sorts of rumors about the Mare-Do-Well’s tech being sold on the black-market after her disappearance five years ago, but they were all bogus. Such stories were merely the fanciful imaginings of the idle and the perpetually bored. Rind was sure of this because he fit neatly into both categories, and had done his share of rumor spreading in the past.

Rind was most always bored. He was bored now; he had grown sick of staring at the vacant lot that separated him from the road leading back to the heart of Manehattan.

The lot was ocean-expansive. It had been solid asphalt once, but over the years nature had been gradually reclaiming it. Brown grass, tangles of weeds and even a few drab flowers had busted up through fissures in the worn concrete—a battle-hardened battalion of foliage rising to seize the land by force. It was a full-scale revolt, and the violent clash between the natural and the hoof-made had left the lot cracked, brown and hideous.

A tall chain-link fence loomed off in the distance, militant-rigid and topped with barbed wire. Seeing it made Rind think of Stableblock Penitentiary, the island prison off the coast of Manehattan where he had spent the last three years of his life. The thought alone was enough to make his stomach squeeze into a golf ball. Prison life had nearly killed him, both literally and figuratively, and after his release, Rind swore he would never go back.

Behind him towered the metal roller door that served as the back entrance to The Pound. The Pound was a dilapidated three-story textile factory that Mandarin Orange had purchased and converted into a holding place for his son’s exotic pets. The Oranges who worked there nicknamed it ‘The Pound’ because when Blood was a young foal his father had filled the factory with nothing but various species of canine. Blood was fascinated by most every creature that walked the earth, but his infatuation with animals had begun with an interest in dogs.

Though the drudgery of working security at The Pound reminded Rind of prison life, he didn’t mind it too much. It was boring work indeed, but it was also criminally lucrative. The well-being of his pets was very important to Blood, and he paid ponies like Rind an absurd amount of money to stand in one place and stare at a fence for most of the day.

The only parts of the job that bothered him were the occupational hazards. The Pound was located in Discord’s Kitchen, the most dangerous place in Manehattan and far from Orange family territory. The Kitchen belonged to the Daughters of Discord, the most despised gang in Manehattan; and although they rarely meddled in Blood’s affairs, the glitzy piece of graffiti that read “D.O.D.” in highly stylized lettering on the factory’s rear entrance was a clear indication of who owned what in the Kitchen.

Spade whined and pawed at the collar of his leash, which, unlike most diamond dog collars, was not adorned with gemstones.

“Tell me about it, pal,” said Rind as he scratched Spade behind the ear, soothing away some of the dog’s restlessness. He reached into a pouch on his belt and withdrew a bone-shaped dog treat. Spade nearly bit Rind’s hoof getting at the treat, which he devoured in one covetous chomp. The snack was delicious, but rather than curb Spade’s hunger, the morsel only whetted his appetite. His ears wilted as he nuzzled Rind’s foreleg, hoping to coax another treat from his friend.

“Sorry, that was the last one.” Rind patted the dog’s head tenderly. “I promise once this shift is over I’ll see that you get real meal in your stomach. How’s that sound, boy?”

A puppy-like whine escaped Spade, and he looked off toward the fence, his drawn face a clear portrait of the hurt in his heart and the hollowness in his stomach. He understood that Rind meant well, but he was growing sick of being lied to every day. Spade was one Blood Orange’s slaves, and his master insisted that his dogs eat as little as possible. In his madness, Blood Orange believed that extreme hunger made his dogs fiercer hunters. He fed them only enough to keep them alive and relatively fit, though most inevitably grew weak and sickly from malnourishment.

Even as the words left his mouth, Rind knew he could never make good on the promise to get Spade a proper meal. It was a promise he made often but never kept. Members of the family who were caught feeding the Blood’s pets anything besides their daily rations were punished with extreme prejudice—usually by Blood himself, who had a fondness for dismemberment and enjoyed working with dull blades. There were also rumors that he kept the limbs of his dismembered victims, and that he slept with his favorite severed body parts tucked under his pillow.

Of course Rind didn’t believe any of that, but he had still never once worked up the nerve to make good on his promise to Spade. He liked the idea of it, and he sympathized with the plight of the slave dogs, but he wasn’t brave or foolish enough to risk incurring Blood’s fury.

They secured their post in silence for another two hours, intermittently pacing up and down the empty lot to stretch their legs. Spade was in an especially foul mood today, but even so, having the loyal dog at his side comforted Rind. That said, today, more so than any other day, he seemed to notice how skeletal Spade’s frame was. His limbs were wires that looked too scrawny to bear to his weight, and his neck was a miserable stalk of enfeebled muscle, straining under a heavy skull. And had his ribcage always been so pronounced? For fuck's sake, Rind could have counted each bone from two blocks away.

A rending pain flowered in Rind’s chest. It was that damn fence, he thought, with its wiry frame and barbed headdress, taunting him, reminding him of prison life—of the days when he was the dog, collared and leashed and fed scraps. He pressed his lips into a narrow line as he walked Spade around to the front of the building, nodding and making grunting sounds of acknowledgement at his fellow guards.

His cousin Orange Pulp Orange, who was posted at The Pound’s front entrance, regarded Rind with a granite look that warned the young stallion to stay at his post. Reluctantly, Rind obeyed the silent command and retook his position outside of the roller door. He was staring down at his hooves, hyperaware of the fence and fighting to keep his eyes from it, when he heard a rustling sound off in the distance.

He looked and spotted a white-furred female diamond dog wearing a pearl-encrusted collar. The female was digging hurriedly, apparently trying to burrow beneath the fence. Wild diamond dogs, Rind knew, where extraordinary diggers, but this one must have been born and raised in the city, because her shoveling was slow and imprecise.

He was just about yell out something vulgar, hoping to scare away the female, when he felt Spade lurch forward, pulling the leash rigid and nearly tugging Rind to the ground.

“Easy, boy.” Rind widened his stance and planted his hooves, becoming an anchor that halted Spade’s attempted advance.

Spade barked excitedly, his tail wagging. Hearing the bark, the female’s head jerked up to acknowledge Spade. She paused in her digging. Her ears perked, the tips pointing forward, and her jaw fell open to reveal a tongue that hung low and bobbed subtly. She sniffed the air, nostrils flaring as she delighted in a musky scent that was potent and replete with enticing masculinity. Then she faced down and resumed digging, until finally she shoveled away enough earth to squeeze under the fence.

Once inside she began walking, though not toward Rind and Spade. She hugged the fence, strutting with a lewd saunter that drew attention to her hips, thighs and rear. Spade pulled harder on the leash, slobbering, tail wagging eagerly. Rind didn’t notice his friend's behavior; he was so disgusted by the female’s display that it took him several seconds to realize what was happening.

“No fucking way!” he said once his brain had coiled around the situation. “We’re on the clock. What if Pulp or somepony else waders back here and sees you?”

Spade whined. He turned to face Rind, and his normally narrow eyes became dinner-plates, pleading with Rind, begging to be allowed this one thing. Just this one thing.

“Ponyfeathers.” Rind flicked a switch on his belt that unfastened the cord from the Spade’s collar. The line zipped back into the button-sized opening and folded neatly into the metal box. “Just… make it quick, okay.”

Spade licked Rind’s face in celebration, and Rind returned the show of affection with pets and scratches behind the ear. Then Spade ambled off to meet the white-furred female, and when she saw him approaching, she started forward and met him halfway.

They sniffed at each other’s muzzles, their snouts brushing cutely. She flirted with Spade, circling him and sniffing at his privates, her tail wagging ecstatically. She had a full, healthy, shapely body; she wasn’t drawn or gaunt like the females Spade had shared a cell with inside the pound. He spun round and sniffed her back, aroused by her smell, and by the warmth and closeness of her eager body.

Rind knew this was a bad idea, but as he watched the female lead Spade behind an especially thick pocket of shrubbery, he decided that it was the fair thing to do. Spade had been his best friend for years, but he had never truly gone out of his way to help alleviate the poor dog’s suffering. Even now he wasn’t inconveniencing himself all that much. Nopony ever wandered around back during his shift, which would be over in a few minutes anyway. So no, this wasn’t exactly him bending over backwards for his friend.

In fact, even this small miracle didn’t feel like enough. Spade had nothing. Absolutely nothing. He suffered immensely at the hooves of a sociopath: enduring hunger and cages, beatings and humiliations, collars and leashes…

Rind thought once more of his own bondage at Stableblock—how it had driven him half mad and filled him with an anger and emptiness he had never known before. In that moment, he resolved to finally make good on his promise to get Spade a proper meal. He had recently learned of a place downtown in griffin territory that served meat. Beef, even. Rind decided to go there after his shift and buy Spade a big, juicy steak. And if word that he had been feeding the slave dogs ever found Blood's ear… Well, he was sure there were worse fates than having his legs hacked off with a dull hatchet. He couldn’t think of any at the moment, but he was sure there must be at least a few.

Heavy pants, moans and wet noises sounded from behind the shrubs.

“Nasty,” Rind grumbled. He turned to face the roller door, thinking it might be rude to just stand there and watch the bushes tremble.

After the dogs had been going at it for a good while, Rind heard a piercing yip that was different from the other lovemaking sounds. He couldn’t tell which of the dogs had uttered it.

“Spade?” said Rind after a short silence, still facing the factory entrance. “Spade? You okay, pal? Spade? Spa—”

Before he could finish calling his friend’s name, a pair of strong forehooves seized his mane from behind and drove his face into the roller door. His nose shattered on impact; he tasted iron and blood. Stunned, his legs buckled and he dropped to the floor, plopping down flat on his stomach.

Disoriented, he heard barks and growls come from the bushes, followed by whines and hurt noises. He tried to stand and hurry to his friend’s aid, but his attacker—a massive earth stallion judging by the weight—stomped the center of his back. Something in his spine cracked, something important, and he screamed as sharp pain knifed through his back. He tried to scramble up, but his attacker’s haunches plopped down on his tailbone, pinning him to the ground.

He thrashed, but no avail; his attacker was too heavy and his spine too damaged to bear such a burden. He tried to scream for help, for his friend Spade, but a hoof found its way over his mouth, muffling the cries. It jerked his head back, lifting his chin off the ground, while another braced against back of his head. Rind grabbed frantically at his attacker’s hooves, desperately trying to break the powerful grip.

“You are strong for being such a little colt,” laughed the pony on his back, the voice gruff, but just feminine enough to be a mare’s.

The hooves began twisting Rind’s head, straining his neck. Tears streaked down his face; his back legs kicked uselessly; his tail flailed; his muscles screamed; bullet-sweat rolled down his brow. He grunted into his attacker’s hoof and tried to redouble his efforts, but his strength was fading fast.

Where was Spade? his fear addled mind shouted because his mouth couldn’t. Where was his loyal friend, and what right did he have to call on him now? He thought about the dog’s taut skin, the ribs he could count from two blocks away, and he hated himself for not being there when Spade needed him. He had no right to seek his friend's aid now. This was on him.

In a final effort to free himself, Rind pulled hard enough to adjust his attacker’s grip, so that her fetlock slid over his mouth. His teeth sank into her flesh, drawing a gush of blood into his mouth. He gagged on the iron taste, but locked his jaws and held on.

But even this final countermeasure was no good. His attacker only laughed at his efforts and continued twisting. Rind felt a heavy tension building in his neck, slowly, painstakingly, the mounting agony almost beyond comprehension. The world was turning clockwise. In his final moments, he thought about the promise he couldn’t keep, the meal he would never share with Spade—then his chin twisted past his shoulder and his vertebrae broke, not with a violent snap, but a horrible din of popping, crumbling, splintering noises.

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Sure that her victim was dead, Twenty dropped the limp body and sat down on her haunches, winded. She sucked on her wounded fetlock and admired her work. She was impressed. Rind was lying on his stomach but staring up into the clear midday blue, his neck twisted a full one-hundred and eighty degrees.

She was still patting her own back when Flour appeared from behind the shrubbery, her fur matted, her maw wet with Spade’s blood. She approached the fresh corpse lying at Twenty’s hooves, ignoring the presence of the muscle-bound mare.

Groping with hurried paws, Flour searched Rind’s body for keys. While searching, her paw bumped the metal box that held the bundled cord, and she paused a moment, one eyebrow arched in puzzlement.

“Muscle Pony, tell Flour what this looks like,” she ordered, holding the metal box in her paw.

Twenty scratched her head. “Is small metal box?”

“Not box. Belt. Tell Flour what belt looks like.”

Twenty took a closer look. “Is black and full of pockets, like police belt. Why are you asking question? Dead pony is lying out in open; we should be hiding body.”

Flour ignored Twenty’s question and began searching the belt’s pouches. She had never seen it before, obviously, but she remembered hearing Grift describe it once: black, thick, full of pouches where Mask Pony kept her gadgets. When Flour’s paw brushed over the switch, she flipped it and listened to the whir of the unraveling cord. The line spilled out from an opening in the belt, spinning into a pile on the floor beside Rind’s corpse.

That was wrong, Flour thought. The cord was supposed to shoot out like a bullet, not spill so lazily. And where was the metal spike? Or was it a hook?

“We taking this too.” Flour stripped off Rind’s belt and handed it to Twenty. “Here, Muscle Pony wear it.”

Twenty fastened the belt around her waist and awaited further orders. She disliked taking orders from a mangy diamond dog, but she was working for The Prankster now and Flour was apparently the Carnies’ third in command, behind Grift and the Clown Princess of Crime herself. She was definitely craftier than the average brainless mutt, but Twenty wasn’t thrilled about being led around by a blind dog, especially since she was half-blind herself.

The blind leading the half-blind, Twenty pondered, mildly amused by the thought. While she was distracted, a pair of keys thrown by Flour bounced off her temple.

“Open door,” ordered Flour.

Rubbing her head, Twenty scowled at her new boss and lifted the keys off the floor. She looked down at the key ring in her hoof, then up at the roller door. “I can’t. The door is…” She groped for the right word. “Is like garage door. Like kind you are opening with push of button.”

Flour palmed the door’s surface, mumbling curses. Then she remembered the belt. “Muscle Pony search belt. Find button.”

Twenty did as instructed and found a button on the belt that was beside the switch. She pressed it, and the roller door started to raise, the letters ‘D.O.D.’ gradually disappearing from top to bottom.

The odd pair sidled inside the factory and closed the door behind them. A manticore bristled and growled from within its cage, making Twenty jump. There were cages everywhere she looked. Cages lining the walls. Cages hanging from the ceiling. Cages stacked upon cages that formed rows of growling, roaring, humming, buzzing, chirping, squawking walls.

Animals and monsters of all sorts inhabited the cages, and their arrangement was ungoverned by any sort of classification or order, at least none that Twenty could see.

Flour covered her mouth with a wide paw and tittered in her usual way. “Flour hoping Muscle Pony not scared of monsters. We here to steal monsters.”

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The clangor of hooves stamping over pavement roused Pinstripe from sleep. The sun hurt his eyes and his body ached all over as he sat up and wiped a strand of saliva from his chin. He looked around, and when he realized where he was, a feeling of self-loathing tore at his heart with hooked talons.

He stood up slowly, his back in knots from having spent the night sleeping on concrete. Blinking away a threatening tear, his gaze climbed up the face of an ugly brown building that he recognized as his mother’s apartment complex. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Somehow, he’d once again found his back to this building.

He did this all the time. He wandered up to this building whenever life overwhelmed him, drawn by a deep-seated longing for his mother, and for the affection denied him as child. Sadly, he had never once summoned the courage to enter. His mother had disowned him when he was sixteen, after learning of his dealings with the Shadowbolts, and the scars of her rejection ran deep. He was afraid to see her again, terrified of what she might say or do. He had never forgotten the look of disgust in her eyes the night she threw him out, and, remembering it now, his mind drifted back to that gloomy night.

He had come home late after a night of running errands for Blitzkrieg: nothing serious or dangerous, just delivering packages for the old stallion. His mother had stayed up late that night, sick with worry over her son. When he arrived home, he was surprised to find her sitting in the old living room sofa—the one with the flat cushions and the copious stains—but part of him was glad that she was still awake. He had something exciting to show her that couldn’t wait until morning.

Buzzing with elation, he unfastened his saddlebag and tossed it down on the filthy carpet. The bag’s clasp flung open as it landed, and several coins spilled out, filling the sparse room with a metallic jangling sound.

“And this is just half of it, Moms,” Pinstripe declared proudly, beaming. “The rest I get tomorrow morning.” He scooped up a single coin, hurried to his mother’s side and placed it in one of her tiny hooves. “We got nothing to worry about anymore. I’m gonna buy you a big house uptown, and one of those fancy Steamer things, and all kinds of clothing and jewelry—and I’m gonna take you to the biggest, fanciest restaurants, and I’m gonna—”

“Where did you get all this?” His mother’s voice was distant. She looked down at the coin, eyes welling with sorrow, then glared up at her son. She repeated the question, sterner this time. “Where did you get this?”

“What does it matter?” Pinstripe wasn’t rattled in the slightest by his mother’s reaction. He had expected some resistance at first, but was sure the prospect of being rich would win her over. He just needed to wait for this new reality to sink in.

So he waited—and when his mother finally gave her reply, after a long, penetrating silence, the words that tumbled from her mouth crushed him.

“Get out.” That was it. That was all she had to say to her only son.

“But Moms,” he pleaded, a nervous laugh breaking at the back of his throat. “We ain’t never had anything before, and now we got a chance to have everything. So maybe I have to do a little dirt to get it. Maybe some ponies have to get stepped on. So what? It’s ours, Moms. It’s yours.” He scooped a big pile of coins in his hooves and held them up for her to see, begging her with eyes on the verge of tears.

“Get out of my home.”

Something in him snapped. He had never once considered raising a hoof to his mother, but now he wanted to slap her until she wised up and saw things his way. “What do you mean, ‘my home’?” He dropped the coins in her lap and placed his front hooves on her shoulders, pushing her deeper into the old cushions. “You think this shit hole is yours? You think you own this?” A dry scoff crawled up his throat; he spat it in his mother’s face. “Miss another month’s rent, Moms, and then let’s see what you own. You own don’t own a damn thing! None of this is yours—not when some asshole can take it away whenever he likes!”

He shook her soundly, but it was the truth of his words detonated the ticking time bomb in her chest.

“Get out!” She shoved her son away, causing him to slip on the spilled coins. He instantly jerked up to his haunches, and saw the saddlebag hurtling toward his face in a wide, looping arch. The bag struck his temple, heavy with the mass of coins that hadn’t spilled out.

Then it struck him second time, sending up a splash of bits—a jingling, jangling, twinkling, sparkling mist of solid gold. Pinstripe peeked up from between the forearms that shielded his face, watching coins twirl overhead. They seemed to hang there on invisible strings, and he saw his future gazing at him from their shiny faces. He saw the power that could one day be his, the respect, and he sprang to his back legs and threw open his front hooves, meaning to claim what was owed to him.

His mother shoved him again, her face red with hysteria, and again he fell to his haunches. “Get out!” Her scream was beastly, a monster’s roar erupting from her small frame.

“For Luna’s sake, Moms, would ya calm down a minute!” He tried to scoop up the spilled coins, but now his mother’s tiny hooves were beating against his shoulder, distracting him, making him drop one for every two he managed to gather. “Just let me… just... let…” There were too many bits, he realized—too many gleaming chances for a prosperous future—and he couldn’t hold them all. He tried to reach for the bag, but one of those glittering chances sailed through the air and struck his eye, making him yelp in pain.

“Get out! Get out!”

Now she was standing beside the couch and launching coins at him, tears streaming down her flushed face. Clutching his injured eye, Pinstripe snatched up his bag, shoveled in as many bits as he could and fled from his own home, taking the fire escape two and three steps at a time...

He tried to shake off the feeling of shame brought on by the memory but found the task beyond him. He had run from his own home that night, weeping and wailing and sniveling. He had run from the bullies and their taunts, and he had run from the little colt with the stab wound as well. He had run from Scope’s home just last night; and to make matters worse, he had run back his mother’s doorstep, to her teat like a hopelessly frightened foal.

And he was still running from The Prankster. She had planned this. Somehow she had known about his childhood traumas: the trouble with his mother, his attachment issues, his loneliness, his longing to be coddled and cared for, the bullies, the laughs…

She was laughing at him right now. He knew it; he could feel it deep in his boiling blood. The thought enraged him, but his was the helpless, ineffectual rage of a bullied child. He stared down at his front hooves as if they were alien objects. He didn’t know what do with them—he never had. His brain was saturated with desires and ambitions, but he lacked the means, the smarts, the willpower…

He sat down the steps, wallowing in misery and shame. He brooded for a long time… and then a light chuckle escaped him.

This was all a prank he rationalized. Somehow Pinks had known about his past, and she had spent the past twenty-four hours chipping away at his armor, setting him up for the big punch line.

“Okay, Pinks, you got me,” he said, laughing aloud. “I get it. I’m a cowardly little shit. I’m the joke. That’s why they laugh at me. That’s why you’re laughing right now.”

He backed away from the building and stared up at a random fourth story window. His mother lived on that floor. He didn’t honestly believe he was looking up at her window, but he might have been, and the thought brightened his mood.

Tomorrow he would come back here and go inside, he promised himself. Tonight he would go to The Ringer, meet with The Prankster, survive—and tomorrow he would come back this building and visit his mother. He was done running. Done being a joke. Done being laughed at.

He half-expected Pinks to leap out from a bush and congratulate him for getting her prank. When that didn’t happen, he let out a great whooping laugh at such a ridiculous notion and started down the street, practically bouncing.

He continued to laugh as he headed toward the nearest subway station. He had never been very good at laughing before, but he was getting better.

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Berry Punch detested The Ringer. She hated the crappy music, the stink of crowded bodies and the sight of grown stallions drooling over naked mares while tossing wads of crumpled bills, or more often, heaps of loose change. She hated the dancers with their practiced smiles, their clothing that drifted to the floor like discarded napkins, their manes that gleamed with the aid of shampoos and leave-in conditioners. The very concept of a strip club baffled Berry; she couldn’t describe the absurdity of it with words. No, to adequately express her feelings about strip clubs, she needed something long and thin to cram down her throat until she gagged and vomited.

As she sat at the bar waiting on her drink, Berry recalled a time when her old partner had tried to explain the strip club phenomena to her. He claimed that the sight of a naked mare was rare in Manehattan because, much like in Canterlot, going around nude was considered culturally unacceptable. And while it was true that most Manehattanites put something on before leaving their homes, Berry still couldn’t see how this shameless spectacle was worth money.

But despite her hatred of this place, Berry came to The Ringer often because happy hour began at noon on weekdays, and didn’t end until midnight, making it less a happy ‘hour’ and more a happy ‘half the day.’ The bartender, a unicorn stallion with a pencil mustache traced on his upper lip, gave a friendly wave as he slid Berry’s mug of beer down the counter. Berry caught her mug and sighed as she watched him pour two more drinks and slide them in the same manner. He seemed determined to serve everypony at the bar without moving from where he stood.

So stupid, Berry thought. Everything in Manehattan was either stupid, inane, broken, or completely crazy, as if the city had been dreamed up by a child who was using comic book and video game references to make up for his lack of real-world knowledge. The Ringer was perhaps the uninspired pinnacle of this slapdash world-building. The top floor was a cathouse, the middle floor a strip club, and the basement, Berry knew, had been modified into a massive underground fight club by Storm Chaser, the crazy retired Guard Pony who owned the place.

A cathouse two floors above a fight club? Really? A virtual marriage of sex and violence, because that wasn’t the most obvious thing ever. Berry could almost hear the girlish squeal in Carrot Top’s voice as she exclaimed how ‘cool’ The Ringer was. How it was like ‘something out of a comic book’.

She took a drink, drowning the thought in cold beer. She loved her partner to pieces, but that didn’t change the fact that Carrot Top was an idiot. Her idiot, yes, but still an idiot. Berry rarely took Carrot out drinking with her because the rookie couldn’t hold her liquor very well. Berry, however, could hold enough booze to drown a large pig, so she didn’t care for the company of lightweights.

Some company was always nice, though. Having a drunken conversation with a stranger at a Manehattan strip club was rarely boring, and Berry came here most every night looking for exactly that.

She was four beers in, and thinking about ordering something stronger, when she noticed a potential impromptu drinking companion stroll up to the bar and take a seat three stools away. He was a zebra wearing a pressed white dress shirt and a tie tucked into a black vest. The pinstripe pattern on his vest matched the color of his tie, both of which were brick red. The zebra’s eyes were stony but inviting, and he seemed to be in high spirits from the way he eagerly flagged down the bartender.

“Sit a little closer and I’ll buy you a drink!” exclaimed Berry. She had to shout to be heard over the loud music.

A puzzled look came over Pinstripe, and he pointed an unsure front hoof at his own chest.

“Yes, you,” said Berry, waving him over.

Flashing a slight smile, Pinstripe hopped down from his stool and took a seat beside Berry. There was a bit of sizing up done by both parties. Pinstripe tried to be furtive about it, letting his eyes flutter about her shape without molesting her with his gaze. He noticed the bruises and scrapes that marked her body like terribly uncreative tattoos. There was a speckling of little square bandages sticking to her face, but other than that her injuries were uncovered and unabashed. She was a fighter, this one. Pinstripe made a mental note to keep an eye on her.

Berry, however, wasn’t the least bit restrained in her examination of Pinstripe. She didn’t care that her hard, scrutinizing stare was making him uncomfortable. “Stripes on stripes, hmm?” She flashed a half-amused, half-mocking smirk and gestured at Pinstripe’s vest. “Is that supposed to be cute?”

“Cute enough to get your attention.” Pinstripe waved at the bartender, who had just finished serving another customer. “A double-shot of whatever’s strongest. On the lady’s tab, if you please.” A moment later a small shot glass slid down the counter, stopping in front of Pinstripe. He drank it in one quick gulp, then raised his glass and asked for another, prompting a chuckle from Berry.

“Slow down there, killer, we got all night to get wasted. I’m Berry Punch, in case you care.” She offered her hoof, and as they shook, a look of uncertainty crept into Pinstripe’s face. That name… he thought it sounded familiar.

“Pinstripe—and no I don’t give a shit,” he said playfully before drinking his second double-shot. His face scrunched as the hard liquor burned his insides.

“A zebra named Stripe?” She made little attempt to hide her mocking smirk.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“Your parents must hate you.”

“Since the day I was born. My mother especially.” He flagged down the bartender again and ordered another drink.

“So what’s your story, Stripe?” Berry took a big gulp and finished off her beer. “You come here often?”

Pinstripe raised an amused eyebrow. “Are you flirting with me? ‘Cause if so, you’re doing a lousy job of it.”

“Fuck off,” she laughed. “You aren’t my type. No offense, but I don’t make a habit of fooling around with zebras.”

“None taken. I don’t fool around with mares, so that makes us even.”

“Asses too flat? Yeah, I sort of get that. Once you go striped, right?”

Pinstripe snorted, nearly choking on his third shot. “No, that ain’t it,” he said through mild giggles and coughs. “I’m gay. Just found out last night.”

“You, my dad and everypony else.” The Bartender poured Berry another drink without being asked and slid it down the counter. “So what’s your story, faggot? What do you do for our fair city?”

“I’m a low rank career criminal with a tragic past.” The ugly truth rolled off his tongue nonchalantly, as if it were a story he was making up on the spot.

“Well I’m a jaded detective with a hilarious past,” said Berry, matching his carefree attitude. “Guess that makes us arch enemies.”

“Nah, it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m thinking of breaking into the comedy biz pretty soon. You could be my straight mare. You know, balance all my wacky shenanigans with that sour, jaded, battered face of yours.”

Berry’s battered face brightened, and she hid a smile behind her mug as she took another drink. “But I’m the one with the hilarious backstory, remember?”

“That’s the funny part. Don’t you know anything about comedy?”

“I know you’re the least funny zebra I’ve ever met.”

“I’m still learning.” Pinstripe patted the front of his vest in search of the pack of smokes in his pocket. When he found it, he reached into the pocket, then the box, and withdrew a single cigarette. “You smoke?” he said, holding it out for Berry. She took it, placed it between her lips and asked the bartender for a light. Without moving from where he stood, the bartender sparked his horn, conjuring an invisible flame that lit Berry’s cigarette. Pinstripe followed suit, enjoying the sight of Berry with a cigarette dangling from her bruised lips. She smoked like all the gangsters in his favorite mobster movies, inhaling deep enough to smoke nearly a quarter of the cigarette in one puff.

“So what’s a faggot comedian like yourself doing at The Ringer? I don’t want to disillusion you, but there aren’t too many stallions in cufflinks and bowties shaking their tails in here.” A thick cloud of smoke billowed from Berry’s nostrils. She pawed absentmindedly at a welt on her neck, a kind of dry curiosity apparent in her expression.

A shudder skirted through Pinstripe, though Berry didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve got a date,” he said, his tone betraying no anxiety.

“It’s your first day out of the closet and you’re meeting your future boy-toy at The Ringer?” Berry’s dry curiosity shifted to amused suspicion. She placed an elbow on the counter and rested a bandaged cheek in her hoof. “Maybe you missed the detective part of my character bio. Come on, faggot, think you can maybe bullshit me a little better than that?”

“You sure you wanna know?”

When Berry nodded, Pinstripe waved for her to lean closer to him. With an eye-roll, she played along, leaning in and turning her head as to offer Pinstripe an ear.

He whispered, “I’m here to meet The Prankster tonight at midnight. She’s gonna kill me, along with every single pony in this building.”

A moment of silence followed, during which, Pinstripe fastened a comically severe stare on Berry’s face. His nose crinkled at the bridge, and his eyebrows slanted dramatically. The look was a parody of intensity, like a child mimicking an expression he’d seen his father make.

Berry arched an eyebrow, bewildered but amused, and the sheer befuddlement in her features created a chink in Pinstripe’s iron face. One corner of his mouth twitched upward. He fought against the urge for as long as he could, but eventually a wide grin broke across his lips, ruining his stony facade. He had to cover his mouth to keep from exploding with laughter.

Berry did the same, clutching her stomach and covering her mouth as she snorted and tried to keep from bursting herself. Her eyes clamped shut, tears streaking from the corners, and the effort of bottling her sudden rush of merriment flushed her face bright red. Pinstripe had to look away from her for fear of his dam breaking, and together they laughed quietly but maniacally into their forehooves. The other bar patrons regarded them with queer, sideways glances, watching with muted interest as Berry and Pinstripe shook with barely contained elation.

It took a while, but when Berry finally found her breath she rested a cheek on the counter and looked over at Pinstripe. He was doing the same, a splash of red coloring the black and white of his face.

“That’s like the millionth time in two days I’ve heard that crock of shit about The Prankster,” said Berry. “First my partner, then that half-blind moron Twenty… It’s like there’s something in the water.”

“Nah, we just all go to same comedy club. It’s a kind of running gag we’ve got going.”

Berry sat up and dusted a mote of cigarette ash from her chest. “Thanks, faggot, I really needed that.” She was still in high spirits, drunk on booze, tobacco and heady laughter, but now Pinstripe heard a trace of sobriety sneak into her tone.

“Yeah?” He sat up as well and didn’t say anymore, waiting for Berry to continue.

“It’s just…” Her sobriety turned to reluctance, and though Pinstripe hadn’t known Berry for long, he had a feeling ‘reluctance’ wasn’t something she expressed often. “My kid’s birthday is coming up soon. She’s growing up so fast, while I’m stuck rotting away in this dump of a city, missing it all.” A wistful glow came over Berry as she spoke of her daughter. She pawed again at the welt on her neck, further irritating her injury

“You don’t see her anymore?”

“It’s a bullshit custody thing,” she said. “According to Child Services, I’m an unfit parent.”

“To be fair, you are having a drink with a career criminal in a strip club.”

Berry brightened at Pinstripe’s joke. “Touché. Though, I was hoping you’d be on my side.”

“Tragic past, remember. I hate unfit parents—especially unfit mothers.” Pinstripe waved for the bartender and ordered two more drinks.

“Easy there, faggot,” Berry chided in jest. “I’m not made of money.”

“Relax. I figure we can always murder the barkeep before he actually tries to charge you for anything.”

“I like the way you think.” Berry caught the fresh mug of beer that slid her way and took a drink.

She liked Pinstripe. Berry disliked most ponies she met (in fact she hated them), but she liked Pinstripe. She liked that he was a zebra who wore stripes. She liked the cadence of his voice, and how he treated everything like a joke. And she liked that despite having spent much of her adult life working as a detective, she couldn’t quite figure him out.

He was a bit off, she was certain of that much, but he was different from the usual crazies that scurried about Manehattan’s dives. Whereas the rest of the city’s loons were blind to their oddities, Pinstripe seemed fully aware of his own mild lunacy. He did more than just get life’s cruel joke. He was in on it.

They drank late into the night. They talked. They flirted. They pointed and laughed at the dancers who were all powdered and blushed and dolled up like a collection of sexy windup toys. Pinstripe, who had lived in Manehattan his entire life, tried explaining the appeal of strippers to Berry, talking around his drunken hiccups and random bursts of laughter. But Berry wasn’t interested. She kept interrupting his explanation to point out particularly eager stallions in the crowds that circled the stages.

After much joking and laughing, they began singling out individual dancers and making up imaginary lives for them. Berry’s favorite was the unicorn mare with the brilliant azure coat and silvery mane. According to Pinstripe, she was once a well-respected traveling performer whose mastery of the mystic arts was unparalleled. She had fame and fortune, until one day she was exposed as a fraud. Then, shamed and ostracized by the very ponies who had once admired her, she moved to Manehattan and became a stripper, her career over, her life fragmented, her dignity ground to dust and scattered to the wind.

It was a sadder pretend-life than the ones he dreamed up for the other dancers, but it was still Berry’s favorite. She listened and laughed; not because she found the tale amusing, but because she knew the blue-coated unicorn mare, and because Pinstripe would never know just how close he’d come to guessing her true life story.

After the story was told, Berry found herself liking him even more. Now she was certain that Pinstripe was in on the jest—the huge, unfunny cosmic gag that wreaked havoc on so many unsuspecting lives. And he wasn’t simply laughing along with the fate’s wicked joke the way Berry was. He was laughing at it. Perhaps, she mused, he was the one telling it.

---------------------

It was ten minutes until midnight when Pinstripe and Berry stumbled out onto the sidewalk. Actually, it was Berry that did most of the stumbling. She was red-faced and her head was pounding; she couldn’t remember the last time she had drank herself sick like this. She leaned against Pinstripe as the two of them wandered toward the curb to flag down a cab.

When one arrived, the cab-puller’s electric blue eyes flashed over Pinstripe with vague recognition. Pinstripe thought he recognized the cabbie as well, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen her before. After an awkward exchange between them, Pinstripe opened the door and stuffed Berry into the backseat.

“Where we going, faggot? Your place, I hope,” Berry slurred as she tried to pull Pinstripe into the cab with her.

“We aren’t going anywhere. You are going home.”

“Come on, you’re not really a queer. You just said that to be funny.”

Pinstripe managed to wrestle Berry into the cab. “Make sure she gets home in one piece,” he said to the cabbie. “If she’s too gone to tell you her address, take her up to the station and leave her in a drunk tank. She’s a cop. They’ll know what to do with her.”

“Whad'ya know, funny and a regular gentlecolt,” said Berry. “How ‘bout a goodbye kiss for the road? You owe me for all those drinks you bought on my tab.”

Pinstripe pondered a moment, looking away at the crowds of shuffling ponies that filled the streets.

What Berry wanted was a big, sloppy kiss, but what she got was a gentle hoof combing through her mane, a kind endearment and small peck on the cheek. Somehow, that was infinitely better.

“Am I ever gonna see you again, faggot?” A note of sobriety broke through her drunken slurring, and her eyes filled with a kind of vulnerability that caught Pinstripe off guard. She pawed at her welt again, perfectly unaware that she was touching it.

“It’s a small city, I’ll be around. You’re my straight mare remember? My comedy act isn’t the same without you,” he assured her with warm smile. “And quit poking at your bruises so much. You don’t have to cover them up, but you should leave them alone. Let them heal.”

With that, Pinstripe closed the door and nodded at the cabbie. He stood on the curb long after the taxi rounded a corner and disappeared into the black maw of the nighttime city streets. He didn’t realize what he was waiting for until it pulled up to the sidewalk and stepped out of a carriage drawn by a single unicorn stallion with a vacant expression. A Tongueless.

Pinstripe felt his gut tighten as Blitzkrieg trotted up to meet him.

“Is good to see you in one piece, comrade.”

Several seconds passed in silence. Both were overcome with mixed emotions, but neither granted their feelings the privilege of articulation.

“Did she send you a message too?” asked Pinstripe.

“Da. She told me I am to be coming alone or she would be killing you.”

Hearing Krieg utter those words touched Pinstripe; he wanted pull his surrogate father into a tight hug. The pores of his skin hungered for a comforting touch, but the memory of his mother’s looming apartment building ensured the desire would never become action.

“She isn’t here yet,” said Pinstripe. “You could still leave. Get the Bolts together. Think up a plan. Fight her.”

“And what about you, comrade? Why are you not leaving as well? Why did you even come in first place?”

“Because I’m done with being laughed at,” he declared.

“A strange reason to be seeing The Prankster.”

It was. Pinstripe might have grinned at the absurdity of it, but he was too scared to muster a smile.

---------------------

Pinstripe was seated at a table that was near one of the stages, staring blankly at a dancer as she stripped off a frilly pair of panties and tossed them at her audience. Krieg was sitting beside him, his lips folded around a cartoonishly fat cigar. Both were lost in thought, their minds drifting away on clouds of uncertainty.

If not for the distraction of loud music and naked, gyrating mares, the clubgoers might have heard the sudden cacophony of horror-stricken shouts that had erupted just outside the front entrance. They might have heard the chatter of gunfire, the clangor of fleeing hooves, the blunt thumps of dead bodies striking the ground.

They did, however, hear the cannon blast—it was too thunderous to miss—and their heads swiveled as the club’s front entrance exploded. The blast mangled the double-doors and punched a hole in the surrounding wall. Dust rose. Shrieks rose.

And then the shooting started.

Pinstripe dove under his table and covered his head with both front hooves, stricken by wide-eyed terror as volleys of lead tore the club to pieces.

Blitzkrieg leaned back in his seat and took a drag from his cigar, not flinching as panic seized the clubgoers and roused them into a herd of senseless animals.

The room ignited with colorful flashes and short popping sounds. Unicorns—dozens of them vanishing in rapid succession.

An earth pony mare who had been sitting at the bar frantically grabbed at the bartender, shouting something about not wanting to be left behind. Though his horn was already glowing, hesitation seized him. The mare was paralyzing beautiful, with fur like caramel and eyes like bite-sized pieces of chocolate. In her minced, panic-stricken babbling she mentioned that her name was Catwalk—that she was a mother of two precious baby colts and she did not want to die.

The bartender wanted to help her—to sweep her up in his forelegs, and hold her close to his chest, and be her savior—but teleporting more than one body was difficult.

With a lead-heavy heart he shoved Catwalk to the floor, magical light gathering at the tip of his horn. Teary-eyed, she sprang up and lunged at him, furious, terrified, but she was one second too late, one fast-twitch motion too slow. He was already gone, leaving nothing in his wake but a pop and brief rush of air.

There was another ear-splitting boom, and a new section of the wall was blown to pieces.

More debris.

More dust.

Her heart racing, Catwalk shoved past the other fleeing ponies—all earth ponies and pegasi now—as she sprinted away. Blitzkrieg watched her and the others run by his table, shaking his head despairingly. He took another nonchalant drag from his cigar, staring impassively at the mass of rushing bodies.

They were all dead. They didn’t know it yet, but every pony in this room was already a memory.

Ignorant to this cruel fact, or perhaps rebelling against it, Catwalk ran through the crowded club, her mind reeling. Find a back entrance, she thought. And as she galloped, her hooves stomped over strange objects—objects that were too soft and squishy to be fallen chair legs, dropped coins or broken beer bottles. They made hurt noises as her hooffalls trampled them, but she kept her eyes facing front, refusing to acknowledge the strange objects that squirmed and writhed like dying things.

She was directly behind the leader of the charging herd, a nimble earth stallion who managed to reach the back exit first. He was already breathing a sigh of relief as he reached forward and flung the door open.

His celebration was premature. Mr. Turnip was standing in the doorway, waiting, shotgun in hand.

When Catwalk saw the gun, the world suddenly became a movie in slow motion. Time passed in frames that captured and magnified every detail: the grey of the gun barrel, the fore-end drawing back, the muzzle flashing, the smoke rising, the spent shell ejecting...

And then the pack leader’s skull exploded, splattering Catwalk’s face with a slew of gore. She blinked and slid to a stop and spun around and nearly slipped—and oh shit, oh shit, oh shit it was in her mouth! Bits of brain and skull were clinging to her tongue, and she couldn’t spit out the sticky mess fast enough.

The stink of blood mixed with gunpowder made her nostrils flare and her eyes water as she sprinted back the way she came. Her heart was in her throat when something bit into the back of her thigh. Blood spilled down her leg but she kept charging, undeterred, until eventually her front hoof snagged on one of those strange objects. Screaming, she toppled over and landed on her face. When she tried to stand the pain in her thigh flared, like a fire being fed gasoline, and the best she could manage was a brisk crawl.

A potent combination of pain and fear squeezed waterfalls from her chocolate eyes. Her mouth formed a slew colorful swears meant for bartender. That bastard had left her to die—looked her in the eye and shoved her aside—and in that moment, she hated him more than the monsters who were attacking the club.

She looked back to see if she was being followed. She wasn’t. The griffin with the shotgun had stayed in the doorway, though bullets were still whizzing randomly overhead. She was near the bar again, close to the entrance where all this madness had started. She hauled herself across the floor, then over the corpse of a pegasus mare who had been trampled during the chaos. Nearly every pony in the club was dead now, and the few that still lived had been fatally wounded.

After a long stint of dragging herself, Catwalk noticed the shooting had stopped. Still, she didn’t feel safe out in the open, so she slunk under a table that was still standing upright. She rolled onto her side and examined her injured thigh, cringing. It was bad. A pulpy hole gaped just below her cutie mark, gushing with dark, syrupy blood. She pawed at the edge of the wound, her teeth clenching involuntarily as the pain in her leg spiked.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said a voice that cracked with manic laughter as it spoke. “Stop—hehehehe—stop touching your bruises. You have to—hahahaha—you have to let them heal.”

Catwalk looked away from her wounded leg and fastened her eyes on the zebra who was sharing her hiding place. Pinstripe was lying on his stomach with his head covered, shaking. He was terrified—the fear swimming in his stony eyes was proof of that—but he was also smiling, practically from ear to ear.

A third explosion rocked the building, and a new cloud of dust rose to replace those that had faded.

A moment of silence. Then hoof beats. Then a voice.

“Hah… Hah… Hah… Hah… Hah…”

Catwalk gasped as something grabbed her tail and pulled. “Please!” she cried out, clawing at the floor as she was dragged from under the table. “Please! D-don’t hurt me!” She rolled to her back, eyes gaping saucer-wide, breath catching, limbs trembling, nerves shot, stomach turning and turning and turning and yearning to be empty.

A mare peered down at her. In the dim light of the bullet-riddled club, Catwalk couldn’t make out all the features of the mare’s face. Just the grin. It was impossibly curved, and bright red, practically glowing in the dark.

“Oh, I’m not going to hurt you,” said the glowing grin, its voice maple-sweet and giddy. “You won’t feel a thing. I promise.”

A marrow-deep shudder racked Catwalk when she felt the knife cut her face. The grin had lied to her. She felt it. She felt blood gush as the sharp edge slashed down her muzzle. She felt searing pain spread across her face. She felt cold steel rip her ear, then gouge her eye, then stab her cheek, then split her tongue, then cleave her bottom lip, then slash her gums…

Finished with her carving, Pinks sat down on Catwalk’s lifeless chest and admired her work. The once beautiful caramel face was now a scarlet mask of flayed flesh. What remained scarcely resembled anything equine, and that was good—that was the look Pinks had been aiming for—but something about the carving was still… off. She pursed her lips in thought, searching for a way for to improve her work.

A bolt of inspiration struck her. She placed both hooves on what remained of Catwalk’s cheeks and lifted them upward, forming a smile. “Perfect.”

Pinstripe, who had been watching Catwalk’s execution from under the table, found the courage to leave his hiding place and stand up straight. He adjusted his tie as he watched the Carnies file into the room.

Grift entered first, carrying a briefcase, with Digger trailing a few paces behind. The dog was pushing a bright pink cannon that was mounted on two rickety wheels, a wisp of smoke trailing from its barrel. Flour appeared from behind the bar (apparently she had been there the entire time), and Lintsalot and Turnip, who had been sealing off the other exits, straggled in last.

Without saying a word, both Pinstripe and Pinks joined Blitzkrieg at his unharmed table, while the Carnies stood around them in a circle. The atmosphere took on a ritualistic air, as if there was something sacred about this meeting.

It was Blitzkrieg who spoke first. “You are going through awful lot of trouble to kill me, comrade,” he said, finishing his cigar and tossing the butt aside. “Is not so good to be making too much noise. Cops will be here any minute to drag you back to asylum. Is—how you say—only a matter of time.”

“Oh, I already have something special planned for the little piggies,” Pinks laughed. “And you’re wrong about one thing, Krieg: I’m not going to kill you. Pinhead is.”

Pinstripe was taken aback. He started to protest but Krieg hushed him with a stern hoof. “And why is that, clown?”

“Because Piñata loves me.” Pinks unlatched the suitcase and slid it across the table toward Pinstripe. “Because I can give him something you never could.”

Pinstripe looked down at the open suitcase, finding the modified revolver inside. A single bullet lay beside the gun.

“You get one shot, Striped Bass, so choose carefully,” said Pinks. “Who's it gonna be? Me? Or daddy dearest? Hehehehehe…”

Pinstripe stared down at the gun. Then up at Blitzkrieg. Then over at Pinks.

Sirens blared in distance.

Radios crackled.

Tires screeched and skidded…