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The Syndicate

by Blarghalt

Chapter 6: The Cleaner

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Princess Celestia responded to the many letters sent to her as Philomena was perched contently in her cage. The pet read each parchment down to the word, her mistress oblivious to the spy just behind her back. It had been a slow day; most of the correspondences were with boring figures The Syndicate had likely already bribed or blackmailed.

The phoenix tilted her head when she noticed that Princess Celestia had pulled out a letter from Twilight Sparkle. The words written in a painfully calculated style and spoke of some dull research that only Celestia could read without falling asleep. Sometimes she did anyway.

Philomena wished she could burst into flame to avoid the boredom when a low, dull birdsong trilled behind her. She paused. A few more notes drifted from the one of the roosting areas in the castle crevices below.

The signal!

Winona or Angel had an assignment for Philomena. She was glad to take it; the more jobs she did, the sooner she would stop being known as the newbie of The Syndicate.

She began to fidget and caw. The princess laid down the paper and turned to her.

"What's wrong, Philomena?"

The phoenix looked out the window in response.

"Oh. Why didn't you say so?" the princess said and unhooked the cage door, freeing Philomena and giving her access to the skies. She roared out of the room and away from Canterlot. Celestia watched for a while before returning to her reading.

"I swear, she's been acting so strange lately..."


Philomena's destination was a hot spring several miles away from Canterlot, hidden neatly away in a forest. It was the remnants of an active volcano and it suited the bird's hot nature well enough. Within just a few minutes she was already circling the steaming pool of water that was her second home and spared no time to swoop down and perch on a branch above the hot bubbling pools.

She looked around for her contact, but found she was alone. She began to preen herself to kill time until she heard a bark below. She jumped off the perch, catching her breath she she saw Winona at the base of the tree. She relaxed and landed in front of the dog, who still wore the glazed dumb animal eyes she used around ponies. At her feet was a scroll, covered in saliva.

Philomena looked at it and squawked, chastising Winona for getting her assignment all wet. Winona barked in response, telling her that she didn't really have a choice in the matter and ran off.

The phoenix snapped the string that bound the scroll together and it gracefully unfurled, giving her the details that she needed.



Name: Black Olive

Age: 27

Mane Color: Black

Cutie Mark: Martini glass with 2 ice cubes

The target owns assets belonging to the Syndicate. Burn everything. Enclosed is a photo and map of his most likely route.

Don’t screw this up.

- The Brains



Her jaw dropped when she saw the signature. All of her previous assignment letters were made by Winona or Angel, sometimes Tank. She had only heard about their leader through passing mention, a vague and extremely intelligent figure that even the rabbit seemed to fear. They wouldn't tell her who he actually was or even what species he belonged to, only that he was intense.

She went over the letter one more time, memorizing the details before burning the letter to ashes and launching herself into the sky towards her target.

Philomena chose a spot in the road a few miles from Las Pegasus and waited for her mark. The calm left her plenty of time to contemplate how she would go about destroying the Joke. The Syndicate usually gave her very few conditions to finishing her assignments, giving her full leeway on how she did them. This suited her freewheeling nature just fine; she'd fly out of Canterlot for her afternoon exercise and burn down a house or two for insurance fraud. Princess Celestia was never the wiser.

Still, just hurling fireballs at them would raise questions. No, Philomena had to make this look like any old pony with a torch could have done it. She noted several old trees close to the road and quickly formulated a plan. Like all of her plans, it involved burning things.

She liked to burn things.

It took longer than expected for the smugglers to show up. Several larger earth ponies pulled rather conspicuous draped carriages behind them. She watched them pass by until they were in the position. When they were, she sprung her trap.

She stretched her wings and one particularly old tree burst into flames. It crashed down on the road and blocked the paths of Black Olive and his crew. They shouted in surprise as a second flaming tree smashed down behind them. Several more were sent flying out of the middle the forest, fully wrapped in a cloak of fire. The massive, flaming lumbers smashed the carriages and sent Poison Joke everywhere.

"To Tartarus with this!" Black Olive yelled before he ran into a wheat field next to the road. All of his cohorts followed. Their screams carried off into the night and soon the only sounds that could be heard were the snaps and crackles coming from Philomena’s fires.

She made sure that she was alone before she examined the smashed carriages. The Joke within them had been crushed and spilled everywhere, but still viable. She flew above the carnage and used every bit of her power to heat the ground below. The sensitive petals of the exotic plant were soon blackened and useless. It pained her to waste this much good contraband, but orders were orders.


It was late in the evening when she returned to the balcony of her home and landed on the railing. At that moment, Celestia walked by the open entrance and saw her loyal firebird. She walked over and extended a leg for Philomena to perch on and the phoenix gladly accepted the offer.

"There you are, Philomena." she said and eyeballed at her playfully. "You haven't been up to any trouble, have you?"

They both had a good chuckle. Philomena’s laugh was normal at first, but slowly developed into something much more sinister.

Next Chapter: The Brains Estimated time remaining: 7 Minutes
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