At some point, somepony had given me a blanket, which I kept tightly wrapped around myself. The police Starshine had shown up with had turned out to be a bit more . . . friendly than those I’d met before, and they’d been fairly gentle with us since they took us to their station. Hours had gone by, though, and I sat alone in the waiting room at the front of the station, afraid to drop into sleep.

The only other occupant of the room was an old policemare at the front desk who boredly flipped through a newspaper on her desk. She hadn’t glanced my way since I came in, and hadn’t even looked up when some thoughtful officer had given me a cotton blanket. I clutched it tighter around myself and turned over in the uncomfortable wooden chair I had been assigned to.

On the ground near me was my camera bag and cape. And under the cape . . . the weapon. I shook my head. Don’t think about it. The cape seemed so silly now, too. What had I been thinking? Sure, Joya had given it for me to wear, but I’d been the one that had kept it on. Had I really thought I was some kind of hero? Probably, since I supposed it was everyone’s dream to be a hero. But it sure had backfired on me. At least the ringing in my ears was gone.

The door leading back into the depths of the police station on a dirty little block of the Fillydelphia slums opened, and a mare stepped out. Her metal wings screeched softly as they traced over each other. Starshine quietly closed the door behind her and took the seat beside me.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey yourself,” I replied.

“What does that even mean?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She bit her lip. “They said he’s going to make it, you know.”

“Who?”

“The pony that you, uh- well, you know.”

“Shot,” I said. “The pony I shot. Don’t try and sugarcoat it.”

Starshine slumped in her chair. “Right, shot, sorry. I thought for a second that maybe the best thing to do was not remind you of what happened.”

“Sorry, it’s just . . .” I began. “Just that I don’t want to forget it, you know? I mean, everypony around here has been treating me so delicately, like somehow I was the victim.” I pulled the blanket tighter around myself.

Starshine sighed and wrapped one steely wing around me. “Now, come on, it wasn’t all your fault. Nopony blames you for what happened . . . you were scared and he just burst in on you, and you had no way of knowing if he had a gun or not. It was just a simple mistake.”

“No mistake is ever simple,” I snapped. Her eyes widened a little. “What I did was my fault. Mine. I shot an unarmed stallion because I was scared and couldn’t control myself like a . . . like a schoolfilly!” I looked down. “What would Rainbow Remedy think of this? Heck, what will Grapevine think of this? If she was in my place, she would’ve solved the whole situation without having to resort to any of this.”

Starshine place a hoof on each of my shoulders. “But Grapevine wasn’t there: you were.”

“Unfortunately.”

She sighed and ran her hooves through her mane. “Yeah, well, bottom line is that you need to stop beating yourself up about it. We’re not done here; the police are keeping us through the night to ensure our protection, but tomorrow we’ve got to find a way to find all the captured gang members.”

“Did anypony else make it out?”

“One of the others gangs, the Warriors, made it out the other exit, but apparently they were hunted by the Caballos almost all day; that was what Malo was doing before he made it back to the courthouse,” she said, then smiled. “But hey, they made it out.”

I turned away. “Well good for them.”

Starshine threw up her hooves. “Are you going to be grumpy all night?”

“I was planning on it, yeah.”

“Well do you think you could at least be grumpy somewhere else?” She stood up and grabbed my hooves and pulled me out of my chair. “I came in here to ask if you’d want to watch the police and Ivory while they interviewed Malo’s father.” She started pulling me toward the door. “Come on!”

“Wait,” I said, “I thought you were going to give me a choice.”

“I was, but then you turned out to be all grumpy, so now you have to.” She beamed. “It’ll be more fun than staying here, that’s for sure.”

Her grip was closer to iron clamps than anything else, so I let her drag me through the station door and into the offices further in. I don’t even think the policemare at the desk noticed.

We were led to a room with no windows and only a wooden desk where another uniformed policemare sat, this one a unicorn, with a notepad and pencil. She stared at the blank wall like it was a window. In the corner of the room stood Shuya, leaning against the wall.

“So you got her,” he said to Starshine.

She nodded. “I found her moping out front; figured I would bring her back here.”

“Good.” He turned to me. “Are you doing okay?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you want that to stay a rhetorical question so you don’t have to answer,” he replied.

The policemare shushed the both of us and turned her attention back to . . . the wall. Suddenly, though, her horn began to glow and a massive section of the wall turned transparent like it was glass. On the other side, the old Caballo with his gray, slicked back mane and large glasses sat at a metal desk with his hooves cuffed in front of him. Across from him sat a policepony in a darker blue uniform than the others and a captain’s cap. Flanking him were Ivory and Rover.

“Do you know why you’re in here?” the policepony said.

“No, but I suspect you’ll be more than happy to tell me,” the older Caballo said in a clipped tone. He glared at all three of the figures across from him like it was ludicrous that they would even dare take him in.

“Your son,” Ivory said, placing a talon on the table. “Where is he?”

Caballo shrugged. “How should I know? Am I supposed to keep up with my son at all times?”

“Well we’d assume so,” the policepony said in a measured tone while glaring at Ivory. “You are, after all, the leader of the Caballo family in Fillydelphia, correct?”

Caballo sniffed. “I am, but what of it? I haven’t done anything illegal-” He chuckled. “. . . that you can prove.”

“No, you haven’t,” Ivory said, “but your son did.”

“The last time I checked, the law did not hold responsible the father for the sins of his son.” He turned and almost seemed to stare right at me through the wall, though from their reactions they couldn’t actually see us on the other side. “After all, was it not one of your ponies that shot my unarmed guard?

I looked at him through the transparent wall and gulped. Starshine and Shuya watched me, but I didn’t do anything that worried them, apparently, as they stopped after a moment or two.

“We are looking into that matter,” the policepony said, “but all evidence indicates that it was your guard that rushed the mare in question, and that she only acted on self-defense.”

Caballo sniffed. “Of course you would say that.”

Suddenly, Rover thumped a hoof on the table. “Just tell us where he is!” he said. “Where. Is. Your. Son?”

“To tell the truth, I don’t know,” Caballo said with a laugh. “We have more than one backup location in this city; he could be at any one of those. If you want to find out where he is, you will not get the information from me.”

Rover looked like he was about to hit the older Caballo, but the policepony held up a hoof. “Silence, both of you,” he said tersely. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I can see this interview isn’t getting anywhere for the time being. Until I get further reports, this meeting is over.” He stood up and grabbed Caballo by the hoof. “Come on, I’ll take you to your cell.”

The wall suddenly became opaque again and the policemare in front of me stopped writing. “Meeting’s over you three,” she said. “Time to clear out.”

We filed out of the room and the policemare disappeared to parts unknown within the station. Starshine grumbled. “What a waste of time,” she said.

“Did you expect it to be anything more?” Shuya asked.

“Well, I guess not, but it still would have been nice to know what we’re going to do tomorrow.”

“We?” I said.

Shuya shot Starshine a look. “You didn’t tell her?”

Starshine tired to smile. “Well, there wasn’t a whole lot of time and then we had to come watch the interview. . .” She looked around. “Though, really, you know this one better than I do, Shuya. Plus, Ivory wanted to see me in the lounge, so why don’t I leave this one to you?”

Before Shuya could say more, Starshine had scampered off down the hall. Shuya shook his head and turned to me. “I’ve known her for three hours and she’s already doing this . . . is she like this all the time?”

I shrugged. “She broke my wing within the first hour I knew her.”

Shuya eyes widened. “Wow.” There was a moment of pause between us. “So I guess you’re going to want answers, aren’t you?”

“I am kind of a reporter now, so yeah.”

He sighed. “Alright, well, do you mind if we walk while we talk? The air here feels like it’s suffocating me.” I nodded and we started to meander down one hall, neither of us really knowing where it led.

“Okay,” I said after a little while, “why are we participating in anything tomorrow? I mean, I thought the whole point of calling in the police was to get them to do their job and leave us out of it. Especially because, well . . . I’d rather keep yesterday from happening again.”

“Well for one, most of the policemares here have no idea what they’re doing,” Shuya said. “I talked with that interviewer a while back, and it turns out the only ponies working on the case are part of a think tank specifically made for tracking down the Caballo family.”

“Then why don’t they just track them down?”

“That’s the problem,” Shuya replied. “They don’t really know much. Before Pullmare’s decline, the Caballo they’re holding here in the station didn’t run the family here in Fillydelphia: his brother did. But when his brother burned inside the City Hall, Caballo took over the family and they kind of dropped off the radar; no killings or anything.”

“Until Malo, right?” I said.

“Yeah.”

We turned a corner and two policemares that had not been engaging in activity approved by the police quickly blushed and ducked into an office. Shuya seemed to take the sight quietly and didn’t make note of it, and neither did I.

“So what’s all this got to do with me?” I said. “Okay, so they aren’t having the best of luck on the case, but why are we still involved? I feel like I’m missing something here.”

Shuya awkwardly paused and looked away. When he finally spoke, he didn’t look me in the eye. “For one, the pony you shot? You’re still in the right as far as the law goes . . . but the police have decided to overlook a trial and everything if you help out.”

That stung. “They’re bribing me,” I said.

“Pretty much.” He sighed. “I mean, I’m sure they’re also just trying to protect you from the Caballo family’s lawyers. We know you didn’t mean to shoot him, but they way they argue . . .”

“Hey, uh, could we not talk about that?” I said. “Please?”

“Fine then, what else do you have on your mind?”

I stopped for a second to think. “You mentioned a mare,” I said at last. “Noriko, I think? What happened to her?”

“She got . . . swept up. We were trying to make our way to the tunnel, but so were about two dozen other gangs. I tried to hold on to her, but I- I couldn’t.” He stopped walking. “And now she’s with Malo with the others.”

I grimaced. “We’ll get her back, you’ll see. For now though, tell me about her. I mean, you seem to be majorly crushing on her . . .”

He raised an eyebrow. “Well don’t you seem nosy all of a sudden.”

“Just trying to keep your mind off of the other stuff, is all.”

“Yes, well, it’s working,” he admitted with a smile. “Because me and her, well, we had a little bit going on, I guess you could call it. Nothing serious, of course. Shogo--our little gang’s leader--wouldn’t allow it. He said that it was dangerous to fraternize.” He laughed sadly. “Guess it was.”

“Well why didn’t you and her just quit the gang?”

“You don’t simply quit a gang,” Shuya said. “Though, of course, Noriko wanted to try anyway. She wanted to go to Canterlot and be . . . something, I don’t remember. Wish I’d pay more attention, now.”

I could see the conversation starting to get away from me in a direction I did not want to go down, so I tried to change the subject. “Hey, something’s been nagging at me for a while.”

“Oh yeah, and what is that?” Shuya said, snapping out a little of his mood.

“Back in the tunnel . . . why’d you save me? Out of all the other ponies running past, why me? Besides the whole being stuck on the ground, of course.”

We stopped walking and planted our hooves in front of the door. Shuya smiled. “I was hoping you would say that.” He nodded to the door. “Because, to tell the truth, that’s not something I should be answering.”

The door indicated that the room beyond was filled with holding cells for the newer prisoners. Caballo would be one of them. “You want me to talk to a . . .crime boss . . . about this?” I said, not quite believing the whole thing.

Shuya laughed. “It was Ivory’s idea. He said the two of you could have quite the talk.”

“So this entire walk was . . .”

“A set up, yeah.” He winked. “Everything I said was true, though. I’m a stallion of my word, after all. We Neighponese have to stick to our honor if only to fit the stereotype, after all.” He trotted off, leaving me standing in front of the door. I didn’t really have a choice besides going in, I figured.

I turned the knob and went inside.

The holding cells were far cleaner than any jail I had ever seen. More like a hotel than the cell I had shared for a short time with Pullmare a few weeks back. The cells themselves were empty, save one at the very end of the row. The older Caballo lay glumly on a rough cot, looking up at the ceiling. I knocked on the cell’s bars to get his attention.

He snorted and sat up, blinking rapidly in the glare of fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. When he recognized who I was, he smiled. “Well, well, well,” he said. “I was beginning to doubt if you were going to show up.”

“My friends seemed to think it would be a good idea to speak with you,” I said. “So I didn’t really have a choice.”

“Oh, you always have a choice,” Caballo said lightly. “You just knew that, deep down, you wanted to talk to me.”

“Since when is a crime boss a philosopher?” I said.

“I’ve lived for quite some time . . . you pick some things up along the way.” He picked himself off the cot and walked up to me until the cell bars were the only thing separating us. “But now, would you happen to know why you decided to come see me?”

I shrugged. “Not really, and I can always leave if you keep this little act of yours up.”

Caballo laughed. “But you won’t, will you? Because I believe you came in here for one reason: you are feeling guilty.”

“Oh yeah, guilty of what? I don’t owe you anything.”

Caballo shook his head. “Of course you don’t feel guilty about me . . . but rather somepony close to me.” He smiled. “Tell me, Miss Flower, do you even know the name of the pony you shot? Or even better, what he looked like?”

I stood back a little bit. Because the truth was . . . I didn’t even remember what he looked like. In my head, the guard was just some kind of apparition . . . an embodiment of all the emotions that had been flying through my head as I pulled that trigger. Not somepony real. “No, no, I don’t know what he looked like,” I admitted.

“Then I suppose you wouldn’t know anything else, would you? And I imagine you won’t get a chance to at this point, either. Stalwart’s wife probably doesn’t want her husband’s shooter to show up, especially around their daughter. Poor little girl must be a wreck.”

“I-” I stammered. The words felt like hot iron being pressed into my brain. What guilt of mine that had started to subside came back with a vengeance. I could hear my knees shake as they threatened to give out from under me.

“But you never thought of that, did you? You must have assumed my guards were faceless . . . nameless. Just cannon fodder that you needed to remove on your way to getting a stab at myself or my son. You never stopped to think about how much the life of a henchpony may matter, so long as you could delude yourself into thinking you were a hero.”

“I’m no hero,” I snapped. “And what, is this all that you wanted to do? Have me come down here just to insult me and make me feel worse than I already am? It was an accident, okay? I can say sorry a thousand times and it won’t matter, and I know that.”

Caballo snorted. “There are no such things as accidents. Just actions that too little thought is put into.” Before I could respond, he held up a hoof and said, “But I did not want you down here to upset the great Minty Flower.”

“And now you’re just mocking me.”

He held up his hooves in mock self defense. “Oh no, most definitely not. Why would I mock you? You are, after all, more powerful than anypony else in this building.”

It was my turn to laugh. “I think you’ve got me confused with somepony else.”

“Do I?” Caballo said with a chuckle. “I believe, in fact, this is what that insipid hybrid of yours that calls himself Ivory wanted me to talk with you about. I would have protested, but I have nothing better to do in this little cell, and a good argument always gets my spirits up.”

“Alright, so what makes me so special then?” I said sharply.

“You work for the Chronicler, do you not?”

“Yeah, but just as a photographer. How in the wide, wide world of Equestria does that make me more powerful than you?”

“Simple,” he said. “I control ponies, yes . . . but only through methods considered undesirable to them. Money or weapons or simple fear is how I kept, er, keep my power. But you. You can control ponies by telling them what they’re supposed to think is most desirable. You can control how they feel about you.”

“Since when have I ever done that?” I said. “Grapevine and I just report . . . we don’t really influence anything.”

“You don’t?” Caballo said. “That’s news to me. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I seem to remember the wave of factories being investigated and shut down when your picture of Pullmare and your partner’s story went national. Not to even mention the little piece on the Germane that still has the Princesses talking angry with the government of Germaneigh.”

“That happened . . . because of our stories?” I said, not quite believing a word he was saying but wanting to all the same.

“Well, more like your stories hit along the vein that had been waiting to burst,” Caballo said. “But that is the essence of journalism, correct?”

“I don- I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know anything about this . . .”

“Ah, but you do!” he exclaimed. “I can see it in your eyes. You are excited to think that you have actual power. For once in your life, correct?” He laughed softly. “It is the same expression my son made when I allowed him to be in charge of my operations.”

I jumped back so hard my rump smacked against the wall behind me. “I’m nothing like him!” I said.

“No, I don’t think so . . . not yet, anyway. But I can see it in your eyes . . . you are feeling the weight of ponies turning to you because you’re their ‘easy way out’ of the problem. In a city so influenced by journalism, they presume you to have all the answers--that somehow you will automatically know what to do.”

“And just how would you know?” I said.

“How do you think it feels to run an organization like mine?”

I sat down on the cold concrete floor, but I barely felt it. The entire room seemed to swirl around me, out of control. I didn’t know what was even happening . . . or didn’t want to. “So this, this thing they’ve got going on tomorrow . . . they want me to do something for them, but I don’t know what. Since when does the police turn to a journalist for advice?”

“The price of fame,” Caballo said simply.

“Yes, but I don’t know what to do with that fame,” I said. “There’s nothing I can offer them as just some low-level reporter.”

Caballo just kind of looked at me funny. “Did you not hear anything I just said? You are a reporter, and deserve every emphasis on that word I can give. You have the most influence of any pony in this building, even if you can’t see it very well.”

I cross my hooves in front of my chest. “Okay, so I have some influence after the dust settles, but how am I supposed to use it right now?”

“Why, by using it the only way you can,” he said. “Lead them. To them, you have the answers: you’re the mare who stopped Pullmare and Chemiker, after all! Whether you like it or not, and whether the rest are aware of it, they already see you as the pony who knows how to deliver them from this crisis. Now, it’s simply a matter of whether you will assume that role or not."

My head started to hurt and the room started to seem very cramped. I stood up quickly and started backing away toward the door. “I think I’m going to need some time to . . . some time to think about this,” I said.

Caballo slunk back to the cot in his cell. “I don’t expect you to return,” he called after me. “But if you do, reflect first on what I’ve just told you!”

I stumbled half-blind through the police station until I found myself in the front lobby again. But even there didn’t seem to be the place I wanted to be . . . the place I needed to be. So I barged out the front door without a word. I thought I could hear the policemare at the front desk yell at me, but I ignored her.

It was dark outside, and the streetlights flickered on the cold, wet pavement. It was raining. Puddles splashed around me as I made my way down the street, not really knowing where I was going. It was like my mind had taken a backseat and I was just trying to let whatever instincts I had drive me.

I realized at some point that I was running, and slowed down. I stopped in front of one well-lit building and let the rain patter gently on my head as I caught my breath. It had been cathartic to run, but after a few minutes my legs burned from underuse. It hadn’t even occurred to me to fly. I also found, to my surprise, that I still had managed to hold on to my camerabag somehow.

The building I had planted myself in front of glowed brighter than the rest around it, so I decided to get a good look at it. It was a little less run-down than those around it, and painted in all white except for a green sun insignia on it. The hospital. Of course. It wasn’t an accident that I had brought myself--even subconsciously--to the hospital, I knew. Caballo must have had a bigger impact than I thought.

Still, I weighed my options and chose the one that required less guilt and walked through the front, glass double-doors. The inside, despite the somewhat shabby appearance of the outside, was as clean as any other hospital I had ever seen. The only difference was an almost out-of-place piano sitting right past the front doors.

The waiting room was surprisingly empty for such a late hour, and nopony appeared to be working the front desk. With a moment’s hesitation, I walked through double swinging doors into the interior of the hospital.

Past the doors, the building became another world entirely. Nurses skidded every which way and doctors were constantly trying to chat with just about every pony they could while orderlies wheeled around gurneys and equipment. It was a mad house.

It was also a mad house with a very burly security guard. He walked up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. “Who are you?” he said in a gruff voice.

“I’m, uh-” I stammered, suddenly remembering that I was, if nothing else, the perpetrator in a crime against one of the hospital’s patients. Perhaps it would have been better to think my flights of fancy through, said the part of my brain that reminded me that I had brushed my teeth shortly after I took a swig of orange juice.

The security guard looked like he was about to question me right out of the hospital’s front doors when a familiar voice stepped in on my defense. “She’s with me,” Ivory said, walking up behind the security guard. His half-pony, half-griffon form stuck out sorely within the confines of the hospital, but he didn’t seem to mind. His talons made a clacking sound on the tile below him.

The guard nodded to Ivory. “Well . . . alright then. If she’s with the police, then she’s fine. But nopony else besides her, got it?”

Ivory waved him off until we were alone. “Police, huh?” I said.

He shrugged. “I needed an excuse to get out of that station, and they wanted somepony to watch over that pesky little victim of yours. Figured I might as well be up for the job; us hippogriffs don’t sleep much.”

“Yeah . . .” I said, still cringing a little from the victim comment. “I, uh, talked to your friend in the jail cell.”

“Oh, Sabio and I go way back,” Ivory said. “Mostly as enemies, but he’s willing to talk your ear off over just about anything if you let him. I assume he’s the reason you’re here?”

“Uh, kind of,” I said. “I guess I just feel very, well, guilty.”

Ivory smiled. “As you should. There’s nothing wrong with feeling guilt for a wrong you committed. Only shows you’ve still got some morals left in you.”

“Right, well . . . can I see him?” I said.

Ivory grimaced. “That part’s a little tricky,” he said. “Depends on if he’ll let you, and what you have to say.”

“I just want to apologize,” I said. “That’s it. He can get mad at me if he wants and, well, he’d probably be right to. I just want him to know that I’m sorry.”

“That’s the Minty I hoped I would see,” Ivory said softly.

He led me down a few stark-white corridors to a plain room with a door marked only by a clipboard hanging from it. The name on it read, “Stalwart Defense.” So a name to match the memory, I supposed.

Ivory placed one talon on the door’s handle. “Are you ready?” he said.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be,” I replied.

“Good enough for me.” He pushed open the wide door and led me into the hospital room. The furniture inside was sparse: a hospital bed and single wooden chair in the corner by the window. In the hospital bed was Stalwart, swathed up in bandages and a hospital gown. Somehow, the sight of an admittedly-imposing stallion in what amounted to a lime-green frock took all of the intimidation out of his appearance. He was awake, but seemed to be staring at the chair rather than us.

I realized the chair was occupied. A filly no more than eight was curled up in it, apparently asleep. Her messy mane was splayed about her face in a way that was so familiar that it pained me and made me suddenly think of home.

“If you’re going to stay,” Stalwart said quietly without looking at us, “please shut the door. I don’t want the noise to wake her.”

Ivory obligingly did so, and Stalwart turned over in his bed to get a good look at us. He didn’t seem to even notice Ivory, however, when his eyes hit on me. Something between a grimace and a sneer appeared on his face. “What are you doing here? Come to gloat with your police protection?” He looked to his daughter again, almost as if he was afraid of what she might hear.

“I didn’t come for any of that,” I said quietly. “I came here from the police station to apologize for . . . what I did.”

“For shooting me.”

“Yeah, for that.”

He sighed. “You’re young, so I’m going to assume you thought this was an accident.”

I smiled a little. “Accidents don’t exist. I wasn’t careful and, worse, I wasn’t thinking. Everything I did was my fault . . . my fault for not keeping calm.”

“You’ve been talking to my boss.”

“Well, he’s right you know.”

Stalwart laughed quietly. “He usually is.” He coughed a little, though, and had to lie back down on the sheets. “It’s too bad he can’t come visit me, being in jail in all. He came last time . . . this isn’t my first time in the hospital for a bullet, after all.”

“He’s only in jail because the police seem to think they have a reason to hold him,” Ivory reminded him. “Not that I object . . . the details are not quite in favor of your boss.”

“They never have been,” Stalwart said. “At least, not since the kid started taking over. He’s the one that’s been doing all the killings and the hostile takeovers and all that crap. We don’t even get any money out of it, most times.”

“You seem very . . . forthcoming with this information,” Ivory said.

Stalwart shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter anymore, I don’t think. The boss was already talking about retiring to one of Celestia’s fiefdoms soon, anyway. And as for me, well . . .” He looked at his daughter still sleeping softly in the chair. “I can’t keep doing this. Maybe an honest guard job, but not this.”

“If you don’t like the job you have now,” Ivory said, “then why take it in the first place? You seem like a nice enough pony, after all.”

“Well glad you approve,” Stalwart said with a lopsided smile. Then, he sighed. “But you see, the organization wasn’t always like this, though. The Caballo family used to be, well, like a family. Sure, they did some bad things, but it was easy to overlook when they’ll take a street urchin like me and give him a decent chance at a real life.We didn’t even have to carry guns at all back in the day . . . one of the reasons I still don’t. Just a little muscle was all we needed.

Now, though, you’ve got all these little gangs springing up and The Boss’s son taking it as a personal offense. To tell the truth, the guns were supposed to be for intimidation, not suppression like they are now.”

“But Malo said that his father had ordered all of the smaller gang members to be shot when he was speaking at the stadium,” I said.

Stalwart snorted. “He obviously wasn’t using one of the oldest tricks in the book to get the audience to not totally hate him.”

Ivory snickered a little and I shuffled my hooves. I was suddenly starting to feel very out of my league among the two veterans of the Fillydelphia slums. What I wouldn’t have given to have Grapevine with me. Or better yet, Sterling.

Stalwart seemed to grow very tired and settled back into his bed. Ivory looked at the door and muttered, “I think we should go ahead and go.” Stalwart didn’t protest.

However, when Ivory started to walk toward the door, I stayed by the bedside. Stalwart looked at me through a half-lidded eye. “Is there something else you want?” he said.

“Just one thing,” I said. “Do you know where your boss’ son is?”

Stalwart shook his head. “Now that’s something you’ll have to ask The Boss about.”

“They already interviewed him; he said he had no idea where his son was.”

“And all of you believed him? To think all the time we spent in fear of the police being right on our flanks . . .” His expression softened a little. “I’ll tell you this, though: The Boss won’t be telling nopony nothing unless he thinks you’re worth telling it to.”

I nodded and started to move away from his bed toward Ivory. At least I knew I could get the information, if only the older Caballo thought well of me. Problem was, I don’t think he did. “Then I guess I’ll go,” I said. “Thanks . . . for everything. For talking and for forgiving. I won’t forget what I did, or you. I promise.”

Ivory opened the door and I was halfway out when Stalwart called out softly to me. “Hey, you,” he said. “If you’re not forgetting anything right now, then try not to forget that not all of us are bad colts. Some of us are just doing our jobs.”

He lay quiet on the bed after that and Ivory and I closed the door as gently as we could behind us. Ivory led me back through the hospital and into the waiting room before talking to me again. As per his name, he sat down on the piano’s bench and undid the covering on the keys, though he did not play.

“You feel any better?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, a bit. It felt good to actually kind of confront it, you know?

“I would know a thing or two, yes,” Ivory said. “And I presume your talk with Mr. Caballo went well, too?”

“Not really,” I said. “I mean, he spent the whole time making me feel like I didn’t even know who I am . . . that I should start acting like a leader because the other ponies can see me as one .”

Ivory laughed. “I’m afraid to say that he’s mostly right on that one . . . the ponies at the station are under the presumption that bringing down corrupt ponies is your everyday job.”

“But I don’t even know how to be a leader!” I said.

“Take it from me,” Ivory said, “since I was, after all, the former leader of the Basterds if you haven’t figured it out yet; no leader ever knows what he or she wants to be . . . rather, a leader is a product of what the normal ponies want them to be, and they model themselves on old leaders as best they can.”

Ivory stretched his talons a bit and suddenly began to play a song on the piano. For some reason, I had expected it to be something longing or sad that fit the situation. Instead, it was upbeat and almost hyper. His claws flew over the keys he shared a name with.

“Let’s say tomorrow you decide to take up that role as their leader,” he said while still playing. “The choice you have now is who you will be if or when you lead them.”

“I, uh, I don’t know,” I said.

“Surely you’ve admired someone who was a leader before.”

I thought for a second. “Well there’s Grapevine, of course.”

“Good, good. But do you want to lead like she does?”

“Uh, I guess not . . .” I said. “I don’t think I could really be like her in that way.”

“Alright, then who else?”

Of course, I already knew the answer to that. I had known all along but somehow bringing up his name had seemed . . . uncouth. “Rainbow Remedy,” I said simply.

Ivory grinned and played a little faster. “I thought you’d choose him, ever since I heard about him, I figured he might have rubbed off on you a little. Now, all you have to do is be him.”

“But being him got himself killed,” I said quietly. “And, well, he had his flaws too . . .”

Ivory laughed and shook his head. “Of course he did; every leader does. But the point is to ignore those and to be the ideal that you saw them as, not what they really were. Be the pony that they burned into your mind.” He winked. “And then it’ll be your turn to do the same to somepony else.”

“I can . . . I mean, I guess I can at least try,” I said with as much determination as I could. “After all, they’re kind of expecting it, aren’t they?”

“Now you’re getting the idea.”

I looked around. “So . . .where do I start?”

Ivory finally stopped playing. “I would start with Mr. Caballo.”

Some time later, I burst in the door to the police station. The policemare at the front desk again looked up, but I didn’t care. This was the new Minty. Leader Minty. Or so I kept telling myself on the way over to the station. I had no idea what I was doing, but figured I had less of a chance to mess up that way.

I didn’t stop as I stomped down the station’s back hallways, brushing past several officers and even Shuya and Rover. For the life of me, I thought I saw Rover nod approvingly.

Finally, I arrived at the entrance to the cell rooms. I swung the door opened and quickly made my way to Caballo’s cell.

“I was hoping you would come back,” he said with an amused grin. “What news do you have for me?”

I planted myself in front of his cell. “All I can tell you, is I’m going to stand here and you’re going to tell me exactly where your son is.”

“And why should I do that?”

“Because you need me as much as I need you. You need me to stop your son so your organization doesn’t spiral out of control.”

The older Caballo stallion smiled. “So it seems somepony matured a little tonight.” He stretched his back and walked up to the door of his cell. “Let’s begin, shall we?”