The sun began to rise over the outer edge of Fillydelphia, illuminating both the downtown towers and slums in early morning light. Morning. I sat on the roof of the police station, my back against a radiator that hadn’t worked for years. A little chill whipped through the air, but I hardly noticed it. Sleep hadn’t come through the night as I had kept my position, but I hadn’t wanted it to. Too much on my mind.

Nearby, the early morning solace was broken with an angry snoring. Starshine was sprawled out on the blanket I had held against myself mere hours before, and had set almost immediately to sleep since we had made the trek up here. I envied her. She was able to sleep, content that I was going to be coming up with something for us to do.

The door to the roof banged open and Ivory carefully backed out. In his talons he cradled two cups of what looked and smelled like--much to my relief--coffee. He passed one to me. “Here, I thought you could use this.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” I said gratefully, draining the cup in large gulp.

Ivory laughed. “Long night, huh?”

“You could say that.”

“I get the feeling sleep was the last thing from your mind,” he said, sitting down beside me. “And I have a pretty good idea of what was the first thing on your mind.”

“Malo,” I muttered.

Ivory nodded. “Have you got a plan?”

“Does it look like I do?”

“Well, in situations like these, I suppose it isn’t too bad to not have a plan; it allows you to be more flexible.”

I smiled a little. “Then I must be the master of flexibility.”

The sun began its rapid early morning ascent into the sky, and soon we were both caught in its glare. Below, the sounds of ponies waking up and beginning the day’s activities could be heard.

“How’d the talk with Sabio go?” Ivory said at last.

“It was definitely . . . interesting,” I said. “He almost seemed to approve to me after a while. I’m still not sure how having the praise of a crimelord is supposed to make me feel.”

“Did he tell you where Malo is?”

I used one hoof to point out over the city, to a section that wasn’t quite near The Burb, but not quite near West Fillydelphia, either. It was a section in the middle where the last bit of land rose up in a plateau before finally becoming a plain. “He said their fallback location is up there, near the Heights. Whatever that means.”

Ivory’s expression darkened. “Then it seems our enemy has chosen a very appropriate place for our confrontation, whether he knows it or not.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The Heights is a place of infamy in Fillydelphia history,” he explained. “It was once a hub of craftsponies and traders and the entire district flourished. But then, in the chaos of the parasprite attack that left the city in ruins, everypony in The Heights suddenly vanished, leaving behind only damaged buildings and the remains of the railroad tracks that once ran down the slope of the hill and into Fillydelphia proper.”

“They all disappeared?” I said. “I mean, I can understand most, but all . . . ?”

“Every last one.”

“Okay, so where did they all go? I mean, you make it sound like there were a lot of ponies there, so they all had to end up somewhere, right?”

Ivory shrugged. “Nopony knows. They just all apparently vanished, leaving the ruined buildings behind. And after the rest of the city was built back up by Pullmare, the Heights remained the same. The city government claimed it was because funding ran out, but we all used to hear stories about workers disappearing or saying they heard voices there.”

“But those are just stories, right?”

“I’d like to think so, yes.”

I gulped. “And we’re going to have to head over there to confront an armed and crazy crime boss with dozens of hostages while I don’t have any plan . . . sometimes I think this was the wrong city to come to.”

Ivory stood up and laughed. “I’m inclined to agree, but Fillydelphia is at least better with your help.”

I kicked at the ground. “Yeah, well, most of that was Grapevine and Rainbow Remedy. It’s not until now that it’s relying on me to do the saving by myself.”

“I’ll follow you anywhere, ma’am,” Ivory said with a wink and mock salute.

“Oh, is that so?” I said with a small grin. “Even knowing, unlike the others, how little of an idea I have of what I’m going to do?”

“Beats me having to come up with something,” Ivory said. “Besides, it’s exciting in a way. Just hopefully in a way that won’t get all of us killed.”

A voice groaned from beneath where we both stood, and looking down I realized I had forgotten about Starshine. “Do you both really need to talk so loud?” she muttered. She yawned and stretched her back, the metal of her wings gleaming in the sunlight.

“Sorry if we woke you,” I said. “You want us to leave you alone so you can sleep some more?”

She shook her head. “On a day like this? I might as well get up; I wouldn’t be able to get more sleep anyhow.” Starshine pulled herself into a standing position and looked at Ivory and I. “Well you two look a little down in the dumps. I thought we all wanted to see how badly Minty would screw this up.”

I glared at her, but Ivory answered for me, “We are . . . but it’s more the location we’re worried about.”

“What, is he like in some super-evil castle of doominess?”

“Malo’s holed up in the Heights, apparently,” I said.

Just like Ivory, Starshine’s cheerful mood was cut down to size. “Oh.”

A small knot began to grow in my stomach. If Starshine could be brought down by the mere mention of that name, then how was I supposed to lead a bunch of ponies into that place? Not that I actually knew if I would be leading anypony . . . I wasn’t really clear on the details.

“So,” Ivory said, “clapping his talons together, “why don’t we go downstairs and see what’s happening and how all of this will be going down?”

“Sure, can’t wait,” Starshine said with exaggerated enthusiasm.

We left the roof behind while I cast one last glance at that particular area of the city. The Heights. This day was already turning out just wonderfully.

Ivory took us to the police’s locker room, where we found the others waiting for us. Shuya and Rover stood by themselves away from the gathered policeponies. The pony in the captain’s hat and dark blue uniform stood at the forefront of his forces.

“I see you found her,” the captain said to Ivory.

Ivory nodded and turned to me. “Minty,” he said, “this is Captain Law. He’s the head of this department’s squad in charge of tracking down the Caballos.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Flower,’ Law said. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve done most of our job in a single night. My hat’s off to you, really. But what’s most important to my squad right now is what exactly you found out from our prisoner.”

The policeponies all looked at me expectantly, as did Shuya and Rover.

“I know the location of his son and, presumably, the prisoners,” I said.

“Which would be . . . ?”

“The Heights.”

There was no look of shock, and no murmurs of despair from the gathered policeponies. They were too experienced for that. Instead, they just looked at each other and their captain duly.

Law, meanwhile, bit his lip.

“Any other information you’ve got for us?”

“It’s in an old municipal building,” I replied. “They’re probably holding the prisoners in the basement while Malo and his gang occupy the offices upstairs. There’s only one way to get to the upper offices, so they can defend it better.”

“Then our job’s going to be extra hard then,” Law said.

He turned to his officers, and then back to me. “Now, I’ve been hearing that you’re set on being some sort of leader, right?”

I nodded.

“Then if that’s true, what do you have in the way of a plan?”

I gulped. Of course he’d ask: why wouldn’t he? He was the captain, after all. Still, a part of me had hoped that he would save the questions until we were already at the building and I could judge the situation for myself.

“Well, uh, sir,” I began, “I believe I could, maybe, take a team into the basement to rescue the prisoners first. M- Mr. Caballo told me that the building’s sagging enough that we could make it in through holes in the structure.

“And, and-” I said as I fought to come up with something, “we could use the released prisoners to make a distraction and force Malo and his subordinates to come down from the offices and into the open, where your team could take care of them.”

“That’s quite the little plan you’ve got there,” Law said with a smirk. “But who exactly are you going to be leading?”

I paused. Right, I was supposed to get volunteers before announcing my dangerous plan. Oops.

“I’ll follow her,” Ivory spoke up. “The Basterds aren’t going to have to wait much longer on my account.”

Shuya walked over and stood beside Ivory and I. “If it’ll get Noriko back, then I’m in.”

“It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do,” Starshine said.

I looked over at Rover, who leaned heavily against one of the lockers. “What about you?” I asked.

He peered at me, then sighed. “I’ll go, but nopony is leading me anywhere. I’m just there until I find Scout and the Basterds, and then I’m gone.”

“So you’ve got your team, then?”

I smiled. “I think so, yeah.”

“Then go around to the front of the station; I’ll have somepony bring a car around for you all,” Law said. “Get in and we’ll wait for the prisoners to start streaming in before moving in ourselves.”

He smiled. “So don’t worry yourselves too much; you’ll have backup if things get rough, too. Enough gunshots and we’ll come in anyway.”

We exchanged goodbyes and the two teams separated. Mine filed into the waiting room at the front of the building so we could, well, wait on a car to be brought around. With the morning came the normal citizens, so we were forced to take a seat in a far corner of the room, away from the normal ponies and their normal business.

Once we were out of earshot, Ivory whispered, “If you have any sort of motivational speech, then now would be a good time to give it.”

I turned to face everypony. “Well, I’m not going to lie to anypony,” I said. “I don’t have some sort of speech, but I do have something to say. No guns. No knives, no swords . . . no weapons of any kind. If you want to follow me, then you’re going to have to do this without their help.”

Ivory gave me a look that I hoped was approval while Starshine flexed one leg. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to come, then,” she said, “because my whole body’s a weapon.”

I glared at her.

Shuya was at first reluctant to take off his scabbard with the sword in it, but after a moment he bowed his head and did it. When he picked his head back up, he gave me a look that said, “You better know what you’re doing.”

Rover, however, steadfastly refused to take off his shotgun and holster.

“You’re going to have to leave that behind,” I said evenly.

“I told you already that I’m not taking orders from you,” he said. “That plan of yours involves innocent gang members being used as a bait in a very dangerous game, so I’m not going in there without something to protect them. You may have a problem with guns, but I don’t see why your prejudice should have to affect me.”

“It’s not prejudice,” I snapped. “They already have guns, and lots of stallions to use them, so trying to fight them toe-to-toe would be suicide. But if we come unarmed, then we’re going to catch them off-guard, and find a way to beat them using our minds instead. That’s the only way to win against a force like this.”

Rover’s eyes narrowed. “You say that, but you don’t have a gang and marefriend to worry about who are trapped inside that building.”

“No, I don’t,” I said, “but if you bring that gun, then what you don’t have is a team to back you up. And good luck fighting Malo by yourself with that shotgun.”

His hooves shook while he did, but Rover removed his weapon and holster and put them on the ground next to me.

He leaned in close. “If you mess this up, I’ll never forgive you,” he whispered.

“Then I guess I have no choice but to not mess anything up,” I shot back.

After that, a policemare showed up and announced that they had brought a car around front for us. Ivory, Starshine, Shuya, and Rover all obediently filed out the door while I stayed behind a little while longer. The same policemare suddenly looked very nervous when I handed her both Rover’s shotgun and Shuya’s sword.

Before I left, she tapped me on the shoulder and indicated to a brown overcoat that was slung over her back. “The captain wanted you to have this,” she said. “He said it was to keep you safe.”

I accepted the coat and put it on as she walked away. There was a lump in one of the pockets, and when I pulled it out, it turned out to be a flare gun. To signal him in case of emergency, I supposed.

I put the gun back and headed outside to where everypony already occupied the car. It was a black-painted civilian model with no top, so even Ivory was able to fit in. Starshine occupied the front seat with Ivory beside her, while Shuya and Rover took up the back seat. A fact neither seemed to be too happy about.

“Since when do you drive?” I asked Starshine.

“Since we needed a getaway driver when I was still in the gang,” she replied. “Not all of us could fly, after all.”

I eventually decided to climb in and sit awkwardly between Ivory and Starshine in the front rather than try to get near Rover. He still looked sullen while he slouched in his seat.

Starshine put the car in gear and we rattled away from the police station just as the other team began filling their cars.

“Next stop: The Heights,” she said.

The Heights is a strange place. The atmosphere has a sort of ethereal effect that makes the skin crawl and all of your hairs stand up on end. Maybe it was because the sagging houses and businesses long ago picked clean of all valuables looked more like a graveyard than anything else. Creepy.

We followed the only road that appeared to have been used in the past decade, figuring that it was the only path that Malo and his crew could have taken. Even so, it was terribly bumpy and made my stomach swish about.

“How much farther?” Rover asked with an agitated tone.

“We’ll get there when we get there!” Starshine snapped.

“What are we going to do when we get there, anyway?” Ivory asked me quietly.

I shrugged. “I’ll think of something.”

“Then you may want to think of something fast, because I can see the building up ahead.”

I rose in my seat and could just barely see the shape of a large, official-looking building past the next turn. Electric lights blazed in the window, signalling the presence of Malo. Or ghosts. Hopefully not ghosts.

“Orders?” Ivory said with a smirk.

“Stop the car,” I said quickly.

A little too quickly, actually, since Starshine slammed on the brakes and sent us all flying forwards. I hit the dashboard and rubbed the spot where my head impacted a very large brass dial.

“Thank you, Starshine,” I said.

“Any time.”

“Why’d we stop?” Rover demanded.

“We’re almost to the municipal building,” I said. “If we want to keep undetected, then we’ll need to go the rest of the way on foot.”

“Uh, Minty,” Starshine said, “I hate to break it to you but steamcars aren’t exactly silent. They’ve probably heard us coming for a while now.”

“Which is where you come in,” I said. “While the rest of us get out and sneak around the side of the municipal building, you’ll keep driving right up to the gate. There, just make something up about exploring or seeing the lights on and get them to send you away. It’ll make them reassured about the steamcar noise and be a good distraction.”

Starshine’s lip quivered. “But, but,” she said, “I wanted to be part of the fight too!”

“Well then stay close to the building,” I said. “I’ll give you a signal when we need your help.”

“What kind of signal?”

“Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it.”

“. . . fine.”

We all began to pile out of the car and started to make our way toward an ancient general store. However, Starshine stopped.

“Hey, Minty, wait a second,” she said.

I turned around. “Yeah?”

She reached down in the car and produced a black bag, which she tossed to me. I looked inside and found my camera, looking as great as it had ever been.

“I thought Ornate wanted you to have this?” I said.

Starshine smiled. “It looks better on you.”

I slung the bag over myself as she drove away, and joined the others inside the general store. It was gutted on the inside. Only a few old wrappers and boxes remained. Even the cash register was nothing more than a rusted outline from where it had been swiped some time before.

“This place just weirds me out,” Shuya muttered.

“What, are you saying you don’t like exploring mysterious and possibly haunted ruins?” Ivory said.

Shuya rolled his eyes.

We watched through the grimy front windows as Starshine turned the corner and started drawing closer and closer to the municipal building. The building itself sat in the center of a road lined with old stores and residences that ended abruptly at the uniform and slate gray facility. It must have been boring to look at even when the place was inhabited.

“Come on,” Rover said, indicating to a side door.

We followed alongside Starshine and her car as she crept down the street by breaking in and out of one store after the next. Beauty salons, clothes stores, and candy shops that were all deserted and long since looted.

Finally, we came to a bar at the end of the row that was our last stop before Starshine met up with the guards. Between the bar and the municipal building was a chain-link fence and about fifty feet of a grass field with absolutely no cover.

“Are you sure this will work?” Shuya whispered.

“It’s our best bet,” I replied. While Starshine slowed on her approach to the guards’ little outpost at the front of the building, I mulled around the store. It was slightly nicer than the other buildings, and didn’t appear to have been looted. The tables and chairs and such were still there, though toppled over. Like there had been a sudden rush to get out.

It gave me the creeps, so I looked out the front windows. Across the street, on the right side, the buildings were in even worse states. The windows were in shards and the way the light played off of them, it looked like shadows moved inside them. Creepy, but not supernatural.

“She’s meeting the guards now,” Ivory told me.

Sure enough, Starshine had stopped in front of the guards and they seemed to be angling around to the driver’s side of the car.

We took that as our chance and bounded out the bar’s side door and into the grassy field. We ran across it, though tried to keep low enough to remain unseen. We weren’t able to stray too far to the right of the guards, however, since the grassy field ended suddenly in the plateau that gave The Heights their name.

While I moved, I was even able to get a look at West Fillydelphia back down below the plateau. Would have been nice to be down there, I thought.

But then I didn’t have any more time to think about it because we had arrived at the chain-link fence.

“Alright, what now?” Rover hissed as he kept a close eye on the guards who were still interrogating Starshine.

“Allow me,” Ivory said. He raised one talon with its glittering claws and took a hard swipe at the fence. A large section fell away with a soft clatter.

He smiled when he saw the look on our faces. “Sometimes, it pays to be a freakshow.”

Ivory went through the hole first, followed quickly by Shuya and Rover. I was last, but when I was halfway through I suddenly found that I couldn’t move. My mind started to panic and I lost all sane ideas to get through besides trying harder and harder to get through.

Rover, with a bemused look on his face, came over and unhooked a piece of my coat that had gotten caught in the fence, sending me sprawling to the ground on the other side.

“Thanks,” I said wearily.

“No problem,” he replied. “Lead on, ma’am.”

I shook my head before picking myself off the ground and continuing on. By that time, Starshine had been sent away, but the guards hadn’t noticed us. So far so good.

Malo’s hideout loomed over us, its unspoken challenge waiting for us on the inside. It was in considerably better shape than the buildings around it, giving a shocking contrast to the area.

“So what now?” Ivory said.

“We head around back,” I said. “Let’s find a way into the basement.”

The trek to the rear of the building was slow. Ivory had spied some guards up on the wooden roof, so we had to keep close to the wall and creep along it while making as little noise as possible. The area around the building was one giant concrete slab that reminded me of The Burb’s parking lots, though this one had numerous amounts of weeds sticking up through cracks.

Talking was out of the question, so we crept along in silence until we reached the edge of the building and moved around to the back. The rear in the building appeared to be much worse than the front.

Whole sections of wall were gone or hastily patched up, and the entire building sagged to one side as the foundation began to go out.

“Well this place turned into a dump really fast,” Shuya said.

“Yeah, but how are we going to find a way into the basement?” Rover asked. “All the doors and holes lead to the first floor.”

Rover was right. There were a few rusted-out doors on the back as well as the holes, but they all were well off the ground. I looked around for an idea until I spied a set of wooden doors extruding from the ground next to the wall.

“Down there,” I said, pointing to it.

The doors had a padlock on them, but Ivory again made quick work of it.

“You’re kind of scary,” I remarked.

“Kind of? Guess I need to try harder.”

The opened doors revealed nothing but blackness, so we had to drop down inside to get a handle on what was going on. We were in a large room that stretched out at least one hundred feet from side to side. There was no light except what was coming from the open doors and holes in the ceiling.

It took a moment to my eyes adjust and reveal to me what I was seeing. Cages lined the walls, and each was filled with gang members from the amphitheatre. They sat defeatedly in their little metal boxes with their heads down and backs against the wall. Some talked very quietly amongst themselves, but most stayed silent.

They didn’t seem to have noticed us yet, so their expressions remained dour. Rover didn’t wait for his presence to be noted, however.

“Scout!” he called, not even bothering to check for guards. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any. “Scout, are you there?”

The ponies in the nearest cages certainly heard us, and rose from the ground and pressed against the bars of their cells. The sight of a familiar gang leader come to rescue them seemed to pick up their spirits, and they all began chattering excitedly.

Rover didn’t care, though. He continued to call for Scout until he heard the faint answering, “Rover!”

Ivory and I followed Rover to a cage on the far side of the room while Shuya took his own path toward Noriko. The cage Scout was in was also filled with some of the Basterds, who looked up in surprise and joy when we arrived.

“Scout!” Rover cried as he pressed himself against the cage, almost trying to force his way bodily inside.

Scout pressed herself against him from the other side and they hung there for a moment. A fairly awkward moment for Ivory and I, and we both pretty much towed the ground and didn’t look at one another.

Soon, though, came the task of getting them out. Rover started to tug on the lock, but Scout held her hoof in the way.

“What gives?” Rover said.

“The locks . . .” Scout said.

Now that I noticed it, none of the other gang members in the other cages were too set on trying to undo their locks and escape.

“They’re rigged with some sort of magic,” she continued. “If any of us try to escape, the magic is set off and everypony inside . . . well, you can guess.”

She shuddered.

“Malo, he, uh, he gave us all a demonstration before he locked us in. We know they work.”

“How’d Malo get cages like that?” I asked.

“He didn’t; they were already here.”

Rover banged his hoof against the cage in anger, sending the sound of rattling bars through the air. “Of course!” he said. “I get so close and then they do this. Malo’s just got a plan for everything, huh?”

“Calm down,” I told him.

He whirled around to face me.

“Calm down? Malo has Scout and my gang locked in a cage that’ll kill them if they try to escape, and you want me to calm down?!”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I’ve got a plan.”

The plan wasn’t exactly complex, but I figured it would work best that way. The best plans are the ones easiest to pull off, after all. Right?

The cage across from Scout’s--the one closest to the door--was empty. So, I came up with a pretty simple idea: throw something inside it, like my camera bag, close the door, and then try to open it again. When it fried my bag inside, it would be loud enough for the guards to hear and they would come running to scrape off whatever was left of the unfortunate pony.

After that, it would only be a simple matter of knocking the guards out and taking their keys.

The plan even went off pretty well, too. We had Shuya stand at the cage to make “dying sounds” that sounded disturbingly real while Ivory and Rover waited by each side of the door.

The cage itself made a shocking sight, followed by my camera bag glowing white and fizzing away into a pile of ash. It hurt to watch it go, but at the same time I would have sacrificed everything I owned to save the ponies in the cages.

We all remained quiet as the door to the basement opened and a couple of Malo’s guards walked through. They were well-prepared, even though they assumed that it was only a few prisoners frying themselves.

Their drum-fed submachine guns were held at the ready as they walked into the room.

Unfortunately for them, of course, their enemies were now behind them instead of in front. The first guard Ivory hit in the back of the head with a piece of rubble went down without resistance, and the other only required an extra kick from Rover to fall silent.

“Well . . . that wasn’t too bad,” Shuya said.

We were all smiles while Ivory collected the keys and thought we looked pretty triumphant. That was, until we figured out that the guards worked in three’s.

While Ivory and Rover had been busy with the other two, the other guard had lagged behind and watched the entire event unfold. Before we could stop him, he placed a silver whistle from around his neck into his mouth and started to blow as he ran in the other direction.

Rover and Shuya stood shocked while Ivory looked to me.

“Get all the prisoners out now!” I said. “Take them out through the front where the police will see you; I’ll distract the guards.”

“How exactly are you going to distract that many guards with guns?”

“I’ll think of something!”

Before he could protest further, I took off after the wayward guard down the halls of the municipal building. They were all slate-gray and very boring, though at least they weren’t able to distract me while I chased the guard.

I began to lose ground on him about the time I re-discovered I had wings, so I took to the air despite the cramped ceiling and dove after him.

Even with my added speed, however, I was not able to tackle him to the ground until we slid into a large, central chamber in the building. It was just after the main entryway and was little more than a cavernous room that had once had fancy decorations and also contained a balcony with a wide stairway leading up to it as well.

Oh, and it had Malo and about ten guards. I probably should have mentioned that first.

They all kind of stared at me while I lay on top of their guard in a composition that would have been compromising had the roles been switched. Even so, I took the opportunity to grab the unfortunate guard by the neck and haul him up in front of me.

“Nopony move!” I yelled.

Seeing as how I didn’t actually have anything to threaten the struggling guard with, his comrades made the decision to move by training their guns on to me.

Malo looked down on me from the balcony. “Who are you and how exactly do you intend to threaten my guard without a weapon?” he demanded.

“My name is Minty Flower,” I said, “and I kind of figured that hearing my name would make you want to kill me, so you’ll have to get through your guard first if you want that.”

Malo’s eyes flashed. “Minty Flower . . . Minty Flower of the Chronicler? The one who ended Pullmare’s reign?!”

I smirked. “That’d be me.”

His eyes narrowed. “Kill her and make sure there’s nothing left. She’ll pay for what she did to our family.”

The guards raised their weapons and my heart started beating fast. Probably almost as fast as the stallion I held in front of me.

“W- Wait,” I said. “Why not fight me one on one? That way, you get to beat me yourself rather than letting your guards do it.”

He laughed. “Sorry, but I’m no fool. Fight you by myself and risk you overpowering me when I can just gun you down? I don’t think so.”

The guards raised their guns again, and I had to rack my brain for one last solution before his gun-toting stallions turned me into the pony formerly known as Minty.

“Well that’s what I figured you’d say,” I said.

“Excuse me?” he said.

“Well, you have no honor; you won’t fight me one-on-one because you’re too afraid of losing.” I winked. “At least, that’s what your father said.”

I could almost see the veins bulging out on his head.

“You talked . . . with my . . . father?!”

“Of course I did,” I said. “He’s working for the police now, didn’t you know? He’s so ashamed of his son that he’s helping us catch you. How do you think we found you? Malo, he’s given up on you.”

Malo shook with rage, but he probably would have still kept his cool if one of his other guards hadn’t come in at that moment to announce that the prisoners were escaping. That was enough to blow his top off.

“All of you, go find them! Kill them all!” he shouted, then turned to me. “I’ll deal with this one myself.”

The guards grabbed their weapons and rushed out of the room. I even let go of my grip on the stallion I was holding and he scrambled after his comrades.

I didn’t actually know what I was supposed to get out of the fight, but was just glad to not be shot. However, when I looked up to where Malo was standing, I got another idea.

“If you want to fight, then let’s fight,” Malo taunted. “Unless, of course, you’d rather me debase myself and go down there.”

I smiled. “Oh no, I’d much rather face you on higher ground.”

Before he could change his mind, I rushed up the stairs toward the balcony. Problem was, I had counted on him taking the initiative on my hurry. Near the top of the stairs, a kick from Malo into my chest sent me crashing into the wall with a loud thump.

That one blow didn’t give me any respite, however. I slumped to the floor, but Malo just as soon picked me up and hurled me on to the floor farther away from the stairs. I tried to get up, but the wind rushed from my lungs as his hoof connected with my stomach.

No sooner than that was over, my head snapped back as he struck my chin. Stars dance in front of my eyes and I coughed. Again, he picked me up, and again threw me across the landing, this time all the way to the balcony.

I struggled to stand up, but when I did he settled for hitting me in the stomach again. Somehow, I stayed on my fight.

“You like that, huh?” he said. “Where’s my honor now? Is it in your stomach?” A kick. “Your face?” A punch to the jaw.

He laughed. “What? You afraid now because you can’t fight me, even one-on-one? Face it, you’ve lost.”

“R- Really?” I said. I tried to laugh, but it came out more as a cough. “I think I’m the one winning here.”

He slapped me across the face. “Really? You call this winning?”

I smiled. “Yeah, see, if I had tried to fight you, I might have won, but by letting you hit me, I was able to do this.”

I pulled out the flare gun from my coat pocket and pointed it at him.

“Really? A flare gun? That’s your big plan?” he said.

“No, this is.” I pointed it at the ceiling, toward a small hole in the aging roof I had spotted earlier, and pulled the trigger. The flare shot up and out of the hole, straight and true.

Malo cringed and covered his face with his hooves. When he saw that nothing was attacking him at the moment, he let them down and faced me again with a smirk on his face. “Looks like your little plan failed, then. What were you trying to do?”

I didn’t say anything, but looked up at the hole directly above me and sidestepped out of the way. “You may not want to be standing there for much longer,” I said.

“And why not?”

I looked up at the hole again, and could hear the sound of metal scraping on metal descending rapidly towards us. “On account of that.”

Suddenly, the roof above Malo burst apart as Starshine came sailing through, using her wings to buffer her from the wood. Her speed kept her going and she impacted into the balcony both Mal and I were standing on, and the darn thing splintered and cracked and began to fall, taking us with it.

In fact, the whole thing began to fall. Apparently, the aging hadn’t been too kind to the old municipal building, and the roof coming apart just about did her in. Sections of the wall and roofbeams fell down around us. Even a few pipes and hoses came down with them.

Starshine lay on the ground next to me under a pile of rubble while I had managed to land clear of the debris.

“Minty?” she said.

“Yeah, Starshine?”

“Never let me do that again.”

I smiled. “I’ll try not to.”

I offered a hoof and helped ease her out of the wreckage, and she shook some splinters out of her hair. “Still, you have to admit that was pretty great.”

I looked up at the hole she had torn that was still working on consuming the entire roof. “Yeah, I’d say it was.”

Starshine informed me that the police had arrived with backup and were mopping up Malo’s crew, so I was starting to feel mighty proud of myself. So proud, in fact, that I let my guard down long enough for Malo to get up from the wreckage and grab himself a submachine gun.

“Alright you two!” he yelled. “I’ve had enough of the both of you! If I don’t do anything else, I’ll at least make sure you two don’t make it out of here in one piece!”

He backed us toward the wall with his gun, until we were pressed up against the cracking concrete. There was a hissing pipe next to my leg, which I looked down at in disbelief because I had one more idea. If that didn’t count for something, I didn’t know what did.

Because, see, when I’d gotten my first camera, I’d decided to play with it. My father hadn’t approved of me taking it apart, however, so I’d had to mess with it in the barn, near the compost pile. And, as one half-burned barn had taught me later, compost makes gas.

“Hey, uh, Malo?” I said.

“No, no more questions!” he screamed, cocking the trigger. “You’re going to die now!”

While I still had my chance, I pulled out my camera and undid the flash until the bare bulb was revealed. “You may not want to do that,” I said.

He put his hoof on the trigger. “Give me one good reason.”

I placed my own hoof on my camera’s flash. “Because, see that little hissing pipe right there? That’s going to be the gas line, and if this camera goes off, then so does this entire building. You hear me?”

He didn’t seem to believe me at first, but the gun started to shake as he kept looking between the broken pipe and my camera. I think it eventually dawned on him that even if I was wrong, it wasn’t worth his life to find out.

Finally, he sank to his knees and let the gun clatter against the ground. He seemed to look at the ground in horror.

“I . . . I can’t win,” he said. “I was so careful . . . the cages, and the guards, and the guns . . . but all of you still win! My father always wins! No matter what I do, you find a way to one-up it!”

He kind of just lay down on his side on the floor in a defeated heap. “. . . you beat me.”

Starshine and I walked over to the lump on the ground that we had so feared before. Now, he looked more like a spoiled little kid who had run out of ways to win with pure force. Which, I guess, he pretty much was.

“You know,” I said, “have you ever thought that just maybe, if you do so many bad things, it’ll all come back to you?” I smiled to Starshine. “And that if you try and act good, sometimes you get a little lucky?”

He thumped his head on the ground and groaned.

The police showed up a while later and collected Malo, who gave no protest other than to give me a death look while they took him away. I just gave him my biggest smile and tried not to act too smug with myself.

Ivory and Rover ended up working with the gangs, because apparently Shuya, Noriko, and some other pony named Shogo had disappeared not too long after they were freed, and didn’t look likely to come back. I didn’t blame them, though; a scare like this was probably more than enough to keep them away from the gang life forever, and they weren’t the only ones who had run off.

Rover seemed happy and content where he was, though, managing his gang with Scout at his side. And, well, Ivory just seemed to like getting to boss ponies around a little bit. The police appointed him to do that so they could search the building more, and maybe find out a little bit more about those cages.

As for me and Starshine, we ended up on the roof looking down at the scene below. Starshine kicked her legs in the open air below her, and munched on some carrots that she’d snagged when they’d passed them out to the former prisoners earlier.

“So how’d you like being leader for a day?” she said.

“It was . . . interesting,” I replied. “Kind of nice, though also really scary. I’m just glad it turned out as well as it did.”

“Well you did have a little help,” she said. “And I wouldn’t call those bruises a good thing.”

“Hey, all part of the plan.”

We both shared a laugh over that and settled in to watch the work go on below. Specifically, the part of cleaning up that we didn’t have to do. Hero’s privilege, I guess. Not that the bandages wrapped around her hooves or my waist and head would have let us do much.

“So what now?” she asked at last.

“What do you mean?”

“You got your first taste of being a leader . . . so what are you going to do now?”

I lay back on the warm part of the roof that was still intact. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll need to write those notes for Ornate to pass on to Grapevine, and I can let you take the picture, since that’s what he wants. After that, I guess I’ll just wait up for Sterling.”

“Oh? You two going to be doing anything?”

“Yeah, he’s bringing me with him to Las Pegasus for some expo or whatever. I’m pretty excited to get out of the city again, honestly.”

Starshine smirked. “I would be too.” She looked away for a moment, then cleared her throat. “You know, you could ask me about him.”

“Who, Sterling?”

“Of course, dummy! You’ve only been dating him for like a month, and you haven’t even asked the mare that’s known him for years about him!”

She was right. I’d kind of forgot about her after the Summer Sun Celebration all the way until The Burb, and even after that I didn’t speak to her until yesterday. But with an entire week left of nothing to do, I might stand to spend a little time with her.

“Well, what do you know?” I said.

She grinned. “Well for one, he’s horribly afraid of cats . . .”