The trio of stallions stumbled back from the blast. The hooded pony scoffed. "Excessive, belleza, don't you think?"
"Excessive? Please,it was DEFINITELY excessive." She went over to the maid. "I'm assuming she set off the alarm?"
"Huh...I think there's something I can do about that." Her horn starts glowing for a second or so and it stops. "There. All she knows about this whole situation is that she worked for a deceased mobster. Now we should probably get her out of here before everypony else comes."
"In all fairness," said Asmo, "we could hide her back in the house if we didn't blow it up. Oh hey, I caught one!" Asmo dangled a thug by the hoof with a distant tentacle before flinging him, sending him flying into the woods, screaming. Some poor thug thought he could get sneaky on this new hooded pony, trying to charge from behind and smash a club over his head. Hooded pony ducked this and quickly shoved his hidden blade into the thug's kidney, leaving him to stumble from his momentum, fall, and pass away in seconds in a pool of blood. Azrael noticed a thug trying to draw a crossbow on the group from a hill. The world around the group went black for a split second. When light returned, Az was behind the thug. He snapped the criminal's neck before he could even react, leaving his corpse to crumple to the ground.
Cricket wandered over to an oncoming group of thugs and started singing. A few moments later, she pointed to another approaching group, and her new thralls rushed their former comrades and began tearing them apart. "Good work, diva," she said to Star. "But you're too soft-hearted. Now let's go while we still can. Blackheart's mercs can handle the rest. They're probably already calling in backup to mop this whole mess up."
"Si insistes, Cricket. But we should meet properly some time, yes?" The hooded pony gave a smirk before tossing down a smoke bomb. This caused Asmo to be distracted by a coughing fit. By the time he recovered, the new horse had disappeared. Azrael returned seconds later. "Many approach, with battle saddles. We should leave."
Cricket nodded, running for the gate. A small army of Black Forged uniformed mercenaries was engaging the horde of mobsters. It quickly became clear that Racket's goons were no match for professional soldiers. As she left the manor grounds, she could hear the sirens in the distance as the local fire department responded to the flames. ******************************************************************************** Nightshade examined the crater approvingly. "Stay back for now, it's still radioactive as hell. Blackout will be here soon to scrub the radiation, and then he'll call some weather Pegasi to fill it with water. By tomorrow afternoon, this will be a nice pond."
Asmo and Azrael followed. Azrael growled. "If only I had time to resurrect. I'd love to stay in this..." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Good." Raven continued walking, heading towards town hall.
"We can't be connected to this," Cricket responded. "The Guards have never been able to find solid proof of Racket's criminal activities. In the eyes of the law, we just murdered an innocent businesspony and most of his employees." ***************************************************** Nightshade followed Raven silently. She was still bothered by the story. Something seemed off.
"That exotic pony... Was he here to slay Racket, too? Where do you suppose he was in the original timeline?" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Raven walked straight into the town hall, planning on walking straight to the mayor's office.
In any other town, City Hall would have been closed at midnight. However, as the population of Hollow Shades was predominantly Bat Ponies, the city ran on a more nocturnal schedule. The mayor's secretary, a bored-looking Bat who looked barely out of her teens, stopped Raven at the door. "He's at lunch, little sis. You can probably find him at the deli across the street. Did you hear that explosion earlier, though? Somepony said it came from the old haunted house outside of town." ********************************************************************************************** "I don't know," Cricket said. "Maybe he was meant to die trying tonight."
Raven sighed. "Yeah, that's what I was here to talk about." ~~~~~~~~~~~~ "So we just saved two asses," said Asmo. "Heh, hope Edmond doesn't implode."
The secretary shrugged. "Well, like I said, he's across the... wait a minute, you look really familiar." Something clicked in the young mare's brain, and she finally connected the pink-hair Bat mare standing in front of her to the pink-haired Bat filly that vanished from the murder house years ago. "Holy crap. Holy. Crap. You're her. The missing filly!" ******************************************************************************************************************** "Blackout's safe. We took out a criminal and most of his gang." Crickets sighed. "There're gonna be consequences for this. I know that much. But I still feel like we did a good thing tonight.
Star walked up to Cricket,she looked very offended. "Too soft hearted? Puh-lease! I would love to see you try and get random strangers fight to the death a backstage pass."
She shook her head. "I'm not missing. I just moved." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "That's pretty *squee!*ed up," Asmo admitted.
"Really? Everypony says you died, or got taken by some horrible monster. There was even a story going around a couple years ago that you were being raised by some kind of freaky immortal weirdos. **************************************************************************** "I... I can literally do exactly that," Cricket said with a slight smile. "Changeling, remember? Mind control and emotional influence are my specialties."
"Well..." She sighed. "That last one's true. I got taken in. Raised by Maya Heartstrings and Skydust." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The one creature who universally sets out to steal hearts," Azrael added.
"I know what she is! I'll have you know i was at the invasion at canterlot." Her eyes went back to normal as she looked around and looked at what remained of the house. "Wow... I did quite a lot of damage."
"So was I," Cricket said quietly. ********************************** "Huh. Never heard of 'em." She shrugged, and turned her attention back to her magazine. Nightshade sighed. "Let's go see the mayor, then. He's a great pony. You'll like him. (Now if you excuse me, I need to go ponify Burt Reynolds to play the mayor.)
