"Maneard what's going on?"
"We need to get the fuck outta here, grab your bag and let's go."
"What was with that explosion, those screams, did someone go militant?" with that last word Gladstone's voice became soft and hoarse, his face was painted with guilt.
"No, don't worry," comforted Maneard, resting a hoof on Gladstone's shoulder, "but we need to go. They got the quill guy and something tells me he wont hold out long before letting everything slip."
"What tells you that, he was one of the first to join up when you started the cell, wasn't he?"
"Yes, but something tells me he only wanted to play revolutionary." sighed Maneard, shaking his head. "He'll crack under a little bit of pressure, so get your things."
"How do you know that?"
"I've always been good at reading people, you know that man. C'mon we need to go before they start rounding up other ponies."
The library had been rearranged into a full scale interrogation and holding chamber: a single shaft of sunlight illuminating a lone chair, a set of manacles stained with a red residue that Twilight didn't want to think about, and of course a tray of really sharp looking knives laying just at the edge of visibility. Actually to Twilight it looked more like a torture chamber than an interrogation room. The Mare though seemed more than comfortable in these conditions, she kept swaying from side to side and humming a eerily happy song, while picking up and examining each knife closely. This really freaked out the poor buck they had bound and gagged in the seat.
"Right, this is how things'll go, you answer my questions and I keep you in one piece." crooned the Mare, her voice a mixture of seductive warmth and terrifying hostility. "If you don't, well they say torture doesn't get good intel, I say they just don't know how to torture properly. Do you understand? Nod."
The shop-keep nodded, a tear was silently rolling down his cheek. Twilight wanted to run up and give him a hug, but that tray looked like it had been used a few too many times.
"Good, I'll take your gag off and you'll tell me your name. Then I'll give you mine. They say all relationships are give and take don't they?"
The Mare picked up the largest and craziest looking blade on the tray, slipped it beneath the gag, and dragged it along the buck's cheek. Twilight was pretty sure that was going to leave a scar.
"I'm Calamus." stammered the buck, the tears and blood mixed on his cheek, making it look like he was crying blood.
"Call me Celestia, cause I might as well be far as you're concerned." the Mare whispered creepily into the buck's ear. "I'm your judge, jury, and executioner. Unless you want to be found guilty and promptly executed, you'll cooperate. First and last question: who else is in the cell?"
"What cell?" stammered Calamus, trying and failing to sound brave.
"That a joke? Sorry I don't get it." her voice was getting incredibly disturbing now. Her words had a manic sing-song quality to them that made Twilight's blood run cold. "Now do yourself a favor and cut the comic routine. We know you're involved in a terrorist cell here in Ponyville. If you're so thick you don't know what a cell is, it's what we call your group of revolutionaries in the intelligence business. I can tell you aren't the leader, because that pony's smart enough to evade detection, so you are expendable. The only thing keeping you alive is what you know, don't think that's worth it, I don't mind a little extra leg work rounding up everypony in this town. There's an entire cell's worth of ponies out there who know what you do, probably more too, the only reason I'm bothering is you were the lowest hanging fruit. This is your last chance to answer my questions before I kill you." and after a moment of consideration she added. "Slowly."
"I-I don't know everypony, just a few." the fear in Calamus' voice was palpable now, the tears were streaming down his face, he looked the picture of pathetic.
"That'll do."
"The leaders are Maneard and Gladstone," he blubbered, trying to keep his voice even, "the only others I know the names of are Rose, Bon Bon, and Zecora."
"Wait Zecora, no she can't, she wouldn't." Twilight interjected.
"You know her?" for once the Mare broke the whole menacing voice act, she actually let a tone of surprise intrude into her bad ass torturess image.
"She's a zebra who lives in the Everfree Forest. Why would a zebra be involved in a Lunatic cell?"
"I don't know, zebras tend to stay out of Equestrian politics."
"She said she knew the importance of standing up to tyranny, maybe she's just sympathetic with the whole revolutionary idea." volunteered Calamus, clearly trying to get on the Mare's good side.
"Look who's playing cooperative now. Like I said, give and take. That would make sense, the zebras have been 'freedom fighters' for generations, responding to generations of warlords."
"I thought the zebras were at peace, finally unified a few years ago."
"That's half true. The only way they were able to make a single nation was by letting the majority of the warlords keep they're powers as 'governors'. Who knows maybe Zecora has a crush on this Maneard, rebel complex or something."
"So, what do we do now?" Twilight asked hesitantly, not sure if the answer would be one she liked.
"First we thank our friend here," the Mare nodded to the pegasus guards waiting in the shadows, one pulled out a short dagger and ran it across Calamus' throat, "then we round up the conspirators simultaneously. Since Zecora lives in the forest and most likely wont be in the loop, we'll get her last. Do you know where the rest of the ponies our dearly departed mentioned lives?"
"I can't say I do, but I'm sure one of my friends does." whispered Twilight, staring at Calamus' still spasming corpse.
"Oh Twilight," sighed the Mare, "don't tell me this was your first rodeo." Twilight nodded silently. "I'm sorry it had to be so rough kid," the Mare put a cold, yet still somewhat comforting, hoof on her shoulder, "we couldn't let him tip off the rest of the cell, and honestly he pissed me off with that 'what cell' shit."
ma
"We need to make sure everypony is on their way out, make sure they're headed to the right place." called Gladstone, he'd hidden his go-bag a little too well and Maneard had been waiting for him to find it for twenty minutes now."
"No, we do that and not only are they going to be exposed but so will we."
"So we can't do anything?"
"Unfortunately, no." sighed Maneard, shaking his head slowly.
"Not everyone is like you Maneard," Gladstone shouted exasperated, the bitterness in his voice resonating in the halls of his house as if a thousand tired ponies were yelling at him, "you're the only pony I know who examines and reexamines every single detail of any plan they make. Those other ponies, they trusted you and you're just going to leave them to the whim of Celestia's hell hound. We can't do this, I can't let you do this."
"I tried to teach them the best I-" Maneard began, but he just couldn't do it, he thought he could do the 'right thing' and leave them all to their fate, but he was wrong. "I can't help any of the ponies in town but I can help someone."
"Who?" Gladstone perked up at this, the resentment in his voice was gone.
"Zecora, everypony else is fair game when the shop-keep squeals though. Zecora is the only one who's isolated enough for us to meet with, besides our route had us going by her place anyway."
"Speaking of which, where are we going?"
"I'll tell you as soon as I know."
"OK, so we know where everypony is thanks to your cooperation, what we really need now is intel." said the Mare to the room at large, at Twilight's call the whole gang had come running." I would normally just send men to the conspirators' houses for a cell this size, but this cell's peeked my interest. Sure they got sloppy letting that chump know anything, still they managed to run under the nose of Celestia's favorite student, and Celestia herself on occasion. A cell needs communication to run, contact to the NLR underground, that's hard to hide in a town this size."
"Tell us what you need and we will provide to the best of our abilities." said Rarity, how she managed to sound pompous still despite present company was miraculous to Twilight.
"What do any of you know about Gladstone or Maneard?"
"Well I would be the one to know the most about Gladstone, he's under my employ after all." Rarity actually puffed up with pride at this, the Mare was all to happy to deflate her.
"Wait so he even managed to be the employee of one of you and go undetected? Either these guys are the best amateurs I've ever seen or you're damn unobservant."
"Well, when I say under my employ I mean I really just contracted him more often then most, so he was like an employee. I didn't actually mean he was on my payroll or anything so absurd as that." bumbled Rarity , doing her best to save face.
"Contracted, for what?" the Mares steely gaze just worsened Rarity's blubbering to the point she was incoherent, the Mare just chuckled at this.
"He was a stone cutter." said Rainbow Dash, swooping to her friend's rescue yet again. "Mostly high end gem stones, so Rarity here hired him a lot to cut stones for her pieces, right Rare?"
"Y-yes, thank you Rainbow Dash."
"OK, that explains how they set up communications, or at least built the raw materials for it. A gem cutter would have no trouble making an antenna array, but that doesn't explain everything. They'd need someone to make contact with the NLR, get recruits, smooth over any wrinkles of suspicion."
"Well ah'd say you jus' described wha' Maneard's best at t' a T." said Applejack enthusiastically.
"Did I now?" the Mare put a surprising amount of menace into these words, even for her.
"Yep, he's always been a smooth talker, why ah remember when we were jus' a couple a lil foals he could talk his way outta any trouble he got int' with the teacher."
"Well I think we've found the brains of the operation then. We'll hit Maneard's house hard first, then Gladstone's, and finally work out way down the food chain. I trust you can lead us to his house Applejack."
"Course ah can, he's muh next door neighbor 'fter all."
"Is he now, good you'll be able to give us a better approach than head-on."
"I still can't believe you kept a go-bag under your wagon." chuckled Galdstone.
"Why, that way it'd be with me no matter where I went pretty much, where'd you keep yours?"
"I didn't, I just lied so you wouldn't yell at me back there."
"And what makes you think I wont now?"
"Because you don't want to draw attention, even though we're in the forest you still keep looking behind you every few minutes."
"I don't like this, they've got enough manpower to hit everywhere at once from what I heard. And those pegasus guards don't need to stay on our level to follow."
"Luna, you're paranoid man. Relax, in a few minutes we'll be at Zecora's and you can tell us where we'll be going. You've figured that out right?" the worry in Gladstone's voice reminded Maneard of just how up a creek he was, he really didn't like that.
"Nope, still thinking." he sighed.
"Maybe if you take your mind off things you'll think better. Think happy thoughts."
He chose to think of the agent kicking down his front door and finding a little surprise.
"Right here's the plan, Sergeant take your men around the the back and sides. I'll take a wing and breech the front door. If we maintain rapid dominance procedures this Maneard shouldn't have a chance to think 'oh fuck' before we take him down." the Mare whispered, peeking over the edge of AppleJack's fence. The Sergeant nodded curtly and motioned his men to fly into position.
"What should we do?" asked Twilight nervously, again she wasn't sure she wanted the answer.
"Stay here, trust me you wont want to see this."
"What's rapid dominance?" hissed Rainbow Dash.
"Sounds garish." murmured Rarity.
"Shock and awe." replied the Mare, grinning so broadly it sent shivers down Twilight's spine, of course so did everything this pony did.
The Mare hopped over the fence and galloped to the front door of the mill, staying as low as she could. She slammed against the house and set a hoof on the nob. Three guards fell in silently behind her. Twilight couldn't hear what she was saying but guessed it was a countdown. The mare swung open the door violently and ducked in. For a few brief moments the house was still, then it erupted. The Mare jumped out of the window as the entire mill went up in an inferno. Twilight ran to the Mare's side, Applejack and Rainbow Dash right behind her.
"Well this confirms it." the Mare coughed, looking back at the burning mill.
"What?" the group asked in unison.
"These guys are the best amateurs I've ever seen, or at least the most paranoid."
"Zecora get your things, we're bugging out." Maneard called after her from outside.
Gladstone was already shoving her various bits and bobs into one of her bags. Maneard stood outside and kept watch for royal guards. Zecora just stood dumbfounded in the main room.
"What is going on-" she began, her voice was almost indignant.
"We've been discovered, in a few minutes they'll be on their way if they already aren't." Maneard interrupted, he was not in the mood for her nursery rhyme way of speaking.
"But I thought you were careful, you said there was no chance of trouble."
"We were, they found out that damn shop-keeper. You wanna be pissed at someone be pissed at him." growled Maneard, not only did she insist on speaking in rhymes but she dared to call him careless. Him when he was the one who'd made a dozen fucking escape routes this morning. "Now if you would please grab your things, not all of them just enough for a few days and the irreplaceables."
"Where exactly are we going, I don't like this not knowing?"
"That's just it, I doubt that buck was able to burn the route I gave him, so the safe house isn't safe anymore. We need to go somewhere and lay low while I get in touch with the NLR."
"What about Manehattan?" offered Gladstone, handing Zecora a bag brimming with potions and food.
"Why Manehattan, that's a long walk through open country, y'know?"
"It's a massive city, it'll be hard to find three ponies there, even a zebra could blend in. Also think about it, there's bound to be a NLR cell or at the very least sympathizers there."
"It's ideas like that, Gladstone, that make our relationship what it is. You're a fucking genius."
"Manehatten it is, let's go before the ghosts Maneard keeps seeing become real."