Most of the biggest mistakes of my life caught my by surprise.
Sometimes fate would smile on me, and let me see it coming. Give me time to try and move out of the way.
But I hadn't been so lucky this time. Or maybe I had, and hadn't realized it soon enough to do anything.
On the maps, Canterlot was one city. But it was really something more like two entirely different worlds.
Canterlot Proper, as it was called, was a whole spread of towering skyscrapers, packed sky-ways, and streets always so alive with samples of cultures from the world over. Every material thing that a pony could want in life seemed to always be there at their fingertips. Provided they had the bits to pay for it all.
And when the sun started to sink down low and catch all the glass in that skyline just right, it made for a glittering lightshow over the real Canterlot so many miles below it all.
Tourism pamphlets didn't show the towering concrete walls that acted as a shore between the rich elite and their army of office drones, and the sprawling slums that spread out from that perimeter into the grasslands below. The part of Canterlot that the aristocrats in the heart of the city pretended wasn't there, all while funding the sprees of their trust-fund babies walking its streets every night.
The Canterlot slums were a den of sin, villainy, and vice. The discerning mare could have her choice.
Every Runner who had been in the game for more than a day had spent some time in the slums. Catching a red-eye flight out of Manehattan for a job and getting a front-row view of the sprawl from a mag-lev ride gave perspective. It made you realize just what sort of life you were leading and what kind of risks you had to expose yourself too in this work. A Runner's life was always changing.
I'd paid my dues spending time in the slums what felt like ages ago now.
So I'd made a few promises to myself the day I left that old coffin-cube apartment.
The first promise was that I was never going back to the mess that was the damn slums.
Yet all it had taken was some soft eyes and a pretty face to snap that promise clean in half.
"Ah don't like this one bit, sugar cube. Too exposed."
My ears perked and I caught the other mare's words just as she racked the slide of her shotgun. When I turned I could watch as Applejack finished inspecting that heavy shotgun of hers for the umpteenth time since we'd arrived at the market. She adjusted her ever-present stetson while walking around to find some excuse for cover behind a stand that, according to its sign, apparently held sweets and candies during the day.
"You and me both, AJ." I muttered in reply, "Our contact is late."
It was almost instinct when I reached under my coat to touch on the grip of my pistol. It was reassuring when calloused fingers met plastic. I just hoped I was done using it for the night.
"The Great and Powerful Trixie isn't concerned." The group's resident 'mancer tossed her mane over her shoulder and scoffed disdainfully, "She thinks you all must be nervous after that last - scuffle."
"I don't know." The voice that piped in next was too young for this line of work, "It - it seems real fishy to me."
I looked to Scootaloo and watched her run a hand through her mane. Her eyes were too wide and starting to show fatigue as they darted around between all of the windows and alleys that surrounded is in the open-air market. She was a jumpy filly who I'd met when she was younger. She'd held me as some sort of hero back then and had pleaded for me to help her become a runner.
I hadn't been heartless enough to tell her to just buzz off when I realized she wasn't a cop. So three years ago I'd made the stupid promise that when she was older, I'd help her run a job or two. And now I'd just watched her breeze through corporate firewalls and security programs like they'd been written by a high school drop-out. And on her first run no less.
But that firefight on the way out of the warehouse? Your first kill could break you fast if you let it.
I came close to her and put a hand on her shoulder, "Hey. Kid, you okay?"
Scootaloo managed a shaky smile, "Y-yeah, RD. I - its just - "
"Trixie is sure she's fine. Why dote over her so much?"
The three of us turned to look at the former showmare as she dusted what I was sure was just imaginary dust from her shoulder. Out of those three, I was almost surprised when I realized that Scootaloo had been the only one glaring at her. The young mare tightened one hand into a fist and I squeezed her shoulder. A wordless caution to think first. The look on Applejack's face told me she could feel the sudden spike in tension, too.
Scootaloo was gritting her teeth, "If you've got something to say, say it."
Trixie hummed and shrugged, "The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn't have anything to say. Though I'm sure Dancing Blades would have a complaint. Would."
Applejack began to squint at Trixie. I frowned. And I could feel Scootaloo wince before she started to scowl.
That had been one hell of a shot below the belt.
There had been five of us when we'd started the night. I'd been leading the crew, Trixie had been our magic support, Scootaloo had been our Line-Walker, and AJ and Dancing Blades had been our muscle in case things got bad. But now only four of us were waiting at the meeting point and whatever was left of Dancing Blades was going to be mopped up by the morning janitor in a few hours.
And just like that there was ice in the air, and Scootaloo had venom in her words, "Why not just come out and say it, show-off?" She tried to step towards the group's mage before I squeezed her shoulder again.
I notice Trixie flick her eyes to the darkness before looking back to Scootaloo, "Trixie thinks you're far too young for this. Maybe too innocent and out of sync. We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for you."
So there it was in the open now.
"So - so its on me? Not a bucking chance, 'mancer." The young mare was almost growling, "But I think one of us bucked over the whole show."
I started to pay more attention to everything going on as I stepped more between Scootaloo and Trixie. I could see AJ's ears perking up like she might have heard something while she scanned the darkness, and at the same time I could watch Trixie flit from looking in my direction to watching the alleys and streets around us.
I didn't have to prompt Scoots to continue.
"I walked that system way too well, RD. They never knew I was there and there were no alarms in the system. And I wasn't the only one with a shot on that goon." Her eyes narrowed sharply at Trixie, "What was the matter, Trixie? What slowed you down? I've seen you slings spells as fast as RD can draw a gun."
Trixie visibly scowled and squared her shoulders. Jabbing at her magic talents seemed to get a rise out of her.
But this was the first time she'd stopped looking over my shoulder since the exchange started. Something about the whole mess clicked inside my head.
"Keep us here long enough, Trix?"
Even I blinked when the words left my mouth. AJ looked back over her shoulders with a hard frown and I could feel Scootaloo tense up under my hand. Trixie shifted from scowling to frowning at me, but only for a second. As if she'd been trying to keep up the act but had realized it wasn't going to work.
She gave me an almost pitying expression, "Its really nothing personal. Rubes don't pay enough."
At that point I moved more on instinct than on active decisions. I turned to face head-on with Trixie and my hand shot under my coat for my pistol. A flash of light on her fingers told me she had gone for magic before the air around me began to crackle with a building heat and energy. I flared my wings and threw myself back, hard, into Scootaloo to get us both clear.
The air where my head had been exploded in a flash of light and heat, and in the few seconds it had taken for Scootaloo and I to hit the ground I'd suddenly gone deaf and blind. A 'flasher' spell generally wasn't lethal - unless it was set off inside somebody's head.
But for now I just couldn't see anything and there was a dull ringing in my ears.
I rolled on the ground totally blind.
-reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-
"Get the buck - "
-reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-
"- we need -"
-reeeeeeeeeeeee-
I managed to start blinking the lights out of my eyes just when I realized hot brass was pelting me in the face. I swore and swatted at it, rolling back again into Scootaloo to try and get away. My vision and hearing started to clear up just little by little.
The first thing I noticed was Scootaloo in front of me on the ground, hands clamped over her ears, and eyes squeezed shut. Then I realized that AJ was standing over us and emptying a magazine. Wood and plastic was splintering around us, and ceramics and glass shattered as somebody returned the favor.
"Scoots." I groaned and slurred the word, "Scoots, come on you gotta - get - get the buck up."
I groaned as I pulled myself up to my knees and drew my pistol. Looking around, I could see what looked like corporate goons pulling up in cars and vans around us. Paragon Design grunts: the sorts bits-a-billion rent-a-cops who wore all black with ball-caps like it was the clothing that made the guard.
But bucking Celestia, they could put out a volley of rounds.
That's when I peered over the stand Scootaloo and I laid behind to see something.
The form of blue and purple running away. I scowled and drew aim with my pistol: sights centered on the bitch's back as she kept running from the mess.
And then the vid-phone started ringing.