Yet another pony in the hospital (Dark of Winter)

Sighing Night went to the door, checked for anyone nearby before closing it again and doing the same for the window. Taking a deep breath she looked at Shala. She owed her. Glancing at Intel Night shrugged, She might as well tell them all. "If only it was as simple as that darling. I have the bits to spare if I could pay them off I would."

Looking out the now closed window she took a moment to collect herself. She never thought she would be talking about this again so soon. "Once, a long time ago, I was the leader of the free fall gang. Under me we gained control of the majority of Cloudsdale. It was my Instinct and cool head that kept us together and moving forward."

Looking at Shala, Night shifted to keep an eye on Intel as well. "Shine and Fall were my seconds. Short story is Fall thought he could do things better and tried to take over. I had gotten tired of it and let him. I left it behind. But he got it into his mind I belonged to him. He wants me back. He probably left my empire to crumble and now he wants me to rebuild it." It was short and impersonal but Night knew Shala well enough that she wouldn't put off with a big long heart felt story.

Intel lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "This isn't going to settled over a cup of tea, is it?" He emitted a groan. "Well, I'll try to make sure nopony else would get caught up in this mess, but don't expect me to fight anypony. I don't do that sort of thing." He looked over at Shala. "And I can't stop you if you really want to, Shala, but I beg you not to try again at the one that broke your horn. You still need to recover."

Intel turned to Night again, thoughts turning over in his mind. "Who else is caught up in this? Is it just you?"

Shala's eyes went wide. Surprise and even some anger were strongly upon her. "You...You were the head of the Free Fall gang? THE Free Fall gang?" Shala sat forward, staring intensely at Night.

Things were getting weird now. Shala was far from happy about it. Elements of her past were coming to her now. She silently swore to herself.

"I had a few 'acquaintances' of mine go under because of you...." She grumbled, staring at Night a few moments more. Once she felt her displeasure of the news had been made clear enough she fell back into the bed with an irritated sigh.

She never wanted to talk about her past, but circumstances made it that some of that knowledge was now nessesary.

"....I ran trafficking and 'information gathering' for the Bovinachi family....Your Manehattan rival...But I don't need to tell you that..." She groaned and held her head just trying to think about those memories. She shook it to try and clear it out.

"...So, your the infamous "Blazing Night' or 'Mama'" She stared hard at Night. It was hard to tell if she was being angry or just putting on a show. "I don't know if you know me, but they called me 'The Splitter'."

Shala leaned forward, on the edge of her seat. While she had hopes that all of this was behind them, there was also the fact that they had probably spent enough time suffering each others 'business' that there might be something left to settle. The change in mood from Shala probably did not make the room feel any more comfortable.

"...Did you really leave? Or are you here for me?" Her eyes narrowed. She might not be in the loop anymore, but she had enough inside knowledge to be valuable to a competitor.

It was surprising, how easy it was for Night to slip back into her emotionless dead pan. Looking at Shala in a new light. She saw it. She kicked her self for not seeing it earlier.

"Come now Ticky Clock. I had you under my hooves melting like butter, If I was hear for you I would have taken you then." Had Night realized she very well might of.

Smiling a half smile Night walked to one of the guest chairs and lounged in it. She was no longer a friend to come see another friend, She sat in that chair like a thrown. "I could ask you the same Splitter, but that fat head Bovinachi would send more then you for the likes of me."

Laughing lightly she continued. "No offence dear, You did cripple quite a few of my dear family, you are luck Shine didn't recognize you. Her brother had been one of my best informants, until you took him under your hooves."

Running a hoof threw her Mohawk Night Flare looked out the window. "The life of a gang is cruel. I am sure it is someponies sick joke that we ran away to the same little backwater town."

"Um. Is it revert to past creepy gang personality hour?" Intel asked weakly. The majority of the exchange went completely over his head and for once, he preferred it that way. He didn't recognise any of the names, aliases or no, and he really didn't want to find out. This was not helpful to the 'try to leave the past behind and become better ponies' ideal that he was trying to cultivate. He was already out of his depth, but this was like attaching concrete shoes.

Bad, bad analogy there.

"Sick jokes aside, you guys are not- You know, you aren't going to-" he took a deep breath, "Youaren'tgoingtokilleachotheroversomepastgrudgeright?" He smiled a smile of desperate hope.

"Shut up Intel." Shala said quickly, keeping her stare on Night. Everything was in question to her. From the moment she met her till now. The times they spent together. And now their previous lives determined they be mortal enemies. At least she hoped it was a previous life. With the way things were going it might become a little too familiar in this town.

The silence that followed was broken soon enough with laughter. Shala began with a chuckled that grew into a full on laugh. It would probably be a bit unsettling to anypony else that may have been listening in.

"Your telling me that both of us decided to skip off from our careers in crime as complete enemies to settle down in the same town to become friends?" Shala laughed more, falling back in her bed. She recovered soon enough, looking to Night with a grin.

"...Alright. You owe me once for your friend Shine, and again because I'm going to help you. You and I are the most savvy with this kind of thing here. You let me in on everything and when this is over with we....." She had a hard time wrapping her head around with the new facts. "...We can be friends......Mobster's honor?" She held out a hoof, offering to meet hers in acceptance.

Nights eyebrows slowly climbed there way up her forehead, a smile came across her face and she to started to laugh with Shala. "No, we will not be killing each other today Intel."

Getting up Night walked up to Shala and regarded her hoof. She wan't just thinking about that it was everything. With a sigh Night bumped her hoof against Shala's. "Just think what your former employers will say." Night laughed.

"I must say, with you I feel much better, at least you have an Idea bout what we are facing." Night sighed.

"Icarus and Indigo wouldn't let the subject drop until I let them help. Night Fall, You maybe know him as Black Death."

A thought crossed her mind that caused Night to giggle again. "You realize, that this," Night gestured to Shala's injuries. "Was done by the Ice Queen?" Shine had been her main interrogator, she had such a gift for it. Her name was uttered in few between ponies that were afraid they might have something that Night had wanted to know.

Indigo couldn't believe what was going on. Gangsters were going to attack the town, Iccy in his stubbornness was most likely going to get himself killed, he couldn't get a drink last night since Shala got into a brawl during the day, and Shala's real name was Tickyclock. While hilarious, he could just imagine the hell she was going through in the hospital. She hated even the mention of clocks and time. Her own name had to be hell for her to have, especially with the doctors calling her 'Ms. Tickyclock' or 'Ms. Clock'.

Indigo might have walked away from the closed door if it wasn't for two reasons. 1.) the receptionist told him she currently had visitors. And 2.) he heard laughing. So he knocked on the door to announce his entrance and strolled in. "Well somepony's having a good time in here."

Intel breathed a sigh of relief that things weren't going to end up with two of his friends harming each other. His expression darkened when he heard about Indigo and Icarus becoming involved. He sighed again, but this time it was a sigh of resignation.

"I just hope no pony else is going to get hurt," he muttered under his breath.

When Indigo walked in, Intel was decidedly not having a good time, expression like a miserable raincloud. He didn't say anything at the frizzled hair pony's response, just looked up with a gloomy expression.

He couldn't put his hoof on exactly why he was miserable, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to trust himself to fight if the situation called for it. He couldn't honestly say that he wouldn't run away.

These thoughts just made him feel more wretched.

"The Ice Queen?" Shala was very amused by this. "I heard plenty of stories, but if that was her, hehe, i was underwhelmed. I thought she would have been more intimidating. Guess those stories were exaggerated. You got a pretty interesting crew. My former employer would be dying to be here and have a chance to get at you. That is if they knew i was still alive....Best you avoid spreading that news about. The Bovinachi don't like loose ends."

Shala turned to greet Indigo with a smile. "Ah, Indigo, sounds like your in this too. Do yourself a favor and don't let a pony get their mouth over your horn. It gets rather messy." She kept a rather straight face, despite her innuendo.

She picked up on Intel's drop in mood and looked to him with some concern. "...Intel, i hate to break it to you, but with the ponies we are dealing with, somepony is going to get hurt guaranteed. Let's hope it them before us."

In hindsight, Shala realized that was not the right thing at all to say. As a matter of fact it probably made it worse. But right now she wasn't Shala of Ponyville. Right now she was feeling like Shala The Splitter. And that pony did not have much a soft spot for anyone. Kind words and expressions were traded for a more rough and result driven pony.

Night Grinned. "Come now Shala, in the rights hooves a mouth full of horn can be great!" Winked at indigo, "I could show you some time." with that the silliness was done with. This whole thing made her giddy.

"It is not a matter of ponies being hurt, its ponies will die, and it must be them, for this to stop." Looking Shala over Night raised an eyebrow. "Will you be well enough? you would be a great asset darling, but if you hurt I will place you as a friend first."

Shala was a gangster too? What's next? Intel is going to build a doomsday device in town? He shook the thought from his head and winked at Night. "That'd be a good incentive to let you play around with my mane."

"Anypony else that knows about this gruesome business?" Intel spat, still very sour about the affair, "Because if ponies don't know and these thugs are going around." He paused to think. "Should other ponies know? I'll keep quiet about it if you wish, but the last thing that should happen is for anypony else to get needlessly drawn into this and hurt. If a fight happens in the middle of town square, well..."

He let that thought linger. Best case scenario from that would be that the extra attention would alert the proper authorities to deal with it, but that would mean that Shala and Night would be outed as gangsters too. Worst case scenario? Intel didn't want to think about it.

"If the apparently inevitable conflict could be drawn out of the populated areas," Intel said, "you should try to do that. I might be able to keep the attention of the town within the town, so to speak."

The scientist thought for a moment. "If Icarus did one of his test flights again, that could do the trick. Plenty of ponies attended the last one, and even more would attend another."

Shala again felt the distress of Intel, but again she felt she could not do anything about it now. Her mind was in gangster mode.

"I got my signature hatchet back at home that i can use to be backup for. And we shouldn't let any more ponies know about this than we need. If authorities get involved...well..Lots of bad will happen." She couldn't bring herself to tell them that there might be a chance her former employer might try to get at her by hurting those she cares about. And that scared her more than anything else, save one.

"The Everfree forest. Nopony goes there. Not often. And i bet they might be drawn to the danger aspect of it. Night, do you think the Free Fall Gang has any interest in keep this from the public eye at all?"

Rolling her eyes Night Nodded. She figured that is where she would end up facing them. "My Cloud house is very close to it. I figured that Night Fall would confront me there." Pulling out the insignia, Night had transferred it to her pocket after the stop at the spa she passed it to Shala. "What sort of message would this mean to you Shala dear, leaving my old gang sign in my home? To me it means that that is where he will confront me."

Thinking Night looked over the three of them. An anti violance noble an ex-enemy and want to be crime lord. What a gang...

"The Everfree is dangerous to us as well." Gazing out the window she saw a weather pony moving clouds, It was scheduled to rain today. "What would be ideal is the sky. The only danger to us there, would be from them. But we would need a pony that could cast the cloud walk spell."

Indigo did what he did best. He moved away a bit, listened in and thought to himself. He largely ignored Intel, though he could feel the despair radiating off of him. When Night was finished talking he started speaking immediately before anypony else could, it was fairly obvious he was trying to muscle in from his initial loud words. "In wide open spaces, a pegasus has all of the advantage. Everfree has more opportunities for sabotage. I could rig some fishing hooks into the canopy. Push comes to shove, you could retreat into the forest, fly under them and pull up sharply and whoever was pursuing you would fly straight into them."

"..."

Intel raised his eyebrows at Night's mention at the cloud spell. That was definitely possible for him, as he had been studying such spells. But as for where to fight, well, that wasn't his area of expertise, but using the Everfree would be a bit of a gamble. No, not a bit. A big gamble. Like fighting by swinging a venomous snake at your enemies.

However, fighting in the sky had its problems as well. They were facing a bunch of fighters adapted to the air, facing them there would be...unwise.

"Night, you know them the most. Where can we fight them where they don't have an advantage, and how are you going to fight them?"

"My fights are usually limited to bars. With a few that happen in a warehouse. Fighting them in the sky sounds like a bad idea. The thickest of the Everfree are ideal. So long as we stick together we should be alright. Just don't let a cockatrice flash us and turn us all to stone on the spot and we should be good....Hmm...I wonder if we could use that on them."

Shala went on thinking to herself. She had ideas, but not full blown plans. Hopefully the rest would fill everything else in.

"Not Open skies, I was thinking my home, its confined, limited flight room, and out of the ponies they might bring I am the only one that can easily manipulate storm clouds."

Shaking her head Night looked out the window. "Its death to us, if we are distracted away from them even for just a moment, and its death again if we ignore the creatures of the Everfree."

Sighing Night looked back at them. "The closed quarters would be ideal. But if the Ever free is the only option..."

Thinking a moment Night had an idea. "What about the Ruin in the deeper part of the forest? I have seen it in my flights a few times."

Indigo shrugged. "I was just offering Everfree up as an escape route if the air fight went bad."

"...ah, yes, um, those ruins," Intel started, a little bit more than concerned. "That's a place of weak temporal-" He shook his head, realising who he was talking to. "Magic is stronger there, but much, much, more unpredictable. If you two are going to fight..." He motioned to Shala and Indigo. "I don't what will happen. Especially you, Shala. Especially you."

He gave a glance at her broken horn, then shook his head again. "I know I can't stop you ponies from fighting, but I implore you that if things go too far badly that you will run instead of die. Please."

Shala waved a hoof at Intel dismissively. "You worry too much. I'll be fine. Magic was never really my strength anyhow. I didn't like getting creative with it...." She looked down at the foot of the bed, starring off for a moment.

It was a few moments before she spoke again. "Might be worth a shot. Never been there though."

Night Shrugged and thought a moment. "I think I can find my way there by land, there are a few distinct land marks." She sounded fairly unsure about it though.

Looking at Intel Night smiled. Even she was unclear if it was a true smile or a false one. "Don't worry Dear, I have no intentions to die, let alone anyone else on our side." Sighing she looked around at the three of them. The darker part of her tingled, at the thought of going to war.

Running a hoof threw her mane she muttered. "We should bring Icarus in on this plan, it would hurt him if we went of without at least telling him."

Indigo looked uneasy at the prospect of going even further into the forest. He had just intended going a few feet to set up his trap. He had no idea how far these ruins were. "So.. how far exactly are these ruins?"

"I'll go tell him," Intel muttered quietly, still pensive, "He's my colleague after all."

Bowing his head to the others as he left the room, he said just as quietly, "Indigo, Night, Shala. Take care of yourselves."

Of course he felt helpless. It wasn't his field of study, after all.