“The knife, it was floating, but there was no aura around it! By the time she saw it, it was too late, her throat was slit! Poor Goldie. I heard she was going to be promoted soon.”
I’d listened to eight of these eyewitness reports already, they were all consistent. They were executives at Sparkle Industries having a meeting until a floating knife comes out of nowhere and slits the throat of Golden Bits. I only needed to talk to one more pony, and that was Twilight Sparkle herself.
Twilight came through the door and sat down at the table in front of Spark and me.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the whole story from everypony else with the floating knife and all that. So, I’m just going to say what I think might be useful to you. Is that alright?”
I looked at Spark, and he nodded to me.
“Yeah. That’s fine.”
“Alright. I have a theory. The only plausible way that I can think of to explain this is if the culprit were to have used an invisibility spell.”
“An invisibility spell exists?” I knew all sorts of spells existed, but I had to make sure. I didn’t know much about magic.
“Yes, but it is a very advanced spell. The ponies that can learn it and when it is used is highly regulated. It is one of the illegal spells. There aren’t many uses for it that are not malicious. If a unicorn wants to learn this spell and use it, they have to register with the Illegal Spells Archive with personal information, why they plan on using it and when they plan on using it.” Twilight explained, lifting a glass of water to her lips with magic after speaking.
“What stops a unicorn from using it on a different time than they said?” I inquired, leaning forwards slightly.
“A tracking spell is set up in most large cities to track the usage of illegal spells, so the office is notified when an archived illegal spell is used.”
“All we have to do is check with the archive to see if an invisibility spell was used outside of a specified date or if somepony had registered to use it for today.” Spark said.
“Exactly.”
Twilight told us where the Archive was, we found it easily. I wondered briefly why there weren’t many other incidents where illegal spells were used, but the thought quickly passed as we pulled into the empty parking lot.
It looked like a fairly standard library from the outside, not ornate like the libraries built in Canterlot a long time ago.
Spark and I got out of the car and walked the steps up to the building. I attempted to push open the door, my first attempt not working, I turned around and pushed with my back and shoulders, but the door wouldn’t budge.
Spark walked over and pulled them open, pointing to a sign on the door that read ‘Pull’.
“I-I saw that!” I stammered out, flustered.
“Sure, Rainbow.” Spark replied dryly.
Wait a second.
“Were you just being sarcastic?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“What do you mean? I heard you!”
“Of course you did, because robots can definitely be sarcastic.”
“You did it again!”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing. Am I upsetting you?”
“No, no. You just remind me of Twilight.”
I think Spark is developing a personality, and I don’t think he knows it.
Spark held the door open for me before walking through himself.
We stood in front of a large front desk made of wood. Sitting in the desk was a unicorn stallion fiddling with a puzzle cube out of the hundreds of different types and varieties of colorful puzzle cubes that covered the top of the desk. I cleared my throat to get his attention.
“One second,” He said. Then, he stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth and slowly turned a side of the cube so that all of the colors matched. He pushed away the cube he was using into the completed pile, took out a piece of paper and wrote down a tally mark. Once that was done, he turned to look at us.
“Hello there! Welcome to the Illegal Spells Archive! I never get visitors, it’s so boring.” Grinning widely, the odd stallion stuck his front hooves out to the sides, gesturing to the area around him. “I’m Puzzler. How may I be of service?”
“Hi, I’m Detective Rainbow Dash with the Canterlot PD, and-“
Puzzler gasped excitedly before starting to talk at an incredibly fast pace, making it had to follow.
“Oh, you’re working on that serial killer case, aren’t you! It was all over the news! I just love those, they’re so interesting. Not that I enjoy seeing ponies dying-“
“We want to check out to see if there were any invisibility spells registered for use today.” Spark stopped Puzzler from continuing.
“There was one, as a matter of fact, let me get the paper out.”
Puzzler hummed to himself as he rummaged through the drawer in search of the record of illegal spell usage. He gasped shortly and popped up with a paper levitated in front of his face.
“Here we are, and the name of the pony who registered the invisibility spell for today was-“
Suddenly, a flaming arrow shot through the window to the side, went through the paper and impaled Puzzler through the eyeball, pinning the poor guy to the wall and killing him instantly. Blood gushed out of the wound, soaking his fur and painting the wall behind him dark red. I scrambled for the paper, hoping to read the information on it before it was completely burnt. I was too late.
“Dammit! So close!” I yelled, punching the desk with a front hoof.
“I calculated the trajectory of the arrow, we should chase the killer down.”
The arrow started glowing a blinding bright red and giving off puffs of smoke.
“We should do that RIGHT NOW!” I yelled, galloping out of the door, Spark following close behind.
We dove outside the Archive, seconds before a fiery explosion blasted through the windows and door of the archive, making the glass shatter outwards and rocketing us forward out of the door. We rolled on the ground before coming to a stop. A fragment of the shattered door fell on top of Spark. I jumped back upright and broke one of the rules of coolness by looking back at the exploded archive before helping the heavy robot next to me up to a standing position.
“There.” Spark pointed to somepony on the roof.
“Let’s fly!” I said, opening my wings and getting a running start.
I flapped with my wings and my hooves left the ground, I gained altitude quickly with each flap, and soon I was looking down at the building from up in the air. I looked behind me to see Spark, whose copper trench coat had unfolded into a set of rigid copper wings with tubular, whirring engines under them.
Our culprit was sprinting across the rooftops of the tall buildings, leaping across a gap and landing on the next building gracefully. I dashed downwards at the galloping pony, who put their head downwards and ran faster. They were dressed in a black skintight bodysuit and a face concealing mask. I flapped once more to get ahead of them, then putting my wings at my sides, I dove downwards, tackling the pony. I used too much strength, and we were sent barreling off the side of the building, spinning in all directions. The killer pushed my hooves off from around her; I could see that she was a mare. She spun in midair, kicking me in the face, and sending me spinning vertically. I tried to catch air with my wings and slow my descent, but I was spinning too fast and couldn’t judge my orientation. I caught a glimpse of her horn glowing, putting a protection spell on herself just before hitting the ground.
Spark flew by and caught me before I could hit the ground, knocking the air out of me. I saw the killer running in the opposite direction. I tried to speak, finding that it wasn’t working, I took breaths, short at first, and longer later as my lungs refilled.
“No! That way! Let go of me!” I struggled against Spark’s grasp.
Spark turned around, and with a sudden burst of acceleration in the right direction, threw me towards the unicorn mare. I flapped my wings to get back in control just as the killer turned down an alleyway. I turned after her and saw her dive into a black car, speeding off back out of the alleyway. I turned around once again, chasing after the car.
“Grab on to me, Rainbow.” Spark said calmly in contrast to the situation.
“What?”
“GRAB ON TO ME, RAINBOW.” Spark repeated in the same tone of voice, only louder.
I slowed down slightly and put my hooves around Spark’s neck.
“Hold on tightly.”
He sped up quickly, getting pretty far ahead of the speeding car. When he was far enough in front, he closed his wings, and we dropped like rocks, head first through the back wind of the black car into the back seats, Spark’s body protecting me from the shattering glass. The car lurched with the added weight, and the driving mare looked at the rear view mirror, seeing us in the back seat.
“You’re under arrest for the murders of Golden Bits and Puzzler! Pull over!” I yelled at her.
Instead of complying, she pulled out a huge, intimidating shotgun from under her seat, pointing it directly at us. Leaning the gun against the side of the seats, she reached for the trigger.
“Duck!” I yelled, pulling Spark’s head down, my eyes wide and pupils constricted.
The bullets exploded out of the barrel of the gun with a deafening bang and a bright flash after the trigger was pulled, hitting and breaking the pieces left in the back windshield, tearing the back seat into shreds of foam and puncturing the tires of a car that had just pulled into our lane. It left my ears ringing, and I couldn’t hear for a little while afterwards. I looked back and could see the car’s occupant screaming as the car lurched forward and spun around, crashing into the cars nearby. More cars smashed into the wrecked vehicles, creating a massive pileup behind us.
The killer pulled the stick into a higher gear using her magic, bending it so that it couldn’t be moved back. She then opened the door and dove out of the car, rolling with the impact with the ground. I looked out the front windshield to see she had pointed us at a sharp incline just before jumping out. Before I could do anything, the car drove right up the incline, sending it airborne. We were flying at a high speed right off of the edge of Canterlot. Gravity caught up to the car and it started to plummet towards the ground below.
Definitely not screaming at all, I pulled furiously at the door handle, which wouldn’t budge. In a moment of clarity, I pressed the button to unlock the doors before pulling at the handle again. I struggled to open it due to the pressure difference , but eventually got it. I pulled Spark out by the hoof and flew out of the car door. Spark’s engines kicked in and I let go of him, slowly flapping my wings to maintain a hovering position as I watched the black car fall to the ground.
“That. Was. AWESOME!” I yelled, pumping a hoof in the air.
I held out a hoof for Spark, who looked at it uncertainly.
“Come on, bump it.”
Spark lifted his hooves up and shook my outstretched hoof.
“Eh, close enough.”
We flew back up to the ground and landed. My adrenaline rush wore out and I collapsed, breathing heavily. I looked back at the smoking wreckage of cars that piled up due to the one that the killer shot the tires of and let out a pained sigh.
“The Chief is going to kill me.”
“You think?”
“Spark. I know you know you’re doing that.”
“Do I know?”
“I know you know.”
“I’m not sure I know what you think you know that I know.”
“Look, I know that… Wait, who knows what again?”
“You said that you know that I know what I-“
“Just… Stop, ‘Kay?”