Lost Souls

by Claystead

Lost Souls chapter 5-8

Lost Souls - Part III

Second lieutenant Dusk Quartz felt like he was moving through jelly. His own reactions felt woefully slow, his yells silent. And all the while that infernal screaming! WHY WOULDN’T HE STOP?!

It stopped. Spike, the baby dragon, gave him a quizzical look before slumping to the floor unconscious. It took a few seconds before Quartz realized that he himself had hit the dragon with a knock-out-spell. It was just that horrible screaming of his! The dragon had been screaming for several minutes, ever since he saw what was lying on the floor by the front door. Quartz regretted ever turning on the lights, he might not have woken up the dragon if not for that.

“QUARTZ! What the HAY are you waiting around for?! Get me those bandages NOW!”
The yell from second lieutenant Winter Dawn kicked the world back into normal speed for Quartz.
“Of course! Still looking!”
He quickly scanned the upper floor of the tree library for a bathroom door of sorts. He found one next to Twilight Sparkle’s bed alcove.

Where is Twilight, anyway? She said she’d be back well before midnight…

Underneath the sink he found a small metal box with a red cross. He popped the top off the medical box and dug through its contents with magic from his horn until he found a roll of bandages.
“GOT THEM! I’M COMING!”

He scurried downstairs, past the mattresses the two royal guards had been sleeping on only a few minutes earlier, and over to his colleague.
“Here! I assume you remember the emergency first aid course even after all these years?”
Dawn gritted his teeth and nodded, keeping pressure on the wound he was facing through a blanket.
“Yes. Been a while, but some things you never forget. Okay, unfurl that, and- yes, you’re ready? In three, two, one...”
He pulled the blanket aside, revealing the flank of the bloodied mess of a pony that must have stumbled through the front door of the library while they were sleeping.

Quartz quickly lifted the body ever so slightly from the floor with magic, and started wrapping bandages around it, covering up the gruesome wounds that shamed a flank that once had held a cutie mark.

With his tongue between his teeth Quartz finally secured the bandages with a large fabric clip from the roll. The two stallions sighed in unison and collapsed towards the bookcases on both sides of the door. The light brown unicorn and beige-grey pegasus looked at each other for a few moments where the only sound was the rasping breath and gurgling of the unfortunate pony, the sound that had made Quartz turn on the lights in the first place.
Finally , Dawn spoke. “What happened to this poor sod, anyway?”
Quartz shook his head. “No time. Go! Get help! I’ll stay with… her.”

Dawn nodded and disappeared out the door. Quartz sat in silence for a couple seconds before turning the injured mare around. There was a mangled stump on her forehead which probably had been the root of a horn once. Otherwise the mare was fairly indistinguishable. She was covered in blood from the open wounds where her cutie marks had been; making her coat mostly red with only a few visible splotches of white, clean fur. The mane appeared to have been partially torn, which together with blood clots made it hard to determine the original color of. Quart’z guess was purple or dark bl-
His examination was interrupted by a soft moan. He quickly extended a hoof underneath her head. Her breath quickened, allowing Quartz to spot a row of broken and missing teeth. Whatever had caused this had hit her several times, as her face and upper torso was all battered and bruised, with the occasional cut or slash. The mare started batting her eyelids as she regained consciousness. Suddenly Quartz recognized the face as the attractive unicorn that had talked to him and the other three guards two days earlier.

He tried speaking to her. “Can you… can you hear me? R… Rarity, is that your name?”
To his relief the mare nodded slightly and made a grimace that might have been an attempt at a weak smile.
“Listen, you are safe now. Remember me? Dusk Quartz, from the Royal Guard? You are with us, you are safe. Help is on its way, you just got to…”
Rarity’s eyes closed.

“Hey! Hey, don’t you fall asleep on me! You’ve got to do something for me now, Rarity. You have to stay awake. Can you do that? Focus on my face, come on, open your eyes and look at me!”
She squinted, but did as asked.
“Okay. Now, try to say something. Anything. It will make it easier for you to stay awake.”
The unicorn opened her mouth as if to say something, but closed it again. Then she smiled weakly.
“I… wove my wittw sistew.”
The broken teeth seemed to mess up some letters for her, but the clarity of the sentence at least confirmed that she had not sustained significant brain damage for whatever had hit her.

“Good girl. Okay, Rarity, can you tell me who or what did this to you?”
Her eyes shot open, an expression of sheer panic on her face. She sat up and looked wildly around the room, only calming down when she concluded it was empty save for Quartz and herself. She turned back to him and tried to say something.
“Kiwwew! Wu haf to-… Wu haf to g-“ Her sentence was interrupted by a spate of coughing. Tiny droplets of blood shot out of her mouth at each cough.
She was still trying to talk.
“HARK! KRF! … Appwebwoo… CHORK! … Pinkie…”
With a final cough she closed her eyes and fell together in a heap on the floor once more.
Quartz lifted her head up again with his hoof.
“Rarity? Rarity, do you hear me?”

She shot back up into sitting position so fast she nearly headbutted him, eyes wild like a feral animal. She put a hoof around his neck and pulled him closer.
“Twiwight!”
Her eyes rolled up and she fell over again. Quartz was worried for a second, but her heaving chest told him that she was just unconscious.
He sighed and laid her sideways, pulling her head back to make breathing as easy as possible for the poor mare. Finally he sat down on his mattress.

So that’s why the dragon was screaming… He recognized her immediately… Maybe I shouldn’t have knocked him out? Oh well, done is done.
…
Did Rarity say “Twilight”? But isn’t she…

He froze in his train of thought. Twilight was supposed to be home hours ago.

Oh no, don’t say that he has… Oh Celestia, not Twilight!
Oh nonononononononono… “…NononononoNONONO! YOU MONSTER!”
Quartz smashed his hoof into a bookshelf so hard that one of them chipped. He did not care which one.

Don’t worry, she might be alright. She’s just late, that’s all. Ah, who am I kidding? That mare is always dead on time. Huh, “dead”. Has he killed her? Or worse, kept her alive to do whatever he did to Rarity to her?

He felt nauseated, so he stormed outside. Deep breaths of cold night air calmed him. He looked around. The dark windows of the nearby houses seemed to mock him with their emptiness. Strangely enough his mind felt clear as ice, despite his body being red hot with rage. He needed to vent that range, his brain concluded. He gasped for air and yelled as loudly as he could.
“Are you out there?! I… will... FIND YOU! Do you hear me?! I… will… FIND YOU, and if you have as much as touched a hair on her head, I MIGHT just get a little less observant of the rules of prisoner treatment, CAPISCHE?!”
He felt both awkward and angry at the same time, so he turned and stamped his way back inside, slamming the door close behind him just as windows started opening in the surrounding houses.

Chapter 5 - Light Gale

“You want me to get a cab, sir?”
Manehattan Police Commissioner Booth shook his head to the young detective that was holding his coat.
“No, no, I’ll be fine, boy. These old air sacks need some cold midnight breeze…”
The aging pastel yellow unicorn took his coat and put it on, but the detective hawked before Booth could put on his hat.
“Yes?”
“Actually, sir, it is closer to 3 AM.”
“What? Really? HEY, FLAKE!”
The “old air sacks” produced a voice that boomed down the corridor of the third floor of the Manehattan Central Police Station. A head popped out a few doors down.
“You still here, Commissioner?”
“YOU’VE KEPT ME HERE ALL NIGHT, YOU SON OF A MULE!”
“I’m awfully sorry, Commissioner, but you know we had to finish thi-“
“Snow! Snow! Where are y- Ouch!”
Both of the stallions fell silent as a mare crashed into the commissioner.

The mare looked more irate than apologetic.
“Hey, watch i- Oh hi, Commissioner! I am so sorry… Have you seen captain Flake? I just got a telegram from Ponyville, and it is really urgent and…”
Booth used his magic to snag the telegram from under the wing of the pegasus mare.
“Let me have a look at that! Let’s see… mhm… aha… “
The old stallion fell silent. The detective who had held his coat felt awkward.
“Er… Sir, you okay, sir? You look awfully pal-“
He stopped as Booth threw his coat in his face.
“FLAKE! Get me the files on the Silo Fire incident!”
Flake stepped completely out into the corridor, and raised an eyebrow.
“Public ones or the real deal, sir?”
Booth smacked his lips. “Latter. We might just have ourselves a situation here.”

The doctor shook his head. “Too early to say anything definite on her chances, I’m afraid, but her condition is overall stable.”
Quartz put his helmet back on and prepared to exit the Ponyville hospital.
“Any ideas when she might be able to answer some questions? It is likely the police will want to have a chat with her once they arrive.”
“A couple of days, at least, mister.”
Quartz sighed and opened the door. He turned his head to ask something.
“One last thing, doctor…”
“Yes?”
“I know you just got Rarity in, but could you just give your passing impression of what caused her injuries?”
The doctor, a relatively young yellow unicorn, raised his eyebrow and made a small “Pop!” with his lips, while stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“Oh, I don’t know… Looked like she had been struck repeatedly with something blunt… Those cuts where her cutie marks should be… I thought they looked… too clean, so to speak. Like if they had been made with a surgical scalpel or something… Finally, that horn breakage of hers? Not a breakage. I’ve never seen anything like it here before, but my cousin works in woodworking, and it looked like one of the saws she uses. Some sort of hacksaw, like a larger version of those we keep here for cutting bones.”
Quartz closed his eyes and nodded.
“Thank you, doc. I won’t occupy you any longer.”

Outside the hospital private Raff was waiting for him. The two of them starting walking into the night.
“Did you send the telegrams, Raff?
“Yes sir! The clerk was not too happy to be dragged out of bed at four in the morning, but he got’em sent.”
“Any answers yet?”
“Not from Canterlot, but the MPD said they’d have somepony up here by noon tomorrow.”
“ ’kay. Before we go back home, Dawn and I better finish the last couple of interviews to make things easier for the colts in blue. Come morning, I’d appreciate it if you could buy me some banana bread and milk for the return trip, and then pick up private Sailing at the train station. Oh, and drop by Fluttershy by the Everfree Forest and ask about somepony named ‘Pinkie’, would ya? Rarity mentioned her earlier.”

“Yes sir. But, sir… er…” Raff hesitated. Something about the way the second lieutenant spoke told him everything was not okay.
“What?”
“You seem a little… upset, that’s all. Is there anything else?”
Quartz sighed. “We might have another missing pony. A friend of mine, this time. Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville librarian, Princess Celestia’s favored pupil, ace student of the School for Gifted Unicorns, and, most importantly, Shining Armor’s little sister.”

Both of them grew silent for a few seconds, before Raff spoke.
“Celestia… Captain Armor’s little sis? Our rumps are on the line here if she doesn’t turn up alright, aren’t they? …Sir?”
Quartz shook his head. “Too late to worry about that, I’m afraid, Raff. Anyway, I’ll head back to the library now. Dawn’s waiting for me there. Go get yourself some sleep, would you?”
“Yes sir.”

Two knocks on the door made Commissioner Booth and Captain Flake of the Manehattan Police District look up from the old papers they were reading.
Booth hawked. “Come in!”
The door opened, and the young detective poked his head into the small office.
“Excuse me, sirs, but as per your request, detecti-“
“Get out of the way, Snow!”
The detective was pushed aside and a grey earth pony mare with an orange mane stomped into the room. She looked both tired and irate.

“Cap, you better have a damn good reason for waking me at five in the mornin’ and- Oh, hello, Commissioner.”
She extended a hoof. “Detective Hopper, Caballicide Section.”
Flake interrupted the greeting with a hawk.
Both of them turned to him.
“Hopper, we have gotten a telegram from some Royal Guards in the small town of Ponyville, near Canterlot, about some mysterious disappearances and a case of assault. We want you to take a CSI team up there by midday tomorrow.”
Hopper frowned. “Why? Doesn’t sound that serious?”

Booth and Flake looked at each other, before Booth turned to Hopper.
“Young lady, have you heard about the ‘Silo Fire’ case?”
The mare looked confused. “Can’t say I have, sir…”
Booth sighed. “Well, it all started fourteen years ago…”

“Fourteen years ago…”
Dawn’s voice was coming from the balcony on the top floor of the Ponyville Library. Quartz hurried up the stairs, nearly stumbling over the still knocked-out baby dragon, and out onto the balcony.
“You talking to yourself, Dawn?”
It was no moonlight this night, and the only light was a red ember seemingly floating in the darkness before Quartz.
“Maybe.”
Quartz’ eyes adjusted to the dark, and he could make out the silhouette of his colleague leaning on the wooden rail. He also realized what the ember was.

“You smoke?”
That was not a very common habit in Equestria.
Dawn let out a small cloud of smoke.
“Not for fifteen years, Dusk. It is not good for you.”
Quartz decided not to comment on the fact that he was smoking right now, instead opting to be glad that Dawn had used his first name for the first time. He said nothing further, and they stood there together looking into the night for some time.

Finally Dawn broke the silence.
“It never ends, you know that, Dusk?”
“What never ends?”
“Everything.” Dawn sighed. “When I joined the Guard seventeen years ago, it seemed like such a good idea. My big brother was in the Corps, and I wanted to be with him. Also I would get to protect our benevolent ruler and feel accomplished… Huh, what a steaming pile of manticore-turd…”
Quartz raised an eyebrow.

“What happened?”
“I’d rather not tell you, but if you tell me why the hay you as a foreigner is in the Guard, I’ll tell you in return. Deal?”
Quartz sighed. “Okay, that is a quick but painful story… You are right that I am not from Equestria. Fifteen years ago, when I was little more than a foal, a very young colt, I was going to visit Equestria as a tourist. Due to storms over the ocean, our airship went north. I’m not sure what happened next, but we must have gotten caught in a storm and driven west, because we ended up near Vanhoover. Then, over the Crystal Mountains…”
He paused and moistened his lips.

“Then some, some beast attacked us. The airship went down. I couldn’t find my father, but my mother… my mother told me to hide underneath some pieces of furniture from the ship… Then- nothing, save screams and crying. I hid under that rubble for hours. Felt like an eternity. Then, somepony lifted it away. It was a pegasus from the Royal Guard Corps. More of his friends were landing as we looked at each other. He looked so… looked so heroic in that armor, even if his eyes were pained. Later on this memory caused me to- Hey, are you even listening?”

Dawn looked absent-minded and almost… pale, as far as Quartz could tell in the darkness.
There was a slight tremble in Dawn’s voice as he spoke again.
“Was the name of this airship the Dorothea?”
Quartz furrowed his brow.
“Y-yes, I think it was. How did you know?”
Dawn opened his mouth again with clear hesitation.
“Fifteen years ago…”

The cold air made the armor of the three Royal Guards zing with an icy bite. The three pegasi were flying at a relatively low altitude, but the wind and exposure still took its toll. The second lieutenant fastened his scarf over his muzzle, looking backwards to see if his two wingponies had done the same. They had, but the staff sergeant on his left wing was to his irritation using the radios they had been given to tell the corporal on his right wing a no doubt hilarious anecdote revolving around the making of rainbows.
“Hey, you two! Cut the chatter! These radios are expensive, and only to be used in case of emergency, have I made myself clear?”
The two pegasi answered in unison. “Yes sir!”
“Good. General frequency is 4. If you set your transmitters to that, the other patrols will hear your messages. Use that to call for medevac for any survivors of the crash. Eyewitness reports said it should have gone down somewhere in these mountains.”
They looked out over the vast arctic expanse of the Crystal Range, which shielded Equestria from cold polar winds from the Great Frozen North. The second lieutenant noted the flying conditions with the trained eye of a graduate from the Cloudsdale Flying Academy.
“Wind is seven knots, south-southwesternly. Temperature steady below freezing, low risk of down-drafts. We should bank towards- Wait… Eyes on missing airship, map sector B12.”
The two wingponies followed his eyes. The crashed vessel lay in a wide, snow-covered valley below. The corporal, a young green mare, chuckled.
“In less than half an hour…. Those locals are lucky the Princess was in Vanhoover, they’d spend days locating this on their own!”
“Attention both of you!”
The wingponies looked towards the second lieutenant again.
“Corporal Luck, call it in. Our callsign is ‘Blue Bird’. Sergeant, come with me. We’ll head down there and look for-”
He was interrupted by a shadow passing over them. The three of them looked befuddled at each other for a few moments before the staff sergeant cried out loud.
“DRAGON!”
All three of them dove simultaneously, but corporal Luck was still grabbed by the claws of the dragon. She managed a short scream before a razor-sharp claw impaled her lungs, but her limp body was then thrown away like a discarded can of soda.
The other two nearly slammed into the ground near the wreckage. The second lieutenant made a quick decision.
“Quick, hide behind that pile of debris over there! I will try something…”
The staff sergeant did not hesitate to follow the order.

The dragon landed with a THUMP! that shook the ground. He looked surprised at the one pony standing in front of him. The second lieutenant pulled his scarf down.
“Excuse me, Mr. Dragon, but my name is second lieutenant Dawn of the 2nd Equestrian Royal Guard Company, and I wondered why you are attacking us?”
The dragon seemed confused at this. It was probably a long while since somepony had spoken directly to it.
Finally it mustered its vocabulary.
“You trespass on my territory. I’ll kill you dumplings just like I did with the flying boat, to send a message to other dumplings.”
The second lieutenant did not appear fazed this prospect.
“But if you kill everypony, who can deliver a message?”
The dragon hesitated for a moment.
“I never thought of that. What do you propose, dumpling?”
“Let us and any potential survivors from this crash go. We promise to never return and to warn everypony to not trespass on your territory again, okay?”
The dragon considered the offer for a few seconds.
“Huh… well, sounds reasonable enough. What if I refuse?”
“Then the Royal Guard will hunt you down and the most powerful unicorns in Equestria will destroy you.”
Once more the dragon took a break to think.
“Okay, then, I’ll call on your offer.”
“Thank you. You will not regret this.”
The second lieutenant turned to leave, but the dragon hawked as it took off. The officer turned.
“Yes?”
“How many dumplings does it take to deliver a warning?”
Second lieutenant Dawn looked puzzled for a second before realizing the ramifications of this. Moments later he was incinerated by the stream of fire from the dragon’s mouth.
“NOOOO!”
The staff sergeant galloped towards the charred body as the dragon flew away.
He stood and stared at the stallion he knew so well for a few minutes, before his training kicked in, spurring him to pull out his radio and flip the switch on the transmitter to ‘4’.
“All units, this is… this is Blue Bird. We… have found the vessel. Several dead, but some movement. We have been attacked, but the danger has passed. The corporal and… the second lieutenant are both KIA. Need immediate support in map sector B12, over.”
The words passed from his mouth, mechanical and distant. A few seconds went by with nothing else than static, before a reply came.
“Copy. This is Yellow Snow, we are right over the hill. Be there in a sec. And, sergeant, sorry about your brother.”
Staff sergeant Winter Dawn moaned an unintelligible answer to the sky before a low whimper caught his attention. He cautiously approached some pile of furniture from the airship. He flipped a table over, and was met with the large blue eyes of a small brown unicorn colt.

“… I was promoted to second lieutenant shortly thereafter, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of helplessness. I asked for transfer to an advisory role in the Manehattan police. I kept my rank in the guard, but I spent my time teaching young officers in the MPD instead. And it worked. I was happy. I met a mare and married. Then I lost my wings and the world fell apart for me.”

Quartz waited for a continuation of the story, but it didn’t come. He decided to say something himself instead.
“It was… you, all those years ago, Winter? I… I really don’t know what to say. I’d thank you, but at the same time… I feel horrible about what happened to your brother. And…”
“Don’t. It is nothing. I was just doing my job.”
The little light of the cigarette was thrown into the darkness and faded away.

The two stallions stood in silence for several minutes, looking at the very first rays of the rising sun spilling over the distant mountains in east.
“You said you were married, Winter?”
Quartz could vaguely make out a smile on the other stallion’s lips.
“Oh yes. The most wonderful mare on this side of the ocean. But we don’t see each other much. I can’t visit her in Cloudsdale in my… condition, and she’s too busy to come to Canterlot often… We managed to conceive a wonderful little bundle of joy, though. She’s ten now, and the spitting image of her mother… I wish I could see her more, but we keep contact through mail.”
“Why did you come back to Canterlot?”
Dawn sighed. “Have you ever heard of the ‘Silo Fire’ case, Dusk?”
“Er… No, sorry, can’t say I have…”
“Of course, you were only a young colt at the time. Well, I assume you have seen me in Canterlot before. How do the other guards say I lost my wings?”

The question came unexpected for Quartz. He hesitated for a moment, not sure what the appropriate answer was.
“I… er… They… I am not from you company, so I haven’t heard much about you or seen you more than once or twice, but one of the stallions in my platoon told me a friend in the 2nd Company had heard a hydra tore them off…”
Dawn laughed a short and barking laugh.
“A hydra? That’s quite some story, but I am afraid the truth is not that… colorful. They were hacked off, by a pony. One you know, even, Dusk.”
“What? Who?”

Dawn’s ears drooped down, as if the memories caused him great emotional turmoil.
“I… Well, after the incident with the Dorothea and the death of my older brother, I transferred to the MPD, as I told you. Although the mainstay of my advisory role was as a ‘melee combat and restraining instructor’ as they called it, I also occasionally helped with cases where we needed a bit of diplomacy, for example in domestic disturbances… It was during one of those instances, fourteen years ago, it happened.”
He paused shortly to regain his composure.

“There had been a problem over several years with abandoned wagons found near one of the main roads into Manehattan. Nopony could explain it, so police officers were sent out to question the locals. One of them was going to a particularly… ‘challenging’ household, so I tagged along. I was recently married and finally satisfied with my lot in life, so I didn’t think twice about such a routine assignment. Then…”
Another pause.

“When we arrived at the farm, we were greeted by a smiling mare. She said her husband was out in the field, but invited us to cakes and coffee while we waited. We accepted the offer, but… The coffee was drugged with something. Before we could say ‘kerfuffle’ we were on the horizontal. When we awoke, she… We were strapped by our hooves to tables she had leant towards the walls in her silo, facing each other. In the room there were… effects from other ponies, no doubt the owners of the abandoned vehicles. The straw on the floor was colored red, and by this point we were pretty much certain it was not tomato juice.
The young officer I was with, Cheese was his name, and I started to devise an escape plan. Our hooves were bound with rope to the legs of the tables, and my wings were too, but one of his hooves was not as tightly bound. Before we could do anything, however, she returned. She had various kitchen knives with her, including a cleaver she lodged in the table less than a hoofwidth from my head. That’s when the... the cutting started. She did horrible, horrible things to young Cheese, right in front of me. He screamed and screamed, forever, it seemed. But then he stopped. And she turned her head and looked at me with a gaze that put me in no doubt I was next…”

Quartz felt a weak nausea, but kept listening.
“But then she turned back to what was left of poor Cheese and untied him from the table, before dragging his remains out the door. I was scared, more scared than I ever had been, but at that moment… a crazy plan started to form in my head. The cleaver next to my head, I grabbed it with my teeth and used it to cut the ropes restraining my front hooves. But I couldn’t reach my back hooves because my wings were bound just above the root to the table as well, and I couldn’t reach those ropes either. So I thought about my daughter and my wife, and then I… I hacked my wings off.”

The silence was total between the two stallions for a couple of seconds. Dawn swallowed audibly and finished his story.
“Of course I made quite the yell, even while biting the cleaver… I just had time to cut the ropes around my back legs before she came storming back in again. I was quite dizzy from the pain, and so she was able to wrestle the cleaver from me and pinned me down. I… I grabbed the only thing I could reach, an old oil lamp, and smashed it over her head. She grew limp, but the flame from the lamp made the straw next to us catch fire. I staggered towards the exit, completely disoriented, when I saw it… Behind some farming tools a young foal was hiding, no more than three-four years old. I have no idea how much she had seen, but I figured as much as that it was one of the insane mare’s daughters. I… I couldn’t leave her, so I grabbed the little filly and carried her out. Outside the silo I collapsed, and I stayed there unconscious from the pain and blood loss for about fifteen minutes.

When I awoke in the hospital, they told me the farmer, the crazy mare’s husband, had found me and his daughter outside the burning old barn. Amazingly it turned out he had no idea what his wife was doing while he was tending to his field. He was cleared of any involvement and got to stay on the farm with his kids. The Manehattan Police Department decided it was no use to ‘rip open old wounds’ as they called it, which is another way of saying she had been a relative of somepony important. In the publicly available case documents it was treated as a tragic fire accident, not a murder case. Finally, in case I decided to be… talkative, they had me transferred back to Canterlot. I had serious mental issues for a time and barely avoided a Section 8 discharge. That basically froze my career in its tracks, and I still have nightmares, a decade and a half later…”

The story ended. Quartz looked at Dawn. In the now stronger light conditions he could see that the older stallion wasn’t looking at him, but staring into space. Both of them stood there with their own thoughts for several minutes.
“Okay, let’s get some sleep in the few hours we have left here, eh, Dusk?”
Quartz startled at the sudden change of tone from Dawn. The pegasus seemed to have repressed the bad memories for the time being.
“Uh, yeah, of course. Just take care not to trip over the baby dragon.”
“Why is he still down, by the way? Aren’t those knockout spells supposed to last like fifteen minutes?”
“I gave him a pony-sized bout, and also I believe he is sleeping. We should make sure we are awake and out of here before he wakes and remembers what happened.”

A mile away somepony knocked on Fluttershy’s door. When no answer came, the banging became more intense. This time the pony on the doorstep could hear a faint, sleepy answer from the window above the door:
“Not now, Mommy, just a little longer…”
The pony sighed and fished out a reserve key from under the doormat. It was no fun when the playmates were sleeping.

Chapter 6 - Gale

Monday May 16th was a bright and happy day in Ponyville. However, Raff had his doubts it would last. The red sunrise he had seen the same morning had heralded the approaching rainstorm, and on the top of that this missing-filly case of Smooth Sailing and his had turned into something else, something… dark and elusive.

Raff did not like this. He was a simple stallion, who enjoyed things in an orderly condition so that he could easily understand them. These webs of deception and lies was something for politicians and their ilk. He wondered whether his lack of curiosity and interest in complicated affairs was part of the reason he was often set to guard rooms where bigwig meetings were taking place. He had even accompanied the Princess on occasions.

Speaking of which, why doesn’t anypony in this place recognize me?

Here he was, walking in broad daylight along the street in the very town where he had guarded the Princess’ tea party! And nopony seemed to remember him! He had talked to dozens of these ponies while looking for Celestia’s flaming bird! That purple unicorn, the Captain’s sister, had even been the one who had the phoenix in the first place, but not a glimpse of recognition… He had hoped somepony would approach him about this, so that he could suddenly remember in front of Smooth and the second lieutenants that he had several times been assigned to the Princess’ personal protection detail…
He sighed.

I guess that is to be expected when half the company are white stallions with blue manes… I wonder if it is an intentional act on the recruiters’ part to pick volunteers whose mane ‘match’ the color of Second Company’s blue plume?

As he walked down the bustling street, unsure of where the bakery the Princess had visited was, he suddenly recognized a grey mare from his last visit. He felt a weak hope being rekindled within him. He approached her.
“Excuse me, miss!”
The mare turned and gave him a blank, wall-eyed look.
“Er… Do you remember me?”
The blank look remained. Raff sighed.
“Yeah, I guess I have a forgettable face… You shouldn’t happen to know where the nearest bakery is, should you?”
Still the look. Raff shrugged and was about to leave, when suddenly…
“Muffins!”
Raff turned back to her.
“Huh?”
“Muffins!”
The mare started galloping down the street. Raff had a confused look for a few seconds before he realized that bakeries sell muffins. He galloped after her.

The grey mare came out from the bakery, munching cheerily at a muffin, just as he arrived. She had been surprisingly fast. Raff took a second to catch his breath before he opened the door and stepped into the bakery. A shrill and saccharine voice greeted him.

“Hi! The Sugarcube Corner special of the day is cu- hahhhhh!”
The unexpected intake of breath was accompanied by a shocked expression frozen in the face of the pink mare behind the counter. Raff wasn’t completely sure how to react to this.

“Er… Hi? I’d li-“
“HIII!” The mare leaped over the counter and started hopping in a circle around a very confused guard.
“I remember you, do you remember me? Have you come to visit? Should we have a welcome back-party? Oh, oh, I can get cakes! We’ll have streamers, and fireworks, and… and…”
“Er… Do I know you?”

The mare bounced up to him and placed her face uncomfortably close to his own, grinning.
“Of course you do, silly! You were one of the guards at the door during Celestia’s tea party here! Don’t you remember me? Pinkie? Pinkamena Diane Pie?”
Raff tried to remember the tea party guests and found that he could vaguely recall an unusually energetic pink mare with a poofy mane. He looked at her again. Poofy mane? Check. Pink? Check. Energetic? Nah, more like crazy as a drunk hydra. Still, there was no doubt.

“Oh, now I remember you. Hey, did you say your name was ‘Pinkie’? I am looking for you.”
“Ooh, why? Is it a surprise? Don’t tell me, I love surprises! No, wait, is it because you want me to throw a party because I’m the bestest party pony?”
“What? Er… I mean, no, I was actually just going to ask if you had seen any of the missing ponies.”
Pinkie pulled back from his face, looking confused.
“Missing ponies? Who?”
Raff ran the mental list of the names of the ten last disappearances in through his head.

“Many. But most important are Lyra Heartstrings, Applebloom, Rainbow Dash and possibly Twilight Sparkle.”
“My- my friends? Missing?”
Raff sighed when he realized he’d have to ask in detail, as this witness apparently knew several missing ponies.
This is going to take a loooong time…
“Yes, miss. Let me go through the list of missing ponies with you and see if you remember anything out of the ordinary. First, Beryl Moss…”

Ten minutes later the list was coming to a close.
“…Violet Velvet…”
“She was at one of my parties a week ago! It was super-duper fun! We had cakes, and ga-“
“*ahem* …Applebloom…”
“She bought some flour here on Friday…”
“…Lyra Heartstrings…”
“Haven’t seen her since Twilight had this awesome magical duel with this pony named Trixie? Do you know Trixie? I know Trixie, but she wouldn’t be my friend because she was a big meanie! Will you be my friend?”
“…and finally, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Oh, you silly! Twilight isn’t missing; I talked to her yesterday morning! She said she would come by today and help me bake cupcakes!”

Raff massaged his forehead. His head hurt after listening to this mare for ten minutes.
“Fine. Whatever you say. In any case, I actually came down here to ask if you had any ban-“
“Here! Do you want some peppermint cupcakes with it? I found them in the oven this morning!”
She held up a bag. He took it and to his surprise there was a banana bread inside.
“What the… how-“
“That will be three bits, but you don’t have to pay!”
“Uh, why?”
She grinned and showed him three bits she held up on her hoof.
“Because I already helped myself to them from your saddlebag, silly!”
“Huh? How did you…? Never mind, I don’t want to know. If there was nothing more I have to pick somepony up at the train station. Another guard may come and ask you some more detailed questions later, so don’t go anywhere.”
“Okeydokey-lokey!”
Pinkie beamed towards him and waved as he turned to go.

The shrill ring of the school bell caused a stampede of recess-ready fillies and colts out of the Ponyville Elementary School. Sweetie Belle didn’t notice the separation of the stream before she crashed head first into something large and hard. She noticed it was a leg, but the apology stopped in her throat as she followed the leg upwards with her eyes. The two stone-faced royal guards somehow caused her to feel a deep angst. They had the same expressions as the dozens others she had seen with the Princess and in Canterlot, but there was something in their eyes, a pain…
Her wide-eyed observation was interrupted by a brazen Scootaloo popping out of the schoolhouse door, seemingly excited about the two stallions who had appeared.

“Oh! Hi misters Guards sirs! Need some more papers?”
The expression of the guards did not change, although one of them seemed to loosen it up a bit.
“Hello again, Scootaloo. Actually we were hoping that Winter here could have a chat with you about your friend Applebloom.”
Scootaloo frowned, but nodded.
“Also, I am looking for someone named ‘Sweetie Belle’. Have you seen her?”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes and pointed a hoof at Sweetie Belle next to her. The guard looked surprised.
“Oh! Well, that saved us some time. Sweetie Belle, would you come with me?”
She didn’t want to, but followed the guard to a picnic table near the copse by the school.

They sat down, and the guard, a brown unicorn, sat down and placed his front hooves together in front of his mouth, frowning. They sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity until Sweetie Belle broke it.
“Yes?”
The guard sighed. “It… it is about your sister…”

“Howdy ho, Riff Raff!”
Private Raff groaned and massaged his brow beneath the edge of his helmet.
“Smooth, what in the hay are you wearing?”
The cheery guard hopped down from the train and looked up at the wide-brimmed hat cresting his own helmet, causing the plume to droop down on the sides.

“This? Just a hat I picked up in Appleloosa. Gotta get in th’ mood, you know?”
Raff sighed. “Okay, whatever you say. Let’s go, we have to visit somepony named ‘Fluttershy’. Some… things have happened since yesterday. I’ll tell you as we go.”

Cheerilee gnashed her teeth as she was correcting tests during the recess. The school grade average had dropped almost a full level recently, and she suspected she knew the reason. Here she had been moved to this “special attention” class, reducing her output to the ordinary students.

If only these weeds knew how they ruined my perfect garden of students… They should be uprooted and-
Her thought process was interrupted by a crying noise. She looked out the window directly across the classroom from her desk, and noted that indeed, Sweetie Belle was crying. Cheerilee found this odd, Sweetie Belle hadn’t exactly struck her as the type to cry over some playgr-

Wait… are those…

Scootaloo had come over to Sweetie Belle’s side. Although she was not crying, she looked like she had been shocked by something. What Cheerilee had noticed was who Scootaloo was talking to. The backs of two tall stallions were just within her field of vision, and they appeared to have unusual manes, standing right up… Unless they weren’t manes, but plumes, such as the ones on the helmets of…

Guards!

She used her right lower hoof to slam one of her desk drawers shut, in order to hide her little bottle of after-work “elixir”.

Okay, calm down. They probably just want to ask the pupils about Applebl-

Scootaloo pointed towards the school building, and the two guards turned and seemed to look her right into the eye. She felt as if frozen to her chair. One of the guards, an earth pony or pegasus, said something to his companion, a darker unicorn. The unicorn went up to the front door and knocked. It took a few seconds for her to formulate a coherent answer.
“I… er… come on in! I’m in the first classroom on the left!”

As the guard entered, she repeated to herself that this was most likely just about Applebloom. She felt a little more relieved when she noticed that the guard was not as burly as your average Royal Guard, but somewhat scrawnier, and he appeared to be five-six years younger than her. He was quite handsome, actually.

Don’t worry. You’ll deal with this one nicely.

“Hello, my name is Cheerilee! I assume you are here about Applebloom, Mr…?”
The guard seemed taken aback by her large grin, so she toned it down a little. The guard scratched his neck for a moment.
“Er… Uh, I mean Dusk Quartz, Equestrian Royal Guard Corps, if you couldn’t tell by the armor. Could you pl-“
“Take a seat, Dusk, take a seat, by all means!”
She extended her hoof towards a couple of chairs standing by the wall, grin still plastered across her face.
“Ehm, thanks, I guess…” Dusk Quartz replied sheepishly before placing the chair across from her on the other side of Cheerilee’s desk.
She leaned forward.
“Now, tell me why you are here, Dusk…”

“My colleague; second lieutenant Winter Dawn, and I were sent here to provide additional aid in the search for your missing student, Applebloom. I ju-“
“Oh, I am so crushed by this whole ordeal!” She put on her best puppy-eyed face. “I love those little foals as if they were my own. Do you have children, Dusk?”
“Uh, no, miss, no children.”
Cheerilee leaned a little closer, changing her tone voice to a softer tone.
“Oh? Doesn’t your wife want any?”
“I’m… eh, I’m not really married yet, miss.”

She leaned up close to him, making her voice more sensual.
“Is that so? But surely you have a special somepony?”
Quartz looked notably uneasy.
“No, not exactly. I’m a little at it and back again, but I don’t really have the time to go out that much, and…”
Cheerilee congratulated herself inside. It had been more than ten years since she had had to pull off the old “discomfort the interview away” trick, but she still had it. She leaned so close to him that he leaned away from her and swallowed audibly, causing Cheerilee to give herself a mental ovation.
She looked him directly in the eyes and spoke again, so softly it was little more than a whisper this time.
“I cannot understand how such an attractive stallion as you yourself can possibly…”
She was interrupted by a hawk.
“Am I interrupting something?”

She virtually threw herself back into her chair due to the surprise. Once she regained her composure she dared a quick look at Quartz and realized her spell had been broken. The guard instead looked relieved at the stallion who had spoken. She cursed silently and turned smiling towards the guard in the doorway.

“No, not at all. I was just telling this gentlecolt here how grateful I am for the aid you give us in finding my poor little student…”
The older, beige stallion didn’t answer, but stared at her with an intense look as if trying to remember something. He slowly moved across the floor and whispered something to his younger companion, before taking the other chair by the wall and sitting down next to Quartz.
Suddenly both erupted in simultaneous, ear-to-ear grins.

Celestia! They know-they know-THEY KNOW! Horsefeathers! Could that young one have played me for fools all along?

The elder stallion spoke.
“Hello again. If there is one thing I never expected to see it was ‘Wild Violet’ correcting elementary school tests.”
Panicked, Cheerilee tried one last gamble.
“Pardon me? My name is Cheerilee, not this… Violet Velvet you are talking about.”
The beige stallion lifted an eyebrow.
“I haven’t mentioned your last name, Violet…”
Cheerilee felt a strong urge to bang her head into a wall at her own stupidity.

The old stallion continued.
“Judging by your reaction when I entered, I’d daresay you don’t remember me, Violet. Such a shame… What was it you promised me last time? Something about a cherry, if I remember correctly…”
Suddenly she recognized the older stallion. He had been an advisor at the Manehattan Police Department Headquarters, and present at more than one unpleasant interview she had been through. She couldn’t hide her blush.

Under their persistent grins she gave up.
“Okay, you win, Dawn. What is it you want in return for not having a loose lip about my past? Money?”
Winter Dawn made an unconvincing impression of somepony who had been insulted.
“Money? We are the Royal Guard, Ms. Velvet. We don’t take bribes. In fact just trying to bribe us is a criminal offense.”
She winced a second, but regained her senses. He obviously wanted something.
“Dawn, I remember you, always trying to convince me to start fresh over. Well, here I am, as Cheerilee, a small-town teacher with gardening as a hobby and a perfect track record. Even if it is false, I am not who I was fifteen years ago. And I think you can tell that. I don’t think we’d even be having this conversation unless you wanted something, so what is it?”
Dawn dropped his grin, and the other guard did as well. Instead he looked concerned.

“Information, Velvet, information. You already know about Applebloom, but there have been more disappearances. Including Twist; one of your former students, the elder sister of Sweetie Belle; one of your current students, and finally the mother of another of your students; Diamond Tiara.”
Cheerilee thought about this for a second.
“Rarity is missing? But I saw her just the oth-“
She stopped as she realized the common denominator of all these ponies; herself.

Dawn raised an eyebrow.
“I see you understand, Violet. Give me something, anything, to remove you from a potential suspect list. Otherwise, I will be forced to go public about your background as part of the investigation.”
Cheerilee felt beads of sweat forming on her forehead.

“There is… one thing about Applebloom. But I cannot tell you, or might drag me to court to testify, and then my real identity may…”
Dawn pointed with his hoof towards the wall clock. It was a quarter to eleven.
“See that, Violet? At twelve PM today, a team fro-“
He was interrupted by the ring of the school bell.
He sighed. “Dusk, deal with it, would you?”
Dusk nodded and headed out the door to great the pupils with a “Fifteen minutes extra recess, everypony!”

As the collective cheer rose, Dawn leant towards Cheerilee.
“…a team from the Manehattan Police Department will arrive here to investigate a possible murder case. If you cooperate, I will sign you off as fully interviewed. If not…”
“Are you threatening me, guard?”
“Why yes, yes I am, ‘Cheerilee’.”
Cheerilee gave a deep sigh and sank back as Dusk Quartz entered the room again.
“Okay, you win, guards. I lied when I said I last saw her at school. I saw her that same evening, buying flour at Sugarcube Corner, presumably because the store was closed. I didn’t want to tell, in case that made me the last to see her.”

Dawn smiled and stood up.
“Thank you, Ms. Cheerilee. I must have misidentified you. A pleasure talking to you.”
He then promptly exited the room.
Quartz lingered a second.
“Er… thanks, miss. And hey, you could need a vacation. You look stressed. We have enough with one fillynapping maniac.”
He scurried out and after his colleague.
Cheerilee massaged her temples and moaned. She opened the drawer with the liquor. Class or not, she needed something to steady her nerves.

“What the hay was that all about, Winter?”
Dawn did not answer Quartz’ question immediately, just smiling to himself.
“’Cheerilee’ back there is apparently not who she claims to be. I immediately recognized her face, one I saw many times when I was with the Manehattan Police. Her real name is ‘Wild’ Violet Velvet, and she… No, you don’t want to know. Anyway, I figured I could exploit that, and that’s why I asked you to grin. It had to look like the entire Guard was aware of her identity.”

Quartz made a mental note to himself that he should try to find out about this mare whenever he got the chance.
Dawn looked like he was about to say something more, but was interrupted by a loud thud behind them. They turned in unison, to see two visibly upset white pegasi guards. One of them was wearing a big hat.

“Private Sailing?” Quartz asked, “What’s the deal with hat?”
Sailing shot him an irate look. “Forget about the hat already, everypony! We have bigger problems.”
He threw the hat into a bush.
“Raff and I went up to-“
Private Raff interrupted him.
“It appears we have another disappearance, sirs.”
Dawn moaned and closed his eyes.
“Celeeeestia… Another one? In the name of the royal tush…”
“Who?” Quartz asked.

Raff licked his lips.
“That ‘Fluttershy’ you told me to see with Sailing, sir. We went up there, but the door was open and we the only things we found were an angry bunny and signs of struggle in the bedroom.”
Quartz raised an eyebrow and looked at Dawn, but he shook his head.
“Let’s leave that one for the professionals. They’ll be here in little more than an hour. We should focus on our new lead, Sugarcube Corner. Private Sailing, have you been there with Raff during your first days here?”

Sailing fished out a notebook from a hidden pocket in his armor between his wing and neck.
“Just a moment, sir… Ah. No, sir, we were going to, but the owners are on vacation in Baltimare. We figured asking the assistant was not worth questioning.”
“What was the name of this assistant?”
“Pinkie Pie,” Raff answered, “I was just down there and talked to her when I bought your banana bread this morning, lieutenant Quartz, sir.”
He extended the bag, and Quartz took it with his magic and put it in his saddlebag.
“Thank y- Er… Winter, you okay?”

Winter Dawn stared into space, visibly pale. When he answered, it was almost a whisper.
“Raff, describe her.”
Raff looked confused, but answered.
“Er… Pink, poofy mane, blue eyes…”
“…Cutie mark shaped like three balloons.” Dawn finished.
“Uhm, yes. How did you know, sir?”
Dawn looked at Quartz, his ears drooping.
“Dusk, remember the Silo Fire Incident I told you about?”
“Oh, Celestia, don’t say that…”

Dawn nodded at Quartz’ question.
“The Pie Rock Farm, just outside Manehattan. Raff just described the little filly that was there.”
There was an eerie silence for a few seconds, the sunshine and singing birds a mocking contrast to the sinking feeling the guards felt inside. Finally Quartz turned to Raff.
“Private Raff, how fast can you fly to Canterlot and get reinforcements?”

Author’s note: Yes, it is a Cupcakes sequel. Or is it?

Chapter 7 - Strong Gale

“Dusk, I need the current time and the ETA of those reinforcements.”
Dawn and Quartz were standing in an alley near Sugarcube Corner. Dawn was observing the windows of the building through a small pair of binoculars he supported with a hoof.
Quartz craned his neck to look through a nearby window at a wall clock inside.
“Eleven forty-seven, Winter. Raff said he’d need half an hour each way, and he left around ten fifty-five… Hey, what is Sailing doing?”
Smooth Sailing had been sent ahead to scout around the building, but was now gesticulating wildly from the wall to the right of the façade.
Dawn sighed and lowered the binoculars.
“Let’s go find out.”

Sailing let out a sigh of relief as the two others came over to him.
“Thank Celestia you are here. I stepped in something…”
Dawn facehoofed.
“You did all that waving because you stepped in something?”
“You didn’t let me finish! Uhm... sir! I leaned forward to look at the old sandwich or whatever it is, and…, well, look for yourself.”
He pointed to a low basement window.
Next to what looked like the rotten remains of a half-eaten sandwhich was a peeled-off part of the paint that was covering the window.

Quartz went down to his knee and put his eye to the place where the paint had peeled off.
Inside was a light blue or white room lit up by a strong blue-white mobile construction lamp. However, in the corner of the room was…
“There’s a cage in there, with…” Quartz squinted “… a filly?”
From somewhere behind him he heard Sailing.
“Yes. She looks a lot like the picture we got of the missing one, sir.”
Dawn put his head beside Quartz’ and tried to look into the opening as well.
“Can you see any of the other missing ponies in there? That on the lower right wall, is that the top of a cage?”
“I’m not sure, Winter… I think I can see the tip of a yellow wi- WHOA!”
Both of them tumbled backwards in unison. A blue eye had appeared behind the opening, staring at them briefly before disappearing.

Dawn was heaving for breath.
“…Celestia!”
Quartz looked at the two others.
“We need to move now. We can’t wait for the police or the reinforcements. She knows we know, now.”
Dawn nodded.
“Stack at the door! Go!” he called out.

The three stallions galloped around to the front of Sugarcube Corner and hugged the walls on each side of the door, Quartz and Sailing on the right and Dawn on the left.
“Now what?” Dawn asked, “We have no weapons, and I haven’t done a breach-and-clear since Basic Close Quarters Training, almost two decades ago…”
Quartz wasn’t sure what to answer. He too hadn’t done any breaching maneuvers since basic traini-
“Lieutenant Dawn, you clear the left, I’ll take the right. We will be prime targets in the door, so get to the sides as quickly as possible. Lieutenant Quartz, as a unicorn you are the only of us with ranged attack capabilities, so stay in the rear. If we encounter narrow spaces, I am the quickest of us, so I’ll take point. Lt. Dawn, in that scenario you’re rear guard. We don’t want to expose Lt. Quartz.”
Both second lieutenants looked confused at each other for a few seconds before realizing Sailing had been the one to speak. They both stared surprised at him.

He looked embarrassed.
“I… er… before the Guard I was a SOCOM operative…”
Dawn looked even more surprised.
“You were Special Forces?”
“Uhm… Yes. Why shouldn’t I have been that?”
Quartz held up a hoof to stop Dawn’s snappy answer.
“There’s no time, you two. Ready? Okay, Winter, open the door on the count of three.”
Dawn nodded. Quartz took a deep breath.
“One.”
All three of them tensed up.
“Two.”
Sailing swallowed.
“Three!”
Dawn stood in front of the door and bucked it with all his might. It flew open, and the three of them stormed in.

Dawn slid sideways, eyes peeled to the left side of the room.
“Clear left!”
Sailing did the same on the right side.
“Clear right!”
Finally Quartz entered straight ahead, his horn glowing with a dark orange hue.
Nobody was in the room, so the glow faded from the horn as Quartz stopped forming the spell in his mind.
“Room clear. Okay, Smooth, Winter, we are looking for some way down into the basement. Spread out!”
The three of them searched the different rooms on the ground floor of Sugarcube Corner.

Sailing entered the kitchen, trying his best not to make the floor creak as he checked in cupboards and under counters for any clues of the whereabouts of a way downstairs.
He found a batch of freshly baked cupcakes, still without frosting, standing on one of the kitchen counters. After thoroughly checking that the room was empty he grabbed one and munched happily on his first meal since breakfast that day.
Next to the cupcakes were the ingredients that had obviously been used to make them. However, amongst the flour, sugar, baking soda and milk stood a little jar with some indeterminable red paste and a teaspoon in it.

Sailing was just wondering whether it was some sort of jam when he noticed a small spot of the same material on the floor. Whoever had brought this here had spille-
“Lieutenants! I think I found a hatch of some kind!”
Next to the spot there was a hard-to-see small hatch of the same material as the floor.

“Should we go right here?”
“No, keep heading forwards, Dusk.”
The three of them had descended into the hatch, only to be met at the bottom of the short flight of stairs by a corridor more pitch black than a coalmine at midnight. Sailing’s plan had been abandoned, with Quartz using a small magical light at the tip of his horn to illuminate the way instead.

“Okay, Winter.”
They passed the menacing doorway, or rather doorhole on their right, heading straight ahead instead. After a few paces it felt like the space around them widened, and the sharp smell of rotting meat, formaldehyde and a public restroom tickled unpleasantly in their nostrils.

Sailing put words to what they all felt.
“I think we are in the room we saw from the window, or at least next to it. She’s here somewhere…”
Dawn fiddled around in the dark at their right with his hoof, and whispered intently to them.
“I… think I might have found a light switch. Don’t look up now!”
They all looked down, but failed to avoid being temporarily blinded by the shine as Dawn flipped the switch.
The room was greyish, and stunk of rotting meat, bleach and formaldehyde. It was decorated as if a party was about to take place, but the only pony there was a cyan-blue pegasus mare who faced away from them, next to a small table.
Quartz went over to her, and noticed a number of knives and surgical tools on the table, as well as a small packet marked “Contact lenses, dark violet” and a cup with some red lip marks all around the edge.

Ignoring this for the moment, Quartz gently pricked the mare on her shoulder.
“*ahem* Excuse me, miss, but I am afraid you’re under arr… ar…”
He trailed off as he noticed no reaction at all. Also, the mare was surprisingly cold to the touch.
“Uhm… Miss?”
He leaned forward and around her to see her fa-
“WHOA!”
He gaped in sheer surprise and shock. The mare had no eyes, only dark cavities. Also, she had scars in her face, scars that were near her cutiemark and abdomen as well… Almost as if…

“She’s… a… she’s… stuffed?”
He turned shocked towards the other two, but to his further surprise they weren’t staring at the mare, but at the room, mouths agape.
Dawn whispered so Quartz could only barely hear:
“A-are those streamers…? C-Celestia preserve…”

A pale Sailing walked blindly backwards, mouth opening and closing without a sound coming out, until he stepped in a bucket. He lifted his hoof, covered in some sort of red paste, to his eyes and screamed loudly, before storming back out the doorway.
Quartz now paid attention to the party decorations as well. He noticed that in-between the streamers the decorator had placed plastic skulls, a strange choice given that there was five months left to Nightmare Night.

Wait… those look awfully detailed. Almost as if they aren’t plastic, but r-

He was interrupted when he noticed that the streamers weren’t streamers at all, but some sort of red tubes. Why wou-
As the realization of the true horror of the room dawned upon him, he remained still, staring into space in a stupefied daze.

“H-hello? Are anypony there?”
The soft call ripped the two second lieutenants out of their trance. Dawn looked around.
“The cages! They must be in a side room. We mu- Are you eating?!”
Quartz had used his magic to fish the banana bread out of his saddlebag and break a piece off it. He swallowed it.
“Banana bread. Very heavy consistency. Calms the stomach if you feel sick. Want some?”
Dawn shook his head.
“Don’t think I can ever eat anything again… Hey, I think that’s a door over there. Wait here.”
Quartz did not object as Dawn ducked into the side room. He himself had noticed the most terrible of the many horrors of the room.

Alongside one of the walls was a sort of tilted metal slab with what must have been a pony attached to it with chains.
However, it had no coat. The poor soul had been skinned.
It, or rather she, as she looked distinctly female, had once had a horn, which appeared to have been sawed off close to the base, leaving only a bloody red stump in the forehead of the mare.
None of these things, however, were as horrifying to Quartz as the eyes staring into space. Their irises were purple.

He stepped up to the mare.
“Oh… no, Twilight… Celestia, no!”
He startled as the eyes of the unicorn rolled towards him and the chest started to expand and contract more visibly. A wheezing breath was audible. She was… alive.

“Twilight? Listen, focus on me!”
On the table behind him, a knife was lifted.

“It will be okay, do you hear me? We are here! You are safe now!”
A trained eye identified a pulsating artery, and adjusted the knife accordingly.

“I’m so sorry, Twilight…”
Quartz rammed the knife he had picked up from the table with his magic into her artery. The eyes shot wide open a few seconds before they turned glassy.

“I’m sorry…”
“Did you say something, Dusk?”
Dawn poked his head out of the doorway.
Quartz turned towards him.
“I said I found Twilight Sparkle. She’s gone…”
Dawn looked pained for a second before focusing again.
“We have time to mourn the dead later. Right, now, I need your help opening these cages! We have two survivors here, a conscious but shocked filly and an unconscious pegasus mare.”

Smooth Sailing felt like he would never stop vomiting.
Celestia! I ate… I ate.. pony!
He did, however, stop. He took a deep breath and looked towards the room he had just run out of. He could not enter it again.

I’ll just stay here in the corridor, and… what was that?

A creak made him spin around; only to promptly slip in his own vomit and fall in the doorway they had passed a few minutes earlier.
He landed in a pile of something that felt like wooden sticks.
“Eugh…”
He tried to stand up again. His hoof touched something round, about the size of a hoofball. He looked at it, and screamed. The pony skull seemed to mock him with its grin as he flailed wildly backwards through the pile of bones he had landed in.
Suddenly the room went dark.

Sailing froze. Only his own, heavy breath was audible. No, not only his breath. There was another breath in the room, not following his pattern.
He tried to slowly back out of the room, but stepped one some bone that snapped audibly. Mortified he heard something being broken off somewhere in front of him.
He swallowed. “Uh-oh.”

“Who turned off the lights? Sailing? I can’t see a thing… Dusk, use your horn!”
Dawn had just put the unconscious Fluttershy over his back and but a crying Applebloom around the neck of Quartz when they heard the scream. Seconds later the lights went out.
Quartz lit the small light on the tip of his horn again. Applebloom hugged his neck tightly and cried into his coat as the two guards cautiously fumbled their way back out into the short corridor with only the help of the small light.
“Sailing, are you there?” Quartz whispered intently.
“Sail- WHOA!”
Quartz hopped a little backwards as Sailing fell out of the doorway on their left hand side, nearly hitting him.
The two guards leaned over him.
“Sailing, you okay?” Quartz tried. No reaction.
Quartz leaned close enough that his horn illuminated Sailing’s face, but quickly recoiled.
The stallion had gotten something that looked like a rib stuck in his eye socket and probably into his brain, judging by how very dead he had looked.

Dawn and Quartz look at each other, Quart’s horn barely showing their horrified faces. The Dawn’s expression turned into one of grim determination.
“Dusk, extinguish your light.”
Quartz did as asked.
“Why?”
“We’re too visible,” Dawn whispered back, “now, I need you take this mare…”
Quartz felt a heavy load being placed on his back.
“and make for the exit as quickly as possible. I’ll stay here and try to stop her.”
“What?! No, I’m not leaving you here alone in the dark, Winter!”
“Second lieutenant Dusk Quartz, as the more senior officer of the two equally graded of us, I order you to do as I say!”
A cackling laughter suddenly burst out of the darkness somewhere, and Quartz wasn’t going to argue any longer. He galloped towards the exit at full speed. He felt it as if the darkness was squeezing him in, trapping him…
He went full speed up the stairs, through the kitchen and the kitchen door, and collapsed outside in the bright, seemingly mocking sunshine.

“Sir, sergeant Fern and troop reporting, sir!”
Quartz looked up with tired eyes and saw six burly white pegasi in shining armor accompanied by a worried-looking Riff Raff.
Quartz couldn’t even feel relieved; he just waved his hoof in the general direction of the door.
“Down… there. One KIA and one covering my back. Go… use… flashlights… it’s dark…”
Suddenly Quartz felt incredibly tired. He welcomed the soft darkness of unconsciousness.

“Is he in here?”
“Yes, Bugsy. He’s all yours.”
The detective stepped aside from the office door in the Ponyville town hall.
“Excellent. Bean, go down to the front entrance and tell Mr. Magnum that he and his wife can see his daughter Rarity tomorrow at the Ponyville Hospital, would you?”
“’kay, Bugsy.”
She took a deep breath and opened the door. Inside sat a very tired-looking Royal Guard. He was unshaved and he had dark rings under his eyes, but when he looked at her he could see that they still shone bright and clear.
“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” the mare that had just entered replied “I am detective Grass Hopper from the MPD, and-“
Quartz smiled and interrupted her.
“Like the insect?”
She rolled her eyes, but smiled warmly.
“Yes, like the insect. They call me ‘Bugsy’ down at the station for a reason.”
Both laughed. Quartz looked at her. She was a grey mare with an orange mane and green eyes, about his own age.

Doesn’t look half bad, neither.

He shook this out of his mind.
“Well, I’m Dusk Quartz, and I must say, I am glad they sent you to do this. I’ll take a pretty mare any day over that dolt out there.”
She feigned indignant surprise.
“Mr. Quartz, how do you know I don’t have a big, scary boyfriend who doesn’t like you complimenting his special somepony?”
He grinned. “Because that aforementioned dolt just complained loudly to one of the CSIs that if you didn’t stop rejecting him you would become a vicious old spinster.”
“Bean?” She shuddered. “Ugh… Then I’d rather be a spinster. Bean smells like a bag of old farts.”
They both laughed out loud.

“Seriously though,” Hopper said, “I’ll have to ask you some questions, mister.”
Quartz sighed.
“By all means, go ahead. But tell me one thing first. The survivors… How are they?”
Hopper thought about it for a moment before apparently deciding to tell him.
“The filly is with her family and a crisis psychiatrist in Sweet Apple Acres. The pegasus has been placed with the unicorn mare you brought in earlier up at the Ponyville Hospital. Your colleague Raff has volunteered to stay with them until we get more officers up here.”

Private Raff was deeply worried for his friend Sailing. None of the six guards who had entered Sugarcube Corner had wanted to tell him anything except that they had not found the culprit nor second lieutenant Dawn.

If only they’d let me see lieutenant Quartz…

He shook his head and looked around the hospital room. The unicorn was still out dark, but the pegasus, Fluttershy, if Raff remembered correctly, was awake. However, she was just staring into space and holding her blanket, not saying a thing.
Raff sighed and returned his focus to the magazine he was sitting in a chair reading.
He was just ogling the image of a particularly well-formed mare by the name of Prima Vera when the nurse knocked softly on the doorframe.

“Miss Fluttershy, there’s a guest for you. Do you feel strong enough to see her?”
Fluttershy nodded weakly. The nurse looked over to Raff who shrugged and returned his focus to the image caption where Prima Vera told the magazine how she loved strong, slient stallions in uniform.
“Surprise! You didn’t expect to see me again, did you, Flutters?”
The cheery voice of the guest drew his attention away from Prima’s hind quarters. The first thing he saw was the mortified expression on Fluttershy’s face.

It took a few seconds before his brain made the logical connections. Within milliseconds his wings had taken him across the room and into a dive-tackle of the mare that had just entered.
While holding the wriggling mare down he turned to Fluttershy.
“RUN!”
Seconds later he was bucked off. She had not been strong enough to buck such a big stallion over, but he still collided with a little wheeled table the nurse had left earlier that day.
He stood up again, but noticed a sudden sting in his neck.
He looked down and saw a syringe dangling from his neck.
“Oh, s-… sh-“
The world rapidly turned dark and he slumped to the floor.

Detective hopper wrote down Quartz’ final statements in a notebook.
“Thank you very much. Is there anything else, Mr. Quartz?”
Quartz thought about it for a second.
“Yes. I have two requests.”
“Go ahead…”

“First and foremost; can I take Twilight Sparkle’s baby dragon and owl back to Canterlot with me? I know her brother, and somepony need to take care of them.”
Hopper bit her lip a second before nodding. “Granted, as long as you can come down to Manehattan to answer some questions when we call for you. What was the other request?”
“You are from Manehattan, right? Do you know Ristorante Pizza è Magia on the corner of 53rd and Van der Clop Avenue?”
She searched her memory for a few seconds. “Uhm… Yes. What for?”
“When all… this, is over, would you like to grab some dinner there one evening? I’ll pay.”
She snorted. “Mr. Quartz… I’ve never…”
“This case will probably make your career, remember? Come on…”
She smiled. “Okay then. But don’t tell anypo-“
Hopper was interrupted by the entrance of the detective Quartz now knew was called ‘Bean’. He whispered something in Hopper’s ear. The only word Quartz could make out was ‘hospital’.
She frowned. “Get back to Sugarcube Corner and check on the CSIs, would you? I’ll go there.”

Hopper turned back to Quartz.
“Mr. Quartz, it is almost midnight. I recommend you get on the midnight train to Canterlot. Then you can be back with your company before sunrise.”
Quartz hesitated. “Wait. What was all that about? What did he tell you?”
Grass Hopper sighed. “There’s been a fire at the Ponyville Hospital. I am afraid the unicorn and your colleague have been found, dead. My condolences.”
Quartz’ mouth felt all dry. “Wh-what?”
She continued.
“We haven’t found the pegasus yet, but things look bleak. I’m sorry. Now, I’ll get somepony to escort you to your train.”

Chapter 8 - Storm

Quartz moaned and massaged his temples. There was a low murmur of voices from the six other guards returning home on the Canterlot Midnight Express. He placed his helmet next to the sleeping baby dragon and caged owl in the seat next to him.
He stepped out into the walking space between the rows of seats and walked back to sergeant Fern, who was engaged in a low-key conversation with one of the other guards.
“…found a dress made out of the coats of other ponies! A dress! Who wears something so macabre? Hmm? Oh, Lt. Quartz, sir. What is it, sir?”
Quartz sighed.
“I’m just having a terrible headache, that’s all. I’ll just go and get some fresh air. Look after the owl and dragon, would you, Fern?”

The cold night air cooled Quartz as it blew over the end wagon of the train. He took a deep breath of it when he was hit on his muzzle by a drop. He looked up.
And saw the most incredible sight of his life.
A massive storm front darkened out the stars one by one, seemingly going from horizon to horizon. In front of it, more little dots than he could count zipped back and forth in the moonlight.
“So many pegasi… It must be millions…” he said lowly to himself.
He shook his head and went back inside. He did not hear the sigh of relief from the mare hiding behind a crate in the wagon.

A torrential rainfall washed over Canterlot as Quartz opened the door to his home and placed the owl and baby dragon inside. He whinnied irate when he realized he had to go to the palace for debriefing.
He kicked his doorframe in anger and galloped back into the rain.

“… and then the mare said: ‘No thanks. Cider for me. Aquavit makes my hind quarters so sore!’”
The whole guard room burst into laughter at sergeant Clearing’s joke. He was playing cards with the night shift guards who were guarding the main Canterlot Palace gate.
They were interrupted by a banging on the gate.
“Who can it be at this time of night?” sergeant Sunshine Smiles wondered out loud.
Clearing stood up and stifled a yawn.
“Well, gentlecolts, I have lost anyway, so I’ll go see.”
He went out of the room and headed over to the gate, opening it slightly.
“Yes? State your business?”
Outside was a hooded mare in a raincoat. Something looked… off about her face, but Clearing couldn’t place a hoof on it.

“I have a fun surprise for the Princess!”
Clearing laughed out loud.
“Ha! Anypony else you wish to speak with? The sheik of Saddle Arabia? The Chancellor of Gryffonia? Get lost.”
“Wait,” Clearing felt a hoof on his shoulder and saw that it was sergeant Smiles talking “I know her. That’s Twilight Sparkle. I saw her a few years back at the Nightmare Night celebrations in Ponyville. She’s a friend of Luna’s…”
Clearing’s eyes shot wide open.
“What? I mean…” he opened the gate and let the mare in “…Come on in, ma’am. An honor!”
The mare smiled and tripped past him. As she trotted deeper into the palace she turned to the two guards.
“If you see Dusk Quartz, give my regards!”
The two stallions looked at each other and shrugged.

They had just started walking back to the guard room when somepony banged the gate once more.
Clearing rolled his eyes.
“What is it now? You go back to the others, Smiles, I’ll take it.”
He went over to the gate door and opened it slightly again.
“Yes? State your bu- Lieutenant?”
Outside was a very wet and very tired-looking Dusk Quartz. He seemed equally surprised.
“Wooden? What are you doing here? This is the night shift!”
Wooden Clearing opened the door to let him in.
“I’m just playing some cards with Smiles and the others…”
Quartz moaned as he stepped inside.
“Ooooh, it has been nasty this weekend, Wooden. I’ll tell you all about it later. Now I need to get to debriefing.”
Clearing remembered something.
“Oh, lieutenant… Twilight Sparkle sends her regards.”
Quartz frowned. “What are you talking about? Twilight Sparkle was found dead this morning. By me, I might add.”
Clearing looked very surprised.
“Really? But… Smiles just identified a mare that went through here as Twilight Sparkle…”
Suddenly Quartz felt like the pieces of a puzzle clicked together in his mind.

…She had been skinned… …“a dress made out of the coats of other ponies”… “I’ll probably head up to Canterlot the day after tomorrow to look at with her”…

“Celestia…” he mumbled to himself.
“Pardon me?” Clearing asked,
Quartz turned distressed towards him.
“Where’s the shift commander?”
“Er… Lieutenant Cloud is at lieutenant Grove’s retirement party up at the third floor… But you can’t-“
Quartz bolted off.
“I have to, Wooden! You did not let in Twilight Sparkle, but somepony far more…”
Clearing did not hear the last word as Quartz disappeared around a corner.

The wineglasses rattled pleasantly as they hit each other in a toast. Laughter filled the small dining room in the West Wing of Canterlot Castle. Lieutenant Grove gave a broad smile and shook his head to the middle-aged earth-pony mare he was standing next to.
She pouted her lips. “You didn’t even give me the chance to speak, Green!”

Grove kept smiling and looked into the fizzling golden liquid in his glass.
“I already know what you are going to ask, Laurel,” he directed towards the light green mare, “and the answer is still ‘no comment’.”
Laurel frowned and brushed a lock of greying blonde hair away from her face.
“No comments on the Discord case?”

Grove smiled ever wider now that he realized he had been correct in guessing the intentions of the aging editor of the Canterlot Times.
“Absolutely no comments, Laurel.”
“But what about the Crystal Empire? Rumor has it that ponies from Equestria aided in its reappearance? Or what about Princess Luna? If I have understood it correctly, when she came back from the moon she was regretful and immediately was offered her old position back by Princess Celestia… But something isn’t right with that explanation there… Was she really not vengeful after being beaten and exiled by her own sister?”
Grove shook his head again.

“All inquiries for official comments on internal matters should be directed to the relevant Ministry, or alternatively the Court Press Liaisons Officer. If you have any questions regarding the Guard’s role in these matters, please direct your inquiry to captain Armor on the second floor of the East Wing.”
Laurel rolled her eyes.
“Come on, Green, we have known each other for twenty years, and all you can give me is that old drone response?”
Lieutenant Green Grove winked and went over to a group of stallions standing close by.

Outside the door, Dusk Quartz had met an obstacle in the form of Sgt. Wool.
“Oh, come on, Wool! It is an emergency!”
The young sergeant shook his head.
“No can do, sir. Lieutenant Grove gave me strict orders that only the commanding officers of the Companies, a few personal friends and their escorts could enter.”
Quartz tripped nervously and considered whether he should simply force his way past the slightly shorter but bulkier sergeant when he recognized a familiar character trotting down the corridor. He galloped over to her.

“Spitfire! Spitfire, you have to help me get inside that room!”
The head of the Wonderbolts, for the occasion dressed up in a tasteful evening dress, raised an eyebrow as the stallion stopped in front of her.
“Second lieutenant Quartz? What are you doing here? And why are you trying to get into the party I’m attending?”
Sgt. Wool became curious now as well, but an irate glance from the second lieutenant made him turn his eyes away from the pair. He could still hear them, though.
“Spitfire, could you describe your missing Wonderbolt trainee?”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you in a second.”
Wool dared to glance over at them again. Quartz closed his eyes and sighed as Spitfire described a light blue pegasus with a rainbow-colored mane.

Quartz leaned over to the mare and whispered something in her ear that Wool couldn’t make out, but whatever it was he could see Spitfire’s pupils widening in shock.
A minute or so later a slightly upset-looking Spitfire followed Quartz over to Sgt. Wool.
“Guard, I am back. This is my escort. Would you please let us back in?”
“Of course, ma’am!”
Wool stepped aside and let the couple into the room.

“Mr. Pants, as I’ve told you for three years now, I will not accept bribes to promote your nephew!”
Grove rolled his eyes and whinnied angrily.
Fancy Pants immediately became defensive.
“It is not a bribe, Green, just a departing gift for a dear old frie-“
Lieutenant Grove’s other conversational partner, lieutenant Cloud, interrupted the rich unicorn.
“Mr. Pants, I think it might be best if you left us now. We guards have to talk.”
As the unicorn begrudgingly walked away from the duo Cloud turned frowning back to Grove.
“Green, you know he will turn to your successor once you’re gone, right?”

Grove sighed.
“Yes. However, I have faith in young Quartz. I’m sure he will make a fine first lieutenant. Where is your successor, anyway? Even though you have nearly six months left here, we all know second lieutenant Lightning is your golden colt…”
The elderly light blue pegasus smiled at Grove.
“He’s up in the storm, heading the guards we sent last week. He’s a goo-“
He was interrupted by a young guard virtually shoving his face into the lieutenant’s ear and whispering quickly and intensely. Grove’s eyebrows shot up in confusion when he realized the young guard was none other than second lieutenant Dusk Quartz. He couldn’t make out the words, but Cloud’s responses were worrisome enough.
“What?... How do you know…? Oh, I see… This is not good.”
The two stallions looked at Grove. Cloud spoke first.
“Green… It appears we might have an emergency at our hooves. I’m afraid this party’s over.”

Corporal Ruby Star looked doubtful at the mare in front of her. She had been awakened from her pleasant doze thinking about a certain handsome stallion when this character had shook her violently. Now the mare was asking to be let into Princess Celestia’s private apartments, the door of which Ruby was guarding. She sighed.
“No, I’m sorry, miss. I really cannot let you in at this time, whoever you are or aren’t. The Princess is asleep, and can’t be disturbed.”

The mare opened her mouth as if to say something, but was interrupted by a loud scraping sound from inside Ruby’s armor. Ruby pulled out a small radio receiver from the left side of her armor and listened to the message.
“… and prep to evacuate the VIPs. Repeat: All guards are to be on full alert. We have a code 47; a dangerous and possibly armed intruder with hostile intentions on site. Guards are to lockdown the area and await further orders, and prep to evacuate the VIPs…”

A sudden jab of pain in the neck made Ruby drop the receiver. She looked at the mare with a frightened and surprised expression, then down to the neat little knife being pulled out of her throat, and back to the mare again.
“I’m so sorry,” the mare said, “I hope I didn’t hurt you…”
Ruby felt her knees buckle and slumped to the ground while trying to fight off the rapidly approaching darkness.

“I didn’t even know we had radios.”
Quartz looked puzzled at lieutenant Cloud, who was lowering a radio transmitter from his muzzle. The two guards plus lieutenant Grove were standing in the West Wing security central with a couple of very confused night shift guards in the same silver-colored Night armor that Cloud was wearing. Grove was busy shouting his lungs out into another radio transmitter, something about getting all the companies down to the castle, even the training company stationed outside Canterlot.

Cloud turned to Quartz and smiled weakly.
“We got them only two months ago. So far only the ponies guarding the Royals and a few patrol leaders have them. W-”
He was interrupted when one of the two Night Guards whispered something in his ear. Cloud nodded grimly, and turned back to Quartz.
“None are guarding the room of captain Armor and Princess Cadenza, second lieutenant. Could you please go there and ask the Captain to get over here in a hurry? Take these two greenhorns with you.”
Quartz nodded and headed for the door, but stopped in his tracks when Cloud yelled his name. He turned.
“Yes, sir?”
“Don’t forget this!” The lieutenant threw him a radio. “Good luck, second lieutenant. We might both need it tonight…”

The old, bearded cyan unicorn stallion fidgeted nervously between the two Royal Guards.
Regina Celestia looked interested at him as captain Vellus, who stood to the right of her desk, finished his statement in a low voice.
She stood up from her stool and walked around the desk to look the elderly stallion in the eye.
“Senatorem Aquarius, centurio Vellus mihi dicit ut vos aperuit portas civitatis quia barbari. Quare? Cur remque dignitati tuae, honor et vitam pro aurum?”
The senator returned her judging stare defiantly.
“Ego non fecit id pro aurum, Regina…” he spat out.
Celestia frowned.
“Ergo cur?”
Senator Aquarius grinned coldly.
“Quia…”
Suddenly he grabbed the gladius from the belt of one of the guards with his magic and cut the neck of its owner before planting it firmly in the chest of the other guard. Captain Vellus drew his own gladius with his teeth, but a bolt of magic hurled him screaming over the balcony to Celestia’s right.
However, the senator never got the chance to lunge at Celestia herself, as she slammed him into the marble wall of her office with the weight of her body. Her magic further restrained him, as well as forced the blade of the gladius to his throat.
Celestia leaned over him so closely that her eyes were less than a hoofwidth from his own, red ones.
“Qui estis? Qui operaris est?”she demanded.
He didn’t answer, just peered down his neck.
She followed his gaze, and saw an Ancient Alicorn Amulet that had been revealed between the folds of the toga the old stallion was wearing.
She shivered all over. The old stallion smiled.
“Quod sic. Eram quod es, eres quod sum.”
Suddenly his body started to change and grow, until Celestia saw his true form.
“Non…” she whispered under her breath.
“Ita.” Aquarius said, “Volunt vo mortuis. Vos erant utilis, ‘Regina’, velut quoddam instrumentum ut aufero vermem Discord, sed nunc civitate vestra ardet…”
“Non…” Celestia tried to shut out the screams and the crackle of fire from outside, sounds that had inched closer over the last quarter of an hour as her soldiers fought desperately to defend the city.
“Sed, ut defecit…” Aquarius finished, “Dulce et decorum est pro armento mori. Vivat Armento!”
With that he used his magic to wring the gladius out of Celestia’s hold and slit his own throat with it. He gargled and spurted warm blood in Celestia’s face.
“Merda!” Celestia exclaimed, completely forgetting her royal bearing.
She felt Aquarius grow limp.
“Non!” She called out, shaking the body violently, “Non!”
“He is dead, sister…”
“Excire ex hic, Luna!” Celestia barked, before realizing Luna had spoken another language.
Suddenly memories flooded her mind, and she realized that…
“Luna, what have I told you about snooping in other ponies dreams, especially mine? Back when we were enemies I had to train my entire court in resisting your mind invasions to keep a dagger out of my back!”
Luna came up to her sister, but looked more fascinated by the marble-walled office and balcony than apologetic.
“I am sorry, sister, but I thought it was my duty as the Princess of The Night to intervene in nightmares to help ponies sleep… But, this is not an ordinary nightmare. We are in your office in Equa. This is not a usual dream, but a memory…”
Celestia looked away.
“Yes. We are in the old Equestrian capital of Equa. I am surprised you remember my office; it is almost fifteen centuries since this… incident happened. Remember that amulet Twilight Sparkle sent me a few days ago?”
Luna nodded. Celestia smiled, but the smile did not reach her sad eyes.
“I destroyed it. This here is the last time I saw an amulet like that. It was the same night the barbarians burned Equa. Hopefully this was just an old artifact imprinted with a practical joke from a former owner, but the message it contained seemed…”
She trailed off and went to the balcony. Luna remained still.
“You know, Luna, it might be good that you came here. You might as well know this now rather than later. You are all grown. Our brother, our sisters and even I lied to you, Luna.”
Celestia turned and looked Luna in the eyes.
“At dawn I’ll tell you how our parents really died. Not from illness, as we told you. And bring the Minister of Defense and the head of the armed forces. Just in case this amulet was not a joke, I would like to review some mobilization timetables and civilian evacuation plans.”
Luna frowned.
“What is so important that you would lie to me, your own sister?”
Celestia sighed.
“Look at the body, Luna.”
Luna did so, and gasped.
“No, it is not possible! How can this be, Celestia?”
“He was using a shape shifting spell to pose as Senator Aquarius. If I remember correctly, you used a similar spell during your journey to Saddle Arabia a thousand years ago.”
“No, I meant… how can he be…”
Luna was interrupted when she suddenly became glass-eyed and literally translucent. She turned to Princess Celestia.
“It appears somepony is trying to wake me, sister. I will see you at sunrise.”
“I will.” Celestia promised.

Princess Celestia yawned and sat up in her bed. She looked at the clock. Still several hours to sunrise.
“Bad dreams, Your Highness?”
The familiar voice calmed Celestia down.
“Nothing, Iris, just some nasty memories of a time long past.”
Celestia’s room was only very weakly lit by the moonlight coming in from outside, but she could see a glass being reached her.
“A glass of water, Your Highness?”
“Thank you very much, Iris, you read my mind.” Celestia thanked her chambermaid.

The glow of the two cigarettes looked like a pair of glowing eyes in the copse a few hundred paces from Sugarcube Corner. Detective Bean and one of the Crime Scene Investigators stood and observed the trees from outside a shed they had just exited. On the other side of the room filled with the bones of unfortunate victims the investigators had found a passage leading to this shed, no doubt the escape route of the murderer.
Bean spat out his cigarette and trampled it into the ground with his right front hoof.
“Nasty business, this.”

The CSI nodded silently as Bean continued.
“Well, if I do a good job without getting sick, maybe Bugsy will finally gain mor-… more resp…”
He trailed of as he had noticed something odd poking out of a bush some distance from the shed.
He turned back to the CSI again.
“Do you have a flashlight, perchance?”

The CSI ruffled through a saddlebag and gave Bean a flashlight.
With the flashlight between his teeth Bean went over to the bush and brushed the branches aside. He gasped at what he found.
“Dear Sweet Celestia…” he turned to the CSI, “Get Bugsy! We have a problem!”

Quartz knocked on Shining Armor’s door, trying to ignore the constant descriptions of Pinkie Pie that were rolling out of the radio as guard after guard reported for duty and asked for instructions.
Princess Cadance opened, wearing a pink dressing gown.
“What is it at this time of the night?”
“… second lieutenant,” she added.
A few years ago this would have impressed Quartz, but he had enough experience with Canterlot bigwigs to know that many of them had learned to note the number and width of differently-toned stripes in the plumes of guard helmets, the Guard’s own way to denote rank.

He spoke quickly.
“Princess, I need you to follow these two guards. We have a Code 47.”
Cadance nodded. She had lived in Canterlot most of her life, and had been through several drills, enough to remember the usual codes and expected reactions.
“I understand,” she said, “I’ll evacuate at once. I assume you’ll want my husband?”

Quartz nodded once.
“That would be very much appreciated, ma’am.”
Cadance yelled for Shining Armor before slipping out of her dressing gown, grabbing a tiara and some jewelry, and following the two guards that accompanied Quartz.
Armor showed up at the door, clearly tired.
“Dusk? What are you doing here at this hour?”
Quartz looked pained a moment as he realized nopony had told Shining Armor about his sister yet. However, more pressing concerns were at hoof.

“We have a Code 47, Shining. You need to go to the West Wing security central ASAP!”
Armor’s eyes shot open wide, and he disappeared into the apartment before emerging in his purple captain’s armor.
He nodded to Quartz and galloped off in the direction of the West Wing. Quartz whinnied exasperatedly and trotted after him.

Princess Celestia felt dizzy. She had tried to go to her private bathroom to wash her face, but warm feeling was spreading in her torso.
Suddenly she stumped her hoof on something. In the moonlight, she could barely make out the features of her handmaid, Iris. She froze in horror.
“Feeling alright, Your Highness? Not dizzy?”

Celestia now realized the soothing voice had never come from Iris. She sighed.
“I congratulate you, assassin. In my one thousand, nine hundred and forty-three years of reign, I have survived no less than eighteen attempts at my life, and you are the first to succeed.”
She turned towards the place the voice had come from. Her body started to feel numb, and the warm feeling entered her neck.

“Too bad, what will happen to you next…”
For the first time in centuries, Celestia’s Royal Canterlot Voice thundered “GUARDS!!!” across the rooms and hallways of the castle.
Celestia took a deep breath and prepared to yell again, when she noticed the assailant in the moonlight for the first time.
“You?” she whispered, before the warmth reached her head and the world turned black.

“Calling all guards. I repeat: Calling all guards. Halt search. False alarm.”
Quartz stopped dead in his track when lieutenant Cloud’s voice came over his radio. He pressed in his own transmitter.
“What?”
The answer was vibrating with anger.
“Second lieutenant Quartz, Pinkamena Diane Pie, your supposed intruder, was just found dead in Ponyville. Detective Hopper sent us a telegram. Second lieutenant Dawn must have done her in, meaning you’re just paranoid, wasting Guard resources on your wild goose chase!”
Quartz felt like his whole world was crumbling around him.

However, as soon as Cloud let go of his transmitter, the airwaves were once more filled with the chatter of the other guards. The difference was that this time it sounded panicked.
“What was that...?”
“…Somepony yelled for us…”
“…Was it the Princess…?”
“I heard it over the radio. Do you think somepony have squeezed their transmitter in too tightly and not let it go…?”
“I can’t get hold of corporal Star…”
“…She was guarding the Princess’ apartments last I saw her…”
Suddenly it felt like something clicked together in Quartz’ mind. Something he had seen in the basement of Sugarcube Corner that he had forgotten.

So this is how it all comes together…

He swore long and hard in his own language, while sending a silent thanks to colorful vocabulary of his father, before galloping off in the direction of the Royal Apartments.

Author's Note:

Author’s note:
This part, especially chapter 7, might be seen as somewhat gory (although I’ll tone it down to not trigger some 18+ rating). My apologies. If you are a Scootaloo, feel free to skip that chapter. You are not a Scotaloo, are you? Baap, baap!

Also, in case I forget to credit her otherwise, thanks to Icewhip for editing, moral support and in general being an awesome pegasister! There will be a… surprise for you in the last part...

PS: Latin correction GREATLY appreciated if you can help.

Comments

[Arcanist Ascendant]

2102007

I have little knowledge of French, but wouldn't it be 'je ne pas suis' in that circumstance?

About the story, however; I rather liked it, and am curious to see where it goes.

[Flareice]

You MUST continue this ASAP!

[Flareice]

>>Arcanist Ascendant
No, the 'ne' and 'pas' go around the verb.

[Flareice]

Haha, that was a fail attempt at pinging somepony, explain how one does that please?

[TwizzleDragon]

2102202
Hover your mouse over the comment, the box thing appears around the actual comment post. top right of that specific box will appear a little chat bubble, click that and it lets you do the reply correctly.

[Claystead]

What the? Where did all you come from? Oh, hi, Twizzledragon!

Don't worry about me finishing it, the story was finished several weeks ago. The reason for the gap between uploaded chapters is that it was not created for this page format, meaning I have to input a ton of codes. The reason why it was not uploaded before now was that it all goes through my editor in California (she does let the occasional error slip through, though, so I have to be on my guard myself), and she has been delayed with a few of the chapters. That is also the reason for the two-and-two chapter thing. To keep my Gmail from bursting I have to keep the files under 100 KB.

It will be finished in a couple days, once Jessic- er... Icewhip, my editor, is done with the last chapter. And then I need to remove a stupid photo of myself on holiday in Edinburgh from it...

[Claystead]

2102035

Thank you, Arcanis. I won't change anything, this story is just a... uhm, does Fimfiction censor comments? Anyway, it is just practice, a mind-fart to get a little practice before my much larger series (which is hinted at several times in this story, especially the amulet, which is a plot point from later in the series). While I am a "proper" writer (I write articles and political analyses for my univerity newspaper, and am currently competing in the national essayist championship), I've never written fiction before, so I needed the practice.

Also, English is not my mother tongue, so some of my expressions may be a little awkward. My dad is Norwegian, so we only used that at home. I kind of forced myself to learn English by high school, and graduated with an A from the final exams, and the same for oral and written grades. Still my English may be awkward at times, because I write these things at night usually, and writing in a foreign language while sleepy is... well, hard.

[Claystead]

2102007

A bit, Umberisk. I lived in France a couple of months as a teen, and I pick up languages fast. I also speak a little bit of German, Italian and Latin, and fluent in English, Spanish, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish.

I'm still worried about my French and Latin though, hence I asked for corrections.

[Claystead]

Oh my, I pissed Aurora Dawn off. Yes, the Rainbow Factory writer.

MY LIFE IS OVER, I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT AURORA'S APPROVAL!!!!!!1!

Nah, JK. I'll go and apologize for whatever I said. Have a good day, you guys!

[Flareice]

*Pokes TwizzleDragon* Eh, what about for the iPad?

*Pokes Claystead* I'm good at picking up languages, too. Probably not as fast as you, seeing as I'm only 12 and it took me a year and a half to get where I am, but enough to be helpful to my peers. I'm pretty sure what you have in your story is correct, but please explain the "vu" part?

[Arcanist Ascendant]

If you're wondering where a sudden influx came from, that was probably my fault.
This blog entry.

[Flareice]

@ Claystead
Nevermind, I think I get that part, but you may need a dash between "avez" and "vu," because it's inverted. And for your paragraph spacing, I think it's a bit odd. What you're doing is placing consecutive paragraphs like this:
Related paragraph one.
Related paragraph two.
Related paragraph three.
Related paragraph four.

Related paragraph five.

It's hard to comprehend the story like that. I think you should either do it like this:
Related paragraph one.
Related paragraph two.

or like this:
Related paragraph one.

Related paragraph two.

But you need to make up your mind. I learned to only do it this way:
1
2
3
4
5
(Break in story here, such as passage of time or change in character)
New place/time 1.
2
3
4
5

That method would flow like this:
Mallowfur jumped, then whirled to face the bush that had rustled and startled her.
"Who's there?" she snarled, eyes flashing maliciously.

Rivertail pounced, warranting a scream from the mouse that had wandered into her waiting paws.
She cut off the wail abruptly with a quick bite to the creature's neck, ending its short life.

See? It's easier to comprehend that way.

[Claystead]

2107625

Oh, that is because the text wasn't written here at all. The format was very different, which presented some problems with conversion. But since I'm lazy, I just copied and pasted the whole thing without bothering to adjust the extra spacing that popped up.

Hey, you're a more experienced user than me, can you explain to me why all the emoticons here look like the ponies are suffering from massive diarrhea or constipation? I mean,

Hah, now you can never see them without remembering this!

*reads on in comments, as my internet connection chose this moment to fail miserably on me*

YOU'RE TWELVE?! You write as good a high schooler. My youngest brother is twelve (six years after their last kid my parents suddenly decided to have another one), and there's no way he could have made as advanced a statement as you just did. I don't even think he could understand it, that shiftless little bastard.

About the odd style style again, that is not completely the site's fault. I changed the layout on the request of my editor, Icewhip.

My original style was:
Action. Character.
Line. (Thought.)
Response.

But she requested I changed it to;
Line. Action+Character. Line finish.
Response.
(space)
Thought.

So yeah. I'm using essay-paragraphic form now. A space between lines mean a change of perspective or location.

And no, avez vu is the right order, if that was what you were trying to say. But is there a line; avez-vu? Or is it avez-vous? God, it's been too long. Explain it to me again.

[Flareice]

@Claystead
Thanks. I was in Gifted Language Arts last year.
For the emoticons, I have no idea what they represent. I've only been a member since Friday.
As for French, I'm not sure. I'd ask Mom, but she's on the phone. Judging from the fact that it's about my sister's autism, I can safely assume it'll be a while till she's done. I think it might be avez-vous, but I'm not sure.

[Claystead]

2107598

Oh, thank you, Arcanis. I'm still relatively unknown... But I have writing experience, and more importantly, connections and a plan. I have befriended the author of Second Chance, a 250-page block of a fic, that was actually set to release simultaneously as this story, but was put on hold for a few weeks to account for incosistencies with recent episode developments. It will go directly to EQD. As co-author (in reality I only wrote a couple of chapters, to make Celestia more interesting and the plot more fluent, but I'm still credited as such), editor-in-chief and primary preliminary reader, I will be on the top of the credit list. Also, she will recommend my stories to EQD.

If only I could have that last chapter back soon, I was actually wondering if I should give this thing a shot at EQD on my own. I've seen far worse stuff there (e.g. My Little Fanfic or The Friend Zone). Also... I have some... inside information... that I might be able to bribe my way in with.

[Arcanist Ascendant]

2112898
No worries.

Also, may I leave a suggestion in the box?
Try to copy the paragraph format that others use. As wierd as it may sound when your paragraphs look like they do it deters people from reading it. It's unfamiliar and humans dislike unfamiliarity.
That is probably the biggest thing I would change, the rest is quite nice, minus a few errors.

"Also... I have some... inside information... that I might be able to bribe my way in with."
I didn't know our glorious fanon had a mob. I should have heard about it before, that stuff is my jam.

[Arcanist Ascendant]

Also, if you want to get into EqD, really, really do an editing pass and change the format to standard. They HATE anything but the standard paragraph style, and even so, (No offense is meant by the following comment) There are too many technical errors to get in. I'd be willing to finish my proofreading if you feel so inclined to ask.

[Flareice]

Could somebody please give me a link to Equestria Daily? I have no idea what the URL is. ^-^"

[Claystead]

2113197

Go ahead. This was never intended for EqD nor Fimfiction in the first place, so I didn't bother changing the paragraphing from the Word document I used to move the file. But now, with Second Chance put on hold for several weeks more, to hell with it. Correct everything you can think of. I might as well fix the paragraphing thing, although the standard paragraphing used on Fimfiction annoys me almost as much as the one I presently use here. Waaaay too many spaces. As I may have said I usually write political analyses for the university newspaper and philosophical essays for competitions, and the typical style here is nearly heresy in those genres. But I suppose I'll get used to it.

Oh, and that information I sit on... Two words: Playable Ponyville

[Claystead]

2118251

Here

[Claystead]

Everybody who reads this:

Lost Souls Chapter 9 is back from the editor and will be published within 24 hours.

Is it possible to edit my chapters after I press "story complete"? Arcanis?