Even the capital of Equestria had its seedy parts. The Ace o' Clubs bar was located right in the center of one of them. Even the Royal Guard avoided this place if they could. They much rather kept the ponies who resided in this area stay here and the more honorary citizens of the city out of here. But tonight, one of the most honorable citizens of Canterlot had no choice but to descent to this circle of scum and villainy.
As the door of the club's main entrance opened, it was like everypony inside knew that somepony very important was about to step inside. That was probably the reason for their disappointment when they saw that it was just a dark brown earth pony wearing a blue fedora hat and a matching trenchcoat. He didn't seem like anything special so everypony just turned back to their drinks.
The newcomer looked around, thoroughly scanning everypony in the establishment. Though they weren't looking at him anymore, if they did, they would have gotten the feeling that the stranger was looking right into their minds. Once he got a proper look at the crowd, he made his way to the counter and sat down.
"A glass of whisky, please." He ordered. The bartender, a lanky blue unicorn stallion stared at him suspiciously for a few moments, but eventually went to fetch his order. As the stallion waited for his drink, he felt a couple of eyes staring at him. He looked to his right and saw a group of ponies sitting a few seats away from him, looking at him with less than friendly expressions.
"Something I can do for you, gentlecolts?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. He only earned a few narrowed eyes in response.
"You're one of them detective types?" Asked a chunky pegasus with a yellow coat and brown puffy mane.
"As it happens, I am." He replied with a tip of his hat. "Detective J. Jeans, at your service." His polite demeanor did little to gain favor with the group.
"Figured as much. Only you would dress like that in a place like this." The detective shrugged.
"I suppose my look is a little old school, but I guess you could say I have a soft spot for the classics." He replied as the bartender returned with his drink.
"Look, buddy, we don't much like your kind around here!" Growled a rather bulky gray earth pony. "Whatever you came here to sniff around about, I suggest you drop it, finish your drink and leave as soon as possible. You won't find nothing here but trouble." He warned with not too subtly hidden malice. But Detective Jeans wasn't a pony easily intimidated.
"Thank you for your advice, friend. I shall act accordingly." He said as he turned away and picked up his glass. As he slowly sipped on his whiskey, he felt the group he conversed with turning away from him, but he didn't need to maintain connection to find out what he wanted from them.
'Damn! Should have known they would send one of those investigator types to sniff around about the strange figures popping up around the area!' One of them thought.
'I hope he is smart enough to get out of here while he can.' Thought the earth pony who instructed him to do so earlier.
'Maybe he'll just head down to the old steel mill that The 100 abandoned after the ghostly reports began and disappear.' He read in the head of the third one. 'The last thing we need is for the highest authority getting involved in anything in this neighborhood.'
Jean finished his drink and just as the company suggested, he headed straight out where he came in. Though it wasn't their intention, the trio has been most helpful in his investigation. That old steel mill wouldn't be hard to find.
In a neighbourhood such as this, the streets were never as lifeless at night as the more orderly parts of Canterlot. If anything, they became far more active once Princess Luna raised the moon. And that meant Jean had to be extremely careful to avoid company while he made his way towards the Steel Mill.
The residents of the neighbourhood made it clear to him that he was not welcome and while he was certain he would be able to protect himself from them with no difficulty, he preferred to avoid violence if he could. Even against criminals. Fortunately, his mind reading abilities were all he needed to locate other ponies and make sure their paths didn't cross.
Other than his pacifistic nature, the other reason he wanted to avoid confrontation was because of the virus feeding on the usage of his powers. Before he departed Manehattan, Twilight had given him several vials of antibiotics that proved to slow down the infection, it was only a temporary solution and he didn't want to push it.
As he predicted it, he easily found the abandoned Steel Mill where the alleged reports of a ghostly figure were reported from. If he was lucky, he and the members of The 100 were seeing the same ghosts. He frowned as he thought of them. They were one of the most hardened organised crime syndicates in Equestria and certainly the top dog in Canterlot. If they were spooked by a ghost story, then those ghosts were certainly real.
Jean made his way through the front door of the building. It was almost completely pitch black in there given that it was nighttime and a derelict building such as this obviously wasn't running on an adequate power supply. Anypony would be completely blind in here without a luminance spell cast by a unicorn or a flashlight. But a lunar's senses were far superior to an average pony's. Even in the night, he saw as clear as a pony did in the daylight.
But his other senses were extremely sharp as well. Including his sense of smell. And in the air, he smelled something very wrong and also very familiar. It didn't take Jean long to recognise the smell. It had the same stench as the Phantom whenever Jean felt him around himself and the virus he polluted into his body.
He had no doubt this signaled that he had come to the right place, but he had to be sure. With his heightened senses, he will be able to trace any scent back to its source. The scent of the virus lead downstairs into the basement of the Steel Mill and the deeper Jean went the more he was beginning to feel the Phantom's presence once more. He was here, he was certain of it.
His certainty grew tenfold when he turned down a corner and witnessed a black shape moving around in the darkness. He slowed down to avoid startling him and narrowed his eyes to get a better look, but he was so focused on the figure that he didn't notice he stepped onto a plastic bottle.
The figure immediately jumped at the sight and turned around. When he got a look at Jean, he bolted down the corridor. Jean gave chase but quickly lost sight of the figure. He must have known this area better than him, including all the rooms and shortcuts. No matter.
Since Jean shared Supermare's x-ray vision, he could see through the entire building from anywhere. It didn't take him long to find the fleeing figure heading down into the boiler house. Jean just smirked and phased himself through the floor to the same level before walking through the wall into the same room.
To his surprise, the room was lit, though not by electricity, but by fire burning inside a metal barrel. The barrel was surrounded by a bunch of dirty looking ponies, one of whom jumped in fright when he saw him, making Jean realise that he was the one he was chasing, but instead of the Phantom's lair, he had only found a secret homeless shelter.
"Evening, gentlecolts." Jean greeted them with a tip of his hat. "I am afraid I have to suggest that for your own safety you leave the area immediately." The homeless ponies looked at each other in confusion. They had locked the room from inside so they had no idea how somepony could enter without them noticing it, but once they got over his shock, they became defiant.
"And where should we go?" An elderly unicorn asked. "The 100 controls the entire neighbourhood! Ever since they left, this is the only place we are safe!"
"I understand that." Jean nodded. "But I have good reasons to believe that horrible things will take place in this steel mill tonight and should you remain here when that happens, I cannot guarantee your safety." Suffice it to say, the homeless ponies were not too keen on believing this outlandish statement from a complete stranger. They just scoffed at Jean in disbelief and sat back down.
"We'll take our chances, thank you." They said turning their attention back to keeping themselves warm. Jean sighed. Of course, he wouldn't take that warning at face value either so he understood their reaction. In the end, he had no choice but to leave. The ponies cared so little about him that they didn't even see when he phased through the locked door.
As Jean entered the corridors again, the scent of the virus struck his nose again. Since his last lead turned out to be a wild goose chase, he was about to follow it back to the source, but he was stopped when another series of coughs broke out. He must have overused his powers and the infection was starting to spread again. Good thing he was prepared this time.
He took out a vial of antibiotics and injected it into himself. Within a few seconds, the coughing stopped and he started feeling better. Good enough to stand back up and continue his way. He traced the scent of the virus to an empty storage room and what he saw there was definitely more incriminating than the homeless group.
There were several makeshift tables laid out all across the room with several bottles, vials and flasks full of different coloured liquids. At first glance, this would have looked like nothing but an ordinary drug lab, but then he noticed all of the blackboards with depictions of a cellular system that he instantly recognised as his own lunar biology. He remembered the images he saw on Twilight's CT scanner.
The images showed the effects of different substances on the lunar biology and while Jean wasn't a biologist by any means, he could tell the effects were all negative. Other than his own cells, he also recognised drawings of the virus he saw on Twilight's scans. This was the ultimate proof. This was the Phantom's lair!
As he observed the drawings of the virus, he realised that he had stumbled across an invaluable discovery. These formulas could be used to develop an antidote for the virus he was infected with. And once that was taken care of, he will be free to pursue the Phantom freely and at full health. But before he could memorise them, fate once again crossed his plans.
He heard a loud crash coming from deep inside the building. He spun around and saw flashlights through the windows on the door. He raised an eyebrow. This was definitely not the Phantom. If he was a lunar as he suspected, he wouldn't need those to find his way through the darkness.
The doors opened and Jean's eyes widened as he recognised two of the three ponies he met at the bar earlier. The pegasus and the earth pony. But where was the third one? He got that answer very soon when he saw the third one, a red unicorn with green mane walking behind them, right towards the room where the homeless ponies have gathered. He did not like the idea that sight gave him.
"I thought we told you to get out of this neighbourhood, copper!" The earth pony snapped at him, cracking his hooves menacingly.
"Yeah, the only thing we like less than putting up with the likes of you is having the likes of you sniffing around our neighbourhood!" The pegasus growled as he advanced on Jean. "We gave you a chance to do this the easy way, but now you brought the hard way on yourself."
Jean was not amused and neither did he panic as he knew he was not in real danger from these ponies. They saw the lack of expression on his face and it only angered them even further. But when he heard a commotion from the end of the corridor which could have only meant the unicorn found those unfortunate souls. He would not allow anything bad to happen to them.
"Gentlecolts, for your own sake, I must advise you to step out of my way and leave this area at once." He told them. "I will not warn you again." The two thugs looked at each other in surprise before breaking out in laughter.
"Buddy, I don't think you realise just how deep manure you've gotten yourself into." The pegasus said as he put Jean into a chokehold. Normally, Jean wouldn’t have been even phased by such an attempt, but this time he was caught by surprise.
"And now, you're about to be buried even deeper." The earth pony snarled, smacking his hooves together. "So deep in fact that they'll never dig you out of it."
Jean just about had it with these brutes. He managed to restrain himself from lashing out, but when he heard a crash, followed by the agonised cry of one of the homeless ponies from afar, something inside of him snapped. There were few things that could rile him up, but violence against the innocent was one of them.
The earth pony threw a punch at Jean, but to his surprise, he caught his hoof effortlessly before crushing it between his own with a sickening crunch. The earth pony let out a pained scream as he collapsed onto the ground, holding his broken hoof in agony. Jean then simply phased through the hooves holding his neck before turning around to glare at the pegasus with glowing red eyes.
The now terrified criminal was about to fly away, but Jean wrapped his hooves around his neck and lifted him off the ground before slamming him on top of his friend. He held both of them down as his downright demonic looking eyes pierced into their souls. Though he wasn't sure if they even had one in the first place.
He used his telepathic powers to search through their minds and was sickened by what he found. Two individuals rotten to the core from youth who brought nothing to the world but pain, suffering and misery. In a better part of the city, they would have been rotting in prison already for years now. But in a lawless place like this...
There was a way to get justice though. Or at least, something close enough to it. Jean's lunar telepathic abilities were so powerful that it didn't only allow him to enter the minds of others but even alter them slightly. While he normally hated doing this, he saw it perfectly appropriate now.
He entered the deepest parts of their minds and found every single memory about them hurting ponies and reversed them so that they would be on the receiving end of the hurting. He then made these memories run on loop inside their minds. He then let go of them and they fell onto the floor and they began to scream in pain as they held onto their heads.
"For the next twenty-four hours, you will constantly experience all the pain you ever caused to others." He explained with no sympathy before making his way out of the room. He suddenly stopped and briefly looked back at the two squirming criminals on the floor.
"Perhaps I should have some faint hope that you will learn something from this. But somehow I doubt it." With that, he left the room and went to confront the third thug. He quickly got back to the room where the homeless ponies were hiding.
And not a moment too soon as he witnessed one of them being held in the unicorn's telekinetic grasp, struggling for air as he watched with sadistic glee and the others cowered on the ground in fear, with noticeable injuries on their bodies that Jean was sure weren't there when he first met them.
This was the final straw. The boiling rage over the atrocities he had witnessed these scoundrels commit finally pushed him over the edge and he lost control of himself. His eyes lit up bright red as he unleashed two heat beams from them, blasting the criminal into the wall.
All hope for mercy was lost. Jean marched up to the now unconscious criminal to give him a lesson he'll never forget. Or at least, he would have if he wasn't interrupted by a piece of concrete falling in front of him from above. He looked up and his eyes widened in horror. He cursed himself for his impulsivity as he realised that the blast he just unleashed made the already unstable room begin to collapse.
The poor pony the criminal was tormenting slowly got back on his hooves and looked up to see another piece of the ceiling about to fall on him. This snapped Jean out of his stupor. He rushed at the petrified pony and pushed him out of the way just in time.
After making sure that the pony was alright, Jean got up with the intention of getting everypony out, but he was stopped when he saw the unicorn criminal he blasted away stumbling towards the door as fast as his injured legs allowed. When he reached the door, he looked back at Jean before using his magic to pick up the barrel the bums used to warm themselves before slamming it on the ground.
Jean cursed under his breath as the barrel's explosion caused flames to spread across the whole room. The criminal made his escape and as if that wasn't bad enough, more pieces of debris fell down as he slammed the door, preventing anypony else from escaping.
'Great! Fire again!' Jean groaned as he already felt his powers leaving him. But he had to get these ponies out of here. Jean looked up and saw the gap in the ceiling. He could see the upper floor from there and that gave him an idea. He grabbed the homeless pony he saved from being crushed to death.
"Hey!" He exclaimed.
"Excuse me." Jean apologised before throwing him through the hole into safety. The others stared in shock at what they just saw.
"You're one of them aren't you?" A middle aged unicorn mare asked. "One of those 'superheroes'."
"If that is the term you wish to use." Jean shrugged. He never considered himself a hero. Just a stallion doing what he felt was right. "But we can discuss that later. Right now, we need to get you out of here." He said, grabbing the mare and throwing her up to the upper floor's safety as well.
"Why are you risking your life for us?" Asked a short earth pony stallion. "We are just the rejects of society. We do not matter."
"You do to me." Jean said as softly and warmly as possible before throwing him up as well. Jean saw the two stallions he already saved peering down at him and reaching their hooves towards him. The implication was clear. He picked up the next pony and pushed him up towards the two stallions who grabbed his hooves and pulled him up.
The flames were almost upon them but Jean managed to put most of them into safety by now. Only two of them were left. Jean pushed one of them up but before the others could pull him up, Jean felt the weakness caused by the fire overwhelm him and he collapsed onto his knees.
"Hey, buddy!" The last remaining bum cried out as he knelt down and began to shake him. "We're almost all out of here! Hang in there just a little longer!" Jean heard him and tried to get up, but his attempts were in vain. One of the bums on the upper narrowed his eyes in determination as he turned back to his companions.
"Lower me down!" He told them, making them widen their eyes.
"Are you crazy?!"
"That guy got us out of there! We're not leaving him behind, do you hear me?! Now lower me!" Reluctantly, the two bums did as they were told. They grabbed their friend's hind legs and lowered him through the gap. The last one who was trapped down there with Jean picked him up - which was no easy feat, but fortunately he was an earth pony - and got up on his own hind legs, reaching for the pony being hanged down above him.
It took quite a stretching from all of them, but finally, their hooves did manage to connect with their hooves. The chain of ponies was finally pulled out of the room just as the flames reached the point they were standing at. The flames were still hot enough to burn the flank of the pony holding Jean, causing him to almost drop him. But he managed to tighten his grip around the alien's body long enough until the others pulled him to safety.
Once they were safe, they laid Jean on the ground to see if he was alright. They sighed in relief when they saw him slowly get up. With the flames away from him, he felt his strength slowly returning. He saw the bums all looking down at him with concerned but grateful expressions. While he appreciated their gratitude, he had to put them to safety immediately.
"Get out! Now!" He told them urgently. "You can see now that I was not jesting when I mentioned that terrible things will happen here!" The bums were obviously not happy about it, but they didn't want to go through a similar ordeal as the one they've just endured, so this time, they complied.
Jean looked down the hole he was pulled out of and saw the flames still raging on below. He was far enough from them to feel his powers return so he could use his breath to put the flames out from afar. Once all the flames were taken care of, he jumped down the hole before clearing the rubble blocking the door and walking out of the room.
He headed back to the room where he found the Phantom's laboratory to keep studying the formula he found, but suddenly, he felt a wave of nausea wash over him. The ordeal with the bums must have taken more out of him than he thought.
He reached to pull out another vial of antibiotics, but his eyes widened when he felt that they were missing! He must have dropped them when those thugs ambushed him earlier. All the more reason to hurry back to the room he left them.
However, as he approached the room, he was rather confused by the complete silence. The two criminals he left there should still be screaming from the mental agony he was putting them through. He opened the door and his eyes widened in horror.
The room was completely trashed. The vials and chemicals were all broken or gone and the blackboards he could have used to analyse for a potential cure were also destroyed. As if that wasn't alarming enough, where the two criminals were rolling around screaming on the floor earlier were now two completely decimated dead bodies.
And the worst part was yet to come. As Jean searched the room for the antibiotics, he found none of them! Looks like the Phantom returned and wanted to take even the slight advantage Jean still had over him. While he didn't find them anywhere, he did find the third criminal who set the other room on fire groaning on the floor. Apparently, he was still alive. Good, Jean was eager to dish out some retribution on this scum. As well as potentially discovering what he might have seen.