In downtown Ponyville, the sun steadily approached the horizon. The sky was painted with purples and oranges. The dead-end alley-way where Care Package was brutally slaughtered was fenced off with police tape. Just as it happens many times ago, one pony in town reports hearing a scream the night before. The police comb the area and see what they can find.
On that day they were given a tip about a dark alleyway downtown. An orange pegasus stallion with a curly red mane, named Gold Shield, guarded the scene. His partner, a blue unicorn stallion who had spiky sky-blue hair, guard the scene with him, he was named Blue Line.
The job of a Ponyville Guard is quite simple. Crime barely happened in Ponyville compared to other cities. The fact that these disappearances were occurring shook the police department. While they were not happy that it was happening, some investigators were excited to finally have some action. Guards too had started to buzz about promotions for those who capture the one causing these disappearances.
Guards were assigned certain areas in Ponyville to stand, or patrol, and keep watch of the citizens. Their armor was no where near as sophisticated as the Royal Guards of Canterlot. It was made of gold plated copper, which looked nice, but dented easily, and most of the gold on their armor chipped away over time. On the other hoof, their weapons were slightly more sophisticated. The orange pegasus welded a miniature crossbow that strapped to his primary hoof while the blue unicorn’s weapon of choice was his horn.
The most important rule for guards was they were not allowed to speak with other ponies while on duty unless it was a command to trainees, responding to their superiors, or giving commands to a citizen.
The blue and orange stallions patrolled up and down the street in opposite directions. They would meet in the center for a brief moment before continuing their beat, stopping at the end of the block, turn around and go in the opposite direction. They repeated this over and over.
“Rain happening at the same time of the disappearances is not making it easy.” A white stallion with black hair emerged from under the police tape with a golden furred mare with a brown mane by his side.
“Blood splatter analyst has nothing to work with. We don’t even know who the victim is!” The stallion continued.
“The victim may have been walking home from work when it happened. Let’s check with the local businesses to see if anypony worked the graveyard shift. Got any ideas for what the closest businesses are, Gum.” The mare replied.
“Well...The post office is closed but people still work inside until really late.”
“Let’s hit it.”
“Lead the way, Star Charm.” Gum replied. The two investigators left. When no one was left in sight the orange pony spoke from the corner of his mouth as he passed the blue stallion.
“No leads?”
“Rain. Washes away...” walked away and then they met again in the center “...all the evidence, Gold Shield.”
“Just like the other times.” Gold Shield said quickly as he passed the blue pony.
“They’re trying their best.”
The orange stallion stopped and put his hoof on Blue Line’s chest to stop him from walking.
“That’s not what I mean. Can’t you see, Blue Line? They’re just shooting in the dark at this point. We could do better!” Gold Shield started to raise his voice.
Major Amber then came out to the two guards.
“Is that talking I hear?” Blue Line and Gold Shield fell silent and puffed out their chests in their normal guard post, statue position.
“Oh so it was just the wind?” The two guards maintained their silence at Major Amber’s comments.
“Alright, alright, At ease, fellas. Were done here for the day.” The well-built mare spoke, the two guards simultaneously sighed with relief and their posture sagged. “Blue Line, I need you to be at the mayor’s speech tomorrow on guard duty. Gold Shield, you’re off tomorrow. Dismissed.”
“Yes ma'am!” The guards said in unison walking away, taking their helmets off. Blue Line ruffled his hair to let the cool afternoon air sooth his scalp.
The two stallions returned back to their small station at the north of town. Blue Line used his magic to open up his locker while Gold Shield opened it with his hooves. A picture of a maroon mare with a flower in her mane was taped to the inside of Gold Shield’s door. Multiple pictures of mares and stallions were put up onto Blue Line’s.
“You going to work your bar job tonight?” Blue Line put his armor and his crossbow away into his duffel-bag.
“Yeah. They want me working closing.” Gold Shield took off his armor as well.
"Good luck."
That wasn't the full extent of the conversations Blue and Gold usually had, but they were both groggy from work. They both closed their lockers, said goodnight to each other and went their separate ways.
The next morning the ponies around town hall were murmuring with worry. Blue Line stood stage right of the podium set up on the top of stairs leading up to front doors, along with a few other guards. Mayor Mare approached the podium.
“Attention! Attention everypony!” The crowd became silent.
“I thank you all for coming on such short notice. I trust that each one of you will spread this information across town. With the multiple disappearances that have been occurring on almost a monthly average, The Ponyville Police Department has implemented a curfew until the missing ponies have been found and brought home. Curfew will start at dusk and continue until the sun is raised the next day.” Some ponies started to murmur with each other.
Mayor Mare continued, “The Ponyville Police will now be doing late night searches across the town at night. Major Am-”
“Why don’t you just admit it’s a killer who's doing this?!” A mare yelled out from the middle of the crowd
“Miss, please wait until the end for que-”
“Stop hiding it from us! Tell us the truth! Is there a killer in Ponyville?” The mare interrupted, the crowd started to talk with each other louder. Blue Line looked over Amber and the Mayor for instruction. Both of them focused on the mob of ponies.
“Everyone! Everypony! Please calm down!” The crowd’s volume lowered as the mayor tried to raise her voice over them.
“The Ponyville Police Department are trying everything in their power to find out what exactly happened to these ponies. I’ll hand it over to Major Amber for further information. After that we will answer questions you may have.” Mayor Mare and Amber switched places.
“Good morning, Ponyville. Our investigations involving the recent disappearances have been quite difficult. Please hear my words carefully. We are not entirely sure if there is a killer in Ponyville at this point in time. However, we recently found a bloodstain last night in the downtown residence area. Further investigations need to be made in order to see who is the victim. That being said, we have not ruled out that there is a killer in Pon-”
Just then, a bone-chilling scream was heard just at the back of the crowd. Blue Line jumped down from the stage, with two other guards, and ran past the ponies.
“Out of the way!” Blue Line hollered at citizens. The guards started to block off citizens from the source of the scream.
At the back of the crowd, Blue felt sheer horror pass through him.
He saw the adolescent colt, Score, strangling his marefriend, Cherry Burst. Blue quickly rushed over and charged into Score, knocking him off Cherry Burst. He quickly recovered, got back up, and growled at Blue.
“Get down on the ground!” The blue unicorn yelled.
Cherry Burst got up from the ground rubbing her neck.
“S-Score what is wrong with you?!” She hid behind Blue Line.
Score screamed and ran at Blue.
He didn’t hesitate.
Blue Line's head leaned forward and his horn glowed. It shot out a bolt of mana, straight towards Score.
Cherry Burst shrieked. The whole crowd watched with terror stricken faces. Even the other gaurds were a bit drawn back by what happened. A sense of dread washed over Blue Line.
On the ground, Score sobbed heavily as he tended to the scorch mark on his back leg. Blue Line tried to stop Cherry but she shoved past him and went to Score’s side.
“Honey, are you okay?!”
Score looked at his marefriend, he looked as if he was going to say something but then his eyes rolled back into his head. He fell limp onto the ground and his cheek twitched.
"Score?! Score!" Cherry stood their helplessly watching her coltfriend have a seizure.
“What did you do to him?!” Cherry screamed at Blue Line.
“Shooting a colt. Shooting an unarmed, colt in the middle of probably one of the biggest gathering of ponies this month. And you shoot a colt in the hoof and trigger him to have a seizure.”
Blue Line stood motionless, with a one yard stare, in Major Amber’s office, holding his helmet under his wing. He listened to Major Amber lecture him on his decision. Star Charm, the head of investigations, stood by her side, watching as Major’s face turn from her normal yellow into a bright red as she continued to rant to Blue Line.
“-one of the most irresponsible decisions I have seen on this force! I won’t have it Blue! I won’t!”
“Major, the colt was acting rabid. He is a large stallion and I couldn’t’ve taken him on with hoof-to-hoof combat.”
“That weapon is for when you have no other option, do I make myself clear? You had the option to use less lethal methods.”
Just then, a knock on the door echoed over Amber’s voice.
“I’m busy!” She yelled to the door.
“Major, It’s Bright Light. It’s important.” Bright said behind the door.
“Come in.”
Bright entered and took out a file from his bag strapped to his side. He closed the door behind him with his back leg. Bright placed the papers down on Amber’s desk.
“After being rushed to the hospital, the doctors noticed Score having erratic behavior." He paused. "Unfortunately he has fallen into a coma.”
Major Amber looked at Blue Line with daggers. He swallowed his saliva. Bright opened the file and pulled out a picture of what looked like an pony’s brain from the top view and handed it to Amber.
“Doctor Well, the unicorn, scanned his head and found that his brain was inflamed.” After Amber studied the picture for a moment and then handed it over to Star. Bright handed her a new paper.
“So they then tested Score’s blood for diseases and poisons and this is what they found.” Amber studied the new paper, her eyebrows raised up and then she handed the paper over to Star, whose eyebrows also raised. Blue Line looked nervously around at the group of ponies discussing medical papers.
“I thought this should be brought to your attention because of Blue Line’s actions today.”
“Yes...Yes. Thank you, Bright. We will take this into consideration. You may go.” Amber nodded to Bright. He left the office.
There was a long moment of silence, the simple clicking of typewriters filled the background in the rest of the office.
“Score was found to have been infected with Mad Cow Disease. Which is why he was acting so erratically, Blue. While these are odd circumstances, you are still not excused for taking such drastic measures." Major Amber walked over to her window and looked outside at the noon sky.
"You will be suspended for two months. Please hand in your helmet.” She said not looking at him.
Another long moment of silence before Blue Line approached the desk and placed his helmet down. Major Amber sat down at her desk and sighed.
“Dismissed.”
Blue Line left silently.