Frequencies
Chapter one: A sense of foreboding
Celestia looked down at the report on her desk, reading through this latest crime. Or could it be called a crime?
Let's start from the beginning.
Princess Celestia's life was divided into three major segments: her personal life, in which only she had a say. Her social life, which revolved mainly around her sister, princess Luna, her niece, princess Cadence, and her student, Twilight Sparkle, alongside the ruler's few friends. Finally, there was the princess's political life, which revolved around her beloved country, Equestria.
Out of the three branches of her life, her political life and dealings were often the most logical based; she used her mind in dealings, her wit when conversing with nobles and her heart when dealing with the general populous of citizens, although, she was always sure to never let her emotions dictate her thoughts. Through, there was one small weakness in her style of ruling and living, keeping the two sides separate but capable of coexisting. You see, it was her country, where much of Celestia's pride came from; her nation's wealth, its security, her citizen's happiness and, of course, the balance she'd achieved in her system through many thousands of years of careful and delicate ruling, minus the odd war here and there. Or, in layman's terms, her Harmony.
The Harmony of Equestria was perhaps the most fickle aspect of Equestria of all, perhaps ironically, but Celestia had taken it upon herself to maintain it carefully. And for a very long time, she had succeeded. Be it through war or times of peace, when the economy boomed or went bust, Celestia had never failed to keep things under control, and that was because of the careful balance she had maintained. Celestia liked her balance. It gave her a sense of control she dearly needed when ruling her country properly. Some might even say she needed her balance, her control and Harmony.
Always waking up at the strike of five to prepare for the day. Raising the sun at the strike of six, depending on the season that is. Breakfast a half-six, sorting through the cases at day court by seven and attending said day court by nine, after two hours of deciding what needed be resolved when and handing the listing off to Elder Scroll for announcement. By twelve it was lunch, half-one any personal audiences that had been scheduled, any important meetings at four and in the dining hall eating dinner by six, maybe seven depending on the severity or importance of the meetings. By eight she had likely retired to her chambers to do as she pleased, by which time Luna would have taken over, leaving Celestia to do as she desired, looking forwards to her student's next letter for the most part.
There for, she was not very happy when something jeopardized that schedule. Nor was she particularly pleased that something was something that had been pestering her for a while now. And she was least pleased to discover it had been a death. Several in fact.
It had started three weeks ago. Out of the blue, in the most literal of senses. Tirek's short rampage had been brought to an abrupt halt by her faithful student, and everything was well. Then, a report had landed on her desk. She'd been going through reports of unicorns suffering bad headaches on a wide scale, but without them concentrated anywhere she couldn't send out an investigation team to look into it, so it had gone largely ignored. Celestia had considered sending Twilight out to look into it, but the newly realised Princess of Friendship had far too much on her hooves as it was, and Celestia didn't want to slow her down any. As she was skimming through the reports of migraines and abrupt nausea, she'd come across the CSI report. She hadn't even been aware that a CSI team had been dispatched, never mind that somepony had been killed.
Celestia's world had tripped when she'd read that word. Fatality. One death. Just the one. Ponies die every day of course, but they were all natural. It was a sad prospect for the immortal ruler, but an unavoidable one nonetheless. But for somepony to have died through unnatural causes troubled her greatly. One death could lead to two, two could lead to three and three to anarchy. Instability. Disharmony. Something she couldn't abide.
She'd quickly gone down to the Guardhouse where the single witness was being kept. She'd seen it all happen, right before her eyes. Celestia had asked simple questions, troubling this pony further or making her scared low on her list of priorities. But, the mare had been fine. She was barely in her twenties, just out of college and somepony had been killed right in front of her, and she hadn't been effected mentally in a single way. Celestia had even scanned her brain for any buried abnormalities, and nothing had come up. Then she'd asked why.
"Well, he was my ex-coltfriend. We'd broken up on bad terms, but my friends told me he never got over it. His brother told me he'd started drinking and getting into fights, but I'd moved out of town, back with my mother. I was out doing a few errands for her, and I took a shortcut through an ally. He was there, right as I got to a corner he appeared out of nowhere and I had a knife to my neck! He was nuts, or drunk or something, kept pleading with me to get back together, and if I said no… I don't even wanna think about it… But then, he just…fell down, a hole in his head with blood leaking out! All I remember was somepony saying 'psst', like when the want to get your attention when they're being quiet? He was dead before I could do anything, but right after I looked around for whatever it was that had done it, but I couldn't find it. Then I went for the guards, and here I am."
Inconclusive, if anything.
According to her records, the stallion had a history of both violence and sexual harassment. According to some of her detectives, what had happened had been the best case scenario. Apparently, a rape would have been was just around the corner.
After she'd questioned the mare, she'd gone down to the morgue to check out the body. Yet another curve-ball. His wound wasn't the result of a magical attack, quite the opposite. Instead, the post-mortem had revealed a single, piece of lead, imbedded in the stallion's brain, having pierced the side of the skull first before hitting the central nervous system. Instant death. Beyond that, there was nothing. Not even around the crime scene. Alongside the rain that night, the remote location and late hours, she and the forensic squad had gone home empty hooved.
And that was just the start of it.
Two days later, a similar report had come in, this one a flat-out mugging having been stopped. Here though, there was a difference. The stallion doing the mugging had been left alive. According to the witness, he'd had a similar day as the mare. Doing errands, shortcut down an ally and a stallion had leapt out of nowhere. But then, he'd apparently seen something behind him and gone galloping away. Next thing, as the witness had described it, 'a weird shape galloped past me. It looked like a diamond dog, only it was much more nimble, or-or a dragon, only it wasn't as big.' Again, inconclusive. There had been a short chase the victim hadn't seen, and according to the perp, the thing had used 'strange magic.' For example, they'd been galloping past a steam vent in a building, likely connected to a kitchen or something, and it had blown up right as it had galloped by, his pursuer pouncing on him and beating him senseless with a metal stick of some sort. He'd blacked out before he could remember any details.
The forensic team had examined the vent with a few engineers. The vent had been installed only recently, used to suck heavy steam out of a kitchen so it wasn't so unbearably hot, not to mention so the chiefs could see, and the steam reservoir had collapsed. The part of the vent that relied on magic to safely store its steam that couldn't be pumped out safely all at once, I.E the safety valve, had released all of its pent up steam at once and exploded right next to the stallion. Something had somehow released the enchantment on the valve and let it explode. The stallion had been lucky no shrapnel had hit him.
More of these reports had come in over the following days, more thugs and criminals being killed or subdued by a mystery figure. It was no coincident so much vigilantism was occurring in such a small time frame. This was the same pony, or whatever it was. The citizens had even given him or her a nickname; The Fox, after one witness had braved to go looking for him, following the dark shape into a dead-end alleyway only to find a single fox looking through an overturned dustbin. Celestia felt it fitted this vigilante well; a quiet sleuth, forever unnoticed until you went looking for them, and even then you rarely found them unless by accident.
But now, The Fox had taken it a step further. Nine ponies. Seven deaths, two knocked out and tied up, delivered to the guards on a silver platter. The seven deaths had been rather varied; a unicorn's horn had been blown up, for instance. Magical energies channelled into his horn, but it hadn't been given a release and had overloaded, blowing the Alicorn and most of his forehead off. Such a death was by no means suicide, it got too painful for the pony to keep it up that long. But that left and even more daunting question in its wake. The rest had been simpler; three had been thrown off the building they'd been hiding out on; two had been chocked to death with a straight, round object, likely a baton; and the last two had lead in their heads. The final two, the two that lived, were a strange case. Namely because these two were the leaders of the gang, a stallion and a mare running things in the middle of their marriage. Almost whimsical, if they hadn't been selling drugs and harassing the local businesses for protection money. Then, their operation had been shut down in one, fell swoop as some either hero or menace to society wiped them out in a single night. Their descriptions had been eerily similar to that of that of the saved victims. The mare had been looking over the town, her back to the rest of the roof. She'd heard a grunt and what could only be descried as the sounds of a beating, only to turn around to find a shape rushing towards her. Something had hit her head and the rest was history. And just like that, one of Canterlot's many small time gangs had been wiped out.
Of course, the side-effects had been much greater. Small time gang bosses were no longer quite so confident. If those two could be touched, touched hard, so could they. All of a sudden, these smaller gangs had called in a lot of their ponies, recalling dealers and thugs to protect their home interests. This Fox had done more in one night than Celestia and her guards had done in more than fifty years. He was slowly eradicating crime, single-hoofed, by taking dire measures and taking no prisoners.
That didn't change the fact that he was a part of that crime.
Vigilantism was a crime, no two ways about it. No matter how successful that vigilantly was. As such, a counsel had been called earlier that night to discuss as to what to do about all this. Letting him carry on had been a major trend, alongside hunting him down. Celestia didn't know what to think, herself; one the one hoof, this thing was protecting her citizens. Less crime meant more safety, and that meant everypony was happy. But he was also causing problems; her guards were beginning to be made to look like a laughingstock, a single unknown entity known only as a common canine vermin was doing a better job at cleaning the streets than they were, single hoofed.
Celestia massaged her temples gently, wishing she hadn't drank so much coffee earlier, but if she wanted to see this though she was going to have to pull an all-nighter. She had a simple choice to make as to how to act, given to her by her counsel: either let him continue, or stop him.
Well, that was a loose-loose right there. Stop him and criminals would regain their confidence, let him carry on and the guards would lose theirs. They'd also become complacent and lazy, as anypony would when they had nothing to do. This wasn't going to be an easy decision, hence the long hours.
A light fluttering disturbed Celestia's thinking, prompting her to look up from her work. Philomena was perched on her stand on the princess's desk, looking at her with a somewhat worried expression. The bird's appearance reminded Celestia she hadn't slept in over twenty-two hours. The princess of the day yawned, stretching her back and legs, before she looked at her phoenix again, resting her tired head on a hoof while the other fussed her bird's head.
"What do you think Philomena" she asked in a weary mumbled, her hoof gently stroking her bird's head. Philomena simply cooed quietly, her tone concerned. Celestia just gave a weak smile in agreement as she yawned into a hoof again. The sounds of a door opening and light invading her comfortable darkness disturbed Celestia's exhausted tranquillity for the second time in a minute. A silhouette cut through the yellow light, revealing a tall pony of dark colours, her wings folded by her side and her horn glowing slightly to light her way.
"Sister, you're still awake" Luna asked into the gloom. Celestia huffed a little in reply. "You know this is not good for you, big sister" the princess of the night continued as she trotted into the room. Celestia gave a small smile as she stood from behind her desk, meeting her sister as they embraced for a second before letting go.
"Forgive me, sister…my mind is occupied by this…"
"Disturbance" Luna posed for her.
"Yes, that would be an apt phrase" Celestia agreed. "I just can't get it out of my mind. It's almost like…its deliberately teasing me. So many problems have arisen in the last few weeks thanks to nothing more than a vigilante. Yet just enough good has been done to make this an impossible decision to make." Luna smiled slightly in agreement.
"Indeed. If only this Fox weren't so effective" she muttered as she guided her sister to her bed. "Nevertheless, a princess needs her beauty sleep, and you are far from beautiful right now" she told her big sister as she sat on the bed. Celestia gave another tired, if slightly insulted, smile.
"So I'm only pretty right now?" Luna giggled as her sister lay down, pulling the covers over herself.
"Of course. I heard from Manehatten only the other day that eye bags are the new eye shadow" she replied, electing a small laugh from her sister. As she wrapped herself in her duvet, Celestia listened to the sounds of Luna's hooves get further away from her bed. "Sleep tight Tia" she said over her shoulder before she closed the door. Celestia was fairly certain that she wouldn't.