//------------------------------// // Case Nine, Chapter Two: Return to Frostback // Story: Ponyville Noire: Kriegspiel—Black, White, and Scarlet // by PonyJosiah13 //------------------------------// The colorful balloons that held the body up in the air only accentuated the gruesomeness of the crime, drawing an ever-growing crowd of spectators that stared at the horrific display. "Uh, Phil, are you sure you and the others are good to work the scene?" Doctor Mortis asked, watching as the stallion paced around Stone Wall, looking him up and down in silence. "I mean, just after your fight with Zugzwang--" "This needs to get done," Phillip cut her off, trying to suppress the shudder running down his spine. The memory of the unicorn bending over him, hot breath brushing against his chest, flashed unbidden through his mind, but he fought it back down, refocusing on the body of Stone Wall before him. “Wounds are fresh,” he muttered as the corpse slowly spun towards him, displaying its baleful message. “Most of the blood is coagulated, but not all of it: time of death is no more than a couple hours ago. The carving is antemortem, based on blood loss and lack of lividity.” “Rigor’s already set in with the forelegs, though,” Doctor Mortis observed, gently tugging on one of them. “My guess is he was struggling a lot before he was killed; the bruises and cuts on his forelegs seem to support that.” She sighed quietly. “Rest easy, Warden: Frostback is in good hooves now.” A few feet away, Daring watched the examination in silence, fidgeting slightly in place. The spinning body suspended in midair made her stomach twist every time she looked at, yet beneath the bloodied and bruised face, she could see some trace of the Warden that she had known during her year at Frostback. “You okay?” Red Herring asked from behind her. Daring took a shaky breath. “Fine,” she nodded. “Just...I knew Stone Wall. He was a hardass, that’s for sure; comes with being a warden. But he was always reasonable: came down to talk to me a few times. He...was a good pony.” “And you don’t like seeing him up there like that,” Red concluded. “I don’t either; it always stings more when it’s somepony you knew.” He stared for a beat. “So let me ask you: one day, you show up to a scene and it’s me laying in some alleyway. What do you do when you catch the guy?” “Can I give him a medal?” Daring smirked. Red gave her a Flying Feather, but couldn’t hide a small smile creeping up his face. The flashing of camera bulbs like several simultaneous lightning strikes suddenly flared from behind them. Turning around, Red and Daring spotted several teams of reporters and photographers standing just behind the crime scene tape, snapping pictures of the scene and of them. “Hey!” Red shouted, stomping towards them. “Show’s over! Fly off, you buzzards!” The reporters scattered quickly from Red's baleful glare. "Buncha freaks," Red grumbled, returning to the scene. Phillip examined the dead pony’s front hooves. “Dirt underneath the hooves,” he muttered, taking out a plastic bag and a pocket knife. He carefully scraped some of the dark brown dirt out from the frog of the hoof and into the bag. “You done with initial examination, Phil?” Doctor Mortis asked. He nodded. “All right, let’s cut him down,” she said. “I’ll know more when I do the autopsy.” Two officers carefully wheeled over a stretcher, with an open body bag already placed upon it. They then grasped the corpse and prepared to take its weight. Doctor Mortis used her magic to lift up a pair of scissors and carefully clipped the strings holding the balloons, being careful to not cut the knot. The officers gently guided the body into the body bag and zipped it up as Mortis grasped the balloons and pulled them down. She followed the two officers with the stretcher to the coroner’s van, looking bizarrely childish with the balloons in tow. Trace walked up to Phillip, having hung up on the nearby gamewell. “Well, the surveillance crystal lead is a dud,” he reported. “Something froze the signal right before the body was dropped off.” "Where's the Mayor?" Phillip asked. "Cold Case escorted her to her apartment. She's staying there until this blows over." Trace paused. “You really think that Zugzwang is gonna try to kill the mayor?” “Yes,” Phillip nodded. “Why?” Trace muttered. “What does he gain out of it?” “A game with me,” Phillip grunted. Trace studied him in silence for a few moments. “You think Sentry’s gonna be okay?” he asked. “Kid’s got a concussion for sure.” “Prowl sent him home after we reported in, he’ll be fine,” Phillip said. "Wish I could go back home," Red muttered. "We all need a shower after lying in that shit." The radio in Trace’s Commander suddenly crackled. “Bishop Nine, Bishop Nine, 21 Dispatch.” Trace glanced at the radio with a raised eyebrow and plucked the speaker with his magic. “10-4, will call from gamewell,” he reported. He walked back over to the gamewell, opened it up, and held the phone to his ear. Phillip paced around the scene in a circle, studying the ground for anything of note, even though he didn’t expect to find anything. “What?” Trace suddenly shouted, causing Phillip to pause and look up. Trace had tensed up and his eyes were wide as he listened to the phone. Red and Daring had both noticed Trace and were watching him in silence. After a few more moments of listening in silence, Trace hissed out a curse and hung up the phone. He walked back over to the others. “Bright Sparks’ friends, the ones that we captured,” he reported. “They’ve escaped from Frostback.” The words struck them like a hammer. Phillip grimaced, Red spat out a curse, and Daring flinched. “They want somepony down there to investigate,” Trace stated. “I’ll go,” Daring said immediately. Phillip turned to her, his eyebrows going up into his bangs. “You sure?” “I’m the one that Bright Sparks hates; she is my responsibility,” she stated firmly, already walking over to Red’s Diplomat. “And so is everypony else associated with her. Red, you coming?” Red opened and closed his mouth several times, then shrugged. “Okay then. See you guys later.” He walked over to the Diplomat and climbed into the driver’s seat. The engine coughed to life and the car pulled away, speeding down the street to the west. Trace and Phillip both watched the car drive off in silence. “You think you’re done here?” Trace asked Phillip. Phillip was still staring after the car; his tail twitched twice and he pawed compulsively at the ground. “Hey, Phil!” Trace barked. Phillip shook his head. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Yeah, I’m good. Let’s head to the precinct.” She felt the anti-flight spells wash over the car as they approached the one-mile boundary around Frostback: the static tingling of flight magic in her wings was so familiar that she barely noticed it most of the time, but the sudden loss of the sensation sent a stab of panic through her mind, which she quickly forced down. Red shuddered. “I hate that damn thing,” he muttered, steering the car up the street. A sign next to the road read in bold text: “WARNING: Entering Restricted Area. Anti-Flight Spells Active. Area Patrolled by Armed Correctional Officers.” Indeed, as they drove up the long dirt road, surrounded by thin grasslands and copses of trees, Daring spotted a gray Jeep running a circular track that ran the circumference of the facility. The road led up to a brick wall topped with spikes; a watchtower stood at each corner of the wall, with a pair of armed officers standing inside. Inside the walls was Frostback Prison, a complex of brick with barred windows just barely visible over the top of the wall. Red pulled the Diplomat into the parking lot and slid it into an empty space, joining a pair of police cruisers. A set of large iron gates with a small shack next to it provided the only entrance into the facility. A stone sign that read “FROSTBACK PRISON” stood next to the gates. Daring stared at the brick walls and felt her pulse speed up, her chest tightening as though her heart was being squeezed by a vise; her hooves began to tremble, and she clenched them together to try to hide the shaking. “You okay?” Red asked, raising an eyebrow at her. Damn. “I’m fine,” Daring grunted, shouldering the door open. She started walking towards the guard box. The dirt road was cold beneath her hooves: her heart began pounding louder, faster, as though trying to escape from the crushing cage that had become her chest. Red walked up to her. “Daring, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he said softly. “I can—!” Daring started to shout at Red, causing him to flinch slightly, his eyes widening in alarm. Daring turned away, took in a deep breath through her nostrils, and let it out slowly through her mouth. “Sorry,” she said in a quieter voice, turning back. “I’m fine, really. Let’s just get this done.” They approached the iron gates. A correctional officer exited the small shack and approached them. “Identi—well, well. Look who’s back,” the blue pegasus mare smirked at Daring. Daring scowled, acid bubbling up in her stomach. “Welkin,” she grunted. “That’s Officer Welkin to you, convict,” the mare scowled, brushing some of her ash white mane out of her eyes. “And I’m Detective Red Herring,” Red cut in. “And she’s with me. We’re here to investigate the prison escape.” Welkin snorted. “Nice idea, bringing her in,” she said. “Expert advice.” Daring growled in her throat as the cursed brand burned again, acidic heat crawling up her hoof, eating at her veins and chewing at the bones. Welkin entered the shack and spoke briefly into a radio. There was an electric buzz, and then the iron gates creaked open, revealing a paved pathway leading up to the main building of the facility. To the left stood an ordinary door that led to the reception area; to the right was a sally port that led to the booking area. The pathway was surrounded on both sides by a double perimeter of chain-link fences topped with barbed wires. Correctional officers patrolled the perimeter, all of them staring at the duo as they walked past. They reached the doorway to the reception area and pushed their way into a small room with some cushioned chairs and a set of lockers for visitors to place possessions. A glass window showed an office area with a pair of receptionists typing away at typewriters. A Netitus security gate stood in front of a hallway, the metal glowing faintly with blue power; beyond was a locked door that led to locker rooms for the correctional officers, and a steel door with a number one painted on it that led into the facility proper. As Red and Daring entered the room, a door in the office opened and a tall, stout blue unicorn with brown and gray hair and a full beard exited, stepping into the reception room. He adjusted his red and black striped tie. “Detectives,” he nodded. “Blue Guardian,” Red nodded, shaking the stallion’s hoof. “I’m sorry about Stone.” “We all are,” the formerly assistant warden of Frostback nodded. “But we’ve got work to do. We’ve already sealed off the prison until you can take a look at the scenes.” “You got a list of who escaped?” Daring asked. “Yes, here,” Guardian said, handing her a clipboard with several papers on it. Daring flipped through the files on the names, noting the familiar faces on the mug shots scowling at her. “Sledgehammer, Gear Shift, Dusty Tail, the Licorice twins,” she read. “Boltstrike’s still here?” “Yes, thankfully,” Guardian nodded. “He was moved to segregation two weeks ago after getting into a fight with another inmate.” Daring let out a soft sigh of relief. “At least there’s that. Okay, let’s get a look at the cells.” Guardian escorted them to the steel doorway down the hall, skipping around the Netitus Security gate. “One door!” the Warden barked into the speaker next to the door. With a buzz, the door opened and they stepped into a sally port. On the wall to their right was another door and a darkened window showing a control room. Two officers stood inside, manning the panels of door buttons and watching the feeds from the surveillance crystals. One of the officers nodded to the group and pressed the button to open the door marked with a number two. Guardian pushed through the door, with Red and Daring following. They entered a large hallway, hooves clacking against cold stone. To the right was a pair of doorways that led to the visitors’ area: one door for the visitors and one door for the inmates. Daring could see the room through the window, a long table with several chairs, the room divided in half by a floor to ceiling plastic window, though she’d never been inside. Directly in front was the door for the supervisors’ office, currently closed and locked. The windowless walls and the floors were painted in cold grays and whites; the fluorescent lights overhead cast everything in an unforgiving white glow. The sound came to Daring’s ears, all too familiar: dozens and dozens of overlapping voices, a chaotic symphony composed of notes of fear, stress, despair, exhaustion, and most of all, anger. An electric undercurrent of anger and hostility that she could feel in her bones, crawling underneath her skin. Her heartbeat accelerated, thudding in her ears, a tempo behind the screaming of her subconscious: Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! She forced herself to breathe slowly. Five-second inhale, pause. Five-second exhale, pause. Five-second inhale, pause. Five-second exhale, pause. Breathe. Breathe. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. Guardian led them through another steel door on their right and they entered a hallway, proceeding through yet another door labeled ABC in black paint. The sound became louder; Daring continued to breathe, keeping herself steady. They reached a set of three doors, each one labeled A, B, or C. “C Door,” Guardian grunted into the radio that he plucked from his belt. The door opened and they stepped inside. The familiarity was nauseating to Daring; she felt as though she was witnessing a scene from one of her nightmares playing out in real life. In a way, she was. The open area was occupied by a set of four tables and stools, all of them bolted to the floor. The two floors, the top one accessible via a set of stairs leading to a landing, were both lined with barred doors. Inside, she could see inmates, some of them laying on their bunks resting, but most of them leaning against the bars of their cell doors. Daring’s eyes went to the silver bracelets around the inmates’ forelegs, which were used to disable their magic and keep them under control. She could feel the cold grasp of her own bracelet on her foreleg and her hoof instinctually went up to rub at her skin. With a grunt, she forced the hoof down. “Well, look who’s back!” one of them cheered. There was an instant uproar, the shouting and clamoring, the clapping and stomping of hooves, echoing off the walls. Catcalls, taunts, cheers, and wolf-whistles flew from the inmates’ lips. The sound hit Daring Do like a physical wall; she nearly flinched, had to force her hooves not to move, to propel herself backward out of the room. Never let them see when they get to you… “QUIET!” Warden Guardian roared. “The next pony who speaks out of turn goes to segregation!” Instantly, the entire wing fell silent. “Thanks,” Red nodded. “The cell that Sledgehammer occupied is here,” the Warden said, pointing at a cell that was currently guarded by a familiar thestral officer. “Hey, Guide,” Daring managed to smile. “Daring,” Gentle Guide nodded. “How are you and Phil?” “Not bad,” Daring said. “How’s Honey?” “Oh, I think he’s doing all right,” Guide said, smiling more broadly. He leaned in close and whispered into Daring’s ear. “He proposed two weeks ago. We’re getting married next moon.” “Hey, that’s great!” Daring said, her stress momentarily forgotten. Guide sighed and glanced behind him into the cell. “Wish we could meet under better conditions.” Daring leaned to look around him and blinked in surprise. The cell had a single pony in it: a dark brown unicorn with the cutie mark of a large hammer, his head devoid of a mane. His massive bulk was sprawled across the bunk atop the covers, still in sleep. “Um…” Red said, pointing at the stallion. “I think Sledgehammer’s right there.” “Take a closer look,” a tall red unicorn officer grunted, brushing his sandy brown mane out of his eyes as he approached. Officer Sunburn unhooked his keys from his belt and unlocked the cell door, allowing them to enter. Daring studied Sledgehammer as she approached. He was laying still: he hadn’t reacted at all to their approach. In fact, if she leaned in close and tilted her head to the side, it almost looked like she could see right through him… She frowned, then reached down to touch him. Her hoof went right through his shoulder and onto the mattress. “It’s an illusion,” Sunburn concluded. “You see the sheet of paper in the middle there?” Daring did: a single sheet of plain white paper that she could just barely make out underneath the false image. She picked the paper up, and instantly, the illusory Sledgehammer vanished. Written on the paper was some kind of intricate symbol, several geometric shapes written over one another, with strange runes written around the perimeter. A few dried drops of blood stained the middle of the paper. “I was the officer for this unit,” Sunburn reported, muttering through his teeth as though reluctant to admit his failure. “Sledgehammer got up for breakfast when our unit was called at 0625 and returned at 0640. He hung out in the dayroom for a while, then went back to his cell around quarter to eight. Near as I can figure out, he disappeared during the 0800 headcount.” He frowned. “Just can’t figure out how. He was in here with the door locked during headcount.” Daring scanned the cell in a circle: floor to knees, then knees to eyes, then eyes to ceiling. Then she scanned the cell again. Her eyes went to the vent cover near the ceiling, where cool air flowed into the room. Something was tied around one of the vents. She climbed up on top of the bunk to take a closer look. It turned out to be a coil of toilet paper, rolled up into a length of tiny rope that had been coiled inside the vent. She pulled the rope out through the narrow inch-wide gap and let it fall: it draped almost all the way down to the floor. “What was that for?” Red wondered. Something glimmered on the floor, amidst the dusty concrete. Daring bent down for a closer look, and her eyes picked out the small, faintly glowing motes of dust. No, not dust. Pollen. “Red, scoop these up, but be careful,” she instructed. “That’s shrinking violet pollen.” “Again?” Red snorted. “That’s become pretty popular recently.” He started carefully scooping up the pollen into an evidence bag. “It’s how he got out,” Daring stated. “He made a showing earlier so Sunburn wouldn’t be keeping too close an eye on him for the headcount; he already knew he was there. Then, during the headcount, he took the pollen, climbed up into the vent, and pulled the rope up behind him.” “So where’d he go after that?” Red pondered. “If it were me…” Daring thought. “I’d go up onto the roof. Then I could take a drainpipe down to the ground, probably near the southern yard. Then it’d be a quick jot to the drainage ditch under the fence and a sprint to the nearest copse just in time for the pollen to wear off. And the garbage truck comes in around eight o’clock, so the post truck outside would be busy with them.” Red and Gentle Guide both stared at her. “I had a lot of free time to think up escape plans,” she muttered. Guide chuckled. “Maybe we should’ve hired you to beef up security around here.” “I’ll put that under consideration,” Warden Guardian nodded. Daring then turned her attention to a plastic wastepaper bucket and peered inside, sorting through the trash within. There were some candy wrappers inside, a few torn sheets of lined paper with sketches on it (most of them of a decidedly lewd nature), and some broken pencils. But at the bottom of the trash, she spotted some cut up pieces of paper. She dumped the contents out onto the floor and began to sort through them, sorting out the puzzle pieces of torn paper. “What’s that?” Red asked. “Looks like a letter,” Daring said. “The writing on this one is different. Hand me another bag.” Red tossed her another evidence bag, and she started placing the pieces into it. “Frostback keeps track of who sends and receives mail, right?” she asked. “We do,” Sunburn nodded. “We destroy the envelopes, but keep a list of who they received mail from and who they sent it to.” “I’m gonna need to see those,” Daring stated, looking at the paper with the bloodstained magical runes. “Okay, Red, let’s check the other cells.” Warden Guardian escorted them to the other wings; everywhere they went, it was the same. The same cold concrete beneath her hooves, the same scent of dozens of ponies who didn’t consider hygiene a priority packed together. The same taunts and catcalls, the same hissing murmurs and dark chuckles in her ears. The same thumping of her heart jackhammering against her ribs, the same pattern of inhalation and exhalation to keep herself steady. The cells that had been formerly occupied by Dusty Tail, Red and Black Licorice, and Gear Shift were repeats of Sledgehammer’s cell. The same illusory copies of themselves laying in the bunks, generated from a bloodstained paper decorated with runes. The same toilet paper rope in the vents, the same pollen on the floor. Daring checked their wastepaper baskets but didn’t find any other notes. “If Boltstrike’s still here, he might know something,” Daring considered as they exited F Wing, the first of the two mare’s wings. “I want to talk to him.” “He’s in segregation, like I said,” Guardian said, beckoning. “I believe you’re pretty familiar with that wing,” he added dryly. “It’s not my fault I got into fights a lot,” Daring protested, fighting down another flood of bile. The Warden led them down a longer hallway separate from the others to a door marked D. When this opened, they entered a darkened wing of the facility, consisting of a small office area where two officers lounged at a table, talking over the Foal Free Press. Three hallways blocked off by barred doors branched off the room. Somepony was shouting from down one of them: from what Daring could interpret, she was throwing a tantrum about getting carrots in her lunch. The smell of dried urine accompanied by an intensified malodor of body odor assaulted Daring’s nostrils, sending her stomach into fresh convulsions. She swallowed it down and kept breathing: in for five seconds, pause. Out for five seconds, pause. In for five seconds... “Warden,” the taller officer said, snapping to attention. “Morning, Padlock,” Guardian said. “We’re here to see Boltstrike.” “He’s in cell twelve,” Padlock said, unhooking a set of keys from his belt. He opened the door to one of the hallways and allowed them through. The cells on either side of the hallway had numbers painted over their solid steel doors. Daring and Red approached the cell labeled 12 and looked through the double-paned window set into the door. A familiar light gray unicorn with a spiky white-blue mane lay on the bunk in the tiny cell, staring out the narrow double-paned barred window. The echo of thundering gunshots and crashing engines resounded in Daring’s ears as she laid eyes upon him. Boltstrike looked up and scowled at them. “The hell are you doing here?” he snarled at Daring. “Your friends have escaped,” Daring stated, biting back the retort that rushed up her throat. “Where’d they go?” “Why would I tell you?” Boltstrike snapped back, turning his attention back to the window. “They’ve left me behind, how should I know?” Daring snarled and hit the wall. “Dammit, Bolt, if you know—” “Daring,” Red laid a hoof on her shoulder. “That’s not gonna help us.” Daring glared at him but stepped back. Red walked up to the door and leaned against it. “You were the one who did the heavy lifting among all of them,” Red said quietly. “You were the one who did all the fighting, who got your hooves dirty.” Daring could hear the acid behind his words, the barely restrained venom as he forced himself to speak rationally to a pony who had murdered his fellow officers, but Boltstrike had looked up again. “You were the big pony on the team, and they left you behind to rot,” Red continued. “Didn’t even tell you they were planning an escape, did they?” He leaned forward a bit. “So you’re gonna tell us, so you can show them that they made a big mistake leaving you behind. To show them that Boltstrike is not to be underestimated, ever again.” Boltstrike stared at him for a few moments, then licked his lips and grunted. “I don’t know where they went,” he stated. “But I do know that Sparks had a cache set up at an old garage in the Industrial District. This old abandoned gas station near the Burger Princess. There was a car, weapons, and money in there.” He glared at Red. “You get that cowardly bitch for me.” Red grunted and the two walked away from the cell, exiting the unit with Guardian. “Ugh, I feel like I’m gonna be sick,” Red groaned. “Okay, I need to check their mail lists now,” Daring said, feeling a small percent of the tension leaving her muscles as the door slammed shut and locked behind her. “It’ll all be up front,” Guardian nodded, leading them back down the main hallway. Red fell into step next to Daring, the filled evidence bags in his saddlebags marking each step with a soft shuffling noise. “I know you’re stressed out. Your wingtips haven’t stopped twitching since you got in here,” he muttered to her. Daring glared at her appendages, the tips of which did indeed twitch like the legs of a dying insect. Damn traitors. “I’m fine,” she grunted back. “You’re not,” Red said. “If I spent a month in here, let alone a whole year, I wouldn’t want to come back either. So let’s get this done quick so you can get out of here.” Daring swallowed down the bile that was threatening to bubble up her throat and nodded. “Right.” Many steel doors later, they were back in the front office. As soon as the one door shut behind them, Daring felt her breathing slow. The battering ram against her chest began to slow, and her stomach stopped pretending that she was on the deck of a ship in the midst of a hurricane and instead started pretending she was on a motorboat in a particularly choppy lake. “It’ll be in here,” Guardian said, unlocking the door to the office and guiding them inside. They proceeded to a storage room that had several filing cabinets stuffed into it. Guardian tugged open drawers and plucked out a few manila folders, which he levitated over to the detectives. “There. That’s our files on the escapees,” he explained. “It’ll have a list of their mail.” Daring placed the folders on a table and began sorting through them, tossing rap sheets, disciplinary reports, and medical records aside in a mess. “Yes, sure, go ahead and make more work for me,” one of the secretaries muttered in an acidic tone. Ignoring her, Daring found the records for mail, long sheets of hoofwritten notes squeezed into columns indicating names and addresses. “Trace would be better for this,” she muttered to herself, drawing a hoof down the lists. She studied them in silence for several minutes, with Red leaning over her shoulder. “Aha,” she finally declared. “They’ve all gotten mail from and sent mail to this address. A PO Box in the Everfree District.” “We can check that out, but I doubt it’s gonna turn out to be anything,” Red grunted. “And I can see about reassembling this,” Daring said, holding up the bag with the cut up pieces. “It might have a clue.” “Okay, let’s get outta here,” Red said. “Thank you for your help,” Warden said, shaking hooves with them both. “I hope we get them back soon, and I hope you find who killed Stone.” “We will, Warden,” Red promised. With a final nod, the two exited. Daring’s heart pattered in her chest as they walked back up the walkway to the gates, which creaked open at their approach. “See you later, convict,” Welkin sneered to Daring as they passed through the gates. Ignoring her, Daring walked as quickly as she could to the passenger side of Red’s Diplomat and slid inside. Almost there, almost there… The engine coughed to life and the car headed back down the dirt path, leaving Frostback Prison behind. Daring watched the brick walls in the rearview mirror until they vanished in the distance, and she felt the warm tingle of her magic return to her wings. Only then did she finally relax into the seat with a long sigh, her eyes closing in exhaustion.