//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: An Impossible Mare 
// Story: Harmony Theory 
// by Sharaloth 
//------------------------------//


Some of my fellow scholars have asked me whether this book will be a follow-up to my original work, The Magic Of Friendship, which was published nearly twenty-five years ago as of this writing. While this question might make sense to them and to most ponies, to me it causes no end of consternation and confusion. How do I tell them that this is most emphatically not a follow-up without explaining to them why, which would only serve to deepen their confusion and increase my own consternation. Most ponies think that the Magics of Friendship and Harmony are related, and why wouldn't they? It seems self evident that they would be connected to each other, possibly even the same thing. I am forced to remind these ponies of one of the important points of my first book. That while Friendship is Magic, Magic IS NOT Friendship. Magic at its base level is power, and while Friendship is a kind of power, there are many other kinds besides. What would cause me the most dismay, of course, is in trying to explain that what we call the Magic of Harmony may not be Magic as we know it at all. Worse yet, it may not have anything to do with Harmony, either.



-From the preface to Harmony Theory by Twilight Sparkle




Chapter 2: An Impossible Mare



Lieutenant Hard Boiled, celebrated detective in the Orion City Police Special Investigations Unit, could not believe what he was hearing. It was just too fantastical. If he didn't know that the two officers telling him this wild tale were upstanding members of the force he would have laughed them out of the room. As it was, he couldn't believe what he was hearing, but he couldn't deny that the stallions telling it to him were trustworthy, and the dissonance between the two was making his horn ache. 

Hard Boiled, or HB as he tended to be called by his friends, was a very blue unicorn. His coat was blue, and his mane and tail were a darker shade of blue. All that blue made his eyes stand out even more. They were a shining, clear copper that stood out from his blue face like searchlights. His mane was cut into a short stubble, which left his long, sharp horn very prominently displayed on his forehead. He had to cut his mane short like that, his horn was very sensitive when he was using his magic, and the hairs brushing against it had been too annoying to keep. On his flanks were a series of characters in black, the runic script of ancient magic that made up his Talent Glyph, displaying his aptitude at his job for all to see.

The two stallions sat in front of him, looking bruised and exhausted. Their heads were enveloped in a soft cyan glow as the doctor they had called in worked her magic on their ruptured ears. The brown one, Lightning Flash, had to keep holding his wing down with a hoof or it would start twitching uncontrollably and aggravate the torn flight muscles. The other one, Ashland Forrest, arguably was the worst off, a bandage wrapped around his head covering up an eye that had been badly injured when his flight goggles had shattered. By all rights they should have been in the hospital, but they had insisted on reporting immediately. Too bad what they were reporting was nonsense. 

"Let me get this straight," he said, staring at the two officers with hard copper eyes. "You were sent out to take a look at that illegal excavation we had reports of, but instead you were intercepted by some pegasus mare who declared her allegiance to the Solar Kingdom, then proceeded to out-fly, out-maneuver, out-fight and generally embarrass the both of you. Despite the fact that you are both Flight Talents who have been given the benefit of the Republic's finest training in hoof-to-hoof and aerial combat." The two stallions shared a look, then nodded in unison. "Not only that, but you insist that this filly not only out-flew two of the force's best Flight Talents, but also displayed Hummingbird level maneuverability,  Cloudwalking and Supersonic speed? And this last after having taken a hit from a sleeper shot?" Hard Boiled sucked in a deep breath before bellowing, "What the hell are you trying to pull here?!"

The two stallions cringed, Flash even letting out a whimper as the shout hit his still mostly-unhealed ears. The doctor gave Hard Boiled a venomous look. "Lieutenant!" she snapped, her voice quiet but filled with as much anger as a roar. "I am not allowing this little meeting to take place just so you can aggravate the already serious injuries of my patients. You will keep your voice down, is that clear?"

HB nodded, chastened. "Fine. But please, guys, what you're saying is impossible."

"I know, Lieutenant," Forrest said. "But it's true. I have no idea who this mare is, but she's something else. I swear, after I hit her with the sleeper she stopped on a cloud like it was solid ground, then she just dodged another shot like it was nothing and took off. There was no way we could keep up with that kind of acceleration. I swear she went from zero to twelve hundred in ten seconds flat. And you, well, you see what the boom did to us."

"She was strong," Flash said. "Way too strong. And way too tough. I've got to be nearly twice her size, but she just shrugged it off when I hit her. She hit the ground too, after Forrest cracked her, but it was like the hit and the fall meant nothing to her. And she kept going faster, like she was playing with us the entire time. Mouthing off about her damned sun tyrant the whole time," Flash's face screwed up in rage, his pinned wing thrashing about until the pain overrode his anger and forced him to focus on stilling the injured limb. Lightning Flash's hatred of the Solar Kingdom was well known on the force, and he wasn't alone in it. 

"What specifically was she saying?" HB asked.

"I don't know, Lieutenant," Flash said, Forrest shaking his head as well. "I don't speak Solar. All I know is that she kept spouting the nag's name the whole time. Throwing it in our faces."

"I don't know if she was trying to insult us," Forrest said. "But she did keep saying 'Celestia' a lot. She wouldn't respond to us, so we had to assume she was a spy or something."

"You had to, huh?"

Forrest nodded. "Yeah. But, sir, she was, well, she was like nothing I've ever seen before. It's like she had every pegasus Talent there is, and a bunch of earth pony Talents besides. What if she's some kind of Solar super-soldier?"

"Yeah, what if, Forrest? Maybe she was the Gray Mare in disguise," HB snarked, earning him reproachful looks from both officers. He sighed. "I don't think the Solar Kingdom would send some super-soldier out to the edges of Republic territory just so she could reveal herself for no reason other than to kick the crap out of a couple local cops."

"It really happened!" Flash shouted, then winced at the pain his own voice caused him. "It did."

"I believe you," HB said, holding a hoof to his horn. Nothing they had said was a lie, he was sure of that much. "But I don't have to take your word for it. Doc? What's your opinion on what beat them up?"

The doctor raised an eyebrow at the Lieutenant. "Officer Flash's right forehoof was injured by something exerting a very sudden, very strong rotational force on it, detaching it from his leg bone and very nearly twisting it right off. He also exhibits bruising consistent with high-speed impacts with another pony. Officer Forrest is suffering from several fractures of his ribs on his left side, with a layered bruise that is very clearly a pair of rear-leg hooves. Both of them have injuries that are the result of being quite close to a powerful pressure wave, the effects of which include, but are not limited to, severe internal bruising, internal bleeding, destroyed eardrums and damaged ears in general. This is not to mention all the muscular damage or officer Forrest's eye. So my opinion, Lieutenant, is that these two Stallions need to be in the hospital being treated for their potentially life-threatening injuries, not playing twenty questions with a detective."

"Pressure wave," HB said. "Like a sonic boom?"

"Exactly like one," the doctor replied. "If these two weren't Flight Talents, they could have died. If not from the boom itself, then from the fall afterwards."

"It really happened, sir. I swear," Forrest said.

"Of course it really happened," HB felt his horn pulse with magic, and he rubbed a hoof across his forehead to sooth the ache starting there. There was a mystery afoot, and his Talent was telling him it was a big one. Big and important. "Give me her description again. Details this time."

"Pegasus mare," Forrest began. "Slightly smaller than average. Sorry, can't give you height or weight, she wasn't on the ground long enough to get a decent measure. Lots of lean muscle, like an athlete, a racer. Sky blue coat, dark pink or light purplish eyes. Her mane was short, a kind of punky cut, but it was, uh," he trailed off.

"All of 'em, sir," Flash took up.

"All of what?"

"All the colors," Flash clarified. "Her mane and tail. They were every color. In order, front to back for the mane and bottom to top for the tail."

"That's one hell of a dye job," HB said. That elicited a small smile from both stallions, but they were too busy eyeing each other nervously to actually laugh at the joke. "What is it? What don't you want to tell me."

"Well, it might have been an optical illusion," Forrest said, slowly choosing his words. "But when she did something really, uh, really quick, she, well, she left this kind of afterimage."

"Afterimage?"

"She trailed rainbows," Flash said. "Every time she moved. Like solid sheets of color hanging in the air for a second."

HB stared at them for a long beat. His horn wasn't detecting any lies, but still he felt himself compelled to respond. "Bullshit," he said. "You're saying she was etherealizing?"

"Maybe, we don't know," Forrest was quick to say. "This is just what we saw, okay?"

"Okay, Fine. She wasn't wearing anything, right? So what's her Glyph?"

"It's an Abstract, sir," Flash said.

"Of course it is," HB sighed. "It would have been too easy if she had a Talent that was actually comprehensible." Abstract Talent Glyphs were always a problem for law-enforcement. You could never really tell what an Abstract meant. A feather on a pegasus might mean they were a Flight Talent, or a Cloudwalker or an Acrobat, or a Dancer, or anything that might in any way be represented by a feather. Direct Glyphs, like Hard Boiled's own, told you exactly what that pony's Talent was, no guesswork required. "Describe it."

"Cloud with a three-colored lightning bolt coming out of it," Forrest said. 

HB levitated a pen and did a quick sketch on a pad of paper he'd been taking notes with. "Like this?"

"No, the colors are side-by-side, like it's three bolts. Blue-yellow-red, and stylized a bit more," HB redid the sketch. "Yeah, more like that."

"Yeah, this could mean abso-friggin-lutely anything," HB said. "I'll get the description out, but if she was heading over the mountains she's on her way to the Everstorm. If she could shrug off the sleeper like you say, she could be clear to the Sunlands by now."

"She'll be back," Flash growled.

"How do you figure?"

"It's the start. The war. She was just their first scout. I bet they have battalions of ponies like her, engineered super-soldiers. I bet they'll start invading soon."

HB shook his head. "I hope you're wrong. But even if you aren't, that crap is way above my paygrade. I think I've gotten all I need. You're both dismissed, and on injury leave until a qualified physician says you're ready to come back to work. Doc, make sure these guys get better, okay?"

"What do you think I've been trying to do while you've been yapping?" the doctor snorted. Her magic wrapped around the two stallions, soothing their wounds enough to let them stand and walk. 

They made their way to the door while HB looked over his notes. At the last minute Forrest turned to him. "Sir, there's something else."

He looked up. "What is it?"

"That illegal excavation you sent us to investigate? Well, we didn't get a good look at it, but it was there, empty. But before she came after us, that mare flew out of it. I can't tell you for sure that she was part of it, but it's too coincidental. Like maybe she was trying to keep us away so we wouldn't see whatever it was they were doing there."

"I see," HB said, thoughts spinning. "Alright, thanks. Now get the hell out of here and get resting."

"Yes sir," Flash and Forrest said in unison, before limping after the scowling doctor. 

Hard Boiled looked down at his notes again, scratching a few thoughts down as he considered what he had heard. This mare was impossible. So many Talents in one pony? No. Absurd. But possessing those Talents weren't actually necessary to pull off everything she had done. No, she just need the support of unicorns willing and able to cast and maintain the appropriate spells to make her a juggernaut. It would take a rare combination of several unicorn Talents, or one unicorn with a Magic Talent and a lot of power, but it was doable. 

HB pulled out another file, this one was thick and full of place markers with scribbled labels. He opened the file to a picture of the stallion it was created for. Maximilion Oswald Cash. HB didn't spend to long looking at the unicorn's picture, it always made his horn ache, instead flipping to one of Cash's known associates. The pegasus who grinned back out of the photo did not match the description given to him at all. 

"Just my luck," HB muttered. "Nothing's ever easy."

With a concentrated effort of telekinesis he shut and locked the door to his office and closed the blinds. A moment later he had a crystal orb out on his desk and was gently feeding it the energy it needed to contact its mate. He hated this cloak-and-dagger stuff. He would prefer to just meet someplace and talk face-to-face, but these were orders from way up the chain of command. Right up to the Senate itself. So he was forced to keep secrets no matter how badly he felt about it. 

"Lieutenant," the orb pulsed as it spoke. The sound was barely a whisper, and accompanied by a weird high-pitched whine. It sounded almost like whalesong, and it supposedly kept the conversation from being overheard magically. "Your report is late."

"Bad circumstances," HB explained. "The officers I sent out to investigate got injured."

"Injured? By what?"

"More like by who. A pegasus mare stopped them from getting to the site, apparently shouted Sunland propaganda or religion or something at them until they attacked her like idiots, then she beat the tar out of them."

"Cash's companion?"

"Nope, someone new. Complete unknown, unless you've been holding back on me."

"I assure you, the information we gave you about Cash is as complete as national security could allow." The voice actually sounded sincere. He couldn't be sure though. One of the reasons HB assumed they insisted on this kind of communication was that his truth-detection magic wouldn't work through it. 

"Yeah, well it's not complete enough," he gave a description of the mare. "She in your files?"

"With a Glyph that distinct? If she was anyone of interest I would hope so. To my knowledge, though, no."

"You might want to do whatever it is you do to find out about her. According to my officers she was pretty crazy powerful," he gave the full run-down on what they had seen her do. "I think it might be unicorns working to bolster her. Cash could do it, if what the file says about his magical skills is right."

"It is as accurate as we are capable of getting. The kind of energy it would take to accomplish all of that, and at a distance, though," the voice trailed off, thoughtful.

"Yeah. That's an assload of power. I don't think any unicorn has that kind of strength," HB said. "So we've got to be looking for a cabal."

"Not necessarily," the voice said, caution evident in its tone. "We do know of one or two individuals who could accomplish this, but to our knowledge they are not in any way aligned with Cash."

"Then we're still looking for a cabal," HB said. "Look, the pit was empty, but my officers were too hurt to take a good look on their way back. I'm going out there myself with backup to see what there is to see. This mystery mare shot off towards the Everstorm at supersonic speeds. She probably has passage through by now, so I don't think you can catch her."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," the voice said, tone amused. "We shall take that under advisement. However, this mare is not your problem. If she is associated with Cash, we will find out soon enough. If possible we will capture her and return her to you to stand trial for assaulting your officers."

"Thanks, they'll appreciate that," HB said, fairly certain that he was never going to see tail or feather of the blue pegasus. 

"Please continue your investigation however you see fit, and keep us updated with your findings."

"Will do," He replied, and knowing the conversation was at an end he let the magic drop. The orb went dark as he put it away, and the large Max Cash file went with it. 

He took a moment to compose himself. The worst thing about the cloak and dagger crap was that it left him a nervous wreck. He hadn't wanted to get involved in stuff like this. He just wanted to be a cop. Just wanted to solve crimes and catch bad guys. 

He loved solving mysteries, uncovering truth and exposing lies. It was his Talent, emblazoned on his flanks for all to see. Finding Truth. His magic revolved around it, his life revolved around it. He was good at it. Good enough that when the Republic Intelligence Agency had a mystery on their hooves they turned to him to help them solve it. 

Now instead of finding truth he was covering it up, at least his involvement in it. He needed a free hoof to do his investigation, so it couldn't be known that he was investigating. All of his official work on the project had to be done under cover of something else, something innocuous and legitimate. He'd been stonewalled a few times, and the Agency had actually created reasons for him to look where he needed. Upending entire lives just to get him in a position where he could ask the questions he needed to ask. 

So here he was, a middle aged unicorn with a decent career and no real ambitions beyond being where he already was, lying for the sake of national security. All to find out what the hell one stallion was up to. He was terrible at lying. It made his horn ache.

Hard Boiled finally got himself together and got up, opening the blinds and the door as he moved around his desk. He took a deep breath and strode into the bustling main room of the Special Investigations Unit. "Barry!" he shouted at the detective he was most sure he could get away with lying to. "Get two uniforms and come with me, we're heading out."

"Is this about the two injured officers?" Barry asked, grabbing his hat and trotting up to him.

"No, it's about bird watching. Of course it's about the injured officers! Two of our boys got attacked out there, and I want to know why! So are you going to stand there asking stupid questions, or are you going to go get us our backup?"

"Right away!" Barry said, leaping off.  Hard Boiled shook his head at the sight. He didn't know what they were going to find, but there was a feeling in his horn, a feeling he had learned long ago not to ignore. This was going to get worse, and he was the one who was going to have to deal with it.



***



Star Fall stared at the pegasus who had fallen from the sky. She was lying on the only bed in the one-room cabin that Astrid had found them, her broken legs and wings tightly bound with strips of cloth to supports crudely made out of branches hewn from the local trees. Star Fall's knowledge of medicine was limited, but good enough to know that any normal pony wouldn't heal right under these conditions, and wouldn't heal quickly at all. 

That just meant she had to speed up the process, and she had been working through the night to do just that.

"We've only got, like ten sheets of paper left," Astrid said, surveying what was left of their belongings after they had been ransacked to help the injured mare. "We can't really lose any more."

"I know," Star Fall said from around the pen she held in her mouth. She was using that pen, and some of the precious paper, to draw out a magical sigil in exacting detail. Any mistake would ruin it, and waste the paper. It wasn't normal paper, of course, but specially designed to allow magic to be charged into it. Wasting it would be a loss she couldn't afford. "Stop interrupting me."

"Fine, but you will have to contact the Professor. I hope you can get us through with only nine," Astrid said, sliding the remaining paper back into the waterproof case they stored it in.

Star Fall sighed and refocused on finishing the design. Those sheets of paper, and the sigils she would draw on them, were what would get them safely through the Everstorm. The only other option to cross back into the sunlands would be to hire a guide, and they hadn't brought along the money to do that. She supposed she could sneak into a Republic city and buy or steal more paper. Assuming that she could find a place with a stockpile of it, if such a place even existed on the nightside.

"Done," she said, putting the pen down and examining her work. Every line, every curve of the twisting design had to be correct or it wouldn't work, or worse, go wrong. She pulled out her geometry set, using the tools there to make absolutely sure it was right.

"Why are you so worried?" Astrid asked, looking over her charge's shoulder. "I've seen you whip up spells way faster than this, no rulers required."

"Those are spells I've practiced a thousand times," Star Fall said, carefully measuring the angle where the two prime energy lines intersected. "Muscle memory goes a long way. I know the forms for healing spells, but I haven't had to use them like I have the Everstorm spells or the communication spell. I'm dealing with a living, breathing pony here. If I screw up she could start healing wrong. Professor Shine has told me stories about badly done healing spells causing cancers or redundant organs or extra limbs."

"Yeesh! Hey, Fall, if I get hurt, just slap a bandage on me and leave it, kay?"

Star Fall snorted back a laugh. "Alright, looks like this one's good. Stand back," Astrid squeezed up against the wall, giving the young pegasus her space. Star Fall closed her eyes, holding one hoof just above the complete drawing. 

Star Fall was a special pony. Unique. Her Special Talent, the thing that dictated where she could best use her innate magic, was Magic itself. As far as she knew, she was the only pegasus in recorded history whose talent was Magic. She was no unicorn, she couldn't use their telekinesis or cast complex spells with her mind and the wave of a horn, but she could do this. The lines on the page were lines in her thoughts, channels for the energy her Talent allowed her to manipulate at will. She sent magic through those lines in her thoughts, creating a burning sigil of power that was a spell just aching to be set loose. Then, with an effort of will that taxed her both mentally and physically, she projected that energy onto the design of the page. 

"As above, so below," Star Fall whispered. It was part of a mantra that her mentor had taught her many years ago, when she was first learning to use her power. "As within, so without." The energy left her in a rush, making her sway on her hooves and forcing Astrid to steady her with a claw so she didn't topple over. She opened her eyes and saw that her page was glowing a bright, clean red. With care she lifted the page and placed it on the wall next to the bed. It fit right were she needed it to between the other spell-pages she had already laid out, creating an array of magic around the sleeping pony that would encourage her bones to knit and her flesh to heal many times faster and safer than it would have normally.

Astrid leaned over and nailed the last spell page into place, even as the others lit up with the energy of the array. "There, magic healing stuff done. Now what?"

Star Fall slumped to the floor. "Now I take a break."

Astrid shrugged, she knew how much spellcasting took out of the pegasus. "Fair enough," she sat down, golden eyes going from Star Fall to the rainbow pegasus and back again. "Okay. Now that we're done the emergency stuff, what's the big deal? You've been working all night to get those spells in place, what's so important about this girl?"

"She spoke to me," Star Fall answered, staring again at the mare. 

"Wow, Fall. No wonder you've dropped your whole life to help her. Did she want to be your friend?" the Griffin sneered.

Star Fall frowned. "Screw off, Astrid. No, she spoke to me in Old Equestrian."

"Oh, great. Nerd language. That changes everything."

"Come on, don't you realize what this means?"

Griffins couldn't snort with derision very well, beaks weren't designed for it, but Astrid made a passable attempt as she rolled her eyes. "Fall, all I'm getting out of this is that she's a member of the same egghead club as you, and you somehow think that's more important than getting home safely."

"Think about it! She crashes at a couple hundred miles an hour, survives against all odds, and the first thing she says is in an ancient, dead language. Ponies with head injuries can talk gibberish, but not fully formed ancient languages. She even asked me if I spoke 'Equestrian'. Look at her, she can't be much older than me. Where did she learn that language so well? Why? What was she doing running from the Republic? This could be important, Astrid. Really important. She could be a Republican scholar trying to defect to the Kingdom!"

"Or she could just be some random mare who happens to know an old language," Astrid said, then sighed. "I'll admit it's weird. And maybe we should be checking into it. You're the brains of this outfit, I just do the heavy lifting. You say she's important, I'll go with it, but I want you to be sure that we gotta do this before we stick our necks out for someone we don't even know."

Star Fall thought about it for a long time. She owed Astrid at least that much. "I can't ignore her," she said finally. "We have to do this, at least until I can find out more about her."

Astrid nodded. "We'll play it cool, then," she rose. "I'm gonna get us some food. There's some flowers half a mile west of here that should do you and sleeping beauty when she wakes up, but I never got to finish my rabbit, so I'm going to take care of that first."

Star Fall smiled up at her. "Thanks, Astrid."

Astrid waved her off as she went out the door. "Yeah, yeah. You just get some sleep, okay? When I get back you gotta call the Professor."

"I know," Star Fall said closing her eyes as Astrid left. 

She woke with a start some time later, she couldn't be sure how long. Astrid was still gone, and she ached from sleeping on the floor of the cabin. It took her a moment to get her bearings, but when she did she found that what had wakened her was the blue pegasus, who was thrashing about and letting out a low keening sound. It wasn't the sound of a pony in pain, but it was one of fear.

Star Fall got to her hooves slowly, stretching out her cramped muscles, and walked over to the bed. What she saw made her gasp. The mare's injuries were healing, but far, far too quickly. The bruises were already gone, and when she pulled a bandage away from one of the worse gashes her keen pegasus eyes could even see the tissues healing right in front of her. 

Panic hit her, and Star Fall desperately examined her healing array, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. This kind of healing was too much, too fast. It could only mean that something had gone horribly wrong. Yet she couldn't spot the error in her designs. She had been so careful in creating them, and as far as she could tell they were working perfectly. 

She called magic into her eyes, focusing on the flow of energy around and through the injured mare. What she saw made her gasp again, as the lines of power became clear and she saw something amazing. The magic was flowing through the blue pegasus with incredible ease, almost as freely as it did through a Magic Talent like Star Fall or her mentor. Nothing in her was resisting the flow like it would with a normal pony, her natural magic wasn't interfering. Instead her natural magic was taking the healing energy and using it, the two working together to create such unbelievable results. 

Star Fall closed her eyes and let the magic drain from them. She couldn't look at the pegasus' magic for too long, it hurt to see. It had appeared to her like  an explosion of every color imaginable, rippling through the mare's body in shockwaves of power. She had never encountered anything like it, and it was stronger than any other pegasus aura she had ever seen. Yet it was still pegasus magic, that much Star Fall was certain of. Her own aura looked more like unicorn magic, she'd been told, so this mare wasn't another pegasus Magic Talent. Instead what she was, was strong. Incredibly strong.

"Hey,” the voice shocked Star Fall out of her thoughts. She looked up to see the mare's eyes open, though they weren't focusing well. "You stuck around, cool."

Star Fall's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before she found her voice. "I want you be well," she said, hoping she was getting her pronunciation right. The mare was still using Old Equestrian. She didn't know if the mare had suffered some sort of brain damage, but it was probably a good idea to reply in the same language.

"Me too," the mare said, attempting a smile that didn't make it all the way. "I hate being cooped up in bed. Broken wings suck. Do you have any Daring Do novels I could read?"

Star Fall frowned. She wasn't sure she had caught all of that. "I not knowing Daring Do."

"Figures," the mare grumbled. "Ponyfeathers, it's hard to think. You think, maybe you could tell me where I am?"

"You are in world of night," Star Fall said.

"Well, that's nice," the mare sighed. Her eyes rolled back, and Star Fall thought she had passed out again before she refocused on the young pegasus. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Fallen Star," she replied.

"Thanks for sticking around, Star. That was totally awesome of you."

"What you name?" She asked, even as the blue mare looked to be fading out again.

The mare let out a laugh that was barely more than a sharp exhale. "You've probably ... heard of me. My name's... Rainbow... Dash," with that her eyes shut and she was sleeping again.

Star Fall blinked at the unconscious mare. It was strange, she had been right. Star Fall did recognize the name Rainbow Dash, and was one of the few who would. Only the few ponies who had the time, resources and interest to research pre-Schism history would know it. Or had a mentor who was insistent that she learn such things, even when they had nothing to do with developing her Magic Talent. So, while she had heard the name Rainbow Dash, she also knew that the legendary pegasus had been dead for well over a thousand years.



***



Hard Boiled examined another dirt wall that showed signs of impact. Hoof marks, hair, the same sort that he had been seeing all along this tunnel. This one, however, had something else on it. Blood. 

"Lieutenant! Over here!" Barry called from further down the tunnel. HB turned and trotted to the other detective, his flashlight held in his telekinetic grip. "It's a chamber, I think this is where the tunnel ends," Barry said, excited. 

HB looked down, and spotted bloody hoofprints at the place Barry was standing. "Don't move," he said.

"What?"

"You're standing in evidence," HB said, shining his light at the ground at Barry's hooves.

"Oh, Luna," Barry swore. "I didn't even notice. I swear I didn't even see it."

"Whatever, Barry, just don't move. Okay?" HB sighed, looking over Barry's back into the chamber. There was just enough room to squeeze by without contaminating the evidence any further. He called for one of the uniforms to bring the camera and start documenting, then pushed his way into the earthen chamber beyond. 

It was taller than a pony on his hind legs could reach, and it looked like it had once been a proper room, before it got buried at some point. In the centre of the room was a pedestal, like the kind they put statues on in the government buildings. It was partially buried, only a few inches of it visible above the dirt, but it looked completely intact. Right next to the pedestal was a body. An earth pony stallion, a big one. He lay in a pool of blood, some of which was still wet. His chest had been torn open. Without moving too much HB examined the rest of the room. It was mostly bare, a few remnants of ancient walls remaining, but there were bloody hoofprints leading from the pedestal to the wall, then around the room to the exit. 

HB's horn glowed with a coppery light as he cast a spell to determine what had happened. The result was strange. He couldn't tell how the stallion had died. It was like there was a wall between his magic and the event that he couldn't get around. Powerful magic. Very powerful. 

He could tell what happened afterwards though. His magic brought details sparkling to his attention as he focused on them. Movement around the pedestal. Bloody hoofprint on the dead stallion, matching the rest of the hoofprints leading away and to the exit. No sign of a murder weapon, and a pony would have to be incredibly strong to do this kind of damage with hooves alone. He thought of the impossible mare the two officers had encountered. 

As if on cue his magic focused in on something right next to him, caught in the rough edges of the tunnel. Blue feathers. Blue pegasus feathers. He motioned an officer over to document and bag the feathers. He would report this to his RIA contact, but the murder was still Orion City jurisdiction and official business. He couldn't cover this up, but it did give him valid reasons to investigate. 

He looked back at the room, trying to figure out what happened without the help of his magic. He just had too little information to go on. Once the crime scene ponies did their job he would have more to work with, but he already recognized the dead stallion. James Bay, better known as Big Jim. Trusted confederate and childhood friend of Max Cash. 

So the best friend of Max Cash winds up dead in a tunnel Cash was clandestinely digging for no known reason, likely killed by a pegasus who displayed powers far beyond what pegasi are capable of. There was another player in this, someone who wasn't the RIA or Cash. With what his officers had been saying, this could be sunlanders getting involved, and that was never a good thing. His horn was telling him he wasn't exactly right, but that he was on the right track, and it was a track he intended to follow to the end. No matter where it led.