Twilight turned around slowly to see who was behind her, feeling her fight-or-flight instincts kicking in. It was the same masked stallion from Bonbon’s house. She didn’t know how he got in or how Fluttershy didn’t notice, but he was most definitely a threat.
But before Twilight or the assailant could do anything a blur of yellow and pink tackled the masked offender. Twilight watched as Fluttershy started to clobber while yelling words of pure mental anguish as she continued to pummel him.
“YOU FILTHY MOTHERFUCKER! YOU AND YOUR FACELESS FRIEND KEEP HURTING ME AND MY BELOVED PETS! NOW YOU ARE HURTING MY FRIEND?!? WHAT IN CELESTIA'S FLANKS IS WRONG WITH YOU?" She continued to trample him, causing swells under the mask with dark red blood to seep out under his mask.
A purple glow enveloped the raging pegasus mare, it soon lifted her up and slammed her against the wall. Twilight walked over to her with her still glowing horn and looked directly into her eyes. “DO YOU WANT TO COMMIT AN ACT OF MARE-SLAUGHTER?!”
“N-no I don't, h-he is one of the ones t-that hurt us..hurt the animal, hurt Spike!” Fluttershy squeaked as a response as Twilight was roughly punching her in the chest.
“Don’t talk about Spike!” she yelled as she glared down at her. Then the stallion in the corner slowly picked himself back up with blood still leaking from his mask and tried to charge at Twilight again, but this time she was able to telepathically shove him against the wall.
She held him there with pure rage and tried to approach him slowly, but then the ringing came again. She let go of him and slowly turned her head while still wincing in pain and saw some manta black tendrils stretching their way up the stairs. The 2 mares knew what this thing was and froze as the Tall Mare appeared in a mere blink of an eye in front of the door. Twilight’s camera was still on and she from the recordings viewed the audio was a garbled mess with the visuals being a staticy grey scale. Before the mares could even make the slightest of noise or reactions, the mare was gone, and the midday was now midnight in a mere matter of seconds. Both Fluttershy and Twilight looked around with shock and confusion as their mind tried to process the sudden change in time. Then Twilight remembered the stallion and turned around and saw he was already gone.
“D-did we just get time skipped??” Asked Fluttershy as she gave Twilight a long exhausted stare.
“Well….It appears we did, but luckily one of our suspects is going to be clearly injured thanks to your outrage.” Twilight said the last part in a snarky tone as she gave The Element of kindness a side-eye.
“Oh be quiet! I was only doing that to save your flanks! Not to mention I didn't know how he snuck in.” Fluttershy retorted giving a scowl
“Ok that's certainly very interesting, that lanky fucker must have had help with that, considering we saw her use that weird version of a teleportation spell. Better yet how does this thing even use that magic? Never in my life have I seen another thing besides the princess and Discord use such complex magic, meaning this thing’s methods of using magic could be very much different than ours and possibly alien.” Twilight trailed off as the analytical part of her mind speculated the very nature of the entity’s metaphysical abilities.
“Soo what now?” As soon as Fluttershy asked this question there was a long pause that filled the room. Truth be told neither of the mares knew what to do after what just happened. Twilight was still deadset on finding spike and finding bonbon, while Fluttershy was much more confused and not as filled in as twilight was.
“Maybe we should team up in order to help each other find out what we are dealing with?” asked Twilight, feeling just as confused as Fluttershy.
“Yeah, maybe we can pin who's a follower of the creature and look deeper into their personal connections.”
Twi nodded in response and then looked at where the hard drives were and saw they were untouched. “Huh, they just left those alone? I guess they wanted us to continue viewing them anyways.
“Hmm yeah, also can you inform me of how far is your investigation in the morning?” Fluttershy responded.
Twilight pondered that question for a while looking at Fluttershy questioningly. “By my standards we’ve gotten pretty far, well I mean. I got pretty far on this investigation, while you’ve just begun. What I’ve learned is that this creature has been seen by Princess Luna. I know this because Luna came to me in a dream and told me about said creature. I also found out this creature can have your dreams as well. I don’t know why it takes children or what it’s motives are or if it has attributes that folklore doesn’t really comprehend. “
“Meaning, you only have the basics down.” interjected the Butteryellow pegasus while wearing a frown and tilting her head in a puzzled manner.
Twilight sighed and nodded her head as she accepted this as a truth and sat her haunches down at the chair near the computer. “Exactly. That’s why I need someone, who is not the second diarch of Equestria, to help me. So, how is your encounter doing?”
“Well, from those logs you rudely read without my permission, I’ve only been encountering Miss Slendy for about half of this week. AKA three days. And what’s today? It’s Friday. Actually, on second thought that isn’t half the week that’s more just three days. Anyways back on topic, I’ve only just started to notice the Tallmare after my pets got sick. I knew she was watching me. Or it. Or they. Or whatever the hell. It had been watching me and I could tell some of my customers had been acting abnormally to say the least. Same symptoms just almost psychological mood swings acting up. So hear me out. This is my theory. This is connected to the Tallmare. I say this because my pets have probably come close to said mare and I could not even find the singlest of germs in their bloodstreams. I’ve looked. So in closing, it must be some sort of magical energy, which you Twilight should know.”
Twilight just looked at Fluttershy, as she went on telling her story, with her mouth gaping open at the sudden proposal that the unexpectedly smart nurse had come up with. “Um sorry Fluttershy, but I’m afraid that the new detail you pointed out just adds more questions than answers to this mystery.”
“Oh... Ok, I’m sorry about that. It’s getting late. I have a spare room if you want it. It’s better to stay safe in company than alone, you know?”
“Yeah, I know where you’re coming from Fluttershy. I will talk to you in the morning and probably plan and do some investigation of my own later which you can join if you want to.” Twilight offered while heading to a clearly labeled guest bedroom while looking back at Fluttershy.
“Sure, just tell me when you’re leaving.”
And thus the two new allies slept in their separate rooms and dreamt of their morning to come, but in their sleep there was somepony. Somepony, so thrown out from society that he was driven made before he even left. Of course he didn’t kill them. Yet. He still knew that there was that strange feeling still haunting him. Plus he didn’t really like the city folk calling him the Sonofcantalot Killer, but he’d rather go by his own name: the Painted Smile.