//------------------------------//
// Chapter 15 
// Story: The Edge of Madness 
// by SaltyJustice 
//------------------------------//

	As we arrived back at my home, I thanked Midnight for all her help and tried to send her on her way.  To no surprise at all, she was not keen on returning back to the school, so I let her stay with us for a little while.  I certainly wasn't going to let her sleep here, because that would put no less than seven of us in the same house, which was probably a violation of a bunch of laws and just way too many ponies (and flamingos) in one place.
Everypony was in the living room when I came in, though it was quite late.  Minty and Squeaky were both reading physics books, I could make out 'quantum' and 'oxidizers' on the titles, but otherwise the fonts were too small.  Both looked up as we entered, and said, simultaneously, "Wow, you look like hell."  They shot each other a look before turning expectantly back to me.
"It's been one of those days," I said.  Midnight nodded.  It was probably best not to alarm them, if they'd believe me anyway.
"Did you hear about the murders at the school?  Were you there?  What happened?" Minty asked.
"Word gets around fast in this town," Midnight observed, "mind if I grab a drink?"
"Knock yourself out," Squeaky said, motioning towards the kitchen.
Fluttershy and Rainbow were both here, and both were refusing to look at me, as if I had had something to do with this.  Labamba sat between them, trying to console them.
"I checked it out myself," I said, answering Minty's questions.  "Not a normal case, and class is cancelled for a while, so I'm on filly duty until then."
"Did they really kill two ponies?" Squeaky asked.  I nodded.
"I was a few seconds short, there wasn't anything I could do by the time I got there," I said.  Nervous looks overtook their faces, Squeaky and Minty exchanged another look.
Finally, Rainbow spoke up.  "Did the boogeypony get them?" she asked.
"The what?  No, of course not, what are you talking about?" I asked her.
"I didn't see it, but Fluttershy said she did.  She said she hid and it left her alone.  We didn't go in the halls at night after that," she said.  Fluttershy was nodding, but still didn't want to look at me.  Labamba put his wing over her and squawked.
"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?  Do you know what this means?  There's a flipping monster on the loose!" I shouted, though I caught myself and calmed down before I sent Fluttershy into a panic.
"I didn't think it was real!  You know how she is," Rainbow said.
Pieces, pieces, more pieces falling into my lap.  I probably wouldn't have believed her either until now, but it fit perfectly.  Something got the fillies, did something to them, and then resumed its disguise or otherwise hid from my sight.  It would strike isolated targets, or lure them into places like the basement and go for the kill.
My head was spinning, this was all so wrong.  Fluttershy claimed to have seen it, would that have been during the break when nopony was in the school?  It moved around too, it had struck in Ponyville and possible elsewhere, or there was more than one.  This whole time I had had no damn idea, it was enough to make you throw up.
"Hey, you're out of drinks," Midnight called to us from the kitchen.
"Just use the tap there, cups are in the cabinet," Squeaky called back impatiently.
Midnight appeared at the entry to the kitchen, looking right at me.
"Is it true you're putting stuff in the drinking water?  You owe me an answer," she said.
Squeaky looked confused at that one, "Does she know about the... thing?" she said, pointing to her forehead with her book.
"Oh yeah, she's cool.  Midnight, if there was a conspiracy to drug the water supply of an entire city, I would think I would know about it," I said.  She was not accepting that answer.
"That, or you're not high up enough to be let in on it," she said.
"I'm a freaking Princess!  You don't get much higher than that," I said.
"Oh sure, because the Princess runs the government, right," she said.  I could see Minty from the corner of my eye, and she was certainly not disagreeing.
"Everypony, this is Midnight, she's a cadet from Ponyville," I told them as an introduction.  She waved.
"I installed the tap myself, there's nothing wrong with the water," Squeaky said, and that was enough for her.  Midnight disappeared and I heard the sound of the faucet squeaking.
"You know, I bet she's right.  I tried the fountain at the university, water tasted terrible," Minty said.
"The water tasting bad does not mean there's a drug in it, Minty, and besides, I think a conspiracy would do a better job about getting a tasteless additive," I said.
"No she's right, that stuff tastes awful," Squeaky said.  Rainbow nodded too.  So did Labamba.  "I don't drink it myself, I take a water bottle from the clouds here," Squeaky finished.
"I don't notice anything, and how did the conversation turn to this?  Fluttershy, can you tell me more about the boogeypony?" I asked her.  Labamba squawked again.
"He says she doesn't want to," Minty offered.
"Okay, fine, I have some letters to go write," I said.  I left Midnight in their company while I wrote up a letter to Tia to be sent that morning, when she woke up.  I would need her to analyze the cloth of fluid I had gotten, and tell her to check into color-sucking monsters that created walking corpses.  It's a good thing she trusted me, because I was sounding like a real nut now.
I saw the twins go past my door towards their bedrooms and the light in the living room get turned down.  When I got out, I saw the fillies were already in bed and Midnight was looking awkward in her beaten up cadets shirt.  I could tell she was in no hurry to leave.
"Come on, we need to get you back to the school," I said.
"Really?" she asked, looking uncertain as always.
"Midnight, right now there are two dozen terrified and confused cadets in the bunks there.  They're worried and scared because two murders got committed right under their noses and we have no idea who the killer is.  I need somepony there who can protect them, and you're the only one who can.  You've seen them, we can beat them," I said.  The confidence came back to her face, slowly inching up as he expression lightened.
"Yeah, we beat em didn't we!  Bring em on!" she said with a grin.  It was a tough front to put up, but she had to fool herself into thinking she could handle it, otherwise she'd never get any sleep.  I saw no need to dissuade her.  We flew back to the dorms tower and said goodbyes, with her promising to keep watch here for the boogeypony.  We shared a laugh, and I departed.
Sleep that night came uneasily, and I had no dreams that I could recall.  All I could make out from the fog of unconscious was a vague hostility, somewhere far away, waiting.  It could wait as long as I could, forever if it had to, for its moment.  Then it was gone.

The weeks passed uneventfully after that, though we did not relax ourselves, we had no choice but to let the enemy make the first move.  I personally trained Midnight in the techniques I had been using to fight the faceless ones, though I could tell she lacked confidence now.  It was not something practice could overcome, I hoped she would be able to face her fears when the next battle came, and it would come, though I did not know when.
Celestia had told me that the only thing on the tissue I sent was a glass-cleaning fluid, there were no traces of anything else.  Not only that, but there was no residue left at the murder scene either, I could find no traces of it on the floors where the bodies had lain.
I took to looking after Fluttershy mostly, and Rainbow whenever she felt like staying with us.  She would frequently go off on her own to do something all day and often into the night, and never felt like telling me what, where, or with who.  I was in no position to force out an answer either, it wasn't like she came back injured, and she was staying with me on a contingency basis.  If she wanted, she could leave at any time and I'd be unable to stop her, though I think she enjoyed having a warm bed to sleep on and a reliable food supply.
Fluttershy refused to speak about the so-called "Boogeypony" anymore, and would hush up whenever I mentioned it, so I gave up that line of inquiry.  She wasn't the most courageous pony under the best of circumstances, though it ate at me that there was possibly vital information right under my nose and I couldn't get to it.
Celestia had told me she was looking into other cases of this color-sucking murderer, and said she was doing so personally.  What that meant was that she wasn't getting back to me, leaving me stuck in Los Pegasus trying to hunt down a monster of which I had no description, couldn't sense normally, did not know its habits, and did not even know whether it was still around.  For all I knew, it had already moved on after the attack.
Worse, I had no idea if this was related to the bearers or not.  I had a sneaking suspicion the Boogeypony had some specific target, given its intelligence, but I was at a loss for it.  My best guess was that it was hunting down ponies who could be the bearers, though I hadn't felt anything unusual around the fillies who had been killed either.  What if it was already too late?  What if one of the ponies who was supposed to save the world had already been knocked off and I had been seconds away from stopping it?
The school remained closed, and there were no further incidents within its walls, or anywhere else in the city, come to think of it.  The entire world was quiet, my services seemed no longer needed, at least for now.  Celestia hadn't sent me any reports of outbreaks and my own senses told me nothing was amiss.  I had offered to take Fluttershy to veterinarian's lessons at the bird sanctuary, and she had jumped at the opportunity, on the condition I would stay with her since Rainbow had been more and more aloof.  When Labamba hurt his leg during one of Minty's rocket tests, Fluttershy patched him back up and had a grand old time doing it.
Squeaky's project had been advancing as the year went on, and she was constantly showing me the latest prototype of whatever.  She asked me a few times for magical assistance, but only for diagnosing what was wrong with the receiver or amplifier matrix or whatever other nonsense terms she was spouting.  I wasn't even sure what my magic was doing, she just asked me to pick things up or shake them and took away from that what she needed.
Minty's rockets would still routinely explode, but the dust was getting less annoying as she would  test them on isolated cloud banks instead of in the middle of the city, on pain of a savage beating by the rest of us should she refuse.  I didn't know what the laser-crystal thermo guidance controller did or how it worked, all I knew was that the rockets took her less and less time to rebuild and she got really excited every time they turned.
The science fair was coming up early next month, and I had made plans to take along the fillies to go see the twins' exhibits, when we received a letter from Gabby.  The same day, one of her bands was on tour and would be visiting the city, so she asked if we would have time to visit with her.  Of course I told her we would.

Finally, I received some crucial information from Celestia, as the days dragged on.  She told me had something important to investigate, but that she had also finally found Gazzo's family, or what was left of them.  He had a wife, but their daughter had died at some time in the past.  I left Fluttershy in the care of Labamba for a few days, and went to go pay my respects.  She was heartbroken upon hearing the news, but I could see tragedy was something she had gotten accustomed to, and I made sure she knew she would be taken care of.  She was with foal, I could tell, though she didn't mention it to me as we spoke.  I wondered if it was the last gift Gazzo had left for her, or perhaps it was another tragedy in the making, either way, it was no further business of mine.