"So, when did they give you that badge?" I asked Midnight as we flew towards the far northern side of the city. I knew she had it around a week ago, but she hadn't been wearing it at all, just her beat-up old cadet's shirt.
"About two weeks ago, but I'm still technically on probation, because of the school thing," she said.
"You just needed weapons training, and that was it?" I asked.
"Yep, couldn't get it in Ponyville. I think that's the plant up there," she said, as the clouds parted and we saw a series of pure white buildings with huge circular tanks in them. There were about a dozen tanks sitting on one end of the cloud the buildings were on, with huge pipes connecting them to something in the main complex. I could also make out a loading dock, with a number of clouds attached to the floatstone by tether cables, probably for processing.
As we approached, the only thing I could hear was the gentle whisper of the wind, no talking. I couldn't see any ponies going about their business down there either, the plant was probably deserted because today was a holiday. There were probably a few ponies inside, a skeleton crew to keep things running, but the rest were likely going to watch the parade downtown.
We landed on the side nearest the loading dock, the cloud pieces casting long shadows as the Sun started going down earlier and earlier each day. Winter would be upon us very soon, there was a mild chill in the air now, where it had been hot hours before.
"Why'd you pick this creepy place?" Midnight asked me as I ambled over to a sign marked, "Warning, hardhat area ahead!".
"Call it a hunch," I said. I pushed on the door but it was locked. Nothing stays locked for long, not to the mighty Princess Amoria!
I was about to smash the door open, because that would have been dramatic and made me look like an action hero, when Midnight walked up and pulled on it. She gave me a disapproving look as it opened, because it was a pull door and not a push. I'm an idiot, I admit it.
Inside, all the lights were off, but fortunately, the lack of any observers meant I could use a light spell and get away with it. My light was a pale glow amongst the darkened corridors, I tried to dampen it but it was difficult to control. With a bit of effort I got the light to be just as intense, but more focused, like a flashlight, and that was about as good as I was going to get it.
We padded down the corridors, aimlessly. Midnight looked bored, but I was on edge, because I knew there was something here, I just didn't know what. Perhaps we were meant to find another body, as a taunt, but no matter, I needed to be ready.
Suddenly I heard the sound of somepony walking, and fairly close to us. It was odd, because I hadn't heard them walking at a distance, nor could I see their light from around the corner. It was peculiar, and I instinctively cancelled my light spell.
"Hey, what'd you do that for?" Midnight whispered to me. It was almost pitch black as I heard the hoof-falls get closer. There were definitely not a lantern present, whoever it was could see in the dark, and I realized that we would not be hidden by blackness.
"In here, quick!" I hissed, picking a spot where I knew there was a door, a few inches away. I tapped it and it opened, though I could not see it, and I had no idea what had been on the other side. I hadn't checked the door's label before I turned the light off.
My eyes were beginning to adjust to the gloom, but I could still only see the outlines of things. I closed the door as quietly as I could and tapped Midnight on the shoulder so I knew where she was. "Quiet," I said in the lowest whisper I could muster. She said nothing.
The air grew thick around us as we waited in what was probably a broom closet, though just large enough for us both to stand. I heard the hoofsteps get closer and closer, until they seemed to be standing just on the other side of the door. I heard Midnight hold her breath, and I did so myself, and the total silence around us reminded me again of what Squeaky would always say: What was not happening?
Breathing. Midnight and I weren't breathing, but I should have been able to hear it on the other side of the door. I couldn't, whatever it was wasn't breathing.
I held my breath for close to a minute before I heard the steps continue down the hallway, and we waited for far longer before I pushed open the door and dared to step out. Nothing reacted, and I cast my light spell again. The hall was empty, Midnight stepped past me and kept going down the corridor with me following just behind. Clearly this was no time for conversation, and her face no longer betrayed boredom.
I didn't know where we were going or what we were looking for, but now I knew there was something here. We wandered around the building, aimlessly checking corridors all marked for the storage of various machines I could only guess at, before we happened upon a set of offices. Names marked in wood adorned the doors, which had opaque glass covers. I was drawn to what I thought was the faint orange glow of a lantern behind one of the doors, as we got closer I was reminded of what had happened earlier in the basement, so I drew my sword to prepare for the worst.
The glow was coming from inside an office, but the light was too low to make out what the name on the door was, as I cancelled my spell to avoid giving us away. I nodded to the outline of Midnight as we took up positions on either side of the door, and counted to three quietly.
On the count of three, we burst into the room, Midnight slamming the door open and I, leaping in with blade drawn.
Inside was a very bewildered old pony looking at pieces of paper on the desk, no doubt terrified at the two armed mares suddenly in his office.
"Wha-who are you?" he asked, and in the dim light I could only see his mouth and the very edges of his face.
"I'm asking the questions around here! Who are you?" I asked back.
"All right, you've got me. My name is Eddy, and I broke in. No need to get violent, I'll come quietly," he said, and as he did, he moved into the light and I could see his face. He wasn't lying, it was certainly him.
"Midnight, open that skylight," I said. Had Eddy been the murderer? After all, he had been present both before and after my basement encounter, and being staff at the school meant he'd have access to every victim. Perhaps I was wrong, maybe he just looked like Erdrick. One way to find out.
Midnight opened the skylight and let what was left of the evening Sun into the office. The illumination showed me with my very-much visible horn.
Eddy didn't speak, his eyes went wide and he just stared at me in disbelief. Some time elapsed before he spoke again, and his voice now betrayed his true accent again.
"Princess, but how can sis be?" he asked, then he coughed. "Did you find a cure for aging? If so, please tell me se secret."
"Sorry to do this to you Erdrick, but I had to make sure I could trust you. Why are you here? What's your connection to all this?" I asked.
"Do you two know each other?" Midnight asked as she landed and shut the door behind us.
"You could say sat, yes," Erdrick said, "Take a look at sis."
He pointed to the paper that sat before him on the desk, and spun it around so I could look at it. It was an inventory list, an invoice of various chemicals they purchased for use at the plant, but it didn't look out of place to me. Chlorine, fluorine, calcium, bromine, tellurium, these were all just names to me, I had no idea what they meant.
"So, is this unusual?" I asked.
"I have been on sis trail for a very long time, and I can tell you it is very unusual. Look at sis, five-hundred tons of ground up apatite, is sat not far too much for sis place?" he asked me.
Midnight spoke up, "That sounds like a lot, but that's for the whole city. Maybe that's not so much?" she asked.
"Maybe, but according to sese records, sere was no apatite in use before a year ago. Suddenly, see plant gets a new administrator, and sese orders start, yes? And sis administrator, he comes from out of town, to replace the old one," Erdrick said.
"What happened to the old one?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Vanished," he said.
"Furzer, see see company sat it comes from?" he pointed at another invoice, with labels for the various chemicals and numbers of bits, probably corresponding to how much they cost. The label next to the apatite read, "TB Industries".
"Am I supposed to know what that means?" I asked him. He shook his head.
"Sey are a front, Princess, please believe me. See ponies who do this, I have known of them for decades, and always they do strange things I cannot explain. Sey hide semselves, too, but why? Nosing illegal, but still hidden. Sis time, they are doing somesing to see water," he said. Midnight gasped.
"I knew it!" she practically shouted. I waved a hoof at her to quiet her down, and she checked the hallway through the glass on the door. No movement.
I hadn't even heard of this, any of this. How long had Erdrick been doing this? Since I met him? Earlier? How was all of this connected?
Just then, a little bell sound played from somewhere, it carried through the entire building. I looked up to see a speaker nestled in the corner of the room, an intercom, though I hadn't noticed any others in the dark. This was a very modern building to be hooked up as such, those are expensive, as I recall. The bell sound played again, lower this time, with a crackling sound of interference underneath it.
A voice spoke, though I had never heard it before.
"Could Princess Amoria and her little fan club please report to filtering station three? Amoria to filtering station three. please," the voice said. The intercom went silent again.
"See building is supposed to be empty for see holiday..." Erdrick muttered.
With no further need to hide, the three of us made our way down to the filtering station. It was easy to find, as there were signs on the walls with arrows that lead us to it. The station was one of the large buildings I had seen from the air, circular with a big vat of water in the middle and pipes leading in and out. When we entered, I noticed the skylight had been opened, whereas it hadn't been when we were coming in.
A quick recon showed the room to be empty, certainly no ponies inside, but I remained on edge. Whoever was doing this knew we were here, and could well have set a trap for us.
Erdrick, despite his advanced age, was as spry as a young buck, and flew up onto the catwalk that ran over the vat in the center. I followed, and I got a good look at the room as I did.
There was a catwalk made of steel with railings that ran around and over the vat, as well as a lifting crane on one side. Next to the crane were a number of bags with chemical labels on them, no doubt they were too heavy to hoist and needed the crane to get them into the vats. There was a control room in one corner which had no ground entrance, perhaps the regulators hadn't bothered to make it earth-pony accessable since this was an industrial area.
Erdrick looked around on the catwalk, and surveyed the water as well, but it looked like normal water to me. He then took interest in the control room and flew over to it, while I went down to check the chemical bags as Midnight had taken an interest in them.
"What's in these bags?" I asked her, she was studying them closely.
"This is that apatite stuff, it's a fine white powder," she said. Some had spilled on the floor next to it.
Suddenly the vat started making a loud whirring noise, and it was so loud it became impossible to talk. Midnight followed my lead as we flew up to the control room to see Erdrick looking dumbfounded at the levers and switches. The din was just dampened enough that I could yell at him and still be understood.
"What did you do? Turn that off!" I shouted. He shrugged.
"I touched nosing, it did sis by itself!" he shouted back.
"Look!" Midnight shouted, and poked me in the head. All three of us turned to look out the interior window of the control room, giving us a view of the top of the vat, as a pony clad in a white labcoat walked out onto the catwalk. I hadn't seen him come in, nor had I seen him before.
He turned to us and smiled, and as he did, the machine stopped for a moment and the room became quiet again. He then spoke, but it was not a stallion's voice, but a mare's. Very low, but still definitely not his own voice.
"Princess, and what a surprise, Erdrick! So glad you could find out all about my plan just in time to fail to stop it," he/she said. The grin came back, as I struggled to place the voice he was speaking in. I had heard it before somewhere...
"Look at his eyes," Midnight said. I did as she asked. They were unfocused, like he wasn't actually looking at us, just looking in our general direction.
"Who are you? What plan?" I shouted out the window at him. He just kept smiling, as the machines whirred to life again and the room became deafening.
He looked down into the vat, then back up at us one last time, before pitching himself over the side.
In an instant, I had bolted out the door and flew atop the vat, but I was far too late. The machines in here were some sort of stirring device, using a metallic net to move the water around. I could also see a tube connected to the feeding device at the top of the vat, and I guessed that the chemicals were fed into the water and stirred into it here. As a result of these enormous mechanisms, the pony's body had been destroyed utterly, it was like he had been ground into powder and dissolved in the water. I couldn't even make out any bones, it was like he had been made of fluid.
And with that, I had finally deduced the Boogeypony's plan, just in time to fail to stop it.