A week earlier
Royal Guards station in Ponyville was usually rather calm place. Ponies in the small town rarely committed any serious crimes so the guards’ primary task was looking for lost pets or helping the tourists find their way.
This morning, however, was different. It all started with the ringing of the phone standing on the desk of Surveillance, the commandant of the Ponyville Royal Guards.
“Surveillance… Yes… Yes… What? BY DISCORD’S BALLS, HOW?”
The young Royal Guard called Short Shock, who was standing near the door of his boss’ office immediately backed away and trotted to the coffee machine, where his brother, Sharp Shock, stood, drinking his first coffee that day.
“Brace yourself, bro,” said Short Shock, “Boss just got some bad news.”
“How bad?”
“‘Discord’s balls’ bad,”
“Oh crap…” muttered Sharp Shock, spitting his coffee.
“Hey, Sharpy, what kind of foul language is that?” asked Hot Pursuit, Surveillance’s second-in-command, who was passing by.
“Boss just got “Discord’s balls” phone call,” explained Sharp Shock.
“Celestia save us…” Hot Pursuit muttered. At the same moment the door of the Surveillance’s office bursted open, and the commandant trotted to them.
“You’ll never gonna believe it! Those morons let her run away! The bucking pegasus with one functioning wing, after a year in a coma, and two years of stuffing with happy pills, and somehow she escaped those bucking shrinks!”
“Who?” asked Short Shock.
“Who?” Surveillance mocked him, “Toolsmith, of course!”
“How?” asked Hot Pursuit.
“That’s the bucking icing on the cake made of manure!” Surveillance yelled, “She killed the nurse and flew away through the window, and nopony noticed! The healthcare in this country is really…” for a moment how was looking for the right word, but then decided that no swear in Pony could fully sum up the state of the Equestrian healthcare. He sat on the nearest chair and asked:
“Can somepony bring me some coffee?”
“Give him decaffeinated, or else we’ll have to find ourselves a new boss,” Hot Pursuit muttered to Sharp Shock, who saluted and went back to the coffee machine.
“How could she fly away?” Hot Pursuit asked Surveillance, “You said she has only one good wing?”
“Yeah, one of them is, using medical terms, completely bucked up, yet, apparently, she is able to glide. After she’d woken up from a coma, they started rehabilitation and, as you can see, it went better than expected.”
“So, what are we going to do now?”
“Get the ponies to block all the roads from Ponyville. I’ll go to the hospital and look for some clues. And one more thing: bring me Twilight Sparkle, at any costs. She’ll figure something out, that’s for sure.”
***
Twilight Sparkle stopped and looked at the sign above the metal door.
“Psychiatric Ward – Secure Unit,” she read.
“Nice place,” Surveillance said, unfazed, and opened the door. Twilight still stood there, reluctant to come in.
Three years ago she was drugged and imprisoned in her own basement by the serial killer, known as Toolsmith, who was using special potion to control the minds of ponies and make them kill other ponies. Twilight was eventually rescued by Spike and Rainbow Dash, who was shot in process, but, fortunately, recovered quickly. Toolsmith, whose real name was Flitter, was severely injured and knocked into a coma by Twilight’s magic and Spike’s fire. However, a year later, she woke up and since then she became a resident of Secure Unit of the Psychiatric Ward. After a long rehabilitation she became able to walk again, but scars and burn marks served to set it stone the saga of past events.
And now she ran away. Even though Twilight knew Flitter wasn’t there, she didn’t want to enter the place she had lived for such a long time.
“C’mon, Miss Sparkle!” Surveillance urged her, seeing her zoning out, “And watch out, this unit is secure for a reason.”
She followed him. Through the open door of one of the rooms she saw a little filly, resembling Apple Bloom, playing with toy blocks with letters on them. She stopped for a moment. The filly grinned at her mischievously and came back to her blocks, arranging them to form the word “murder.”
“Sparkle!” Surveillance yelled.
Keep it together, Twilight. You’re seeing things… thought Twilight, looking at filly once more. She was much younger than Apple Bloom, and, in fact, wasn’t similar to her at all.
“What did she do?” she asked Surveillance, pointing backwards.
“Lottie? Dunno exactly, she’s not from Ponyville. But I noticed that she creeps the whole staff out,” he shrugged, as if he couldn’t believe that doctors are so fragile, “I’ve heard that when they wanted to have her teeth checked, Colgate ran away when she saw her.”
They arrived at Flitter’s former room to see Dr Tulp examining the body of a young white mare, lying in a pool of clotted blood.
“Poor filly,” he muttered, “They shouldn’t let them work here…”
“Good morning, Doctor,” said Twilight. She’d met him once, though this wasn’t a pleasant meeting: she ended up passing out.
“Oh, good morning, Ms Sparkle,” he replied, raising up his head.
“What do we have here, Doc?” Surveillance asked.
“Fight…” he said casually, “Contrary to popular belief, it’s not easy to strangle somepony, especially with bare hooves. Our inmate didn’t know that, and judging by those marks,” he pointed at the bruises around the nurse’s neck, “She tried to strangle her. But, as I said, it’s not easy to strangle somepony, especially an earth pony. She was struggling. But, as you can see, Toolsmith was lucky,” he looked at the wound on mare’s chest, and the pen lying in the pool of blood.
“She stabbed her with a pen?” Twilight shook her head in disbelief.
“Correct,” Dr Tulp smiled, but quickly came back to his usual, solemn expression, “With her own pen…”
“Too bad, they will have to write her off…” commented Surveillance, to which Twilight groaned. Even though the captain had dropped the habit of referring to the victims as "those poor bastards", his empathy was still rather low.
“Doctor,” she said, “I wondered about Flitter’s wings. Surveillance said that one of them is damaged, but she somehow flew out off the window. Is that possible?”
“Well, I’d actually examined her wing, a year ago,” Dr Tulp said, “Out of scientific curiosity, you know that I’m an expert… Nerves were a mess. They regenerate, but it’s a slow process. I even measured the level of neurotrophins… for the purposes of my research, of course. She has problems moving that wing, not to mention the fact that her bones were fractured and they grew back together a bit incorrectly. But, still, she can glide. It’s painful for her, her flight is unstable and she’s constantly at risk of spinning, but she can glide.”
“I’m gonna find the head shrink,” Surveillance said in an impatient tone, “I need to ask him some questions, like, why there are no bars in this window. You, Ms Sparkle, will examine her room and do what you do best: think.”
He left the room. Soon after, Dr Tulp levitated the nurse’s body on the stretcher, and, with the help of his assistants, they took it to the morgue.
Twilight looked around the room. There were almost no furniture there, except of the old-looking bed. She noticed the small cardboard box standing under it, and pulled it out.
There were only few things in it, an effect of ward’s rules, forbidding the inmates from having anything doctors would label as dangerous. Old newspaper cuttings, a plushie, and some photos was all Twilight found.
The cuttings (as Twilight noticed, they were torn rather than cut out of the magazines; she thought that giving a mental patient the scissors would be at least careless) were mainly articles about the process of the Toolsmith. Twilight felt shivers course down her spine when she saw the courtroom sketch of herself. Some cuttings were the sport news; one article was an interview with Rainbow Dash just after she joined the Wonderbolts.
Most of the photos were depicting Flitter and her friends: Parasol, Thunderlane, Krissy, even Rainbow Dash. Seeing happy faces of those ponies, of which two were now dead and one, disabled and insane, ran away from the asylum, made Twilight shiver.
“I think one’s missing,” someone said, causing Twilight to jump on the bed. She turned back to see a cream-coloured nurse.
“What do you mean?”, unicorn asked.
“She had the favourite one, with her sister, taken on the day Cloudchaser became a Wonderbolt trainee. And I see her bow is also missing, it was always in that box too.”
“Oh… thank you, Ms…”
“Golden Heart,” she said, “I was kinda Flitter’s friend…”
“Oh…” said Twilight, trying not to look at the blood on the floor, “That must be hard for you, she killed your colleague…”
“Yes…” replied the nurse flatly, “Yes… that’s hard,” she awkwardly backed away and trotted somewhere, leaving Twilight staring blankly at the door.
***
“So, do you have something?” Surveillance asked, when they were heading to the ward’s entrance.
“Not much. She probably took only her bow and a photo of her and her sister,” said Twilight, “She was collecting cuttings about her process and some sport news.”
“I’ll tell my Cloudsdale counterpart to visit her sister. You know, every fugitive needs few basic things, like money, food or shelter, and they often look for family’s help.”
“We’ll also have to talk to the nurse Golden Heart. I think she’s hiding something…”
“Well, good luck with that one. Golden Heart was the name of the nurse who was killed,”
“What? But… I talked to her, just few minutes ago…”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here?”
“I mean, not to the dead nurse, to the other one, who introduced herself as Golden Heart…”
“Short, cream-coloured? Soon-to-be ex-head of this ward warned me that they have a patient, whose favourite stunt is to pretend a nurse… He said that she was quite close to our dear Toolsmith.”
“Just great… So, what will we do now?”
“Wait. She’s on a run from nine hours. Average hoof speed over uneven ground barring injuries is 4 miles an hour and that gives us a radius of 36 miles. Probably less, as she needed to rest. My ponies are searching every hay stack, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. If she even made it to Cloudsdale or elsewhere, we’ll find her soon.”
***
8 hours earlier
Rainy Water was standing near his chariot below Cloudsdale, smoking a cigarette. It was almost one o’clock in the morning, and soon he’d make his last course to the pegasi town.
Pegasi were barely noticing Rainy Waters, as most of them preferred to go back to their home town using their own wings. However, for earth ponies, unicorns and those pegasi who were too young, drunk or drugged to fly, Rainy Waters’ chariot was the only way to get to Cloudsdale.
Just when he thought that he’d have to make his last flight with an empty chariot, he saw somepony walking down the road.
“Good evening,” he said, “Or good morning, if you like.”
“Hello,” the mare said, appearing in the light of the torch.
“Sweet Luna, what happen’d to ya?” the cigarette fell off his mouth. The newcomer’s fur was almost completely burned, she was limping, and although she was trying to keep her right wing in a proper position, it kept lowering itself to the ground, twitching occasionally.
“I, umm… had an accident,” she explained, “I saved two foals from the fire, but I got burned when I was running away.”
“You’re a hero then!” he exclaimed, “I rarely carry heroes in my chariot nowadays… This world is really…”
“Yeah,” she said modestly, lowering her gaze to the ground.
“Why are you wearing this bow?” Rainy Waters asked.
“One of the foals gave it to me, and I decided to keep it. How much do I pay?”
“For you, it’s on the house,” he said, helping her to take a seat in a chariot, “My brother has a foal too. Oh wait, she’s not a foal anymore, she’s sixteen, I think. I keep forgetting,” he laughed. “He had a hard time raising her, he and his wife also pull the chariots, but long distance ones…” He looked at his passenger, who was nodding off, and took off in the air.
“And three years ago there was that case with the Toolsmith,” he noticed that the mare twitched, but thought that she was just looking for the most comfortable position, “He never told me what happened that day when she ran away from our parents’ 50th anniversary… Crazy filly, really… But they found her in the same district where that guy was killed.”
“I remember that,” said the mare and yawned, “It was about that time when I was wounded. I lived in Fillydelphia at that time.”
“Then you probably haven’t heard how everything ended… They said she’s crazy and locked her in a loony bin. Back in my days they’d hang her…” he turned back to see his passenger sleeping, so he shrugged and focused on the flight.
***
The chariot landed gently on a cloud. Rainy Water stopped and woke up his passenger.
“Do you want me to drive you home, madam?” he asked.
“No, thanks. It’s not far away,” she replied.
“Ok. Goodnight then.”
“Goodnight.”
For a moment he watched her walk away, but soon flew home. The mare double-checked if there was no one in sight and trotted to the small house at the end of the street. Memories flooded her, but she shook them off and checked the cloud near the front door – the spare key, as always, was there. She opened the door, entered the dark room and went upstairs. She remembered exactly which room belonged to her sister. Six steps, and she was in front of the door with an old Wonderbolts poster on it. She smiled and went inside.
A room was quite messy, more than she remembered from her past. Several medicine boxes and an empty bottle of Applejack Daniels were scattered around the floor and a nightstand. Cloudchaser was lying on the bed, snoring. She was a bit skinnier than three years ago, but apart of that she hadn’t changed much.
“Hello, sister,” Flitter said. Cloudchaser raised her head quickly, looking around half-consciously, before her eyes focused on the pony’s silhouette in front of her. For a moment Flitter thought that she was going to scream, but instead she said calmly:
“I’m dreaming again. This is not happening.”
“No, sis, it’s me!”
“You’re not my sister. My sister died three years ago.”
“What?” Flitter exclaimed, “’Chaser… I ran away from the hospital…”
Cloudchaser raised on her bed, as if she’d just woken up. She looked at her sister with disbelief.
“Why did you came here? Three years…” she snapped, and suddenly pushed Flitter off the bed. The crippled pegasus hissed when she hit the floor, injured wing first.
“YOU! How dare you coming to me after… after everything! DO YOU KNOW WHAT I’VE BEEN THROUGH AFTER I FOUND OUT THAT MY SISTER IS A SERIAL KILLER? Three years… nightmares, therapy…”
“I’m sorry, sis,” Flitter said, “You must understand that I…”
“There’s nothing to understand here! You’re insane! You killed those ponies, ruined my life and you think “sorry” will be enough?” Cloudchaser sat on the bed, her voice trembling, “Every day I was convincing myself that you died. That Toolsmith killed you. I wanted to remember you as an innocent pony, my dearest little sister. Not what you became now. That’s why I’ve never visited you.”
Flitter was barely listening to her, lost in her thoughts. Finally, she asked:
“Is he here?”
“Who?”
“Cloud Counter, of course!”
“No, he’s not here, and you should really…”
“He dumped you? Son of a…”
“No, I dumped him. The next day after you were caught,” Cloudchaser’s voice cracked.
“Where’s he?”
“Just listen to yourself! You ran away from a bucking hospital and first thing you want to do is to kill someone, who never did anything wrong to you? Really, my sister is dead. She’d never do such a thing.”
“He cheated on Parasol and Krissy,” said Flitter coldly.
“THEY’RE DEAD TOO!” Cloudchaser snapped, “BECAUSE OF YOU, IF YOU DON’T REMEMBER!”
“I’m sorry, sister.”
“I told you that “sorry” is not enough!”
“No, not for that…” suddenly Flitter raised from the floor with an empty bottle in her hoof. Before Cloudchaser could react, she was hit with it. She fell off her bed, spreading her wings to regain balance, but Flitter hit her again, this time with a bare hoof, rendering her unconscious.
“I’m really sorry, ‘Chaser,” the scarred pony muttered, tears flowing from her eyes.