• Published 15th Mar 2017
  • 5,190 Views, 319 Comments

Twilight the Third - MagnetBolt



The most wanted mare in Equestria, Twilight Sparkle is the greatest thief in the world. As she follows in the hoofsteps of her grandmother, she's joined by friends and chased by family, all while trying to make a few bits!

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Open Fire! - The Sun Sets on Stalliongrad

The funny thing about detective stories is that they always start with a mare.

Ponies think that the least realistic part of pulp fiction is that a detective can just tell at a glance if somepony was a liar or a killer or just plain old trouble. The truth is that if you want to live long in this business, you figure that out pretty quickly for yourself and learn to trust your gut instincts.

The thing that's really unrealistic about those stories is that a beautiful mare walks into the office and throws herself at the private dick. Maybe that's true for the independently employed, but when you're the Captain of the Guard, beautiful mares tend to be intercepted by the sergeant on duty, and I have to deal with ponies who are screaming and angry.

Today was a red letter day. I had a beautiful mare in my office, and she wasn't trying to kill me yet. Unfortunately, those red letters spelled Trouble and in Canterlot, Trouble went by the name of Sunset Shimmer.

"And what can I do to help you, Miss Shimmer?" I said, shuffling paperwork and putting it between us. It wasn't that I was afraid of her. I'd just never had an encounter with her that ended well. I'd tried looking into her past at one point and there were entire years with no trace of her at all, classified to such a high level that she might as well have vanished from Equestria.

"Grand Magus Shimmer," Sunset corrected. A golden scepter floated over the paperwork, the top a sculpt of her own smiling face.

Tradition demanded that ponies meeting the Grand Magus kiss the scepter, like kissing the ring of a mafia boss or not kissing the head of the garbage-collector's guild at all. Not wanting to start this off on the wrong hoof, I kissed it. It helped that she didn't look smug about it. She just looked tired and overworked, an expression that I'd seen in the mirror more often than not.

"I need all the information you have on Twilight Sparkle, Captain Armor," the Grand Magus said, stowing the scepter among the bits and bobs hanging from her saddlebags.

The request made me freeze up for a moment, my expression betraying nothing. I hoped it betrayed nothing, anyway. Having to keep a straight face at formal dinners with Cadance whispering things in my ear had trained me to keep my expression as stony as the marble floor - and it was definitely like the floor because it had to hold up while ponies walked all over me.

"I don't think the activities of the Royal Guard come under the purview of the Grand Magus," I said, carefully. I felt like a pony trotting across a minefield, every word a step into the unknown.

"They don't, usually," Sunset said. The way she said it indicated that this could change rapidly depending on how well I cooperated. "I don't care about all of that." She motioned with her chin to the corkboard I'd filled with Twilight's exploits, string connecting them to potential leads.

"Then what do you care about?"

"I need to find her," Sunset said. "Magus business."

That made my coat practically stand on end. Magus business meant one thing. Dark magic. I wanted to put Twilight in jail, but a pony practicing dark magic wouldn't go to jail - they'd end up in Tartarus, assuming they even lived long enough to be thrown in there.

"I'm going to need more than just 'Magus business.'" I said, sitting back in my chair. "There's paperwork that has to be filled out, potentially a legal hearing if confidential or private information has to be turned over-"

Sunset slid a thin sheet of paper across my desk. I didn't need to read the fine print, just the signature at the bottom and the seal stamped next to it. The Princess had given her a golden ticket to take whatever she wanted. I shouldn't have been surprised. They were close. If the rumors were true, they'd only gotten closer since Sunset had stopped being a student and stepped into the role of Grand Magus. It was one of the few things Cadance wouldn't discuss with me, and depending on what pony you asked you'd get one of a hundred stories.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and counted to ten before saying anything.

"The Royal Guard will of course be happy to assist with your inquiries-"

"No," Sunset said. "I don't need or want your help. No offense, Captain Armor, but this place is as leaky as a wineglass made of cheesecloth, and I have reason to believe it goes right to the top."

She looked at me with a flat, level gaze that was somehow even worse than if she'd just been accusing me of something.

"Are you calling me incompetent?" I asked, standing up and resisting the urge to throw her out of my office. Part of me knew that it wouldn't end well for me. They never did find all the pieces of the baby dragon.

"For your sake I hope it's just incompetence," Sunset said. "There's no law against that. There are laws about assisting criminals and helping them evade arrest, though."

"I want my sister in prison more than anypony else."

"I believe you," Sunset said. "I really do. But you're also a very kind pony, according to my research."

That sent another chill down my spine. You never wanted the Grand Magus to do research on you. It meant you were, as they said, an 'individual of interest'. Ponies they were interested in tended to regret being interesting.

"Do you know where she is?" Sunset asked, very directly.

"No," I replied, honestly. When she was lying low, Twilight was a difficult mare to find. "If I knew where she was I'd have half the Royal Guard surrounding the place."

Sunset nodded, walking over to the corkboard and examining it with a careful eye.

"You're dismissed."

"This is my office," I pointed out.

"It is," she said. "And you are dismissed. There are other cases you can chase. Or you could spend time with Cadance. Celestia has given me authority to gently remind you that you have a considerable amount of vacation time saved up. Your little cruise barely scratched the surface." A cyan aura made the cut-out newspaper article about Blueblood's disastrous proposal flutter in an unseen wind. Twilight hadn't even been mentioned in the papers, the scandal more than enough to fill the front page on its own.

"I'll go find something else to do," I said, trying not to growl at being kicked out of my own office.

"I'm sure you'll find something productive. Don't let me detain you."

I was starting to hate that phrase. I'd heard it too many times lately.



Episode 14
Open Fire! - The Sun Sets on Stalliongrad


Cadance lived in the palace. For the last few years she'd only maintained an apartment in the main keep, but after Blueblood's disastrous attempt at blackmailing a fashion designer, he had abandoned his estates in Canterlot and gone to his summer home in Prance to wait for ponies to forget his shame.

That had left his small (by castle standards, but still a mansion by anypony's reckoning) estate on palace grounds empty, and his servants unemployed. Celestia had gifted them to Cadance, and most ponies considered this to be a vast improvement over the prior tenant. The servants, especially.

I walked in on Cadance practicing painting. One of her maids was posing on a footstool, Cadance looking between her and the canvas she was working on. She was frozen in the middle of cleaning a window, the light and shadow in stark contrast.

"When you come here in the middle of the day it's never with good news," Cadance noted, not looking back at me. Today she was painting in loose, wet watercolors, an impressionistic work of thick lines and touches of spreading color. She'd told me once that painting had been the least destructive way she'd found of practicing telekinesis.

"I got kicked out of the Guard offices by Sunset Shimmer," I said. Cadance's control was excellent. She didn't flinch and ruin the linework she was building up, nor did she put the paintbrush right through the canvas. Instead she carefully pulled back from what she was working on and put the brush down.

"Thank you for modeling for me, Miss Brush," Cadance said. The maid looked at me and then back to Cadance and nodded, understanding implicitly that Cadance wanted some privacy. She left the room quickly, shutting the door behind her.

"Sorry. I shouldn't bring her up," I said.

"I'd be a terrible marefriend if I couldn't handle listening to your day," Cadance said. "And it doesn't upset me. She just..." Cadance trailed off. "It's complicated, and before you and I met. I'm guessing this is about Twilight?"

"Did you learn to read minds while I was signing requisition forms? Even my Sergeants aren't as sharp as you."

"Twilight is a powerful unicorn, a criminal, and practically untrained. It's exactly the kind of thing that would catch her attention." She sighed and lowered her voice. "These days, anyway."

"I just wish I knew why."


I found out why the next morning, over what should have been a pleasant breakfast with Cadance. I was halfway through eggs (covered in ketchup) and toast (covered in butter) when the paper was delivered to the table by a smiling maid, who almost swooned when Cadance thanked her.

Right across the front page of the Canterlot Post, the clue was delivered to me with a subtlety that was could only be matched by a bat with nails in it.

STALLIONGRAD MAUSOLEUM RAIDED

A massive stone structure was pictured on the front, surrounded by ponies with the stoic look that all guards everywhere quickly learned to master, and a roped off section where, just visible, was a broken door.

"Oh no," I whispered.

"What's wrong, Shiny?" Cadance craned her head to look at the paper over my shoulder. I turned it so she could read it more easily.

"This has to be connected. It's exactly the kind of thing Twilight would do! Nopony gets hurt if you rob from the dead. But maybe Sunset thinks she's doing some kind of... of... necrobubba!"

"Necromancy," Cadance corrected.

"Huh?"

"The word is-" Cadance sighed. "Never mind, dear. I guess I'll cancel your dinner plans, then? We were going to eat with your parents."

I stood up. "I need to get to Stalliongrad."


Of all the cities in all of the world, none was as beautiful as Canterlot. I was reminded of this very strongly as the train pulled into Stalliongrad, which had heard about beauty once from a passing tourist and beaten him with a grey, humorless brick until he confessed that of course Stalliongrad was much nicer looking than Canterlot, especially if somepony would please stop hitting him about the head with masonry.

I could see a lot of the city from the train car's streaked, dirty window, and at the same time I felt like I wasn't seeing anything at all. Everything blurred together from the sameness. Ponies wrapped up in winter clothing so tightly that you couldn't see their coat colors walked down streets that were hidden under snow. They shuffled from one identical grey building to another, everything anonymous.

It was the perfect place to hide. And if I was very lucky, it would be the perfect place to find somepony. The train pulled to a stop in a station that was the same as the last two stations I'd seen, save that the sign at this one indicated that I was at my destination in the blocky, oddly twisted letters that they used in Stalliongrad. It was some kind of holdover from immigrants from an ancient, vanished empire. I wasn't really a student of history, so they were less a fascinating bit of culture and more another annoying difficulty.

Part of me expected to be ambushed as soon as I'd gotten off the train. It had happened more than once when I was chasing after Twilight and somepony else caught wind of it. For somepony who was going around breaking the law, the law ended up spending an awfully large amount of time and effort trying to keep her from being killed.

I pushed into the crowd, pulling my jacket tighter around me, and considered my options. Technically, I was on leave. I couldn't officially request permission to go after Twilight without alerting Sunset Shimmer, and then I'd probably be forbidden to interfere. She'd been the one to suggest leave, though, and there wasn't a law against visiting Stalliongrad in your spare time.

Not to say that there shouldn't have been a law against it. Nopony should have to live in a place where the river had icebergs and the bay was only passable to ships three months out of the year.

I'd gone a few blocks before I realized I was being followed. Most ponies wouldn't have noticed. As a people, we tended to look down at the ground when we were walking, especially when there was rain or snow. The oldest trick in the book for following somepony was to do it from above. You got a better view and they weren't likely to spot you unless, of course, you were trying to sneak up on a pony with razor-sharp senses and catlike reflexes like yours truly.

I tried not to look like I'd seen it. Had to be a pegasus, and the glimpse I'd caught made him look huge. I didn't want to scare him off, so I kept my pace nice and even and walked into an alleyway. They'd have to follow if they wanted to keep tabs on me.

Now, even the best ponies make mistakes, and in my defense, everypony more or less looked identical with their winter clothing on. I was so focused on keeping my attention on the sky without actually looking like I'd noticed the pony pursuing me that I didn't notice that I was being followed at ground level until very large ponies blocked off both ends of the alleyway I'd walked into. For most ponies this would be a fatal blunder.

When they pulled out hoofblades, I realized that it was possible this was also going to be a fatal blunder for me.

A hail of crossbow bolts from above caught one of the thugs and made the others dive for cover. I looked up to see what I had thought was a pony was in fact a griffon, using her claws to hang onto the cracked concrete of the wall like a big, winged spider.

"Gilda?" I blinked. I recognized my sister's most loyal partner in crime even with the thick coat and scarf.

"I thought you could take care of yourself," Gilda said. She reloaded and took aim at the other end of the alleyway, but the thugs were already fleeing. She lowered her weapon and dropped to the cobblestones, the narrow alley and long fall something that would have been dangerous for a pony but significantly less so for someone that was half cat. She landed lightly and put her weapon away, holding her talons out to show she was unarmed.

Well, you know, more or less unarmed. She still had talons. And claws on her hindlegs. And a beak. It wasn't like she could put any of that away.

"I'm guessing those weren't yours," I said, looking at one of the fallen ponies.

"No, they're local. They don't have organized crime here as much as they have a food chain." She rolled one of the ponies over and pulled his coat off. There were tattoos around his cutie mark, almost abstract, spiraling outwards from a spiked horseshoe.

"I know these tattoos. He's an enforcer for the Trotskis." The smell of death hit me as I stepped closer. My nose wrinkled. It wasn't the scent of a pony who'd been dead for less than a minute.

"Was an enforcer for the Trotskis," Gilda corrected. "He's been dead for at least a week."

"But he was just-" I stopped, my eyes going wide. "Necrobubba."

"I'm pretty sure the Equestrian word for it is Necromancy," Gilda corrected. I felt my coat bristle in annoyance. "And that's not the half of it. Come on. I've been holding up in a church. I don't know if they can actually follow me there, but I figure it's worth a shot."

"Is Twilight there?" I asked. I saw Gilda almost trip at the question, not in surprise that I'd asked it but more like she froze up trying to think of a good answer to it.

"No," she said. "Otherwise it wouldn't be safe."


There weren't a lot of churches in Equestria. Celestia had never made it illegal to worship her, but she certainly didn't encourage it. Most ponies who could pray could just as easily write a letter to her and expect a response, and this was generally considered a more worthwhile use of time, even if an envelope required postage and a prayer didn't.

Stalliongrad had been the center of a sort of revival of the Orthodox Church of Sol about three hundred years ago, and there were still churches and even a grand cathedral around the city. They were little more than historical sites now, but you'd sometimes see ponies drop to their knees to whisper a few words, just in case. I'd never gotten the nerve to ask Celestia if she could actually hear their prayers. I wasn't sure I wanted the answer.

Gilda had chosen one of the more run-down churches, though that didn't mean much. Stone arches generally didn't fall down on their own, even if the roof leaked a little. She'd set up a little home away from home in a loft that had perhaps once been used as box seating by the rich and famous, offering a good vantage point of all the entrances to the building.

I wasn't sure what to think of Gilda. She was a criminal and a griffon but probably also my sister's closest real friend. I'd like to think that she was a bad influence on Twilight but the nagging little voice inside me that usually turned out to be right insisted that the opposite was more likely true.

"Beans?" She offered, holding up the tin can.

"No thanks," I said. The stink of the dead had put me off food for a while. "So are you going to tell me what's going on, or am I going to have to start by arresting you?"

"Twilight's in some deep horseapples and I don't know what to do about it," Gilda said. "We came here chasing after rumors about buried treasure, and after we found it she started acting crazy. Maud was the smart one. She didn't want to get involved at all."

"You're going to have to be more specific than just 'acting crazy'." I had a bad feeling that this was why Sunset was prowling around looking for her.

"Well, uh," Gilda looked nervous. "Her eyes changed color and she started raising the dead as zombie servants and tried to kill me. So, you know. Acting crazy."

"I have to try and talk reason with her," I said. Gilda snorted.

"I tried that already."

"What happened?"

"Well, you remember two seconds ago when I mentioned the zombie servants and trying to kill me?"

I frowned and started pacing. "Okay, tell me about what you were doing here. Don't leave anything out."


Gilda wasn't much of a storyteller. Some criminals would sing like stool pigeons, she sung more like a particularly sarcastic brick. Apparently Twilight had gotten ahold of some kind of scroll that detailed all sorts of treasures buried in the Mausoleum in Stalliongrad. As Gilda stumbled over the events, my brain filled in the gaps until I could see the whole thing in my head.

Twilight would consider it easy money - the dead didn't need gold or gems, and nopony needed to get hurt when she took it. It wasn't even in a museum, making it a victimless crime.

I wasn't entirely sure there was such a thing as a victimless crime. Ponies would have to clean up the mess, somepony would get fired for not guarding it well enough, and even ponies that weren't directly involved would have their careers ruined because they hadn't been able to protect a 'national treasure'. That was one thing I don't think Twilight ever really understood. When she robbed a bank, even if all the security guards were unhurt, most of them ended up needing a new job by the end of the week.

Gilda didn't describe the actual break-in in much detail. Apparently it was an easy job. Locals stayed away from it and the place was locked with some kind of magical seal that she couldn't have described if her life depended on it.

Inside, there had been a thick layer of dust and a sarcophagus of silver, the lid held on with clockwork locks. I wasn't sure why a coffin needed to be locked, but when Gilda described the scrape marks on the inside of the lid, I had a feeling it didn't mean anything good.
Inside, whoever had been entombed had rotted away to dust, even the bones disintegrated into powder.

And then there was the book.


"It was bound in leather," Gilda said. "Leather that still had a cutie mark on it. Twilight grabbed it to have a look and that was when she started acting funny."

"I have to stop her," I said. "And fast. She's using dark magic. You know what they do to ponies that use dark magic?" Gilda shook her head. "They make sure they can't ever use it again. If they're lucky, they get their horns cut off. If they're not lucky, the rest of the head comes with it, and that's assuming the Grand Magus doesn't get to them first."

"Grand Magus?"

"Sunset Shimmer. Unofficially speaking, Celestia's iron hoof. The first time I met her, she was traumatizing my little sister for life."


Twilight was in the final round for the entrance exams of Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. She hadn't even earned her cutie mark yet, and I could tell the professors were impressed with her performance so far. I'd taken the day off of school - Cadance was out of town visiting Cloudsdale with Celestia for some reason, very hush-hush, so I figured I'd skip out too.

I watched my sister struggle and strain to pour magic into the dragon egg that they'd wheeled out.

"This doesn't seem like a fair test," I whispered.

"It's not," my mother agreed. "It's supposed to be impossible. They want to see how she deals with failure."

"They want to see a foal cry?" I asked, frowning.

"Cry, ask for help, start throwing things around the room, set fire to something," my mother shrugged. "It's an exclusive school with a very demanding syllabus. They need to see how she'll react to the stress."

Then the room shook, and a rainbow burst across the sky and everything went white.

Twilight was surrounded in an aura of magic. My mother had turned into a fern. The professors were hovering near the roof, and a full-grown, confused dragon was half in the room and half bursting through the roof.

Maybe if somepony else had come to deal with things, it would have been different. Maybe Twilight would have calmed down on her own after a few minutes. Instead, Sunset Shimmer was the first on the scene, announcing her arrival with a blast of fire that sent the dragon reeling and falling out of the building, taking most of the foundations with it on its way down.

The aura around Twilight flickered and died, and the force holding her up gave way. She looked down and screamed as she fell, until she was snagged with cyan magic and held, dangling head down, over the abyss.

"Looks like I got here just in time," Sunset Shimmer said.


"Twilight never told me that story," Gilda said, looking at the window. It wasn't the kind of window you could look out of, so she really was just looking at it, the huge, ornate thing showing a stylized sun in bubbly, colored glass set in a spider web of lead.

"She had nightmares about it for a year," I said. "After her magic shut off, it turned back into a hatchling, and then it hit the rocks."

Gilda shivered at the mental image.

"No matter what she's doing, I can't let Sunset get to her first," I said. "I won't let my sister get hurt by her again."

"Okay," Gilda said, quietly.

"And we're doing things my way."

"Where do you want to start?" Gilda asked.

"I'm a Guard, Gilda. We're going to start at the scene of the crime."


"Explain to me again why we're breaking in to a crime scene," Gilda hissed, as she worked at the lock on the gate. "Can't you just ask nicely or get a warrant?"

"Not until the morning, and it might be too late by then," I said. The truth was that I couldn't ask anypony for help because they'd know I wasn't here in any official capacity. Gilda was a lucky exception.

"Picking locks is more Twilight's thing," Gilda muttered. She took a few more minutes to get it open. Minutes of standing in the cold and looking at the shadows, hoping the shadows weren't looking back. There was a soft click and Gilda sighed in relief. "Got it. And just so we're clear on this, if you even try to arrest me for any of this-"

"You're assisting an officer of the law with his inquiries," I said. "Tell you what, I'll even deputize you into the Guard."

"If you do that, I'd never live it down," Gilda snorted. She pushed open the gate and motioned for him. "Please. Age before beauty."

I walked through, knowing that I had a dangerous predator with a crossbow right behind me. That was comforting, in a way. It meant I only had to be worried about what was ahead of me, because anything trying to stalk me from behind would need to go through a heavily armed griffon.

The Mausoleum was a strange structure, this close. I expected it to be old, with the same kind of expert masonry as the cathedrals of the city, but it was more like an onion, with at least three different layers built up around each other. The outer layer was concrete, not in blocks but in cast slabs around the rest. It was old enough that it was starting to wear down at the edges, formerly sharp lines eroding and crumbling. It was very solid looking, like a fortress or prison.

The doors were slabs of iron, and it took me an embarrassingly long time and three attempts to pull them open to realize that it wasn't just normal iron.

"This is cold iron," I muttered, pressing my horseshoe against it and feeling the tug of the metal.

"Twilight said the same thing," Gilda shrugged. "I don't see why that's special. Everything around here is feathering cold, iron or not."

"No, it's cold iron," I repeated, emphasizing the words. "It was worked cold and never smelted. It's magnetic and very resistant to magic."

"So it's valuable?"

I frowned, thinking about how to answer that. "Not unless you need giant doors. Reworking cold iron is difficult and there's a good chance you lose the special properties. Making the doors had to be absurdly expensive, though. You can't smelt it, so you'd have to find a big chunk of metal, maybe thunderbolt iron-"

"Boring," Gilda declared, rolling her eyes. "We're here for a reason, remember? These were the doors locked with a magical seal."

"It would take twice as much magic to enchant them. Combined with the cost of making the doors... somepony spent a lot of money making sure this place was going to stay locked up."

"Makes sense," Gilda said. "It had treasure in it."

I nodded and walked inside. It was pitch-black inside, and the light from the open doorway let me just barely see the ground. The tiles in the floor had protective talismans printed on them. Individually weak, but easy to make.

"You really think she'll come back here?" Gilda asked.

"No, but it's a good place to find clues about what she might want," said a voice that made me shiver. There was a flash of light, and torches around the walls erupted in flames. I heard the twang of a crossbow as Gilda took a shot.

Sunset Shimmer didn't even notice the bolt. It hit her chest and snapped like it had been fired against a boulder. In the low light I could just barely see the shield spell wrapped around her like a second skin.

"You're supposed to be on leave, Captain Armor," she said, her tone implying that the Captain part didn't impress her and was potentially temporary.

"I like to keep busy when I'm on holiday," I retorted.

"With one of Twilight Sparkle's infamous partners in crime," Sunset said, stalking towards us. "This is why I can't trust you, Armor. You keep bad company."

"I need to keep my sister safe."

"I need to keep Equestria safe," Sunset said. "Get some perspective, Armor, and-" She stopped and turned to Gilda, grabbing her talon with her magic. "And give me what you just picked up."

Gilda looked at her closed talon. Sunset rolled her eyes and pried it open with her telekinesis. A key dropped free, the unicorn snatching it before it hit the ground.

"A locker key for the Stalliongrad central station," Sunset noted, looking at it. "You two just stay out of my way. And you should be more careful. This place was crawling with the undead before I got here." She let Gilda go and stepped past me before vanishing in a flash of teleportation.

"You could have been less obvious about it," I muttered. "That key might have been a valuable clue."

"I doubt it," Gilda said. "It was my key. She's gonna find a stash of crossbow bolts and a first aid kit. It was a distraction." She held out her other talon and showed me what she was holding. An earring.

"What's that?" I asked, picking it up to look.

"It's enchanted with a message spell. We use them to keep in contact when we're on the job."

"And she took it off?"

"Looks more like it tore out," Gilda said. I shivered at the thought. There was blood splattered against it. "But she wore it for more than a year. There are spells you can use to track somepony, right?"

"I think I can put one together. Good thinking."

"Let's go," Gilda said. "This place gives me the creeps."

I looked around at the ancient stonework. Unlike the outside, in here it was so old it had to date to the first generations of settlers. It almost looked like a temple with the sarcophagus at the center, the stones all rounded river rocks and barely worked at all, just stacked together and joined with mortar that had turned an odd green-black over time, like tarnished silver. Black crystals grew from the rocks like lichen, making the inner chamber almost like a dark geode.

"Yeah," I agreed. "I don't want to be here when Sunset finds out you gave her a red herring."


Tracking spells were part and parcel of a good Royal Guard's kit. There were some problems with them, though. You could make them fast, accurate, or cheap, and sacrifice the other two in the process. Since I wasn't going to be able to expense this out to the Guard, it meant I was going to have to go the cheap route and hope it got me close enough to find Twilight.

"What is that?" Gilda asked, reaching for the tangle of strings I was working into a net. I gently pushed her away, trying to keep focused. The hideout she'd been using was almost silent except for the small camping stove hissing as it burned slowly through its fuel, heating a kettle for coffee.

"Sympathetic tracking spell," I explained. "It matches the leylines in the area. I have a permanent version in my office." I strung the earring in the web. "When Twilight casts a spell, it'll resonate with the closest leyline. If she's moving and casting spells, we can figure out where she is by looking at how the resonance changes."

"We have to wait for her?" Gilda frowned. "That could take all night."

"And if she isn't moving we'll have to search along the whole leyline," I sighed. "Best I can do. We've got maybe a day before the connection between her and the earring breaks."

"So it's a stakeout," Gilda said.

"Sure, something like that," I shrugged. I sat back and watched the strings. A bell tied to the mass would alert me if anything vibrated.

"I just don't understand why Twilight would go crazy like this," Gilda said. She perched on the railing looking over the church. "I've met a lot of assholes, you know? But she's always been decent. She'd never go around killing ponies like this."

"Dark magic can do that," I said. "It warps your mind. It's like drinking. At first you feel powerful and giddy, and the more you use it, the more it uses you, until you can't live without it and you're a twisted wreck."

"But in an instant?" Gilda frowned.

"How do you know it was instant? Maybe she's been using it, just a little here and there. She's a criminal. She could do anything."

"She could, but she doesn't," Gilda said. "That's the point. Before I met her I..." Gilda trailed off. "Well, I wasn't quite as nice as I am now. And Maud killed ponies for a living. I still break the law, but there's the law and there's being a decent person. You're breaking the law right now, because you're a decent pony, you know?"

"She's a bad influence-" I started with my lecturing voice and stopped with a squeak of surprise as Gilda jumped at me. She was much bigger and stronger than I was, and some tiny, primitive part of me that remembered the time before civilization when primitive griffons would hunt caveponies just shut down my higher brain functions when she pinned me to the floor.

"Before I met Twilight, I'd have torn a pony like you apart," she said, leaning in closer. Her breath was hot against my neck.

"Gilda," I whispered. She ignored me, her weight pressing me down against the floor. With her wings spread out, she loomed over me, filling my perception. The edge of her beak trailed against my chin and I could feel her thigh against mine.

She looked into my eyes and I saw a hunger. She lowered her chest to mine, and just as our bodies pressed against each other, the universe proved it was merciful and cruel in equal measure and the bell on the tracking spell rang.

We broke away from each other and looked at the spell. Two of the strings were vibrating at the same time.

"I thought that only one was supposed to move," Gilda said.

"Yeah," I replied, my voice coming out as a squeak. I cleared my throat. "I mean, yeah. But they're both going at the same time. That means she can only be in one place." I looked at the map of the city. "Right here. Where the leylines cross. She must be right on top of the nexus."


It was snowing outside, which was good because I really needed a cold shower. The last thing I needed was to be distracted when I was trying to keep my sister from being burned alive or thrown off a cliff or whatever else Sunset would do to her.

The nexus itself was in a graveyard. I really should have expected that. When there was a nexus of leylines, ponies could feel it. Almost holy ground, but without the troublesome nature of actually worshiping anypony. They usually ended up as gardens or graveyards.

I could see something the color of a bruise through the snow, a bleed of color against the darkness.

"That must be her," Gilda whispered. "Got a plan?"

"We have to get closer to her," I said. "I can't see what she's doing."

"Any sign of Sunset?"

"Is everything on fire?"

"No."

"There's your answer," I muttered, creeping closer. The graveyard was ancient, which generally meant that the stones that hadn't worn away were as big as ponies and made for great cover. I ducked from one headstone to another, trying to get a look at what was going on at the center of the graveyard.

"Rise, my minions!" Twilight yelled, her voice holding a strange, deep echo, like she was at the bottom of a well. I felt the snow shift under my hooves as something below me dug its way towards the surface.

"Twilight, stop!" I yelled. "Necro-romance is illegal!"

"Well, it is, but I think you mean necromancy," Gilda retorted, as she stomped on a hoof that had broken through the permafrost.

"That's what I said," I hissed. "Twilight, come to your senses! This isn't like you!"

Twilight was floating a few inches above the ground, sickly purple light radiating from her entire body, like someone had drawn swirling patterns across her body. She turned to look at me with glowing eyes that didn't have a trace of pity in them.

As if by silent command, hold hooves wrapped around my legs, dragging me down to the ground as the skeletal undead pulled themselves up, jaws gnashing at the air.

"Don't do this!" I screamed. I had to find some way to get through to her. "It's me, Twily! Your BBBFF!"

I saw her expression flicker for a moment, and there was a strange sense of double-vision, like I was seeing two faces at the same time, one annoyed and imperial, the other distraught.

Then I knew Sunset Shimmer was there, because everything was abruptly on fire.

"Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?" Sunset asked, as she walked through the flames. Zombies, already blazing, staggered towards her and were blasted backwards by bolts of fire, Sunset not even looking at them. The heat turned the snow falling around us into rain, though it didn't seem to be dousing the flames even slightly.

Twilight held a book in front of her, reading from the pages in some dark horror language that was probably illegal to speak in public. Just hearing it made my ears hurt.

Sunset stomped a hoof, and golden flames rushed out in a shockwave, throwing zombies back and freeing me from their grasp. Twilight staggered, almost dropping the book she was holding, but only almost. She sent a screaming surge of purple energy at Sunset, the bolt shaped like a yawning scull.

Sunset responded with a blast of solar fire, and I did the only thing I could think of and jumped between them, putting a shield around myself. The energy crackled around me, and my shield collapsed almost instantly under the strain, popping like a soap bubble. It wasn't enough to stop the blasts, but it redirected them, both of them curving as they hit my barrier. Twilight's surge of dark energy smashed into the ground and plowed out a crater as big as a house, Sunset's bolt flying into the sky and punching a wide hole through the clouds.

"Don't hurt her!" I yelled, trying to stay on my hooves. I was vaguely aware that my tail was on fire.

"You really don't know me very well," Sunset snorted. I was flung aside by telekinetic force and I saw her suddenly surge in speed, blurring as she ran to the book and grabbed it, kicking Twilight away with enough force that my sister went flying right into me. She smirked at us, then held up the book.

"You know what this is?" Sunset asked. "It's called Die Equuis Mysterius. Ancient book of terrible evil. More importantly, it's the only book in the world that I know of that doesn't just tell a pony how to become a lich, but was designed to be used as a phylactery, too."

"A what now?" I wheezed. Twilight squirmed, trying to get up. She shouted in a language I didn't understand, and I grabbed her, holding on.

Sunset tossed the book into the air. I saw Twilight freeze, following it with her eyes. Sunset spun around, charging a spell and launching it at the falling target, the book burning to ashes in a moment.

Twilight screamed, her body flashing so hot that I thought she was on fire for a moment. The purple energy leaking out of her body surged, tearing away from her and floating up as an indistinct shape, like a horribly ragged, emaciated equine.

Sunset traced her horn through the air, and a rune appeared floating in front of her. The ghostly shape screeched as it was drawn into the glowing shape, clawing at the air as it was sucked into the light and finally vanished entirely with a twinkle of cyan.

Twilight went limp and groaned.

"Where am I?" She asked, her voice back to normal.

"Stalliongrad," Sunset said. "And you're a very stupid mare, Twilight Sparkle. What were you thinking? Do you know how dangerous that book is?" She paused, then corrected herself. "Was."

"The last thing I remember, I was in the mausoleum, and we were starting to sort out the treasure, and then..." Her eyes went wide. "I remember now! I heard something in the coffin, and I opened it-"

"And you almost unleashed the shade of Hossputin the Terrible," Sunset said. "One of the most terrible black sorcerers in the world, and King Sombra's last direct descendant. Until you'd interrupted his beauty sleep and broke through the containment wards he'd been dead for almost seven hundred years."

"I didn't mean to..."

"No, you didn't," Sunset sighed. "You're just an idiot. And I know you got a tip that there was treasure in there. I want to know who pointed you there, understand?"

"Right," Twilight said, quietly.

"And no black magic, understand? Evil artifacts are dangerous. Here, have a pamphlet." She pulled a pamphlet titled 'Books, Altars, and Masks - why things should stay buried'. Twilight started looking through it, still dazed.

"You carry pamphlets?" I asked, quietly.

"It's easier than giving the speech," Sunset said. "Do you know how many ancient artifacts get dug up in Equestria every year? Most of them are broken or evil. Nopony's really at fault, but ponies get hurt. It's important that if you find an ancient tomb or dig up something unusual in your garden that you contact a registered Magus to examine it for enchantments or curses. Unless it's a mirror. Just shatter those. Bloody things."

"...You're not going to kill her?" I asked, not sure of my assumptions anymore.

"Of course not," Sunset scoffed. "She's a victim, mostly of her own stupidity, but still a victim. I know she's a thief or whatever, but it's not my job to care about that." She cast a spell and nodded to herself. "She doesn't seem to have any lingering curses or enchantments, so she'll be fine with some bed rest. Might have a few nightmares, but as long as she stays away from evil grimores I don't think there's any reason to drag her to Canterlot."

"I thought you were going to hurt her," I muttered.

"I was here to stop ancient evil from taking hold. Phylactery destroyed, demilich cast into the shadow realm, I think job's done." Sunset nodded to herself and looked around. "Best thing is that all the zombies went with him."

"Twilight!" Gilda yelled, landing next to her and checking on her. "I was scared you'd..." She took a deep breath and looked at me and Sunset. "Thanks. I mean it."

"We made a pretty good team," I offered, smiling a little.

"Yeah," Gilda said, looking away. I saw the blush on her cheeks. "Look, uh, if you ever want to-"

"Okay, wow," Sunset sighed. "None of that. Come on, Captain Armor. I'd better get you home. Cadance won't be happy if you come down with the bird flu. I'll pick up the tab on the ticket since you were a bit of a help."

"Bird flu?" Twilight asked, sounding dizzy.

"Nothing!" I said loudly, then turned to Sunset and whispered, hissing with anger. "Were you watching me?!"

"Of course I was," Sunset smiled. "Nopony is better at finding Twilight Sparkle. Did you really think that fake clue would throw me off the trail?"

"Well..."

"I won't tell Cadance about what almost happened," Sunset assured me, patting my cheek like I was a foal. "It's not my business. Not that I think she'd care, except that she'd be upset she wasn't invited to the party."

"Nothing almost happened," I said, quickly.

"Good, stick with that story," Sunset advised. "You two are free to go. I'd advise leaving before Captain Armor is in an arresting mood. Have a nice day, stay away from dark magic. It's not worth it. It never was."


"...And then I came back to Canterlot," Shining Armor finished. Celestia's expression was unreadable.

"You know, I got a similar report from Sunset Shimmer not too long ago," Celestia said, after a few uncomfortable minutes of watching Shining Armor standing at attention. "She didn't mention you were there at all."

"She didn't?"

"I don't think she wanted you to get reprimanded," Celestia noted. "Or you could say she didn't want to share the credit, if you have a more cynical view of things."

"I didn't feel right not telling you, Princess," Shining Armor said.

"And that's what I admire most about you," Celestia smiled. "I'm impressed by your integrity."

"I'm sorry I didn't arrest either criminal when I had the chance," Shining Armor said.

"Captain, you should never apologize for having a heart," Celestia said. "I think it's safe to say both of them learned their lesson. The real criminal is whomever sent Twilight after that cursed tome in the first place, and Sunset Shimmer is already tracking them down."

"But Twilight..." Shining Armor looked at his hooves. "Sunset was right. I've been useless at trying to stop her."

"Everypony has their place," Celestia said. "Guard Captains, Grand Maguses, even criminals and thieves. I have a very special place in mind for your sister."

"Does it include bars and parole hearings?" I asked.

"We shall see, Captain Armor," Celestia noted. "Now, I believe Cadance wanted to have a chat with you. Something about the birds and the bees. Don't let me detain you."

Author's Note:

Captain Armor, unfortunately, often has to act without all the information he'd like to have. He's actually quite good at his job, given the restrictions he works under. Sometimes it almost seems like Princess Celestia is deliberately making his job more difficult, but that couldn't possibly be true.

Sunset Shimmer has of course spent the last few years [REDACTED]

And that should answer all of your questions.

Next Time: Twilight goes to prison! Can things get any worse? Of course they can!