Case Twenty-One, Chapter Eight: Tempestuous
“Nope,” Phillip said, scratching off another name on the list.
Daring frowned at the green crystal unicorn merrily window shopping their way down Market Street. With a frustrated nicker, she leaned against the massive pine tree in the center of the street. The decorations still hung from the evergreen branches, which drooped beneath the weight of the snow. The lights and tinsel were glittering beneath the light of the sun, which was just starting to descend from its zenith.
“Maybe Red and Flash are having better luck than us,” she muttered, standing and stretching.
“Yo!”
Rainbow Dash descended from the sky to land before them, pausing to shake a light layer of snow from her wings.
“I spread the word to all the weather ponies,” Rainbow reported. “And I stopped by the Gold Griffon’s Head and told Bottgilia to keep his ears open. He says hi, by the way.”
“Ripper,” Phillip nodded. “Might get lucky.”
Rainbow glanced over at the list that Phillip was holding with a whistle. “That’s a lot of names,” she said. “You really have to check them all off?”
“One at a time, kid,” Daring replied, rolling her shoulders. “Hate to tell you this, but it’s not all glamorous.”
Rainbow puffed out a breath. “It’s like weather duty,” she grumbled. “Everypony thinks that there’s a lot of flying around dealing with thunderstorms and tornadoes and stuff like that, but it’s mostly moving clouds around and measuring temperature and shit. And way too much paperwork.”
“Agreed,” Daring grumbled.
“Speaking of which, I’ve got to get back on shift tomorrow,” Rainbow added.
“Right,” Phillip sighed. “Let’s get some lunch before we move on.”
“Sounds good,” Daring agreed.
“Detective! Detective Finder!”
The trio looked up to see a lemon yellow pegasus with graying blue hair descending from the sky, her winter jacket flapping in the breeze.
“Hey, Sunshower,” Rainbow waved at the elder mare.
The other pegasus ignored Rainbow, focusing on Phillip and Daring. “Detectives, I just heard from one of the other weather ponies,” she declared. “They spotted Doctor Caballeron near the Everfree Forest. Come on, I’ll show you!”
“Great!” Daring declared, grabbing Phillip beneath the forelegs and taking off, ignoring his cry of protest. “Lead the way.”
Sunshower flew off, leading them northeast. Rainbow followed behind Daring Do with a pensive frown on her face.
“Something’s not right,” she whispered into Daring’s ear.
Daring frowned and slowed down a bit to allow Sunshower to pull away. “What do you mean?” she whispered.
“Sunshower is a grump; she never loses a chance to criticize me,” Rainbow replied. “And she almost never comes out of her office, not with her arthritis.”
“And why did she come straight to us instead of the police?” Phillip added.
Daring Do frowned, forcing the spike of adrenaline that had been coursing through her veins a moment earlier to settle until she could feel the prickling of suspicion on the back of her neck. Sunshower glanced over her shoulder back at them; Daring noted how her expression was strangely blank, her head only cocked to one side in confusion.
“Right,” she grunted with a nod, her heart pattering against her ribs with the controlled tattoo of a drumbeat as she sped up slightly to keep up with their guide. “Let’s see where this goes. Dash, you grab him.”
Rainbow Dash nodded and grabbed Phillip beneath his forelegs. As they flew on, she grasped a passing cloud with her wings, pulling tufts from the white form and tucking them beneath her feathers.
Phillip glanced up at her, then frowned at Sunshower’s back as she guided them on, one hoof crawling towards his .38.
His ear twitched as from beneath he heard the rumbling of a motorcycle engine starting up.
Riot’s tufted ears twitched and a grin spread across his face. “They’re coming,” the midnight blue thestral announced.
All around him, he heard his six companions prepare themselves: knives and clubs were drawn, slides were drawn back, hammers cocked in readiness to strike down upon cartridges. He himself settled back into the cloud that he was hiding in, one hoof sliding into the holding strap of the .44 in his holster.
Excitement buzzed through his veins; already, he could almost smell the blood in the air. Even if he and his crew hadn’t been promised six hundred thousand bits--three hundred thousand for each head--there was no chance that he was screwing this up. His brother had been working for Hill Crest last summer: a good job, not as good as Monopoly, but it paid well. And then those two fuckers had broken his arm in three places and sent him to Frostback for four years.
He snarled. Four years for Calamity when the bitch had done far worse than him and she only got one year. Fuck the justice system and fuck them both.
The sound of beating wings sounded louder in his ears. He let out a little chirp, his ears twitching to receive the echo. The reverberations revealed their targets: the bitch herself, that stupid helmet shifting atop her mane. Another pegasus flew alongside them, carrying that stallion in his vest and hat, with a fourth pony leading them towards the trap. He could even detect the .38 Filly Detective Specials in their shoulder holsters, her whip and his club strapped to their sides.
It wouldn’t save them.
Another chirp revealed his comrades waiting in their hiding spaces, muscles tensed like coiled springs, all awaiting his signal.
Closer…closer…Riot slowly drew the .44 from his holster, clicking the safety off.
Closer…he drew in a breath to let out the whistle that would herald their deaths--
And then a battering ram burst through the clouds and slammed into him, driving the breath from his lungs. His sidearm flew from his grasp as he wheezed in pain and surprise, his wings flapping futilely as he tried to bear his weight against the inexorable pull of gravity.
Riot caught a glimpse of a pair of scarlet eyes, glaring down at him through a set of greyscale bangs before his attacker banked around into another cloud. Something flew from her hoof with a great whistling, vanishing into another cumulus. There was a thump of wood on bone and Lucky Seven howled in pain as he tumbled from the cloud, his warped left wing flapping pitifully.
“Fuck, no!” Riot gasped, righting himself in midair and finally catching the wind beneath his wings. He dove like a rocket, catching the vivid green pegasus in his forelegs.
Lucky Seven winced, glaring at his fractured wing. “Bitch!” he snarled, glaring at the pegasus above them. The golden pegasus was currently battling the other hitponies, weaving in and out of their gunfire and attacks.
Where was that bastard Finder…?
Riot looked down and spotted the other target, being borne down towards the ground by another blue pegasus with a prosthetic wing. The sight of her multicolored mane baffled Riot for a moment. Since when did Daring Do have a kid?
Some weird old yellow pegasus was chasing after the two, pulling a knife from her jacket. The bait, Riot remembered.
“Get ‘em!” Lucky Seven barked, squirming in Riot’s arms to aim the .38 revolver strapped to his foreleg.
The spark of hatred ignited a flame in Riot’s chest, burning away the pain and shock. He dove down after his prey, carrying his partner in his hooves.
Rainbow Dash glanced over her shoulder with a growl. “Three incoming!” she shouted to her passenger.
Phillip looked down and spotted the roof that they were heading for a mere couple yards beneath him. “Drop me!” he ordered.
Rainbow hesitated for a moment, then let go. Phillip tumbled through the air, keeping one hoof on his hat as the wind rushed up past his ears. The jolt of the impact rushed through his bones and he grunted as he tucked and rolled.
He drew his boomerang as he returned to his hooves, turning to throw it. The weapon whistled as it spun through the air, forcing the thestral pursuing them to duck beneath it, his passenger’s aim going wild at the sudden drop.
A snap of a blue wing sent a gust of wind slamming into the thestral, who yelped in panic as the breeze slapped his wing, sending him into an uncontrolled tumble. The gold pegasus fell from his grasp, screaming and desperately flapping his broken wing.
A multicolored blur dove down after him. The sound of a hoof striking flesh echoed through the streets, accompanied by a grunt. By the time Phillip caught his returning boomerang, Rainbow Dash was placing the unconscious thug on a cloud, tossing his gun onto the street.
“I got this, old stallion!” Rainbow Dash grinned, snapping her wings out. Two small balls of compacted ice flew from her feathers, forged by her pegasus magic.
One struck Sunshower’s wing, spreading to encase the joint in its cold clutch; the mare grunted in surprise as her wing failed her, spinning out of the sky. She crashed onto the roof next to Phillip and lay still with a groan.
The other ball narrowly missed the thestral, who managed to correct his tumble just in time to dodge the attack. He snarled as he drew a pair of long knives from beneath his coat, the narrow slits in his violet eyes focusing on Phillip.
Phil glanced upwards to see Daring weaving her way in and out of four attackers; three were coming at her with knives and clubs, while a crimson pegasus mare tucked her silenced rifle to her shoulder, barking at her colleagues to get the fuck out of the way.
“Dash, help Daring!” he ordered, turning back to the thestral. With a growl, he drew his waddy from the holster, meeting the hate-filled eyes with a flare of his own.
Rainbow zipped off in a multicolored blur, crashing into the red pegasus with the gun, sending the weapon spinning away. Her target seized Rainbow around the body and began to pummel her with her knees; Rainbow twisted in her grasp, trying to free herself as she struck back with wings and hooves.
A sharp crack pierced the air and the crimson pegasus yelled in pain, blood spraying from her back where Daring’s whip had struck her. Rainbow broke free, aiming a kick to her foe’s gut that knocked the wind from her lungs.
Phillip returned his attention to the thestral, who was hovering a few feet away, adjusting his grip on his knives.
“This is for my brother,” he spat at Phillip through bared fangs.
"Who?" Phillip said.
“The stallion that you sent to Frostback for four years!” his foe snarled, his rage increasing.
“You have no idea how little that narrows it down, do you?” Phillip deadpanned.
The thestral let out a roar of screwed courage and charged, his blades whirling to strike. He hit nothing but air as Phillip easily sidestepped. Pain flooded his back as his waddy smashed down onto his ribs; he felt the bones fracture as he crashed to the roof, fire spreading across his body with every sucking breath.
Riot rolled back to his hooves, puffing and growling as he tightened his grips on his weapons. Phillip watched as the assassin forced himself upright, bent to one side in pain. Anger still burned in his violet eyes, but another emotion now warred with the rage: fear.
Riot came at him again, more cautious this time, leading with his left hoof before slashing with the right at his throat.
Slow, clumsy wanker. Phillip stepped back and smashed the waddy onto Riot’s right foreleg, sending the knife skittering away. Riot snarled and slashed with his left, only to howl in impotent rage and pain as Phillip seized his foreleg and sent his foe to the ground with a pivot. A knee to Riot’s foreleg forced the second knife from his grasp as well.
“Fuck! No!” the thestral shouted, rage, defiance, and despair all blending into his voice as he glared up at Phillip. His eyes tracked the waddy as it raised to the sky for the finishing blow.
Wings flapped, racing towards Phillip. The detective rolled out of the way as Sunshower barreled towards him, her own knife narrowly missing his ear.
A flick of the wrist sent his boomerang spinning out, but the mare was ready for it, dodging the attack with a sudden twist. She stared back at him with her knife extended, her face eerily blank even as she advanced, moving with a slow purpose.
Riot dove for his weapons, forcing himself back to his hooves as he panted and snarled, his wings flapping as he held himself upright. He sneered at Phillip, rallied by the appearance of a cohort, and lunged.
A moment later, his eyes bulged and he gasped, staggering. He fell facefirst to the ground with a heavy thump.
A throwing ax with an emerald crystal embedded in the metal head stuck out of his back.
Phillip and Sunshower both watched as the unicorn in the coat stalked forward, sparks dancing from beneath her helmet as she snapped her hoof out. The gem in the ax glowed and the weapon pulled itself out of the thestral’s back. Blood flew from it as it spun through the air, returning to the mare’s hoof.
Sunshower’s eyes widened in horror as she spread her wings, flapping to try to take off. Holstering the throwing ax, Tempest reached into her coat.
“Tempest, don’t!” Phillip shouted.
Tempest’s hoof reappeared, holding a mirror set in a silver frame, runes etched into the circumference. She showed it to the pegasus mare; turquoise light flashed from the glass, reflecting in Sunshower’s cerulean eyes. The mare blinked, slowly lowering herself to the roof as she looked around in confusion.
“Wha…what happened?” she asked. “Where am--?”
Her eyes fell upon the knife in her hoof, then the corpse and she gasped in horror, stumbling back and nearly falling off the edge of the roof. “What?! I, I…I did…” She collapsed to her knees, hyperventilating and hugging herself with her wings.
Phillip walked over to her and draped a foreleg around her shoulders, glaring at Tempest. “Didn’t need to kill him,” he grunted, glaring at the corpse of the thestral.
“You’re welcome,” Tempest Shadow replied curtly, giving him an icy look.
The sound of howling wind prompted the two of them to look up. A rainbow-colored tornado had formed overhead, sucking the rest of the assassins into its merciless vacuum. When the cyclone died away a moment later, it revealed six assassins laying in dazed, broken piles upon the clouds, with Daring Do and Rainbow Dash hovering triumphantly over them.
“‘Bout time you showed yourself,” Daring Do commented to Tempest Shadow.
“You knew she was following you?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Since City Hall,” Daring replied as the sound of sirens approached. “Gotta work on your awareness, kid.”
Sunshower leaned into Phillip’s embrace, shivering and whimpering. He squeezed her tight, frowning at Tempest Shadow. The armored unicorn frowned back at him as two officers approached.
“Of course it’s you,” Prowl sighed to Phillip, looking from the dead thestral on the roof to the shivering mare to the scowling helmeted mare.
Next to her, Gallus’ eyes widened as he took in the sight before him, one talon going for his sidearm once he saw the distinctive bulges beneath her coat.
“Relax, officer,” Tempest replied. “I’ll come quietly.”
“You’d better, Colonel,” Prowl scowled at Tempest.
Tempest Shadow met her gaze with an equally cold glare as she descended the steps to the ground and other officers began to gather the assassins. Phillip gently helped Sunshower to her hooves and guided her back down to the ground. The mare trembled with every step, keeping her eyes fixed on anything except the body laying in the red-stained snow.
“All I remember is…the voice on the phone,” Sunshower admitted, staring at her clasped hooves on the table. “He said some words in a foreign language…then it was like I…” She shivered. “Like I was dreaming. I could see what I was doing, but I wasn’t in control, and…and I didn’t really care. He told me…” The pegasus gulped, seeming to curl in further into herself.
“We can stop if you want,” Flash said patiently from his chair.
Sunshower glanced around the cubicle that she was sitting in, taking a few breaths. “No, I need to get this out,” she admitted. “He told me that…I needed to get Detective Finder and Detective Do over to the edge of the Everfree District. That others would be waiting for me…”
Sunshower gulped and looked up at Flash Sentry for the first time, tears glimmering in her eyes. “What happened to me, Detective Sentry?” she whispered. “Why did I do that?”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Flash replied, clasping the witness’ shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You were brainwashed. And we’re gonna figure out how he did it.”
Sunshower shivered more. “What if he does it again?” she whispers. “What’s he going to tell me to do next?”
Flash glanced up with a frown, looking across the rows of cubicles with their ringing telephones, clacking typewriters, and constant buzz conversation to the door with his partner’s name etched onto the frosted glass.
Inside that office, Red Herring leaned back in his chair, his eyes flicking from the silver mirror on his desk to the mare sitting stiffly at attention across it.
“So Sombra can brainwash ponies by feeding them a potion?” he asked.
“There’s more to it than that, but yes,” Tempest Shadow replied curtly. “The potion combined with the proper spells allows him to implant hypnotic commands in a pony. When he activates them with the proper codewords, said pony has no choice but to obey him.”
Red paused, noting how Tempest’s front hooves began to tremble, like willow trees in a stiff breeze. “How much potion does it require?” he asked.
“It depends on the individual,” Tempest replied. “A…simpler mind that he intends to use for simple commands requires only a small dose, while stronger-minded ponies who are trying to fight back require a bit of…” She gritted her teeth, the anger in her eyes mixing with the reflections from the blue sparks that cascaded from her horn. “Breaking in,” she growled.
“And what’s this?” Red asked, gesturing to the mirror.
“An invention of Starlight,” Tempest explained. “It can be used to ‘reset’ a pony that is currently being controlled. And when I find Starlight, I’m going to use it to snap her out of it and bring her home.”
“Now, hold on,” Red held up a hoof. “We appreciate you helping Phil and Daring out of there, but you’re not--”
He was interrupted by one of Tempest’s axes slamming into his desk with a heavy thwack. The sound sent him reeling away from the desk with a gasp, one hoof instinctively going for his .45.
“You,” Tempest said coldly, the energy crackling from her horn casting her furious glare in shadows. “Are sitting here asking me useless questions when you should be looking for Starlight. Sombra has her, has no doubt turned her into his puppet again, and is no doubt using her to make more weapons. So let’s cut to the chase.”
She strode around the desk to face Red, snapping her hoof out. The ax flew back to her hoof, leaving a large gouge in Red’s desk.
“Where is she?” Tempest snapped, thrusting the weapon back into her holster as she glowered at Red. “Where is Starlight?!”
“Stand down, Colonel!”
Tempest Shadow instantly stepped back, snapping back to attention as Beacon Fire entered the room, with Cold Case watching from the door. Red Herring sighed in relief, slowly allowing his hoof to move away from his sidearm.
“Sorry, General Fire,” Tempest apologized. “I…lost control.”
“Don’t apologize to me, Colonel,” Beacon replied in a low growl.
Tempest nodded and turned to Red Herring. “I’m…sorry, Detective Herring,” she murmured.
Red scowled at Tempest for a moment, then sighed. “Fix my desk and we’ll call it even,” he grunted.
Tempest Shadow nodded and turned back to Beacon Fire. The charcoal unicorn glanced over at Cold Case, who chewed on the stem of her pipe for several seconds of silence, then nodded curtly.
“Colonel,” Beacon said. “Considering your skills and experience, I think you’d be a useful asset for this mission.”
“As long as you don’t harass my officers,” Cold added icily.
Hope flashed in Tempest’s eyes. “Thank you, General,” she nodded with a salute.
“Chief,” Red said. “Phil and Daring get anything out of those hitponies?”
“No, Sergeant,” Cold replied. “They received anonymous instructions to be ready to ambush them. They don’t know who hired them, and they don’t care.”
“Right,” Red mused, stroking his chin. “So give me a moment to figure out just where exactly on square one we’re standing…”
He turned and looked out the door, past the sea of suddenly silent cubicles, his coworkers poking their heads above their walls like prairie dogs to watch the show. He saw Flash’s distinctive shock of blue mane amongst the others.
An idea sparked in his head and he strode over to Flash’s cubicle. Eyes turned to track him as he walked past and he met them with a scowl. “Don’t you guys have work to do?” he snapped, prompting the audience to quickly duck back down behind their walls and return to their own work.
Reaching Flash’s cubicle, Red crouched down slightly to meet Sunshower’s level. The mare looked up at him through eyes that were still slightly damp.
“Sunshower,” he said gently. “We think that you were drugged. That’s how they were able to command you.”
Sunshower gulped and hugged herself with her wings. “Oh, Faust…”
“I need you to think carefully,” Red said gently. “Can you think of any time that somepony might have tampered with your drink?”
Sunshower blinked and sniffled, shaking her head. “No…no, I can’t think of anything except…” Her eyes brightened. “Wait. The fundraising party two days ago. I drank from the buffet table.”
Red Herring’s eyebrows narrowed slightly. “Okay. We’re going to need to know who was there.”
“I’m sure I can find a list of attendees,” Sunshower said.
Flash met Red’s frown with one of his own and nodded for him to exit the cubicle. The two pegasi walked over to an empty cubicle nearby.
“I heard about that fundraising party for the weather team,” Flash whispered. “Read about it in the paper. You wanna guess which unicorn was there?”
Red’s scowl deepened. “We should check with the doc. See if he came up with anything with those samples you took.” He sighed and mopped his face. “I knew that that guy wasn’t trustworthy.”
Flash looked across the hall as he reached for the spare phone. Cold Case and Beacon Fire were standing in front of Red’s open door, heads together in quiet discussion. On the threshold stood Tempest Shadow, her eyes fixed upon them like a hawk studying its prey, desperate hope shining in her irides.
Flash nodded and uttered a word of thanks before hanging up. “I was right,” he said, a vicious grin spreading across his face. “Suunkii says that the samples I took from Dorata…they’re a match for what he found at the train.”
“Well, well,” Red commented. “Let’s see what the chief thinks.”
“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Cold Case replied from behind them, her voice hushed.
“Chief, c’mon,” Red scowled. “Same bootprints, same hair, he had no alibi, and let’s not forget that he owns motherfucking Monopoly Investments--”
“Language,” Cold cut him off, glancing over at Sunshower. The witness, thankfully, was too busy hugging herself to listen to them.
“Did Doctor Suunkii say that the evidence was a definitive match?” Cold asked Flash.
Flash rubbed the back of his head, his eagerness fading away in a moment. “Well…he said that it was more likely than not…” he admitted.
“So you do not have any solid proof,” Cold stated, chewing on the stem of her pipe. “Nothing that would get past the armies of lawyers that Dorata no doubt has at his beck and call.”
Red growled. “Chief--”
“No,” Cold Case cut him off. “You have to learn to choose your battles, Detective. In the meantime, perhaps we should focus on what Starlight’s abductors have planned.”
“Great,” Red grunted. “Don’t suppose you have any ideas.”
“Wait a minute,” Sunshower suddenly said, looking up. “I…I remember something else. The voice on the phone…he told me to make sure that there would be a fog bank over the White Tail Woods tomorrow night.”
Every head turned towards her. “Did he say why?” Red pressed.
Sunshower shook her head.
“Hmm,” Cold mused. “One would imagine that they need a fog cover that night for some reason.
“And if we figure out why and get to them first…” Flash prompted.
“Then perhaps they’ll lead us to Starlight,” Tempest Shadow declared, gripping one of the axes in her holsters.
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Poor Sunshower. Getting brainwashed out of the blue like that must be traumatizing...
Things are ramping up. Can't wait to see where this goes.
11172224
I was just on my way to comment that exact thing. Looks like ya beat me to it.
11178825
Glad that people catch the references I throw out!