• Published 21st Aug 2021
  • 780 Views, 189 Comments

Ponyville Noire: Rising Nightmares - PonyJosiah13



A masked assassin. A thieving archeologist. An ancient evil stirring beneath Ponyville. And the only things standing in their way are Daring Do and Phillip Finder.

  • ...
1
 189
 780

PreviousChapters Next
Case Nineteen, Chapter Four: Breadcrumbs

“A crow,” Red repeated, rubbing his forehead. “A trained crow with metal blades on its feet.”

“A raven, detective,” Twilight corrected him, casting healing magic over Flash’s foreleg. “There is a difference.”

“Whatever,” Red rolled his eyes.

“I’m just glad you got out of there okay,” Twilight said, examining Flash’s foreleg to ensure the cut had healed correctly. She glanced back into the room from the hallway and shuddered at the sight of the three bodies spread over Curveball’s floor, their blood spreading over the cheap wood. Doctor Suunkii was currently bent over the corpses, taking photographs of their markings and tattoos.

“So am I,” Flash said, looking back into the room. He watched as Suunkii pulled back the sleeve of one of the dead assassins’ shirts, revealing a tattoo of a coiled sea serpent, fangs bared.

“Hey, isn’t that a Dock Snake tattoo?” he asked.

“It is indeed,” Suunkii nodded. “It would appear to the untrained eye that you were fated to be collateral damage in a gang assassination.”

“That would be too damn coincidental,” Red growled. “Bastard left Curveball alive just for bait for us.”

“Or maybe somepony else,” Flash pointed out.

Twilight looked up with an expression of shock. “Phil and Daring?” she asked.

“Probably,” Flash nodded.

Red snorted. “Shoulda sent more than three guys,” he muttered.

“What’s our next play?” Flash asked.

“We have to put the squeeze on our contacts in the Industry Kings and the Dock Snakes,” Red replied. “Figure out what happened that night, and what they’re so scared of.”

“I just wish that I’d managed to get some of that bird’s feathers,” Flash muttered. “Then you could track it, Twilight.” He frowned at the cut on his foreleg. “All I got was a new scar.”

Twilight studied the wound for a moment more, then her face brightened with an idea. “You didn’t get their feathers, but they did take something of yours!” she declared. “Your blood! If I tinker with the basic tracking spell a bit and blend it with the blood identification spell I came up with, I might be able to follow the drops of blood that they left behind!”

Flash stared at her for a beat. “Um...do you need my blood for that?” he asked.

“No, just a hair,” Twilight said.

“Well, okay,” Flash replied.

“Great!” Twilight beamed, her horn lighting up and plucking a hair from Flash’s head.

“Ouch!” he yelped.

“Sorry,” Twilight apologized, giving him a brief kiss on the forehead before clomping down the stairs past the officers guarding the hallway. “Come on, before the trail goes cold!”

“That mare,” Suunkii sighed, shaking his head.

“I’ll mind the children,” Red said, heading down after the two.

He exited the apartment building to find Twilight following Flash up the sidewalk and through the alleys down the streets. He followed them through the weaving, smoggy streets of the Industrial district.

Flash paused after a couple of blocks, looking around between a great skyscraper and a textile mill belching smoke into the air. “Yeah, this is where it cut me,” he reported.

“Great,” Twilight nodded, pulling a stick of chalk out of her saddlebag and drawing a circle on the sidewalk. She placed Flash’s hair in the center of the circle and exhaled. Her horn glowed lavender, and the circle began to glow the same color.

“Persequor, invenient,” she began to murmur. “Persequor, invenient...persequor, invenient…”

The hair began to glow lavender as well, twitching as though in excitement. With another exhalation, Twilight rubbed out the circle. The light darted out in a small sphere no larger than a tennis ball, then alighted on a spot on the asphalt a few yards away, which began to glow as well.

“There!” Twilight cried, darting forward.

“Watch it!” Flash shouted, grabbing her tail to stop her from leaping out into traffic. A delivery truck blared its horn at her as it passed by.

Twilight gave the two stallions an embarrassed smile. “Thanks,” she said sheepishly.

They crossed safely and reached the first droplet of marked blood. “There’s the next one,” Red pointed at another glowing line running down the side of a nearby factory. He looked up at the roof of the building stretching over their heads. “You know, following a flying creature on hoof might not be so easy.”

“I’ve got a solution,” Flash grinned. “Hang on, Twilight!”

He grabbed Twilight beneath the forelegs and took off into the air, carrying her with him. “Wha-whoa!” Twilight cried, her alarm quickly giving way to delighted laughter. “This is amazing!” she cried, looking around in awe.

“Makes you kinda wish you had wings, doesn’t it?” Flash smirked.

“Sentry, the trail,” Red scolded, flying up next to his partner.

“Right, right,” Flash said. “Look, there’s the next one,” he said, nodding towards a glowing purple spot on top of another rooftop.

“Let’s go!” Twilight cried eagerly, gesturing for Flash to follow the trail. Flash took off with a delighted whoop from Twilight. Red followed after them, trying to ignore the squirming in his stomach.


By the time Phillip, Daring, and Skybrush landed before Gold Plate’s shop, the late afternoon sun was casting the street in long shadows blended with golden-orange light. A sharp breeze whistled up from the river, carrying the chill of the aptly named Moon of Frost, bringing the promise of winter that would be coming within weeks.

“You sure you’ll find something?” Skybrush asked, unlocking the door once more. “We searched the shop several times before.”

“You did,” Phillip replied as they once more entered the cold, dark showing room with its mishmash of metal knick-knacks. “We didn’t.”

Phillip proceeded to the counter and closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath. He allowed all other sensory input to fade away. The sounds of the street outside and creaks of the house around him faded to silence; he forgot the cold pressure of the floor pushing up against his hooves, the soft touch of his undershirt and the weight of his vest.

He slowly inhaled through his nostrils, studying the tingle of odors. The coppery scent of metal, in its various flavors of brass, steel, gold, silver, and copper, covered nearly everything, but he pushed it aside to focus on the subtler details. He pushed aside his own deodorant, ignored Skybrush’s feather wax, allowed himself to linger briefly on Daring’s jasmine shampoo, then dug past the tickling scent of dust.

There! Just in the back of his nose, he detected it: faded with time, but still there. A reeking malaise of cheap cologne that reminded him of gasoline splashed over turpentine. Sniffing like a bloodhound, he proceeded around the counter and down the hall.

“He can really smell that customer’s cologne?” Skybrush asked, watching Phillip proceed down the trail.

“Earth pony magic, combined with years of practice,” Daring explained. “Annoyingly, it means that I can never surprise him with pizza.”

“You do realize that smell isn’t admissible evidence in court,” Skybrush commented.

“That’s not the point,” Daring said. “The idea is, if he can figure out where the customer went, he might find something that he left behind.”

His nose leading the way, Phillip proceeded down the back hallway, then into a side room that turned out to be a small storage room with old posters and tools on the walls and scattered about the small tables. He paused in place, turning his head from side to side.

“Strong scent here,” he muttered. “Customer hid in here when Silver came in.”

He bent down and started searching the floor, snapping on his flashlight for a better view. “G’day,” he muttered, taking out a set of tweezers and plucking a long hair that had snagged on a table leg. He held it up for his companions to see.

“Orange,” Daring commented. “Definitely not Silver or Gold Plate’s.”

Phillip sniffed it and made a face. “Reeks of cologne,” he muttered, placing the hair into a bag and handing it to Skybrush.

“Our lab probably isn’t as advanced as yours, but we’ll find out what we can,” Skybrush commented. “Hey, here on the threshold: coat hairs.”

There were indeed small pale blue hairs clinging to the side of the doorway, which Phillip quickly brushed into another bag.

“We didn’t go in here because the door was shut and the blood trail didn’t go into it,” Skybrush admitted, taking the bag. “Guess that’ll teach us.”

“Learn from this, mate,” Phillip said, completing his scan of the room and deciding that there was no further evidence to be gleaned from there.

“Okay,” Daring said, reviewing. “Blue unicorn with orange hair, about three foot two, wearing Gardener brand horseshoes, wearing cheap cologne.”

“Neighbor might have seen something,” Phillip said. “Daring, check around to see if there are any other clues. Skybrush, let’s go see this neighbor.”

“Right,” Daring nodded, heading for a set of stairs that led down to the basement.

Skybrush and Phillip exited the store and glanced over at the building next door, a squat little brick building with a barbershop pole affixed next to the door. Phillip spotted a pair of eyes in the window facing them; they made eye contact with him, then quickly vanished.

“Nosy,” Skybrush commented as they headed for the door. Frosted letters on the glass door declared “Smooth Trim Barbershop: Family Owned and Operated since 1876.”

Skybrush opened the door, causing the bell over the door to jingle, and they proceeded to enter a tidy barbershop, with lines of chairs facing mirrors, none of them occupied; shears, combs, razors, and other tools were set up on the counters, ready to be used. A waiting area was set up in the corner with sofas, magazines, a steady supply of crossword puzzles, and a radio; a large cash register that looked nearly as old as the store was set up on another nearby table.

A light brown unicorn with a cutie mark of a pair of scissors and a creamy white mane and mustache, both of which looked like they’d been cut with a slide rule, was unnecessarily sweeping the black and white tiled floor. He looked up at their approach, reacting with obviously fake surprise.

“Ah, welcome back, detective!” the stallion cried, setting aside his broom and dusting off his apron before striding forward with one hoof extended. “And who is your friend?”

“Close Shave, this is Phillip Finder,” Skybrush introduced his partner as he shook the barber’s hoof.

“The famous detective!” Close Shave cried, pumping Phillip’s hoof. “It would give me a great honor if you were to get a haircut at my shop!”

“Maybe later,” Phillip said, subconsciously pushing some of his scruffy mane back behind his head. “You keep an eye on Gold Plate’s shop.”

“I do like to keep apprised of the neighborhood,” Close Shave admitted.

“You see who comes and goes into the shop,” Phillip stated.

“Well, that is what windows are for,” Shave said, gesturing to the window that clearly displayed the front of the metal shop.

“Somepony came into the shop a few days ago,” Phillip cut in. “Blue unicorn with orange hair, about three foot two. Probably had some cheap cologne.”

“Ah, yes, I do remember somepony matching that description,” Close Shave nodded. “He came in here five days ago, not too long before poor Gold was murdered.”

“Did you get a name or anything?” Skybrush asked, whipping out his notebook.

“He said his name was Deal Maker; he did indeed have very distinct cologne, I thought I’d never get the smell out,” Shave recited. “Had a strange accent, too; definitely not from around Trottingham. He had the cutie mark of a briefcase with a bit symbol on it and golden eyes. He said he was looking for a good metal worker for a project that he had in mind. We chatted a bit about local stores, and he did ask a few questions about Gold Plate’s work.” Shave paused. “Now that I think about it, he was hanging about in the shop for a while and watching Gold Plate’s store.”

“Would you be willing to make a statement to that effect?” Skybrush asked, jotting down notes.

“Yes, of course,” Shave nodded. “Do you think that he was the one who--?”

“He’s just a pony of interest at this moment,” Skybrush interrupted.

The bell clattered as Daring burst into the room, her eyes wide with worry. “We got a problem,” she declared to Phillip.

“The famous Daring Do!” Close Shave cried. “I am honored--”

“Yeah, yeah, not now,” Daring snapped, holding out something to Phillip. “I think I know what Gold Plate was working on.”

Phillip took the item, which turned out to be a fragment of curved metal. He realized that it was a broken fragment of a metal mold. “Why did he break this?” he pondered, turning it over in his hooves. “Looks ring-shaped.”

“Look at the markings on the inside,” Daring said, pointing.

Phillip frowned at the symbols etched into the metal interior. Odd tribal designs and runes, slithering across the surface. One shape reminded him of a serpent, another of a sun.

“Wait…” Phillip whispered as he suddenly recognized the symbols.

“The Rings of Scorchero,” Daring confirmed. “He was hired to make a copy of the rings.”

“Maybe he just wanted his own version of it,” Skybrush commented.

“Who’s willing to murder over a copy?” Daring replied. “And why would he smash it after?"

"Did Deal mention if he was staying in town while he was here?" Skybrush pressed Close Shave.

The barber tapped his chin a few times. "Yes, I did hear him mention that he was staying at a motel near here, the Ho Hum."

"Thanks," Daring said, grabbing Phil beneath the forelegs and vanishing out the door with a cry of alarm and the jangling of a bell.

A few moments later, the door reopened and a sheepish Daring reentered, followed by an irritated Phillip. "Um...where is the Ho Hum?" Daring muttered.

"I'll show you," Skybrush said, heading for the door. He gave Phillip a querying look, who rolled his eyes in response. "Thank you for the assistance, Mister Shave. We'll be in touch."

The bell jangled once more as the trio exited, leaving the barber alone in his empty shop.

"Those two,” Close Shave remarked to himself after several seconds of silence, returning to his sweeping. “Are quite strange.”


The small drop glowed violet on the sidewalk. Flash landed on the street, placing Twilight gently on the ground next to him. The unicorn spun in place, her horn alight.

“I don’t see the next drop,” she reported.

“Well, they were going this way,” Flash said, looking to the northeast. The only buildings around them were old factories and mills, several of them nearly as old as the city itself. Flash coughed on the thick smog that eternally hung about the Industrial District, spitting out blackened phlegm. “Mother, I hate this part of the city,” he grumbled. “Red, you see anything?”

“I got nothing,” Red reported, spinning in midair. “I can still see the trail that we were following, but I don’t see any other dots.”

“They’ve got to be around here somewhere, then,” Flash declared, looking about.

“Wait…” Twilight said, stepping forward. “I feel something, this way!”

“Define ‘something,’” Red stated as Twilight hustled northeast, pausing to look for traffic before crossing the road. Flash and Red followed her as she passed around a city block and paused in front of a chain-link fence that surrounded a small derelict brick building that had once been a blacksmith shop, according to the faded sign that was barely clinging to the wall over the door by a single nail. Signs on the fence declared that the site had been condemned and was due to be torn down and rebuilt.

“There’s a circle around that building. I can tell because it’s blocking my magic. Do you feel that?”

Flash frowned and extended a wing. He did feel something, a faint buzzing on the edge of his wing that made his primaries crawl.

“Why would they put a circle around an abandoned building?” Twilight asked. “I’m going to get a closer look.”

With a pop and a burst of purple light, she teleported to the other side of the fence and proceeded forward.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Phillip,” Red rolled his eyes from overhead.

“We can’t afford to lose this trail,” Twilight replied, pawing at the ground. After some digging, she uncovered a portion of a thin silver band buried in the ground around the building. “Hmm,” she frowned, stepping over the circle.

“Blood spot!” Red shouted, pointing at the roof of the ramshackle structure. A glowing dot had indeed appeared on the misaligned roof tiles. He landed atop the roof to investigate further. A small glimmer of black caught his eye.

“There’s a crow...raven feather caught in the air duct up here!” he called down.

“I bet that this is our bad guy’s hideout!” Flash grinned, heading for the door. He peered in through a window that was covered with boards. "It's a mess in there," he reported. "I see wreckage and furniture everywhere." He started to tug at the boards covering the window.

“Hold it, partner,” Red scolded, quickly flying down and blocking him. “Use that thing between your ears. This guy’s dangerous and he clearly put work into this. You don’t think that he put some work into security around here?”

“Oh,” Flash said sheepishly. “Good point.”

Twilight lit up her horn and several small purple spheres blossomed from the tip, circling the derelict structure like planets in an orrery. The miniature stars started to turn different shades and colors, which Twilight scrutinized closely.

"I'm picking up traces of gunpowder and unknown chemicals," she reported. "I can't tell what it is, but it might be dangerous."

“Let’s call in backup to get this place swept,” Red said, looking around and checking the skies, glaring at a pair of shadows on an overhead power line before realizing that they were merely mourning doves. “And in the meantime, how about we get out of the open?”

“Good idea,” Twilight nodded, teleporting to the other side of the fence, The trio headed back to the apartment building, their heads turning back and forth with every step, double-checking every shadow that extended eastward from the setting sun.


The Ho Hum lived up to its name: it was simply a set of single-story brown and gray cottages set in the middle of a small lot, surrounded on all sides by grass that was browning in late fall.

"Yeah, he was here," the heavyset blue unicorn had yawned from behind the receptionist's desk when they asked if a blue unicorn with orange hair had stayed there recently. "Stayed in cottage number six right up until two days ago. Checked out in a big damn hurry."

"May we see the cottage?" Skybrush asked.

"Sure," the mare shrugged. "Haven't had much time to clean it anyway."

Cottage number six was in the middle of the lot. The interior proved to be just as promised on the outside: a combined bedroom and mini-kitchen with an old radio set in one corner, next to the lumpy bed covered in faded blue-white sheets that matched the carpet. The sound of a leaky toilet came from the bathroom door.

"Not sure how much you'll find," Skybrush said, frowning around at the room.

"You'd be surprised," Phillip replied, making a slow circuit of the room before making a beeline for the trash can, which was still full of takeout wrappers and notes. He dumped the can onto the floor and started sorting through it.

Daring started searching the mattress, looking for anything that the previous occupant had left behind. "If this guy was smart, he wouldn't have killed Gold," she said, lifting up the mattress to check beneath it. "I'm betting that he left behind something."

"Right here," Phillip said, retrieving a note from the trash and uncrumpling it.

Skybrush bent down to study the discovery. "'Silver owes money to Mob. Contact Colcannon? Might need to get gold for cheaper. What if he starts asking questions? Has to know about museum.'" He tapped his jaw in thought with a talon. "Hmm...Colcannon runs that Mareish restaurant that Silver was gambling at. We've long suspected him of being connected to the Mareish Mob, but could never get anything to stick."

"Notes on his working with Gold," Phillip muttered. "Looks like he was considering using blackmail."

"Guys, we got a problem," Daring announced, holding up a telegram that she'd retrieved from behind the mattress.

She read the note aloud. "'Change of plans. Need rings by 28 Frost.'"

Phillip's eyes widened. "Today's the 28th of the Moon of Frost."

"They're gonna hit the museum tonight," Daring concluded. "Phil, we gotta get back to Ponyville.”

“Next bus back to Ponyville is in an hour,” Skybrush said.

“Fuck that,” Daring replied.

Phillip stared at her for a beat, then groaned and rolled his eyes. “Fine. But we're calling ahead. And I’m doing this under protest.” He turned to Skybrush. “You do good work here, mate. Keep us in the loop.”

“Will do,” Skybrush nodded. “Um, good luck.”

That sentence was barely out of his mouth before a greyscale rainbow zoomed out the door with a rush of wind and a squawk of surprise. Skybrush stared for a moment, then continued his search through the motel room.

Author's Note:

Poor Phil, always getting taken for a ride.

Okay, okay, I know that this isn't very exciting reading. I promise, the exciting stuff is coming soon!

I hope that you enjoyed regardless! Please leave a like and a comment if you enjoyed!

PreviousChapters Next