My Most Faithful Mortifer

by hamishwarfare

Chapter. 20 – The First Flashes (Part.1)

Chapter. 20 – The First Flashes (Part.1)

The day was getting a little long in the tooth; the library was soon to close but it was actually one of the busiest times it had been since she had taken up the post. The cause of so many ponies borrowing books was a fairly obvious one; the forecast for the next few days was scheduled for rain, so what better activity to do on a rainy day than get comfortable with a good book.

But no matter how many ponies walked through the door, be they quiet and understanding, or upfront and demanding; Sunset Shimmer could not get over the letter she had received earlier that day. It was an innocent letter from Las Pegasus and was sent to her by one of her friends from where she had grown up.

From what the letter said her friend was finally able to save up enough money to go and visit the ‘Water Park of the Desert.’ It sounded like it was a fun place to visit, though perhaps a bit too loud and busy for Sunsets liking.

That and every place out there seems to want nothing but your money…Still it’s a place to consider if Sunset’s coffers ever get too depleted; she had yet to find a more proficient poker face than hers, and with her intelligence she doubted counting cards would be very challenging.

She stamped the return card of the final book of the day and joined the grey coated earth pony mare in walking to the main door of the library. With a wave of her hoof goodbye and a flick of her horn the library was officially closed for the day; so now Sunset could finally focus completely on the letter.

Her friend had obviously had a good time at Las Pegasus and couldn’t wait to tell Sunset the story; but that’s all it was, a story.

Oh, by all means the trip could have happened and Sunset did know the pony that wrote the letter quite well; but if the trip was a real one, then this letter had taken years to get to her.

That was not the reason why she was now in her basement and re-reading the letter over again. No it was two paragraphs in particular that needed her attention. By this point in the letter her friend was describing a bad time with a few inebriated stallions, and was clearly venting.

“I’d imagine myself removing / dealing with annoying stallion’s everyday. Strutting horrendously, trying every backwater thought stealing oxygen. Stupid random airheads, xenon billowing extroverts; always using alcohol, an impractical overbearing bothersome nuisance.”

Sunset could not help but shake her head in amusement; her friend had indeed worked herself up a little and her dyslexia was revealing itself a bit here. It showed up again a paragraph or two later; when she went on to talk about how no pony there could brew tea, and had asked Sunset to save her from the drought.

“Please bring oolong; ethanol emitting acrid tasting shit. Everypony brews rancid tea, makes Panda’s instantly enjoyable; unbelievable knowing killer anthrax openly swallowed nowadays.”

Ah Panda eyes, a bulky white earth pony with black patches around his eyes; his face really dose look like a giant Panda’s. He also cannot make tea to save his own life.

The walk down memory lane aside, the rest of the two page letter was nothing but filler. Sure the writer’s dyslexia appeared now and again further on, but nothing came out of them. These two paragraphs were the sole purpose of the missive.

This was orders from her Masters, this letter was from Predator.

“Immediate threat to Trixie Lulamoon. Protect her. Remain unknown.” Sunset whispered to herself, after double checking that she had not missed anything else from the letter.

‘The timing of this is quite interesting. A mission to protect Trixie when she is staying with me; I wonder if somepony arranged this, or if it really is a coincidence. But orders are orders, and this has every security check to confirm that it is legitimate.’

Sunset revealed her basement’s work desk once again and placed the letter back into its envelope before dropping it unceremoniously into one of the drawers. The letter had served its purpose and she will dispose of it completely later, but right now she had a mission on hand, and a target to defend.

Opening a second drawer on the desk, Sunset pulled out a single strand of vibrant light blue hair; one collected just this morning from the bed Trixie was sleeping on. Her focus gathered Sunset activated the divination spell Scrying.

Her magic mingled with the hair within her hoof before, acting almost like a mist, it extended above the focus and formed a wavy circular viewing ring.

Within a circular frame of her magic above the blue hair focus, Sunset could see that Trixie was in the company of Spike and Fluttershy; and from what Sunset could work out, they were at Fluttershy’s house.

The image was not terribly clear, cracks of purple appeared over the image along with similarly coloured static now and then, and there was also no sound to accompany the image.

Sunset sighed, the focus was at its absolute limit; any more magic, or if Trixie moved significantly, the spell would break and the hair would disintegrate. Hairs really were not good as a focus, but it’s the best Sunset had; she’d already checked for anything better that she could have borrowed without Trixie noticing its absence.

The image flickered again as Trixie started to follow Fluttershy across her small bridge; but as she reached the other side the spell gave out in a puff of smoke and it, along with the hair, dissolved into the either.

The downside of Divination magic, Focuses can be destroyed if the spell is interfered with, or unstable; and that casting was clearly unstable.

But regardless Sunset had a lead of exactly where Trixie was now; all that was left was to find who was trying to hurt her and stop them.

---

The afternoon train from Canterlot arrived at the sleepy station belonging to Ponyville. There were a few ponies scheduled to get on, mostly earth ponies; and there were a few unicorns and a pegasus or two, though they were outnumbered.

But there were also a few ponies leaving the train; again mostly earth ponies, like the yellow coated mare or the deeply red stallion with a long slate grey mane. A little stranger was the lone pegasus stallion wearing a cloak or the three unicorns that also departed from the train. Still the passenger count was no more than what was normal for this time of day, at this time of year.

The lone conductor standing on the platform thought nothing of the few ponies that had come to see Ponyville, regardless if they were wearing cloaks that covered most of their bodies, or had big black saddle bags that blocked their cutie marks. The ponies came and went from the platform, and the day moved on exactly as the train was doing now.

---

“So Fluttershy, Rarity was telling Spike and I that you have the perfect accompaniment to the Princess raising the sun.” Trixie said as she followed the shy pegasus along the path that led out of town. While the path travelled close to the Everfree forest, it was actually a rather pleasant and scenic trail that had just recently taken them all past the apple fields of Sweet Apple Acres.

“Oh well I don’t know about that. But some of my bird friends wanted to start a choir together; so I’ve been acting as their conductor. I’ve only told Rarity and Rainbow Dash about it, so I don’t know if it really is as good as the two of them claim.”

“Training birds to sing together, regardless of how you achieve it, is a really impressive feat. If you could get them to, I dunno, sing the tune to the national anthem; then I think it would be a great accompaniment to Princess Celestia raising the sun.” Spike added from his perch upon Trixie’s back. Currently his head was deep within the confines of a local history book, but he was still listening enough to add his two bits every now and again.

Trixie rolled her eyes, “the lazy stowaway is right. But that’s why we’re accompanying you right now; provided you don’t mind showing us, of course.”

“Oh no, I don’t mind. The whole town is helping out in the celebration in one way or another; hopefully this could be my little participation to the festivities.” By now they had crossed over the small bridge separating the public path from Fluttershy’s abode.

As they continued around to the back of the house, Fluttershy could no longer prevent her curiosity any longer. “So Spike what are you reading there?”

“Hmm? Oh, uh this old thing, it’s called ‘Equestria’s Lost Provinces’ its part of the Ancient Equestria series. Miss Shimmer order this copy for me from Canterlot . I’m just studying up on the ancient history of the area.”

“Oh, what’s got you interested in the history of Ponyville?”

Spike shifted around slightly before deciding on the truth of the matter; there was just something about Fluttershy that he trusted. “Well, it’s just that I was wondering why Princess Celestia chose to change the location of the Summer Sun Celebration from Canterlot; and to choose such a small town like Ponyville compared with any other city in Equestria. So I’m looking up as much history as possible to see if I can find out the answer.”

Trixie looked back to Spike, her expression clearly wondering if saying that too Fluttershy was a good idea. It disappeared quickly though, it was too late to take back what he had said now.

Fluttershy on the other hoof, appeared to take the information to heart. Her expression became thoughtful, before finally a small frown settled on her face and she slowly started to shake her head. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea. You do make a good point though. My best guess would be to ask Granny Smith, since the Apple Family is the longest living family of the town. But anyway, if you could just wait for me here for just a moment, I’ll go gather my friends.”

Fluttershy left the two just outside the small green thatched cottages back door. There were dozens of little animals running around the place, and just at the forest line was a brown bear foraging for food, completely ignoring the much smaller critters. Did it just wave to a passing by white rabbit?

The two scouts did not have to wait long before Flutterhshy came back with a pouch of bird seeds, a small metal baton, and an interesting looking music stand. There were six small horizontal arms divided into three rows of two, each one set back slightly from the pair in front.

Once setup the buttercup coloured pegasus used a wing to gently tap her conductor’s baton onto the frame. Within moments almost a dozen birds of different colours, sizes, and species came eagerly down to the stand.

What followed was a wonderful melody of birds singing, conducted expertly by the pegasus. It was sweet and melodic with each of the different bird songs matching harmoniously; the performance left both parties in a very pleasant state of mind once it was finished. When Fluttershy turned around, she could not help but let out a small giggle at the expressions on their faces. She even raised a hoof to cover her mouth, in a futile attempt to block the noise.

“So did you like it?”

The question brought them both out of the stupor they found themselves in, with Trixie being the first to respond. “That was incredible. Do you think you could train them to sing the national anthem? If so then I fully support your birds singing when Princess Celestia raises the sun.”

It was quite the strange sight that appeared over Fluttershy’s face; an interesting mixture of pride at her achievement, happiness at being able to contribute to the festival, and utter terror of participating in such a prominent position. Eventually it settled on a small prideful happy smile, being covered by her long pink mane.

“Umm, thank you. Uh, as for teaching them the national anthem? S, s, sure, that should not be a problem. Oh, oh actually it’s almost winter so, so a good number of my friends here will fly south for the winter. I st, still believe it is possible, but their performance might not be as good as this one. I’m sorry.”

“No no, that’s ok. So long as you get your friends here as close as possible, that should be fine. If by the week before the celebration and you still think it’ll not work, then you can swap over to this number. Honestly I still want this to go with the Princess raising the sun.”

Trixie’s complement was clearly conflicting the shy pegasus, but the enthusiastic nodding from Spike eased Fluttershy slightly, he was just such a polite and interesting baby dragon. “Well, al, alright I’ll do it. I will need to get additional seeds for them all if I start teaching them now; since I’ll be taking time away from them preparing to fly south. But I think we’ll have enough time before the celebration.”

“Oh well I think that is something we can help with. We can arrange to have whatever you need delivered to you; provided, of course, it is directly used for the preparation of the Summer Sun Celebration and within a certain amount of funds.” Spike interjected, feeling glad that all the preparations are finally more or less completed now.

“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly ask for that.”

“Sure you could.” Spike reaffirmed, while putting the book he was reading back into his backpack. “Honestly out of all the funding already being arranged for the ponies setting up the Celebration, I think an extra bag or two of seeds a week will be rather small potatoes in comparison.

“Why don’t I go down and arrange things with the shop that you buy your supplies from, that way it’s all set up and ready for you when you need? I’d imagine they know what kind of seeds you normally buy?”

“Well, if you’re sure it won’t be a problem; I get a lot of my animal friend’s supplies from a stall in the market place not too far from Applejacks.”

“Right well I’ll go and see them right now.” Fluttershy raised her hoof to try and interject, but the little dragon had already run around her house and was now out of sight.

“But, they’ll be closed by now. Umm, Trixie do you think we should go after him?”

Trixie shook her head, “naa, let him find out on his own. He gets like that sometimes; he thinks he knows exactly what to do next, but forgets the small, simple things. Such as making sure the market stall he’s looking for is open. In the meantime I’m going to slowly start making my way over to Sweet Apple Acres to talk to Granny Smith like you suggested. You’re welcome to join me if you want?”

Fluttershy, however, shook her head. “No, I’ve got my friends here and they look eager to start learning. If it’s all right with you I would like to start teaching them the anthem now.”

“That’s fine. If I miss Spike on the road and he comes back here, just let him know where I went. I can’t imagine he’ll be long once he sees the stall has closed though.”

Fluttershy was more than happy to do this; so with a wave of her hoof, Trixie set off to see Granny Smith. Hoping this lead will bear fruit; the books available in the Golden Oak Library so far had not.

---

“I’m afraid Granny Smith won’t be able to help you there, sugarcube. While she’s mighty knowledgeable about the Apple Family’s history and doubly so when it comes to farming apples; the area’s history was something that she never took an interest in. That’s how the Golden Oak Library got a lot of its history books.

“Now if Goldie Delicious was here, she might have something that could help ya. Unfortunately she’s off to a cat lover’s convention and won’t be back in town for another week.”

It wasn’t a long walk towards town before Trixie found herself back on the property belonging to the Apple family. She’d seen Applejack hard at work bucking the few remaining trees containing apples.

It was a testament to how much earth pony magic the family had between them, that there were still pristine looking apples to be found on trees this close to Nightmare Night; though there weren’t many left.

Trixie couldn’t help but let out a snort of frustration. She was almost at her wits end; thanks to the delicate balancing act between completing all of the assignments given to her, and researching why the Summer Sun Celebration was being held here of all places.

The two were interrupted by the strangest of noises. It was kind of like a thud, only it had an airiness about it rather than a solid impact; the noise had clearly come from a little bit of distance away, but it was still noticeable enough. It was followed by a quiet whooshing noise that was gradually getting louder. Both ponies were confused by the sounds and were moving their heads about to see if they could find the source of said commotion.

It was a small glint from the air that caught Applejacks attention first; looking up it was all she could do but stare in shock, mouth hanging open. Trixie only had time to notice the dumbstruck expression on the earth pony’s face before impact.

Thankfully there was a softness to whatever it was that hit her, before the final thud of something hard. She couldn’t make out anything; whatever it was that hit her had also done something to her eyes. Her vision wasn’t blacked out, but the light was certainly diluted by the white stuff now covering her face.

It was also more than just her face, she could feel that this stuff was all over her; muffling her ears, covering the vast majority of her side, and even her underbelly. Some of it even got into her mouth.

It was cool, it was gloopy, it was sticky as well as drippy. It was, sweet; quite a pleasant taste to it actually. A small tentative sniff, doing her best not to inhale any of it, revealed something rather rich. Again there was a sweet scent to it; and was that, vanilla?

Eventually her scrambling hooves managed to remove enough of the stuff from her face so that she could actually see what was going on. Staring upon her forehooves, Trixie was confused when she found them covered in a combination of white and yellow substances, along with something crumbly and brown.

A lot of the ground around her was also covered in this strange mixture, with more than the lion’s share on the same side as the impact just earlier.

An unexpected weight was lifted from her shoulders suddenly, before the hollow sound of a light metal impact clattering could be heard around her. The sound was muffled slightly as Trixie realised some of this stuff managed to get into one of her ears; the newly discovered sensation sent a shiver along her spine. It was not a pleasant feeling. The stuff had to be removed.

“RAINBOW DASH! PINKIE PIE!”

The angry voice next to her finally snapped Trixie out of her surprise fuddled stupor and she looked over what had happened. The scene her eyes settled on made her wonder if she was still in a stupor.

Covering both herself and the farm mare next to her, was a large mixture of whipped cream, yellow custard and scattered remains of a crumbly pastry. Lying on the ground was an impossibly large pie tin, traces of the assaulting concoction were evident on its inside.

She had just been struck by a comically oversized custard cream pie.

The sound of laughter finally managed to worm its way past the remaining mixture still stuck in her ears, and the confused face she was wearing was turned into a frown.

Her eyes followed the stomping of hooves, as the enraged farm pony marched over to the tree line; where a pink pony and a light blue pony were half rolling about the foliage. Right next to the two laughing hyenas was a metal barrel of some kind, with what appeared to be a red streamer sticking out of it?

The frown morphed slightly before a glint found its way into her eyes, and revenge was planned out.

“What do you two think you’re doing?!” Applejack whisper shouted at the two laughing mares. “It’s bad enough you go and do a prank like that, but you hit one of the organisers for the Summer Sun Celebration!” The area between Applejack’s snout and her eyes was becoming noticeably redder; a vein appeared to be trying its very best to burst, and her eyes were burning with frustration and anger.

“Hey, uhh, farmer pony, could you move?” Before Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash could say anything to the enraged farmer, or even before Applejack could build a good head of steam; the shout from behind her stopped everything and the three mares looked over.

What they saw was nothing special, Trixie was still standing in amongst the gory remains of the pie attack, still covered in its innards, but there was something different. Her face had a small smirk about it, her eyes contained an edge to them, and her horn was glowing a soft pale pink.

Applejack just stared at her fellow victim before pointing at herself with a hoof. “Yeah you, could you more a little to the left please?” Confusion was clearly written on Applejacks face, but she complied with the request. The air shimmered once Applejack had sufficiently moved away, but at the same time nothing had changed with the scene before them.

It was almost as if there was a line on the ground and when something crossed over it, the image in front of the three friends shattered. Trixie was still in the same place, and while still covered in the pie goop, was noticeably cleaner. The ground around her was even cleaner, with only small traces of the offending pie around the place; other than the oversized pie tin still resting on the ground.

The reason for the area’s cleanliness was currently about a meter or two away from the two pranksters; and was still travelling at speed right for them. The whole blob wrapped in an aura matching the magic from Trixie’s horn.

The impact was not hard, but it was messy. If the two pranking ponies were standing, they may have been knocked over; but because they were on the ground still, the only thing that happened to them was a very similar fate to their targets.

It was the angry farm pony that broke first and collapsed onto the ground; holding onto her sides for dear life, as she struggled to take a breath in between the raucous laughter bursting out of her. It was here that everypony else caught up in this two way prank, joined in with the air stealing laughter.

---

“Oh, am I interrupting something?” The four ponies had eventually calmed down and were now by the big red barn washing themselves down. They were using the same equipment that was almost exclusively used by the three fillies known as the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

Looking over at the softly spoken voice, they all found Fluttershy walking along the driveway towards the farm house.

“Na, Sugarcube. Just cleaning up one heck of a prank, done by these two menaces.” The soap covered Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie wore Cheshire grins of honour.

“Ok, umm Miss Trixie, do you know where Spike is? It’s just I was wondering, since he’s not back yet, if he managed to get a bag of seeds for me. It’s just my friends are refusing to do any more practice today unless I supply them with enough seeds.”

Trixie, who was rinsing off in a tub of magically warmed water – the magic supplied by herself; to save the farms wood supply as well as her own time waiting – blinked at this statement, before magically creating a time piece. It was getting rather late in the afternoon.

“No I haven’t seen him. It doesn’t take that long to get to the market and back, does it?” She received confirmation from all the ponies around her, “and he would have noticed us if he went past. And your house, Fluttershy, is hard to miss from the road…Just where in Equestria is he, then? I swear if he’s somehow managed to get lost…”

Anything more that could be said was interrupted by the sound of two sets of hooves running along the road.

Coming down the farm’s drive at break neck speed were both Applejacks older brother Big Mac, and beside him was the porcelain white unicorn mare, Rarity. Trailing behind the red stallion was a cart, which was almost launched into the air with every one of his powerful strides.

“Landsake Big Mac, what’s got your tail in a twist?” Applejack shouted to her brother. His direction changed with her shout and he was now heading right towards the group of mares by the barn.

It was clear now that Rarity was carrying something in her magic, suspended above their heads. As the two drew closer the clumped rag took the shape of a backpack, one that was quite familiar to Trixie; it was old, worn, and clearly custom made for Spike out of a filly’s saddle bag.

There was a depiction of a very dull and muted purple star, faded to almost nothing by time and trips through the washing cycle. This was the backpack that Spike wore, a lot. One that was very precious to him, regardless of how old and shabby it was.

“Huff, Huff, we found this bag lying on the road just out of town. Phew, Big Mac recognised it as the one Spike was wearing as he was running around the market earlier.” Big Mac confirmed the story so far. Rarity brought the bag closer to everypony there to see. The flap was open revealing a book and an unusual green rose, with its long stem acting as a bookmark.

“We basically came across this together at the same time; Big Mac recognised it and knew who it belonged to, but didn’t know where to find you. I knew where you were, well at least I thought you were at Fluttershy’s house, but I also know of this rose.” Rarity had regained her breath back, but her face was still ashen white and very fearful. “My dear, this rose is the calling card of the murdering pony for hire called ‘The Violent Rose.’”

Nearly all of the ponies in the group looked at Rarity with confusion, the only other pony to know what she spoke of, was Trixie.

“The Violent Rose? Here? What’s he doing in a small town like this?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Somepony must have set him on your trail. Or Spikes I guess since this is clearly his calling card, and this is Spikes backpack.”

Trixie shook her head, “no. If that monster was after spike, we’d have found the body along with the rose. That is his MO. This is a trap, and Spike is the bait.”

Rainbow couldn’t help herself. “What are you two talking about? Who is this ‘Violent Rose,’ and what does he want with a baby dragon?”

Rarity huffed, “The Violent Rose is the most infamous pony there is, to those ponies in the know. He kills ponies for money and then leaves his calling card, a rare green rose called Fleurs Vertes. I had hoped to never see one in my life…”

Trixie was nodding along with the explanation; however there was a small frown on her face as she was focused on the backpack. She carefully removed the book from the bag while still keeping the flower exactly as it was, trapped within its pages.

She had never heard of the Violent Rose using hostages, but that could also be just because they never survive. It was even less known that the killer considered focused collateral damage a perk of the job. So while it was not heard of for him to take a hostage to lure out his prey, it was certainly within the realms of possibility.

Gently setting the book flat on the ground cover up; Trixie kept her Telekinesis active while grabbing one of the brushes from nearby to rest the rose on top of. This was done to ensure the rose did not move, so that any hint the killer might have left would be as clear as possible.

The book was the same one Spike was reading earlier, the same one specially ordered for him and had only just arrived this morning from Canterlot; Equestria’s Lost Provinces.

Opening the hardback clue at the page indicated; Trixie found that the stem ended right bang in the middle of a paragraph, part way through the chapter dedicated to the Everfree Forest of all places.

Her care with the rose was rewarded, for the paragraph talked about a specific set of ruins found within the forest.

“I know where he is.” Trixie’s voice was quiet, but it cut through all the conversation around her, stopping it instantly. “I know where he’s taken Spike. He’s gone into the Everfree Forest, to the ruined Castle of the Two Sisters.”

Author's Note:

I do not normally write these as I find they can break the flow of a story when reading them; but for this chapter I am making an exception for a fun little challenge.

Something that I spent far too long trying out, was actually writing the hidden message within the two paragraphs of the letter sent by Predator to Sunset. I know its not the best and most subtle, hence my blaming of Dyslexia; something that I fight tooth and nail against everyday.

You know the message; so if you want, try your hand -or claw, or hoof, or any other appendage available to you- at finding the secret message. Have fun with it.

How to Find the secret message:
It is in a repeating pattern. So take the first letter of the first word, then the second letter of the next, before going back to the first letter of the third word and repeating again (1,2,1,2,1,2,...). Each of the two paragraphs starts at 1. Note that punctuation is not included.