SpikesXLuna the Sequel

by Faithful Brony

The Next Objective

From a large abandoned airship factory, screams could be heard everywhere in the surrounding area. That however would require that somepony be around to hear it. Nopony was around for a good mile and a half, so the screams were of little consequence. The screams came from inside the structure which was barren, apart from a few dimly flickering lights in the night. Fire Sash was crying like a big blubbering baby as he received more and more painful forms of torture. It ranged from surgical cutting tools to electrical cables that administered a nasty shock when applied.
The stallion was tortured for only a couple of hours before he screamed for mercy. Princess Luna was surprised that he had survived this long since he wasn't exactly in the best of shape. This weak form of a male pony was a bit overweight an probably never saw much action since he hid behind mob guards all the time. Luna wasn't satisfied but she had to continue her mission and so they took him down and bound his hooves. The group sat him up on an old wooden chair and pointed a bright light at his face to blur his vision. The darkness of the room hid most of her companions from sight and they needed it to remain that way.
As far as she knew, the only one the stallion recognized was her. The rest of the group sat back as Luna approached Fire Sash to begin the questioning.

"Tell me, do you remember the most recent job you were assigned to take care of," the Princess asked with a glare of hatred at the stallion. the stallion coward in fear not able to look at her angry eyes.

"Yes I remember, I was suppose to hire a hitpony to take out some young dragon in Canterlot," he said hoping the answer would suffice. She then slapped him across the face which he responded with screams of absolute fear.

"Tell me, who it was that gave you this job and are there other involved," the angry mare asked as she took satisfaction in the pain she caused the bad stallion.

"I never got to meet him, the pony I dealt with was a representative. He said he was part of an organization that has deep roots in Equestria and that he needed someone killed. they paid a lot of bits so I didn't ask to many questions," Fire Sash responded with as much as he could remember about that day.

"Who was the pony you met with? Did he have any distinct features or things about him that would stand out? Also was anypony else with him," Luna bombarded Fire sash with more questions to put pressure on him?

"All I remember is that he wore some sort of cloak with symbols of wings on fire adorning either side of it. Many ponies are apart of it and they assured me that they would get the job done with or without my help. I didn't want to lose the bits so I took the job without hesitation. That's all I know, please let me go," the stallion said as he begged for his life. It would do him little good however as her eyes began to glow a bright white and she stared deep into his eyes. Fire Sash began screaming in agony but it was only for a minute or two before he stopped and slumped in his chair.
Luna returned to normal and walked towards a pillow to sit down on, sighing with frustration. This group had been smart to hid themselves in shadow so to not be recognized. The only thing she had to go on now was a symbol that could be from one of any number of organizations that has risen and fallen since the founding of Equestria. It was not much to go on and she figured it might require a bit of research to figure it out. Twilight was the perfect pony for this kind of job as the princess walked over to her.

"Twilight, I'm afraid we are stuck and you are the only one who can figure this out," the Princess asked hesitant to request the studious mares help. Twilight could tell this was hard for her and she knew why. Princess Celestia had told her before when Luna first came back that her sister was a bit head strong. She liked being able to do things herself and It annoyed the lunar goddess to no end when she had to ask for help. It was a part of her nature to know what to do and how to do it. Twilight smiled at her cousin to reassure her before speaking.

"Don't you worry Princess, I will figure this out. We are here to support you and I'll do my best, Twilight said hugging the Princess. Luna liked that they would share even more relations after she finished this and finally married Spike. The night princess loved the idea of having another sister to talk to even though they were cousins already. After the hug ended, Twilight ran off to the nearest library she could find to begin her research. Shadowfoot took this moment to ask a much needed question.

"So what are we going to do with him? Is he even alive," the thief asked pointing at the husk of a pony slumped in the chair?

"Oh he is very much alive and unharmed. I placed him in a never ending nightmare of his worst fears that he will never wake up from. I healed his physical wounds as to not rouse suspicion when we drop him off at the Canterlot insane asylum for his recent lose of sanity. He was so heart broken when a family member died that he just couldn't handle it and went mad," Luna said in a fake show of care for the none existent loss.

"You know, I'm actually kind of scared of you right now," Ashcloud said, shocked at how dark Luna was being right now. Luna just smirked and teleported Fire Sash to his new and permanent place of residence along with a note for the doctors to read. When she was done, Luna cleaned everything up with her magic then teleported the group to their hotel room. Now all that was left to do was to wait for Twilights return and hopefully with the information they needed.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It had been several hours since Twilight had arrived at the local library and still she was no closer to figuring out the puzzle set before her. She was incredibly smart, so smart in fact that she could read an entire book in half an hour or less. It didn't matter how complex it was, if it was a book she could read it. She also remembered everything she ever read thanks to her eidetic memory. However none of this was helping her and so she was stumped on what to do. She would search this library all night if she had to but she found nothing so far on the symbol.
Twilight had read many books on ancient symbols over the years and knew quite a few but this one was a complete mystery in itself. So far none of the books she had picked up told her anything about the symbol. It popped up at the founding of Equestria and then disappearing shortly after but that was it. No book explain why or how it came to happen only that it was brief. Twilight thought maybe Celestia would know something about it but she was incredibly busy with her and her sisters royal duties. Twilight didn't want to bother her so she sent a letter to Celestia room and she could just check it when she had a chance.
She kept searching, hoping that she might find something but was doubtful. Even a name would be great progress at this point. She was searching through the shelves alphabetically looking for anything that might be related material to the case. When she looked up at the clock she realized that the sun would be coming up in an hour. She had already read most of the books and was on the last cabinet in the section that she was suppose to check. She had little hope at this point on finding anything about the symbol but didn't want to give up until she had read all the books in the section.
As Twilight put a book back she noticed a dusty old book that looked like it had never been lifted from the cabinet.

"Who would put a book here but never read it, that's just a waste of knowledge," Twilight said with puffed out cheeks. She didn't like it when ponies wasted knowledge that might be for something important. She pulled the book down and blew the dust off it, coughing as the air is filled with dust now. Once the dust cleared, she turn it to look at the cover. it was a clothe bound book that's at least 300 years old. She was now confused as to why this was in the wrong section.
She got the urge to open the book anyway and when she did, she saw a series of numbers on the first page. She looked at the numbers for a few minutes before it dawned on her. These numbers to a three series lock combination. Twilight memorized the numbers and as she put the book back she saw something attached to the shelves next to it. On the under side of the shelf, she found a turn dial combo lock and quickly realized the combination went to this lock. She dialed in the combo and as it clicked she sigh with relief and pulled it open.
A leather case falls out and she pull it out to examine the content. There were many sheets of papers inside with the same symbol as the one she was looking for. Twilight jumped up and pumped her hoof in the air as she completed her assignment. She always took pride in completing a hard challenge. It just proved that she was the pony to ask for when it came to finding information on any subject. She put all the stuff in her bag and teleported back to the hotel room, jump scaring the group inside.
Everyone got up and went over to the lavender unicorn.

"So did you find anything," Grondar said hoping they had a new lead so he wasn't just sitting around wasting time.

"Yes, I found a pack of notes hidden in a secret compartment. They had placed clues for one of there own to find It, but I found it first. somepony went through a bit of effort to hide this. It even has the same symbol that I was looking for on it," Twilight said as she passed them to Luna. Luna began reading the contents of the notes.

Name, ranks, and status of past, and current members of the Order of Purity,

Past
Commander Hurricane: founding member, status: Dead
Lieutenant Speed Break: Maester, status: Dead
Lieutenant Commander Alpha Storm: Maester, status: Dead
Admiral Fast Strike: Maester, status: Dead
Colonel Hook Stack: Maester, status: Dead
Master Sargent Point Blank: Maester, status: Dead
LT. Colonel Shard Hide: Maester, status: Dead
Captain Hard Blast: Maester, status: Dead
Major Strong Hoof: Maester, status: Dead
Captain Long Shot: Maester, status: Dead

Present
Unknown: Maester, status: Active
Pawn Top: Second in Command, status: Active
Crystal Shine: First Lieutenant, status: Missing
Whisper Light: Second Lieutenant: status: Active
Knock Lock: Third Lieutenant: status: Active
Fire Sash: Fourth Lieutenant: status: Active
Dumbbell: Grunt, status: Standby
Brick Smash: Grunt, status: Standby
Hard Head: Grunt, status: Standby

When Luna finished reading, she turned to the group with a look of confidence. It was covering up the anger that was barely noticeable.

"We have work to do everyone, and each will be given a task. There are several targets on this list and we need to find and question all of them. We will split into teams of two an go after three targets at a time. Each group will be given two names to go after. Shadowfoot, Grondar, you will go after Hard Head and Knock Lock. Ashcloud, Abbadon, you will go after Brick Smash and Crystal Shine.
Twilight and I will go after Dumbbell and Pawn Top. The plan is to investigate the ponies on this list and figure out their movements. Gather information, find out their day to day activities and capture them when you've gathered enough to do so. Once you have the target, interrogate them and figure out all they know. Once you have completed your tasks you will place these stones on them and they will be teleported to the castle dungeon and await their sentencing. Everyone understand their tasks, Luna asked like she was expecting a quick answer.
They all answered back with individual yeses from each one after the other. The group gathered up their individual things and took off to complete the missions set before each team. Luna and Twilight were the last to leave the hotel. Luna quickly cast a spell on Twilight and she flinches in response. She looked back afterwards to see she had the same butterfly wings she gave to Rarity back during the Young Flyers Competition. that was the same day when Rainbow Dash Had performed the Sonic Rainboom for everypony.

"Why do I need these," Twilight asked wondering what the need for wings was.

"I need you to keep up and I can't keep teleporting us from city to city to complete our tasks. It takes quite a bit of magic to jump extremely long distances. Anyway, we need to go to the Canterlot archives to check for pony births with that name, Luna said as she took off quickly. Twilight flapped her new wings and slowly rose off the ground. With a little trouble, she began to fly after the Princess awkwardly. Twilight tried to keep up all the while with a single thought going through the back of her mind.
Why would somepony go through the trouble to commit such a crime as murder.

Author's Note:

really sorry for not updating this story sooner, Ive just been really busy as of late. I explained why in a blog but its all good now and im getting back into writing the chapters.

Comments

[Wolf Blood]

It's alive!

[Faithful Brony]

6195380 yeah sorry, I hit a creative block for a while and guess I just consumed my time with daily tasks while trying to revive the creativity within and it took a while. I feel confidant that its back though which is great news since now I can write chapters again.