Courage is Magic

Chapter 18: Death

Persepctive: Chris

Another morning, another day that I've slept in my office as if it were my home. I opened my eyes, wondering to myself if the recent events were just a dream. When I moved to rub my eyes though, I saw that I had hooves instead of hands. I remembered how that happened and sighed. "So much for those hopes..." I muttered to myself as I got out of my makeshift bed. The bed itself was not really much more than a few sheets of cloth covering a spot of the floor that I use for sleeping. I looked around my new office and it was pretty much the same thing as before. The office floor was clean because I actually made some time to keep it clean, but I found it was a bit harder to do that since I was a pony. The only upside of this is the fact that now I don't have to worry so much about how to go about cleaning because I was a unicorn. The downside is that I only was able to levitate items instead of using a so called spell to clean the entire floor, so I still used my hooves to clean it at times like these.

After cleaning the office and going through my usual routine of taking a shower, brushing my teeth, and going to the nearest store for coffee, I walked to my office desk and set the cup down on top of it. Because of how peaceful this land was, I seldom saw the stink of pollution outside like I did when I was still a detective in the city. I learned that there were a few major cities here with odd names like Fillydelpha, or Manehatten. I chuckled to myself after thinking about those names but the sound of the door opening had me put the frown back on my face. "What do you want Orange..." I said, knowing full well the pony that just walked in.

"Nothing much, I just came to see how you’re doing." he replied in his cheerful way. I said nothing as I sighed, knowing that no matter what I try, he's always going to find a way to annoy me by getting in my office.

"I'm fine then, so you don't need to be here," I told him flatly, hoping that he would leave.

"Can't do that," he said with a suddenly deep voice. I turned around and saw Orange giggling.

"So you've made it your life's goal to annoy me for while I'm here?" I asked him with furrowed eyebrows.

"I'm not annoying you, I'm actually helping you!" He said while bouncing up and down. And that's what's annoying me... I thought to myself as I turned back to look out the window.

"I appreciate that, but I don't think you're helping as well as you think..." I said, almost muttering the last of my sentence.

"Really? Am I forgetting something?" He asked me with a confused tone. I decided to use this to my advantage and try to get him out of my office for a while.

"Yes... you're forgetting something that Pinkie told you to always give to everyone..." I said with a strained cheerfulness. He put his hoof to his chin in thought until he realized it.

"OH! I forgot to bring you a cupcake!" he shouted in realization and ran out the door. I used my magic to close the door and sigh.

"You already did give me a cupcake..." I muttered as I looked at the small box that Orange left. He was silly at times, but I wasn't about to let him close to me just yet. I've worked better alone, and I am sure that I could keep it that way. I groaned as I heard the door open again. "Damn it Orange, why do you need to keep bothering me?" I asked in a bit of anger.

"Orange? Who's he?" I heard a female voice ask. I turned around to see a unicorn that is colored as white as snow, except that her mane was maroon. What made her a bit strange to me was the fact that her eyes had no pupils, but that wasn't the detail I was worried about. What I was worried about is the fact that she looked like she'd recently been crying

"Just a friend who won't stop bugging me, but I can tell that you are here for more than just making small talk," I said to her, I figured that she had something that I could do to take my mind off of things.

"You would be right... something horrible happened..." She said, trying hard to not cry again from whatever it was. I realized that this might be more serious than just asking a favor of me, so I got up and pulled out a notebook and pencil out of habit.

"What happened?" I asked, trying to get more details on what I think might be a big case in this town.

"I was just walking down to my friend's apartment... when I heard this scream," She explained. I looked into her eyes to gauge if she was telling the truth about this and saw nothing that hinted at a lie.

"Go on..." I said gently, knowing better than to try to force a female to try and talk about it if she doesn't want to.

"I... went to 'see' what she was screaming about, when I... felt her body on the floor, I was worried so I checked and... and..." She started faltering near the end and I realized exactly what it may be.

"She was dead... wasn't she?" I asked her softly. She nodded and I wrote it down in the notebook.

Friend of the victim was walking down the road and heard a scream, when investigated the victim was dead.

"What was her name?" I asked the distraught unicorn.

"Blitz..." She replied sadly. I raised an eyebrow about it but decided not to pursue it and wrote a note below:

Victim's name is Blitz

"Alright... I would recommend to go see family while I check this out, you've been through something that I never expected to see happen" I told her truthfully, I wasn't expecting to get a case that might be a murder at all while I was here. The unicorn nodded and started walking out when I remembered something. "Hold on, could you mark where your friend's apartment is?" I asked her. She stopped and sighed, marking an area on my map with a circle. It wasn't neatly, but I think I could tell that she was blind from her pupil-less eyes. I thanked her and started to gather a few things for the case once she left. I put on my trench coat with plenty of pockets, put my brown fedora on my head, then I put my trusty revolver on the inside of my coat along with a few pencils for if I break one, and a back up revolver for emergency use only. I double checked everything before exiting my office to check the scene.

I arrived at the scene to see a few ponies wearing golden armor guarding the area. I walked up to one of them and he looked at me sternly.

"No civilians allowed," He said simply.

"I'm not a civilian," I replied moving to pull out my wallet and finding a paper instead. I decided to pull it out and see what it was and found that it was a paper that said that I was a detective and my name. I showed it to the guard and he nodded.

"Glad we have a detective now, the town's police entered the area and is currently combing the area," He explained to me. I pulled out my notebook to ask a few questions from him. I made a mental note about asking the so called princess about the paper after I finished the case as well.

"What was learned about the scene so far?" I asked, seeing if I can't learn more about what happened.

"You want the short version?" He asked me with a tired sigh.

"I'm a detective... I'd rather have the details," I replied with a stern glare.

"Very well... The victim's name was Blitz and she was found by her friend Dawn, who was going to check on her," He started.

"Was her friend a white unicorn with a maroon mane?" I asked him and he nodded.

"She was outside the building to check on her and heard the scream, when she 'saw' the victim, she called for help from the local police force and we went and investigated... most of the force refuses to go in there because of the sight inside however," He continued. I raised an eyebrow at that.

"Sight? What do you mean?" I asked him.

"You might want to see for yourself..." He told me in a dark tone.

"Might as well while I'm here..." I told him and followed him up to the room. I didn't even get close to the door, but I could already smell the stench of death outside the room.

"This is as far as I can go without wanting to puke..." He said turning back around to get back to his post.

"Thank you," I said as he left and opened the door. I widened my eyes in surprise when I saw the state of Blitz's body. It looked like she was entirely broken, but it looked as if she was cut open in the stomach and her blood pooled on the floor. Through a cut on her stomach, I could see through the muscle and some bones to see the internal organs of her. I kept a straight face from my training, but I wanted to retch at the sight. Of all my cases that I've done as a human, I've never once seen a case that would leave a victim anywhere close to this.

"Dear god..." I muttered to myself softly and averted my eyes to my notebook. I wrote down the details in my notebook:

The victim was cut open, but her internal organs look still intact. The cut indeed looks recent, confirming for the third time about when she was attacked and killed. The cut looks narrow, but deep enough to cut through the entire muscle.

I looked up from my notebook at the scene, making sure to have only small glances at the body and looked for whatever clues or evidence I could find. The first thing I made sure to check was the door, and the handle looked perfectly okay, but the lock was destroyed entirely. It looks like it was a forced entry, so it might explain the screaming being heard from outside. I thought to myself. The lock was in no shape to be used again, so I knew that whoever destroyed the lock probably used either an explosive or smashed the lock in. With the condition that it was in however, I couldn't really tell which one it was at the moment.

I turned away from the door and looked around the room, making sure to be careful on where I look because I didn't want to chance looking at the body too much. I was glad that I saw a bathroom nearby, but I needed to be focused on the scene instead of loosing what little I had to eat today. I looked at the window and saw that it wasn't at all broken. "Looks like he escaped through the same way he entered..." I muttered to myself. The window didn't look at all broken, but I took a closer look at it, pulling out my magnifying glass to do so. The window was mostly clean except for a few small things like dirt. It helped me to know that she wasn't killed near the windows at all, but that left the fact that he was able to kill her quickly in the middle of the room, unless he caught her off guard.

I turned to the bathroom and looked inside, finding an entirely different story there. There was blood on the floor, dragging out in the way that I came in. The worst of it was in the shower, where it was entirely coated in the crimson red blood. It wasn't the first time seeing blood for me, as most of my previous cases always had some blood in it, but I was shocked at the amount of blood. Nothing could ever make this much blood so I assumed that he didn't entirely catch her off guard, but he did win the fight. I turned from the shower to a nearby small window and saw trails of blood leading from the window. When I went to investigate, I saw that the glass from the window were on the inside instead of the outside. I took out my notebook again to write the details that I found for this case.

Victim looked to have been killed in the bathroom while she was showering. It looked like she finished though because the blood wasn't washed away. There was too much blood in the shower to have been no struggle at all, and there was blood leading from the small window in the bathroom. From the scene, I can tell that he entered through the bathroom window, but I'm unsure about if he exited through that as well, or if he exited through the door.

As soon as I finished writing I decided to do something to allow the other guards and official investigators to be able to enter without wanting to vomit and took a sheet from the bed and put it over her. It was a gruesome sight to be sure, but I wasn't about to let whoever did this continue to murder ponies in that way. I made one last sweep of the room before exiting the building.

When I was out of the building, I told a nearby guard about covering the body and he nodded in thanks and went off to tell the others. I was on my way back to the office to see if it had happened in the past when a certain Orange pony showed up suddenly.

"Hi there! I heard that you were here, so I thought I'd say hello and give you an orange, I remembered that I already gave you a cupcake and-" He said in a fast paced tone before I shoved a hoof in his mouth.

"Just... stop talking now..." I told him with a serious glare. His eyes furrowed and then raised in confusion and he said something muffled by my hoof. I removed it slowly and let him say something.

"Did something happen?" He asked me in a worried tone.

"Yes...there was a murder recently, and I have to get to my office to check the previous newspapers for anything that might match this murder," I explained to him. I figured that he wouldn't really be too much help and try to get more details out of me. To my surprise however, he did a complete 180 on his actions and looked suddenly serious.

"I've checked those, but I know that not all of the news was there..." He told me seriously.

"So you think that there's something that the reporters are hiding?" I asked him, pulling out my notebook again.

"I would believe so, but I don't entirely know if it's true..." He said to me in a thoughtful tone. I was looking at his eyes, and he looked in a certain direction that made me believe that he was lying to me.

"You know more than you want to let on..." I said to him, subtlety accusing him of lying.

"And what makes you think that I would be lying?" He asks me in a surprisingly defensive tone. I thought for a bit on how I could possibly prove him wrong. I knew that he wasn't always there, and that he was the cousin of Pinkie Pie. But then I remembered something.

"I don't think that you're lying, I know that you are because you are always up to date on news. If you weren't up to date as you claim, then maybe I should ask Pinkie Pie about how many times you have checked a newspaper," I told him.

"But I know just what's on the newspapers!" He said even more defensively.

"No, you know a bit more because you happen to be close to one of the so called Elements of Harmony, and they are the ones who may be informed about certain bits of news, and Pinkie is more than willing to open up to someone... or in this case, somepony, who is a family member," I said, finishing my point against him. He sighed in defeat, knowing that I've managed to catch him with a good fact.

"Okay, Pinkie tells me a few bits of news that Twilight told her, but that's it..." He said with a small frown. Oddly enough though, I thought he looked disappointed in me for a moment before being cheery again."If you want to know more, you should ask Twilight about it!" He said cheerfully before bouncing away. I raised an eyebrow about him bouncing away as I closed my notebook. I shook my head and focused more about what he told me. It's almost as if he wants me to ask Twilight about it.. I thought to myself as I turned towards the office again. Perhaps I was right and the newspapers would not have any information to give me, but I still found it odd about Orange Star's words. I didn't need to pursue it however; it wasn't relevant to the current case at all. What was relevant was getting those papers and reading up on what I can before going to the library and asking Twilight to contact the princess. I'm going to need all the help that I can find for this case, but I don't want to try to pull others into a murder case. I wasn't ever going to let that happen again.

Perspective:???

"Hey, don't you think that you overdid it a bit?" I asked the now bloodied pony.

"Overdid it? I think I did that job perfectly!" He exclaimed with pride. I sighed and shook my head sadly.

"Not quite... you've attracted the attention of a detective, and it's only a matter of time before he finds that it was you who did it," I explained to him.

"What?! But I was so careful to make it gruesome as possible!" He exclaimed with worry now showing on his face.

"Well, there was a detective who was able to find out that you broke in through the window" I pointed out.

"Great... I just need to kill him then..." He said in a voice that pretended that he regrets having to do that, but I knew better.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you... he's probably armed" I pointed out.

"Oh... that changes things..." He said, the hidden smile falling off his face quickly.

"It does change things indeed... find a way to keep him off your trail for as long as you can" I said before turning away. He left with a small flash of magic for teleporting away. As soon as he left I smiled in the darkness "So the game begins now... let us see how well you play Chris..." I said to myself before leaving the area.

It was a long time since I could play such a great game of shadows against an actual Detective. I hope Chris won't disappoint me greatly while we play, because that would just simply take the fun out of the game.

What neither party knew however, was the fact that there was someone else watching them from the actual shadows. That shadow smiled with glee, knowing that he was about to see some running around, but he knew that he had to be careful, lest he attract the attention of his better side before the time was absolutely right