The Mystics

"M-m-m-murder!" Says FlutterShy who covers on the other side of her chair, shivering with her hooves over her head. Celestia looks up at the pony's around her and turns to Shining Armor who nods and stands up next to her side and begins to speak.

" It began around 25 years ago, I was just promoted to deputy of my royal guard division at the castle. As you know the royal guard has several division among the guards for the princesses and others that act as guards over cities and villages to lower crime and injustices, so when we get reports of robberies and other crimes we act post haste, however, once pony's came to us saying that a earth pony had magic and was said to kill other pony's we just past it on as that of a rumor. It was always one description of a colt with a blood red mane and coat with dark menacing eyes that were said to pierce their very souls." He sighs and sits down continuing, " I was soon informed of the reports, but I just saw these as rumor and only that so we never went after the claims. Until one day, when the most devastating crime happened right in front of my guards eyes.." He lowers his gaze with a sadden face and softly said," They saw the same colt with a Pegasus killing three young fillies that weren't even 8 years of age.." Every pony gasps and FlutterShy ducks around her chair with her legs over her head as if to shield herself. Twilight says in a soft saddened voice.

" Why would any pony do such a thing? They had such a long future a head of them. A whole life to explore and dreams to fulfill." She clenches her chair in anger and lowers her ears letting the silence take over. Shining Armor looks up whipping away a tear from his eye before continuing ,

" When this crime came to me I began a full investigation to find them and the further I investigated  the more crimes that I discovered. They ranged from kidnapping, rape, vandalism and then murder..." He lowers his ears and sighs. " To think that I let all that happen because I couldn't take those reports seriously, if I did those ponies wouldn't have had to go through what they did.." Princess Celestia looks over at him and softly says.

" It isn't your fault Shining Armor. Even if you did go after these claims it wouldn't have changed what they have done." She turns to everyone and continues in Shining Armors place. " Once the investigation began we learned the basic things that we have mentioned to you all. That they were ponies that could use magic even though they weren't unicorns and even the name that was given to them because of their star cloaks that they wore when others saw their crimes, however, we discovered that before the crimes were committed the Mystics would go door to door asking the ponies if they have been harmed by a  crime and who the pony was that did the crime and once they have found some one that fits their wants or needs they wait a week before they do exactly what happened to the pony they talked to the victim of their choice. This made everything difficult for us to find them because all their victims were random and we couldn't even determine what town or city that was going to be hit next." RainbowDash tilts her head at the story and asks

" Wait if you couldn't tell when or even where they were going to strike then how did you end up stopping them in the first place? I mean they didn't just come to you and wave their hooves in the air saying " come arrest me" Celestia chuckles and smiles but Shining Armor replies.

" Believe it or not but that is almost exactly what they did." Rainbow blinks as the rest of the ponies giggle but Shining Armor continues. " We had no leads or eye witnesses for months but for some reason they decided to come to the royal palace draped in their cloaks. We acted imminently. All of the guards we had surrounded them with spears in hoof. They didn't flinch at the guards around them even when we had told them to surrender, all they said was this, " We only came here to fight those named Shining Armor and Princess Luna. If you comply to these terms then none of the soldiers here will be killed" Shining Armor looked over at Luna who looked and nodded as he continued. " We accepted the challenge and started to fight. It was one on one for both of us. Luna was fighting Raven while I was with Rocketo. The battles went on for what felt like days and we were both tired, however, so was our opponents. This is the part that made no sense to me but in the end it sparred my life. " He stops and removes his chest piece making Twilight turn away her gaze. It shows a large scar shaped in a 'x'. The ponies looked at it with widened eyes and shocked faces before he puts it back on and continues. " That was given to me by Rocketo as he had me pinned on my back ready to kill me. I was light headed and winded, completely helpless, but as he brings up his dagger I noticed he looks over in the distance and yells something like, " What are you doing! Get out of here!" At that time I didn't try thinking about it I just mustered up what strength I had left and powered up a magic gun blast and shot him through his chest." He stops and closes his eyes as if reliving the event and takes a deep breath and continues. " He dropped like a rock still looking over towards what ever he was looking still saying "get away" over and over. When Raven saw this she screamed out his name and charged at me. Luna took that opportunity and ran her magic blades through her spine. Their eyes met still glowing  and turned their heads as they died, but even as they laid their taking their last breath they still managed to crack a smile. " Shining Armor opened his eyes and shakes his head. " They were very confusing but powerful foes."

The silence took over once again until Luna spoke, " Once the battle was over we began an operation and experiments on their bodies and cells to see if we could determine or even isolate what gave them their abilities, but in the end in was null and void." She says as she steps forward to continue, " However, our scientists and doctors discovered one crucial detail that backs up the idea of another mystic."

" And what would that be?" Said RainbowDash who slumped in her chair

" That Raven or "The Reaper", was well.." Luna blinks looking into the faces of the ponys around her before continuing, " well she had given birth at one point in her life." Gasps came out from the mares before Luna continued, " With the recent reports, on top of the results of the birth, we can estimate that the mystic's age to be at least between 21 to 25."

Celestia speaks up saying," With this age we didn't want to waste time while we waited for all of you to arrive so we went to the high school, where with the predicted age of the mystic, would blend in the easiest. We informed the students about them but only as a history lesson so not to ensue panic.

" Now that I think about it, AppleBloom told me about that." Said AppleJack as she remained straight in her chair while fidgeting with her hat. " So what do you want us to do about it? Go door to door asking if some pony has seen a murderous pony with a star cloak on?"

Celestia turns to AppleJack saying " No, we just need you all to keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary. Also if any new ponys come into town try to watch their actions or mood. If you see or suspect some pony inform Luna, Shining Armor, FlashSentry or myself at once." Everyone nods and murmurs in agreement and stands up to go.  Shinging Armor pushes open the door with his hoof but gets blinded by the light of the afternoon sunlight streaming into the hallway from the castle windows. When his eyes adjust he turns around to see the princesses talking amongst themselves while the mane six begin mingling as they walk out of the throne room, except FlutterShy who slowly walks out with her head down looking around in every direction as if being watched. Shining Armor chuckled a little watching the timid mare. He walks behind her a few feet away looking around the hallway at the designs of the diamond windows sparkling from the sunlight with all different colors. Each other window has one of the element round's cutie marks lining it giving sculpted light shining onto the walls. At the end of the hallway he stops seeing his sister's element and cutie mark. He can't help but smile from his immense pride for his sister. " Twilight has grown up so fast. Where did all the time go?" He says to himself as he turns away continuing into the lobby where ponys of all different colors and races trotting around talking to one another. Twilight trots over to her desk where she passes a key to a cupule laughing as they sign a form and begin to head toward the stairs to their room. Shining Armor watches them go looking at them to estimate if they have other intentions but shakes his head as they kiss one another as they open the first door on the right hallway. With his paranoia clouding his judgment he decides to head up to the room that the princess had pervaded for him. He yawns putting a hoof to his mouth before walking up the stairs and turning left. He looks down the hall at the door numbers. He comes to his room numbered 125 but before he opens the door he hears some excited shouting. Turning around he sees Scootaloo with a colt he didn't recognize. The colt had a white coat like his own and a light blue mane and tail. He could slightly over hear their conversation and decided to listen.

" So this is the room you are living in? Looks kind of small from out here" Scootaloo says as she watches the colt put on some blue roller skates.

The colt laughs as he tightens the strings of his last skate he has on his front right leg before saying, " Trust me, its bigger on the inside then what it seems out here." He tries to stand up but struggles sliding around on the floor. Shining Armor cant help but chuckle as watching the colt struggle. He shakes his head and pushes his door walking into his room listening to their voices fade out. Trotting into the room he shuts the door and stretches his legs and shoulders before removing his armor setting it into the closet before starting a shower. Getting into the shower he runs through everything that was discussed. He sighs leaning against the wall of the shower enjoying the relaxing warm water as it baths over his body. He stands in silence talking to himself in a quiet voice, " This is going to be interesting, I just hope that it doesn't turn out to be as deadly as last time." He says before closing his eyes as the room begins to steam up.