I sat inside the coffee shop. Cradling a cup of coffee in between my blue-furred hands. I looked at the caffeinated substance inside the cup and swirled it around a little, before lifting it up to my lips to take a drink. I sighed lightly as the warm liquid made its way to my stomach. Black, just the way I like it. I looked out the window. A storm had started and the heavy rain pattered against the window loudly, permeating the silence that had fell upon the shop as I entered. I could see my blue bloodshot eyes in my reflection and the horn that topped my head, my mane being tucked under my wide-brimmed detectives hat. Yea, I'm a detective. Detective Aurora of the Royal Canterlot Army. I put the cup onto the table and stood up. My black coat falling down to cover my legs and stopped just above my ankles. I left ten bits on the counter and walked out the door with a quick wave in farewell.

I was quickly assaulted with the torrential downpour and I lifted my jackets collar up to keep more of the rain off of me. I looked at my magic watch. Half way to the sun, and still no attack. I was on a murder case, the case itself had been going on for a month but I believe that it was planned long before as the murderer know where to be and how not to get caught every time. Each case had the MO. Stomach ripped open and all the organs despised of, every muscle in the ponies body. Gone. Nothing else was touched. It was peculiar to say the least. I walked past another pony that was dumb enough, like me to go out into the storm. The mare had a newspaper held over her head and she was running off to who knows where. I looked up and saw the lights of the barracks shine through the unrelenting deluge. I quickened myself so I too, could get out of the storm myself.

I walked inside and shook myself off quick, taking off my hat I put it onto a hangar and began to walk up to the front desk. My mane, now not made prisoner by my hat was a bright green with white streaks moving through it at random intervals. People said I got it from my mother. I had never met her, personally. "No sleeping on the job Bolt!" I quipped. The stallion shot up from his seat.

"I'm up! It's okay! I was not sleeping!" I chuckled quietly, resting my arms on the desk and leaning forward. Bolt was a green furred pony with a dark blue mane. He was wearing blue jeans and a vest that had 'Royal Canterlot Guard' on the front. He was an earth pony. "Your lucky it was me who found you, others would not have been so polite to wake you up before the chief came in."

"Yes, thank you." He grabbed some papers off his desk and handed them to me. "Those are what you asked for."

"Thank you" I replied and walked around the desk to go up to my office on the third floor. I had work to do.

My office was, nothing special really. There was a trio of filing cabinets tucked off into one corner while a desk sat in the far corner of the room with papers sprawled all over it. I sat behind my desk, looking over various photos of the murder scenes, all looked the same. But one had a very defining factor. A scorch mark found on the third body, it was faint but it looked like a paw print. I believe it was a summoned creature. Summoning creatures in Equestria was a hard thing to do on itself, and finding a creature that is willing is even harder. But if it can be accomplished, anything could be done. When a creature is summoned from Tartarus it takes their soul. Not the physical body, that stays behind as a lifeless shell. Since the heat in Tartarus is so extreme summoned monsters have been known to... Combust to say the least. This brought me to the book I was given by Bolt. 'Summons from Tartarus' this book had everything on every creature there. All I had to do was look.

After an hour of skimming pages I found the matching footprint. The creature it belonged to was... Terrifying. I was known as the 'Ridder-Monster' it was extremely agile, and. Extremely deadly. By eating the muscles and organs of its victims it is able to transfer their power onto its own body. Making it stronger in every way. The picture was. Just creepy. It's face held the complexions of a wolf while its body stretched back to two legs, each were bent the wrong way backwards and it's paws ended in large claws. Bipedal. Moving up the body further it had two long arms that ended in equally large claws. It's overall appearance was terrifying. There was a crack of thunder outside and I jumped out of my seat. Looking out the window I could almost swear I saw the gleam of eyes on the rooftops. Full of malice, that was when I heard the scream.

I rushed downstairs to see Bolt. Or what was left of him lying in a bloody heap on the floor, through the rain I could see a wolf-like creature fleeing through a broken window. I grimaced slightly. I could hear other ponies pounding downstairs. But the damage had been done. "Everypony stay on the stairs! This is now a crime scene and I don't want you trampling all over it!" I shouted to those on the stairs then added. "You there, Storm?" I was answered with a 'yup' and a white unicorn with a red mane began pushing through the crowd to stand beside me. He wore a outfit the same as me. But his jacket and hat were blue, "What happened here Aurora?"

"Another murder, seemingly the same MO as the last four." I said looking back to the body.... Poor Bolt. He was young for even a guard. "What bothers me though, Storm was how it happened in such a short time. I heard the scream and was down here within four seconds." Storm hummed something while putting his white-furred hand to his chin. His horn lit up a white colour and a blast of magic went out from it. Seconds later he replied. "Time slow spell, active in the surrounding area except this room." I nodded and put some gloves on. "Let's get to work."

The first thing I noticed was the claw marks, etching into the floor with precise and fluid cuts. More evidence on it being the ridder. Walking over to the window I looked at the glass, reinforced. Nothing normal could have broken through and there was no blood anywhere on the glass. The murderer would have been injured from the shards. I plucked a clump of hair from the broken window. 'interesting..' I thought. As I put the hair into a bag. "What have you found, Storm?"

"Concrete evidence that this thing is not a pony." I turned around and walked across the entryway to him, he was sitting infront of a monitor that showed camera footage. "Watch this." I looked at the grainy footage on the screen. Bolt was sitting at the desk, doing paperwork when he looked up. He got up from the chair and began fumbling for his sword, then the footage went from being grainy to being completely unseeable. But the sound still played. There was a low, inhuman growl and the sound of claws beg drug across the floor. Bolt was screaming for help and the creature roared. It was like nothing I ever heard. It started really high pitched but almost like a wave it went low and back to high. Like it was laughing. Bolt screamed again and there was a crash. The footage went black and cut to where Bolt was lying on the ground in a mauled heap and the image of the ridder-monster retreated from the window. "A spawn from Tartarus, you were right, Aurora."

"Get Celestia over here."

Author's Note

Thanks for reading! I'll see you in Chapter 1!