It was what many would call a beautiful spring night; the moon was full and shining with not a cloud in the sky to obscure its glowing surface. The land was also quiet save for the sound of crickets and other creatures playing the tune of nature.
Ziz hated it. From the darkness of the land, to the halt of all activity, to the cold within his soul, to the damnable moon in the sky, he hated it.
As he crouched low on his perch, the wind picked up, the breeze cutting into him like frozen knives, his scarf giving only mild relief from the biting cold.
It’s not right for everything to be like this, he thought as rage boiled up within him. It should be lit by the light of ten suns it should be warmed by my inner fire, the moon should be nothing more to me than a rock in the sky and this serene calm should be replaced with energy, with movement, with SCREAMING!
Ziz’s raging thoughts were cut off however, as he noticed that his body was beginning to burn with a blue flame. He immediately squelched his anger, the fire quickly dieing down before disappearing completely.
Now’s not the time for this, we can’t draw attention to ourself yet, not when the six bearers of harmony are here.
Well… five bearers. He corrected.
With the loss of his rage, he again felt the cold of the night as it caused the wound on his neck to sting. Ever since he had been pierced by that arrow, every night had become torture unless he bathed himself in flames, and so long as he had to sneak through this town he would be unable do so.
He shook his head as he reassured himself. A few weeks of agony is nothing compared to a thousand years of loneliness.
Ziz was brought out of his thoughts as he felt something, a familiar feeling that made him think of home and comfort but, most of all, of his master.
It felt as if his very cells were being warped, the very matter he was composed of being turned into something else over and over again.
It was a wonderful feeling.
He grew excited again as two words rang out in his mind. At last!
He then flew swiftly and silently, soaring over the tops of buildings as he followed the tug of the precious item he had been waiting to sense again for so long.
Finally, he came upon a house, much more regal and well built than the others around it, and alighted on a tree beside it. Through a window on the second floor he could see a young foal brushing her mane in front of a vanity. Ziz’s eyes glanced over the details of the room, intent only on finding his prize.
It’s close. This is it, it has to be here!
It was then that the filly moved out of his line of sight, revealing an opened and heavily stylized jewelry box on the vanity. And lying within the case was the item he had spent so much time searching for.
With this confirmation he felt a wash of relief, like an insomniac finally feeling sleep overtake them. For a moment he simply closed his eyes and relished the feeling of peace before the fervor from before once again took hold, and his thoughts ran wild with ideas of what the future would soon hold.
But even as his excitement grew, his rational side reminded him that there was still much work to be done.
He ran over the choices he had. The simplest method would be to simply crash in, kill the foal, and then leave before anyone noticed. Ziz discarded this idea though; for all his hatred of ponies, he still didn’t like using that option.
It would also bring more attention to him than he was willing to give. He reasoned, therefore, that it was best to simply wait for the foal to go to bed and then he would creep in and take his prize.
But that too felt wrong to him. It’s not enough that I bring the beginning of their pain and the end to my own so quietly and without warning. Master would appreciate me doing something more grand.
Even if it were dangerous, he decided that following his master’s ways was still very important and so he slowly developed a plan for how he would go about informing them of their fate.
The wind once again picked up and though he felt the biting cold, he didn’t care. For the years of loneliness, for his master’s happiness, for the lives of Strix, Raicho and everyone else, every pony in the world would see their lives shatter.
[][][]
One day earlier
“Hehehehehehahahahaha!... Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of ponies? Shadow Nose!”
Sweetie Belle sat with barely contained glee as she heard the creepy voice come out of her portable radio. Her eyes were wide, her smile almost leaping off her face and her hooves shaking with excitement.
Most would say it was downright odd that she wasn’t frightened by such a menacing laugh, but this was a special case.
It had been a very long time since she had last heard this radio program play. She had arrived at the Cutie Mark Crusader club house early today and had decided to listen to some music while she waited for her friends to arrive but after skimming through stations she had reached one that said it was going to play an episode from a certain radio drama called ‘Shadow Nose’ and a wave of memories that had been all but forgotten washed over her.
It was many years ago, when she was even younger than she was now, before Rarity had moved out of the house and before she had any friends…
A young Sweetie Belle was spending time in her usual place at home, the living room. It was on the second floor of the house with rosy red walls and a plush beige carpet that one could often times find the foal napping on. There were a few sofas for her family and guests to sit on as well as a large bookshelf, a radio, several framed pictures on a table, a grandfather clock, and a large window with a pleasant view of the market place. Today there were also several foals’ toys, crayons and paper strewn around the room.
The room held a very special place in the filly’s heart because of the antique radio within it. Her parents were often busy with work and so she had to stay inside most of the time. And even when they weren’t working, they were taking vacations to far away places to get away from the worries of their occupations, leaving Rarity to look after the both of them. Her elder sister would always get really paranoid about their safety whenever she was left in charge and so she insisted her younger sibling stay inside. Sweetie Belle thought it was because she was worrying too much about the responsibility, but unknown to the filly; it was actually because Rarity couldn’t bear the thought of her sister getting hurt from some careless mistake on her part.
Today the young unicorn was listening to some classical music while looking out the window at the ponies going about their daily activities. She was staring intently with an adorable look of intense concentration on her face as she moved her sight from one to another, looking for one that would give her a spark of creativity.
The filly slowly rotated the crayon in her mouth from one side to the other as she analyzed the ponies below. There was a short, green earth-pony wearing an apron that had a loaf of bread for a cutie mark, selling donuts to passerby’s, a lanky dark blue unicorn, sitting on a bench while writing in a notebook…
Then she noticed a pony that gave her inspiration; it was a brown stallion with a guitar for a cutie mark that was avoiding the large groups of ponies in the street below.
Sweetie Belle quickly started drawing on a piece of paper as a story formed in her head. She drew the stallion completely black before adding a red sash around his waist and a sword and guitar on his back.
Once she finished, Sweetie Belle leaned back and admired her work. This is… Jamming Breeze, the traveling ninja! He looks like a normal stallion by day but at night he is a stealthy and swift ninja that travels the land playing songs to the downtrodden with his trusty guitar while fighting evil wherever it roams!
This was how the filly usually spent her days, staring out the window and drawing images and making up stories about the world outside as she listened to the radio. It used to be that Rarity would play with her but ever since she started working the time she spent with her had grown less and less.
However, her imaginings were cut short when the sound of Beethooven’s 6th Symphony was suddenly marred by static. Sweetie Belle groaned in annoyance. This was the third time in the last half hour that it had started doing this and she was getting tired of it. The filly got up from her drawing and trotted over to the large device.
It was a rather old radio that her parents had called a Shouldered To… something, and it sometimes had trouble picking up certain stations. Though she normally just ignored it and waited for the static to stop, it had done this so many times today that she decided to just try a new station for a change.
Using her mouth to turn the knob, the filly started flipping through stations.
“Howdy ponies! Come on down to ‘Gravel’s Carts’ for-“
“The Slender Pony put one of its lifted hooves to the ground-“
“A simple mare living simple dreams. A rumor that’s not-“
But then, as the foal changed to the next station, the radio suddenly blared out an evil sounding laugh from the speakers that caused her to scurry away from the machine in panic.
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of ponies? Shadow Nose!”
From across the room the foal’s face emerged from beneath a couch, a stuffed seapony clutched in her hooves. She cowered underneath the sofa, desperately wanting to change the station but finding that the creepy voice and music had her too frightened to move from under her hiding spot.
She glanced out the window to see where the sun was in the sky. Okay. She thought. Rarity should be home soon; so when she gets here I’ll just ask her to change the station for me.
Satisfied with this solution, she hunkered down under the couch while squeezing her seapony and tried to ignore the radio until her sister came to save her.
“Shadow Nose, Law Cranberry, a stallion of wealth, a student of science and a master of other people's minds who devotes his life to righting wrongs, protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty.”
Sweetie Belle’s ears perked up at this. Protecting the innocent?
“Using advanced methods that may ultimately become available to all law-enforcement agencies, Cranberry is known to the underworld as Shadow Nose; never seen, only heard -a seemingly super-natural nemesis- as haunting to criminal minds as a ghost; as inevitable as a guilty conscience!”
Haunting to criminal minds? The young unicorn thought in awe as she poked her head out from under the couch.
And so this pattern continued. As the show went on, Sweetie Belle slowly began to move closer and closer to the radio, enthralled by the tale she was hearing of a pony that helped the law capture dangerous criminals through his cunning and special hypnotic powers.
The filly was hooked, and when her sister did come home, she begged the mare to make her a hat and cloak just like they had described Shadow Nose’s to be.
From then on, every day when the time came for the radio program to come on she would put on her costume and sit eagerly in front of the radio to listen to more of the mysterious pony’s adventures.
The show had lifted her out of her old, slow and dull days. Listening to exciting stories, pretending to be Shadow Nose hunting down criminals and bringing them to justice, drawing the characters from the show… It was the most fun she’d had in a long time.
But nothing lasts forever…
Sweetie Belle peered around the couch to see if the coast was clear, and upon seeing that her enemies were turned away from her, she quickly dashed from her cover to hide under a table. However, as she was running she tripped on her cloak and tumbled forward on her face, her hat flying off in the process.
Blushing furiously at her clumsiness, Sweetie Belle quickly put her hat back on and scurried under the table, trying to pretend her flub hadn't happened.
The filly gazed from the shadows of the table at her foe, the evil Prince of Badness. Yes, she could see the evil radiating from his wooden eyes as he stood atop his castle of blocks, about to order the execution of the beautiful seapony, Margarine Lane.
But then Sweetie Belle leaped out from under the table shouting, “Stop evil neee… ne’er-do… guy! For Shadow Nose has arrived!”
With this declaration, Sweetie Belle knocked the blocks out from under the Prince of Badness, causing the pony shaped cookie jar to fall over with a thunk. The lid of the pony shaped receptacle flew off, causing a few cookies to spill out as Sweetie Belle smiled smugly at her victory.
"Now Prince of Badness," She said while pointing a hoof at the cookie jar, "You shall be taken to where you rightfully belong, behind bars!"
The filly then gripped the cookie jar with her mouth and dragged it over to the bookcase where she had stacked books together on the floor to make a small enclosure for her villain.
However, as she gingerly scooted the cookie jar inside his "jail cell", trying not to topple the books over, the nearby grandfather clock chimed the hour which caused Sweetie Belle’s ears to perk up. She quickly rushed back over to the spilled cookies and grabbed some in her mouth before dashing over to the radio and turning it on.
The filly was once again excited to hear another new episode of ‘Shadow Nose’. After yesterday’s episode ‘The Mare Who Died Twice’, Sweetie Belle couldn’t wait to see what adventure Shadow Nose would have next.
She turned the radio on and turned the channel to the station with Shadow Nose. But as she sat back to listen to the next epic story, she was hit with shocking news.
“We regret to inform our listeners that the radio series, ‘Shadow Nose’ will no longer be played on this station. We will instead from now on be hosting a comedy hour, beginning today with this sketch, ‘Eggplant Is Funny’.”
As the comedy program started, Sweetie Belle just sat where she was, staring straight ahead in shock as the cookies she was holding fell out of her mouth.
What? But… why would they… this can’t… The filly’s eyes started to well up with tears. How could they get rid of Shadow Nose? Listening to the show had been her whole world and now it wasn’t going to be on anymore?
The tears in her eyes now started to trickle out and she could feel her mouth trembling.
“It’s not fair! This-this was the only fun thing I had and they took it away. I-I-I”
The crying unicorns lament was halted by the sound of a door being opened downstairs and a voice calling out.
“Sweetie Belle! I’m home early,” came the voice of her big sister.
Sweetie Belle immediately rushed to the living room door, her hat and cloak flying off, as she threw it open with a surprising amount of force for her size, and charged down the stairs and into Rarity’s legs.
“Rarity!” She wailed as she clutched her elder sister’s hooves. “M-my show is… it’s been… they stopped it and I-I don’t know what to do and-”
The filly soon devolved into hysterical sniffles and hiccups. Rarity instinctually wrapped her sister in a hug and tried to calm her down.
“Shhh, its okay dear,” she said as she rubbed the filly’s back, “Just compose yourself and calmly tell me what’s wrong”
With a few more sniffles, Sweetie Belle did as best she could to rein back her tears before attempting to explain again.
“I-I was upstairs and about to listen to ‘Shadow Nose’ when, when they said that they weren’t going to play it anymore!”
Ah, well that explains it. Thought Rarity. Though she had reservations about her little sister listening to a program with so much violence in it, she also knew that it meant a lot to her. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything that could be done about it; ‘Shadow Nose’ was an older radio program and so finding recordings of it would be very difficult.
But even though she didn’t really know the best way to handle this situation, she would try to cheer up her little sister anyway she could.
Rarity pulled away from their hug and looked into Sweetie Belle’s eyes, “Oh, there, there dear, why don’t we go out and spend some time together, just the two of us for the rest of the day? We’ll do whatever you want.”
Sweetie Belle rubbed the last of her tears from her eyes before quietly saying, “R-really?”
“Yes, really,” Rarity said with finality.
Sweetie Belle’s mood started to brighten at this. Even while listening to ‘Shadow Nose’ she had still missed spending time with her big sister and being able to do something with her was much better than listening to a radio show.
“Then, could we go get ice cream at Sugar Cube corner?” The filly’s voice started going faster as all the possibilities for what they could do flashed through her head. “And then we could go to the park and then come back home and draw and later you could show me how to use your sewing machine and-“
Rarity quickly spoke up before Sweetie Belle went out of control with her demands.
“Well, we’ll see about using my sewing machine,” She nervously bobbed her hair at the thought of it somehow getting broken by Sweetie Belle’s clumsiness, “But let’s approach everything else one at a time. We can head for Sugar Cube Corner now if you’d like.”
Sweetie Belle quickly nodded and the two left the house for what would turn out to be a very enjoyable day.
The little filly then had a great afternoon. They went to Sugar Cube Corner where they somehow ended up getting a “Your-Show-Got-Cancelled-But-That’s-Okay” party thrown for them, they went to the park where Sweetie Belle finally got to interact with some other ponies, and when they got back home Rarity even let her try using her sewing machine, though under her intense supervision.
But after all that, Sweetie Belle returned to the living room to find her hat and cape where they had fallen and remembered why she had gotten to spend time with Rarity that day. Though she wasn’t as upset as before, she was still sad that she wasn’t going to be able to listen to her favorite show anymore.
And so she had taken her hat and cloak and placed them in the back of her closet and said farewell to her fallen hero.
She had tried her best to forget about her old idol to keep herself from being sad over his “passing” but now; all that nostalgia was coming back to her as she listened to this program from her past. She could hardly wait for Scootaloo and Applebloom to get to the clubhouse so she could share it with them.
As if on cue, the young unicorn heard the unmistakable sound of a certain pegasus buzzing her wings from outside. Sweetie Belle quickly picked up her radio by the handle and ran out of the clubhouse to greet Scootaloo.
As the sound grew louder, the orange pegasus practically flew out from the tress before coming to a skidding halt in front of Sweetie Belle. Without warning, the Crusaders wagon came barreling out from the same direction, barely missing the foals before hitting the tree of the clubhouse with a crash, spilling the contents.
Both foals quickly ran over to the overturned wagon to inspect the damage.
“It just keeps coming off all the time,” mumbled Scootaloo.
With a wary look on her face, Sweetie Belle placed her radio on a nearby stump before saying, “Scootaloo, you really need to get this thing fixed sometime. What if it comes off while me and Applebloom are riding in it?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll ask my dad to fix it,” Scootaloo offered.
Suddenly remembering that she wanted to show Scootaloo ‘Shadow Nose’, Sweetie Belle started speaking excitedly.
“Scootaloo, Scootaloo, I want you to listen to this, quick!” she said turning up the volume on her radio.
She quickly grabbed the pegasus and sat her down in front of the stump, the overeager unicorn quickly following suit.
Looking confused, the orange pony asked, “So what is it we’re listening to?”
Sweetie Belle raised a hoof to her lips and shushed her before whispering, “It’s this radio show I used to listen to when I was younger. It’s about a detective named Shadow Nose that solves crimes!”
Today’s episode was called ‘The Chain of Death’ and was about a criminal syndicate that was involved with a number of particularly heinous crimes. Though Sweetie Belle listened with pure glee, Scootaloo started off dubious and eventually started looking bored but it wasn’t until the second commercial break that the orange filly finally spoke up.
“Gee… that’s… kinda cool I guess,” she said, rubbing her shoulder with a hoof.
Sweetie Belle simply smiled at her for a few seconds before her friend’s lack of interest finally registered to her.
“You… you don’t like it?” she asked sadly, her smile dropping.
Scootaloo backpedaled a bit, “It’s not that I don’t like it… it’s just… I’d prefer a bit more action and some cool powers or something.”
The smile popped right back onto the unicorn’s face, “Oh but there are! Shadow Nose gets into lots of fights and he has the power to cloud ponies’ minds so they can’t see him!”
But Scootaloo still showed reluctance, “I don’t know, using all that hypnotism stuff isn’t really that cool for me. I prefer things like I see in my comic books, like these mechanical devices this one pony made, he called them ‘hands’ and they pick stuff up for him. Or in ‘The P.U.N.K. Detectives’ they have this machine that gives them super adrenaline.
“I just like more action instead of all this sneaking around stuff.”
Sweetie Belle hung her head, as her ears folded back. She hadn’t really thought of the possibility of someone not liking the show so she didn’t know how to deal with this kind of situation.
Seeing her friend’s disappointment, Scootaloo tried to cheer her up, “Hey, come on, how bout we go see what’s taking Applebloom so long? I’m sure she’d like this show.”
Sweetie Belle sighed before putting a smile on her face, “Okay.”
And so the two set out for the Apple family farm house to see what was taking their unofficial leader so long. Along the way the two shared stories about some of the adventures their respective heroes had been on like the time the P.U.N.K. Detectives stopped a mare from turning the world into robots and how Shadow Nose once stopped an entire city from being melted.
Once they reached the Apple family home, Sweetie Belle politely knocked on the door and the two waited patiently.
“It’s weird that she didn’t show up, she’s usually the first one there,” pondered Scootaloo.
“Maybe she had to do a lot of morning chores today?” offered Sweetie Belle
Both ponies blanched at this, sure they also had to do chores around their own homes but having to get up early every day to do them was something neither of them wanted to experience.
It was at this point that the door opened and a large red stallion appeared, wearing a surgical mask.
“Howdy youngins,” greeted Big Macintosh.
“Is Applebloom home?” asked Scootaloo.
“Yyyep,” he answered in his usual one word reply.
After waiting for him to elaborate further and getting no response, Sweetie Belle prodded, “Can we see her?”
“Nnnnope," he said, removing the mask, “Ah’m afraid she seems to have caught that bug that’s goin round all the young foals.”
Both Crusaders gasped, for the past week several fillies and colts had been coming down with a bad case of some kind of flu. It had gotten so bad that the teachers had actually canceled school for the whole week since so many students weren’t showing up.
The two Crusaders quickly started talking over each other as they asked questions about how their friend was doing but Macintosh quickly raised his hooves in a placating manner.
“Now, now girls, she’s all right, there’s no need to worry. She just needs a lot of rest so I don’t think now is the best time for you to visit her. And ah don’t think I should be lettin you in to see her now anyway considerin how contagious this thing has been. Ah’d hate to get an earful from either of yer folks for letting ya’ll get sick.”
The two fillies looked to the ground in silence, both worried in spite of Macintosh’s reassurances but said goodbye and started walking back to the clubhouse.
For a while, neither of the two said anything but eventually Scootaloo bitterly voiced her opinion of this turn of events, “This sucks.”
Sweetie Belle had to agree that that pretty accurately described the situation.
Sure it had been kind of fun for the Crusaders when Silver Spoon got sick, because it threw Diamond Tiara off her game with her usual insults and snooty manners, but then other foals had started getting sick as well: next Archer, then Peachy Pie, Snips, Tootsie Flute, Dinky Doo and many others.
The doctors and nurses of Ponyville were flummoxed by how the virus was only targeting foals, and treatments, while making things better, weren’t curing the fillies and colts.
Once the two Crusaders got back to the clubhouse, Scootaloo started placing the things she had brought, back into the wagon.
“We’re not going to go spelunking today?” questioned Sweetie Belle. She had been hoping that they could put their minds of Applebloom being sick by the two of them still going through with their plans.
“Nah, I don’t really feel like it anymore,” Scootaloo replied dejectedly, “Finding our cutie marks isn’t really the same if we’re not all together.”
“Well… we could still find something to do together. We don’t have to look for our cutie marks to have fun,” the unicorn reasoned.
Scootaloo just grunted in response.
“We could…” Sweetie Belle looked at her surroundings for inspiration before her eyes fell on her radio.
“Hold on one second!” she said excitedly as she ran into the clubhouse.
Scootaloo stopped what she was doing and a moment later the animated unicorn ran back out with a white book in her mouth.
“We could try being detectives!” she offered after placing the book down in front of her friend.
Scootaloo saw that it was the detective manual they had picked up last week.
“Oh, come on, we tried that last week remember? We all ended up covered in tree sap and Spike got away,” Scootaloo reminded her.
Sweetie Belle looked pensive, “Well yeah, but now I’ve actually read all of ‘The Little Foals Guide to Detectiving’. So I’m sure we could do a lot better this time.”
The white filly could feel enthusiasm rising in her now. When they had tried tracking down Spike the week before, she had felt a sense of fondness and familiarity with the event but hadn’t been able to put her hoof on why. Now that she had remembered her old hero, she was much more excited at the prospect of living out her fantasy of doing the same things Shadow Nose did.
Scootaloo started laughing, “You actually read that whole thing? Come on Sweetie Belle. You’re not cut out for that investigating stuff.”
Sweetie Belle glared indignantly at her, “Why not?”
“You have to be stealthy and nimble, and honestly…you’re a bit of a klutz,” the pegasus explained.
Sweetie Belle blushed at this. Sure I trip up sometimes but…
“And you’re always getting confused by really normal things. And sometimes you freeze up for a while before you understand something. Remember the time that waiter asked you if you ‘wanted fries with that’ and you blanked out for like, a minute?”
Scootaloo started laughing at the memory of Sweetie Belle staring in horror as if she’d been asked to run the entire country of Equestria.
The white filly however, didn’t see it as funny at all and angrily yelled, “Are you saying I’m dumb?!”
Scootaloo’s laughter faltered, “What? No I-“
“You are!” shouted Sweetie Belle, not listening to her.
Scootaloo started getting angry, “No I’m not!”
“Yes you are!” the white filly screamed back with tears starting to form in her eyes.
“No I’m not!” The pegasus repeated as she got right up in Sweetie Belle’s face.
“Yes. You. Are!” Sweetie Belle yelled, stomping a hoof.
“No! I’m! NOT!” Scootaloo shouted vehemently, stomping her front hooves down right in front of Sweetie Belle, causing her to fall over with surprise. “If you’re gonna be like this and call me a liar then go ahead and play detective on your own! Maybe you’ll stumble on our friendship while you’re chasing your own tail!”
“Well… well fine!” Sweetie Belle said as she got back up, rubbing some tears from her eyes. “I’ll show you that I’m a smart pony. And that I can be a detective!”
With that, the unicorn grabbed the detective book and ran off, Scootaloo glaring at her retreating figure until she disappeared from sight.
Walking over to her scooter, the small pegasus kicked it in frustration, making it tumble a short distance and leaving a small dent in the wood.
Immediately regretting this action, she quickly ran over to the scooter and picked it up to inspect the damage.
Nothing I can’t fix, she thought with a sigh of relief.
But the shift in emotions had given her a powerful feeling of regret for what she had said to Sweetie Belle and she quickly pushed away the concern for her scooter. Gathering up the rest of her things and placing them in the wagon, she noticed that the unicorn had left her little purple radio behind. Resolving to give it back to her later, she placed it carefully in the wagon among her own things and started to wonder why the unicorn had been so offended by what she had said.
I re-wrote the first chapter due to it being rejected by EqD and I after looking through it I had to agree that there were things that could be fixed up to be much better. If you've already read the first chapter then I do hope you'll try reading this revised version as it is a lot better. If this is your first time reading this story then thank you for picking it up, I hope I won't disappoint you.
A great many thanks once again to my editor, The Amber Fox, his help is why this story is as good as it is and I cannot thank him enough for it.
