Hell Fire

Finding our next clue took longer than a day. After almost a week of fruitless investigating I realised that we weren’t going to learn anything from the residences of Canterlot. Rove and I sat in my living room trying to figure out our next move.

“Why are you so sure that they are in Canterlot?” Rove asked wiping the sweat from his brow after placing his book on my bookshelf.

“Canterlot is a utopia for unicorns,” I explained trying to get my thoughts in order. “The other major cities, except for Cloudsdale, are evenly populated with unicorns and pegasi. Earth ponies make up about a quarter of the population but most of us prefer to live in rural towns. Canterlot is almost entirely made up of unicorns; most earthponies and pegasi living here do the manual labour jobs or shape the clouds.”

“But the logging companies are run by earthponies and they do business in Canterlot.”

“Yes, but none of their main offices are located here and that’s not the point I’m making. Not that they’ll ever admit it but I think that most ponies here believe that they are better than others,” I raised my hoof silencing Rove before he could interrupt. “It’s not like they all go around killing other ponies and most of them treat all ponies equally, but I still sometimes overhear them making a mudpony joke or shaking their heads when seeing a pegasus eating cake. The idea of superiority, no matter how small it may be, is always present in Canterlot, and with any group mentality you’ll find fanatics. I can’t be sure that these seekers of truth are based in Canterlot but it is our best bet.”

“So why would they kill a family outside of Baltimare and not Canterlot, and why can’t we find anything useful on them?”

“I believe it’s for the same reason. They want to turn themselves into a myth, Baltimare and the forest outside of it is highly populated so the story of what happened spread quickly. Murder isn’t that common in Equestria and by now everypony knows what happened,” Rove nodded his head and clenched his jaw to stop himself from saying anything else. I thought that some time would have calmed him down but he was still as angry as ever. At least there was a way to distract him. “How’s the magic going?”

“Good,” he said with a bit of excitement in his voice. “I’ve pretty much got the shield down but shooting fire is a little bit harder.”

“How so?” I knew why he decided on fire for his second spell but it wasn’t my place to lecture him.

“If I don’t do it right it burns my horn. The book suggests starting with a small flame and working my way up from there,” he demonstrated his new ability by sending a marble sized fireball to a candle on my table. “That’s the biggest I can make it without feeling anything, any bigger and my horn gets hot.”

“That’s quite impressive and a lot easier than trying to light it with matches. But if you do start making those flames bigger I want you to do it over the waterfall, otherwise you may end up burning the house down.”

“Sure I’ll do it outside. So what do we do next, with the case I mean?”

“Honestly I’m stuck,” I admitted not without shame. “Whoever this organisation is they are defiantly careful. I was hoping that somepony would have accidently let something slip one night in the bar, but no we aren’t that lucky. Your parents’ murder was most likely the first step to something bigger, I just don’t know what yet.”

“What then, we do nothing until they kill again?” he spat almost accusingly.

“No, of course not. We just haven’t been asking the right ponies the right questions yet. No matter how methodical this group is, information always has a way of coming out and it’s my job to find it,” I saw that my words eased Rove’s worries so I decided to continue. “These ponies are smart and organised; they know how to hide what they’re doing, that’s why we’re having such a difficult time finding them, but

somewhere they had to make a mistake. But tell me Rove, what do you think their next move is going to be and how should we stop it?”

Rove scratched his head and took time to think about it. His mind was so set on what they did he hadn’t considered what they may do later. “They’re going to look for someone like me. We have to warn the families! They’re in danger.”

The kid was sharp. “Yup unicorns raised by or raising other kinds of ponies would be the most likely victims. And yes we can’t just let them die but I don’t think that warning them would be the best option. It would just let fear spread across Equestria and that’s exactly what they want. We have to delay and stop there plans not speed it up, that’s why I have guards watching over everypony that’s in possible danger.”

“You already did that,” Rove stood there with his mouth half open. “Where did you find enough guards for them all?”

“These families aren’t as common as you may think. Most ponies are attracted to the same kind and it is very rare for a different type being born from one race or another,” I paused for a moment. “Though not imposable.”

“Then the seekers of truth won’t do anything?”

“For the moment, no. But eventually they’ll find something, we have to stop them before that,” we were silent for a while after that, eventually I couldn’t hide my yawns anymore and decided to call it a night. “Blow out the candles when you go to bed, goodnight Rove.”

“Goodnight Hawkeye,” Rove said before returning to the magic book he retrieved, it looked like he was in for another sleepless night.

I was glad to finally get to bed, for the last couple of days all I had to look forward to was the disappointment of not finding anything. I hoped that some sleep would clear my head.

***

“Hawkeye,” Rove said nudging my shoulder.

I hated being woken up. “What?” I asked not opening my eyes.

“There’s somepony at the door, he wants to talk to you,” he sounded nervous but I really didn’t want to get up.

“Tell him to come back tomorrow.”

“Please Hawkeye, this seems important.”

“Fine,” I forced my way out of bed and stomped towards the living room. “What do you want?”

The pony in front of me wore a dark cloak covering up his body with only his muzzle visible. “Sorry for the hour Detective but this couldn’t wait,” his voice was soft, almost painful. “I understand that you are the one investigating the killing outside Baltimare.”

“Yes I am. Would you please sit down,” I said motioning at the couch. “Who are you, what do you know of them?”

“It doesn’t really matter who I am. All that you need to know is that I was a seeker of truth.”

Rove jumped up and moved towards the mysterious pony. “Then you’re one of the bastards-”

“Rove,” I interrupted before he could continue and directed my focus towards the other pony. “Why did you leave?”

“I didn’t sign on to murder ponies, that wasn’t our plan in the beginning. We just wanted to extend the ideals of Canterlot, make it a better for everypony,” he took a look at me and added. “I guess you can’t understand that.”

“No I can’t say that I do, but you’re not here to talk politics. How can you help us with the investigation?”

“I wish that I could tell you exactly who’s in charge and where to find them but unfortunately I don’t know much. I wasn’t very high up and nopony ever told me anything. All I know that may be useful is the name of a pony much higher up the food chain than me. And that would be Longspear.”

“Are you sure?” I asked barely believing it. “Do you have any proof to back it up?”

“No I don’t Detective, and the way I see it, it doesn’t really matter if I do or not. I told you what I know and made up for my involvement in this, now I can go home and wait to die with a clean conscience.”

“Who’s Longspear?” Rove asked.

“He’s second in command in the Canterlot guard,” I wasn’t able to hide my worry. “Only Lightblaze and Shining outrank him. Are you sure?”

“Yes Detective I’m pretty damn positive,” his voice was filled with hatred. “Now I’ve said what I wanted to say so I’ll be going.”

“Is there anything else that you can tell me, please?”

He turned around and trough his hood back. “Only that they’re dangerous.”

I tried to hold my composure but Rove couldn’t keep the look of horror from his face. A crudely stitched wound was still red on the mysterious ponies brown neck, only one of his eyes were visible under his swollen face but worse of all was the shattered stub of a horn coming from his forehead.