It was the dead of night in Manehatten. A young filly stumbled as her cousin forced her to walk with him. She would have run, having wanted to for the longest time, but he had a collar on her with a leash attached, and a straight-jacket keeping her front legs and wings bound. He was taking her somewhere so he could be rid of her. No doubt at his mother's insistence.
No one else was on the street. She was helpless.
She knew better than to scream. It would likely only get her hit. Or worse.
As they turned into an alley, she saw her aunt with several stallions she had never seen before.
"There's the brat."
The filly started struggling, but couldn't get away. Her cousin dragged her closer to the most scary looking stallion.
"An obedient filly is not necessary." The filly was shoved into his grasp. "Only one that looks good. She'll do just fine."
Her cousin held a cold expression. "And the payment?"
The creepy stallion chuckled, then motioned to one of the ponies with him. "Right here."
A stallion with a briefcase walked past her and held it out to her cousin.
That's as far as he got before...
*BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!*
The filly shrieked and collapsed as eight loud bangs filled her ears. She laid in place for a bit, the ground getting wet below her, before sitting up and looking around. Everypony else, including her aunt and cousin, lying on the ground. Dead. Tears started to well in her eyes.
"Get backup!"
The filly looked up at the royal guard at the end of the alley, barely catching the one that rushed off. The guard started rushing towards the filly, on all fours, causing her to back away a bit.
"No! No! No!"
"Hey! HEY!" The guard scooped her up, causing her to start crying. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe now. It's okay... It's okay."
Both the filly and the guard were oblivious to the mare halfway up a nearby wall, a rifle in her hoof. They also never knew when she left.
"Her name is Cotton Cloudy," Twilight Sparkle's escort, a detective, informed her, motioning to the bloodstained filly in another guards hooves. "We thought she may have been injured, but she was relatively unharmed."
"Physically," Twilight noted. "I doubt a filly of her age could come out of something like this without mental trauma."
"You think the deaths are traumatizing to her, get this; her aunt, Grim Moon, only got custody over her due to how much she makes. Moon had a habit of bribing guards into punishing her, being one of those "Unicorn Master Race" type ponies. Gave our guards trouble calming her down, and they still haven't gotten her to talk."
"I hope you have some information about what happened."
"Good bit on our victims. Apparently, our eight little murder victims were doing some pony trafficking, Moon trying to get rid of Cloudy, and a crime lord trying to get his hooves on another underage concubine."
"Another?"
"As per your request, we haven't done much to the crime scene. Someone, apparently getting bored waiting for you, decided to look into our vics a bit more." They stood at the edge of the crime scene. "That one there, the large one, had a pretty big place. There were several maids there, younger mares, that seemed rather untroubled by his passing. One of them took our guard to the basement, where we found about fourteen fillies, eight of whom were missing ponies. Four of the maids were as well."
"I see. When his toy gets too old for his liking, make her a maid instead."
"He also had a hoof in bribing guards. That's why he got away with it for so long. Heck, four of these ponies were guards, and one was a former guard."
"Likely here to keep the deal from going south. Fat lot of good that did them." Twilight walked over, then started inspecting the bullet holes in the bodies, putting some sort of device in them.
"Speaking of which, why did you ask us to leave the scene untouched? And we already know all eight shots were through-and-throughs, so what are you putting in their wounds?"
Twilight focused on finishing her task. "Small experiment. Shouldn't bother the scene too much."
The detective chuckled. "We're not going to need them in this position anymore. Knock yourself out, your highness."
Twilight stepped back to the detective's side when she finished, a few guards gathering behind them to watch. Her horn lit up, and the bodies seemed to stand back up.
The detective stumbled back in shock, almost backing into a guard. He didn't because the guard himself stumbled back in shock. "Wha-"
"It's a derivative of one of Starswirl's spells. He designed it to be a prank, keeping a pony going back and forth in a few seconds, but I thought of a practical application for it. I wasn't sure it would work on dead bodies, but it looks like I was right to try."
"And those devices?"
Twilight pressed a button, and a laser shot out of each of the wounds. "Special laser sights. Lets us track where the bullets came from." Twilight looked up, and saw the lasers intersect about halfway up the wall. "That looks like a successful test to me."
"Who could have perched there unnoticed."
"A Shatterwind," One of the guards said flatly.
Every other guard looked at him, confusion written on their face. Twilight and the detective glared instead.
"You guys haven't heard? The Shatterwinds are master assassins. The masterminds behind many unsolved assassinations, only revealed because they started sending messages to authorities. They mocked authorities, because they could. Even if caught, there was never solid evidence against them. They'd get away in a heartbeat. They were..." The guard suddenly smirked. "You guys realize I'm messing around, right?"
"So... Shatterwinds are a myth?"
"A myth that was once real," Twilight spoke up, putting her eyes back on the bodies. "Shatterwinds haven't been around for hundreds of years. There aren't any signs of them anymore, even in other countries." Twilight floated up to where the lasers intersected.
"Probably just a pegasus. Or an earth pony with climbing gear. Maybe even a unicorn with a wall-climbing spell. Those exist, ya know."
"Most likely that last one," Twilight informed the guards. "I don't see any marks indicating climbing gear was used, but I do sense a faint trace of magic." Twilight floated back down, and let the bodies collapse back to the ground. "Who was the first to respond?"
"Me and Windstrider," One of the guards spoke. "I immediately left to get help. If you want more info, you'd better ask him."
"Where is Windstrider?"
The guard pointed back to where Twilight entered the alley from. "He's with Cloudy."
"Thank you." Twilight made a beeline to Windstrider. When she passed them earlier, Twilight didn't pay much mind to the filly. Now that she's got a better look, however, she realized she should have recognized the filly from the start.
Windstrider took off his armor so that Cloudy would feel safer. She'd been through enough for the night. Cloudy was nuzzled up to his chest, making her feel like he would protect her.
Twilight nuzzled Cloudy to get her attention. When Cloudy saw Twilight, her eyes went wide. "Hey, Cotton Cloudy. You know me, right?"
"P-p-princess T-Twilight Sp-Sparkle? You know my name?"
Twilight giggled. "The nice detective told me. He also told me something horrible happened to you tonight."
"M-my auntie wanted me gone, so she had my cousin tie me up and take me to that alley there. Before the mean ponies could take me away, there were a bunch of explosions! Then everyone fell over. Dead."
Twilight gave her a worried look. "Do your parents know this happened?"
Cloudy hung her head. "My parents are dead. There was an accident four years ago. I was sent to live with my uncle, but he had died of an illness by then, leaving only his wife."
"We suspected foul play in his death," The detective said, having walked up behind Twilight at some point, "But there was never enough proof of it to approve of an investigation."
"Is it too late to launch one?"
"Definitely, especially since our main suspect is dead. She had plenty to gain from his death, and seemed to move on way too fast."
"I'm sure there's something in her house. You have my permission to check, seeing as she's a murder victim." Twilight turned back to Windstrider. "What happened from your perspective."
"I was a few streets over with my partner, investigating reports of vandalism, when we heard eight shots. They were so rapid, it had to be an SMG. When I arrived, the eight bodies were exactly as you found them, and Cloudy was on the ground in a straight-jacket, wearing a leash."
Twilight was bothered by two things: First, why would someone put a straight-jacket on a filly? That's unnecessarily cruel. More importantly... "Eight shots from an SMG, and none of them missed their marks? Even if somepony used a time spell, an SMG would never be this accurate."
Windstrider shrugged. "I'm just telling you what I heard, Ma'am. I don't know if it was just a fast handgun."
"A handgun pulling eight through-and-throughs?" Twilight shook her head. "We're probably looking for a militia-grade weapon on this case."
"I remember when Militia started making weapons. First time I saw one of them fire, I was terrified. There's a reason Princess Celestia decided to restrict their use. Heavily." The detective noticed Twilight staring at the point the killer fired from. "Your highness?"
Twilight spent a moment in thought. "... Nightmare Moon spent a thousand years on the earth. Diamonds take billions of years to form. Just because a pony moves to a location separate from society doesn't mean they no longer exist."
"What do you mean?"
"The Shatterwinds were only known to exist because they started boasting about it. There's nothing that can be considered a cause for their vanishing."
The detective's eyes went wide. "P-princess?"
"I know that guard said it in jest, but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems." Twilight gave him a look full of determination. "I'm ready to hunt a Shatterwind."
Fluttershy landed in the Everfree Forest. The first thing she did was kick a bush over, revealing a secret passage. She didn't waste any time jumping in and closing it, returning the bush to its place.
She walked along the secret passage for a few minutes. When she got to her secret room under her house, she started undressing.
First, she put her gun on the wall, hanging by a hook from its strap. It was custom made to fold into what looked like, at a glance, a thin, metal box. It doesn't look like anything specifically, but, when held like a purse, most don't question what someone's holding.
Next off was her green and white striped scarf, placed on a hook near the rifle. Believe it or not, it was equally as important as the rifle itself. It was enchanted to muffle her breathing and wing flaps. It was also one of two catalysts for her magic.
She removed the green band from around her hind leg, the other catalyst for her magic. It didn't have any active magic, but it worked as an important back-up, should she lose her scarf.
She removed her belt. All it held were small things like smoke pellets, extra bullets, nerve gas, etc.. It wasn't the most important, but it had its uses.
She pulled off her gloves and tossed them aside, before taking off her boots. These were why she could climb on walls and ceilings, and let her walk and run quietly.
Finally, she removed a band from her front leg, displaying her Cutie Mark. It was from an old code the Shatterwinds had: If your target sees you, let them know who killed them. And her status as the Element of Kindness gave a false sense of security to those that recognized her.
Now bare of anything to define her as a Shatterwind, Fluttershy went up a tunnel to her Chamber of Extreme Knitting. She moved the knitted dragon out of the way to move into the room, them moved it back before sitting in its mouth for a few moments.
"Fluttershy! There you are!"
Fluttershy looked up to see Rainbow Dash in front of her. Ever since she won that art contest, her friends knew of one of her most common "get away from life" spots. One of them.
"Oh. Hey, Rainbow. I was just worn out from working." Not a lie, just not exact.
Rainbow chuckled. "I noticed. Anyway, I just came by to tell you that Twilight is out of town, and may be busy for a while."
Fluttershy's eyes went wide. Please tell me it's not because of... "W-why?"
Rainbow rubbed her head. "Something about a murder or something. Spike's the one that told me. You'll have to ask him for details."
"A-alright. I don't see why she would get involved with a murder."
Rainbow shrugged. "Something about an experimental spell. Again, ask Spike."
Fluttershy curled up in a ball. "I'll ask him tomorrow. My animals can be so... *yawn*... needy." Again, not a lie. It just didn't apply to why she was so tired.
Rainbow smiled at the yellow and pink ball of sleeping pony. "Get your rest, Fluttershy. Get your rest."
Rainbow picked Fluttershy up and carried her to her room, laying her on her bed. Rainbow left, oblivious to what Fluttershy had done.
