The Life and Adventures Of A Necromancer

Chapters

Θηρεύω
Χίμαιρα
Γενναιοδωρία
Απώλεια αθωότητος
Δρόμος πόλεμου
Προοπτική
Γέλιο
Εξαπάτηση
Ρωγμή
Τράνταγμα
Κέλυφος
Το Κυνήγι Αρχίζει
Πρώτη κίνηση
Ορμαθός δυσαρεστημένων
Χιών
Διάσωσις
Κάταγμα
Κλειδίον
Σίδηρος
Λίμνη
Αποτελέσματα δοκιμών
Ανάσταση
Ταυτότητα
Αμφιβολία
Κενό

Θηρεύω

Twlight

I looked down at the huge library spanning across the large room and levitated my scroll and quill in front of me as I looked down at the purple dragon at my side.

“Are you ready for the biweekly reorganisation?” I asked him enthusiastically.

The young dragon rolled his eyes in my direction and said, “Twilight, you’re an Alicorn princess, not to mention the Element of Magic! Don’t you have a spell that can just do this by itself?”

“Spike, you know I prefer doing it book by book! Besides, this allows me to have a few hours of quiet time to myself! Celestia knows I need it,” I replied.

He sighed and walked towards a shelf lazily. “Just because I’m your number one assistant, I’ll help.”

I started taking the books off the shelves and checking the genres and the author’s first name to start the new sorting system I had devised last week when I heard a familiar burp behind me.

“Twilight, Princess Celestia has sent a message!” Spike called as he walked towards me.

“Thank you, Spike,” I replied and grabbed the message while I carefully placed my scroll on a nearby shelf.

The letter read:

Dear Twilight,

A situation has arisen, and I require the help of you and your friends. Please notify them as fast as you can and try to get here as soon as it is convenient. This is not an imminent threat, but I’d appreciate it if you could get on a train to Canterlot quickly.

Your Mentor and Friend,

Princess Celestia.”

“Do you think that this country could survive without you? Every disaster seems to need you to fix it.” Spike joked.

“Equestria stayed strong without my input for about a thousand years before I was born, Spike. I am sure that Celestia has multiple backup plans if I wasn’t around,” I stated faithfully, before adding, “Even if it seems like I save the country a lot.”

“Should I get the girls, then?” Spike questioned me.

“No need! I’ve been dying to test out a spell that should work with the map table; if it works right, it should deliver a message to them and tell them to come find me.”

I mentally constructed the spell in front of me and then weaved it, using the castle as an amplifier, before casting it across Ponyville.

I went back to organising my new library using the new system as Spike tried to assist me for about thirty minutes before I heard a gentle voice across the hall.

“Twilight, are you in here?” Fluttershy’s soft voice approached me, and I looked up to see the sunny Pegasus mare looking at me.

I smiled at her and spoke, “Yes, Fluttershy, I was just arranging the books while I waited.”

Fluttershy looked across the rows of books and spotted Spike arranging multiple books, so she waved at him.

As Spike waved back, Fluttershy turned to me and asked, “Why did you bring us here? My Cutie Mark just started shining, and I assumed the castle map wanted us to come.”

“The princess called for us; she sent me a letter that said we needed to get there as soon as we could.”

“Oh my,” Fluttershy seemed a bit worried. "You think nothing bad happened, do you?”

“She didn’t mention it; she just said to get there as soon as possible. Spike, do we still have a copy of the train timetable? I’ll need to double-check if there are any trains going to Canterlot today.”

“Sure, Twilight; I’ll go get it,” Spike said to me.

Spike scampered out of the room, and then a gravelly voice said behind me, “Yo Twilight, what’s up?”

I turned to look at the rainbow-maned mare and nodded at her. "Hey, Dash. I received a letter from Celestia asking for our personal attendance.”

“Do you know why she wants us?” Rainbow replied.

“I have no clue, but we’re going to her today.”

It took another fifteen minutes for the rest of the element bearers to arrive, and we all headed off to Canterlot on the train. Celestia had assigned us a personal guard to escort us to the castle, and we made it without incident.

As we walked into the throne room, we saw Princess Celestia rise from her throne and walk down the hall towards us. We bowed, but she gestured for us to raise our heads.

“I’m glad you could all make it here so fast; I trust you didn’t experience any issues?” she asked.

“No, princess,” I reply. "The spell you gave me to fix. I figured out the main issues in the way it was created and was missing a component, so I could gather the rest of us with ease.”

“It’s good to know you got that working. It could prove useful in the future. Now, for the reason I brought you here, I have an urgent issue that requires your help,” Celestia replied.

“Is it another monster or a universe-travelling unicorn bent on revenge? Ooh, is it a giant snake? Twilight is terrified of snakes!” Pinkie said with enthusiasm.

“I am not!” I replied, fighting against a blush that threatened to show itself on my cheeks.

“Please, Pinkamena; the situation is a bit too serious for us to be making jokes,” the Princess said, despite the upward twitching in the corners of her mouth. “Please take a seat while I describe the issue.”

Because of a lack of chairs in the throne room, we all sat on the floor while Celestia started pacing.

“The threat we are met with here is dark magic, one of which Luna and I had thought we had been rid of for all time; I’m talking about necromancy on an enormous scale.”

I gasped, but I was the only pony to do so as the rest of the group looked confused. I remembered the lessons I had through my time at school and the reality of the crime.

“I can imagine that everypony here, except for Twilight, doesn’t know what necromancy is.” Celestia looked grimmer than I had ever seen her as she spoke. “So let me give you a description of the magic:

“Necromancy is a concept that ponies have come up with since the dawn of our kind as it surrounds the defiance of the death itself; this is a noble concept itself, since every being wishes they can see their loved ones again. The problem is that because of the fundamental way that nature works, there is no way to retrieve the soul of the pony and therefore no point in attempting. We are born, we live, and then we die. There is no other way around this.

“That was until the tribe wars. The battles against Earth Ponies were always considered the tamest, since everypony was terrified at the prospect of losing all food. Starvation was already an issue because of the Windigoes making the land unfit for growing food, and the death toll was rising like nothing else, so then unicorns attempted to exploit the magic in Earth Ponies to take advantage and solve two problems with one stone.

“They stole hundreds of corpses from the Earth Ponies’ graveyards and then loaded a spell into their deceased bodies. The spell would reactivate the bodies and force them to be under the command of the unicorns. The raised dead could use the bodies’ magic to grow the food necessary for the unicorns. They could not tire, they did not require substance, and they could fight as well as any other Earth Pony, if not better, since they felt neither pain nor fear.

“The Earth Ponies were furious, as they should have been, and went into a war that was one of the bloodiest, as the Unicorns decided out of desperation to use the resurrected Earth Ponies solely as soldiers against their own brethren. It was a slaughter for the Earth Ponies because they couldn’t bring themselves to injure their own brethren, and the reanimated corpses had no objection to doing so. The Earth Ponies had to run, but they came back in the middle of the night and slowly extracted the magic of the land and barricaded the unicorns into what essentially was their tomb as they starved to death slowly.

“I am sorry I had to explain that all to you, and if you please wake up Rarity, since this next bit is important, that would be perfect. My sister and I, when we took control over the land, ensured that all forms of necromancy were banned and that those guilty of committing the crime would be forever banished from the land.”

I looked around at all of my friends after hearing this appalling story to see their reactions; Rarity seemed to be extremely close to fainting again, Fluttershy was a mixture of pale with horror and green with sickness, Pinkie Pie and Applejack had their eyes turned down in consideration of their ancestors’ horrible fate, and Rainbow Dash seemed to lose some of her bravado.

“But what does any of this have to do with a crime?” Rainbow asked, her wings flaring up in annoyance.

“I was getting to that,” Princess Celestia said. "About ten years ago, the School for Gifted Unicorns had a twelve-year-old filly by the name of Blue Syringe attending. Unlike Twilight, she wasn’t attending for a love of magic but because of her fascination with healing.

“She was considered to be a pioneer and a genius in her magic and had already patented multiple healing apparatuses, such as the device that is used to measure the magic flowing through a unicorn’s horn. She had already gained her cutie mark, and it was the legendary Asclepius Wand, which is only provided as a trophy to those who are considered to be the next greatest healer through the years of our existence. Everypony had great hopes for the pony until an incident happened to her brother.

“You see, by no fault of anypony, the brother was playing on thin ice without anypony very close to him except Blue. When he fell through the ice, she couldn’t get him back up before he stopped breathing, and because it took too long, she could not resuscitate him. It broke her will entirely, and she hid herself in her room, refusing to eat or see anyone. Even when I attempted to visit, I was barred from her room.

“Nopony could have expected what she was actually doing in her room. One day, her parents went up to her room to check on her, like they had been doing for the months she had been locked.

“They found the door open, and in her place a note and her revived brother, the latter sleeping in her bed. Apparently, she had snuck into the forbidden archives to steal the resurrection spell.”

The girls and I gasped, and Celestia continued.

“She performed some modifications on the spell to make sure that her brother would remain alive indefinitely, and then she ran away into the wild, as she had known of the implications of what she did.

“Search parties were sent out to find her, but she was too clever to be captured, and we thought she had perished. But after five years of fruitless searches and giving up, I started receiving reports of miracle healings, and before I knew it, the healings started gaining in number. Through investigating the situation, we discovered that there had been multiple resurrections that had been cleverly covered up by lies, and of course, I put two and two together.

“I investigated in my free time, and I found information that linked to multiple ponies, which all seemed like they could be her, with all having high-level achievements in healing in some kind or another.

“That’s where you six come in, since I cannot freely roam the country, and I am not connected to the average populace as you six are. Therefore, you could gain information and assure her capture easier than I could.”

I spent a few short moments digesting the information before I answered the princess, “We won’t fail you, Princess.”

“I know you won’t, my student,” she replied with a graceful smile.

The six of us started walking out of the hall, and I started discussing with them the information we had, as well as how we were going to gather more.

“Cheese Sandwich might be a good bet. He seems to know everypony in Equestria and might have picked up a snippet of information. Pinkie, can you contact him?” I asked the party mare.

“Sure, Twilight!” She replied enthusiastically, even if she still seemed a bit shaken by the information.

“Applejack, your family is fairly spread out across Equestria. Do you think you could check in with them?” I asked my farmer friend.

“Yup, but Ahm going to need some time to do it,” she replied, her tone and expression grim and serious. Her attitude did not surprise me; Applejack valued family more than anypony else I knew, and hearing about the corpses of loved ones being used against the parents, siblings, and children of the deceased couldn’t be easy for her.

“For the rest of you, I’ll need you to check with anypony you can think of. We’re going to need information to help us, and I will go back to our castle and come up with a few ideas myself,” I spoke as commandingly as I could manage with my friends. We needed to be serious about this, and there was no time for sentimentalism.

We broke up into groups, each with our own ideas about whom to ask for help.

As I walked towards the train station, I couldn’t help but think this would not be an easy job.

Author's Note

The second chapter has been written and hoof read.
Thanks again to Professor_Wizard for checking and fixing my story for me.
The view points will alternate between Blue and the mane six.

EDIT: Grammar checked

Χίμαιρα

Blue Syringe

I fumbled through my saddlebags with my telekinesis and found my keys at the bottom. I withdrew them with little effort and inserted them into the door in front of me before I walked into my small house.

I put my saddlebags into the corner and then went to turn on the lamps by hoof, as I always found it strangely relaxing to not just rely on my horn. That doesn’t mean I didn’t levitate the letters that were sitting by the doorstep over to me, though.

I flicked through them, distractedly noticing that most of them were energy and water bills, which I knew I could have a discussion with an old acquaintance to take off, when I saw a distinctive letter. I almost squealed with excitement as I saw it and recognised the magical signature, which was smothered all over it.

I sat down on my couch next to a lamp I had just for reading and opened the seal on the envelope before reading the letter.

There has been an issue that has been troubling me since I was about eight years old. The restoration of nerve fibre is considered an impossible task since the brain will not accept any alternatives, and therefore other ponies gave up.

I was not, however, an ordinary pony, and I knew I could do it, and after I swiftly departed from my home because of circumstances I do not want to think of.

I looked for anything that even attempted to regenerate the tissue, and I found nothing. None of the races even had an idea how to fix the damned things, and I was utterly trumped. Until about three months ago.

I went to help a family near the southern border of Equestria in a quaint little town named Hot Hoof (to be honest, I thought the inhabitants were messing around with me, but apparently the creator of the town stood in a hot patch of sand when deciding the town's name), and to my utter surprise, I discovered the family was composed solely of changelings.

After a tense moment and a tense-er discussion, I discovered the changelings were on the run from their own hive and just wanted to settle into the town. I described my own forced banishment from society, and we started talking in friendlier terms.

It was basic conversation at first, and coincidentally, we got into the discussion of pony conversion.

Apparently, the changelings could convert a pony, if it was willing, into a changeling as long as they had the right chemicals. This meant that all ailments of the pony would not be transferred into the new body, as it was effectively creating a new body.

I knew that I finally had my answer, but I also knew that a lot of work had to be done to make sure that the pony wasn't actually turned into a changeling. Therefore, I needed data.

The changelings and I arranged a deal: if I resurrected their fallen companions, then they would try to find all the information they could get their hooves on about the conversion process and the biology of the changelings.

In their last letter, they had mentioned that they had found a potential source, which should allow me to get all the information I needed to try to create an apparatus and cure.

They had come through.

I looked through the huge amount of data and planned the plan in my mind about how I could even attempt to implement the spells and get enough data to consider making this a viable option.

I even considered pulling out my legal identity of Doctor Mia Grain (although it was a risk using this name, considering it was a pun for a medical issue). I just couldn't resist myself and sending the blueprints and data over to the University of Trussville and letting them do it without threatening myself when suddenly I heard a short but high-pitched noise hum through the air.

The average pony might’ve ignored the sound, but I immediately recognised it and put the documents down on the table while walking into my bedroom to put a hoof down behind my wardrobe to retrieve the book resting behind it.

I looked at the leather tome as I pulled it out and almost got tingles feeling the texture.

It was interesting that I got shivers holding a dead object considering the time I had spent around dead ponies on a nearly daily basis, but maybe it was because of the way the body was disfigured, or perhaps it was just a product of how I was brought up. I opened it to land on the page, which was alerting my presence.

While I had been working on medical magic during my time under Celestia, I made sure that I had read on the other schools of magic that were available to me (even though I didn't look into depth about them), which led me to find out that with telepathic spells, it was possible to intercept them if you had an adept unicorn who just found the line between the two ponies.

After I left home, I realised those I had saved could send me information about others who had fallen to their own mortality, but I had to let them communicate with me, and I couldn't use telepathy for the reason of being able to easily find them, and also telepathy required a high-level unicorn to cast.

I went north and found the reindeer, as I knew they used runic magic because ley lines would pull it in. After convincing them that my reasons were pure, even if they disliked my methods, they gave me the tome and said that any being that had a certain rune could use this as communication, and as virtually zero ponies in Equestria actually used runes, then the communication channels were entirely clear.

I saw a message being written on the last page:

“Dear Ms. Bones,

I had hoped that I wouldn't require your assistance again, but due to the tightened political circumstances, my family had been attacked, leaving my son gravely injured, as well as my daughter. I had hoped that you might treat their injuries.

If you could arrive here as speedily as you can and assist us, I guarantee a sum of five thousand bits will be paid to you, not to mention any travel expenses that appear on your way here.

Yours Truly,

Lord Sunfeather.”

I almost giggled at my old identity of Baroness Bones being mentioned and remembered that it almost had been five years since I had last seen Sunfeather.

I looked at the book again and sighed, knowing that I wouldn't have any time to work on the nerve project before I went to my bathroom to go grab some black mane dye.

It took me almost two days of travelling to reach the borders of Griffonstone since I took a pony-drawn carriage. The last time I attempted to take the train, I forgot to put a disguise on and almost got spotted by some guards. Even though I knew I was disguised, the experience reminded me I couldn’t be too careful.

I arrived at Lord Sunfeather's and mine’s pre-arranged meeting spot, where I met a group of griffon guards waiting for me.

"Good evening, gentlegriffs," I said courteously, giving a small bow of my head.

"Baroness Bones, right?" one guard asked with that tone of rushed annoyance that could only be achieved while standing still by a griffon.

"Yes, I’m glad to see I am recognised this time. The last time was such a hassle," I said with a huff at the end.

"Please show us your Cutie Mark for identification," the guard asked with indifference to my statement.

I lifted the backside of my robe to show them my Cutie Mark in an act that would make proper Canterlot mares faint and made the guards nod at each other.

"Alright, come this way, Ms. Bones; we have a chariot waiting for you," the guard said.

I followed the guards across the border of Griffonstone and mounted a griffon-drawn chariot, which quickly took me to the city of Griffonstone, which was named the same as the country in a clear showing of why it’s a bad idea to ask a griffon to name your child. I watched the griffons below watch me with varying looks of emotion as I headed towards the mansion. Some were afraid; most looked distrustful.

“After the attack, we’re pretty worried about strangers,” one guard answered before I could ask.

“Lord Sunfeather mentioned something about political tensions in his message. What is happening, if I may ask?” I asked.

“A new group of radicals has risen in Griffonstone, who are attempting to overthrow the lords and instate a new political system or some crock like that,” the guard says with a hint of venom showing through his calm demeanour.

I make sure to not mention anything else. I make sure to always remain neutral with these situations; I really can't afford to lose any potential allies while also making sure that I don't work with a biased mind when I’m trying to heal my patients and therefore don't accidentally harm them.

We eventually landed after another five minutes, which led to us walking over to the doors of the large mansion, where one guard tapped on the door with one of his claws.

After about thirty seconds a griffon answers the door and says to us, "Good evening, gentlegriffs. I am afraid my master is indisposed at the moment, so if you might wait until he gets his affairs in order," he spoke in a monotone yet fluent voice.

“We are here by request of your master; we have a pony by the name of Baroness Bones,” the guard said, his gruff voice marking a contrast against the servant.

The butler looked down at me for a few moments before speaking. "Welcome back, Ms. Bones. I shall take her off your claws. And guards? I apologise for my impolite behaviour.”

The butler led me through the mansion. After a small and slightly awkward silence formed between us, he spoke to me again. "Ms. Bones, it is wonderful to see you again. Although I wish it were under better circumstances."

“A doctor is only needed under negative circumstances, and my line of work is the most negative of the lot,” I replied with a sigh.

Some days I wonder if I could have been content with simply curing cancer, but nooooo! I just had to go further and cure death!

“Considering that you are the only individual in your line of work, it must be difficult to keep up,” the butler replied.

“It was tiring at first, but you do it for a few years, and you just get used to it.”

“When was the last time you took a break?” the butler asked, cracks of concern showing through his calm shell. Say whatever you want about ninety percent of griffons everywhere, but this one was a saint.

“I think it was when I was about twelve. I can't really afford to allow for a break, considering…” I replied with a calm shrug, leaving the last word floating between us.

Eventually, the butler went into a room. A few moments later, he returned.

"My master offers his sincerest apologies that he cannot meet you at this second as he is about to have an unplanned meeting with the rest of the lords,” the butler dipped his head apologetically. “He says that he is having the patients brought here tomorrow, and you can stay in one room of the manor.”

I was then led to a mostly empty room, where I bid the butler goodbye, and I settled in for a night with my other work.

Γενναιοδωρία

Rarity
As I walk down the street I look at the purple alicorn along the side of me, who appeared to trying to organise her note at regular intervals.

"Darling, could you please stop fidgeting with your notes? I am trying to make sure we do not miss the house and the noise is slightly distracting" I hear my eloquent voice broadcast.

"Sorry Rarity, I just want to make sure I don't miss anything... I need to make sure that we don't miss anything, this is hard enough already without us missing any information." the Alicorn replies with a tired tone.

"Twilight, stop worrying, we have been through the questions five times on the train and neither of us noticed any discrepancies in them." I reply with a slight smile on my face.

Twilight nods back to me and I notice the her eyes are bloodshot and her mane looked frazzled but with an attempt to comb it down, I wasn't surprised, to be honest, our target was one of the most elusive figures we had even encountered and information pertaining to her location was vague at most.

As I am looking through the addresses on the sides of the houses, I notice the house that we were looking for come into view and I say to Twilight "Twilight, this is the house we are looking for, now remember we can't say too much as it might be too much for the poor mare to handle after what the princess told us."

Twilight gives me another nod and walks to the front door, and after a moment of hesitation, raises her hoof and and knocks three times.

We hear a feminine voice reply in a muffled tone through the door "Coming, give me a second."

After a few moments, we watch a mare open the door and look at us with weary eyes and then says "Hello, sorry for the wait, can I help you in anyway?"

I hear Twilight say "It's fine, if I may ask, are you Miss Place bo?

The mare looks at us inquisitively and replies "Yes, is there anything wrong?"

"There is nothing wrong, you see I have decided to write a book about the influential figures of Modern Equestria and I believe your daughter developed the pioneering Horn Multimeter and we were wondering if we could have an interview, I want to make sure that I get her story correct." I hear Twilight respond.

I watch the pink orbs that were her eyes look between the two of us and after a few moments says "I have an hour before I have to get to work, so I have some time to talk."

We are led inside by the mare who offers us a seat and then asks if any of us would desire anything.
I see Twilight attempt to avoid the temptation of beverages as she wants to ask her questions, that mares desire for knowledge is unrelenting I tell you, but before she manages to get the words out I speak out and ask for tea.

As Miss Bo leaves to go and get us tea, I watch Twilight blink and stare at me for a few seconds and I motion my hooves to communicate to her to let me take the lead.

While Twilight looks over her notes, for the millionth time, I decide that I should attempt to to take in my surroundings.

I look around the living room that we are situated and notice that the house was extremely clean, almost like the boutique used to be before a certain sister moved in, and I notice that pictures and ornaments from many different periods of time hang up.
The main thing I notice in the room is a large painting hanging over the fireplace which contains two foals.
The first foal was a filly, who was slightly taller than the other foal, had bright blue mane tied up into a scrunchie. Her coat was white with a silver tint and her eyes were pink like her mothers.
The second pony was a colt with a brown mane and a similar coat to the other pony except his eyes stood out more than hers with them being a vibrant orange .

After looking at the portrait for a period of time, Miss Bo returned from the kitchen with our refreshments.
After she poured out our tea and settled into her chair look at us and said" Let's get on with the questions then, I don't want to be late to work."

Twilight almost look relieved to be getting straight to the point and said "Okay then, I want to start off by asking about her appearance and date of birth."

"Well her key characstic is her blue hair, she also has a similar coat to mine and her cutie mark is a snake wrapped around a staff. Her birthday is the first of december 1991." The mare replied.

She is about six years older than the oldest in our group, I think to myself.

Twilight writes the notes down and then asks " And personality wise, what was she like?"

I watch a smile creep itself onto the mare's face and she responds " Very curious, even when she was young. It's how she managed to get into medicine, we hadn't planned for her to follow her father and my footsteps, she managed to find a few casefiles while we were at work and after going through our medical books and managed to find the right diseases that the patients were inflicted with. After that she would ask to see more and more casefiles to try and help us because she happy to be helping mummy and daddy and after a while the hospital started to give us more casefiles just for her. Then she started coming into work with us and after a while managed to cure a case that had been plaguing the hospital for months and that's how she got her cutie mark."
After furiously scribbling all of the words down Twilight asked "And what was the case?"

The mother responded" It was a bit before your time, but there was a virus that affected unicorn foals. It was dangerous in fact that it forced unicorns to have numerous magical surges as well as blocking the horn and preventing the magic from escaping. The magic would cast inwards damaging all it could including the brain and the spinal column. It was an horrific fate to inflict on the children. Little blue cured it though, she worked out that if the blockage was removed then the magical surges would pass and drive the children to magical exhaustion which is an ailment that under supervision could be healed easily so she developed the horn multimeter and started testing for where the blockage was. She cured the disease within 72 hours."

I noticed that Twilight had stopped writing her notes through the story and was watching in awe as the mare was describing the mare.

"I am sorry that I am rambling on, it feels nice to talk about her." The mother says with a gentle smile still resting on her face.

I watch Twilight shook herself out of her previous state and proceeded to ask "I hear she went Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns, may i ask how she performed?"

The mother though for a moment and answered "In terms of raw magic she was like me sadly as we both lacked magic but the examiners were prepared to allow her to take the test due to the plague curing. I was worried for her to be honest as I had heard how crushing those tests were especially the magic potential test. But what that mare lacked in magic she gain in brains, she used alternative methods to get past every blockade by creating complex magical patterns to conserve magical energy instead of just brute forcing it and even using a mix of chemicals she had concocted to induce a magical surge at a crucial moment.
When she got accepted into the academy her grades were usually high though her professors noticed that she would sneak out of classes to the medical books within the library but they also noticed that she would take all other sorts of books to analyse and attempt to create more cures. After a while the librarians started to allow her to take books from the restricted sections, I still remember the the talks that I used to have about the Mummies and how we have developed more advanced methods."

I remember at my age asking my mom about about what we going to eat for dinner, not talking about the preparation of a pony's body.

"To be honest, we were worried about her social life. We knew that she was a medical genius but when we started look through her notes we noticed that some of the treatments she was describing would cure the illness but would cause the patient a large amount of distress. It was like she was detaching herself from the patients and only caring about the illness. We were so happy when she finally made that friend of hers."

I watched Twilight raise her head from her notes and I knew why, this could be a crucial bit of information.

"Friend? Her professors said she wasn't close with anyone in her class." Twilight stated in confusion.

"Yeah, Bellatrix was on the opposite side of the school from Blue. She was learning illusion for her acting skills. Blue had not understood how illusion magic worked and basically just walked up to the first illusion student she found and told her to teach her everything.
After that they were joined at the hip with Bellatrix teaching Blue the basics of illusion magic and Blue showing her the perfect herbs for enhancing magic and teaching her how to make her magic more complex.
After Blue's incident, Bellatrix would come over to support us, she is such a good mare."

Warning bells were now going on in my head after the description and it seemed that Twilight seemed to have the same inclinations.
Twilight asked cautiously "Does Bellatrix have a magic show?"

"Oh you met her? Her shows are fantastic, in my opinion but she does get an ego the size of Canterlot mountain I tell you, She starts calling herself The Great and Powerful Trixie!"

I wish I had my fainting couch.

Author's Note

This editing on this might be poor as my usual editor is currently busy with school and i am the one editing this and compared to him i suck.
But I am determined to get this out.
If anyone would be willing to volunteer to be an editor i would appreciate it.

Απώλεια αθωότητος

Blue Syringe
I wonder the halls of Lord Sunfeather's mansion, as I am waiting for the two children to leave their tutor for their final examination.
After pacing the hallways for a few moments, my eyes are attracted to a shield that had been mounted onto the wall.

This shield, bearing the coat of arms of the Sunfeather household, was polished down to a blinding sheen but it also seemed to paradoxically have its fair share of scars marking its surface.
As I attempted to have a closer look at the shield, I heard a deep noble voice echoing down the hall speak "I'm afraid, Ms Bones, that those injuries are some that even you cannot cure."
Without turning around, I respond "I hope so, I'm not exactly a Smith, am I?"

Hearing clawsteps approaching and a chuckle as well.

Lord Sunfeather continues "Do you know that shield belonged to my great grandfather? One of the few Griffin' nobles that ever served in the Equestrian army, it was not an optional affair though, poor Griffin was caught with a girl from the town in the lord's bed and practically thrown into the hooves of the soldiers by her father. The damage to the shield was committed by a particularly vicious wyvern that he managed to strike down in the end"

I visibly wince at the end of the sentence.

"Ahh, I do apologise, of course, you wouldn't want to hear war stories considering the profession… But there is a reason I bring this story up."

Turning away from the shield and towards Lord Sunfeather, curious as to what secrets he might be hiding.

"During my great-grandfather's stint in the army, he had risen to the rank of lieutenant and coincidentally managed to start to make some connections with the right circles. He went to war as a disgraced noble's son and clawed his way up the social ladder, using both brains and skills."

Lord Sunfeather pauses for a moment and returns back to his monologue afterwards.

"After the war ended, he returned to find the estate in a state of disarray and the name of Sunfeather had been dragged through the mud to the stage that our title was about to be lost.
My great-grandfather reversed that, he used every tool in his repertoire from underhanded deals to blackmail to somehow manage to bring the Sunfeather name to the highest households in the land. I am betting you are wondering why I am bringing all this up."

I feel a pit start to develop in my stomach but I wait for him to finish.

"He had a remarkable ability to gauge a character by the end of his life, all of his travelling and meeting different types of people help, I suppose, and one of the things he demanded from the family was to be able to do the same. We are exposed to the masses early and attend public education as well as being privately tutored.
I am not a fool, Ms Bones, I have always been aware of your false alias but I have always had respect for your mission so I never asked. An issue has risen though, it appears some ponies are looking for you."

BUCK

Seriously, buck, who on Equestria is looking for me? And not looking for Ms Bones either? Who knows I'm alive? I haven't even said my name since I left Canterlot and I have been so careful.

I watched Sunfeather carefully, if he gave the order then I could be dragged to Celestia herself and the last time I checked there was still a death sentence linked to necromancy. I weave and hold a spell in my horn, I am not a combat specialist and practically failed every self-defence course in the academy but I learned a pretty good way of sedating a patient a few years back by squeezing the carotid artery in their neck but due to preparation time and my lack of aim using it in a fight is just not possible.

The Griffin smirked and said "Don't worry Miss Bones, I have only heard this from a discrete source in Canterlot and all they knew was that some ponies were tasked with the task of finding a pony called Blue Syringe, and even then they have some loose sources. I only managed to work out the link due to knowing you. I only say this as a word of warning, as somepony who has saved this household on several occasions, I would rather see you safe and continue your mission."

Relaxing my muscles, I give a slight grin to the Griffin and say shakily
"Thank you, my lord, it's somewhat strange hearing my name again I'll be honest. Blue Syringe is something I abandoned after I set out into the world, I assumed that it died when the search was completed. I am curious who is looking for me though, I really didn't interact with many in the academy, I spent most of my time in the hospital unless I was actively studying."

"Trust me Ms Bones, you are still quite young in the perspective of things. Someone will always notice you no matter what you are doing, especially if you are capable of reversing death. Now I believe that you have some patients to inspect and I will have a nice tea brewing if my butler is doing his job correctly." Lord Sunfeather wisely says before striding off.

I chuckle as Lord Sunfeather leaves and I start to head to the bedrooms

I knock my hoof on the children's door and notice squabbling through the door.
With a sigh, I reach for the door handle and push my way in and see that the children seem to be fighting.

"You broke it, you clod!" I watch the brother yell at his sister with tears in his eyes.

"No, I didn't, it's fine!" The sister replies dismissively.

"Look! The wing is chipped, it was a collector's item! "

"We can glue it back on and nobody will not-..."

I watch the sister notice me at the door and very slowly try to hide her talon behind her back.

I roll my eyes, children of every race manage to always find something to fight about… Well I suppose adults do as well.

I say with an authoritative tone "look, I need you to stop arguing. Your final checks are today, and I'm guessing that you want my out of your feathers."

Hearing something clatter to the ground behind the sister but I watch both griffins come towards me.

Taking out a pad with some notes, I had been collecting since I'd got here, and said "Okay, Icaothius, stand here and raise your right wing."

I watched the boy gingerly come towards me while starting to raise his left wing but suddenly changing to his right.

Moving in closer to check along the scar lines and activate a scanning spell to assist.

"Why do you keep checking his wing? It looks fine to me." I hear the sister say to my left.

Not looking away from the wing, I respond "And when did you get your medical licence? But, I do need to keep checking it. The amount of damage your brother's wing was extensive. And if I made any mistakes in its repairs then your brother will suffer one day. Could you imagine his wing seizing while flying?"

The sister went quiet after my response but I didn't really have the time to deal with her.
Continuing my check of the boy I noticed that he still had some slight fractures and the scar tissue had yet to heal but given it month he should be fully functioning.

Now for the hard part.

I send the boy away and call "Lantern, please come here"

Watching Lantern sulk her way across the room reminds me of my brother, he used to always try to delay the inevitable.

After Lantern stands in front of me, my eyes drift to the collarbone and the scar that runs down her chest.
"Feeling any chest issues? Any tightness or itching?" I try to say with a calm tone

She appears to ponder for a while and responds "it feels sore and when i lie down, it feels like someone is squeezing me."

I'm not too surprised by this, the twelve hours of surgery I did on her chest would leave anyone sore, I've done some intensive surgeries in the past but never had to re-construct a heart to the level I did.

Griffins can be terrifying sometimes.

"It's to be expected to be honest, I'm going to prescribe some muscle relaxants which should relieve some pain but it will hurt for a short while still, your body has to adapt. Now, any other issues that have arisen?" I say while looking down at my notepad.

Lantern goes to speak but withdraws for a while, after a few minutes she opens her mouth to speak again "I… I have been having nightmares."

Right, a shame she hadn't mentioned this before but I imagined this to be the case, she's been looking more tired recently and this whole scenario wasn't good for a child.

"Icaothius, would you mind leaving the room for a moment? Thank you. Lantern, would you mind describing your dream?" I try to say sympathetically.

Lantern seems to check that the door is closed and starts "my brother and I are leaving home in the beginning, we have school, I think, It's hard to remember where we were going but we start walking up the path into the woods. I felt like we are walking for a few hours and I watched Icao mess around with a stick when I hear shouting up the path coming towards us. After a while, the shouting stops and the world goes quiet. I watched and saw lots of shadows come down the path and I saw Icao try to fight them off with his stick but they knock it away and… stab him I think? Like multiple knives attacked him on his wing, and I tried to be the big sister, daddy always tells me to try and help Icao, and one of the shadow swing his knife thingy at me and my chest feels cold. I saw Icao get knocked over and he didn't stand up and then the shadow sat on me and started scratching my chest. I felt so cold and just wanted to sleep and I felt myself drift away.
After that I landed in this… pool, I think? It felt weird, like everything was wavy, and then I started hearing all these voices asking me to relax and sleep but after a while i started feeling something tugging me and then I woke up."

I mentally sigh, no wonder she hadn't mentioned anything, it sounded horrible being able to remember your own murder. But luckily she didn't seem to be aware of the reality, might be able to get a psychiatrist to live in and watch her condition.

After a moment of deliberation, I say "that sounds like a pretty nasty nightmare, but I have something that can help."

That had just about rounded up the final checkup and I decided to go and talk to the butler and discussed the medication prescribed.

After that, I said my goodbyes to the lord and started heading back to my apartment. I needed to reach out to some contacts and figure out who is after me.

Author's Note

Well i finally wrote another chapter
Hi everyone, it has been sooo long since i last wrote a chapter and hopefully i can start writing constantly again but for now enjoy a chapter of misery

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Applejack
"NEXT STATION, PONYVILLE!" I hear the conductor bellow across the speakers.

I rub my eyes in an attempt to wake mah self up but I still feel tired, but I know the girls are feeling the same.

I look around the compartment and see that most ponies had left but there were a few stragglers still waiting. Looking at the sleeping form in front of me, I lean ma hoof forward and jab it.

"... I'll do the clouds later, dad" I hear it mumble.

"Last time I checked, I ain't your Pa, get up ya lazy sod" I reply while grabbing my bag off the shelve.

I watch the form sit up and opens its rose-tinted eyes and I see it sleepily look around the cabin.
I see a hoof come up to rub her eye and afterwards watching her maw open with a yawn, her wings stretched at the same time which I thought clever.

"Apple.. ughh… Applejack, what's up?" I hear the mound of feathers speak.

"Getting close to Ponyville, Dash, come on and get your bag" I reply while chucking her bag at her.

"Yeah, yeah… I'm coming," Rainbow says as she starts flapping her wings.

We manage to get off the train on time start heading home.

"So… ughh… Twilight said 'to get all our affairs in order', right? I'm thinking we split the houses and meet at twilight's Castle." I hear Rainbow say above me.

I ponder for a moment and say "good idea, but remember that we got to bring the pets to the farm. Hopefully, Granny can help keep care of them. Ahm headin' there first to check, I need to have a talk with her anyway. I'll take Fluttershy's an' Pinkies house, they are closer to the farm anyway."

I hear the flurry of wings above me as I start walkin' through town, that mare lives in a constant sprint, she's going to get herself hurt sooner or later. As I walk through town, I check out the markets to see if Mac had set up yet.

"Hey, Sis" Mac states as I get closer.

"Hey Mac, how's the stall?" I reply,

"Ain't busy, but think we can unload the apples by the end of today. How's the princess?" Mac responds while counting the bits.

"She's good, but it looks like me and the girls are going to be away from home for a while, she has given us a whopper of a mission. Do you think we'd be fine around the farm?" I reply.

"Ahm sure we'd be fine, Ah can get 'Bloom to help around if needed. Might want to talk to Granny though, she is goin' to worry"

"Ahm on my way now, need me to bring anything back?"

"Naw, Ahm good. See ya later, Sis" Mac says with a wave.

I walk away from the stall and start heading up the road. Walking past the Sugarcube Corner, Ahm tempted to go in and grab that 'Gator Gummy so I don't have to make a return trip but I#d imagine it'll Granny wouldn't be none too pleased with that.

It takes me a few minutes to get to the farm and I start doing some checks on the trees as I am walking, a habit that just can't be dropped, and I start seeing the barn come into mah view.

As Ahm approaching the farm, I notice Granny sitting on her ol' rocking chair under the porch and I give her a wave.

I see Granny lean forward, and after a moment, wave back.

It takes me a few more minutes to get to the house and I wipe mah hooves on the mat at the base of the stairs before going up and sitting next to Granny.

"Hiya 'Jack" Granny says while rocking her chair.

"Hi Granny, how's the hip?" I say while relaxing on the bench.

"Damned thing seems to have relaxed today, at least. Fight anything while you were gone?"

"Nah, The princess just wanted a talk. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about." I respond with a somewhat serious tone.

"Ahh, so something did happen then," Granny responds.

"Yeah… Me and the girls have to go and find somepony."

"Somepony? Tad strange for you, normally its some big monster. What's this pony done wrong to get you six after them."

I sigh and say "Ah want to tell you but I don't know if Ahm allowed. The princess wanted us to keep this secret."
"Don't worry 'Jack, I've been keeping secrets from before your parents were born. You can trust me" Granny responds while rockin' her chair still.

Taking a moment to think, I then say "Alright but you can't tell Mac or Bloom. I hate keeping this a secret but we need too. Princess Celestia told us that we are looking for this Necromancer Doctor pony. Necromancy is…"

I watch Granny stop rocking her chair and turn towards me to say "I know what necromancy is. And I had hoped that foul magic never needed to be spoken of in this house."

I look at Granny in shock, unable to say anything.

"It was a story mah Granny said to me, it's been 'round the family for centuries, but she told me how some ponies stole our dead and did their dark magic on them. They started attacking their own brothers and sisters, it was a dark time for the Apple family. Apparently, the family had tried to save the ponies and managed to get a few of them back home where the ponies started being friendly and remembering their past and when the families went to bed for the night, the dead woke up and started killing them in their own beds. It's foul magic, anyone practising it should be strung from a tree. Granny said with a spiteful tone.

I feel a mix of emotions writhe through me: anger, sadness and shock. When the princess mentioned it was earth ponies that had gone through this suffering, I had felt like someone had stabbed me in the back. But finding it was family was like the knife being twisted in my back. If that had happened to us, Ma and Pa… I couldn't let that happen.

"That just confirms it then, Ahm going after that varmit. Would it be okay if we brought mah friend's pets here Granny?" I say with a tinge of anger creeping into my voice.

"Sure Applejack, Farm's big enough for it anyway. Just promise me, you won't get hurt." Granny says to me while holding mah hoof.

"Wouldn' let that varmit touch me anyhow. I don't know how long Ahm going to be gone but thank you, Granny." I say while heading inside the house.

Leaving the house, I sling my saddlebag over my shoulder and as I start heading down the steps, I notice a multicoloured blob that seems to be fighting with itself, after a while it seems be coming in our direction.

I look back up to granny with a smirk and turn back to watch as Rainbow comes into the land and instantly drop the mass of fur she was holding at arm's length.

"I'm going to contact Tartarus! Where in Equestria did Rarity get this she-devil!?" Rainbow says while pointing her scratched up fetlocks at Opalescence.

As Rainbow is pointing at the "Hell-cat", I watch the cat climb the steps of the house and leap on to Granny's lap, do a spin, and lay down to start purring.
I raise my eyebrow and look at back at Rainbow, who is gawking at the sight.

"Bu.. but. But, She's EVIL" Rainbow frantically gets out.

"Of course she is, You got tank?" I replied attempting to change the topic.

"Ye...Yeah, He fell asleep on my back on the way here. You pick up the others yet?" Rainbow responds.

"Naw, Trying to pack my bags first. Needed to grab some stuff from Sugarcube corner anyway." I state as a matter of fact.

"Bags… I forgot to pack my bag." Rainbow says while slapping her forehead.

"Go pack your bag and we'll stick to the plan of meeting at Twilights," I respond while tightening my shoulder strap.

I watch Rainbow nod and turn around to take off in the direction of her house.

I turn around again and sat "Granny, you seen 'Bloom anywhere? Wanted to say goodbye."

"Nah, her and the other two youngin's went off on a trip today to get their marks again. I'll tell 'em when they get back" Granny responds.

I nod and start heading back down the road.

After getting Pinkies 'Gator back to the farm and checking into Fluttershy's cottage, she told me that Angel could take care of himself and the other wildlife, I start heading towards the castle.

I see Rainbow standing in front of the castle looking hesitant to go in.

"What's up Dash?" I call out.

I watch Rainbow turn around and as I get closer say, "It feels wrong just going in without Twilight here."

I can appreciate what she means this is the most separated us girls have been through our friendship but there's not much we can do, its a big country and we have to split up.

"Come on we just need to mark the map. It's going to be quick." I say while heading through the door.

It was an idea that Twilight had, the map in the castle was a perfect representation of Equestria and could be used to find obscure towns and we could mark off any place confirmed to not be influenced by that filth.

I mark Canterlot and Ponyville off the map.

"Alright, the train should be here soon. Anything else needs doing?" I ask Rainbow.

"Nope, Bags are all packed and pets are on the farm. You sure you got her address, right?" Rainbow responds while flying out of the door."

"Yarp," I say back "the address of one Bellatrix Lulamoon, Manehattan here we come."

Author's Note

Sorry for the shorter chapter, this one was hard to write.
At least its a chapter, I suppose.

This one was less about the plot and more setting up background and characters opinions.

Προοπτική

Blue Syringe
Preparation is the name of the game,
I had always juggled the possibility that someone would come looking for me, a lack of a body tends to leave possibilities open.
The key issue is why they are looking for me.
I can picture three possibilities, my parents might have opened an investigation again, from what I could remember off of the newspaper I was laying on at the time that was mortified that the search had been called off which leaves the possibility open that they haven't given up.

The second possibility is that they might be looking for my notes after I came up with the Horn Multimeter, the Magical Society of Medicinal Arts hounded after everything I did. Had to get several restraining orders to get them to stop bothering me on the way to school, apparently, they were sure that I had numerous fortune making tools scribbled away in my notebook and after I had made a deal with a charity to ensure that the multimeter could be made cheaply they were scared what I would do next. I absolutely hated them, promising me they would make me millions by ramping the prices of my stuff.

The third, and most worrying, the possibility is the chance that they've discovered the resurrections.
I know that they know what I look like, not much I could have done there, and I also know that they don't appear to know about some of my disguises but what else do they know? Have they found anything? And who is it?

Attempting to talk to Lord Sunfeather didn't yield much, apparently, his contact had only managed to get a few whispers. It was only mentioned to Sunfeather as they had thought it was interesting, apparently, my case had wedged a place in the thoughts of the Cantelotians.

I can't go to Canterlot to check it out either, I avoid the place like a plague… Which now thinking about it is a bad phrase considering my profession but I digress. The risk of getting caught is way too high with how many I treated when I was younger, why did I have to be so efficient?

Looking at it, I need to assume all scenarios. All three lay the goal for my future, not getting caught.

Now then, with all that considered I have to plan my next steps carefully, I look down the country road that the carriage is bringing me down cautiously before bringing a quill and a tattered diary and start planning.

After a few hours, I close my book and place it back into my saddlebag while drawing my hood up.
I step out of the carriage turning to the pony drawing the kart and offer a stack of bits to him, I always make sure to offer a generous tip ponies generally keep a tight lip for those that pay more, and I make my way to the apartment door.
Hesitating for a moment, I peer into the window to the side and notice the papers I'd left on the table were still there, so I carefully turn the doorknob and slip into the apartment.
Noticing a stack of newspapers at my feet, I step over them and walk around the apartment trying to manually turn on the lanterns to attempt to alleviate my nerves.

Pulling my diary out of my saddle-bags with my hoof, I levitate my saddlebags over to one of the hooks on the wall and sit down on the settee. Placing my diary on the coffee table and flipping the page to my most recent entry, I concentrate on the desk to my right and draw my ink, quill, parchment and letters over with a bit of difficulty, trying to cast levitate on multiple things is hard for me to even when I am feeling stressed, curse you genetics and your creation of limited mana pools.
I set to focus on the parchment in front of me and using my diary as a reference, I write several letters to some correspondence I knew in the right places, I find that even the most loyal of positions give leeway when love ones are involved…
Celestia, I'm really starting to feel like a villain, I wish that Equestria's law system wasn't so antiquated, If they could read the spell then they'll understand there are no malicious elements about it, I even left a copy when I left. Not complete mind you, it was constructed using Lovelace's Circular constructor.

A genius in her own right, Lovelace was one of the greatest magicians of all time yet one of the most hidden. One of the rare times where Harmony wasn't the primary motivator in Equestria, it was a time where the country was still being settled and the princesses hadn't graced us with their divine presence and duelling was still an act.
Duelling unicorns, presences that ruled Equestria for two decades, the majors were part of this group: Starswirl, Billy the Foal, Bologna, Horatius and of course Lovelace.

Lovelace was considered to be on the side of Villainy, to be fair all of them were aside from Starswirl were his crew kept the dream of Equestria alive, but Lovelace was unique in her spells. While Starswirl had come up with a library of spells about fifty per cent were a nightmare to learn due to the concept of different feelings being described in his notes, Lovelace had come up with the concept of a spell constructor.

The principle was this, an interconnected series of rings all having tiny spells and in theory, you picture a blank ring in your mind, then you could start taking sections from the highest ring in Lovelace's layout, taking different parts from every section would lead to this complex spell and because you were working with minimal elements some complex but efficient spells could be made.

Lovelace actually caused issues for Starswirl, she could cast so many high-level spells so quickly that he actually lost two battles, nearly lost his life in one of them, and actually required himself and five other ponies to take her down, and very amusingly create the mountain of Canterlot.
Well, Lovelace finally conceded to the side of good afterwards and started teaching Starswirl her methods, to the happiness of all academics everywhere, and the Constructor became a mainstay for magic.

There is a minor issue with the thing.

It's bloody complicated in reality, the first few rings are easy to construct due to the lack of evidence but if you make a mistake anywhere, it usually ends in disaster.

A twelve-year-old that primarily worked on medicine? Are you having a laugh? I wrote the bloody thing down and even then it took me three weeks to work out if it would do the right thing. When I cast the spell on my brother, you can bet I was shocked to see the thing work.
I had rushed to scribble out a copy, but I left out two rings around the outside, one to make sure they couldn't counteract it immediately and more majorly I thought they could work it out using my work as a start but when I was trying to hear about the incident through word of mouth no evidence of the documents existed.

Maybe they were deemed to be dangerous to even know about but there's not much I can do about it now.

I turn my attention back to the letters as I lick the edges to seal them, I always weirdly like the taste of the glue for some reason, and after I finish sealing them I slide them into my saddlebags.

Might be a bit paranoid for me to do this, I suppose, but it's a hard habit to kick. When you've spent the majority of your life attempting to stay hidden, you start to fit into some patterns.

Need to buy some food? Attempt to switch stores regularly and if you need to go to the same one, change something like your hair or your accent.

Need to send a letter? Either use a discrete courier or even better, send letters from different post offices.

And if you need something hidden? Get someone to hide it for you, especially if they know where everypony is looking.

Right, well with all of that business handled, onto other matters.

The annoying thing with dealing with opportunities like Sunfeather is time, with personal stuff like that I have to resurrect and also deal with the treatment and to be perfectly honest… It's a waste of my time.

I will continue to do it, the asset of Sunfeather is too great for me to squander, but the best use of my time would be to deal with the underlying condition of the patient, resurrect them and then leave a basic plan with the local doctors for further treatment, even the worst doctors can understand those.

Usually, I attempt to offer more medicinal options unless the dire situation calls for magic, magic can heal but there are flaws with healing people with it, its only good at replicating cells and replacing the damaged ones. But what happens if the cells had been created poorly? If a single cancerous is targeted then you could be relayering some poor sod's entire system with cancer and effectively dooming them to an even worse fate then before.

The doctors of Equestria really need a reform, while there are hospitals around the country they are too sparse. A depressingly amount of cases I work on are caused by these professionals that manage to get doctorates by under-funded universities and settle in towns relying on the town's desperation for assistance.

But that's beside the point, basically what I'm saying is I have work to do. Everything dies and usually in a rapid case, and the best place to find out that type of information, if not through the grapevine, is in the newspapers.

I had to go and pick one up sadly but to be honest, I'll wait for a bit, I really need to start on that changeling conversion formula, from what I had briefly read in the letter a lot of the chemicals had been derived from Changling goos and chemicals created in other processes so in that circumstance I was slightly stumped but they had mentioned that the goos had usually had been harvested from various Fauna and flora from around the nest.

That I could work with, I'm a lot better at diagnosing a disease than bioengineering but I could still, in theory, come up with something. A lot of the plants they mentioned in the letter I could probably work out, I knew a Zebra out in Ponyville that I'd worked with before that was pretty good with plants. From the looks of it, there were some hidden plants that the colony cultivated themselves, I wonder if I could sympathise something similar using other plants, I had done something similar in a prior case.

It was worth considering but it was going to take an age to set up, I needed access to a lab, to begin with.

I looked at the list of stuff I need to do in my diary, and sigh, it was days like this I missed being at home, I could always bring my ideas to mum and dad at dinner and we'd talk about the effects it would have on different nervous systems and the latest medicines with the potential side effects. And showing brother the various ideas I'd had through the day, I remember once making him a minor speed enhancer before he went out and played hoofball apparently the teachers had thought he was an Olympic athlete in the making.

I wish I knew where he was, I couldn't bring him with me he was too scared, I left him behind on my bed telling him to wait for mummy and daddy but since then I haven't heard anything about him. Someone I know in Canterlot told me that he was at neither at my mother or my father's house, so I suspect that he was taken somewhere but I've not been able to find out where.
I can only hope they are treating him well, but my worries are they still view him as dead and a puppet to my dastardly deeds.

Another thing for the pile to consider but first things first.

I need that newspaper.

Author's Note

Blue is a very distracted pony...
Told you people I wasn't abandoning this XD
A lot of lore in this chapter but I did love the Lovelace character.
Based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace, the first programmer and an amazing mind.
I also felt that it would make sense that Equestria might have been bandit ridden, I mean who here hasn't had barb issues in Civ?
edit: Changed worse to worst for pointing that out

Γέλιο

Fluttershy
Resting my head on my fetlocks, I gaze out of the carriage's window at the fields.

Noticing the sun start to rise, I start watching the grass gliding by and feeling the wind flowing through my mane, I attempt to look for signs of life in the troughs and streams in the distance.

At first, I don't see anything but eventually, I start seeing some rabbits start to come out of their warrens and birds start chirping at dawn and a menagerie of critters start to take off for their breakfasts in the fields.

Closing my eyes, I think of the animals at home and being snuggled up warm in their beds. Luckily I have Angel to help during this, I need to make him a nice salad when I get back though hopefully there isn't another incident this time, that poor bear was crying for a week.

Hearing a yawn behind me, I open my eyes again and turn around to see Pinkie uncurl from the ball she'd settled into on the chair.

Watching her lift her hooves above into a stretch, I hear her groan herself awake.

After stretching, she looks at me and manages to say with her still waking voice "Goo… Good morning, Fluttershy."

I stifle a giggle at her voice and respond in kind, "Good morning Pinkie, did you sleep well?"

After taking a second to rub her eyes, "Yea--ah-ish, the chairs are comfortable but the bumps in the road kept shaking me. What time is it?"

I give a slight nod and state "I think it's about 7? The sun just rose."

"That's good, I think we are going to be early then. We have to remember to get Cheese's present off the top of the cart." Pinkie states.

Cheese Sandwiches ' Birthday had been a few days prior, but although we weren't there on the day, Pinkie was insistent on still getting him his present.

She had already ordered it before everything had happened and our having to meet him was the largest coincidence.

After another few minutes of riding, I ask Pinkie "Do you think Cheese will know anything about this situation? It seems like a really scary thing and not the type of scenario he'd put himself in."

Pinkie brings her fetlock to her chin and seems to ponder for a few moments and responds, "Sometimes Party Ponies have to make sad parties, the ones we throw them for are usually the ponies that truly need a smile on their face. I've not been able to leave Ponyville for any parties recently but if there is anyone else who'd know about something like this, it's Cheesy"

Nodding in agreement, I respond "That makes sense, where'd Cheese say we are going to meet?"

"He said the Lord Baltimare hotel if we ask for him to the receptionist they will direct us…"

After another few hours of riding, I notice the city turn up on the horizon in front of us and notice that Pinkie is starting to get excited.

"It's been so long since we've seen Cheesy, I wonder if he's got any new stories. I've been dying to tell him what I did for Bulk's birthday, especially that protein shake fountain, I don't think I've ever seen muscles cry tears of happiness." Pinkie blurts out.

I find myself starting to nod along to Pinkie's sentence and then catch myself, "What do you mean by his musc-..."

"WE'RE HERE!" Pinkie blurts while sticking her head out of the window.

Watching Pinkie jump out the window, I reach out to grab her but she is out of the carriage too quick for my reactions to keep up.

Hearing the pony drawing the carriage yell, I feel the cart come to an abrupt halt.

Reaching forward, I undo the latch on the door and push the door open to peek my head out.

Looking out to my left, Pinkie appears to be scolded by the driver.

"Look, what did I tell you about jumping out the cart? You can hurt yourself, this is your final warning. Do it again and you will be banned from the services."

Pinkie raises her hoof and starts to speak "Bu…"

The carriage driver looms over her and states authoritatively "Final. Warning"

Pinkie dips her head and droops her ears behind her head.

Stepping out of the carriage, I head towards them and put my hoof on Pinkie's shoulder.
Turning towards the driver, I apologetically said "I am really sorry, I promise she won't do it again."

The driver relaxes his shoulders and says "I just don't want ponies to be hurt, will you be needing my services again?

I shake my head and respond "We don't know how long it'll be. We can find another carriage."

The driver nods and starts walking down the street.

Looking at the dejected Pony beside me, I start trying to speak in a soothing tone "Come on Pinkie, he was just worried. But, let's go see Cheese, I am sure he is waiting for us."

Hearing Cheese's names seems to perk her up and I watch her ears perk up.

"Oh yeah Cheesy, he must be waiting!" Pinkie cheers while hopping on the spot.

Shaking my head at the pink bouncing blur, I start to follow her into the building when the driver stops me and points to the present on the roof.

Struggling to carry the present up the stairs to the Designated Party Room, I manage to get through the door to hear a flurry of party streamers and foal's giggling as I watch Pinkie and Cheese appear to perform a juggling duet.
The children surrounding them are cheering and trying to clap synchronously in time to the balls between the two but obviously haven't had much practice.

After showing off some tricks for the crowd, I watch Cheese catch the balls and say "Now onto the most important part of the Party, the party Boy! Everyone say happy birthday to Harry"

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY!"

"Now from what I've been told, it's time for food and when, and only when, you finish your food and put your plates away it'll be time to open Harry's presents" Cheese says to the group of ravenous fouls.

The fouls cheer and run off into the food area.

Cheese turns to both Pinkie and I and says "Pinkie, Fluttershy! It's been too long. Thank you for the help with the juggling duel, for some reason it never goes well by myself"

Pinkie grabs the present that I laboriously dragged up the stairs and gives it to Cheese.

"Oh what's this? a present for me? You are too kind" Cheese says while opening the package and I stare in horror as the spring loaded whipped cream pie smashes into his face.

I watch in gasping silence as I see Cheese blink underneath his sudden sweet makeover and hear Pinkie shout "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"

Cheese leads us up to his apartment after the party is over, apparently he's got several around the country stashed with tricks, treats and sweets, and after offering us a cup of tea, we start talking.
"I'll start off by saying I don't remember any ponies that go by Blue Syringe" Cheese starts off "And I've met a lot of ponies, from what you are telling me I would have remembered her if I'd seen her, she sounds quite distinctive."

I notice Pinkie starts to look defeated.

"But! The situation does remind me of a party I've organised recently" Cheese adds on.

Giving a weird look, I asked Cheese "What do you mean?"

"A couple of months back I was invited to do a party for a little filly in the northern mountains, I asked what the occasion was so I could prepare the party and they told me that she'd recovered from an illness" Cheese started his story "Of course I was happy to celebrate this! I dragged my equipment out there and we held a happy party. After a while I noticed the mother looking nervous, and I asked if everything was okay? "

"She told me she was fine and weirdly asked not to write down anything about the event in the bills, just make the receipt the price. And after the party, I managed to find the town's watering hole, and got talking to the town's doctor. Apparently, he'd inspected the filly and thought she was dead, checked her pulse and everything. This wandering doctor comes to the town, comes to the town, checks the filly and 30 minutes later she's alive with no side effects."

Pinkie gives me a look and I nod in return.

"Have you got a pen and paper Cheese? I need to know the names of the family and town" says Pinkie

Author's Note

I FINALLY FINISHED THIS DAMN CHAPTER.
Don't know why Fluttershy and Pinkie are so hard to write for but that was painful.
For those who are a fan of this series, I feel your pain for the wait.
I make no promises on the next chapters release date

Εξαπάτηση

Rainbow Dash
"151 Theatre Street, right?" I say to the stetson adorned Applejack, who seemed to be struggling with the Manehatten residents.

"Yep" she curtly responded, desperately trying to prevent herself from greeting people walking past her; we'd already been stopped by local police to stop harassing ponies.

I nod and we continue travelling down the street.

"Do you think she knows anything? The past two times we've met her, well, she's been full of herself and kind of… an idiot. You know, not really the sort to hang out with doctors" I say down to applejack.

"You're not wrong Dash but Twilight said it might be a good way to pick this Blue's mind, Trixie might know something about her, something revealing let's hope" Applejack responds, I notice a slight hint of disgust when she says the name.

To be honest, I've noticed she's gotten angrier after we left Ponyville. Usually we get ready for a fight and she's annoyed but this seems weirdly personal, I am entirely leaving that alone though last time I poked my nose in her business I got a punch to the nose.

We approached the apartment, and evidently Trixie did not make much money off her stage shows. This place seemed run down, and after some hesitation on both our parts we knocked on the door.

"Be down in a second!" We hear a mare's voice call out.

I give Applejack a look "are you sure that's her? That sounded too normal, where's all the great and powerful Trixie rubbish?"

Applejack seems to ponder for a moment and pulls a note out of our saddlebag "Ahm pretty sure that's her, Twilight got the address from her track records and the street what the mother said."

I give a hesitant nod and hear the sound of hooves making their way down some stairs.

"Sorry for the wait! If you can help me get the package upstairs it'd be apprecia-" we hear the voice from the other's idea of the door start to say when opening the door, only to be interrupted when faced with us.

Trixie stands there, without her hat and cape, and seems to freeze for a moment as if to try and take in the circumstances.

"Wh- I mean- Trixie asks why have you come to Trixie's humble abode. This isn't for revenge right?" Trixie seems to slip into her ponysona fairly quickly after her initial shock.

"No revenge, yet. We have questions" I return.

"Yet? Trixie already gave you the amulet before and Trixie did say where she got it, what questions would a brilliant stage mare like me answer?" Trixie answers.

Applejack at this stage seems to get impatient, and takes over the conversations "Trixie, Ahm getting tired of this. Speak normally and tell us what you know about Blue Syringe"

Trixie mouths the word blue with her mouth, seemingly not expecting the question, "Blue? Tri-" Trixie catches herself before she annoys Applejack more "I suppose you can come upstairs, I can tell you what I can remember, it's been a long time."

Trixie leads us up the stairs into her apartment and the thing that grabs my notice is the seemingly unending amount of props, makeup and costumes that seem to litter the space.

Sitting down on an armchair, Trixie motions to the couch and I take a seat, Applejack seems somewhat hostile still and continues to stand.

"You wanted to hear about Blue right? It really has been a long time since I last saw her, I was still a filly" Trixie opens with.

I give a brief glance at Applejack, we'd agreed before that I'd ask questions and she would try to feel if trixie was lying, and I ask "Yes, Twilight has asked us to" I say, quickly attempting to keep the focus on the questions itself "Where did you meet Blue Syringe?"

Trixie blinks rapidly, trying to take in the information, and responds "Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns, she was in my year. She'd approached me for help."

Twilight had mentioned this was true, though I can hardly believe that the con artist had made it into the school, and I notice Applejack seems to think she's telling the truth.

"Why did she approach you?" I ask, with a truth being set we should be able to start gauging responses.

I'll be honest, I don't like doing this. Speed, fights, and adventure is what I strive for in our outings as a six but Twilight said this was important that we get this right and we were too spread thin to have anypony else doing it, so we are just going to have to deal with it for now and punch things later.

"She told me that she thought illusions might be able to help with a placebo effect, like they see themselves as being healthy so they become healthy" Trixie states, though with an obvious tinge of annoyance "why are these questions being asked? Blue was declared dead, eight years ago and Trixie has got nothing to say more on the matter"

I notice Trixie slip into the third person during the sentence but as I go to question her, I hear Applejack say

"Liar"

Both Trixie and I turn towards Applejack and Trixie stands up to defend herself "Trixie is no liar, I only knew her for a year, she left and I never talked to her again!"

Applejack straightens her stetson and I can see a seething in her eyes for a moment, it seems even trying to defend this pony is an indictment, and she says "that was the truth, y'all not spoken to her but you know something."

I watch Trixie visibly gulp under the pressure but try to cover it under a false smile " Trixie was just a small filly at the time, Trixie left the school anyway a few months afterward. Trixie really doesn't want to talk about it"

I think she switches to the third person to build confidence in her responses and even I'm noticing her trying to switch the topic to absolutely anything else.

"Trixie" i say quickly, an an attempt to stop Applejack from getting too angry "we know you know something and if you don't tell us, we can message Twilight to come and bring the guard here, I can imagine they'd be happy to hear about the alicorn amulet incident."

Trixie winces and says "okay okay, it's not much, Trixie… I received a letter the year after Blue left, there was no return address or signature, it said she missed me, that she was safe and that she'd managed to even meet a gryphon, she thought it might make for a good illusion for a show. That is seriously the last I ever talked to or heard from her."

Well it was more information than we had before and I saw her return to her resting place.

"From what we gathered you are probably the best pony to ask this, do you know where she would be if she were around?" I ask.

Trixie ponders for a moment and says "Blue wasn't great at powerful magical spells, she'd avoid living remotely to have an ease of access to food and if she is living with ponies, she'd be living in a major city."

I take a moment to think and say "wouldn't a city mean that she'd be seen more regularly?"

"Seen, but not noticed. It's a principle in illusion magic, you ask in a town of a village of they've seen a pony with characteristics; they'd point in a direction and she here is where she lived and their daily schedule, ponies in close communities have less to notice where in the city you ask the same question and you are given a list of 200 ponies that all match the characteristics. We discussed it back in the day, it means that when doing a trick you don't have to expend all your energy trying to hide something when a small burst of magic will do" Trixie informs us.

I give a glance at Applejack through the explanation and notice she's remained remarkably still through the explanation.

I can't imagine she likes the concept, in itself the foundation is based on tricks and lies and doesn't produce anything of actual importance.
Well, at the very least that's the questions we'd agreed to ask and I hope that's the last of the questions I have to ask, like ever. This whole situation is rubbing me the wrong way from the start. I can feel it to the tips of my feathers that this is going to open a jar of something that we aren't going to be able to close.

But, I've felt this about a lot of the adventures we've dived into and while I am pretty confident in my instinct, I trust Twilight and the Princesses more, they know more than I do.

"Do you think she's still okay?" I hear Trixie say while I am monologuing to myself.

"What?" I say still bring my attention back to reality.

"I'm guessing you are looking into her because you all think she's still alive, I can see no other reason you'd be looking into a very cold case. Even with my letter, the last time anyone has heard from her was nine years ago, so I was wondering if you think she's okay. Her parents would be so happy to see her again" Trixie asks, with a tone of sincerity.

Applejack interjects, seemingly with a null tone to her voice "Ahm sure she's fine, bad ponies usually seem to be before we get to them. And we don't really know what she's gonna be like after the Princess is through with her." She then makes her way out of the door, without letting Trixie have a chance to respond, and I hear her make her way downstairs.

Trixie turns to me and says "What is she on about? Is this about her brother? She was just a filly when that happened who got scared and ran away, I thought she was just going to get a stern talking to."

"We are still investigating it" I say, somewhat panicking that Applejack revealed that, and I continue "please don't think about it and thanks for the information."

I quickly attempt to leave the flat, hoping that Trixie doesn't stop me, and after getting out the front door, I spot Applejack walking down the street and catch up to her.

As I get close to and without any indication that she'd heard me, Applejack says "How that con artist isn't in a cell, she took over Ponyville for buck's sake and then tries to feign concern for a fellow villain. Ah really don't know how you could stand that Dash."

My mind races for a response to Applejack's words and I say "I think she was just wanting to know her friend was going to be okay. I would imagine I'd be worried if one have you had run away, even if you'd done something wrong"

Applejack snorts, and after a moment of silence, says "Ah refuse to believe we could even be in that scenario, even on our worst days we never did anything as vile as this. There are ponies across Equestria, desperate enough to use the services of her that now are dealing with the puppets she's leaving behind, clinging to the hope that these are still living ponies… Even the strongest might fall to the temptation, I hope that I would have had the strength after… "
I hear Applejack's voice falter but I think I know what she was going to say anyway, the strength to resist after becoming an orphan would have to be near unfaltering.
"I understand, if I remember correctly Twilight said to meet back up in Canterlot right?" I ask
Apparently Pinkie and fluttershy found out a potential link that we were going to go check out as a group.

I give a glance back to Trixie's apartment before we leave and notice the curtains close quickly.

Author's Note

I ask that people be merciful with my writing of Rainbow Dash, I seem to be awful from writing from her perspective.

We get to meet Trixie in a different light from usual, apparently holding onto a secret for nearly a decade.

Ρωγμή

Blue Syringe
As I sit in this lonely carriage, hoofsteps outside tapping the miles away, I start prepping the medical apparatus I am going to need.
Should in theory be okay to do so, it doesn't mention what type of gases my clients died to but I'm going to assume a carbon based one at the very least, Appleloosa is a frontier town still reliant on wood stoves and the variety, some houses don't have chimneys and you leave the windows closed because it's chilly and suddenly everything is dead.

Depressing state of affairs and not exactly fair.

The other slight issue, that I need to prepare for, is decomposition. It's nasty, bodies rot and that makes it very hard to resurrect them. I actually have a lot of constraints around my spell, I need to basically make their body livable again, if you are missing a heart, tough luck.

This is where the handy dandy burn elixirs come in.

A complete accident that I found this really, back when I was in school I'd found out that these fire elixirs were magically sympathised to deal with dragons, so I got curious.
Interestingly, I'd assumed that it basically scrubbed the dead cells and promoted cell regeneration, that's what most other ones did but no, it somehow reversed cell stages.

An absolute miracle cure, in theory you could even de-age someone if you had a ton of bits to research how to amplify it. and it was being completely ignored due to it being a burn potion that was deemed to be subpar as it caused itching.

It therefore is actually very good at reversing rigor mortis and general decay, let me tell you I was glad to find that out as I found out very young what happens when you bring back a pony into the body otherwise, so that's going to be the second thing I prep.

As I prepare the second vial, I glance down at my bag and notice the shape of the large tome forming the bulky outline.

I sigh to myself and bring my attention back to the vial. I'd really hoped that I wouldn't stoop so low as to buy 'The Secrets and Rumours of The Elements: Harmony or con artists?' but apparently no one I know has any form of information on them nor are those who have information writing about it.
So apparently trudging through rumours and hidden family scandals is my only avenue forward.

Great.

I finish the vials, place them in my saddlebags and pull out my notebook along with the detestable book. I wonder if anyone ever wrote a book about me?

Starting with the element of magic, I start flicking through the pages and one of the first catches my eye 'Near disaster at Celestia's School for gifted unicorns'.

I didn't realise she was a fellow alumni, maybe we can meet at the next school reunion!

Yeah, that's going to happen for sure.

I continue reading down the page, ignoring the opinions the actively seem to slip into the story, and read 'Those that bore witness to the event say that Twilight Sparkle managed to beat the test in a way that most other students- by hatching a dragon egg and turning her parents into a potted plant.'

I blink to make sure there was nothing in my eyes and re-read the sentence but evidently I read it right the first time, she hatched the egg?

I remember that damn test when I went through it, no pre-warning and no time to prepare your thoughts. If I remember correctly it was supposed to measure tolerance to failure and how the individual should remain calm and collected and work out every avenue.
If I remember correctly, I tried to calculate the amount of energy needed to cause a dragon into a hatching stage based on the egg's size and showed that to hatch it at the rate I could output would require about five months.

And she hatched it in one magically surge?

Oooo-kay want to avoid pissi… You know what just avoiding her in general.

The rest can't be that bad, right?

I stumble out of the cart, reeling from what I had just read. Maybe the rumoured part of the title overplayed their accomplishments?

Turning to the cart owner, I pull out some bits and hoof them over.
He turns to me and says "I'll give ya a discount as a thanks for the quiet ride. My last client kept jumping out of the window for Celestia's Sake. "

"Thanks, sounds like a real hoof full."

He gives a nod "She means well, heart of gold and all that, usually does my children's parties"

I blink at this extra information and say a quick goodbye.

Turning around I am confronted with Appleloosa, and more distressingly a lot of sand and dust, the wooden pioneer town itself.

And now apparently with buffalo.

That was a new revelation in itself, I distinctly remember last time I'd visited the area while treating a buffalo child that the hostilities between the two communities was brewing into something that required guard intervention but apparently it'd managed to resolve itself.

I notice one of the locals giving me a look as I am just standing in the street.

I straighten my suit, how on Equus ponies wear these on the regular shock me, and trot over.

"What'cha want, stranger?"

"Hi there, I'm from Pills Incorporate" I say, apparently it's an actual company and this particular character is a consultant on paper for them "my company recently heard there was a tragedy in the town and decided to send myself to investigate."

The local squints his eyes, looking me up and down, and after a few moments says "Y'all here for the Shell family then, you'd probably be wanting to talk to the sheriff then. I think he's at the tavern, I'll take ya."

I am brought across the town and into a two-story wooden tavern, I give a glance around and see a few ponies drinking, playing card games and one stetson adorned pony seemed to be reading a letter.

"Can't see 'im in 'ere, Lemme go check upstairs for ya" the local says while he pats a stool "Have a seat, got the local brew of the cider harvest in last week and it's got a real kick."

I sit down at the bar as I watch the very helpful stallion saunter up the stairs as I order a non-alcoholic cider, to make sure that I keep myself sober for the procedure and I never got into alcohol to begin with, and while I wait for my drink to come I hear a conversation start up behind me.

One voice starts "Want 'nother cider, Braeburn? my treat."

A rustle of paper echoes , I presume the letter reading pony is the one who is being talked to, as the page is put down on a table.

"Reckon I need one, 'Jack sent me a letter and oh boy is it a doozy" Braeburn responds, I assume I've not actually looked round yet.

I feel the presence of a pony come up the counter on my left and order two ciders.

Additionally, I hear the banging of a hoof on the door upstairs with a call of "Sheriff, got a pony here to see about the Shells."

The conversation starts back up again after I hear a glass slide across the table "So what's this letter?"

After a pause and a audible gulp, Braeburn starts speaking again "Gotta keep an eye out for a pony, doctory type, apparently has annoyed the princess something fierce."

I try to remain calm as I hear this behind me, nursing this cider does seem to do the heavy work on that front, and look towards the stairs in the hope this bloody sheriff shows up promptly.

"She wants us to look for a doctor?" the first voice says inquisitively.

"Yeah, she doesn't go into much detail. Says that this doctor apparently does miracles and the like but is actually a con-artist that usually wears disguises. Apparently if we see something like that then try to catch her and contact her."

I either have the worst or best luck, at the very least I heard the damn conversation, but I don't have much time to react before I feel a tapping on my shoulder and I turn to see a Black Stetson adorned Stallion.

"'Ear you've been looking for me, something to do with the Shell family."

I stand up and with a slight bow I motion towards the door and mention "Shall we talk outside Sheriff, I'd rather not interrupt the mood of the establishment."

"Fine, you first" he says, obviously reticent about my presence.

I walk out of the tavern with the sheriff in tow but glance towards Braeburn before I leave only to find him staring back, I can practically hear the gears clicking into place, and now I'm on a timer before he figures it out.

I turn to the sheriff and say "I'll make this brief sheriff, Pills incorporated has been working on a new medicine designed to bring patients out of a monoxide coma."

The sheriff doubtfully responds "Monoxide coma?"

"It's a state close to death but we've found that some doctors unable to find any signs of life after a carbon monoxide accident will declare them dead whereas the patient is actually clinging to life. I've been sent out to inspect the corpses to ascertain if any are in this state and with your permission I would administer the new drug in the hopes we can bring these poor ponies back" I say with my usual waft of nonsense.

I do wonder if I am actually damning the Equestrian medical system with these little lies that I spread so I can actually work.

"I see, do you have any documentation I can see to prove this?" the sheriff asks.

A lot more doubt than usual about this sheriff, but I suppose that means he's probably decent at his job annoyingly, but I pull some official looking documents out of my bag with official marks.
I was reluctant to take this character out, ponies are nervous about large corporations in general but the paperwork and credentials I had made it quite a sturdy disguise.

The sheriff reads through quickly and we start walking over to the morgue but I notice that there are some louder than usual voices as I leave.

I am brought to a 'morgue'-like building and presented with 5 bodies with a very unpleasant smell in the air.
"Ahm not going to come in, if that's alright. Rather only see what I need to in regards to this."

I give an internal hoof-bump to myself as I walk into the hut and close the door behind me.

Sighing to relieve the stress, I bar the door as I'd wager that Braeburn figure is probably about to run up and blow over my whole story.
I then run up to each of the corpses and bypassing my usual checks I begin the arduous spell casting of carbon removal from their cells

After about 5 minutes, I hear muffled voices through the door, and just as I'm finally finished the last removal process, I start hearing full on shouting and someone starting to buck the door.

I hesitate on what to do, I cannot stay long enough to give them my full litany of treatments but I might be able to at least get them going but I can't imagine they'd like me after.

I pull out the syringes and plunge it in each patient's heart.

Logically the heart can spread the solution across all of their body and will do it a lot more quickly then I could, the issue is normally i have the time to treat the body so the decayed cells are minimal when they come back.
This method means the cells come back after they come to life and will leave them in a fair amount of pain, at least they will be alive I suppose.

I hear the door crack as I spin up the resurrection spells and fire them off into each patient but luckily I can see the bolt is holding. I look around the room afterwards and see a boarded up window that I break apart using magic and I jump out.

I wince after I hit the ground as I hear a litany of painful moans along with the sheriff shouting "Where are you, snake? I will drag you into a cell myself!"

Author's Note

A bout of rotten luck for our poor little necromancer!

But she has now been witnessed presenting a new source of information for the Mane 6

Τράνταγμα

Pinkie Pie
Twitch

I stare at my tail, trying to desperately understand what it was trying to tell me.

Twilight has attempted to understand why my sense worked and in the end gave up. I suspect that the signals must seem completely random to her and just accepting it was probably the easiest to accept mentally.

Me, on the other hoof, have had multiple years to try and work out the signals and I have mapped most of them to certain actions with about a 97% accuracy rate.
So when a series of twitches start occurring that I do not recognise, I get very cautious.

I don't think Fluttershy has noticed yet and I plan to keep it that way, usually I try to broadcast them to help ponies but I'd rather not cause panic until I can understand it.

Pushing out the thoughts of vague future seering, I decide to mull the information we'd acquired in my head.

Cheese said that the town was called Tailfrost, I'd never been myself as it isn't the easiest to visit, and if we were to hike over it would take a few weeks, apparently the town is self-sustaining and hasn't made any paths through the mountain range.

I ponder for a moment and then turn towards Fluttershy "How do you think she knew about that filly?"

Fluttershy, having been staring out of the carriage window, turns her attention towards me with a quizzical look and asks "What do you mean?"

I lean forward in my seat and motion my hoof in the vague shape of Equestria and point at where the town in question was, "Tailfrost is here right? In middle of the northern mountain ranges and according to Cheesy, basically a rigorous hike through frozen mountains to arrive, and from what we can tell the only ponies that probably that can get in and out on a daily basis is the pegasus mailponies or an exceptionally powerful unicorn with teleportation, which from what Twilight had told us this Blue with neither. Maybe somepony had managed to send a letter via the mail service but that'd require knowledge in how to contact Blue, which seems unlikely. So back to my original question, how did Blue know that the filly needed… help?"

I watch as Fluttershy blinks her eyes for a moment as she seems to catch up with my fast talking, and after about a minute of silence, says "umm… maybe the family sent a letter to someone else and then Blue heard it from them?"

I tap my hoof on my chin for a moment and say "Maybe, but that still implies that the family knows her aaaannd that leaves an avenue for her to be traced, if something that revealing existed I'd wager the princess wouldn't need our help."

"I can't think of anything then Pinkie, I'm sorry, maybe we should mention it to Twilight and the others, they might know" Fluttershy responds with a downcast look.

I shake my head "I am not sure either Flutters, it's not your fault. Just something that was bothering me, maybe there's a source of information about ponies that I'm missing out on!"

The conversation goes to silence after my last statement and I am sat left pondering for the rest of the journey

I watch the carriage driver manage to make her way up about half-way up Canterlot mountain but as the slope gets somewhat steeper, he then stops the cart and hooks it into the carriage assistance line that runs above the path.

This makes me fight the impulse to jump out of the window to hop along aside the cart on the way up as my legs were starting to feel the strain but I look up at the newly installed neon yellow sign mounted to the inside of the door strictly prohibiting such an action, I wouldn't be as offended but marked under the main words contains the phrase "Especially you Pinkie!"

I try to keep my attention anywhere but the ever-so tantalising window and turn my head towards the other window, catching Fluttershy cautiously keeping an eye on me, and look out into the distance.

I ask, still looking over the landscape "Do you think she means it to be harmful?"

"Who?" Fluttershy answers behind me.

"Blue, it feels like she's making a mistake over maliciousness. Maybe she just thinks she's bringing joy to the families."

"Maybe, but… with what the Princess told us, even if she has the best of intentions, what she is doing is cruel, turning the loved ones into puppets of what their loved ones once were. The princess might just want to talk to her, show her the harm she is doing."

I turn to Fluttershy and nod, "I hope that she'll understand, and then maybe we can give her some very late birthday parties when she stops being silly. She's missed so many."

Fluttershy returns an unsure smile

We watch the cart make its way in front of the guest quarters and as we arrive, we see that Twilight and Rarity are waiting for us.

"Hi girls! How was the trip?" Twilight greets us with.

"It was good, the weather was lovely…" I hear Fluttershy start saying while I direct my attention to the Cart driver and fork out the bits from my mane, intentionally ensuring to give a twenty-five percent tip to ensure less tense bookings in the future.

By the time I had managed to make my way back to the trio, Fluttershy had finished regaling the duo with the basic points of the trip and we started walking back into the guest rooms that Celestia had organised for us. I'd heard that Twilight's family had offered to home us for the period but as we'd by coming in and out as a group of six, Twilight decided it wouldn't be practical but promised to visit them afterward.

As we enter the great marble halls, and pass by the solar guard stationed there, Fluttershy speaks up "Oh, on our way back Pinkie had a question that we thought you might have an answer to."

Twilight and Rarity turn their attention to me.

"Yeah, Flutters told you about the filly in Tailfrost right? I was having a few thoughts about how this Blue knew."

Twilight seems to ponder about it but Rarity speaks first "Sad case, if I remember correctly, cancer so young just isn't right."

We all turn our attention towards Rarity as Fluttershy says "Umm, I don't remember mentioning her having cancer. How did you know?"

Rarity starts to look bashful and says "Oh, it's a tad morbid really but I read through the obituaries in the daily Equestria Newspaper, I like to make sure my friends and family are still okay, and this particular one caught my eye because of the age, it was so close to Sweeties"

Twilight nods her head and we start walking again, "Okay, I wonder if that's how Blue is finding out where to go then. Maybe we should arrange a trip to this town and see if there are any leads for us to follow. Rarity, is there any chance you could start writing down any deaths that are either accidental or sickness related?"

"I certainly can, but I don't relish having to memorise them" Rarity returns.
"Good thinking Pinkie, I'd hadn't even thought about that, this might be the opening we need to capture her" Twilight says, directing her attention to me.

I nod but nearly trip as I feel a brief shake in my right hind leg but I manage to mask it judging by the rest of the groups reactions

Fluttershy speaks up, as we get to the corridor containing the six rooms that had been designated to us, "When do Rainbow and Applejack arrive?"

"Two hours, if they managed to catch the train though dealing with Trixie might make them miss it" Rarity says with an eye roll.

"Still can't believe that Trixie went to the same school as you Twilight, and knew this Blue, seems like the type of thing a writer would do to avoid having to write any new characters."

"What?" Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy all say.

I shrug.

Twilight shakes off her reaction to me and says "Well, it's not like we knew much about Trixie and it doesn't shock me she had at least gone to a school dedicated to the study of magic, even if she doesn't seem to have an aptitude for the actual arcane. From what Blue's mother had said, Blue wasn't that skilled in the magic department either, more just knew how to apply for medical purposes, maybe they related over that."

The hallway falls to silence as we all are left to ponder in silence.

Flutter breaks the quiet and says "I hope this isn't rude. But I'd like to go to my room for a bit, fairly tired after the cart journey."

"No problem Darling, I could go for some beauty sleep myself and with our wait for the rest of our troupe, we won't be able to do much anyhow. I'll alert the guard to wake us when they arrive."

I nod, the tiredness off everything seeping into my hooves.

We all split apart and I find myself going into the lavish room, I put my saddlebag onto a random tabletop and jump on the bed as I feel the pillow poof under my weight.

Feeling my eyelids grow heavy, I try to drift off into a comfortable sleep.

Twitch

Damn.

Author's Note

And I managed to finally pump this chapter out, and all with pinkie done, have managed to complete all mane 6's perspectives.

Sorry for the delays, Moved house recently and hard to get into the mood to write.

Κέλυφος

Blue Syringe
I get to my hooves and try to give a quick glance around the town, I never was good at the hiding part of hide and seek whereas Trixie was a fiend, spent three hours trying to find the mare once.

Spotting a small alleyway in a series of houses, I make my house over as I also hear the flurry of hoofsteps into the morgue and shouts of pain, fear and anger emanating throughout.

Okay, let's consider this rationally in the little time I have here, they need to deal with the four ponies so one needs to stay at the least, the town cannot have many law enforcement officers though they might have some eager volunteers and they are looking for a disguised pony.

So first things first, lose the disguise.

I pull at the buttons on the suit with my magic, and I hear the morgue door bang open at the time I manage to get my suit jacket off.

"Damn Snake in a suit, Braeburn y'all sure about this? We got four ponies coming back from the dead here."

"Ahm sure Sheriff, look Applejack sent a letter."

"Fine, right Star stay with them. Make sure to treat the injuries and keep 'em fed, even if it is a con, they don't need to suffer. There's a first aid kit inside somewhere. Braeburn, get a telegram to the royal guards, we ain't equipped to handle something like this, I'll expense the damn thing so leave nothing out. Fetter, work out where that damn mare went, pretty sure the window at the back was boarded up."

Looking down in the sand after hearing conversation, I see the tracks leading directly to me.

I manage to yank the last pieces of the suit off and leave it under the decking of one of the houses.

Poking my head out from my little alleyway, I can see the main street of the as well as the sheriff starting to rile up some volunteers.

I'd wager I can scratch getting a cart out of here then.

Starting down the alleyway, I try to stick to the harder pieces of dirt to make my hoofsteps less obvious and give a glance around as I hit the other end.

Looking right, I spot a scarecrow standing in a random garden and notice someone has adorned it with a stetson.

I canter over and grab it, and tie my mane up and put it on my head.

Okay, I might be able to get out of this.

"Sheriff! Looks like she came into this alley and ditched her suit"

Oh Irony, you are but a cruel creature.

Trixie, I am gambling your lessons were actually true.

I walk into one of the side streets and confidently trot into the main street.

Looking around I can see some ponies already start looking around town and are going in clusters of three to five.

I quickly attach myself to one of the clusters of four.

"What colour suit did the Sheriff say she was wearing?" I heard a stallion speak in my group.

"Why does that matter?" a mare returns.

"Well we need to identify 'em when we see 'em don't we?" the stallion snarks back

"Look around, Turnover, who in this whole damn town do you know wears a suit?"

"Legal Work does, at least on court dates!"

"Okay, Ah'll tell you what. We see Legal walking around then I'll accept that question but as ah'm pretty darn sure she's in Baltimore this week, then any damn shade of suit will do"

I see the stallion go into a sulking mood as I try to make myself merge into the group with some brief nods and pointing of hooves, I can't even attempt to talk as my accent will probably reveal itself straight away.

The lead mare of the group turns to us and says "Right, lets check out the north-eastern part of the town."

I follow the group for what feels like forty minutes, desperately hoping that they don't notice the increase in group size but it seems they are amusingly more focused on finding me.

The mare in charge stops our group and turns to face us "Right, this is going too slowly. We are going to split up, so holler if y'all see anything. I think the Sheriff wanted us all back in the square in about twenty minutes, give or take a few"

With a cacophony of a variety of "yeps", we split apart and I give a few houses a cursory glance until I am out of sight.

Then heading toward the orchards, I start galloping and thanking my lucky stars that Trixie's advice actually worked.

She showed me something when we first met. When it comes to her stage shows, ponies will notice a pony trying to be sneaky when they are looking for one but in times of excitement ponies will ignore the obvious in an attempt to look sneaky. She showed me in this hoof puppet show and in a fact that will annoy me to this day, managed to walk a Gorilla in Ponies clothing across the stage.

The plan is I'm going to meet up with the buffalo camp and then I sho-

Crack

I trip to the ground as I feel my back hoof yank out behind me.

Turning my head around, I am try to see what on Equus just happened and I see a nondescript pony holding a lasso attached to my leg.

Trying to bring my hoof to un-slip it rewards me with a yank across the ground as the pony silently trots towards me.

Feeling the panic setting in, my mind races and I say "Please my family is waiting for me, they are just ahead in the orchard."

"No they ain't, y'all just were with the search party" the stallion says reaching my position, I notice that his eyes seem sunken "Noticed your cutie mark and thought to myself, I ain't been to the town in a couple of years but I know most ponies here"

"Pleas-" I opened my mouth to say.

"Shut. It." The stallion says, painfully tightening the rope around my leg "If all y'all is going to spill is lies then your silence is worth more than your pitiful life."

I try to spin up a telekinesis spell around my horn but feel a hoof clatter with the tip of my horn, I feel tears start to well up in my eye.

"Try that again, Ah'll snap the damn thing off" the stallion says and starts wrapping the rope around the rest of my hooves.

I look around for anything, and aside from dust, rocks and the stallion in question, there seems to be nothing that can help my situation.

Though, looking back I think I noticed that the stallion seems to have an empty pie casing for a cutie mark.

Wait, maybe not just a pie casing?

"Pie Sh-" I managed to get out.

"Ah thought ah told y'all to shut… Wait, how'd you know my name?" the stallion, evidently named Pie.
"Your cutie mark, it's a pie shell right? You are from the Shell family" I say, holding myself back in fear of another punch.

"I'm a proud Shell all right, and you desecrated them. The sheriff showed us that letter, you pretend to bring back loved ones as a con. I hope you rot in prison" Pie says with venom in his voice.

"Wait, I hadn't made any demands of you had I? I didn't realise you even existed until this second, please just hear me out" I say, desperation slips in my voice to counter his venom.

"Maybe, y'all didn't have the chance. We've had some very persistent snake oil merchants come through here before."The stallion returns, though sounding a lot less sure.

"No, I managed to resurrect them after the Sheriff started to break down the door. Ask him if you don't believe me, I wouldn't be able to make any money off that. Please, I just want to help people. I read their obituary. They were so loved and I just wanted to bring them back." I say, almost pleading at this stage.

"Why? What does it bring you?" The stallion's voice seems to almost acquire a hollow rattle to it.

"A long time ago I really could have had someone to do it for me, it seems so unfair to leave so young. " I say, a tone of sincerity that I hadn't spoken in over ten years.

"Let's say I believe you, let's say that they really are my family" I hear a hint of hope start to creep into Pie's voice for the first time in the conversation "Then what do you y'all suggest here? Because it seems I am still going to lose them when the guard arrives."

"Go get them from the building, from what I heard when I was leaving there is only a deputy in the building, I'd wager as the surviving family you can say you just want to collect them to keep care off until the guard comes and then run as fast as you can."

"Where do ah go? They never wanted to leave, almost disowned me when ah left for school." Pie seems to open himself to reality, for which i'm internally screaming in joy because I was bucked otherwise.

"Anywhere, get them out for now. If you untie my hooves and we get out of the open, I can give you a way to contact me and I can see if I can arrange a new life for you and your family."

Pie seems to hesitate for a few moments, this probably rips at his core as a decision but I really wish he'd make his mind up quicker.

"Fine, not like the other option is any happier. At least this way ah'll have a family." Pie says as he unbinds my hooves and I manage to stand up.

We start cantering into the orchard away and when we get far enough that I feel safe, I stop and grab a stick with my magic.

"Right, you need to watch this carefully as it requires an amount of precision" I say turning to Pie and start etching a symbol into the floor with practised ease "Put this symbol at the top of any piece of paper and then anything on this page will be communicated. Please don't use many pages nor fill the pages up with nonsense, it is a very costly method of communication for me."

"Any page?" The stallion says with a quizzical look.

"Reindeer magic luckily is very unrestricted when it comes to the definition of paper, it also is untraceable in any method that any mages is looking for these days" I say.

Pie nods and turns around towards the town "Bid you luck then, ah'll message if all goes well and if not then ah suppose y'all will find out anyway."

Going by my tender horn and bruised ankle, the stallion probably doesn't need luck on his side but I do return the sentiment.

I then turn around and gallop away as quickly as I can.

Not that I think he's going to change his mind but I'd wager the grief is probably the only thing that gave me a chance there and I'd like to be far away if he starts to be rational again.

I'm going to head to the buffalo tribe now, get some fresh supplies and go home. There is a lot I need to think about if situations like this are going to start to arise.

Author's Note

Took me four moths to write the last chapter, wrote this in a day.

Inspiration you fickle beast

Edit: forgot to change the dashes to a line

Το Κυνήγι Αρχίζει

Twilight Sparkle

PATIENT REPORT:

Feather Syringe

Biological Age:18 Years 4 Months

Blood Type: B-

Age at time of Death:8 Years 8 Months

Cause Of Death:Drowning

Reporting Doctor: Dr Synapse

Patient was presented to the Canterlot Research Centre after death and the patient's sister cast her 'Resurrection Spell' (Report into this spell has been attached to this document, labelled 2-B) on the patient's body.

We, the Research team, were charged in ascertaining if the spell had actually 'Resurrected' the patient or if as detailed within the letter sent to us by Princess Celestia (Copy of this letter attached, labelled 2-A) if the patient's sister had managed to create a convincing facsimile of the patient
.
Sadly, there is no defined yes or no within this case as to truly confirm if the patient was brought back, we would need to detect a presence of a 'soul' for which we do not have the technology nor do we know it even exists or is able to be detected.

The avenue in which we tested was via monitoring in this instance, in the assumption that there was a spell keeping the subject animate then we should see a degradation in movement or mental activity in the progression of the spell as Spell Entropy takes effect.

Over the years, through this method, we have become confident that the spell hadn't resurrected the patient as we have found that the patient on average is moving less and is taking less of an interests in activities previously enjoyed, seemingly now we are seeing the subject is starting to sleep more and staring into nothing through the day.

In addition, we noticed that while the subject used to try and socialise with the staff of the medical centres, after some experiments where we restricted access to magic (via the prohibition of Magic heavy foods) in an attempt to see if a lack of magic input would make a difference we found that the subject seemingly became less 'talkable' and would attempt to avoid the researchers.

Going off the estimates that we have collated from each team member of our facility, we have put the chances of this 'Resurrection' spell actually bringing back an individual from the dead at being 5%, and this 5% only exists as we cannot yet prove otherwise.

Thank you for your inquiry into the matter, Princess Sparkle and feel free to contact us at any stage, we've managed to collate a lot of data in regards to the patient that we hope can assist with your investigation.

Head Of Medical Research,

Dr Firing Synapse.

I re-read the document to make sure that I hadn't missed any sections, turn to my right and notice that Spike is currently looking over the report about the spell.

"Anything special?" I ask Spike.

"Maybe, the researchers are still trying to understand the spell as apparently it was 'remarkably complicated', and interestingly had been created by the Lovelace Circular Constructor, which if I remember our history classes might mean this spell is the first to be done so for at least 1000 years. How about you?" Spike questions back.

"Confirming what the Princess said mostly, I didn't doubt her but it's always scientifically good to receive a second opinion! I wonder why she used that constructor, Starswirl's one functionally does the same but allows for re-testing with defined values."

"Maybe she hadn't gotten to that part yet, she did leave school fairly young and if I remember we learned about Lovelace to then have context for the subsequent magical figure heads."

I place my hoof on my chin and say "true, does make it a lot harder to work out what the spell does though as the sections of the spell are entirely subjective to the user."

Spike glances through the spell report and says "Well the researchers are saying that might be the reason she did it that way, it's a good way to obfuscate what the function of the spell is and maybe she was hoping ponies would just believe it then."

"Maybe that's something we can ask her when we catch her, if I remember correctly Starswirl had a translation spell into his method so if she's willing maybe we could convince her" I say to Spike.

"I can't imagine she will be that willing as we bring her to Celestia for her punishment" Spike says while wrapping the report up.

"Hmm, I can't imagine Princess Celestia will actually want to punish her, just stop her from doing it anymore. I wond-"

I am suddenly interrupted by two knocks on the room door and a voice emanates through "Princess, you instructed me to interrupt when your guests arrived."

Looking up at the clock, I quickly realize that the time had managed to sneak away from me and after internally cursing myself, Spike and I head over and open the door.

Standing outside the door I see both Rainbow and Applejack both still holding their bags.

"Hi girls!" I say in a chipper voice, though I internally wince as I notice both seem to have less energy than usual.

"Hey Twi'" Applejack says.

Rainbow's eyes seem to be drooping and I can see her already looking towards her room.

"Rainbow, why don't you go to bed? I'll catch up with Applejack and wake everypony up for dinner"

I get a tired nod in return as I watch Rainbow lazily fly to her room.

"You'd think it'd be easier to walk there." I say absentmindedly.

"Ah think her parents taught her to fly before she ever walked, she might just find it easier. Though ah'd like to walk myself to an actual seat myself, the seats we managed to get on the train were in dire need of replacement and the train was busy enough to mean we were stuck on those particular seats."

"Sorry about that, I didn't really want to just send you but wanted to get up and running as soon as possible" I say with as apologetic tone as possible.

"Nah it's fine, glad to have been able to get back to Ponyville at least to warn the family and we all have to play our equal parts. Talkin' about equal parts, how'd Pinkie and Fluttershy do? Any leads?"

"We'll go into more detail when we meet up later, but they actually found out quite a bit it seems, at least about a potential… Incident? Not really sure what we are going to label them" I say staring at the ceiling.

"How about victim?" Applejack says with a hint of malice in her voice.

I note the malice but Applejack doesn't seem to be lashing out and I trust her not to be openly aggressive at the very least "Victim could work, but terminologies aside we were briefly discussing a trip as to see what happened and maybe see if there are any openings."

"Makes sense, where are we going then?" Applejack says.

"Town called Tailfrost, middle of the northern mountain range and from what I'm told very cold. Supposed to be snowy at all times" I say.

"Ah can't imagine Rarity was too happy when she found out" Applejack says

I shift my eye to the side and Applejack notices.

"Y'all ain't told her yet have you?"

"No, was trying to find a better time for it"

"Want me to?"

"Please" I sat with begging eyes.

Applejack sighs and says "You are sending me into all the annoying situations Twilight"

This sets me back on course, "talking about annoying situations, what did we find out from Trixie? Was the address correct?"

Applejack takes a frown into her face and says "yes, it was her place though not sure how much I want it to be. Turns out she'd received a letter about a year after she left home telling Trixie she was safe and had met a griffon.

I take in the information, ponder for a moment and start looking through the folder I'd started collating "I saw something about a Griffin accident about nine years ago in a newspaper, almost ignored it because I'd assumed she probably couldn't have made it to the Griffon territories at ten years old but if she had then maybe that's who she's talking about… here it is." I pull out a old newspaper with the headline 'Lady Sunfeather involved with gruesome accident"

"Nice work Twi, wouldn't have thought to even check the old newspapers" Applejack says with a nod.

"Got the idea from Pinkie actually, she was wondering how Blue knew where to look and Rarity pointed out that the filly we are going to see was listed in the obituaries. Ran down to the archives and asked for any Newspapers mentioning an accident." I say levitating a stack of newspapers.

Applejack grabs a paper from the top of the pile and says "This one doesn't mention an accident on the front page."

I gave a quick glance at the page she was holding and said "Oh that's today's newspaper, more was looking if I could see any cases that she'd be going for."

Applejack flicks the pages to the obituary, seems to scan through the names and says "Shell Family dies to smoke inhalation, proud members of the Apploosa community and survived by the last son Pie Shell. Maybe she'd prey on them."

"What are you thinking?" I ask.

"Might send a letter to Braeburn, you know keep an eye out in the area in case. Wager as the tour guide of the town, he'd probably be pretty good at this type of thing." Applejack says looking around for a piece of paper

"Worth I shot" I say handing her a piece of paper.

After Applejack writes up the letter and we give it to a steward to send it out, we go around all the rooms and wake everypony up to bring them to the dining hall.

I notice Applejack takes Rarity and Rainbow dash to tell them the bad news about the cold weather we are about to face.

Turning towards the rest of the group, I say "Applejack is going to tell Rarity and Rainbow Dash about where we are going "

"NOOOOOO" I hear from the corner.

"And I wanted to make sure we know what we are all doing, as I get the feeling that we are going to have to be careful with what we reveal" I say to the group.

"What do you mean Twilight?" Fluttershy asks.

"We need to make sure that firstly this filly was actually one of Blue's patients and if so, we need to convince the mother of this and see if there is a way to contact Blue. We need to imagine that the mother won't be happy with us needing to take away her daughter because let's be honest would you? She has just got her back in her eyes."I try to say in a neutral tone though I am sure I hear a falter.

"That doesn't feel fair, can't we leave her with the mother? I can't imagine the little girl is going to cause issues" Pinkie says with a sad tone.

"I wish we could Pinkie but even if there are no issues now, there will be in the future. I managed to get a report about Blue's brother and they say that he has slowly degraded over years as the spell in him has withered away. Can you imagine living with what essentially is an animated puppet of your loved one and then having to watch them slowly die with no way to help them? While this seems cruel, it really is the best way forward and we will catch this Blue and make sure that no one else needs to suffer like this."

The rest of the group walk over from the corner and we relay the information spread to them.

"Right, eat well tonight and get yourselves packed, I am not sure on how long we are going to be in the town and from what I gather it's relatively hard to get supplies there." I look around to general nods and affirmations "Okay, I've organised two chariots to fly us all there which will leave around 7am and from what they told us, we'll land around 1pm."

Author's Note

Three chapters in three day, I think that means I can sod off for 6 months.
Oh and yes, I am going to be a trickster with chronology between the differing perspectives :rainbowlaugh:

Πρώτη κίνηση

Blue Syringe
Well that sucked.

I sit down on my couch and turn on the lights with my magic, I can't really be bothered with my usual routines of doing it by hoof.

I'd describe that whole situation as determined by luck and that is worrying, I've spent a lot of bits and preparation time trying to prevent just this situation and then that damnedable letter just comes in.

Have I been that obvious? It's been less than a month since I'd heard anything about this investigation starting and now a pony manages to literally tie me up in a rope.

I'm glad I'd built some favour with the buffalo as they'd both recognised me, offered me lodging to sleep and managed to direct me to the closest town in which I could get a train back, I wanted to get a cart and felt nervous about taking a train but they'd know I took a cart into town and that'd be my preferred route of travel.

At least I actually made sure to take precautions in regards to travelling from a different location and while the disguise is now burned it did its job, I am still free and able to prepare further at least.

While I hate the idea, maybe I try to maintain a lower profile for a bit, not just wandering to the news of obituaries but wait for someone to message me. I've made enough contacts throughout the country that know my penchant for secrecy and can probably get me into the resurrections without a more public facing role, just in and out.

It's not as though they can spend that many resources to get me, I'm sure the mares will inevitably have to get back to work, they'll probably put a guard squad on the case, after a while the case will go cold and I can go round doing my business.

Patience is a good card to play when needed and it's not as though I'll be lacking for patients.

What I can start doing is trials for the nerve replacer as I'm wagering that they'll not be looking at that matter of research with much scrutiny at the moment and I wager I can try to bother some of the people I've helped if themselves or somepony they know would be in a situation that would require it.

I am actively starting to pack some away for all future patients now as it might prove to be useful but consent might be an issue, it's very much a singular issue of being a pony back from the the dead versus ripping out nerves to insert a experimental device comprised of the materials needed to convert a pony into a changeling, for some reason I can see that not going down well after they'd regained consciousness and ponies like to punch when they get angry.

I nurse the bruise that Pie Shell had left on the side of my head.

The problem with this method is it limits potential spread of the medicine for a while, sure I can give it to my patients but that's at most gong to be about 4 cases a year and is not enough for a medical study considering most likely I cannot even use their names, I need to be confident before I have it up put up any avenue to get it therefore studied and it's going to be a while before I can build up any measure of confidence in the treatment.

Shaking my head to brush off any comments, I turn my head towards the bedroom door as I try to remember the last time I'd managed to sleep in my own bed, the fact I am drawing a blank implies it's been long enough.

I walk over to the door, not bothering to turn the lights off, and collapse into my bed.

As I start drifting off, I look at my windowsill and notice the only picture I'd managed to get out as I left my home in a panic,it was of a picnic my family had taken us on after Feather had managed to place first in his class's fencing club, Mom had made some heyburgers and dad brought some strawberry soft drinks and a frisbee that was the type that had a hole in it that I was an utter disaster in catching to the level the three of them started to try using my horn as a ring toss of a kind.

It was a good day, though not that it ever can happen again.

I feel some tears welling in my eyes as I drift off to sleep.

I wake up with my head resting in a damp spot on my pillow and look around for the offending item that interrupted my needed slumber.

Hearing a familiar tone, I look at the wardrobe where I hide my communication book behind and notice the tone for a message incoming.

Debating whether or not I should just go back to sleep, I reluctantly pull myself out of the warm cocoon I've managed to wrap myself into, reach my hoof behind the cabinet and grab the leather-bound book.

Walking into the living room, I'm partially blinded by the lights I'd left on earlier and take a few moments for myself to recover.

Chucking the book on the coffee table, I stumble into the kitchen and prepare myself a particularly dark brew of tea and after placing it on the placemat next to the book, I snuggle myself into a couch cushion.

Flipping the book open I am shocked to see two separate pages are alerting in regards to new text and I flick to the first offender.

Hi Doc,
Ah'll keep it short as I am pretty sure there are some guards prowlin' around looking for us.
Managed to get everypony out of the morgue as the deputy had wandered off somewhere, and we're on the road at the moment till ah can get the family to stop freaking out.
Y'all mentioned being able to provide some assistance, it'd be much appreciated if possible.

Pie Shell

At least that trip wasn't a total waste then, at least the Pie family can have a happy future, if not a bit stressful.

I'm not exactly sure what happens if my patients are found to have been resurrected as the only case I'm pretty sure they'd ever worked out was my brother, and I have no clue what they've done with him.
I tried finding out, called in the few favours I had managed to accrue, but he seemingly fell off the face of the earth after his resurrection.

Returning my attention to the book, I write the address of a forgery artist that I'd solicited a few times over the years as she'd done some impeccable work and gave the relevant key/ code words needed to make the requests needed.

I read over my words to ensure no error and after finishing everything off, I switch pages to the other messenger.

Looking at the page where me and the client had previously corresponded, I see that the mare from Tailfrost had sent some subsequent messages.

Dear Dr Place Bo,

I think we might require your services again, Nightbloom is presenting some odd symptoms that the doctor is not sure about and I am worried it might be a return of her illness.
Please come quickly as I am not sure what is going to happen, if it makes it easier I can request for a chariot to pick you up, all expenses paid of course.

Starbloom

I blink at the formal message and give the whole page a re-read.

Okay she does have fairly formal elements in her prior chapters and maybe that's generally the way she writes but it feels odd in regards to the subject matter and the pegasus chariot offer is very generous considering how much the damn things cost.

I rest my head on my hoof for a few moments.

There's a real chance that the hoof writing these words isn't Starbloom though I would think that my contacts would have warned me about something like this.

Okay, I can't ignore this because if I am wrong then I might be leaving a filly to her death though but I don't think I can wear my Place Bo disguise, I probably go as something non-medical related and pretend to be a family friend visiting, though if there is something fishy then I can make for an early exit.

Scribbling a quick affirmation but with an assurance that I won't need a chariot, I then stand up from my spot of comfort and start my tired routine of packing my winter travel bag.

Half way through said routine, I find myself starting to put away my book behind the closet and stop myself. If the book is compromised as a delivery method then I am not sure what else is, I cannot destroy it as somepony might need to contact me but I cannot leave it here in case.

Hurriedly packing it into the bag, I grab a few other essentials in case they do manage to get in and I need to go on the run.

Looking around, I give myself a nod as I then give a glance at the sled resting on the wall mount, take it off its hooks and tie it to my back using some elastic rope through the straps in my saddlebag, honestly one thing I'm glad I'm a unicorn for as it such a faff otherwise.

Making it to the front door, I unlock it and after ensuring to lock the three individual locks I'd had mounted after leaving the porchway and then I start my exhausting journey to the mountain in the north.

Author's Note

I am not sure I am happy with the end of this particular chapter's writing but here is the chapter.
I will warn that the chapters time syncs aren't necessarily going to be in chronological order but there will be hints on when certain chapters are disjointed.

Ορμαθός δυσαρεστημένων

Rarity
Let it never be said that I didn't answer the Princess's call.

Luckily I'd had the forethought to pack a very warm (yet still stylish) set of winter clothes before we departed upon this frigid trip and managed to secure myself a position upon the chariot with the dragon capable of breathing fire.

Who is currently assisting me in the brewing of a pot of Cinnamon tea.

"I'll try though I can't promise I won't melt the pot" Spike says while eyeing up the teapot.

"It's a very sturdy pot, and I've seen you control your fire before. I'm sure you'll be great at it, Spikey Wikey." I say, though in the back of my mind I'm ready to sacrifice the pot in the potential for a hot cup of tea.

Turning my head to the front of the chariot, I see Twilight reading a map and notice that she seems to be marking dots after looking at the landscape

Feeling a warm sensation behind me, I turn back towards the now fire-breathing dragon, whom I notice is now breathing out a calm and controlled flame.

"Well done Spikey!" I say with a positive tone "I'll see if Twilight would like some."

Spike tries to nod but then remembers, before he burns the floor, to stop himself.

Taking a few steps toward the front of the chariot, I stop while looking at the details that Twilight had been marking on her map.

Looks like absolute nonsense to me, she appears to have made an additional key that is lacking in details and while I can tell there are some tracks being marked, she seems to be using different symbols to distinguish between… something.

"How's your work, Darling?" I say to be alert of my presence.

Twilight seems to jump slightly but turns to me and says "Not so great to be honest, I thought that it'd be worth with our birds-eye view that I could try to map potential avenues of entry against the topological charts into the town as to work out how Blue was able to get here but I've been having some issues."

I nod and say "What is the biggest issue then?"

"How much she was carrying for one, some tracks I think a pony could probably walk over while travelling light but…" Twilight says while motioning to a relatively high hill "If she wasn't travelling light then a hillside like this in the snow would be nearly impossible for a pony to walk down safely."

"I can't imagine she was travelling light, we've only managed to get away with our smallish bags as we have these fine guards making the journey easier but as you said at the castle, no chariots have been booked to the town in at least six months meaning that this Blue must have had to trek, requiring heavier supplies and tools." I say while pondering the issue.

"Good point, that helps filter down the potential routes at least, thanks Rarity." Twilight says while beaming at me.

"Of course Darling, I'm glad to provide assistance. I was wondering if you'd like some cinnamon tea, Spike is brewing some as we speak and I think it will be just the thing we need to stave off this biting co-"

*hiccup*

Turning on the spot, I bear witness to the last embers remaining in the spot that my poor tea pot was previously inhabiting.

"I'm sorry Rarity" I hear Spike say "I'll replace it."

"It's fine Spike" I say while withholding an internal sigh "this is why we bring easily replaceable teapots when travelling, they are expected to break."

Tilting my head towards Twilight, I say "Sorry darling, I'll have to rescind that offer unless you take your tea in the evaporated state."

"It would certainly be a new experience at least, maybe we can boil off some sugar to enhance it" Twilight says with a smile.

"Sounds like something Sweetie would do, some of the stains that filly can leave still perplex me."

"You're not worried about leaving her at the carousel ?" twilight says teasingly.

"Perpetually, but she's staying with the apple family at the moment. I wanted to send her to our parents but when I sent a letter to Cherilee asking if it was okay, she told me that they had a pretty important school project" I say.

*burp*

Twilight and I turned our attention back to Spike who was now holding a scroll.

He unwinds it and after we watch him reading for a few moments, he looks up from the scroll bashfully and says "The Princess thanks us for the tea, she says it was delicious."

I am unable to stop myself from letting a sigh out this time.

I look up towards the sun through overcast skies and wager that it's hit about 10 o'clock in the morning.

Looking back down, I can see the small town precariously planted on a plain on the side of a mountain and I wonder what resources the inhabitants had sought after when deciding to plonk a settlement in this very cold part of the world.

Glancing to the right, I see the two other chariots carrying the rest of our merry band to this rustic spot, or more accurately I hear them first.

"I'm telling you if you'd let me fly by myself, I could have been here long before you all. Maybe could have done some scouting of the team in case any of these ponies might be part of her evil entourage." I hear Dash's abrasive voice pierce the fog.

"And Ahm telling you that Ah ain't disputing your speed, compared to the armour wearing armed guards lugging an incredibly heavy chariot, if there were some members of this 'evil' entourage here then you'd be stuck in this town by yourself and tired from trying to outpace us there " Applejack returns.

"I could have taken them, I'm an accomplished fighter at this stage especially after what we've fought."

"Ahm sure, but we can leave your fighting prowess till we get to the town, which luckily we are here."

We find our chariots landing on the outside of town on a grass patch connected to a building I can only presume is a tavern.

The guards allow us to step off the platforms, unhitch themselves from the harness and then turn to us "We are going to organise a room at this tavern and get some rest, if there are any issues please come and get us."

With several nods and utterance of agreements, the guards make their leave.

Twilight looks around to make sure that we are speaking in private and says "Okay girls as agreed, Rarity, spike and I will go find and speak to the doctor for any information and you four try to find out what you can elsewhere."

Twilight, Spike and I separate from the group as they start discussing which direction to head in fist and we start heading down the street.

Similar to Blue's mother, we've come up with a few questions and game plans depending on the doctor's reactions but from what we've gathered in regards to the doctor from his employee file, he seems to be quite prideful and if he's been upstaged from a young doctor then maybe we have an avenue of information.

"I think we are close to the northern dragon tribe" I hear Spike say as we walk along the main street.

"Really? Did you want to try and visit them?" I earnestly respond
"Probably best to avoid it, from what I've read they are a lot more territorial than most of the other tribes. Just was bothering me why I'd recognised the town name when we researched it but then when we landed I spotted that mountain" Spike returns while pointing into the distance.

I squint my eyes and just about make out the shape of a peculiar looking mountain.

"It's called Dragongem mountain, according to legend the first dragon to settle in these lands claw-crafted it using all of the tools it had managed to secure in raids and its supposed to not have any rock angles below 34 degrees."

Twilight, who had been sorting through her notes, decides to start paying attention to the conversation, "Why? That seems like a waste of time."

"According to witnesses at the time, the dragon said and I quote 'good you do recognise it as my clawi-work, that means you have got no reason to be in there'" Spike says, trying to emulate a gruff voice while quoting the dragon in question.

"Oh, I was expecting something less… uncouth" I say.

Spike shrugs and says "Dragons gotta horde"

As the conversation comes to an end, we find ourselves in front of a white-stone building with timber supports and a sign that has long since needed retirement marked Dr Scalpel.

We give each other a look of comfort and then knock on the door.

"One minute please" a masculine voice echoes from within the door frame.

We hear sounds of movement within the building for some moments and after hearing the door latch lift, we see a stallion emerge from the doorframe, adjourned with brown fur and a tweed jacket.

"Sorry for the delay, I wasn't expecting any clientele today. Is it a critical issue or would you like to step in?" the doctor says in a deep but learned tone.

I can feel both Twilight and Spike give a glance towards me as I have apparently taken the frontpony role in these situations and so I say "Nothing critical luckily Doctor, we'd take the offer to come in though. This cold is almost cruel."

We are promptly let into the property and noticing an active fireplace, I surreptitiously make my way over while trying to distract the doctor with conversation.

"So what brings you three into…" I notice the doctor starts saying after organising himself although he seems to falter when seeing Spike.

"Questions mostly, though your lovely company also drew us in." I say and notice my flattery seems to have alleviated any fears of Spike.
Doctor Scalpel pulls his jacket down with one hoof and says in an interesting tone "Questions? I should be able to help with that at least, unless it's anything too ill-moral."

I notice that Spike has already started taking notes, and Twilight seems to be both keeping an eye on the conversation and looking around for clues.

"I hope we don't come off as the immoral sort good doctor" I say while holding a hoof to my chest "in fact you could say we've come for the opposite reason, we've been charged by Princess Celestia herself in the investigation of a character of disrepute and we have some reasons to believe that she might have sundered this town's good nature."

The doctor seems to gain a slight frown on his face and says "of disrepute? I am not sure I understand what you are talking about."

I try to put my most sympathetic face on "A medicinal swindler or closer to a snake-oil merchant in my opinion, this particular character goes to towns where a case seems impossible to solve and even puts a professional doctor, such as yourself, in doubt with their diagnoses."

I can see waves of recognition as my description seems to strike a nerve within the doctor.

"I think I know what this is about, and while what you are saying is concerning, I don't think I can give you any information without breaching doctor / client confidentiality" the doctor says while pulling myself into a guarded pose.

"And I wouldn't expect any doctors to do so, I am sure that the townsfolk respect your discretionary talents but in this case the confidentiality might be void. The swindler in question promises an extraordinary talent when approaching her clients, the ability to resurrect."

Doctor Scalpel acquires a doubtful face and says "Resurrection? Are you being serious?"

"Indeed, it's a troublesome topic and I can tell from your doubt that you are an astute fellow but it's of our opinion that all this mare is doing is an advanced form of puppetry, tell me this patient of yours based on your previous analysis, should they be alive?"

"No, by all accounts she was dead. I declared the time myself." the doctor says with a troubled look.

"Then if she is truly dead, then her loved ones are being forced to keep care of what is essentially a doll. Do you think that this poor patient deserves this? They deserve a peaceful funeral and to be left to rest." I say, trying to draw him over the edge.

The doctor stands quietly for a few minutes after hearing this but just as I am about to ask a subsequent question I hear him speak up.

"Okay, you're right. What do you want to know?

I give him a smile and say "thank you doctor, let's start with what you can remember about this other doctor…"

We finish off collecting the information that the doctor can remember about Blue and manage to get some details about the filly and her mother as well as collating it with what little information we knew.

I look around at my two companions as they sort out the last of their notes, for which I'm glad to seem to understand the medicine aspects at least, and then I turn back to the down-trodden doctor.

"Thank you again for this Doctor Scalpel, at the very least it confirms our theories and we can get started in trying to sort this mess. "

It takes a few moments for the doctor to respond but then he says "what do you plan on doing next?"

Twilight speaks up as she clips her notes together "We need to go and see Starbloom and tell her the truth first, she deserves to know it. We also need to bring back Nightbloom to Canterlot, there is a research team dedicated to cases like this that could help with preventing this from happening again."

The doctor nods and says "I shouldn't have let her near the body, felt wrong when I did it. I am sorry for causing this mess."

"From what we can tell Doctor, you are not the first and you shouldn't feel guilty about it." I say.

"I'd prefer to hang onto it as a reminder, but if you are going to Starbloom's house now, I'd like to join you."

I hesitate in my answer as I am not sure whether we should or not but luckily my decision is taken out of my hooves when Twilight agrees.

Afterward, the four of us leave the building and start heading to Starbloom's house and while we are walking along, we luckily manage to spot our traversing friends talking to various ponies as well as looking around the area.

Rainbow gets back to us first and after a brief introduction to our temporary companion, says in a hushed tone to both Twilight and I "Looks like a few ponies did recognise a pony as per the description but nopony saw any blue hair, so probably a wig or dyed it. Otherwise, the only other thing that stuck out in the ponies' minds is that she got here on a small sled."

"A sled?" I ask.

"Yeah like the ones we use for snow days, apparently she came flying down the mountain on it."

"How odd, I would imagine that she'd prefer a quieter entrance."

I see that Twilight is half paying attention to the conversation but is more focused on her notes formed from the doctor.

After our little group is coordinated, I notice that we seem to have drawn the attention of a crowd keeping an eye on us. I suppose they must be somewhat wary of strangers and after what Spike had said about the dragon in the area.

We manage to get to the house without any issue and we watch the doctor take a few steps in front of us and address us.

"I'll knock, she's not going to be happy to have strangers coming to the house in the first place."

I notice that the rest of our group takes up differing positions in case of anything and then I notice that Pinkie's tail starts twitching more furiously, I'm not sure if the rest of our group has noticed anything about it but Pinkie has been hiding it since she's came back to Canterlot, but no one takes any particular action yet.

The doctor knocks on the door and after a few moments we see a mare open it.

"Doctor Scalpel? Is anything the matter?" she says.

The Doctor seems to falter slightly under the question but is able to catch himself.

"Hi Star, I'm sorry to have to do this but these mares are from Canterlot and are here about Nightbloom."

Starbloom gives us an inquisitive look at first, turns her attention inside for a moment, and I notice as she turns back her look of confusion rapidly changes into suspicion.

"Sorry I don't think I have the time to talk to you all today, if you come around tomorrow it would probably be better."

Starbloom tries quickly to close the door but the doctor is able to catch it before it closes.

"Please Star, we can resolve this peacefully. They just want to help." I hear the doctor say.

"Take your hoof off my door" Starbloom says sternly.

Sensing that tension rising between the two, I watch Twilight take a step forward and say "I'm sorry to interject but for now all we want to do is talk, we think and your own doctor here agrees that you've been the victim of medical fraud."

"I assure you that I'm not the victim of anything, now I must insist that you let go of my door. I am very busy and need to sort some things out."

I start to hear some murmuring in the crowd that had followed us but try to keep my attention on the situation in front of me.

Then I watch Twilight continue "Please Starbloom, we cannot leave and we really need to talk to you and Nightbloom. I think from your reactions, you know why. We are not sure what she has told you but we've got evidence that she is wrong and if you do not talk with us, I am going to have to get the royal guard."

I internally wince as Twilight finishes speaking, I suspect she meant that in a less threatful way but those were the wrong words.

The increasing tension in the crowd seems to concur with me.

A voice then calls out "Leave her alone!"

I turn around at this and notice that the rest of our group does as well.

While trying to formulate a quick response, Rainbow steps forward.

I try to step forward to stop her speaking but she gets her words out first.

"We are trying to help her! She's the one being stubborn."

Voices of discontent start raising but I do notice that Rainbow's words have swayed some others.

"She said she's busy" "Well the purple one said royal guard, they are here from the Princess" "Princess Candance?" "Well that doesn't give them the right… wait a minute, who assumes Princess Candance when you hear Princess?" "Well she's a princess ain't she?" "So is the 'purple one' you two idiots" is what I manage to hear before the crowd turns discordant.

Twilight, still focusing on Starbloom, says "Please, I don't want to do this."

Starbloom just shakes her head.

I watch Twilight sigh, and turn her attention down the street as the guards who accompanied us come down.

I presume she magically contacted them at one stage but without that context it looks like an eerie sense of timing.

Twilight walks over to them and says something I can't quite catch and afterward they both nod while walking to the house.

This crowd isn't going to be any happier about this.

The three guards come to the still held open door and the lead guard says in an authoritative tone "Ma'am, open your door please, otherwise I am going to have to restrain you."

Starbloom attempts to push the door closed with more force, but the guard prevent it from happening.

The lead guard makes a motion to the other two and then pulls Starbloom out of the house.

The crowd behind me get louder as well, seemingly fighting about what's happening amongst themselves and then I see something fly in the air towards the house and as I recognise it as a bottle, it smashes against one of the windows.

As the lead guard places the hoofcuffs on Starbloom, one of the other guards hurriedly gallops to our position, pulls out his weapon and shouts to the crowd "DISPERSE NOW, IF YOU DO NOT THEN WE WILL BE FORCED TO PLACE YOU UNDER ARREST."

I frown at the particular phrasing, but before I get concerned over the implications the crowd does hesitantly disperse, though I do notice a few silent observers staring at us.

As our commotion was going on, apparently a guard had gone into the house and retrieved Nightbloom.

As Starbloom resists against the bindings on her hooves, she starts screaming "NO LEAVE HER INSIDE, DON'T TAKE HER FROM ME AGAIN"

I notice that the dispersing crowd have stopped again, though further and now more spread apart and with the screams now emanating, I honestly believe we might get stampeded.

Okay, time for a more delicate touch.

I step towards Starbloom, and say "We wouldn't dream of it darling, this situation has got out of hoof due to some wrong words" I say while looking around "if you'd talked to us earlier, we would have told you we had some concerns about your daughter and wanted to take yourself and her to Canterlot to be checked by some specialists. We won't take her away and I can assure you that she will not be hurt."

Twilight gives me a look but honestly we cannot stick to the original plan here of just bringing back Nightbloom, the ponies will start rioting, and I personally don't see an issue.

Starbloom looks at me with suspicious eyes, trying to see if I am lying.

Time to gain her trust hopefully, I say to the guard to take off her hoofcuffs.

The guard does so and she stretches her hooves after being released.

She looks at me again though I notice the fire has gone down slightly at least, and says "And what now?"

"One of these fine guards will accompany you back to Canterlot, there is a specialised research team that will house you temporarily. Though we will need access to your house here for a short time, it's the only conditional we are going to have to put" I say.

Starbloom seems doubtful for a moment, I notice her looking around for anything she can use, then dejectedly sighs and says "I don't think I have any other options, my key is inside."

I give a nod to the guard and he takes both Blooms away to the chariot.

Looking around the street, the crowd seems to actually get back to business.

I let out a sigh of relief as Twilight makes herself to me and says "Thank you, I wasn't sure what to do there."

"Remind me to teach you the more delicate side to speaking when we get back to normal life, sometimes a mob can be tilted either ways by some words. Now we have a house to investigate!"

We spend a good few hours going through everything in the house, I think it's even nighttime outside, and aside from a death certificate that was hidden behind a cabinet we get stumped until Pinkie notices a document in the night stand.

"Pinkie it's just a letter with a weird symbol on it, that could even be a logo for a company." Rainbow says.

"Not the symbol, the text on it. It looks like a letter but someone's written the response on it Aaand it's not been folded like you would when putting it in an envelope."

Twilight's attention has been piqued by this sentence and comes over.

After looking at the document for a few minutes and casting some spells, Twilight says "This symbol is runic magic, good find Pinkie."

"Runic magic?" Fluttershy says.

"A very old way of practising magic, ponies haven't tried for millennia. I think a few races still use it, but it's very specialised. Even my detecting magic didn't pick it up and it looks like this particular rune is a two-way communication device, though I would need to read through some books back at the castle to confirm."

"So we could talk to her right now?"

"I think so, though not sure if there is any particular thing we need to do but I'd imagine not. If this was designed to be simple, maybe Blue thought the rarity of Runic magic was defence enough."

"Tell her to go to the castle then! We can have this adventure finished tomorrow" Rainbow says.

"No that won't work, no way would she volunteer going to the castle and we have only got one chance with messaging her if we are"

I watch Pinkie look at her twitching tail for a moment, nod for a second and say "If she thinks that this message is coming from Starbloom then why not have her come here?"

Twilight thinks on it for a moment and says "Actually, that's a good idea. It's not like she can run away in this snowy mountain range easily and we can still investigate through messengers anyway. What does everypony else think?"

With group of affirmations, I watch Twilight start writing

Dear Dr Place Bo,

I think we might require your services again…

Author's Note

Well thanks for reading this monster of a chapter,
probably could have trimmed it down but I felt it was more relevant and I wanted to fit under Rarities' Point of view.
Next chapter might potentially be fairly long as we finally, after like 8-9 years :pinkiehappy: , might have something happen.

Thank you to AlcoholEnjoyer for the assistance with the chapter names, multiple chapters have been renamed as to fit the tone better

Χιών

Blue Syringe

It's snowing.

It's snowing and I'm cold and I am miserable.

I'm not even able to use my sled either, so my damn hooves are cold.

I'm almost regretting not accepting the offer of the chariot but that has the same issue as my sled.

It's too high profile.

Sighing, I keep trotting onwards to the town I can see in the distance, that is mounted on the side of the mountain.

I wonder if the etymology of 'mounted' is linked to mountain or if it's one of those similarities that occurred randomly.

I think I've been out in the cold too long, usually the sled is exciting enough to keep me warm but this is miserable.

I suppose it could be worse, I did in fact pack for the weather and brought some heavy clothing though I wish I brought a hot water bottle or something, even my paltry magic reserves are good enough to keep that hot.

Though what's got me shaking is not the cold, okay the cold might be causing some of it, but what on Equestria I might be trotting into.

Best case scenario, I am just paranoid, which I suspect might be the case, I am trying to read into the emotions of a grief stricken mother who is bottling her emotions in the best way to help her daughter and the worst case scenario is I am walking into a battalion of heavily armed guard focused in the destruction of even the thought of me…

Yay.

Looking ahead as my rambling thoughts spin around my head, I notice that I've managed to get to the side of the mountain that the town is situated on, luckily with some pre planning it is the shorter side as I'll be honest I wasn't up for hiking up the big side with the chances of an avalanche increase with every inch of this damnable snow piling up.

Starting up my ascent up the mountain, I make sure that I try to keep to the less steep part of the mountain to make sure I don't slip, probably wouldn't fit the stealthier ponysona I was going for.

As I struggle my way up the last few steps, I ponder about the possibility of trying to make a medicine to make my breathing more efficient as my lungs feel like they are on fire. I'd argue that I am a fairly mobile pony, sure not the most active ever but how on Equestria are ponies here making regular trips to this damn town.

Giving a quick glance around said town, I am not noticing any massive fortifications or congregations of guards, which I'd argue is a great start, and due to the snow, there are less ponies on the streets at the moment.

Looking in the direction of the Bloom household, I take confident steps forward but I am interrupted by my rumbling stomach.

Right, food would probably be a good idea.

Hoping nobody had heard my offending organ, I decided on the alluring tavern I'd been to before when I came to the town last.

I know visiting the patient should be at the top of my priority list but I make it a rule that I am in the best condition I can be before treating somepony else due to mistakes I could make due to the distraction.

Making my way down the street, I manage to catch myself a couple of times while walking over the icy stones and luckily before I am able to injure myself, I arrive at the front door of the Dragongem Inn.

Shaking the snow that had accumulated on my clothes, I then push the doors open into a moderately busy room and notice that the voice levels seem to reduce in volume as I come in.

I make my way over to the serving bar and notice that while the conversation starts picking up again that I am getting some side eye as I move, I remember this town being reticent to visitors but I think they seem more cautious than usual.

Giving a smile to the bartender, I say "Hi, I was wondering if you do food here?"

The bartender, a tall-ish pony with a cream-coloured coat and a reddish mane, gives me a look up and down and says "... yeah, got a table in the back as well I think. Come with me"

The bartender, not waiting for a moment, moves towards the side of the bar in which he raises the wood blocking him in, and motions for me to follow him."

I follow him into the back of the bar while hearing some conversations on the way.

"Stew's pretty good today, wonder how Creamer gets fresh carrots in so regularly"

"I hear he's got some contacts with a group of pegasi traders, probab…"

"Still rubs me wrong what they did, it ain't right."
"I know, but not much we can do about it now right? They let her keep her right."

"True, but …"

The bartender sits me down at a small round wooden table and points at a black board saying "Menu and costs are on the board, if nothing is to your liking then we got some other ingredients in the kitchen but it costs more for custom meals."

Giving the board a glance, I can see that there is a range of about 5 items but going off what I heard while walking, I say "Carrot Stew sounds nice to me, and a glass of water as well if possible."

"Of course, not to be rude but a rule we follow in this bar is any non-locals have to pay upfront" The bartender says to me.

I internally frown at the statement but not wanting to cause any drama, I draw out the requisite bits from my bag and hand it over to the bartender.

He seems to count them for a moment and says "Thanks, I'll bring your food and water over when it's ready, I think it'll be about five minutes."

Giving a nod, I make myself comfortable in my chair and pull out a book to pass the time as well as let the conversations wash over me again.

"Why do you think they are still here?"

"No clue, good for business though, I know some shops aren't particularly fond of them being so noisy at times but they pay on time and apparently quite like tea"

"You don't mind what they did? Or is that concern waylaid by the increased profits?"

"I'm hesitant to be annoyed at the situation until we find out more, I imagine they'd done their research into the topic before doing something like this and we'll find out if Ni… "

I am yanked out of my eavesdropping by the bartender putting a bowl on the table along with a mug of water.

"Your stew, enjoy" I hear him say.

I nod in appreciation and quickly eat the surprisingly flavourful stew.

After finishing up, I leave a few bits on the table and make my way out of the building

With my nutritional needs met, I suppose that there is no way of further delaying this meeting and so I start heading my way to the Bloom house household once again.

Making my round the streets, I notice that some ponies are starting to add some nets up around the area, which I presume is for avalanche mitigation, but nothing else is out of the ordinary.

Maybe I was just being paranoid after the visit to Appleloosa, I mean they had just got lucky that I was in the building when that letter was received. How on Equestria would they know about a random filly in the middle of nowhere.

Managing to make my way to the street that the house is on, I give a quick look around before attempting to go any further but whereas the street was mostly empty, I do hear two voices coming down one of the side alleys in parallel to mine.

"This town is too cold to have a prolonged stay in, I think when I get back to the carousel, I am going to move my bed in front of the fireplace to hopefully get some warmth back into me" a more refined voice says, something I'd expect from Upper Canterlot but not fully.

"Ah find myself agreeing with you, don't think ah'd ever live here. Hopefully she shows up and we can be done with this whole encounter" a voice with a distinct southern drawl says.

"Maybe we should ask Twilight to message her again, it's been a week since the first and we've heard nothing since." the refined southern drawl says in return.

Twilight? As in Twilight Sparkle? As in the one chasing me down?

I try to peek around the corner and look towards the direction I'd heard the voices, luckily they were in the alley closer to the house than me.

I see an orange-coated earth pony and a white coated unicorn walking down the street, I think back to the book I had read on the carriage, Applejack and Rarity I think?

Okay that confirms it, I need to leave now, maybe I can sne…

"What are we looking at?" I hear a cheerful voice say behind me.

I whip my head around and as my eyes are assaulted by the pinkest coat I've ever seen, I notice a pony is standing on her back hooves so she can peak around the corner as well.

Taking a few steps away from her but making sure I don't step out the street.

"Just having a look around… There's someone I'm trying to avoid, a messy argument" I hurriedly say.

I look at the pony in front of me and the first thing that comes to my mind is candyfloss. I didn't think it was possible for something to be so pink but noticing the balloon motif on her hindquarters,I can only assume that this is the Pinkie Pie.

As in a pony that is both most assuredly after me and something I need to be far away from very quickly.

Pinkie starts saying "That's not good to hear, ponies should try to resolve their arguments with each other. I remember when Button was having an argu…"

Before I am locked into place listening to this conversation, I interrupt her "I'm sorry I don't have the time to talk. There is somewhere I need to be."

I turn around and start heading towards the outskirts of town but I am confronted by Pinkie standing there.

How did she get behind me?

"I can walk with you! Oh my Celestia, I've not even asked your name yet. I know you're new to the town, I'm pretty sure I've met everyone in the town, your accent is somewhat different as well, I'm guessing Canterlot but it's hard to tell really, it sounds like a bit of everything. Do you do a lot of travelling? I love travelling but find it hard… "

My head is bombarding with the litany of questions and I start walking away as she continues her rambling.

Sadly, she notices.

"So where are we going? And what is your name? I'm Pinkie Pie, the premier party planner of Ponyville, it's south-west-ish here but if you are from Canterlot then you can just get a train from there if you ever wanted to visit" Pinkie continues.

"I'm uhh Place" I managed to get out.

"That's funny, my friends met a Place Bo recently, any relation?"

Oh for crying out loud, how did I forget that was my mother's name? Been using that name for ages, thank Equestria I didn't say the surname.

"No, I'm the only Place I know" I lie.

Pinkie starts saying"Ahh okay, we are actually looking for her daughter Blue, got a fancy medical symbol for her…"

I start galloping, I don't care if it's more obvious at this stage, if I stay close to this mare than I am doomed.

I gallop around the next corner and start heading to the outskirts of town while activating my horn to start undoing the straps of the cart of my back.

"Hey why are you running?" I hear to my right, as I turn my head I see Pinkie coming from a side street that she had no possible way of going to.
I skid to a stop and turn left down to gallop down another alleyway.

And Pinkie is standing in front of me.

What manner of eldritch being is she!?

I shift my backpack as I turn around again to make sure the now loosely strapped sled doesn't fall off.

"Hey please stop running, your backpack might fall off. Hey I can see your cutiemark now, that looks like the one I was talking about… Are you Blue Syringe? Please stop, Princess Celestia wants to see you if you are. My friends are at the Bloom house and we can sort this out, you don't have to keep hiding." Pinkie says I continue galloping away from her.

A tempting offer, but I'm pretty sure Celestia isn't going to offer me tea and cookies.

I glance ahead down the street I'd picked to run down and luckily Pinkie hadn't to get ahead of me again, and I can see the edge of the town which leads down the slope of the mountain, while generally I hate going into a slope blind of the dangers it will still be safer then getting caught.

I shake the sled off my back and sit down on it after placing it on the edge of the slope.

I attempt to push down but find my back leg held in place back.

"Please Blue, my friends are coming. We just want to resolve this peacefully, don't you want to see your family again?" Pinkie's voice emanates behind me.

I turn around to look at her and say "I can't imagine that if I return they'd let my family see me, I know the consequences of what you accuse me of."

"I don't think the Princess will do anything like that, please we have data from some rea…" Pinkie starts saying but is interrupted by her… shaking tail?

I stare at the peculiar sight and glance back to Pinkie, she seems to nod at her tail and then pushes me down the mountain.

My mind reeling on what on Equestria just happened, I pay attention to my sled and the remarkably large boulder that I was about to smash into.

Yanking the sled's reigns to the right, I just about manage to avoid it and start plotting a route quickly down the mountain.

Why did she let me go? I look around to see if there anypony down the mountain to catch me but seemingly it's empty.

If I think about it then I am going to get distracted, I need to get out of this range and get back to society to re-plan. Evidently they've worked out enough to start placing traps for me
Looking backwards I notice that I have managed to get a decent distance away from the town and while I do some figures collecting next to where Pinkie was standing doing some quick math, somepony would need to be moving faster than the speed of sound to catch me now.

BOOM

Had to open my bloody mouth, didn't I!?

Glancing around rapidly, I am covered in iridescent lights and glancing into the sky I see a… Rainboom?

I thought those were a myth, created by a pegasus breaking the sound bar…

I feel something collide with me as I am launched off my sled sideways.

Trying to protect my neck I wrap my hooves around my head and then painfully collide with the ground.

After I stop moving, I try to get onto my hooves quickly and glance around but I am met by a stabbing pain in my hoof.

I suspect a fracture, I imagine when the adrenaline wears off I am not going to have a great time.

Looking around for the cause, I see about 50 meters away a rainbow-haired pegasus very angrily looking at me and looking like she is going to charge.

I go to speak but notice a roaring noise coming in the direction of the top of the mountain.

She's set off an avalanche.

And it's going to hit us in about 20 seconds.

We need to move now.

I point to the wall of icy death coming towards us and I try to start galloping to my sled in the hope I can get further down the mountain when it hits me.

I notice out of the corner of my eye that Rainbow has ignored my pointing and has decided to launch herself at me while saying something I cannot hear over the avalanche.

20 meters before she gets to me, she is swept up by the avalanche.

I just about manage to get to my sled as the wall of snow hits me.

Author's Note

Well I had hoped to release this in December but I at least managed to release it in winter.
We have finally managed to have a meeting of the main characters!
Oh and also,

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Διάσωσις

Applejack
As ah watch the colours shine down on the white snow tumbling down, Ah utter out loud "Rainbow, ya idiot. Can anypony see them?"

Ah turn to my right and look down the line of my friends in the hope that somepony else can see something, noticing that most of them are looking intently but Pinky seems a tad withdrawn.

Ah'm pulled out of my thought process as ah hear Fluttershy say "I think they both got drawn into the snow, I could be wrong though."

"We need to get them out quickly," Ah hear Twilight say in response "They might be injured or running out of air if they are too deep in the snow."

"We also need to be careful," Rarity says as well "I've heard that secondary avalanches can be possible and pockets of air could mean more issues. I'd suggest we get the guards to help us, they might have training for a similar scenario."

Pinkie says in a much less excited tone than usual "I am going to go and see if any of the town's members can help us, I think some have started checking it out already," Pinkie then points along the town's ridge at the congregation of ponies.

"Okay, I think Applejack, you should go with Pinkie and see if you can coordinate something with them. Rarity, go and get the guards and tell them what happened and also tell them that Blue is down there. Fluttershy, lets go and fly down, the winds aren't that strong today so we shouldn't have any issues" Twilight orders.

A chorus of affirmations in varied degrees of tone and we all separate out into our individual groups.

Ah start trotting at a fast pace alongside Pinkie, who seems to not be skipping which on a side note ah need to check out what happened with her as ah think something happened between her and Blue, and ah notice that several ponies seem to start hauling out some boxes.

Heading over, ah notice seem weary looks from the crowd as we approach but that weariness can be damned for all ah care.

"One of mah friends got caught in that avalanche, also the pony we've been waiting for. We've got our friends scouting ahead if anypony can spare some hooves or some tools" I called out.

I notice some ponies seem to hesitate until a stallion with a grey mane and a barrel with a strap for a cutie mark steps forward.

"Of course we will help," the stallion says while doing a salute of some kind. "We've got some gear we can use and few of the other ponies and I have experience with this type of thing. We will go first to start helping where we can, everypony else if you want to coming we are going to send you with a pegasus equipped with an iron rod "
The stallion pulls a rod about two meters long from one of the boxes and shows it to the group.

"Pegasi, your job is to gauge if the ground is safe. Basically jab this into the ground and wave your group down, everyone else you bring down these boxes. They contain tools for digging through most terrain and in addition there are tools for detecting body warmth. If anyone doesn't know how to use it, come to me now, I'll show you."

Ah'll be honest, ah expected that to be more complicated.

The crowd seem to group themselves up and aside from a few ponies, Ah'm expecting them to be the professionals, who gear themselves up with a harness with tools and what looks like spikes mounted to their hooves.

The stallion at one stage at his demonstration pokes his head and looks at Pinkie, who seems to be just watching the crowd, and says "Oi you, stop standing around, I know from experience that you've introduced yourself to every living entity in this town can you go around and make sure that everyone is accounted for?"

This actually seems to pull Pinkie out of her stupor and she says "You can count on me" and then she starts running around to each pony.

The pony pays attention back to his lecture and after promptly finishing it, calls out to the group.

"Right, I hope everypony has got everything because we need to start moving now. I will direct you all to zones on the mountain that I think will be good to check along the way, using the scouts that are down there already to advance further. Good luck everypony!"

After about three hours, a sense of dread had started filling me in.

We'd managed to check the upper slopes and all the areas that we'd seen last and aside from a shattered sled that we suspect that Blue had owned, we had found nothing.

The foreman, who ah discovered during the investigation was a dedicated Mountain ranger before he'd retired to the town, had warned us that we'd had about four hours left of daylight and then unless we had found any more signs then we'd have to retire back to the town.

Also, and he wouldn't tell us why, he'd said the body heat device might start being less effective and I can guess why.

They are getting colder.

While Ponyville ain't anywhere near any mountains to have avalanche risks, ah have heard of the dangers and while Rainbow was tough even she might have a struggle.

Ah hope not, we've got out of worse but ah can't lie to myself about this.

Though ah wouldn't be the saddest pony in the world if the other never showed up again.

"Applejack, would you like some coffee, darling?" ah hear behind me.

Ah turn around to see that Rarity was hefting around a cast iron pot with her magic and Spike seemed to be following.

"Ahm, sure. Ah hope it's hot" I say, reaching for the tin cup being handed to me.

"Dragon-fire hot, my darling, good enough to fight off the biting cold off this mountain. Managed to acquire a triple reinforced pot after the incident in the carriage and spikey-wikey here is so generously offering his fire" Rarity says in a positive tone.

"Weren't you helping with one of the rescue teams?" ah say, in between sips.

"Yes but if we want Ponies to stay motivated then we need to keep their energy up, I suggest to the team lead and she was all too glad to agree."

Hmm.

"Well ah appreciate it myself, feel like this is taking so lo…"

Ah'm interrupted by a sharp whistle from the bottom of the hill.

Whipping my head in the direction, Ah say "The whistle, ah think they found something. Everypony lets go, though keep an eye on where you are going!"

After travelling down the mountain for about twenty minutes, ah find a large group with the rest of my friends.

Making my way to Twilight, ah ask "What is it?"

She turns to me and says "A hole and hoofsteps, some blood as well but not a serious amount."

Ah nod and say "Blue or Rainbow, do we think?"

"Not sure yet, I suggested we follow straight away but the foreman said that more might get lost if we didn't meet up first."

Ah frown, my hooves feel itchy not going straight away but ah can't disagree with the logic.

"There's a second hole!" I hear shouted over the wind.

Ah take off in the direction of the call, feeling Twilights half-hearted attempt to stop me slide off straight away.

Ah dash the fifty or so meters to where ah hear the call come from and see a congregate of about three ponies standing around a hole.

The first thing ah notice is that there seems to be a singular set of footprint between the two holes besides mine and they have blood drips in them.

One of the three ponies addressed me "We think the pony in this hole dragged out, there are marks of it along the footprints, pretty sure they went into the valley as well."

Why would Rainbow drag blue into the valley?

Maybe the blood is from her wing, wasn't able to get to use but needed to also get warmer.

Maybe it wasn't Rainbow who did the dragging…

The foreman finally managed to bring the group over to us and after we relay what we learned to the foreman, he calls to the group as a whole.

"Right folks, we at least know they are alive and not under the snow. I'd wager that if they've gone downhill they have probably attempted to find a cave for shelter, if so a lot of ponies is going to hamper the search at the stage as we are going to need to move quickly if we want to find them before sundown. So I am going to have to ask those who weren't part of my crew and those who don't know either of the ponies to please return to the town, I thank you all for your help and I assure you a round of drinks when we can back up!"

A cheer erupts from the crown and they start working their way up the mountain.

The foreman turns to the rest of us remaining and continues "right, I know the area pretty well and there are about thirty caves I could viably guess they are in, luckily its not a great area for wild animals due to the weather so they usually avoid it. There are a few caves tucked away up the slopes, I will take my crew to check these just in case. You all check the rest and we should find them pretty quickly."

Not wanting to delay any further, we all give a agreement and start heading down the valley.

Ah start walking with Fluttershy as we head towards the caves on the further end.

"I hope Rainbow is okay, I wonder if she's still with Blue" Fluttershy says as we mentally mark off another cave.

"Ah'm sure she's fine, though ah think we really need to have some words after all of this. It's lucky that only two ponies got hit by all of this" ah reply.

"You aren't wrong but if Rainbo… do you see that?" Fluttershy asks while pointing.

Ah follow Fluttershy's hoof and notice a bright colour on a rock.

"Must be them, Rainbow has probably left a marker to help us!" I turn around and call behind us "Ah can see something, ah think it might be them."

Fluttershy and ah quickly make our way to the cave the marker stood out and after trying to unsuccessfully listen out for anything, ah call out inside "Rainbow!? Ya in there?"

A very strained voice returns "Yeah, I need some help"

Ah give Fluttershy a look and start heading in, internnaly relieved that the daft mare was still alive, and after about a minute we manage to make our way into a bigger chamber

That's when we see Rainbow lying on a large stone slab.

"Rainbow!" We both call out.

"Hi" ah hear her croak out though she doesn't seem to move.

As both approach, ah notice some splatters of blood on the slab below her and then ah notice that a large patch of fur on the back of her neck seems to be shaved.

"Ya alright?" Ah say while approaching.

"No clue, I think so" Rainbow says, still unmoving aside from her eyes and mouth "she told me she'd injected me with a paralytic which would wear off in about eight hours, didn't want her to touch me but she'd done it before I woke up, havent been able to feel anything at all."

"There's a note" ah hear Fluttershy say.

Looking from the angle Fluttershy was standing at, ah can see a scrap of paper placed under a rock.

Reaching forward, ah pick it up and read it.

Subject has suffered a serious neck injury and shouldn't be moved without a brace and a stable platform.
i've managed to preform surgery and there shouldn't be any serious complications but I'd suggest taking the subject to an orthopaedic specialist just in case.
I've injected the subject with a paralytic and some painkillers, the paralytic to ensure upon waking the subject could listen to why they shouldn't move if they'd like to walk again.
Painkillers should be regularly reinjected every six hours, I estimate the time of writing to be about four o'clock but my watch has broken.

DO NOT INTEFERE WITH DEVICE IN THEIR SPINE

Ah blink and re-read the note.

"It's a doctor note, says we shouldn't move Dash. Well Ah think she's talking about Dash, phrases it weirdly. Any idea how long ago she left, Dash?" Ah ask.

"No clue, didn't realise she left at first. Can't have been more than a hour and can't imagine she's got that far, I think she broke her hoof in the avalanche - it was bloody last time I saw it."

Author's Note

And so writing inspiration continues to be fickle, managed to literally write this in a day.

wonder what device is in Rainbows neck :rainbowhuh:

Κάταγμα

Blue Syringe

Oh holy flank, this hurts.

Just when I think I get used to it, I slip on a damn wet patch and then a new level of fresh hell pierces my leg.

Bloody Pegas…

You know, let's not think about her for a second, still trying to get that image out of my head.

Looking around, I've nestled myself in a rocky outcrop about half-way up a slope, probably about two hours from when I left that cave.

And bloody annoyingly I no longer have a backpack, I think I lost it in the avalanche somewhere. Managed to get a few of my medical supplies, my books, and some food rations but everything else is gone. Including my stockpile of two-hundred bits, that one stings.

Sorting out my medical supplies, I take some painkillers to wane off the worst bits and then reapply the bandages and then the splint to my leg.

Need to somehow get to a town with access to either a bank or a courier trustworthy enough to go to a bank for me. Problem is I am pretty sure it's going to take me at least a week with my leg in the condition it is.

Oh and I also need to manage to hide from the guards.

Yeah, I had been walking near a very rocky area (Geography wasn't my speciality) earlier which I think was keeping me hidden and I noticed several guards, in some very scary looking armour, flying around and circling the area I had been about twenty minutes prior.

I'm not a betting type of pony but even I know my chances here aren't great… But there is still a chance.

Got to hang onto that.

Peaking my head out of the outcrop, I can't see any immediate dangers.

I know I need to move relatively quickly, I'd managed to recover about six days of rations and I probably can stretch them out to about nine if I actually bothered to do the maths on how much calories I'd need to eat per day.

Actually, it reminds me of the first time I ran away. I packed quickly when I left because my pre-planning skills were dire at the time and my child-like mind decided that as chocolate bars were calorie-rich then I should pack those and that's all I packed.

Two weeks I was eating those bloody things and I genuinely haven't touched one since.

Starting downhill, I try to keep a reasonable pace but falter at moments, I am going to need to let this leg rest for a month if I want to walk without issue after this.

Starting to have sympathy for the clients I used to deal with in Canterlot, I couldn't understand why they'd try to walk on a broken limb and apparently my high-pitch shouts used to be a great motivator to make them stop.

I manage to get to the bottom of the slope I'd been sitting on and looking around, I can see a few caves in the distance.

Might be a good idea to gamble with, I'm pretty sure that there weren't a lot of ponies looking for me or at least not yet and I need rest.

I suppose aside from the pain in my leg, which I am internally cursing everystep, I have the free time to think about what to do next.

They've confirmed i'm still operating and hell two have managed to touch me, though I am not sure what's going on with Pinkie - it might be related to the twitching tail and she released involuntarily but it didn't feel that way, so I am probably going to need to stop working in Equestria for a while just to make sure.

I am going to have to assume that they've worked out that I use newspapers to find potential clients, I just cannot see where I've made any other mistakes that have led to them being here, so a heavy priority is contacting my clients, which I can probably do when it gets dark.

Which is happening at a concerning speed, I hope I can get to this cave in time. If I get lost in this cold and it's dark, I'm probably dead.

And sadly the only pony that I can't resurrect is me.

I've considered it before but I can't really confirm it without shuffling off the mortal coil, it also requires me to understand time based spells to which I have no clue at all and finally, my body would need to be in a good enough condition to return to. Which if I am dead and noone is around to fix the more lethal wounds, then that isn't happening.

But yeah, onto a less morbid top…

I let out a stifled scream as I rolled my ankle on an uneven surface.

Oh Equestria that hurt, I hope nopony heard that.

You know, maybe I should start looking into it - the self-resurrection that is.

I do have an idea on how I can at least guarantee a level of self repair but it is fairly danger… scratch the fairly, its damn near suicidal.

That idea is a particular plant called the berserker's flower
So named after the Berserkers of the Iron Hill, a rare time in the history of Equestria where a band of warriors are remembered fondly, as they used to chew on the flower as they charged into battle.

Well a few of them did at least, the flower has impressive regenerative abilities and lethal injuries they took seemed to be shrugged off with a wave of a hoof.

Most ponies refused to try and face the tribe as it was considered madness to fight them.

See that's what the tribe had hoped, there is one particular issue with the flower.

You were dead in sixty minutes after eating it.

Turns out it was heavily toxic and destroyed your organs while bolstering every other aspect of you and the tribe hoped after a few sacrifices that they would be left alone.

Now that doesn't sound helpful I know but in theory you could use a counter-agent to lessen the impact on the body, not fully mind you I imagine a regime of medicines would be needed and you'd probably be bed-ridden for at least a month but I'd have about an hour of energy to both attempt to fix myself and get away from my assailant before I'd start to have issues, it'd be something at least.

Though this does require for me to make it out of here in one piece and to start finding the relevant ingredients needed to both keep me alive and will also need to work out the spell casting needed.

Looking up again, I noticed I have finally managed to make my way to the start of the cave and after a cursory glance for animal tracks, I make my way in.

I preemptively feel for the sleeping mat on my bag but only find the remnants of the bag I'd managed to strap together to hold what I'd had left.

Great, sleeping on the floor is soooooooo fun.

I cast a simple light spell on my horn as I lay on the floor and as I pulled out a very meager ration from my bag, desiccated carrot's which I must say is quite tasty, I then pulled out the leather tome.

Honestly, I got ridiculously lucky finding this. I'd prefer it was destroyed than some other pony finding it and I'd nearly given up looking as I was leaving and then suddenly I'd spotted it next to her.

Really bothering me for some reason, that particular sight but I'd fixed that now. Just hope that the solution sticks.

I flick open the book and reach into what's left of my bag for a quill.

Which I can feel isn't in there, Celestia damn it.
I sigh and put my book back into the bag,

Well, I need to hope that I can get some writing tools soon then.

Oh buck it, I am going to try and sleep.

I think I managed to get like four hours sleep, I am not sure but it doesn't feel like enough at the very least.

Had some odd dreams as well, felt like some pony was asking me something forcefully but I didn't want to answer but for some reason I can't remember it very well.

Glancing out of the cave entrance, it still seems too dark to go out and while I've risked it before I am still very worried about my leg.

I think that when I was hit off my sled, I probably fractured it on the landing and then I must have hit it in the avalanche because it felt actively broken. I'd brought some splints with me just coincidentally which has enabled me to start walking but these were designed for a pony to limp around their house, not full on go through a frozen mountain range.

Well, I'll get out of here and see if I can get it scanned for any flaws in the heal and if so we can re break it to make sure it heals properly.

As I seem to have the time, I start sketching a quick map on the cave floor and start trying to think of the best route to take if I need to remain stealthy.

Author's Note

Shorter chapter this one but trying to represent a shorter period of time to which I imagine the next couple of chapters is going to have a similar vibe.

Oh, I've mentioned it in the comments but there is a pattern to the character perspectives. If I break that, it is intentional and represents... something

Κλειδίον

Fluttershy
"I feel fine" I hear Rainbow say, for about the seventh time.

"I'm glad to hear it Rainbow but until we get to someone who has actual medical knowledge, then you still aren't allowed to move," Twilight returns. "We still don't know what she's put into your neck and we can't remove it without the proper tools. I'm still not sure how she managed to do a full fledged surgery on you without being in a hospital."

Noticing that a strand of hair had fallen in front of Rainbow's eyes I brought my wingtip down and brush It off.

"Thanks 'Shy." I hear her hoarse voice say.

I give her a gentle smile and give a glance around the timber-framed building that we had been staying in to the large window mounted on the wall.

Walking over to it, I glance out and down the now pitch black mountain-side where I can see several bright lights where the two guards that remained behind were investigating the area.

I hear movement behind me and turn around to Twilight pulling out her notes and a pencil.

"This would be easier with Spike, but I didn't want to keep him awake. Are you sure you're okay with this now Rainbow? I don't want to keep you up" Twilight says.

"It's fine Twilight, kinda hard to sleep right now with everything going on and if me answering questions ends this all quicker then so be it." Rainbow responds.

I watch Twilight give a nod and I make my way over to Rainbow's side for comfort.

"Okay, this might be redundant but just in case I missed anything at the time. Where were you when you discovered that Blue Syringe was in the town and how did you find out?" I hear Twilight ask.

While I'd expected an argument from Rainbow she seems to be too tired to argue, she's like Angel at times who when he gets tired just accepts anything that happens, and then she says "I was in the Bloom's house, in the kitchen looking for something to eat and then suddenly I hear Pinkies voice as she bursts in the front door and says 'Come quickly, think I found Blue, gotta go!'"

Hearing a sigh of relief from Twilight to which I give her a inquisitive look but she just continues on "That's good, it's what I remember as well. Do you remember what you did next?"

"I left the house and took to the sky, to try and catch up with Pinkie and as I was flying after them I'd spotted Pinkie looking down the hill at a pony on a sled and after getting Pinkies attention, she said 'that's her, you need to go after her before she gets away. I will tell everypony else where you went'" Rainbow continues

"Pinkie told you to go after her? She didn't mention that right, Fluttershy?" Twilight says to me.

"Umm, I don't think so. Maybe she forgot?" I replied.

"Maybe, it seems strange though. Please continue Rainbow" Twilight says while placing the pencil on her lip.

"Yeah well after that, I knew that Blue was already a fair distance away and on that sled she would be traveling at a decent speed, so I knew I needed to get her off it as quickly as possible so tried to fly at the fastest speed I could, I think there might have been a Rainboom at one stage but I was focusing on making sure I knocked her off the sled, which I managed to do and then I took a tumble on the ground.
After getting my bearings, I managed to stand up and noticed she was about 50 meters away from where I'd landed. She then pointed and said something to me but I couldn't hear her over the blood pumping to my head from the exertion. She then started galloping down the hill and then I tried to catch her while only noticing the avalanche just before it hit me. After that, I only remember the noise and flashes of white for about twenty seconds before hitting something painful and hard and from there blank."

I notice Twilight scribble this all down in her notes and then she says "We are nearly done, I am sorry that we need to do this at all but with how hard it is to find her I'd like to make sure we have notes on everything we know in case we need to reevaluate it all."

Twilight gives her eyes a rub and then says "Okay, last bit what can you remember after you woke up in the cave?"

Rainbow seems to have a strained face and then says "It's a bit foggy, I remember it feeling like when you wake up from a really long sleep and you are waiting for your brain to wake up, maybe it was the medicine she used. But yeah anyway, I woke up on the rock slab that you all found me on and my first instinct was to try and stand up but when I tried to move my legs, there was no response at all. I tried to shout out for help but as soon as I did, a figure came into my vision."

Rainbow stops her story for a second, looks at me and says "Sorry to stop, Fluttershy is there any chance you could get me some water?"

I nod, stand up and make my way to the door to the room.

"Right, as I was saying I called out I saw a figure and before I was able to react…" I hear Rainbow say as I start walking out of the room.

I hear the sounds of Rarity and Applejack downstairs in the sitting room and I start making my way down as well.

"Ah don't think we all should be heading back to Canterlot tomorrow, we know that snake is slithering her way through the mountains and the more hooves we have looking for her the better. Can't believe how lucky she got with that avalanche." Applejack says.
I make it halfway down the stairs as I hear Rarity say "We are not equipped nor trained in the matters of mountaineering or pony hunting. The guards are, and I am sure they would tell us not to go if we were needed. And most importantly, Princess Celestia wants us to go, you saw the message we got back after we updated her after Rainbow's accident. I imagine she wants to make sure we are… Oh Fluttershy, would you like to join us?"

I make it to the last step as Rarity finishes and after nodding no I say "Just getting a glass of water for Rainbow first, I think they are nearly finished but just want to make sure. I'll come join after though. Where's Pinkie?"

"She went to bed apparently, and said she was feeling tired. I can't think of many other times where I've stayed up later than her actually." Rarity says.

"She's been down all day, 'think the avalanche got to her. " Applejack says in addition.

I get to the kitchen and grab a robust looking glass from the cupboard and fill it up with cool water from the tap.

I say "I think she might feel guilty, Rainbow said that Pinkie had sent her to get Blue."

"That'd probably do it, at the time it was probably the action that made the most sense. Who'd have known that happened?" Applejack says.

"Poor sweety, I'll try to have a talk with her tomorrow. I hope she isn't clinging onto this." Rarity says and then sips her tea.

I give a nod and start making my way back up the stairs and back to the room.

"..that's when you guys came into the cave and we sent off the guards to look for her." I hear Rainbow say as I walk back into the room.

"And I think that's everything on my end at least, I'm glad that's all done with." Twilight says while putting her notes back into her folder "And I am glad you are okay for now, Rainbow, that could have been a lot more dangerous and I am not sure we would do without you."

"As I said, I'm fine, I've been through tough scrapes before and come out of it with no issues. And what other pony do you know that can say they've been in an Avalanche!"

I manage to make it to Rainbow as I hear Twilight harumph in disapproval and I position the glass under her mouth with a straw allowing her to drink.

Giving a glance out of the window, I notice the light has got closer and has made it to the lip of the town.

"Twilight, I think the guards are nearly back," I say.

"Oh perfect, I wonder if they found anything," Twilight says.

"I think I'm going to try to take a nap then, I would rather not stay awake staring at this wall." Rainbow says sardonically.

I try to stifle a laugh as I am leaving the room with Twilight and we make our way down stairs to chat with the others.

After about fifteen minutes, we hear the guards make their way to the door of the lodge's door and make their way in.

Behind them, we see the remnants of a sled being dragged along upside down with what looks like the remnants of fabric wrapped up on the back

The guards place the sled in the middle of the room and say "This is all we were able to find for now, we will have a more in depth investigation when the other guards get here with some more sophisticated tools."

Twilight stands up from the couch and says "Thank you for at least getting this, it's something to start with at least, we should be okay for the evening if you'd like to finish your shift. Oh and do you know what's happening with the other two?"

The guard seems to relax with the shift ending and says "I believe they'll probably camp out for the night, they said not to expect them. Got a few ways to message us if they see anything if they see her or we need to coordinate more going there."

The guards both give us a salute and then make their way to their rooms.

The four of us make our way to the sled and sit down on the carpet it's been placed on.

I watch Twilight giving a glance over the sled and say "I think there used to be a logo here, looks pretty scraped but maybe we can see if its a local brand, could at least narrow down the search if we don't find her in the mountains."

We all give a nod and then the remnants of the bag is opened.

We all start grabbing items from the bag and I manage to grab a pouch.

Opening it up, I see the glint of gold bits shine back at me.

"I think this was her money, there are about two-hundred bits in here." I say.

"Not an insignificant amount of money to lose, I think I've got a hair dye here myself, black, which makes sense I suppose. She is literally named after her hair colour." Rarity says.

"Got what ah think is a torn bag of food, with some dried carrots in it, she felt like a carrot eater when ah first heard about her" Applejack says.

I notice Twilight being quiet and turn towards her.

"I think, and I am not sure, but I think I got her house keys." She says.

Author's Note

Bit more of a relaxed one this chapter,
and it seems Blue might have lost something important...

Σίδηρος

Blue Syringe

You know, I'm going to start thinking more positively about this.

I'm still alive, not in prison, not exiled and still have an avenue forward.

I mean the avenue is through a frozen mountain range with limited supplies and if I run out of them, I am most likely dead.

But it's an avenue forward!

Managed to leave the cave when light was just creeping over the mountain-tops about three hours by my estimations.

My leg still hurts, which isn't helping with the speed, but I was able to redo my bandages and splint in such a way that there is a lot less pressure on it.

Guards are still probably an issue but my mentality going forward with that is if they spot me then I am screwed anyway, it's not like I can run away and I can't imagine they are going to have issues tracking me.

Looking around, I find myself in some quite nice sun-rays warding off the chilling cold while I walk along a mostly flat valley floor.

You know if I do leave the country, I should make it a warmer climate that I head too.

Probably could get away with making my services more public and then my clients could rest in some lovely place for a period of time, I think that Equestria is the only country to my awareness that necromancy is strictly prohibited though my understanding of aspects of the law is very limited,

Actually that sounds quite nice, at least I might be able to spend some time sleeping.

Saying that, my mind keeps going back to what on earth was going on with my dreams last night.

It felt so… fuzzy? Like when you look at a bright light too long and then your vision gets spots all over it.

And I can't remember any images from it, I genuinely feel like it was just somepony speaking.

Maybe it was a headache, I've read reports of similar medical phenomena with headaches.

Yeah, probably something like that.

I think I can see something moving in the sky.

I glanced behind me as I saw a shadow moving across the slope and then noticed it in the sky.

I try to stick close to the rock face, I am now eternally glad my coat isn't a colour that would stick out and while I can see the hair dye already start to come out of my hair, it's still quite dark.

Looking around, I notice a cave opening that isn't that deep but seems to have several clusters of rocks I might be able to hide behind.

As quick as I can hobble, I make my way over without incident, though I do notice the figure has lowered in the sky.

I get into the cave and noticing nothing seems to be in here as well, I decide to lay behind some rocks.

Hopefully they just buzz away and leave me to it.

I hear the sounds of hooves hitting rock about fifty meters away.

Oh come on!

Turning my head towards the back of the cave, I hurriedly looked around for another entrance in the hope of escaping this.

There is none.

Sod positivity, the world hates me!

"You around here?" I hear a stallion call out.

I hold my breath and try to press my body into merging with the stone floor.

"Come on, I know you're here. Let's not waste time" the stallion calls out again.

Well I am going to make it so easy for you, I'll come out of here kicking and screaming.

"BOO!" I hear another voice say in the valley, to no reaction.

"Yeah yeah, you can keep trying it Snowpetal, it ain't happening." the first voice says.

"One day I'll get you, mark my words" the second voice says.

"They are marked, now stop being an idiot. Seen anything yet?" the first voice continues.
"Some patches of blood from the incident, some scraped rocks. I'm pretty confident she didn't get out of the range yet, looks like she's moving by hoof but I am not confident we are going to be able to find her like this. At one stage, her wounds are going to heal and if what the elements said is true, then she knows how to care for them and checking each nook and cranny in a whole mountain range is going to require at least thirty guards doing double shifts. I'd suggest a divining spell but I've spotted a lot of patches of iron around, tends to interrupt spells and even if it gets through it has a bunch of interference." the second voice explains.

"Good points, I hadn't thought about the iron myself. Forgot you did that theoretical magical studies course." the first voice says, with a tone

"Was aiming for a comfortable guard job within the canterlot elite, I hear they even let you stay in their manors during your shifts! But apparently according to our ex-commander, bear in mind before he ran off to go rule a very comfortable city, that I was too valuable for a job like that."

"Crying to the choir here, but trying to steer this conversation back to the point. I got confirmation from the other two that they've sent off the elements back to Canterlot about half an hour ago and we are supposed to meet with the reinforcements to plot where we've searched on the map back towards the town."

With the sound of order, I noticed the second voice say in a more professional tone "Yes sir!"

Hearing the sounds of what I think are two sets of wings taking off, I take a few moments in case they decide to look backwards and then I stand up.

Well that was lucky.

Good to know that divining spells get interrupted by iron, maybe I should start bringing chunks of iron with me.

Though that does sound heavy.

Also, I should probably stop just standing here. It sounds like there are a lot of guards that are going to start looking for me.

With a generous dose of numbing agent injected into my leg, I actually made some decent progress after the brief liaison with the guards.

I hope it's enough.

I think it's been about four hours since then and it certainly feels like I've managed to travel several miles.

Makes me hungry for my half of a dried carrot for today but I must save that for now, even if I really want to eat it.

Damn tempting, I can tell you.

But alas, according to my mental math on a rationing equation that I think I've got correct, though I am hoping I read that out of a medical textbook and not a fantasy novel, if I eat my half a carrot at sundown then I shouldn't feel that hungry until day ten.

And I am supposed to only have six days left in travelling, so will have plenty of food left.

I am putting a blocker on the sadness that tried to creep up when I thought about doing this for six more days.

That's future Blue's problems.

Same thing as getting back into my house, that's also a future blue's problem.

I have some spare keys stored in some places but not having my main set is going to be an issue.

And my damn key charms are gone.

I don't think they can get anything from my keys, it was pretty easy asking them for a set of unbranded ones when I'd asked the key cutters for a pair and it's not like the keys had a street or number on them.

And it's not like the lock was going to stop them from getting into my house anyway, I just have them to make sure nopony tries to rob the place when I was travelling.

What happened to the first place I ever lived when I ran away was a run down shed I'd rented from the owner before I had got enough money to live anywhere and one day I got back and all my bits and several pieces of some rare medical supplies I had were taken.

The starting years on this whole thing were rough, I think even as perilous as things are now I still wouldn't trade it for then.

This mountain trek is really bringing out the old memories, if I am not careful I'll start introducing myself as Blue again.

Though I am not going to do much introducing for a while, unless I want to start talking to the various rocks.

Their conversation is a bit stiff, sadly.

Well the rest of the day was genuinely quite boring.

At least the guards from before gave some excitement but endless gray slabs of stone really get boring to look at and you can't really look at anything above you because there are more mountains.

The terrain used to have these beautiful huge red,almost rusty looking, patches piercing the stone colour but that seems to have disappeared over the hours.

I've seen nothing else about the guards that were hunting me, I ain't getting comfortable but maybe their re-grouping has given me enough time to get away.

As it had started hitting nighttime, I looked around for a cave but none seemed to fit the bill so I've nestled myself into a small alcove for the night, I think that the rain shouldn't be able to hit me from the angle I am at but if necessary, i can see a place I can go to that has less moving space sadly.

I put my head on what's left of my bag and find myself drifting off.

Opening my eyes, I find myself in a blueish void.

I can't feel anything below me and when I look down at myself, I look translucent.

Am I falling? It doesn't feel like it but I've got no idea.

Glancing around I can see twinkles of light, kinda like stars, in the distance but no matter how much I try to move myself closer nothing seems to change.

Well, at least it's not more stone I suppose.

I hear a rush of… something?

It sounds familiar.

I look around and after a few moments, I look down.

I see a flurry of snow heading downwards underneath me.

A voice around me says "Beautiful to see from a distance is it not? A force of nature comprised of one of the weakest materials on the planet that cannot be stopped, at least once it gets going."

I glance around once more, not seeing anypony and call out "What's going on? Where am I?"

"I are glad to see the connection fairs better this night, I barely felt your presence previously." I hear the voice say "though to your second question, tis is answer I believe we both would like to know."

I feel the hairs raise on the back of my neck at the end of my sentence.

I don't know why but I need to be careful here.

"Who are you?" I ask, I need more information here before I can do anything.

"I are not surprised you do not recognise us but we had hoped otherwise. Very well, I will show you my form" I see a flash of darkness, not sure how darkness can flash but in this void apparently its possible, and I see a figure standing there.

An alicorn figure.

Oh Equestria, Its Luna.

"I sense recognition" Luna says "I think I recognise you, but only by name."

I try to pull backwards, trying to get anywhere else.

Luna steps closer and says "Blue Syringe, I'd like to ask some questions."

Author's Note

Three chapters in three days!

Yeah, taking a break for this week after this otherwise I am going to burn out...

Well actually, lets see how I feel tommorow XD

Thought I could sneak in the interrupted dreams last Blue chapter but you all picked that up straight away, need to hide my setup better XD anyway its luna

Λίμνη

DIRECT CONTINUATION FROM Σίδηρος

Blue Syringe

Luna steps closer and says, "Blue Syringe, I'd like to ask some questions."
Realising my efforts to escape were futile, I said to her, "Let me go first. I refuse to talk to any pony like this."

Luna makes a face of confusion and then says, "It is not my intent to imprison you here. You just lack the ability to manipulate yourself within the dream realm. Here, I'll bring us to a place where you should be able to move."

I feel a rushing sensation, though I cannot feel which direction I'm moving, and I am brought to a violet hued room.

Looking around this, I don't know the best words to describe this grand chamber. I am met
with a large princess sized bed, which seems fitting, and several tables all designed to embrace the night.

I'd wager most things here are probably worth more than my flat.

As the feeling of rushing stops, I can feel the pressure of the ground on my hooves.

"You should be able to move around in this environment. I wouldn't suggest trying to leave the room, though. The dream's ability to adapt to you gets weaker as you get further from me," Luna's voice echoes behind me.

I give a nod as I try to comprehend what's going on.

Logically, I should be terrified. I don't know what Luna can do but evidently her power in dreams is absolute, but I only feel relaxed at the moment.

Concerning contrast.

Luna walks around me, points to a broad lounge chair, and says, "Will you join me? I can't imagine you'd want to answer some questions standing there."

I nervously trot over to the admittingly comfortable chair and try to make myself comfortable.
Luna takes a seat on a sofa across from me and says, "well, I hope you feel relaxed enough to answer some questions now."

I gulp a nonexistent lump of saliva, very odd feeling that, and say "I am not obligated to give you answers, I am not sure what's going on here but if you are trapping me in my dreams so you can come get me, I want out of this now,"

"Of course not. Equestria affords its citizens the right to silence proudly. I assure you, though, I cannot work out where you are using dreams, and I cannot even stop you from waking up. Even my ability to find your dreams in the future will be limited. I only understood who you were by the avalanche my friends had described. It will mark your consciousness for the next few nights, but after that, without knowing you more than a pony, it is nearly impossible for me to find you again," Luna explains.

"I am not sure my answers will be all that useful then," I say. "I assure you I won't tell you where I am and I can't imagine you'd care for much else."

Luna waits until I finish my sentence and says, "that saves the need to ask them then, but that isn't what I care about. I am fairly confident that with the element's help, we will capture you soon and we can bring you back on the path to redemption. I've read the notes on what you've done before. I know that there is a good pony trapped behind a deluded goal."

Okay, wow, Luna that genuinely stung. Felt like I disappointed my mum.

I then say, trying to hold back the emotions felt, "what then?"

"The spell that you have based your spell on, what do you know about it?" Luna asks.
I blink a few times and say, "ummm… Not much. I think some researchers used it on some earth ponies and turned them into puppets. That's all I discovered when I was doing some research. The information about them was hard to find."

Luna frowns and says, "So to the best of your knowledge, the spell came directly from the pre-unification period and the unicorn researchers created it?"

I get a confused look on my face and say, "yes? Where else would I have gotten it from?"

Luna straightens up. "I assure you, that isn't possible. I personally ensured that no copies of that spell remain. Their tomb remained untouched when I ventured in and there were no paper scraps left."

What? That cannot be right. I went through that spell with a fine-tooth comb. By all definitions, it in its original form did everything that the researchers were doing.

"Where did you find the copy of the spell?" Luna subsequently asks.

"The restricted section of the Canterlot library. I was granted access to the section as a foal."

"Very well. I shall confirm your assertions. Aside from all the questions you were expecting, that's all I needed. I thank thee for the generosity and hope we get the chance to talk more after your redemption," Luna says.

"That's the second time you've mentioned me being redeemed. I am well aware of the consequences of Necromancy. I'll be executed." I say, some slight venom coming in on the last word.

"Then you've evidently not read enough," Luna says while standing from her chair. "Capital Punishment is forbidden in Equestria. It has been since the unification of the tribes. You are at no risk, at least from us, at being killed. Now I believe that there is some tea and cake waiting for me and I wish you a good night. "

I try to stand from my chair and ask more, e but I find my mind being overcome with darkness.

I wake up on the cave floor, and instantly, I can feel leg hurting

I miss the dream realm; it was comfy

If I had enough time, I'd love to work out what on Equestria was going on. I wonder if I have a copy of the original spell at home, but even then I am stuck in the middle of a mountain range, and if I don't start moving, then I am doomed.

Well, not doomed apparently, if what Luna said was true, but I am going to be taking that with a grain of salt and I think I might need to talk to a lawyer, though finding one that wouldn't immediately turn me in for asking.

I'm not sure how I'd feel if it were true, there would be less threat to me if I am caught, but that doesn't stop the issue that if I am caught, then I won't be able to bring anypony else back.
That, in my mind, is the bigger threat. If I give up now, then I've wronged those that I couldn't save.

I stand up from possibly the most uncomfortable bed I could have slept in and head back into the valley.

I'm about three hours' walk from the cave now and I'd describe my surroundings so far as… boring.

I'd hate to be living here. Give me a warm alcove with a stack of medical textbooks to leisurely browse through.

So far, all we have here is a multitude of rocks, stones and even more exciting boulders.

Though I think I see a different colour peeking out behind the mountain range in front of me.
I walk at a faster pace. My leg still hurts, but the cut itself has healed and I've worked out just the right amount of numbing agent needed to mostly ignore it.

After a few minutes, a sparkling blue is reflected on the rock faces as I find myself face to face with a lake.

I have a quick glance in my bag to check my water levels and my medical supplies. I probably could do with some more water and I have enough bandages to reapply them if I were to have a quick dip.

Which I thoroughly need. I've been traveling without a wash for about nine days now if we count the travel time needed to get to the village first.

I put my bag on the ground and took off my very warm jacket. I'm pretty sure this is going to be freezing, but with the sunlight and if I can dry myself off fast enough, I shouldn't be at risk of hypothermia.

Starting off, I take the water bottle from the bottom of my bag and fill it up from one of the side streams leading into the lake with some iodine tablets to ensure that it's safe to drink.

After ensuring that the bottle is tight and secure, I slide it into my bag and then take a step into the water.
Well freezing is an understatement. I thought that my flat's shower could produce some cold water, but for flank's sake this is unbelievable.

I wash myself quickly, sadly, no soap, but that's probably good for not destroying the ecosystem here, and after dipping my head under the water for a few seconds, get out and lay in the sunlight.

If any guards who were looking for me spotted me, then I'd be screwed, and it's not like I can really pretend to be anypony else, my wash-out hair dye has mostly faded away and my cutie mark is recognisable enough that I can't really get away with it.

Luckily, I've not noticed anypony since yesterday, so either they are still coordinating or my tactic of heading a different way than expected has allowed me some time.

I lie on the now soaked stone for five minutes as I feel my coat get a layer of warmth

Wishing I had more time, I stand up and put my coat on after attempting to wipe myself down with my old bandages

I wish I had something else to get me dry. My old medical teacher would scream at it, but I'm pretty sure they weren't that dirty, and I used the other side.

I put on my coat and put my improvised bag onto my back.

Well, I suppose I should get going.

Author's Note

I am hoping that people aren't getting bored with Blue's adventures through the mountains.

This chapter has been a bit more thoroughly checked and put through several grammar checkers.

Oh and we hit the third cycle of perspectives! Amusingly the second cycle took a year whereas the first took like seven years, I am very sorry to anyone still reading from back then.

Αποτελέσματα δοκιμών

Twilight

I watch Princess Celestia lead us down several corridors as I am walking with my friends and the doctor that the princess had put in charge of Rainbow's care.

Glancing at the doctor, I notice he seems to have several large paper files he's bringing with him, and he seems to be constantly trying to reorganise them.

I'm not fully sure what this meeting is going to be about, but I think it might be about the device in Rainbow's neck.

I saw the preliminary imaging of the doctors on it and was let into the surgeon's theatre when they were doing exploratory surgery to identify its purpose.

It was a concerning sight to say the least, a mix of medical apparatus and a black substance that I found oddly familiar, though why I do not know, embedded into her spine and surrounding the nerves within.

"Ah don't think ah've ever seen the mare so quiet." Applejack says to my right.

"Pardon," I say in response.

"Rainbow, ah know she's taken some tumbles before and landed herself in some situations but never seen her so quiet," Applejack clarifies.

"It's just the effects of the medication, I'd imagine. At least that's what Dr. Synapse said." I say.

"True, don't recognise the name myself, by the way. Somepony you know?" Applejack says.

"I only know it from Blue's brother's medical report myself. I think the princess brought him in with the familiarity with her procedures."

"Makes sense. Well, ah only hope that we can do this quickly. Hooves are itching to get started again." Applejack says as we enter a side room.

As we are all brought inside, I see Princess Celestia close the doors behind us and cast a spell on the room.

I give her a confused look.

"No need to be concerned, just making sure that this private meeting remains private," Princess Celestia responds. "Now, Doctor, you mentioned you had compiled a report for us?"

We all take a seat on several seats lined up.

Dr. Synapse awkwardly makes his way to the front of our group, and after placing his notes on a nearby desk, asks, "May I use your wall to pin some documents up? It will help with the presentation."

Celestia gives a nod and says, "You are free to use this room as you will."

Dr. Synapse gives an uneasy smile and says, "Thank you, Princess."

The doctor then places several documents on the wall as we all silently watch, and after he places several documents in a seemingly unordered pattern.

"Okay, that should be all I need," Dr. Synapse starts. "Okay, a brief introduction for those that aren't aware of who I am. My name is Dr. Firing Synapse. About ten years ago, Princess Celestia charged me with creating a team to investigate both the spell that Blue Syringe had used and her patient, and in addition, we were to see if we could expand on the several books of notes that Blue had left behind for any additional medical uses."

I see the rest of us give several nods of various kinds.

"Now, because of the injuries your friend had sustained and the contact with Blue, I was asked to analyse Rainbow and create a report on her condition. After consulting the surgeons and various doctors and nurses on the topic. I believe I have got a good reading of the situation," the doctor continues.

The doctor then points at several notes and X-rays mounted on the right side of the wall.

"First, the device in her neck. I'll admit that the prospect, when I first saw it, excited me. It appears to be the answer to healing nerve breaks, a scenario most doctors believed to be impossible. It appears to work by pinning either singular nerves or even multiple nerves within a cylinder that is then filled with a black viscous substance. This then converts the nerves into a similar but seemingly different biological matter that then enables the nerves to function. We believe the apparatus cannot be removed, though. Even after it's done its magic, it seems to serve a second purpose of interfacing with the intact nerves."

The doctor then points at a piece of paper mounted in the middle of the board and says, "Now, regarding the substance within the apparatus, we have discerned that it appears to be derived from several flora. We've not got much detail on it yet, but have several leads we are chasing."

Doctor Synapse then moves his hoof to the right and puts it on a piece of paper that looks like a report.

"Now onto the second stage, though the first stage will be brought back for context. Thanks to your diligence in not destroying evidence elements by casting spells onto the patient, we've managed to re-compile the last few spells cast on her by some advanced scanning techniques we'd been preparing in the eventuality of Blue's return. Aside from some basic telekinesis and some medical scans on Rainbow, a more complex spell stood out, breaking it down into its minor components and attempting to relate it to the spell notes Blue had left behind. I can confirm with ninety-five percent confidence that Rainbow has been 'resurrected.'".

I take a few moments to understand what the doctor said and I call out while standing up, "That can't be right. She can't have been."

The rest of the group, aside from Princess Celestia, who seems to have gained a neutral face, looks in confusion at me.

"What does he mean, darling?" Rarity says.

I look at the note on the wall again and say, "He's saying… He's saying that Rainbow died."

"That ain't right. She seemed fine to me. She answered Twilight's questions and seemed fine to me. She can't be a puppet of hers." Applejack says.

Doctor Synapse seems shocked with our outburst and says, "I assure you that our findings are correct; the 'resurrected' do not have memory problems, nor would questioning them be a valid test for it. The spell reanimates the brain, which allows for the hippocampus to be accessible to the spell."

I glance at the rest of our group; Fluttershy and Rarity react in various states of shock to sadness, but I notice Pinkie seem to stare straight ahead, and I think I notice her tail twitching.

The doctor quickly continues before we can interject again, "There is further evidence that we've been able to discover as well. After the initial scans for the spell, we could do a full breadth medical scan and found several clusters of cells receding from cell death. We are unsure how this was done, but we've confirmed it happening. And also, the device we discussed earlier, we are pretty confident that if her nerves had snapped, then Rainbow's heart would have stopped!"

I notice the princess stands up and, while still wearing a neutral face, says, "Firing, please calm down."

The doctor takes a hesitant step back into a less confrontational stance and says, "I'm sorry, that was unprofessional of me."

"It is a delicate matter. Can you please leave the room? I'm sure the Elements need some space with this news." Princess Celestia says in an almost earnest tone.

Doctor Synapse leaves the room fairly promptly, leaving his damning notes for us all to stare at.

"He can't be right," I hear Fluttershy call out in an uncharacteristically loud voice. "Rainbow has been in accidents before, and he's not even one hundred percent confident."

"Without somepony witnessing the spell cast, it's impossible for him to say he's confident, Fluttershy," I say, biting back some tears, "but still with a chance of him being wrong, we can't assume otherwise, right?"

The princess steps forward and answers my question. "I'm sorry, my Little Ponies. This is not what I wanted at all when I asked for your help. And yes, you are correct, Twilight. We cannot assume anything about matters like this. I'm going to suggest that the doctor take Rainbow back to his facility for monitoring, she will not be harmed even if the worse has occurred."

The room falls silent as we all take in the news.

Applejack breaks the silence with constrained anger and says, "Ah want to get the worm for doing this to us. When are we going back out?"

The Princess takes in a short breath and says, "You aren't."

After various reactions from us all, the princess continues, "when I'd originally selected you all for the role, I was and am still confident that you could catch her. I'd believed that Blue couldn't present a threat to yourselves, but just the idea that she might control one of you is a thought I couldn't bear."

The princess walks over to the wall of notes and says, "You've all done amazingly. You've not only confirmed her existence, but even touched her. I assure you, I am proud of you. This is not a punishment. I just can't risk your lives further. I am organising a more official search with the guard."

"We can't just give up, Princess," I say, my voice teetering on the edge of breaking. "We can still help."

"I am sure you can, which is why I am going to offer you all the chance to be researchers on the case. You can investigate sources and communicate with the guard to assist them in the capture, but this is purely voluntary, if you do not wish to do this with all that's happened. I understand."

I look around at the group, and notice that they are all pondering the princesses words.

"I'll give you a day to decide, you may visit Rainbow if you wish though I ask that you do not relay any information we've told you today," Princess Celestia says, "I will tell her myself when the time comes."

The group starts dispersing into the hallway with various reactions, but before Princess Celestia leaves, I stop her.

"I want to help with the investigation on Rainbow," I say. "if it's still her, then I want to make sure. I'm okay with just reading the notes, but please, Princess."

"I'd expected you to," Princess Celestia says. "I do truly hope that the researchers are wrong and I am confident that if anypony can confirm it, then that would be you. I'll warn you though Twilight, do not obsess over the topic or it will scar your heart for decades."

I give a nod and walk into the hallway.

Blue Syringe, I'll never forgive you.

Author's Note

I suspect there are going to be some interesting reactions to this chapter.

:ajsmug:

Ανάσταση

???

I looked at the view in front of me and grinned as I watched the ponies in the town at the bottom of the mountain conversing while appearing to be the size of ants to me.

I gazed down at the snowy peak below, and my rugged blue mane brushed past my eyes as I inspected its condition. I grabbed one of the ancient scrunchies from my handy backpack and tied my mane into a ponytail behind my head to ensure that it didn't impede my eyes for this next part.

I detached the sled connected to the back of my backpack and made my way to the edge of the huge mountain before counting to three and jumping.

The feeling of freefall overwhelmed me, and I dragged the sled under my torso as I positioned myself in the air.

I slammed into the ground with a grunt and started skidding down the mountain at speeds that could rival the Wonderbolts themselves as I started giggling my head off, but I kept a clear enough mind to make sure that I didn't slam into the gigantic boulders that were racing my way.

I watched the inhabitants of the town look up the mountain at me going down and then saw them rush around to help me stop.

I was nearing the bottom of the mountain just as the pegasi started racing their way towards me.

I activated my horn and started slowing down the sled so that they could approach me while still sliding down at considerable speeds.

“Are you okay? I have seen nobody go that fast while sledding,” asked the first Pegasus.

“It’s not even the biggest mountain I’ve sledded down, don't worry,” I replied.

After my sled eventually came to a halt, I dismounted rather aptly and looked around at the town before the Pegasus who spoke to me before approached me again.

“I have to say, lady, that was the most impressive entrance I have ever seen,” he stated, smiling.

I grinned back while I attached the sledge back up to my bag and said, “That is my speciality; besides, it was the quickest way to get here.”

“Where did you come from, then?” he enquired.

I was very cautious about what I said next, since I knew that the news I was involved in travelled fast and travelled by law.

“Across the range, a small town named Frostgallop,” I finally come up with as a reply.

“You hiked across the whole range?! I went there once, and I made sure I took the long way around. There are dragons and chimaeras in that range,” he said in astonishment.

"I needed to get here quickly,” I replied quickly. The dragons of this region had already made an agreement with me the first time I had encountered this range, but I didn't feel like going through that story with somepony I had met less than an hour ago.

“And just what are you in such a hurry about?” he asked.

“I am a family friend of the Snowtrots,” I answered solemnly.

“I shouldn't get in your way, then. She needs all the help she can get to get past these dark days,” he says apologetically and sadly.

I departed the conversation with a nod in his direction and started trotting toward the town in front of me.

The town in front of me was simple, and the citizens had made none of its stores into a novelty item. She felt some comfort over this, but she could see that they had constructed the town to ensure that they could survive the harsh winters in these northern mountains.

I tried to mentally keep track of the stores that I was walking past, as I had to buy supplies later, and I had to see if I could buy a decent newspaper in this town.

After walking through the town for a few minutes and asking the locals, I discovered the location of the Snowtrots' house and made my way there and knocked my hoof on the door.

“W-Who’s there?” I hear a voice stutter shakily behind the door.

“Hello. I am Quiet Heart, and I am a medic mage. I help with your daughter,” I said as kindly as I could manage.

“O-Okay... let me get the door,” I heard the voice reply.

I stood and waited until the mare opened her door, after which I gave her a smile.

“You can come in,” she says, replying with her own wavering smile.

I entered the house and gave a more formal introduction as she brought me into her sitting room.

“So, what are you really here for?” She asks me.

I sighed. This was always the hardest part. "I have an offer, but it requires the utmost secrecy, since it could cause issues with the princesses themselves, but it could give you something you desire. If you swear to secrecy before this conversation, then I can offer the solution to this grim misfortune.”

The mare shifted awkwardly in her chair and then said, “I promise to be silent.”

That took the worrying part out of the way then. I lean forward and say, “Thank you. Now, what would you say if I told you I can bring your filly back to life?”

The mare looked at me with fury in her eyes and said, “Are you a con artist then?! Preying on me after I lost her?!”

“Please calm down; I am being one hundred percent honest here. I am a necromancer, and I can bring most things back from the dead. All I require is your permission and some bits for my survival,” I said calmly.

She looked at me again. "But necromancy is illegal, and it doesn't even bring ponies back to life. I read up on it when applying for Starswirl’s Academy; it just revives the body.”

I grinned at her and replied, “That's the beauty of it: I worked out the kinks in the original spell, and it resurrects the soul as well, but I need to do this quickly or the spell might not work otherwise.”

The mare looked at her teary eyes and then said, “I... have to try. If I found out that you were speaking the truth and I sent you away, I could never forgive myself; come with me; she is at the funeral director’s workplace.”

The mare practically ran out of the door as I followed her, and we started heading for her child at a trot’s pace.

We made it to the directors in less than five minutes, and the mother insisted that we be able to see her daughter’s body immediately. At first the funeral director tried to decline, but no force on this earth can deny a desperate mother’s persistence, and we were taken to the back of the building and into the preparation room shortly after.

“I understand your grief, madam, and I will show you your daughter's body, but may I ask why?” the mortician asked us while we entered the room.

“I was called in for a second opinion on the girl's death,” I replied quickly.

“You can’t misdiagnose death!” the mortician shouted, outraged. "And exactly what qualifications do you have that put you above my analysis?”

“I am certified to work in every section of Equestria and the dragon lands, not to mention being nominated 'The Saving Grace' of my year in Starswirl's Academy. I have been through the trials of The War Healer and achieved the medal of all three races. I think I am more qualified than you could ever be,” I replied callously.

He bit his tongue back at my response, and I stepped forward to the body on the table. What I said wasn't completely untrue, but it was done under another name, and I barely spent 5 days at Starswirl’s academy. What I was doing here was a top-tier illegal version of magic, and I had to remain anonymous.

I stood next to the girl lying on the table, and I started checking the body.

After an initial scan, I noticed the blood cancer is the main reason for this filly’s death and that the cells had built up to critical mass on the lungs and had collapsed them. I could cure this with a varying amount of spells and then resurrect her afterwards, but I knew that the amount of spells caused noise somepony was bound to hear.

“Doctor, could you please leave the perimeter for a moment? It would make my analysis much easier,” I asked the mortician.

He left quickly, and I turned to look at the mother.

“I’ve examined the cause of death, and while it will take effort, I can rid her body of the cancer and ensure that she will no longer get it before I resurrect the body,” I informed her, watching as her eyebrows shot up.

“You can cure cancer? I thought nopony could. The doctors said that cancer was immune to the magic we possess,” the mother replied, surprise and admiration clear in her voice.

“I cheat; the real problem with cancer is that the cells are linked to the pony’s soul and magic directly. But because I can resurrect the ponies, what I do is work with the ponies’ bodies without the souls, meaning that modification is a lot easier and that I can remove the cancer cells and leave a spell in the body’s natural spell matrix to prevent the malicious cells from being created when I resurrect her. The spell matrix will boot up, and she will be cured,” I explained as clearly as I could.

She nodded her head, and I started casting the spells on the filly’s body.

As soon as I finished the final touches on her spell matrix, I started weaving the extremely complex resurrection spell around my horn. I continued doing this for a few minutes.

The logic behind this spell, when I first created it, was surrounding the three things that a body required to be alive, which were the body, the magic, and the soul. When a being dies, it loses its soul, meaning it becomes unable to produce magic anymore, and therefore a body is left behind with a limited amount of magic behind. The soul flits off by itself and hides in an area I call the Soul Pool.

What the old necromancers used to do was boot up the limited amount of magic in the body with a spell that would control the body directly as they wanted and keep pumping them full of magic to keep themselves alive, whereas I bring back the soul into the equation by taking a portion of the magic in the body and going fishing for the soul in the Soul Pool and using the magic to find the distinct magic signature in the billions within the pool itself, which was like matching two pieces of a puzzle together without looking.

After finding the soul, I can reanimate the body and bind the two together while giving a small magic boost into the body to make sure that the soul stays in and, therefore, I have truly resurrected life.

I fired the completed spell at the filly on the table, and I watched my magic winding all over her. I see a soul drag itself into the body, and after a while, I see the fully open her eyes and look at us.

“M-Mommy? My body doesn't hurt anymore,” she said, putting the extremely complicated nature of my spell into simple terms in a way only small fillies can.

I heard a shriek behind me and saw the mother hurling herself towards her daughter with tears in her eyes.

I grin at the heartwarming embrace before I hear the door slam open.

“What was that bang?! I knew I shouldn't have let you in, he—!” the mortician asked, stalking through the doorway dramatically and pointing an accusing hoof at me, before finally seeing the resuscitated filly and the mother and stopping dead in his tracks. He stared at me, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. "How is she alive?”

“Doctor, could we discuss this in quiet? This is a big moment for them.” I responded professionally to the imbecile.

The doctor nodded dumbly, and we walked out of the room.

I started talking before he could pick up his jaw. ''When I did the magic scan on the filly’s system, I noticed that her magic levels were abnormally high for a filly her age.

“I then checked the cancer that I had assumed to be collecting in her lungs with a stronger scan, and I noticed that these were a purely magical construct and not normal cells, so I concluded she had a magic surge, which had been accidentally suppressed and therefore went inwards as cells.

“As the doctors were attempting to treat her for cancer, she was deteriorating in body, and in the end she gained a form of locked-in syndrome, which was bad enough to mask all forms of life signatures and therefore look dead.''

I admit I’ve gotten skilled at lying.

The doctor was looking guilt-stricken and slightly awed at my faked abilities as he said, “If we had buried her, then she would have died without us knowing. I have to thank you.”

“I’m just doing my job, Doctor. This was a case that even I rarely saw in my travels. It’s not your fault that you made a mistake.” I replied.

“With those qualifications, you have to be one of the most qualified doctors in Equestria. The War Healer title is famous for being in the regions of the nigh impossible to achieve. How can she even afford you?” The doctor asked me in awe.

“I’m one of those ponies who does what they do just to know that they’re saving lives. I’m only going to charge her one hundred bits.” I reply.

“One hundred bits?” He gaped, “I usually get paid more than that!”

He scoffed, shaking his head, but smiling softly. “Well, it's your decision. You can go back inside if you want to; it’s you who saved her, after all.” The doctor said.

I nodded, gave him a small smile, and went back inside the room to see that the mother has recovered enough to converse with.

“How is she holding up?” I asked the mother politely, although I already knew the answer from previous experiences.

“She's perfect,” she answered softly and teary-eyed. "How can I ever repay you? You’ve given me my world back.”

“One hundred bits, if you can afford it, is all I ask,” I replied politely. Her daughter, behind her, was looking around the room with a curious expression. When her eyes landed on me, she appeared confused at my presence and slightly scared.

“I can get that quickly,” she said, smiling at me before she turned towards her daughter. "Come on, sweetie. We’re going home.”

The three of us made it to the house, and I was given my payment. I also gave her a way to contact me if an issue arose in the future.

As I started walking back towards the mountains, I couldn’t help but start grinning, thinking about my possible next assignments and who I could save.

Author's Note

I can see extreme potential for this story and therefore I started writing it.
I am going to take the story from multiple viewpoints but it will alternate between the necromancer and a member of the main 6.

Edit:
This chapter is almost nine years old, and let's be honest. It was terribly written.
I've run the chapter through the grammar checkers and run-on sentence checkers my more recent chapters are going through.

Ταυτότητα

Blue Syringe
I like to imagine people like to keep a necromancer happy in general, or that's what I've noticed from experience, or maybe it's the dirt cheap doctor that might tilt the scales on my side.

Favours, that's my true form of payment and while it seems absolutely cruel to ask a favour to someone who can't really refuse it after what I do for them it's how I've managed to stay hidden for all these years.
You ask if you can put their name on the deed for the apartment, you ask if they can provide you heavily restricted medical equipment and you can ask for information on practically anything.

And it seems one of my favours has come through.

The solar guard, known as the personal protectors of Princess Celestia, combat ready, elite, inscrutable…ish.

I suppose you can only train a pony on so many principles but how do you even drill in against the grief of losing a loved one?

This is the conundrum that a Sergeant Swift Wing had to weigh up.
On a training drill, years before he ever joined the solar guard, Swift Wing led two privates to the Everfree in an attempt to bolster their skills when they heard a mare screaming her head off…
it was me, I was visiting Zecora, a lovely zebra whom I buy some powders from and too be honest I like hearing her talk,
sorry that was a bit of a slight tangent,
I decided to go for a bit of stroll and strolled straight into a manticore,
Of course I was very brave!
.
.
.
I hid under a log.
Screaming my head off in a desperate attempt to find any help, I was very shocked when three guards came sprinting out of the woods to my rescue.
The two privates fell in battle and Swift Wing managed to dispatch the beast but was heavily bleeding, so I did my thing and cured them all.
I of course was terrified at the time, this guard knew what I was doing and was obligated to arrest and I was enabling that but I couldn't leave them.
I got lucky, and sadly Swift Wing was drawn into my web of deceit. He didn't write it up and promised to help me in the future.

The help in question is now in my hoof. He'd responded to my letter which I just picked up from a Dropbox that I've got near my apartment .

I get home hastily and after putting away my bag, I rip open the letter and start reading.

Twilight Sparkle? Elements of harmony?

I drop the letter on the table and somewhat recoil backwards.
Why are they sending the realm's heroes after me?
I know what I've done is wrong in Celestia's eyes but isn't this overkill? I expected some guards or something.

An image flashes through my eyes being hit by the element's beam and I feel a sense of dread course through my body.

They must know something, I must have left a clue somewhere then, I imagine they are very busy mares otherwise.

I picked up the letter again and read on.

Several ponies names are listed as potential aliases, some of them I recognise, some I don't, which says to me that they are suspicious of medical ponies with certain qualities looking at this. I reach for my notebook, marking the compromised identities when I notice that Baroness Bones was on the list.

When I set up these personalities, I go through a lot of time and effort, and gold bits I might add, to make sure that under a microscope they should be secure on the paperwork side and I tie them to locations around the country. Baroness Bones lives in Manehattan for example, and rather stupidly I had to take a carriage disguised as her all the way to Griffonia.

It was a link that I am just going to hope isn't one they notice.

I mark off the baroness in my book and read the last notes on the paper.
It seems the last Swift knew, they were going to go and talk to my mother.
It makes sense, I didn't really have friends in Canterlot, and I hear dad isn't in the greatest moods but can't they just leave her alone? She's not seen me in over a decade, I can't see her providing any clues.

So all in all not great, in terms of my options they were actively seeking me is last on the list but I've still got ways forward and it doesn't sound like they've actually confirmed I'm still kicking just suspect it.

Lets work with that.

Oh, as a matter of personal interest, it seems the local university lab was able to create the apparatus for my changeling nerve replacer thingy (better name needed) and I need to start doing tests, I'm like 90% confident I've made it correct and from the changeling data and my own research I'm ready to test it! On what, is a different question entirely, I had a few patients that had paralysis in limbs and such but I can't imagine that they'd be willing for such a test.
I do miss the comforts at times of working within the medical community, test subjects were a lot easier to find.

The principle of the apparatus is relatively simple in principle but as it'd still a prototype it will require medical knowledge while applying it, I do have plans to make it so it's self-adapting but that will require a lot of sleepless nights that I don't have enough coffee for, basically it wraps around two nerve fibre ends pinches them down too prevent any substances from spreading and then applies a small amount of changeling goo which tries to start the conversion process.
Now the major issue is how well will the nerves will interface with each other and I think I've alleviated that fear somewhat, that's why I'm 10% unconfident in my mind, from what I've been told the conversion process is slow and methodical which means that is naturally going to be in an in-between state and clearly they are surviving that so they should be okay, I hope.
For now, I am going to prepare a few and take them with me as they are not that heavy and I can imagine some Ponies might be desperate enough to take the plunge.

I actually have a potential new client I'm lining up at the moment, three in fact, from the basic reading I've done on their cases it seems that there was a build up of a lethal gas in their house, quite a simple fix aside from the death part, I need to scrub the poison out, provide pure oxygen and repair the dying cells.

I also have some ponies I will need to have talks with. I need to manufacture some new identities to replace the ones identified and need to make sure they can't figure out my location, maybe I need a new apartment?

Most importantly, I need to do some reading into my hunters, I know the general gist Elements of Harmony, excel at making friends and that enables them to fire all powerful rainbows at Equestria's enemies, I'll be honest and say that I'm really hoping that doesn't happen to me, but their individual personalities might be useful to know, maybe I plan around where they are heading?
Yeah, I am not great at this but I know the way forward is at least information and I know ponies that deal with information better than I.

I head to the Bathroom, dye my hair orange and put in some orange tinted lenses. Afterward I put on a business suit I had made with a fake cutie mark over the cloth, apparently it's a trend to put your mark on your suit which I find weird but it means I can do way easier inponyations, which is in the shape of a pill.

Leaving my apartment, I resolve that I am going to have to walk for a fair few miles, which I am entirely not looking forward to. I've done hikes before but usually in the right gear and not a business suit, and then I can get a cart the rest of the way.

Complacent, that's what I've been getting over the years, that is the only explanation for it, I must have slipped up somewhere and revealed something to a patient or maybe I've been too aggressive in my treatments… but I don't think I've been aggressive enough, I have only been able to average out about twenty a year and I almost break down when I can't do anymore.

This is not fair, they obviously didn't read my notes, and in their ignorance they are letting lives be extinguished too quickly. Don't they care? Even if they think I'm wrong they should at least consider it, not just send some ponies with what's effectively a superweapon at me.

I suppose this is my mantle to bear, I knew what I was doing when I ran away from home and I knew when I continued with this that this might happen. So as usual, I have to continue till I can't.
Appleloosa here I come!

Author's Note

SURPRISE! :pinkiegasp:
Two chapters in a week, aka I noticed that this story turn 8 years old and felt I've been doing it injustice.
I like to imagine that Blue just like to switch topics in her head whenever she panics and these days she's got a lot to panic about
But the game of chess has got started

Αμφιβολία

Pinkie Pie

I look around the dark room.

The rest of the girls had wanted to stay together after what had happened and so we slept in the same room, aside from Rainbow, who was sent to the hospital to be monitored.

From what I can see, they are all asleep aside from me, or at the very least, I can't see any moving.

I tried to do some light breathing to ease the pressure that felt like it was mounting in my chest.

What in the Princess's name was that? The pinkie sense has been vague before and while I've felt I take in directions that I wouldn't have expected, this felt completely against what I wanted.

The sense isn't completely random. There was a time I remember not having it, but it kicked in fully after my cutie mark showed up. It's always steered me towards the best route to create joy for my friends…

Okay, let's assume that it still is.

If my sense is operating how I think it is, then it both wanted Blue to get away, the avalanche to go off and Rainbow to get hurt.

I don't see that leading to any immediate joy.

Blue getting away has got to be it then, but if she's harming ponies by creating puppets, then… Or maybe she isn't?

Why does this need to be so complicated?

Right, logically, if she's not creating puppets, then she is telling the truth.

I need to talk to somepony about this, or at least discuss the theory.

*Elbow Shake, nose twitch, tail shake*

It doesn't want me to?

What do you want me to do then?

…

Great, keep it vague.

This is all assuming that my sense is correct. I've got it wrong before.

"Pinkie?" I hear whispering to my right.

Whipping my head around, I notice Rarity looking at me from her sleeping place.

I go to open my mouth, but I notice she brings her hoof to her lips and then points at the door.

I give her a nod and then start tip-toeing out of the room.

We both got out of the room without issue.

Rarity gives me a smile in the hallway and says, "Can't sleep either?"

I nod and say, "A lot to think about."

"You are not wrong there. Shall we get some tea or maybe some Malted milk? Not sure if they have it here but my mother always gave it to sweetie and I if we had issues sleeping," Rarity says.

"That sounds like a good idea," I say.

We walk down the marbled corridors and Rarity says, "I wonder what the Princess is planning to say tomorrow morning."

We'd gotten back to the castle at around eight o'clock in the evening and as we had arrived, we noticed the princess at the landing zone surrounded by several doctors waiting to inspect Rainbow.

She'd asked us some questions about what had happened on the trip and then confirmed that Twilight had not tried to cast any spells on Rainbow and after that, told us to delay our investigation for now and told us to rest for the evening.

"I'm not sure," I say halfheartedly. "Maybe she is throwing us a surprise."

"I wouldn't imagine so, but we can hope. I feel like we need a bit of relief after everything that's happened in the last month. "

We round a corner; I am pretty sure the kitchen is down here.

I give a tired nod and say, "It's been a lot of travelling,"

"Indeed, it has, and here we are," Rarity says as we get to the kitchen door. "I am sure the staff here won't mind too much about us helping ourselves."

We both walk into the room and are immediately greeted with several thestrals adorned with chef hats.

Oh right, I suppose the night guard would probably have night chefs.
One chef comes over and says after a curt nod, "greetings, may we help you?"

"We were wondering if we could get some tea, we'd be happy to prepare it ourselves." Rarity says.

"We'd be honored to serve the elements. The princess usually likes to have a brew on the go from a blend we'd cultivated ourselves and luckily we have some extra. May I suggest some lemon cake to go with it? It's been freshly baked tonight," the chef says.

We both nod and are both directed at a side room with some very fluffy couches within.

We are told that it will come within five minutes and to get comfortable.

"Maybe I should stay awake longer when I come here again. The service here is delightful," Rarity says.

I nod and snuggle myself into the couch cushions.

"Are you doing okay, Pinkie? I know I am feeling swept off my feet with everything that's going on and I'd noticed that you've been quieter than usual," Rarity says with a sympathetic tone.

I open my mouth to speak and while remembering the twitches I had earlier, "it's been hard to think about this all. Usually it's so easy to work out what to do in these situations. We find the bad pony, then we go round working out who has been wronged and fix it. Everypony is happy in the end."

Rarity gives me a nod to continue.

"Well, this situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth, ponies are happy with what she's doing and inherently we are making more ponies sad by doing what we are doing, even if it's the right thing to do."

Rarity leans forward in her chair and says, "I don't disagree with you, Pinkie, but at one stage we need to do it. We will still do our best to fix the families this affects and help them in the best way we can, right?"

I give a nod and as I do; I notice the chef come around with our tea and cakes.

"I hope you two enjoy, and please ask for anything else you desire," the chef says.

We thank him and start eating and drinking.

Rarity understands me, and I can tell that she wants to fix this situation as much as I do.

But…

I have a feeling that I cannot work towards the same goal as the others. I won't stand in their way, but I need to find out more first.

And I have a feeling that whatever Princess Celestia tells us tomorrow morning is going to determine that path of discovery.

We both eat the food and drink our tea and decide that we should try to head to bed again now that we've settled a bit, though not before Rarity got the chef to give her the recipe for the lemon cake.

We head back down the hallway towards our room, and as we walk along, Rarity pipes up. "Oh, I heard the Princesses talking after we got back."

"What were they talking about?" I ask.

"I don't think Celestia had told Luna about what we've been doing and Luna had some questions, I don't think Luna was thrilled to have been kept in the dark…," Rarity says, winces and then ends, "pun not intended."

"I wonder what Luna thinks about it?" I say.

"Who knows? Might be worth asking her tomorrow." Rarity says in response.

I nod and we get back to the room as the conversation ends.

I lie in bed waiting for my tiredness to overwhelm me. I think Rarity got asleep about five minutes ago.

I am not sure what's going to happen tomorrow, but I know something is going to happen . I can feel it down to my bones.

I am going to trust my senses. I cannot work out the best logical route, so I'm going to work this out as I go.

I am sorry everypony.

Author's Note

Turns out, really hard to write a chapter about the doubt in some ponies head.

Well...
I hope you enjoyed it and we've finished another cycle of perspectives

What do you mean somethings different?

EDIT: I've run the chapter through a Grammar and run-through checker, Too which i got 80 suggestions amusingly XD. All subsequent chapters will be put through this aswell.
I'll get round to doing the old ones later.

Κενό

???

I wake up.

*Boredom*

I look at the location of boredom

*Boredom*

I can see a pony, they are wearing a white uniform reading a clipboard.

My neck hurts.

The uniformed pony looks over me.

*Concern*

The pony walks up to me and says "...............n you hear me? Are you okay?"

I nod.

"We are getting your t……….. back soon, we've not met before my name is Dr Synapse." the pony says.

"Water," I croak out.

*Generosity*

"Of course, I'll go get that and go get…………. " they say.

I am alone.

Where am I?

*Curiosity*

I see a pony with a mop.

I stare at him.

*Fear*

The pony quickly leaves.

What am I doing here?

Need to do something.

What was it again?

*Concern*

The white uniformed pony comes into the room.

".................ecting you, here's is your water" they say.

I drink.

*JoyConcernConcernConcernKindness*

I recoil.

Five ponies come into the room.

"............................" I hear.

*Concern*

"........... with …?" they say.

"The……… needs to … off" The white uniformed pony says.

".....going to……..?" The ponies say.

"......sults are comi…….. We…..to tal……….esses" the white pony says.

I am tired.

I sleep.

Author's Note

Hmm how did this get in here?