A Great and Powerful Wrath

A new morning was arriving in the Crystal Empire and like it is every other morning, Cadence and Shining were not woke up by the sun, but Flurry's cries. Shining immediately rushed to the nursery to change her diaper and get her a bottle. A couple minutes later Cadence headed in to find what she always does, Shining calming Flurry down and being a model father.

Cadence gave him a smile and said, "You know Shiny, I don't know what I'd do without you."

Shining replied, "Well I know you're always busy with your princess duties so I figure you may as well get a few extra minutes of rest."

Cadence said, "I know and given how busy both of us are during the days, it is nice to have Sunburst around to take care of her. I tell you, not only is he a great crystaller but Flurry seems to love him."

Shining looked at the clock and asked, "Speaking of Sunburst, where is he? He is usually here by now so you and I can have breakfast without worrying about Flurry."

Shining said, "You stay up here with Flurry while I go to his house and check on him. Maybe he simply doesn't feel good today or something."

Shining headed out of the castle and towards Sunburst's house. Like he normally did, he stopped to talk to several ponies on the way. After thirty minutes of mingling he reached Sunburst's house. He knocked on the door loudly and when he received no response, he yelled, "Sunburst, are you ok?"

Again he received no response and since Sunburst never locks his door, Shining went in and yelled, "Sunburst, are you home?"

He headed from room to room to find his crystaller and would be horrified when he checked the bedroom. There he found Sunburst's tortured corpse. "Aaaah!"

Shining was in shock when he saw what had been done to Sunburst. The marking and bruises were bad enough but when he saw the bat rammed entirely in him, he was horrified.

After soaking in what he was seeing for a minute he realized that he had to notify not just the guard, but his wife as well. When he arrived back at the castle he yelled at the guards, "We've got a killer on the loose, a real psycho, he's torturing ponies to death! Warn everypony to stay inside."

As the guards headed out into town to warn everypony that there may be a murder in the Empire, Shining headed up to the nursery to notify Cadence of what happened. When he arrived he was crying. Cadence saw this and asked, "Shiny, what is wrong? Why are you crying?"

Shining grabbed Cadence and continued, "It's Sunburst, he's dead."

Cadence's jaw dropped open. She gasped, "Dead, but how? He was a relatively young pony."

Shining continued to cry, "He was brutally murdered last night. I never imagined that anypony would ever be murdered here, much less in the way he was."

Cadence pulled Flurry closer to her and asked, "A killer here in the Empire? But the Empire is full of love and light! How could we possibly have a killer around here?"

Shining knew he had to pull himself together so he calmed down and replied, "The killer is likely not from here. The murderer likely came from outside the empire."

Cadence said, "Well we're going to have to find out one way or another." She thought for a minute and continued, "We need to go to the train station and see if they have any records of who may have came in and left last night."

Shining replied, "You stay here while I go over to the station and see if they know anything." As he was leaving he continued, "I've got it. We'll be able to maybe tell by what the security cameras saw. Don't worry sweetie, we'll catch whoever did this and make sure they are punished for this."

While Cadence remained in the nursery to protect Flurry Heart in the event the murderer was to breach the castle, Shining headed to the train station. When he arrived the attendant was shocked to see him since there was no scheduled departure for the royal train. The attendant could see a look of concern in Shining's face and asked, "Are you ok your Majesty? You look worried."

Shining replied, "I'm fine but I need to take a look at your surveillance footage from last night. We had something happen and I need to know who came in and out of the Empire."

The attendant said, "Well you can take a look but don't count on finding anything interesting, or anything at all. The cameras have been going a bit haywire recently."

Shining sighed, "Well ok but I still want to take a look."

Shining headed into the back and began to check out the surveillance from last night and was frustrated that there was absolutely nothing, nothing but a black screen from 1800 last night clear up until 0730 that morning. Shining threw his hooves up in the air and yelled, "Nothing, absolutely nothing!"

The attendant heard him yell and said, "I told you that the cameras had been going in and out."

Shining sighed, "Well, thanks for letting me check anyway." As Shining headed back to the castle he tried to think of who could have done this. Then it hit him, he remembered how nervous Trixie was over Starlight spending time with Sunburst. He said to himself, "I'm going to send a letter to Twilight and have them come up here. Maybe I can get answers if they come up."