Beware The Embers Of A Dying Light

Chapters

The factory.
The Farm
The Home
The Police Headquarters

The factory.

Dr. Blood Hound walked into the old abandoned factory while the cops kept the press away. What ever happened here had spooked someone high up enough bad enough to have him called in and that was never a good thing. That usually meant it was either so bad or so strange or both that they needed him just to give them an ideal on where to start. He took one last drag off the cigarette before tossing it into the puddle where some rookie was getting sick in what had once been an employees lounge. Already he was scanning everything, but the bloody hand prints and bodies under tarps didn't speak to him. It wasn't until he saw the thin bloody trail leading from a different entrance that he found where it began.

He back tracked to the doors and then started following it. The trail from the tips of the feet suggested a girl or a very slim boy who had been beaten, blood trickling down from maybe the mouth or face into splatters that the feet were dragged through. Mouth, definitely the mouth, he thought as he pulled out his post-it notes and marked the three teeth on the ground before waving over some crime scene technician.

Ignoring her he continued following the trail into a locker room. There he found the trail stopped at a bench. The torn panties told him it was a girl or a cross dresser, never assume it was one or the other until you saw the body. The bench told him everything, they were raped anally and vaginally if it was a girl. Long red, yellow, and orange hair and excrement told him they were raped orally. The bloody scratch marks on the bench told him it had been violent. He marked the panties and the places on the bench and called over another crime scene technician.

This time they weren't dragged between two people, but dragged by their hair. The jerk to the left said they were kicked in the side from the right. Then they were slammed into a locker repeatedly at one point before being dragged between two people again. On the ground was a cell phone, face down. Taking out a pen, he flipped it over to find a picture of a fiery haired girl with two black eyes, a bloody mouth, and the word 'Whore' written on her forehead in lipstick. This was vengeance for something and given the violence it was personal. He marked the phone and pointed it out to the technician from before.

He followed the now bloodier trail into the actual factory and past old rusted out machines, a few just didn't seem right, to one that was definitely different. Unlike the others this one was chard and melted in places. In fact it had a female outline melted into it that suggested they had been in a chained up position. The bloody trail led right to it, the outline was right, and this was Canterlot where weird shit happened a lot or the C.P.D. wouldn't need him, his degree as a mythologist, and his skills. She had been chained to the machinery and judging by the bloody tools, tortured, but something happened. Next to it was a chard corpse still holding a partially melted nail gun. The technicians had already marked everything they could see, but bending down he noticed something, small melted pieces of shiny metal. Looking at the nail gun he saw the same shiny metal had melted out of where the nails where loaded. Only these were under where the girl would have been and he no longer doubted it was the same girl from the photo. Marking them, he then looked at the outline and noted two sets of hand prints. One normal where they had been up above her head, clutching the machine as she was tortured with part of the chain used melted into the machine. The other was down where they would have dropped when her hands were freed, only these were slightly longer and claw like.

He puzzled over it before it hit him, she was at her breaking point and something gave, something happened, something inside didn't want to die and she changed. Then he remembered the video he'd seen online, a rainbow haired girl playing a guitar before growing a pair of pony ears, tail, and a pair of wings. If that was real and the rumors of other girls doing it, then what would happen when you push one of them to the point where natural survival instincts took over? But if that was the case, why here? Why not the locker room? Why not before entering the building? Why not where ever this all began?

Unless it was an ambush and she was knocked out. Then brought here beaten, dazed, and barely able to think clearly, only to be kept off balance with the rape and being knocked out again. But what changed? Looking at the chard corpse and it's position in relation to the outline and thinking about the melted nails it all suddenly clicked. They didn't just torture her, they gloated. They told her how no one would ever find her body out here. How she was going to die here and no one would ever know. They told her what they were going to do and that there was nothing she could do to stop them.

Only there was something she could do. How many myths and legends talked about the oldest and most powerful forms of magic being based around emotions and desire and what was stronger than the will to live, to survive. The fresh pain of having a nail gun used on her and the gloating finally got through and nature took over. Only this wasn't just nature, but what some in ancient times would have called dark magic. It was primal and it lashed out at it's tormentors.

Turning he looked at the factory and the machines that were wrong made sense. Somehow she reached out with her mind and tore off pieces of the machinery from here. Looking he spotted at least 7 bodies under tarps that had something poking up out of them. Only if she could do that why not... Looking up he called another technician over and borrowed her flashlight. Turning it up towards the ceiling and he saw 5 rather large boys, most likely athletes, nailed to the steel girders by pieces of machinery driven right through their bodies and genitalia, only one had a piece driven right through his head.

Ignoring the shouting and running around, he tossed the light back to the technician and looked once more at the outline. Looking around he finally caught sight of a body not like the others. This one wasn't chard or had machinery driven through it, in fact the broken jaw and neck and the bare footed foot prints facing away from the body told him she had been back handed with supernatural strength. The foot prints were over 40 feet away from the machine, so either she leapt, flew, or just appeared there and killed the girl without a second thought.

From there it was a trail of bodies as she hunted down every single one of them. Some where burned, others torn to pieces like they had been attacked by a wild animal, and still others seemed to just have their necks broken, as if they weren't important enough to punish for what they had been a part of. Only when he reached the exit did he find something odd two sets of shoe prints leaving and melted patches of snow with bare footed prints baked into the ground. They led away for about 20 yards before the ones in shoes had got on their knees, most likely begging, before being dragged towards where there was a bunch of burned out cars. Meaning she had drove away and taken the two of them with her after setting the fire that had brought the fire department out here. He had dozens of questions, but only one mattered right now: What next?

The Farm

Dr. Blood Hound had just finished telling the lead detective what he had found when the call came in. Sweet Apple Acres was less than 2 miles away and the apple orchard was burning and they wanted him out there. He already had a bad feeling about this as he pulled onto the farm and saw the burning car that had been rammed into the apple tree. Looking into the rear view mirror he could see the lights from the factory and knew where the car had gone, but why now? What had happened at the factory had happened hours ago and she could have driven here in just a few minutes. Then he realized that the crash was just the beginning and the fire was the end of what she had done here, but why? Getting out of his car, he got as close to the burning car as he could and saw where three of the doors had been ripped off and tossed aside. No, the driver's door had been torn off from the inside and the other two had been ripped off from the outside. Looking down at the ground he saw where she had dragged the two from the factory from the car and left them laying on the ground away from the car. Only they had woke up and ran away while she headed further into the farm.

Ignoring them, he followed her trail as she walked past the orchard and towards the barn. He ignored the firefighters and everything else as they fought the fire and found the doors had been ripped off the barn. Inside he found almost every single stall empty, almost. She had let the animals out, but why was there animal feed on the ground outside of the stalls. Someone must have heard something and came out to investigate. Only this person put up a real fight and her footprints and the rather large boot prints showed that they had staggered her and tackled her hard enough to dent one of the stall walls. Their footwork showed they had some skill, but against her strength, speed, and furiosity it had been a losing battle. At one point they had started protecting their right, but not the leg. Perhaps the ribs or the arm. Then something happened to their left leg and she had turned to leave, only they had tried to attack her from behind. Whatever happened next resulted in her staggering out of the barn while bleeding and them dragging themselves towards the back stall.

Following their trail, he found a large young man, out cold and barely breathing. It only took less than a minute for the E.M.T.s to get to him after he called it in, which meant there was more if they were already here. The man's jaw was broken, as well as his left leg and ribs, and his right shoulder and collar bone had been shattered. Next to him was written in the dirt: Sunset Shimmer__after the girls__Rainbooms__Anon-a-miss.

Leaving him with the E.M.T.s stepped outside of the barn and pulled out his phone. Googling Sunset Shimmer he was greeted with a picture of the girl from the phone in the factory only happy, healthy, and smiling. A highschool student at CHS and a member of a highschool rock band called the Rainbooms. Tapping on the Rainbooms brought up a picture of her and five other girls, one of which was the rainbow haired girl from the video. The reviews said their innovative costumes with proprietary technology that changed in the middle of performances and special effects brought in the crowds, but the music showed that they had real potential to be the next big thing. Googling Anon-a-miss was when things got dark. Someone had created a Mystable page with colors like her hair and a picture that was her silhouette and began posting the other Rainbooms secrets and then the school's. It only took one look to realize someone had framed her and that tonight some of the students had taken matters into their own hands in the worst way possible. But why come here? Did she come for help? No, her and the man wouldn't have fought in the barn if that was the case... Revenge? Did she blamed the other Rainbooms for what happened tonight? Maybe, but something about it didn't feel right.

He was missing something... She changed at the factory and everyone thought the band had some kind of special costumes and effects as a gimmick, only they didn't. They all could change like her and she had been injured in the barn, why?.. Energy! She was burning through her energy and one of the Rainbooms was Applejack Apple. She wasn't here for revenge. She came to what? To fill up the gas tank? But how and to what end? Was it keeping her alive and she was just living on borrowed time? Was she trying to get more time and what then? How far would this go? He called in and told them who they were after and to find the other girls before she did.

Putting away his phone, he followed her trail to a bloody pitch fork. She had been limping in a way that said the man had injured her left leg, only the blood stopped half way to the house and by the time she reached the house she had healed up. Looking back at the barn he figured it took her two minutes to heal from being stabbed. The ambulance was at the front door and another was just pulling up in front of the barn, but the trail went around the house and was more cautious, skirting the house lights. Being low on energy she was being careful. It was at the back door he found the crime scene technicians and the body. All that was left of Applejack Apple was a shriveled up husk that looked like it had been dead for years. One word was burned into her forehead: LIAR.

Following the trail through the door and into the house's kitchen where he noted the overturned table and the door ripped off the refrigerator and the meat inside tossed onto the floor along with a mostly eaten corn cob. She had gorged herself on fruits and vegetables, but stopped. Why? Standing there he tried to puzzle it out. Did she hear something? Did she see something? Because all he could see was a bunch of old, slightly faded photos, newspaper articles, and a few old report cards. He couldn't see how an article about Applejack Apple winning a greased pig competition would stop her, yet it was the one that had a fresh smudged handprint on it. A handprint with claws. Then he remembered he had glanced at a few Anon-a-miss posts and one about Applejack called her Piggly Wiggly and said it was a family nickname. She knew who Anon-a-miss was, she saw it as clear as day and dropped the corn on the cob she had been eating.

He then looked at the photos, it wasn't the old woman, or the young man, or Applejack, that only left the girl wearing a bow in her hair. Suddenly he had a very bad feeling, Sunset Shimmer had been beaten, raped, and tortured because of Anon-a-miss. What would she do when she caught her? Turning and looking out the back door as they zipped up the body bag with Applejack Apple in it. With everything she had already done was she past the point of no return? And if she was, what wouldn't she do?

Turning back around, he did the only thing he could do, he followed the trail. He followed it up the kitchen stairs and down the hall to a girl's bedroom that had been torn up, but no body. At first he thought it had all been her, but then he stepped on an empty shotgun shell. Then he noticed the holes in the wall and remembered the old woman in the photos. Looking down he counted 7 shells and no body, even at close range. Not even a drop of blood. The old lady had dropped the pump shotgun and ran. Down the other stairs and into the living room where she had grabbed an old double barrel shotgun and fired both barrels at once. Only Sunset had grabbed the barrel and shoved it up towards the ceiling as she pulled the triggers, leaving the shotgun blast in the ceiling. Then she yanked it away from the old woman and broke it with her bare hands, leaving the broken pieces on the floor. Looking out the front door he saw them loading the old woman onto the ambulance. A quick question told him everything, seeing a teenage girl take several hits from a shotgun and then break a gun like a twig had been to much and she had passed out and hit her head on the coffee table.

Following the trail back up stairs he found the man's bedroom window open and a few strands of red hair suggesting the girl had climbed out the window and took off that way. Only Sunset had checked, just to make sure. It was in Applejack's room he found the strange message burned into the wall:

Little filly, little filly honor the Sun. For she'll protect you when Discord has his fun.

Little filly, little filly honor the Moon. For the old mare will be coming back soon.

Little filly, little filly honor the Heart. Or the Queen of lies will add you to her cart.

Little filly, little filly honor your true friend. For they will stand by you until the end.

Little filly, little filly honor your mark. For it will lead you back to me from the dark.

Turning towards the window he saw the trees burning as the sun started to rise and then he went back down stairs and followed the trail out the front door towards the orchard. Eventually he had to give up as it lead straight into the fire. Once he got back to the car he called the lead detective and told him everything. Let them sanitize the official story, he was going home to bed.

As he drove home he thought about the case and all the other cases he had been called in on. Technically he wasn't even a cop, just a well paid consultant who kept his mouth shut about things that would never be written down. Only was this really what he wanted, dealing with the worst humanity had to offer just to briefly catch glimpses of the things his great grandfather had told him about. As he pulled into his driveway he thought again of just quitting only what else was there, teaching kids whose only exposure to mythology was their level whatever elf ranger with a griffon mount in a video game.

Waving to his neighbor, what was her name again? Sonata, nice girl who had some crazy ideals about pegasi being able to control the weather and dragons eating gems as the reason they hoarded treasure. Of course he humoured her little fantasy about being a siren. Heading inside, he went to bed and dreamed about Sonata's weather controlling pegasi.

The Home

Dr. Blood Hound walked past the ambulances being loaded by the E.M.T.s with the elderly victims of Sunset's latest attack. The Shy family had ran a retirement home call the Quiet Woods Rest Home. Now the quiet had been broken. For the first time in a few years the lead detective assigned a new detective to watch over him. Lt. Shining Armor seemed to be of the opinion that they didn't need a doctor of mythology on a multiple homicide case. So long as he did his job Blood Hound wouldn't complain, he'd see the truth about this city soon enough.

The lead detective normally just left him to wander around until he found where to start, but sometimes something just jumped out and said start here. This was one of those and seeing the 6 foot round circle of melted snow and scorched dirt and grass was like putting up a neon sign, especially with melted barefooted footprints leading out of it. He was puzzling over it when Shining Armor had mentioned a sci-fi/mystery game he use to play and how the first clue that the person who did it had a teleporter was a circular burned patch of ground. Thinking out loud he told Shining Armor it made sense, teleporting would give off lots of energy and some of it would be thermal. That seemed to quiet him for awhile as they followed the footprints to where they intersected two others between Quiet Woods and the family's home. A boy and a girl, only Sunset had knocked the girl down and stood over her. Whatever happened next resulted in her chasing the boy all over the yard as the girl ran for Quiet Woods. A few times Sunset started to turn to go after the girl, but then end up chasing the boy some more. Eventually they followed the trail around the house to where a teenage boy was being put on a stretcher by the E.M.T.s. His face was battered and his clothes looked like he had been mauled by a wild animal, but he was still clutching his phone. Shining Armor and the E.M.T.s got it loose and a quick look showed he had been recording a video. Hitting play showed them what happened:

A blood red naked Sunset Shimmer was screaming about being abandoned, beaten, and raped at a pink haired girl on the ground when the boy's voice yelled, "Hey Sunny, think a porno of you and my sis in the snow will get me enough money to get laid? Or maybe we can do a threesome if Flutters doesn't mind me banging her girlfriend, how bout it sis?"

"Zephyr, get out of here!" Fluttershy screamed.

"Oh come on Flutter Butter, you can eat her out while I bang her form behin..." Zephyr was saying when Sunset screamed in rage and started chasing him as he kept say 'oh shit' over and over as the screen showed it jumping around as he duck, dodged, and twisted away from her. She started to turn at one point to go after Fluttershy and Zephyr yelled, "Oh, you need to go get condoms before we bang Ms. Anon-a-miss?" Once again the chase was on and he kept out of her reach until she turned back and Zephyr asked, "What? Did you forget the lube so we can do anal?" Screaming yet again, she chased him around the house several times before turning back yet again. "Maybe your the type that likes being chained up and gang banged by a bunch of..." Zephyr had made the mistake of getting to close while taunting her and she had caught him with a right hook. The phone dropped into the snow as she processed to beat the crap out of him. A minute later she picked up the phone and said, "I hope it was good for you as it was for me Zephy." Then she shoved it into his hand and stopped the recording.

Shining Armor said the kid had guts. To which Blood Hound pointed out he also had a mouth, was stupid, arrogant, in need of a few martial arts classes if he planned to piss girls off like that, and his parents needed to update the parental restrictions on their computer and take away his phone to keep him off porn sites. Shining Armor was forced to agree as they followed her trail as she had ran towards the Quiet Woods. Only she hadn't used the door, but instead leapt through a large, double paned, plate glass window. It had been like shrapnel in a room full of senior citizens and they were still putting some of them in body bags. From there it was a clear trail of carnage as she chased Fluttershy through the retirement home. Senior citizens in wheelchairs had been thrown into walls hard to get them out of her way and several nurses had their throats ripped open when they tried to stop her. Eventually the trail lead out the front door and into the streets where they found a bumper that had been ripped off a car. The license plate said 'WE R PIE' and a bumper sticker that said 'I :heart: ROCKS. Fluttershy had escaped and they had no clue where Sunset was. They went back to tell the lead detective what they found.

The Police Headquarters

Dr. Blood Hound looked at the wreckage of his car from the safety of the alley way and regretted agreeing to drive all three of his neighbors down town to their group therapy appointment when their car wouldn't start. It had been Aria that noticed people running first, but they had all got out of the car and ran to the alley way when the police patrol car had landed behind the car. They had just made it when the second police car had slammed into his car. Seeing how the alley was a dead end he tried the doors only to find them locked and banging on them didn't work.

Given no choice, he looked around the corner towards whatever was happening and saw Sunset Shimmer in the air gripping two of the Rainbooms by their clothing as she inhaled deeply of something coming off of them as bullets the police were firing seemed to stop just short of them. As she sucked whatever it was from them, their bodies shriveled up as she sprouted wings made of fire and horns. Finally she dropped what was left of the purple haired one and the rainbow haired one before throwing out her arms and sending flames everywhere.

Adagio had yanked him back into the alley just before the wave of fire washed past it. Aria mentioned something about 'Rage Shift' and just waiting until she burned through all her magic and shifted back. When he told them about her sucking Applejack and the other two until they were shriveled husks all three of them flinched. It was Sonata that said if they had their gems or even some of the fragments they could drain her. Asking about it got the same story about them being the sirens and he had been about to say something when they described their red gems being shattered a month ago. He remembered that there had been a bag of red gem fragments sent to the police department by the principal of Canterlot Highschool with the code word for the weird stuff that happened in the city. They had called him in, but he wasn't a gemologist. So they locked them up with all the other weird stuff that had showed up over the years in a room in the police headquarters basement. Only he remembered what the myths said about sirens and the things Sonata said they had done when he thought she was crazy.

Looking around the corner he saw Sunset enter the building and heard the gun shots and screaming. Finally he asked them what would happen if she got the last two? Adagio said she'd want an ocean between her and ground zero and Aria said a portal back home and closing it behind them would be better. Ignoring the part about the portal, he asked them if they had the fragments could they stop her? No, if the gems were whole they could, but the best they could do with fragments was drain her until she was weak enough that she could be hurt and hope she wasn't good at healing magic. Telling them about her fight with the man in the barn and how it took her around about two minutes to heal confirmed she wasn't very good at it. Finally he decided and told them he knew where the fragments were. When they asked him where he just pointed to the police headquarters as a wall was blown out on the third floor.

A few minutes later they entered the building and were met with the sight of scorch marks, bloody smears, a smashed open front counter, body parts, and flickering lights. She had literally tore her way into the building and through anything and anyone that got in her way. Somewhere above them they could hear her wrecking something as they crept through the building towards the elevators. At one point he stopped Aria from taking a gun from the floor and pointed out that the CPD was the first city testing out police issued smart guns and unless she was a cop or planned to throw it at someone it would be useless. After that he grabbed them several cans of pepper spray since even the taser guns had been upgraded to smart guns. If nothing else it made them feel safer.

Ignoring the wrecked elevators, he lead them down the stairs next to them as they heard something collapse above them. When they reach the next floor down Sonata tried to open the door, but he stopped her, pointing out it was the floor where all the jail cells were and they wanted the second basement. Besides something didn't seem right, sure Canterlot wasn't a major city, but he knew there should be a few cells occupied and they should be screaming to be let out with all the noise from up stairs going on. They had just got to the second basement the lights began to flicker as they heard something crash in the stair well above them.

From somewhere high above them they heard a voice call out in a crazy sing song voice:

Little ponies, little ponies, let me come in.

Before she could say anything, Adagio and Aria slapped their hands over Sonata's mouth and Aria hissed something about not playing 'Whose at the Door' with the power drunk, rage shifted, insane, teenage demon. Then somewhere above them they heard gun fire and screaming. Sonata nodded vigorously before they took their hands off her mouth.

Quietly they followed him through the door and down the hall as the sounds of the fighting died down. Just past the electrical room was a nondescript door with a keypad and a sign 'Sewer Access #37: Authorized Personal Only'. He had just punched the first two numbers in when the door was yanked open and he found the lead detective and Shining Armor's guns pointed at him. Behind them was the last two Rainbooms, Applebloom and two other girls her age, and a girl wearing a Crystal Prep uniform and glasses. After he explained the plan there had been a brief argument with Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, but given the choice between a hell bent demonic Sunset Shimmer that was after them and might destroy the world or giving the fragments back to the sirens they agreed. The lead detective wasn't happy about it, but he finally handed the bag over to them.

The change was immediate as their hair, skin, and eye color went from being dull and muted to bright and full of life. Somewhere above them was the sound of gun fire and they began to sing. That was when they heard Sunset scream, the sound of something breaking, and then quiet as Aria said she was gone. Slowly they made their way back up the stairs and meet the cops she had been fighting. As soon as their bullets started hurting her she blew out a wall and flew away.

Through a broken wall Blood Hound, the last 30 police officers in the city, the last two Rainbooms, Shining Armor's little sister, all three girls who had been Anon-a-miss, and the sirens watched the sun set and knowing it wasn't over yet. It wouldn't be over until Sunset Shimmer was stopped one way or another.

Author's Note

Hmm... Not sure about this one and the style I'm using.