* Canterlot *
With a frustrated huff, Shining Armor set the two sheets of paper he was holding up to the lantern back down and closed his eyes. It seemed that Dawn Wings was right: there were changelings in Ponyville. A fact confirmed by one of them trying to kidnap his sister, only to end up dying under mysterious circumstances.

He'd been up all night going over the reports from Ponyville, including one about evidence apparently just vanishing from the back of the police's cart while in transit to the Ponyville PD building, organizing and deploying a few covert guard units to watch Twilight's home, as well as the rest of the elements, and trying to get a couple of hours of sleep before having to report for duty the next morning.

Then… a new headache had been dumped in his lap. In the middle of the early morning strategy meeting with the princesses over how to respond to the attempt on Twilight, a mountain of papers materialized in a burst of dragonfire and landed with a heavy thud right in the middle of the table. When princess Celestia checked to see why Twilight had sent such a large stack of paper, she realized that it wasn’t from Twilight.

It was from Dawn Wings.

Moments later, princess Celestia had rifled through the stack and pulled out the fifteenth page, finding a set of inscrutable, alien looking symbols. A flash of golden light later, and a small notebook appeared in her magical grip. Rifling through the pages of the book, the princess found what she was looking for: which cypher Dawn Wings had used to encode her message.

“Captain,” Celestia said as she snapped the book shut. In a flash of golden light, a hard-light illusory duplicate of the cypher page materialized in front of Shining, which he took in his magic. “Please begin decrypting the message from Dawn Wings. I have a sinking suspicion that this involves the changeling that was killed last night.”

“Yes, princess. Regarding my recommendation?” Shining said as he snatched the pile of papers in his magic.

“I agree captain. Please deploy a platoon of Silverknights and one squad of Mistknights to Ponyville to begin an investigation. However, I disagree with your recommendation to oversee this personally. Instead, send lieutenant Vexing Tactics to manage the operation. I need you here in Canterlot in case Chrysalis tries to return.”

Shining almost began to protest, but stopped himself and nodded solemnly. Celestia was right. As much as he wanted to oversee the operation personally, he was needed in Canterlot.

“As you wish princess. I’ll pass the orders on and begin the decryption.”

That had been over an hour ago.

Now, Shining was sitting in a secured room with three members of the Equestrian Intelligence Service (EIS), working to decode the document. As much as he was loath to admit it, Dawn Wings knew what she was doing. This encryption was masterful and thorough.

And horrifyingly frustrating.

Grumbling to himself, he lifted the sixth and tenth page of the stack, turned the latter 90° clockwise, and summoned his magic to transfer the ink from one page to the other, creating a new, more coherent image.

“Captain, I’ve finished this portion.” One of the EIS agenst said, holding up a completed page.

“Excellent. We’re almost done here.” Shining said as he lifted the newly completed document and added it to the first page they’d generated.

Fifteen minutes later, Shining leaned back in his chair and sighed. Laying on the table before him were three pages, stitched together from the fragmented and disjointed lines of the massive stack Dawn Wings had sent.

“Good job everypony.” Shining said with a relieved sigh. “Why don’t you all take a break before you head back to your offices. I’ll deliver these to the princess.”

“Of course captain Armor.” The lead EIS agent said before she and her colleagues rose and made their way out of the room.

Shining regarded their departure for a moment, before lifting the stack of “used” papers in his magic and immolating them. No sense leaving materials around that could later be used to break Dawn Wings’ code.

Lifting up the papers, Shining regarded them with a frown.

The first page was a highly detailed map of Ponyville, with a house in the north west portion of town marked with a picture of a changeling, along with two ponies. Above the changeling, there was a set of three dots and two horizontal lines, indicating an enemy in a leadership position, along with two ponies, a filly and mare, with four dots and a diagonal line next to them, indicating potentially not enemy.

Setting down the first page, Shining regarded the second. On this page, there is a row of nine repeating “three dot symbols”, one of which had two horizontal lines next to it, three of which had diagonal lines adjacent to the dots, while another had three slash marks through it. Shining balked slightly at the last, because it confirmed his suspicion: Dawn Wings was the one responsible for killing the changeling. While he was grateful for the corax saving his sister, the ramifications of her actions could have lasting consequences. Chrysalis, while willing to sacrifice her troops in combat, did not take kindly to her subjects being killed when it wasn’t to her advantage.

Pushing the thought aside, Shining continued to examine the report. Below four of the symbols indicating enemies, including the one with the leadership and killed symbols were changelings. Directly below each, connected by lines, were drawings of ponies, including cutiemarks. But what got Shining’s attention were the three with the diagonal lines adjacent to them. Because below these three, there were no changelings. Only ponies with enlarged drawings of their cutiemarks.

The sight of it made his blood boil.

“So, you think that these three are working with the changelings, do you?” Shining said through gritted teeth. “Harmony, I hope you’re wrong birdbrain…”

Looking at the final page, Shining found himself smiling a little. Now this was an interesting tidbit of information. The illustrations were something like a comic strip, telling a pictorial story: a changeling took a bottle of liquid decorated with a heart from another changeling, wrote something in a notebook, poured off a small amount into another container, and then wrote something into a new notebook, and passed the bottle on to another changeling. The final image on the page was of the two notebooks.

Chuckling to himself, Shining rose and began heading for the Day Court. Celestia was going to want to see these as soon as possible. His good cheer was slightly tarnished by the fact that they’d promised Dawn Wings at least a week to gather as much information as possible. After all, they didn’t know where the changelings were hiding, or if they had any ponies held hostage. Hopefully Dawn Wings would uncover more in the next few days.

He just needed to trust in Lt. Vexing to do his job and make sure that the town was secure.

* Ponyville *

Dawn Wings flapped her wings hard to reverse her momentum as she landed on an upper balcony of the Golden Oaks library, looking in through one of the windows to check on the ponies inside. Sure enough, Vinemana, Tlectalae, Shásháme, and Ielilana were all still inside, the latter three obviously trying to help Vinemana recover. A small twinge of jealousy and resentment wormed its way into Dawn Wings' mind, but she pushed it aside with a deep, cleansing breath. She wasn't going to hold her own loneliness against the ponies. It wasn't their fault.

Dawn Wings turned her attention away from the inside of the building and to the task at hand: the ticks.

Focusing her power, she sent out a pulse of spiritual energy, which, frustratingly and thankfully, did not come back with any threats in the vicinity. On the one wing, it was good that the ticks weren’t prowling around. But on the other wing, it meant that they had gone to ground and were now biding their time. That made her job that much harder.

She needed a new plan of attack.

First thing’s first: head to the lead tick’s home base, and see if there was anything she could learn. If she was lucky, she’d find the tick so she could tail it and see where it went. If that didn’t work, then she’d figure something else out. With one last glance at her tutor and her friends, Dawn Wings took to the air and headed off to her next target.

*****

A few minutes later, Dawn Wings alighted in the branches of the large oak tree near the lead tick’s house.

‘Better check to see if its around.’ Dawn Wings thought as she pulsed the area for threats. Her gift returned three threats, but all of them were off in the distance.

‘Well, that’s great. He’s not here.’ Dawn Wings grumbled. That meant that she would have to fly around town looking for the ticks, which wasn’t a premise she was eagerly anticipating.

‘Hmmm.’ She thought as she stared into the windows. It didn’t look like any of the occupants were home. ‘Well, maybe I can find something inside.’

Moving deeper into the branches of the tree, Dawn Wings pushed through the membrane of reality as she stepped sideways into the umbra. Upon emerging in the spirit world, a familiar chill ran up her spine, and as she turned to face the tick’s house, she froze. All across the surface, cracks and fissures split the walls open, and a thin coating of puss-like ooze covered the surface and appeared to be slowly consuming the umbral structure. But that wasn’t what had set her danger senses off. Crawling across the wall was a dog sized, blood-red, assassin bug like creature with dozens of pony skulls stuck to its back.

‘Shit!’ Dawn Wings swore in her head as she hunkered down in the tree. She knew what that thing was: it was a bane, a malevolent spirit born from the presence of wyrm-taint. And like the spiritual effluence coating the house, it was aligned with the Eater-of-Souls.

Sending out a spiritual pulse, she was relieved to find that there was only one threat in her immediate vicinity: the bane. And thankfully, from what she could sense, it wasn’t a particularly strong one. Still, no need to risk injuring herself getting past the thing. As usual, the best approach was to be stealthy.

Taking to the air, Dawn Wings flew away from the house and wheeled up into the sky, before circling back around the other side and slipping through a crack in the wall. Landing in the house and straining her ears, she could hear the bane crawling around outside. She sighed with relief that the thing hadn’t noticed her yet.

Looking around, Dawn Wings saw that she was in the umbral equivalent of the house’s living room. Not likely to be somewhere the tick would keep important information. Checking the window to see if the bane was looking inside, and founding to her relief that it wasn’t, she took to the air, flying up and towards the staircase to the second floor. If there was any room that might have something she could work with, it would be the private, upstairs ones.

After ascending the stairs, she found herself in a long hallway with multiple doors lining the sides. Dawn Wings flew down the passage, using her Wyrmsight to sense out which room had the greatest amounts of Wyrmtaint. Any room with a higher than ambient proportion would be the most likely spot where the tick spent its time.

After checking three rooms, she hit paydirt: the study was just filthy with Wyrmtaint. Unfortunately, she could also hear the bane crawling around on the outside of the house directly above the room. Clearly, it was drawn to this particular space, probably by the regular presence of the tick. Backing out, Dawn Wings crept towards away from the study, and towards another nearby room: the master bedroom. The Wyrmtaint was still coating everything in space, but that wasn’t why she’d chosen to return. She’d chosen this room because of the presence of a large floor mirror. Even as proficient as she was with stepping sideways, there wasn’t any reason not to use an easier point of egress when it presented itself.

Focusing her will on the mirror, Dawn Wings took off and flew towards the surface, passing through the glass and exiting into the physical world, before landing on the footboard of the large bed situated against the back wall of the bedroom.

Listening, she strained her ears for any sign of life. Upon hearing nothing, she sighed with relief and hopped down from the footboard and made her way back towards the study. She’d have to walk it, because the physical hallway was too tight for her to easily maneuver, as opposed to its larger umbral counterpart. Still, it only took a minute for her to reach her goal. Hooking her beak onto the edge of the door, she cracked it open enough for her to slip her beak between the door and the frame, then push it open enough to allow her entry.

Now in the room, Dawn Wings fluttered up to the top of one of the bookcases, and quickly scanned the room. Three massive bookshelves. A couple small busts on a large writing desk with quills and lots of parchment. A filing cabinet.

‘Nothing terribly obvious, that’s for sure.’ She thought as she surveyed the room. ‘And I can’t just toss the place. Don’t want to leave any obvious evidence I’ve been here. Not yet at least.’

Looking around, she grumbled to herself. This has seemed like such a good plan at the time. But her persistent illiteracy and lack of reasonably accessible opposable thumbs meant that she really couldn’t search the place properly.

‘Well, this is a bust. I’m not going to get… wait a second…’

While she hadn’t found anything directly, when she stopped to think about the last ten or so minutes, she had learned something. So far, from her brief stints in the area, she hadn’t seen any banes. At all.

But there was one hanging around this building.

If the banes were attracted to places where the ticks were hanging out, then she could use them as a potential indicator that there was tick activity.

‘Better than nothing.’ She thought as she fluttered down to the floor and made her way back to the master bedroom. As she did, she heard the door downstairs open, and two sets of hooves make their way inside, as well as the voices of a filly and mare making their way towards the staircase.

‘Shit!’ Dawn Wings swore as she took to the air and flew into the master bedroom. She could hear the mare quietly speak, as if asking what she just heard. Thankfully, she hadn’t started climbing the stairs yet. Turning sharply towards the mirror, Dawn Wings focused her spiritual power and flew through the glass and into the umbra.

‘Too close Dawn Wings. Too close.’ She thought as she alighted on the footboard. Yet, just as she landed, a cold chill ran up her spine and she snapped her head in the direction of the hallway. Now that she’d focused her attention, she could hear the sound of grotesque scuttling coming from outside the door.

Moments later, she spotted the bane peak its head through the door and look at her with cold, hungry eyes. Instantly, the creature hissed and rushed into the room.

‘Nope! Not doing this now!’ She thought as she took to the air just as the bane lunged at her, attempting to grab her in its spiny forelegs and drive its spear-like proboscis into her flesh. Dawn Wings twisted in the air and dodged out of the way, and flew over the spirit’s back. The bane hissed in frustration as its prey evaded it and flew through a crack in the roof.

Dawn Wings didn’t bother to look back, instead gaining altitude as quickly as she could. When she didn’t hear the sound of the bane pursuing, she breathed a sigh of relief.

‘That was too close.’ She thought as she put distance between herself and the house. ‘If those things hang around the ticks, this is going to be trickier than I thought. But, on the bright side, I’ve got a potential lead.’

With a satisfied smirk, she began to glide over the umbral town, looking for the telltale signs of puss-like spiritual effluence and blood-red banes.

*Early afternoon, the umbra*

‘Well now, that’s certainly not a sight you want to see.’ Dawn Wings thought as she landed in the bows of a large tree, her eyes taking in the sight below her.

Her search through Ponyville had turned up remarkably little, except a couple more houses with a bane or two and a putrid coating of Wyrmtaint. She’d made a mental note to check on the buildings later, but had elected to keep searching for anything of greater note.

And, much to her intense delight, she’d found it.

Unlike the other buildings she’d found, this one wasn’t just painted in Wyrmtaint, it was practically oozing with it. Massive veins covered the surface, pulsing with vile, reeking fluid that spilled out of crusted spigots to pour corruption all over the ground. Even more telling were the half dozen or so assassin-bug shaped banes that were crawling all over its surface, including one particularly large specimen that didn’t carry just pony skulls, but whole, rotting corpses.

‘Yea, definitely want to steer clear of those things.’ Dawn Wings thought as she regarded the malevolent spirit. If it came down to it, she might be able to match one of the weaker banes one on one, but that big one was way out of her league. A hiss of frustration worked itself out of her throat. ‘What I wouldn’t give for Bright Claw and her pack right now.'

Sending out a spiritual pulse, Dawn Wings’ powers told her that there were a dozen threats in and around the building, three of which were much greater than the others. That confirmed her suspicions, and fears: there were more banes inside, and two of them were big ones. That made things even more complicated. Even if she could breech the building and avoid the banes on the outside, she doubted she’d be able to evade them in a confined space.

Thankfully the banes hadn’t noticed her, and she intended to keep it that way.

Taking in the building, considered the details she could see under the corruption: two large windows made up the majority of its front, with Equestrian script written across it, clearly proclaiming the establishment’s name that she couldn’t read, with dozens of tools and items on display, all smeared in spiritual puss. Through the windows, she could see rows and rows of merchandise being slowly drowned in the yellow-white fluid leaking from the ceiling.

‘Looks like some sort of general store. I bet whatever the ticks are up to, a good portion of it is going down in there.’ Dawn Wings thought as she regarded the building. ‘Tch. There’s no way I’m getting in there. Not with all those banes crawling around. Might be worthwhile checking it out in the physical world after dark.’

Turning to leave, she considered her options. Her current best bet was to head to the woods near the west edge of town, step sideways, and see if she could find a way to get inside the building after the sun went down. But before that, she needed to put in a little face time with the Techusho family. She still had a cover to maintain.

She'd just wait until after dark, and see what she could find.

Author's Note

Regarding the banes Dawn Wings encounters, they're based on Acanthaspis petax, the corpse-wearing assassin bug.

Ain't nature grand?