HiE: Jack Is Back

Shining's POV

I was trotting along one of the numerous identical hallways of Canterlot Castle, trying to clear my head of the things which the human (Ronnie?) had talked about. It made me sick to think of a world where such acts of violence could happen not even once or twice, but time and time again. It was as I wandering that I hear the tell-tale clop of hoofsteps behind me. I turned in time to see a blur of pink fur coming towards me. It stopped just before it could crash into me, and I recognized the shape as that of Mi Amore Cadenza ("Please, call me Cadence"), my marefriend going on five years now.

"Shining, there you are! I've been looking all over for you. I couldn't find you anywhere and I got worried, what with all this stuff about mysterious creatures and murders," she said, taking breaks between sentences to catch her breath. "I asked Celestia if she'd seen you and I still couldn't find you."

"I've been in the dungeons for the past half-hour or so. Why didn't you just go down there? You're a princess, you're allowed access down there, and Princess Celestia would surely have told you that I was going to be there," I said, questioning whether she actually wanted to make sure that I was okay, or if there was something else. "Either way, I'm okay. The murders do have me a bit shook, but it's nothing major. Now that that's out of the way, do you have something else you want to talk about, or is that all?" I really wanted to be alone right now, to process everything going on in my head.

"No, ... no there's more," she said. She took a deep breath before continuing. "I wanted to talk about what happened earlier."

"There's nothing to talk about. You made a mistake, and we fought about it. Everything's better now." I wanted nothing to do with this subject of conversation. At that moment I wished for something to come along and save me from this. "I can't forget what happened, but I can and will put it behind me. I forgive you, Cadence."

"That's just it Shining, everything isn't better. I don't like what I did, but I don't regret it either. We're going along the same path that led to this in the first place. You're becoming distant, perhaps both of us are, and we're growing further apart. I don't want our relationship to be damaged any further,but with the way things have been progressing I'm afraid that what happened might happen again," she said in a very solemn tone.

"Are you sure you're that sad about it? When I found out you seemed to be very happy, so maybe you'd like to go back to that. After all, I'm not enough for you, isn't that right? I'm never enough," I said bitterly. The words I said may have been mean or cruel, but they were true nonetheless. I hadn't been caring and attentive enough, and so Cadence had started to wander. When I found her on a date with another stallion, it had stung. It had stung, not because she'd betrayed me, but because of the love I saw in her eyes when she looked at the stallion, a love I had never seen when she looked at me. "I saw the way you looked at each other. You were only together for six months, but you truly loved him, loved him even though you were dating me. Now I'm here, playing second fiddle to a secret coltfriend that you haven't seen for seven weeks." I sighed, trying to collect my thoughts, before I continued. "I know things aren't perfect, that they haven't been for awhile, but I'm trying. I'm truly trying to be a better coltfriend, to give you the love and affection that you deserve, but at this point it almost seems futile. I'll keep trying, and I assume you will as well, but I don't know how long we can keep this up."

"I know, and I'm sorry. I hope that we can fix this and fix ourselves, because I don't want to give up on this," she said. Well, it was nice to hear that she didn't want to break it off either. That didn't mean it was true. "I do love you Shining. I know it may not seem like it, but I do." Again it was nice to hear, but how much of it was the truth?

#############################HiE:JiB

Two weeks had passed since the last killing. The nobles are trying to say that it was a non-pony creature, resulting in more of their usual hatred for the other species of intelligent life. The newspapers were worried at first, spreading semi-factual accounts of the states of the victims. However, the population of the city's East End had gotten back on the streets almost immediately after the news had broken. The ponies there were too poor to forego work for long. Many had gone back to their usual trades, albeit working in a more skittish manner than normal. Now, with the murders already starting to loom in the distance, a sense of relief was felt by many. Many, but not all. The friends of the deceased still held fear within their hearts, and probably would until the culprit was caught (if the culprit was caught). I still felt a bit uneasy about the whole thing, wondering if the murderer was truly gone, or if they were still lurking somewhere nearby.

In the meanwhile, I was put back on the human case. I continued to conduct interviews with them. Two of the humans were kind enough, not showing a single interest in Equestria or ponykind. They just answered my questions and told me a bit about their world. The other two were interesting though.

Early one morning, not long after I had returned to the human case, I strode down to the dungeons and pulled one of the group out to talk with them. He (at least I'm told this one's a he) looked to be the youngest of the group, possibly the age of a teenaged colt. He wore glasses and had a short dark brown mane, though when compared to ponies humans always seem to have short manes, so to him it maybe long. He seemed to hold a sort of curiosity about Equestria and what was going on around him. It was not unlike the one that looked to be near my age, the one that had told me about those awful things (have to stop thinking about that stuff). I sat in my usual seat in the interview room and proceeded to begin my line of questioning.

"Alright, this is just going be a short series of questions to determine whether you are a threat to Equestria and ponykind at large. Now, first question, what's your name?" I asked.

"Rick. My name is Rick M. Dilinger. I assume that because you said ponykind that you are a pony and not a horse then?" Rick asked. "Also, is Equestria the name of the city we're in, or is it the country? Is it the name of the planet? Because the only way this could be real is if this is a planet different than the one where I live. I mean, I know that they were working on ships that could take you to other star systems back home, but this is still amazing!" He just kept going and going. I decided to butt in while he was taking a breath.

"Okay Rick, thank you. Yes I'm a pony, a unicorn to be exact. And please, don't go throwing the word whorse around, it's very insulting. Equestria is a kingdom, one of many. Also, what do you mean ships that could take you to the stars?" Now I was curious. During one of the other interviews I had learned that the humans had ships capable of reaching the moon, but not the stars.

"Oh, well the World Interstellar Conglomeration, er that's a worldwide organization that deals with satellites, space travel, and other such things, was working on ships that could fly to the nearest star systems within someone's lifetime. It's incredible to think that what we thought was impossible seventy-three years ago was right within our reach. Though, I suppose that now I'm here with you guys that I won't see all of that happen for myself," he said, a bit put-out by the sound of it.

"Right." That made no sense. According to what some of the others said the human race shouldn't have been anywhere near what Rick was saying. "Well, thank you for explaining. So, do you or any of the others in your group plan to cause harm to anypony?"

"I don't know about the others , but I don't plan on doing anything except learning all I can about this place while I'm here. That's okay, isn't it?" Rick seemed to be much more relaxed at the thought of being here for awhile, so he might cause less trouble than the others if, or rather when, they were going to be released.

"Sure, that'll be alright, as long as your studies don't disrupt anypony's lives to an excessive amount, and that you don't hurt somepony while on your quest for knowledge," I said.

"Of course not. I just want to learn of your race and culture, as well as those of any other races that this place might hold. It's not everyday that you go somewhere that no person has ever seen before." Celestia, the more he spoke the more he reminded me of Twilight.

"Okay. Well, that's all the questions I have for you for now Rick. Thank you, this has been very informative. I'll have the guard outside bring you back to your cell." I was starting to suspect something, but I'd have to have another talk with the other humans first. "Oh, one last question. What time was it in on your home when you arrived? The full date, please."

"Oh, of course. It was Wednesday June 6th, 2113. And I must thank you as well, this conversation was much more pleasant than what I'd been anticipating," he said. With that, he got up from his chair and walked toward the door. Thus ended my time with Rick Dilinger. While his was one of the more curious of the interviews with the humans, it was calm and pleasant at the very least. The next interview was much less kind.

After taking ten minutes to compose myself after my interview with Rick, I went to the humans' cell and had the lady who'd snapped the other day come to the interview room with me. She (again, I'm told it's a she) seemed to have calmed down some since I last tried to talk to her.

"So, this is just going to be a standard interview. What is your name, and do you or any of your group plan to bring harm to anypony while you are here?" I asked.

"My name is Mary Rudgiker. I don't plan to hurt anything for the duration of my 'stay' here. In fact, I plan to interact with you all as little as possible," she said. Well, at least she wasn't as rude as she was last time. "I just want to get out of here and back to my home as soon as possible. Back to where there aren't talking animals that come in all the colors of the rainbow." Never mind.

"Right. Anyways, next question. Before you were brought here, what time was it? The full date, if you please." Time to see if my suspicion was right.

"It was November 15th, 1957. I hope that that information helps you to get me home," Mary said. She stood up. "Are we done here? I'd like to go back and get some sleep."

"Of course. I'll have a guard escort you back," I said. Once she was gone I sighed and started to think about what I'd learned. These humans had been pulled from multiple points in time, not just space as I'd initially thought. The power required to do something of this magnitude was enormous. This considerably narrowed down the list of suspects from the Equestrian side of things, though I wasn't entirely convinced that the humans had nothing to do with this. A human outside of their group may have done something to bring them all here. Still, these humans were okay (for the most part). Tomorrow morning I would meet with Princess Celestia about having them released. Then I would start looking further into who could've done this. I just had to hope that nothing else would go wrong.