21’st of the first month of 5 LR (Luna’s Return)

Ponyville: 1:33 AM, right outside Berry Punch's Winery and Bar

I felt the kick that really did it, I was in too much pain to tell but I guessed that more than one rib had been broken, and I had difficulty breathing, and my innards and right lung had all been punctured by my own broken bones.

My vision was becoming blurry, and I thought it, I thought I was going to die like that. Of all the ways to die, getting killed by a disgruntled member of my audience was something I did not consider. He yelled at me saying he lost his home during the Ursa Minor attack, and I simply told him the truth. I told him that it was an accident caused by children that believed without question my persona and my fictional stage play. He then threw me out the door like a ragdoll, galloped at full speed towards me, and began beating on me; I couldn't use magic, I couldn't even move fast enough to dodge and find a way to gallop away. I wasn't actually that good or powerful of a magus, and also I was too drunk to defend myself with or without magic.

I was just in Berry's Bar for a drink and to talk with one of the few friends I had made in Ponyville over the years, which was Berry herself. Start a Fireworks Show the night after as a job that both I and Pinkie Pie had been hired to do, and then head on out to Manehattan for an audition for a Bridleway play. I was going to do that figuring that I was better at acting and fireworks anyway and that I should commit fully to them.

I had finally gotten something of a future. And yet there I was about to lose it all.

I was scared, part of me wondered if I deserved it, but I did not want to die. I did not want to see what the afterlife had waiting for me.

But then I heard the loud clanking of chains.

Though it was blurry I still saw a barbed black spearhead pierce my assailant's chest, the blood spilling on my face alerting me to greater danger. I saw then as my assailant had been pulled away from my sight with great force as his agonizing screams drifted away from my presence. But alas, I was at that point too weak and injured to muster the will to get back on my hooves, so I drifted into the darkness of unconsciousness, awaiting the farrystallion Kharon to take across the river Stix...

"So much for the Great and Powerful Trixie..."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ponyville: 1:29 AM, right outside Berry Punch's Winery and Bar

I was in Ponyville drinking in me friend Berry's Winery and Bar. I was drinking the house wine, which had a great flavor but for an experienced drinker like me, it would have taken four bottles to have gotten me even mildly drunk. I had also come armed despite being told not to by Her Majesty Princess Luna with me Kurdish Dagger and me own enchanted mechanical creation, the Chain Spear, hidden way under me dusty black woolen overcoat.

The owner Berry Punch herself was next to me behind her bar listening in on the conversation, smelling of strawberries and grapes. She hadn’t changed at all since I first met her during the Bridleway Decapitation case back in the fourth month of 992 C.R. (Celestia’s Return). A plum-colored mare with a fruity-pink mane that had a mark of grapes & strawberries, and still had her mane done in a particularly thick manner too, with the smell of squashed grapes still emanating from it.

Berry had been a gracious host and introduced me to a mare named Trixie Lunamoon, she was egocentric, but not selfish in the least. In all, she was theatrics ponyfied, and she told me she was going to perform fireworks show tomorrow night, followed by her going to an audition in me home city Manehattan. I would have loved to have accompanied her there, but I was in Ponyville to fetch Ms. Sparkle so she could help me get reacquainted with Archive Key Yearling (A. K. Yearling.). All so she could help the O.S.S. with a situation down in Kemet back in the Old World located in the area of North Zebrica. Yearling might have specialized in Mesoequestrian Archeology, but she was an adventurer at heart, and in fact, was well versed with many civilizations around the world. So much so that she told Ms. Sparkle of what she considered to be a 'disturbing link' between the Olmec and the Kemet despite both being an ocean away. But that was for the morning.

I was finishing a tale about a case with a wannabe warlock that had sacrificed a foal to an idol of Moloch made from clay in his own house.

"We locked the door behind him, and I had already broken his horn ya see. So instead of shooting him knowing that the other O.S.S. Troopers were outside the door we decided to drop our weapons. Despite that he made a gallop for said door, and try as he might he couldn't get it open because I had already placed troopers outside with orders to not let him escape. So what did we do? We just galloped towards him, gathered around him, and then beat him near to death! HAHAHAHA!!" I laughed, maybe I was twisted, but I considered the way we ended that situation to be funny at least.

Trixie was seated on the stool next to me with a perplexed stare at what she just heard.

But she regained her composure and gave me a genuine smile. She was still wearing her pointed hat and star-spangled wizard's cloak indoors, despite me leaving me hat at the stand by the door like everypony else. Which I found oddly adorable despite her being a fully-grown mare. She might have been slightly unkempt, but she was pretty. She was blue, with a light blue mane and pale blue streak running down it, along with her tail which she kept long, had a nice smelling perfume on strangely enough despite being a performer that was on the road often. After noting all of this in my mind I then heard her speak to me to excuse herself.

"Sorry handsome but I need the restroom for a bit. Now don't go anywhere."

I noticed in the corner of me eye a phantom of a mare, near the door to the storage area on the other side of the bar opposite to the bathrooms.

Trixie trotted away to do her busyness, but it seems I had me own to attend to.

"Berry, I'm taking the bottle with me, I'll pay you later. It seems someone is looking for me."

Berry answered with exasperation in her voice. "Fine, but be back here by the time she comes back. I prefer it if she wasn't alone. Some ponies are still angry with her."

With that, I left the barstool and headed to the storage area's door. The noise and the swirling ether of all the patrons were making it difficult to notice anything happening behind me without me specifically focusing on it.

In front of the said door was the phantom, an emaciated mare with a bell-pepper mark, her colors gone, as she was the color of gaseous white ectoplasm. Her mane was raged and her eyes empty and full of sadness. I decided to ask immediately what she wanted with me.

"What do ya want, and how bad is it?" I asked. I took the bottle of Berry's Wine that I kept floating next to me with telekinesis and began drinking straight from it to see if it would help me deal with whatever this poor soul was going to ask of me.

"My killer is coming here. He is going after that mare you were drinking with. He could be here right now for all we know!"

I spat me drink, the wine went right through her naturally so she didn't even flinch.

I turned around and galloped, used me telekinesis to push away all the patrons I could, the place was packed and I knew it.

I kicked open the door and there at the distance of around three meters I saw Trixie, bloodied, her cloak and hat torn in places, battered and bruised, blood coming out of her mouth as she was being kicked by a grey, pink maned, large and muscular earthen stallion, his mark being that of a shovel.

I was angry, really angry, fire or me Kurdish Dagger was too good for him.

I took the bottle and broke it at the bar's wall, turned around, and rushed closer to them, I could hear somepony behind me but I wouldn't listen. Not then.

I then pulled the Chain Spear from under me sleeve and I magically activated it, causing it to fire as he was about to smash her with his forehooves, and as he was standing with his back legs.

Before he did though the barbed spearhead went right under his chest, through his spine, and his torso. He screamed in agony, as I then telekinetically pulled the chain with perhaps twice the strength I needed to, and telekinetically maneuvered him in mid-air to face me, and me broken wine bottle.

I stabbed through his neck as I stopped the momentum telekinetically. I then slashed across it slicing open his carotid artery, and half decapitating him, causing the broken wine bottle to shatter due to the amount of force that was used. Blood sprayed for a second and I then dropped him in front of me. His eyes still bulged, staring back at me with fear although he was stone cold dead. I magically called back the chain of me Chain Spear and it retracted back again into my sleeve.

Then I heard Berry scream behind me. "By Celestia's arse Folklore!"

I looked back and stared at Berry and demanded the following. "Call Ponyville Hospital, tell them that there is a mare beaten half to death and that she is being brought in. Ye can tell the Sheriff what ya want later."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_________

Ponyville: Ponyville Hospital, 10:31AM

I sat there next to her hospital bed, I still had some dried blood on me. I asked permission to use Taoist acupuncture, and for the doctors to use specific intravenous solutions to speed her recovery. The bone regen was used while she was sedated, and everything else will heal at an accelerated pace.

I threatened the dim Sheriff to back off, Berry vouched for me saying it was self-defense. Her Majesty Luna and Her Highness Celestia would vouch for me, I was their first Knight in three centuries. And apparently, from what I heard over the phone Ms. Lunamoon was a friend of Ms. Sparkle. So I did Twilight 'Wings Now' Sparkle a favor somewhat. Though I doubt she would appreciate it considering the use of deadly force.

Her abdomen which I had placed seven acupuncture needles which I saturated with ether and half her face was covered in bandages, four of her teeth were missing as well, she was going to need implants there.

I thought about all of that. Then I heard her wake up. Her eyes opened, and she said the following.

"Trixie... Is Trixie... Am I alive?"

I looked at her, tired.

"Yes Ms. Lunamoon, you are alive."

She looked in me direction, beginning to tear up. She then kept on speaking.

"I am sorry the night ended the way it did... I-. Oh Celestia the fireworks show, and my audition! I won't be able to recover in time to get to it! " She said that last sentence as she covered her eyes with her left foreleg.

I place me hoof on her right shoulder, trying to calm her down.

"I made a few phone calls, your friends will be here shortly. As for the audition? I have an old friend back home in Manehattan, he runs a newspaper and as such knows more than a few ponies in Bridleway, he got them to give you another audition for another play as soon as you recover."

She removed her foreleg and turned her head to look back at me.

"Why? I mean Trixie is more than thankful, but... Well, Trixie wouldn't have blamed you if you just left Trixie there."

Me eye twitched, I was getting angry again.

"Don't give me that crap. This is what I can do. If anything I should be apologizing to you still. If I hadn't left to talk to a mare enquiring me about the stallion that murdered her, I would have been there waiting for ya and I could have stopped that son of a bitch without ye coming to any harm. The irony that the bastard that did this to ya and that ghost's murderer was one and the same does not escape me."

She looked at me, not knowing what to think.

"You can talk to the dead?"

I blinked wondering why that was her first concern. Though I will admit that me abilities are rare.

"Yes. Basically speaking."

She then asked something else.

"Did you stab the pony that was attacking me?"

I looked away. Couldn't face her with the answer. I wasn't exactly proud of being a trained murderer. Bastard might have deserved it but had things went differently he could have stood trial instead. Not that I have much respect for lawyers and courts, but as a soldier of Equestria it makes the princesses look bad if I go about killing all that cross me as if I was cleaning house.

"I did, he is in the morgue as we speak. Let's just say I lost me temper."

And with that, I got up and started to leave. But she yelled at me as if to ask that I pay attention.

"Hey! You better come back here when I recover and escort me to Manehattan you hear? Guarantee my safety. It can get lonely on the road you know?"

I snorted at that. Part of me couldn't help but wonder why she was crazy enough to want to spend any time with me anymore.

And I told her back. "Me number is on the card on the table. Also, don't worry. You'll be out of here in a week, and fully recovered in a month."

I then trotted off. I had a very angry new Alicorn to talk to.

Author's Note

This is right before the upcoming story....

The Crawling Chaos....
Year 5 Luna's Return
In a temple in the jungles of the Wild Lands south of Equestria there is a gateway from there to the Land of the Nile Kemet in north Zebrica. Discovered by Archive Key Yearling (Daring Do), she believes that there was a connection between the ponies from Kemet and the formation of the civilizations that came and went in the Wild Lands, including the Olmec's, the Maya, and the Aztec. But upon further study there is a mention in the two distinct parts of the world, of something called The Black. Yearling calls upon her former colleague and director of the O.S.S. (Occult Science Service) Dr. Arcanum Folklore to come with a squad armed to the teeth. Something ancient once afflicted the world and it lies under the Great Pyramid of Giza imprisoned for eternity, the key to that prison is in the Wild Lands underneath Equestria. What will it take for the past to remain buried?