Dead Week

Totality skipped her next class in order to stake out Hazy’s room ASAP. She knocked on her door and teleported a safe distance to the stairs. The act of hiding there immediately dredged up memories of the day she’d followed Comet here.

When no pony answered the door, Totality Teleported back and tried the door lever. It was locked. Nothing left to do but dive in blind, she thought. She flashed straight into Hazy’s room and quickly looked around for any occupants.Thankfully, it was clear.

The prospect of searching through Hazy's things sounded gross to her, but wanting to avoid getting caught, she did not hesitate. She started with the stupid obvious places where nopony should put a banned book. She checked every tome which occupied the shelves of the two desks and rifled through every drawer within them. She even removed them from their tracks to check behind and underneath them. Totality had the great fortune to catch Hazy away without her saddlebag. She went through it thoroughly but found nothing. She scoured the mostly empty closets and even the bathroom. Her lips curled in disgust as she patted down both mattresses and tossed the pillows. She tilted the mattresses up to check underneath and then laid down to check the floor below.

Totality grunted in frustration. It wasn't here. She went through everything and couldn't find anything even suspicious. As she began to wrack her brain for any possible hiding spot in the room she might have overlooked, but her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a rattling door latch. In an instant, Totality aparated out of the room and into the lobby.

Gamma and Totality regrouped at around dinner time in the cafeteria, but decided to eat outside in privacy at a little umbrella table.

"I couldn't find anything of note,” began Totality disappointedly, “and I even went through her saddlebag. She appears clean, but also something occurred to me. Hazy can't teleport. Like you, she probably can't enter the catacombs without help. So either it wasn't her or she's collaborating with somepony else."

Gamma puffed out his cheeks. "Huh… In the old days, these rituals were pretty much always performed by groups of ponies. That was culturally normal in that time and place. But today, we're so far removed from that philosophy and religious significance that most ponies that gravitate toward black hat are going to be maniacs who are there for an entirely different experience. If a group did something like this in present times, it would be more akin to a serial killer working in tandem, which I think is pretty rare, right?" He turned to her for confirmation with the correct assumption that she had a working knowledge of criminal profiling.

"That makes sense," she muttered absently. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know what to think now though as far as suspects.”

Gamma scratched the back of his head. “I honestly don’t have a better idea than Hazy at the moment either because of how targeted this feels, but let’s put her aside for now and attack from a different angle. We’ve both walked this line before. We should be able to think like them. What are they going to want or need for whatever it is that they’re doing? If we can predict that, maybe we can pick up their trail.”

“Maybe when they figure out that somepony raised Comet, they’ll just quit while they’re ahead,” posed Totality hopefully but only half seriously.

Gamma just grunted skeptically. He was like a completely different pony when he was being serious.

“Hey,” gasped Totality in inspiration. “Was your book written in Runic Arcana?”

“Yeah,” he replied slowly, trying to give himself time to unravel her thoughts before she could explain.

“Most ponies aren’t going to just know how to read that. In all likelihood our suspect would have needed another book to translate it. Where do you go to get books?”

“The library?” he shrugged.

“Exactly! We can check their records to see who got anything on Runic Arcana in the last couple of days.”

His eyes widened. “That’s brilliant! We can try the same thing with the building plans at the archives. Student’s aren’t allowed to check out the documents, but you can look at them there if you sign in… but both those places are closed right now,” he sighed.

“Tomorrow,” proposed Totality. “Why don’t you do the archives and I’ll do the library?

“Okay,” he agreed. “Wanna do brunch instead of lunch so we have time to get those out of the way afterwards before afternoon classes?”

“Sure,” she nodded, beginning to wonder if this investigation was more or less marking the end of their school year.

Gamma scratched his head. "I know the moment has kind of passed, if not soured, for this but I feel like it got lost in the mail the first time. I had a lot of fun with you in the catacombs until things went sideways, and even some of that was kind of fun. Thanks for taking me down there."

Totality smiled. "I had a lot of fun too. Thanks for showing me where it was."

The next morning, Hazy Sheen was absent from history of magic. So was Comet Shard, but that was to be expected. Totality and Gamma sat side by side in the auditorium now. Professor Moondancer began class with an odd announcement, but not the one that they were expecting.

Moondancer sat behind her desk with her mug, looking like she’d just rolled out of bed as usual. “As part of the history department, I’m obligated to make a public plea for the return of the Zoma mask artifact which disappeared from the hallway display case sometime late yesterday or last night. Please return it immediately and there will be no questions asked.”

Gamma and Totality shot quizzical glances at one another. They’d seen that ugly mask in the hall every day. They couldn’t quite put it together, but having it disappear suddenly right now seemed suspicious.

After class, the two of them gathered at the big display case in the hall where a conspicuously vacant space on the wall had opened up around a naked hook.

“What do you think?” breathed Totality, looking at the simple artifact label.

“It could be connected. It could be for a personal effect, but what’s the motive here? More advanced experimentation?”

“The case isn’t broken,” added Totality. “Somepony must have teleported it out… or had the keys.”

The two flinched in surprise as Moondancer sprang up behind them. “Oh, good,” she smirked. “I’m so glad you saw the error of your ways and have decided to right this heinous wrong. I’ll just turn around and count to ten to give you some privacy while you put it back.”

“It wasn’t us,” droned Totality.

“Who’s this Zoma guy, anyway?” asked Gamma.

“I’m kind of surprised you don’t know him, Gamma. Alicorn? Lord of Undoing? He ravaged nearly a third of Equestria before the Pillars tossed him in a volcano.”

“And the academy had his actual mask?” prodded Totality.

“We sure do, or did.”

“Should we be worried that somepony has it?” asked Gamma.

Moondancer screwed up her face in thought. “It’s unfortunate to lose, but the mask itself isn’t magical. It’s not a danger. We wouldn’t have it on display if it was. Hopefully it will turn up, if not back in the case, then on the face of some hungover frat pony waking up by the fountain… Well, good luck on your paper. I expect good work from you two.” Moondancer turned away, plodding slowly to her office.

“I really don’t like this,” breathed Totality.

“Is this the part where we stick to the ‘internal affair’ plan against our better instincts?” asked Gamma.

“Eeyup,” she replied slowly.

The two broke as Totality went to her potions class. Once there, she found the other half of her lab station vacant. Hazy was also absent from potions. Where was she and what was she doing? What does all this mean? thought Totality.

Gamma and Totality met for their pre-investigation brunch. She exorcised his cereal while they processed through the line.

The eating area was sparsely occupied at this time, but Totality spotted Radiance sitting on Midnight Call's lap. They appeared to be mostly done with their food and we're just fooling around semi-amorously. She nudged Gamma. “This way.”

Midnight Call was the only pony Totality had seen on campus with a darker coat than hers. He was off black with a very subtle purple sheen, usually only noticeable in direct sunlight. He also lived on the same floor as Comet which made him a good source of information at the moment.

Totality and Gamma sat down across from the two. Midnight squeezed Radiance around the barrel with both forelegs, making her squirm.

"Hey, Totality," greeted Radiance. "Haven't seen you here in a while."

"I've been here, just on the other side of the room," replied Totality before casually biting into a dinner roll.

Radiance's eyes flicked over to Gamma. "Oh, you've been sitting with your new…"

"Research partner," supplied Totality. "Gamma Burst."

"Oh, okay," laughed Radiance, rolling her eyes in doubt.

"Did you hear what happened?" asked Midnight, grimly.

Gamma’s ears perked up as he continued to shovel cold cereal into his mouth.

Totality actually hadn't heard what happened but of course she already knew. "Yeah, something happened with Comet. How is he?"

"He went to the hospital. I don't think he's coming back this semester."

Totality blinked in feigned surprise. "It was that bad? What actually happened to him?"

Midnight took a foreleg off of Radiance to scratch his chin. "That's what's weird. No pony knows. Not even he seems to know, but all signs point to him getting fucked up and doing something stupid… like maybe he tried to kill himself.”

Totality’s face fell. They definitely weren’t talking about necromancy, but It wasn’t exactly the innocuous conjecture she’d hoped for. If ponies thought Comet had tried to commit suicide, they were going to ask why, and she was the easiest answer to that question.

“The RA ran into him in the hall,” continued Midnight. “He was just wandering around drunk with half his mane burnt off. It was in the middle of the day and he was so blitzed he didn't know where he was. His sister said today they've been checking him for head trauma because after he sobered up, they realized that the last thing he remembers is from like a week ago."

Totality froze, her mouth hanging open in shock.

"I'm pretty sure he thinks you're still together," added Midnight in a hushed tone.

Totality closed her eyes and hung her head. "Well… that's seriously fucked up," she muttered. She knew there would be memory loss, but she thought it would be closer to a day, not a whole week. She imagined Comet sitting alone in a hospital bed, wondering why she hadn’t come to check on him. Did she need to feel bad when she didn't go visit him? Did she really need to break up with him a second time while explaining that it was because of something that he didn't even remember doing? Could she even muster the courage to do that when her spiteful rage had been eroded away by sobering pity?

He wasn’t a vegetable, though. All things considered, it was pretty good for improvisational necromancy.

Totality stopped eating and just held her face in her hooves in silence for a long time. She felt a comforting foreleg slide around her back. “Thanks, research partner,” she whispered.

Midnight Call cleared his throat. “Yeah, sorry. But you might want to hear what happened straight from his family, if they even know."

"Later, Totality," said Radiance as she hopped off of Midnight's lap. "Bye, Gamma."

Totality nodded as the two departed, levitating their trays to the dirty dishes.

Gamma pulled his foreleg back. “I’m sorry, was that… appropriate?”

She looked at him quizzically. “What? Your leg? Yes. Why?”

“I don’t know. If I were you, I probably would have slapped it away.”

“Why?”

“Because all of this is my f-”

Totality slapped a hoof over his mouth. "Listen, I don't blame you for any of this. Understand?" She waited for him to respond but he just stared at her. "Understand?" she repeated.

He nodded slowly as she took her hoof away.

"Because, guess what?" Once upon a time, I lost my book too and never got it back. I can't say with any degree of certainty where it ended up or what it was used for if anything. These books are ancient, centuries old. They’ve changed hooves dozens of times. You’re just one link in a chain of other owners. You can only be responsible for yourself and your time with the book. You weren't being malicious or careless. You had the extraordinary bad luck of getting pickpocketed by a psycho. It's completely unreasonable to expect anypony to foresee something like this."

"But I could have just followed the rules," he whimpered.

"Gamma, the rules are stupid. They're intended to keep us safe, but look at what's happening right now. They're preventing us from accessing the tools needed to solve the problem because we're terrified of lifelong stigma and punitive action against us. Remember, I told you I wanted to see that book. Also, I can't help but feel like you've been haplessly sucked into a disaster that's been unfolding around me for years, and you didn't fully comprehend what it meant when we became..."

"Research... partners?" offered Gamma.

"Y-yeah…" She looked away, now embarrassed by the stodgy sounding term she'd pulled out of the air."

"We don't actually know it's Hazy," he posed.

"We don't actually know it's your book either,” she replied, “but it's still the best working hypothesis until we find otherwise." Totality sighed and pushed up her glasses. "Gamma… whatever we do, whatever happens to either of us, we need to stick together because we're fighting the same battle, and I'm not just talking about finding the book."