I had a win. I'd never heard of Red Tail Crossing before but I'd find it. As good as that felt, I couldn't help but think about the family members left out of the loop. I'm sure the Pies had their reasons for leaving but Limestone really got shafted. She's still working as a guard to hold onto the farm they just forfeited by abandoning it. They couldn't come get her because it sounded like they didn't even know where she was stationed. If Limestone's not getting anything out of her indentured servitude now, she should just go AWOL but first she'd need a safe place to hide. I had to tell her too.

For now though, I'd just sit on this intel. It was time to find Twili.

From the Apple's farm, I walked the long dirt road into town and tried to orient myself. It had been years and I'd only visited Ponyville a few times but I knew how to get to my sister's old house from the prominently visible clocktower, not that the Castle of Friendship was exactly low profile.

Everypony I saw on the street looked more relaxed than they did in Crystal City and from what I could see, there was less of a police presence as expected. There was a gallows at the base of the clocktower but thankfully nopony on display.

I passed by an ornately detailed gingerbread cottage which I recognized immediately as Pinkie Pie's former place of work, a sad looking Sugarcube Corner. The windows and doors were boarded up. The front walk and periphery were besieged by weeds. I guess nothing became of it.

Staring into the darkness behind a broken window, I couldn't hold back the foalish reverie of Pinkie coming back to Ponyville and working there again… and being happy and it made me wonder what I'd be doing in that world.

Another few blocks and the great crystalline castle stood proudly in my path, still shimmering radiantly unlike Sugarcube. I frowned at the base of the trunk which held the whole structure aloft. The sight of the Crystal Empire flag flying over the door was as surreal as it was nauseating. The engraved wooden words police station were indescribably debasing for such a building, my sister's house or not.

I dropped my cigarette to the cobblestone and crushed it, letting a final sigh of smoke escape my muzzle. Now how did I want to play this?

Despite having a conspiracy planner, I was naturally impatient and more into winging it. I did have one important asset to capitalize on besides magical brute force and that was already knowing the castle layout. The place was so huge it had to be mostly unoccupied. I could do teleportation hopscotch through every room, see what I could find and be out again without ever being seen… theoretically.

I hid my pack in a nearby bush and rolled my head to one side until I felt my neck pop. Then I focused on Twili's bedroom. I vanished from the street in a flash and reappeared in the castle. It certainly wasn't a bedroom anymore but the important thing was that nopony was there when I could have instead teleported into a briefing room in the middle of a presentation. Unlikely. What would they use that amazing map room for if not briefings?

I looked curiously down the neat, almost wall to wall, row of metal cabinets. Opening a drawer at random, I found a subdivided interior, every little compartment filled with a single amulet or ring and a meticulously filled out paper label taped to it. Each piece pulsed with an unknown enchantment. It looked like the room was now a contraband and evidence locker.

I slunk to the door and cracked it open just enough to look through. I saw a pair of officers walking away down the hall. My eyes bounced from one door to another as I recalled the size and use of each one, trying to flesh out what they might be used for now. Thankfully every door I saw was labeled with a helpful plaque.

I poked my eye out past the edge of the door and looked the opposite direction. The next closest room used to be the study. The sign above the entrance read 'storage.' That gave me an idea. Quietly retracting back inside, I teleported next door to storage.

Twilight's old study made a sizable storage closet. Cuffs, batons, riot gear, police tape… My eyes were drawn to a big rack of folded police uniforms. Perfect… as long as my poster's not on the wall. I checked the sizes and slipped one on. Lastly I put a cap on my head and brushed my wild mane back out of my eyes.

I left the closet and began boldly walking the halls, dutifully reading every sign as I went. I needed to find where the action was in order to get anything out of this risky little adventure.

It didn't take long for me to see that the whole complex was spread thinner than lingerie a size too small. I found a large barracks that by my estimation was only operating at about a third capacity. The ballroom canteen was a ghost town. There were very few ponies in the halls. It was just as I predicted, the station wasn't a regional command center, it was like a little colt wearing his dad's boots.

I turned left at the stairs. Lockup was probably downstairs. No reason to go there. As I drew closer to the open doorway which used to lead to Twilight's most treasured library, I actually heard murmuring and a quiet bustle of activity. This was the spot. I walked right in like I belonged.

Oddly enough the enormous library looked more or less the same. Some of the book stacks had been rearranged around a matrix of work desks but it looked like all of the books were still on the shelves. It was an office space integrated into a library and under other circumstances I might have even called it nice looking.

My nerves began to buzz as I skirted the perimeter of the cubicles. There were too many ponies in here and I couldn't just wander around for long without becoming suspicious. I stopped in front of a big bulletin board and scanned the wanted faces. I still wasn't there, at least not yet. Good. Maybe it wouldn't get out this far.

Just beside the faces was a big gridded map of the Everfree Forest. A spark of realization went off in my brain. There was a blobby shaped outline made of pins with red yarn stretched around them in the western half of the Everfree. This was pretty close to confirming what Pinkie Pie had said. Maybe the station was actually empty because everyone was searching the forest.

Looking over the rest of the room I realized that there wasn't much I could rummage through without brazenly insinuating myself into the office action. Searching a random empty workspace seemed like high risk, low reward unless it was the chief's office. He was in there at the moment. I could search it when he left.

I ran my hoof along a battery of wooden filing cabinets, reading every label on every top drawer. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a high ranking White Cap with bars on his gray uni come swaggering into the library. I immediately wondered what the hell he was doing here. Worst of the worst in my book, I'd seen a few of the grunts in rural Equestria so far but they were probably more well known for infesting the big cities, methodically backrooming ponies and ferreting out dissidents. They were the cold face of the purge and the most cruel of Sombra's appendages. If a head inquisitor of the secret police was in Ponyville, it meant something bad was happening here, an out of the ordinary kind of bad.

The forest green earth pony went straight for the chief's office and disappeared inside. Now that was probably going to be an interesting conversation. I surreptitiously wandered over to the high bookshelves which made up the exterior of the big office and looked behind the books. Unfortunately there was a solid wall put up behind them and I couldn't just listen through the books. The chief had conventional walls but he might not have a ceiling.

The second tier of the library was unoccupied and had a balcony which wrapped around the interior and overlooked the main floor. I vanished quietly into a nook before teleporting up there. The beating heart in my throat reminded me of why I hated this kind of stuff.

I army crawled to the ledge and stuck an eye through the center of a wrought iron curl which adorned the bottom of the balcony railing. To my smug delight, I could indeed see right down into the office where the chief of police puffed on a cigar at his desk.

"No more Ponyville for me," he chuckled. "I'm snagging a promotion for this and getting a transfer."

"Are you kidding?" scoffed the White Cap who sat across from him. "Ponies in the city would kill for a cushy job out here. And don't count your promotions before they're hatched."

"And why not?" shrugged the chief. "We know he's got the goods on her whereabouts. You think you might not get him to talk?"

"No, we will most certainly get the Intel. Whether in the end it delivers Twilight Sparkle to Sombra though is another matter entirely."

My heart revved at hearing my sister's name. They were interrogating someone who knew where she was. This was the ticket I needed.

The chief scratched his chin in thought. "Hmm… Should keep him alive as bait for a trap."

"Not my department but you may be right. The head inquisitor got up from his chair. "Session six is starting. I should check in."

"Six?" laughed the chief. "Is that a normal amount?"

"No… I've never seen anyone make it past two. It's kind of nice to see a real challenge for once." With that, he left the stallion with his cigar.

I teleported back to the main floor and followed the guy out of the library at a distance.

This was now a rescue mission. I get into the interrogation room, neutralize any resistance, free the witness and quickly escape with them before the station comes down on us.

We went down the stairs. The White Cap entered a door flanked by two posted sentries, a unicorn and an earth pony. I approached but kept my eyes on the hall straight ahead like I had other places to be. I shot a quick glance behind and saw that the hall was empty except for us. If I dealt with the sentries now by surprise, it would buy me more time.

In a snap decision at about five paces away I clipped the horn of the unicorn. Before the tip even hit the ground, I sent both guards on a date to Sugarcube Corner. The clock was ticking now.

I teleported to the other side of the door, ready to brawl. I couldn't believe what I saw. In the spacious repurposed bathroom I peered between the pair of White Caps to see a weary and bloodied Spike shackled, in a chair. A metal gag was locked over his mouth to suppress his dragon fire. His eyes scanned over to me on the edge of the dim lamp light but he remained indifferent to my presence. My adopted brother. I should have known. Who else would have that information?

"I don't leverage false hope about survival, dragon," the head inquisitor pontificated. "You already understand the terms. I promise your suffering will end after you give us what we want. How long that takes is entirely up to you."

The unicorn administering the treatment floated an obsidian tipped scalpel from a tray of various implements, picks, blades, an empty syringe, and eased the shining black tip up to Spike's face.

I felt immediate searing fury ignite within me, the very same I'd felt the last time I saw Pinkie Pie's face.

Before the torturer could make any use of the tool, I highjacked the blade with my magic, spun it around and drove it mid handle deep into her own eye. She shrieked, stumbling back into her tray of tools, knocking them to the floor with a crash.

The head inquisitor whirled around in surprise. He locked eyes with my burning pits. I grabbed his head in my aura and squeezed.

"S-stop," he grunted in pain as the other inquisitor whimpered, trying to draw the scalpel from her socket with trembling hooves.

My glare deepened. I forced his mouth shut and kept squeezing. His muffled cries died behind sealed lips. His face turned red as the vessels within began to rupture. Blood seeped down from his eyes, nose and then even his ears as his guttural vocalizations became more frantic. Just as a puddle of red began to form at my hooves, I jerked his head around in almost a half turn to a chorus of popping vertebrae. I threw his body against the wall and turned my attention to the other White Cap who continued to struggle with removing the scalpel.

I floated her up, slamming her into the ceiling and pinning her there spreadeagle. "Let me help you with that," I growled. Telekinetically I twisted the embedded implement, causing more blood to drip from her now sightless orb. I listened to her scream, not caring if anyone heard or that I was carelessly wasting time I could have been using to safety flee the scene. In the back of my mind, I could see numbers on a wanted poster rolling higher like a cash register tally.

I called every sharp and pointy tool in sight to attention in the air and one by one jammed them all into the unicorn's barrel. She wailed and moaned in agony until she was a weeping, dripping pin cushion.

As I stared into her pathetic, soulless visage I saw flashes of Luna's disapproving face, then that of Pinkie Pie and my terrified wife and daughter watching me, seeing a cold viciousness I'd never shown them or anyone. I faltered in uncertainty but when I looked back at Spike who'd been bruised, battered and mutilated without mercy, it was like kerosene on embers again. How dare they. What excuse did I have for letting such irredeemable scum fester on this planet?

My hatred renewed, I looked back at the quivering mass still pressed to the ceiling. I sent a single diamond cutter through her neck and then released her just as the red geyser erupted. She dropped to the hard floor with a meaty thud. She gurgled and choked face down, only able to shudder as blood quickly pooled around her.

I let out a shaky breath as I approached Spike. His eyes grew wide in terror. "No! No, please!" he begged, shaking his head as vehemently as his restraints would allow.

"Spike, it's me," I almost cried. "Shining."

"What?" he squinted hazily. "Oh, good… I'm finally dead. I didn't know ponies and dragons went to the same-"

"No. We're both alive."

"No way," he breathed.

I teleported him out of his bindings but the gag stayed on. I reached out to hug him. He flinched in pain at my touch. Even so, he managed to reciprocate weakly.

"Do you know where Twili is?" I asked, beginning to scrounge around for a key to his mask.

"Yeah," he gasped in exhaustion. He was clearly struggling to focus through the effects of whatever truth serum they'd put in his system. He held a shaking hand up in front of his face, gazing bemusedly at the empty space where his fourth claw used to reside.

I rolled over the body of the head inquisitor. "Did you tell anyone?"

"No," he grunted. "And I think I've been here for like two days."

"Spike, that's fucking amazing. I wouldn't expect anyone to be able to do that."

"Dragon fortitude," he mumbled. He looked down woozily at the other White Cap now face up, drenched in blood with every pointed piece of metal bent or nearly pushed into obscurity within her flesh. He abruptly looked away. "Yeah… Can we get out of here now?"

"Can't find your key," I muttered," examining the components of Spike's gag. "Hold still." I braced his head in profile view with one forehoove and summoned another magic blade. With surgical precision, it sheered the lock from the back of his neck. I knocked the device loose and it fell to the floor with a clang.

Author's Note

I'm estimating 3-4 chapters left in this story.