Canterlot Academy Trials

Back in the ballroom itself…

Nebula’s team took two different positions within the building. Acting as two couples, they had a full sense of awareness around the perimeter. To be exact, Nebula was sitting at a table with Grimrose. The two would pretend to chat and sip on wine that was served there. The taste caused Nebula to nearly gag but he kept up the appearance of a snarky noble pony tradesman for the sake of the mission.

“Yuck,” the stallion muttered under his breath, “How does anyone over the age of thirty drink this stuff?”

“You’d be surprised,” Grimrose replied with a sigh as she looked around the room, “No signs of anything suspicious yet. But I guess we’ll have to wait for Bonetail to make his first move.”

Nebula activated his horn to send a mental message to Mei.

‘How’s things on your end?’

Blue and Mei were on the dance floor, slow-dancing to the band’s orchestral performance accompanied by the piano and other various string and horn instruments. The two kept their eyes open as Mei held onto Blue’s claws with her forelegs as they performed some sort of kobold waltz together.

Mei’s horn lit up as she received the message and responded mentally.

‘Nothing. Everyone’s having slow dances right now. And I see that the servers are still bringing out food as usual.’

‘Pretty much,’ Nebula replied over their magical communication spell, ‘Damn. Well be sure to report in if anything looks off. And I mean anything.’

‘Roger.’

The spell cut off, and Blue would ask, “What’s going on, Mei? Did Nebula find anything?”

Mei shook her head as they continued to dance, “Nope. I’m getting a bit concerned. Given who our target is, it’s possible he could slip through unnoticed without drawing any attention to himself.”

“If he’s really capable of walking around as just a skeleton, who knows what he’s capable of?”

Everything would proceed as normal for the time being. However, eventually, something would catch Blue’s attention from the corner of his eye as he glanced in the direction of the kitchen.

“...”

Mei would notice the dragon’s eyes peer off in a direction, so she had to ask, “Okay. What’s up? You see something, Blue?”

“...It’s…yeah,” he replied with a low tone of voice as to not draw attention to himself, “Not sure if it’s something important or not, but I just saw someone rush into the kitchen.”

“That’s weird…should we check it out?”

“...what about this area?”

Mei had already thought ahead. “Nebula and Grimrose are still watching over this part of the building, so I think it’ll be fine. Come on, let’s go check out what you saw.”

“Alright.”

The two would then slip away from the dance floor and creep up to the kitchen door where Blue had sworn he had seen someone enter. The dragon pushed the wooden door open first, and found several knocked-over pots and pans and a few chef kobolds that had been knocked out and lied on the floor unconscious.

“...they’re breathing,” Mei confirmed as she trotted over to and examined the pulse of each one via putting an ear to their hearts. “More than likely setting up prey for Bonetail to feed off of later. From what little I know about soul magic, you don’t want to kill your target. You simply subdue them until you’re ready to extract the soul.”

“I see,” Blue put a claw to his chin as he wondered who would have caused such a thing. That’s when he notice small, muddy clawprints that lined the floors and led through another nearby door. “...this way. Tracks.”

“With you.”

The pair would follow the tracks through another wooden door that led them into an outdoor storage shed just behind the building where the event had taken place. The muddy tracks had disappeared under the cover of nightfall, but Mei wouldn’t let that stop her.

“Hrm…hang on a sec.” With a flash of her horn, the kirin sent out a basic pulse spell that spread out over the area and highlighted any abnormalities or indentations in the dirt. That’s when she noticed the small clawprints that led away from the building towards a small shed nearby. “This way.”

“Got it,” Blue replied as he followed the kirin.

Eventually, the two would come upon what appeared to be a basic toolshed and they listened closely for any voices. Soon enough, they’d hear what sounded like a young man’s voice call out.

“...finally, it’s mine. No one will ever cross me again.”

From outside, Mei and Blue looked at each other…then nodded.

Blue kicked the shack’s door open and shouted, “Halt, fool! Don’t move!”

Mei lit up the shed with a light spell from her horn and they’d find…a small green kobold boy having stolen a loaf of bread to feed two other kobolds that looked to be a bit younger than him.

“I surrender!” he squealed, and pleaded while on his knees. “Just please don’t tell anyone!”