I galloped until my hooves felt like they would drop off. Although I had a great deal of endurance here in the Withers, it was certainly not without limits and I had all but reached mine for the day.

Carefully, I reached towards the unnaturally cold ball of power within me and released a little, just the barest of caresses. I had been experimenting with my peculiar abilities since I had ‘arrived’ here and discovered, to my relief, that some were almost controllable. Actually, ‘controllable’ might not be the most accurate way to describe this. It was little like wrestling with a cobra, bare hoofed and trying to bend it to your will, all the while hoping to avoid the thing sinking its fangs into you.

I drew in a deep breath, the warm air mingling with the ice cold from deep inside my chest. With a long exhale that far exceeded my actual lung capacity, I breathed out a thick swirling blue fog that hung in the air. I turned full circle, surrounding myself with the deadly miasma. It was really quite beautiful, glittering and sparkling like that, I could have taken a job on the stage with this as a special effects pony.

I had used this the first time, by accident during my sleep shortly after meeting Shades. Thank the Goddess that the friendly creature had not been affected by the lethal fog. Upon waking up that ‘morning’, I’d found the frozen remains of ‘things’ which had wandered into its deadly grasp. Things I certainly wouldn’t have wanted finding me defenceless when I was asleep, far too many tentacles and teeth for my liking.

I settled down, shifting my weight to even out the sand beneath me to something approaching a bed. Luna ! What I wouldn’t give for a bed right now…..

Meadow had taken the news of my suspension well. Surprisingly well considering our plans to have a foal had just come to a crashing halt. My wages were still being paid for now, but the outcome of the investigation was still in doubt. Meadow was confident I would be exonerated, but the way the Chief had torn a strip off me in his office that day, I just didn’t know. The strain began to tell on our relationship as I found the boredom of being out of work intolerable. My grandfather used to tell me, “Idle hooves are discords playground”, he wasn’t wrong.

“Morning love”, Meadow called to me as she prepared breakfast. I mumbled a reply whilst concentrating on the Manehatten Enquirer vacancies page. Meadow popped her head round the door, “Morning love” she said again.

“Morning” I replied, far too loudly. She clicked her tongue at me and vanished back into the kitchen.

Meadow re-appeared a few minutes later with a light breakfast of orange juice and mixed veg. A bowl of toasted oats added a tasty crunch to the ensemble which I ate in silence, reading through the jobs on offer.

“Anything ?”, She asked.
“Nothing” I said irritably, scrunching up the paper, “Not a fucking thing”.
“Don’t swear Fairlight, you know I don’t like that”.
“Whats it matter ? I’m a failure anyway, I may as well act like one.”
“You’re not a failure and you know it”, she looked up at me from her glass of orange, “You’re only suspended remember, not sacked”.
“I may as well be !”, I shouted, throwing the paper across the room. “’I ‘screwed up’ remember ? I killed my friends, left them to die ! Goddess Meadow, I should have died there with them. I shouldn’t be here now, its wrong, all of its wrong…..”
Meadow reached over to me and put her hoof on mine, “Stop this Fairlight, please ! You’re torturing yourself with what happened. You did what you could, I know you, I know you did your best !”.
Cruelly, I smacked her hoof away, “My best ? My best wasn’t good enough ! I’m a disgrace to the watch, my father would be spinning in his grave.”
Meadow hugged the hoof I’d knocked away, wincing, “Your father wouldn’t have wallowed in self pity Fairlight. This isn’t you, this isn’t the Fairlight I married. You need help, look, I’ve had a word with Dr Spindle, he wants to help you love.”

“You’ve done what !?” I yelled, jumping to my hooves.

“Please, Fairlight, you need help, look at yourself. You’re not you anymore”.

My chest was heaving, I was furious, with the damned commissioner, the watch, Equestria, but most of all….myself. I had shouted and yelled at the only pony who I had ever loved, the one who gave me support unconditionally and, Celestia forgive me, I had hurt her.

I looked at her eyes welling with tears, a determined look despite the despair and anguish she was feeling.

“I’m going out”, I announced, grabbing my coat and hat. For a moment the coat caught on the stand and I pulled at it in fury, ripping the sleeve slightly and sending the stand crashing down the hallway. I kicked it petulantly, slamming the door behind me as I left. Meadow let me go.

A strong wind was blowing and the endless Manehatten rain was driving down in earnest. Celestia, don’t they pay for weather ponies here ? I’d sack the damned lot of them, useless fucking idiots. I stopped at the paper stall. Shut, fucking god damned typical ! Everything was turning to shit around me, a tangible reflection of my hopeless situation. I kicked the paper stands shutter and walked on until I reached the ‘don’t walk’ sign. Red, stop. Luna, what a fucking mess…..

The carriage door opened and a trench coated blue stallion hoofed me a cigarette, “I think you need this.”, the Chief said in his usual gruff voice, “Get in”. Inside, he leaned forward and slid the drivers hatch open, “Fumbles, lets roll.”. The carriage lurched forward and we sped off down the dank Manehatten streets. “Theres some pony I want you to meet”, he said.

I sat in silence, taking a deep draw on the sweet tobacco. I’d given these things up years ago, but today, today I needed this. I’m sorry, Meadow.

“Shelly says these’ll kill me some day.” Chief Mitre said as I lit his cigar for him, “You gotta go of something, I say. You never know whats around the corner”.

I hadn’t known what had been around the corner. My team had paid the price for that failure. A hoof smacked me across the jaw, “And you can pack that in right now Captain. I’m not in the mood for bullshit today and I need my officer back. Clear ?”

I nursed my jaw with a hoof, the old bugger had nearly taken it off !, “Yes sir”, I said. No trip to the dentist required thank Celestia.

“Let me ask you something Fairlight,”, the Chiefs eyes bored into me, “Doesn’t anything strike you as odd about that night in the warehouse ?”

“Chief, I’m suspended, I’m not supposed to be talking with any of the watch until the investigation is .....”, A heavy blue foreleg smashed past my ear into the carriages wall, sending splinters flying.

“I don’t give a fuck about any ‘investigation’ Captain, now, are you going to give me my officer back or am I going to throw you out into the street to wallow in you own self pity ?”

The drivers hatch opened and a voice came back, “Everything all right back there boss ?”. “Aye”, the Chief replied, “Having a little language difficulty that’s all. I think we’re understanding each other now though.”, he looked me right in the eyes, “Aren’t we ?”.
“Yes sir !” I said smartly, feeling to my surprise, a little of the ‘old’ me returning.
There was a chuckle from the driver as he slid the hatch closed.

“Now then Captain, I’ve read your report. Several times actually. Some of it simply doesn’t add up though. I need your help to connect the dots and fill in the gaps.”
“Sir”, I replied.
Mitre produced a notebook and pen.

“You deployed the flash bugs ?”. I nodded, “They worked as planned”.
“Their effect on the targets ?”
I paused, my mind racing back to that terrible night.
“Captain ?”, Mitre asked, putting his pad down to look at me.
“None”
“Any idea why not ?”
“Sorry Chief, I don’t. I’ve replayed that nights events over and over a thousand times in my head. I can only suspect that….”, “They had anticipated it ?”, the Chief cut in.
“Yes, sir”.
Mitre reached into a brown case, taking out an evidence envelope, “Here, what do you make of these ?”.

Inside was a concave, oval glass dish, incredibly thin, but with a surprising flexibility. I held it up to the window of the cab with my magic and watched in amazement as it darkened. When I moved it back, the glass became clear once more.

“Is this magical ? I haven’t seen anything like it. Whats it for ?”. As the words left my lips, I realised what it was. Chief Mitre nodded.

“Goddesses, I understand now. Its not Equestrian is it ?”

“No Captain”, Mitre solemnly replied, “Look at the other item”.

The next object to emerge was a hard cased black box with wires protruding from it. By the general shape, it was obvious it went in a ponies ear, a curving strap holding it in place. A long bendable rod with a sponge like textured end, followed the contours of the wearers mouth.

“This is from the same place. Like our TED’s but a different type of magic. If magic at all ?” I pondered.

Mitre took the items back, placing them back into the folder. “Not Equestrian and not magic, at least, not as you and I know it.”

Mitre made a note in his pad and looked out the window before continuing. “Whats your take on the snipers ?”.

I sighed, I’d been dreading this. The dead staring eyes of the ponies were burned into my memory and kept me awake long into the night. Maybe talking about it would help.

“They were dead when I got there Chief. Single shot to the back of the head. No sign of any weapon nearby.”.

“Location of the bodies ?” He asked.

“One on the balcony, two in the office.”

“The door ?”

“Padlocked from the inside.”

The chief flipped a page in his note pad. “The pre-action report from the recon team specifically notes that the padlock on the office door was missing when they arrived. They were the last to leave the warehouse before your teams arrived. So far as we know.”

“The padlock was there chief”

“I know Captain, It was still there when the forensic ponies arrived. After the army had trampled over all the evidence that is.”, Mitre let out a puff of smoke from his cigar, twirling it in his hoof, “Assessment ?”

“Some pony knew we were coming. They were too well prepared. Those light reactive eye covers and TED could have been coincidental, brought as a precautionary measure, but the snipers ? Some pony took them out, quietly from behind with one of those other-world weapons and locked the door from the inside. My guess is the fucker on the landing outside.”

“We recovered her body before the Army arrived”, Mitre explained blowing a smoke ring. He wound the window down to let some of the thick grey cloud out. “We can thank Blaze for that”.

“Sir ? About Dawn, Dawn Rush. She tried to warn us, just before all hell broke loose. I haven’t had a chance to speak to any of her flight, Blaze told me she……she hadn’t made it.”

The Chief reached across and put a comforting hoof on my foreleg. “She didn’t suffer Captain, but yes, her flight was ambushed. That tube like contraption you mentioned in your report ? There was another on the barge, concealed.”

“Celestia !”, I exclaimed, “We recovered it though ?” We had to have had some break in this case, the barge could have held a treasure trove of clues.

“No. The agency cleared it out.”

“What !”, I nearly shouted, “the whole barge ?”.

“Aye”. The big blue stallion tapped his note pad. “The agency goon squad seized the lot. Everything except what you’ve seen in the file here.”

“Luna fuck me, Chief what the hell is going on here ? The agency suits grabbed me after I left your office. After you….”

Mitre sighed and tapped the ash from his cigar out the window of the speeding carriage, “I know. They came and took the weapon you recovered too. What they don’t know is that we’ve been tinkering with some toys of our own. Here...”

He passed me another folder from his case. Photographs. A number of colour plates gave detailed pictures, dimensions and operating instructions for one of the devices, including recommendations on adaptations and improvement. I was impressed, the forensic ponies must have worked quickly to get these before the thing was taken.

“This may interest you too. The mare on the gantry ?”, I nodded, “ We had Speak Easy’s boys look her over.”

The mental image of Speak Easy pawing over the body of the mare I’d killed was not one I’d like to dwell on. But here was the report, autopsy pictures and all.

I suppressed my emotions and read the detailed description of the dissection of a once living creature. I turned to the last page and read the coroners conclusions, circled in red by, I suspected, the Chief.

Conclusion

Name : Unknown
Age : Indeterminate
Gender : Female
Race : Non Equestrian
Type : Earth Pony Appearance

‘Non Equestrian’, was hi-lited and underlined several times. I flicked back through the descriptions of organs, blood type, colouring, even the condition of her teeth.

“Goddesses, Chief”, I breathed, “Who….what….was she ?”.

Chief Mitre fixed me with a level stare, “None of this leaves this carriage Fairlight, do you understand ?”.

“Yes Sir”, I stated.

“Don’t worry about Fumbles, he’s one of us.”, the Chief waved a hoof towards the drivers hatch, “This goes deep Fairlight. Really deep. The portals we’ve found so far have been inactive when we’ve managed to grab one. The magic responds to various factors we haven’t been able to fathom yet but we’ve got our best ponies on the job.”

He took a draw on his cigar.

“There’s a smuggling operation bringing items in from non-equestrian sources, we’ve known that for some time. Your teams have shut down a good number of them, but this takes the game to a whole new level. These…. ‘things’,”, he tapped a hoof on the photo of the strange weaponry, “ups the ante. Whoever is behind this has been bringing in off-world weapons that were never designed for pony use.”

Hang on a minute, I thought, ‘off world ?’. Surely they could have been made by other races here in our world, such as, say Griffins, but the more I thought about it, the more fantastical it became. I didn’t want to start thinking about little green ponies in space suits as well. “But the ones I saw were used by ponies Chief, all too effectively.” I entered.

Chief Mitre nodded, “Initially some had been brought here ready converted, we suspected they were a sort of ‘test batch’. Since then they’ve been coming in, in greater numbers, re-engineered after they arrived in Equestria to fit our anatomy. So, yes, they can be used by ponies.”

I leaned back in my seat, this was so much to take in my mind felt like it was going to explode. He’d seen some before ?

“Fairlight ? The commissioner wanted you off the case, suspended, pending an ‘investigation’. The whole thing was going to be buried and forgotten. I was instructed to throw the book at you, so you’d take the fall. Listen, there’s a reason I let

fly at you the way I did that day. You probably aren’t aware of it, but my office has been bugged.”

“WHAT !?” I shouted in surprise.

“I had Speak Easy run an MET on it and guess where it ended up ?”. A Magical Energy Trace was a method employed by unicorns highly skilled in covert ops to match magical energy signatures to their owners. A sort of unique magic hoof print finder.

“The commissioners office”, I said flatly.

“Good boy”, Mitre smiled. “I think she has something to do with this and is trying to bury the evidence. How the agency fit in I don’t know…yet. This ‘non-equestrian’ mare is another piece of the puzzle”.

I felt the carriage beginning to slow, “But sir, I’m off the force now, so what good is telling me all this ? And, if the commissioner is gunning for me, I don’t stand a chance.”

He smiled knowingly and hoofed me an umbrella, “That’s were you’re wrong Captain. Ah,…We’re here.” The carriage stopped with a slight lurch and Fumbles opened the door, rain blowing into the interior. “Come on my young friend”, Mitre patted my knee, “Lets give our comrades a good send off, eh ?”.

I stepped out of the carriage, magicking the umbrella open. The rows of open graves, coffins and grieving families beckoned. The Equestrian watch’s flag flapped wetly in the downpour. This was my final duty to them as their officer, as their captain. It was time to say goodbye to my friends.