The Silent Fugitive

by PonyJosiah13

First published 10th of October, 2015

After being framed for attempted murder of the Princess he swore to protect, Silent Knight forms a tense alliance with Phillip Finder to uncover the truth...provided they don't kill each other first.

A cooperative project with Anzel, using his OCs with his permission.

Caution: this story contains minor spoilers from Memoirs of a Royal Guard and Secrets of a Royal Guard. It is assumed that the reader is at least familiar with those stories.

Silent Knight. Founding member of the Lunar House Guard. Recipient of the Celestia Star for valorous action and leadership. Promoted to Lieutenant with honors.

Recently found guilty of the attempted murder of Princess Luna, and the second pony to escape from Clovenworth Prison.

Separated from his allies, turned on by his former comrades, and with the entire Guard looking for him, Silent Knight has few clues and limited options. One of them is private detective Phillip Finder. The two enter a tense alliance and set out to prove Silent's innocence and uncover the conspiracy that removed him from Princess Luna's side.

Hopefully without killing each other first.

The Phillip Finder series
The Pony in the Gray Trilby
The Everfree Forest Affair
Time Flies
The Blue Moon Brings Death
Letters to a Candymare
The Face in the Darkness
Checkmate
Secret of the Mare Lisa
The Sun Falls
Clockwork
Behind Locked Doors
Siege of Clovenworth
The Silent Fugitive
Curse of the Taverneigh Blue
Mystery on the Mareish Moors
The Grilled Cheese and the Muletese Falcon
Trifle Not With Monsters
The Fillydelphia Solution
The Sydneigh Ritual
Endgame

Part 1: Nightmare in a Cell

There was some small part of Silent Knight that thought—or perhaps hoped—that this was all just a dream. Any moment now, he was going to wake up, and he'd be safe in bed with Crystal, and he'd still be the Lieutenant of the Lunar House Guard, and the world would be in its proper place.

But then a voice punched through his reverie. "Silent Knight," the silver-maned judge spoke, glaring imperiously down at him from the podium like he was a bug to be squashed. "On the charges of attempted murder of Princess Luna, this court finds you guilty. You abused your position and dishonored the oath you took as a member of the House Guard, for your own greed. You are hereby stripped of your rank and sentenced to a life imprisonment at Clovenworth Prison." He raised the gavel and brought it down, crushing all of his hopes, his life, his very existence with a crash that echoed like thunder.

Still some part of Silent Knight still refused to accept this, still could not believe this was happening. Numbly, he felt himself being lifted by the forelegs and dragged towards the back of the room, the shackles around his hooves rattling with every step as if to drive the point home. Some of his friends gathered around him, their voice sounding as though they were coming from the end of a long, deep tunnel. Crystal Wishes, Iridescence, Winterspear, all of them promising to help, do what they could to support, that he would be out soon. But their words were as hollow and empty as their voices.

Near the back of the courtroom, sitting in one of the pews, was Princess Luna. Surely she believed in him? Surely she could do something to wake him from this nightmare?

But the look she gave him was so cold, it seemed she was looking at a stranger. The two looked eyes, and he sent her a silent plea.

And she turned her back on him.

Time froze around him, a deafening silence filling his ears. Slowly turning on the spot, his movement still restricted by the shackles, he now saw that everypony in the room had turned their backs on him. They had forgotten him, abandoned him, designated him as the traitor.

Suddenly the floor dropped out from beneath him and he fell, his wings bound and useless, into the deep darkness, his screams echoing endlessly...

With a gasp, Silent Knight woke up, sitting bolt upright in bed. His momentary relief at finding that it was just a dream was immediately washed away when he looked around and recognized where he was.

He was lying on a hard cot bolted to a stone wall in a small room, covered in delightfully itchy blankets and a gray coverall. The only other furniture in the room was a desk, a chair, and a combined sink-toilet, all of them bolted securely to the floor. A door of thick iron bars separated him from an empty white hallway. Set up high on the opposite wall was a window, also barred, that provided him with a view of barbed wire fences and a tall concrete wall.

Silent had woken from a dream into a nightmare. Sitting up in bed with a sigh, he leant back against the hard, cold stone wall. He'd been in this cell at Clovenworth Prison for almost two weeks now. Two weeks since the trial. Three weeks since the night of the attack.

It had been a relatively normal day in the Palace: that is to say, there were no emergencies or crises to speak of. He'd stayed late in his office with paperwork and finally left after dark, looking forward to going home, seeing Crystal again and sharing a late dinner with her.

But instead he'd attacked Princess Luna and tried to kill her.

No! That wasn't right! Concentrate! Going back in his mind to the palace, Silent imagined every weary step he'd made. He'd left his office, turned left and trotted slowly down to a t-section with a portrait of Celestia and Luna on the wall. He'd turned right and the hallway ahead was dark, because the lamp had broken and maintenance hadn't gotten to it yet. He'd stepped into the hallway, and then...

And then...

Damn it! It was like his mind hit a wall as solid as the ones surrounding him. Why couldn't he remember what had happened? It certainly hadn't helped his own defense when he stated that he had conveniently forgotten everything that had happened that night. His objections were overruled by the testimony of five Guards and Luna herself, all of whom testified that they had seen him attack Princess Luna with his sword, rage in his eyes, and intent to kill viciously declared in his every movement.

They betrayed you. The thought flashed through his mind like lightning. They were his soldiers, his comrades. They were supposed to have his back. And yet, at the first opportunity, they had hung him out and left him to dry!

Growling, Silent buried his face in his hooves, trying to get his racing thoughts back under control. At that moment, there was a loud tapping at his door. His brain immediately snapped to attention and he looked up to see two Corrective Guards, adorned in hornet black and yellow armor and glaring at him through the cage-like face shields. One of them was tapping his baton on the bars to get his attention.

"Prisoner 11-17-14, you have a visitor," he said in a flat, authoritative voice. "Stand up and face the back wall."

Silent obeyed, briefly reflecting that that was all he was now: a number. The door opened behind him, and shackles were placed around his hooves and wings (a pointless pursuit, he thought, considering that every day, he was exposed to a spell that nullified his magic, making it impossible for him to fly). Taking him by the forelegs, the two Guards led him out of the cell and down the hallway, past the cells of the other inmates, all of whom looked at him like they wanted to skin him alive.

He'd gotten dirtier looks from the drill instructors at the academy, so he had no issue ignoring them while the Guards escorted him to the visitor room. He hoped it was Crystal or Winterspear, who had visited him almost weekly. Their visits provided him with one small comfort, a small sliver of light in the darkness, something to focus on other than his gradual descent into insanity.

But when he entered the visitor room and saw who was waiting for him from behind the plastic screen, he frowned. The visitor was a stallion with a chocolate brown coat, graying black mane and tail and storm-cloud gray eyes. He was wearing a green pocketed vest, a gray trilby and his cutie mark was a black magnifying glass. He stared flatly at Silent as he slowly walked up the booth and sat down.

"Lieutenant," the stallion greeted him in a voice with a strange, foreign accent. "You might not remember me. My name's Phillip Finder. We worked together at the last Summer Sun Festival."

"I remember you," Silent said. "I also remember hearing stories about you stepping on suspect's throats."

Phillip frowned. "That's beside the point. I'm here because you need help."

"I don't need help from somepony that I can't trust," Silent responded, standing. "We're done," he said to to the two Guards, who proceeded forward to take him back to his cell. He felt the storm clouds glaring at him the whole way back.

Author's Notes:

Well, here we go.

This is something I've wanted to do for a while. I'm a big fan of Anzel and his character Silent Knight, who stars in his own stories, Memoirs of a Royal Guard and Secrets of a Royal Guard. Anzel is a fantastic writer, far superior to me, and I was both surprised and pleased when he responded well to my proposal and gave me permission to do this crossover.

To tell you the truth, I'm kind of nervous: Adam placed a lot of faith in me to use his character, and if I screw this up, it could reflect badly on both of us. So here's hoping I don't screw up!

Part 2: Pulled into Darkness

At the lunch rush at a small cafe in Canterlot the next day, there seemed to be only one topic of note.

"Have you heard that that Lunar Guard is having his appeal today?" Upper Crust asked her husband over her sweet roll.

"Hmm? Oh, that Lieutenant?" Jet Set replied in a disinterested tone, looking over the newspaper. "I can't understand why they're even bothering. It's completely obvious he's guilty."

"Indeed," Upper Crust agreed with a inclination of her head. "If it were up to me, I'd keep him locked up forever. Make an example of him."

"If we can't trust the Guard, whom can we trust?" Jet Set stated, turning the page of a newspaper and pushing the thought from his head as a waiter arrived with a teapot. Refilling the noble's tea, the waiter moved on to the next table, the sole occupant of which was glaring at the upper class ponies backs.

"Two coffees, sir," the waiter said, placing the cups and saucers on the table with the faintest of clinks.

"Thank you," Phillip Finder said without looking up.

"Will your date be here soon?" the waiter asked, wondering how long it was going to be before he had to return to take another order.

"Not a date," Phil replied, reaching for his cup to take a sip. "But she'll be here any minute now."

"Ah-CHOO!"

Phillip half-jumped out of his skin, the coffee flying from his hoof and spilling everywhere. The waiter and everypony nearby jumped as well, looking around for the source of the noise, which was quickly located.

"Sorry!" a small mare squeaked, grinning embarrassingly at everypony from the center of the room. She had a light brown coat, flowing black and blue mane and tail, light brown eyes, and a cutie mark of a twisted ivy leaf. After a moment of staring, activity around the cafe returned to normal as everypony returned to their lunches. The mare walked over to Phillip's table.

"Sergeant Miley Hooves?" Phillip asked, still trying to figure out how such a small mare could make such a loud noise. For a moment, he'd almost thought that a bomb had gone off.

"Yes, sir," Miley said, sitting down across from him. "Sorry if I startled you, I think I'm fighting a bit of a cold...again."

"I'm glad you agreed to speak with me," Phil said. "I've been getting stonewalled for two weeks."

"I'm glad you're trying to help," Miley said, nudging her coffee cup. "The rest of us have been doing our best to help with Silent Knight's appeal, but the new lieutenant has been keeping us busy."

"New lieutenant?" Phillip asked.

"Tandem Check," Miley replied with a frown. "He transferred in soon before this happened and took over when Silent Knight was..." She paused, then glanced around as if expecting to see him nearby. "To be honest, he probably wouldn't like me talking to you. Silent's name is mud as far he's concerned."

"But not with you?"

"Never!" Miley said fiercely. "I've known Lieutenant Knight almost since he's started in the Lunar House Guard. Nopony is as loyal to Princess Luna as him; he'd never try to hurt her!"

"So why did Princess Luna say he did?" Phillip pressed. "Why did you and four other Guards say he did at his trial?"

Miley shifted uncomfortably beneath the accusation, her face cresting into the look of a pony lost in a dark woods. "Because he...he must have..." Her eyes became unfocused, and Phillip realized that she was forcing herself to remember something unpleasant. Something frightening.

"All right. How about we start at the beginning?" Phillip said in a more gentle tone. "Tell me what happened that night."

Miley took a long, slow breath, brushed her mane back and began to speak.

"It was late at night. I was standing guard in the east wing. Lieutenant Knight was in his office; he would have been getting ready to leave at that point. Princess Luna was in her chambers.

"Suddenly we all heard shouting about an intruder. Naturally, everypony nearby came running, myself included. We found Lieutenant Knight in a hallway near Princess Luna's chambers. He said he'd been attacked by an intruder who had disappeared down the hallway. We went to go look for him while he went to Princess Luna's chambers to check on her, but we found no sign of an intruder."

"Were there any places in the hallway that the intruder could have hidden in?" Phillip asked.

"We checked all of them thoroughly," Miley said. "It took a while because the lights were broken."

"Broken how?"

"The lamp lights burned out that morning, and maintenance hadn't gotten around to them yet," Miley replied. Phillip gestured for her to continue. Miley sipped from her coffee and swallowed slowly, as if gathering her courage.

"Just as we were finishing our search, we heard Princess Luna yelling for help from her chamber: 'Guards, help! Silent Knight has gone mad!' When we got there, we saw..." She paused, as if afraid to speak further. "...Lieutenant Knight was attacking her with his sword. She was fending him off, trying to get him to calm down, but it was like he couldn't hear her: he just kept attacking her again and again. It took all of us to hold him back long enough for Luna to use a sleeping spell on him. Nopony was hurt, but..."

She spoke as if recalling a terrible nightmare, still trying to convince herself that it was just a dream. "There's more, isn't there?" Phil asked softly.

Miley nodded. "When he woke up the next morning in the brig...he couldn't remember what happened that night! He didn't even remember the intruder!" She looked down at her now-empty cup. "Princess Luna was shattered. She didn't feel like she could trust anypony anymore. And then he was brought up on charges..." She paused, then brought her hoof up and slammed it down onto the table, making the cups rattle in their saucers.

"It's not fair!" she shouted. "He doesn't deserve this! Silent Knight should be back home, where he belongs!" Her rant came to an abrupt halt when she realized that everypony in the cafe was staring at her again. She waved at the other patrons, smiling apologetically. The cafe returned to it's normal activity once more.

"I just don't understand why he would do that!" she said more quietly.

Phillip thought for a moment. "When you saw Lieutenant Knight that night, did he have any injuries?"

Miley frowned in concentration for a second. "A small cut on his cheek. He said the intruder cut him with a knife. We bandaged it after he'd been knocked out."

"Did he describe the intruder?"

Miley shook her head. "A pony in a hooded cloak. He didn't get a good look at him."

Phillip was silent for a moment more, his head bowed as he turned over theories and facts in his mind. After about a minute, he finished his coffee and stood up. "Can you get me in contact with the other members of the House Guard? I'm going to need to talk to them as well."

"I will," Miley said.

"Good," Phillip said, taking out enough bits to pay for both coffees and a tip and placing them on the table. He extended his hoof towards Miley. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Sergeant."

"Thank you for agreeing to help," Miley replied, shaking his hoof as she stood to exit. "We're all worried about the boss. Silent's one of the toughest ponies I know, but..." She swallowed, cringing a little. "You know what those animals at Clovenworth are like."

Phillip did know, considering that he'd been at ground zero for the "Clovenworth Riots" a month ago. The healing fractures in his ribs still hurt when he thought about it.

"We can get him out of there and back home," he reassured her. "Just trust me."

"Thanks," Miley said, giving him a quick salute as she turned and walked away down the street. Phillip watched her for a moment, then turned to leave as well.

"Ah-CHOO!"

The thunder-like sneeze was immediately followed by a loud crashing. Phillip turned back to see a three-carriage pileup in the middle of the road. "Sorry!" Miley apologized.

Shaking his head, Phillip went back on his way, still considering his limited options. As long as Silent Knight was still in prison, there wouldn't be much he could do to help his own case.

Meanwhile, a fog had settled over the waters off the coast of Manehattan. A low, heavy ship slowly cut through the choppy water, sounding out a lonely foghorn and puffing out smoke through the smokestack near the stern.

"This is ridiculous," the Navy sailor at the helm grunted through the toothpick clenched in his jaw. "First the compasses go haywire, and now this."

"Watch your speed," the navigator warned him, squinting through the fog out the windows of the bridge. "The last thing we need is to smash up on the rocks." The helmspony lowered the speed a little, relying on muscle memory to steer them safely through the water.

Down below deck in the hold, two Guards sat before a barred cage, staring at the shackled prisoner within. Silent Knight ignored them: staring down at the floor, he went through the faint memories that swam in his mind as if they were a training manual, forcing the pieces together...

The hallway was dark, and his hoofguards clicked against the tile floor. In his mind, he forced himself to remember stepping forward into the shadows. A flicker of movement in the darkness, and then a blaze of pain as a knife blade cut through his cheek, drawing blood. A shape pulled forward, a large pony in a dark cloak with the hood up, holding the knife in his left hoof. "Intruder!" he shouted, instinctively moving to counterattack, but the figure immediately faded from sight, and he saw the darkness surge forward as if it was alive, claiming him...

Shaking his head, Silent rewound the memory. The intruder. Yes, he remembered the intruder that had appeared from the darkness and cut him with the knife. He held onto that thought, forcing himself to go over every inch of the figure's body. He remembered the attack, the knife blade drawing his blood, and then...

CRASH! An impact like a cannon blast rocked the ship, knocking everypony down and pushing them up against the starboard wall. There was a rushing sound, and water began to pour into the hold, icy chill biting at the ponies hooves; the ship had run up against a rock, and was holed below the waterline.

"We're taking on water!" one of the Guards shouted. Even as he spoke, the water began to climb faster, reaching up towards its victims heads. The same thought occurred to everypony at the same moment: even if the ship might not be sinking, nopony wanted to be around when the water reached the boiler.

"Abandon ship! Everypony to the lifeboats!" a voice shouted from the top of the stairs into the hold. The two Guards both turned to look at their prisoner.

"You go, I'll take care of him," one of them, a unicorn, said to his partner as he grabbed the keys from a ring on the wall. He hurried over to Silent as his partner ran up the stairs. Unlocking the cage door, he hurried inside and removed the shackles from around his hooves and wings. Grabbing him by the elbow and keeping a magical grip on the handle of the baton sheathed at his side, the Guard began to guide Silent up towards the stairs, slogging through the water that was rising past their knees.

Suddenly, there was a loud grating sound and the ship tilted violent, knocking both of them over. A huge wave of water rushed in like a charging army: Silent had just enough time to process the oncoming tide before it seized him, violently ripping him from the Guard's grasp and pulling him down and into the darkness.

The water pressed down on every inch of his body, mercilessly sapping his heat and crushing the air from his lungs. All he could see was darkness; all he heard was his own heart pounding in his ears, marking his remaining time. He struggled against the weight of the water, trying to swim, but with no way to know which way was up, he couldn't tell if he was swimming for the surface or diving deeper. The effort of not breathing made his lungs burn.

A lightness began to spread through his body, reaching his head. This was the end; he was fated now to drown beneath the unforgiving waves of the sea, forgotten and alone, and he might as well accept it, just open his mouth, breathe in and let it go...

Suddenly, he saw a faint glimmer of light above him. Turning, his mind formed the image of Crystal Wishes, a caring smile on her radiant face, beckoning him upwards. Determination surged through his body: he had to live, had to see her again. Pushing through the pain, he began to swim again, using his wings along with his legs to propel him upwards towards the light even as his limbs went numb and a fire spread through his chest. Just as he thought he couldn't take it anymore, that his lungs and head would burst, he broke the surface. Gasping in the clear, cold air, he treaded water, turning as he regained his bearings.

Through the fog, he could see the ship a few meters behind him, tiled on its side like a wounded animal and slowly sinking. He also heard muffled shouting coming from the other side of the ship, calling his name, and realized that he'd come up on the side opposite the lifeboat.

Sensing movement above, he looked up to see a seagull flying low over the water, holding a fish in its talons. The sight of the bird, and the gray skies above him suddenly drove the point home for Silent Knight: this was his chance! Pushing through the exhaustion in his freezing limbs, he began to swim after the seagull, hoping it would lead him towards land.

After about a half-mile of swimming, Silent dragged himself up onto a rocky shore, panting and shivering. Pausing only to shake himself off, he began to trot quickly up the shore, spreading his wings out to help them dry faster. A slow, chill wind blew, biting into his sodden coat. The fog was clearing up, and he saw that he was in the middle of an open plain, the long grass around him beginning to fade into dull browns. Seeing a good-sized boulder sitting like an island amidst the sea of grass, he climbed atop it and paused, slowly turning around to try to find any landmarks. But all he saw was the grass waving at him all the way to the graying horizon.

This was bad. He didn't know where he was, he had no supplies, and the lone rocks scattered amidst the still grass provided no shelter. He tried flapping his wings to take off, but they proved useless: the neutralizing spell had yet to wear off. Sitting down on the boulder to rest and catch his bearings, Silent pondered his limited options. Right now, he had three major concerns: staying alive, evading the Guards that would no doubt be looking for him soon, and getting back to Canterlot. Whatever had happened, it had put Princess Luna's life in danger, and put him in prison for a crime he was certain he did not commit. Even if his rank and title had been taken away, his cutie mark remained: it was his duty to protect the Princess. And if there was a threat to her life, it meant that he had to get to her side immediately. And if he could prove his innocence along the way, so much the better.

Suddenly, his plans to find a patch of ground to curl up on and wait until he could fly again were interrupted by a loud whistling. Looking up, he saw a train pulling several cargo cars chugging across the plain in the distance. Knowing that two one-time-only chances in a row was not something to be passed up, Silent began to run, trying to reach the tracks before the train got too far ahead. Sprinting a full quarter mile, he pulled up alongside the train cars. Reaching up, he managed to grab onto a ladder in between two of the cars and pulled himself up and onto the train coupling. Carefully, he edged around to the side of the cargo car and seized the fortunately unlocked handle, sliding open the door. He started to pull himself inside when he saw something moving in the darkness within. He paused, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

He never got a chance. Something suddenly reached out from the shadows, seized him strongly by the hoof and yanked him inside the car before he had a chance to think. "Get in here and close the door, you crazy pony! You want us all to catch cold?"

Silent fell onto a layer of hay on the floor, the door slamming shut behind him, and looked around in astonishment. The dim light of a small lantern on the floor illuminated three ponies, all dressed in ragtag clothing and looking in need of a bath and shave, staring at him in mild curiosity. Hoboes, he realized.

"You fall in a lake, young'n?" one of the hoboes, a middle-aged unicorn with a yellow, weatherbeaten face and a long black beard wheezed, lifting up a tarp and draping it around the shivering Silent. "What're you doing, wandering around in the cold?"

"Waiting for a train," Silent replied, pulling the tarp around him and making sure that it covered his cutie marks. "I got lost in a storm last night and starting following the tracks."

The old hobo nodded, now pulling out a deck of cards and shuffling them. "So, you running from or to somethin'?"

"To," Silent replied. "I got into some trouble in Manehattan and need to find my way back home. Where's this train headed?" In the back of his mind, he felt a brief flash of guilt at how easily the lie came out. Then again, it wasn't a complete lie...

"Canterlot," one of the other hoboes grunted. "I know a place outside of town where you can get settled in until you can find yer folks." Perhaps mistaking Silent's continued hypothermic shivering for apprehension, he grinned reassuringly. "Don't you worry, young'n. We'll take care of you."

Silent was hesitant to place trust in hoboes, but he eventually realized that he didn't have much of a choice. He had taken a chance and accepted the risks, and now he had to live with the consequences that came while still trying to move forward. And besides, local knowledge was always helpful. He pulled the tarp tighter around himself and shifted closer to the soft warmth of the lantern. There was nothing left to do now but accept the bearded hobo's offer to deal him in.

Author's Notes:

While Phillip makes a new ally, Silent Knight makes his way back to Canterlot. Bit by bit, the two are beginning to peel back the curtain...

Am I doing all right so far?

Part 3: Groundwork

It took about an hour for the Guards to row their lifeboat to shore through the fog and find their way to Manehattan, where they immediately headed for the precinct and relayed the news that Silent Knight had escaped. The alarm was sent out immediately. Every available Guard spilled out onto the streets and headed out into the plains and forests surrounding the city. Manehattan was all but shut down while the Guards combed through the city and surrounding area throughout the night and into the dawn. Ships trawled several miles of coastline, searching for a body, while canine units hunted the beaches for a scent. Inevitably, the media got involved soon after, and the news of the second official escape from Clovenworth Prison spread across the nation like wildfire. The late evening and morning editions of every newspaper screamed out warnings that the attempted murderer of Princess Luna was on the loose in bold headlines.

The search for any trace of the fugitive slowly spread outward from the Manehattan coasts and continued nonstop, well into the next day. Meanwhile, security in the Canterlot palace was increased in fear that he might try to come back and finish the job. Everywhere Canterlot citizens went, they seemed to see Silent Knight's face glaring at them everywhere from posters tacked up on walls, each of which had the bold warning "Considered Armed and Extremely Dangerous" beneath the pictures.

Everypony was on watch, but nopony truly believed that Silent Knight would dare return to the city where he was being so heavily hunted; no, he would run, and try to find allies to hide and plan his revenge. That was what everypony seemed to think. All except one pony.

Phillip was sitting at a table in a small side room in the Canterlot Public Library, staring at a schedule of trains for Equestria and a map of the Manehattan coasts, the documents illuminated by the rising sun through the window. His hoof lay on a single line reporting a regular cargo train that passed through Manehattan and into Canterlot. If Silent had managed to get on that train...

Part of him knew that he was making a very long shot, but then again, his instincts were whispering to him on this one, and he'd learned to listen to his gut. He might not have spent a lot of time with Silent Knight during the Summer Sun Festival where Celestia had been shot and kidnapped, but the lieutenant had struck him as somepony who did not give up, and would not abandon Princess Luna for anything. If there was even the slightest chance of a potential threat to his Princess, nothing would stop him from trying to protect her.

He would come back to Canterlot. Of that, Phillip was certain. And if he was going to get to the bottom of this mystery, he had to find Silent Knight before the Guards caught him and threw him back in a cell, the key to which they would probably lose as soon as possible.

Hopefully his old contacts in the homeless network were still good...

Silent Knight floated in between sleep and wakefulness, allowing the dim memories to wash past him. The memory of the intruder in the hallway, dredged up from his subconscious, hovered in front of him, and he drank in every detail. He remembered the knife blade that had cut through the dark, barely missing his neck as he ducked and instead cutting through his cheek. He remembered how his shout had echoed off the walls as he counterattacked, moving to control the gold dust-colored left hoof, which held the knife as he sent a punch towards the hooded head. As if in slow motion, he watched as the intruder ducked out of the way, stepping back with his right hind leg.

Thunk.

The unusual noise echoed in the caverns of his mind. Pausing the image, Silent looked closer. The dark cloak had hiked up a bit, revealing the glimmer of metal. The pony had a false hind leg, a metal cast that replaced a lost knee and lower leg. Squinting closer, Silent saw a logo embossed on the metal: a golden crown atop a shield with a cross, and the letters CGH. Canterlot General Hospital. The image affixed itself in Silent's mind, every detail memorized.

Allowing the image to continue forward, Silent recalled how the attacker had slipped from his grasp, countering by flicking his sleeve at him. Salt flew into Silent's eyes, stinging and burning at his eyes like a swarm of bees. Blinded, he charged forward, trying to grab onto his attacker, but he slipped from his grasp, and he heard retreating hoofsteps. Holding up a foreleg to protect against further attack, he furiously wiped at his eyes, gradually restoring his vision just as three other Guards ran up. He turned to face Sergeant Miley, who opened her mouth...and crowed at him. "COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!'

Silent Knight woke up with a start and immediately decided that he hated roosters. Blinking in the harsh light of the sunrise, he glared at the offending animal as it walked away towards the other chickens in the nearby coop.

He was currently lying on an old mattress set on the packed earth beneath a tarp held up on stilts. All around him were several other similar structures, arranged in rows like houses on streets: makeshift tents and lean-tos made of whatever materials were available, underneath which slept hoboes, the citizens of this miniature city outside of the borders of Canterlot. He sat up and stretched, feeling the weight of the aged, faded trench coat that he'd bartered off one of the other hoboes when he'd arrived at the camp last night. It was a couple sizes too big, smelled of cheap cider and mud, and didn't have any holes for his wings, but it was warm and covered his cutie marks. Besides, beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Well, good mornin' t'ya, sleepin' beauty!" a loud voice with a thick Trottish accent called out. Looking up, Silent saw a bulky unicorn with a fiery red coat, a salt and pepper beard and a cutie mark of a golden mountain and a guitar. When Silent had arrived at the camp, this pony had introduced himself as Highland Note. From listening to conversations from the other hoboes, Silent had learned that Highland had lost everything but the clothes on his back and his trusty guitar in a gambling run, and took to the rails as a way of life. Now he was in charge of this camp, providing a place of rest for anypony who needed it.

"How you doin', laddie?" Highland asked, sitting down before Silent, whom he knew as Silver Blade. "You were tossing and turning a lot last night."

"I'm fine. Just had some weird dreams," Silent replied, standing up.

"All right," Highland said, shrugging it off and pointing off towards a nearby clump of reeds. "There's a pond over there if you wanna wash up before breakfast."

Nodding his thanks, Silent walked over towards the pond, passing by several other shelters with their stirring occupants, the chicken coop and a patch of well-tended vegetable plants. Reaching the deep, wide, crystal blue pond, he bent down and took a long drink of water to soothe his dry throat. Rising back up, he took a look at his reflection in the water. Prison food and lack of adequate exercise had thinned him noticeably, his mane had grown to frame his face and shade his eyes, and a layer of facial hair was beginning to grow around his jaw. He wasn't unrecognizable, but it was hopefully enough to pass a brief inspection. Glancing around to make sure nopony was watching, he took off his coat and dipped into the pond's icy waters for a quick bath.

While the water cleansed him, he thought about what he'd seen in his memory. Canterlot General Hospital. There would be records there, of who had received a prosthetic leg. From there, he could try to track down the intruder. And from there...he'd have to think about that one.

Pulling himself back to the surface, he checked around once more to make sure he was alone, then strode to shore, shook himself off, recollected his coat, and walked over to the main fire in the center of the camp. Several other ponies were gathered around the flames, preparing breakfast: toast, oatmeal and a bubbling pot that contained either tar or coffee. Highland Note was sitting off to the side, idly strumming on a guitar.

"Where's the General Hospital from here?" Silent asked as he approached him.

Highland frowned at him. "Why do you ask?"

"I have a friend who works there. I thought they might be able to help me." Lies upon lies, reaching up to the sky, but what choice did he have?

Highland pursed his lips. "It's not that far. If you head east from here and cross the river, you'll find yourself in the suburbs near the Old Street Market. From there, you just head north til y'reach the market and turn right, the hospital will be down that street. Y'can' miss it."

"Thanks," Silent said.

Highland gave him an encouraging smile and a pat on the shoulder. "'Ey, chin up, laddie. You're a long time dead."

Long time dead, Silent thought as he headed for the fire to collect some breakfast. If only he knew how wrong he was.

After some breakfast to fuel him for the day, Silent set off on his adventure. It took him about a half hour of walking through a thick forest, the sun continually shining in his eyes, but he finally reached the outer borders of Canterlot. Even the middle-class suburbs, with their trim white houses arranged like pieces on a gameboard, seemed so warm and comforting to his eyes, like an old friend. For a moment, he felt like he was back home.

But then he saw the WANTED poster tacked up on a tree with his face and name clearly displayed upon it and remembered that he was a fugitive, hunted like a rabid dog. Getting an idea, he paused at the edge of the woods. Scooping up some mud in his hoof, he smeared it over his mane, turning it into a dark blue-black. Then he took up a discarded, rolled-up newspaper (which had his face splashed across the front page) and tucked it under his leg. Hoping that he looked natural enough that nopony would take too close a look at him, he walked casually down the street. All around him, ponies were emerging from their homes to start their day. Several smiled and waved at him, and he smiled and waved back, giving them no reason to suspect him of anything as he headed north.

He could have reached the Old Street Market in less than a minute if he could have flown, but his wings were pinned beneath the coat. He got to the street market just as the stalls were opening, bright-eyed vendors already calling out their wares to passing potential customers. Among the crowd, Silent saw two city Guards watching the crowd. The sight of the bright golden armor made him think of his sister Winterspear in the City Guard, and a queasy feeling of homesickness filled his stomach. Maybe he could somehow contact one of his family or friends? They'd be able to hide him, support him, help him track down his quarry...

Almost immediately, he banished the idea from his head. If he got caught, they would end up in the cell next door for aiding and abetting a fugitive. The thought of Winterspear or Crystal Wishes in prison made him sick to his stomach. And as much as it hurt him to think less of his family, he really didn't know who his friends and who his enemies were right now.

One of the Guards started to turn his way. Noticing this, Silent casually turned right and began to walk down the street, turning down a side street as soon as possible. Continuing down the smaller side roads, he managed to avoid any other crowded areas, and nopony challenged him as he kept walking, without stopping or looking around, all the way to the General Hospital. It towered over him as he turned a corner, a five-story glass and metal edifice that proudly displayed the crowned shield and cross above the revolving doors in front, a beacon of hope for all who came within. And the clue that he needed was buried within in the records inside.

Time for some reconnaissance. Silent walked around the building, entering the narrow side alleyway, flanked on both sides by brick walls and dumpsters. Moving around to the back of the building, he discovered a loading bay behind the hospital, with a set of wide-open back doors for ambulance access and another metal door near him that read "Employees Only." As he approached, the door opened and a nurse in pale green scrubs that covered most of their body exited, looking irritable.

"If the stain's bothering you that much, just throw them in the laundry and take another set from the extras over there. It's what they're there for," she said over her shoulder, pulling off her gloves and mane net as she spoke. Sighing in annoyance, she tossed the used materials into a dumpster and fished a stick of nicotine gum out of her pocket.

Hiding behind the corner, Silent thought about what he'd just heard. That door must lead to a locker room for the doctors and nurses, and it contained spare scrubs. He continued to wait and watch while the nurse chewed furiously on the gum for a few minutes, then spat it out, turned, and went back inside. She opened the door up, proving that it was not locked.

Strategy in real life, Silent reflected, is not that different than strategy on the game board. You just have to find the right opening to get where you needed to go, have the right pieces, and know the right timing to move.

He glanced up at the sun and estimated that it was about nine in the morning. A bit more recon to flesh out his plan more, and then he'd better find a safe place to wait for a few hours...

Author's Notes:

"It wasn't me! It was the three-legged pony!"

Progressing slowly but surely through this, and all I can do is hope that I'm not doing anything too wrong. What do you guys think?

Decided to take it down and add extra scenes to slow down the pacing a little.

Part 4: A Chance

It was late evening, and the sky was painted in dark oranges and reds that contrasted against the enroaching night. Phillip walked purposefully through the woods, following the scent of campfire smoke and the distant sound of voices. It had taken all of the mostly fruitless day, but he'd finally learned of the hobo camp in the woods. It hadn't been there when he'd left Canterlot, but it made sense that it would be the first place Silent would go if he'd gotten off the cargo train.

Besides, he'd already checked all of the other likely hiding spots that he knew of.

He pulled himself out of the trees and found himself facing a line of makeshift lean-tos. A single hobo in a battered top hat with a hole in the brim leaned against his little house, staring up at him. Phillip gave him a brief nod and continued towards the largest column of smoke in the distance.

Hoboes, Phillip knew from past experience, were a special subculture of their own, complete with unique customs and languages that fascinated the sociologist in him. However, he knew that a central tenet of the tight-knit hobo culture was a distrust of outsiders. The presentation was everything: you had to demonstrate to them that you weren't looking for trouble, and gain the trust of a higher-up as soon as possible.

Piece of piss.

Walking to the center of the makeshift town, Phillip's attention was attracted by the sound of shouting. A crowd had gathered around a trio of ponies. The oldest one, a bulky fiery red pony with a salt and pepper beard and a guitar cutie mark, was separating two fighting younger ponies. "Now what did I tell you two laddies?" he was saying in a thick Trottish accent. "No fighting, and no stealing!"

"But, Highland, it's just a loaf of bread!" a blue pegasus with a weatherbeaten face and a fading trenchcoat was protesting.

"It's my loaf of bread!" shouted back a skinny dark brown unicorn. "I bought it with my own money that I earned! You had no right to take it!"

"Calm down!" Highland snapped, and both the arguing ponies fell silent. Turning to the pegasus, Highland held out his hoof. "He's right, you don't have a right to take it. You know the rules." The pegasus hung his head in shame, and reached inside his coat, extracting a large, fresh loaf of bread.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, handing the bread to Highland. "I was hungry."

"We're all hungry," the village leader said, breaking the bread in half and handing a piece to both ponies. "We're all cold and poor. We're all in the same boat here, lads. That's why we got to look out for each other." Smiling, he patted them both on the back. "All righ'?"

"Thanks," both ponies murmured in a mixture of embarrassment, shame and relief, turning and walking away to enjoy their dinners. The crowd started to disperse, returning to their own lives. Highland sat next to the campfire and started playing his guitar.

Time to make his move. Tucking his trilby beneath his vest in order to make his appearance less imposing, Phillip trotted forward, pausing some distance away from the elder stallion and clearing his throat to announce his presence. "Excuse me," he said. Highland Note stopped playing and looked up, eyeing this stranger who had walked into his camp with a mixture of curiosity and distrust. "I'm looking for a pony," Phillip declared.

Highland didn't answer for a moment, choosing instead to reach for a brown glass bottle sitting on the ground next to him. "You might've come to the right place, lad. Who're you lookin' for?" he said.

"A pegasus with a white coat and blue mane and tail. Cutie mark of a sword and a crescent moon. He's taller than me, very fit, doesn't talk much."

Highland took a long sip from the bottle, his wrinkled eyes never leaving Phillip. "You with the Guard?"

"Yeah," Phillip lied. "That pony is a wanted fugitive. He escaped from prison and he's been on the run."

Highland's eyes widened and he almost dropped the bottle. "What's he wanted fer?"

"Trying to kill Princess Luna. He used to be a Guard."

Highland scowled. "You're joshin' me, lad."

"No joke, mate," Phillip said seriously. "You know where he is?"

The elder pony slowly set the bottle down, glaring at Phillip the whole time. "Now, I don' know how it is in the Guard, but out here we look out for one 'nother. That pony came into my camp, asking for and needing help, and I gave it to him. Tellin' you where he is now wouldn' be helping him, now would it?" He signaled to some other hoboes. "Lads, throw this clipe bassa out of my camp."

Phil glanced at the two burly ponies moving towards him. He had little doubt he could take them both on, but he really didn't want to get into a fight here. But with every step they took, his only lead was slipping away. Looking back at Highland Note, he saw a small book tucked into the inside of his jacket. A single word stood out to him: Aesopony. An idea suddenly came to him.

"Listen to me, mate," he said quickly. "You're meant to look out for each other, I understand that. But I have to look out for the ponies of Canterlot, and the Princess. You know the fable of the farmer and the viper?" Highland blinked once. Phillip took this as a yes. "This pony is the viper, and you're the farmer. It's only a matter of time before he bites somepony. Do you really want to allow that to happen? Do you want to be responsible for that?"

The stranger and the camp leader stood silent for a moment, both of them glaring at each other. The two burly hoboes hesitated, awaiting their leader's instruction. Finally, Highland Note gave a soft grunt.

"He asked me how to get from the General Hospital from here this morning. I haven't seen him since." He jerked his head. "Now get out of my camp and take your troubles with you."

"Thank you," Phillip said with a courteous nod, turning and leaving the camp at a calm, but quick trot. The hoboes eyes followed him every step of the way, making it quite clear that he was not welcome back.

That could have gone better, Phillip thought. Probably shouldn't have told him that Silent Knight was a criminal; should have figured from his behavior that he would want to protect those that came under his care. But at least he'd gotten what he'd come for.

The General Hospital? This was a surprise. Why would Silent go there? He glanced up at the setting sun and decided that he'd better hurry if he was going to find out.

And hopefully, Silent Knight wouldn't find out about what he'd told the old hobo who'd cared for him last night.

It was time. Silent Knight waited in the darkening alley, crouching next to a dumpster, watching the Employees Only door. He had spent all of his day scouting, thinking and planning, and then he'd deliberately waited until towards the end of the shift, when everypony would be tired and looking forward to going home rather than looking for any intruders.

He shivered a little in the chill evening wind, but ignored the cold. His entire focus was on his plan. If this had been a better situation, he would have taken a day or more to perform more recon, acquire resources, and develop his plan more. But time was against him, and he was working alone: he had to get into the hospital and get the records he needed tonight, before he had a chance to get caught.

Nopony had come out in several minutes, and the alley and loading bay were both clear. This was his chance. Standing, he strode quickly to the door, being careful to stay in the shadows as much as possible. Just as he reached the door, a strange tingling ran down his spine: a feeling like he was being watched. He turned around, but saw nopony: the enclosed loading bay was empty save for some litter blowing by in the wind. Shaking off the feeling, he opened the door and peered inside.

Sure enough, the door opened into an empty locker room, with lines of gray steel lockers stretching across the walls and benches sitting amongst the rows. Off to the side was a washer and dryer and piles of pale green scrubs and mane nets. Silent double-checked to make sure the area was secure, then dashed over to the pile of clothing and selected a large shirt, pants, and mane net. The fabric stretched to accommodate his build, making for a fair disguise. Hopefully if he didn't let anypony get a close look, he could pass by unnoticed.

As he started to leave the locker room, he caught sight of himself in a mirror. Clad in green scrubs and his head covered by a mane net, he looked ridiculous, nothing at all like the figure he cut in his dark blue and purple armor. He shook his head. A disgraced Royal Guard, escaped from prison, breaking into a hospital to steal records that would lead him to a three-legged pony. If his father could see him now!

Enough. Time to get to work. He walked over to the door and pushed it open to see something charging right at him. Instinctively, he braced, sliding into a combat stance.

"Get out of the way!" a black-maned paramedic shouted, pushing a stretcher holding a semiconscious mangled-looking pony down the hall like an express train. Silent stepped aside and flattened himself against the wall as the stretcher raced by, the paramedic and two doctors sprinting after it. Even after they disappeared, Silent remained there for a moment longer, his heart still beating against his ribs. He shouldn't be this jittery...but then again, he never had been in a situation like this before.

Except for once. The griffon camp...Alastair...

He shook his head, ordering himself to remain calm, to concentrate. Putting aside the shock, he continued down the hallway towards the stairs that he knew from his earlier scouting would take him to the basement and the record room within. He passed a table with a clipboard on it carrying a blank set of forms on it. He snatched it up in his wing and held it up in front of him, using it as a shield, covering him from any questioning glances. Other doctors and nurses passed by, but none of them paid him any attention, engaged in their own conversations and work.

He'd just reached the stairwell when he felt it again. That tingling on his spine, the sensation of eyes focused upon him. He turned and looked behind him, but saw nothing suspicious: just a couple of passing ponies, a doctor and a patient, speaking to one another quietly. It was probably nothing more than nerves, a reminder to be alert. Silent continued down the stairs, reaching the basement. His hoofsteps faintly echoing off the white walls and tiled floor, he followed the signs until he reached the record room. Checking behind him once more and seeing nothing but an empty hall, he opened the door and entered.

The records room was arranged like a library: rows and rows of metal shelves, stacked high with foot-thick manilla folders and cardboard boxes labelled in permanent marker. Fortunately, the room was empty, and there were signs on the shelves that indicated the contents. Silent walked along the shelves, following the signs.

P...P...Prosthetics! Turning, he banked down the shelf, looking up and down the shelves. There it was: a big white cardboard box labelled "Prosthetics" in black marker. Taking the box down from the shelf, he carried it over to a table and pulled out the files within. Fortunately, there weren't that many, and it didn't take him long to sort out the right hind leg replacements. Still, that left him with three pages of names.

He frowned, holding the papers in his hoof. He couldn't just steal them...

Fortunately, the table had a photocopier on it, a large black camera set up on on four legs with the lens pointing down. He placed the first sheet underneath the camera and hit the switch. There was a flash of light and a full-size copy began to print out of the attached printer. He took the copy and repeated the process with the other two sheets. Tucking the copies underneath his scrub shirt, he replaced the files in the box and put the box back up on the shelf.

Objective acquired, tracks covered. It was time to get out of here and finish his mission. Once he had gotten to a safe place, he could figure out how he was going to—

"G'day."

Silent almost jumped out of his skin, immediately halting. Phillip Finder was standing right in front of him, between him and the door, staring at him with a neutral expression.

"How did you find me?" Silent asked in disbelief.

"I followed you in," Phillip said.

"I didn't see anypony," Silent protested.

"That's what you can expect to see when I follow you," Phillip answered with a small smirk.

Silent Knight suddenly recalled the tingles down his spine. It also occurred to him that he did not have time for a long discussion, and he couldn't afford to let anypony in his way. He prepared to attack when it suddenly happened: for a moment, it was not Phillip Finder, another pony, who stood before him, but a griffon soldier, clad in armor and holding a spear up in a guarding position, sharpened beak open in a threatening screech. He paused, and the illusion passed as soon as it came.

Seeing the growing tension in the pegasus' body, Phillip held up a hoof. "Mate, I'm not here to bring you in. We're on the same side. We both want Princess Luna safe."

The mention of Princess Luna, the reminder of his objective, was enough to make Silent balk. Slowly, he allowed his guard to lower.

"I only ask to let me speak to you, offer my help," Phillip continued. "After that, you can do what you like, and I'll leave you alone if that's what you want."

Still Silent Knight hesitated. It was still difficult for him to put trust in an almost total stranger, especially one that had a reputation for going outside the law, or who might betray him. But he felt the weight of the papers beneath his shirt, and remembered that there were dozens of names he had to search through. He needed an ally, at a time when he didn't have many.

It went against every instinct...but he decided to trust him. For now. He gave Phillip a brief nod.

"Come with me," Phillip said, turning and heading towards the door. Silent Knight followed in silence.

Author's Notes:

This took me a while, but I finally tapped it out. The beginning of a tense alliance...

For those who aren't familiar with Silent Knight's stories, more details will be given in later chapters.

Part 5: Traps

The hotel in the poorer eastern district was a mediocre establishment, with dark hallways and impersonal rooms that were practically mirror images of one another. The owner was a sleepy, irritable silver-haired unicorn who did not bother with courtesy: it was quite clear that all he was interested in was your money, and not who was paying it. He'll ask you no questions, you'll tell him no lies. The perfect hiding place.

Silent Knight and Phillip were holed up in a first floor room (near the back door for a quick escape), talking over the hayburgers that Phil had picked up on the way for their dinner. Silent was explaining his story: his memory of the hooded three-legged pony, his escape and entering the hobo camp, sneaking into the hospital to acquire the records, and his frustrating inability to remember anything else.

"Framed for murder by a mysterious figure with a unique mark," Phillip said softly, lying on the faded bedding, staring at Silent over his hayburger. "It's like the premise for a thriller movie."

Silent realized that he had not seen Phillip blink once. It was beginning to make him uncomfortable the way he stared at him, his eyes like storm clouds on the horizon. "It's what happened," he said.

"Didn't say I didn't believe you," Phil said, taking another bite of his burger and chewing slowly. He looked at the three copies spread out on the bed. "But if you were planning on checking all these names off yourself, you've got 'roos loose in the top paddock, mate," he added, tapping the side of his head with a hoof.

Silent scowled, recognizing the insult for what it was, but didn't get a chance to respond. "We'd better get to it, then," Phil said, finishing his burger and snatching up the papers, bringing them over to the desk in the corner. "Right. You said the prosthetic was for the entire lower leg and the knee?"

"Yes," Silent replied, the image of the hooded intruder leaping into his mind, as fresh as though he was still standing right in front of him. Phil looked over the list, striking out a few names.

"Male or female?"

"I'm not sure. Most likely male," Silent replied, recalling the breadth of the attacker's shoulders and their thinner hips.

"Height? Build?"

"Taller than me by a couple inches."

"Color of coat?"

"Light gold. And he was left-hooved."

The interrogation continued through the night, with Phillip squeezing as many details as he could out of Silent's memory. Silent realized the necessity of this questioning, but it still made him uncomfortable, to have a total stranger poking around in his mind. The cold, impersonal method of questioning did nothing to allay his discomfort.

Finally, Phillip had managed to scratch out about a third of the names on their list. He blinked, shaking his head and yawning. "Right. We'd best get some sleep." Taking off his trilby and vest and tossing them aside, he flopped down on the couch and curled up, his back to Silent.

Silent Knight frowned at his parter's sleeping form for a moment before climbing into the bed and pulling the sheets over himself. He had to remind himself that this was temporary: much as he would prefer to do this alone, he did need help with an investigation. He just wished he could have gotten somepony who would actually look at him once in a while instead of staring at him a bug on a slide.

A warm touch on his snout brought Silent Knight back to the waking world. His exhaustion and the comforting warmth of the bed had allowed him to sleep deeply and peacefully for the first time in a long time. Opening his eyes, he saw through the window that the sun had already risen past the horizon, its warm light shining directly onto his face as if calling him to duty. Rising with a yawn, he threw the sheets off him and leapt out. It was time to get to work. He turned to face his partner and stared in disbelief.

He was alone in the room. Phillip's hat and vest were gone, as was the list of names. The only sign that he had left was a scrawled note, torn from a notebook, on the desk.

Stay here. I'll be back.

Silent stared at the note in disbelief for a moment before seizing it and flinging it into the dustbin. He left him! Left him to do his work on his own, and ordered him to stay behind like a dog! For a moment, he considered flying out after him and telling him off, but then realized that was a bad idea. He had no idea where his absconding partner was, and going out in public without a plan was an unnecessary risk.

He was stuck in here for now. All he'd done was trade one cell for another, because behind that locked wooden door was the entire world, looking for him. Alone and trapped once more.

At least the accommodations were better than Clovenworth. Phillip had had the foresight last night to purchase some groceries. With nothing else to do, Silent Knight trotted into the kitchen to prepare some breakfast.

Phillip did not return for the rest of the morning, or the afternoon. No visitors came by. Nothing happened. It wasn't the long stretches of silence that Silent minded: he'd been trained since childhood to be a Guard, after all, to stand at post for hours at a time. It was the emptiness that got to him: the time wasted, spent without purpose, not knowing what was happening and unable to do anything about it except allow the fury inside him to percolate. He paced, lay on the bed, stared out the window at the leaf-strewn street outside, worked out for a couple hours as well as he could. It did nothing to calm his restless energy.

Laying on his bed, he tried, once more, to remember the night. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he brought himself back to the hallway...

"What happened?" Miley asked.

"There's an intruder," he replied, wiping the remaining salt from his eyes. "Lock down this wing and search these hallways. I'm going to check on Princess Luna." At his word, the Guards split up into two-pony teams, hurrying down the hallways with their flashlights illuminating every dark corner. There would be no place to hide.

Taking flight, he soared down the hallway, past his office, down towards Princess Luna's quarters, moving faster than he knew he could. Reaching the doors, regally gilded in dark blues and purples, he shoved them open and...

And...

With a growl, Silent turned and lashed out, his hoof smashing through the wall and leaving a large hole. He still couldn't remember what had happened! Trapped in here, and trapped in his own mind, and completely helpless to do anything about it. It was almost enough to make him scream.

Night fell, then the next day passed in the same agonizing stillness. Rest, eat, pace, think, wait until night. Still Phillip did not appear. That night, unable to sleep for the burning, itching restlessness in his chest, Silent lay on the bed in the dark, staring at the door, which he'd lit with the lamp. As the hours passed in stillness and silence, it seemed like the door was staring back at him, taunting him with the things that lay behind it...Princess Luna, traitors, hooded ponies with prosthetic legs, knives and blood and darkness, all behind the locked cell doors that sealed him within while his captors and tormentors laughed at him from without...

"Oi."

Silent hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep until he was woken up by a strange voice and a hoof shaking him by the shoulder. Instinctively, he seized his attacker's leg and twisted it in a lock while snapping out a counterpunch. The assailant slapped the punch aside and knocked his grip loose, stepping back out of range. "It's just me."

Silent blinked, finally recognizing Phillip as his attacker. "Where've you been?" he snapped.

"I think I found him," Phil replied. "I might have found the intruder." He took a photograph out of his vest and gave it to Silent. It showed a tall, but slim earth pony with a light golden coat and dark brown mane and tail, with dark blue eyes and a cutie mark of a white key and a hoofprint walking down the street. His right hind leg from the knee down was a metal prosthetic.

"That might be him," Silent agreed, handing the photo back. "Who is he?"

"Soft Step," Phillip replied. "Been on the Royal Guard's watchlist for months. Accused of multiple break-ins, but never convicted. Lost the leg in a cart accident."

"Where is he?" Already Silent felt that initial slow rush, the controlled adrenaline flow that came with the beginning of a mission, like the tension of a bowstring drawn and aimed at its target. His anger was still there, but now it was set aside, allowing him to focus on the job at hand.

"Fifteen minutes after we get you changed and ready," Phillip replied.

"Changed?" It was then that Silent noticed that Phillip had brought in a large cloth bag with him and laid it down on the floor. Taking the bag in his teeth, he shook the contents out onto the bed. A dark red coat with holes for pegasi wings, a black slouch hat, and a makeup kit.

"It'll be a bit big, but it'll work," Phil said, opening the makeup kit and taking a brush in his teeth. "Hold still."

Fifteen minutes later, the two were trotting through the shadowy streets of the Canterlot evening. Silent was now clad in the coat and had the slouch hat pulled down low over his face, which was expertly done up to make him seem older than he actually was. His cutie marks were now covered by fake images of a storm cloud with a lightning bolt.

"How'd you find Soft Step?" he asked Phillip softly.

"I have contacts in the Guard, the homeless and the underworld," Phillip replied. "They eliminated all the unlikely ones, and I started checking on the likely ones."

A pair of patrolling Guards turned the corner ahead of them. Ignoring the momentary panic-fueled urge to turn and go the other way, Silent kept walking forward at the same pace. "Don't give them a reason to stop us," Phil muttered out of the corner of his mouth. The two continued to walk, seeming to all the world like two friends out for a stroll, and the Guards passed them by without a second thought.

"We're here," Phillip said, pausing in front of a three story brick building that stood dark against the night sky. A stone sign next to the concrete walkway read "Sunrise Apartments."

"Soft Step lives on the third floor, apartment 3C. Come on." Phillip led the way up the walkway and opened the door for Silent, ushering him in quickly. The two walked quietly up the dark, narrow stairs, the small lamps casting huge, ominous shadows upon the walls. All was silent. Then, from up ahead came a strange sound: claws upon wood.

Silent froze, his heart rate accelerating immediately. Griffons! He pushed Phillip behind him, reaching for the sword that was no longer at his hip.

"What is it?" Phillip asked.

"I..." Had it been merely his imagination? "Thought I heard something."

"I didn't hear anything except you giving us away," Phil said impatiently. "Come on." He continued up the stairs to the third floor and proceeded down the shadowy hall towards room 3C. The door sat waiting for them at the end of the hallway. Kneeling at the keyhole, Phillip took a set of lock picks out of a pocket in his vest and started picking the lock. Silent covered his back, staring into the darkness of the hall. He was calm, but still felt that same nervous tension. He felt that same familiar tingling down his spine, like there was something there in the darkness, just outside of what he could see...watching...waiting...

With the faintest of clicks, the door unlocked. Stepping to the side of the door, Phillip opened the door very slowly to avoid making it creak, peering in with one eye. Taking a small, shoulder-mounted flashlight from another pocket, he strapped it on and turned it on to the lowest setting. Stealthily, he crept inside, with Silent right behind him.

The two entered the main sitting room, which was barely decorated and furnished sparsely with a couple of sofas and a coffee table. "Soft Step might not be home," Phillip said in the quietest whisper. "We should look around—AUGH!" He cried out in surprise as a golden aura suddenly surrounded him, freezing him in position. Before Silent could react, another spell struck him from out of the darkness. The impact hit like a minotaur's kick, knocking the breath out of his lungs, and then the air around him seemed to solidify, as if the weight of the world was pressing down on his whole body. For a moment, he couldn't breathe and gasped in panic until his lungs learned to work again. He struggled, but the immobilization spell was too strong; save for his eyes and mouth, he couldn't move an inch, and neither could Phillip.

"Mr. Step isn't here at the moment," said a voice from the darkness. A cold, slick voice with a Gerwhin accent. "He asked me to housesit for him."

Phillip's eyes narrowed and he let out a breath in a venomous hiss. "Zugzwang."

A lamp switched on, casting the room in semi-light and revealing a pony sitting in a chair outside of the room, his back to them. He wore an expensive suit and tie and his cutie mark was a black king chess piece.

"I imagine they'll be pulling Mr. Step's body from the reservoir within the hour," the unicorn continued, slowly turning to face into the room as he puffed his on his silverleaf cigarette. This pony had a light tan coat, professionally styled dark chestnut brown mane, mustache and tail, and eyes as black as an abyss. "I have little doubt that the escaped mad fugitive Silent Knight will be suspected in his murder." Smiling, he turned the cigarette into ash with a flicker of golden light from his horn.

"Ah, Phillip. Predictable as the sunrise and as subtle as a thunderstorm," Zugzwang said, rising and walking over to Phillip, who growled back at him softly. "I was expecting you to show up sooner or later." He then turned to Silent. "Lieutenant Knight, a pleasant surprise." Silent just glared back at him.

"So," Zugzwang said, sitting on the sofa between them. "I assume you've figured it out, Phillip? What did happen that night?"

Phillip glared at him for a moment more, then spoke. "You hired Soft Step to break into the palace and attack Lieutenant Knight, scratching him with a knife doused in a hallucinogenic drug. Dr. Nevermore's work, I'm assuming?"

Zugzwang nodded, looking delighted. "He was very excited when I commissioned him. He finds Royal Guards to be a most interesting subject." He puffed on the cigarette, filling the room with the heady aroma of Saddle Arabian tobacco as he gestured for Phillip to continue.

"When Silent returned to Princess Luna's chambers, as you predicted he would, he hallucinated that Luna was an enemy and attacked her," Phillip said. "When he woke up the next morning, unable to remember what had happened, it would appear to everypony that he'd gone mad. You just got lucky when he was sent to prison instead. Or maybe unlucky."

Silent listened in quiet astonishment. As if the words were a cue on stage, the curtain suddenly pulled back and the memories flooded his brain...

He burst through the doors into Luna's chambers, into the darkened bedroom. "Your Highness, are you—?"

He froze, staring in disbelief. It was not Princess Luna who stood before him. It was a griffon, adorned in armor, clutching a bloody sword in his claws and sneering at him. Alastair. The griffon captain who had murdered his comrades in an ambush. The traitor that he himself had killed with his own hooves, now alive, standing before him, and threatening his Princess.

"You!" he shouted, drawing his sword and attacking in one motion. Cackling, Alastair ducked the blade, swooping out of reach. Again and again, Silent attacked, rage and fury powering him. Every attack was dodged, the griffon continuing to laugh mockingly from out of his reach. Suddenly, several other griffons flew into the room and seized Silent's limbs, holding him back. Still he fought, trying to get to his attacker, to make sure that he stayed dead this time!

Suddenly, exhaustion filled his mind and he felt himself falling. The last thing he heard before unconsciousness overtook him was his enemy's taunting laughter.

He went numb with disbelief. A wave of nausea traveled up from his stomach. He looked down at his hooves, feeling as though his own body had betrayed him. For a moment, the conversation taking place before him felt far away, and he had to force himself back to reality.

"The only question is why," Phillip finished.

"Why does any player make a move?" Zugzwang scoffed, shaking his head. "To gain an advantage." He turned to Silent Knight, casually blowing cigarette smoke into his face and making him cough.

"I want you to understand something, Lieutenant," Zugzwang said in a disdainful tone. "As much as I despise you as an individual, choosing you was not personal. You were the most vulnerable one of all of them."

"Vulnerable?" Silent almost shouted, his fury breaking through his disbelief. "I would never betray Princess Luna!"

"Would you?" Zugzwang said softly, smirking like a cat holding a mouse in its paws. "Are you absolutely certain of that?" He spoke in a soft, almost condescending tone. Moving to Silent's side, he leaned in close and stage-whispered into his ear from out of his sight.

"I know about Alastair, Lieutenant," he said. Silent stiffened in disbelief at hearing his enemy's name spoken as the taunt continued. "I know that he ambushed and killed your comrades. I know that you had him hunted and stalked him for months. I know that you gathered a group of innocent ponies and put them all at risk, just so you could kill him yourself." Zugzwang slowly circled the immobilized Silent as he spoke, sliding back into his view, smirking at him the whole time. "There's no denying it, Silent Knight. You have the mind of a murderer. A cold-blooded killer. So tell me this...how can you be certain that you didn't show everypony your true face when you attacked Princess Luna that night?"

Silent only stared back at Zugzwang in stony silence, breathing heavily through his nostrils as his emotions churned inside him. Looking into the mocking black eyes, he felt as though he were falling into a dark, endless abyss.

"That's enough," Phillip spoke firmly. Zugzwang slowly turned back to him, his gloating smile vanishing. "You said this was a game, mate. And what's the fun in watching your opponent staggering around in the dark?" Phillip paused, collecting his thoughts behind his stoic mask. "It'd be much more fun to give them something to ponder over, a little piece of bait to chew on. After all, what's the point of being clever if you can't prove it, rub it in our faces a little?" There was another pause, the two nemeses staring coldly at one another. "You know how this works, Zugzwang," Phillip growled.

Slowly, Zugzwang smiled again. "Yes, and so do you, mein liebling," he cooed softly, striding over to Phillip and gently stroking his cheek with the back of his hoof. "That's why I love you." He looked at both his captives and nodded. "Yes. I'll give you a little clue...when you wake up." His horn glowed gold with magical energy and a sudden, heavy drowsiness dropped onto both stallions. Both of them struggled against the sleeping spell.

"Now, now, boys," Zugzwang said in the chiding tone of a parent scolding a child. "I know you're excited, but it's time for bed." Shaking his head at their continued struggling, he began to softly croon. "Guten abend, gute nacht...mit Rosen bedacht..."

Phillip collapsed to his knees, then the floor. Silent slowly followed, the weight of sleep pressing down harder and harder on him. Despite his best efforts, his eyelids slowly closed and his brain was forced to let go of the conscious world.

Author's Notes:

In which Silent Knight gets repeatedly screwed over and we finally meet the pony behind the curtain.

Sorry for the long wait! I've been goofing around too much recently. And I really, really hope I'm doing okay with this story. What do you all think? Drop me a comment and tell me what you liked/didn't like!

Part 6: The Park

"Lieutenant? Lieutenant?"

The voice slowly pulled Silent back to the waking world. With a groan, he tried to pick himself up off the floor unsuccessfully, feeling as though a great weight had been pulled off of him. The blurry image of Phillip standing above him in the middle of the now-dark room came into view.

"Give yourself time to recover," Phil said, shaking his head and rubbing his temples with his hooves. "Sleeping spells are no fun, mate."

Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs from his brain, Silent slowly stood back up. "We should get out of here," Phil said, heading to the door. Silent started to follow when his companion suddenly froze, holding up a hoof. It took a second, but then he heard it: two sets of hooves, clomping heavily up the stairs, the sound of their armored hoofsteps echoing off the hallway walls.

"Guards." The two immediately hurried to the window and pushed it open. As they started to climb through, there was a knocking at the door. "This is the Royal Guard. Is there somepony in there?" a gruff voice on the other side of the door shouted through.

Quiet as mice, the two climbed out the window. Silent took Phillip underneath his forelegs and lowered him to the ground (ignoring his hissed protests that he could have gotten down on his own). As soon as they touched down, the two began to run, disappearing into the darkness of the night.

As he flew low over the ground, weaving through the empty streets and dodging the light from street lamps with Phillip close behind, Silent replayed the meeting with the criminal mastermind and the unlocked memory over and over in his mind. It had been him the whole time. He was the attacker. He'd attacked Princess Luna. He'd tried to kill her.

"You have the mind of a murderer. A cold-blooded killer," Zugzwang's voice whispered in his ear. "How can you be certain that you didn't show everypony your true face that night?" The taunt echoed in his brain, blocking out almost everything else, even the wind rushing through his wings. He hardly even noticed when they stopped beneath a street lamp the middle of the empty Canterlot Central Park, where the wind whispered as it blew through the skeletal, shadowy trees. He slowly sat down on the park bench, lowering his face into his hooves as if to hide from the awful truth of what'd he done...what he was.

"You can't blame yourself."

Slowly, Silent Knight looked up at the sound of Phillip's voice. "I've been under Nevermore's toxins myself," Phil said, sitting on the sidewalk in front of his partner. "You can't tell what's real and what's not. You weren't in control of yourself." Seeing that his words had had no reassuring effect on Silent, Phillip sighed and continued, speaking to Silent's hooves.

"Look...I've known a lot of cold-blooded killers. I know what they're like...and I know you're not like that. Those drugs took you over, but they didn't change who you are, Silent." He looked up enough to peer at Silent's face, shifting his weight slightly from hoof to hoof as he did so. "No matter what you may or may not have done in your past, you would never have done something like that on your own. You'd never hurt anypony who didn't need to be hurt. You're a Royal Guard; you're better than that."

The words of reassurance and faith, the reminder of who he was and what his mission was, pushed the doubt out of Silent's head and he raised himself up. There was a job to do. "What now?" he asked, rising off the bench.

Phillip straightened up, the tender moment passing. "This," he said, reaching into his vest and pulling out a small envelope that smelled faintly of Saddle Arabian tobacco. "Our mutual friend left us this." He plucked a pocketknife from his best and flicked open a small blade, cutting the envelope open.

"Why would he leave us a clue?" Silent asked in bewilderment.

"Zugzwang's a malignant narcissist," Phil replied, looking over the letter within. "Dangling his plans in front of our faces, baiting us with clues for us to try to unravel...this is his way of trying to prove how smart he is." He read the contents of the letter out loud:

"Hidden right before your eyes on square B1, characters with an E on both ends."

"A riddle?" Silent asked.

"He loves those," Phil grunted, pacing in a circle as he thought out loud. "Let's break it down, bit by bit, and solve one piece at a time. On square B1..."

"In chess," Silent said. "B1 is the starting place for a knight." He looked at his white coat. "A white knight."

"Whatever we're looking for, it's in your old office," Phillip concluded. "Which is currently inhabited by..."

"Tandem Check," Silent cut in, remembering Zugzwang's earlier words: "Why does any player make a move? To gain an advantage." Both stallions saw the same realization in each other's eyes.

"Tandem Check is a spy. This frame job was to get him to replace me," Silent declared.

"Exactly," Phil nodded, his theory having been proven right. "That's also why they didn't just kill you; the investigation might have uncovered him." He returned to the sheet, pondering the rest of the riddle. "...characters with an E on both ends...Does he mean characters in a book, or characters as in letters?"

"The letters make the most sense," Silent said, scratching at the partial beard that he'd been growing against his will the past few days. "That would mean a word...with an E on both end..."

"Letters within..."

"Envelope!" they both exclaimed as one.

"We're looking for an envelope hidden in your old office in the Royal Palace," Phillip said.

"Except that I can't get in there, and I doubt that you can get that far," Silent commented.

"We—"

"Well, looky what we got here," a voice snarled from the darkness. Six ponies emerged from the shadows, surrounding the two stallions. "Two little ponies who don't know enough to stay at home at night," the speaker continued in a deep voice. He was a muscular earth pony with several puncture marks on his rusty red forelegs, wide green eyes and a crooked nose that had obviously been broken several times and not healed properly once. Every one of the ponies had a tattoo somewhere on their bodies: two gold bits and the number 13, identifying them as members of the Lucky Bit Gang, a recent upstart in the Canterlot underworld.

Silent and Phillip stood back to back calmly evaluating the threat facing them. "We don't have a problem with you," Silent said calmly.

The gang leader sneered and flicked his wrist. The switchblade knife appeared in his hoof like magic, declaring its intentions with a single click.

Silent and Phil glanced at each other and nodded subtly. "We now have a problem with you," Phillip spoke in a voice like approaching thunder. Almost before he had finished speaking, he leapt forward, knocking the thug leader's knife hoof down with his right leg as he snapped his baton out with his left, striking an unsuspecting thug in the temple with the telescoping end. Simultaneously, Silent bucked the boss in the gut, bringing him to the ground, wheezing.

The Lucky Bits had picked the wrong stallions to try to victimize. Phillip and Silent moved from one opponent to the next, easily deflecting their clumsy attacks and striking back with powerful counterblows before moving on to the next pony. The two seemed to almost speak silently to one another in a way that only trained and experienced Guards are capable of, coordinating dual attacks in a highly effective divide-and-conquer strategy that completely mitigated the numbers advantage against them.

Fending off one attacker armed with a club, Phillip turned to see Silent grappling with a dusty brown unicorn. He whipped his baton into the back of the unicorn's knee, causing it to buckle and giving Silent the opportunity he needed to finish him with a knee strike to the jaw. Ducking beneath a club swing at his head, Silent struck backwards with the back of his head to break his attacker's nose before seizing him underneath the jaw and bending forward quickly, flinging the pony up over his head and causing him to crash into another thug who was rushing Phillip from behind.

"Take this, you mugs!" a beefy unicorn snarled, charging up a destructive spell and firing. Silent and Phillip leapt clear of the spell's path and rolled back to their hooves, ignoring the explosion of energy where they had been standing a moment earlier. Having drawn his boomerang from a back pocket in his vest as he rolled, Phillip snapped it out at their attacker. The projectile spun through the air and struck the unicorn in the forehead, stunning him long enough for Silent to shoulder-ram him to the ground and knock him out with a solid hook to the jaw. The final goon gathered his courage and charged with a bellow like an angry minotaur. Silent dodged to the side and hit him with a clothesline so powerful that the pony was knocked off his legs and up into the air, giving Phillip the perfect chance to hit him in the chest with a downward elbow strike. The goon smashed hard into the ground, groaned once, and did not move again.

"You fight well," Phillip said, replacing both his weapons in his vest.

"So do you," Silent replied, barely breathing hard from the exertion.

"Right. As I was saying—"

A distinctive metal click pierced the suddenly still air. Turning, Phillip saw movement at the very edge of the lamplight. Barely visible in the hazy light, another pony stood, a large-caliber silver-plated pistol in his hoof, aimed at Silent's head. As if in slow motion, Phillip saw the hammer begin to move forward to strike the chamber.

Instinctively, he seized Silent Knight and shoved him aside out of the line of fire just as the air was pierced by a thunderous gunshot. A red-hot spear pierced Phillip's side, the impact striking him like a sledgehammer. He collapsed to the ground, unable to even cry out; his lungs were on fire and his heart felt like it was trying to burst from his ribcage. He tried to get up, but his limbs felt cold and heavy, as if they were encased in ice. Blood was spreading across his torso, trickling onto the grass.

Buck me. I'm dead. The realization gripped his mind like a python's grip.

Silent bent over him, his eyes wide with shock and concern. He tried to grab Phillip by the back of the neck and lift him up onto his back, but another gunshot forced him to duck. The gunpony had been joined by a couple of friends who were closing in, opening fire on the two ponies.

"Get out of here! Go!" Phillip shouted, his voice barely recognizable even to himself. Another bullet zipped past Silent's head, and he apparently realized that he was no good to Princess Luna dead, and trying to help Phillip would only slow him down. He took flight, chased into the sky by more gunfire. The echoing shots became more and more distant in Phillip's ears; blackness started to creep in around his vision, and he felt a great weight pushing him deep into the ground.

So this is death, Phillip Finder thought, and closed his eyes.

Author's Notes:

Good news: Silent Knight is innocent.

Bad news: Phillip is probably dead.

Read on...

(For further details on Alastair and his relationship to Silent Knight, please refer to Anzel's stories, Memoirs of a Royal Guard and Secrets of a Royal Guard)

Part 7: Reconcile and Recon

He was vaguely aware that he seemed to be flying: he could feel the wind rushing through his mane as a pair of strong hooves held him tightly. He still felt the pain of his injury, but only numbly, and his body was so cold he could barely feel it. Was he alive?

A faint light from behind his eyelids and indistinct shouting, and then he felt like he was being pulled down a tunnel at high speed, lights rushing past him. Something was pressed down over his face, and the air tasted cold and bitter, and he felt himself floating away into the darkness of forever...

Consciousness slowly returned, and he felt soft, warm blankets surrounding his body and a gentle light behind his eyelids. He was no longer in pain, and his body was warm and comfortable on a soft, cloud-like surface.

For a moment, he almost believed that he had died and, through some great cosmological error, been sent to Heaven. Then he opened his eyes and saw a fluorescent light set in a white tiled ceiling over his head, and realized that he was lying on a cloud-white bed, propped up on a bunch of pillows, in a small room decorated with roses on the walls. His clothes had been removed and bandages were wrapped tightly around his torso. Plastic tubing inserted in his foreleg trailed up to a blood bag and a morphine drip hanging beside him.

And sitting in a cushioned chair next to him was Silent Knight, still dressed in the slouch hat and coat, dark purple shadows of exhaustion under his eyes. If he needed further proof that he wasn't in Heaven, this was it.

"You're a lucky pony, sir," a doctor said, smiling at him from his other side. "If your friend hadn't bandaged your wound and brought you here, you might not have made it. As it is, you're going to have to stay in bed for a couple days so you can give yourself time to recover."

"Right," Phil said, continuing to lock eyes with Silent, who didn't speak. "Thanks, doc. Can you give us a moment?"

"Sure," the doctor said, more than a little put-off by the harsh demeanor of the less-than-grateful survivor. He exited the room and shut the door behind him.

"All right, what happened?" he growled to Silent. The Lieutenant calmly relayed the story:

Silent flew high up into the night sky, then banked and began a hard dive, rocketing right at the gathered thugs. They looked up and saw him coming almost too late, diving out of the way with cries of disbelief. Like an eagle snatching up a field mouse, Silent grabbed the unconscious Phillip in his forelegs and flew up into the sky. He was out of sight before the Lucky Bits had a chance to figure out what had happened.

Alighting on a rooftop, Silent gently set Phillip down so he could check his injuries. The bullet had struck him in the side, carving out a two-inch wide crater and lodging inside his body. Blood was spread across his entire upper body on that side, and he was unconscious from shock and blood loss. Fortunately, his chest was still rising and falling steadily. But that would change if he didn't get him medical attention, now.

Unzipping Phillip's vest, Silent pulled it off to access the injury, but then he noticed that the front right breast pocket on the vest was marked with a cross in permanent marker. Opening up the pocket, Silent was relieved to find a small, but well-stocked kit of first aid supplies within, including a rolled-up length of gauze and several dressings in silver wrappings. Tearing open a dressing with his teeth, Silent pressed the damp pad against the wound, then wound it tightly against him with the gauze. The special minerals within the dressing would help the blood clot faster, slowing down blood loss.

Pressure and bandage applied. Now he had to get him to a hospital. Looking around at the silhouettes of the buildings against the night sky around them, Silent's eyes beheld a familiar and welcome sight: the Canterlot General Hospital, less than half a klick due west, illuminated by the moonlight as if Luna herself was guiding them. Gathering Phillip up in his forelegs, he flew towards the hospital at top speed, being careful not to jostle his unconscious passenger too much.

As he dived towards the emergency entrance, he briefly reflected that there was putting himself at great risk: getting this close to a crowd gave him a good chance of being identified. But that didn't matter now. His comrade needed help. Shoving open the revolving door with his shoulder, he skidded to a halt in the midst of the lobby, every head turning towards him in alarm. "I need a doctor, now! He's been shot!" he shouted.

Immediately, a white-coated doctor was by his side, helping him with the bleeding pony in his grasp. Silent explained his injury as quickly and clearly as he could as a gurney was wheeled up. Phillip was lifted up on it, an oxygen mask strapped over his face, and he was wheeled down the hallway into surgery, leaving Silent alone to sit in the corner of the lobby. Once more, he was trapped waiting, hours passing in uncertainty and fear. He was exhausted, but his racing mind refused to allow him to rest. He could only sit, slouch hat pulled down over his eyes, and wait.

Finally, after what might have been a couple of hours or a couple of years, a doctor approached him. Silent looked up beneath his brim and was relieved to see that the white-coated unicorn was smiling reassuringly.

"Your friend's fine, sir," the doctor said. "We managed to get the bullet out and sewed the wound back up, no problem. We'll have to keep him in bed for a couple of days to give him time to recover, and he'll probably be stiff for a week or so, but he'll be fine."

"That's good," Silent said, standing. "May I see him?"

The doctor nodded. "He's still sleeping right now, but he should wake up soon." He escorted Silent down the hallway, and gestured into his room. Phillip was lying in bed, bandaged and still unconscious. For a moment, Silent stopped at the threshold, staring in shock. The sheets had been pulled back to reveal Phillip's exposed torso, and it was covered in scars: almost a full quarter was adorned with the remnants of previous injuries, dull red, pink and black against the brown of his coat. The largest of all was a patch of burn scarring on his left shoulder that extended down to his back.

"What exactly does your friend do? How'd he get shot anyway?" the doctor asked, also examining the scar tissue with horrified curiosity.

"He's a detective," Silent replied, numbing himself to the surprise. He had seen just as bad, if not worse. Pulling up a chair, he settled down beside him to wait for him to wake up. Fortunately, it didn't take long before his eyes flickered and he came to.

For a moment, Phil just glared at Silent in silence as he processed his story. Then he spoke in a fierce, angry growl.

"The hell were you thinking, coming back for me?" He gritted his teeth, infuriated at the stoic indifference on Silent Knight's face. "You're the one that needs to keep himself safe: I can look after myself! You can't put yourself at risk for me! I'm not worth that!"

"Yes, you are," Silent replied. His voice was calm, but carried a firm edge to it. "I almost died once, and somepony came to save my life. We may not be friends, but we're Guards. We look out for each other." He held his gaze steady on the angry gray. "It's what we're trained to do."

Phil glared for several moments longer, then let out a long sigh, lowering his relaxing gaze. "You're right," he admitted quietly. "I'm just trying to protect you. Better that I be the one out there, putting myself at risk, instead of you..." His voice trailed off, and he sighed again. "There's no excuse. I've been a complete arsehole to you, mate."

"It's all right. I understand," Silent said. With a grunt, Phillip struggled to sit up, and held out his foreleg with a small, uncertain smile. Silent smiled back and shook his hoof firmly, the two of them resolute in their partnership.

The moment passed, and they returned to the job. "Now, how are we going to find that envelope in Tandem Check's office?"

"We can't," Silent said. "Neither of us can get into the Palace."

"But we both know somepony who can," Phillip said, breathing a little heavily from the pain of moving. "Can you get a message to Sergeant Hooves, tell her to meet me here?"

"Of course I can," Silent said with a small smile, rising from his seat and starting to leave. "When you see here, tell her to meet me back at the hotel room when she's done."

"I will. Take care of yourself," Phillip called from his bed.

"Don't worry about me," Silent said from the threshold, pulling his collar up. "I can take care of myself." And with a final nod, he exited the room.

"Yes," Phillip said softly to the emptiness. "I know you can."

The main clocktower struck eight in the morning and all was well in the world. The rising sun shone directly on the double doors of the Phial and Filly Alchemist Supply Shop. A gray pegasus with green eyes wearing a green vest and cap walked up to the doors, jingling a set of keys in his wing. He bent over and inserted a key into the doors.

"Psst! Runic!"

Runic Phial, owner of the shop, jumped into the air, the keys flying away into the air with a musical jingling. "Who's there?" he shouted, peering into the alley beside his shop.

A figure stepped out from behind a garbage bag, lifting the slouch hat from his head. "It's me, cousin."

Runic blinked in surprise. "Silent?" He flew forward and hugged his cousin tightly. "Where have you been?! Everypony's been worried sick about you!"

"I've been trying to stay out of prison," Silent said, quickly guiding Runic into the alley. "Listen, I need you to get a message to Miley. Tell her to go to Canterlot General Hospital and visit room 189. He'll tell her what she needs to know."

From the look on Runic's face clearly showed that he thought his cousin had taken leave of his senses. "Cuz, you sure that prison life didn't drive you insane?"

"Runic, trust me. This is important. This might be my only chance to prove that I'm innocent."

Slowly, Runic nodded. "You sure you know what you're doing?"

"I always know what I'm doing," Silent said with a small, ironic smile.

"All right," Runic said, giving him one last cursory hug. "Just be careful."

"I will," Silent said. With a final wave and smile, he put his hat back on and disappeared into the alleyway. Runic returned to the shop front and recollected his keys, pondering this new twist in his life.

Author's Notes:

What's this? New chapter only two days after the last one? It must be Christmas!

Nah, I just stopped using writing time as play time.

In any case, we're getting close to the end of this story. I hope that you've enjoyed so far, and that you're looking forward to the climax of this act!

Part 8: Miley's Mission

Hospital time is slow time, and you don't even have the food to look forward to. Phillip was currently trying to pass the time with some composing. His eyes shut in concentration, he gently wafted his right hoof through the air, imagining that he was dancing it across an ivory keyboard, eliciting a calming melody that filled the still air...at least until he was interrupted by a loud noise from the hallway.

"Ah-CHOO!"

Opening his eyes, he smiled softly at the small mare entering the room. "Still fighting that cold, Sergeant?" he said.

Miley's eyes widened when she saw him. "What happened? Where's Lieutenant Knight?"

"He's fine," Phillip reassured her. "He saved my life, in fact." He gestured into the chair next to the bed. "You might want to sit down."

Miley took a seat and for the next quarter of an hour, Phillip supplied her with a full account of his adventures with Silent Knight, from their meeting at the hospital to their discovery of Soft Step's apartment to the fight at the park and his subsequent rescue. Miley proved to be a good audience, gasping in all the right spots. When his story was finished, she sat in silence for a few moments, absorbing the new information.

"Tandem Check," she said softly. "We should have known. We should have known!"

"The only way you would have known is if he was bad at his job," Phillip replied. "And Zugzwang only lets the best be his spies. It's how he's so well-informed."

"But I don't understand," Miley frowned. "Why would...Zugzwang tell you how to go after his own spy?"

"It's all a game to him," Phillip growled through his teeth, his hackles raised by the mention of his enemy's name. "He doesn't care what happens to Check. He just wants to see how smart we are." He looked back at Miley. "And you, Sergeant, strike me as being very smart. You think you can get into his office, find that envelope?"

"I'll have to be sure of what I'm looking for," Miley said with a thoughtful grimace.

"That envelope will probably hold some evidence of some kind: maybe notes or messages. It'll probably be in plain sight, somewhere where he'll have access to it if it contains vital information. It'll be plain-looking, something that you wouldn't look twice at normally."

Miley nodded. "I'll do my best."

"When you get the envelope, bring it to Silent. He's at the Red Oak Hotel in the east end, room 15."

"I will," she said, rising. She hesitated at the door. "Phillip...thanks. For all the help."

"Best way you can thank me is by getting that wanker," Phillip replied. "And stay out of trouble while you're doing it!"

"Don't worry about me," Miley smiled as she exited the room. Her reply was almost immediately followed by a skidding sound, a cry of "Whoa!" and a loud crashing. A plastic yellow "Caution: Wet Floor" sign flew past Phillip's door.

He stared out after the Sergeant, an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was a game in his opponent's eyes, but it was always to Zugzwang's advantage, never theirs. He could never see all of the pieces, couldn't always tell what the next move was...sometimes he wasn't sure he knew all the rules. Had he just sent Sergeant Hooves off to her imprisonment or death?

He no longer wished to think about the things he couldn't control, but he couldn't calm himself with imaginary melodies. Turning to the morphine drip, he increased the dosage by a couple of notches and settled down into a drug-induced haze. He knew it only hid him from the world, but for a while, he could find some peace in the ability to feel nothing.

Lieutenant Tandem Check walked down the hallway of the Canterlot Palace, past the tall windows that revealed the darkening evening sky outside. He was a tall, lean earth pony with a dark blue coat, a pure white mane and tail and small, intelligent dark green eyes that always seemed to be squinting, darting around in a snakelike manner as he observed everything and everypony, as if calculating distance and trajectory. His cutie mark was a pair of black chess rooks. A brown leather holster slapped rhythmically against his right hip as he walked.

"Is everything all right, Sergeant?" he asked. His voice was soft, but carried as though he was speaking directly into Miley's ear. "You seem unusually...terse."

"Yes, sir," Miley replied, walking alongside the traitor as she gave her end-of-shift report. His green eyes hovered over her for a moment, and she wondered if he could somehow see through her, sense the tumult of fear and rage that boiled inside her, threatening to overwhelm her self-control. But he nodded and continued walking.

"If that will be all, then you're dismissed, Sergeant," he said, moving past her. "I need to meet with Princess Luna."

"Yes, sir," Miley said, forcing herself to salute, then turning and smartly walking away. This was her chance! Glancing back over her shoulder to make sure that Check was no longer watching, she walked quickly down the hallway towards the lieutenant's office. The hallway was clear, no witnesses to interrupt her. Opening the unlocked door, she ducked inside.

The office was empty and undecorated, with only a large oak desk in the center of the room, loaded with scrolls, letters and stationery—Tandem Check, they had learned long ago, was one of those ponies that liked to write down everything—and a few chairs. The silence of the room, save for the ticking of a small clock on the desk, made Miley even more nervous than she already was, but she pushed it aside: she had a job to do. Stealing to the desk, she began to peruse the stationery on it, looking amongst the envelopes, searching for one that she wouldn't look twice at normally.

Empty...empty...empty...sealed...hello. There was a large envelope, held closed with twine, labeled "FTAO: Lieutenant Tandem Check" in pen. It was a completely ordinary envelope, and Miley would have passed it by normally. But looking closer, she found it odd that there didn't seem to be a return address on the envelope, and also noted that the end of the twine was separated, as if it had been bitten on repeatedly. Looking up once more to ensure that she was alone, she took the twine in her mouth, unwound it to open the envelope, and pulled out one of the multiple letters within.

"Notes: Iridescence is in romantic relationship with Winterspear. Could possibly use this to advantage? Must investigate Winterspear further, find regular habits and vulnerabilities.

Runic Phial: Miley's coltfriend. Alchemist, appears to be fairly skilled. Could possibly recruit to make poisons, etc.? Need to speak to Miley about him."

With every sentence, Miley's eyes widened. Blackmail plans, observations of unusual activity, notes on overheard information...before this moment, some part of her had doubted the possibility that Tandem, the loyal and organized but quiet Guard, had been a spy, but the proof was right here in front of her: Tandem Check's habit of writing everything down had just destroyed him. Now she had to...

The sound of approaching hoofsteps interrupted her train of thought. The doorknob turned and the door began to open. In a flash of panic, Miley ducked into the only hiding place available: underneath the desk. The door opened and shut and the hoofsteps approached the desk. She recognized Tandem Check's legs as they appeared in front of her lifted up onto the chair. For once, she thought herself lucky that she was so small: it was the only reason she was able to hide inside the little hole.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem like Tandem had any intentions of leaving anytime soon. She heard the sound of paper's rustling and a pen scratching across the desk surface less than an inch above her head. He was filing out reports: that could take hours! Go away! Miley thought as loudly as she could, but the stallion took no notice, continuing to work at his steady pace.

Suddenly, a horrible sensation took hold: a sudden itching in her nostrils, followed by an involuntary gasp. Oh, no! Not now!

"Ah...ah...AHH..." At the last moment, Miley covered her mouth and nose with her hooves, blocking out the sneeze. Unfortunately, Tandem must have heard something because he stopped abruptly. The chair creaked as he turned, looking around the empty office. Slowly, the chair scooted back a little, and his torso began to bend down to look underneath the desk...

The door suddenly opened. "Lieutenant, have you seen Tiberius?" Iridescence's voice spoke.

There was a long sigh from Check. "Little rascal's hiding again, isn't he?"

"Yes, sir. Princess Luna has asked for everypony's help finding him."

Tandem Check sighed again. "All right, I'm coming." He got up off the chair and exited the room, closing the door behind him.

Miley sighed in relief, for once grateful for Princess Luna's pet opossum's intervention. Without another moment to waste, she got out from beneath the desk, checked the hallway to make sure it was empty, and hurried away. She had a meeting to get to.

The sun had long disappeared beneath the horizon when Miley arrived at the Red Oak Hotel. Entering the lobby, Miley snuck past the snoring clerk at the desk and crept down the hallway, knocking at the door labeled 15. It took several seconds for anything to happen: the door slowly opened a crack and an eye peeked out.

"Boss?" Miley whispered. It took several seconds for her to recognize Silent Knight from underneath all that hair.

"Miley," Silent said in relief, smiling as he opened the door for her.

"Beards and long manes don't suit you, sir," Miley said, closing the door behind her.

"Do you have it?"

"Yes, sir," Miley said, putting the envelope on the desk and opening it up, spilling the letters within out onto the table. Silent began to examine the notes and messages within. Lists of contacts, notes on possible blackmailing strategies, cipher keys and methods for contact, copies of letters...every one was noted and catalogued in the ponies' minds, evidence to be used against the traitor.

One letter in particular caught both of their attention: "We spent a lot in bribes to make sure that Silent got in prison and I got his position, and that could come crashing down on our heads now that he's gotten out. If I know him, he'll be coming back here to get to the bottom of this. I told you we should have just killed him. If you won't take care of this, then I will. Keep in mind who you're dealing with: if I go down, I can take you down with me."

Silent just stared at the letter, the admission of guilt, for a long moment. This was the truth: the proof that he was not mad, that he had not failed in his duty, that his life had been stolen from him by a traitor, not lost by his own actions.

"This is it," Miley whispered, as if the two had just discovered a gold mine. "This is the proof we need."

"No, it's my insurance," a voice growled from the door. "And I'll take it back." The sentence was punctuated by a distinctive metal click. Miley and Silent looked up in shock to see Tandem Check standing at the doorway, aiming his pistol directly between Silent's eyes.

"Don't try anything, Silent Knight," Tandem growled. "If you even twitch, I'll shoot you both." Glaring, Silent forced himself to relax. Miley took a couple nervous steps back, eyes on the gun.

"You're not as good a spy as you thought, Sergeant," Tandem said, keeping his eyes on Silent Knight. "I saw you creeping out of my office and followed you here. And you, Silent...you're too clever to live. If it'd been up to me, we'd have dumped you out in the middle of the North Sea with an anchor tied around your wings." He nodded to the table with the papers on it. "Now give me back those papers, or I'll rectify that mistake right here and now."

Silent's mind raced, trying to think of a solution. At this range, he stood little chance against a loaded gun aimed directly at him, and without any weapons, he couldn't fight back. He heard a sniffling sound from Miley and glanced at her to see her nostrils twitching. Getting a sudden, desperate idea, he slowly gathered the papers up, slid them back up into the envelope, and tossed the bundle to the floor in front of Tandem. The gunpony bent down to collect the envelope. Once he was distracted, Silent extended his wing and began to tickle Miley's nose with the tip. Her eyes widened and she began to quiver. "Ah...AH...AH-CHOO!"

Startled by the explosive sneeze, Tandem jumped, the gun firing at the ceiling. Seizing his opportunity, Silent leapt forward, knocking the weapon aside and tackling Tandem Check out into the hallway. The two began to wrestle, exchanging blows as they tussled. Both seemed equally skilled, but Tandem managed to get on top and started throttling the pinned Silent. Recovering, Miley charged in to help, but Tandem bucked her in the face as she approached, sending her flying back into the wall. She slumped to the floor and did not move again.

Like a dam bursting beneath a flood, Silent's fury broke at seeing his comrade, his friend hurt. Headbutting Tandem in the face, he knocked his attacker off him and rolled over, pinning the griffon to the ground, for it was a griffon that he was fighting now, a griffon captain with blood on his claws, screeching in defiance as he fought. Growling deep in his throat, Silent began to pummel Alastair in his sneering face with all his might, feeling his flesh breaking and skull fracturing beneath his hooves. Slowly, Alastair stopped struggling, going limp.

Seizing his enemy around the throat with his hooves, Silent began to squeeze. There would be no mercy. There would be no escape. Kill him, kill him, kill him!

"You have the mind of a murderer. A cold-blooded killer," Zugzwang whispered in his ear, causing him to freeze. His grip slackened for a moment, doubt battling with his resolve. Was this who he was now? A bringer of death?

"No," Phillip's voice replied. "You're a Royal Guard. You're better than that."

"Silent." Silent felt a hoof on his shoulder and looked up to see Miley Hooves, giving him a firm, warning look. "That's enough."

Her words reached through his fury, and he calmed down, The hallucination faded away, and he could see Tandem Check, lying unconscious on the floor beneath him: a traitor, a rat, but deserving of justice, not death. Breathing slowly and heavily as his heart calmed, he slowly stood up.

"It's over," he declared to Miley. The two friends smiled and embraced one another in relief at the long nightmare having finally ended.

"Good to have you back, boss," Miley said. "Ah-choo!"

"Bless you."

"Thanks, lieutenant."

Author's Notes:

And it's Miley's time to shine, along with Silent Knight!

One more chapter and we'll be finished! I'm very excited to wrap up this special project and hope that you've all enjoyed!

Part 9: Happy Endings

It was quite a surprise for the Canterlot City Guards at the local precinct when a Sergeant of the Lunar House Guard calmly walked up to the front desk with an envelope in her mouth and an unconscious Lieutenant bound in bedsheets straddled across her back like a prize fish, and declared that she had caught a spy. The bewildered Guards took her prisoner into a hasty custody and the interrogations began.

The whole affair might have lasted longer if Tandem Check had been a little less intelligent. He could easily have tried to pass this all off as a conspiratorial effort between a murderous lunatic and a weak-willed Guard. Fortunately, he was very intelligent: it was one of the traits that had lifted him to the position of both lieutenant and spy. That intelligence, as well as the vindictiveness that he so prided himself on, guided him to realize that once names and dates started being taken, once his coconspirators inevitably cracked and admitted their crimes and the ponies he'd blackmailed and threatened came forward at the scent of weakness, the game would be up for him. Confronted with the evidence against him, he made a full confession to the Guard, telling them how he had used his position to recruit a spy ring right under the Princess' noses and how Silent Knight had been set up to take the fall. In all, almost a dozen ponies within the Palace staff were arrested and confessed.

Just over a week later, Silent Knight found himself back in court, for much happier reasons. There were no shackles, no cold stares from the crowd around him, and he stood proudly and relieved, no longer bent beneath the weight of his failings. For a moment, he almost thought this was a dream, and knew that if it was, he never wished to wake up.

"Silent Knight," the judge said from the podium, preferring to look at his notes instead of the defendant he had wrongfully convicted. "Based on this new evidence, and the confession of Tandem Check, we hereby rescind the charges against you and reinstate your rank and position as Lieutenant of the Lunar House Guard."

The courtroom erupted in cheers, and the judge didn't even bother calling for order. Crystal was the first to reach him, seizing him in a hug, and then Runic and Miley and Iridescence and the rest of his squad was there, cheering his vindication. Accepting their congratulations, Silent gradually pushed himself through the celebrating crowd towards the one pony he wanted to see more than anypony else.

She was sitting in a bench towards the back of the room, her pose as regal and her face as stoic as always. He sat down next to her and waited in silence.

"I didn't want to believe it," Princess Luna finally spoke softly. "There was always a part of me that refused to accept it. But..." She turned her gaze towards him, shining with regret. "I'm sorry, Silent Knight. I should have been there for you."

"It's all right, Princess," he reassured her with a smile. She pulled her wings forward and covered him with a gentle embrace, and he returned the hug.

All was right with the world.

A proper celebration was in order, and one was held that night in one of the main rooms of the palace. The party, which was attended by the entirety of the Lunar House Guard and both Princesses, lasted long through the night and was filled with much joviality at not just the return of Silent Knight, but at the uncovering of the ring of traitors.

"Crystal, are you planning on letting go of my leg anytime tonight?" he asked with the slightest tone of weariness as he helped himself to some more punch.

"No," Crystal said, nuzzling into his neck happily and tightening her grip on his foreleg.

"What if I get arrested again?"

"Then they'll have to drag me into the cell with you."

Silent laughed softly and he kissed Crystal on the forehead. As he looked up, he felt eyes upon him and turned. A pony in a gray trilby was standing at the other side of the room, seemingly unnoticed by the other occupants, looking at him with a sideways glance. Noticing Princess Luna nearby, he approached his Princess. "Your Highness, would you give Crystal something shiny to play with for a few moments? I need to go speak to a friend."

"Of course, Silent," Luna said, glancing up at their visitor. Crystal pouted, but reluctantly allowed Silent to slip from her grasp. Silent walked across the room, passing several well-wishers on the way, and approached Phillip.

"She's a looker," Phillip said quietly. "Loyal, too, looks like."

"That she is," Silent agreed, noticing that Phillip was moving rather stiffly. "Are you okay?"

"Still stiff," Phillip said, wincing slightly as he took a step. "But it's getting better." He paused, then looked up. "Thanks."

"We both saved each other's lives. I think we can call it even," Silent smiled. "Just do one thing for me."

"What?"

"Next time, duck."

Phillip chuckled softly.

"Are you going to stay?" Silent asked. "You're welcome here."

Phillip frowned, looking towards Princess Luna at the center of the room. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to accept the invitation, but he shook his head. "This is your happy ending, Lieutenant, not mine. Besides, I've got a train to catch."

Silent nodded in understanding. Phillip then straightened up from the wall to a position of attention, suddenly stoic again. He raised his right hoof and saluted Silent Knight.

"Keep her safe, mate. Keep 'em all safe."

"It's what we do," Silent replied, giving him a salute in return. With one last mutual smile and nod, Phillip touched the brim of his hat. "Hoo roo, mate," he said, and left. Silent watched him go, then turned back to Luna and Crystal. This was, after all, his happy ending.

Exiting the palace and returning to the darkened streets of Canterlot, Phillip pulled his vest up and started walking down the cobbled stone towards the train station. Glancing at his watch, he saw that he had just enough time to catch the train back to Ponyville. He glanced back at the palace over his shoulder and smiled softly. This might not have been his happy ending, but it did feel good.

But as he continued on his way, he did not feel a pair of eyes upon him, watching from the third-story window of a nearby building. The watcher smiled, exhaling smoke from his silverleaf cigarette.

"Well played, liebling. Well played."

A clocktower struck out the hour, marking the passage of time until the next day. In the end, he knew, nothing had ended. The game was still on.

Author's Notes:

Well, we did it. Here's to happy endings, and the conclusion of this story arc!

I hope you enjoyed this story arc—I know I had a lot of fun with this, and I am really thankful to the cooperation of Anzel and Crystal Wishes in this! And I cannot wait to get started on the next addition to the Phillip Finder series!

Epilogue: The Pawn

The interrogation room was bare, the pale gray paint on the walls fresh and even so as to deflect interest. The single lightbulb in the ceiling cast the small room into harsh white light. There were no windows, and the only door had a frosted glass window. Even the Investigator that was questioning Tandem Check was uninteresting; a gray-maned, dull black-coated earth pony with a wrinkled face, tired pale blue eyes, and an old, dusty trenchcoat that clung to his bony frame. The only object of interest within the room was a styrofoam cup of steaming, coal black coffee that the Investigator, whose name was Hidden Trail, had brought in with him. He raised the cup and took a long sip, studying the notes that were spread out across the table. Behind them, standing post next to the door, a stone-faced unicorn Guard watched in silence.

"So that's all you're going to tell me?" Trail asked in a quiet, rough voice.

"All for now," Tandem Check replied. He sat across the table from Trail, his hooves shackled and his body clothed in an orange jumpsuit. "But if you're interested, I could give you some more."

Hidden Trail placed the coffee cup on the table and leaned forward. "In exchange for what?" he asked flatly. He knew how this song and dance worked.

Tandem Check smirked. "I can give you Zugzwang."

Hidden Trail blinked, a spark of interest glimmering in his eyes. "Is that true?"

Tandem grinned. The fish was taking the bait: the glory of being the one to take down Zugzwang. "I worked with him for almost two years. In that time, I got as much dirt on him as he does on me. I've kept notes of everything I've ever done with him, just in case we had a falling out. They're in my safe at home, but you won't be getting into it without my help."

Trail lifted up his pen, pressing the nib to the paper. "How do we get into the safe?"

"Not yet," Tandem replied coyly. "Let's talk about a lowered sentence first—"

There was an earsplitting crack that seemed to shake the entire room. Tandem Check slumped backwards, a blood-spattered hole carved into his forehead, just above his left eye.

His ears ringing incessantly, Trail jumped and whirled around, knocking the coffee cup all over his notes. He had all but forgotten about the Guard at the door, who was currently holstering a smoking revolver, his expression just as stony as before.

"You're my witness," the Guard told Trail before the latter could speak, his voice somehow cutting through the ringing in Trail's ears. The Guard extracted two objects from his saddlebags. "He pulled out a knife and tried to attack you. I was forced to shoot him in self-defense." He held up the items he had taken from the bags. One was a ruby, as bright and vivid as a flame frozen into solid form and as large as a hoof.

The other was a photograph of Trail, beaming up at a young filly with a golden coat and bright bubblegum pink hair that was riding astride his shoulders, both of them smiling from ear to ear.

Trail looked from the photograph to the revolver to the City Guard's face, which was as impassive and unreadable as stone. He could hear the sound of hoofsteps rapidly approaching.

He swallowed and nodded. "To Tartarus with it," he sighed, holding out his hoof and taking the ruby. "I'm too old for this."

The Guard grunted and put the photograph into his saddlebags. He then took out a shank, a makeshift knife made out of a scrap of iron, and placed it on the floor, next to Tandem's body.

The spy smirked as he did so. Tandem Check hadn't forgotten his place; he had never learned it in the first place, nor had he learned the rules, especially the most important rule of all: if a pawn becomes a liability, a danger to its master, then it must be sacrificed to the enemy.

Author's Notes:

Surprise, everyone! I know it's been over a year since I came back to this story, but I was thinking about it today. The idea for this chapter, which explains Zugzwang's motives more clearly, was born and demanded to be written down as soon as possible.

I hope that you enjoyed it!

Chapter notes

Part 1
—Silent Knight, Iridescence, Winterspear, Miley Hooves, Runic Phial and Crystal Wishes are all characters that appear in Anzel's Memoirs of a Royal Guard and Secrets of a Royal Guard. I claim no ownership.
—Clovenworth Prison reappears, having been the main setting for the prequel.
—Silent Knight's prisoner number, 11-17-14, is a reference: the first chapter of Memoirs of a Royal Guard was published on November 17, 2014.
—Phillip references the Summer Sun Festival in a previous story, The Sun Falls, in which Silent Knight had a small cameo role. Silent references Phillip's usage of torture to extract information from a suspect.

Part 2
—"Tandem Check" is a combination of chess terms. Check is obvious: tandem refers to "tandem chess," a form of chess with two sets of players.

Part 3
—The idea of a three-legged pony with a false leg comes from the movie The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble, which this story is partially based off of.
—While we're on the subject of The Fugitive, there's an unintentional parallel between the film and this story: in the film, Richard Kimble has a beard in the beginning and shaves it off after his escape. In this story, Silent Knight is clean-shaven in the beginning and grows a beard after his escape.
—Trottish: play on Scottish. Highland Note's name is a reference to the Scottish Highlands.
—"You're a long time dead": Scottish expression, "cheer up."

Part 4
—Piece of piss: Australian expression, "easy."
—"clipe bassa": combination of two Scottish terms. "Clipe" refers to a snitch or tattletale. "Bassa" is a shortened version of "bastard."
—Aesopony: play on Aesop. Phillip mentions the fable of the farmer and the viper, in which a farmer comes across a viper freezing in the snow and, taking pity on him, puts him in his shirt to warm it up. The viper repays his kindness by fatally biting him.
—"That's what you can expect to see when I follow you": quoting Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Devil's-Foot.
—Silent's hallucinations are a key element to the story, explained in the next chapter.

Part 5
—"It's like the premise for a thriller movie.": self-awareness abounds.
—"you've got 'roos loose in the top paddock": Australian slang, "you're crazy/not that bright." 'Roos is short for kangaroos.
—Phillip's actions in leaving Silent on his own may seem harsh, but I do have an explanation for them.
—Originally, the two would arrive at the apartment to find that Soft Step had been murdered by Zugzwang to cover up loose ends, but as one of my watchers pointed out, the "Kill the henchman after the job" trope is getting old.
—For more details on Alastair the griffon, please refer to Memoirs of a Royal Guard and Secrets of a Royal Guard.
—"Guten abend, gute nacht...mit Rosen bedacht...": the original lyrics to Brahms' Lullaby. Translates as "Good evening, good night/with roses covered..."

Part 5 scrapped dialogue
Originally, I came up with some additional dialogue for Zugzwang in this chapter, based off of some of the Joker's monologue from The Killing Joke. I scrapped it because it made the chapter too long and didn't add anything.
"I guess you had a very bad day, Silent Knight," Zugzwang hissed, putting a foreleg around his shoulders in a gesture that would have been comforting in other circumstances. He nodded towards Phillip, who was watching the exchange impassively. "He had a bad day once, too, you know. You're both alike in that aspect: what else would explain why you two do what you do?" Removing his leg from Silent's shoulder he strode into the center of the room. ""You both had a bad day, and it broke you...drove you as crazy as the very ponies that you fight against...but you won't admit it! You both keep fighting on, pretending that life makes sense, that there's some point to all this suffering that you put yourselves through!" He snarled at them both. "Mein Gott, you make me want to vomit."

Part 6
—Malignant narcissism is a hypothetical psychological disorder that combines elements of narcissism and psychopathy. A malignant narcissist would be described as someone who believes that they are superior to all others and completely lacks any empathy, conscience or remorse—in fact, they often show signs of sadism, and take pleasure from manipulating and abusing others for their own ends and to demonstrate their superiority.
—It's subtle, but a point that I tried to make here was that Phillip really does understand Silent's desire for revenge: that same anger and desire for vengeance is what made him and defined him.

Part 7
—...he almost believed that he had died and, through some great cosmological error, been sent to Heaven.: recall Phillip's assertions in previous stories that he is not and never has been a good person.
—If he needed further proof that he wasn't in Heaven, this was it.: A subtle jab at Silent Knight. One of the key elements of the story up to this point was that, initially at least, our two protagonists really didn't like each other. Still, it speaks to their character that despite their feelings, both of them put their safety at risk for the other.
—Phillip may not be as crazy prepared as Batman, but he does have the right tools for the job. He marked the pocket with the first aid kit for such a situation like this, when he was incapacitated and someone else had to get to the kit.
—Phillip's anger is from Silent Knight putting himself at risk for him. Phillip considers himself responsible for the safety of his clients, and does not want them to endanger themselves for him, particularly because he doesn't consider himself worth anyone's concern. Silent, however, thinks differently, as he is a fellow Guard. Recognizing the sense of comradeship with one another, the two are able to reconcile their differences.

Part 8
—The idea of an important envelope being hidden in plain sight is taken from Edgar Allan Poe's The Purloined Letter.
—He knew it only hid him from the world, but for a while, he could find some peace in the ability to feel nothing.: also refers to Phillip's cold stoicism as a defense mechanism to block out emotional trauma...an aspect of his character that's gradually beginning to change.
—In the MLP comics, Tiberius is Princess Luna's pet opossum.
—You've heard of Chekov's gun? Miley has Chekov's cold.
—In his rage, Silent hallucinates that Tandem Check is Alastair, due to the toxin not being completely flushed out of his system, something that I've been showing throughout the story. However, now that he's got a grasp on himself, he can hopefully control himself long enough for the toxin to fully wear off.

Part 9
—I'm sorry if this chapter seems a bit rushed, but I wanted to try to wrap this up cleanly.
—The trial scene in this chapter mirrors the beginning of the story.
—I had an idea where Phillip would wonder what "thirty pieces of silver" Zugzwang promised Tandem Check in exchange for his service. I cut this as such a specific Biblical reference just seemed out of place.
—"Hoo roo" is Australian slang for "goodbye."
—Zugzwang watches Phillip leaving in the end, making it quite clear that he is still a threat for the rest of the series.

Deleted scenes
The Silent Fugitive had a lot of scenes that I came up with during production, but that ultimately had to be edited out for various reasons. I'll give you some of the scenes here.
—Originally, Phillip and Silent were supposed to talk in a bar that Phillip knew, where they would agree to help each other. In a parody of an early scene in The Terminator, a Guard would walk in and almost spot Silent, prompting them to exit hastily. I would even have Burning in the Third Degree by Tryanglz playing during that scene.
—Another idea I had was that Silent Knight would disguise himself as a doctor when he was breaking into the hospital, with the result that another doctor would ask him for help with an autopsy on a several day old body. The dialogue for this scene would be something like this:
DOCTOR: "Hey, bud, can you help me out with this?"
SILENT: "...me?"
DOCTOR: "Yeah, it'll just take a minute." (He guides Silent into an examination room, which has an extremely unpleasant smelling unrecognizable shape on the table) "We got a poor old mare here. Her daughter found her dead in her bed. We think she's been dead for a couple days now, but that's just based off the smell."
SILENT: "And we're going to autopsy her?"
DOCTOR: "That's the idea. Hand me that bone saw, will you?" (points to a large, extremely sharp saw on a table)
SILENT: "...Actually, I have another patient waiting.."
DOCTOR: "Oh, that's all right. It's not like she's going anywhere, right? (Laughs)
(Silent calmly leaves the room, casually heads to the nearest restroom and proceeds to enter the stall and vomit into the toilet)
I scrapped this scene as unnecessary and disrespectful to Silent's character.
—I also originally planned for Silent and Phillip to conduct surveillance on Soft Step in disguise. Phillip would be a street musician with a rented saxophone, and Silent would be disguised as a mare, complete with blonde wig, much to his humiliation and anger at Phillip:
SILENT: (hissing out of the corner of his mouth) I hate you.
PHILLIP: (smirking) You say the sweetest things, dear.
At the end of the story, Phillip would tease him about this:
PHILLIP: Before I forget, you left this behind. (pulls out the blonde wig and tosses it to Silent, then smirks at his expression of surprise) Actually, I think I will stay. I'm sure Princess Luna would love to hear about how you uncovered a dangerous spy ring...by dressing in drag.
SILENT: You wouldn't dare.
PHILLIP: And I'm sure your mare would like that on you.
SILENT: (tosses the wig at Phillip) That's it. Consider yourself uninvited!
PHILLIP: Like I'd want to be at your party! (they smile at each other)
Again, I scrapped this as unnecessary: the story as I wrote it out worked better.

Author's Notes:

Chapter notes from the story.