The sky the next morning was painted crimson red by the light of the rising sun, as if the heavens were demonstrating a twisted sense of irony in response to the wailing of sirens that had pierced the entire night. The scarlet color was reflected by the fresh snowfall on the ground, making it look as though the very earth was bleeding.

Precinct 3 was unnaturally quiet, even as the Guards busily rushed back and forth across offices and hallways, moving as silently as specters, their jaws tight and their eyes hard as stone. Every armored stallion and mare hurled themselves into whatever task was raised up to them, all in a desperate bid to hide the fact that they had no idea how to respond to what had happened last night.

“Captain on deck!” a voice barked. Every Guard immediately stopped where they were and snapped to attention, saluting as Shining Armor walked past. The Prince-Captain’s mane and coat were in disarray and dark bags hung beneath his haggard eyes, but he still marched forward with all the urgency and bearing that his purple armor carried.

Shining trotted past the main offices towards the door near the back, where Captain Polaris stood at attention. The Captain saluted his predecessor as he approached. Shining Armor returned the salute before they both entered the office room. The Element Bearers, Spike, Phillip, Flash, and a disguised Daring Do sat inside, none of them looking at one another. A newspaper sat on the center table, the headline declaring in bold text: “BLOOD PLAGUE RETURNS.”

“Hey, Twily,” Shining said, briefly dropping his professionalism to nuzzle his sister on the head. She embraced him, smiling softly despite the situation.

“Good to see you, BBBFF,” Twilight managed to smile.

“You too. All of you,” Shining nodded to everypony before his expression turned serious again.

“What’s been happening?” Phillip asked.

Shining glanced down at the newspaper headline. “As you’re all aware, last night there were several isolated incidents of the Blood Plague across Canterlot. Nine ponies were afflicted with the plague, and managed to infect seventeen others by touching them. Every one of those victims died within hours.”

The heads of the ponies around the room bowed in grief. Polaris touched both his shoulders with his right hoof, then kissed the tip of his left hoof and placed it over his heart, briefly whispering the Requiem Aeternam to himself.

“Blood samples were taken from the victims and studied by specialists at the Canterlot General Hospital,” Shining Armor continued. “They confirmed that it was a variant of the Plague that had been altered to develop at an accelerated rate, and it was likely designed to be absorbed through the skin.”

“I was right,” Twilight concluded, her wings spreading open in agitation and starting to flap, lifting her off her seat slightly. “Dr. Mix did refine the plague. How infectious is it? Is there more of it? Can we evacuate the city?!”

“Twilight, calm down,” Shining ordered her gently, laying a hoof on her shoulder. “Panicking isn’t going to help. If you don’t touch the contaminant, you should be fine. In fact, that’s partly why I’m here.” He lowered his head and lit up his horn. “I need you all to gather around.”

The ponies and dragon gathered close to Shining, who closed his eye in concentration, mumbling an incantation. Pale purple bubbles of magic blossomed from his horn, growing larger and briefly enclosing each of the others before vanishing.

“A variant of the health shield bubble,” Shining explained, panting slightly, a droplet of sweat running down his brow. “The scientists at Amore University can’t create a cure without their research, but Sunburst, Cadance and I created this spell. It should provide you a buffer against the Plague if you come into contact with it.”

“Sir, if you could teach my mage specialists and I the spell, we could provide it to the City Guards,” Polaris suggested.

“That was the idea, captain,” Shining nodded, wiping off his brow with his foreleg as he recovered from the exertion. “I also need to meet with the Princesses later to give them a status report, and with the doctors at Canterlot General about finding a cure.”

“We’ll keep investigating into Dr. Mix’s involvement,” Flash reported.

“Good,” Shining nodded. “I trust you all to find a way out of this mess.” He grinned wryly. “Maybe you’ll need to pull my flank out of the fryer again.”

“Hopefully not,” Twilight replied in an equally wry tone.

Shining placed a heavy hoof on Flash’s shoulder. “Take care of her, Flash,” he said softly.

“I will, Shining,” Flash promised, crossing his heart.

Shining nodded, accepting a farewell embrace from Spike. “Take care of yourselves, everypony.” With a final nod, he turned and departed from the room. Polaris followed after him.

“We need to get back to work, everypony,” Phillip declared. “Did any of you find what I asked?”

“I did,” Rarity declared through a stifled yawn, running a quick spell through her mane to restore it to its normal pristine state. “It took most of last night and this morning, and a great amount of charm, but I found them.”

She briefly left the room and returned with a bag of golf clubs. Each club in the the expensive set had a unique symbol etched into the head: a beaker full of liquid sitting atop a burner flame.

“You were correct, Phillip,” Rarity reported, setting the bag down on the floor. “Dr. Mix sold his golf clubs to a pawnshop in town the day before he was killed. But I can’t understand why, nor what importance they bear upon this case.”

Instead of answering, Phillip lifted a nine iron out of the bag and examined it. Something close to a smile flickered across his face. “I was right. This is for a left-hooved pony.” He demonstrated this fact by grasping the club.

“What does that mean?” Flash asked, bewildered. “The scene suggested that he was right-hooved.”

“The scene was set up,” Phillip stated, returning the club to the bag. His ear cocked towards the door. “And if I’m not mistaken, that’s the other clue.”

The door opened and Prowl and Bumblebee entered. “Good morning, everypony,” Prowl greeted them. “Detective Finder, as your request, we had the pond outside Dr. Mix’s home dragged, and we found this.” He held up a large, clear plastic evidence bag. Inside was a percussion-cap dueling pistol with a long, intricately carved barrel. A long, waterlogged rope was tied around the barrel and lay in coils in the bottom of the bag; the other end of the bag was tied around a small two-pound dumbbell.

“That’s the other dueling pistol,” Daring said.

“And that’s the other dumbbell!” Pinkie excitedly shouted.

“Indeed, and we found a spent cartridge inside the barrel,” Prowl nodded.

“Also, Swirling Ink cracked under questioning,” Bumblebee added. “She admitted that she’d been having an affair with their neighbor and had gone out to see him. However, Alkaline Block is still adamantly refusing to change his story.”

“He doesn’t need to,” Phillip replied. “He’s telling the truth. He didn’t kill Dr. Mix. Dr. Mix killed himself.”

Everypony looked up at Phillip in surprise. “Are you sure about that?” Flash asked.

“It’s fair dinkum,” Phillip nodded. “It’s the only way to explain all of this.

“I first became suspicious when I noticed that the golf clubs in the photograph weren’t in Mix’s room. That struck me as odd; he was obviously attached to them. So why get rid of them? And then I came up with the theory that he had deliberately removed them to avoid incriminating himself; revealing that he was actually left-hooved.

“Then the missing pistol and the dumbbell. When there’s a missing weight near to a body of water, it’s not hard to imagine that something must be at the bottom of that water. The chip on the window ledge gave me a clearer picture.”

“I think I get it,” Flash mused. “Dr. Mix got rid of his golf clubs, altered his room to make it look like he was right-hooved, then rigged up the pistol with the weight, weaving the rope through the trees so that the weight would drag it into the pond. He shot himself, and the gun fell out the window and into the pond, leaving behind a crack in the ledge.”

“We conducted an experiment,” Bumblebee added. “We had Prowl stomp his hooves loudly in the bedroom while I stood in the basement laboratory. I didn’t hear him from down there; Block wouldn’t have heard the gunshot while he was working.”

Phillip nodded. “That settles it, then.”

Twilight quickly turned to the whiteboard and quickly updated the information on it, jotting down notes and information under the appropriate headings. However, the Why section was left blank. “None of this explains motive, though,” she commented.

“Maybe he did something to anger Zugzwang and decided he’d rather die by his own hoof than a hit squad’s?” Daring suggested.

“Then why the elaborate setup?” Flash shook his head. “No, I think he doctored the scene on purpose to throw us off the trail. Make us waste time trying to solve his ‘murder.’”

“But that means that whatever Zugzwang’s got planned, he’s not finished,” Phil concluded. “And he needed more time to get ready.”

“I think what we need to do now is interview Dr. Mix’s associates, including his colleagues at St. Megan’s University,” Flash suggested. “Perhaps one of them can give us some information on his recent activities.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Twilight nodded.

“Let’s get moving then,” Daring declared.

Spike swung his pack onto his back and climbed onto Twilight’s shoulders. Escorted by Prowl and Bumblebee, the group exited the Precinct out into the snowy streets, joining the streams of other ponies that were bustling across the pavements, coats and scarves bundled up against the cold.

“Hold up a second,” Polaris called from the doorway. “If you’re going to St. Megan’s, I want you to send a message to my wife, Professor Cintamani Stone, and my daughters, Talitha and Carina. Tell them that I’ll probably be staying late tonight, but not to panic; we’ll be all right.”

“We will, sir,” Prowl saluted.

“Thank you, and good luck to you all,” Polaris said, retreating back into the building. The group turned and continued up the street. Celestia’s sun rose above the rooftops and backlit the white walls of the Palace, casting them in its warm glow, filtered through a thin layer of gray clouds; however, its warmth was not enough to totally dispel the chill of the air, nor the icy weight that each of them carried upon their shoulders.

St. Megan’s University was a small, but picturesque campus set in the middle of Canterlot’s modern district. The streets quartered the campus into several sections, each one dominated by one of the university’s major colleges or dormitories. Rivers of students and teachers flowed across the campus, occasionally pausing to gather beneath one of the evergreen trees or on a bench.

“All right, everypony,” Twilight declared. “Let’s split up and start questioning Dr. Mix’s colleagues. Somepony here must know something.”

The group split off into teams, each heading off in a different direction in search of answers.

No matter what was happening on the outside world, there were some necessities that had to be maintained. And one of those necessities is the daily Royal Court. Each day, the palace was opened up to the public for ponies to bring up their concerns before the Princesses and seek their wisdom and council.

Wishing to maintain the closeness to her citizens that she prided herself upon, Celestia had always insisted upon her courts being a relatively informal affair, though that did not mean the Solar House Guard took their responsibilities any less seriously once the doors were opened.

A small stream of ponies was currently trickling down the pristine royal hallways towards the throne room where court was being kept. The stream was restricted by a metal gate that glowed with a faint blue energy attended by several Guards in golden armor, their breastplates adorned with an image of the sun. One by one, each visitor was allowed to pass through the blue gate, which would erase any concealment or illusory magic that a pony carried with them. Two Guards waited on the other side of the gate. One would pass a glowing red metal wand over the visitor to check for any concealed weapons, while the other quickly patted them down and checked their bags for forbidden items that the wand did not detect. Once they were allowed through, visitors were made to wait in the attending room for their turn, under the watchful gaze of no less than four more Guards who waited, lances in hoof, for any sign of trouble.

A prim unicorn stallion in a cream-colored suit and golden locks with a carved shard of black crystal hanging from his necklace passed through the gate. The Guard on the other side passed the red wand over his body as her partner carefully examined the stallion’s briefcase, finding nothing but some papers covered with financial information that the sentinel likely would not have understood if he had bothered to read it.

“All right, sir, you’re clear to go,” the mare Guard stated, having found no hidden weapons. The noble nodded and proceeded to take a cushioned seat beneath a great portrait of the four Princesses, taking up a small novel to pass the time until he was called.

He took no notice of the other ponies in the lobby waiting with him, nor of the pegasus that was following him in line. This pegasus had a pale gold mane, an indigo coat, and the cutie mark of a golden telescope imposed upon the Big Dipper. He wore a simple sleeved green tunic with black trim. A cheery smile danced upon the pegasus’ face as he passed through the gate without any harassment.

“Watch this,” he declared to the waiting Guards, rolling up his sleeves to reveal his bare forelegs. “Nothing up my sleeves!”

The unamused mare swept the wand over the visitor’s body. As it passed over his pocket, the wand glowed and let out a loud buzzing sound. “Empty your pockets,” she ordered.

The pegasus’ smile never faded as he emptied his pockets, revealing the lighter that had set off the wand, a drawstring purse of bits and jewels, a pack of cigarettes, and a pair of torn theater ticket stubs. The stallion Guard took a flask that the visitor had hanging around his shoulder and opened it up to examine the amber, honey-scented liquid that was inside.

“The wife’s tea,” the visitor informed him. “Take a sip, it’s good.”

“No, thanks,” the Guard replied, screwing the cap back on and returning the flask to him. “Take a seat, court will be officially opened in ten minutes.”

“Thanks,” the pegasus nodded, strolling over to the bench and taking a seat next to the prim stallion in the suit. The unicorn did not look up at his companion, keeping his eyes focused upon his novel.

“Ah, feels good to finally get that dye out. Natural colors are always best,” Star Watcher sighed to himself. He turned to his companion. “Hey, don’t look so nervous, friend,” he whispered.

“You sure that this will work?” the unicorn asked without looking up, his voice carrying a trace of his natural Mareish accent.

Star smirked. “You know, we have no real assurance that the sun will rise every morning, but we never really think too much about it. It’s all a matter of faith; just do what you can and leave the rest in his hooves, savvy?”

The unicorn nodded curtly, turning a page of his novel.

Outside, far below on the streets, a rusty, battered truck sat idle on the curb. Inside the dim cab, an orange earth mare with fiery red and yellow hair billowing from her head sat slumped in the passenger seat. Her smokey gray eyes were focused on the lighter that she held in her left hoof. A small, bright yellow flame danced upon the lighter’s wick, flickering and shimmering as if to deliberately delight its audience of one. The mare’s right hoof was in between her hind legs, diligently at work.

“Getting kind of antsy here, boss,” the bearded, burly unicorn next to her grumbled, his hooves tight on the steering wheel.

“Just wait for the signal,” Tinderspark muttered and licked her lips, not looking up from her small delight. The raspiness of her southern twang gave a clue as to the devastation that years of tobacco and smoke had done to her lungs and throat. “We’ll all get ours soon.”

Zugzwang sat in the midst of a chalk rune, his eyes shut in meditation. The black, now misshapen crystal fragments were placed at specific points amongst the intricate linework, glowing faintly with dark energy. The wind rustled his mane as it passed over the rooftops.

Scarlet Letter approached, scuffing her hooves against the floor to announce her presence. “Everything is in place,” she said.

Zugzwang opened his eyes and nodded. “Then we shall begin.”

He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as Scarlet backed out of the circle. Zugzwang’s horn lit up with gold and red energy. The crystals trembled on the ground, then channeled arcs of energy into Zugzwang’s horn. He grunted beneath the strain of the magic, then, with a great roar, tossed his head up into the air. A column of black smoke spiralled up into the air, rising up far above the rooftops of Canterlot. With a rumbling like thunder, the smoke rippled downwards, forming a dome that slowly descended upon the city, blotting out the sky.

“Pyrophoric Mix was fairly popular amongst the staff,” Professor Cintamani explained to Phillip and Daring as she walked along the hallways of Seaspray Hall, home to the college of biological magic. She was a tall unicorn mare with a pale sky blue coat and wavy blonde and lime green locks, her indigo eyes magnified by the glasses perched upon her snout. Her cutie mark was a molecular model settled in the middle of a multi-faceted green jewel. “We were very saddened to learn of his death.”

“Yes, that’s why we’re here,” Daring said, pushing through a small cluster of students as she followed the head of the biology department. “Did Dr. Mix have any unusual habits?”

Cintamani frowned in thought for a moment. “Well, he was a bit of an oddball, to be honest, but he did have some regular habits,” she said. “For example, he always used up all of his sabbatical time. Which is why it was a surprise to see him come back early two days ago.”

“What do you mean?” Phillip asked as they diverted around a roped-off hallway that smelled faintly of fresh paint.

“I saw here in this building late afternoon,” Cintamani explained. “We chatted for a bit. He said that he had forgotten something in his office, which I thought was odd; he’s never forgetful.”

Phil and Daring glanced at each other, both of them mentally noting this detail.

“Detective Finder, Detective Alibi, what is this about?” Cintamani asked. “Does this have any bearing upon finding out who killed him?”

“It is,” Phillip stated. “We—”

He was interrupted by a loud rumble of thunder from outside that made everypony jump, heads whirling. Phil and Daring rushed outside, followed by Cintamani and several students. A group was gathering in the center of the campus, ponies staring upwards with wide eyes at the column of smoke that was spilling upwards into the sky. Murmurs of confusion spread throughout the crowd, the first notes of fear starting to bubble up from amidst the voices.

“What in the hay is that?” Applejack asked, pointing upwards at the black dome.

“I don’t know,” Twilight admitted. Spike clung tightly to her back, trembling in fright.

Staring upwards, Daring’s attention was caught by several groups of pegasi, flying in formation over the city. A trio of pegasi soared towards the campus. Daring’s keen eyes spotted distinctive round shapes hanging from the pegasi’s belts.

“Cover!” she shouted, grabbing Cintamani’s arm and pushing her to the ground. The other ponies hit the deck as the attacking pegasi rocketed over the dormitories. With a high-pitched whistling, the bombs they were carrying fell from their payload belts and detonated within the apartments, sending great columns of flames shooting upwards into the sky.

“Run! Everypony get out of here!” Twilight shouted, sparking a mass of screaming ponies running in all directions, headed for the nearest cover.

“They’re coming back!” Pinkie warned. The pegasi raced over the campus again, dropping several more of their bombs on the university buildings and sending more flames erupting upwards against the darkening sky.

“Dispatch, this is Charley Eight!” Prowl shouted into his walkie-talkie. “We are under attack at St. Megan’s, require—” He stopped suddenly, his eyes widening as the reply came in several overlapping voices.

“It’s...it’s all over the city,” he stammered, his face the very picture of shock. “The entire city’s under attack!”

As if to confirm this statement, more explosions could be heard from the rest of the city, along with the rising screams of warning klaxons.

“Talitha! Carina!” Cintamani shrieked into the panicking crowd.

At her call, two dark blue unicorn mares extricated themselves from the other ponies and hurried to their mother’s side. The sisters were almost identical save for a few details: Talitha had two toned yellow and purple hair and the cutie mark of a leaping gazelle, while Carina had sea green and blue hair and the cutie mark of a three-masted sailboat.

“We’re here, mom!” Carina panted, a glimmer of panic in her violet eyes.

“Stay close to me, girls,” Cintamani ordered.

“We need to get back to the precinct!” Flash declared.

“Follow us!” Bumblebee declared, grasping Rarity’s arm and running back towards the precinct. The rest of the group, along with Cintamani and her daughters and several nearby civilians, rushed after him, racing towards the hope of safety.

Author's Notes:

The pieces are all in place...

Continued in next chapter.