Original Link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zHnvc3qXJJrXMyA8_skYgP3NYB8F4xrFhaMfXcfBX_M/edit?usp=sharing

For nearly an hour, the keepers of harmony were just sitting around, waiting for the last missing reapers to arrive. While most of them were bored, Babs was thankful for having a break to think. Like every normal subject, uncovering all these secrets Princess Celestia hid away from the public was a big shock for her.

A secret war was raging between demons and ponies for more than one thousand years... Babs couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of humongous effort it must have been to cover all this up. But knowing this, things started making sense to her. She now realized how easy it was to distract ponies and how much they value the small things. The princess of the sun must have spent hundreds of years manipulating society and the way ponies think to make them blind to what is hidden in the dark. Yet, while this was morally questionable, Babs herself couldn’t think of a better, more ethic way to protect the public.

Seeing all the things she learned tonight, she started to understand that this ‘dance of the reapers’ truly was a way to share information and improve communication. Only the most trusted and most elite would normally learn what she had learned to night. Babs had to promise to keep these secrets to herself, even though it was hardly necessary. As a police mare, she knew that ponies would either call her crazy or fall into blind panic as soon as she would spread this knowledge around in public.

Though the biggest shocker for the teenage filly was that she now started to understand the perspectives of the BloodClaw Cult. These demons revealed so many secrets to the cultists which Celestia hid away from them. Babs herself was a bit angered and hurt to find out that the princess lied to her and all of her subjects so much. She could only imagine how hard this must be for other ponies to realize: The one pony ruling over Equestria; The one pony everypony trusts... lying... faking... betraying her own subjects. Even though Babs Seed was a pony of high morals and would never even start to think about murdering because of this, she could now understand why others would.

Tonight, a lot changed for Babs. The more she thought, the more determined her expression became. Ultimately, the teenage filly got up again and walked over to Twilight Sparkle.

“So, you’re leadin’ the investigation around the cult? Did I get that right?” she asked.

“Yes, why are you asking?” the purple mare wondered.

“Crystal told me about what happened to my colleagues,” Babs replied, still keeping her determined expression.

“Oh... I’m sorry, Babs. I just thought-” Twilight started.

“Don’t ya apologize, Twilight. It’s fine,” the teenage filly interrupted. “I really needed the break, so thanks for that. But let’s get to the point: I don’t have anywhere to go anymore. I mean, Crystal explained the whole thing to the rest of the Manehattan police and I’ll need to wait for new colleagues to come to my station. But what would that say about me and my career if I would just pretend to ignore what’s going on? I can’t let the damn cult get away with something like that ever again. My training will have to wait. I’ll do whatever I can to support your investigation. I’ll try to get as many officers working on that case as possible.”

“Wow... Babs Seed, you are full of surprises! Even I wasn’t as mature as you are in your age! But I really need to warn you. Actively fighting against the cult or the demons will make you a target to them. I don’t think Applejack would appreciate that you risk your life like that,” Twilight worried.

“C’mon now. I’m a police trainee! My job’s already very dangerous!” Babs replied.

“You got a point there... Well, as long as you promise to be careful and not just jump into action, I would say: Welcome aboard!” the purple mare spoke.

“Thanks! This means a lot to me! And don’t worry, cousin. I’ll be careful!” the teenager promised.

Again, Applejack barely reacted. It seemed like nothing really mattered to her anymore. She was just too deeply lost in her own mind. By now, Fluttershy’s focus had returned to the present and she sat down next to the orange mare, trying to soothe and accompany her.

“I admire your dedication, Babs Seed,” Crystal commented. “I was going to request the police forces in Equestria to join us in the investigation, but we do not necessarily have the best relation to them, since we have the authority to bypass a few laws. With your help, it will be much easier to get them interested in our cause.”

Just as she finished speaking, another reaper tapped on her shoulder.

“Elder, may I request a word with you in confidence?” he asked.

“What is it, apprentice?” Crystal wondered.

“I have a suggestion, but I would first like to discuss it with you before any decisions are made,” the reaper stallion replied.

“Very well. Excuse me for a moment,” the light blue mare replied, bowing down to the group and walking off with the apprentice.

While Crystal was away, another reaper arrived at the mountain top. This one was limping and had fresh, bleeding cuts all over her body.

“Oh gosh! Hey! Somepony got hurt!” Babs shouted as soon as she spotted the reaper.

Instantly, a few dozen reapers turned around and ran over to the injured one.

“What happened?” one of them wondered.

“A small army of highly skilled insane ponies attacked Yonder Hill. They didn’t even need half an hour to kill all royal guards and the ponies I was ordered to protect...” she replied.

“Oh my gosh... Did they wear red robes with black claw marks?” Twilight wondered.

“Yes. They were aiming straight for the guards,” the injured reaper mare answered.

“Were you protecting the apple family?” Rarity worried.

“Yes... I failed to protect them... None living in Yonder Hill survived,” the mare replied.

Now, Applejack began to shake and cry again. This was yet another heavy blow for her. She couldn’t take it anymore. The orange mare got up on her three shaking legs and walked off.

“Applejack? Where are you going?” Fluttershy wondered, not getting any response.

“Darling? Hey! Wait!” Rarity called, chasing after the orange mare along with Fluttershy.

“Oh for Pete’s sake! This keeps getting worse every minute!” Babs shouted with a furious expression while crying as well. “I’ll make them pay. I’ll so make them pay for this.”

“We will get them, Babs. But don’t rush it now. We need to be strategic,” Twilight tried to reason.

Babs could hardly keep herself together. Just like a few days ago, the teenager began to walk up and down in attempt to release her fury. This whole tragedy with the apple family started to get very close to Twilight as well. The cult was absolutely reckless and would stop from nothing.

---

After ten minutes, Crystal returned to Twilight and Babs, accompanied by Fluttershy, Applejack and Rarity.

“AJ... are you okay?” the purple mare wondered.

“Does it look like Ah’m okay?” Applejack replied with a desperate tone.

“Oh darling... I’m so sorry...” Rarity spoke and embraced her friend, which only caused the orange mare to cry even more.

“We can’t let this go on anymore. Every single life lost is a life too much. We got to do something...” Fluttershy spoke.

“We will very soon,” Crystal replied. “The last reapers are just about to arrive. But before Fluttershy and I meet up with them, I have something I would like to give to you in the name of all of us, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Huh? What is it?” the purple mare wondered.

From beneath her cloak, the elder reaper made a large black book fly out, levitating it over to Twilight. It had no decorative elements and no title, but seemed to be made of a very durable material.

“This is what we refer to as the nameless book. It is a collection of highly forbidden reaper knowledge, listing various spells, techniques and observation on demons and curses. Its existence is supposed to be a secret only reapers know about to protect the knowledge hidden inside. But my fellow reapers convinced me that it might contain very useful information for you and this investigation,” Crystal explained.

“Wow... that is big. I really appreciate your trust,” Twilight replied.

She immediately opened the book and started scanning through. It didn’t take long for her to go wide-eyed by the sheer amount of detail presented to her. This book contained some of the most dangerous dark magic spells in existence, very detailed descriptions of several hundred demon types and even had a note on unique demons.

But what truly shocked Twilight was the section in the book about curse magic. Some of them were extremely dangerous and could lead to death and worse. After Twilight flipped the page again, she suddenly gasped.

“W-what? The Alicorn Amulet is in here?” she spoke.

“The Alicorn what?” Babs wondered, allowing herself to let this distract her from her fury and coming over.

“The Alicorn Amulet. An ancient necklace that provides the wielder immense magical powers at the cost of corruption. While this cursed artifact is known to pony-kind, most of them do not know that it was created by the demon queen herself through a bargain with King Sombra. The precise details of this bargain are unknown. Whoever uses the Alicorn Amulet will cause permanent damage to their own soul, growing worse with every spell cast. All ponies who had been using the amulet were found to have gained a very weak mind afterwards, often leading them into extreme insanity... Oh my gosh... So that’s why Trixie...” The purple mare spoke.

“Her end was indeed a tragedy,” Crystal commented.

“You knew Trixie?” Fluttershy wondered.

Suddenly, something clicked inside Twilight’s mind. Her focus fell back on the elder reaper mare. Light blue coat... white mane... unicorn-born... magical talent...

“Oh my gosh... Oh my gosh! How could I not have realized that sooner! Now I get why you always felt so familiar to me, Crystal! Could it be that you were related to Trixie?” the purple mare wondered.

“That is correct. Trixie Lulamoon was a distant descendant of me,” the light blue mare confirmed.

“What? Honestly? Oh my stars! How is that possible? You don’t even share the same surname!” Rarity wondered.

“It is a bit of a longer story to explain, so let me give you the shortened version. Back in the time before I became a reaper, insanity was a big problem in my home city: Stalliongrad. I lost many family members out of various reasons, which is why I had so few family connections. Those who survived decided to leave Stalliongrad and partially married into different families. Trixie’s ancestors of the Blossom family married into the Lulamoon family,” Crystal explained.

“Then why did Trixie have to live all alone?” Fluttershy wondered.

“I tried to track the lives of some of my descendants over the last few hundred years, but I could not find out much. I do not know what happened to the Lulamoon family to break apart like this, leaving Trixie on the streets with no parents. I truthfully hoped for her to have a better life, but she decided to walk the path of revenge and self-destruction,” Crystal spoke.

“So sorry this happened,” Babs commented.

“I lost all connections to my family long ago anyway, so it does not matter. Now if you excuse me, I have to go. The dance is about to begin,” Crystal stated, bowing down and leaving again.

“Sorry, but I need to go, too. See you later,” Fluttershy stated, following her mentor.

After the group waved the two reapers goodbye, Twilight returned to the nameless book. Several minutes passed before she came across another topic which caught her attention.

“Huh? Nightmare’s Eye?” Twilight spoke.

“What’s that thing? Looks like a red eyeball with something liquid inside,” Babs wondered.

“Let’s see. Nightmare’s Eye. One of the most mysterious of all demonic artefacts. So far, reaper-kind has only seen this object twice. The oldest records made by the first few reaper generations describe this object to seemingly be alive. The red eye-shaped gem sometimes seems to move and whoever it is looking at feels a strong sensation of being watched by the demon queen herself. Its purpose is unknown, but the fact that it is the only demon artefact constantly protected by being hidden in their strongholds leads to the assumption that it must be of extreme value to the demons. Every attempt to steal it was so far prevented with humongous aggression,” the purple mare read out.

“A curse the demons protect from getting into the hooves of reapers or ponies? That is beyond odd,” Rarity commented.

“This book is exciting! So many things I didn’t know are in there! I wonder what else I can learn,” the purple mare spoke.

While Twilight dived deeper and deeper into the book, the rest of the group found it more interesting to watch the reapers.

---

It took hours, but finally, all 87 reapers arrived in the poisonous cloud and came together. As always, the elders shared the most important knowledge with the younger reapers before the dance would begin. Then, it was Crystal’s turn to speak.

“Messōrēs. As you may have heard from the rumors, a new force is rivaling our mistress for the rulership over this land. A cult of demon-worshipping insane ponies has emerged. It is still unknown how several thousand ponies could find out about the secret war and decide to side with the enemy. But the biggest problem is that the demons tolerate these cultists and cooperate with them,” she started.

The reapers began mumbling. A few of the younger apprentices sighed in disappointment.

“At least one of you can personally confirm that this BloodClaw Cult, as it names itself, is openly attacking the management structures of Equestria. Within just a few weeks, the number of casualties has risen into the hundreds. The cult and their alliance with the demons is a force that must not be underestimated. Along with the cult, a new type of demon has evolved, which we refer to as skin-walkers. Demons capable of disguising themselves so perfectly, not even we can sense them. Never before in our history have we been this close to lose control over the land. The situation is as serious as it can get,” the light blue mare continued.

The apprentices started to get uneasy. Especially the little foals felt greatly in danger, since they were tossed into this war just now.

“Messōrēs. Once more, we have to declare crisis state in Equestria. We must mobilize every force available. Sky Guards, Night Guards, Royal Guards, Police and of course ourselves all need to work together to bring down this threat before it is too late. Do not lose your faith. The BloodClaw Cult might be the most powerful and most strategic enemy we have ever encountered. But we have already proven that we can guard Equestria for over one thousand years straight. As you can see, the keepers of harmony are already investigating the case. I ask you to fight the cult with your full strength. Bring every tiny piece of information you can gather to the keeper of magic. Together, we will avert this crisis as well,” Crystal finished.

Throughout the speech, four of the reapers in the crowd retreated step by step, until they suddenly vanished. Just moments later, four new reapers who looked exactly like those who had just disappeared reached the mountain top, confused to see that the meeting has already begun.

---

Three weeks had passed since Tripudium Messōrum. In these three weeks, a lot had changed. With the military forces of Equestria now searching and attacking the BloodClaw Cult, a civil war began on the streets of most major cities. The more Equestria resisted to be taken over by the cult, the more aggressive the cult became. By now, several hundred had been killed on both sides.

The tension had become so intense, it was impossible to hide the conflict from the public anymore. Walking on the streets at night was now an extremely dangerous thing to do. The keepers of harmony in particular were sought out by cultists patrolling through Manehattan constantly.

It had been a long time since they could last leave Babs’ apartment. Twilight and her friends just couldn’t take the risk of the cultists finding their hideout. But despite all obstacles, the investigation reached a whole new level of efficiency. Now that every guard, police officer and reaper was supporting Twilight, new informations were flying in every day.

“Okay. Let’s sum up what we found out so far,” Twilight started.

“We have confirmation of cultist activities in 37 cities all over Equestria. In 12 of them, the reapers were also able to discover a church of the BloodClaw Cult, which instantly moved away once discovered,” Rarity started.

“The cult is communicating through skin-walker demons. The churches mostly have religious purposes and to provide tactical bases for the skin-walkers. We also have found out that Tripudium Messōrum had been infiltrated by these demons, which means they know about our plans. It is also unsure how much they know we found out and which of the given information truly comes from a reliable source and which is false, given to us from skin-walkers,” Fluttershy continued.

“Riots and panic make the investigation of the cult even more difficult. It becomes increasingly harder to identify who belongs to the BloodClaw Cult and who is still loyal to Mistress Celestia. But what we can confirm without a doubt is that the cultists identify each other with a BloodClaw Mark beneath the fur behind the left ear,” Crystal added.

“Good. That gives us options. But what did we find out regarding the leadership of the cult?” Twilight wondered.

“While spyin’ on the cultists, two names keep comin’ up. One of them is High Priestess Black Widow, the other is the Guillotine of Hope. Judgin’ from the reports, Ah reckon that this Black Widow is the leader of the BloodClaw Cult, while the Guillotine of Hope seems to manage the orders given out,” Applejack stated.

“That fits with the information I gathered. Good job, AJ!” Twilight spoke.

“Glad to hear Ah’m good for anythin’ at all... Couldn’t even protect aunt and uncle Orange, even though they are just a few streets away...” the orange mare replied in a low tone.

“We already told ya, you are not responsible for their deaths,” Babs spoke. “There’s nothing we could have done for them. But I swear to ya, I’ll find that darn church here in Manehattan.”

“Thanks... Thank ya all... Ah wouldn’t even know what to do anymore without y’all. Well, at least Ah know Big Mac is still okay. Ah just got a letter from him yesterday,” Applejack replied.

“See? Some good news! But what do we do next?” Rarity wondered.

“Hm... the cult is strictly following orders. All orders have the same kind of pattern and thought process. It seems like the only one making these orders is their high priestess. This seems to be our best bet to take down the cult. If we eliminate Black Widow, the cult might collapse due to the lack of orders given out. Of course, we can’t guarantee that another cultist, maybe even this Guillotine of Hope, would not step up to lead then. But taking out their leader will at least cause an interruption in their communication, which might destabilize them enough to let us pick them off, one by one. In the best possible scenario, the cultists don’t agree with the decisions of their new leader, causing the cult to tear itself apart,” Twilight analyzed.

“So High Priestess Black Widow is our main target,” Crystal repeated. “I have to agree with Twilight. This seems to be the most sensible thing to do. But seeing how high the level of security inside the cult is, it will be extremely difficult to catch her.”

“All reapers need to gather information specifically about Black Widow. We need to find out where she is,” Twilight suggested.

“Very well. I will send the order right away. But before we forget it: You have not taken your medication today, Twilight,” Crystal spoke.

“Oh, right. I tend to lose myself in all these scrolls. Thanks for reminding me,” the purple mare replied.

---

The following week was the most boring they all had so far. There was next to nothing the whole group could do and no new information came in. This was especially hard to take for Applejack, since she had now officially fallen into depression. Still, at least for Fluttershy, strange things kept happening around her.

The gray figure kept reappearing every once in a while, but only when Fluttershy was away from Twilight Sparkle. It seemed like it did not want to be noticed by anypony but the yellow mare. Just like before, she couldn’t make any sense out of its presence. The gray figure just kept standing in the distance, staring at Fluttershy. Each time she tried to approach it, the figure vanished into thin air. It confused her a lot. But seeing how many important things were going on lately, Fluttershy just decided to ignore it for a while and focused on guarding her friends, training with Crystal Blossom and gathering information.

Finally, one afternoon, the yellow mare returned with news.

“Twilight. We found her,” she announced.

“The high priestess?” the purple mare wondered.

“Yes. She is on her way to Fillydelphia,” Fluttershy confirmed.

“Excellent! Good job! Girls. Pack your things. We are going to catch her,” Twilight announced.

“You plan to infiltrate another church?” Crystal wondered.

“Reapers or Royal Guards would have no chance to get in there. We did it before, so we will be able to do it again,” the purple mare explained.

“I see. But I need to remind you: If you decide to enter a BloodClaw church, Fluttershy and I will not be able to follow. You, Rarity and Applejack are on your own once inside,” Crystal stated.

“I know, but there is no other way. We need to catch Black Widow, come what may,” Twilight stated.

“I wish ya good luck, Twi. I’ll stay here in Manehattan and keep gathering information for ya. With a bit of luck, I’ll be able to find the Manehattan church before you return,” Babs Seed explained.

“I wouldn’t expect any less of you, Babs. Good luck to you, too,” Twilight replied.