CHAPTER 9

Hey everypony. I'm back with chapter 9. Somehow, I was able to take the time to write this chapter in only a couple of days. With so much work to do around the property and very little money until the paperwork clears, I suppose I need to relax a little and try to write or something. All work and no play makes Drake go crazy and all that. Oh, and I know the last chapter as well as this one is what you may call a lull in the action of this story, but so much glorious plot development takes place, and I hope you all enjoy it. Please tell me what you think.

The next morning, I was awoken by somepony knocking tenaciously at the door to our massive suite. A glace at the clock beside the bed told me that it was only ten in the morning, which meant I had only stolen about five hours of the early morning to catch some sleep. I honestly had thoughts of ignoring the knocking and going back to sleep, but thought better of it. I finally groaned and rolled out of bed. I made my way across the large living area of the room as the morning caller kept up their staccato rapping on the heavy oak door. I threw open the door to see Luna's messenger Echo standing before me. She smiled when she saw me.

"Hey Lieutenant Drake." She greeted. "Did I wake you up?"

"Yeah...as a matter of fact, you did..." I muttered, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

"Heh. Lucky. I've been up since sundown yesterday. I'm totally running on chocolate and pumpkin pie lattes right now, heehee." I raised an eyebrow.

"What do you need?" I asked.

"Huh?" The bat pony returned. "Oh! Oh yeah, That Agent Shackleford guy's here to see ya when you get up. He's in the briefing room, pacing around. Princess Luna told me to come get you when he got here. Oh, and she said to tell you to remember that...what was it...oh, that Shackleford believes that you're still on the case as a criminal detective, whatever that means. She said to tell you that with nopony else around. She also said that you can't tell anypony at all what you're doing"

"Hm. Understood. Thanks, miss Echo. Tell Shackleford I'll be there in a minute. Then get some sleep, you hear?"

"Yes sir." Echo replied with a smile and a salute. "Can I come visit Budder tonight before my shift?"

"I don't see why not." I said to her. "Same rules apply as always."

"Sure thing, sir." She nodded. I smiled.

"Go on then. I have to try to wake up."

…...

"Rusty..." I greeted, walking into the small war room we had created in a sitting room of the palace. "Your Highness." I nodded politely to Princess Celestia, who stood in the room as well, along with two of Shackleford's agents and the captain of the Canterlot Police.

"Lieutenant Drake..." Celestia began. "Sorry to wake you so early. I know you have been working late into the night on this case..."

"It's alright, Your Highness." I waved. "If it means getting this case solved, I can do without sleep."

"Well you'll be happy to know that Special Agent Shackleford and his team have returned from Fillydelphia with information that may be pertinent to your investigation."

"Really?" I asked. "What did you find on your vacation to the city of brotherly love?" I asked the EBI agent. He narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses.

"Well...you wanted info on the earliest slayings, right?" He shot back, then punctuated his statement by dropping a stack of files on the table before us. "I found two more killings that could have been perpetrated by the killer." I curiously picked up the top two files and looked through them for a few moments.

"These victims were almost identical in their horribleness..." I commented. "Both were low-level criminals who had foals, both were suspected of abusing their kids, among other crimes..." I lowered the file I was looking at. A revelation had suddenly struck me. "Rusty, did you get me some files on all murders and suspicious deaths for months before the killings started?"

"Yeah...but I don't know what that has to do with..."

"Where are they?" I interjected.

"On the bottom, but..."

"Hold on..." I interrupted, pulling some files from underneath the stack. "Give me a few minutes, princess. I have to look at these."

"Of course, Lieutenant..." The solar princess nodded. I took the folders over to a small, comfortable-looking wing-back chair in the corner, and plopped down, opening the first file immediately. I looked through the coroner reports and descriptions of the victims, searching for anything that stuck out. As convoluted as it sounds, I knew exactly what I was looking for, but I didn't know what it looked like until I found it. Such is the joy of having a hunch in detective work. I dropped the folder onto the floor next to my chair, opened the next folder and leafed through the contents, my eyes scanning each report, each letter, each newspaper clipping. There were homeless ponies found dead in alleys, victims of muggers and robbers, suicides, and enough descriptions of death and crime to really hammer home that this Shadow was no monster, just a by-product of the darkness and the filth that lay underneath the rug in our society. I stopped near the end of the file, and pulled out a police report about a teenage filly going missing in Fillydelphia. I stared at the photograph in the paper for a few moments. Luna had been right. You know that feeling you have when you realize that the criminal you've been pursuing is really an undead teenager with knives out on a vengeance spree, murdering bad ponies? Yeah, I had that feeling.

The missing teen in the newspaper article was a light gray unicorn. She had light blue eyes, almost the color of my sister's, and a bobbed black mane, brushed slightly over her left eye. This was definitely the pony I'd encountered in the alley. I pulled out the next paper, a police report made after the murder of the missing filly's parents. I had read all about every one of the murders committed by Shadow, but this one read like a horror show. I won't go into all of the gory details, except to say that they had both died slowly, I couldn't tell which had gotten it worse, and there was much cutting and eye-gouging involved.

"What have you found, my dear detective?" Celestia inquired, no doubt noticing my expression.

"I'm...not entirely sure..." I lied, remembering my orders from Luna. I know as a soldier my loyalty was to my country, but I had a higher obligation to my friends and family. If I ever had to choose between betraying my friends or my country, I hoped that I had the guts to betray my country. "I think though...that the killer has something to do with this murder." I reached the reports to one of the agents, who placed them on the table for all to see. "M.O. Is too similar to overlook. Plus, I have a good old fashioned hunch on this one."

"So what do you think?" Celestia asked.

"Yes Drake, I'm curious as to your exact theory on this thing myself." Shackleford added. I thought for a moment, mainly about how to lie to the highest power in the land and the EBI in such a way as to maintain the integrity of their criminal investigation, while maintaining the integrity of my secret mission at the same time.

"Well, the killings didn't start until after this filly went missing, right? And it can't be a coincidence that it was her parents who died first. The killer knew the family...maybe a friend of the filly..."

"You said that it was a mare who attacked you last night..." Celestia commented, looking at the police captain, then back at me.

"Yeah. Nopony's ever gotten the jump on me like that mare did..." I answered. "She had the speed and the weapons abilities to really put her in the big leagues. We ain't dealin' with an angry suburbanite here..." I thought for a moment...to something Luna had asked me the night before. "She's probably military...ex-military, more likely...she has some kind of training. Hoof-to-hoof combat experience, maybe even BlackOps trained. How she knew the family or the missing filly, I don't know, but she did." As I spoke, Rusty and the police captain were taking notes. "She probably killed the parents because she knew what they did, and felt that the justice system was ineffective to prosecute them. It was a natural justice slaying. My guess is that she got a taste for being an avenger, and started hunting down other criminals soon after."

"How do you want to proceed from here?" Celestia asked.

"The killer is highly intelligent." I replied. "Finding her isn't gonna be easy. Now that we know what we're looking for though, it should be easier. I know you feel like an errand boy right now Rusty, but I need to find out who this gung-ho mare is. Can you track down any female pony between the ages of seventeen and thirty who lived near to or was related to the family, who had any military or police training?"

"Damnit Drake, that's going to take days. You do know that, right?" Shackleford growled angrily.

"Well, do you want to wander around dark alleys in the bad part of town all night, Rusty?" I shot back. "I would be happy to trade you jobs if you want mine." Just as I thought, he threw up his forehooves and heaved a defeated sigh. "Look, I don't normally compliment you Rusty, and don't go getting' used to it..." I added, "But you do good work when it comes to stuff like this. I have to give you credit there. I could never do your job."

"Well Drake..." Shackleford chuckled, taking off his glasses in his own little humble-brag kind of way, "I never..."

"I mean it would bore me to death sitting around in an office looking at papers all day, and I just don't have the delegation ability to have all these ponies under me doin' all the grunt work you know..." His smile faded, and he stuck his Braybans back onto his muzzle and cleared his throat.

"I get the point..." He muttered. "Back to Filly?"

"Yes please." I replied. "And thank you."

We broke our meeting, Shackleford and his crew heading back to Fillydelphia on a wild goose chase, and the local police chief no doubt going back to HQ to inform the police to be on the lookout for a commando pony. My job was nearly done. As the room cleared out, Princess Celestia ventured into the hall with me. We walked for a few moments in silence before she finally spoke.

"Is something troubling you, Drake?" She asked, a hint of concern in her voice. I mentally cursed myself for this. I was lying to my friend Celestia to carry out a mission for my friend Luna. Forget military protocol and breaking chain of command and all that soldiering shit, I was deceiving a friend. I got myself into this situation, and I hoped it was worth it in the end.

"It's the case, Your Highness..." I sighed. "To be honest...I kind of feel for the killer, you know?" I looked over to see her watching me, seemingly interested in what I was saying. "Alright, I'll try to talk it out...the killer saw something horrendous, something truly evil...not some monster or demon tearing up jack, not some despot using magic to gain power...no. The killer saw true evil. They saw ponies without a conscience...ponies who could hurt and kill others, ponies who steal and rape and kill and don't care. That's why the killer kills, Celestia..." I stopped and actually sat down in the middle of the floor. "Because they see real evil in this world, and they can't deal with it, and they go out and wash it all away."

"Drake..." Celestia said comfortingly, putting aside her royal station to sit down beside me in the floor of the corridor.

"It's...it's personal, I guess, ma'am..." I continued. "I seen it...seen it myself...death and...and evil. I've seen ponies murdered for no reason...homes burned because of hate and families butchered, foals...fuckin' torn apart like paper dolls..." I shook my head. "Is it bad that I kinda envy the bitch? That I can admit that I want the killer to keep doing this? That part of me wants to stop them and do what's right, but part of me wants to do what's right and let them destroy the hell out of evil ponies?" I looked up into the compassionate eyes of Princess Celestia and sighed, frustrated. "Or am I just rambling like a madpony?"

"No Drake," Celestia replied. "It means you care. You care what happens to others, and you hate seeing bad things happen. You are at war with yourself now because you compare your own conscience to that of the killer you're after. If it is any consolation, I can tell you that you and the killer are very much alike."

"How can that make me feel better?" I asked.

"Because you both want the same thing. If you both had one wish, I guarantee it would be for peace and harmony in the world...and end to all things bad." She stated. "And I guess that makes both of you the same as me."

"But..."

"Oh, how you differ? Only in the means to the end." She smiled. "She kills, you solve crimes, and I..."

"Move the pieces where they are needed most?" I interjected with a small smile. Celestia practically beamed at me.

"All pieces have their purpose, my dear detective." She said. I nodded.

"And I will go serve mine." I returned.

I hope you all enjoyed the little moment there between Drake and Celestia. Call it an existential crisis if you want, or a morality dialogue about justice, it's a scene I've been wanting to get to for some time. Now Drake has a new mission, to race against time to somehow find Shadow and get her to Luna before the police find her. I hope I can get the next chapter up soon. I have a great deal to do though...I inherited my grandmother's house, and it needs more work than I have time and money for, so it's really eating into my free time and has tapped me out financially. My stress level has risen to astronomical heights, and it's a rare moment that I can chillax a little and write, or do anything else that I find enjoyable. I will write when I can, and will probably have the next chapter up in a few days. Until then, thank you all so much for reading. Please send me reviews. Support and feedback from my readers is important to me. See you soon, loyal readers. -Drake