//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: To Kill a Killer // Story: Forbidden Flowers // by Dragonqueen5900 //------------------------------// The blaring ring of her alarm clock jolts her awake, causing her to spring upward. Nyceris yawns and slides out of bed. Out of habit she carefully pulls her covers tight to the frame with her magic, making sure it would pass a military inspection. She then walks slowly over to her dresser and clenches the handle, pulling the door open and revealing her uniform, as well as her few civilian clothes, hanging from hooks. She pulls out her hat and uniform, and smoothly dresses herself with a mixture of hooves and magic. Wanting to make sure she looks her best, she walks over to the bathroom. Pride swells in her chest as she looks in the mirror, checking to make sure she didn’t miss anything. She smiles, and licks her fangs. “Time for another day securing Manehatten!” She steps out into the upstairs hallway and flips the light switch. The opaque, glass sconces on the wall light up, illuminating the sterile hall. The floor is clean, white carpet like most of the rest of her home, and the walls are clad in decorative wood and wallpaper. Besides the small holes and lack of discoloration indicating pictures and painting having been hung on the wall in the past, it is rather barren. “The Heer must have taken most of the previous owner’s belongings when the city was taken. Maybe I should get some decorations for the place? It would help fill the emptiness I see each morning.” She ceases her thoughts on décor for now, and walks down the wooden stairs, emerging into the living room of her new housing unit. It is a townhome-style apartment that came with some pretty nice furniture, though probably just the stuff too big to have been taken already. Nyceris looks around at her spacious surroundings, from the kitchen to back up the stairs behind her, and sighs. “Do ponies really just need this much space or something? I swear this place is big enough for several changeling families to live comfortably. I guess I’ll just have to get used to it.” She slowly walks over and sits down on the cushiony couch, feeling the softness of it as she leans back. “It ‘is’ kinda of nice though…” Suddenly, a loud ringing sound echoes across the room. Her heart jumps for a second, but when she looks over towards the noise, she realizes it is only the telephone on the wall near the door. Confused as to who would be calling her before the sun even comes up, she steps over towards the telephone and floats the receiver up to her face. “Hello, Nyceris speaking.” A voice patches through the line, and she quickly recognizes it as Scutellum. “Hey Nyceris, we have a situation down at the post and I need you here ASAP.” Nyceris feels a tightness in her chest. “What is it? Did something bad happen?” “No. Well… not yet anyway. So yes? Either way I can’t tell you over telephone. Just meet me at the post. I’ll explain when you get here.” She nods, even though she knows he can’t see. “Understood. I’ll be there soon.” “What the fuck happened Scutellum?! I was only off duty for eight hours to sleep and something goes wrong?” She places the receiver back on the holder, and hurriedly prepares to leave. “I’ll just have to get there as fast as I can so he can explain himself.” She briskly walks over to the entryway closet and pulls out her work briefcase and gun, strapping the gun to her sides and holding the briefcase in her magic as she closes the closet with a thud. The front doorknob twists in the grasp of green magic, and she rushes through the exit as it pulls open, slamming it behind her and locking it as fast as she can. She orients herself in the direction of the garrison post, and slides out her gossamer wings from behind her carapace, taking off just above the ground and buzzing through the air as swiftly as she can in city streets. She passes by confused changelings and frightened ponies as she goes, and she manages to arrive in mere minutes. She lands in front of the post, tucking her wings back in, huffing from the journey. “Still got it!” She starts walking forward slowly to allow her time to catch her breath, eventually heading in through the front door and straight up the stairs past the saluting soldiers. She comes to the office space she’s quickly becoming familiar with and finds Scutellum pacing in a small circle within his desk area. He notices her before she can say anything, and he immediately takes to his much-needed explanation. “There you are!” He says, looking uncommonly exasperated. “We have a big problem, and we have to fix it before the Leutnant finds out about it.” Nyceris gives him an exasperated look. “Would you please tell me what happened already?” He takes a deep breath to recompose himself, and looks back to her. “While on patrol last night, a pair of our soldiers were ambushed. The assailant killed one of the soldiers, Gefreiter Pretyrnx, but his partner was able to catch a glimpse of the terrorist before they escaped. The news hasn’t been great for troop morale. The fear of being murdered at any given moment is causing some of the newer recruits distress, and I’m afraid that if we don’t find the killer as soon as possible then we’re going to get in trouble with the Leutnant.” Her face wrinkles in both fear and anxiety for a brief moment, before she regains composure. “Come on Nyceris, you didn’t spend four years in officer school to let a situation like this get the better of you. You got this! You are the commander, and it is your responsibility to protect your soldiers.” She returns her gaze to him, looking much more in-control now, and tells him what she is thinking. “The Leutnant didn’t seem like the type of changeling who would punish us for losing a single soldier, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be in trouble. I think you’re right, we need to find the killer as soon as we can to give our squad peace of mind, and possibly ourselves as well.” Scutellum nods approvingly. “Right. I figured I’d wait for you to get here, since you are the commanding officer here. I did however take the liberty to interrogate the surviving soldier about what she saw, and wrote it down in this report.” He levitates a file folder over to her, which Nyceris picks up with her own magic and reads through it. “Incident occurred at 0140 hours as reported by Soldat Dityris; unknown pony assailant attacked and killed Gefreiter Pretyrnx with a knife while on patrol, body was recovered; assailant was a light green pony wearing a jacket and bandana, presumably an earthpony or unicorn given lack of perceivable wings; after incident, Soldat Dityris returned to the garrison post and filed a report.” “Okay, so we already have a description.” Scutellum nods in agreement. “We’re just lucky they were able to get a good glimpse of the assailant. Narrows down our search significantly.” “Right. First things’ first, have the squadron blockade any exit roads to Portside, we don’t want our culprit escaping. Next you and I will lead a party to search houses for any pony fitting the description. Lastly, we will interrogate the suspects until our culprit is found.” “Understood. I’ll get a crew together for the blockade now.” “I’ll work on gathering search parties.” The officers nod and head downstairs together, Scutellum immediately yelling for some troops to gather while Nyceris walks towards the operations officer. She approaches the wide-eyed changeling as he watches the frantic energy of soldiers following Scutellum outside. He only notices Nyceris when she is standing right in front of him. His wings stretch out for a moment from the surprise, but he quickly pulls them back in. “OH! Apologies commander, I didn’t see you there.” Nyceris dismisses his lack of awareness and moves on to the reason she is here. “Not to worry Unteroffizier. We have a situation as you may have heard, and I need for some things.” He looks nervous, but still manages to respond cooly and professionally. “Of course commander. What do you need?” “Well, first I’d like to speak with Soldat Dityris.” The officer’s nervous demeanor fades away at the mention of the Soldat. “Right. Naturally.” He coughs to clear his throat. “I believe she is off duty at the moment. I figured she deserved it after what happened.” “Have someling go and get her. In the meantime I need you to gather as many soldiers as you can while Feldwebel Scutellum blockades the neighborhood. We’re going to find the killer.” The officer opens his mouth as if to speak, but decides better of it, and simply nods. He moves off to fulfill her orders, yelling at one of the confused soldiers standing around the post to go get Soldat Dityris. Nyceris looks around at the changelings doing everything they can to follow her instruction. “I’ve got this under control. I am in charge here. I shouldn’t have worried.” She walks back upstairs to her desk, finding a small stack of paper and files placed on top of it neatly, likely put there by Scutellum while she was off duty. “I guess he really has changed…” Her mind can’t help but compare his newfound professionalism to the brazen and disorganized changeling she remembers from the academy. “I guess the a year of staff work really helped him pull himself together.” Nyceris closes her eyes and opens them again, helping her reorient herself from reflection back to the task at hand. She sits down in her chair and starts briskly looking through the paperwork. “Let’s see here… mostly status reports, the incident report from last night, and several dissidence reports. I’ll have to look into those, though it doesn’t look like I have to sign anything yet. Hopefully it will stay that way.” She closes the files and quickly put them back into an orderly stack with her magic before getting up and heading back downstairs to oversee on the operations officer’s progress. “I’ll have time to check those in detail later.” She emerges into the first floor, but sees only a single guard remaining, leaving the building feeling much emptier than it did minutes prior. There is a lot of movement and grey uniforms fluttering past the front window outside, so Nyceris walks over and pulls the door open. In front of the post is a group of about twenty or so changeling soldiers, huddled together without much in the way of organization, but there nonetheless. The officer is speaking with a soldier who is sitting down with a portable radio set, presumably relaying orders to patrols. There are no cars travelling along the street, and any signs of ponies have long since vacated the area. “Good, Scutellum must be getting the lockdown started.” Upon seeing their commander, the soldiers begin filing into rows, standing at attention. The officer turns from the radio operator to Nyceris, and gestures towards the assembled soldiers. “This is everyling that isn’t helping with the blockade. Called them all back from patrol.” Nyceris nods, impressed with the efficiency. “Good. Stay at the post as dispatch.” He nods in acknowledgement while she turns to face the troops. “Good morning everyling. As you likely already know, one of our squad was killed last night by a pony assailant. This is unacceptable. The Hegemony will not tolerate terrorism. Because of this, we are going to put the entire neighborhood on lockdown. I don’t want any civilians, be they pony or changeling, leaving until we have the situation resolved. You will all be split into smaller teams to go around calling the ponies out of their homes. We are looking for a light green earthpony or unicorn, so inspect each one, and bring any ponies resembling the suspect to the station for interrogation. Am I understood.” The soldiers all shout “Yes ma’am!” in unison. “Good. Dismissed!” Nyceris lowers her stance a little as the troops disperse, already starting to feel tired from having to put up an authoritative front for this long. “Today’s going to be exhausting…” The operations officer approaches her, smile on his face. “Good work commander, I’m sure we’ll have the killer caught in no time.” She weakly returns his expression. “I’m sure we will.” Her smile disappears and she straightens her face to one of what she hopes is pure professionalism. “Now where is the Soldat? You sent someling to find her did you not?” “Yes ma’am, I did. They should be returning with her shortly.” “Excellent. Direct the Soldat to my office when she arrives, I’ll be there.” “Understood.” He salutes, and heads inside with the radio operator. Nyceris, now standing alone in the street, lets out a breath of relief. She adjusts her uniform , and a thought crosses her mind. “This is all a lot harder than it seemed… Is this how the Leutnant feels?” She sighs, and looks around at her surroundings. It suddenly became very quiet after all the soldiers left, and the lack of ponies in the streets only contributes to that. There aren’t any pedestrians or cars or conversations or anything like there would usually be in a Manehatten city street. Suddenly, a she sees a blur of motion in the corner of her eyes. She looks up towards it passively and sees that there is a pony watching her through a second-floor window across the street. The moment that the pony notices she can see them, they duck and close their curtains. “I guess they really are afraid of us, huh.” She sighs again, though deeper this time, and retreats back inside the garrison post towards her office, as there is no point in remaining out here any longer. Walking past the radio dispatch station up on a table nearby, she goes straight upstairs and sits in her chair. She gathers the stack of papers from earlier, and begins sorting through the files one at a time. Nyceris had barely even read through half a dozen of the documents when she hears the front door slam shut downstairs. She puts the paper she was holding in her magic back down on the desk, and watches as a pair of soldiers march up the stairs, though one of them is only wearing her uniform coat. They walk right up to her, and the properly uniformed one salutes. “Oberfeldwebel Nyceris! I have retrieved Soldat Dityris as requested.” Nyceris nods. “Good, thank you. Go and see if dispatch could use your help. You are dismissed.” She salutes again, and exits back down the stairs, leaving the anxious-looking changeling behind. Noticing that she is alone with her commander, she quickly licks her fangs and props up at attention. Nyceris gestures towards a nearby folding chair. “Please have a seat.” Dityris complies, pulling the chair over with her magic and sitting down. She remains nervously silent. Nyceris sees that she is failing to make eye contact, and smiles in an attempt to offer consolation. “You must be Soldat Dityris, correct?” Her voice is warm yet to the point. Still not meeting her eyes, Dityris answers in a slightly quivering tone. “Yes ma’am.” “You don’t have to be afraid. You’re not in trouble, I just want to know more about what happened last night with you and Gefreiter Pretyrnx.” She looks a little less apprehensive at Nyceris’ reassurance, but finally manages to meet her eyes. They are a light purple, with a shimmer of fear still in them. Dityris remains silent for now, forcing Nyceris to continue. “According to the report, you and the Gefreiter were attacked last night at 0140 by a single pony assailant. Is that correct?” “Yes ma’am.” “Where were you when this happened?” Dityris looks down again, seemingly staring at the floor. “We were patrolling near the wharf.” “And then the pony attacked?” “Yes.” “You described them a bit in your interview with Feldwebel Scutellum. Could you do so in more detail for me?” She nods, head still bowed. “They were either an earthpony or a unicorn, I couldn’t see very well since it was dark, but I could see well enough to tell if they had wings or not. They were wearing a black jacket and a green bandana of some kind, but I could tell that they were light green, I could see that much.” Dityris pauses for a moment, as if not wanting to remember something. Nyceris finds herself feeling a bit guilty for pressing her so hard, but she knows that it is something that needs to be done. “Anything else.” “Me and Pretyrnx were patrolling by a pair of warehouses, when the pony came out from behind a wall and stabbed him three times. I was able to get a look at them with my flashlight, but then the pony lunged at me too, and the only thing that saved me was my pistol. I managed to shoot them once, in the hind leg I think, but they got away.” “You were very brave there Dityris, it is just unfortunate that the Gefreiter was not as lucky as you.” Dityris nods in acknowledgement, though clearly doesn’t accept the compliment, and instead seems to become agitated. “It’s not fair that Pretyrnx had to die like that! He was a good changeling and a good soldier.” Nyceris lowers her head, saddened more than anything. “I’ve never been in a life-threatening situation, I can only imagine what it feels like. But even so, nobody deserves to die like that. Deciding that she has enough information, she decides to focus on calming down the Soldat. “It’s a tragedy that this had to happen. You just have to keep pressing on, as the Queen would have us do.” She pauses for a moment to assess Dityris’ reaction, and continues when she sees it is helping ever so slightly. “Why don’t you take some leave. A week should do. In the meantime we’ll find the killer and bring them to justice. You may be dismissed Soldat.” Dityris nods appreciatively, and stand up to leave. She heads towards the stairs, but stops at the exit to turn her head around. “One last thing, the pony is a mare I think. She didn’t speak, but I did hear her scream when I shot her.” Nyceris looks up from her paperwork, grateful for the information. “That is very helpful, thank you Dityris. Enjoy your leave.” The Soldat nods, and heads down out of sight. Nyceris sighs. “I hope she’ll be okay.” She turns back to her desk, and continues reading through reports for the next two hours. With some time to reflect by herself, the weight of the situation begins to set upon her, and despite her constant reassurances, anxiety slowly builds. She thinks of her orders, and Scutellum, the Leutnant, Dityris, her troops, and even the operations officer. Her job relies on the efforts of so many others, and in turn they rely on her. “What if I fail them? I already let one of them get killed because I was asleep. I can’t let that happen again! They depend on me, and I need to protect them. The Hegemony needs us to protect it and everyling in it. I cannot fail them!” Nyceris’s thoughts start to take a course of their own, and she slowly becomes barely conscious of her surroundings. Then she hears a knock from the stairway, pulling her out of the trance. She looks over to see none other than Scutellum, leaning against the wall staring at her. He has a smug look on his face, meaning he probably completed the blockade already. He saunters towards her, and begins speaking in a voice betraying an unusual amount of concern for him. “You look like you were lost in thought again. What was it this time?” Nyceris awkwardly smiles at him, a bit embarrassed to have been caught like that again. “Oh, just thinking about the situation. Making sure that we resolve this quickly before the Leutnant catches wind of it and we get in trouble.” He nods a few times, and his signature smirk reappears where before there was a hint of care. “Riiight. Anyways, I completed the blockade. No changelings or ponies are getting out of Portside until we are done here.” Deciding it would be best to take the out, Nyceris follows along, and smiles appreciatively. “Thank you. Now we can focus on the investigation. Have any of the suspects been brought back yet?” “Quite a few actually. There are already a few dozen of them in outside.” Once again, a tinge of embarrassment fills Nyceris’ chest, this time for not having noticed, though she manages to maintain an authoritative face. “Good. Have the soldiers get all the ponies’ ID’s, and find their files if we have them.” Scutellum’s smirk grows wider. “Already on it! I have a pair of soldiers gathering files right now. Anyways, why don’t we go down and begin the search, yeah? You and I can work side by side, just like we used to back at the academy.” “Yeah, only this time it’s searching for a terrorist instead of doing homework.” He waves his hoof around dismissively. “Eh, same difference. Anyways, let’s go get set up. The rest of the suspects should be arriving here soon.” “Sounds good. I’ll be down in a moment, go on ahead of me.” He shrugs, and heads down the stairs. Nyceris cleans up her desk, stacking the reports into neat piles for future reference, and follows. In contrast to the relatively quiet upstairs office, the downstairs is a flurry of activity, with several soldiers moving tables around and locating files, the radio dispatch in the corner calling in the remaining patrols, and the sounds of ponies and guards from outside. She marches past the changelings going about their orders, ensuring that she puts on her most commanding presence, and opens the door to head outside. She meets Scutellum past the entrance, standing in front of a growing crowd of likely over fifty ponies, all shades of light green. The nervous collection of civilians is surrounded by armed Heer soldiers, and she can see two more groups being brought in. The operations officer is already out there ordering around some soldiers and gathering identification from the ponies. Scutellum turns to her as she moves beside him. “Impressive, isn’t it? We made this happen in only a few hours. Imagine what we could do with more resources?” Nyceris gives him a nervous glance. “I don’t think we should be getting our hopes up about promotions just yet. We still have to find the killer.” She looks out over the assembled ponies. “There’s a lot of suspects to interrogate. This could take a while.” He just waves dismissively. “I’m sure it’ll be done real quick. Ponies aren’t known to be very tight-lipped.” The operations officer approaches the pair, having come over while they were conversing. “Commander, Feldwebel, all the patrols are in. This is every light green earthpony and unicorn in Portside.” “Excellent work.” She gazes back out towards them, and remembers the last thing Dityris said. “Please have the troops send all the stallions back home. I have it per first person account that the assailant was a mare.” Scutellum furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “Wait, I don’t remember that when I was interviewing the Soldat. When did you hear that?” Nyceris shrugs. “I guess she must have failed to mention it before.” “I see…” The operations officer coughs in an attempt to regain the two’s attention, and they both turn to face him again. “You want me to just send all the stallions home? We already collected all of these…” “Just do it.” She says sternly. Stunned for a moment, the officer recovers, then salutes. “Of course ma’am. As you say.” He walks off to give the order, and the soldiers quickly begin dispersing all the stallions they brought, leaving only about two dozen light green mares left. Scutellum stares at them, and starts speaking without looking to Nyceris. “There’s still quite a few of them. Any other things the Soldat forgot to mention?” Thanks to the reminder, Nyceris remembers the other missing detail. “Yes actually. Soldat Dityris says she was able to shoot the assailant in one of her hind legs before she escaped. Search for any pony with an injury there.” Shaking his head in what she presumes to be disappointment, Scutellum takes a step forward and shouts the order. The soldiers begin investigating the remaining ponies, which garners a chorus of protests from the invasion of personal space. Several ponies are asked to remove their clothes, and what used to be a passive anxiety in the crowd quickly evolves into agitation and fear. While watching the investigation, her eyes drift to a middle-aged earthpony mare, taking the opportunity caused by the ruckus to edge towards the border of the circle. Suspicious, Nyceris tells Scutellum to keep supervising, and strides over to the sneaky pony. She comes up by her side, and inquires about her actions. “Where do you think you’re going, pony?” The earthpony nearly jumps from surprise, and nervously backs up several hoofsteps, folding her ears against her head. “N-n-nowhere officer! Just trying to get some space.” Nyceris notices her imbalanced stance, and gives her a faux smile. “Riight. Then I suppose you wouldn’t mind being investigated like the rest of you ponies then?” She quickly shakes her head and responds in a fearful voice. “Not at all ma’am! Be my guest.” Nyceris gestures to a nearby changeling. “Soldier, come here. I need you to search this one.” The soldier obeys, and marches over to her and the pony. He slings his rifle over his back, and demands that the pony pull up her pants. She looks highly apprehensive, and takes several moments to comply, and only after a second order to do so. She slowly begins to remove her clothes, eventually revealing her hind legs in full. The soldier goes in closer to inspect them, but Nyceris can already see it plain as day. There is a recently acquired bullet wound scraping the edge of her left hind leg. Before she even realizes what is going on, the pony has pulled a knife of out hives-know-where and placed it against the soldier’s throat. Nyceris reactively draws her pistol and aims it straight at the pony, determined to save the soldier, but by the time she’s lined up a shot, the pony is already standing on two legs holding the terrified captive as a shield. Fear and anger rage in the pony’s eyes, and she begins shouting. “Don’t you dare shoot changeling! I’ll cut this one’s throat if you try anything!” Several other soldiers aim their weapons at the pony, and she can see Scutellum running past the now screaming ponies, gun at the ready. The killer moves herself with her hostage so that her back is against the street and all the soldiers are facing her frontside. Nyceris’ heart is racing, and she shakily aims her pistol at the terrorist, who she notices is struggling to stand, the wounded leg shaking more than the rest of her. Mustering up her courage, Nyceris tries her best to put on a visage of authority. “Put him down, pony! We know you were the killer from last night. You won’t escape from justice!” The pony laughs despite her evident fear. “Ha! You think there’s justice in the Hegemony?! You changelings are all the same, ruling through terror and hoping that ponies will just fall in line. Equestria will never submit to your tyranny!” Nyceris feels an unwelcome tightness in her chest, and finds her veneer failing her. Scutellum finally arrives, and him along with the other soldiers begin closing the gap. The pony yells for them to stay back, and takes a few steps back herself. On the third step backwards, her wounded leg collapses, and she trips, pulling the soldier with her and letting the knife fall to the ground. Scutellum takes the opportunity to charge for the pair, but the pony manages to fling the soldier off her in time and start awkwardly galloping off down the street. Seeing her chance, Nyceris lines up the shot with her pistol, and prepares to pull the trigger, when she spots the pony’s flank mar. It is a stuffed bear toy leaning against a blue book. For some reason, she hesitates, holding her shot but not opening fire. Her heart is thumping and her mind is racing. She knows she needs to fire, to end the threat to her squad and the Hegemony once and for all, but she can’t do it. “Come on Nyceris! You need to do this! Why can’t you do this?!” A loud bang echoes throughout the street, and the pony collapses to the ground, red blood quickly pooling beneath her from the wound in her flank. Nyceris turns towards the source of the noise to see Scutellum, holding his pistol in his magic, barrel smoking. He shouts at a trio of nearby soldiers to go and fetch the body, and they run over to the pony, still crumbled in a pool of her own blood. Nyceris is standing there, feeling helpless, when Scutellum slaps her on the back jovially. “Looks like I’m still better at shooting than you are! Guess not too much has changed it seems.” The sudden shift in mood distresses her even more, and she can’t offer him any more than a sound of vague acknowledgement. “Now is not the time for jokes Scutellum.” The soldiers sling the pony’s front legs over their necks and begin ferrying her towards the garrison post, blood trailing behind them. As they get closer, Nyceris realizes with slight horror that the pony is still alive. She motions for the soldiers to halt as they pass her, and approaches the injured pony. She looks down at her trembling form, and into her terrified eyes. “Why did you do it?” The pony looks confused and near delirious. “W-what?” Nyceris asks again, slower this time. “Why did you kill one of my soldiers?” She musters a single laugh, breath weak and airy, before looking her dead in the eye. “Because you changelings killed my son.” Nyceris opens her mouth to respond, but can’t find the words. Instead, she gestures for the guards to take the pony away. The operations officer begins shouting for the rest of the ponies to go back home, and many of them run off the moment they get the chance. Eyes lingering on the killer as they drag her off, Nyceris begins heading back inside the post. Changeling soldiers rush this way and that trying to preserve some semblance of order in the situation, but it calms down quickly enough on its own once the ponies are all gone. Scutellum looks a bit perturbed by her ignoring him, but quickly finds someling else to yell at. She stands now in from of the garrison post, eyes still fixed on the pony. She sees the soldiers throw her against the wall besides the window as she passes through the doorway. She flinches as a gunshot rings from outside. Nyceris shuts her eyes tightly. “I’m sorry.”