The Collection

by Churchy

KitsuneRisu

This chapter was written by KitsuneRisu

o----o

~ A conveniently unspecifed amount of time later ~

Detective Celestia stepped over to the pool of blood, peering down at it with all the fury of a thousand suns. She squinted at it, because when an investigator is sleuthing a scene, squinting always helps.

Always.

“Sister, I dare say…” Luna squeaked, trailing behind.

“Silence, Luna!” Celestia thundered, a lit cigar hanging off the edge of her lips. “I am in… detective mode!”

“Y-yes, sister,” Luna replied, meekly.

Slung around the younger sister’s back was a plethora of tools and equipment that filled up a pair of over-stuffed saddlebags. The edge of a microscope there, the peek of a powder-brush here, and it all made for some rather zealous packing indeed.

“This is… syrup,” Celestia declared, pulling back up to full height, allowing her mane to blow over her face. She pulled the cigar from her mouth with a burst of magic, hovering it impactfully in front of her.

“Sister, I do think it might be blood,” Luna pointed out.

“Fantastic deduction, Luna!” Celestia thundered. “But you are wrong. Clearly, this is syrup.”

Luna looked to the ceiling.

“Yes, sister, if you say so,” she muttered, pressing the matter no further.

“This must be where Twilight Sparkle died,” Celestia continued, nodding away, floating the cigar from left to right. “Right here.”

“Um… sister,” Luna pushed forward again. “She’s not dead. She’s downstairs. She was the one who called us.”

“Nonsense! She died here, and left this horrible blood puddle for us to inspect. It is a clue, you see. The last piece of the puzzle. The last chapter of our sordid tale.”

“Um… but you just said it was syrup, surely,” Luna said with a sigh. She hated it when her sister role-played. It was always so… obnoxious.

“Indeed it is!” Celestia yelled, tossing the cigar away with relish. It was what detectives did.

“Argh! Not the face!” Luna yelled, ducking from the burning stick.

“The face is exactly the key to this mystery, Luna!” Celestia admonished. “Shall I tell you what happened here?”

“Please. Please do,” Luna moaned. “Let’s not drag this out further, I emplore you, sister. I have to go back and finish my crochet!”

“Your pointless needlework can wait, Luna! We have a mystery to uncover,” Celestia said, with a knowing twinkle in her eye. “So listen, for this is how the story ends...”

~

“It’s getting closer, Pinkie!” Twilight shrieked, losing all calm and coolness.

“Yes, you said that! You said that already!” Pinkle burbled back happily. “Hooray!”

“W-what are you so happy about?” Twilight shot back, frantically looking around for a way to escape.

Out the window was not an option, and whatever was causing the rumblings in the first place was slowly making its way up the only other avenue out – the stairs. For all intents and purposes, they were trapped.

“Because I love meeting new friends!” Pinkie chortled.

“That’s not a new friend!” Twilight yelled. “That’s that thing from earlier! Or maybe it’s something entirely new! Or maybe It’s something we’re assuming as something from earlier but has actually never been established before!”

“Yep,” Pinkie agreed. “That just about covers it.”

“Whatever it is, it’s big and dangerous!”

“How can you tell?” Pinkie tilted her head quizzically.

“Because only big, dangerous things make an entrance with thundering hoofsteps, Pinkie! C-could… could that have been the thing that got Dash?”

Pinkie rolled her eyes. Twice.

“Dash flew away, remember? She flew up!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight screamed, each thunderous thump causing her heart to leap further and further. “She didn’t just fly up, alright? She had to have flown in a compass direction!”

An azure smear fell.

As they both turned, they pushed their heads out the window to see a rainbow-flecked blue streak blur its way toward the ground, falling directly outside the window at which they stood.

“Like I told you, Twilight, straight up. She probably flew so high that she escaped our atmosphere and suffocated.” Pinkie nodded sagely.

“What,” Twilight intoned, eyes boggling.

“It’s just science, Twilight. I thought you knew about that kind of stuff.”

The sciency one’s rebuttal was cut short, however, as a final crash reverberated around the room at the top of the tower, calling the two ponies’ attention.

“Ah-hah!” Pinkie yelled again, pointing her hoof at the creature that had crawled up the tower. “I was right again!”

“What,” Twilight whispered to herself, the image of what was in front of her escaping any sort of reasonable explanation.

The creature was a round, thick thing, like an oversized manhole cover clambering upon three spindly legs. Although, they were not legs – they were metallic spikes, crooked and craggly, like twisted tin foil, supporting up a shiny, metal plate.

Like a spider it crawled up and into the room, a behemoth that spewed out an odorous steam that smelt faintly of burnt sugar and boiled fruit.

Upon its top was a brown, cracked crust, a volcano of baked dough and golden crisp pastry, flaking skin and blobs of scarred choux.

From a couple of holes pierced through its top, it spewed a thick red liquid, fountaining it across the room and onto the floor where it coagulated in thick, steamy pools.

“It was syrup!” Pinkie cried gleefully.

“Wh...what is that thing?” Twilight muttered, almost to herself as she didn’t expect an answer.

“Giant Pie Monster,” Pinkie stated. “It must have been what was causing everything! Everything!”

“I… I...” Twilight stammered.

“And now I have to cut off your head!” Pinkie laughed, bouncing around the room like a slinky.

“What? What? Why?” Twilight exclaimed, shocked, pushing herself back against the wall.

Between the weird pie thing that stood there and erupted cherry goop everywhere, and Pinkie who was currently now hopping around the room in an anti-clockwise direction, and… well, whatever it was that happened to Rainbow Dash, there was very little else she could do.

“Because that’s how the story ends!” Pinkie yelled.

“The story…?”

“It’s the only way!” Pinkie said, her bouncing coming to a stop. She slowly approached Twilight, a samurai sword in her hooves. “It’s the only way to explain it all.”

Pinkie smiled.

“The only way.”

~

“Look, sister, this is getting quite ridicu-”

“Silence!” Celestia yelled. “It is the only way to explain everything that happened from start to end based on the evidence!”

Luna looked around the room. There were no signs at all of pie monsters or deaths or any other things she had mentioned. In fact, from the very beginning of the story, a lot of things didn’t really make sense. It felt to Luna as if she were just making things up as she went along.

“Sister, I really do think that there is a far simpler explanation than the whole story that you have subjected me to…” Luna argued, furrowing her brow.

“Nonsense. This has to be the way. The only way.” Celestia shook her head. She was adamant.

“It sounds like something Discord would have m-”

“How dare you compare me to that cretin!” Celestia spat. “He is a third of the detective that I am! He never manages to solve the mystery at all those murder dinner things we go to!”

“Princess. Pinkie Pie’s downstairs with the medic ponies right now. If you really wanted to find out the truth, why not just ask her?”

“Because she’s the murderer! And she’ll lie!”

“The murderer of…”

“Twilight Sparkle, of course.”

“With a…”

“Samurai sword. Like I said.”

“Pinkie Pie murdered Twilight Sparkle – the pony who called us in the first place – who is currently downstairs sitting with her own murderer,” Luna said, deeming to clarify.

A moment passed while Celestia thought about it.

“Yes, that’s right,” she said, after giving it due consideration.

Luna sighed. There was no getting through to her sister when she was like this.

“And what about all the other loose ends from the first parts of your story? Like for example the c-”

“Unimportant.”

“Well then what about what happened to-”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“At least explain th-”

“Come, Luna. We are done here. We have solved this mystery and there are plenty of others to tackle in the days to come,” Celestia said, sweeping down the stairs. “Come!”

Luna sighed yet again. She didn’t know why she played along to her Sister’s madness. Perhaps it was just a result of her own pity.

It had started, simply enough, with Celestia’s own pupil’s request to help on what was a rather mundane and straightforward quest. Along the way, Celestia had decided to fill in the blanks herself with a rather peculiar imagination.

Although it didn’t make sense, at least it was amusing.

Luna gave herself a wry grin, looking over the room one last time.

The real story about what happened there at the tower and all the events that led up to it was easily found, but…

Well. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been as fun.

With a little shrug, Luna left the room. The truth was for another day.

All they had now was the story, and that was what she had to be satisfied with.

The End

Comments

[Soft Shell]

I dont know what it is,
But i cant really seem to like this story,
I guess you could say,
Me and this story have,
*Puts on sunglasses*
A bad Connection.

[Churchy]

3407121 YYYEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHH

I don't get it.

I kid. What's interesting about this is that I expected that random tag to be put to use on a much larger scale. This story's semi-coherence is really quite astonishing. I wouldn't say that's 'wrong' about the story, but I found it interesting. It's really up to anyone's personal viewpoint.

If anything else, this was a fun idea and I think everyone had some fun participating. Thanks for the read anyway!

[AerialReptoid]

So this is basically Ponemurdured? (or a variation)

[Churchy]

3407522 Haha, I suppose so!

[LunaTheFox]

I guess that's one way to end it.
I was also not expecting the start to be so... innocent.

[Still Wearing Black]

Someone desperately needs to write a detective series starring this version of Celestia.

[Churchy]

3410798 And where Pinkie is Watson

[Still Wearing Black]

3411459 Pinkie Pie's had her turn as Watson. Spike, with his dry sarcasm, would be entertaining as well.

[Churchy]

3413675 Twilight would also work, her being the Princess' assistant and all. I can imagine the disgust displayed on her face on a consistent basis.

[Twifight Sparkill]

Kitsunerisu writes best Celestia. Case closed.

[Didlsbrony4evah]

I have one word.

Paint.

That is all I wanted to say for four chapters.

[xjuggernaughtx]

5350966 Well, Pinkie is my girl. I can never get enough of her.