Backflipping through reality at ludicrous speeds. What does RB stand for, anyway? | Ko-Fi
This story is a sequel to Frame by Frame: A Detective Rarity Mystery
The crime? Blackmail.
The crime scene? Two hundred meters off the ground.
The culprit?
Rarity had better find them quickly if she wants to keep her own secrets safe.
This story contains major spoilers for Who-Dunce-It?.
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Just as I was beginning to despair that the once-raging flow of good new stories had dimished to a sad trickle, my all-time favorite mystery series gets a new installment. Boo-yah!
Detective Rarity stories are always good, and I'm looking forward to where this goes.
So, there is a two-day trip, and Fleur is staying behind, presumably due to a fear of flying. Fancy is establishing cross-continent passenger service in a pointed challenge to the railroad. He specifically invited Rarity and Rainbow Dash--two individuals whom he knows well to be detectives--and then proceded to make nice with them. It would seem to me that he expects trouble aboard his enormous flying hydrogen-filled bomb. That would be a reasonable assumption given the character and scruples for which railroad barons are known.
I'm already suspecting Fleur is, at the least, a co-conspirator under duress for what's gonna happen next. She seems to be too laid back and uneager to be on the airship with Fancy for my tastes. I just hope she isn't the mastermind as she and Fancy seem to be quite the lovebirds.
Edit: Also forgot to do this but HELL YEEEEES MY FAVORITE DETECTIVE SERIES IS CONTINUING!
Chapter cutoff just before the reveal? That's nastier than whatever ponies are being blackmailed with!
YOU'RE PURE EVIL RB. MAKING US WAIT TO SEE WHAT THE BLACK MAIL IS LIKE THAT!
If we take Rarity at her word--and previous stories have given us cause to not always do so--the blackmail on her is particularly weak. Also, Rarity, well-to-do as she is, is hardly in the same class as the industrial moguls who invest in highly risky ventures like an airship cruise line. As Rarity pointed out, a blackmailer would most certainly be aware of the fact that she is a detective, which would make putting her on a small ship along with a half-dozen much more lucrative blackmail marks so needlessly risky as to be downright stupid. My guess is that Rarity is being blackmailed not in spite of the fact that she is a detective but rather specifically because of the fact. Why would a blackmailer want a detective to be particularly motivated to look for a blackmailer? Because he himself is being blackmailed and wants Rarity to catch whoever is blackmailing him.
Also, quite obviously, the blackmailer would have to know that Fancy Pants was going to invite her. Given that she had earlier had him incarcerated, who would have guessed that he would do so except for Fancy Pants himself? Fleur no doubt stayed behind to hold the blackmail material that Fancy has on Rarity.
Another thing that I noticed was how quickly Fancy Pants appeared at Rarity's door after she looked into her box and exclaimed loudly to Rainbow that the blackmail on her was hardly worth worrying about. Perhaps Rarity put on that little performance knowing that Fancy Pants would be listening in from Rainbow Dash's empty room and played it off to get him to show his hand, so to speak. She may even consider that blackmail material to be rather serious after all.
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I am guessing that Rarity, in her youth, invented the piano key necktie.
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Not a bad call.
But why didn't Rainbow get anything?
Always happy to see another entry in this series. Eagerly looking forward to Rarity's reveal and the following investigation.
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That is a very good question. Fancy Pants invited both Rarity and Rainbow Dash on the trip, so if the blackmailer knew that Rarity would be there he would have also known that Rainbow Dash would be there as well. Do you have a theory? Is Rainbow just so squeaky clean that there is no dirt to be had on her? Is Rainbow--a celebrity stunt performer but still just a government employee--too poor to bother with?
Another qestion worth asking is, why would Fancy Pants invite Rainbow in the first place? Rainbow is of some renown, but Rarity has another friend--Twilight Sparkle--who would be a much bigger headline-getter for the airline's maiden voyage. I take it as further evidence that Fancy Pants wanted Detectives Rarity and Rainbow Dash on his flight as opposed to Celebrities Rarity and Rainbow Dash. That, or Fancy Pants was worried that Twilight may try to dance at one of the in-flight parties.static.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/e/e3/Crazy_dancing_Twilight_S02E09.png/revision/latest?cb=20140116054401
awesome chapter mate keep it up cant wait for the next chapter
awesome chapter mate keep it up cant wait for the next chapter
awesome chapter mate keep it up cant wait for the next chapter
Now Rarity has to catch a blackmailer and a murderer, on an airship! In less than two days!
How are you, gentlemen!
Watch that be his real name, because pony names work like that.
Wait, did the blackmailer actually use italicized letters cut out of newspapers and magazines to print "stay?" That would say a few things about that person.
Isn't the trip to Vanhoover only two days long? Why give them all that time loose in the city?
JESUS CHRIST THAT ENDING. Also was he shot or his throat slit?
I am feeling pretty confident in my theory that Fancy Pants is at least a blackmailer if not the blackmailer.
Yeah, I bet.
Well, there goes my prime suspect for the ultimate blackmailer.
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There's a nonzero chance Byline faked his own death and is the blackmailer. It wouldn't be the first time there was a fakeout murder in this series.
As for why? To throw Rarity off the trail, and to instill distrust among the ponies being blackmailed.
Getting Cantankerous is Rainbow's next step if being impatient doesn't work.
Hmm. Clues are definitely getting sprinkled in at this point, but not enough for more than the most nebulous suspicions. We'll see what the murderer's note has to say on the matter.
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You're right, there was the fake death of Blueblood. Hopefully, Rarity and Fancy Pants are better at determining whether or not someone is alive than Mr. Orange was.
awesome chapter mate keep it up cant wait for the next chapter
My theory? The blackmailer... was ALL THE PONIES outside Fancy and Rarity and RD and Banner. They all wanted to try and see about scaring up some last bit of cash from Fancy Pants and in the process humiliate him one more time. However Banner was getting close to discovering the truth or at least have a sense of what's going on and they silenced him before he could do anything and tried to make Rarity back off in the process. However at this point Ruby got cold feet, maybe thinking murder was MUCH too far even for her angry self and decided to try and expose the truth about them all. Thus they needed to shut her up as well. But now they're all whittled down and losing control.
I've got nothing on who it is or why. Eagerly awaiting the next chapter.
How many chapters long will this story be?
Sending a guest list with the invitation is a great way to ensure person A sees person B will ALSO be there. Which could be a great way to lure people together.
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Yes, indeed. Only one name was missing from the list: the last-minute addition Capital Idea. Things that make you go, "hmmmmmm..."
I will take a stab at it, but this one is tough.
Banner Byline was blackmailing Fancy Pants, although Fancy Pants had not known that it was him. Fancy Pants staged the whole charade with the boxes as a ploy to get Rarity to look for his blackmailer among likely suspects Ruby Gleam and Mr. and Mrs. Morass on an airship which they could not escape or contact any accomplices from. Fleur in disguise gave the boxes to the chef.
When Banner saw that Ruby Gleam--by chance another of his blackmail victims--was among the invited guests, he asked Fancy Pants to also invite a friend of his, Capital Idea, who I suspect launders his blackmail money, for support. Fancy agreed, still thinking Banner to be his friend. Banner did not realize what Fancy was about to pull.
After Fancy's big show, Banner tried to thwart the scheme by encouraging others to disregard the blackmail, but the dirt on Ruby, Capital, and the Morasses was good. As a family friend, Fancy had good sources on them, less so on the debutant Rarity. Panicking some, Banner met with Capital at night and came up with a plan to write some blackmail letters of his own, but he was confronted in his own cabin by his victim/ex Ruby as he was doing so. She saw him cutting letters out of newsprint and correctly determined that he was the blackmailer for the wrong reasons. Telekinetic unicorn that she was, Ruby snatched his scissors and killed him. She the hurriedly cut letters out of the bloodied newspaper and left a new note to cast the blame onto the mysterious blackmailer. She then disposed of Banner's box through the window in the empty cabin next to her room but not before discovering that the blackmail material tied him to Capital Ideas.
Capital Idea heard--and perhaps saw--her go by his room both times, and when Banner turned up dead he had a pretty good idea of whodunnit, which he tried to clue Rarity into with his story of hearing hoofsteps. Capital had looked into his own box and knew that the subject that he was being blackmailed for was the same as what Banner was being blackmailed for. That meant that Ruby, who took Banner's box, had all she needed to blackmail him. Lacking any weapon, he had to rely on brute force to silence her. He only found the scissors when he opened her box and found them hidden inside. He then did exactly what she had done after she killed Banner: he created a new note from the false blackmailer to cover his tracks.
tl;dr Banner was the real blackmailer, Ruby killed Banner, Capital killed Ruby, and the boxes were Fancy's scheme gone wrong in a way he had not anticipated.
Incidentally, has anyone else noticed the positively absurd ratio of views to likes on this story? A full quarter of the people who read this story press the up button. It does not matter, really, but it is notable.
BU-WHA
Hm. Well, I guessed the identity of the blackmailer and the murders, but I got the motivations all wrong as well as the architect of the box scheme. That was a tough one, so I feel pretty good about getting as close as I did. Why Fancy Pants invited Rarity and Rainbow Dash and why he seemed so insistent that Rarity take the case still feels like a loose end. Of course, so does the blackmail material on Fancy Pants and the Morasses.
This is not the first time in the series where it has been implied that Rarity herself is capable of murder. She does seem to favor daggers, doesn't she? Given the way that this story ended, I imagine that we will eventually get a new installment of Detective Rarity. Perhaps then we may get more of a glimpse at those little rat skelletons in her closet.
Great story, and the stinger was good too.
Come now, like Rarity would leave a knife DIRTY.
I won't provide a guess, but I found it odd that everyone seemed to be assuming that both murders and the blackmail were committed by the same pony.
Fantastic! And the twist was something.
It's something that's a little dissonant that early on in the series Rarity casually all but admits to Rainbow that she'd planned on killing Blueblood herself. And it was played for laughs. Here it's seen as shocking which I think I prefer. If indeed we are to infer that Rarity as killed before I can think of reasons. She would kill in self defence and defence of her family. If someone threatened Sweetie Bell, they could end up with a dagger in the back .
Or perhaps, in the style of Sherlock Holmes and Poroit, she is more interested in Justice than Law and wouldn't be above vigilantism if she identified a murderer who was above the law.
In the subject of the former, maybe Sweetie Bell could join in her next mystery? Somehow I can see her employing the CMC at a critical moment. Might be thematic for a kidnapping case....
Fan
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"Or perhaps, in the style of Sherlock Holmes and Poroit, she is more interested in Justice than Law and wouldn't be above vigilantism if she identified a murderer who was above the law."
That is one thing that I loved about Holmes and Poirot--they didn't care in the slightest about the law. I certainly would not mind if Detective Rarity were to carry on that tradition.
"In the subject of the former, maybe Sweetie Bell could join in her next mystery? Somehow I can see her employing the CMC at a critical moment. Might be thematic for a kidnapping case....
The CMC as something like the Baker Street Irregulars is a brilliant idea.
Late to the ending, but this was still an exquisitely crafted whodunnit. Thank you for it, especially the bit at the end. This leads to all kinds of interesting further questions...
So here's a question: How did Banner find out that Rarity had a knife on her?
Ohohoho, that's rad
The ending puts the ending of the first story into a more interesting perspective. Has Rarity murdered multiple times, hence why she's so good at solving them?
Having read the whole series over the past week, I gotta say, well done, I love them all, and can't wait for more :D