//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: Twilight Holmes: The Mystery of Basil Bones // by bats //------------------------------// Rainbow took a threatening step towards Basil, flaring her wings. “You better hope I just throw stuff at you, you little—” “Rainbow,” Twilight cut in. She grabbed Rainbow by the shoulder and made eye contact, then glanced at the tree. “Let’s all calm down and see what he has to say, okay?” Rainbow grumbled, then sat down and crossed her legs over her chest. “Ugh, fine, whatever.” Basil cleared his throat and hesitantly stepped out of his smoke cloud. “I, erm, trust that certain concessions on my part have been related towards the, ah, unfortunate misunderstanding that has led to the current state of animosity? If not, Miss Rainbow, I could certainly relate them of my own regard, if that might resolve any lingering disputes.” “If all that junk you just said means you wanna say you’re sorry, save it. What do you want?” He flushed, averting his gaze from Rainbow to the ground, then straightened up and addressed them both. “Very well, blunt and to the point it is. I had, perhaps, suggested that I had business I wished to discuss with Miss Twilight Sparkle earlier, before I had taken account of … ahem, yes, well, after recent revelations, I feel that despite previous differences and negative impressions, if I have come to make the acquaintance of the protégé of Princess Celestia, I must bring this business to her attention.” He took a long drag from his pipe and turned to pace, streaming smoke from his mouth. “To cut straight to the heart of the matter, the truth is that my journeys through Equestria are not solely driven by happenstance nor whimsy, as would often be suggested about me in the newspapers.” “In articles you wrote,” Rainbow muttered, just loud enough for Twilight to hear. “There is an auxiliary, somewhat clandestine pursuit that determines the course of my sojourns, which has unfolded as a game of cat and mouse over what I believe must be five years now. While I would normally characterize myself as the cat,” Basil halted and turned towards the group, his expression set and hard, “I would at least be erroneous, if not outright foolish, to not admit that I am often the mouse.” Basil floated the pipe back into his mouth and stood his ground silently, staring at Twilight as if searching her face, while occasionally stealing panicked glances at Rainbow. As the silence lengthened, Twilight’s confusion grew alongside it. After a moment, she rubbed the side of her temple. “Umm … okay? What exactly are we talking about?” “And what’s it gotta do with my wheel?” Scootaloo asked. Twilight flinched, and looked down at the cutie mark crusaders. She felt her face heat up, realizing she’d forgotten they were still there. At Basil’s expression, he hadn’t noticed them either, or maybe forgot that they were old enough to talk. “Hmn?” He shook himself off and looked at their wagon. “Ah, yes, your missing wagon wheel. Well, I do believe you little madams will find it in that tree—” he pointed at the crook of the tree with the stem of his pipe “—where these two associates of yours conspired to place it in some ill-conceived attempt to confound me.” Twilight’s eyes widened and her jaw fell slack. “What?” “It could be that your goal was in some manner supposed to frame me for something, but that seems unlikely and, perhaps, malicious, and based on the events of today thus far I feel it might be prudent to not expect the worst of ponies.” Twilight stammered in disbelief. Rainbow leapt into the air to hover and threw her forelegs wide in protest. “Hey, come on!” she snapped. “We didn’t put it up there!” “The twigs in your manes say otherwise.” While Rainbow gaped and shifted from looks of shock to frustration and back, Basil puffed his pipe and narrowed his eyes at the tree. “Hmn, yes, definitely that specific spot, judging by the disturbance of the branches around it, though it’s an awfully precarious sort of position to rest a wheel, it must be propped up on something.” His nostrils flared, and Twilight caught a glimpse of the magic aura around his horn and pipe brightening for a moment. “Coffee. Yes, it’s resting on a coffee mug. Miss Rainbow’s mug, to be exact, it would need a handle to catch on the knot of a branch. An interesting hiding place, though not exactly artfully hidden. I’m not certain what the two of you were trying to accomplish.” Twilight and Rainbow stared at him with the same agape expression. Scootaloo turned to Apple Bloom. “Do you think we can get our wheel back now?” “Shush, I wanna know how this turns out.” Rainbow spun towards Twilight. “Please can I hit him?” Basil skittered back. “U-uh, yes, but as we discussed, it is wise to perhaps assume more charitable intentions in others, especially those I was just attempting to confide in, so it could also be a, erm … modern art installation?” Twilight sighed. She rubbed her headache with a hoof and shook her head ‘no’ to answer Rainbow’s question, who grumbled and landed again. She turned back to Basil. “It isn’t a modern art installation, no.” “And we didn’t put it there, we just found it like that,” Rainbow said through clenched teeth. “Preposterous, who else would put it there? It’s such a conspicuously absurd location I could only venture it was staged for my benefit. Entertaining the ludicrous proposal of a third party, it would still be solely meant for me to find. The only possible method in which either of you might find it first would be by means of a complete fluke.” Rainbow’s eyes narrowed and he backed up again. “Or, to state that more accurately, by means of prodigious magical talent befitting the protégé of Princess Celestia.” “Ugh, cool your hoof-licking already, I’m not gonna hit you.” She added, “Unless you give me a really good reason,” under her breath, just for Twilight. Twilight rolled her eyes. “We did find it using a spell, and I’m frankly at a loss for how anypony could have found it without a spell.” She weighed her options for a moment, tossed the shredded remains of her plan out of mind, and stepped forward. “How would you have found it, if it was meant for you to find in the first place?” He scratched his chin with the stem of his pipe and straightened. “An interesting query. I imagine it would have taken several steps to follow the clues to this specific hideaway, so I would be required to enter into the realm of conjecture.” He turned his attention back to the wagon and stooped down to examine it more closely. “My first stop would be the location where this wagon was stored last night, then if I found no clues, to your rather overgrown garden,” he said to Scootaloo. “Augh, if somepony can tell I haven’t mown the lawn just by looking at the dumb wagon, fine, I must’ve let it go too long. I’ll mow it, geeze.” Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom hid their snickers and Twilight drew her brow together, trying to remember if Basil had heard the three of them talking about Scootaloo’s yard earlier, and if that even mattered anymore. “Regardless, I don’t believe there is any piece of evidence right here that would have pointed me to the solution of this trifle immediately, but I strongly suspect that whatever clues I did follow would implicate both Miss Twilight and Miss Rainbow.” Rainbow rose out of her air of grumpiness and raised an eyebrow. “Us? Why us?” “The mug, of course, which already connects the two of you to these events, suggesting the perpetrator’s true motives were to attempt to frame you.” He puffed a cloud of smoke and rubbed his chin. “Although … when taking into account your remarkable magical aptitude, I suppose it could indicate that this trifle was planted for your benefit, rather than mine.” Twilight grimaced and looked at the tree. “That doesn’t make any sense, either.” She turned back to Basil. “Unless you were the one planting it.” “Hah!” Rainbow shouted, hopping in place. “Now that makes sense.” Basil scoffed and fumbled his pipe, catching it in his magic. “I believe I have inadvertently antagonized you both enough today without doing it again on purpose. The last thing I ought to have done would be to track down your belongings and arrange a farce of an unveiling, on a trifle that I couldn’t be sure you would even engage with in the first place.” “Well it’s not like you’d have a hard time finding my mug, you already guessed that Twi’s the librarian,” Rainbow shot back. “You’d just need to find the library and steal my mug out of the sink, it’s not like it’d be har—” “Pocket it from the table, you mean. At the café, the site of our first altercation.” Rainbow straightened up, raising an eyebrow at Basil. “Considering you were on the verge of leaving the mug behind before our, ah, dispute, I find it highly unlikely that you remembered to take it with you afterwards. I would be willing to stake odds that Miss Twilight left her mug behind as well.” Twilight looked at Rainbow. Rainbow looked at Twilight. They both grimaced. Twilight slumped and groaned. “I did leave our mugs behind when I went to change the tip.” “I thought it was weird that your mug was also missing from the sink!” “Ugh,” Twilight moaned, looking up at the sky. “That means anypony could have taken them, for any reason, even just to prop up the wheel with whatever they had on hoof!” She buried her face in her forelegs. “I am unsure of that,” Basil mused. He frowned and paced back to the wagon. “At the start of this conversation, I was speaking entirely in the hypothetical, as I felt concrete in my judgment that the two of you were simply, as they say, pulling my hoof, but based upon your reactions, it seems highly evident that we are dealing with a third party.” He upended the wagon with his magic and rotated it like a gyroscope, his eyes darting across every surface. Scootaloo raised a hoof to grab her wagon back, but Apple Bloom smacked it down. Twilight huffed and begrudgingly stomped over to the wagon. “We’ve both already looked it over, I’m not sure what else you could f—” Basil raised a hoof for silence, then scraped it across the smear of crumbling bark still in the fresh scratch across the bottom of the wagon. He raised the bark to his muzzle and inhaled. “… Coffee grounds.” Twilight’s eyebrows shot up, and she heard three gasps of surprise from the cutie mark crusaders. Rainbow slapped the ground and yelled, “What?!” Basil’s expression darkened. He stuck his pipe in his mouth, set the wagon down, and turned towards the tree, his horn still glowing with magic. The wheel floated out from its hiding place alongside the mug. “He is mocking us,” he said with grave certainty. He returned the wheel to Scootaloo while Twilight and Rainbow exchanged bewildered glances. Twilight shook her head and asked, “He’s mocking us? He who?” “The same ‘who’ that facilitated my arrival in Ponyville.” His tone grew sharper and harder as he floated the mug down from the canopy, held carefully upright as if it were still full of coffee. “A master criminal who speaks only in calling cards and puzzles, stealing not for fame nor fortune, rather purely for sewing chaos and confusion in his wake.” The mug glided gently overhead between him and Twilight, and he began to swirl it in a circle to stir the contents. A clinking rattle chimed out from the cup as he brought it down directly between them. “My greatest rival, a pony so shrouded in mystery I know him only by a pseudonym.” Basil held out his hoof and upended the mug. A single acorn rolled out and bounced on his horseshoe, settling into place. Basil’s expression grew rigid, etched with anger. “Diamond Acorn,” he spat. There was a long pause. Rainbow took a tentative step forward. “D … Diamond Acorn? Really?” “My sworn nemesis. There is no denying it now, seeing his calling card here in your mug.” He floated the acorn up and puffed smoke at it. Rainbow scratched her head and looked to Twilight, like she was seeking help. “Couldn’t that’ve just fallen in the mug from the tree?” “Does that tree look like a member of the Quercus genus to you?” “… I dunno.” She glanced at the tree, then back to Twilight. “Does it?” “It does not,” Basil answered, his horn brightening as he hurled the nut through the air and off into the distance. “The three of us have been musing over how absurd this trifle is, enveloping the three of us and these little madams in a web of senseless cause and effect, culpability and suspicion, to no foreseeable conclusion nor purpose. It should have been clear to me sooner; I have been set off-balance by our disagreements, this is exactly Acorn’s modus operandi. He seeks nothing but to satisfy his own whims of confusion and disharmony, and I, only I, have seen the calling card and followed the clues, which have led me here to Ponyville. And with your help by my side,” he shouted, stretching an imploring hoof towards Twilight, “Miss Twilight Sparkle, protégé to Princess Celestia, I am certain that we can bring this madpony to justice! What do you say, madam? Are you with me?” Twilight blinked slowly. Basil had struck a pose in his flourish, his hoof extended and a smile on his face that she assumed was intended to look charming, maybe even roguish, though it landed somewhere closer to goofy, like a foal play-acting as Daring Do. He didn’t falter from his position, holding it well as time stretched out while Twilight regarded him, only breaking his stillness when he blinked and his chest heaved with breath. “Um,” Twilight said. “Excuse me for a moment.” She turned and walked back towards the tree, hooking a hoof over Rainbow’s shoulder and leading them a few feet away. “So …” “I go high, and you go low?” Rainbow asked. “What? No, we’re not attacking him.” Rainbow grumbled in disappointment. “I’m just unsure about his story.” “Oh. Yeah, it was weird. I mean, Diamond Acorn? That sounds like a fake name.” She looked sidelong at Rainbow. “Well … it is a fake name, that’s what a pseudonym is.” “I knew that, jeeze, I mean what kind of pony would choose that as their fake name?” “I would assume that Basil chose it himself.” She glanced back at Basil, who was still maintaining his pose, though his expression had faltered and his extended hoof was listing towards the ground. Twilight smiled politely and turned back to Rainbow. “You know, because all he had to go off of was the acorn calling card.” “Why not call him, like, The Acorn Bandit, or something? Why Diamond?” “The first trace of his I came across was the theft of a bag of diamond dust! Monetarily without value, but the owner was shocked to find three acorns left in its pl—” “Stop listening to us!” Twilight snapped. She glared, lit up her horn, and shrouded the two of them in a sphere of silence. “And the name isn’t important. I’m more concerned by what it might mean if it were true.” Safe in the sphere, Rainbow stepped back from huddling in shoulder to shoulder and scratched her head. “What, that there’s some demented weirdo running around messing with ponies? That kinda sucks, but I don’t see how big a deal it is.” “Think about it, Rainbow. A strange force moving through Equestria, spreading chaos wherever it goes, ‘sowing disharmony.’ Does that sound like anypony familiar to you? Or anycreature?” Rainbow frowned and raised an eyebrow. “Like … Discord? You think he got out of that statue again?” She shrugged. “Maybe. It’s a least a possibility.” “I guess. It doesn’t really seem like his thing, though. He was all big, dumb, in-your-face chaos, not steal-a-wagon-wheel-and-put-it-with-a-coffee-cup chaos. He’d probably think this was really lame.” “It might be all that he’s capable of doing from inside the statue; Basil said that he’s been following Diamond Acorn’s trail for five years. I can’t imagine he found much of a trail for the short time that Discord was free, what with all the in-your-face chaos he was spreading.” “Hmm.” Rainbow sat down and rubbed her chin in thought. “I dunno, but that might make sense.” “It could also be a lie and he figured out that we suspected him of staging his own puzzles to solve, and he’s just doing it to throw off suspicion.” “Ugh, now that makes more sense.” “Does it though?” Twilight grimaced looked across the barrier at Basil, who had finally given up posing and had switched to standing there awkwardly. Scootaloo’s voice carried across the magic bubble from the outside, muted and flat as if they were hearing it through water. “Does this mean I can put the wagon back together now?” Sighing, Twilight turned back to Rainbow. “I kind of think it would make more sense if it were true, or if Basil at least believed it to be true.” “Why do you think that?” “Because if he were lying to us, he’d come up with something less stupid.” Rainbow frowned, then nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. What do you think we should do?” She took a deep breath and shifted her weight back and forth on her hooves. “I’m … not sure that helping him is going to be productive. I am sure that helping him will not be enjoyable. And I think we could probably check into a few things on our own without him first. And depending on what we find, or don’t find, we can at least narrow down whether or not he’s telling the truth, or if he’s covering something up. And we could always come back and offer to help him later depending on what we figure out.” “All right, so a big fat ‘no’ to his smug face.” She grinned. “You wanna tell him the bad news, or can I?” She popped a kink in her neck. “Seeing as we might want to work with him later and I’m not sure how willing he’d be if you told him the way I think you want to tell him, I better do it.” Her horn flashed and the sphere of silence melted around them. “Spoil sport.” They walked the few feet back to Basil, and the very confused and bored looking Cutie Mark Crusaders. Twilight smiled politely. “We’ve talked it over, and—” “You’ll join me?” Basil said, exhaling a stream of smoke. “It’s only natural to do so; I believe we will make a formidable ensemble. I suggest our first stop is to—” “And we will not be joining you, sorry.” Twilight cut in, even-toned but firm. Basil froze, and goggled at her in surprise. “No offense, but Rainbow and I already make a pretty great team. If there’s a petty thief in our town causing trouble for ponies, the two of us will definitely be there to try and stop them.” She smiled, trying to keep the satisfaction out of her expression. “We’ll let you know if we have any questions for you.” Basil was dumbstruck for a few moments, blinking at her across his half-moon spectacles. Slowly he set his jaw, grunted, and straightened. “Very well, if that is your answer, I am accustomed to working on my own. A pity, I suppose, but that is all it is.” He held a brief, critical gaze on Twilight, then turned back towards town. “I trust our disputes may remain behind us going forward and our business settled for now, and thus I bid good day to you, madams all.” He set off at a determined pace, looking stung, though far more dignified than the last time he’d run off. The group fidgeted in silence until he was out of sight. “So …” Sweetie Belle mumbled. “… What the heck was all of that?” “That is a very good question, Sweetie,” Twilight sighed. She turned back from the street and looked at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Scootaloo fiddled with the wagon wheel in one hoof and squeaked the wagon’s handle back and forth with the other, looking more itchy than anything else, while Sweetie and Apple Bloom’s expressions shifted through different levels of confusion. “A failure to figure anything out for sure, if nothing else.” “You got to hear a crazy pony go on about acorns for a while, at least,” Rainbow said through snickers. Twilight rolled her eyes and smiled. “Anyway, I think the three of you have had enough of your time taken up by this craziness. We’ll let you have a chance to fix your wagon and get back to what you were going to do today. Thank you very much for your help, and for humoring us.” “Finally,” Scootaloo said, flipping the wagon over on its side and looking at the axle. “AB, you still have the wrench, or is that back at the club house?” “Club house. But hang on.” Apple Bloom looked back to Twilight. “I wanna know what’s goin’ on!” Sweetie nodded vigorously. “Yeah! That was so, so … anticlimactic!” “What were y’all talkin’ about in that bubble? Is it really somepony called Diamond Acorn who took our wheel, or was Basil fibbin’?” “And what about all that stuff you said about how inductive reasoning works?” Sweetie pressed up against Scootaloo to look at the underside of the wagon. Scootaloo jumped out of the way like she’d been shocked, then ran a hoof through he mane and looked away. “Like, these are coffee grounds. How come we didn’t notice before?” Apple Bloom ran up to the tree and put her forelegs on the trunk to look up at the canopy. “An’ what’d he say about this tree? That it ain’t the right kinda tree for acorns? ‘Cause it ain’t, but that don’t mean much in Ponyville, there’re oaks all over the place.” “And—” Twilight cleared her throat loudly, and the three of them jumped. Rainbow snickered again. “I’m afraid the answer to all of those questions is that I have no idea.” “Aww!” Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle said in unison. Scootaloo took advantage of the distraction to try and work the wheel back onto the wagon. “I’ll tell you three what. If … when … if Rainbow and I have a better idea of what’s going on, I promise we’ll tell you.” “Ugh, fiiiine,” Sweetie grumbled. Pouting, Apple Bloom raised a hoof. “Maybe we could help ya still!” “No we can’t!” Scootaloo said, trying to twist off a bolt with her hooves. “Shush, Scoots, this is important! An’ also I wanna know what’s goin’ on!” “And I want to fix the dumb wheel on the dumb wagon and go do something dumb, like jump over the river!” She crossed her hooves over her chest and turned. “C’mon, Sweetie, back me up on this.” “Um …” Sweeties cheeks colored. “I mean … that sounds … fun, too, but—” “Ah, for peat’s sake!” Apple Bloom shouted. “Why you gotta always take Scoots’ side on everythin’!” “Hey, leave her alone! She just wants—” Sweetie shouted over them. “But, I want to know what’s going on with Mister Basil, and the wheel, and the acorn thing, too!” “See? It’s two to one, Scoots, let’s help ‘em! We can fix the wagon afterwards, it ain’t goin’ nowhere.” “Aaaaaaugh!” Twilight cleared her throat again and gave them a weak smile when they all turned. “I appreciate the offer to help, but I think I’m still done for the day. This is all too much and I just want to lie down, but I have a few errands I need to run first.” A chorus of disappointed whines and a muffled ‘yes!’ answered her. Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Errands? What errands?” She rubbed her brow and let out a long breath. “I need to check in with Fluttershy about the letter she sent, which means I have to go to the marketplace and get some carrots for Angel, because I don’t want to see what happens if I show up there without any. While I’m in town, I need to go back to the café and see if my mug is still there.” She hefted Rainbow’s mug in her magic for a moment. “And while I’m out of town by Fluttershy’s, I should stop in at Sweet Apple Acres to thank Big Macintosh for humoring Spike last night. And speaking of Spike, I really need to get home and check on him, or I might find him in an ice cream coma on a pile of dirty laundry.” “Oh, hey, I saw him when I got that newspaper, he was doing the laundry while I was there.” “Oh, good,” she breathed out in relief. “That’s one less thing for now, then. Which means I might even have time to go to the Canterlot garden maze and check on a certain statue. Maybe. That will probably not happen today.” She turned back to the Crusaders. “Only a few of those things have anything to do with all of this. I’d invite you along to talk with Fluttershy, but, um … did … did you girls hear about what happened with her and Basil Bones this morning?” She heard muffled giggles from Rainbow and focused on keeping her eye from twitching. “Yeah,” Scootaloo answered, “but it didn’t make any sense. Something about Fluttershy fishing? I dunno what’s so bad about hooking fish, she has, like, bears and stuff, bears gotta eat, too.” Apple Bloom nodded. “I don’t get what’s so funny about it, neither.” “We probably heard it wrong, or being a hooker means two things.” Sweetie turned to Twilight. “Does being a hooker mean two things?” Twilight made herself stone-faced and tried to ignore the strangled wheezing noise Rainbow was making. “I think things will be better if I talk to Fluttershy by myself. Sorry, girls, I’ll keep my promise to let you know if I find anything out.” “Okay …” Apple Bloom whined. “Wait, what about Rainbow Dash?” Sweetie said. “Are you going to keep looking for clues? Maybe we could help you!” Apple Bloom turned to Rainbow expectantly, and Scootaloo perked up from her annoyance and looked over with interest. “Uhh …” Rainbow’s eyes darted between the three of them. Apple Bloom sighed. “You’re probably goin’ with Twilight, huh?” Rainbow swallowed and glanced at Twilight, a shimmer of panic rippling over her expression. “Umm …” She cleared her throat. “I, uh, have other stuff going on.” She opened her wings. “Sorry, girls, I’ll have to catch up with you later.” With one last darting look at Twilight, she took off, speeding towards the center of town. Twilight’s spirits sank, and she drooped her ears. “Well, nice while it lasted,” she muttered. Scootaloo scratched her head. “That was weird. Is she okay?” “I …” Twilight straightened up. “Yes, Scootaloo, she’s fine, it’s just been a challenging morning for everypony.” She forced a smile and stared off in the direction Rainbow had fled in. “Everything’s okay.” She looked back at the three of them, who didn’t say anything, but she could tell they believed her about as well as she believed herself. “Thanks again for all your help, and …” She shifted back and forth on her hooves in thought for a moment. “And sorry for how nonsensical everything’s been. I better get to the marketplace before Golden Harvest runs out of carrots. You three have a good day.” “Bye, Twilight!” the Cutie Mark Crusaders called in unison as she waved, collected Rainbow’s mug off the ground, and turned away. As Twilight walked along the path back into town, she heard Apple Bloom saying, “I knew hookin’ had to mean somethin’ else, too.” “But Twilight didn’t say anything,” Scootaloo said. “That’s how ya know it means somethin’ else!” Twilight groaned and sped up her pace. Carrots for Angel, an apology gift for Big Macintosh, and an apology-in-advance gift for Applejack, for when the three of them inevitably asked her what a hooker was. “Can today just be over?” She asked herself. “If not, can I at least get something solid to go on from Fluttershy’s bat? Hopefully he’s still awake. She? Fluttershy wrote its name down …” She patted at her bare side and stopped cold. She turned back towards the Carousel Boutique. The Crusaders had cleared out, heading off in the opposite direction, but she could see the folded up note and rumpled newspaper sitting on the ground beneath the tree. She groaned and stomped back the way she came. “Okay, first stop, home. If today can’t be over, I’m going to need a saddlebag.”