//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DETECTIVES YAY!!!!" // Story: Equestria Noir Case 5 "Bonds of Madness" // by Jacoboby1 //------------------------------// Chapter 5 “CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DETECTIVES YAY!!!” “So somepony throws a rock in your window with a clear threat on it and you aren’t arresting Dawnbird?” Forceps said as he examined Cardinal’s small body. “I don’t have evidence that Cardinal’s death was anything beyond an accident” I said pacing the town morgue’s floor. “What do you have on her?” Forceps shook his dark head “I hate it when you bring fillies in” He sighed somberly and gently moved Cardinal’s mane out of her eyes. “Such a waste of life” I nodded at my old friend “I’m sorry I have to, so what can you tell me about her that I don’t already know?” Forceps gestured with his hoof at the large head injury on Cardinal’s head. “Here’s your main cause of death, blunt force trauma caused by the rocks at the bottom of the well” He shook his head “Damn shame that she had to go like this” “Anything unusual about the body?” I asked looking at the scarlet filly. “One thing I did find unusual” He picked up a swab and ran it along the filly’s hoof. He held it in front of my face “Smell this” I took a sniff of the swab and smelled a very odd scent. “It smells like Olive Oil, I recognize the scent back when I worked at Potso’s restaurant” Forceps nodded “It’s all over her hooves, was she standing on olive oil?” I tapped my hoof to my chin in thought. “Now that you mention it, Dinky did say that Cardinal was standing on top of the edge of the well before she fell” Forceps smiled “I’m starting to think that this little filly’s death was no accident” He then looked at the young filly and his expression turned somber “Whatever monster did this deserves to be in here. Not this young filly who never did anything wrong” I looked at my friend and my own expression turned somber “You have any kids Forceps?” He nodded “Just the one daughter who wants nothing to do with me" He sighed "Just looking at this young filly reminds me of when she was that small” He walked to Cardinal and gently set his gloved hooves on the filly’s head “Private, you make the son of a bitch pay you got it?” I nodded firmly “You have my word Forceps” ________________________________________________ I stood in front of Rainbow and Applejack as they stood erect in front of Ditzy’s house. “Now, nopony is to go in or out of Ditzy and Dinky’s house unless they have special clearance form me do you got it?” Rainbow made a salute “You got it Private! We’ll make sure that nopony hurts Derpy!” Applejack saluted as well “Ya can count on us sugarcube. You focus on getting this case done and over with” I nodded to each of them in turn “If anypony tries to get inside I want you to knock them out and give me a call. Also, I left a pair of pistols inside in case things get intense” They both nodded as I turned to walk away. I trusted the two of them to keep an eye on things but that feeling of dread from earlier came back. The killer was getting confident; he managed to send a message to me without getting caught. I walked around town and got looks from several passersby. They were all hoping that I could solve this. It reminded me of Big Mac’s case when I first arrived at Ponyville. I just hope I could solve this before anypony else got hurt. I was about halfway to my destination when I heard a voice trying to whisper behind me. I turned around to see a nearby bush beginning to speak. I frowned as the bush tried desperately not to look suspicious. “There he is! Ah told ya guys he’d be on the case!” “Be quiet Applebloom! You’ll blow our cover!” “We were hiding from him?” “Sweetie Belle you can be totally dense sometimes!” “Now look whose loud Scootaloo!” I sighed and used my magic to lift up the bush. I was greeted by the sight of Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo all hidden under the bush. I gave all three of them a scolding look and their heads looked at their hooves. “What are you girls doing following me?” Applebloom spoke up first “We’re sorry Private, we were trying to earn our cutie marks in sneakin around” Sweetie Belle turned to her friend and squeaked “I thought you said we were going to help him out in the case?” Scootaloo sighed in turn “So much for being sneaky about that” I looked at the fillies sitting before me. I noticed that all three of them were blank flanked. “Alright girls, come clean with what you three were doing” Scootaloo looked up at me with violet eyes “Well, Applebloom thought we could try getting our cutie marks in detective work” I raised an eyebrow “So you guys were following me with a bush?” Sweetie Belle spoke next “Well we wanted to talk to you directly but then Applebloom said we should try getting our cutie marks in being sneaky” I shook my head “I appreciate it girls but I don’t know how much help you three can be” Applebloom’s gold eyes looked up at me with pleading “Please Private! We wanna see if detective work will earn us our cutie marks” “I did notice that you all are blank flanks” I said gesturing to each of them in turn “So you three are trying to get your cutie marks?” All three spoke at once “Uh huh!” The yellow earth filly spoke “We’re on a mission to find our special talents!” Her orange friend spoke in turn “We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” I raised my eyebrow at this “Cutie Mark what now?” Sweetie looked at me with bright green eyes “Cutie Mark Crusaders! A society dedicated to finding our special talents and getting out cutie marks!” “By following around random bystanders?” I said flatly Applebloom shook her head “Well not that but, we really want to help you out!” Sweetie thought for a moment “Yeah we could be um…Cutie Mark Crusader Detectives!!” I really should’ve covered my ears for this next bit. YAYY!!!!CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DETECTIVES!!!! I shook my head to get the ringing out of my ears. The three girls looked at me hopefully. In my gut I knew I couldn’t sway them no matter what I said. I sighed and relented “Alright, you three can help out just this once” They cheered loudly and started bouncing around me in sheer joy. What the hell have I gotten myself into? ______________________________________________________ We got to the well just as the sun reached its zenith in the sky. The three crusaders were following me like a duck would its mother. I was really only humoring them. I didn’t really think they would be much help unless my case needed a cuteness factor or something. I got to the well and looked at the three crusaders. They all eagerly waited for me to say something. “Alright, you three go look in the bushes and see what you can find” Applebloom spoke up “What are we looking for exactly?” Scootaloo retorted to her friend “Clues duh, we have to find out who the bad guy is!” Sweetie gestured to the bushes “Let’s look over here!” The three dived into the bushes and started tearing up the place. I let out a bemused chuckle and turned my attention to the well. I ran my hoof over the top of the well’s wall and then I heard a small voice speak up next to me. “What’cha lookin fer Private?” I turned to look down at Applebloom who was looking at the well. I gestured to the well in question “Dinky said that Cardinal slipped when she fell down the well. It hasn’t rained recently has it?” The yellow filly shook her head “Not that Ah know of. We hadn’t had rain in a while Private. Don’t see how she could’ve slipped on this well” She stood on top of the well and one of her hoofs gave way. She was about to fall into the well when I grabbed her tail with my teeth. I pulled her out quickly and she looked up at me grateful. “Private ya saved mah life! Thank ya so much!” I smiled at the little filly “Just be more careful from now on” Applebloom lifted one of her hooves “What’s this gunk on my hoof?” She took a quick smell of it “It sure smells nice” I took a sniff of her hoof as well “No wonder you slipped, that’s olive oil you have on your hoof” “Olive oil?” Applebloom said licking the oil on her hoof. “Kinda tasty if you get past the dirt” I ran a hoof along the edge of the well. Sure enough there was olive oil all over it “Somepony covered the edge of the well with olive oil” “Why would somepony cover a well in cooking oil?” Applebloom said wiping her hoof on the grass. I nodded knowingly “Somepony who wanted to make sure a filly fell into the well like you almost did” Her eyes went wide “That’s horrible! Why would anypony do such a thing!?” I frowned “To make it look like an accident, our killer isn’t Dawnbird. But somepony else entirely. They wanted to make sure that whoever was here would fall. The question is why though?” Just then Scoot and Sweetie came out of the bushes. Scoot was holding a large bottle in her mouth. “We found this in the bushes over there!” Sweetie said as Scoot put the bottle on the ground. I levitated the bottle with my grey magic and looked at the label. “Glimmer brand olive oil? Good work girls” Scoot looked at me with a raised eyebrow “What’s a bottle of olive oil got to do with anything?” I put the bottle inside a plastic bag to keep it from getting contaminated “It might’ve blown this case wide open. We have our method of killing” Sweetie Belle spoke up excitedly “You mean we’ve helped solve a case! Girls check your flanks!” They all looked at their flanks and…blank…blank…and blank. They sighed sadly “No cutie marks” Scootaloo grumbled I smiled at all three of them “A cutie mark will come when it’s ready to come trust me” “What’s your cutie mark Private?” Applebloom asked curiously. I lifted the back of my trench coat to reveal the mark on my flank. It had a magnifying glass looking at a notebook. Many detectives in my department had similar cutie marks but I always took pride in my own. “I was the second to last colt in my class to earn his cutie mark” They all stared at my cutie mark in absolute wonder. “How’d ya earn it?” Applebloom asked excitedly. “A friend of mine was wrongly accused of a crime he didn’t commit. He was accused of stealing the food that we were going to use for a class picnic” All three sat listening to my story with keen interest. I could tell this was something very important to him. I went on, my tone taking on that of a storyteller. “Well, I was convinced that he didn’t do it so I did a little investigating. My friend was named Potso and he made the mistake of flirting with a filly that the school bully liked. Potso was accused of stealing the food because he was a pretty big guy and he was supposed to guard the food. I found out from the filly he flirted with who really stole the food and as it turned out it was the bully who took the food. I cleared everything up and from that point on” I gestured with my flank “I knew I wanted a career in law enforcement” “That’s such a cool story!” Sweetie Belle squeaked after I finished “So we need to help others in order to get our cutie marks!” “That’s not what I meant for you girls to get out of this…” I said nervously Scootaloo sprang to her hooves “Come on girls! Let’s try finding our cutie marks by helping our friends!” All three dashed off and I simply sighed “They’ll figure it out eventually; I just hope they do so before something bad happens” I looked over as Applebloom came back “Thank ya again fer savin me Private” I smiled down at the filly “You're very welcome Applebloom, you run along now” Applebloom smiled at me and then I heard Sweetie Belle and Scoot coming back “Look Sweetie Belle! I told you Applebloom had a crush on him!” The yellow filly suddenly turned scarlet and yelled at her friends “Ah do not!” Sweetie Belle began to speak in a rather sweet sounding sing song voice. “Private and Applebloom sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i…” “Yah better not finish that spellin!” Applebloom said as she took off after her friends. I shook my head and chuckled. “Fillies, what a load of fun trouble” I turned around and saw Twilight running towards me. “Private! Did you find anything!?” I nodded and levitated out the bottle “Found this at the crime scene, you recognize the brand at all?” Twilight levitated the bottle to eye level with her own magic. She examined the label with careful eyes “I haven’t heard of this brand….wait! Glimmer is the maker of this oil?!” “How is that important?” I asked Her violet eyes turned to me “I did a little digging on Dawnbird, her mother made olive oil before she went out of business” I went on to explain what happened here and what I discovered. Twilight nodded knowingly and spoke again. “You think somepony got a hold of this oil and wanted to make the death look like an accident?” I nodded “I’d bet my cutie mark on it, now we need to find out where the guy went after he coated the well in oil” “Guys over here!” I heard a voice speak from among the bushes. I turned to see Spike among the bushes standing over rather faint pony tracks. “I was running around the area looking for clues when I found them” I smiled at the baby dragon “Good work Spike, now we have a trail” Spike puffed out his chest in pride. Twilight looked at the tracks and her horn glowed “Let’s see if we can’t use a tracking spell to find out where our culprit went” The tracks glowed a faint violet and led into the Everfree forest. I frowned “Not this place again…” Twilight raised an eyebrow “Funny, the tracks are heading off in a different direction then most ponies go” I ventured ahead “Let’s find out where it leads, something tells me it’ll lead us to our killer” My two companions nodded and followed me into the darkness of the forest. _________________________________________________ “No matter how many times I come here this place still creeps me out” Spike said as he walked beside me. Twilight was leading now following the trail of glowing hoof prints as we ventured deeper and deeper into the dark forest. I looked at the nearby trees “Doesn’t look like many ponies come here, all these plants are way too overgrown and none of the paths are clear” “Either way this place is beyond creepy, let’s just find the killer and get outta here” Spike said looking around nervously. I tried to look brave for the little guy but I got this dark feeling of dread. I had no idea what to expect when I ventured on this quest. I had my magic around my revolver in my trench coat just in case anything popped out. “Oof!” I heard Twilight say as she ran into the side of a cliff. She shook her head and looked down at the hoof tracks “That doesn’t make sense, the tracks cut off as they go into this cliff” Spike started to sweat “You think our killer is a ghost…?” I shook my head “I doubt that a ghost would leave tracks Spike” “Oh yeah, I knew that” Twilight frowned and tapped the cliff with a hoof. She then put her ear to the cliff and tapped again “Private, it’s hollow” I put my own ear to the cliff and tapped my hoof on it. Sure enough I could hear a hollow sound emanating from the cliff. “Something is behind here” Twilight walked backward “Stand back” I did so just as Twilight’s horn glowed brightly. A beam fired from her horn and an acid like substance hit the cliff side. The acid melted the rocks of the cliff to reveal a cave entrance. I ventured forward and lit my horn like a flashlight as we entered the cave. I moved my light around the cave ready for any kind of ambush. Twilight spoke first “This cave hasn’t seen the light of day for years…look at all the dust and moss everywhere” “Our killer could’ve used this cave for any number of reasons” I said looking around the cave. “Probably used as an escape route…oh Celestia” I said as I stopped in my tracks. “What’s wrong Priv-“She stopped as she looked on what my light was shining on. Spike looked over my shoulder “What are you guys looking at?” He saw what I saw “What the heck is this place…?” Covered with dust was a small building inside the cave. It had a dust covered sign hanging above it. The words on it are what stopped me in my tracks. Glimmer of hope Abortion Clinic