At Lightning Dust’s house, first thing in the morning, I start narrating in my head again as the other three cover the rest of the house.
There I am, surveying the yard, the mailbox, the foyer… anywhere I can reasonably look for mail.
I spy an envelope near the living room, a letter on top. “This has to be the forged letter.”
I pick up the envelope and its contents with my magic, suddenly seeing strands of hair falling out of the former, but it doesn’t surprise me. “Beige and grey, two prevalent fur colors. Shedding season is starting after all.” Discord gulps in anxiety as I straighten out the strands to determine their lengths, something I’ll also have to put a pin in for later.
Discord may be getting tense, but I wouldn’t raise those shoulders quite yet. Reading the letter, just as the guards say, it looks typed rather than written.
I take the letter with me when I approach the kitchen, Lightning Dust and Fluttershy across the room. “Lightning Dust, do you know what font U-Fly uses?” I ask.
“Sure. Consolas at 12 pt.”
I rock my hat back and forth in confirmation. “That checks out. U-Fly replied to my letter, and that’s what their text looked like when Twilight read it. But this letter does not have that specific text. If I had to guess, this is the same font as I see at school: Roboto Mono at 14 pt.”
Fluttershy joins in on the conversation. “You mean the Foal Free Press?”
I nod. “Exactly.”
Well, it’s time we move out and get back to school.
While arriving at the school with my friends in tow, my thoughts kick in again.
If we’re gonna get to the bottom of this case, Lightning Dust’s printed forged letter indicates that somepony at the Foal Free Press must have seen the culprit.
I lead everyone around back to the entrance of the basement. At this point, I can see the editor-in-chief, Featherweight.
“Aita? I thought you were home.”
“Oh don’t worry about me, Featherweight. I just wanted to get some eventual information. It won’t be long, I promise.”
I teleport in the forged letter to show while Lightning Dust explains the situation. “See, when I got a notice in the mail about the rental chariot I used to move in, we found it to be the same font the news writes here.”
Featherweight examines the message and sits down. “Roboto Mono, size 14. That’s ours. Someone must’ve been in here yesterday after school was out.”
“Would you happen to know any student that was still here before five-o-five in the afternoon?”
Featherweight nods at me. “Yes. Somepony actually asked me to give him the grand tour of the school when I got around to work yesterday, about three hours earlier. It was quite hard to tell what he looked like though.”
“Hmm…” I better write that down. The culprit was discrete… his actions should help then. “Could it be somepony rich? Somepony inexperienced in printing?”
“Well, I don’t know about the former, but definitely the latter. It certainly was a riot seeing him fiddling with the press… I suppose U-Fly has a different configuration.”
Configuration… that means my school uses the same press model U-Fly does.
“Eeyup… seventy point two point one,” Featherweight announces.
I blush a little when I realize I got caught up in the moment again, but then clear my throat. “Thanks Featherweight. I think I know where our next stop is. Discord?”
Discord snaps his claw and teleports me, him, Lightning Dust and Fluttershy to Cloudsdale, specifically in front of the main U-Fly lot. Chariots line the lot like cars at a dealership back in my homeworld. It’s hard to see the building with that many of them.
One pegasus spots us from the other side of the lot and flies right up to us. “Aita! Lightning Dust! What are you doing back?” This must be Lend Out. He seems to sound like a wrestler instead of a dealership owner, but I never flinch at that.
“Hello Lend Out. We’re in the process of solving a case revolving around Lightning Dust.”
“You mean the fake?” Lend Out asks.
“Eeyup. See, Discord’s been framed for sending it, and that’s how we’re back, identifying the culprit.”
Lend Out widens his pupils. “Ah, I see, Aita.”
“Did you see anything going on yesterday shortly after I signed the agreement?” asks Lightning Dust.
“Hmm… I did see somepony. He made himself as discrete as possible; I know that. The only thing he revealed when I questioned him using the press here was… well, he had a friend moving to pursue cosmetics.”
“Cosmetics?” Fluttershy says. “There’s an actual job for that?”
“I believe it, Lend Out.” I write about the crime being a collaboration. “So there was a partnership involved. Did this friend of his happen to be… wealthy?”
“Not that I knew,” replies Lend Out. “I only know that I had to reconfigure the font at the press once the stallion left.”
Discord groans. “This isn’t going anywhere…”
Discord is doubting my methods, but I know exactly what I’m doing.
“Yes it is, Discord,” I reassure. “We at least know there were TWO culprits rather than one: one was a pegasus, and one excelled in cosmetics. That at least explains the two different types of strands. Now, why don’t we take the snap back home? I have a couple of questions for a couple of our friends.”
“Ugh, fine.” Discord rolls his eyes and snaps his claw to take us back to Ponyville.
I take a quick look at the notepad, flipping through all the notes. All this text, moving, school, and whatever else is really captivating. Now I know how Rarity felt when she did the same in Canterlot.
I have now taken up to five pages worth of notes, and everything is pointing to ponies our friends have had encounters with in the past. A dash of apple won’t hurt investigations here. They have the deepest links to these criminals.