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// Case 1: Im in ur kitchen stealin ur gifts 
// Story: My Little Investigations: Twilight Cases 
// by Brony_of_Brody 
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I don't own MLP:FIM. I also have nothing to do with GabuEx, or My Little Investigations. Go support him and his project, though. That would be awesome.

Twilight Sparkle looked around the hall. She always enjoyed coming to one of Pinkie’s parties, but looking around, she could see that Pinkie really went out of her way to make this one as fun as it could be.

It was Hearth’s Warming Eve, and ponies all over Ponyville had been invited to Pinkie’s ‘Hearth’s Warming Eve Super Snowy Party’. Twilight had heard talk about it, but had never attended one until today; the last Hearth’s Warming Eve she spent with her friends was in Canterlot performing a play. Right now, she was at the back room of Sugarcube Corner, looking around and watching the other guests. Twilight knew that Sugarcube Corner was a famous bakery, not just in Ponyville, and it showed; the party looked anything but modest, exactly how Pinkie wanted.

Twilight could see most of the guests were ponies she recognised; there was a unicorn with wild blue hair and purple shades messing around with a mixing board, while a grey earth pony with black hair sort of stared disapprovingly, a pink pony with a grape coloured mane passed out on the floor, and a grey Pegasus with a blond mane, who Twilight remembered always seemed to be wherever there was something interesting happening. All of them were wearing some sort of costume like a simple dress or suit (except for the DJ who hadn’t bothered and just come as herself and the grey mare in the paper bags).

“Hey Twilight? Enjoying the party?”

Twilight jumped, before turning around. The voice belonged to Pinkie Pie, one of Twilight’s friends and the host of the party.

“Oh yeah. So this is your annual party?”

“Yuh huh! You think this is fun? But you haven’t seen anything yet! We’ve got all sorts of other things to do and…oh my gosh I’m not supposed to say because it’s all meant to be a surprise…”

“Pinkie…”

“But I guess it would be still a surprise if it still happened when you least expect since to be a surprise it has to still actually surprise you independent of whether you’re expecting it or not…”

“PINKIE! There’s somepony at the door.”

“Oh. OH! Sorry, Twilight! Be right back!” And with that, Pinkie ran off towards the door. Twilight followed her towards the entrance of Sugarcube Corner and saw Pinkie disengage a security crystal that Twilight gave to Pinkie last year, and open the door. She was greeted by a sky blue earth pony with not much mane, wearing a neat black suit. He was rather damp, considering he seemed to have been walking in the snow outside to get there.

“Oh hi, Track Maker!” said Pinkie, cheerful as ever. “Sheesh, you poor thing, your hair’s soaked! I could wring it out for you if you wanna…”

“No, it’s all right,” muttered Track. He wiped his hooves on the mat and walked inside. “What’d I miss?”

“Not much! We’ll have the main event starting real soon! So you’re right on time!”

Track smiled, and mingled with the rest of the guests in the back room. Twilight walked up to Pinkie Pie. “Who’s he?”

“Oh, him?” said Pinkie. “He’s Track Maker, Mr and Mrs Cake’s old friend from Maresenal! He’s our ingredient supplier at Sugarcube Corner! Oh, and Mrs Cake’s old school friend.”

“And did you really offer to wring out his hair?” Twilight knew that Pinkie tried to be friendly and hospitable to everypony, but…

“Well, yeah! His toupee must have been totally wet from walking out in the snow with no hat on!”

“Oh. Well, he can dry it off himself, can’t he?”

“It was a joke.”

“Oh.” Twilight was a pretty literal mare, being a magic scholar, and wasn’t that quick to pick up on jokes. Or make good ones.

“Sheesh, egghead. You’re so literal.”

Twilight swivelled round, and saw some more of her friends; Rainbow Dash, hovering a few centimetres of the ground, wing beating, and Applejack, in her trademark Stetson hat. Rainbow spoke up again. “So, apparently something’s about to happen in a couple of hours?”

Pinkie gasped. “Oh my gosh, you’re going to find it so FUN! But I can’t say what it is, yet.”

The four of them talked for a good while, with talk topics ranging from Pinkie’s new security system to Twilight chiding Rainbow for the sudden outbreak of snow leaving Pinkie’s last guest with a soaked toupee. Twilight’s attention wandered occasionally, at one point spotting Mr and Mrs Cake (Pinkie’s employers) talking with Track about the new kind of barley sugar they were using. Suddenly, Pinkie looked at her watch, and gasped. “Oh my gosh, it’s nearly time! Stay here everypony, I’ll be back to get our SPECIAL guest!”

And with that, Pinkie disappeared in a flash of pink absurdity upstairs to her room. “Special guest?” repeated Applejack. She was briefly wondering where Pinkie’s watch came from. Especially since it didn’t seem like she was wearing one just now.

Exactly 23.34 seconds later, Pinkie returned. She was now wearing a red woolly hat and a rather luxuriant beard. “Ho ho ho!”

Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight stared at her. “Pinkie?” said Rainbow Dash.

“No, silly! I’m St. Pink, I deliver presents to good fillies and colts!”

“But it’s so obviously you,” Applejack remarked, with a level of deadpan that would have impressed even the most dead pony.

“Yeah, I get that a lot. But the truth is we are two completely different ponies altogether.”

“Right,” Twilight said. “And where are the presents you’re meant to deliver?”

This was met with a brief pause of absolutely no conversation between the four at all. Just then, Mr Cake walked up to them. “I’ll take you to the kitchen. The presents are there.”

“Did you ask Pinkie to play Santa Trots for the party?” Twilight asked him.

“Well, yes,” Mr Cake smiled. “My idea. Pinkie wanted to give presents to everypony she invited, and, well, I had some things to give to my old friends myself, so I thought I could give everypony everything together this way.”

“And it’s not Santa Trots, it’s St Pink,” ‘St Pink’ corrected him. “And I’m not being played by Pinkie, silly.”

“Gotta admit, that’s real dedication there,” Applejack remarked, as Pinkie and Mr Cake walked towards the kitchen.

2 minutes later, Pinkie came back into the room with Mr Cake, with a rather full looking brown sack in tow. “Ho ho ho! Happy Heath’s Warmin Eve, everypony!”

Pinkie made quite the show handing out the presents to the other guests. However, when Pinkie handed out the last present to a green unicorn (it was a collection of classical pieces for the lyre), Mr Cake frowned. He walked out towards the kitchen, and then came back a few minutes later. He whispered something to Mrs Cake, and announced to everypony in the room:

“I’m sorry, but a ruby necklace intended for Marble has gone missing. I’d like everypony to stay where they are while I inform the Royal Guard.”

All the guests in the room gasped. Mrs Cake was looking at Mr Cake in shock. “Mrs Cake’s present’s gone?” Pinkie whispered.

Twilight looked up. She was still new to the idea of being an investigative pony, but she was growing more confident that she could help. After all, she recently solved a case involving a rare jewel stolen from her friend’s house (and her cat, bizarrely), and came out mostly in one piece.

“Mr Cake, perhaps I can help?”

Mr and Mrs Cake looked at her. “Twilight? I’d be uneasy with just you,” Mrs Cake said quietly.

“Please, Mrs Cake?” Pinkie pleaded. “Twilight’s super smart, I’m sure she’ll figure out where it went! She’ll get it all over before the Royal Guard needs to come in!”

“Mr Cake, this isn’t my first case I’ve investigated,” Twilight added. “I can help.”

Mr and Mrs Cake paused, before Mrs Cake said, “Dear, if Pinkie thinks Twilight can do it, then…”

“Well…” sighed Mr Cake. “Okay. I’m counting on you, Twilight and Pinkie.”

“Excellent,” Twilight nodded. The game was afoot. “Pinkie, come with me.”

“Ooh, so I get to play the lowly assistant this time?” Pinkie asked. The first time Pinkie was involved in a case she had been the detective, but didn’t get far before Twilight had to step in.

“Be serious, Pinkie,” Twilight sighed. Just then, she saw Rainbow Dash and Applejack trot towards the two of them.
“Hey Twi,” Applejack said. “So Mrs Cake’s present took a walk, huh?”

“Seems so,” Twilight said. “Actually, Rainbow, Applejack, there’s something you two could do for me.”

“Sure. What is it?” Rainbow asked. Twilight knew that Rainbow would never turn a friend down (as long as her attention could be held to the job).

“I’d like you to stay here with the other guests and search them. You know, just in case one of them stole it.”
“Gotcha,” Applejack grinned.

“If they’ve got it, we’ll sniff it out,” Rainbow said with confidence.

“Alright, folks, we got ourselves an incident here, as y’all know, so Twilight wants everypony to stay here and get themselves searched,” Applejack told the other guests. “Now if y’all wanna go home tonight, you’d best do as we say.”

While Applejack and Rainbow looked around, Twilight and Pinkie made their way back to talk with Mr and Mrs Cake. They were in the kitchen, looking rather sullen.

“Mr Cake, I’ve got Applejack and Rainbow investigating the guests. So, let’s go over what happened…”

“Hey!” Pinkie said. She had wandered off during this time to poke around, remembering how Twilight looked for clues before coming to a conclusion; something Pinkie didn’t do last time. She had her hoof in the waste paper basket in the kitchen. “There’s some present wrapping in here!”

She fished it out CAREFULLY (As Twilight had then yelled at her for potentially damaging evidence), before Twilight carefully straightened out the crumpled paper with magic. It was rather festively decorated, as one would expect from a Hearth’s Warming Eve present, with the label on the front reading, “To Rolly, from Santa Trots.”

“Who the heck’s Rolly?” Pinkie asked. “I don’t know anypony with a name like that…Ooh, maybe it’s a nickname!”

“You’re right,” Mrs Cake said. “It’s mine.”

“Huh?” Pinkie stared at Mrs Cake.

“My wife’s nickname when she was a filly,” Mr Cake explained. “Her first name’s Marble, so I nicknamed her that since marbles are to be rolled, so…”

“So, this wrapping must be what held the necklace,” Twilight ventured. “It’s been opened, so it must have been stolen.”

“Oh sweet Celestia…small wonder,” murmured Mr Cake. “It WAS probably the most expensive present in the sack…”

“When did you last see it?” Twilight asked him.

“I kept in in the safe, in the kitchen. It was the last gift to go in with all the others Pinkie wanted to keep safe. I put it in the sack along with all the other presents and hid it underneath the kitchen sink. And there it stayed until Pinkie needed it.”

“Pinkie,” Twilight said.

Pinkie snapped alert, who was pondering what it would be like to have a nickname like Rolly, and looked at Twilight. “Who, me?”

“It was just you, Mr and Mrs Cake, and the party guests at the time, right?”

“Yup,” said Pinkie. “No-one could sneak in, that crystal you installed at our house would have gone off like fireworks if anypony tried!”

“You’re the host, do you remember anypony leaving the party at any point?”

“Umm…” Pinkie racked her memory. “Lyra (that street busker) went to the bathroom at the side. I gave her present last. Track Maker, remember him? He left for the bathroom too. And there was Carrot Top and Ditzy the mail mare; they needed the little fillies’ room, too.”

“Oh yeah, Carrot’s that pony who hangs around with Ditzy. How long were they gone?” Twilight asked.

“Um, Lyra and Track only left for about five minutes each. Carrot was gone for about two; she came back saying there was a spider in the bathroom. Ditzy went to get her, but apparently it had gone. It only took a minute for her.”

“So they’re the most suspicious ones…” Twilight murmured. “Oh hang on, before I go, just one thing…do you usually get Santa Trots as a party event?”

“No,” Mrs Cake answered. “It was the first time.”

“I told you that I wanted to mix it with the fact Pinkie would have brought everypony else presents,” Mr Cake reminded her.
“Okay, thanks, Mr and Mrs Cake. We’ll be back.” The two of them nodded.



Twilight walked back to the back room with Pinkie. She was going over the four ponies Pinkie mentioned, but was struggling to think about a possible opportunity that seemed more…opportunistic, so to speak, than the others. But before she could gather her thoughts again, Rainbow Dash and Applejack approached her. They both looked disappointed.

“Checked ‘em all out, like you asked,” Applejack sighed. Nopony was hiding anythin’ in their suits or dresses.”

“And nopony would admit to stealing it anyway,” Rainbow remarked. But then she picked herself up. “Oh well, we’ll get there!”

“Just gotta pace yerselves,” Applejack agreed. “One step at a time. ‘He who is last shall be first’ and all that…you’ll get to the bottom of this eventually.”

Twilight paused. “Last…shall be first…”

Just then, a flood of Logic came pouring into Twilight’s thoughts. She remembered Mr Cake’s words. She then grinned.

“Got it!”

“What?” asked Applejack.

“I've figured out who’s got the necklace!”

“No way!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. Then she grinned. “Amazing as always, egghead.”

“Pinkie, get Mr and Mrs Cake. I don’t want them to miss this!”



“Everypony, can I have your attention please!” Twilight announced, to everypony present in the room. “I now know where the necklace intended for Mrs Cake is, and…who’s got it.”

All the guests save for Applejack and Rainbow turned to each other, murmuring quietly among themselves. Rainbow muttered about how they should probably get on with it and just frisk who had the necklace, but Twilight wasn’t about to be interrupted. 

“Let’s not dally,” Twilight smirked. This was it, the part she read about in her detective stories. The part where she announces her findings to an audience of suspects while she gradually revealed the puzzle.

“Somepony went into the kitchen, and found the sack containing the present inside. They then unwrapped it and threw the wrapping in the garbage, taking the necklace for themselves.” Twilight then showed the wrapping in plain view to the guests. Everypony could see the label in front.

“Now, going over what Pinkie told me, only 4 guests in this room ever left the party. Only they could have taken it from the sack.” Twilight pointed her hoof at the ones Pinkie mentioned. “Ditzy, Carrot Top, Track Maker and Lyra. One of you four.”

“What?” Carrot Top exclaimed. “That’s crazy talk! I didn’t do it. Ditzy didn’t do it…”

“Not so crazy when you think about it logically,” Twilight remarked. “Pinkie had a special crystal in place that would have shone towards intruders, so nopony outside could have taken it. It was also stolen at around the same time Pinkie…”
“St Pink!”

Twilight stared at Pinkie. It seemed she was still determined to hide her identity. “St Pink then…was about to deliver everypony’s presents.”

“But St Pink went to the kitchen to get the sack too!” Lyra pointed out.

“But Mr Cake went to the kitchen with her. She couldn't have taken it without being seen, and she couldn't have gotten rid of the wrapping there either.”

Twilight paused. Dramatic effect. “Mr Cake said that he kept that necklace in the safe along with the other presents before putting it in the sack. It was apparently the last thing to go in the safe.

“Truth be told, I didn't make the connection at first, until Applejack said ‘He who is last shall be first’. Last is first…that’s the key. Since the necklace was the last thing to be put in the safe, it would have been the FIRST present to go into the sack with the others!”

“So?” asked Ditzy. Her good eye stared at Twilight intently.

“Think about what that entails,” Twilight said. “To get that necklace specifically, you’d have to wade through twenty or so other presents in the sack just to get it, straight after looking for the sack. Pretty time consuming stuff, right, probably taking several minutes? So that means neither Ditzy nor Carrot Top can be the thieves; they weren’t gone long enough.”

Ditzy and Carrot Top breathed a sigh of relief. “But Twilight,” Carrot Top said, “How’d the thief know WHAT to look for? I mean, they couldn’t have known that there was even a necklace in there at the start right? All the other presents looked fine when St Pink handed them out to everypony!”

“Well, even if you’d never been to a big party at Sugarcube Corner like this one, with Sugarcube Corner and its owners being so well-known, it’s not hard to imagine Mr Cake’s present to Mrs Cake, or vice versa, would be the most expensive one. But you’re right; clearly the thief was looking for THAT present specifically. But what gives it away?”

Twilight held up the wrapping again for all to see. “’To Rolly, from Santa Trots’.”

“Who?” asked Lyra.

“Only a nickname on the wrapping. So how would the thief know this was meant for Mrs Cake, unless they knew that was her nickname? Clearly impossible for somepony who only talks to the Cakes as customer and baker, especially since Mrs Cake isn’t called by that nickname in public…”

Twilight then turned to Track Maker. “But Mrs Cake’s old school friend, on the other hoof…”

Track Maker spluttered. “You…you can’t mean…”

“I do mean,” Twilight said sternly. “Track Maker, the culprit is you. You’re the only one who had both the time to look and the knowledge of what to look for. 

“You most likely heard from Mr and Mrs Cake about the use of their new barely sugar they got from you and you went to the kitchen, curious about what they were using it for. It was then you saw the sack underneath the kitchen sink…”

“But Twilight,” protested Applejack, “We searched Track’s suit and we didn’t find the necklace!”

“Did you try his toupee?” asked Twilight.

“Wait, that’s a WIG?” Rainbow asked.

“That’s the only place he could hide it. He knew his suit would have gotten searched once news got round the necklace was missing.”

Twilight turned to Track Maker. “So, Track, could you please take your toupee off?”

Right on cue, Rainbow Dash hovered over him, her wings beating in earnest, and she suddenly lifted the toupee off his head. There it was; the necklace with a single polished ruby hanging in the middle.

Track dropped to the floor.

“I was…in need of that necklace…” Track groaned. “I gave money to somepony I know as a loan, but she never paid it back. I had a lot of payments to make and I was falling behind, fast. So I needed the money immediately, and so I thought…the party would be…”



Twilight stepped out of Sugarcube Corner, in time to see the local Royal Guard give Track a stern dressing down. She felt awfully pleased with herself.

“Still, I feel awful sorry for Mr and Mrs Cake,” Applejack said sadly to Twilight, snapping her out of her smug mood. “What’s gonna happen to the three of them, you think?”

“Oh it’ll be fine!” Pinkie said, bouncing happily. “I mean stealing was wrong and everything, but he was desperate! And he did give it back afterwards!”

“Rainbow sighed. “Only you could be that optimistic, Pinkie…”

“Well, to be fair, everypony was pretty easily forgiven after that whole incident with the cake,” Twilight reminded them. “Not much of a stretch to think that.”

Pinkie smiled. “I think we should just stop thinking about that now and think about something fun instead!”

“But everypony else’s gone home,” Applejack said.

“Oh. But we COULD still have a ‘Twilight-Solved-The-Mystery Party’ at Twilight’s place. Right?”

Twilight sighed. “Boy, am I going to regret this in the morning…but what the hay, why not.”

And with that, the four friends walked towards the Golden Oaks Library, with Pinkie chattering away about what they could do when they got there. Twilight decided to just mentally prepare herself for the unscheduled day off she’d have to have the next day afterwards…