Ponyville was for the most part a quiet town. All of its residents could agree to that much. Of course, it had seen its fair share of incidents, some of which highly uncommon (such as the rise of several mad deities, odd animal invasions, and if one were to get technical, Pinkie Pie), but otherwise, everypony in town could enjoy a simple life.
So, of course, an ear-splitting explosion from the outskirts of town was certainly not the first thing anypony expected. It was just any other normal day in Ponyville, with everypony going about their daily business. It was round about 10 in the morning when the explosion happened.
The resulting cloud of smoke rising could be seen all over town. Those who saw it ran straight to the source, while others sort of panicked (the default reaction for most living here). The sky was immediately filled with several pegasi, working together to fly back and forth calling for the local fire department. Within minutes, several ponies from the local Royal Guard were rushing to the scene of the explosion, two of which were in the square, barking out orders.
Any sense of normality had seemingly disappeared.
-
Twilight Sparkle was in the Golden Oaks Library when it happened. Her morning started fairly normally, like everypony else’s morning. She woke herself up, then roused Spike (he couldn’t wake himself up due to his age). She had breakfast which Spike made for her, before opting for a simple scourging spell in lieu of a shower, before getting to work, according to her triple-checked schedule.
First thing first, comb the library for books put back on the wrong shelves. Both Twilight and Spike took a shelf each, and began working in a clockwise direction, sorting the books. They had done about 3 shelves each when the explosion happened. The sudden sound of the blast caused Spike to fall of the stepladder he was on, and several books to come toppling off the shelf directly onto him.
Twilight gasped. “Oh my gosh! Spike, you okay?” Twilight began gingerly lifting the books off him via magic until Spike was visible again.
“Twilight…I don’t wanna eat my greens…” Spike burbled out, before finally snapping out of his dazed state. “Huh?”
“What was that all about?” Twilight asked, trotting up to the window. She saw the sight outside, and gasped again. Ponies in the square were panicking, and Royal Guards were flying towards a large cloud of smoke coming from across town, while several pegasi were trying to keep everypony else calm.
Twilight then saw a rainbow coloured blitz making a beeline for the window. Twilight squeaked out a frightened noise before ducking and covering, as Rainbow Dash came crashing straight through the window with a resounding sound of glass shattering.
“Um…we have a useable door, remember?” Spike muttered sarcastically, as he started to pick the shards off the floor.
“Twilight! Twilight, it’s terrible!” Rainbow gasped.
“Rainbow, calm down. What happened?”
“Well…” Rainbow breathed. “There was this explosion across the other side of town; it shook me off the cloud I was napping on! So I flew towards where it was to check it out, and I saw this house. It got totally demolished, and there were fires everywhere! So I flew here to tell you about it!”
“A house was destroyed?” Twilight was filled with dread. What if it was another threat to Ponyville, like the Changeling Queen Chrysalis, or a dragon, or worse? Twilight did tend to panic if things happened that she didn’t expect. “How?”
“No idea. Just saw the demolished house and flew straight here. Royal Guard’s all over it, though.”
“Which one? Our local one?” Twilight asked.
“Yeah. Come to think of it, there was one pony I didn’t recognise. Some guy who looked a little too smug for his own good. I mean, I can be a little sure of myself too, but this guy was as obnoxious as Trixie!”
Twilight paused. An obnoxiously smug and arrogant Royal Investigator? Surely not?
“Rainbow,” Twilight said. “Could you take me to where the explosion happened?”
“What?” Rainbow asked. “You’re not trying to stick your nose into what’s going on, are you?”
“No, but I want to keep that obnoxious pony you saw from sticking HIS nose into it, if possible.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll fly you there in 10 seconds flat, no problem. Quick question. Have you seen that guy before?”
“Once or twice,” said Twilight. “Now let’s get going.”
-
Twilight decided that it would probably be best to study up on spells to aid motion sickness by the time she got back home, after Rainbow Dash’s quick, but very uncomfortable trip to where the explosion happened. It took a little while for Twilight to get steady on her hooves again, but once she adjusted to the level ground again, she looked around the scene.
The sight she saw looked like a wreck. The house straight in her line of sight had been completely levelled; the roof was in several hundred pieces and there were blackened fragments all over the place. The front door had totally shattered, with three glass fragments still clinging on. Two were still attached to the left frame of the wooden door, but the third was attached to the other frame.
Judging by what Twilight could see, the blast seemed quite small, based on how the blast had only taken out the front half of the house. Even so, it was apparently powerful enough to level the living room and most of the garage outside.
“Horizontal explosion,” Twilight concluded.
“How’d you figure that?” Rainbow asked.
“The lower parts of the house as well as the garage on the side are the most badly damaged. A vertical blast would have taken the upper floor, too.”
Rainbow whistled. “Seriously, I don’t know how you do that but you’re seriously good at spotting these things.”
“Imagination. That’s all,” Twilight smiled. “You just need to imagine how it happened, based on what you can see.”
Twilight then looked around, this time not for an initial assessment, but for the Royal Guard that Rainbow described. Sure enough, a familiar arrogant laugh came from the side of the house. Trotting quickly to the source, Twilight came across who she expected to find; Officer Clue Lesdork.
“Oh. Hello,” Twilight let out a sigh.
Officer Clue turned, and saw Twilight. “Ah, it’s the wannabe detective pony! And what are YOU doing here?”
“Right back at you,” Twilight shot back. “Our local Guard should be investigating, so what’s a Canterlot Guard doing here?”
“I asked to be transferred!” Clue announced proudly. “After the several incidents involving this town, I thought that I’d have much more to do investigating in this town than in Canterlot. My talents are being wasted settling petty arguments among the classy folks, after all!”
Actually, I think their brain activity synchronises perfectly with yours, Twilight thought to herself.
“So you met?” Rainbow Dash asked, hovering towards Twilight.
“You know that incident at Colgate’s house? Saw him there,” Twilight said, deciding not to bite her tongue about what she really thought of him.
“Really? You didn’t mention him when you talked to me about it.”
He’s not much to talk about to be fair, Twilight thought, but she said, “I figured you’d be more interested in the case.”
“Twilight!” called a voice behind Twilight. She and Rainbow turned around, and saw Nurse Redheart, with a first-aid kit with her, bandaging up a red pony with a blue mane. Her patient had several bandages applied all over her body, as well as several plasters. She was also badly blackened.
“Hello! So you’re here to investigate, are you?” Nurse Redheart asked.
“Yeah. Who’s your patient?” Twilight asked.
“Oh, this is Garnet Flash. She’s the owner of this house. She got caught in the explosion just as she was leaving the house. By Celestia, she’s lucky she knew a shield charm, or a bad scorching would be the least of her worries.” Nurse Redheart then opened up a bottle, and poured several drops onto one of Garnet’s badly burned areas on her left front leg. She winced visibly and drew her leg back slightly.
“What happened?” asked Twilight. “How’d your house get blown up?”
“I’m not sure,” Garnet moaned. “I was just about to leave house for the day and do some odd jobs around town, when I saw that somepony was painting a Luna Republic symbol on the outside of my door. I went up for a closer look and to chase them away, and heard a hissing sound coming from a Gumhoof chemical solution from outside. I barely had time to erect a shield before the blast knocked me off my feet.”
“Huh,” Twilight said. “And the whole Luna Republic thing…”
“Oh, you know how some idiots think that Nightmare Moon could have made a better world for us,” Garnet said bitterly. “I’ve seen some ponies around town giving me some shifty looks, staring at me, just the other day, wearing navy blue scarves. It made me nervous.”
“Neo Luna Republic fanatics?” Rainbow said angrily. “Those jerks! Maybe they were the ones who…”
“Woah, Rainbow, easy,” Twilight warned. “You’ve got to keep a cool head.” She then remembered her freak out at the library only moments before, but decided not to bring that up now. So she sheepishly kept quiet about it, and got back to business.
“Well, you’re lucky it was a Gumhoof,” Twilight explained. “You wouldn’t have had time to cover yourself if it was any more instantaneous in its effects.”
“What IS a Gumhoof bomb, exactly?” Rainbow asked Twilight.
Garnet spoke up. “Um, while I was a Fillydelphia University student, I was told that it was a type of explosive made by mixing the Gumhoof plant with a compound of other potions. The moment the plant comes into contact with the mixture you have several seconds before it blows up in your face.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Twilight nodded. “It’s preferred since it at least gives its users time to make themselves scarce.”
“Are you finished asking questions?” Nurse Redheart asked. “I’ve really got to attend to Garnet now. She’s gone through a lot.”
“Oh, right. Sorry, I guess we should start our investigation. See you later,” Twilight said quickly. She motioned to Rainbow Dash to follow.
The first thing that Twilight decided to do was to survey the wreckage. Making her way towards what remained of the front door, she conjured up several plastic bags and made to inspect the pieces.
Twilight could see that one of the pieces of glass did indeed have a Luna Republic symbol painted on, as Garnet said. It was easy enough to identify; the circle, representing the moon, that was littered with several black rings. They were concentrated mostly on the left. It was about the size of Twilight’s head, and had painted on rather hastily. Freehoof. Twilight ran her hoof over the symbol, feeling the paint.
Twilight then shot a glance towards another piece of glass. On it was a rather badly smudged picture. Twilight couldn’t make out what it was supposed to be, but it appeared to be made of the same stuff as the symbol.
“You’re wasting your time,” Officer Clue said, as he trotted up to Twilight and Rainbow. “There’s nowhere where you can look that we haven’t already looked at.”
“So you can tell me what this smudged picture is?” Twilight asked.
“Of course. It’s obviously another of those Luna Republic symbols that got ruined by the sprinklers inside the house!”
“Sprinklers?” Twilight asked.
“Yes, sprinklers. You DO know what sprinklers are, don’t you…?”
“Yes,” Twilight said patiently, “I know what they are.”
“So when the explosion happened, the sprinklers in the house turned on and smeared this symbol,” Rainbow concluded.
“If that’s what it is,” Twilight said. She looked around the surrounding rubble, the sprinklers fresh in her mind. She turned her attention to the other pieces of glass, and found Rainbow staring at the symbol intently.
Rainbow frowned, as she stared at the visible symbol. “Twilight, this doesn’t look right.”
“Meaning?” asked Twilight.
“Aren’t Luna Republic symbols supposed to have their rings mostly on the right? This one’s got its rings on the left.”
Twilight looked at the symbol, and then looked up at Rainbow Dash. “What would it look like if you turned it on its side?”
Rainbow went slightly red. “I knew that.”
Twilight explained, “But you are right, at first it did look the wrong way. That symbol is actually found in several countries all over the world, facing both directions. Princess Luna chose to have the symbol facing the right for her flag.”
“Twilight, I don’t have the attention span for a history lesson…” Rainbow groaned.
“The Luna symbol is found all over the world,” Twilight continued, not paying attention. Once she started a lecture, there really was no stopping her. “The Zebricans adopted this as a symbol of their religion, and it’s also been found on several Ancient Stirrupian documents…”
While Twilight was droning on, Rainbow found the opportunity to slip away. She was considering going home, but then decided Twilight would prefer her to stay and investigate. So she decided for Twilight’s sake to do something productive, and began to look among the rubble for clues.
She didn’t have long to look. She suddenly spotted among the clutter a small plant stalk, with spiny green needles. At the bottom of the stalk were some small shiny looking red marking. She was about to pick it up, when she heard a familiar smug voice.
“Well, well, so you have no intention of leaving quietly, I see.”
Rainbow looked up. It was Officer Clue, and one of his eyebrows was raised.
“Hey, officer,” Rainbow said. “I don’t suppose you know what this is, do you?”
Officer Clue carefully handled the plant, ‘hmm’ing and ‘hah’ing for several minutes. Rainbow felt her small patience being worn out every second. Eventually, Officer Clue said, “Nope. No idea what this is!”
“You could have told me that from the start without wasting several minutes over it!” Rainbow yelled.
“Ha ha! Well, knowing that you don’t know is a crucial step, do you not think?” Officer Clue said.
“You’re right. I DON’T think,” Rainbow said hotly.
“Rainbow! You walked away when I was talking!” Rainbow heard Twilight say, rather crossly. She saw Twilight trotting toward the two of them, clearly not pleased at being walked out on.
“Uh…” Rainbow said nervously. “I…just spotted something interesting while you were talking, and I decided to check it out, that’s all. The plant. This plant here.”
Twilight looked at the plant in Officer Clue’s hooves. “Hey, isn’t that a Gumhoof plant?”
“Seriously? So this is what caused the explosion?” Rainbow asked, astonished. “This little twig?”
Twilight then spotted the shiny red rings at the bottom. “Are they usually this shiny…?” She used magic to take the plant off Clue (“Hey!” he protested), and then conjured a small white napkin, and rubbed very gently on the red rings. She looked at the napkin, and saw the red markings had chipped off.
“It’s varnish.” Twilight frowned. This, therefore, was not actually a Gumhoof plant. “It’s a lookalike, a Spring-In-Step plant.”
“What’s the difference?” Clue asked. “And what’s it got to do with anything?”
“Not much difference, except Gumhoof has red rings at the bottom,” Twilight said. “But in terms of behaviour in chemistry, this plant has a much more instantaneous result in bombs when introduced to the same compound compared to Gumhoof…”
On those words, Twilight paused. She then remembered the explosion, and the strange Luna Republic symbols, and this Spring-In-Step plant, and then…
Twilight cracked a smile. “I see. So THAT’S how it is…”
Rainbow hadn’t heard her. She was reflecting on what a crazy day it was. “Man, this wasn’t as funny as this other story I heard about Luna symbols.”
“What story?” Clue asked. “We don’t have time for flights of fancy in an investigation!”
“It’s still funny!” protested Rainbow. “In Daring Do and the Flight of the Dark Raven, there was this bit where this army was attacking a fortress, and just to show how much the defenders gave a flying feather about the army, they painted Luna symbols over their cutie marks and mooned the attackers.”
Rainbow paused. “It’s based on this myth that happened in real history, it said in the footnotes.”
“Wow,” Clue said. It seemed that he believed Rainbow’s story.
“Unbelievable,” Twilight shook her head, not impressed by Rainbow’s story. “Honestly, anypony who believes in that story doesn’t keep an open enough mind. To a point where they would probably believe Garnet Waltz’s house got hit by Luna Republic fanatics out to get Garnet Waltz here.”
“But it was!” protested Clue. “The symbol’s plastered all over the door!”
“If you invited a friend over for dinner and they ate what you made, can you assume they liked what you cook, even when they don’t say?” Twilight shot back. “Come on. There’s a lot of explaining to do.”
-
Twilight, Rainbow and Officer Clue made their way back to the front of the house. Twilight saw that Nurse Redheart had mostly finished treating Garnet, and was about to give the go-ahead to have the Royal Guard transfer her to Ponyville General Hospital.
“Twilight,” Nurse Redheart said when she saw her. “You doing alright? I was about to have Garnet get a more thorough looking at in hospital…”
“I know,” Twilight nodded. “But before you do, I thought that Garnet would probably want to know what happened here. It does concern her, after all.”
Nurse Redheart paused, before saying, “Fine. Just make it quick, I’d like to get her looked at as soon as possible.”
“Hah!” Clue scoffed at Twilight. “If you think there’s any alternative villain other than Luna fanatics, I’d like to see you try!”
“Sure thing,” Twilight said coolly. She turned to all the ponies who were listening, and Twilight got started.
“Pretty strange case, I would say,” Twilight began. “A massive explosion tears this house apart, with the only clue as to who did it being…” Twilight pointed to the Lunar Republic Symbol. “These. At first glance, it looks like the work of a bunch of Luna fanatics trying to make a statement. Easy enough to believe. But if you think that, then we encounter a problem.
“A problem?” Clue asked. “I don’t see how there could possibly be a problem…”
“The rings,” Twilight stated, pointing to the non-smudged symbol. “They’re in the reverse order. Most of the rings on a normal Luna symbol are concentrated on the right, but the symbol on the glass here has its rings mostly on the left. This symbol is in fact reversed.”
“Reversed?”
“This symbol was drawn with the rings on the other side. I checked the paintwork; the symbol only looks the right way round when the paint’s on the other side of the glass. But why somepony would do that on purpose doesn’t become clear…”
Twilight motioned towards the other, water stained Luna symbol. “…until we understand what this is.”
“What’s the point?” Clue argued. “It’s another symbol covered in water. So what?”
“Don’t you get it?” said Twilight impatiently. “Everypony here came to the conclusion that the symbol got smudged because the sprinklers inside the house stained it. Think about what that means. Picture it! The sprinklers would surely have turned on AFTER the blast, right? So if water was able to smudge the second Luna symbol…”
Rainbow closed her eyes. Remembering Twilight’s words, “You just need to imagine how it happened,” she thought about the symbol, then the blast, then how the symbol got soaked by the sprinklers…
Her eyes shot open. “Oh. You’re KIDDING…”
“So you got it,” Twilight smiled. “That’s right. To set the sprinklers off and stain this symbol, the explosion must have come from the INSIDE of the house, not outside!”
“W…WHAT!?” Clue shouted in astonishment.
“And if we think about it that way…” Twilight continued, pressing on, “then we can imagine why the first symbol is reversed! The culprit painted the symbol on the inside of the glass door, so that from the outside, it would look the right way round.”
“Wow,” Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Hard to imagine that something like that would be missed…” She then saw Officer Clue in the corner of her eye. “…or not.”
“Granted, a good thorough look would have told us it was done reversed on the other side of the glass, but first impressions must have been what the culprit was banking on. At first glance, it would look like a bunch of Luna fanatics were involved. Besides, if the glass got sufficiently blown to pieces by the blast, it would have covered up that fact if the investigation was anything but careful.”
“Wait…but…” Rainbow said slowly. “The only pony who could easily get inside the house…”
Twilight and Rainbow turned to Garnet Waltz. Officer Clue, not getting why but deciding it would be best to follow suit, turned his head too.
Garnet Waltz hung her head. “Oh.”
“Garnet…” Twilight said to her, “You blew up your own house, didn’t you?”
“I…” Garnet muttered.
“It wasn’t hard, was it? You once worked as a chemistry student in the lab at Fillydelphia University, so you would know which combination of ingredients could have given the bang you needed.”
“But that’s crazy!” protested Rainbow Dash. ”She got caught in the blast too! It was pretty big, she could have…”
“I don’t think she intended for the explosion to be that damaging,” Twilight said. “I think one of the ingredients she used was actually different to what she thought it was. That plant you found, traces of Spring-in-Step amongst the rubble, remember that?” Twilight then produced the plant.
“It’s a plant that looks similar to Gumhoof; the only difference is the red rings at the bottom of the Gumhoof stalk. Both can be used in blasting solutions, but Gumhoof isn’t as instantaneous in terms of reaction. As you can see, the red marks on this plant turned out to be dried varnish. But it was that which caused you to think it was actually the less dangerous Gumhoof.”
As Garnet grimaced through the bandages on her face, Twilight continued, “You barely had enough time to set up a full shielding spell before it happened. That’s why it didn’t protect you fully; there wasn’t enough time to complete the spell. The danger turned out to be very real, which certainly helped to make your story of somepony being out to get you more believable.”
Twilight wore a sad look. “But, Garnet, no matter what, insurance fraud is a crime. That’s why you did it, right?”
Garnet paused, before letting out a sigh. “You’re right. I needed the money…so badly. No matter what jobs I tried to do around town, it didn’t pay enough. I had insurance, so I thought that if I could make it look like I was attacked, the insurance of 400,000 would get me what I needed…”
“What would you need 400,000 bits for, though?” asked Rainbow.
“…My dad’s in a lot of debt to a pair of saleponies,” Garnet explained. “They wouldn’t leave him alone, no matter what. So I came up with this idea myself, so I could pay in his place…”
Twilight could only stare, before a firm grimace spread across her face. “Garnet, no matter what, it was still wrong of you. But…I can’t say I don’t understand you…” She briefly thought about how she worked along with her friends during last Cider Season at Sweet Apple Acres, and despite all their hard work, Applejack and her family almost ended up losing the farm.
Twilight felt a pang of pity as Garnet was led away by the Royal Guard. “Garnet!” Twilight called out. She turned around. Twilight then said, “Don’t worry. Nothing’s been paid out yet, so it’s technically not fraud. So don’t give up! I’m sure it’ll work out as long as you don’t forget the ones important to you!”
As Garnet disappeared inside the Royal Guard’s carriage, to be taken to Ponyville General Hospital, Twilight thought she saw her nod her head.
-
The next day, Twilight was shelving the library by herself (as an apology to Spike for leaving him to do all the work yesterday, when suddenly, she heard a knock at the door. She opened it up to find Ditzy, the local mail mare, who handed her two letters before flying off to make the rest of her rounds. Twilight opened it up, and gasped. “It’s from Garnet!”
Dear Twilight,
I’m sorry about all the trouble I caused everypony. I remembered what you said; I can get by as long as I don’t forget what’s important. That’s why I’ve decided to go back and apply to work at the Canterlot Castle Labs, where my friends went to work, as soon as I recover from my own injuries. I’ve heard that the research they’re doing pays a lot, and I’m confident that I can get all my problems sorted out that way.
I thought your logic was brilliant. To be honest, it was eating away at me thinking that I had to cheat honest ponies to make quick money. I’m glad that you were there before things got out of hoof.
Thank you for everything, and take care of yourself.
Sincerely,
Garnet Waltz
Smiling to herself, Twilight made to open up the other letter. This one was from Officer Clue. The letter inside contained only the local Royal Guard coat of arms, as well as one simple phrase and a signature.
You still have some work to do!
The Great Clue Lesdork
“What the…?” Twilight said to herself, as she tossed the letter into the fireplace.