The Mane Six Star in TNT's New Hit Crime Drama!

by James Rednok


Chapter 2

Officer AppleJack frowned as she looked down at the body of the pony before her. It was 5:15 A.M. and Ponyville had just begun to rise and go about it's business. The police tape had already drawn a small crowd of curious onlookers, who were not too concerned about being to work on time. The crime scene photographer was busily taking pictures of the corpse from every angle. The orange earth pony took a bite from an apple as a sky blue Pegasus suddenly landed next to her.

"Nopony saw anything." She said to the earth pony. "Two doors down thought she heard a scream around 2:40, but she said she couldn't be sure. The pony who found the body, that's her over there, said she saw it when she put out the cat. That was around 5 'til 4. She says she saw the body, then ran and called us right away. Didn't see or hear anything else."

AppleJack sighed and took a few steps closer, looking into the dead pony's eyes. "Who did this to you?"

Suddenly a commotion came from the assembled crowd behind AppleJack. She turned and craned her neck to see what was causing it, but all she could hear was "Pardon me! Oh, excuse me! Oops! Sorry, was that your hoof? Sir! I am with Ponyville police! That is no way to speak to me!"

"What in the hay?" Suddenly a little purple unicorn stumbled out from the crowd and unintentionally somersaulted to a stop in from of the two ponies, her legs spread eagled on the ground as her eyes spun in her head. She shook her head to clear away the stars in her vision and looked up at the two unamused ponies before her.

"Hi" she said. The little pony straightened up and regarded them with a small smile. "My name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm Chief Field Forensic Department Investigative Officer specializing in blood splatter analysis." She announced, as if they were supposed to know what any of that meant. "Third degree." She added with a puff of pride.

There was a moment of silence between the three.

"What? Are you a police officer?" asked the pegasus.

And there went Twilight's pride. "Um... Yes, I guess so."

"No you're not." retorted the pegasus accusatorially, flaring her wings dangerously and giving Twilight the glare to end all glares. "I've never seen you around here before."

"Well, I normally work in the lab..." Twilight stuttered, not used to such scrutiny.

"Oh great!" Mocked the Pegasus, "An egghead!"

"I am not!" Cried Twilight indignantly. "I just came here from Canterlot a few..."

"A NEWBIE egghead!" Jeered the pegasus. Suddenly, the orange earth pony delivered a sharp poke to the blue pony's ribs. "Ouch!"

"Quiet you!" Said the earth pony in a low angry voice. She turned back to the unicorn with a smile. "Don't ya'll pay no mind to her. Pleased to meet ya'll Twilight. Name's AppleJack. An' that hot head over there is mah partner Rainbow Dash." She gestured towards the Pegasus who was still rubbing her sore spot. "Ya'll said ya'll was from Canterlot? Why that's a might fancy place up there. So ya'll're some sort of forens-em ... anthro- erm... investigator? So ya'll're here to help then?"

"Mm-hmm." Twilight nodded, shaking hooves with Applejack. "It's nice to meet you Applejack. It's nice to meet you too, Rainbow Dash." she said, extending her hoof towards the light blue pony. Rainbow's eyes narrowed as they slid from the unicorn's outstretched hoof, to the misty exhales of her breath from the cold, to the iced coffee poking out of her saddlebag. Rainbow raised an eyebrow.

"You're drinking a slushie in this weather?" She scoffed, turning away without accepting the hoof.

"It's iced coffee." Twilight said meekly, taking a sip from the straw. "But you're right, it is a bit cold for this... Why aren't you two dressed more warmly?" She asked, looking at the orange earth pony, who wore only a necklace for her badge, a tattered stetson hat, and a band to keep her mane together, to the blue pegasus, who was only wearing her badge dangling around her neck.

"It'll warm up by the time it's 10." AppleJack replied. "We've been at this long enough, ya'll 'll see."

"Yeah, and by then you'll catch fire in that bucking arctic gear you've got going on there." Rainbow Dash interjected, earning another nudge from her partner. "Ow. Besides, the bitter cold: it's bracing! Right? Anyways, what are you doing here?"

"I was assigned to work on this case." answered Twilight honestly.

"Why?" asked Rainbow shortly.

"So that I may lend my assistance to bring justice to whatever prowlers may stalk the streets of the greater Ponyville area, and..."

"No," it was Rainbow's turn to interrupt now, "I mean why did you come all the way out from Canterlot for this?"

"Well... Well I don't know why, exactly." She answered slowly. "But I've been given this assignment directly from the princess."

Applejack and Rainbow Dash exchanged looks. Was this some sort of new inspection process from the brass? Laid back as she was, Applejack decided to just roll with it. "Wow! That's mighty impressive! Well, we're glad to have ya'll around. Why, we haven't had a new recruit in..."

"Erm... I don't want to tell you how to do your job, but shouldn't we keep these ponies moving along? I mean, what are they even doing out en masse like this?" Twilight interrupted, gesturing towards the throng of ponies gathered around the crime scene and murmuring in hushed tones to one another.

Applejack choose to ignore the conversational faux-pa. "Well that's just the morning traffic. Not much we can do about that 'til rush hour dies down."

"Isn't a little early for that?" Asked Twilight, peeking towards the sun which was just beginning to clear the mountains in the distance.

"Ponyville's an 'early to bed, early to rise' kind of town." Applejack answered. "We're hard workin' folks. And most ponies go to bed an' get up sooner than ya'll city ponies, meanin' this murder could'a taken place any number of hours ago. Anyways, come over here. I'll show ya'll our poor departed soul."

The three made their way over to the body of the victim while Rainbow Dash muttered darkly under her breath, "WooHoo! Look at me! I'm from Canterlot! I'm know the princess! All of you lesser ponies can bow down before me upon bended knee and suckle my..." Luckily Applejack clapped her upside the back of the head before she had a chance to finish. Twilight however, was already distracted by the body.

She looked at the body and adjusted her spectacles, crouching down and taking in as much information about the body and the area around her. "What was the time of death?" She asked.

"We don't know yet."

"Victim's name?"

"That either."

Twilight sighed. "Well, what can you tell me?"

"Hey Miss fancy-higher-education! Why don't you tell us something!? You're the expert after all...!"

"Hmph. Fine." Answered Twilight with determination. She turned back to the body and examined the large dent in the side of the victim's head. The size, the shape, how deep it went. She looked at the blood puddle beside her. Her years of training under the princess meant that a mere glance was all that was needed before she stood up and turned back to Rainbow Dash.

"Death was caused by extreme blunt force trauma to the brain caused by a small cylindrical metal object, most likely a hammer swung at approximately 72 kilometers per hour!" Twilight declared proudly.

"Okay. Yeah. We kind of guessed that by the bloody hammer sitting next to the body." Rainbow said flatly.

Twilight's eyes shot open. She traced her eyes along to where the cyan pegasus was pointing. Indeed, there was a hammer, not inches from the victim's head. Her cheeks reddened faster than light.

"Although I'm not sure how knowing the exact velocity will be if any help unless it tells us the name of the pony swinging it." She turned back to Applejack. "Now, I thought eggheads were supposed to be useful..." Rainbow chuckled before being smacked in the face by Applejack. "Hey, ow!"

"Be nice Rainbow, it's her first day" she turned back to Twilight with a sympathetic smile. "That was mighty impressive detective-ing! Ah'm sure ya'll 'll be a great asset to the team! Unfortunately, we can't do much else without knowing the victim's name or where she lives or who she knows. Let's head back to the station; I'll introduce you to some of the other ponies while we wait for the initial reports give us a place to dig."

"Thank you kindly Officer Applejack." Twilight said, still red. Applejack chuckled.

"Ya'll can be droppin' all that 'officer' business. We're friends and colleagues now!"

"Friends?" Twilight slowly repeated. The word felt unfamiliar and sticky in her mouth, like slightly-off molasses.

"Well o'course hon! Ah mean, ya'll don't expect me to go 'round callin' ya'll Assistant Executive Forensics Invest-what have yah, do yah?" Applejack answered with another chuckle.

Actually, that's exactly what Twilight had been expecting. She was used to professionalism and the cool steady application of intellect to solve a case. Not ... bleh, friends...

"C'mon, let's go." said Applejack kindly. Rainbow scoffed and turned to leave.

"Actually, I noticed one more thing." Twilight said to Rainbow's back. She turned and looked at the unicorn teasingly. "The angle of the injury suggests that the victim was hit by somepony 1.1 times her height. Most likely a colt. The splatter of the blood on the ground confirms this. The blood that didn't fall in the ground would have hit the perpetrator's face, meaning that there will be a partial silhouette of the killer's head in the splatter. Once I get my tools, I can input the data and get a good idea of the murderer's head size. Once we've done that I can compare it to dental records to find ponies who's jaws fit that size group and narrow the search parameters by at least 75 to 80%."

Applejack glanced smugly at Rainbow, who couldn't help but betray a look of being impressed.

"Not bad kid. Maybe you'll do fine here after all." She turned and fluttered off, just a few feet off the ground. Applejack smiled at Twilight and trotted off as well. Twilight sighed a relieved sigh. She had made a good impression. These ponies would certainly look up to her from now on and show her the respect she deserved. "Hey egghead! Don't forget your slushie!" And there went Twilight's pride again.

"It's iced coffee!" She called out.