//------------------------------// // Red Herrings and White Rabbits // Story: Rainbow Dash: Private Detective by the Cutie Mark Crusaders // by Shakibone //------------------------------// Chapter 2 Red Herrings and White Rabbits The hardest part of being a Detective are the constant false leads. Especially when you dismiss a false lead and it turns out to be a true lead, or when you accept a true lead and it nearly gets you killed. -Mint Bullet: Private Eye, Singers and Sinners “Did Twilight like it?” Sweetie Belle asked, hopping with excitement “Did she? Did she? Did she?” Sweetie Belle and Applebloom had been waiting impatiently in the tree house for Scootaloo to return from the Library with their manuscript and Twilight’s opinion. Scootaloo made a big show of pulling the manuscript from her saddlebag. “Well...” The little Pegasus said, drawing out the tension for as long as she could “She loved it!” “Awesome!” Applebloom yelled, while Sweetie Belle merely squealed excitedly. But Scootaloo wasn’t finished: “And she said it was so good that we should send it to Filly Fiction Magazine!” Scootaloo pulled a copy of the magazine from her saddlebag and showed it to her friends “It’s a magazine that publishes loads of stories written by fillies all over Equestria!” “We’ll be famous!” Sweetie Belle said. “Okay then!” Applebloom said decisively “Let’s write chapter two, and then we can send chapter one off to Filly Fiction!” “Right,” Said Scootaloo “where did we finish off last time?” Sweetie Belle flipped through their manuscript. “Okay,” She said “Rarity’s been arrested, Blueblood is a corrupt cop, Applejack works for him, and Rainbow Dash has left the crime scene.” “Who is Blueblood, anyway?” Applebloom asked “We just said we needed somepony to be a corrupt bad guy and you said we should make it Blueblood.” “I... don’t really know.” Sweetie Belle admitted “Rarity just said he was some fancy jerk who threw cake on her or something. Besides, if we didn’t make up main characters, why should we make up side characters?” “Seems kind of a stretch,” Said Applebloom “going from some fancy jerk to the main bad guy in our story...” “Oh, don’t worry about that.” Said Sweetie Belle, sweetly “I heard from Rarity that nopony likes Blueblood anyway, so we can write whatever we want about him. Besides, he’s not the main bad guy.” Her friends stared at her. “He’s not?” Scootaloo asked. “No!” Sweetie Belle explained “First we show everypony a bad guy and have all the clues point to him, but then it turns out it wasn’t him!” She smiled, happy show off her knowledge on the subject “It’s called a Red Herring.” “What’s a herring?” Scootaloo asked. But Applebloom had a much more important question: “But if Blueblood didn’t steal the Maltese Phoenix, who did?” And at this, Sweetie Belle’s pride deflated. “I, uh... don’t know.” The three crusaders pondered in silence for a moment. “Whatever,” Said Scootaloo as she reached towards the type writer “we’ll think of something.” Chapter 2 Manehattan. This city may have been marred by the ugly hoof of Corruption, but from above, it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The lights from the buildings shine like neatly arranged stars, and the carriages bustle along the streets like... weird glowing ants. That metaphor kinda got away from me. I breathed the thin air deeply, trying to push Applejack out of my mind and brooded on what little evidence I had. My brooding went something like this: -The Maltese Phoenix is valuable enough to be worthless; therefore, this wasn’t about money. -If not about money, then what else? Revenge? Revenge would point to Blueblood as the culprit, and much as I would like to bring that bucker down, this doesn’t feel like the sort of thing he’d do. It’s too ambitious. He’s most likely just taking advantage of the situation to get back at Rarity, rather than having caused it himself. -Well if it isn’t about revenge or money, then what the hay is it about? Since that train of thought was going nowhere fast, I decided to get off the Ten o’clock to Why? and caught the Eight Fifteen to Who? -Rarity said in the cab that she walked in on the crime taking place: One pony, couldn’t tell whether the culprit was Earth, Pegasus or Unicorn due to the specialised clothing he/she wore. -Description of the culprit’s clothes indicates that this was no amateur job: Only pros use such concealing clothes. -But on the other hoof, pros don’t get walked in on in the middle of a textbook burglary. A well funded rookie, then? -The concealing clothes were a pointless gesture, anyway: Rarity’s office was on the third floor and upon being interrupted, the culprit simply dived out the window, which rules out an Earth Pony and all but some very specialised Unicorns. -I need a bucking drink, and Rarity emptied my hipflask. -Hey, criminals tend to hang out at bars! And so it was that I found myself snooping around every bar I could think of that was liable to host the criminal element. After asking around in three bars to no results, I found a mare going by the very appropriate name of Berry Punch, who might have seen something happening on Argent Street, but unfortunately her mouth was far too dry to be sure. Turns out my hunch had been right. Berry had seen a Pegasus flying in and out the window of Rarity’s office with a rabbit on his head. “Now, I know what you’re thinking!” She said, guessing correctly that I didn’t believe a word of it “But, at the time, I was unfur... unfortunately sober!” “Well if you were sober, why didn’t you go to the police?” I asked. “The police ain’t buying me drinks, sugar.” She then made a pass at me and I left, deciding that this bar had been emptied of all information, and if Miss Punch had any say in the matter, it would soon be empty of hooch. My next break was an hour later, at Lucky Clover’s Bar, and what a break it was. I walked down the stairs, into the underground gambling hall, and was greeted by the usual cries of “Five to one odds!” and “Last bets!” Seemed to be a big event, and a crowd was gathering around two ponies sat at a table across from each other. I assumed it would be poker, but to my surprise there were no cards to be seen. I asked one of the bookies what everypony was gambling on, and he gave me a queer look. “Ain’t you ever heard of Shh?” He asked incredulously. But before I could tell him not to shush me, the crowd suddenly went silent, and I realised that the game must have started. To my great surprise, it turns out that “Shh” was a contest to see who can keep silent the longest, and I have no idea how it could have caught on in the underground gambling ring, but that’s Manehattan for you. The players where a light green Unicorn mare in a waistcoat, sitting at the table like a sack of potatoes somepony dumped unceremoniously on a chair, facing off against a pale yellow Pegasus wearing a light brown sweater and dress combo, with matching beret. Nopony said anything for a good fifteen minutes, with drinks being ordered using a complicated sign language I wasn’t privy to, meaning that I was feeling pretty annoyed by the time the unicorn finally broke the silence by yelling “Oh for Celestia’s sake, Bon Bon, this is ridiculous!” at an Earth mare in a white dress in the audience. The pony apparently called Bon Bon did not answer the Unicorn, but she looked even more annoyed than I was, so I took some comfort in that. The crowd started talking again, arguing about bets and how close a thing it had apparently been, so you could hardly hear the Pegasus winner cheering softly in a think Stalliongrad accent. “Da! I em winning again! I said you could not beat me! I em world champion!” “Laugh it up, Fluttershy,” Said Bon Bon, glaring at the Pegasus even harder that at her Unicorn partner “one day your luck will run out.” And then I got my break. A white bunny rabbit in a red tie hopped onto the table and held his paw out to the two losers. “Here.” Said Bon Bon, tossing a bag filled to the brim with bits to the bunny “Let’s go, Lyra.” She said as she left, with the Unicorn trailing behind, muttering about how they’d get the money some other way. I decided that this was as good a time as any to approach my new suspect. “Nice job on the victory.” I said to Fluttershy, while I flashed her my most congratulatory grin “Not many ponies that could... stay quiet for as long as you.” She squeaked something in reply, while the bunny looked at me suspiciously, keeping himself between me and the bag of bits. “I’m Rainbow Dash.” I held out a hoof “I heard you’re called Fluttershy?” “Uh...” She stayed silent for what must have been at least a minute, never meeting my eyes the whole time, before saying: “Da...” I was starting to get annoyed again, not that I showed it. “Not from around these parts then?” Stating the obvious wasn’t my favourite form of interrogation, but Miss Fluttershy didn’t leave me much choice. It was another minute of awkward silence before she said, even quieter than before: “Nyet...” It was clear I was going to have to change tactics if I wanted to get anything out of her. “Okay, comrade!” I said, losing my temper “Care to tell me what you were doing breaking into a third storey building on Argent Street?!” That was entirely the wrong tactic. Quick as can be, the rabbit grabbed somepony’s drink and threw it at me. While I spluttered at the bunny’s surprising speed (and at the drink in my face), the rabbit hopped onto his owner's head, who in turn flew like a shot towards the back door. The pony whose drink had been thrown at my face threw a punch at me (since clearly I was to blame for the loss of his drink) which I dodged easily, causing him to hit the stallion standing next to me. Now I can recognize when a bar brawl is about to break out, and punches getting thrown around ponies who’ve recently lost money is as sure fire a recipe for brawling as you can get. My suspect had just made it out the back door, and I followed as quickly as I could, dodging kicks and thrown furniture as I went. As I burst into the alley behind the bar, I glanced upwards, and saw Fluttershy fleeing into the night sky. I grinned, as she was clearly an amateur. Those tactics may have worked on an Earth or Unicorn Pony, but she was playing to my specialities. I spread my wings and flew after her. It didn’t take long for Fluttershy (or more likely, her rabbit) to notice me, and she made a dive towards the city below, swerving between the streets and tight alleyways, but it was useless. I could outmatch her for speed and she was getting tired. I was a stone’s throw away before she landed roughly, panting exhaustedly. “The game’s up, commie.” I said, as I landed in front of her “Where’s the Maltese Phoenix?” “Please,” She said, glancing around “don’t be getting too violent.” “If you cooperate, it won’t come to that.” “I wasn’t talking to you.” And it was then that I realised she hadn’t been flying without direction. She’d been leading me straight to the Manehattan Zoo, home to bears, manticores and many more dangerous creatures. And the rabbit was opening the cages. “Lock those cages!” I said, panicking “Do you have any idea what those things will do to us?!” “They wouldn’t do a thing to me.” She said, and turned her attention to a manticore “Would you, little kotik?” The manticore licked her affectionately, then turned to me and growled. Fluttershy called out to her rabbit: “Come on, moy Angelochek! Thet should be enough to keep ze Detective busy.” The rabbit hopped onto her head and she took off, leaving me surrounded by the most dangerous animals Manehattan had on offer. I tried following her, but one narrowly avoided swipe from the manticore revealed that that wasn’t an option. I was trapped. “I think we can end the chapter there.” Sweetie Belle said as she pushed the type writer away and stretched. “But that was the most exciting part!” Scootaloo replied indignantly “We can’t just leave it there!” “No, I’ve heard about these.” Said Applebloom “They’re called ‘cliff hangers’, it’s when something exciting happens, but you have to wait for the next part to find out whether everything turns out okay.” “Exactly,” Sweetie Belle said while nodding vigorously “it keeps the readers coming back!” Scootaloo still wasn’t convinced. “But now I wanna know what happens.” “Well you can think about it overnight, and then tomorrow we’ll have something great to write about.” Applebloom said “Now let’s take chapter two to Twilight, and then we can mail chapter one to Filly Fiction.” “Okay!” The other two Crusaders cried as they dashed out the door, manuscript in hoof. “But what I don’t understand,” Said Sweetie Belle “is why we made Fluttershy come from Staliongrad.” “Oh that’s easy.” Scootaloo answered as she hooked up her scooter to the wagon for her friends to ride in “Fluttershy speaking in a Stalliongrad accent is just cool.”