Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Detective Sergeant Misty Drops was trying not to think about murdering his superior, Detective Crown Sergeant Runny Banks. Really, he wasn’t.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
It wasn’t that DCS Banks was a bad investigator. On the contrary-as quite a few evil ponies in graveyards and as long-term guests of Her Majesty’s Penal System could testify to. He worked hard, put in long hours, would follow clues and criminals to the end of the world.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
It was just that about six years ago, DCS Banks’ wife died from horn rot. And he went out drinking one night, like he had pretty much every night after his wife died, after work. Which wasn’t that much of a problem-he was a very, very happy drunk.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
DCS Banks was still a very happy pony when he nearly trampled a bar patron to death in a bar fight. Really, he was. He was especially happy that it could be ruled self-defense.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
So, DCS Banks realized that he Had A Problem with booze. So, he quit. Cold turkey. Didn’t even go to AA. Just stopped drinking. DS Drops was pretty damned impressed.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Except, to deal with the oral fixation from drinking, DCS Banks had turned to candy, gum, lollipops, celery, and finally...to popcorn.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Had a huge-ass bag of it in his saddle bags, and any time he wasn’t doing anything, he’d take a small scoop out with his telekinesis and nibble on it. Crumbs got in his grey-and-black mane, all over his grey fur, it got a bit messy at times. Oh, it mostly shook off as he walked, but there were still bits.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
DS Drops was happy that his boss had something to keep him out of trouble.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
But, one day, he was going to go Discord on DCS Banks and no jury in the land could convict him with a tape recording of DCS Banks munching. All DS Drops could do was fly just far enough away from DCS Banks as to avoid some of the worst of the crunching.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Fortunately, he had finished with the last scoop before they crossed the crime scene tape, and they watched as the CSI ponies were finishing up their work. “So!” DCS Banks said with a cheerful smile, “What’s the story so far?”
CSI Tech 4 Griffin, wearing his crime scene overalls covering his cutie mark, looked over at DCS Banks and said, waving his clip board with his magic, “Good evening, Banks. And, Drops. We’re taking everything back to the lab in Canterlot, but I can give you what we have so far. It was a six-pony wagon,” CSI Griffin was referring to how many ponies it would take to pull the wagon, “and, it was a pretty new one. It had hydraulic shocks, not leaf springs, so it was made in the last ten years. I can get you more details when we pull the serial numbers off. And, it’s a Class 3 Unauthorized Reality Excursion, as you can tell by that poor soul there.”
The remains of the burnt-out cart mostly hid the bed, where pony bones-brittle from the heat and broken from what looked like nails driven into the summoning grid-rested. The skull was mostly intact, except for the broken stub of a horn and most of the lower portion cracked. “Live summoning, and if I had to make a guess, they were using a sound-dampening spell to cover the torture.”
“Torture?” DS Drops asked, curiously, getting his wings settled in.
“For a Class 3 in a small summoning grid, even using the new reduced spell character set? You’d need to have a sacrificial goat-the more powerful, smarter, and the more pain you made it suffer, the better. And, they weren’t idiots-well, beyond actually summoning a Class 3. You can tell by the candle marks there. They’d set candles on the main points of the grid-my bet is dragon hair in manticore grease, can confirm that in the lab-and lit them when they had the summoning hot. Give it an hour or two, the wax melts down, the grid is open, and you have six Class 3’s going to eat ponies,” Griffin said.
“Professional work?” DCS Banks asked, looking at the rest of the cart.
“Still need to confirm at the lab, but so far no hoof prints, no fibers, the magical signatures got scrambled when the grid went down, so can’t offer you anything there. I know this is a Priority One case, and I’ll have the lab ponies go over this whole cart with a fine-tooth comb,” Griffin replied. “And, as soon as I know anything, I’ll let DI Cracken know anything we find out.”
“Thanks. So, roughly about three hours before the monsters came out?” DCS Banks asked.
“Call it three for now. Time-of-death is going to be nearly impossible with the burn damage,” CSI Griffin replied, and looked around. “Can you get out of my crime scene? We’re about to bring the cart in to take the remains to the lab.”
“Certainly,” DCS Banks and DS Drops got out of the crime tape and the crime scene. As DCS Banks left the crime scene, he looked around at the general layout of Ponyville’s main square.
“Going to be a hard one,” DCS Banks sighed. “Bet you two bits they made sure to come in without passing any bank or security cameras, looked as plain as could be, and made sure to be very, very far away when it finally happened.”
“Yea, but we might get lucky,” DS Drops said, waving a wing in the general direction of one of the larger streets for Ponyville. “Only three, four ways they could bring in a six-pony cart?”
“Three,” DCS Banks agreed. He trotted over to a uniformed Guardspony. “Start doing a canvas, ask any pony around here if they saw anything or any pony that was suspicious from about 1100 hours to 1400 hours. Also, start pulling statements of any pony that might have seen a six-pony cart from the main streets leading in to the square. Check for cameras, all the usual details.”
“Yes, sir,” the Guardspony left and started to relay his instructions to other Guards. DCS Banks looked around and made a loud huffing sound.
“Best go find ourselves some coffee,” DCS Banks said, pulling out a scoop of popcorn from his saddle bag. “It’s going to be a long, long night.”
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
“I’ll go see if the muffin stand still has coffee,” DS Drops said, trying not to grind his teeth when he heard the popcorn chewing.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
“Welcome back,” DI Cracken said from his office, waving as DCS Banks and DS Drops came back in. “Any luck with the Ponyville case on your end?”
“They just had to take it down the only street in Ponyville that didn’t have a security camera,” DCS Banks sighed, coming in and flopping down in one of the chairs. “Witness canvassing is going on, but I’m not optimistic.”
“‘Six ponies, thought they were all Earth ponies, with a cart.’ ‘Four Earth ponies, two unicorns, with a rickshaw,’” DS Drops quoted from his notes in mild disgust. “Witness statements are going to be nearly useless.”
“The lab called, they were able to figure out where the cart came from,” DI Cracken replied, taking up a pile of papers in one of his hooves. “Somepony stole it from a green grocer about seven days ago in Manehattan. Finn and Munch are on their way there to get information. Haven’t been able to ID the sacrifice yet, but they know that it was a middle-aged male unicorn. Other than that, we got a link from the Princesses about the case. Apparently, there’s also an unsolved arson in Manehattan that is connected to the case-some sort of organized cult or something. I’m having the arson inspector pull her files and bring them here.”
“Do we know anything else?” DCS Banks asked. “More about this cult we might be able to use?”
“Yea, just that they appear to be very bucking ruthless,” DI Cracken nodded. “I’ll get copies of the briefing papers to you, as well.”
“Thanks,” DCS Banks replied, and the two of them left his office.
“DCS Banks?” the small reddish-grey unicorn female asked, making sure her badge was noticeable on the chain around her neck. “Hi, I’m Firemare 3 Earnest Ashes,” she said. “You were wondering about one of my cases?”
“Yes, yes I was,” DCS Banks said, sitting at his desk. “This is DS Drops, my partner. So, what can you tell us about the arson?”
The unicorn nodded, and pulled out a file folder from her saddle bag. “It was an amateur job, but a pretty good one. Lots of accelerant-wood alcohol-scattered over a lot of surfaces, paper scattered all over the place. I thought it might have been a torching to cover a homicide, but we didn’t have enough forensic evidence. The only victim’s body was too badly damaged for us to determine otherwise.”
“Did you find any proof of foals living in the house?” DS Drops asked, curious.
“Yes, three from the beds and toys. My guess, they were all female. But, there were no remains and no missing foal reports, so I thought it might have been an illegal day care center,” Firemare Ashes nodded. “What happened?”
“Well, as of now, your case is being reopened as a homicide,” DCS Banks replied. “We have reason to believe that your victim was murdered by somepony that was involved in an incident recently.”
Firemare Ashes flipped through her notes. “I have a description of two ponies, unicorns, that visited her prior to the fire. I thought we could find them, and at least exclude them, but we were short on a lot of details.”
“But, you said, ‘two unicorns’, right?” DS Drops asked, looking at his notes. “‘One tall, long horn and one short with a medium-length horn,’” he quoted from the notes.
“Sounds about right as a rough description,” Firemare Ashes said. “They were seen near the crime scene about an hour before the whole place went up. Why?”
“We have a witness that says the victim was arguing with two unicorns of the same description,” DCS Banks replied, and shook his head. “We’ll have to go and try to get more information.”
“After two years?” Firemare Ashes asked. “They put a whole new building there and everything. I got all my witness information paperwork here…”
“Thank you,” DS Drops took it from Ashes’ telekinesis and trotted over to the copier.
“It’s a Priority One case now,” DCS Banks said, shrugging. “We’ll have Guards run down the witnesses and ask any pony they can find more details. And, pull all the materials out of storage to run more tests on.”
Two ponies trotted into the squad room. One was a thin, almost gaunt grey unicorn with glasses on his muzzle and a Cutie Mark of a magnifying glass over a scroll. The other one was a dark brown Earth pony who looked less like a Detective Sergeant and more like the enforcer of a major Happy Dream cartel with huge hammers for his Cutie Mark. “Hey, you’ll be happy to hear that we got some information on that cart,” DS Big Finn, the Earth pony said.
“And, something even better,” DCS Green Munch, the unicorn, noted, pulling photos out of his saddle bags. “Photographs. Not a lot of details, but we can tell that it’s about six unicorns that took off with the cart.”
DCS Banks took the photos and looked at them. “All wearing cloaks?”
“Weather was scheduled for a serious rainstorm, but we got that they’re all unicorns, and you can tell some of the size differences,” DCS Munch nodded.
“And, two of them are girls,” DS Finn noted. “Unshorn fetlocks,” he smiled, “and, general leg shape.”
“Of course, you’d look there,” DCS Munch said with a smile.
“Hey, I’m a heterosexual leg pony,” DS Finn grinned. “I notice these kinds of things.”
“Okay, so we’re looking for six unicorns, two of them female,” DS Drops said, and shrugged. “And, the females have ‘cute, unshorn fetlocks’.” He sighed and put his pencil down, carefully. “Well, we’ve started with worst descriptions. Not much worse, mind you.”
“DCS Munch, DS Finn, this is Firemare 3 Earnest Ashes,” DCS Banks introduced her to the rest. “She’s the lead investigator in an arson that is related to the attack.”
“Pleasure,” DCS Munch said, and shook her hoof. “What’s the connection?”
“Organized cult activity,” DCS Banks replied. “We think that the summoners murdered and committed arson to cover up a death in Manehattan two years ago.”
“I’ll get you copies of my notes,” DCS Munch said, and went over to the copier.
“...and, that’s about all we have right now, your Highness,” DCS Banks said, looking at his notes. “We’re running down the leads we have right now, and if we can identify even one of the unicorns involved, it’s a start.”
DCS Banks remembered from the days when he was a mere Detective, learning under the tutelage of the famous and brawling DCS Green Hunt. This was back in the “good old days” of police work-when colts were colts, mares were mares, and lesbian sheep were nervous. DCS Hunt had a lot of great expressions for this, and one of his favorite was “managing the managers.”
“You want to figure out how to tell your bosses,” he said over donuts and booze one night, “that you’re getting everything done, you’ve got scalds of witnesses you just need to interview, flank-loads of physical evidence, and everything else. Even when all you have are two busted-ass donkeys and half a biscuit to your case, and you really want to get back out on the street and start running down where the biscuit came from rather than answering silly questions to a DI that hasn’t worked a case in ten years.”
DCS Banks realized that “managing” Princess Celestia was simple-the truth, and as much as he could give. So, he gave it to her in full.
“Do you have the identity of the sacrifice victim,” Princess Celestia asked, looking grim at the thought.
“Not at this time, your Highness,” DS Drops said, “Considering his condition, he was probably a transient or homeless, and the summoners just grabbed the first unicorn they could find.”
“Thank you,” Princess Celestia said, and sighed. “Do you need any more resources? Ponies?”
“Not at this time, your Highness,” DCS Banks said. “Cases like this are like a whole mixed up pile of jigsaw puzzles. Nothing really happens until you can figure out how to put enough pieces together to start getting a coherent image. A bit of forest, the borders of the puzzle, it takes time and work, but right now we have all the eyeballs that we can make use of on the case.”
Princess Celestia nodded. “I will not keep you from your work, then. Once again, thank you.”
As DCS Banks and DS Drops turned to leave, there was the sound of an explosion from within the Royal compound. Not a large one, but easily audible in the audience chamber. And, DCS Banks noticed, Princess Celestia didn’t flinch when it happened.
“Your Highness?” DCS Banks asked, curiously, “What was that explosion?”
Princess Celestia looked out the window and sighed.
“That, DCS Banks, is what happens when you are silly enough to allow foals to play with steam,” Princess Celestia said with a sigh. “We’ll have to rebuild the workshop. Again.”