//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: 12 Angry Ponies // by Gregory the Mighty //------------------------------// Dinner was mostly hay, slightly crispy, though they did have Chrysanthemum pops as a side dish. There were cupcakes too, but they were the grocery story kind with cheap fondant as icing. Pinkie made the mistake of eating one; a bit of her soul died that day. Fluttershy unsheathed her Chrysanthemum pop from its paper wrapper and placed it on the table. Chrysanthemum pops have several flower buds for snacking and come with weighted faux-vases. The weight caused the pops to stand up, enabling a pony to set them on a table and chomp the buds hoofs-free. “These pops remind me of something." Vinyl answered, “They remind me of the skinny vases the witness had on her windowsill” Fluttershy had an idea. “Put your pops on the edge of the table everypony I want to try something. Rainbow Dash come over here.” “Fwat is Fis Afout?” Rainbow sputtered, as she scarfed the last of her hay. “Something bothers me about that witness testimony, she says she saw a pegasus hovering just outside the window. The window was open, but there was no change to her windowsill.” “What are you getting at?” said Bon Bon. “Rainbow Dash, hover near these pops, won’t you?” Fluttershy pointed to the appropriate spot, and Dash complied. Instantly, all the Chrysanthemum pops fell over onto the table. “You see what I mean? If there was a pegasus hovering there, it would have made a terrible mess of her vases.” “Hold on, do mean she was lying about seeing a pony from her second story window?” Twilight chimed in. “No, just that it wasn’t a pegasus.” said Fluttershy. “Wait, if it wasn’t a pegasus, what kind of pony can fly?” said Bon Bon. Fluttershy thought a moment. “Twilight, unicorns can make things fly, can’t they?” Twilight thought for a minute. She hadn’t considered making herself float in years, not since she learned the teleport spell. “I suppose, but it would be a unicorn whose special talent was magic spells. Rarity, can you lift yourself?” Rarity blushed. “No! Certainly not. I might have attempted when I was younger, but lifting yourself is too uncouth.” Bon Bon turned to Lyra, “Can you levitate yourself?” “If I could levitate myself, do you think I’d be walking around on four legs?” Lyra snorted. Vinyl chimed in, “I dunno, I’m pretty talented with moving stuff! Let me give it a whirl.” She jumped up on the table-and just for show-did a hoofstand. Within a minute she had floated up to the ceiling. “Wooo! I’m flying, baby!” She cried, only to crash down a moment later. “I don’t think this really works. It’s pretty far fetched to say it was a flying unicorn dressed as a pegasus. The more reasonable possibility is that it was just a pegasus in the first place.” Twilight conceded. Doctor Whooves stepped up. “I do have one more thing I’d like to see. Can we see the bombs that caused the fire? From what the prosecutor said, they were very unusual.” Twilight grimaced. “I suppose, but they are undetonated bombs.” Pinkie Pie reinforced Doctor Whooves. “C’mon! This is a matter of life or moon-banishment! We should at least take a look at them!” The guard brought in the parapod box. “I don’t know about this, this is dangerous stuff. These are made to explode at the slightest touch. They are the egg sacs of parasprites, and they can only be found on one particular day a year deep within the Everfree Forest.” Rainbow Dash huffed. “So, they reproduce through budding, AND they lay eggs? That is so unfair!” The gray guard picked them up and placed six of them one by one onto the table. They were like colorful prickly tennis balls. “This is ridiculous. How could these little nuts burn down half of Ponyville?” Applejack prodded an orange hoof at one of the parapods. Before anypony could shout, she had detonated the pod, blowing the five others across the table. The entire room panicked and flew backward to the walls, terrified to touch any more pods. Vinyl was inches away from touching one, then she fell over. Nothing happened. While Big Mac tended to her poor sister’s wounds (her hoof was still intact, though burned) the others rushed over to Vinyl Scratch. Though she had fallen directly on it, squishing it, it did not explode. “I guess I’m immune.” she said. “Wait what’s the difference between her and the rest of us? Why didn’t she trigger an explosion?” demanded Bon Bon. Twilight Sparkle gave a guess. “She has no color.” “Hey, white is a color!” Vinyl returned. “No, it isn’t, it’s the absence of color.” Rarity stepped up. “If you’re right, Twilight, I shouldn’t trigger an explosion either.” Rarity bravely extended a hoof to touch the parapod. Granted she was whispering “Ew! Ew! Ew!” the whole time. No reaction. The guard stepped up and tried it himself. No reaction. In fact, no matter how hard he banged the parapod, they wouldn’t explode. Twilight was stunned. “It appears these only react to ponies with color. Anypony white to black, or a shade of gray doesn’t fire them off. That explains why they didn’t explode when the guard put them on the table.” Cheerilee was cheery. “Well, that clinches it! Ditzy Doo couldn’t have detonated the firebombs!” Bon Bon was incredulous. “I dunno. If anything this makes it more possible. She would have been able to set the bombs anywhere in town, and not worry about them backfiring. It only takes one pony of color, any color at all, to step on one.” Rainbow helped Vinyl up off the floor. “So Ditzy has gone from an careless menace to a criminal mastermind, complete with a degree in pyrotechnics?” The guard gathered up the dangerous pods and put them back in the evidence box. As he turned to leave, he added “By the way, I looked at the package register for the day of the incident. There was a package from Quills and Sofas to Trixie, but it’s gone missing.” He closed the door behind him and locked it. Twilight called another vote. They took their places at the table. It was 11 to one. Bon Bon sat with her hooves crossed, indignant. They were all staring at her now. Bon Bon leaped up. “I don’t believe you all! She is no less guilty now than she was when we walked in here! She was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt!” Pinkie Pie stomped her hoofs on the table. “We’ve gone beyond beyond a reasonable doubt! Our doubts are so reasonable, that your doubting of our doubts is what’s unreasonable!” Doctor Whooves chimed in, “Pinkie Pie is right. Where do you get off acting like a holy avenger, after all we’ve exposed? Why are you so intent on seeing her sent to the moon?” “She’s a menace! She’s a danger to us all and we need to get rid of her.” Pinkie and Doctor Whooves had had enough of this. They got up from their places at the table and walked over to the window, turning their backs to Bon Bon in disgust. Bon Bon continued, “She’s not like us! She’s a danger to herself and everypony! We can’t let damaged goods walk around with us normal ponies!” She turned to Lyra for support. Lyra was tearful, “Bon Bon! You’re so mean!” She got up and joined the others by the window. One by one, the jury got up and turned away from Bon Bon. When the window was full, they lined up against the wall and stared at it with pregnant intensity. And so Bon Bon was alone in a room of 12. She stepped back in horror of what was happening. A few minutes of silence followed. Twilight turned her head and spoke. “What’s your vote?” Bon Bon was crying in the corner. “Not... not guilty” Epilogue: Fluttershy raised her wings to meet the evening mist. This was the haze that happens when a cool shower hits hot cobblestone on a hot summer day. A great sigh of relief was shed. She had not walked two feet down the courthouse steps when Bon Bon, half hiding her face behind her rain cloak walked up to her. “I wanted to say I was sorry for being so harsh in there. I didn’t mean to be.” “Oh, it’s alright. You were just following your convictions.” Fluttershy excused herself and turned to finish walking down the stairs. No sooner than she turned her back did she hear the sound of metal. It was a hoof-mounted switch knife and it was pointed at her heart. “You’re going to pay for what you did.” Bon Bon’s voice was suddenly much higher. That’s when it hit her. Bon Bon didn’t have pink eyes, she had blue! This wasn’t Bon Bon at all, but Trixie in Disguise! “I was so close to getting off scott free, but at least I’ll have the satisfaction of taking out one Ponyvillian personally...” There was no time to move, the blade was on her side, inches from her heart, this was to be the end and then TWACK! A heavy hoof came down on Trixie’s head, laying her out. Fluttershy curled into a ball of fright and started bawling. “Big Mac! You saved me from getting knifed by Trixie!” “She had a knife?”