//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: Anterograde 
// by Archmage Ludicrous 
//------------------------------//



Revised Question Sheet: Some questions have revised priority. Please ask the following questions.
—Twilight



I looked up from my newly-finished work. Rarity was tugging at something on my head—I looked over my notes, checking to make sure I had something on that. A bandage, she was tightening a bandage. I quickly checked my reference card.



Twilight, you need to record the answers to all of our questions. Please ask the questions on our question sheet, and check them after they are answered. If you check them beforehand, there's a chance you'll be interrupted while the question is being asked. All of these questions should be asked, as they are all relevant. Trust me, you'll tie it together later.
Also, DO NOT USE MAGIC.

—Yourself



First things first. I had to make sure I hadn't asked any questions that weren't on my sheet.

"Rarity, have I asked any questions yet?"

"Hush, darling. Really, we need to get you to the hospital."

There was something about the hospital in my notes—I shuffled the pages about to find the transcribed copy of the hospital report.

"No, Rarity, I've already been to the hospital. My report says that I just need rest, and can't use magic."

Rarity stopped tugging at my bandage. A hairbrush retrieved from... somewhere. I wasn't watching, but apparently she had one. I winced as she dug into my tangled mane.

"Rarity?"

"I just don't know about this whole situation, Twilight... really, it's out of my league. I'd truly prefer to just go home. You really do need your rest, too..." she sighed, clearly distracted about something. I scribbled that down in my notes—clearly, she had something on her mind.

"We can go home after I figure this out. Or perhaps, while we're figuring this out. We're going to need to go back to Ponyville: that much is obvious. The crime scene is there, after all."

The hairbrush Rarity was using dropped as it deflected oddly off of a tangle. She cleared her throat, and picked it back up again.

"Crime scene, darling? Surely it would be more reasonable to presume that the bump on your head was the result of an accident, wouldn't you?" I tried to shake my head in response to her question, but I couldn't while Rarity had it held in place to brush me. I could tell that Rarity was trying her best to straighten my mane as she talked—a feat not made easy with the bandages on my head, but I was sure that she was trying her best.

"I don't think so," I replied after giving up on body language. "I know I've been at the library after getting my amnesia, because I have library parchment with me. However, I don't have much else, which tells me that I've either lost evidence of where I've been, or I've been robbed of that evidence."

"Did you ever suppose that you never had that 'evidence' in the first place?" asked Rarity, muttering as she worked over the treacherous tangle that had stolen the hairbrush earlier.

"That's possible..." I admitted. "It's possible, but I don't think that it is the case. I organize things. That's not so much a tendency as it is a fact. I don't think that I'd lose track of a habit like that so easily."

Rarity took a long pause before responding. "I suppose you are right. So then... you suspect Bigs?"

"Bigs?" I asked, the name foreign to me. I referred quickly to my notes—Mr. Big Trouble, "Bigs," a very large Earth Pony (seriously, taller than Big Mac). Ashen grey. Light blue eyes. Cutie mark is a graphic of an explosion, with heavy stylization. Status: minor suspect. Investigate potential motive. Possesses means (sufficient height and strength) and potentially opportunity. Remember, no magic.

I opened my mouth to answer but was interrupted by the stallion in question, who stumbled out of the room adjacent with an awful smell in his company. He held a thick bottle of something in one hoof as he staggered over to the table, and answered Rarity's question for her.

"NO! No, of courshe she doeshn't shush... shish... think it wasche me." He breathed heavily, and an unforgettable scent of a particular liquor wafted across the table. "Sh...shorry for the shmell, ladiesh... it'sh... it'sh all the Tounge-Twishter, shee? Had to shteel my... shteel me... bolshter my conshtitushun."

Tongue-Twister was a type of booze that had just recently become popular, over the last decade or so. It was about as alcoholic as milk and cookies, but instead used a weak enchantment to bring a state of enhanced inebriation to the drinker. While traditional drunkards regarded it as the fare of a pony without the drive to get properly drunk, it rose to common use due to its ease of production, overall low price, highly temporary effects, and comparative healthiness to traditional drink.

"Want shome?" Resting his head on the table with a loud thud, Bigs pushed the bottle towards me. "It'sh shrawberry... shtraw-berry tashte."

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Rarity coughed politely, setting the hairbrush down on the table as she grabbed up the Tongue-Twister instead. "I think that's quite enough of that, don't you?"

"Aw, come on!" Bigs complained, sliding upwards from the table to reach at the bottle that Rarity trotted past him with. "It'sh not shrong! 'Ihsh three er fourish minutesh, ushally... try shome!"

Rarity cocked an eyebrow at him. "You would expect me to drink from the bottle, wouldn't you?"

"Rarity..." I complained. "Now is hardly the time to get drunk."

"I knew that, Twilight!" Rarity said, huffing. "I was just... I was just taking it back to the kitchen! That's all."

I sighed, rubbing at my forehead.

"Have I asked any questions yet?" I asked, glancing over my notes.

"NOOOOOoshurey... no queshtuns!" Bigs grinned, then hiccuped. Rarity clamped her mouth shout, stifling whatever answer she had for me.

"As it so happens, my first questions are for you, Bigs. Mind me asking them after you sober up?"

"Shurrrr... yeah, shure, give me a few minutesh..." He hiccuped again, then grimaced. "Might ash well shtart now. Hiccupsh mean I'm shtartin' to shore up."

"I'll just... deliver this beverage to its point of origin." Rarity said, balancing on the threshold to the next room. I waved her on before she gingerly crossed through the portal.

"Now..." I coughed, uncapping my pen. "Bigs. I have a several questions for you. I'd appreciate your general cooperation as I proceed down my list. Let's start with when you were getting 'my ID' as you testified earlier. You mentioned five things for identifying a pony: race, fur color, gender, stature, and eye color. Is that correct?"

"Ol' Arr-eff-shee gee-seck, that'sh right," Bigs affirmed slurring together the letters of the acronym. I uncapped my pen and started writing. "It'sh the sh- the shtandard method of identificashun the Guard ushes, you know?"

"RFC-GSEC? Do you know about that because of your reported interest of the guard?"

"Yess ma-am, I sure do." Bigs said, his eye screwing up as came under the attack of another hiccup.

"Is this how you learned your method of identification?"

"Yes to that, alsho."

"Why did you not include my cutie mark in your identification process?"

Bigs tapped his hooves together, counting under his breath. "Sh'not on the list."

A silent thrill of triumph leaped through my veins. Any real member of the Guard would know all the reasons that the RFC-GSEC protocol was drafted into use for—or at least that it was to prevent discrimination based on the cutie mark itself. I went for the kill. "You aren't affiliated with the Guard, are you?"

"No, ma'am." Bigs swung his head side to side, then hiccuped.

I paused for a second. I should have seen that coming—interest in the Guard didn't necessarily mean he was implying Guard affiliation. And on contemplation, if I didn't write anything about his claiming or implying Guard affiliation, he probably didn't ever do it. Probably. In either case, I kept my questions rolling.

"My next questions are particularly regarding your actions when I sent you to look for my friends. I gave you a description of all the friends who I knew where available today, and sent you to Ponyville to fetch them. However, Rarity testified that you never went to Ponyville. Is this true?"

"Yes."

"That you instead sent a letter?"

"Yep."

"Why did you choose to do that, rather than take the train?"

Bigs grimaced. "I, uh, I couldn't afford it, see?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Why didn't you tell me that you couldn't afford it?"

"Cuz I uh... damn. Cuz I was afraid of yah askin' why, miss."

"...Mind sharing why you were afraid, Mr. Big Trouble?"

"Mind?" Despite being nearly a full pony taller than me, Bigs managed to look up at me with piteous eyes. "Yeah, lady, I'd mind, but I prefer it to gettin' in trouble. Ask away, if it makes yah feel better."

It was disturbing that such a massive, gruff, slovenly pony could make me feel such guilt. I felt as if I were taking candy from a tiny, grade-school colt. Those eyes were not the eyes of a criminal—but that didn't exclude Big Trouble from the list of suspects. Criminals have ways of stealing new eyes if their old ones aren't innocent enough. "Yes, Mr. Trouble. The full story."

He groaned. "Well, sh'not much to tell. See, it starts with a mare, a tiny and sweet-soundin' unicorn mare, not unlike yourself. She stole my heart, you see, made away with it like a thief. Her fur was a light pink, like the petals of some flowers... or like blood, spilled in the snow. Feh. Shoulda took that as a warnin' rather than a blessing, see? She had her hooves wrapped in my mane like the wires of a puppeteer's dolls, an' took over my life. I lost my friends, my family. I couldn' see nothin' but her. Holidays were for buyin' her gifts. Weekends were for makin' dinner, buyin' gifts, an' makin' love. I can't believe I ever wanted that mare—I first wanted to join the Guard so tha' I could pay for her desires, y'know. But after a couple weeks in the Guard Academy, I noticed something. We were learnin' 'bout domestic violence an' abuse, when somethin' struck me, you follow? I realized how she'd taken over my life. So I decided to end it, 'fore it got worse. Well, she went straigh' to the Guard, and told 'em... she told 'em that I tried to take advantage of her, y'see? I didn't do so good in court... couldn't hire a lawyer, see? An' the public defenders were stretched tight, so when I got representation, it weren't even a real lawyer. She was a paralegal. An intern.

"Miss Blues was a real true soul though, she followed the spirit of the law even if she didn't know all the letters. We got a poundin' from the prosecution, and my reputation was mos'ly ruined, but I had some good references from my instructors in the Guard, and I go' away with a 'probative sentence.' It means tha' the Guard's gotta stay in touch with me, an' it's a temporary criminal sentence. Unfortunately, I can't go back to the Guard, or even go back t' the Academy 'till my sentence is up." Bigs finished his story with a great, heaving sigh, settling his head down on the table. "'M gonna starve, first, though. 'd like that Tongue Twister back, once we finish this questioning business."

"That's quite the story, Mr. Trouble." I said after I had finished writing down my story. I wasn't writing as fast as usual—checking back on my old notes from time to time to keep myself to speed with the situation took time. "And you'll stand by it?"

He grunted. "Me an' anypony else you'd care to ask. I hear too bleedin' much about it."

"Could I get the name of this mare? The..." I quickly checked my notes. "The pink one?"

"Allurin' Beauty was her name. She'll also probably respond to 'Fucking Bitch.'"

I leered briefly at Bigs, but decided that if his story was correct, his use of language was justified. I moved on to the final question for Bigs on my checklist. "For completeness' sake... did you take the train at any point this morning?"

Bigs shook his head. "I did leave to help out the Guard at the train station. I sneak by the Guards posted for me at the front by having Miss House let me in and out through the side door. 'm pretty sure the Guards know, though, since I go to do grunt work for the Guards by the station. There're Guards posted by the trains, so they'd know if I tried to leave Canterlot unsupervised."

I etched yet another check mark into my list of questions. The penultimate check mark, I noted; the only remaining question was a final one for Rarity. I nodded to Big Trouble. "Thanks for your help, Bigs. You've done a lot to help me revise my list of suspects."

He groaned. "Ya do suspect me, don't you? Damnit."

"I did suspect you, Mr. Trouble," I corrected, "Did, as in, past-tense. Your story is easily verified, and should it check out, there's no way that you could have given me this lump on my head."

"'Course I couldn't have! I found ya, helped your head, see? Doesn't that exclude me from the list?"

"No..." I frowned, memory of the questioning already fading. I clung to it by re-reading the events. "No, there are plenty of reasons less savory than first aid for you to have kept me in your room after attacking me." 

"But I didn't attack you! And... an' are you implying what I think you are?" Bigs exclaimed, both exasperated and insulted.

"Hypothetically, I mean. However, we know that you couldn't have, since you have no motive, nor any opportunity to attack me. In order to identify a criminal, you need to prove that they had the motivation, the ability, and the opportunity to commit the crime, as well as evidence to support the claim. Just about anypony has the means to have hit me on the head—but you bear no animosity towards me, and you'd have to notify the Guard yourself before even going to Ponyville to attack me. Really, it's ridiculous to think you could be the criminal."

"Huh." Bigs said, slumping back onto the table in a satisfied manner. "Thats, uh, yeah. That's good t' hear. So uh... who do you suspect?"

I had to check my notes for that, but thankfully found that my list was a short one. "Just two ponies, actually. One being the 'Alluring Beauty' mare who you mentioned, and the other being the pony who took me from the hospital. The former definitely has motive, in shaming you, while the latter is the pony who was nearest to the scene of the crime, as it were. I should also go investigate my library, to see if I can find any leads..."

"Much 's I'd like to burst the bubble of Allurin' Bitchy, she skipped town after the Changeling Invasion. I had pals in the Guard keepin' tabs on her, she hasn't been seen since then."

I scratched an "x" next to Alluring Beauty in my my suspects list. If she wasn't even in Canterlot, it wasn't possible to investigate her, though I couldn't rule her out of suspicion. In the end, everything seemed to boil down to one set of facts. According to the report from the hospital, a friend of mine took me from the hospital. Presumably, I went along willingly. Therefor, the pony who took me from the hospital actually was a friend of mine. And by extension, it seemed likely that the criminal was one and the same—that I had been attacked by one of my friends. I shuffled my two pages of questions from the pile. The first was mostly taken up by already-checked questions, but beginning on the bottom and going on to the next, there was clearly some ways for me to go.

"Bigs, could you call in Rarity?" I asked.

He lifted his head and turned to shout, but before he could do so, a white unicorn leaped from the neighboring room with a bottle hovering by her side. She giggled and hiccuped before saying anything, the scent of her breath filling the room most uncomfortably.

"Yesssss, Twilight, darling? D-d... darling, I'm right here, no need to get this... this... this ruffioso up and about!"

The table rose up to hit my face as the stupidity of the situation overwhelmed me. It then very rapidly retreated as an unspeakable migraine rose from the ashes of whatever head-throbbing I once had. It wasn't the most brilliant of my moments, nor the greatest of Rarity's... but in a way, I was glad that any question less frivolous than "where did you get that Tongue-Twister" would have to wait. 

"Come on, Rarity. We need to catch a train home. And... put that bottle down."

"Oh darling, it's empty anyways." Rarity tilted it to her lips, miming drinking from the empty bottle... until she hiccuped mid-sip, spraying enchanted booze all about the air. "Ah... mostly empty, dear. Up and away then! Let's go!"

"Ugh... a drunk and an amnesiac. I'm sure nothing could go wrong with us traveling on our own." I rolled my eyes as I began to gather my notes.

"...Nah, it'll be fine." After brief deliberation, the owner of the gruff voice shifted a hoof to stand up, towering over the room. "I'll come with you, lady. In case you run into whoever did this to yah, see?"

I was tempted to note that adding an unemployed and smelly stallion on probation to the situation didn't necessarily make it more stable, but I chose not to for fear that he would change his mind. Safety in numbers, after all.