SPOILER WARNING: This Ponified episode contains heavy reference to the BBC Series Sherlock's 2nd episode, The Blind Banker. DO NOT READ IF YOU OBJECT TO THESE SPOILERS! Sherlock © the BBC
All MLP Characters © Hasbro. Unofficial names used where real names are unknown.
Twilight's voice had recovered by the time they reached the museum. She immediately set about questioning the writer of the note. “When was the last time that you saw her?”
“Three days ago,” Written told them. “Here at the museum.” Twilight was peering into the display cases, especially at some teapots. “This morning,” the museum worker continued, “they told me she'd resigned, just like that.” He gestured at the pots. “Just left her work unfinished.”
“What was the last thing that she did, on her final afternoon?” Twilight asked.
Written led them to the where the pots were kept when off display. He flipped on a switch, illuminating the hall. “She does this demonstration for the tourists,” he explained. “A tea ceremony. So she would have packed up her things and just put them in here.” He opened the case in question, but Twilight wasn't paying attention. She'd noticed something down the hall a ways. There, painted across the stomach of a statue, was the same symbol from the bank and the library.
***
“We have to get to Inkie Pie,” Twilight said as she and Applejack stepped out of the museum and into the night air.
“If she's still alive,” the earth pony noted grimly.
The sound of wheels passing over pavement neared them. “Twilight!” a familiar voice called.
“Well, look who it is,” Applejack said sourly as Scootaloo brought her scooter to a stop.
The pegasus ignored the tone. “I've found something you'll like,” she told the unicorn. She led them off. As they walked (or rolled, as it were,) Applejack outlined the dilemma the pegasus had left her in.
“Tuesday morning,” she explained. “All you have to do is turn up and say the bag was yours.”
“Can we forget about your court date?” Twilight objected as they crossed a bridge. From a distance, a grey maned mare watched them, ominously dressed in black and sunglasses.
***
The place that Scootaloo led them too was a graffiti garden. The concrete walls and pillars were covered with intricate patterns of spray paint. Fillies and colts skated around the colorful area, pulling off what tricks they could in the limited space.
“If you want to hide a tree, then a forest is the best place to do it, don't you think?” Twilight asked. “Ponies would just walk straight past, not knowing, unable to decipher the message.”
Scootaloo pointed at one wall. “There. I spotted it earlier.” Yellow markings were just visible at the edge of some fresh artwork: the same cipher.
“And that's the exact same paint?” Twilight questioned.
“Yeah,” Scootaloo confirmed.
“Applejack,” Twilight said, “if we're going to decipher this code, we're going to need to look for more evidence.” The two ponies dispersed, sweeping the surrounding area for more symbols.
***
The search led Twilight down to the railroad track. She found a can, yellow paint, Cloudsdale made. A sniff of the nozzle confirmed that it was zinc.
***
Applejack trotted along a tunnel, peering at the assorted artwork. No yellow signs were there, so she turned about and followed the route Twilight had taken, walking the opposite way along the tracks.
***
A wall covered in posters piqued Twilight's curiosity. She ripped some away, only to find more layers of posters underneath. Old. No new messages would be there.
***
Applejack panned the beam of her flashlight along the sides of the track. A splotch of yellow paint on the rails caught her attention. Eagerly, she followed the trail, off the tracks and up onto a wall. She shone the light over the entire wall. A mass of symbols, more than they'd seen anytime before, had been sprayed onto the wall. She gaped at it. This could be the break they needed to crack the case.
***
Twilight was peering at the side of a rusting train car when Applejack found her. “Answer your phone,” she berated the unicorn. “I've been calling you!” She panted as she slowed to a stop. “I found it,” she said once she had her breath back, then ran back up the line, Twilight following.
***
The earth pony stared in disbelief at the wall. What had moments before been covered with yellow symbols was now solid black. “It's been painted over,” she said. Twilight looked around for the culprit, but whoever had done this was long gone. “I don't understand. It-it was…” she waved helplessly at the wall. “Here. Ten minutes ago, I saw it, a whole bunch of graffiti.”
“Somepony doesn't want me to see it,” Twilight muttered. She grabbed Applejack's head between her hooves.
“Hey, Twilight,” the earth pony objected. “What are you-”
“Shh! Applejack, concentrate!” the unicorn ordered. “I need you to concentrate. Close your eyes.”
“What? Why? Why?” Applejack's eyes had been closed, but then Twilight shifted the grip down to her shoulders. “What are you doing?” the earth pony asked, opening her eyes again. Twilight started turning, spinning Applejack around.
“I need you to maximize your visual memory,” she explained. “Try to picture what you saw. Can you picture it?”
“Yeah.” How was making her dizzy going to help with that?
“Can you remember it?” Twilight asked with urgency.
“Yes, definitely,” Applejack assured her.
“Can you remember the pattern?” Twilight kept spinning the earth pony.
“Yes.” Now she really was getting dizzy.
“How much can you remember it?” the unicorn pressed.
“Well, don't worry-” Applejack tried to explain.
Twilight kept talking. “Because the average pony memory on visual matters is only sixty-two percent accurate.”
“Yeah, well don't worry, I remember all of it.”
“Really?” Twilight said doubtfully.
“Yeah, well at least I would,” Applejack said, loosing herself from the unicorn's hooves, “if I can get to my pockets.” She withdrew her phone. “Took a photograph.” The phone beeped as she brought up the picture and showed it to the unicorn. By the way Twilight gazed at the image, Applejack could tell that the detective thought that this was the clue they had needed.
***
Back at flat, Twilight enlarged the photo, printed it, and marked the symbols on it and all the other pictures with their Equestrian numerical equivalents. “Always in pairs, Applejack, look.”
“Hmm?” Applejack sleepily asked, stifling a yawn.
“Numbers,” Twilight explained. “They come with partners.”
“Celestia, I need to sleep,” the earth pony groaned.
“Why did she paint it so near the tracks?” the unicorn wondered aloud.
“No idea,” Applejack told her. The earth pony slumped forward tiredly.
“Thousands of ponies pass by there every day,” Twilight continued, oblivious to the complaints.
“Just twenty minutes,” Applejack begged. Her eyes slid shut slowly.
“Of course,” Twilight said softly, realizing something. “Of course! She wants information. She's trying to communicate with her people in the underworld. Whatever was stolen, she wants it back. And it's somewhere here, in a code.” She ran a hoof over the pictures, then selected the most important ones and yanked them free. “We can't crack this without Inkie Pie.” She walked over to the door.
The sudden rustle of paper shook the dozing earth pony awake. “Oh, great,” she muttered sarcastically as she stood to follow. Just what she needed, another late night outing.
***
The sun had risen again by the time their search for the missing Inkie brought them once more to the museum. The morning crowds had yet to arrive when Written Script met them in the display room again.
“Two stallions who travelled back from Chineigh were murdered,” Twilight began, “and their killer left them messages in Suzhou numerals.”
“Inkie Pie is in danger,” Applejack continued. “Now that cipher, it was just the same pattern as the others. She means to kill her as well.”
“Look, I've tried everywhere,” Written told them. “Friends, colleagues, I don't know where she's gone.” The teapots caught Twilight's gaze again as the junior curator continued. “I mean, she could be a thousand miles away.”
Applejack noticed the interest with which Twilight eyed the ceramics. “What are you looking at?”
“Tell me more about those teapots,” Twilight instructed the museum worker.
“The pots were her obsession,” Written explained. “They need urgent work. If they dry out, then the clay can start to crumble. Apparently you just have to keep making tea in them.”
Twilight pressed her nose almost against the glass. “Yesterday, only one of those pots was shining. Now there are two.”
***
That night, the museum closed as normal. An hour after the main lights went off, a grate in the wall was pushed open. A pony trotted into the display room and removed one of the pots from its case. They trotted back out, to the restoration room. Inside, Inkie started a kettle and prepared the tea as she did when giving her demonstration, although more hurriedly. Carefully, she poured tea over the pot and began rubbing the liquid around the surface.
The silhouette of a pony quietly approached from outside of her field of vision. It neared the table as the earth pony continued the process. “Would you like a muffin with that?” Twilight asked.
Inkie gasped in fright and dropped the pot. An inch from the ground, a magenta glow surrounded it, stopping its fall. Twilight gently lifted the pot back up. “Centuries old. Don't want to break that.” She placed the pot back into the grey pony's hooves, then flipped on the lights. “Hello,” she said. Applejack entered the room from where she'd been hiding and stood near the unicorn.
“You saw the cipher,” Inkie said simply. “You know she is coming for me.”
“You've been clever to avoid her so far,” Twilight observed.
“I had to finish,” Inkie explained. “To finish this work.” She looked at the pot on the table. “It's only a matter of time. I know she will find me.”
“Who is she?” Twilight asked. “Have you met her before?”
Inkie nodded. “When I was a filly, living back in Chineigh. I recognize her…signature.”
“The cipher?”
“Only she would do this,” Inkie confirmed. “Zhi Zhu”
“Zhi Zhu?” Applejack asked.
“The spider,” Twilight translated.
Inkie lifted her right hind leg and pushed aside the fur above the hoof. A small symbol, a black diamond, had been tattooed there. Twilight's eyes widened in recognition. “You know this mark?” Inkie asked.
“Yes,” the unicorn said. “It's the mark of a Tom.”
“What's that?” Applejack asked.
“Ancient crime syndicate,” Twilight told her. “Based in Chineigh.”
“Every foot soldier bears the mark,” Inkie explained. “Everypony who hauls for them.”
“Hauls? You mean you were a smuggler?” Applejack asked.
“I was fifteen,” Inkie said, bringing her leg down again. “My parents were dead. I had no livelihood, no way of surviving day to day, except to work for the bosses.”
“Who are they?” Twilight questioned.
“They are called…” Inkie hesitated before naming them. “The Black Diamond.” Twilight remembered the paper diamonds she'd seen, twice at crime scenes and once in her own pocket. “By the time I was sixteen,” Inkie continued, “I was taking thousands of bits worth of drugs across the border into Horn Kong. I managed to leave that life behind me. I came to Equestria. They gave me a job, here.” She nodded at her surroundings. “Everything was good. New life.”
“Then she came looking for you,” Twilight said.
“Yes,” Inkie confirmed. She gulped nervously. “I had hoped, after five years, maybe they would have forgotten me, but they never really let you leave. A small community like ours, they are never very far away.” The grey pony brought her hooves to her face, remembering. “She came to my flat. She asked me to help her, to track down something that was stolen.”
“And don’t know what it was?” Applejack asked.
Inkie shook her head. “I refused to help.”
“So, you knew her well, when you were living back in Chineigh?” Applejack wanted to know.
“Oh, yes,” Inkie said sadly. “She's my sister.” Twilight remembered the photograph in Inkie's flat. The grey pony continued her story. “Two orphans. We had no choice. We could work for the Black Diamond, or starve on the streets, like beggars. My sister has become their puppet, in the power of the one they call Scroll, Black Diamond General.” The fear she felt at that name showed on her face. “I turned my sister away. She said I had betrayed her. Next day, I came to work…and the cipher was waiting.”
Twilight slid the photos she'd brought across the table to Inkie. “Can you decipher these?”
Inkie looked at the symbols. “These are numbers.”
“Yes, I know,” Twilight said.
“Here, the line across the stallion's mouth,” Inkie said, pointing. “It's a Chineighse number one.”
“And this one is fifteen,” Twilight continued with the number the one had been paired with. “But what's the code?”
“All the smugglers know it,” Inkie said. “It's based upon a book-”
The lights went out. There was a thud as a door or window in the main museum opened. Inkie was terrified. “She's here.” The grey pony closed her eyes. “Zhi Zhu…she has found me.”
Twilight bolted for the door into the exhibit halls. “No, no, Twilight,” Applejack called after her. “Twilight, wait!” The unicorn ignored her, slamming the door behind her. Applejack turned to Inkie. “Over there,” she said, ushering the grey pony into a side room. Inkie brushed against the photos and the images fell to the floor as Applejack urged her on. “Get in. Get in!”
***
Twilight dashed into the main hallway of the museum. She looked around. A pony ran out onto a walkway above and behind her and pointed a gun at the detective. Shots rang out, and Twilight dove behind a statue.
***
Inside the small side room, Applejack and Inkie heard the shots. “I have to go and help her,” Applejack told Inkie. “Bolt the door after me.” She exited into the museum proper; behind her, Inkie made no move to seal the door, at first frozen in fright. Then, she crawled back into the restoration room, a plan forming in her mind.
***
Applejack entered the main museum and ducked as more shots were fired. The killer fired once more, then ran off. Twilight fled her cover and ran up the stairs in pursuit. Applejack peered out and saw her run off. She headed for the front door, intending to catch the killer when they tried to escape.
***
Upstairs, Twilight rounded the corner and pulled back as another shot was fired, tearing into a fossil display of skulls. She ducked behind a sign board as Zhi Zhu kept shooting. “Careful!” she shouted as another shot whizzed past. “Some of those skulls are over two hundred thousand years old. Have a bit of respect!” The shots stopped. Silence filled the air. “Thank you.” She frowned as she realized that it was far too quiet. She peered around the corner; the killer was gone.
***
Downstairs, Applejack heard the silence. She'd heard Twilight call out, so the unicorn was fine. So why had the killer stopped shooting?
***
Inkie slowly got to her feet by her worktable. A stray breeze wafted through the papers on the table. She'd done all she had time to do. Now, Zhi Zhu was here. Another pony walked up behind her. Inkie faced the other pony, who was slate grey. Her pale grey mane hung into her eyes. Inkie smiled. At least she got to see her sister one more time. “Blinkie,” she murmured. “Da jie.” She reached out a hoof to touch her sister's face.
***
One shot echoed through the museum. Applejack turned toward the source of the sound. “Oh, Celestia, no.” She ran back down the stairs, into the restoration room, already knowing she was too late. The body of Inkie Pie had fallen onto the table. A black paper diamond was rested on her hoof. Grief tore at Applejack and she fought back a sob. She hadn't deserved this. None of the victims had deserved this.
***