//------------------------------// // Is he doing this on purpose? // Story: Wonderful Mechanical: Keen Eye and the Wonderbolt Saboteur. // by Monocrome_Monogatari //------------------------------// “What do we do now?” It had been a good 15 minutes since Rivet asked me that, and I still didn’t have an answer. It wasn’t that I was completely out of ideas, this was far from my first time around the block with the seemingly impossible. What I SHOULD be doing is taking a closer look at the scenes of the incidents. What I SHOULD be doing is tracking down any and all witnesses and noting what they saw. What I SHOULD be doing is finding the squads involved with previous incidents and getting those testimonies. What I SHOULD be doing is getting records from the screwdriver containers on who had the special screwdrivers and when. I SHOULD be recreating the scenes of the crime, and finding new angles to approach... …but I can’t, not with the handicap I’ve been placed under. I can’t investigate too overtly. Officially, there’s no crime. We couldn’t find Swift Justice, so we couldn’t get any leads on strange behavior during cleanup. My guess is that he was dragged into some other “volunteer” work, since he was there… Ah well, he could use some discipline or whatever anyways. I wanted to take a deep look at the other workshops in the basement, but that route was blocked off. Yes, plenty of engineers were above working, but they were running up and down for parts, tools, and schematics. If we were caught digging through stuff we’re not supposed to, at the very least it’d be unwanted attention… So we retreated behind the locked door to Rivet’s workshop, and I got lost in thought trying to pace my way through this maze. Tap Tap “Not now Rivet” I said brushing the hoof off my shoulder. Tap Tap “You know Rivet if you want to say something you can just use words. It’s not like I slipped numbing cream in your toothpaste again.” “You did what now.” Said Rivet…with his back to me…sitting on a chair on the opposite side of the room. I froze. “Rivet…how are you tapping my back all the way from there?” “I’m not…?” he swiveled the chair—“Grk!”—and his eyes bulged when he looked my way. Then who’s behind me…? Tap Tap I turned my head and… …was assaulted with a flood of unpleasant memories “It’s your fault you know. They’re dead and it’s your fault.” “GAH!” Before I could process what I was seeing I had already bucked, launching the body behind me into a pile of machine parts, landing with an unpleasant, wet sounding crunch. “WAAAUGH!” Rivet screamed “Keen what did you do?!” Laying in the pile was a prone, unmoving pony, covered by an old newspaper, the one I had an adverse reaction to. “SERIAL KILLER FINALLY CAUGHT!” on the front page, next to a picture of a face…I’d really want to forget. I won’t describe it, I’ll leave it at that. That’s a story for another time. Maybe never. “Relax, Rivet.” I said, shaking off my nerves and approaching the pile “If I don’t know how to fix this, I’ll at least know how to hide it.” He just hyperventilated. Jeez, it’s like he’s never even considered hiding a body before…. I pulled away the newspaper, and beneath it, crumpled under the pile of metal was…no one. Just a depression where the body should be. THUMP And that’s when I felt a pony jump on my head. “Wow Detective Salsa! You’ve got quite a kick!” Screeched an entirely too loud voice. “Twister!” Rivet’s fear turned to irritation “What are you doing in my lab?” Boing! I turned around just in time to see the scrawny green stallion with unkempt hair and unfocused eyes leap onto Rivet’s back, posing like a frog and puffing up his cheeks. “Ribbit!” He said “Keeping the great detective Keen Eye locked up in your basement!” his tone was aghast. “How selfish! How scary! How creepy!” Oh no... a fan... This is the worst development possible. “Wait…You know who I am?” He stopped chiding rivet and just…smiled at me. It wasn’t the manic teeth-and-gums, eyes bulging smile he showed off in the battledome. It was calm, restrained, with eyes slightly narrowed. Something about that expression…staring into those eyes, two idioms came to mind… Still waters run deep and The abyss gazes back. When I finally brought myself to blink, I was face to face with that unpleasant paper again. “Can you sign this?!” Shoving it into my hooves. “Make it out to Make outs!” He spun away from me not noticing nor caring that I didn’t have a pen on me. “This one’s my favorite! I’ve always wanted to be in one of your stories!” You do realize the ponies in news stories with me tend to be murderers or murder victims, right? “…Shouldn’t you be nursing a concussion?” I said. “That’s my secret, Detective!’ He said. “I ALWAYS have a concussion.” “That’s nice…” I said, inching back “hey, how about you take a nice, relaxing nap.” “I’ll sleep when I’m dead!” “Yes, that’s the idea.” That might have sounded harsh but…there was something unnerving about Twister… No, something disgusting about him. My talent isn’t just looking at things…it’s also looking at ponies. Up close, if I’m focusing, the small shifts in body language and facial expression become evident, and they’re often clues on what they’re feeling. I’m not saying this to brag that I’m a living lie detector, I have a large margin of error. I’m saying this because... Up close, Twister looked all wrong. He was too expressive. Every facial tic and every gesture was caricature, overblown, they all looked affected, and yet…that’s all that was there. I couldn’t see anything behind it, any suggestion of hidden feelings in his movements. Those fake movements somehow felt entirely sincere. It’s uncanny. Almost like watching a method actor completely lose themselves in a role, and never returning to their original personality… “AHEM!” Rivet, stood by the door, pointing to a poster on the wall. “Twister, please read the sign.” “How about YOU read the sign?!” “What?” The ban list at the entrance of Rivet’s workshop, which originally only had Twister’s name, had been defaced to read “NO RIVETS ALLOWED” “Welp.” Twister said, scooping Rivet from the ground “I don’t make the rules. That’s the lizard-pony shadow government’s job. I just follow them.” He then placed Rivet into a box labeled “Rivet Jail” “Twister” I said, wiping off the “NO” from the sign, “as fun as it is to bully Rivet, we don’t have all day. Why are you here?” “Yes, ‘why are we here?’ the million bit question…” he jumped towards me, stopping inches from my face. “What about you? Are you here to solve the mystery of the Shadowbolts?” “What’s a Shadowbolt?” “Or the mystery of Soarin’s Horn?” “Who’s Soarin?” “Or the mystery of the disappearing sandwiches in the rec room fridge?!” “It’s probably Swift Justice.” I could feel him use the same conversational tactics I used. Use bizarre statements to put them off balance, use retorts to keep the pressure, use aggressively close body language to make them feel trapped… the more I saw of this pony, the more I was impressed and unnerved. “Or how about the mystery of why I feel scared when I look at the vastness of the night sky?” “That’s just existential dread.” With every question he bounced closer, and with every answer I stepped back, until I was pinned, back against a cluttered tool desk. “Oh! Are you investigating the training equipment sabotage?” I shoved my hoof in front of his mouth, shutting out his incessant spew of questions. “Twister…” I said. “Shut up, and start talking.” I’ll spare you the entirety of our conversation. Even for me, it was unreasonably long winded and roundabout. When Twister wasn’t bursting out non-sequiturs or puns, he kept going on weird tangents. Still, I got some of my questions answered, even if the answers weren’t very helpful at all. “So how did you know about me?” I asked. “I’m a big fan of the obituaries!” I don’t know whether that makes me or him sound more awful. “How exactly did you get banned from Rivet’s lab?” “Lots of cockroaches.” “Nice.” “NOT NICE AT ALL!” Rivet shouted. “Why do you think that someone’s committing sabotage?” “The second law of thermodynamics.” Twister said. “Um...Well, do you have any proof?” “I’m bad at math” “…Did you witness any pony tampering with the machinery?” He nodded. “Who?!” He pointed toward Rivet… “Ugh…” And so on and so on and so on… “Listen…” I was rubbing my forehead, struggling to keep my regular smile up, “…do you have ANYTHING I can work with here?” “Oh! I have something!” he said, waving his hand like he was in a classroom. “…” He kept waving as I waited. “…well?” I said. “Well what?” Twister tilted his head. “…Twister,” I said, affecting a nasally deadpan, “would you please share what you have with the class.” He squirmed in his seat and blushed, “I can’t…. It’s embaaaaaarrassing…” … “Hey Rivet,” I said. “Didn’t you mention that you once made a tazer? Do you still have that lying around?” “Okay, I’ll talk I’ll talk!” grabbed my shoulders and shook frantically “Just don’t hurt my babies!” He held up two eggs with faces drawn on them. I smacked them to the floor. “Oh…” he looked down at the crumbled shells and runny yolks “I was going to eat those…” “Talk.” I said. “Only if you two turn around first…” he said, blush reappearing. “Just play along Keen…” Rivet said. “Fiiine.” As our backs turned, I could hear a sound akin to rustling through a cluttered bag. “Okay! You can turn around now!” I turned. “I swear if you’re just showing us your—“ In front of me was Twister standing on his hind legs, bloodlust in his eyes, holding a screwdriver in the icepick position, about to drive it into my skull. On reflex, I lunged forward, not tackling him, but intentionally placing my face centimeters away from the tip. I glared at him, staring daggers in his eyes, daring him to move forward. For a moment, all was still. “Y’know Twister…” I said, adrenaline pumping and smile stretching. “I really appreciate good slapstick. In fact, I don’t even mind being the victim. I am a masochist after all…” I reached back to the desk behind me, the bridge of my nose not leaving the metal point. “but, if you’re going to do it, you need to commit to it. No fake-outs, like making it look like you’ll swing before dropping the weapon.” I grabbed a box-cutter from the clutter. “In other words…” I put the blade against his throat. “Don’t write checks you don’t plan to cash.” Click With that tiny noise, everything went white. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT “GaAaAaAaAaAGh!” I collapsed to the floor, twitching. Above me was Rivet, wide eyed and shaking, with a tazer in his hooves. “Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?” I moaned. “Y-you two were at each others throats!” he said. “No, I meant why meeee.” “You’re the less trustworthy one in this situation!” “What have I EVER done to make you think that?!” “I have a list! “MY TURN!” Twister shouted. “Wha—?” before Rivet could react, Twister leaped toward Rivet, landing straight on the active end of the tazer, causing Rivet to reflexively pull the trigger again. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT “WAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHA” Twister fell back, laughing as the volts swam through his system. “Ah!” The impact and surprise led to Rivet tripping backwards, the tazer escaping from his grip and flipping through the air, before falling directly downward towards Rivet’s prone body… THUNK Where the butt of the handle hit his forehead. For a minute we all just laid on the floor writhing in our injuries. “I think…we all got off on the wrong hoof.” I said. “I normally get off on the back left hoof” Twister said. “Impressive” I said. “Ew.” Rivet said. “Anyways…” I sat up. “Twister, would you mind telling me how you got your hooves on one of the locked up W-Screwdrivers?”