Tools

by Samey90

Deception

"Vinyl, wake up!"

She slowly opened her eyelids. Her throat was dry and she felt a throbbing headache.

"Tavi?" her own voice scared her. It sounded as if she’d lost it somewhere and found it few hours later in a sever, half-eaten by rats.

The ceiling was painted in dull grey, she could’ve also seen some cracks in it. It seems that I didn’t come back home yesterday. Where am I then?

She raised her head, only to feel a new wave of pain. And another two, coming from her liver and spine.

Tavi’s probably worrying herself to death. I promised her to go home right after the show. She’ll kill me…

She noticed the bars in the window.

Buck. If she doesn’t kill me, I’ll do it myself.

"Vinyl? Ms Scratch?"

Two ponies were standing behind the iron grating. One of them was grey and Vinyl initially thought it was Octavia, but then noticed the wings. The other pony was a lavender mare Vinyl, just like probably everypony in Equestria knew: Twilight Sparkle, the Element of Magic and personal student of Princess Celestia.

"Yeah, I’m here. I’d invite ya inside, but I’m afraid it’s not up to me…"

"No problem," said Twilight, levitating the keys. She opened the grating and both mares entered the cell.

"Are you ok?" asked the gray pegasus, whose name was, if Vinyl recalled properly, Krissy.

The unicorn tried to answer, but the only thing she managed was a fit of coughing. Finally with a great effort she managed to rasp only one word: “water”.

Twilight’s horn lit, and a glass of water appeared on a small shelf next to the hard, wooden bed Vinyl was sitting on. The DJ tried to lift it with her magic, but after few unsuccessful attempts she grabbed it with her hoof (Tavi’s lessons paid off, she thought) and gulped the whole water at once.

"If by “ok” you mean “I’ve woken up in a prison with a terrible hangover and, one of my best friends probably tried to kill her marefriend, then yes, I’m ok," she said. Her voice still sounded like sandpaper, but it was much better now.

"Well, the good news is that we managed to restore contact with Lyra," replied Krissy. "She’s still in shock, but at least she was able to perform a spell pattern of which we recorded and compared with the trace on the pipe. She wasn’t the one who tried to kill Bon-Bon."

Vinyl sighed with relief. Good news for her, bad news for Surveillance, thought Twilight and levitated two pieces of paper from her saddlebags. On both of them were some sophisticated graphs, similar to ECG. She shown them to Vinyl.

"What’s this?" DJ asked, "Not in the mood for playing “find ten differences”, ya know."

"The one on the left is your pattern of magic, which we obtained from database. As you may know, the basic pattern doesn’t change over time and is unique for every unicorn, much like the hoofprints," Twilight explained. "The other one was isolated from the lead pipe Bon-Bon was beaten with."

"Why are you showing me these?" asked Vinyl. Oh Celestia, do they…

"They’re very similar. About 90% of them is exactly the same. Surveillance says it’s enough to accuse you of attempted murder, but I wanted to investigate the remaining 10%. Look at this part…"

She shown terrified Vinyl a part of a graph almost exactly in the middle of the page. On “her” graph it consisted of small, regular peaks that later evolved into a short plateau before changing into bigger peaks appearing in a different frequency.
The analogical part of the second graph consisted mostly of irregular ups-and-downs, some of them peaking somewhere outside the card.

"So… what does it mean?"

"We’re not quite sure, but I have a theory that you’ve been possessed by somepony… or something," explained Twilight.

Just great.

"I’m turning into a Nightmare?"

At least my mane will be looking fabulous. Too bad nopony will see that on the Moon…

"No, it’s not that kind of possession. Do you remember everything from the last night?" asked Twilight.

"Not really. I told that big serious guy yesterday that all I remember from the break is drinking a cider and walking to the bathroom. Not that what I did there would be worth memorizing. If I, for example, had a dia-"

"Enough!" Krissy groaned with disgust. "That’s something we don’t want to know!"

"So, you don’t remember being in the bathroom, while Bon-Bon was probably attacked there during break… Vinyl, who gave you a cider?"

Sweet Celestia… do they think that I… did I…

"I don’t know… Ya know, everypony wants to have a drink with a DJ. Somepony just put it near my turntables and disappeared."

"In your blood, except of a small amount of alcohol and a bit larger amount of THC, we found something strange: several traces of substances that are used to brew potions… quite powerful potions actually," said Twilight. "Have you been taking any magical medications recently?"

Vinyl shook her head. Suddenly Krissy shouted:

"Wait! That reminds me of something!"

Both unicorns looked at her.

"Last week in Cloudsdale guards found a drunk, underaged filly, wandering on the outskirts of the town. I took care of her till her parents arrived."

"And? I don’t get it…" Vinyl sighed.

"She also said that somepony gave her cider and that she doesn’t remember anything. We thought at first it was a pedophile, but she wasn’t raped. And later, almost exactly below the place she was caught, that guy was found."

"Which guy? I’m not up to date with the news , ya know," said Vinyl. Soon I’ll be in the news myself. In the “Crime” column.
"His name was Rainstorm. At first we thought that he committed suicide or fell of the clouds by accident, but autopsy revealed that before death he was hit in the face with a hoof and later somepony attacked him from behind and cracked his skull with a wrecking bar. Guards from Cloudsdale found out that he was hit earlier in a pub by some young mare whom he tried to pick up. She then left with her sister and some other guy – a drinking buddy of the late Rainstorm. All three have alibis, they were seen later in a Dirty Thunderstorm club."

"I know that place!" a faint smile appeared on Vinyl’s face, "I performed there once, they had to fly me home just after the show. Ya know, alcohol and cloud-walking spell just doesn’t mix well…" Not to mention that throwing up in mid-air isn’t something that ponies on the ground are fond of.

"Anyway after that they went to the sisters’ home, where one of them had… well, something what grown-up ponies do when they like each other…" she said, staring at Vinyl as if she was an overgrown foal. "…that guy came back to the hotel, where, few hours later he was woken up by our guards."

"So, you think that filly…" Twilight looked weakly at the psychologist.

"She might have killed him without knowing it. And without us knowing it."

"And you think that the same pony who gave her cider with that potion now used the same method to make Vinyl try to kill Bon-Bon?" asked Twilight.

"That’s horrible… using other ponies as tools… but it’s possible."

"Feint within a feint within a feint… Somepony who came up with such idea must be…"

"… fucking insane," said Vinyl flatly before Twilight could finish the sentence.

Author's Note:

Dirty thunderstorm is a name of the actual weather phenomenon, and I think it's quite catchy name for a club.

Comments

[Onyx Heart]

Yeah Dirty Thunderstorm is a good name for a club... A STRIP CLUB!