Meet Spike, Canterlot's greatest private investigator. How great? You've probably never heard of him. But he's had hundreds of cases, big and small. He's tracked down missing ponies, engaged in shoot-outs with smugglers, and almost single-handedly took down the Pastia, the biggest gang of organized crime to date (lawyers, politicians, and academics aside).

But he's put the whole P.I. game behind him, and he's ready to settle into a quiet retirement (or as quiet a retirement you can get in Ponyville). That is until a familiar mare pays him a visit about her sister's disappearance. Armed with with only a loaded CARA. millimeter and his years of experience and cynicism, he calls upon an old friend, a certain wall-eyed pegasus. He soon finds himself embroiled in one of his toughest cases to date, one that has the fate of Equestria resting on the shoulders of everyone's favorite purple and green dragon.

Author's Note: I suffer from an advanced case of Footnote Fever, and so I wrote it with footnotes. I am since discovering that every website doesn't have a good way of doing them. So I'm just making them silvery and putting them right after the paragraph they were in. Sorry 'bout that.