CMC Investigations: The Creature of Canterlot

by AidanofVT

Chapter One.

Author's Note:

This story is a sequel to Magic Ears. It's a short story, and people tell me it's pretty good, so why not go ahead and read it?

If you read this story without having first read Magic Ears, then you may be confused. If you are confused then you may thumbs-down CMC Investigations, and if you do that then then neither of us will be happy.

Enjoy!

-Aidan

BEEP-BEEP. BEEP-BEEP. BEEP-BEEP.
Scootaloo groaned, fighting an infuriatingly futile battle to stay asleep. She pulled her pillow over her head and grimaced. Her enemy was purpose-built for victory, but she knew how to beat it: Scootaloo lit her ears and reached out with her magic. She blindly prodded where she guessed her nightstand was; she wasn't quite awake enough to know for sure which way she was facing.

BEEP-BEEP. BE-
Scootaloo had won the battle, but not the war. That said, the snooze-button would always be there, so she was feeling good about tomorrow’s skirmish. What she wasn't feeling good about was the prospect of waking up. As a private detective, Scootaloo was technically self employed, but she felt like a little discipline was good for her. And as her mother had always said: "Pain builds character." Scootaloo wasn't sure what the appeal of character was, but she respected her parents, and a daily wake-up time seemed like a relatively harmless form of pain.

But harmless or not, she still woke up in a sour mood every morning. Scootaloo rolled out of bed and stumbled to her feet. She trudged into the bathroom that abutted her bedroom and mindlessly performed her morning ritual. Piss. Flush. Turn on faucet. Splash face. Splash face again. Faucet off. Towel-dry face. Brush teeth.

Scootaloo couldn't imagine how some ponies were able to spend half an hour beautifying themselves every morning. She was usually so incoherent in the morning that she would worry about putting anything near her eyes for fear of injuring herself, and so hungry that every moment between rolling out of bed and putting food in her mouth felt like a tangible barrier to be surmounted. After a decade of practicing her ritual, increasing its efficiency, and eliminating unnecessary steps like hair-brushing, Scootaloo had trimmed it down to about ninety seconds. She was proud of that. Scootaloo stepped through her small kitchen, opened her front door and picked up the morning paper from her doormat. She levitated milk, cereal, and two bananas towards the table. She poured the milk and cereal, and replaced them in the refrigerator and pantry, respectively. She peeled and diced the bananas, letting the pieces fall into her bowl. The breakfast-pile practically overflowed out of it's bowl, but Scootaloo subconsciously enjoyed the irony of a cold breakfast that still managed to seem excessive. She floated the paper before her and began eating. She gave a cursory glance at the day's stories, looking for anything mysterious enough to possibly benefit from her skills. Finding nothing (she rarely did) she extricated the comics section. This was the real reason she had a newspaper subscription: when she ate her breakfast she had to focus so much attention on guiding her spoon under pieces of banana that she couldn't keep her eyes on a paper long enough to read an actual article.

On her way out the door, Scootaloo grabbed her duster and draped it over her body. As they saying went, the duster was what made a detective more than just a paid stalker. A decade ago, after she, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had all acquired their cutie marks, their trademark red-and-gold Cutie Mark Crusader capes had started to feel a little juvenile. More recently, when the CMC re-formed as the Center for Magical Curiosities, the color-scheme found a new purpose on their dusters. They may have been pretty desaturated, but the subtle red-on-the-outside, gold-on-the-inside colors of their dusters was what identified the CMC as a team, and of course there would always be the nostalgic significance of the colors that only they were privy to. The garment was made complete by a large patch stitched onto the flank which mimicked her cutie mark: two blue swirls of magic emblazoned around an Eldritch rune which translated, anticlimactically, to 'strange'. By the time Scootaloo stepped out of her building onto the sidewalk, she was starting to actually wake up. The noise of Ponyville's streets and the chill of the morning breeze always helped to open her eyes and ears. The threat of being run-over by a carriage helped too. People always seemed to associate private detectives with rainy cities, but the CMC had decided to stay in Ponyville in order to stay close to their best customer: Twilight Sparkle. She would task them with any mystery that she didn't herself have time to solve. Her cases alone accounted for more than half of their income. Also, ever since the Princess of Friendship had set up shop in Ponyville, the town's downtown had become more of, well, a downtown, so a PI business seemed less out of place every year.

The Acme Building was only a few blocks from Scootaloo's apartment, and her favorite dinner just happened to be along the route. On this morning Scootaloo stopped in for half a dozen doughnuts, and walked out with the box tucked between her wings. A long time ago, there had been a brief period when she thought that using her magic in public was just a fear to be conquered. But after she inadvertently caused two carriage-crashes on the same intersection on the same week, she decided that perhaps that particular fear was rational. Now she carried things on her back or in her mouth when she was among strangers.

Scootaloo walked one more block, turned into the large, red-brick Acme building, and took the elevator to the twelfth floor. She walked until she came to a door with a sign that read: The Center for Magical Curiosities (walk-ins welcome!). She stepped inside to find Sweetie shuffling some paperwork at her desk, and sounds of clanking metal emanating from Apple Bloom's room. As usual, they had beat Scootaloo to the office; she was pretty sure that Apple Bloom sometimes slept here.

"Good morning," greeted Scootaloo, "I brought doughnuts."

"Don't mind if I do," said Sweetie, opening the box and levitating a pastry off of Scootaloo's back and into her own mouth. At some point during her adolescence Sweetie had adopted her older sister's habit of wearing clothes just for the hell of it, and today she was sporting a blue and white scarf.

"'Morning Scootaloo," Apple Bloom yelled from within her room. Scootaloo set the doughnuts on Sweetie's desk, hung her duster beside two similar garments, and moved into Applebloom's doorway. Apple Bloom's "office" was, as usual, a sight to behold. Flammable-liquid storage cabinets lined the walls; chemical apparatuses hung from the ceiling; piles of scrap and filigree covered the floor, powerful magical artifacts undoubtedly mixed among them; on her desk sat two open toolboxes, a soldering iron, and a circuit board which currently held Apple Bloom's attention. Scootaloo tapped on the open door to get Apple Bloom's attention. She looked up from her work.

"Hey," said Scootaloo, "did you make any progress on the Da'vinski case?"

"Oh," said Apple Bloom, "was that the guy who came in here yesterday with the toaster?" Scootaloo nodded. "Yeah I made some progress. He was right: it's demonically possessed."

"Seriously?" questioned Scootaloo.

"Eeyup," affirmed Apple Bloom, "I even managed to communicate with it."

"The demon?" asked Scootaloo, "Really? What did it have to say?"

"Well, it said that it's purpose in life is to burn toast," said Apple Bloom, shrugging her shoulders, "so we’re at a bit of an impasse."

"Why didn't you just purge it?" asked Scootaloo.

"The demon said it had a lawyer," said Apple Bloom, "so I thought I'd wait to talk to you guys. Can demons have lawyers?"

Scootaloo scoffed: "Lawyers? No. Apparently they can have a sense of humor though."

Sweetie spoke up from around the corner: "What about Loose Interpretation, that lawyer we dealt with last year? She turned out to be a demon."

"Eh," said Scootaloo, "I don't think-" she was interrupted by a knock at the door. Scootaloo rushed behind her desk, which faced the door, and leaned back in her chair, trying to adopt a hard-boiled posture.
When it looked like Scootaloo had finished adjusting her squint, Sweetie Belle shouted to their visitor: "Come in!" The door swung open, and Twilight Sparkle walked through. Scootaloo sat up and let a slight smile appear on her face.

"Good morning, girls," said Twilight.

"Hey Twilight," said Scootaloo, "You don't have to knock, you know." Twilight opened her mouth so speak, but stopped when she realized she didn't have a response.

"Scootaloo, she's just being courteous," said Sweetie.

"Whatever," said Scootaloo, "I'm just sayin'; it's not like we have anything to hide. Want a doughnut, Twilight?"

"I don't mind if I do," said Twilight, spotting the box and levitating a doughnut into her mouth. Her eyes rolled back in pleasure. When Twilight had become an alicorn she had quickly figured out that, at least after her initial growth-spurt, she couldn't gain weight. She had taken full advantage of that blessing ever since. "What are you guys up to?" she asked through a chewing jaw.

"Slow day," said Scootaloo, "Apple Bloom's working on her jetpack, I think, and I'm about to exorcise a toaster."

"Still with the jetpack, huh?" said Twilight. She walked over to Apple Bloom's doorway. "How's it going here, 'Bloom?" she asked.

"Fine," responded Apple Bloom.

"Any progress?" asked Twilight.

"Sort of."

"Yeah, 'sort of'," said Scootaloo.

"Hey!" said Apple Bloom. She looked up from her work and pointed a screwdriver past Twilight at Scootaloo. "Someday I'll finish it."

"'Bloom," said Scootaloo, "if and when someday comes, you know I'll be first in line to buy your thing, but I'm not gonna hold my breath until then, if you know what I mean."

"Sooo," Sweetie said before the strife could escalate, "Got anything for us, Princess?"

"Yeah, I do, actually," said Twilight. She squeezed into a chair. "I don't know if I told you, but Kibitz has tasked me with overseeing Canterlot Castle's annual budget." Twilight grinned at the thought.

"Yeah, you told us," said Sweetie with a subtle roll of her eyes.

"Well,” continued Twilight, "I started as soon as I could, of course, and I noticed a slight... abnormality in the records. The castle spends two-hundred-thousand bits a year on ingredients for pastries."

"So?" asked Scootaloo.

"So that's way more then should be budgeted, even for a kitchen of that size." responded Twilight.

"Twilight," said Apple Bloom, "We're not auditors."

"Okay, I know," said Twilight, "just listen to this: I sent a letter to the head chef asking about it, and he responded with this note." A small scrap of paper appeared before her, and she levitated it over to Scootaloo. Scootaloo held the piece an examined it. The scrap had been torn from a larger piece of paper, judging by the two clean edges and one ragged third side. It had been stained with at least two different liquids. On one side was scrawled a few words of shorthand. Scootaloo squinted, trying to decipher the barely legible script.

"The ghost eats it," she read. She floated it over to Sweetie, who nodded, agreeing with Scootaloo’s interpretation.

"Okay, now I'm interested," she said.

"Sounds like money-laundering to me," said Apple Bloom.

"It could be," said Twilight, "or it could be something a little more fun. I'm busy with the budget, and this sounded right up you guys' alley, so I thought you might be interested." Apple Bloom stepped into the room. She traded appraising glances with her compadres.

"We'll look into it," said Scootaloo, "We'll do it for... fifteen percent of whatever the castle saves in the first year. If we solve it, of course."

"Well," said Twilight, rubbing her chin in thought, "it wouldn't be me paying you, but I could talk to Celestia about it. I certainly sounds reasonable."

"Okay," said Scootaloo, "we'll get on it right away." She stood and levitated her duster from it's peg.

"Yeah, I need a break," said Apple Bloom. She walked back to her desk, opened one of the drawers, and pulled out her patented Insta-Vape 2000. It was rare for a case to turn violent, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Apple Bloom worked alongside two magic-users, and she hated the thought of being a liability when things got dangerous.

"Can you give us a lift?" asked Sweetie, also donning her duster.

"Sure, when you're all ready," said Twilight.

Apple Bloom walked out of her office on her back legs, using her front hooves to fasten her holster around her barrel. She grabbed her duster and threw it over her shoulders, then fell back onto all fours. "I'm ready," she said.

"Alright," said Twilight, "One teleport, coming right up." Her horn began to glow. "Good luck," she said just before whisking away the three mares in a flash of electricity.