Philidelphia

by Short Stories

1.1) Reported

Hours later, they all fell into their luxurious suite, of which the three young ones immediately began to awe over. It had two rooms built within it, a wall separating each for privacy; each had a queen sized bed and a twin sized bed, along with a private bathroom. The main room included a balcony that looked out onto the bustling city.

"Is that a Jacuzzi?" Apple Bloom asked in pure shock as the six set of eyes faced the small hot tub in the corner of the room, which happened to face the flat screen. "Ah'm callin' dibs!" She yelled once Rarity said 'yes' to her question.

"What? No fair!" Scootaloo grumbled, "I need something to help relax my wings..." She stretched them out for what felt like the thousandth time since they got off the plane, wincing with pain as pain shot up her left wing bone and down her spine. "I think I got a kink in them, or something. I was squished against my seat for too long..."

"Rarity..." Sweetie whispered, ignoring her two friends. "How much did this cost?"

Rarity waved her hand in the air, smiling at their reactions "Oh, a little over 8,000, but really, it was no trouble at all."

At that statement, the six eyes stopped gawking at the room and instead at Rarity. "How much do you get to pay for each fashion job?" Sweetie gawked.

The fashionista smiled and walked towards the balcony. "Let's just say I get paid more than 5,000, usually. And thanks to all the money I've been saving, I'd been able to afford this, my new shop, and have more than enough left over." She opened up the glass door and pulled closed the screen, then turned and faced the girls once more. "I suppose we can rest a little and let the jet lag fade before we start looking around, hmm?"

Rarity didn't even have to finish before Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were digging out they're swimsuits and racing towards each bathroom. Sweetie was about to dig out hers when Rarity interrupted her. "Sweetie?" She said, looking down at her phone. "I believe they have that channel that broadcasts that show you and Pinkie like, and I've just heard from Pinkie that they're having a marathon starting in a few minutes."

Sweetie squealed, jumping up and down. She ran over to her sister and hugged her as tight as she could. "You're the best big sister ever!" She cheered, "I love you, I love you, i love you!" She then grabbed the remote without waiting for Rarity's reply, jumped on the queen bed, and flicked the flat screen on, which was already set on Discord Channel.

Rarity watched the other two race out of the bathrooms, laughing. They tied at the hot tub, had a small argument on who was there first, then discovered it was big enough for four small children, such as themselves. The crawled in and Sweetie hung her feet so they emerged in the water.

"I'll just be right across the way, getting dinner." Rarity announced, opening the door. "You girls can take care of everything while I'm gone, right?"

"Yep." Chorused the three.

She stepped out into the hall and began to close the door, stopping it halfway and poking her head inside again. "Oh! And if you hear a knock, just check through the peephole. It might be the bellboy with the rest of our luggage."

"'Kay." The teenager smiled, rolled her eyes, and locked the door behind her.

In just five minutes, the TV broadcasted, showing various clips of "Timable" as it did, we're having a full-out, action-packed Discord Channel "Timable" marathon! Sweetie squealed with happiness while Bloom and Scoots playfully rolled their eyes. But first, we bring you this breaking news report.

Sweetie's face immediately fell as the red letters flashed across the screen. "Awww, come on!" She cried, "why couldn't this wait till after the marathon?!"

Her two friends shushed her, as they wanted to her what the news was. A news reporter showed up on the screen, his name showing up under him in bold white letters. "This is Hucklepop, coming to you live from downtown, Philadelphia; Illinois's most trusted broadcaster." He straightened his tie and allowed himself a smug little smile before continuing.

"Oh, brother." Sweetie mumbled, getting shushed by the two in the hot tub again.

"As you can see before me, it seems like another person has committed suicide this afternoon--a struggling actor named "Bubblenut", making this the third death in a row this week. There hasn't been any criminal activity and/or raper that we've seen around here so far, but if there is, Hucklepop will be sure to let you know." He motioned for the camera to follow him as he came closer to depressed women that had purple hair with orange highlights. "Hello, Ms, what's your name?"

He shoved the microphone in her face, of which she pushed away to a comfortable distance for her. "F-Florie Cut." She answered.

"And, Ms. Florie, did you happen to know Ms. Bubblenut?"

She nodded quickly,her eyes casting down to the cement. "Yes," she sighed, "she was probably the best female villain actor I've ever got."

"Do you think you know what might have caused her to committing her own death?"

Florie's expression suddenly changed from sad and somber to angry and mortified. "Are you actually suggesting that I drove her to do that?! And right after I literally called her one of the best actors I've ever had?!" She took a step forward and made a threatening gesture at both Hucklepop and the camera crew, making both backs up, Huckle visibly regretting asking her that.

"No, no, no, o-o-of course not, Ms." He chuckled nervously and signaled to the cameraman to follow him again, this time stopping at a police officer, who was talking to a nervous Hubble. Not before stopping to show a quick second of the body, though. "Hello, Officer, Hubble," he started nodding to each respectively, "did you two know anything about Bubblenut before her---uh---disappearance?"

Hubble stepped forward, trying to hide his shaking hands. "Well, yes." He said, "she and I were working on Florie's next big movie. We had just finished up the second shot of the climax, and Florie was telling us on what to work on. She told Bubble that she had to work on her lines and..."

"I believe that's all they need to know, Mr. Hubble." The officer interrupted. He then faced the camera, nodded and the screen flickered back to the marathon Sweetie had been ogling over earlier.

There was a prolonged silence as the girls tried to consume what they had just watched. "Well, ah ain't no expert," Apple Bloom started, "but ah don't think that was a suicide."

"What makes you think that?" Scootaloo asked.

"Didn't ya see the body?" Apple Bloom asked, getting two nods. "There was a bullet hole where her heart shoulda been. An', even if she shot herself in the chest, it looked like she had a mighty bad brusin' some broken bones as well. A where was the weapon she mighta used?"

Sweetie shifted her feet out of the tub and grabbed a towel on the towel rack next to it, started drying her feet. "She could have got on top of that building and shot herself." She suggested, then paused as she thought about that. "But...then her insides would become her outsides..."

"You know, Apple Bloom..." Scootaloo said, "you might be right about that."

Sweetie folded up the dirty towel and went to place it on the floor of the main bathroom. "Yeah," she said as she came back. "Something about that just doesn't...fit right, I guess, now that you mention it."

A knock sounded at the door and the girls jumped, Sweetie, being the closest, ran over to the queen-sized bed and tried to stay silent. "Room service!" Someone called out, letting the girls relax. Sweetie got up and opened the door, thanking the bellboy for the luggage as he wheeled it inside. He stopped as soon as he noticed the marathon on the TV. "Is that Timable?" He asked.

Sweetie looked at the television and back at him. "Oh, yeah, they're having a 'throwback' marathon of it right now."

"I thought that show ended a while ago." He continued, ignoring the school girl and approaching the show. "This show was my childhood, dude!"

"Uhhhh..." Sweetie looked towards her friends for help, but they just shrugged helplessly.

"May I help you, sir?" Rarity asked from the doorway, holding some Burger King bags in her aura.

The bellboy turned his attention to her, his face tomato red. "Uh...yeah. no, sorry, I-I just...I don't know what I was..."

"I see you've brought our luggage in." She looked down at the cart with the three carryons that were lazily stacked on top of each other, the top one about to fall off. She grimaced at the lazy service and side-stepped the small barrier. "Thank you, sir," she said politely, 'that will be all."

He nodded, and flew out of the room, closing the door behind him. Rarity locked it with her magic and placed the dinner on the table that was across from the hot tub. "What was he doing?" She asked immediately.

"He was trying to watch the show," Scootaloo said.

Rarity nodded. "I see..." she clasped her hands together and let out a breath. "If he comes up here again, don't let him in. Unless I say so. Now, get dried off, girls, it's time for dinner."

As Scootaloo and Apple Bloom went to the bathrooms to change, Sweetie looked at her sister. "Did you hear about the 'suicide' that took place this afternoon?" She asked, placing air quotes around the word 'suicide'.

Rarity shook her head, watching Sweetie levitate one of the bags towards her "I don't believe I have, no." She swapped Sweetie's bag for a different one that had the name 'Sweetie' written across it in purple ink. Sweetie noticed the one she attempted to take had been Rarity's. "Why do you ask? And why the air quotes?"

By this time, the other two were out and grabbing they're dinners, too. They each took turns telling Rarity what they had heard on the news and Apple Bloom's theory. It was a little bit of a struggle for Sweetie to pay attention, as the episode she had been watching before they left was now playing behind Scootaloo. Once they finished, they asked Rarity what she thought of the whole thing.

"Oh, my," she mumbled, "why would that poor person do such a thing to themselves?"

"What do ya mean?" Apple Bloom asked, "they didn't do it to ‘emselves, it was a murder, plain an' simple."

Rarity shook her head, gathering the trash from the dinner. "I don't believe it was. From what you told me, it sounds like they choose to take their own lives."

"But--"

"I don't want to hear any more of this dreadful nonsense for the rest of our trip, understood?" They all nodded, each silently rejecting Rarity's wish. She smiled and began looking through the luggage for her purse. "I need to go meet with the real estate agent downtown. I assume you girls know what to do?"

"Yeah...." They mumbled.

"Good," she said, pulling out her purse and walking towards the door unlocking it. "I'll be back in thirty minutes. Remember to not let that bellboy in. Bye,!"

"Three weeks without saying anything about these murders?" Sweetie asked as soon as the door closed behind her sister. "How will we be able to let these people know? What if more pop up? What if--"

Scootaloo cut her off with a stopping motion of her hand and eyed the two excitedly. "What if we try to stop this murderer ourselves?"

Author's Note:

No, Scootaloo is not crazy/suicidal/etc.

I also tried my best with Rarity; I'm bad at writing her character. :(

If any/all characters seem OOC, I'm very sorry. Just remember, however, that this is tagged with Alternate Universe you know, a universe/dimension where the ponies/people don't act like themselves? [Sorry, I'm just so sick of people complaining about that type of stuff even though theres an AU tag]

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