The Anthro-Phantom

by JesterOfDestiny

Chapter 5

As promised, we were all there in the projector room the next morning. Well, almost everyone, but I’ll get to that. Lyra was pacing around a small table in the middle of the room with a very serious expression. On the table there was all the evidence we have collected during the investigation; the photos, the three images for the projector, the projector itself. Persy was slouching in a chair, reading the Hoofington Post, which talked about the anthro-phantom, making sarcastic remarks at Lyra, who pretended to not hear them. Next to him was Hazel, who sat quietly, trying to not roll her eyes out of their sockets. Franz and Marge sat next to each other and looked around the room worriedly. Maud was staring blankly outside the window, while the handymare was jiggling her keys in boredom. And me, I was standing there, looking over everypony else.

“Um, Lyra?” Hazel spoke up between two groans. “What exactly are we waiting for?”

“Not what, whom.” Lyra corrected her.

“Whatever,” Hazel said impatiently, “when are they going to get here?”

Suddenly a loud crash and a yelp could be heard outside the door.

“She’s here.” Announced Maud.

Twilight stepped in through the door, rubbing her forehead. “I’m sorry I’m a bit tardy. I thought I could outfly a train.”

Lyra nodded, keeping a strict expression on her face.

“Ooh, I’m so excited to find out who’s behind the anthro-phantom.” Twilight gushed as she sat down.

“About flapping time!” Hazel grunted impatiently.

Lyra finished a pace then turned to the others. “Now, as I promised, I should be revealing the results of my findings.”

“You mean our findings?” I remarked in jest.

She just looked at me with the same strict expression. “Bon Bon, I’m trying to make it sound dramatic.”

I just rolled my eyes and pretended to zip up my mouth.

“Let’s recap what happened.” Lyra carried on. “Let’s start with the 3D projection itself. We all know the ghost was faked, because we have the images of it, right here.” She picked up the phantom’s images.

“I told you,” the handymare interrupted, “we checked the images before and after the phantom’s appearance. There were no phantoms in that thing.”

“Yes, and nopony else was there.” Marge added.

“Exactly!” Lyra continued. “Nopony else needed to be there.” She started pacing again, while levitating the images. “Let’s just think about it. Both the handymare and Marge has checked the images, both before and after the incident and saw nothing suspicious. But somehow, the phantom’s images still ended up inside the projector, instead of the conference’s images, without either Marge or the handymare noticing.”

“I’m telling you,” the handymare was getting slightly annoyed, “I would have seen it, if somepony magically switched the images.”

“Oh there was no need to involve magic at all,” Lyra replied, “It was all done through an impressive feat of sleight of hoof.” She paused for a moment and looked at Marge. “Or should I say, sleight of wing?”

Marge was slightly scared by that look. “What are you implying?”

“What I’m implying is, that the pony who switched the images, was a pegasus. This pegasus had both images with them the whole time. They showed the correct images when it came to checking, but put in the phantom’s images, right before the screening. Then after the incident, it only took a few simple, but well calculated movements, to switch the two images seamlessly.”

“Wait,” Twilight interjected, “the only Pegasus there was Marge.”

“Are you saying it was me?” Marge said, her voice shaking even more.

“That’s silly!” Persy exclaimed. “For all we know, it could have been Princess Twilight. She’s got wings too and even magic.”

Twilight just replied with an offended look.

“Twilight wasn’t in the room during the incident.” Lyra argued. “And while she could have easily switched the images with magic, it wouldn’t have been so seamless. Especially since she was down there taking photos.”

“And besides,” Twilight added in a slightly irritated tone, “I don’t have a reason to do such a thing.”

“What about you, Heartstrings?” Persy asked smugly.

“I was down there, as everypony could tell you... Including you...”

“Eh, I’m pretty sure I would have seen it, if a pegasus placed something under their wing right in front of me.” Said the handymare.

“Not quite.” Lyra asserted. “I have seen some amazing feats done without magic. Even an earth pony could put something on their hoof,” she tried to demonstrate the simple trick with the phantom’s images, “and make it disappear, with a swipe of their hoof.” But as she tried to swipe away the images, she messed up and it fell on the floor. “...Well obviously not me, but you get the point. The perpetrator was a pegasus, who just simply hid the images under their wing.”

“You haven’t addressed my question.” Marge said with a lot of concern. “Are you saying it was me who switched the images?”

“Yeah, she was the only pegasus in the room.” Hazel commented. “Don’t you think it’d be a little silly to suggest, that she’d sabotage her own research?”

“Well I have no problem with being silly,” said Lyra, “because that’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

Everyone gasped.

“Want proof?” Lyra carried on. “Franz told Persy, that he found the images with her.”

“I can confirm that.” Persy added, rather helpfully.

“But I thought she had it with her by mistake.” Franz explained.

“Oh it was no mistake,” Lyra slightly raised her voice, “Marge had those images with her for a reason. And that reason was to draw the world’s attention to anthropology, by faking an ancient spirit, sabotaging the conference!”

After a short pause, Franz asked: “Marge, is this true?”

A few seconds of silence lingered over the room. Marge began to tear up and buried her face in her hooves. “Yes.” she said timidly. “But I did it for a good reason!” She justified.

Lyra turned around and just stared outside the window.

“But Marge,” said Franz with a soft tone, “you didn’t need to do any of this. We had the biggest conference in years, we even had inventors teaming up with us. We were on the right track already.”

“I just thought I could help gain even more momentum.” Marge tried to defend herself.

“Franz would have put that skeleton right back into the ground.” Lyra didn’t even look at her while saying that. She kept her stare outside the window. “You risked losing one of the biggest discoveries of all time.”

“I’m sorry.” Marge apologized meekly.

Another few seconds has passed in silence. Only thing we could hear was Marge sobbing.

“But wait,” Twilight broke the silence, “wasn’t magic necessary for the phantom? Somepony had to do the voice too.”

“Don’t encourage her Twilight!” Hazel interjected. “You see what came out of her little investigation already.”

“Oh, there’s more, dear Hazel Blossom.” Lyra said in a very grim voice, while still facing the window. “She had an accomplice. And that accomplice was in fact, a unicorn.”

“But everyone here is a unicorn.” Said Twilight. “Well, except for Marge of course... And Maud... And Bon Bon.”

I just nodded, with my mouth still zipped shut.

“Yeah, even you, Heartstrings!” Persy said with a smirk.

“As you know,” Lyra turned around to face us, without acknowledging his comment, “there is a very simple spell that can alter your voice. Twilight, care to demonstrate?”

“WITH GREAT PLEASURE!” Twilight yelled with Tirek’s voice again, scaring everypony in the room, except Lyra.

“Yes, thank you.” She said dryly. “This unicorn learned this spell and hid in the audience. So when the projected phantom showed up, they used the spell to voice it.”

“In the audience you say?” Said Persy. “Why do you think it was in the audience?”

“I distinctly remember the voice coming from behind me, when I faced the phantom.” Lyra asserted.

“But that’s just what you are saying.” Persy argued. “How can we know for sure, that that’s what happened, when it’s just you?

“It’s not just her.” Maud interjected. Honestly, I kind of forgot she was even there. “That’s also how I heard it. The voice clearly came from the audience.”

“Now that you say it,” said Franz, “I did hear the voice coming from elsewhere.”

“Right,” Lyra continued, “but unfortunately, everypony was preoccupied with being scared of the phantom, so nopony can pinpoint the exact source of the voice. But we all agree, that it came from the audience.”

“Okay then,” said Persy, who was still a bit unconvinced “so that means, all unicorns on stage and the handymare are out. That means, the only three unicorns left are myself, Hazel and Twilight.”

“Me?!” This was the second time he brings Twilight up, so she couldn’t help herself voice her feelings.

“Certainly, and for a while I was a bit stuck, I admit.” Said Lyra. “But then something happened. The phantom has appeared once again to taunt me. You see, Twilight wasn’t there at the time, so she’s out.”

“Good!” Lyra’s explanation pleased the offended Twilight.

“And during the second appearance,” Hazel spoke up, “Persy locked himself inside the projector room. You can even see it on the photo you made.”

“But as we already established,” Lyra picked the photo up, “there is no magical aura around Persy’s horn, indicating, that he wasn’t using magic.”

“I’m sure you could find the aura if you look hard enough, or something!” Hazel argued.

“We could look at the photo until our eyes fall out of their sockets,” Lyra raised her voice, “Persy was not operating the machine. Somepony tried to set him up.”

“Wow, I didn’t think I’d see the day when an anthropologist would defend me.” Persy remarked.

“But...” Hazel lowered her voice, “I’m the only one left.”

Lyra paused, looked at her, then started pacing again. “Here’s what I think happened: Marge and her partner knew, that I wasn’t going to be convinced about the phantom being real. So they came up with a plan to set up somepony else to distract me. And Persy seemed like such an obvious pony to frame.”

“But-” Hazel tried to say something, but Lyra wouldn’t let her.

“They knew Persy was doing his own investigation, so they waited for him to go into the projector room. And when he was inside, the unicorn stole the handymare’s keys and locked the door. Then they hid behind the large props that were set up for the next conference and voiced the phantom a second time.”

“But-” Hazel still wasn’t allowed to talk.

“And who was the pony, who was standing at the backstage door, right next to the conveniently placed props, with the keys with them, right after the ghost’s second appearance?”

Hazel didn’t want to say anything anymore.

Lyra stopped for a moment and took a few steps towards Hazel. “It was you Hazel!”

“Me?! But I...Why would I...”

“You and Marge spent a lot of time together, in the last few days. You even agreed on one thing the whole time.” Lyra pressed her on.

“But I-”

“You both think anthropology should be brought to the forefront more. You both agreed that the phantom would bring in some needed attention.”

“But I-”

“So you teamed up, to fake a curse, to draw in the attention from the crowd.”

Hazel had nothing to say.

“Admit it Hazel.” Lyra said sternly.

Hazel was silent. All eyes were on her.

“Give up Hazel,” Marge talked to her, “we’ve been caught.”

Hazel couldn’t lie. She couldn’t hold it back anymore. After a silent moment, she finally pried her mouth open. “It was me. Yes, I helped Marge fake a curse. Are you happy?!"

Lyra didn’t say it, but yes, she was very happy.

“Look, there’s this entire field of science and all we have are vague evidence and speculations. I thought, if we could bring in some attention, we could finally prove or disprove the existence of humans.”

“Who else could disprove that better than me?” Persy declared.

“Literally anypony!” Hazel scolded him. “You have the brains of a dry leaf and the manners of a starving crocodile! Everyone is sick of listening to your inane nonsense! We needed to use solid logic and concrete evidence, instead of your pompous contrarian attitude!”

“What you did instead,” Lyra scolded her back, “is almost make us lose the most important discovery of all time and almost ruin the field’s reputation.”

“We didn’t ruin anything.” Hazel pouted. “It’s going to draw in a lot of attention.”

“…Unicorns of Equestria want to declare anthropology, to be a forbidden form of magic and take related literature out of libraries…” Persy quoted that from the newspaper. “…Franz Foals is planning his resignation as an anthropologist, but his student, Lyra Heartstrings, is trying to prevent him from putting back the skeleton to break the curse…” That was strangely the only thing he didn’t spit into Lyra’s face, before we began.

Lyra just raised an eyebrow at the rather sore looking Hazel.

“I must say Hazel,” said Persy with a smug grin, “you’ve done a wonderful job at drawing attention. You were better at ruining everything than I could ever dream of.”

“Could you quit yapping at least now?!” Hazel yelled at Persy.

“Hot Topic!” Lyra shouted. “Did you get that?”

Suddenly the door burst open and there stood the journalist from before. “Yep, all of it! Two ponies almost ruined science!”

“Hey, gimme that!” Hazel ran towards the journalist, but Twilight stopped her.

“Okay, that’s enough! You’ve gone far enough already.”

“Thank you Hot Topic for coming here!” Lyra thanked the journalist.

“Eh, after what I wrote the last time, I think it’s only appropriate.” She said. “Besides, this is still a great story!”

“Well, I guess the case is officially closed then.” Said Persy as he stood up and put on his hat. “I expect a proper conference next time, Heartstrings! One without spooky ghosts.”

“Oh don’t worry about that!” She replied.

Persy just left a smug, but friendly smile, then left along with the journalist.

Marge and Hazel left right after them, but not without the journalist flashing her camera into their eyes, then running off.

Twilight walked up to Lyra. “Wow, I’m impressed.” She said. “That would have fit into a mystery novel.”

“Well, you know me. I don’t back down, when it comes to the truth.”

“Well, I’m glad to see that part of you hasn’t changed.” She said, then put back the tools she knocked over when she arrived.

After that, Franz approached her. “After that display, I am absolutely confident, that you will make a fine successor!”

“Still determined to retire, huh?” Lyra was still sad about that decision.

“Well, at least I’m not burying the evidence now.” He added with a modest laugh. “We’ll have another conference next week, I’ll announce my retirement then. And I’m sure, nopony will mind you replacing me.”

“Nopony can replace you!” Said Lyra with a tearful smile. They hugged, then Franz left.

I was the only one remaining. I walked up to Lyra, filled with pride, but with my mouth still zipped shut.

“Okay, you can open your mouth now.” She said.

I opened the imaginary zipper. “Good job Lyra, you cracked the case and took all credit for it.”

“Ooh, I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry, I just thought-”

“Oh don’t worry about it. The last thing I want to do is appear in the newspaper.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. So what do you think? Was that dramatic enough?”

“Oh you little Shadow Spade, you! Yes, yes it was!”

We heard the handymare clear her throat at the door. “So how long do you plan on staying in there?”

“Oh right,” said Lyra, “what time is it?”

“It’s we’ll-gonna-miss-the-train o’ clock! Come on!” I said, then we left in a hurry.