Ponies Without a Clue

by GeekCat

Time is Ticking

“Woah woah WOAH!” cried the orange pegasus on the doorstep, waving her hooves. Key Keeper froze, dropping the key. The group was frozen for a second, shocked, before they all tried to give warm smiles to the stranger. Key Keeper levitated the key from the ground into his pocket, laughing nervously, “Sorry…sorry…”

With a small cough, he recovered and straightened up. “Is there anything we can do to help you, miss?” The pegasus held out a soggy blob of paper. “Well, my map was ruined with this rain, so could you let me use your phone?” Key Keeper opened his mouth to reply, but Rainbow grabbed his shoulder. “Excuse us for one second,” she said before turning the stallion around.

The group exchanged hushed, furious whispers. The pegasus glanced between the odd group and the path with her purple-pink eyes. Before she could mull over her choices, Key Keeper turned back around with a large smile on his face. “Certainly, miss.” He opened the door a little wider for her. She cautiously stepped in.

“Name's Scootaloo,” she said, shaking Key Keeper’s hoof. “So, um, where is it?” “W-where's what?,” stuttered Key Keeper nervously. She looked at him confusedly. “The…phone?”

“Oh!,” he cried, “YES, there's a phone in the Lounge. I’ll show you.” He guided her to a door opposite of the Study, which the others formed a wall in front of. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to wait here after your call.” Scootaloo nodded and went towards the phone, Key Keeper closing the door behind her. She froze when she heard the click of a lock.

On the other side of the door, Key Keeper checked and doubled-checked the locked door with sweaty, shaky hooves. Rainbow flew over and tapped him on the shoulder. He yelped and leapt in the air as he spun around, holding his chest. “Where's the key?,” demanded Rainbow.

“It's on my ring of keys,” wheezed Key Keeper. Twilight rolled her eyes, saying, “Not the Lounge key, the key to the cupboard! With the weapons!” Key Keeper scanned the group, asking, “Do you still want me to throw it away?” The group shouted, “YES!,” and he was once again shoved in front of the door.

He took the small, simple, lone key out of his pocket and threw it out into the damp darkness. The ponies ears flicked up at the chiming sound of metal against cement. In a second, any outside sound but the pouring rain was drowned away.

Key Keeper quickly shut the door, using a bit of magic to expel moisture that had been let in. He quickly relocked the front doors. Applejack swiped for the keys, but he pulled them out of her reach. “Let me out!,” she cried, “if Ah’m caught here, what’ll happen to my family? They could be investigated, blamed for something they didn't do!” Key Keeper kept the keys floating out of her reach.

“No. We’re all in this together, now. We have to find out who did it,” exclaimed Key Keeper. Rarity pointed out, “You know whoever flees first will be blamed.” The others began to mutter in agreement. “Even if we don’t suggest it, the Royal Guard will still think it, darling.”

Applejack threw her hat to the ground, grunting, “I wish you hadn’t invited us. Everything was going fine!” “Aside from blackmail, yes,” replied Key Keeper. She glared at him and picked her hat back up.

Rainbow sighed. “I could use a drink.” The others muttered in agreement. She flew towards the Library, but stopped in front of the Study door to peek in. “Everything alright?,” asked Rarity. Rainbow nodded. “Just checking. Two unmoved, unconscious victims, everything’s cool.”

The group gathered in the doorway of the Library, where Rainbow had pulled out a liter of some apple-flavored soda. She cracked it open and began to guzzle it straight from the bottle. She quickly pulled away, tongue out of her mouth. “Bleh! That doesn’t taste anywhere near as good as cider.” She looked to the others. “Anypony want any?”

The others shook their heads. All but Pinkie, who was helping herself to the dessert platter. Rainbow tossed aside the bottle, where it began to spill on the carpet. Key Keeper looked forlorn. Rainbow opened her mouth, but looked around to see that the others were busy looking over drink menus (provided by Sugar Belle).

She flew over to the group and knocked them out of their hooves. “Pay attention! No time to waste!,” she shouted. Everypony turned to watch her. She flew to Key Keeper, who had been creeping towards the spill. “Key Keeper, am I right in thinking there's nopony else in this house?”

Key Keepers eyes gazed past her, the terrible staining spill reflecting in them. “Mmm…no.” He tried to move past her, but she moved in front of him again. “So there IS somepony else in this house?,” she asked. His attention snapped to her. “Hm? Sorry, I said ‘no' meaning ‘yes'.”

Rainbow glared at him. “’No’ meaning ‘yes'? Look. Is there somepony else or not, yes or no.” Key Keeper craned his neck to look over her shoulder. “No.” “No there is, or no there isn't?!” “Yes.”

Applejack slammed her hoof on the table, knocking over and shattering an empty glass. “PLEASE!,” she shouted. Everypony looked at her, except Key Keeper, who took the chance to furiously scrub at the spill. Applejack continued, “Shouldn't we get that mare out of this house before she gets tied up in this, or find out what happened?”

Fluttershy whimpered, “Oh, but we can’t send someone so young back out in this weather. They could get sick!” Twilight looked at her, saying, “She's a young adult, not a foal. But still, we can’t send them out in this kind of weather.” A crash of lightning came to emphasize her point. Fluttershy yelped and ducked under the table, making two more glasses fall off as she bumped against the legs.

Pinkie screwed up in face in a serious manner- an effect partially ruined by the powdered sugar covering her muzzle. “If she stays here…” she drew out, “she cooouuld get suspicious.” Twilight groaned, “Well then, if we kick her out, she’ll be MORE suspicious!” Rainbow grunted, “She's probably suspious of us already.”

Rarity, who had stood in the doorway the whole time, shouted, “Oh, who cares! She’ll make her phone call and leave, while we stay locked in here for another half an hour waiting for the Royal Guard, and there are two dark magic victims in the Study!,” she finished with a wail. The others shushed her. Fluttershy came out from under the table to soothe her as she cried from stress.

Rainbow grabbed at Key Keeper’s collar. “Well, there is still some confusion here about whether there is anypony else in this house,” she growled. Key Keeper pulled away, saying, “I told you, there isn’t.” “Isn't any confusion, or anypony else?,” she asked with a glare. “Either. Or both.”

“Just give me a straight answer!,” she cried. “Certainly,” said Key Keeper, as he straightened up and smoothed out his coat. “What was the question again?” “Is there anypony else in this house?”

“NO!,” shouted everypony.

Rainbow was unfazed, and began to pace. “That's what you say. But do we really know?” She turned to face the group and clapped her hooves together. “I suggest we do this in military fashion- split up and search the area.” She glanced at a wall clock. “We have less than half an hour to do this, so I suggest we split into pairs.”

Twilight looked at her in alarm. “Dark magic can corrupt the soul,” she stated, “and if we split into pairs, whoever's left with the criminal could get attacked, even if they couldn't get their hooves on the gems!” Rainbow pointed a hoof at her. “Then we would have figured out who did it!”

Rarity cried out, “But the other half of the pair would be hurt! Or worse!” She gave panicked, heaving breaths. Rainbow strode over to her. “This is war, Dapperpaws! Casualties are inevitable, you can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs, as any cook would say.” Rarity sniveled, “B-b-but look what happened to the cook!” She began to cry as Fluttershy and Pinkie patted her on the back.

Twilight tapped Rainbow on the shoulder. “Are you willing to take that chance, Rainbow?” She grunted in reply, “Do we have any other choice?” Nopony said anything. Rarity stopped crying, wiping away her tears.

Rainbow flew back up into the air. “Alright! I want to do a flying sweep, so you’re with me, Flutters!” Fluttershy squeaked, “Um…I can’t fly right now.” She gestured to her tightly bandaged left wing. Rainbow groaned, “I don't see a splint- are you sure it’s totally unusable?” Fluttershy nodded sadly.

Pinkie bounced over to Rainbow. “I'm super duper fast, so I could keep up with you!” Twilight pointed out, “I’ve mastered teleportation, so I could keep up as well.” And so a discussion like this continued, with all the guests talking over each other.

Key Keeper brought their attention to him by tapping the rim of one of the surviving glasses with a bundle of long matchsticks. Once all eyes were on him, he levitated the bundle in the air. “I believe the best method,” she stated, “is to draw lots for partners.”

He easily snapped the matches into varying lengths and placed them between his hooves. He held them up to the group, saying, “The shortest together, the next two shortest together, and so on. Plus,” he interjected as Pinkie eagerly grabbed a match, “We can figure out what part of the house to explore. With the shortest pair of matches exploring the cellar, and so on.”

One by one, the ponies grabbed their matches and found their partner with some quiet murmuring. After a minute, the ponies knew who they were with and where they were going, and so left the Library.

Rarity walked alongside Twilight, mumbling about how she didn’t what to go down into the cellar, filled with dark and damp and vermin. Rainbow and Pinkie contemplated where to search on the ground floor. Pinkie was pouting about the “unfairness" of being unable to explore a new area. Key Keeper and Applejack headed upstairs silently and stoically. Sugar Belle and Fluttershy went up to the attic silently, but not stoically- their legs wouldn’t stop shaking, actually.

And so the dinner party split up. In the back of their minds they all sensed that time was quickly running out.

Comments

[Comickook]

Hello there. Once more, VERY good job on this latest chapter. Again, the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up are all well done in all the right places. Though I DO feel really bad for what's going to happen to Scootaloo relatively soon.

I am very certainly going to be looking forward to more of this.