12. Chapter Two: "The Secret Ingredient is Never What You Expect" Part 1
Chapter Two:
“The Secret Ingredient is Never What You Expect”
Part I
Three days.
Three days ago, I lost one of my best friends in the world.
Three days ago, I sent my friend to her death.
Three days ago, I sealed myself up in this dorm room, ignoring all the knocks, the calls, the requests to come out. I didn’t want to come out, not for a second longer than I had to. Hunger compelled me to sneak and grab food from the pantry, but only enough to stave it off, just enough to keep me alive.
Three days, and I still couldn’t wash the blood off my hands.
But three days was three days too many. Even I could only stand so much isolation… and my stomach hurt from how little food I’d fed it. I’d drank plenty of water so I wasn’t dehydrated, but… I was starving.
So despite everything, despite desperately wanting to remain in bed, to hide away forever like the scum I was… when I finished my shower that morning, I put on my clothes properly, and opened my door. I stepped outside and took a breath of fresh air. Well, fresher at least. Checking my pad showed the time was 6:57. The morning announcement would play soon, and the breakfast would be ready.
As I headed for the stairwell, I paused and looked at the door to Sunset’s room. The trembling began anew as I placed a hand on it and felt the wood grain underneath my palm, smelled the oil on the hinges. The cool touch of metal met my hand as I tried the doorknob.
Locked, of course. It would be locked forever now, its occupant never to return.
Funny how she only managed to remember to lock her damned door the day she died.
It took a substantial amount of my courage and energy to press forward and walk down the stairs, after seeing that. Every time I’d darted out for food before I’d avoided looking at anything, at anyone, popping out at odd hours and sneaking around watchful eyes. More than once I thought I was caught, but either they didn’t actually hear or see me, or they didn’t care.
So I stepped outside the dorm building and out into the desert morning, fully expecting that no one would even really notice that I’d been gone.
Only to jump a foot in the air as I heard a voice cry, “Oh thank heavens, Wallflower!”
I didn’t get a chance to look before a set of powerful arms embraced me, followed by a set of dantier ones. Thankfully they didn’t hold me for long before releasing me. “W-who… Rarity? Vignette?”
Rarity, a few tears running down her face and through her makeup, smiled and nodded. “Yes, darling, it’s us. We’ve been worried sick about you. People had begun to fear that you had locked yourself up only to… well, nevermind. You’re here and that’s what matters.”
“...really?” I whispered. “You’ve been worried about me?”
Vignette flashed me her trademark smirk, which was not reassuring in the slightest. “Of course we were. We know losing Sunset hurt a lot, and… well…”
She glanced at Rarity, who swallowed and said, “I… we all miss her.” Her expression tightened. “I regret many of the things I said to her. If I had been more open to her, maybe…”
I found myself hugging Rarity, and she hugged me back, the two of us both shaking in the other’s grasp. “Sunset was my best friend,” I said, my voice heavy and thick. “She… I miss her so much.”
“We know, darling, we know,” Rarity murmured, running a hand down the back of my head in a soothing gesture. “Like I said, we all do. Even Trixie, whether or not she says it.”
Vignette set a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Come on, Wallywall. Come to breakfast with us. Eat a real meal; you look like you could use it.”
As if in response my stomach rumbled, the gurgling clearly audible to them both. “...yeah, I’m starving,” I admitted.
“Well, there’s plenty of food waiting for you in the Mess Hall,” Rarity said. She linked arms with me, as if afraid I would run off if she didn’t hold on. “Shall we?”
Vignette, to my irritation, did the same with my other arm. I thought about shaking them off, but I was weak from hunger, and it showed in my single feeble attempt that I then gave up on. “Yes, let’s.”
Thankfully they kept a slow pace as they walked with me from the dorms to the Mess Hall; we soon spotted Derpy and Fluttershy, who like Rarity and Vignette came right over to me and shouted how good it was to see me. I gave them a weak smile, but my focus wasn’t on them.
It was the food. And the food smelled good today. Really good. Quiche lorraine, Prench omelets, potatoes au jus, tons of fruit–fruit, I hadn’t seen a single fruit outside of apples since we got here! And so many more good looking dishes. I piled my plate high with just about everything and sat down with the four of them to eat.
And eat and eat and eat. I barely got two words in during the conversation that followed because I was so busy stuffing my face. Only after I finished off my first plate and was well into my second did I even begin to slow down.
“Goodness, Wallflower, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you eat so much,” Rarity said as she sipped her coffee.
“...like I said, starving,” I murmured between bites of peaches and cream.
“I don’t blame her,” Derpy said, giving me a small smile. “Besides, it’s been better the past couple of days. Monohuman’s left us completely alone, unless you count the breakfast buffet.”
“He has?” I asked.
Fluttershy nodded. “Mmhmm. Him leaving us alone has been very nice considering, well…” She looked at me and cringed.
The peaches and cream in my mouth didn’t entirely turn to ash, but they stopped tasting sweet and more like cardboard. “I know Sunset’s dead,” I said, letting out a frustrated, sorrowful sigh. “You don’t have to tip-toe around it…’snot like I’m not reminding myself every chance I get about how I sent my friend to her death!”
My fist curled up and I almost brought it down hard on the table before managing to stop myself at the last second. “...sorry,” I murmured as I went back to eating.
“Don’t apologize,” Vignette said as she popped a strawberry in her mouth. “Just don’t forget what I told you, either.”
My hand tensed on my mug of tea, but I otherwise gave no reaction. I wasn’t going to let Vignette get to me.
She frowned at me after a moment. “Wallflower,” she said, her voice unusually serious. “I really am sorry about what I did after the trial the other day. I could tell I stepped on a trigger.”
“Yeah, you did,” I barked back, harsher than I meant to. Sighing, I continued in a softer voice, “Just, let it go.”
She frowned harder, then nodded. “...I understand.”
More people filed in to join us at breakfast, and every one of them smiled at me, or at least said hello in Cranky’s case. I even spotted Trixie, who gathered a number of foodstuffs into a bag. When she spotted me her face paled and she moved at double speed, leaving before I had a chance to say hello and ask her what might be wrong.
Shining Armor was the last to enter, and he placed a hand on my shoulder as he sat down next to me. “Hey, how’re you holding up?” he asked.
“Could be better,” I muttered, sticking to tea now that I finished stuffing my face. “But I’m here.”
He nodded in understanding. “That’s what matters. You keep going. We’re all here for you, by the way… we all know how important she was to you.”
“...thanks.”
“You bet,” he said as he got his breakfast.
The rest of the meal proceeded with plenty of happy conversation on the part of most of the group, and even though I didn’t participate much, it was nice to see how cheerful everyone was. It gave me hope that perhaps we’d already seen the worst that would happen.
A hope that died almost immediately, as the instant we finished breakfast, Monohuman appeared before us. “Puhuhu, surprised, are you?” he chortled as the room filled with thick tension that wouldn’t budge from a chainsaw, let alone a knife. “Well, I’d say you shouldn’t be, but that would require you simpletons have the ability to actually think about things.”
He pointed his baton at me. “As much we’d all like to forget this nobody exists, the only reason you haven’t heard from me in a few days is because this one kept herself locked up in her room. How boring! How droll! But understandable… after all, she did lose someone very precious to her. Well, I should say some thing… no Equestrian is a person, after all.”
I shot up out of my chair, feeling an uncharacteristic desire to punch this jerk in his big stupid face, only for Vignette and Rarity both to gently press down on my shoulders to get me to sit back down. “Easy, Wallywall, easy,” Vignette said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Monohuman, do you have a point to why you’re bothering us, or are you just here to be an ass?” Shining asked as he gave Monohuman a firm glare.
Monohuman shrugged. “Well, as a matter of fact, I–hold on.” He vanished.
Everyone looked around at each other in confusion for a moment until we heard Trixie squawking outside. “Unhand Trixie! Do not be so rough with her!”
Monohuman emerged from the front doors, tossing Trixie in with us. “Owww…” she murmured, rubbing her bum. She shook her fist at him. “What is the meaning of this?”
He ignored her. Drawing himself up, Monohuman cleared his throat. “Ahem. Now, as I was saying, I do have a reason for being here. Now that Miss Nobody has shown herself, we can finally move on to the second reward I intended to grant you for making it through your first trial. I’m going to unlock a new district!”
Murmurs and whispers rose among the crowd. “Which one do you think it’ll be?” Cheese asked.
Trixie perked up significantly at this news. “Perhaps he will finally give us access to the houses we were supposed to have instead of these dorms,” Trixie suggested.
“Nah, it’ll probably be that stupid processing plant,” Juniper groused. “You know, the useless one that they told us to stay out of because it’s so dangerous?”
“Why would he send us there?” Autumn Blaze replied. “That wouldn’t be much of a reward.”
Monohuman pounded his baton on the ground once, silencing the crowd. “The area I’ll be unlocking for you today is the truck stop,” he said.
Sour Sweet pumped a fist in the air. “Yes! Hell yeah! I’m finally gonna get more!”
“More what?” Cranky groused. “Oh, don’t tell me you mean that awful–”
She flipped him the bird. “Shut up, old fart, I’ll drink what I want.”
Cranky grunted, not bothering to dignify that with a response.
“Now then,” Monohuman said, raising his baton. “If you will give me just a brief moment…” He twirled it in the air, summoning up a light show of sparkles, swirls, and stars in a chaotic array of colors, sending them spinning out through the front door. As a group we ran outside to follow them, watching them head for one of the huge gates out to the west of the central plaza. There they interacted with the gate and its comically massive lock, which disintegrated under the assault of magic, as did the gate itself, falling to pieces before the pieces exploded, leaving nothing behind.
Monohuman gave us a grin of satisfaction, as if pleased with his excessive display. He gave us a half bow and indicated with his hand. “There you are. You may explore to your heart’s content. There you’ll find plenty more ways to enjoy yourselves…and of course, many more murder tools you’ll need for eliminating those pesky Equestrians. Oh, and one other thing: I’m waving the need for you to clean up after the breakfast bar today; I’ll take care of it while you all enjoy exploring. Ta-ta!” He vanished.
“Aww yeah, to hell with this, I’m so heading over there right away,” Sour Sweet said, pumping her fist again.
“Me too, I want to see what all they’ve got over there,” Autumn Blaze said.
Cranky harrumphed. “Oh, why not. Might as well take a look.”
“Hmph. Trixie would prefer the houses, but this is also acceptable. If she remembers there’s another place to eat there,” Trixie said as she got to her feet.
Everyone sped for and through the gateway, leaving me behind so fast my head spun. Not even Rarity or Vignette waited for me.
Finding myself alone, I decided I needed a bit more bracing before I could go out there, and went back for my mug of tea and finished it. Then I made my way to the gate and walked down the path.
The path led downhill, giving me a good overview of the area. Past the fences, I could see a four lane road, badly maintained, with plenty of potholes, streaming past like an asphalt river, heading off in both directions to parts unknown. Several built in turning lanes led into the actual area surrounded by fences, which at first appeared to be one gigantic parking lot full of rusted out semi-trucks, broken down cars, and lots and lots of debris. Sprinkled here and there were buildings, with a giant sign stuck on the far end which, while utterly filthy and worn down with time, could still be read:
Touriste Trappe Truck Stop
“Come See Our Museum Of Mining Mysteries!”
“Tourist trap? It actually calls itself a tourist trap? Wow,” I muttered.
I continued to survey the area, focusing on the trucks first as I approached them. However, as it had appeared, none of them were drivable. A few of the cabs looked more intact, and as I neared one particularly dusty one that appeared almost in perfect shape, I found Cheese Sandwich and Zephyr Breeze poking around the engine.
“Hey guys,” I said as I took a look at the truck itself. Once upon a time it had been a cherry red, but time, wind, and sand had worn it down to a dull brow, most of it scraped away to reveal the bare metal. But despite that, the interior looked surprisingly intact and functional, if dust covered. The tires seemed intact too, which was nothing short of astonishing. “How’s it look?”
“Uh, well, I actually don’t really know anything about cars,” Zephyr admitted, giving me a sheepish look. “Cheese dragged me along for company.”
“And to show you a thing or two,” Cheese said. “I saw some street racers once and thought that might be my destiny, so I got into it.”
That was a mental image I was simply unable to call up. “You were a drag racer?”
“For a couple of months, but y’know, the whole scene is just sooooo cliquey.” He shrugged. “But I learned a lot! Never hurts to understand what you’re looking at when you look at a car engine. Never know when one’ll break down on you on the road… leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere, the only company your rubber chicken Boneless who hasn’t said a word since the incident…”
He shook his head as if trying to banish old memories. “Anyway, Wallflower, it doesn’t look good. The engine’s intact, but there’s no oil, no brake fluid… no diesel. We’re not going anywhere without gas.”
“Damn,” I said with a sigh. “So much for using it to ram open the fences and drive off, right?”
“Yeah. Whatever vehicles they brought us here in, this isn’t it,” Cheese said as she slammed the hood shut in disgust. “But hey, if we can ever find any engine oil or diesel gasoline, maybe we can get it working. Assuming Monohuman lets us.”
“I doubt it,” I said.
“Me too, but it’s worth a shot, right?” Cheese Sandwich grabbed Zephyr’s shirt sleeve. “C’mon Zephyr, let’s go search the other wrecks. Maybe we’ll find something.”
“Sure, I’d love to go sticking my hands into all that potential tetanus,” Zephyr muttered as the two walked off.
I wandered amid the hulks for a while, admiring the older design–so many clearly from the 60s or earlier, whatever this place was it had been abandoned for decades–until I reached one of the most crucial parts of any truck stop, the gas pumps. Or diesel, as Cheese put it. Whatever the difference was; I didn’t know cars.
Examining one of the pumps, clearly drier than the desert around it, I noted with interest the prices depicted. Definitely from 60s or earlier, with gas prices at a dollar or less per gallon. At least I assumed it was set per gallon… most of the displays were so dirty, fuzzed up, or in a few cases the glass shattered so I couldn’t tell. Regardless, if there had been any gasoline or diesel in these pumps, it was long gone.
The convenience store next to the pumps, however, seemed to be fully operational. As I pushed the doors open I was met with functional fluorescent lighting, the hum of working electrical appliances, especially refrigeration, and shelves upon shelves of all sorts of goods. It actually resembled something closer to a supermarket than a modern convenience store. There were shelves dedicated to canned food, to pantry staples like flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, etc, a big refrigerator full of dairy goods like milk, cheese, yogurt and sour cream, along with plenty of shelves of chips, pretzels, candy, and other snacks, all of it with old timey style packaging. There was even a shelf of fresh fruit, and it was in fact actually fresh, not rotted to nothing. While there was a register, there were no listed rules saying we had to actually pay for anything, thank goodness, though it did list the convenience store hours as 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM.
Mixed among the various foodstuffs were plenty of other things, like toiletries, household goods, a few automotive supplies–that had my eye until I realized it was lacking in motor oil or anything else we could use to get the engine of the truck going–and a shelf of kitschy souvenirs. There was even a section labeled family planning, though that seemed to only contain outdated baby food, formula, and diapers… no actual contraceptives like one would expect these days.
Not that I would ever need such things.
“Hahahaha, oh, come to mommy!” Sour Sweet cheered from somewhere near the back.
“Ugh, it’s not even that good,” Cranky complained. “Not like this coffee… they don’t make coffee like this anymore.”
I wandered to the back where, amidst the soda fountain, slurpee machine, and coffee and cappuccino dispensers I expected to see from any convenience store, there was also a few shelves of specialty goods. One of them was a huge refrigerated cabinet full of bottles of luminescent green soda, labeled “Sluggo Soda: the slimiest soda you’ll ever drink.”
Sour Sweet had one bottle in her hands and was gulping it as she bounced in place, giggling like a schoolgirl. “Wallflower!” she said, looking at me with a cheery expression. I braced for it to switch to grumpy, but for once the Sour part of Sour Sweet didn’t seem to be showing. “Here, try this. You gotta try it.” She handed me the bottle.
I eyed it warily and sniffed it, making a face. “This smells… weird.”
“That’s because it is,” Cranky said as he picked up a bag of coffee beans from the shelf and placed it into a paper shopping bag labeled with the convenience store’s logo. “That crap was discontinued about twenty years ago. Where the hell’d you even pick up a taste for it?”
“My mom had a big supply stashed away when I was little,” Sour Sweet admitted. “She gave it to me as a reward, and it was soooo good. And then when I was sixteen we finally ran out. She said she didn’t know where I could ever get more… and neither did I till I found out this place had a ton!” She looked at me expectantly, smiling widely. ‘Go on, try it.”
Very hesitantly, I sniffed it one more time, then took a sip. “Oh god!” I cried as I spat it out and kept spitting on the floor, trying to get the taste out of my mouth. “That’s so disgusting… it’s so… just…. Eeeeugh!” It was somehow both much too sweet and much too sour, but even in my state of frantic disgust, I knew not to make that particular complaint to this particular person.
Sour Sweet snatched the bottle from my hand before I could drop it, scowling at me. “Fine. Be an ass about it.”
“H-hey, if you like it, more power to you,” I said, raising my hands in surrender. “But good grief that’s gross.”
“Here,” Cranky said, grabbing a plastic cup and filling it with water from the soda fountain. He handed it to me. “This should help wash it out.”
“Thanks.” I swished the water around in my mouth then spat it out in a nearby sink, then did that two more times before finally gulping down the rest. “Much better, thank you.”
Sour Sweet snorted, and guzzled down some more of her soda. “Aaah, well, more for me then.” She reached into her pockets, pulled out a piece of paper, a marker, and some tape, wrote “Property of Sour Sweet” on it then slapped it on the fridge of Sluggo Soda. “There. No one’ll take it.”
“So that soda has some kind of poison in its ingredients, right? That’s why it was discontinued?” I asked Cranky.
He shrugged. “How should I know? I remember the stuff was only around for a few decades… used to be a decent competitor soda till they went the slimy route in the last five years of its lifespan. Pretty soon after that they crashed and burned.”
“Wha–you mean there’s non slimy Sluggo?” Sour Sweet asked, her expression laser focused on Cranky. “Do you think there’s any here? I gotta try it.”
“Uh, maybe? If there is you’d have to do some checking around.” He jabbed a finger behind the counter. “Maybe the back?”
Sour Sweet flew over to the door before I could react, and twisted the knob. “Damn. Locked.”
“Probably on purpose so whoever’s running the place can keep this stocked,” I said, pointing to things like the fresh fruit. “Because it’s obviously being restocked daily.”
“Oooh, are those blackberries?”
I turned to see Autumn Blaze peering down at the fruit. She had Shining Armor in tow, who had his own shopping bag with a few things in it, mostly little snack items like pork rinds.
“Yeah,” I said as I decided I’d go shopping myself later… I wanted to stash some of this fruit in my dorm fridge. “They’ve got raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries too.”
“Berry central, huh?” Shining quipped. “I remember the fruit being different the first couple of days.”
“Maybe it rotates,” Autumn suggested. “Oooh I hope so because the more fruit we can have the better.”
“Interesting what that suggests though,” Shining said, crossing his arms. “It suggests that whoever is running the show is getting regular supplies delivered.”
“Well they’d have to in order to run this program,” I said. “So maybe whoever is delivering supplies doesn’t know it’s been taken over?”
“Assuming this killing game wasn’t their goal all along,” Shining replied.
The words brought a chill to my spine. “You don’t seriously think that’s the case, do you?”
Shining shrugged, the bag in his hands crinkling. “I don’t know. It feels pretty suspicious that whoever’s in charge of the program hasn’t intervened by now. I get that part of the point was to be isolated, but you’d still expect regular status updates.”
“Maybe they’re being sent in a way that placates whoever’s receiving them so they have no idea something’s wrong,” suggested Vignette Valencia as she suddenly appeared behind Shining, carrying a case of vintage makeup she’d plucked off a nearby shelf.
Shining whirled, his eyes darting to the makeup for a moment as if assessing a potential threat before he relaxed. “Maybe,” he admitted. “...maybe Sunset was onto something when she suggested they could fake things with holograms.”
I looked at him, my throat suddenly dry as a bone, my heart skipping a few beats. “You… d-do you mean there’s a chance that she was right–”
Vignette shot me a disapproving glare as Shining shook his head. “No, no, absolutely not. She killed Pear Butter, Wallflower. I know what she meant to you but don’t let her lie get to your head. All I’m suggesting is that maybe she was right that it’s possible they could fake something that way, and that’s how they’re keeping us here without issue. Lying with video footage is easy; I should know.”
His words struck me like a punch to the gut, but I managed to avoid visibly keeling over, despite the blow to my spirit. “Right. Of course. Sorry.”
I fled the store, not wanting anyone to see the tears that threatened to spill forth. Damn it, I thought I’d managed to deal with this! I thought I was able to handle the idea, that I’d let go of the possibilities. Apparently not.
The sharp footfalls of Vignette’s heels followed me. “Wallywall,” she began.
I turned and pointed at her. “No. Don’t start. Please don’t start with that crap. I’m not… not sitting here obsessed with the idea that she was innocent, okay? I’m not. I listened to you. So don’t… don’t start. Please.”
She took a step back and held her hands “Alright. I believe you.”
“Good.”
I ran off, searching for something else new to see in the area. Not far from the convenience store, just on the other side of one of the many roads that cut through the parking area, was the typical truck stop diner, this one 50s themed with a green and purple color scheme, long bar counter laden with stools, vinyl booths set up along the far wall, checkerboard linoleum flooring dotted with the occasional drain that dipped down into the floor, no doubt for easy cleaning, and a huge menu board that proudly proclaimed the many dishes served, typical diner fare like pancakes, meatloaf, chicken fried steaks, burgers, shakes, etc, all listed at prices that boggled my mind.
I mean, all you can eat pancakes for less than two dollars? Sign me up! I’d get fat eating at a place like this.
My nose wrinkled as a scent hit it, an enticing scent… cooking. Someone was cooking in the kitchen. Was it some kind of automated staff? DId someone just have to order and they’d get food?
I wandered behind the counter, and only then noticed the “self-serve only” sign that had been slapped onto one of the old-timey registers, clearly printed off of a modern printer from the crisp white paper and block font underneath laminated plastic. Underneath, scribbled in what might’ve been marker or a thick fountain pen was added “open 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM only!”
Pushing through the green and purple doors–what was with that color scheme, it was less green and more aqua, and a bizarre shade of purple to match–I found myself in a restaurant kitchen not too dissimilar from the one in the Mess Hall back in the main district, though it was a bit smaller, with a few pieces of equipment missing.
And I witnessed Trixie standing there, an apron covering her clothes as she transferred a freshly cooked burger patty to a prepared toasted bun laden with accouterments like lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, and pickles. Lots of pickles. Nearby, a deep fryer basket still dripping with oil contained a fresh batch of fries.
I waited for her to finish transferring it and for her to set the spatula down before I said, “Trixie?”
She still jumped in the air, but at least she didn’t spill any of her food. “Wallflower Blush?” she hissed, picking up the spatula to threaten me with. “How dare you sneak up on Trixie?! Don’t you dare touch her food.”
I took a few steps back. “I’m not touching your food, Trixie. I just wanted to say hello.”
“Well, you’ve said it. Now beat it! Trixie is starving and she wants to eat her burger before it gets cold.” Trixie set her spatula down and finished preparing her burger, then tossed the fries onto the plate, taking it out to the main diner area.
“Trixie, wait,” I said as she sat down in a booth where a chocolate milkshake had already been laid.
She peered at her milkshake warily and sniffed it a moment, as if worried I’d tampered with it before coming to see her. “No. Trixie has nothing to say to you.”
“Wha, but… Trixie, we’re friends!” Her attitude sliced into me like steely knives, each word a fresh blade that sank into my flesh like it was touching a raw nerve. “Aren’t we?”
“Friends? Pfft. Trixie has no friends here.” Trixie bit into her burger and chewed for a while before swallowing. “Especially you.”
“Especiall…” I recoiled, appalled anger starting to burn in my chest. “What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything to you!”
She hunched her shoulders and turned away, all tension and hostility. Her hand squeezed her burger, spurting ketchup onto her plate. “Trixie… Trixie simply can’t abide this talk of friendship.
Trixie thought she had friends, like Sunset Shimmer, only for said friends to betray her and kill someone.”
I sat down at the booth with her, trying not to flee from the steaming, dagger-filled look she aimed my way. “I know how you feel, Trixie. Sunset, she–”
“Do you? Do you, Wallflower?” Trixie set her burger down. “Trixie is sorry, which one of us did Sunset come and weep all over before she was executed? Which one of us did she cling to and act like she was purely innocent towards? Which one of us swallowed her garbage hook, line, and sinker?!” She slammed a palm down on the table. “It wasn’t Trixie. It was you.”
“...Trixie, that’s not fair,” I retorted, tears now freely falling down my face. “I defended you. I was the only one willing to believe in you when everyone else gave up. It’s not my fault that Sunset–”
“Save it,” Trixie sneered. “Trixie doesn’t want to hear it. You’ve ceased to be her friend, Wallflower Blush. Accept that and leave Trixie alone. She’s amazing and brilliant enough to survive this on her own, thank you.”
Slowly, I got up from the booth, my eyes unable to stop watching her as she turned back to her food and ate it aggressively, each bite hitting hard like she was trying to punch or kick someone. But she refused to look at me in turn, so eventually I left without another word.
As I left the diner, I almost ran face-first into Rarity, who took one look at my crying face and held me tightly. Fluttershy was with her, and she too gave me a hug. “What’s wrong, Wallflower?”
I mumbled something about Trixie as I let them hold me… as much as touch could scare me, this was nice. “There there, Wallflower,” Fluttershy cooed as she rubbed my back. “Don’t worry about Trixie. She has her own problems.”
“Indeed, darling,” Rarity added. “Whatever her issue with you is, don’t let it get to you. The rest of us don’t share it, whatever it may be.”
“...so I’m still your friend?” I sniffled.
The two exchanged a knowing look. “Of course you are, dear,” Rarity said. “And don’t ever forget it.”
“Not for a moment,” Fluttershy added.
I nodded into their shoulders and pulled away, rubbing my eyes dry. “Thanks girls, I… needed that.”
“Of course. Why don’t you walk with us? We were just about to check out the showroom,” Rarity said.
“Showroom?” I asked as I let them lead me.
“Yes, the one on the sign,” Fluttershy answered as we meandered past a number of other wrecks, following along a partially clogged path till we reached another building, this one proclaiming loudly on its sign that it was the official Tourist Trappe Museum of Mining Mysteries and More.
Passing inside we were met with an instant blast of air conditioning, leaving me shivering a little in the suddenly cooler air. The interior was well decorated, better than I expected out of a place that literally called itself a tourist trap, with plush carpeting only slightly threadbarren due to age. Tastefully done wallpaper and expensive choices in wooden shelving only lent further credence to the authenticity of the museum.
Up at the front there was a small section set aside as a gift shop, which contained the usual types of things one would expect, little plushies and figurines, a few maps, and some toy versions of pickaxes and other mining equipment. The front desk, unoccupied of course, held an old style ledger that encouraged people to sign it upon entry. Curiously, unlike the diner or convenience store, the museum explicitly listed itself as open 24/7.
As we moved further inside, I noticed one area that was barren of any exhibits, and for that matter of carpet or anything else. A sign hanging on one wall proclaimed it to be a workshop area for employees only… poking inside revealed it held a number of worktables, shop equipment that wouldn’t be out of place in a theater or a high school woodworking class, and a large janitor’s sink with a mop and bucket for cleaning. The floor was concrete, with a few drains scattered here and there.
Big Macintosh was inside, fiddling with some of the equipment. Derpy was right next to him, and the two were chatting quietly. I chose not to disturb them.
The rest of the museum matched the exquisite decorations of the entrance, however, and led us on several sets of exhibits. One was dedicated to mining equipment and various little unusual things miners stumble across…nothing I hadn’t heard of before in geology classes though. There was also a section on local wildlife, showing off jackrabbits, lizards, and model rattlesnakes. Here we found Juniper Montage, who was taking numerous notes. “Look at these paintings and these models,” she said as we approached. “There’s so many ways one could use these in a production… like a documentary maybe.”
“Maybe,” I shrugged as I moved past her.
And froze.
There was a single pedestal in the center of the room I hadn’t quite noticed before with a sign that loudly proclaimed, “Our prize possession: a genuine one hundred percent authentic and potent vial of rattlesnake venom: guaranteed to put you six feet under!”
But there was no vial.
“Uuuh, Juniper?” I said, turning to her. “Have you seen the vial that’s supposed to be on this pedestal?”
She took one look at it and shook her head. “Nope. I don’t think there was one when I came in, come to think of it.”
“Oh my, that’s… concerning,” Fluttershy said, swallowing visibly. “Rattlesnake venom is very dangerous.”
“Clearly, if it can kill you,” Rarity said, making a face. “How dangerous, exactly?”
“Extremely. A single bite from a rattlesnake can kill you within two to three days if left untreated and you’ll experience massive pain and likely lose the limb they bit even if you get treated in time,” Fluttershy replied, her face grim. “And that’s assuming a bite. Depending upon how much venom gets injected… it could kill you a lot faster if they raise the dose. And it will hurt… a lot.”
“...how much pain are we talking here?” Juniper asked.
Fluttershy looked at her flatly. “Enough that you’d be screaming for someone to kill you just to put you out of your misery.”
“Yikes.” Juniper cringed. “Well at least there’s none of it here.”
Heavy footfalls preceded Cheese Sandwich running inside. “Hey, everyone in here,” he shouted. “Shining wants us all at the convenience store. Says he found something really bad.”
We hurried over to the convenience store, gathering with everyone, including Trixie. Shining awaited us. "We're all here? Good. Come on, back here."
He led us into the back where Cranky stepped forward. "I found it while I was searching the coolers," Cranky said, pointing to one next to Sour Sweet's Sluggo. "There's some strange cans in there."
“Strange cans?” I inquired as I looked into the case. I pulled one out and almost dropped it in shock when I saw the label:
“1200% Concentrated Rattlesnake Venom: Like a dozen snakes biting you at once, this’ll putcha under for sure!”
“What… why is this even here?!” I shouted, looking in horror at just how many cans were present. An entire shelf full, easily a good twenty or more. “Who would make these?”
“This must’ve been the work of the mastermind,” Shining concluded. “I can’t see whoever set this program up leaving cans of deadly venom everywhere. The question is, what do we do with them?”
Fluttershy raised her hand. “Um, excuse me, Shining? I think I know a good solution. Rattlesnake venom isn’t meant to be kept outside a venom sac, so it has to be kept cold. If it’s left out of the cooler, it should go bad. We can be even safer by dumping it, if necessary.”
“I’d say it’s necessary,” Juniper said, picking up one of the cans and grimacing at it. “I mean, just look at these. There’s so many it’d be easy for someone to take one and hide it somewhere if they really wanted to.”
“Then let’s take care of it right now,” Shining said. He gathered up a few in his hands. “We should get these poured out onto the asphalt.”
“Oh, good idea, but just one thing everyone,” Fluttershy said as she picked up a few of her own. “Once we pour it out you mustn't touch the puddle with your bare skin, or else you’ll absorb it.”
“Hmm, good point,” Shining said. He set the cans in his hands down and reached into his back pocket, pulling out a pair of leather gloves. “Picked these up at the convenience store… figured they’d come in handy,” he said as he donned them, then picked the cans back up. “Okay, let’s go… over here, near the gas pumps. Not like they're of any use to us anyway.”
As a group we carried the cans over and set them all down on top of one of the gas pumps. One by one, Shining Armor cracked them open and poured them out. The air soon filled with a foul, bitter smell, like a mixture of onions and cooking rubber sprinkled with plenty of sulfur, and a growing pool of amber yellow that spread rapidly, forcing a few people to step back.
We cracked open as many cans as we could find, until the puddle was more like a small pond covering half the gas pump area. “So how do we know when it’s safe?” Cranky asked.
“Oh, we’ll know once the smell goes away,” Fluttershy said with a patient nod. “Once the smell either disappears or minimizes, the venom has broken down and become harmless.”
“Alright, until then, no one goes near this puddle,” Shining said. “It’s too dangerous.” He turned to Zephyr. “Hey, Zephyr, you want to be useful, right?”
Zephyr saluted Shining at once. “Of course I do, Shiny Hiney sir!”
“Don’t…ugh, look, I need you to go and make absolutely sure we’ve gotten all the rattlesnake venom cans, okay? We don’t want any unaccounted for.”
Zephyr saluted again. “You got it, Shiny H–” Shining shot him a fierce glare that cut him off. “Err, Shining, sir. I’ll make sure they’re all gone.”
“Good. Here, take these gloves in case you need ‘em to dump anymore cans. I’ll pick up a fresh pair.” He took his off and tossed them into Zephyr’s chest, then headed for the convenience store.
“Well, that takes care of that problem,” Juniper said, letting out a small sigh. “Last thing we want is someone getting poisoned.”
“No, we don’t want that,” Fluttershy agreed, eying the pool warily. “It’s very important we’re careful around this… if you touch even a bit of that with your skin, there’s enough there to kill you really quick.”
“Ah so all someone has to do to murder is trip someone into the pool?” Vignette said with a wide grin.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Vignette,” Rarity chided. “No one’s going to fall for that.”
Nevertheless, everyone backed far away from the pool. I watched Vignette as people moved and saw the satisfaction in her eyes.
…maybe, despite her attitude, she really did mean well.
Whatever the case, I decided I’d go back into the convenience store myself to take another look for the cans, because I didn’t trust Zephyr to succeed in this task one bit. I passed by Big Macintosh who was examining an apple, and who gave me a look of uncertainty as I walked by. Reaching the cooler where the cans had been kept, and of course with Zephyr sticking his nose in some shelf on the opposite side of the story, I went and searched.
Nothing. No cans inside it, or behind it, or above or below, or anywhere else. Seemed like we really had gotten them all.
Which left me feeling relieved. I knew Sunset might be right, that perhaps I couldn’t prevent murders from happening, but I didn’t want to picture someone dying by rattlesnake venom. From what Fluttershy said, and from what I personally understood of such things… it would be horrific. Like rotting from inside out, in far too much pain to be able to do anything except cry or scream…
Horrible, gut-wrenching screams that would haunt my nightmares till the end of my days, screams of excruciating pain and suffering like I had never known, never wanted to know, never wanted to ever hear ever again–
“No!” I cried, grabbing my head and shaking it, trying to dislodge the memory, throw it back into the box I’d done my best to seal it in. “I don’t want to hear it… I don’t want to hear it…”
In the process of trying to get it out, I fled the convenience store and wandered across the parking lot, ending up back in the museum.
I fell against the front desk and sank til I was sitting on the floor, leaning with the desk at my back, panting and heaving. After a moment I let out a growl of rage and elbowed the desk behind me several times. God, why am I such a mess? Why can’t I keep it together for more than five fucking seconds?
I knew why… I was never the most stable of people to begin with, and this killing game had already extracted a heavy toll from me.
But I still needed to at least try to keep it together. I couldn’t risk becoming a victim, or worse… a blackened.
Horrible–
I cut it off with a swipe of my hand. No. I wouldn’t focus on it.
“Wallflower,” barked a deep, assertive voice, and I nearly screamed. Shining Armor stood in the doorway, frowning, looking bizarrely kind and gentle. “I’m sorry for startling you.”
I didn’t say anything. Frowning, he took a step inside the museum. “I wanted to speak with you for just a moment.” He was somehow both a terrifying authoritarian giant and Just A Nice Dude. “Is that okay?”
I decided I was annoyed, and it helped a little. “Really? It’s gotta be right now?”
“No, of course not.” He took another step closer, somehow not intimidating me. “It’ll only take a minute, though.”
“Is this leader stuff?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest defensively. “You’re gonna give me a pep talk so I won’t go hide in my room anymore?”
“No. I like to focus on the practical side of things.”
“Ugh,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes. “Such a dad.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
His tone surprised me out of my irritation. He had sounded something close to angry. Almost… hurt. “Um. I’m just…” Unable to think of what I was “just” doing, I fell silent.
He took off his cap and rubbed a hand through his hair. It made him look younger. “I am a dad, Wallflower. She’s three. And all I want is to not be here. All I want is to be home, and to hear her call me that.”
He scowled down at the floor and replaced his cap. “I apologize,” he said, stiffly. “I’m not trying to act like I’m special. None of us want to be here, and we all have people at home we want to see.”
I almost said, “I don’t.” I almost spat it out, bitter, angry. The impulse was just there, and I have no idea where it came from but I managed to resist it. Thankfully thinking deeper about it would make my head hurt, so I was able to resist that, too. I just stood there.
“I’m not trying to boss people around, Wallflower,” he continued, thankfully not noticing my ambivalence. “I hate that I have to be anything close to a cop. I came here because… some people I know well have these downright utopian ideas, all about friendship and magic. And these aren’t naive kids; they’re the smartest people I know. I want to believe in that.”
I grimaced. “...Sunset?” I asked.
He looked off to the side, sighing. “Sunset did talk to me about it some, yes. I can’t make sense of that with everything that’s happened.”
“Me neither.”
“But,” he said, standing tall and firm, “we have to fight Monohuman’s evil with something. And if it can’t be magic friendship, then it can at least be teamwork. That’s all I’m trying to do.”
Goddamn it, he had won me over, and I resented him for it. “Fine. What do you want?”
“I just want to know who you feel like you work best with. If we need to get into teams to do something efficiently, I want to maximize everyone’s trust.”
“Oh.” I considered that. “Um. I don’t know.”
He frowned. “Really? I… saw you talking to Vignette. What about her?”
“I guess, maybe.” I shrugged. “Trixie?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”
“She’s… obvious,” I explained. “Obvious feels safer. And Sunset really…” I realized I shouldn’t finish that sentence, but I felt stupid about leaving it, so I lamely concluded: “... really trusted her.”
“Hmm.” He raised an eyebrow. “Is that all? What about someone else? Say, Derpy?”
“Derpy?” Confused, I considered the suggestion. Why Derpy? Did she say she trusted me? “I dunno. I guess she said we were friends, but…”
“...But?”
I didn’t give him the real reason, because the real reason was stupid. ‘It’s just weird and sketchy how this nice, sweet person said she was my friend.’ Stupid and pathetic as I knew it was, thinking about Derpy made my chest clench up. There was just something about her that wasn’t safe.
“...But my memory stuff blocked all that out for me,” I said out loud. That was the truth, too, and I hoped he’d accept it.
“Fair enough,” Shining said. “I really appreciate this, Wallflower. I’m sorry again about startling you before.”
“It’s okay,” I said, and it was actually sort of the truth. He nodded tersely and walked out of the building.
I weirdly appreciated him for shocking me out of my freak-out, but it was still a pretty tiring interaction. To distract myself I went wandering back through the museum, looking at some of the exhibits I missed on my first pass through. It was slow, and I’ll admit that facts about mining equipment isn’t my first choice for entertaining information, but it helped for a time.
As I finished up and headed back towards the entrance, planning to see about a short shopping trip at the convenience store, I passed by the front desk and spotted something unusual laying underneath it, out of sight unless you were looking in exactly the right place at the right time.
Out of curiosity I headed for it and, after ensuring no one else was around, grabbed it.
It was a video cassette, of all things. A single label of white with red lettering declared the tape to be “Log One.”
“...this feels important,” I muttered as I stuffed the tape into my pockets. Change of plans; I was headed back to my dorm room first to drop off the tape. I might not have a VCR or VHS but I wasn’t going to let anyone else get their greasy hands on this.
Not till I watched it. Not till I saw what it had to say.
But how was I going to watch it without a VHS player? I knew there wasn’t one among the equipment anywhere that we had access to. But… the more I looked at the tape, it was definitely important somehow.
So I headed for my dorm room to leave it there, planning to come out and find Rarity once I was done.
Maybe Vignette too.
Maybe.
Stats
Page generated in 0.022 seconds
Total duration
851 users online
1,075,575 hits today, 2,167,270 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Oh great, now when someone inevitably gets poisoned we won't know where exactly they got the venom from.
i calling it right now that soursweet going to accidentally drink the poison
Since that poison was mentioned I feel like it could be involved in the next murder. Or would that be too obvious? It could easily be used as a Red Herring.
Is it Sour Sweet's favorite soda, Sluggo Soda? Sounds like the Ferengi soft drink Slug-o-Cola that included 43% algae. It is no wonder her favorite drink is something way to both sour and sweet for anyone but her.
I also hope Trixie will be okay, and that Wallflower can get her to open up again.
Okay, let's see if I can figure it all out in Chapter one. On the snake venom, my immediate thought is: It'll be a great red herring. In fact, I'll make this bold prediction right now: there never was a vial of poison in the museum, and thus, the first person into the museum has that ace in their back pocket. Using this info, they can cause some sort of death that looks like it was caused by snake venom but isn't, and then make a fall guy or gal based on the faulty assumption. I noticed you made a point twice that There's no fuel to be found, which means there is fuel, you just have to be inventive. And I think I know where to find it. The diner, fully operational has a grill, and I bet there's propane tanks powering it. And in a pinch, propane will work on gas engines
So, if I were to presume that all my observations are going to be relevant to the case, I think I can construct a murder scene. If it goes down like I think, then the murder victim & location must be Derpy in the woodworking room. Only she and Big Mac have reason to be there, and meta-wise, I don't think you'll kill Big Mac right after he lost a loved one, or ever. Late at night, Derpy finds a note from Big Mac asking if she could go to the woodworking room after hours and finish some project - it's allowed because the museum is open 24/7. And to please be discrete about it because he's embarrassed that he couldn't finish it by morning like he promised. Derpy likes Mac so she's all too happy to do it without question. Of course, the note isn't actually from Mac, it's from the killer, luring her into a trap. Using a hosepipe or something, the killer piped the truck's exhaust under the building and up through the grates, releasing deadly carbon monoxide right under Derpy's feet. (Note that propane smells like rotten eggs because of an additive, but when it burns, the fumes have no odor.) Derpy couldn't hear the truck turning on because of the loud tablesaw + hearing protection, and as carbon monoxide is invisible and odorless, she wouldn't have noticed anything until she collapsed from it (and it'd leave no trace for investigators). But what's really brilliant about this is In the Monohuman file, the case of death will be listed as "poisoning," which is technically true.
The killer made not one but two patsies in this - the obvious one being Cheese Sandwich who basically spelt out the murder idea, and the second being Sour Sweet. The killer took one bottle of Sluggo, poured it out through the grating, drew a skull symbol on the underside, and planted it at the scene. This makes it appear as though Sour Sweet had planted a poisoned bottle for an unsuspecting victim to take, with a discrete label so she would which one it is. Of course, that's just a red herring. So now the most important question, who done it? Apart from Wallflower, one person had all the information they needed to set up those two as patsies, one who firsthand witnessed Sour's obsession with that soda, and who knows about Cheese's time as a drag racer, and hell, everything about Cheese because they spend every waking moment with him (whether they like it or not). It could only have been you, Ultimate Grouch, Cranky Doodle!
11540720
Too obvious. My guess is that's gonna end up this chapter's red herring of sorts: EITHER her coffee was spiked, and she uses it to claim that she was an intended victim, or she used her coffee to transport a venom vial at some point
So wait, it's wallflower who spends 3 days wallowing in sadness? Its wallflower that everybody is stressing over her losing a 'friend'? Not the one guy who lost a loved family member, a mom, after losing his own dad? He had no to time to properly grieve for his mother with them doing all the evidence searching and and trial, but we're just going to gloss over his mental wellness and everything is hunky doory for him now?
Calling it now: food will somehow be relevant to this chapterʼs murder. Thereʼs a strange focus on food and this is shown in four separate scenes:
And, of course, the chapter title: “The Secret Ingredient is Never What You Expect”.
This is really fun. I discovered the previous book when it has more than halfway written, so I didnʼt truly get the chance to make my own theories or share my thoughts. But this time, I get to follow along with everyone else. And I love it!
11540959
then that being said who going to be the target probably grumpy since you mention coffee.
I sense death by food poisoning in this chapter.