Colts will be Thieves

Princess Celestia was bringing the sun to bare on another day over the vast cityscape of Los Pegasus. A golden chariot led by Her Royal Guards visibly stood out in the sky as it slowly descended within the buildings. Because the city doesn’t get fairly busy until an hour later, only a small crowd of ponies gathered trying to take a closer look at the blocked off area at a small park, known as Heartstrings Memorial Park, which they were landing.

“Detective Songbird, sir, we’ve arrived.”, one of the white pegasus Royal Guards affirmed with courtesy.

“Thank you, Royal Guards. We’ll be leaving in about 20 minutes, I’ll only have to talk with an associate.”, the detective replied. It felt pleasant for Songbird to be addressed by that for the first time by somepony else other than his colleagues, especially for being one of the younger detectives around Equestria.

As the gray coat of the blue unicorn slid off the chariot as he did, another pony of similar outfit paced towards him.

“Ah, Songbird, good to see you. Glad you were able to come before the city would wake up.”, the other detective said.

“Likewise, Kingfish. I was able to get your report on time.”

By now, Kingfish knew he wouldn’t have to tell Songbird where they had to go. He made a sign with his hoof to follow him.

It was only about 20 seconds, walking deeper into the park, until the both of them walked over to their destination. In front of them, was a cloak concealing a corpse. From the report, Songbird already knew who this would be.

Kingfish used his magic to lift the cloak off. At the sight of a dead, blue pegasus, beaten beyond recognition, Songbird made a small grimace and attempted to cover his nose with his front leg.

“Yup,” Kingfish said mournfully.

“Tell me when the body was reported.” Songbird managed to speak out.

“It was just around two or three this morning. The coroner says his best guess about the time of death is midnight. Also, as you could see, he has a bullet wound in his wing and his stomach and multiple bruises around his body.”

“You think he could have been shot in the wing first, then the suspect, or suspects, could have jumped him to their advantage, then finishing him off with the bullet to the stomach?”

“Seems pretty clear that could have happened.”

“Okay, Kingfish, what else is behind the report I was given? Other than to come to the crime scene.”, said Songbird, finally starting to break his trance staring into the corpse. The two of them started to move away to cut off the disturbance.

“A pony named Cerebrate Beat, if you remember his name, was found here at the scene as well. He was just about as injured as the dead pony back there, I suspect he was involved with this case. But he was unconscious and is at the hospital as of now.

“Who? How could have he been possibly connected with this? ”

“Well, as you know, my assignment over the past few months was to analyze into the actions of this particular suspect and his other accomplices, since I once investigated into a crime that they might have committed, and THAT case has been abandoned since. And the last few days, I was able to find the addresses of the three others.”

“Just let me get a guess on this,” Songbird interrupted, “it’ll be up to me to interrogate all four of them.”

“Well, I was just about to tell more on that. I am thoroughly aware of how potentially dangerous these colts could be, but I arranged for royal guards to pick them up by tomorrow morning to be taken to Canterlot, and use force if necessary. And yes, as you said, I’ve appointed you to interrogate them. I’ll also send in Mr. Cerebrate once he comes back to his senses. You’ll have get to know of what happened here, and the various activities they did. I’ll also have a pegasus mail a copy of the all the info I could get on them too to use, along with reports on notable crimes they’ve committed. After all of it’s done, you’ll have to mail back everything you’ve written, then it’ll be up to me to conclude what will happen to them.”

“Got that understood, but...why choose me?”

“Well,” Kingfish chuckled a little, “because you were promoted only pretty recently and I wanted to give this to you as the first big job. Plus, I have a bunch of other assignments to deal with, a jewelry store robbery, a murder case, a string of burglaries, a huge clusterfuck, really. And keep in mind, these colts aren’t Discord-evil, so no need to get nervous about it.”

“And, that’s it?”

“Assuming you think it’s a cakewalk, it is. Well, that’s all I needed to say.” Kingfish held out his hoof, “Good luck in this, Detective.”

Songbird held his hoof out as well and shook. He went back to the golden chariot, where he saw that the scene has evoked even more attention by now.

“Guards,” he called with a sigh, “Let us go back to Canterlot.”

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“Rappin’. Rapping is like street poetry, it lets you express your feelings inside, or the way you are! It’s like yo-”

“Fucking foal advertisements.”, Speck grumbled from bed, blindly slamming his hoof on the alarm radio on the nightstand. After some feeble attempts, he decided it would be simpler to just open his eyes and then turn it off. In a brief moment, a wave of reality crashed on his mind and almost fell out of bed trying to sit up.

“Cerebrate was supposed to be here already.”, he thought. There’s no way that Cerebrate wouldn’t forget. Unless...no, Speck doubted that would happen. Assuming he did forget and just stayed home, being the best case scenario, he started to get dressed to meet him.

Speck tried to grab on his sweater from the drawer with his horn...to remember again for about the 200th time that it was broken and that he could hardly use his magic. He didn’t want to waste his energy using a simple telekinesis spell and manually put it on.

Just as he began to get the door, a series of loud, sharp knocks banged on the door.

“OPEN UP!!!”

Speck immediately distinguished that voice. It was that of a royal guard. He had about 5 seconds to think what he had to do before the guards would kick in the door. He could quickly grab the handgun back in his bedroom and then dispose of them, but there could be a lot more outside than he would expect. Or he could jump out the window then make his escape, but he was on a floor, at enough height, would injure him.

Instead, he instinctively grabbed and opened the door in a brisk movement to find only two white pegasus ponies outside in the hallway looking at him as if they could’ve already seen him through the wall.

“You are Mr. Speck, is that right?”, one of the royal guards asked with their usual harsh tone.

“Yes...”, answered Speck with little emotion with a hint of bitterness.

“Sir, we’ve been ordered to take you to Canterlot.”

“Give a reason why?”

“That is not of our business, you will be informed when you get there.”

Speck knew he would gain nothing from asking the “Why” questions at the moment, so he just went with it and walked out the door with them. Hopefully, he would only be back by noon.

He was taken to the golden chariot outside, but with an enclosed stagecoach in the back, where there was another stallion locked in the back. He was a lightly-brown earth pony with his mane tied in dreadlocks. He seemed very familiar to Speck until he was inside the cage inside with him.

“Cise?”, he asked surprised. “How’d you manage to get in this too?”

“Pff, I don’t even know.” Cise replied. “They finally caught on to us, probably. Since you were taken too, I guess they’re going to try to take Scept and Cerebrate. Unless they actually try to make a move unlike us.”

“Even if they did, I doubt they’d keep running for another 5 seconds.”

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20 minutes later, they stopped in the neighborhood Scept lived in, which was different from Cise and Speck, since they lived in apartments. The two pegasi marched up to the front of the house, when a blue unicorn already opened the door and walked up to them before they were close enough to even knock. He seemed to keep his head down until he looked surprised when he made eye contact.

From Cise and Speck’s view in the stagecoach, the unicorn was listening to the guards, when he suddenly threw a punch at one of them and booked it at a random direction while he was attempting to conjure a teleport spell. He wasn’t given 5 seconds after the other standing guard bolted toward him with a vicious tackle, knocking him out until they chucked him into the stagecoach.

When he came back to his senses, Scept stared at Cise and Speck. The exchange of looks seemed to already be enough of a greeting for the three.

“Wow, did you see that?!” Scept asked bluntly, “That guy hit me with the force of an apple farmer’s buck, for fuck sake.”

“Dude, you were the one who hit first, don’t be a smart-ass.”, Speck remarked.

The two pegasi guards now took off to the skies on the way to Canterlot.

Making a realization, Scept suddenly asked, “Wait, if they have the three of us, don’t you guys think it wouldn’t have been a coincidence to get Cerebrate next?”

“Yeah, I was thinking that too.” Cise answered, “I don’t know why we’re going to Canterlot already, though. Maybe he was taken there before they tried to get the three of us at the same time?”

“Whoa, you’re assuming he rat out on us, right?” Speck almost interrupted, “He wouldn’t ever do that.”

“No, I wouldn’t think that either. Remember when I said they might’ve finally caught up to us before? Well, maybe that just happened. How long is this trip going to take anyways?”

“About half the day.”, one of the guards answered from the front.

“Wow.” Scept said sarcastically, laying down on the ground. “I’d really hope for somepony to hijack this halfway and fly this towards Manehattan right about now.”

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After half the day, as the royal guard said, they finally made their destination. Cise, Speck and Scept, now put into hoof-cuffs, were being escorted further into Canterlot, now by a different set of guards.

Having seen Canterlot only once or never in their lives, everything had a huge contrast compared to Los Pegasus: the way ponies went on about their lives, how they talked with each other, especially the architecture.# For a high-class city, Speck wasn’t surprised to see many other ponies staring disdainfully at him for having a broken horn.

They stopped when they reached a building connected to the Royal Castle by a low-ceilinged corridor. The inside of the building had a near-similar layout to police stations back in Los Pegasus. They were taken into a lower level of the building, where they were put into cells.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!”, Scept yelled urgently at the guards as they walked away. “What’s going to happen now?”

“Tomorrow morning, you will be taken for interrogation.”, was all one of the royal guards said. They then marched back up to the upper floor.

“Fuck them, I’m not going to say a thing.” he muttered.

“I’m going with Scept on this. Will you keep your mouth shut, Speck?”, Cise asked.

Speck didn’t respond, he looked away uneasily. “Well...”

“...You’re seriously going say everything they’ll ask?”, Scept asked in disbelief, “You’re lucky we’re in separate cells right now.”

“What else do we have to do?! I don’t want to spill anything as much as you guys do, but not saying anything isn’t going to get anywhere either. Maybe lying could be an alternate route through this, but I guarantee that they already know enough about us to call us on our bullshit.”

Scept remained silent while Cise sighed in agreement.

Speck then layed down on the bed in his cell, “Anyways, it’s been a long fucking day. Mind as well sleep now.”

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“Right this way, Detective.”, a voice echoed through the halls of the cells, waking the three up. In their view were the same two guards who took them to cells, followed by a red unicorn in a brown coat.

“Hello, gentlecolts. I’m Detective Songbird.” said the unicorn modestly, he turned around to the guards, “...They are the right ponies, am I correct?”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“Ah, then.”, he walked up to Scept’s cell, who was wide awake and standing right at the front of the cell. “I guess you already know what you’re here for?”

To respond, he slipped his hooves through the bars, grabbed Songbird’s head, and promptly slammed his face against the cell bars. Without delay, the guards used the end of their spears to thrust Scept to the back of the cage again.

Trying to make Scept feel like he didn’t accomplish anything, Songbird got back up on his hooves without looking back and walked over to Cise’s cell. He gave a facial expression to him that asked the same question.

Sighing, Cise insolently said with a shrug, “We were taken here because we’re going to be interrogated. And now we’re here...at Canterlot... and we’re about to be interrogated.”

Giving a sullen stare, the detective now walked along and continued to speak.

“It’s close to obvious you stallions already knew by now, but you were tracked down to your houses and picked up. It was originally up to Detective Kingfish back in Los Pegasus to take responsibilities for interrogating you three, but it was then that the assignment was handed down to me, making allowance for working on other cases. And I guess you’re also wondering where your friend, Mr. Cerebrate, is?”

The three peaked their ears with suspense.

“He’s been found in a park in L.P., along with a dead pony, whom we couldn’t identify yet. We don’t know how he could’ve been connected to the scene, for now, since he’s being hospitalized as we speak. My best guess, according to Detective Kingfish, is that he will be taken here as well by the end of the day.”

“Mail for Detective Songbird!”, a voice echoed.

“I’ve been expecting that. Guards, take each of them to individual interrogation rooms.”

After receiving the envelope from the Mail Express pegasus, he opened it without hesitation. Inside, was the letter he’d been expecting, along with parts of archived newspapers dating from weeks ago to even months.

“Dear Songbird,

Listed, are the major crimes these colts have been reported for. Notice how there are only 4 listed, as much as I’m aware that there could have been more. Also acknowledge the fact that they were NOT taken in for any of those listed. You’ll have to get as much info from each perspective as you can about each one. You won’t have to worry about Cerebrate Beat as you get this, as he will arrive by about 6 PM on the day you recieve this.
Mr. Speck and Mr. Scept accused of assaulting Olympus Optic, eventual admin of Laserteeth Crime Family
Theft and illegal trade of stolen gems from Bank of Los Pegasus
Train Robbery, including with possible accounts of massacre
Public shootout with members of Laserteeth Crime Family

If you’ve noticed, there are cuts of archived newspapers considering those events included with this letter. You may use those as evidence from the perspectives of witnesses as part of the interrogation.

Zebras,

Detective Kingfish”

He flipped through the newspaper headlines, they displayed as: “INNOCENT STALLION BEATEN AND LEFT FOR DEAD” “DISAPPEARANCE OF GEMS FROM THE BANK OF LOS PEGASUS” “TRAIN TO APPLELOOSA ROBBED; DOZENS KILLED” “PUBLIC FEAR CAUSED IN UPPER LOS PEGASUS AFTER SHOOTOUT”

Sending a shiver through his body, Songbird now had a new outlook of the four ponies. He now walked back in the building to the hallways where the interrogation rooms were contained.

“Guard, I’d like to know which pony is in which room.” he requested.

“Yes, sir. Mr. Scept is in Interview Room #1. Mr. Cise is in Interview Room #2. And Mr. Speck is in Interview Room #3.”

“Okay then. Thank you.” he then walked into Interview Room #3 straight away.

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“Ok, Mr. Speck, we’re not going to waste time with the introductions, so let’s get to it.”, Songbird said as he drifted to take a seat. Speck only gave a look in response.

“Were you and Cerebrate Beat friends, family, etcetera? How were you four connected, for that matter?”

“Well, Scept and I were good friends. He then introduced me to his cousin, Cise, I only saw myself as his...acquaintance, I guess, with him even though I did hang out with him a lot. Cerebrate, though, we’ve knew each other since he was a foal, before Scept, that is.”

“How often did the group communicate with each other?”

“The thing is, that I haven’t really met with Scept and Cise, nor have they with Cerebrate, for months. Cerebrate and I remained close friends, though.

“Do you any idea what happened to him prior to the crime in Heartstrings Memorial Park?”

“We were having an argument about...”, Speck looked down nervously. “Ok...he wanted to kill another stallion named Olympus Optic. We-”

“Olympus Optic.”, he interrupted, looking at the letter. “About two years ago, you, along with Scept, were accused of assaulting him. You were not arrested for it, however. Considering you and Cerebrate were close friends, as you say, I’d like you to explain the backstory about this.

Speck now started to feel uncomfortable as he tried to remember.

“Back when I was a foal...I was...jumped by him. He was barely a full-grown colt, too. I-I don’t even know what his motives were, or if he thought he was accomplishing anything in his shit life doing that... but... no, I don’t know.” He pointed his hoof at his broken horn. “Yes, he did THAT to me.”

Songbird couldn’t imagine the horrible thought of somepony’s horn, especially as a foal, in two through a physical beating.

“I assume that the assault against Olympus was an act of revenge?”

“It was, except I didn’t get to cut off his wings in return.”