Fortune Hunter was walking on his way to the library when he bumped into Rainbow Dash.
“Oops,” she said “sorry, friend. Gotta run!”
“Oh that’s ok,” he said, or rather, was about to before she darted off at the speed of sound. He sighed. He wasn’t your typical smart pony. He didn’t have glasses, talk with a lisp, or have terrible acne. He was actually pretty normal looking, with a dirty blonde mane and hazel eyes. His body color was light brown, and he wore a Rarity approved fashionable outfit, with khaki pants, dark brown loafers, a T-shirt, underneath a grey cardigan with leather elbow patches and brown buttons. There was something different about him though. He was smart, not Sherlock Holmes smart, but he was a not so well known academic competitor and compatriot of Twilight Sparkle at Canterlot High. He’s currently, the youngest unofficial detective in the history of Equestria, though most of his classmates wouldn’t assume that based on his cutie mark. Most of them ignored him, and he went about his daily and routine. The one thing that kept him going, was an ambitious drive to rival nightmare moon. He tailored it by being quiet, and being very…very…smart.
“Hey Forty,” one of his friends, Octavia hollered at him. He thought, or at least suspected that she had a crush on him, but what he was doing was more important. He smiled courteously, and moved on. Then he looked over and saw two Pegasi snatch an Earth Pony. She screamed as they moved her out the door quickly. He shoved his way through, maybe now was his time to shine. He whipped out his cellphone and called his older brother, who was a police officer in Canterlot.
“Hey bro,” Fortune said “we got something here at the school.”
“Damn it Forty,” he said “dial 911 or something, not my private phone…and how did you get this number?”
“I nicked it off you when you were drunk one night,” he said “but that’s not important. Get down here immediately, I think we might have a kidnapping!”
Within minutes the police had arrived and quarantined the scene. The whole school was interviewed. Fortune Hunter could see Twilight and her friends whispering and looking in his direction. All he had eyes for was his brother though, who walked up and punched him in the shoulder.
“Ouch!”
“Next time dial 911,” Officer Tanning said “or believe me it’ll be your face next time.”
“Can I help you with the case?”
“No!” Officer Tanning said “we have real C.S.I.’s for that. You’d just be getting in the way.”
“Please bro,” he begged “I promise I won’t be a bother to anyone, and you can keep me in check.”
“You already know the rules,” Officer Tanning said “that’s just horse crap and you know it.”
“Oh come on don't be an idiot,” Fortune Hunter said “I’ve helped you in the past five cases, and we’ve gotten the bad guy every time haven’t we?”
“That was because you weren’t actually on the case,” Officer Tanning said “and anyway, this is pretty gruesome. You probably shouldn’t…hey!”
Fortune Hunter knew that the coroner would be arriving shortly, he wanted to be in and out and examine the body for himself before he got the report and the examiner ruined everything. His eyes darted back and forth, his feet danced around careful not to touch anything or step in the blood. The student, unfortunately, was Purple Pimpernel, niece of Gloriosa Daisy, the school counselor. She had been stabbed six times in the chest, but what was odd, was that there was bruising around her neck, as if she’d been strangled before and then stabbed. He knelt down to get a closer look, he could see his classmates watching him but he didn’t care, he was absolutely focused on the job. He noticed, tiny holes in her forehead, five to be exact. Another odd thing, she was missing an ear ring. He heard his brother cough to get his attention
“Find anything Sherlock?”
“I told you not to call me that,” Fortune said “for one thing, he doesn’t exist, and two…I might be better.”
“Might?”
“I try to stay humble about it…”
“Regardless,” Officer Tanning said “what did you find?”
“Obviously she was stabbed,” Fortune Hunter said “six times in the chest, above the diaphragm at an angle of sixty five degrees, roughly. Instrument was something long and narrow, like a screwdriver, maybe a filet knife. She’s missing an ear ring, and has four injection holes in her forehead.”
“Anything else?”
Fortune got up and walked to his brother “Her name is Purple Pimpernel, she’s our school counsellor’s daughter. She’s a grade ahead of me, junior, captain of the cheer squad, and all around popular girl. You remember I told you about Octavia?”
“Yeah,” Tanning said “You told me you thought she had a crush on you…”
“Far from it,” Fortune said “anyway, Pip as she’s nicknamed, is the second most popular girl. She got decent grades, though, not as good as mine, and had a boyfriend.”
“Name?”
“Amber Heart,” Fortune said “red hair, handsome face, can’t miss him. Also, send me the toxicology and the blood sample analysis won’t you?”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Well,” Fortune said “just…keep me posted.”
As he walked away he felt like a total badass. Sunset Shimmer walked up to him “Hey,” she said “do you know what’s going on? Why were you in there? I thought only cops could work a crime scene?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Police confidentiality,” Fortune said “we’re under legal restriction to not give any information pertaining to any case we currently investigate, and this is one of them.”
“Who was that you were talking to?”
“If you want to know that,” he said eyeing Sunset Shimmer coolly “you’re gonna have to get a warrant.”
"Get a warrant?" She shrieked "she was my best friend! How dare you! If you were a decent person, you'd tell me what was going on!"
"I don't make the rules Shimmer," he said "I only follow them."
"What makes you so special then?" she sneered "how come you get special privilege?"
"Because," he said "blood is thicker than water."
With that he walked away and pondered over the information he received. The facts to him just didn’t seem to add up. Why strangle someone if you were simply just going to stab them? What was their motive? Why would they disguise one type of murder, in this case, a cold and calculated one, with one of passion? This is where the killer made their first mistake. Fortune was going to capitalize on it. When he went to his locker, he opened it and was about to put his books inside when the door slammed shut. Amber Heart stood there, with his friends Harsh Wood and Iron Side. They’d been his bullies since the first day of school, two years ago and they were relentless.
“Hey Lucky Loo,” Amber Heart sneered “did you kill Pimpernel?”
“Is this an interrogation,” Fortune Hunter retorted “or a lame excuse for one?”
“You better watch it pal,” Amber Heart said “if you killed her, I’ll make your life so bad that you’ll be happy to live in Tartarus.”
“It’s kind of already like that,” he shot back “and anyway, you’d better watch out for Iron Side there.”
“Why?”
“Already dating somebody else Amber?” Fortune queried “Your old girlfriend has only been dead for a few hours and your best friend is already causing her to cheat on you.”
“Why you little…”
“Simple observation really,” Fortune said “but then again, why don’t you ask him yourself.”
“Well,” Amber Heart said glaring at Iron Side.
“Bro,” Iron Side said “I didn’t. I swear…you little twerp! I’ll gut you!”
“Maybe it wasn’t me who killed Pip after all,” Fortune said “maybe it was Iron Side here, clearing up loose ends as they say…”
“Why you…”
“Students!” A calm but firm voice bellowed. It was Principle Celestia, and she didn’t look too happy about what she was seeing “I’ll have none of this going on in my halls. Go back to your classes now!”
As Amber Heart turned to walk away he shot Fortune Hunter a glare “I’d watch my back if I were you Forty.”
“I’d be more concerned with being put behind bars,” Fortune said “than watching my back.”
Principle Celestia looked down at Fortune Hunter “What was that about Fortune Hunter?”
“Nothing ma’am,” he said innocently “false accusations and rumors without evidence.”
“I could do something about that you know,” she said “I don’t allow bullying of any form in my school. Least of all something as serious as a false accusation.”
“I’ll let the evidence speak for itself ma’am,” Fortune said “then the court room can handle everything else.”
With that, they gave a curt nod at each other, and Fortune Hunter went off to Algebra.
When Fortune Hunter got off the bus, his brother was waiting for him inside their house. As the eldest, Officer Ace Tanning had inherited the house from their mother when she was murdered. It was a tragic event which had shaped both of their lives, Tanning had become a full time cop, and Fortune Hunter was an aspiring detective. Ace Tanning had his legs propped up on the recliner and he was watching reruns of the Equestria Games, sipping a cold bottle of cider. His cutie mark, was a pair of handcuffs joined together and made to look like the Infinity symbol. Fortune Hunter’s cutie mark was a magnifying glass handle with a gold rimmed compass at the top. Nobody knew what his meant, but he did some research and found that the compass is the measure for truth, and the magnifying glass was the search for it.
“I couldn’t get you the toxicology report,” Ace Tanning said, eyes glued to the TV screen “but I got you a copy as soon as I could. It’s on the kitchen table. How was school?”
“Boring,” Fortune Hunter said pouring himself a bowl of cereal and reading over the file.
“You know,” Ace said “you’re gonna get fat if you keep eating that so much.”
“Dairy’s good for you…”
“Not when you’re body’s become ninety percent dairy,” Ace interrupted “anyway, you done reading wiz kid?”
He said this because, though Fortune Hunter didn’t have a photographic memory, he had developed a very fine ability for reading comprehension and memory retention. He folded up the case file and set it in front of him so that his brother could pick it up later.
“What’d you think?”
“Ice crystals,” Fortune Hunter mused “in her blood?”
“Our boys think that the body was killed in a freezer,” Ace said “and then she was stabbed.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Fortune Hunter said
“Why…”
“Because,” Fortune Hunter continued as he at another spoonful of cereal “the blood would have thickened too quickly at that cool of a temperature. I don’t think it’s her blood.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well,” he said getting up and scooting his chair back. He walked over and watched the TV with his brother after tossing the file back onto his brother’s lap “blood begins to freeze at only four degrees below our regular body temperature, at ninety one degrees we start to have amnesia, at eighty two degrees we lose consciousness, and anything below seventy degrees we can die. Blood actually freezes between twenty eight and twenty six degrees Fahrenheit. The report says that the blood inside her body was found at a temperature of forty two degrees, yet there were ice crystals in the blood pool around her.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that whoever killed Pimpernel placed the fake blood there,” Fortune Hunter said.
“Okay,” Ace said sitting up “but riddle me this, what kind of blood was used and why would they try to mislead us?”
“Obviously to cover his or her tracks,” Fortune Hunter said “they could have easily gotten a blood sample from the nurse’s office. It’s not like it’s the most secure place in Equestria now is it?”
“Yeah,” Ace said knowingly “I guess so. Any suspects?”
“I wouldn’t go after Amber Heart…”
“Why,” Ace said “guy being a dick to you?”
“No,” Fortune Hunter said “not more than the usual. No, this was rather calculating for a high school student. They obviously missed some things and weren’t stupid enough to try and frame someone else. No, this person had to have intelligence and ruthless. I would start with Sunset Shimmer, jealously breeds all sorts of strange things. Then I’d also try Iron Side and Harsh Wood.”
“Why them?”
“Well,” Fortune Hunter “Iron Side and Amber Heart’s girlfriend have been going at it for some time now. I’ve been watching them close lately. I suspect that maybe he had something to do with Pimpernel also.”
“We’ll get back at it in the morning,” Ace groaned as he got up.
“You going to bed already?”
“Eeyup,” he said “apart from the murder, I had three car chases and had to stop a bar fight.”
“That bad huh?”
“You would expect this kinda stuff in Manehattan,” Ace said sarcastically as he headed up stairs to his bedroom “but not here in the glorious capital of Canterlot. I wish the Royal Guard would get off their royal asses and actually help with something useful for once. Did you do your homework?"
"You know I do it in school and ahead of time always, Fortune Hunter said “Good night bro."
“Good night,” Ace said back “oh, and two more things, first, I’d get to bed too if I were you, otherwise I’m cutting off our TV bill, and two, find something out for me will ya?”
“What?”
“Find out who got into the nurses’s office and why.”
