Grey. In a lifetime of color the old mare had come to find solace of the grey landscape of the family rock farm. She watched from the farm house’s back porch, neck sore from moving rocks all day, as her step-colt played with the dog.
“Pinkie,” Lilac Sky called as she trotted out onto the porch, “I think you need to come see this”. With a sigh, Pinkie pie got up from her chair and followed her wife to the front of the house. The floorboards creaked under their hooves, worn and in need of repair, but not desperately so.
“Good afternoon, it’s been a long time Pinkie. Too long” Pinkie frowned, she had really hoped she’d never see this horse again
“I’m retired, we’ve been over this.”
“Oh pinkie! It’s been three years and you’re still-”
“Some things don’t change spitfire, you should know that by now” Pinkie sighed, motioning for Lilac to give them some space. Lilac rolled her eyes, like she was dying to talk with Spitfire a moment more.
After sharing whatever little pleasantries they could, Pinkie brought Spitfire out back to the porch. Lilac brought Cyan Skies inside, keeping her out of Pinkie’s mane for the time being.
“Why the dogs?” Spitfire asked, raising an eyebrow, trying desperately to make the visit less painful than it had to be
“Keeps the diamond dogs away, they come by sometimes at night, thinking one of my rocks may be a geode. Good ol’ Gummy ll keeps em out,”
“Gummy ll?”
“Why reinvent the wheel?” Pinkie asked with a shrug. “Care for a cider?”
“No thanks, I don’t drink and fly”
Pinkie nodded “Wouldn’t expect anything less from you.” The two ponies sat in silence as Pinkie downed a cup of cider from the farm’s supply.
“I’m retired-”
“I know, but you know how the kingdom is, they like keeping ponies like you close,-”
“You like keeping ponies like me close,” Pinkie corrected. Spitfire rolled her eyes, of course she was going to be difficult about everything.
“You read the papers?”
“Don’t get em anymore, don’t need to. Don’t need to think about anything but the farm and the family.”
“Cyan start flight camp yet?” Spitfire asked.
“No, maybe next summer. Lilac doesn’t feel ready to send her off yet, and it’s really more her decision than mine”
“She teach her how to yet?”
Pinkie nodded “yeah, she was buzzing around before I trotted along,”
“Her dad was an ace wonderbolt wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, every so often Lilac likes to take him into Cloudsdale and watch the races.”
“What about you?” Pinkie shot Spitfire a look and Spitfire quickly regretted asking.
“Speaking of the foal....this new pony has been targeting families”
“Yeah?” Pinkie asked
“Real nice ones, white picket fence, green yard, 2.5 foals and happy smiles all around”
“Good thing we don’t have that here.” Grey as far as the eye could see. One foal. The understanding glance grown from a family of hardworking horses that just didn’t have the time or energy anymore. The good simple life.
“Still….all those bright cheery faces….foals skipping home from school, mom leaving apple pie to cool on the windowsill. Dad home for dinner after a long day at work, ready to meet his family with an open heart and a loving hug. They don’t deserve what this. Not what this pony is doing to them. It doesn’t have to happen Pinkie. It shouldn’t have to happen.”
Pinkie grumbled. “Fine”
Spitfire grinned, she knew pinkie wouldn’t be hard to crack, never had been. “May I have a piece of paper and pen if you don’t mind?”
Spitfire sat down at Pinkie’s dining room table and happily jotted down the address of the latest victims.
“Thank you so much for considering Pinkie, you’ve always been such a huge help to the team, an essential asset really! Meet you 9 o’clock tomorrow!” And just as quickly as she had bulged in, Spitfire was just as quickly gone. Flying out the door faster than Pinkie could say ‘Stick a cupcake in my eye’.
“What was that all about?” Lilac skies asked, walking into the kitchen seeing as Spitfire was finally gone.
` “I think I just came out of retirement” Pinkie said, as stunned to hear those words as she was to say them.
Lilac scowled. “That curd chewing feather-brain! I knew she wasn’t just visiting out of the goodness of her heart. You pinkie promised you wouldn’t go back!”
“Lilac-”
“No! No Pinkie! You nearly got yourself killed last time, and spent days in self-induced sugar coma! This isn’t healthy! It’s not safe for you to go! Let the police ponies do their job, you can’t be the only half decent investigator this side of Equestria!” Lilac’s voice trembled as she fought back the urge to cry. Pinkie wrapped her forelegs around her and Lilac nuzzled her snout into Pinkie’s neck, weeping softly.
“Shh...I was bad, but it’ll be better this time. I pinkie promise.”
By the time Pinkie had arrived at the house the next day, the place was swarming with ponies, some part of the Equestrian Bureau of Investigation, and some reporters. How Pinkie had come to despise reporters. Pinkie kept her head down, camera flashes always made her dizzy and lose focus. She couldn’t afford to lose focus right now.
“Pinkie! Is it true your twitch is a curse placed upon you by a zebra witch doctor?”
“Ms. Pie! Could you answer for our readers why you have decided now to come out of retirement?”
“Hey Ms. P! Is it true you spent over a year at H.O.R.S.E?” Pinkie scowled at the pegasus, a miss Namby Pamby. Pinkie had seen quite enough of her for one lifetime. Brushing the reporters aside Pinkie managed to spot Spitfire in the crowd, standing near the front door.
“So, who is this pony?” Pinkie asked, looking up at the broken second story window. The house was big, bigger than the farm house for sure. The family had been clearly well off, houses this big in the center of Ponyville weren’t cheap.
“They’re calling ‘em Crash” Spitfire responded
“Crash?” Pinkie raised an eyebrow and held back a snicker, what a silly name for such an abominable fiend.
“Yeah, but you know how I feel about nicknames, turns what we’re doing here into a big joke”
“Don’t talk to be about jokes,” Pinkie responded harshly. “Put half my life into them and look where they got me. So why Crash?”
“Cause they always crash into their victims homes,”
“So they’re a pegasus?”
Spitfire nodded “probably,”
“Show me where they were,”Pinkie said, as she and Spitfire walked into the house, the only light spilling in from the door behind them. Spitfire nodded and gestured for Pinkie to follow her as she climbed the stairs. Their hoofsteps echoed through the house, but only lightly, the house had yet to give into the grief of the tragedy that had befallen it. If Pinkie hadn’t known better she would have guessed that the family had only recently left, and would be back before Monday. It didn’t feel real.
Upstairs lay a much different story. Broken glass and dirt littered the floor. Broken pictures lay astray, covered with drops of pony blood. Pinkie felt a chill, although if it was from a breeze passing by the open window or the thought of what had happened she couldn’t say.
“The perp got em in the master bedroom, sick son of a mule killed em in their sleep,”
“Isn’t that how most ponies wish to go?”
“Peacefully. There’s a difference.”
Pinkie slowly crept around the bed, her knees aching, making sure to take every last detail in. Four pony chalk outlines lay on the floor in a row in front of the bed, right where the blood drops from the upstairs hallway ended. She decided to follow the trail, out the master bedroom, down the hall, and into the foal’s room. Spitfire followed behind. The room was relatively untouched asides from the messy bed, poor kid didn’t stand a chance.
“Think they killed the foals or the parents first?” Spitfire asked.
“Foals, definitely. They wanted the parents to see. Know they were already too late, that they had lost, that they weren’t enough.”
“Don’t think they were afraid to wake the parents?”
“No,” Pinkie shook her head “This son of a mule cud chewer came here with no fears. Did you see the hallways? Maybe the unicorn didn’t die in his sleep…..Forensics take the bodies?”
“Of course”
“Good, I want to see them.” Pinkie turned around and trotted back down the stairs and out the door, Spitfire following behind once again. Camera flashes engulfed their faces as they stepped outside the house.
“Pinkie! Pinkie! What’ya know about the murderer!?” Reporter ponies of every paper flocked around her and spitfire, like moths to a light.
“Well...they’re probably a pegasus but we don’t know enough to say for certain,” said Pinkie reluctantly. Gasps and murmurs broke out in the crowd, each and every pony on the edge of their seat listening to the pink horse. Spitfire rolled her eyes and marched ahead
“Come on,” she said “You said you wanted to go see the bodies right?” Pinkie did her best to keep moving, but the crowd was nearly suffocating her.
“Ms. Pie do you have anything to add on the nature of crash?” Tired of the berating of her best detective, Spitfire decided to intervene
“Yeah, Crash is absolutely deplorable, a real monster of a brute who doesn’t care about the lives of other ponies and is a completely unfeeling shark who will utterly rock Ponyville to its very foundation if they’re not stopped. So if you’d PLEASE, my partner and I need to get down to business so that we can prevent that from happening. Thank you ma’am and good day.” The reporter was aghast, and with that, Spitfire wrapped a wing around Pinkie and promptly trotted away.
“Gee Pinkie, I’m real sorry about that, i know how you are about crowds. But you know reporters, give em an inch and they take a mile.”
“Whatever” Pinkie snorted, “Did you really mean what you said back there?”
“What? About Crash-…..-the murderer?” Celestia now she was doing it too “Maybe I got a little harsh with the reporter. But either way I don’t think this pony is fooling around Pinkie, you saw the stains! This son of a mule is a straight cold red blooded killer!”
Tears pressed against the cheeks of the blue pegasus as she flew out of the weather factory annual Christmas party.
“Dash? Rainbow Dash? Are you okay? I talked to Billy and he said he was sorry and he didn’t know!” Blossomforth called as she galloped after Rainbow Dash. It didn’t take long to catch up with Rainbow, who had curled up on a cloud.
“I’m a good flier,” Rainbow whined, holding back tears.
Blossomforth wrapped her foreleg around Rainbow “Yeah, you’re the fastest I know,just gotta work on those landings a little. Oh, and Billy said he was sorry,”
“Doesn’t mean he shoulda done it-”
“-You weren’t the only one he was teasing dash,” Blossomforth chuckled. “But yeah, its a soft spot for you. You gonna come back inside now?”
Rainbow dash shook her head. “No thanks, I think I’m just gonna head home,”
“Oh...alright, you sure you’re going to be okay dash?”
“Yeah I’m fine, I’m Rainbow Dash duh, nothing ever brings me down!”
Blossomforth rolled her eyes “Alright dashie, you take care,”Rainbow launched herself from the cloud and sped towards her cloud home over ponyville. Rainbow Crash. Ridiculous. Nopony had perfect landings all the time. At least not the ponies who really flew. What’d Billy know. Still, she’d make sure to do extra wing-ups that night just to be safe.