Equestrian Chronicles: The Sparkle Experiment

My name is Tango Facade. But did I really need to tell you that? I’m the most famous detective there is. I’ve solved countless cases, and the police arrested whoever’s responsible. Simple as that. Well, not really simple. In fact there couldn’t be anything harder. Other than being an Element of Harmony. But they’re gone now. By that I mean the elements themselves, not the actual ponies. That’s excluding Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight Sparkle was the Element of Magic, and the Princess of Friendship. She played a very important role in our society. She has done many things, but one day, she vanished. And so did her brother, mother and father. And no one knew why. That is, until a picture was leaked. It was... disturbing to say the least. It was a simple page. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But it was much. Very much. The page contained details of a supposed arrest, and even an... experiment. That’s where EXP#209 comes in. EXP#209 is named this because a system was introduced that made naming experiments more simple. The Sparkle Experiment was the 209th experiment performed by ESF (The Equestrian Science Foundation), and the most notorious.

Let me tell you something. Experiments here are usually things like what you would see in a classroom. There were a few experiments that might have gone way too far up the scale. But this. This took the cake. This was absolutely horrendous. The picture looked legitimate. It was posted by a retired scientist that worked with ESF. All the evidence was pointing to this being true. But it was too much.

People began to get sceptical after a while. Some even made claims in debunking the entire picture. Well, there was no way to debunk it. And there was a problem. The ESF Seal of Approval.

It was never released to the internet. This could not have been edited.

I sat back in my chair. Beer in hoof, cigar in the other. I couldn’t bear another investigation. I was getting too old. My mane was even starting to turn grey. I was old. No doubt about it. I thought about resigning, but that’s when my mind turns to the people. I’m the only one to solve this many cases. What if a filly got murdered before she could even grow up? Who would solve that? What if it was a very organised murder? No one else had ever solved organised murders!

That’s when I heard a knock at the door. I stood up on all fours, and trotted over to the door. I opened it to see the exact stallion who had leaked the picture. My heart stopped. If he was coming to me, I knew it was something bad. Frozen in fear, I asked, “What are you doing here at this hour?”

He simply said to me, “Let me in. There’s something important I need to tell you. You won’t like it.”

Now I really was petrified. It wasn’t something I haven’t heard before, but the way he said it. It was so... dark, in a way. I don’t know how to explain it. I sat down in my chair, and he sat down in the one opposite from me, next to the fireplace. He had a small bag with him. It was a brown leather bag with a strap. It had golden coloured zippers and the name Rarity was under it, on a small golden oval. That was one of the elements, wasn’t it? For a pony, it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable bag. It was more for people who were wealthy, or just liked the look of it. That’s when I realised that I had been staring at his bag for ages. He gave me a glance, and my eyes went back to him. He put the bag on his lap, and slowly unzipped it. He pulled out a piece of paper. I could tell that it was the very sheet that he had leaked on the internet the week before. The strange stallion handed me the paper. I turned it over, and sure enough, it was the ‘experiment’ page. With that damn seal of approval.

I read the entire thing down, and it was the same. I investigated the entire page. It was all the same. Lastly, I looked at the seal of approval. For those who don’t know about the seal, it has a certain shiny effect to it to confirm its legitimacy. Sure enough, I held it up to the small lamp on my table. There was that shine. Never have I been so scared to see it.

“So, what do you think?” I looked up to see that the stallion was talking to me. “Is it real or not?”

I was shaking. He could see it. That’s why he was asking. I stammered in my words, and finally pushed out one single word.

“Yes.”

The stallion tensed up. He cleaned his throat, took a sip of beer, and said, “I used to be a part of the ESF. You probably already know that. Well, I left after EXP#208, where I was told that EXP#209 would be started soon. That’s when one of the scientists handed me this paper. I hadn’t been part of ESF long enough to know if this was real, or if it was a prank. Now that you say it’s real, I want you to find out something else.”

I looked up and simply asked him, “What do you need me to find out now? Haven’t I already confirmed it’s legitimate?” I sat there in silence for a moment, taking a long smoke break before continuing. “Okay, fine. But I swear to Celestia, if it’s not worth my time, you will be leaving my house with cigar burns all over your flank.”

The stallion hesitated a bit and then gulped, took a deep breath, and said, “I need you to find out what those bastards were doing, and why our beloved princess is gone.”