The Robbery of the Canterlot Mint

After dismissing the court, the three princesses went their separate ways. Luna had to raise the moon and perform her nightly duties, Cadance had to catch The Crystal Express back to her home, and Twilight had a pony she needed to see. So she trotted back to the Mint and went directly into the vault, where she knew Moon Dancer would be. All of her regular friends had headed back to their palace rooms, but she wanted some one-on-one time with her detective friend. While she was overjoyed that Celestia had been acquitted and restored to her rightful place on the throne, she was also very nervous. The true perpetrator was still on the loose, and she had no idea how they were going to solve the crime.

“Hello, Moon Dancer,” she said as she walked up next to her friend, “how’s it going?”

Moon turned and gave Twilight a lost look. “I don’t know what the hell to do next,” she said bluntly, “I mean…now we’re right back to square one. As much as I enjoy exonerating the leader of Equestria, I also enjoy solving crimes and locking the bad ponies up. I don’t feel that I’m any closer to accomplishing that goal.”

Twilight could sympathize greatly. As one of the rulers of Equestria, she always loved it whenever justice was served and friendship and trust could be counted on once again. She knew that Equestria was not a perfect place, and making sure everypony was safe and happy was a top priority of hers. Ensuring that the guilty parties were put in their place and innocent ponies were set free was crucial to her role as a princess.

“Have you checked for anything else?” She asked.

“We’ve swept this entire vault, Twilight,” Moon said, “and found nothing except that wedding band. That helped get Celestia out of her predicament, but threw me into a whole new one. I just…don’t know…what to do next.”

Twilight didn’t respond, but began her own visual and magical search. She looked in every nook and cranny, every possible place that somepony might have left a clue behind, but she came up empty hooved. She even used her magic to levitate the remaining bits so Moon Dancer could search underneath them. But when Moon shook her head, Twilight realized the absolute futility of their situation. So she gently set the bits back down in the exact order they had been placed in.

“What do we do?” She asked simply.

“I don’t know,” Moon said, “but if you have any other ideas, I’m open to them.”

Twilight began pacing around the vault, trying desperately to think of something that would give them access to the villain’s mind. In order to solve this mystery, we must think like the culprit, she thought, and that won’t be easy. We know that the guilty party is somepony very inexperienced when it comes to magic, because of the lack of care put into the incognito spell. We also know that they disguised themselves as Celestia in order to gain access to the vault. But they couldn’t have just come out with a giant bag of money…

She suddenly gasped. “Moon Dancer!” She cried, “there’s more than one pony involved!”

Moon suddenly became very interested. “How do you figure?” She asked.

“Because whoever committed the crime had to play up the Celestia disguise, and Banker Bit wouldn’t have let Celestia trot out of here with 500 million bits! There had to have been somepony on the outside, working to funnel the money out of the vault.”

“But there aren’t any signs of a break in,” Moon pointed out.

“Yes,” Twilight said, “but we live in a magical world. If one has enough magical ability, then things can be floated in and out of place without so much as batting an eye.”

Moon rolled her eyes. “I’m a unicorn, Twilight. Of course I know that, and I looked and looked for something to tip me off to that, but I didn’t find anything.”

“Perhaps you didn’t look hard enough…”

Twilight trotted over to the stone walls of the vault and began to look for the slightest dishevelment. She even used one of her latest spells to look for magical residue left behind. She scanned through the rocks and every one of them looked clean. All, that is, except one. A very pink sparkle showed on the stone’s smooth surface, marking the place where magic had been used. “Moon Dancer!” She said, “come and see this!”

Moon trotted over and looked. She became intensely interested in the pink substance, and knew immediately that it was magic that only a unicorn could leave behind. Even though it was invisible to the naked eye, it existed in a world of its own and could only be unearthed via the right type of magic light. “Twilight, this is huge!” She said, “now we know that there was a break in here!”

“A partial break in, Moon,” Twilight said, “as I stated earlier, one perp posed as Celestia to gain access to the vault while another waited outside. At a certain signal or sign, the second culprit used their magic to move this stone so that all the money could be taken out without Banker Bit or any of the guards having a second thought about it. Unfortunately for our criminals, their inexperience with magic is what’s leading to their downfall. They couldn’t have known of the residue that a spell automatically leaves behind.”

“That’s a nice theory, Twilight,” Moon said, “but what are we gonna do? Search for every pink, married unicorn in Equestria and ask them about their experience levels with magic? No…there has to be something else! A hoof print or a smudge or…”

She suddenly stopped talking as she looked in the dust just ahead of her. It had been messed up four distinct times. Her mouth fell open as the hoof prints registered in her mind. She was immediately taken back to a horrific magic shootout she had partaken in only weeks prior. She had nearly been killed when a lethal blast struck her chest. Thankfully, they were able to transport her to a nearby hospital and she had escaped death’s teeth by an inch or so.

“Is something wrong, Moon?” Twilight asked, noticing the frightened look on her friend’s face.

“Yes, Twilight,” Moon said. “Do you see the hoof prints?”

She pointed and Twilight followed her foreleg. Her eyes bugged out when she saw them. “How did we miss these?” She asked. “They were right in front of us!”

“That’s not the point, Twilight. I’d know these prints anywhere. They belong to somepony who nearly killed me in another robbery attempt last month. I remember seeing them right before the shooting began.”

Twilight became excited. The prospect of finding and jailing the evildoers responsible for this mess set her heart aflame. “So…who was it?”

Moon sighed. “I believe she said her name was Fuchsia Gallop, and she swore eternal vengeance on me. I wounded her shoulder, but she still managed to get away. We’ve put up wanted posters around town, but nopony’s come forward with information. But this time, I think we’ve got her!”