Sherlock: The Magical Murders

John was in the middle of a room. He looked around and couldn't see much at first. It was dark and black, and dome-like in structure. Suddenly, words swept by. Literal words flew across the room, about as big as his arm. They were all colored white and were whizzing about the room like a storm. More and more came in and flew around, but they weren't attacking John. He could only catch glimpses of what they said.

Tea

Prepare

Sherlock

Wings

Ponies

Attack

Why

Then, all of the words stopped in mid-air and glowed dark crimson as red lightning bolts shot them. John felt the electricity inside his own head, and screamed. Suddenly, the pain stopped, the whole room became dark and two words appeared, not red like the others, but a golden hue. They flew directly in front of John's face.

Wake up

Then, the words turned bold and louder.

Wake up!

The words grew and seemed to scream at him in a familiar baritone voice.

WAKE UP!!!

"What do you want from me?!" John screamed back, scared and confused.

"Stop laying there and wake up!"

Sherlock had been trying everything to try and wake up his sleeping partner. His first plan was to poke his face repetitively, which only made the still-dreaming John sneeze all over his gray hoof. Ew.

After cleaning his hoof, courtesy of some hoof sanitizer from Twilight's bedroom table, Sherlock tried tugging on his mane, which didn't prove any results. Not wanting to quit, Sherlock put his muzzle close to John's ear and tried to wake him through speaking.

"Wake up."

He moaned and shifted slightly in his sleeping position. Well, that was a start. Sherlock tried speaking louder.

"Wake up!"

John started to look confused, and the gray detective decided that one more increase of volume would finish the job.

"WAKE UP!!!"

"what do... you want....?"

"Stop laying there and wake up!"

John sat up on the bed with a start and immediately started to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight flooding the room. After letting his eyes adjust, he turned his head and was face-to-face with a weird zombie-pony face. That woke him up. And made him yelp and tumble off the bed in surprise. Standing up, he saw Sherlock take off the zombie-pony mask he saw him wear.

"I don't know why Twilight would have one of these, but, at least it got you wide awake." The consultive detective threw it in a nearby closet with a smirk.

John marched up to him furiously. "Why did you do that? You could have given me a bloody heart attack!"

"It was important." Sherlock walked over to his coat and scarf and started to put them on. John's death glare didn't waver.

"Scaring me was important?"

"Waking you was important."

"With a Halloween mask?!"

The gray detective had put on his clothes and tossed John his shirt. "I needed you wide awake for what I need to discuss with you. I had a weird dream last night."

"So did I. Now, let's go have breakfast," said John, slipping his head through his shirt.

"Was it a large place filled with millions of words buzzing about and then something interrupts it?"

The orange pegasus stopped trying to tidy his sandy-blonde mane with a comb he had found on the bed-side table and stared at Sherlock in surprise. "...Yes, I did. You had the same one?"

"Yes, and Twilight's had it too. Before you ask, she's downstairs making breakfast, and before you ask, it's 10:30 AM." Sherlock pointed at a stack of books near the bed. "After thinking and reading up, I've determined the dreams represent what happened to us. The room was our brains and the words were our thoughts."

"And was the lightning the thing that attacked us?"

"Correct, John, our subconscious trying to tell us something. But what?" Sherlock put his head in a hoof and furrowed his brow in concentration.

His partner rolled his eyes. "Well, you think your brain out, I'll go and eat. It smells like pancakes." He walked down the stairs and headed towards the kitchen.

He didn't notice Sherlock raising his head and smiling. "'Think your brain out'. Another piece of the puzzle connected."

Twilight, Sherlock, and John hit the road to Rainbow Dash's house at noon. The trip there was pretty peaceful. The three ponies didn't encounter many others on the way there, making the trip pretty silent. The sun lazily hung in the clear, blue sky and their ears were graced by the sound of birds chirping. Their eyes were allowed to see the dazzling greens of the grass, and the leaves of the bushes and trees. It was a gorgeous setting to view as they walked along the dirt path.

"Nice," said John.

"Beautiful," said Twilight.

"Dull," said Sherlock.

Twilight was about to respond to the gray detective's opinions when they heard the faint sound of many pony voices. They quickened their pace and found a lot of ponies gathered in a crowd around Rainbow Dash's house, answering why didn't see that many ponies on the way there.

It looked like around half the town was there, and most of them were wearing hats that looked like Rainbow's mane. The said pegasus was sitting on a cloud in front of the crowd, giving a speech. The three new visitors quietly went to the back of the crowd unnoticed.

"Thank you all for being here, folks!" the cyan mare said. "As you all know, you're here to witness a race between the newest pegasus in Ponyville, and...." she flew up and struck a pose, "me!"

The crowd erupted into cheers, especially the ones in the Rainbow Dash hats.

"Alright, settle down." The crowd started to slowly quiet down as Rainbow flew back down to her cloud. "Now, I'm sure you probably already knew this, especially the ponies in my fan club who informed the rest of you about the race," she waved to the ponies with hats, "but I challenged this pony to a race to train my wing power so I could enter the Wonderbolts. But, there's something about this race you didn't know."

Murmurs spread through the crowd, while John whispered to Sherlock, "She's got a fan club?"

Rainbow didn't seem to notice him, for she continued. "I also set up this race because the first day I met the new pony, he told me he was an army doctor." Excited whisperings spread though the throng. "As you know, ponies from the army, even doctors, have to be physically trained, especially in flight. It was apparent to me, that he was going to be a challenge. So, if I beat him, it will be a huge accomplishment!"

"You really think I'll be a challenge?"

The crowd split up to show John walking up to Rainbow's cloud. Once he got through, he stopped under the cloud and simply grinned at the prismatic pegasus. "Well, we won't know until we race. Let's do it."

Rainbow's surprised look turned into a coy grin. "You're on!" She pointed way up into the sky and revealed a large ring in the sky made out of clouds. "That's the race track. We have to fly five laps the whole way around. Fluttershy is going to be our referee."

The yellow pegasus flew up from her place in the crowd and landed next to Rainbow and John. "A-are you ready to race, John?"

"Um, I'm a bit nervous, but, yeah, I guess I am."

The cyan mare grinned and flew up toward the cloud race track. John and Fluttershy flew up together, slightly behind. When all three of them got up to the track, the timid pegasus landed on a cloud in the middle of the track and seemed to be strapping her hooves in.

John saw how big the track really was. It was huge, and he couldn't believe he had to fly five whole laps around it. Slightly shaking in fear, he landed on the starting line next to Rainbow.

The coy pegasus scoffed. "What? Are you getting stage fright or something?"

Fluttershy held up a checkered flag. "o-on your mark, g-get set,"

Both pegasi prepared themselves for the beginning of the race.

Twilight and Sherlock were at the front of the crowd, waiting for the race to start. The latter was angrily muttering at his hooves. "I should be working on this case, I should be researching clues! Why am I here?"

"Um, because he's your friend?" Twilight asked.

"What does that have to do with it?"

"Oh, nevermind." The purple unicorn magically levitated a megaphone to him. "Here."

Sherlock looked at it in confusion before understanding what it was used for.

"No, I'm not the cheering type."

"But he's your friend! You have to-"

"He's lucky I'm even here! I want to solve the case, not watch a silly race." He frowned and went back to staring at his hooves.

"Go!"

Once the timid, yellow pegasus waved the flag and said 'go', the two were off. John realized what the straps on her cloud were for as Fluttershy nearly fell off it from the speed of the two pegasi.

John flew as fast as his wings could take him, but Rainbow was super speedy. She left a rainbow streak behind her as she raced through the wind, her mane flying back, and as the first lap was done, she was a good few feet ahead of John.

The air was whipping past his face hard and fast, his wings straining to keep up with the cyan mare. John had to keep blinking from his eyes tearing up from the force of the wind. He tried his best, but to no avail. Rainbow Dash was ahead and didn't even look tired. After three laps, John was exhausted and thought he didn't have any chance at all of beating his opponent. Suddenly, through the air rushing past his ears, he heard one voice above all the others from the crowd.

Sherlock watched the race as it went on. Everypony in the crowd was cheering and going wild, but he stayed sitting down calmly, and concentrated on watching his friend. He noticed that John was lagging behind ever since lap 1, and he looked very tired now. His mind racing, he calculated that Rainbow Dash would definetly win unless John got a new source of energy to power his flight, which was impossible. Sherlock was about to go back to thinking about the case, when he felt something..... weird. All of a sudden, he wanted to do anything to help John win, no matter how impossible it was. Before he could stop himself, Sherlock found his hoof reaching for the megaphone next to him. He raised it to his mouth and yelled so loud into it, his baritone voice reached beyond the frantic screams and cheers of the crowd.

"COME ON, JOHN!!!"

"COME ON, JOHN!!!"

John thought he had no hope of beating Rainbow Dash as the fourth lap started. He thought it might've been a good idea to just stop flying and fall from the sky. His wings were at their limit, and he was sure he couldn't take any more of this. But as he heard his friend's voice ring out from the crowd below, cheering him on, something sparked inside of him. It was a newfound energy, full of hope and confidence. It gave him a boost, and his wings pushed him on, working up to 110% percent. He flew through the wind and caught up to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow saw John flying next to her and opened her mouth in shock. That shock caused her speed to decrease by just a little bit. That one tiny bit of speed that was taken away, and the boost that John was given from Sherlock, made the outcome of the race all that different. As they both crossed the starting line again, and panted for breath, Fluttershy came over and raised up John's hoof.

"And the w-winner is, surprisingly, John!"

The whole crowd immediately erupted into cheer. Everypony went wild, except for Sherlock, who only had a small grin on his face. But that was enough. As Fluttershy helped John down from the race track because of his tired wings, the consultive detective walked over to John and smiled.

"Good job, John."

He gave a shaky laugh as he caught his breath. "Wow....Sherlock.... I never..... expected you to..... cheer like that......"

The smile went off Sherlock's face and was replaced with a confused look. "Yes, why did I cheer? I honestly have no idea why I did something as trivial as that."

Twilight only gave a sly smile. "Sherlock, I think today you learned a very important lesson about friendship. It's to always support your friends."

The gray detective stood there in shock for a bit, learning that he did that out of pure kindness, before scowling and walking off. "I'm going to find clues."

Once he was gone, John looked at Twilight. "Okay, what did you do?"

"Oh, I only hit him with a small spell that makes your feelings for something grow stronger," she replied, making her horn glow for emphasis. "That was fun! Did you see the look on his face when he thought he did it by himself?"

Both ponies broke down in giggles for a few seconds, laughing at their prank. When they stopped, John started to head towards Sherlock, a smile still on his face. "Well, come on. Let's see what Sherlock's found. Can't let him do all the detective work by himself."

They walked through the crowd of departing ponies, and headed towards the gray consulting detective.