Sherlock: The Magical Murders

John's medical instincts made him the first to go into action. Seeing Flim and Flam writhe in agony fueled his legs to immediately make him start running across the warehouse towards them. On his way, he ducked his head and made sharp turns to avoid the deadly floating tools, such as a crowbar that aimed to hit his head, or a screwdriver that almost pierced his chest.

Twilight was too busy fending off the tools attacking her and Sherlock near the doorway to notice the army doctor's actions. She constantly had to drive away blowtorches, wrenches, gears, and more that came near.

Sherlock, however, had been standing completely still, closing his eyes and thinking. Hundreds of thoughts raced through his mind per millisecond, like a supercomputer. Something was off, something was wrong, but what was it?! What's wrong with this picture?!

The murderer is taking Flim and Flam's lives, but why now?

Why were they so quick to show us the files?

Wouldn't they get suspicious about being asked to build a machine that could murder?

How could this work?

How did the attacker make intricate lies to cover up his intentions?

Could he have done this without lying?

Could he have-

Oh

Oh!

Uh-oh

Sherlock opened his eyes, his face deeply etched with worry as he saw that John was only half-way to Flim and Flam.

"John, no!"

The army doctor, unfortunately, didn't listen and kept running towards the business ponies that were being tortured.

The consulting detective cursed under his breath and worriedly looked around for a way to get his friend's attention. His eyes rested on a hammer that was magically floating towards him, and after making some calculations, he got an idea. Sherlock quickly did a full 180-degree turn, and, with a kick that would've made Applejack proud, hit the hammer with his back legs and sent it flying across the room.

John stopped running about five feet away from the two business ponies, and tried to figure out what to do to help, when the hammer Sherlock kicked flew towards Flim and went right through him. John gasped in shock when he saw the hammer go through the cream pony's body, almost like it was smoke. It was just an intricate illusion.

Then, Flim's head stopped grimacing in pain and turned to John, frowning menacingly. Flam's head did the same. They both turned to the orange pegasus with malice in their eyes; and at the same time, all of the attacking warehouse tools stopped moving and floated in mid-air. Twilight and Sherlock both said the words that went through John's mind at that moment.

"This was a trap!"

"Correct, Mr. Holmes, and Ms. Sparkle," said 'Flim' with a sneer, looking over at the other two ponies.

"H-h-h-how?" John stuttered.

'Flam''s mouth opened to answer him, but he was cut off by Sherlock.

"We were too tired and too focused on the case to notice. The murderer did need a machine to get ponies' magic by force and he did get it from here.  But he couldn't have just gone up to Flim and Flam and said, 'Hey, can you guys build me a machine so I can steal ponies' magic and information from their brains? I know they're killed in the process, but I'll give you a big tip!'"

The detective said this with a silly smile and tone that made Twilight giggle a little after he said it.

"Of course he couldn't," Sherlock continued, going back to his normal voice. "He's probably a unicorn with some magic of his own, so he must have put a hypnotizing spell on Flim and Flam so that they could make the machine and-"

"Wait," said John. "There's a hypnotizing spell?"

"There's a spell for almost everything, John, and stop interrupting!" he replied, annoyed.

Twilight nodded, confirming what Sherlock said.

"Anyway, Flim and Flam unknowingly made the machine under his spell and that's when our murderer decided to have a little test drive with it. He killed them right after they were done building it, discarded the bodies, and continued to collect more magic and information secretly until he was powerful enough to collect over a larger range and his magic aura was unrecognizable. Am I wrong?"

The gray detective smirked at the impressed looks on 'Flim' and 'Flam''s faces before they turned back into evil smiles.

"Why, you're absolutely correct, Mr. Holmes," said the latter. "We could definetly use that magnificent intelligence of yours."

"Why, thank you."

"I didn't mean that as a compliment," said 'Flam', his smile growing wider and wider.

Suddenly, the aura that surrounded the warehouse tools disappeared; making the said tools fall to the floor with a loud clatter. Sherlock inquisitively raised an eyebrow at this before the aura that vanished came back again. Except this time, all of it gathered at near full force on Sherlock's magical barrier.

The colorful light surrounded the entire barrier, crackling with large amounts of magical power. It was powerful enough to seep through the force field, making the consulting detective fall to the floor, clutching his head in his hooves in pain.

Slowly, small cracks began to form on the outer shell of his force field, each one making Sherlock's pained cries louder and racking his head with another wave of pain.

John gasped at seeing his best friend in agony, filling up with a tremendous rage. He was not going to watch Sherlock Holmes die today. Not exactly sure of what he was doing, he leaped next to his comrade, and his barrier combined with Sherlock's.

The two dome barriers merged, almost like a Venn diagram, distributing the protection they gave. Sherlock opened an eye he had closed in his tortured state and looked up gratefully at John, who gave a forced smile in reply. They both felt half of the pain that Sherlock had been going through before, but they stood tall, enduring it.

'Flim and Flam' growled in annoyance and the murderous aura grew brighter than ever. The cracks on the barriers started forming again, this time on John's as well. The two friends grimaced and yelled as the unrelenting agony throbbed throughout their body, mostly deep in their skulls.

"No!"

Suddenly, Twilight leaped in between the two detectives, merging her barrier with theirs as well.

Flam frowned and cried out in utter irritation. "Ugh! Why do you have to be so hard to kill?! I've got plenty more magic where that came from!"

The aura glowed impossibly bright for one split second, the looks on the fake business ponies faces curling into malevolent smiles once more, before it disappeared all together. The aura and the impostors vanished into thin air.

John, Twilight, and Sherlock were shakily standing on the wooden floor, panting in exhaustion, confusion, and relief. The purple mare decided to break the silence.

"Sh-sherlock? Wh-what happened?"

"... Power outage."

"What?" said a very confused John, before ungracefully falling onto the floor.

"He overestimated his magic," said Sherlock, ignoring the army doctor's fall. "He took it over the limit, and something in his machine must have blown. But that doesn't mean we're safe."

Twilight soon caught onto what he was saying, a look of dread on her face.

"Because he can fix it," she continued.

"That's why he was stealing tools as well." The gray detective galloped towards the door, stumbling slightly on his way. "I have to find the murderer!"

"No way!" Twilight wearily walked over to Sherlock, determination gleaming in her eyes. "You're not fit to go out there. You may be an arrogant show-off, but I don't want you to die."

"But I may never get this chance again!" he yelled back. "And then the murderer will just keep killing and killing and we won't be able to stop him. I have to do this."

The orange pegasus a few feet away from them started to get up onto his hooves.

"T-then we're coming with you."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but a smile almost graced his lips at seeing these two ponies want to help him.

"Fine. Now let's move!"

The trio ran out of the warehouse, finding new sources of energy from the thrill of the situation they were in. They stopped and looked up at the sky, seeing that it was still late night, with many stars dotting the pitch black sky. The consulting detective took the magic detector out of his pocket and threw it to John, who clumsily caught it.

"John, you'll have to fly so you can move along with us and track down the killer at the same time."

He nodded in response and turned the small machine on. He flew into the air holding it, and pointed in a direction near Ponyville with his other hoof.

"It's coming from over there!"

All three of them started running in the direction John pointed in. They galloped and flew side by side on the dirt road, determined to get to the dangerous killer and bring him to justice.

This lasted for around 5 minutes before a loud rustling happened in some nearby woods on the side of the road. They would've dismissed it as nothing important, if they didn't suddenly hear voices coming from the trees as well.

"STOP!"

All eight hooves and two wings skidded to a halt as Twilight yelled out her command. Sherlock threw her an angry glare, yelling, We don't have time for this now!

She glared back in response and started to walk over to the trees. She noticed that one bush in particular was shaking a lot. Using a hoof, she pushed it out of the way, revealing the small figures hiding behind it.

"You three?!"