Sherlock: The Magical Murders

Sherlock stumbles back a bit from surprise before regaining his posture. "Oh, hello. Pinkie Pie, was it?" He looked around at the decorations and noticed many ponies were there, probably the whole town. "Nice decorations, but arranged in a way like they were blasted, as if from a cannon. Because I'm in a world of flying, talking ponies, I'll assume that you set up all this by blasting the party supplies from a cannon."

Pinkie stood there blinking in surprise for a few seconds. ".... woah. You're the first one ever to guess that right!"

"How did you do that?", said a white pegasus with a curly blue mane.

"He's always been able to do that." John walked in next to his partner. "Deduction's his special talent, apparently."

Remembering the 'pony lesson' about cutie marks and special talents, Sherlock turned to show his cutie mark.

Pinkie popped up. "Enough about that! Let's start welcoming John and Sherlock to Ponyville, everypony!"

Everypony in the room cheered and introduced themselves to the two detectives. They found out that the pegasus that talked to them earlier was named 'Lightning Bolt', and Sherlock whispered to John, "Of course that's her name, that's what her cutie mark is." He shushed him before he went into 'super show-off' mode.

The party was fun for everypony there, mostly because of the lively music, the food, and the friendliness of all the ponies there. John occasionally joined in the dancing a few times, but Sherlock never did. He simply watched John, not in embarrament, but in confusion. He didn't understand the purpose of joining in because, as he said himself, 'he was a high-functioning sociopath'.

Thankfully, to John and Twilight's relief, Sherlock didn't offend anybody with his brilliant deductions. In fact, all the foals in Ponyville walked up to him to ask him what did they have for lunch, or who were their parents, and other things he had to find out only through deduction. And of course, he got them all correct.

Later, when John finished dancing to Pinkie's favorite song, he walked over to Sherlock who was drinking some punch. "Well, this is going much better then I expected. I mean, nothing's gone wrong yet, nopony hates you, and-"

"Nopony."

The orange pegasus blinked in confusion. "Uh, sorry, what?"

"You said nopony." The gray detective turned to his partner. "Up until now, you have never said 'nopony' or 'everypony' or 'anypony' but right now, you did. This place is changing you and will change both of us very soon."

He shrugged. "Well, what's so bad about changing? How are we changing exactly?"

"John, listen." Sherlock's expression was anything but optimistic. "Now, it's only speech. Next, it'll be eating habits. After that, it's your point of view. This place will make us forget, maybe even want to give up, our human lives."

"Hey, take it easy." John looked around to make sure nopony was listening. "Our human lives are still there waiting for us. We won't forget it, and I want to get back as much as you do."

Before the consultive detective could reply, Vinyl Scratch came up to them. "Dudes! This is a party! Stop talking and have some fun!"

John sighed. "You know, Vinyl, you're right. Hey look! Pinkie's setting up 'Pin the Tail on the Pony' again." He started to walk over. "You coming, Sherlock?"

He glared at him. "I'm not going to be joining in a childish game. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get some more punch." He got up, and with his cup in his teeth, he headed towards the punch bowl.

Vinyl seemed to roll her eyes through her glasses. "What's his deal?"

"I dunno. Well, I'm going to go over to that game." John waved Vinyl good bye as she walked away. He started to head towards the game when he stopped and thought about what Sherlock said. This party was like a kid's party. I'm fact, this whole world seemed to belong in a TV show for 5-year-olds. His thoughts were interrupted by a cyan pegasus.

"Hey! John, right? I need to ask you something."

"Okay. Go ahead, Rainbow Dash."

The rainbow-maned pegasus looked at John with a glimmer in her eye. "Well, Pinkie just gave her Pinkie Pie Welcome Party, but because you're a pegasus, I want to give you the official Rainbow Dash welcome. So, how about tomorrow we have a race after lunch?"

John hesitated, remembering that his flying experience was only from last night to right now. "I don't know. You'd definetly beat me. But, what the heck? I'll do it."

Rainbow gave a cocky grin. "Thanks, John! See ya tomorrow!"

Meanwhile, Sherlock arrived at the punch bowl, and was about to pour himself some more punch. Before he could, he felt a hoof on his shoulder. Not looking at who it was, he answered, "What do you want, Twilight?"

The purple unicorn frowned. "Okay, I'm not going to ask you how you figured out it was me. Instead, I want to ask you something else. I'm noticing that you're not acting very social with the ponies here, and have not acted social at all since I met you."

"Twilight, this is as social as I get." He sipped his punch before talking again. "You have a problem with that?"

"No, but I will tell you this. I used to be very anti-social before coming to Ponyville and meeting my friends. Maybe you'd want to see my friendship reports to the Princess that I learned by studying the magic of friendship!"

Hearing this, Sherlock turned his head and did a spit-take..... at John, who was walking up to Sherlock to tell him about the race.

"Ugggh... what the hell was that for?!" John yelled, angrily shaking punch from his hair.

"Twilight was just saying something ridiculous. Something about me learning 'the magic of friendship'!" Sherlock used his hooves to accentuate the quoted part of the sentence.

"Hey! Learning that really helped me, and it would really help you!" yelled the irritated unicorn.

"No way!" retorted Sherlock, grimacing like if friendship was a disease. "Friendship has never been useful to me, and it never will. I don't have friends."

"What?!" Twilight sounded as if the gray detective sprouted a second head.

At this moment, somepony bumped into the record player, stopping the loud music just before Sherlock yelled out a statement everypony would hear.

"I DON'T HAVE FRIENDS!"

Sherlock didn't seem to be bothered that all eyes were on him. Then, Pinkie stepped up to him with a sad frown on her normally perky face. "No friends? Not even me?"

"Of course not. Sentiment is a chemical feeling found on the losing side." He turned to all the ponies in the sweetshop. "Afternoon." Then, he walked out of Sugarcube Corner, out of the party, with all sets of eyes following him, including John's. The army doctor had one thought in his head before trotting out to follow him.

And this was going so well.