The MMM Conspiracy
By The Pirate Prince
The three ponies bowed there heads in turn, each asking for forgiveness from their poofy haired friend.
“But I'm really, really sorry.”
“Terribly sorry.”
“Sorry Pinkie." As she watched them, Twilight Sparkle let herself have a small feeling of satisfaction. She had presented her evidence, created a logical theory, and everypony (and griffon and mule) had accepted it.
“That's OK. At least this mystery is finally solved.”
Everypony, except one.
“Not so fast, Miss Pie!” They turned to see a light grey unicorn with brown spots on his coat walk into the carriage. “The name's Spotted Glass. I'm a private detective, see?” The pony motioned to his cutiemark, a dirty magnifying glass. Pinkie Pie giggled.
“Hee, hee, Spotted Glass who's a private dick. That makes you Spotted Dick, like the pudding.”The unicorn nodded.
“Quite. A fitting nickname for dealing with this confectionery caper. This culinary crime. This case of cake eating cruelty. This chaotic, cutleryless.." He stopped mid-sentece; everypony was giving him a very strange look. He cleared his throat. "I've been listening in to your predicament and I'm afraid things may be a bit more complicated than our dear Miss Sparkle has led us to believe.”
“B-but, they already admitted to eating the cake.” Twilight stuttered.
“Very true, but I still have some questions, if you would be so kind.” replied the stranger.
Twilight turned the group, “What do you think Pinkie?”
“It's fine by me, he's just a self-insert OC,” she replied, not noticing Twilight confused look. “Fire away silly mister Dick.”
“Thank you." Using magic, he took the deerstalker and placed it on his head. He walked across the room, took the pipe from Twilight's mouth with his hoof and rubbed the mouthpiece on his chest. "Now, as I understand it, you six are the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, am I correct?”
“Yeah, what of it?” answered Rainbow Dash.
“And I believe you, Rainbow Dash, represent the element of loyalty. Miss Fluttershy here represents kindness and Miss Rarity, generosity.” explained the spotted unicorn, placing pipe in his mouth and giving it a brief bubble. “Now, isn't taking a bite of your friend's cake rather disloyal?
“Well, yeah, I guess.”
“And it's rather unkind and could hardly be considered generous,” the unicorn continued,“And of course, Miss Applejack here represents the element of honesty, so I'm quite sure she would have confessed if she had committed the crime. Leaving only...” The stone faced stallion turned slowly to face his prey. “you, Miss Sparkle.”
“What? Me? B-but, what about the clues?” she protested.
“Ah, yes. Did anyone else see these 'clues' before you removed them from the crime scenes?” he asked the others.
“No, she wouldn't let me see.” said Pinkie, now suspicious of her magical friend.
“And she just happened to find the three exact pieces of incriminating evidence needed. Now I ask you, how likely is it that all three of them would leave such conclusive evidence?”
“Now tha' does sound a bit unlikely.” Applejack admitted.
“Now- now come on. If I did ate the MMMM, why would they have confessed to doing it, huh?” The prosecuting pony sighed.
“It's quite simple, it was because they believed that they had done it. You used magic spells to modify their dreams, to make them dream they were the one to have taken the bites out of the dessert. You collected your 'evidence' while they slept and used your teleportation abillity to evade Pinkie Pie.”
“But.. but.. but I've never learned how to do that. I don't know how modify somepony's dreams,” whimpered Twilight Sparkle, very close to tears.
“No. But you don't really need to learn something if you can read.” Spotted Glass levitated a book from the sleeping carriage and threw it on the ground. Its title, 'Hypnosis: controlling sleep through magic.'
“You mean she was planning this from the very beginning?” Rarity asked aghast.
“I doubt it, she probably brought it to help herself get to sleep. The rattling of these trains can make it hard to get to sleep for ponies used to the peace and quiet of small towns.”
“Twilight!” Pinkie yelled, facing her purple friend “Is this true?” Twilight was unable to keep holding back her emotion and broke into tears. Everypony took this response as a confession.
“Twilight, why would you do this us?” Rainbow Dash demanded, she felt like her mind had been violated.
“*Sniff* I'm- I'm so sorry. I just- I just wanted to have some of the cake, the MMMM. And I was reading the chapter on effecting other ponies dreams, and I wondered if I could make it work, and- and-" She started shaking, trying to fight back against the tears. "*Sniff* Can you ever forgive me?" Immediately after uttering her plea for forgiveness, she began crying again.
It took a great deal of talking, including many promises and I.O.U.s before the girls began to forgive Twilight. Spotted Glass returned to the passenger carriage, while the three chefs quietly went to the side of the room and admitted their guilt to ruining each others desserts. It took everypony by surprise when the train pulled into the station.
“Oh no.”screamed Pinkie Pie, “The competition is starting soon. I had this super duper plan where we could combine all our desserts into a single awesome, super dessert, but now it's too late.”
“We'll just have to hope the judges value taste over presentation.” sighed Rarity.
The judges, it seemed, did not value taste over presentation. The four of them came in joint last place. Later that evening, in his Canterlot hotel room, the winner of the competition was enjoying a bowel of his own entry, a current filled pudding covered in custard. Wearing the deerstalker on his head, he chuckled softly to himself as the simple illusion spell he had used to hide his cutie-mark faded, turning the image on his flank from a magnifying glass to a trio of red Zs.