No More Hoof Measures

“Spelunking?” said Rarity.

“Spelunking.” Said Twilight Sparkle. “Some ponies call it caving. It’s when-“

“OOH OOH I KNOW WHAT IT IS!” said Pinkie Pie, “Spelunking is an extreme sport where somepony explores a wild cave system, and squeezes through little holes and shimmies through cracks and things like that. Maud likes to go spelunking!”

“Yes, that’s right.” Said Twilight. “And you know how Rainbow Dash is about extreme sports.” They all nodded their heads. She continued.

“Rainbow Dash read an article about it in Deadly Xtreme Monthly. I actually have the issue right here if you want to read it.” They all declined. Rainbow Dash smirked. Twilight Sparkle had insisted on writing, editing, and printing a fake article to shore up any gaps in the story, despite Rainbow Dash’s repeated insistence that they didn’t need to over-complicate things. Twilight was internally irked that nopony seemed interested in her fabricated evidence, but was too professional to break kayfabe and not continue the story.

“Yes, well. She got so excited that she left the same day to go exploring some caves, without remembering to tell anypony where she was going. She began with an expedition to the diamond mines, but they were too large and too bright; they weren’t challenging enough. So she flew out further from town, to explore the subterranean cave system under Everfree Forest. As she crawled through a crevice at the bottom of a limestone cliff, she disturbed the sediment above her, and was trapped under a pile of rubble. The crevice collapsed, with Rainbow Dash halfway inside.”

“How did she not suffocate?” asked Fluttershy.

“Well,” said Twilight, “she crawled in backwards, so her head was outside, and her hindquarters were trapped in rubble.”

“Why did she crawl in backwards?” asked Applejack.

“Well, uh…” Twilight stammered.

“There were wolves in the forest.” Rainbow Dash tagged in. “I didn’t want to turn my back on them. So I went in backwards.”

“Wolves?” said Fluttershy.

“And the point is,” Twilight Sparkle tried to retake the reins, “Rainbow Dash was trapped under rubble for weeks until I found her. The falling rocks broke her jaw and her ribs, and damaged her really badly, so she lacked the strength to escape.”

“What did she eat?” asked Applejack.

“Well, there were lots of edible grasses within chomping range.” Said Twilight, “and flowers and uh… little insects that sometimes crawled into her mouth.”

“Insects?” said Pinkie Pie.

“Yeah, a few insects.” Said Rainbow Dash, “but there was an apple tree right next to where I was trapped, so apples fell down a lot and I mostly ate those.”

“What about the wolves?” said Fluttershy, “how did you deal with them if your legs and wings were trapped under rubble?”

“I still had one hoof free. So whenever a wolf came near, I would bang my hoof against the rocks to make a loud noise to scare it off.”

“You did all of that for weeks?” Rarity gasped.

“Until I found her.” Said Twilight. “I was walking through the forest-“

“Why?” said Pinkie Pie.

“I guess I was uh…” Twilight thought, “foraging for truffles.”

“Truffles?”

“Yeah. For cooking.”

“They sell them at the market you know.” Said Fluttershy.

“Well the ones in the forest are better okay? Anyway, I was walking through the forest, foraging for truffles, when I heard the sound of a hoof banging against rocks. So I followed the sound to investigate.”

“Hopefully the wolf was gone by the time you arrived.” Said Rarity.

“Yeah, he was long gone. I didn’t see him. But I saw Rainbow Dash, trapped under the rubble! She explained to me what happened, and I lifted all the sediment with my magic and dragged her out! While I was dusting her off, the sediment shifted again after being disturbed by my telekinesis, and it started a rockslide! Rainbow Dash and I both began to run away, but it was getting harder and harder to keep holding up the rocks, as the pile increased in both size and mass as the rockslide continued pouring more rocks onto the pile. Eventually, my telekinetic abilities were stretched to their limit, and I couldn’t hold it up any longer, and while we were running away, the rocks all crashed onto the ground, and broken shards flew everywhere and-“

“And that’s when the wolf came back and bit off Twilight’s horn.” Said Rainbow Dash. Twilight would have given up her life savings to punch Rainbow Dash in the face right then and there.

“The wolf bit it off‽” said Pinkie Pie, “Then what happened? What happened to the wolf? And the rockslide?”

“We killed the wolf and outran the rockslide. Then we went home. That’s the end of the story.” Said Twilight, abruptly wrapping everything up now that the yarn had gone too off-script. She had low confidence in unplanned lies.

“That’s one helluva story.” Said Applejack, “I’m really sorry y’all had to go through all that. How are y’all feelin’?”

“Hungry.” Said Rainbow Dash, and she wasn’t lying. She hadn’t been eating insects and grass for the past few weeks, but she hadn’t had a meal in almost two days. After killing Minty, Rainbow Dash had felt sick to her stomach, and hadn’t even considered getting something to eat. By the time her hunger had become powerful enough to overpower her all-consuming suffocating guilt, it had been too late at night to go out, and all the food in her apartment had spoiled while she had been away. Luckily, Applejack’s family had prepared an enormous lunch for her and Twilight, and they had made it on short notice too. Rainbow Dash supped on spicy eggplant curry, toasted carrot sandwiches, and a salubrious garden vegetable soup, with fresh homemade bread, with lots of butter and cream. For dessert she tucked into a brown sugar apple almond tart. The feast was so sumptuous that it made Rainbow Dash stop feeling dead inside, if only for a brief instant.

Twilight did not answer the question regarding how she was “feelin’”. Truth be told, she was feelin’ like she had pissed away everything that had ever been important to her, like she had lost the only thing in the world that made her special. She was feelin’ like there was nothing in her entire life that mattered apart from taking her lost horn and shoving it up Derpy Hooves’ rectum until it ruptured her organs and she died of internal bleeding. She was feelin’ bad.

Twilight received a lot of sympathy that day. She hated sympathy. It made any misfortune all the more bitter, because not only had her body been hurt, but her soul had been too. It seemed that every tragedy that befell her also befell her reputation, made her seem weaker in the eyes of her friends. Twilight was not weak. How could anypony who did what she did be weak? A weak pony would have died in that lab, a weak pony would have rolled over and been replaced. Twilight knew that her week, her month, was going to be nothing but letters and visits from concerned friends. She’d have to explain the same bullshit story to everypony she bumped into. Worst of all, her parents were definitely going to show up to cry over poor defenseless little Twilight. Celestia was probably going to offer her some pity-post in the royal bureaucracy that didn’t require magic, or maybe just ask her to continue studying friendship as if nothing had happened, since friendship was the real magic after all. If only they could know, if only they knew what Glitter was capable of, they wouldn’t dare to condescend to her like that. Derpy had crippled her. She had taken away not just her magic, but her very respect. Twilight swore a vow to herself that she would reclaim her respect, and take bloody vengeance. She would not die a crippled weakling.

Much much later in her life, Rainbow Dash would hear a song that went like this:

Been working way too much, need to get out and get fucked up

What’s going on? Where’s it at?

Make some calls to make it crack, let’s see

I got money, drugs, a ride, and a spot with hot ones inside

The mission: to get all of the above in the limited amount of time I can do this and it’s done

Like that we’re on our way

Be it acid on the tongue, cocaine in your brain, or some weed that hits your lungs like a runaway train

Hell yeah, from DMT to MDMA

Got all that shit and more so till dawn we’re okay

It was a shame that she hadn’t heard the song earlier, because she would have loved it. Sadly, ponies don’t have a lot of songs about doing a shit ton of drugs. The idioms of the historical pony musical canon simply didn’t feature such subject matter in their lyrics, if they had lyrics at all. I personally have no doubt that the rather obscure genre of pony hip hop would have had a much larger impact had its lyrics featured drugs, crime, and sex more prominently, and dry recounts of historical events less prominently. Because of this, when Rainbow Dash invited every stony pony in Ponyville to her apartment one Friday afternoon, the evening was not scored by any music.

Rainbow Dash had spent the last six weeks in a cabin in the forest, eating ramen noodles, tossing and turning in bed, and reading the same books over and over again, without anything at all to smoke or drink. Now she was re-entering her life, and she was desperate to hide from reality, and to deter the nightmares that had plagued her since that awful night. Luckily, she had the money to buy both. She’d bought a lot of stuff for the party: LSD, molly, cocaine, and xanax, but that was just for the guests. For herself, Rainbow Dash had but three vices: marijuana at night for the nightmares, tobacco in the daytime to keep herself alert, and alcohol all day every day to make her forget.

The days since her return to society had gone thusly: In the morning, she forced herself out of bed, had a cigarette and coffee for breakfast, put a snack cake and a plastic bag full of tortillas into a brown bag for lunch, and flew to work. After work, she would turn down offers from her friends to hang out, then she would go home, order a pizza, drink, smoke enough weed to forget where her teeth were, and latibulate until it was time to drift into a dreamless sleep. (AN: I have spent a good deal of time trying to figure out where the word “latibulate” is actually attested to in any extant work of English. I don’t think it is. It’s listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, but it’s described as “obsolete”, “rare”, and “apparently only attested in dictionaries and glossaries”. Despite its lack of use, it’s not nonsense, as its formed in a regular way from a Latin stem, in the same manner as thousands of other English words, so I’m going to consider it a real word. In case you’re wondering what it means, it means to hide in a corner. It’s actually related to the word “latent”, with similar semantic connotations of hiding.) In this way, she quite effectively staved off the nightmares, such that they could only ever attempt to invade her mind during the daytime, when she had no choice but to stay sober enough for the mentally intensive work of methamphetamine production. During such times, Rainbow Dash tried to focus on the job, or make idle chat with Twilight Sparkle. Now that it was Friday, and there would be no more work ahead of her, Rainbow Dash didn’t plan to make even passing contact with sobriety over the next few days. Hence, the party. Three days of loud noises, meaningless conversation, alcohol, cannabis, and various other sybaritic distractions, all funded by Auntie Dot Dot’s fictitious coffers.

Rainbow Dash went to such great pains because it was the only way to banish Minty from her mind’s eye. She kept reliving the moment in her nightmares, it kept replaying in the back of her mind. She felt compelled to do away with these visions, because she didn’t feel strong enough to face them. She couldn’t do such a thing while she worked Minty’s job, wore Minty’s hazmat suit, and spent her life in the laboratory that Minty built. It was all very painful.

“Well?” said Applejack.

“Yep?” said Big Macintosh.

“Aren’t you going to say it?”

“Say what?”

“Aren’t you going to admit that I was right?” Big Mac sighed.

“Yep…”

“Say it.” Said Applejack, grinning. Bic Mac sighed harder.

“You were right about Glitter.”

“Damn straight.” Said Applejack, beaming with pride, and poring through the papers on her desk with great gusto, “I knew that Suri wasn’t Glitter! I knew it! I was right and everypony else was wrong. This proves it! Big Macintosh, bring in Agent Sweetie Drops.”

“Yep.”

Applejack was so invested in the notebook on her desk that Agent Sweetie Drops had to call her name twice before she remembered that she had asked for her less than 100 seconds ago.

“You wanted to see me ma’am?” she said.

“Yes!” said Applejack, “take a gander at this!” Applejack showed her the open notebook. Sweetie Drops peered at it.

“It looks to be some diagrams. What is it?”

“Remember the mare who got shot a little while back? Minty?”

“Of course.”

“Well, PPD was investigating it, and they found this in her house.” Applejack closed the notebook and showed Sweetie Drops the cover. It was decorated with colorful stickers, and said ‘LAB NOTES’ in all caps written on the front in light green marker. “Minty had no criminal history, and a mighty fancy degree from UC, but it turns out she’s been a meth cook for nearin’ on ten years now. Although I should say a meth chef. I’m talkin’ five stars and white tablecloth. She’s no ordinary- pardon me, she was no ordinary chemist. She was a genius. She took extensive notes, writin’ about every little step o’ her process. These things’re fulla data. What the lab looks like, how the cook goes, how much they make. And it’s plain as day that the meth she’s makin’, is the same pink meth we’ve been findin’ all ‘round Equestria.”

“You think Minty was Glitter?”

“She was Glitter’s assistant.” Said Applejack, “She didn’t just keep notes. She kept a whole diary. Minty designed the lab, and Glitter was brought on board later, but Minty was absolutely in an assistant role, not the head cook.”

“Did she mention Glitter’s real name?”

“She was too bright for that, sad to say. She doesn’t use names and addresses, just code names. But the two were on close terms if her notes are to be believed.” Applejack giggled with girlish glee, “I told all o’ y’all that Suri wasn’t Glitter. She wasn’t from the town where the pink meth first appeared, she had no experience in chemistry, and she had no connections to anypony in the drug trade! The only evidence the PPD had to declare her Glitter was that plastic poke they found in her… nether regions. I sent request after request to Canterlot to reopen the investigation, tellin’ ‘em the pink stuff was still showin’ up, and they told me I was crazy. So did most of y’all! Even after Glitter’s signature product started poppin’ up all over Equestria, in cities that had never seen it before, y’all said they were just copyin’ Suri. But I knew I was right! And who sends me the proof? PPD themselves. Why, it’s so sweet I could just cry. Months of dead ends and no evidence, and the motherload falls right into our hooves. Finally we can get this investigation goin’ again!”

“I owe you an apology ma’am.” Said Sweetie Drops, “Do you have any leads on where to start the investigation?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“You look like shit.” Said Twilight.

“Good morning to you too, bitch.” Said Rainbow Dash, putting on her safety goggles.

“I’m serious. What the hell were you doing all weekend? You didn’t pick up your phone once.”

“Well you could’ve just stopped by my apartment.”

“No I couldn’t!” Twilight suddenly went from nagging to legitimately upset, “Your cloudominium is in the sky! I can’t get there without magic! Listen,” Twilight Sparkle leaned in to whisper, before realizing it would be less suspicious to just talk at a normal volume, “we should catch up. We should have dinner, today. Just the two of us.”

“Can’t. I have plans today.”

“Getting high, masturbating, and eating cookies does not constitute plans in my book.”

“Well maybe you should read different books.”

“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight looked at the surveillance camera out of the corner of her eye, “I really think we should have dinner today. Just to, you know, chat.”

“Sorry, can’t make it.”

Twilight dropped it after that for the rest of the cook, and the only conversation between the two ponies for the rest of the day was either about the cook itself, or about Fluttershy’s new pitbull, which had gotten into a fight with Angel that had escalated into an interspecies gang war that threatened to break the uneasy peace between puppies and bunnies that had existed in Fluttershy’s backyard for nearly a decade. It was quite a top-of-mind issue among Fluttershy’s close friends.

After work, Twilight took care to leave side-by-side with Rainbow Dash. When they left the laundromat and Rainbow Dash took off into the air, Twilight yelled after her.

“RAINBOW DASH GET YOUR ASS BACK DOWN HERE!” Rainbow Dash was tempted to abjure, but decided to relent, and dutifully came back down to the ground.

“What?”

“Where the hell are you going?”

“Home? I told you I have plans.”

“I thought you just didn’t want to arouse suspicion in front of the camera. You’re actually not gonna talk with me outside of work? Rainbow Dash, I thought this was obvious, but when I told you I wanted to talk with you, it was to discuss something important and secretive in private.”

“Yeah well I assumed you just wanted to talk to me about killing somepony again.”

Twilight fidgeted awkwardly.

“I KNEW IT!” said Rainbow Dash, “It was about murder! It always is!” Rainbow Dash turned to leave but Twilight ran in front of her.

“Wait!” she said, “I know this isn’t an easy time for you. It’s not an easy time for either of us. Recent… events have left us exhausted, scared, maybe even guilty. I know how you feel. I feel it too. But we can’t just give up, we can’t just run away. Not now.”

“Why not?” said Rainbow Dash, “Why the hell can’t we? Why shouldn’t we? We won, Twilight. It’s over.”

“No, no it’s not. We haven’t won until Derpy dies. It’s not over until then.”

“I’ve had this conversation with you too many times, Twilight. It’s always one last murder. How many more times does this need to happen? How many more ponies need to die before you’re ready to give up? You know, there was a time not too long ago when we never murdered anypony! We solved our problems with compassion and understanding. How well has it been going for us since we gave that up?”

“Compassion and understanding? Are you fucking with me right now?” said Twilight. “Compassion and understanding? Whom the fuck am I talking to right now? Her dealers killed that little filly! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about that. Where the hell was Derpy’s compassion for her? Or for you for that matter! Or for me! I nearly died bailing you out. Where the hell was her ‘understanding’ huh? There’s no compassion with ponies like this. She tried to kill us! She cut my fucking horn off! Everything is fair game as far I’m concerned. She needs to pay for what she did. It’s too late for friendship. It’s either her comeuppance, or her revenge. What’s it gonna be?” Rainbow Dash felt a pain deep in her stomach. She felt overwhelmed with anxiety and guilt, and she wasn’t quite certain what they were over. The only thing she knew for sure was that she felt utterly unable to argue with Twilight. Maybe Twilight’s argument was unassailable, maybe Rainbow Dash was just too weak to rebut it, Rainbow Dash didn’t know. She just knew that she could not argue with her.

“Okay, fine. I get it. We’ll do it. What’s the plan?”

“We can’t just shoot her.” Said Twilight, “she has too many allies. It has to look like an accident. Which is why…” Twilight removed a familiar white plastic baggie from her lunchbox.

“You still have that‽” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, horrified.

“I thought it might come in handy again. I didn’t want to cook another batch. Especially now that my lab is under 24/7 surveillance by the same pony I’m trying to kill.”

“That didn’t exactly work out great for us last time, you know.”

“A bad outcome doesn’t necessarily mean a bad plan!” said Twilight, “The circumstances here are not the same as last time. It hadn’t been my plan initially to poison Sunset at a big gathering, we were just forced into that plan. And as we both know, the circumstances led to it going awry, and thank Celestia that at the end of the day nopony was… mortally wounded at least. Poison is usually a very effective way of killing somepony. We slip some of this into one of her muffins, or into her hayburgers, or whatever the hell she eats, and she dies a few days later of what will appear to be natural causes. Nopony will find it suspicious. She’s not exactly the picture of health.” Rainbow Dash, trying to calm her nerves, lit up a cigarette.

“When she came by on Saturday, she had a glass of water. I don’t remember her checking it or anything. I guess the-“

“You’ve seen her‽” Twilight interrupted.

“Yeah? She comes by to deliver my salary. I thought she did the same for you.”

“Not anymore she doesn’t. She doesn’t even deliver mail to my house anymore, the post office has another mailmare doing it, I don’t even know what she told them to make that happen. Finger delivered my money. I haven’t seen Derpy a single time since… you know, that day. Finger told me, and I’m quoting him verbatim here: ‘you’re never gonna see her again’ when I asked him about it. I can’t believe she’s still in contact with you.”

“She was pretty polite. She was actually kind of apologetic. She’s very obviously trying to bury the hatchet, so to speak.”

“Oh, so that’s what all that bullshit was about.” Said Twilight, “Oh no Twily, we can’t kill little Derpy Hooves! She’s my bestest friend! Come on Rainbow Dash, I know you’re smarter than that. After everything that happened you can’t possibly be stupid enough to think-“

“I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.” Rainbow Dash reassured her. “I’m on your side. I’m always on your side. You know that I wouldn’t turn my back on you. Give me the ricin. I have an idea.” Rainbow Dash removed one of the cigarettes from her pack and unrolled it, shaking out all the tobacco. Then she carefully opened up the bag and poured the ricin into the cigarette and rolled it up.

“There. Now I can hide it on me at all times.”

“What about when you finish a pack?”

“I’ll move that one to the new pack. It’ll be my lucky cigarette.”

“Hey, look at you!” said Twilight, “that’s pretty clever! I wouldn’t have even thought of that!”

“Thanks.”

“The next time you see her, be on the lookout. It could be a drink, it could be a food, it could be whatever. Just make sure nopony sees you.” Rainbow Dash nodded, and put away the pack. Twilight smiled at her.

“This is the last one. I promise you. After this we can sleep easy. Just one more.”

Applejack had never liked public speaking. When she was a filly, she always hated presentation days, and if it was a group project, she would always get her teammates to do the presenting part, and she would do the rest of the work. To make matters worse, there were two factors that made the present moment even more challenging. For one, she was presenting in front of over a dozen important ponies, including the Ponyville Chief of Police, the head of the Equestria Department of Justice, and Princess Celestia herself. For two, she had slept for only four of the last 48 hours. It was stressful, but Applejack knew she had to project confidence in her assertions, or the powers that be would never greenlight her investigation. She spoke in a much more formal tone than she was used to.

“Pony of Interest 1: Minty. No last name. Several weeks ago, Minty was shot dead in the foyer of her home on Salt Lick Lane. All evidence indicates that there was no struggle. Her doorbell rang. She turned off her oven. She answered the door. She was shot once in the mouth by a revolver, and then she just up and tumped over. The gunshot happened at 11:51 PM. No neighbors came to investigate, but two of them called the police right after it happened. When the police arrived, at around 12:15, the door was still open, and there was nopony present at the scene of the crime. Shortly afterwards, a thorough search of her house was conducted, along with an autopsy. The search revealed that Minty was involved in the mass production of extremely high-grade methamphetamine. Her lab notes describe a complex subterranean meth lab somewhere in Ponyville. She had been involved in this meth ring indirectly for multiple years, and had for the past two months or so been intermittently workin' as an assistant to an unnamed cook. This cook, as well as Minty, were responsible for the mass production of pink methamphetamine, sometimes colloquially called ‘quartz’. The evidence leaves little doubt that Glitter is still alive, and that Minty was workin' with her.” The room murmured. Applejack continued.

“The motives for Minty’s murder were unknown, except that we can be fairly certain it was a drug-related homicide. No evidence from the perpetrator was left at the scene of the crime, but PPD did collect this unusual piece of evidence just hours later.” Applejack held up a plastic evidence bag with a revolver inside. “This revolver was found outside the Ponyville Library the same night as Minty’s murder. It’s the same make and model as the revolver used to kill Minty, but it was fully loaded, found far away from the crime scene, has no hoof or tooth prints on it, and accordin' to forensics, it has never been fired. Because of this, we do not believe this to be the murder weapon, which we consider to still be missing, but it is worth consideration.” Applejack took a sip of water. She had never talked this long before. But she was just getting started.

“Minty had a burner phone that was found inside of an air vent in her bedroom. Two numbers were saved on it. One was labelled ‘Libra’. The other ‘Derpy Hooves’.” The room laughed, but Applejack didn’t. “Libra refers to a lawyer who lives in Ponyville. The number was her public business number. Libra confirmed that she was Minty’s lawyer, but did not consent to answer any further questions. Derpy Hooves was an unknown number. We called it several times and received no response. It went to an untraceable burner phone. Derpy Hooves is the name of a mailmare who lives in Ponyville. I’ve never spoken to her before, but I already knew who she was. Her name being on Minty’s phone was a big surprise, and so we asked her neighbors, and sure enough, more than one eyewitness confirmed that they had seen Derpy visit Minty’s house multiple times in the past month. In addition, Derpy’s hoofprints were found in Minty’s house, confirming that-”

“Where are you going with this, Applejack?” asked Powdered Wig, the head of the Equestria Department of Justice.

“I want to open up a full investigation into Derpy Hooves.” Dead silence.

“What, are you kidding?”

“No I’m not. I think she’s involved in this somehow, and I want to find out how. She’s the only lead we’ve got.”

“Listen,” said Porky, the head of the Ponyville Police Department, “I’ve met Derpy Hooves before. I don’t think she could cook an omelette, much less meth. She doesn’t look like-”

“Looks can be deceiving.” Said Applejack, interrupting him prematurely, “We can’t know for sure until we conduct a proper and thorough investigation into her.”

“She was on the list.” Said Celestia. Everypony turned to look at her. She hadn’t said anything all day.

“That’s right!” said Applejack. “Derpy Hooves was on the list of suspects! She was at the party with Sunset Shimmer! Her house was one of only three that was never searched, because she was at the end of the list. That alone makes her a high-priority suspect.”

“I agree.” Said Celestia, “your investigation is greenlit. I grant you the right, and whatever materials may be necessary, to conduct an investigation into Derpy Hooves’ involvement with the pink methamphetamine trade in Equestria.”