Extra A/N: Narcotics Tag for this chapter.

**For Official Use Only***

Report
Truth Seeker, Detective

**Corner of East Gate Street North and the Boardwalk between dock 4-5, east of Pier 7; Baltimare, Equestria**
**094 Spring CC, 0545 hours**

Sunrise.

The air is still. A mild fog rolled in last night off the Bay and Celestial Sea beyond. The Princess' newly risen sun barely piercing the early morning mists. Weather teams will be cleaning this up all day.

What a way to start today. *sigh* Report was filed two evenings ago, but we’re just now arriving to the scene. What took so long to get this going?

This rubs my fur the wrong way. I'd expect this type of thing in the rough parts of Manehattan, certain areas in Las Pegasus, or the many industrial sectors of Trottingham over the Water to the Griffish Isles.

Manehattan is the most densely populated area in the country and culturally heavily influenced by unicorns -though not quite as much as Canterlot. Las Pegasus is affected by cultural imports from West across the South Luna Sea and old gladiatorial pegasi competitions which manifest nowadays as ‘sports competitions’ and gambling. The Griffish Isles are too remote to be heavily influenced by core Equestrian culture and near enough to the Eastern continental regions -especially the Griffon territories.

But not here. This is Baltimare! I may be a unicorn, but I come from a long line of nature-ponies and proud of it. Nature-pony heritage is strong in this city. We can weather all those outside forces other large populations cannot.

And here is one of those in my hoof: Initial Report, Case #24-6-01. Two witnesses report sighting a street foal. A street foal!

Buck me, what a case to get assigned right after getting back from administrative leave.

*sigh* Do I have any -oh, thank Celestia! Still have a few hay-cigs in my coat pocket. I knew this was going to be a bad week to quit smoking.

Light the stick on the tip of my horn and drag on the magically stimulating ashes... Sun and Stars, o~h y~eah! It does the job: clears up that stress so I can focus on the job for a little while -just long enough for the clutter to get out of the way.

Step under the cordon ribbon. One of the officers on duty comes to me, and I flash her my badge. "Detective Truth Seeker." I introduce myself.

"No, I'm Trussed Pardon and just an officer," she replies.

"Detective is my rank; Seeker is my name."

Her eyes go wide at my name. "Aren't you the one they call a 'loose party cannon'?"

I can feel my eye twitch at that. Quietly but audibly I carefully say, "I never want to hear the word 'party.' Do you understand?"

The officer swallows and asks, "W- what happened? Are the stories true?"

*sigh* Every time; every assignment.

Might as well get this over with. She looks like a new ponice officer, after all; so, I can't expect her to know which stories get passed around back at the precinct are true or just hyperbole. Might as well get this over with; we have a real job to do right now, and she won’t perform if she’s unfocused.

"It was my old partner's retirement bash,” I take a hard drag on the hay-cig, “She was only a few days out of it being official... The pony in charge -the party," I spit that word out, "pony- just had to get the last laugh." Through my clenched teeth I shake and continue, "And the pies didn't stop 'till she got it." Take a breath and calm down. Maybe one more drag. "I swore if I had to break every rule in the book, I'd catch that... party," calm down, stop shaking, "pony and bring her to justice..."

The other officer on duty comes over, and they're both before me listening -ears pinned back but eyes attentive. I run a hoof back through my mane to focus on something else for a second. "Chief suspended me... poor Rocky Road... well, now I'm back."

The other officer asks, "Wait. SGT Rocky Road? The officer who works behind the big desk back at precinct?"

I nod. "Yup. That's her. Cancelled her retirement after that party. Took a transfer. Eats only pastries in a pie tin now, too. Never takes her job seriously anymore. Bucking party pony." They both look at each other -probably wanting to know what I did to that party pony- I change the subject. Better to leave it alone. "Whatcha got for me, Officer...?"

"Cinnamon Light," she names herself. She has a Prench accent. Bucking horseapples. They gave me the A-Team all right. I’ll have to thank somepony good and hard for this. “We just finished ze cordon. Officer Trussed Pardon ‘ere did zat. I ‘ave a camera and ze forensics kit withz her. Othzer zan zat, it's your show, Detective."

I nod to Officer Pardon, take a pensive drag on my hay, and look around. "You both read the witness report? You know why you're here?" I ask. They both shake their heads and gather a little closer.

Bucking A, Chief. Seriously, you assigned me two rookies on a case like this and didn’t even tell them what they’re in for?

I take a breath to calm down a bit. "We're here looking for a street foal. You two aware of what that term means?" Pardon shakes her head. Light does not shake or nod -just stares ahead off towards the water and horizon.

I say mostly to Pardon, "It means there’s a pegasus foal living on the streets. Green feathers, green eyes, green coat, black mane, black tail. Possibly a colt.” They both flinch at that. “We don't know why he's out here. We don't know where he is. We don't know where he came from, but we have a rough estimate of which direction he went." More than twenty-four hours. Bureaucratic pony-feathers... Don’t they know a foal could starve to death in that much time!? Or give in to the elements. Or choke on Celestia-knows-what. Or drown.

A pony can drown in a horn of water. Just like that.

Need another drag, “Eye witnesses saw him here,” I point around the area where Pardon cordoned, “foraging whatever scraps he could find,” my eyes are stinging and watering, and it’s not from the smoke, “living off of garbage." I take a moment to let all that sink in while I let my hay-cig emissions sink into me.

Both of their eyes got wider and wider as I explained the scene. Pardon's started to tear up, but Light's hardened and kept staring at nothing while she listened.

"Standard rules apply: do this by the book," I told them. "Nopony crosses the cordon without authorization, don't touch anything unless you're told to touch it, and document everything I tell you." They both nod. I take another drag of hay.

Tide was high maybe an hour ago and is on its way out. The boardwalk ends at the beach somewhat suddenly and drops down to the edge of the shore. Just a little strip of sand is visible right now. There are two benches between docks Four and Five. The closest one had a garbage can the other does not. Witness Report states the can was tipped. Seems somepony righted it back up.

"Pardon?" I ask.

"I didn't say anything, Detective."

... "Has anypony searched this can?"

"None to my knowledge, Ma'am." I walk over to the receptacle and look in. There are a couple of items inside.

"Pardon?" I ask.

"You're excused, Detective."

... "When was the last time the garbage-mare came around?"

"I'm," she hesitates briefly, "not familiar with the boardwalk's sanitization schedule, Detective." I light my horn and start removing items one by one and examining them, and I set them individually on the boardwalk.

"Pardon?" I ask.

"Don't worry about it, Detective."

... I swear to buck… "How long have you been on the force?" Officer Trussed Pardon is observing me as a new ponice officer would an experienced one, but she does not seem to know much about her assigned area. The most likely reason that a junior officer was charged to cordon this area is that this is her assigned area: her beat. So I try to engage in some small talk for both our sakes.

She breathes in and out and answers, "Graduated the Academy a month ago, Detective." Bingo. Green officer. As green as they come. She hasn't been around long enough to know when the garbage-mare comes around or who might be more or less likely to pick up a tipped-over rubbish bin.

My telekinesis holds a mostly-eaten and stale portion of a pie *sniff, sniff* a fried apple pie. Looking closely, it looks like some small mouth could have been used on parts of this. The marks are not dissimilar from what's on a rotten apple core nearby. Might be the one from the witness report. Whats really interesting is this.

"Light." Pardon takes out a crystal which begins to glow softly. "No. Officer Light."

Pardon looks at the crystal and back to me. "But this is my light, Detective." I turn to Light.

"Cinnamon Light." I say.

"Mine ez ze same colour as Pardon's, Detective. Kind of white-eesh yelloh,” the prench pony answers.

...This was a really bad week to quit smoking… "I want you to label and photograph these things with your camera. All of these things and everything else I tell you. Take particular note of the bite marks on the remains of this apple core and the fried apple pie."

Light acknowledges, "Right," and gets to work.

"Pardon?" I ask.

"For what?"

... I need more hay-cigs... "You're going to work that forensics kit. They teach you how to do that back at the Academy, right?"

"Uh, for the most part-"

"Good," I cut her off, "bag and label the evidence when Officer Light is finished with each piece. But first I want you to put this into evidence." In my telekinesis, I hold it aloft for the two officers to see: a foal-feather. It's short, fluffy, and a very soft type of down -not unlike the little feathers of a chick or duckling. Except this one is green.

They reported him green and saw him fleeing into an alley -probably that one over there- and then flew over a building -an amazing feat with underdeveloped plumage.

He couldn't have gotten very far if he still has a foal-feathers -maybe still on the roof or landed just over.

Pardon seems to understand the implication of this feather despite herself being a nature-pony. She takes it reverently in her hoof and places it carefully into a paper envelope which was magically changed to be transparent after she labels and seals it: an evidence bag.

While the two officers assigned to me focus their minds and training on the task at hoof, I start looking around again. This hay-cig's done. I toss the biodegradable stump beachward and into the retreating tide and light up a new one as I walk around the bench. Dock Five over there is fairly bare aside from an old coil of rope. Doesn't look like it has been used in weeks. Dock Four is empty. Looks as unused as Five.

How did you get in that garbage can, little foal? What direction did you come from? I turn and look at the bench. Could have jumped or climbed from the bench. Unless you were dropped there on... purpose...

I drag hard on my hay. I don't think I'll be quittin' after today.

"Light." They both turn to me and each hold aloft a softly glowing crystal.

... I motion to Officer Light with my forehoof. "What do you think this looks like to you?" I point at the side of the bench with the same forehoof. She comes around and looks.

"Zat’s a bench, Detective."

"No," I say, "that." I point again. She looks at my hoof and to where I am pointing.

"Zat’s ze side of a bench, Detective."

... I am convinced the Chief did all this to me on purpose… “The discoloration on the side of the bench, Light. What is your opinion of it?"

“‘Ard to say," she says, gets close, looks at it real hard, and then takes a few sniffs. "Could be blood."

"Do you have a blood kit in that forensics pack?"

She looks at me and nods. "Yes, I do, Detective."

"Good. Photograph this and get Pardon to take the sample."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Alright. We don't know from what direction he came, but we know roughly which way he went next. That's the closest alley there, and the mare who pursued him saw him go down one. If his size was reported accurately, then he likely did not go to either of the next ones over -several buildings away in each direction.

Alley is about a wing and a half wide. Looks about a full lasso deep. There's enough space for a foal to maneuver around, but the nature-pony mare who tried to follow him may have had some difficulty. There's a three-way intersection at the end, but each direction -left and right- are blocked with junk.

Appears to be some somewhat-fresh acid burns on the alley wall. That’s odd.

It makes sense that he didn't turn either way and instead chose to go up and over the building at the end given the blockage. And a pegasus would naturally try to surmount an obstacle, anyway.

I find it hard to believe his reported wingspan is accurate given how much space there is along the ground between buildings and given the height of the surmounted building ahead.

Assuming an average speed a foal would run for his assumed leg length, necessary kilo-swirls of pegasus magic, and the wing power needed to generate lift, it would not be an easy task for any foal. The most alley space for spreading wings is here at the end of the alley at the intersection despite the side routes being blocked.

Witness reported she lost him over the building, so she was likely close behind him when he took off. Not enough space for an average nature-pony to standing jump over the boxes to continue pursuit down the side paths; and by the time she turned around and rounded the block, he'd be gone or hidden.

Walls here been scuffed recently. Did the foal run up them a ways?

The angle is steep. He must have been flapping hard -scared and panicked by a pursuer. That would have left... some feathers.

"Pardon! Light!" After a moment, they came with some speed holding their light crystals.

"We have you covered, Detective. No need to apologize," said Officer Pardon.

…I pointed at the green pegasus' down and the markings on the wall. "Label. Photograph. Bag and tag this evidence. When you're done, Light, I want you to check out this roof right here. Pardon, you check the next one over. I'm going to walk the alleys around the other side."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Yes, Detective."

The question is: why would a foal be scared of a pony? Why? They’re born trusting.

The junior officers return to find me stewing and report that they did not find anything on the roofs. If there was anything up there, it probably blew away already. I suppose that's expected. Roofs are too exposed to the shifting of the ocean air. Local weather teams use a lot of their resources on that.

The alley and rubbish bin were more protected from such things; so, it makes sense to me that those foal feathers were still hanging around those locations.

Pardon and Light join me in a cursory search of the alleys nearby. The alleys are technically beyond our cordon, and our authorization to violate any private property requires we find some surface level evidence first: we're not allowed to go digging unless something indicates we should.

These further alleys aren't as cluttered as the one just off the boardwalk, and they appear to be used more often. Most of this part of the city is cobbled, but there are a few places hoof prints might be left behind; I don't see any right now that I'd recognize as belonging to a foal, though.

‘Nother hay-cig. Guess it's about time to start wrapping up and starting the long battle of paperwork back at the precinct. The Mayor's office won't like that we've confirmed the witness' report with those feathers -if they turn out to match each other.

Hopefully, they don't send it up the chain to the Crown. Royal Guards come down en masse when they case a scene; a foal who runs at the sight of two well-meaning ponies encountering a battalion of up-armored and well-trained military guardsmares descending upon the city from several gallops away is guaranteed to flee. The approaching dust cloud would be massive, and we might never find him if that happens but by some long odds. Buck.

And from everything I've heard, she tends to take these types of cases personally. Not even Harmony would be able to protect whoever's responsible for setting that foal loose to fend for himself-

"Detective?" Thank Celestia: I needed a distraction. I was spiraling.

"Pardon."

"Think nothing of it, Detective."

...This is going to be a lo~ng investigation… "Whatcha got, Pardon?"

"We think we found another feather." My ears perk up.

"Show me." She takes me back around another side alley. I've made so many turns in this labyrinth, I'm curious what street I'll exit onto.

The first thing I notice is the smell here. Somepony seems to be composting back here and has not been getting the mixture of green to brown matter correct. It should not smell like that; it shouldn't smell at all when it's done right.

Pardon pointed to a pile that looks like it collapsed in on itself. Next to it was a rough-cut box which seems to have caught some afterfeather fluff. It's green.

Light's already photographing the possible clue and area. Pardon looks like she's waiting for my authorization to proceed.

"Good work, you two. Pardon, take a sample of that fluff. We'll send it and the other organics to the lab to see if they match." I get close to the pile and hover the frog of my hoof over it: warm.

"What are you doing, Detective?" Pardon asks. I start checking my pockets as I prepare to answer her.

"Composting creates and exothermic reaction." They both look at me with raised eyebrows. I elaborate, "It produces heat." They nod slowly -obviously not sure why I'm mentioning it.

Ah- there it is: my little hip flask. I remove it from the pocket and unscrew it and motion to the pile. "Does that little hole look foal-sized to either of you?"

‘Big Hawk’ brewed and imported from Griffonstone makes a great selection to have after a long day’s work or ‘Iron Willy’ brand from a Minotaur company are good for celebrations.

But the local Equestrian orchards all make ciders that can clean grease off of a cast iron skillet to various degrees -if you’re willing to pay for it. And none better than what I have in my flask right here: a two-to-one mixture of my own making from Perfect Pear Orchards’ ‘Hard Morning Rooster’ and Sweet Apple Acres’ spiced ‘Mare Diesel.’ Though, I haven’t seen those two particular blends on the shelves in a while. Good thing I stocked up.

Looks like I picked a bad week to quit drinking. My hoof shakes as I pour it back into my throat. Burns so good.

Pardon sees to freeze and stare at nothing. Light comes over, holds out a hoof, and I hoof her my flask. She helps herself to what's left. We just stand there for a while saying nothing.

Pardon starts to say, "S- so you're saying..." She is either unsure or unable to complete her thought.

I finish it for her, "The foal found a way to stay warm. Yeah."

Light chokes back the last drops and shakily hoofs my container back to me saying to herself, "Buck me." I nod.

"How old did you s- say it's s- supposed to be?" Pardon asks while still staring at nothing -notably away from the pile. I take out my copy of the witness report and silently hoof it to her. She can find the answer for herself there.

While she reads it, I look around. What direction did you go from here, little foal? Not much else here for hiding. Small patch of grass and the alley exits onto a street. Just a normal street that leads to or away from Pier 7.

"Detective?" Pardon and Light have left the alley and stand before me.

"Yeah?"

"What do we do now?" Pardon asks. I finish my hay with one last drag.

"Same as before: by the book ponice work. First, we get all that evidence processed -some sent to the labs. Then we go around interviewing. Somepony must have seen something. Foals running about unsupervised don't go unnoticed. And we start by talking to those two who filed the witness report. Maybe they'll remember something they forgot -some detail we can use." And pray to Harmony we find him before this case leaks.

Whoever is responsible for this will be doing a lot of praying when I find 'em and introduce them to Baltimare justice.

Is it really after noon now- what is that?

“Light?” I ask.

Both officers fumble around their uniforms and each simultaneously strike a match and hold both out to me.

…Buck it. I use the little flame of the nearest one to start my last hay-cig. “Pardon?”

“I don’t mind, Detective.”

…I can feel my eye twitching… “What is that over there?”

Pardon answers, “That looks like a banana.”

“With little arms and legs?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And it’s moving around?”

“It appears so, ma’am.”

Cinnamon Light adds, “And eet ‘as a minkey.”

“A ‘minkey?’”

“What?” Light asks.

“You said, ‘minkey.’”

“Zat ez correct: a chimpanzee minkey. From ‘ere eet appears zat she ez break-ang ze lau.”

… “‘Ze lau?’” I ask.

“What?”

“You said, ‘ze lau.’”

“Oui, yes. Ze regulacions pour le Bolt-ee-maer. She appears to be engag-ed in ze commercial enterprise wiz-out a license.”

I’m going to crack from these two. I must have something that can take the edge off of this.

I reach into my pockets looking for anything and come out with some things that look like candy. I have no clue what these are or where I got them. The other two officers look like they want some. Sighing, I let them have a piece. “I need a statement from the banana… and the monkey.”

Looks like I picked a bad week to quit whatever these candies are.

**For Official Use Only***

FWD copy of Report to:
Department of Royal Investigations, Canterlot
Special Interests Unit
**101 Autumn CC**

**For Official Use Only***

Author's Note

The A/N got kind of long again, so I moved it over to another Blog Post.

Hope everyone had some fun with these cop parodies. Next week's chapter, well... here's hopin'.