The New Recruit

Spitfire stepped out of the interrogation room. It was actually just an office with guards and a stenographer, as they'd only done two investigations of this scale before. Almost everypony that had done something like this had felt guilty enough to confess, and proud enough to not want to damage their good name. The first major investigation had lasted twelve hours, and had only lasted that long because the culprit had run off and tried to fix the problem. When you crash into a cake meant for Celestia, it's not suggested to immediately fly to a bakery and order a new one, but that was the response. The second lasted only two days. Somepony had gone missing, but then they came back. The paperwork regarding their leave had been misfiled.

But those were accidents. This was no accident. The fact that somepony, anypony, could do this sort of thing, hold up all classes, and still not feel guilty about what they'd done was disheartening. Spitfire was feeling less and less forgiving with each passing hour, and while she had maximum sentences that she could affix to each charge, there were a lot of charges to settle.

Just as she was about to call in the next one, Soarin stepped forward, an opaque plastic box on his back, and two guards escorting Blitz Break behind him.

"What's all of this?" asked Spitfire.

"I have a confession to make," answered Soarin.

There was a pause as Spitfire waited for his confession.

"I'm going to make him confess," answered Soarin again.

"Oh. I thought you were going to confess something."

Soarin smirked and chuckled. "Just making jokes while I can, captain..."

Spitfire stepped into the room to listen to the confession as Blitz was bound to the table. Soarin put the box down, and wiped his hoof across his face to show a more serious expression.

"Name and occupation."

"Blitz Break, I'm a Lance-Cadet at the Wonderbolts Academy."

"Do you recall the events of Suaturday night and Sunday morning?"

"Of course."

"Please go over those once more for the record."

"I was at a party. The one in the sauna. I was with a young mare, miss Raspberry Tart. She can confirm that I was with her all night long."

Spitfire had asked her several times. She'd been with Blitz, yes, but she'd also been with four other stallions that night, and couldn't remember where all of them were at each moment. At best, she could keep track of three. Blitz could have easily snuck away and come back. In fact, she remembered him leaving at one point, and coming back a few minutes later. He'd disappeared into the locker room, so she assumed that he'd gone to the connected toilets, but she hadn't watched him beyond the door.

"What about the time between twenty-three forty-five and zero-hundred hours?"

For a brief second, Blitz's eyes flashed wide, then returned to normal, though he began to sweat. It seemed as though Soarin had struck the nail right between the eyes.

"I was with her," Blitz breathed. "As far as I remember, anyway."

"You didn't take a moment to compose a letter to your sister?"

Spitfire thought that was an oddly specific question, but again, Blitz was having a tough reaction to it.

"Do you need me to ask the question again?" asked Soarin.

"No, no," chuckled Blitz. "Actually, I did write a quick note to my sister, but it was unrelated to the rest of the events of the night."

"Oh? What was it in relation to?"

"That information is between my sister and myself," asserted Blitz. "I don't think my family matters are relevant, here."

"True, true," noted Soarin. "Business matters, however, are. Where does your sister work?"

"I'd rather not say."

"That's okay, I have a copy of her employment history here," answered Soarin, opening the box and pulling out a small folder. "It's her fourth job, and she's a photographer for the Cloudsdale Mirror. Moving up from mail clerk. Very nice. This is public record, by the way."

"So she works for a newspaper," Blitz grumbled. "So what?"

"You had the note delivered to her place of work," noted Soarin. "That makes it a business record."

"It's a personal letter."

"Sent to a business. It's a business letter. That means the business keeps track of it. And your letter is a business record. Do you remember what it said?"

"No."

"That's okay, I have it here." Soarin pulled out a photocopy of the note and read it aloud. "There's a big story to be found at the Wonderbolts Academy. See attached proof."

"You can't prove that was me," argued Blitz. "It's not signed."

No sooner had he said it than he realised how stupid he would have to be to say such a fool thing. As he lowered his head into his hooves, Spitfire stepped forward. "How would you know whether or not it was signed?"

Blitz just shook his head. "Go ahead and pin the whole thing on me. I'm not going to be able to bounce back from this."

"Since we're telling the truth now," sighed Spitfire, sitting down next to Soarin, "Why'd you beat him up?"

"I didn't. He was like that when I found him. I just took the picture and wrote the note."

"And you just left him there."

"He was breathing normally, his pulse was fine, his blood pressure was... low, but not dangerously low. I knew he'd last for several hours, and I was going to come back and find him the next morning, but you guys beat me to it. I had an alarm set in my room, but I was asked to sleep somewhere else, and I needed the alibi. Like I said, I was with Raspberry Tart for the rest of the night."

"The W in Wingless, as well as the Ss match your note to your sister," noted Soarin. "Pretty sure you also wrote this on Ace's body."

Blitz nodded. "I did. Right after I tore his outfit open."

"Why?"

"Whoever did this hated him. I hated him, too. I've been the best young flier every year I've competed. I was top of my class in Junior Speedsters. I graduated early from flight camp. I'm the best aerobat in my class. I'm supposed to be the obvious choice for success. He's not even supposed to be here. It's absolutely debilitating to be told that an earth pony is better at flying than you are. Not that you would know..."

Spitfire sighed. It was good that they now knew who'd defaced Ace's uniform and drawn on him, but that was only half of it. They still needed to know who'd beaten him up, and why.