Mirror: Book I - Mind

“Is it really necessary that we do this at night?” Whooves asked, trotting along side his companion.

Amethyst did not answer, and instead kept her gait through the brightly illuminated streets of Ponyville at night. Ever since the warnings of the supposed beast from the Everfree, several precautionary measures had gone into action to compensate for anypony walking the roads after the sun had gone down. Although it wasn’t mandatory the citizens were heavily obliged to stay indoors, as was the curfew which the young, lavender unicorn and her faithful, intelligent companion were abusing at this very moment. Their objective was set upon the path towards the sadly disintegrated bakery and pastry store that the ponies of Ponyville had come to know and love for many years. Sugarcube Corner.

“It’ll be quick, Doc, I promise.” Amethyst spoke after a while. “And to answer your question, yes, it’s essential that we do this when nopony else is around.”

“But, why all the secrecy?” He trotted up further, looking her in the eye. “What sort of grave-raider business have you roped me into now, miss Star?”

“Let’s just say that when you linger around the Town Hall offices for a while, you start hearing things you realize you weren’t meant to hear.” She stared onward, calling back on recent memories.

As per request of the citizens of Ponyville, two guards were to be posted patrolling the streets at night, having their rounds doubled at notice of the beast and its warning. At the opportunity of a door slightly ajar, Amethyst overhead a certain Mr. Mikado’s call to the Princess herself to rearrange these posting routes, stationing them over the ruins of Sugarcube Corner. For whatever purpose, Amethyst could not determine why Mikado would want such a procedure to be made, but the unicorn suspected something fishy in the midst of its scent. It seemed this night both she and the Doctor were about to find out.

“You mean to tell me the guards are there, as we speak?” Whooves fretted.

“And that’s why I need you-”

“To do what?! Get arrested?”

“Just as long as you keep your cool, we won’t!” Amethyst shot back, quickly recomposing herself as she continued. “You’re a scientist, Doc. You make observations on things and take the data samples back to your lab for studying or whatever. If anypony’s going to have a reason to investigate a burned down building that still has yet to be investigated, it’s you.”

“You still haven’t explained to me why this is so important to you.” The Doctor stared, waiting.

“I have a hunch…” Amethyst patted her satchel bags, and turned to look back down the path. “This is all just a piece to the bigger puzzle here.”

The sudden spur of intuition and a drive for mystery opened up the doctor’s eyes, as though he were suddenly looking upon a pony he had never met before. Ever since a certain foreigner’s arrival and quick departure, the Doctor had studied a sudden shift within young Amethyst. Where there was once a young filly who wanted nothing more than to settle in her life, there was now a young mare who took all of her surroundings and observations into deep consideration, and the Doctor lingered upon the mild dread that he may have ultimately been responsible for this change. From their talk in the laboratory the night of the young foreigner’s arrival, to the date between he and Derpy at the Lucky Clover, Whooves thought it best that he might as well withdraw from the Hooves family altogether as soon as this little mission of theirs was done and over with. The Doctor only had half the mind to realize that he had been walking with his head down, and sooner than later they were upon the burned site that was once Sugarcube Corner.

Amethyst quietly approached the entrance of the rubble and illuminated her horn, a bright blue bulb shining upon the tip of the appendage. Familiar pink and brown bits to the building had been dusted over by scorches of black, the entire second story having crumbled from its supports and into the first. The air felt stiff, more over with a reverent quietness rather than that of cinder and soot. Whooves hovered patiently at the entrance behind his young partner, suddenly jolting in surprise as a dim, yellow lantern flooded over their hides.

“Halt!” A stern voice arrived. “Who goes there?”

“Ah, nopony. I mean-!” The Doctor stiffened. “Only a couple of…investigators.” He answered.

A few seconds later and the lantern light slowly subsided, revealing the only two guards in the entire town. Sam and Ralph. The white stallion hovered with the lantern clipped to his saddle cinch whilst his bat pony companion trained a wary gaze upon the unanticipated visitors.

“For what purpose?” He followed.

Lest the doctor say anything unwanted, Amethyst quickly stepped around and spoke in his stead. “We’ve come looking for answers!” She proclaimed.

Ralph squinted back harshly and shielded his eyes, eliciting a glance of worry from the young mare as she remembered the light from her horn.

“Sorry.” She uttered, focusing her light spell as she continued. “My name is…Sparkler, and this is my partner, the Doctor. We’ve come looking for clues on the behalf of what caused Sugarcube Corner to burn down.”

“The building burned down a week ago,” Sam called from where he stood. “About time an investigation team showed up, don’t you think?”

“And a credible one at that?” Ralph squinted harshly. “I think not.”

“I’m sorry-?” Amethyst recoiled.

“I know your name isn’t ‘Sparkler.’” The bat pony deduced. “My vision may be clouded but my ears recall your voice. Shun your light, unicorn, you’re not fooling anypony.”

The young mare grumbled inwardly and looked to the ground as the light of her horn fell. She ridiculed herself for not taking the bat guard’s hearing abilities into account either, even when being unaware of their full capabilities. As such, Ralph trained his ears towards the Doctor as though waiting for him to speak again, and kept his yellow, slitted eyes upon the unicorn before him.

“This area is off limits, I cannot allow you to enter.” Ralph stated.

“Why? Because some big wig told you so?”

“That information is confidential.” His gaze traveled about the building. “Besides, it is unsafe to linger around its unstable condition. Only a professional should operate within its vicinity.”

“But, we are professionals.” The Doctor returned.

Ralph looked upon the stallion, waiting, and Amethyst gave him a worried glance before he continued.

“I believe what my partner here had meant to tell you was that I am indeed a doctor, and this site in particular has required my attention for some time now. So sorry I could not come sooner, outside business has been dragging me all around town, as you might imagine.” He reached into his saddle bag and forfeited a small card. “I studied science and alchemy at the academy in Trottingham, and have traveled to several different places in Equestria ever since receiving the proper certifications. As you can see, the fine print is clear as day. Or rather, clear as night, as your folk might say…?”

Ralph held the card in the pinch of his black wing and studied it with a lengthy yet focused gaze, looking back to the doctor every so often with each line he read.

“As a doctor, it is my profession to benefit the lives of other ponies. If you would allow us to search the site, ten minutes at the most, we may be able to discover the cause and organize the proper procedures to ensure a tragedy such as this might never happen again.”

“Ponyville has no official compensation for fire emergencies.” Amethyst included. “But tonight, we’re here to help change that.”

The Doctor looked upon the young mare and she stared back, both with their hopes held high as their sights fell back upon the bat pony still studying the doctor’s card with close intent. He gave a whisk of the note and dropped it into his hoof, carefully hovering it back over to Whooves, wherein the stallion returned it to his saddle bag.

“I will check on your progress in ten minutes.” Ralph told them. “Be wary that my partner and I are also the attendants to this site, so we may remove you for any reason we please.”

“Of course! You won’t regret this.” Whooves reached forward and shook the bat pony’s hoof.

Ralph recoiled with a grumble. “Just…don’t make a mess of things.” He turned and sauntered off. Both guards faced their way down the road, eyes staring ahead and spears held at their sides.

“Thank you.” Amethyst regarded the Doctor gratefully.

“Come now, let’s go find out what made this fire tick.” Whooves trotted on.

“Sure sounds like you wanted to lead the investigation, Ralph.” Sam spoke.

“Two years of detective services, wasted.” He gritted his fangs. “And for what? Standing around and holding a spear?”

“Sure sounds like you wanted to impress Miss Cheerilee.”

“Shut up, Sam.”

As the minutes seem to drag on for the guards, and rush by alarmingly fast for the two faithful investigators, the gathering of their evidence had come up as rather dull and disappointing to say the least. Amethyst knew to leave most of the work in the hooves of the doctor given his greater scale of experience and knowledge, and unsurprisingly he seemed to have found his answer within a matter of two short minutes.

“Fire will always try to travel upwards.” He explained to Amethyst. “Therefore, if it had started on the second floor then the first would almost be completely unscathed, depending on the timing of the weather pegasi, of course. However, that clearly wasn’t the case here. Come shine your light here, dear Amy.” The Doctor motioned for the unicorn to study the floors and the walls. “Do you see the strikings left by the embers? Notice how they all traveled in a pattern, as though stemming outward from a single point of origin.”

“So we simply follow the markings backwards to the point of origin.” Amethyst concluded.

“Precisely!” He nodded, smiling. “You catch on quick.”

The point of origin was, however, located in the kitchen. If that didn’t spell the obvious, then the presence of what once appeared to be an oven now burnt to a brittle, black, block of crisp sat in the center of numerous strikes of soot and trails of ash laying ingrained into the wood and walls of the bakery. The Cakes had left a pastry to bake in the oven…and had completely forgotten about it.

“But that doesn’t make any sense.” Amethyst attempted. “Mrs. Cake would never be so careless, especially when it comes to her special talent.”

“As simple as I can utter it, sometimes these sort of things happen.” The Doctor frowned. “I’m sorry, Amy, but if this isn’t the evidence you wanted then I’m afraid it’s all we’re going to achieve here tonight.”

“Check inside the oven.” She tried.

“Nothing but ash lay inside, we would have to take a sample back to the lab for microscopic or even chemical investigation.” He elaborated. “None of which I have the equipment for proper retrieval.”

“Then we’ll just take the whole thing!” Amethyst declared, flaring her horn to life. A bright blue blanket of magic encompassed the oven as the young mare grunted with exertion. “Heavier than I thought.”

“Dear Amethyst, what are you thinking?” The doctor watched on.

“Help me out, Doc.”

“It’s an article to the scene, we can’t just take it and-”

Suddenly, the boards beneath Amethyst’s hooves cracked and splintered apart. All the force she had been using to lift the oven with her magic seemed to generate a field of energy the doctor himself could not quite explain. There was another crack, a loud one. Loud enough to catch the attention of the guards.

“-disappear?” The Doctor finished.

A heartbeat later the boards beneath them broke free, a gaping black maw swallowing them whole as they fell beneath the bakery with fits of screaming, wailing and tumbling all the way down. Sam and Ralph hurried inside and trotted to the kitchen space, eyeing the newly formed chasm before them wide enough to fit a pony or two through its hole.

“I told them not to make a mess…” Ralph grumbled.

A foggy, white light from above traveled down the chasm and onto two figures sprawled out on the ground below, splinters and pebbles lying all around in a clumsy heap. For some time neither of the ponies moved until Amethyst rose with a lengthened moan, groggily rubbing her head with a free hoof as the Doctor creaked himself back to life and carefully inspected himself for any injuries or broken bones. Amethyst gritted her teeth and held both forehooves over the injured, hind hoof. It seemed that in their fall, her gauze and bandage had come partially loose, instilling small strikes of pain on the way down.

Whooves sprung over and quickly inspected the young mare’s injuries, and almost without hesitation she allowed the doctor to get to work as she sat back and led her eyes to the gaping, white light from above.

“Makes me wish Ronin were still here…” Amethyst drawled.

“What was that?” The doctor blinked.

“Nothing! I-I mean-” Her eyes darted across the walls. “Wow, look at all those filing cabinets!”

“Ridiculous. There’s no reason for any archives to be hidden beneath the bakery unless there was a-” The stallion opened his eyes, sharing the sight with his partner as they both got to their hooves and took a step back.

“Secret basement!” They gawked in unison.

Cakes, gumdrops, pastries and pantries stock full of party essentials lined the walls like an old, forgotten museum, along with several used confetti poppers and deflated balloons dotting the floor in reminiscent of an after party before the janitor took over. To the wall which the two investigators gazed laid a series of bookshelves and filing cabinets stacked atop each other in a rather haphazard manner, though they showed no sign of tumbling down or falling over anytime soon. To the far corner behind them was a massive, yellow slide, most likely used for accessing the secret basement in the first place. However they were meant to access the basement or how they were even supposed to make their exit was all but a mystery to the duo now, and in their midst of gazing a familiar voice echoed from the hole above.

“Are you two alright down there?” Ralph called to them.

“No worse than when we were up there!” Whooves bellowed back.

Ralph studied the size of the hole carefully and determined that going down there himself and attempting to fly back up would prove useless. There simply wasn’t enough room for his wings to sprawl out and carry even himself alone out of the chasm.

“Sam, head back to the barracks.” He commanded. “There should be some supplies that’ll help us pull them out.”

“Finally, a chance to use the grappling hook.” Sam trotted away with glee, allowing the lone guard to stand by and keep an eye on their clumsy friends beneath the bakery.

Down below, Amethyst finished dusting off the soot from her hide as she cautiously gazed at the series of filing cabinets before her. Approaching the bottom drawer, she swung it open with a flick of her magic and watched as the length of the rail exceeded the housing by ten times its size. The unicorn peeked around the back end and found no crease where the rail might go through the wall. It was a simple filing cabinet, the tray scarily longer than it ought to be.

“Enchanted…?” Amethyst shuddered.

“Not even I could explain.” The doctor admitted with a hollowed shrug.

Amethyst led an eye to the folders within and scanned one label after the other, quickly coming to notice that the writings within were in fact names, names of ponies who lived in Ponyville. For whatever sort of order they might entail Amethyst couldn’t quite determine, but sooner than later she had spotted her own name among the many.

“Who in the name of the Celestia was keeping all these files down here?” She opened her records.

“I believe a certain Miss Pie would be responsible.” Whooves gazed about the room. “Though, it baffles me to think that she might have just forgotten all about it.”

“Likes…Baths, cute and cuddly things, boys with Trottingham accents-” Amethyst quickly slammed her files shut with a hard blush, eyeing the Doctor to see if he had noticed.

“Or, had she left it here on purpose?” The Doctor proposed.

“But this…This is all sensitive information, and there’s a file for just about every single pony in Ponyville down here!” Amethyst emphasized. “Not even Town Hall knows this much. Just what exactly was that ball of bubblegum planning to do with all of this?”

“Take a look around, dear Amethyst, we are in the midst of Miss Pie’s very own laboratory.” Whooves took to note the dim, glittering disco balls hanging at the far end of the room. “Pinkie Pie is a professional party planner, and though her antics may be beyond even my range of understanding, it is safe to say that this secret lair of hers was solely utilized to take her celebratory executions to the extreme. Sample jars of confetti and mixed test brews for party drinks give evidence of her mathematical and scientific prowess. To find just the right mixture of colored confetti, to dilute just the right amount of ingredients for the perfect drink. She even organized her filing cabinets according to each pony’s color scheme.”

Amethyst took a momentary glance to the folders in note of the Doctor’s statement.

“The evidence is all here, by no means did our lovely party pony mean us any nefarious intentions. That being said, I do believe you could discover just about anything you wanted to know about any pony in Ponyville using that filing cabinet.”

“You mean like yours and mom’s?” Amethyst pulled forward a gray and brown folder, respectively.

“By no right did I grant you to look at them!” Whooves lunged forward and clawed after the notes. “It’s like you said, sensitive information! Sensitive!”

“Ah-ah-ah.” Amethyst held the doctor at bay, levitating the files above their heads. “I’m not about to let you forget that you and mom still got a score to settle. All us Hooves ought to know what’s been going on between you two.”

Meanwhile, Ralph stood at the rim of the hole patiently waiting his ear over the chasm so he might hear what the two ponies below were saying. I wonder if there are any files on Miss Cheerilee down there… The bat pony thought contentiously.

Whooves took a step back, training a wary eye upon the young mare. “Ah, but I do believe that I think you already know part of the story.” He uttered rather vaguely.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Amethyst wondered.

“You were there that night, weren’t you?” He stared her down. “At the tavern?”

Amethyst’s eyes shrunk to pebbles, she looked away and gulped.

“Yes, it was you, and that Ronin Edelhoof.” He recalled. “Now I understand why he was so adamant on keeping your mother and I distracted. I will not claim that it is in my position to scold you so, but I do believe you will have a lot to explain to your mother once we get out of this pit.”

“Okay, I confess!” Amethyst swelled with guilt, dropping the folders from her magical grasp and slumping to the floor. “It was me. I was there and so was Ronin, but we were there on official business only. Nothing stupid, as you might imagine. Er, well, that’s not entirely true…”

“And what does that entail?” The Doctor probed.

“I sent you on that date with mom so that Ronin and I could grab a copy of your…what’cha-macallit blue prints…and barter them to some ponies at the bar.”

“Blue prints?” Whooves prodded his chin for a moment. “You mean the transistor schematics?”

Amethyst nodded.

“Who? For what purpose?”

“The Flim-Flam brothers…” The unicorn covered her face.

The Doctor slouched back and elicited something between a mixture of a disgruntled sigh and a breath of relief. For all he knew, the prints weren’t in the hooves of the worst possible pony he could think of. Doctor Pace. Rather, they were in the hooves of perhaps the next worst possible set of ponies he could think of.

“The Flim-Flam brothers.” He repeated. “You made a deal with the Flim-Flam brothers?”

“Suppose I’d win first prize in a stupid contest, huh?” She slumped against the drawers, uncovering her complexion. A sorrowful gaze filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I should have told you sooner, I never should have agreed to that deal with them in the first place. All Ronin and I got in return was some hokey-pokey proverb, and now those swindlers are off with your prints doing Celestia knows what.” Amethyst winced with pain and led a forehoof down to her hind, rubbing the disheveled gauze over her wound. It almost felt in that moment of admittance that it got a little worse than before.

Whooves returned to her figure and carefully examined the gauze and bandage once again, tying up another knot the best he could, and resuming to rest by her side on the ground. The two sat there in silence for a long moment more before the chippy Trottingham pony spoke up with a shivered chuckle.

“Those silly old transistors weren’t going anywhere anyhow.” He admitted, shaking his head.

“But…I thought they were special to you, to your passion.” Amethyst looked to him. “You’re always thinking up all these crazy inventions. Sure, a lot of ponies may not understand them at first glance, I sure know that I can’t, but that doesn’t mean you should just let them go.”

“Those transistors are special indeed, but they require a special pony, a special mind…” The Doctor gazed longingly up at the stars shining through the hole in the ceiling. “Perhaps I’m not destined for resolve after all.”

Amethyst could only answer with a continued stare, wondering just what the doctor was on about. He continued.

“I’m not the stallion you may think I am, Amethyst. I achieved many heights back in Trottingham, but I became ashamed with the pony I had turned into. Disgraced, disgusted, I couldn’t even bare to look at myself in the mirror…So, I fled, searching for reconcile. Even though I never truly believed I was worthy, your mother was the one who instilled that hope in me. That is why I feel forever indebted to you and your family, because it is in my understanding that she was the one who saved my life that night.”

The night she had Dinky. Amethyst thought to herself. The story she used to tell us before bed…

The Doctor’s eyes hovered back down, landing upon the gray and brown folders resting to the floor. “I suppose you’re right, you and Dinky ought to know what really happened between your mother and I. It’s just that, well…neither of us could bring ourselves to tell you since you were so young. But now, I see a growing mare before me, ready to take on the truth. I have no doubt those records lying before your hooves may very well hold the answers you’re looking for.” He nodded with a final sigh.

Amethyst weakly lifted the folders from the ground with her magic and rested them back into her lap, eyeing them cautiously before giving the prominent stallion of her life a permissive glance. Whooves nodded, awaiting her action patiently. Why shouldn’t she take this opportunity now? Not only would it be rude to reject such a deep and humbling offer, but it was also in this very moment that Amethyst realized her search for the unknown had gone much further than town mayors, silly garden raids and floral culprits.

Her wound beneath her bandage stung ever so slightly as she leafed through the first folder containing her mother’s files.