Bait 'n' Switch Codology

"So there we were. All of us suddenly pit against each other. Obviously, I still had a chance to catch up with him, but I knew what that would have looked like."

"So... from there on, you just gave up?"

"Ay. Listen birdy. I'm not proud of it, but sometimes you've just gotta know when to bail. It was more important that I get the fuck outta there so I could get the chance to try again."

"So you had to pin it on somebody else?"

"If that's the case, why would you have tried to draw suspicion away from Snow Cone?"

"Well I'll tells ya."

The doors slammed shut, and the lightning flashed.

Everyone looked back and forth between themselves.

Verglas Ley was the one to break the silence. "Well then." She said, sitting back into her cushion. "There's a killer among us. Anyone feel like volunteering?"

Telephone Wire put his hoof up, along with a smart-alec smile. Several eyes were rolled.

"There's 'ah point to be made." Johnson said, "Me or the kid never touched the bottle."

"Yeah?" Verglas sarcastically asked back, "Well how can we be sure? I mean, is anyone certain? Did anyone here have their eyes on the bottle the whole time?"

There were more looks shared between everyone. Bullseye was desperately trying to put the pieces together. She was an investigator, not an actor, not a crime scene 'maker-upper'.

"Well it wasn't me." Violaceous claimed, a hoof to her chest, and nose in the air.

"What about when you left the kitchen?" Verglas postured.

Bullseye latched onto that, calmly, and pretending to be considering her words as she spoke them. "Hey... yeah... you took the bottle right from Snow Cone, and then you walked out. None of us could see you."

Wave scoffed and waved her hoof, "Origami was in the room, do you really think I would have tried to poison his wine right in front of him?"

Snow Cone piped up quietly, taking a few steps forwards and resting a hoof on the table. "Origami is old, he has bad eyesight. It's possible..." She didn't wilt under Wave's glare, just continued looking around at the placements where everyone sat or stood. The comments were getting quicker, the tension was growing, and suddenly the focus was directed to Bullseye.

"And what about you?" Immersion said, looking towards Bullseye, "When you took the wine bottle from me, you turned around... oddly."

"That was because I heard Snow Cone walking up behind me." Bullseye responded immediately, then flapped her ears, "I've got a wider range of hearing than you."

Snow Cone nodded, and Immersion let his eyebrow raise. Bullseye pointed back at him, "And what about how you were hiding that wine bottle beneath your cloak? What else could you be keeping under there?"

"That's enough." The base rumble of Johnson was accompanied by another flash of lightning from outside. "Yall've established that it could'a been any of us. There's no point arguing over it."

"Well then what do we do?" Snow Cone said, "I-" She shook slightly, "I can't go to prison..." She was still shaken up.

"And that's fair, in my opinion. The poor girl... She's not a hardened mare like me, she'd probably never been so stressed before. I can't imagine what kinda tale she was spinnin' in her head about what was gonna happen to her moments before."

"I'm lost."

"How so?"

"Origami is dead."

"That's right."

"How? He left, didn't he? How could he have gotten killed?"

"Well, there was still time to catch up with 'im. He's old you see. The way I figured it, whoever came here to kill him... well... me, that is, wasn't gonna give up so easily, but I couldn't just make it look like I was all rearing to go wandering about, lookin' for him. That's what I would've been looking for in a suspect."

"You needed to act suspicious of all the other people. You needed someone else to suggest splitting up so you could get the chance to find Origami again. That's why you alleviated the blame from Snow Cone."

"You're smarter than you look bossmare. If I had just wiped my hooves of the whole thing and threw her under the bus, then I wouldn't've gotten my second shot. All of them were lookin' for someone now, and if I wasn't crazy careful to fly under the radar, I was as good as got."

"I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around how any of that happened though."

"Well, your partner there hit it right on the head. I needed someone else to suggest movin', and luckily..."

Violaceous tapped her hoof on the table next to Snow's. "Whel- I don't think any of us truly believe that Snow Cone was capable of attempted murder, do we?"

There were several shakes. Despite Bullseye not wanting to cut off a potential scapegoat, she went along with it. Immersion on the other hand, merely narrowed his eyes as Violaceous continued.

She did what noble mares did, with her upturned nose, her sneer, and her haughty voice. "I'm not standing around in a room with a murderer. I know I had nothing to do with this, and neither does Snow. So we'll be finding somewhere to rest, while the rest of you bicker amongst yourselves and figure it out."

"Now hold on a second." Johnson rumbled, stopping the purple mare's advance to the door. "How can we trust you?"

"How can we trust you?" She shot back.

"Both of you stop it." Came Verglas' voice. "I could use some air myself, if we all pair up, anybody who..." She side eyed Bullseye, "Slips away or gets hurt? We'll know who the poisoner is. It's that simple."

"Safety in numbers." Bullseye agreed.

"Yeah sure." Telephone Wire pushed himself away from the table and got up, moving towards the kitchen. "I'm going to stay here. All of you's can wander about to your content. I don't care about going to prison."

"What?" Snow Cone asked, genuinely confused, and still worked up.

Telephone wire kept talking as he walked to the kitchen, "It's not like it would've been my first go." Then he stepped inside, and it was just the six of them left. They looked at each other.

Verglas was the first to break the silence again. "Me and Terri, we'll go see if we can find Origami, talk to him, see if we can sort this out. He can't have left yet." She turned to Snow, "Where would we find him?"

"Oh-uhm" Snow turned away from Ley's gaze. "I don't know if I should say..."

"That's okay." Bullseye interrupted Ley's opening beak. "We'll go looking for him ourselves."

"I could stretch my legs." Johnson said, standing up, he looked to Immersion, who matched his look and stood up too.

Verglas clarified for them all, counting up to two on her talon for each pair. "Then it's me and Terri, Immersion and John, is it okay if I call you John?" He nodded, "Immersion and John, and Ms. Wave and Snow Cone."

"And Telephone Wire is going to stay in the kitchens." Snow Cone added, as Immersion and Johnson were already heading for the far door, opposite the one Origami had left from. Violaceous was already dragging Snow Cone by the hoof towards the door Origami had left out of as Bullseye and Verglas Ley locked eyes.

There was silence between the two as all the doors closed, and the hoof steps faded out under the sounds of rain hitting the windows and wind jiggling the shutters. Both of them sighed at the same time. Bullseye managed a small smile, "This is gonna be a long night, isn't it?"

Verglas just shook her head while matching, maybe unwillingly, Terri's tiny-tired smile. "Let's get moving on. We've got to catch him before he leaves the grounds."

"And just like that, the chase was on again."

"That's... too lucky. Something's up wi- What are you smiling about?"

"Ya know, I am having a bit too much fun with this."

"If you could take this seriously-"

"Nah, that's what happens you know? When you tempt a mare with a good time."

"Miss Bullseye, please."

"..."

"Whatever... You're right, by the way. Something was going on. You gotta remember, magical crime fell outta fashion ages ago because of all them magi-teck-dodads y'all tote 'round."

"You're saying there was foul magic at play?"

"Well... yeah? I mean, I was already disguised as someone I wasn't. Stealing a face isn't exactly smiled upon."

"I think we're getting off track again."

"Yeah, yeah. So me and Ley, right? We head out the doors and we're wandering around for a bit. Nothin' between us. Not that I minded. Just the rain and some walking. That is, until..."

Both Verglas and Bullseye, in disguise, were walking along quietly through the cookie cutter halls of the mansion. It was the same table, with the same similarly looking plant every corner, and Bullseye would have sworn they were going in circles if it weren't for the occasional window marking their progress. They'd found a flight of stairs leading up, but elected to ignore it. If Origami was leaving, he wouldn't bother doing it from anywhere other than the ground floor.

"So did you do it?" Verglas asked out of the blue.

"What?" Bullseye mentally recoiled for a second, "No. Of course not."

Verglas sent her a look that said 'I'm unconvinced.'

"Look." Bullseye tried, clasping her paws in front of herself. It was strange, being able to articulate both your front limbs while walking. Though she couldn't say she hated it. "What do I stand to gain from killing him? I wanna catch whomever just as much as you do. Origami was my ticket out of this waste bin of a world." She finished off, sullenly, selling the look by folding her ears down over her head. If puppies could do it, so could she.

"Yeah... well..." Verglas was still clearly unconvinced.

"I can't prove it to you, okay?" Time to try a different method. "But at the very least, you can trust me not to pull something now."

Verglas half rolled her eyes and inclined her head. "I guess that's fair."

"Here's my reverse ask-" Bullseye turned down to the griffon, "Did you do it?"

"Heh, when would I have?" She asked back

"I wasn't paying attention, could have been any time." Bullseye raised her eyebrow, "That, and there was a distinct lack of people talking about you when it all kicked off. You were doing most of the talking, if I remember correctly."

She pursed her beak, and raised an eyebrow in a mix of pride and amusement. Something Bullseye didn't catch properly. "I'll admit to doing that on purpose, however suspicious that sounds-" She waved a claw, "But I didn't want to risk all the hooves suddenly pointing at the griffon, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah. I do. And hey, seriously Ley, I've got your back." And that wasn't a lie. The griffon wasn't a bad bird, none of those ponies were. Despite Bullseye's intent to violently break the law, and the willingness to try again after failing the first time. Despite Bullseye's general disregard for the law when figured there was something she wanted, or something she had to do for the job...

The only one she wanted to see hurt was Origami, no one else.

Verglas lifted up a claw for a bump as a bolt of lightning struck somewhere outside, letting out a burst of light from a window around the corner. Both of them waited for the thunder to stop reverberating, and Bullseye met the fist bump with her own clenched paw. "I'll keep that in mind, and I'll make sure none of those ponies try to take you out either."

"You really think..." Bullseye cut herself off, pretending to stumble over her words, "You think one of those ponies is the killing type?"

"I had my eyes on Johnson." She ruffled her wings, "I know a bit about musculature, being an artist and all. He's no body builder. He's built for combat, weight, leverage, strength. I wouldn't be surprised if he could pop my wings off, the point is, why would someone like him be here. Of everyone at that table, he stuck out the most." She started counting off on her talon, "I can understand: an artist, a crooked cop, an information rat, a whore-no offense, and a noble mare, but what is... what is he here for?"

Bullseye's brow furrowed. What is he here for? It was a strikingly good point. More and more...

This was starting to make less sense. Call her paranoid, say it was just the stress, but beneath her disguise, she could feel her cutie mark tingling. She was missing something.

"And that's when the lights went out. You don't expect them to, because of how the magical mix of electrical flame kept everything eerie, but lit well, but all at once, every little flame, every recessed glow gem went out."

Pitch black.

There was the sound of an electrical hum revving down, just after.

Bullseye struggled to maintain her balance without any visibility, and there was truly no visibility. The disguise was just a disguise. It only affected her senses to the point where she could move and function properly, it didn't give her the skilled nose of a dog, or the vague night vision that some of them have. She still had earth pony eyes, and she couldn't see fuck-all with them. "Shit. Ley, you good?"

"What just happened?"

"The lights went out?" Bullseye asked back, confused, as what happened was obvious.

There was a grumble, "No. I mean, why did they go out?"

"Lightning must of hit something important."

There was a click, and the hallway was barely illuminated by the beam of a flashlight. Now with minimal light reaching her eyes, she could make out the shape of Ley from behind the flashlight. The talon was clearly visible, with the red glow coming around from the back of the flashlight lens.

"Where'd you get that?" Bullseye asked, seriously surprised. Verglas wasn't wearing anything, and she didn't have a mane like a pony. Where the hell did a whole flashlight come from? When no response came, Bullseye asked again, scooching slowly close to Ley so as to not spook her in the dark. "Ley? You good?"

"Shut up Terri."

"He-"

"Shut the fuck up right now."

Bullseye shut up, and felt a talon wrap around her paw. She leaned down as it tugged her closer to the floor. The flashlight pointed down the hallway, illuminating just far enough to see the far wall. Without the signal masking from the electric hum, the rain was far more audible, as was the rolling thunder from lightning too far off in the distance for them to see the flash.

"Listen." Ley whispered.

Bullseye strained her ears.

She heard it.

Thumping. Hoof steps. Aggressive thumping. Trotting or galloping, heavy hoof steps.

Heavy hoof steps that were steadily, quickly getting louder.

Bullseye's adrenaline was already pumping, her hackles had risen as soon as the lights had gone off. Ley's warning had flipped on her honed survival instincts, and now? Fight or flight had just triggered. Bullseye may not be a predator like Ley, but she knew. Whomever those hoof falls belonged to, they were coming to hurt them. She felt it in her bones.

"Time to go." Bullseye whispered back. She leaned up again, and pulled on Verglas' opposite talon. She was already moving, tugging and pulling on Verglas to match her deeper stride.

Verglas hissed back while trying to keep pace, "Where?"

Bullseye spoke quickly, just as quickly as she was trying to move. She spoke quietly, but it was still nearly a shout reaching up to a normal indoor voice. Those hoof falls were getting louder fast. "Back towards the others, we'll-"

Verglas gasped. "RUN!"

The talon slipped free from Bullseye's paw, and the gust of feathers scooping up the air caught along with the flash of light from the hand-held lamp in her eyes as Bullseye spun around to see what Verglas had suddenly decided to fly away from.

She caught the glimpse of a mask holding back a mane. A pony face, a heavy coat, and a wooden bludgeon tinted a deeper brown with blood. She'd never run in this body before, much less sprinted. The lack of experience didn't stop her, not after the thing screeched.

She ran as hard as she could. On two legs, there wasn't any kind of high speed she could pull off, it was all about bouncing forwards after falling. What it did mean is she had far more mobility, there was a corner coming up, she could tell from the vague flashing outline provided by Ley's retreating form. She went straight, Bullseye waited until the last possible second to twist on her legs and dip to the side. She crashed into the wall, stumbling onto her stomach and scrambling her paws across the surface of the wooden floor for purchase.

For a split second, she was a pony again, running on all fours from something bigger and scarier than she was, running for her life. Then she was back onto her back legs again, lumbering at a dead sprint as fast as she could. She still couldn't see anything, not without Ley. She was simply hoping that the hallway went on straight forwards long enough for her to get away.

Eventually, she stopped dead and held her breath. Her bottom paws slid, and she had to reach out into the dark for a wall to stabilize herself. She kept holding her breath, even as her brain screamed for air, and her lungs tried to claw up out of her mouth.

She listened over the rain.

No hoof falls.

No steps.

Just rain.

She gasped, and let the air flow into her. "What the fuck-" She panted, "-the fuck was that. What the fuck." She slid down the corner she had grabbed onto, sitting down and letting her dress fold up on her. Her scarf was long gone. Lost in the scramble to get away, probably when she ran into the wall. She could already feel the nasty bruise forming on her breast and face from where she clipped it.

"I just sat there. Catching my breath. I'ma be honest with you bossmare, I lost my cool, you don't get chased in a pitch black hallway by a masked pony with a bloody cudgel and keep your cool."

"That... Must have been..."

"You can say it. Big mares talk about their boo-boos."

"Traumatic."

"You see stuff like that... down here, doesn't make it better that I'm used to it though."

"This is probably going to sound insensitive, but I have to ask the glaring question."

"Go ahead birdbrain."

"...Did you kill Origami?"

"..."

"You've been talking about it like it was a sure thing. Except... Your attempt to poison him failed, and now... if you're not lying, that is, your story is that a pony chased you through the halls, with the intent to kill. Did they get to Origami? Is that why you couldn't find him?"

"..."

"You're right."

"I am?"

"Yeah, that was completely insensitive."

"Miss Bullseye, we're here to solve the case, an-"

"And if you wanna know wh- Sorry. If you want to know what happened, you're gonna have to hear the full story. It won't make sense otherwise, and... it ain't right to leave out certain bits. Those bits need context, so I might as well tell the whole thing."

"We're not against that."

"And I'm not against you asking questions."

"..."

"..."

"Well, I'm glad we could come to an agreement... could you-"

"Yeah, so... where was I-? Yeah, I had just slumped down like a sack of potatoes..."

"Fuck it All." She whispered to herself. Still in the midst of catching her breath.

She had to get up. She had to find Ley. I just fucking left her, I left her to get killed. Was Ley going to die? Unlikely, catching a griffon, even indoors, while in flight? And while you were on hoof? It was likely to be impossible. Though... They could have been a pegasus. Bullseye only caught a glimpse, enough to be sure they were a pony, but nothing else.

I still left her. I told her I had her back an- It wasn't Bullseye's fault. The instinct to dodge just came to her. It was a snap decision in an emergency that worked.

"Okay Bulls-" She cut herself off. "Terri. You can do this Terri. Get up." A beat passed. "Get. Up."

She hauled herself up. Standing was different as a Diamond Dog. She didn't pay a lot of attention to it, she just strained her eyes to search through the darkness.

Still pitch black.

She had no idea where she was, no idea where to go. More importantly, she was alone. I need to find a window.

"I'll spare you the details of me stumbling around in the dark and jumping at every noise until some of that lightning led me to a window. Honestly, I-"

"Miss Bullseye..."

"...Yeah?"

"Do you need a break? We can stop... If you'd like?"

"Pfft, what'd make you figu-"

"Your hooves are shaking."

"..."

"..."

"It's okay."

"Nah-yeah, I know tha- I mean- I jus-"

"Mi-"

"Shut up for a second. I'm sorry, just... thinking about Ley... I guess I'm still a bit shaken up."

"..."

"I know I'm saying this to a criminal, and geez, who thought I'd be in this position? But it's okay. You're... safe now?"

"..."

"..."

"Wow."

"..."

"I know."

"I don't think I've ever seen someone fail so drastically to comfort somebody else."

"I know! Like, what was that shit?"

"Ugh- Fine, I get it, I'll just shut my beak."

"Uh-huh. Anyways-"

"You were at a window?"

"Ah yeah- So I went stumbling around until the lightning led me to one of the inside walls..."

Bullseye found herself staring at an open air garden. Outside. The mansion was apparently a large ring, with trees, shrubbery, and what looked like a small shack sitting in the middle. Probably a tool shack... From the ground floor, she had a path around, but she didn't know exactly which side she had come from.

So it was back to wandering. There were no landmarks inside the structure, and Bullseye wasn't about to call out to anyone who may be nearby.

That's when the screaming started.

It started off pitched, surprised. Then it mixed into pain, and got louder. Bullseye was an older mare, she had the experience to recognize the age of the scream. It was Telephone Wire. There was no doubt in her mind, nopony else would have been able to scream like that.

She ran, shortly bouncing off a wall as she picked a direction. Both because something had to be done, and because now, she suddenly had a heading. If Wire was near the kitchen, then they were near the door. She could hear his voice echoing from close by.

Please-please-please-please

She just hoped it was close enough.

There was still barely enough light to tell when she passed through another junction. It was the sound of the scream that let her know she'd just passed it. The sudden oscillation meant she'd gotten closer, then farther, so she spun around for the edge of the wall, slamming a paw against it and quickly tracing it to the corner.

Then the screaming stopped.

"No!" Bullseye started running again. Her heart resisted, like if you were sticking your hoof into the garbage disposal. Her adrenaline filled muscles saw the dark, in the direction of screaming and said 'danger.' but she kept running. "Kid!"

She kept her paw on the wall, hoping to find an indent. A door. Anything.

"Kid! Talk to me!" Her paw brushed over an indent. She slammed down on it, and it gave slightly. The next second, she found a door handle and threw it open. "Wire!"

Nothing. Empty room. Or he was already dead. She kept down the hallway, moving slow enough to feel the doors as she came up to them. Each door she passed yielded another series of bangs, and-

"EAE-A-A-H-"

Bullseye's entire body twisted on reflex, nearly painfully, and she leapt across the hallway and bodily slammed into the wall. She heard him. He was right here. Less than fifty meters away. She had a chance.

There was a door. She hit it. "KID!?"

Choking. The sounds of somepony dying. This was it.

The door was locked, of course.

Her limbs came down on the knob, but it was made out of metal. So she threw her shoulder into the door, but it didn't budge. She kicked at it, but her legs weren't designed for bucking at the moment. "HOLD ON KID!" She threw herself into the door again. There may have been blood, it sure felt like it, the bruising and slamming could hurt hurt all they liked.

He was dying. She could hear him dying.

"DAMNIT" Two more punches, two more reverberating shocks up the arms and into her back. "FUCK YOU! YOU BASTARD, LET HIM GO!" Two more kicks, more like pawing at the door uselessly. She took four rough steps backwards, nearly swaying, then screamed a battle cry as she sprinted across the tiny distance, lowered herself down, and launched herself into the door.

Something gave.

A bolt, a board, a hinge. The force knocked something loose, she felt it in the reverberating impact. The door was still in place, but it was working.

She still had a chance.

Three more backwards steps, and she threw herself into the door again with just as much force. It rattled in its hinges, the wood frame creaked, and then Bullseye caught the orange horn glow of Immersion as he turned the corner.

"MOVE." He yelled, deeper than Bullseye expected.

Normally, Bullseye would have fucking not done that, but the only other illuminated object, besides his horn, was a solid black-cast iron six shooter. Bullseye, already stumbling back from the door, made space for Immersion to come skidding to a stop in front of the door. He pressed the barrel of the gun nearly into the crevice where the knob met the wall and fired off two shots before kicking with his leg in a practiced breaching sequence.

Bullseye was only an instant, behind him as they both shoved their way into the room.

"Telephone Wire!" - "Kid!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

Telephone Wire was near one of the walls. It was a bedroom, of some sort. Filled with the same kind of unnoticeable furniture as the rest of the building. Behind him was what looked like a load bearing wooden pillar, running up the wall. Illuminated by the orange glow of Immersion's horn.

The colt's two front hooves were nailed into the ground. There was flesh and bone open to the air.

His head was stretched upwards, suspended by the thick corded telephone wire wound around one of the beams in the ceiling.

He had been nailed to the ground, and then hung.