Investigation Files: Lady in Pink

From the desk of Det. Colt Harris.

“The coffee’s a little stale today Mrs. Cake.” I said, taking a sip as I looked out the window at the light and cheerful day outside of SugarCube Corner. I always started my days like this a chocolate doughnut, the morning paper, and a nice hot mug of coffee made fresh by Mr. Cake himself. The man was a genius when it came to coffee, it was usually brewed to perfection; however, today it tasted old and grimy like the water you get from a school drinking fountain. It took all I had to choke down the brown liquid, and even then I think Mrs. Cake could tell that I was having problems. I have a very sensitive palate for hot drinks, coffee included. It didn’t matter though, maybe today was just a bad day for the baker.

I payed for my drink and my pastry, leaving the slightly aging Mrs. Cake to do her work while I walked to work. Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten my manners. My name is Detective Colt Harris, call me Colt, everyone does. I work in the small town of Ponyville, population 210, as an inspector for the homicide department. What you’re reading right now isn’t fan fiction, it’s a recounting of the events of my day leading up to the incident known as File# 9876650. Some of you might know it better as ‘The Cupcakes Murder’ or simply as ‘Cupcakes’, but it’s my job to set the record straight and tell you all the truth. Pinkamena Diane ‘Pinkie’ Pie was a friend of mine, so it’s my duty to tell the true events of that day to the best of my knowledge. Anyway, as I was saying, I took my usual route from the bakery on Cloudsdale Drive down to the plaza, passing the outdoor market. That market always made my mouth water at the various pies and cookies out for sale, but what really caught my eye was anew stall that looked familiar somehow.

A large, pink and purple tent with colorful balloons tied to ends of the stakes holding it down filled a large spot on Main Street, and I didn’t need to ask to know who had set it up. Soon, I was greeted with the usual pink, cotton candy hair of Pinkie Pie. She looked as happy as ever, and seemed to smile extra wide when she saw me staring at her tent. Pinkie was, oddly enough, quite slim for a woman who ate sweets all the time, I guess it would have to be something of a combination of metabolism and constant activity that kept the girl thin. The baker’s assistant charged at me, running faster than even some of Princess Celestia’s own guards, but somehow stopped just inches from me as if she had no momentum at all. Just Pinkie being Pinkie, I thought to myself.

“Colty!” Pinkie called, wrapping her arms around me in a tight hug, “Oh! I’m so happy to see you, you have no idea how bored I’ve been standing out here and getting the tent ready, Well, maybe you do if you’ve ever set up a tent before, but I’m not sure you have because you don’t seem to like camping and I don’t think you hunt or fish. But, I might be wrong, so if you fish do you like it? I like fishing, but I like baking more, then again that’s pretty obvious huh?”

“Um... Yeah.” I replied, I could never follow the young girl’s line of dialog past ‘hello’. However, she seemed to giggle and smile anyway, prattling on and on about her friends and how she had invited one of them to help her make cupcakes for her outdoor pastry stand. I would later learn that this friend was Rainbow Dash, a hopeful for Princess Celestia’s flight team (The Wonderbolts) and the current pilot for a weather helicopter. You know the one, where the news anchor goes up and talks about the traffic. I’m not sure why they still called it a weather chopper in town, but maybe that was just Miss Dash wishing she could control the weather. Whether or not that was true, I had to hurry Pinkie along so that I could make it to the station on time. She waved as I left... If only I had known what would happen later that day.

Homicide in a small town isn’t unheard of, but for a peaceful community like Ponyville it was rare. We would get the odd call of domestic dispute, but for the most part I had a nearly useless job. I can honestly say that most of my day was spent drinking coffee, and looking into it to see if pictures formed when I poured the milk in. I always enjoyed natural milk more than creamer, thankfully Sweet Apple Acres was in town and the Apple Family gave P.V.P.D. all the milk they wanted. I had just settled down to my second cup, when the department got the call of a cat stuck in a tree outside the Carousel Boutique... That was the stations sign that it would be an incredibly slow day, especially for a pointless detective in a pointless department. I poured the milk into my coffee slowly, like an artist pours paint onto an easel, and just as slowly two distinct letters began to form in the bright, brown, hot liquid. I smiled to myself and turned my chair, leaning over my desk to show the man in front of mine. The man in question was my partner, ‘King’ George Wool.

Wool was a good man, a good foil to my own skills. He was patient, sympathetic, always the shoulder the victims could cry on in their time of need. Me, however, I was more calculating, more deductive. I chewed witnesses and suspects up and pat them out. In a way, I was the detective and he was the coffee boy.

“Wool, look,” I said, my voice soft in the now quiet room, “clear as day. ‘P...P...’ in the coffee, you have to admit that’s something you don’t see everyday.”

“Huh, good point Colt.” my partner said with a smile, “It’s like it’s trying to tell you something.” That’s when the real distress call came in, the call that would change my life... A call that would change this town to it’s very soul.

*****

The weather had changed for the worse, as if the very clouds were mourning the loss of one of their own. George and I had just parked next to the bakery, the SugarCube Corner, where just hours ago I was drinking a bitter, stale coffee with one of the owners. Who would’ve guessed I’d be back today, and under these circumstances to boot. My partner and I stepped out of our patrol car and into the thunderous rain, it felt like a stampede of wild buffalo on my head as I rushed to the covered cafe of SugarCube Corner. As George joined me, we entered the shop to see a grief stricken Mrs. Cake sobbing at a table while as worried looking Mr. Cake rubbed her back and held her.

“Mr. Cake,” I said, causing the older man’s head to jerk up and look at me, “What happened?”

Mr. Cake said nothing except, “I... I need to show you.” He moved his hand from his wife and lead George and me down stairs, to the basement of the sugary sweet despenatory. As we followed the owner, the hall got darker as if the sun was swallowed by Luna’s moon. I was hopeful when I saw the bit of candle light that seemed to flicker in the distance... I should’ve ran. I know I should’ve left. I had trained four years to be a police officer in Canterlot, but nothing in all my training, or in all my years of experience, would prepare me for what was hidden in that basement. Skulls, the skulls of humans littered around a table. Not just adult sized ones either, but children, and even pet skulls seemed to decorate the table the the tops of chairs like a macabre greeting party. The balloons looked harmless when glanced at, but in reality they were blown up stomachs and lungs and livers, the blood on some had just dried a week ago and had stained the bright red rug under them. It was enough to make George gag and hurl, the poor guy hadn’t seen anything like this before, not even in movies. It was odd that he would be in the homicide department, but that’s how the world turns I guess.

What I saw next, thought, that was what got to me. Above our heads, in the door frame was a large, white banner. On the banner read a simple message ‘Life’s a Party’, but it was what the message was written in that made my heart grow cold. Blood, the letters were written in hot, sticky, red blood. I reached up and scooped a bit off the banner, feeling it run and stick to my fingers as I turned to Mr. Cakes.

“Who?” I asked, pale as a ghost according to the bakery owner. The man only pointed to a young, pink haired woman whom he had knocked out. The woman’s hair was long, but that wasn’t what I was focused on. It was the body that had caught my attention, the lifeless body of Miss Rainbow Dash.

*****

Upon further inspection of the body, it seemed that Pinkie didn’t just kill Miss Dash, she massacred her. The thin, athletic helicopter pilot was stripped bare, her small breasts having been cut off first while she was still alive. Pinkie then seemed to... brutally assault Miss Dash with the handle of her knife before cutting the girl from chest to crotch and slowly, painfully cutting out each organ while the victim was still living. Pieces of flesh were ripped out of Miss Dash, her hair was cut off, and finally the slim woman’s neck was shallowly sliced, finally ending it all. I sat in the interrogation room, facing Pinkie Pie, whose normally curly locks had gone flat and straight. All I could do is look at her and ask her one question.

“Why?” I asked the clearly bored killer, “Why did you kill your friend Pinkie?”

The girl looked up at me, her big blue eyes just begging for me to kiss her, to take her, to make her pay for her crimes in the most indecent way possible. “Why Colty,” Pinkamena began, “you should know why I did it... I did it, because Dashie was a bad, bad girl. She slept around you know, with everyone. She fucked Applejack’s brother, and Mr. Soarin of The Wonderbolts, and it just broke her all my friend’s hearts when they heard over.” Pinkie slammed her fist on the table, “and over.” Slam!, “AND OVER!” Slam!! “About each and every man and woman! Lyra Heartstrings! Rarity! Cheerilee! Did you know she tried to seduce a kid when she was drunk, a kid! A school kid, about 14!” The girl I once knew as the friendliest in all of Ponyville began to scream, her eyes focused on me like fire behind ice. “The Princess named her the Element of Loyalty! LOYALTY!” Pinkamena spit on the floor, her saliva seemed red with blood, “She betrayed Celestia and Luna... So I punished her... I’m the good guy.”

I sighed and stood, turning my back to the girl I once knew, “No, Pinkie... You aren’t.”

“Colty... My name is Pinkamena. Don’t call me Pinkie again... Or I’ll make you into cupcakes too.”

*****

Colt Harris sat in his chair on the train, his eyes glazed over as if he had just inhaled the longest puff of ‘Poison Joke’ in recorded history. The ex-detective frowned as he viewed Ponyville, his town, in the backdrop of dead clouds and dying hope. Among those who were waving to his was a girl he had never seen before, a beautiful young woman, just out of college by the look of her, with long purple and violet hair. The girl pushed up her glasses and waved at Colt, as if her was a hero leaving on a crusade. Yet, he was only bringing a prisoner to Canterlot, he would be back... But he never wanted it to be soon.