Advent of Victory

“Would you stop smiling,” Deciduous hissed from my right, as I attempted to restrain myself from dancing in excitement.

“Is she okay?” I heard Scarlet ask.

“I honestly have no idea,” he deadpanned.

I turned to the right to look at my two companions who just stood there staring back at me for a long moment. Didn’t they understand what this meant? How could you not it was so obvious. I sighed and rolled my eyes pointing back to the dead pony that was lying on the floor some seven feet away.

“Don’t you get it?” I asked, to only be rewarded by two shakes of the head. “There is a murderer on this train and that can only mean one thing.”

“That we should get off?” Scarlet ventured.

“That we need to let the guard take care of it and go back to our room?” Deciduous also chimed in.

“No! It means that there is going to be a fight on top of this train. I have always wanted to be in a fight on top of a train.” My smile had once again returned as I started to think through all of the scenarios that this could play out in. One thing was for sure, I would have to somehow embed myself in the investigation, and I knew just how to do it.

I snapped back to reality and got the attention of the two ponies in front of me. “Okay we need to get in on this case, and I know just how we are going to do it.”

“Wait, why do we need to get involved?” They both asked at the same time.

“Because… you want to help bring a murderer to justice don’t you Deciduous, before anypony else is harmed.” He looked pensive for a moment before finally relenting and nodding. “And this would be a great boost to your rep wouldn’t it Scarlet?” I asked pointing to her.

She stared at me for a long while before breaking out in a laugh. “Okay, you want to play murder mystery that is fine with me.” She said.

I nodded and looked back over to the two guards that were still interviewing the mare. Their stoic armor seemed to be cracking as she continued to bawl her eyes out in front of them. I let the scene play out a little longer, her wearing them down for me, before I finally motioned back to the others to follow me.

We continued deeper into the room, making sure to gingerly step around the body. He was a unicorn stallion with a black mane and light yellow coat. He wore a suit jacket that was disheveled and becoming more soaked in blood as time passed. His wallet was lying on the floor to his right with all of the money torn out of it. A broken gold chain was attached to his jacket pocket, and his golden horseshoes glistened on the bottom of his hooves. This guy was probably filthy rich; too bad you can’t take it with you to the other side.

We finished traversing the room and came to a stop next to the guards that had yet to notice our presence. I waited a few moments before coughing to get their attention and one I had their necks audibly snapped as they turned to face me.

“Who are you,” said the first one as he reached for a blade that was attached to his belt. He was an earth pony who had a dark grey coat, which struck me as odd since I had only seen white guards so far.

“Hold it boys, didn’t mean to scare I just simply came to offer my expertise,” I replied with a smile in the best impersonation I could do of a posh English accent. “I just thought that this might be a bit much for just two of her majesties royal service to handle.”

The guard looked me over for a long while before finally relaxing and standing to face me properly. Now I have never been in a real police investigation, but I have watched hundreds of hours of crime shows. Those things cross over right?

“There may be only two of us on this train, but no we do not need any help. Why would you offer any in the first place, are you some kind of drug sniffing dog or something?” he said with a laugh. It took a lot of my willpower to not scowl at that.

I chuckled lightly just trying to let the remark roll off my back. “Of course not, as you might have guessed I am not exactly from Equestria, and back home I work as a police detective. Now you may be asking yourself why I am so far from home and just offering my services freely, and that I cannot answer. What I would ask from you two good stallions is what you have made of the scene thus far?”

This time the second one stepped forward. It came as a slight shock to find that she was not in fact a stallion but a mare, she was far larger than any mare I had ever seen was and much more muscled. She ignored my calling her a stallion, probably used to it happening and walked over to the body.

“This was a robbery,” she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “The perp probably came in while the lights were out, taking the opportunity to rob one of the expensive cars. There was a struggle and the vic was stabbed in the process where he collapsed and bled out on the floor.”

I hummed to myself as I also walked forwards to examine the corpse. I had seen him earlier, but looking over him again helped somewhat. “Who is this stallion?” I asked as I continued to look over him.

The mare pulled out her notepad and flipped through the pages a while before coming to the page she was looking for. “His name is Expensive Taste, he is an aristocrat from Canterlot on a tour of the country with his wife Pleasant View.” This time I couldn’t stop my reaction as I scoffed at the names of the two ponies. Really, why are the names so ridiculous?

“An aristocrat you say?” I tapped my chin in thought as I continued to look around him. The splayed out wallet and broken chain certainly made it look like a robbery. “What did the wife say about what happened?” She flipped through her notes a few more times before coming to the page that she was looking for; I was honestly surprised that she was being as cooperative as she was since her partner obviously didn’t like me. I spared a look back at him, and true enough he had a scowl on his face as he stared at me.

“She said that she heard the struggle taking place and that she hid under the bed. When the lights came back on she found him on the floor like this and screamed. By the time that we arrived on scene he was already dead and she was in tears.” The guard mare put away her flip book and looked back up to me.

I continued pacing for a while to give off the impression that I was thinking all the facts over. In actuality, I had seen this exact scene on CSI more than once and knew pretty much exactly what happened. “Good police work…”

“Diligence,” she replied, puffing out her chest a bit.

“Yes, good police work Diligence, but you have overlooked a glaring flaw. The stallion’s wallet is still on the ground next to him.” I pointed out and heard a pony in the doorway gasp. I looked up to see that I did in fact have an audience, which only made me smile before I continued. “A thief would not take the time to empty a wallet they had pinched at the scene of the crime, especially with the train lights coming back on at any second. No, a true thief would have taken all of the goods back to wherever they were staying before they checked to see what they had gotten. I am afraid that what we have here is premeditated homicide.”

“Homi what?” I heard Deciduous ask from behind me.

“Ponycide, I meant ponycide.” I instantly clarified. I was definitely going to need to be more careful in the future. One slip like that around the wrong person, and I could be found out instantly. Or at least, maybe I could.

“If it was premeditated then why steal from the victim?” Diligence asked back.

“To throw you off the trail of course. By the time that we make it to the next stop the killer will have hopped train, and probably never be found again. We have a clock on this situation and it is winding down each second that we sit here asking me silly questions with obvious answers,” I replied, channeling my inner Sherlock Holmes.

I turned around once more and pointed at Deciduous “Go back to our car and get some paper and a pen, we will need it for when we conduct our own thorough interviews.” He arched an eyebrow before slowly making his way out of the room.

I then pointed at the guard stallion that obviously didn’t like me “I will need everything that you have so far. Make a copy of it for Scarlet,” I motioned to the mare in question, “and she will bring it to me later.”

“Why should I take orders from you,” he spat back.

“Because I am your one chance to catch this killer before they get off this train. I am sure you would love to explain to your superior how you let the killer of a Canterlot aristocrat get away right out from under your nose.” I turned back to the body and away from him. I caught the other guard looking at me with some measure of awe and a bit of reservation.

“Just who are you?” she asked.

“The name is Vixen, and you shouldn’t go forgetting it anytime soon.”

It had taken some doing, but eventually the guards had relented and allowed me to take lead of the investigation. I was still not sure how I had managed that with just a few snide remarks and well-placed observations, but I tend to not look a gift horse in the mouth. The hours had passed by and I was finally gotten to my first interview the sun had set.

We sat in our private car with the shades drawn, though that didn’t matter much since it was now night outside. The wife of the dead stallion, Pleasant View, sat across the table from me. She still had tear stains on her face, and drank a little from the water glass we had given her when she was escorted in. She was a grey earth pony mare, probably in her forties, with a blue and pink mane styled in a bun. She also had a suit top on though hers was a light pink that matched her mane with a white undershirt on underneath. She wore a pearl necklace and had a diamond tennis bracelet on around her front left hoof.

For my part, I was trying to look as relaxed as possible. I idly fiddled with a few chess pieces on the board in front of me, playing with an invisible opponent, as I took a drink from my scotch every now and then. Deciduous stood to my left taking down everything that was said by the two of us as we continued the interview. I had asked Scarlet politely to get us a passenger manifest and ask a few ponies to come to our room to have an interview with us as well. She found the whole situation hilarious, especially how I had gotten the guards to do as I asked, and had walked off laughing lightly to herself to carry out her appointed task.

“So you were hiding during the attack, according to what you told the guards?” I asked, glancing over to Deciduous to make sure I had that right, and he nodded in return.

“Yes,” she said, not bothering to expand on her answer.

“I don’t know if you heard, but I do not believe this to be a crime of passion or opportunity. Can you tell me who would have wanted your husband dead?” At this she let out a sad laugh.

“Who didn’t?” she dabbed her eyes a few times with a clean handkerchief before continuing. “He was just about to step down from being CEO of his company. His uncle died a few weeks ago and he was going to take up being head of the family. We were going to be true nobles and this trip was our way to celebrate before went back to Canterlot.”

“I am afraid I am not overly familiar with how the noble houses work in Canterlot. Why would this make somepony want to kill your husband?”

She sniffed a few more times before looking at me again. “His uncle didn’t have any children so all of the titles he held fell to the children of his brother, my husband’s father. He had five siblings each of them vying for the noble title and wanting to become the head of the house. If I had to guess I would say it was probably one of them that did this.”

“Anypony in particular that we should focus our search on?” I asked, sitting back once more and taking another sip.

“I would look into his brother High Born,” seriously these names are ridiculous, “he was older than Expensive and thought that he should have been the successor. He is a lay about that just used his status all his life, and lived off of his parent’s money. He of course didn’t get chosen to be the next head like my Expensive did. He was a hard working stallion that never took shortcuts.” She brushed a few more tears away from her eyes.

“Thank you for your time Pleasant View, if we need anything else from you we will call you again,” I said as I stood and began to usher her out of the room. Talking with crying women still made me insanely uncomfortable and we could always do this later when she had calmed down some more.

“Of course, thank you Miss Vixen,” she replied as she stood. “I need to contact the company about Expensive’s passing.” As she was about to step out of the car she turned and looked me straight in the eye. “Get whoever did this. Promise me you will do that.” I nodded and without another word she turned and made her way along the passageway outside.

I sighed and padded back into the room where Deciduous still stood waiting. I sat back down on the couch and took another sip of my drink before turning back to look at him. “You got all of that right?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Good, send the next one in.”

“So you are the conductor of the train?” I asked the elderly stallion in front of me. He was an earth pony with a light blue coat and a mane that had turned grey long ago. He wore very large thick-rimmed glasses and had on a red bowtie.

“That’s right little lady,” he replied as he sat across from me. I shrugged off the comment and focused instead on the case. I found myself really liking murder investigation for some reason it was very exciting.

“So perhaps you can tell me what happened with the lights.” I said, also sitting back.

“Well it goes like this, I was up in the engine care mindin’ my own business when all o’ a sudden the lights for the whole train go out. Now I know this old girl like the back of my hoof so I quickly hurried along to the breakers and found ‘em all tripped. Well I flipped ‘em all on and then that scream came from somewhere in the back. I didn’t really think anything of it, but some minutes later one of dem guards comes a hollerin’ and tells me someponys been killed. Don’t really know what happened after that so I just went back to the engine car and mindin my own business.” The guard hadn’t gotten around to interviewing the stallion yet so I had first crack at him.

“Tell me then…”

“Steady Ride,” he supplied.

“Tell me then Steady Ride, how did all of the breakers get flipped in the first place?” I moved another piece on the board in front of me, capturing the white side’s rook.

“Don’t rightfully know myself. Coulda been a surge in the system or somepony could flipped them themselves. I wasn’t standin around at the time so I can’t tell ya.” I nodded and went along with what he was saying. The stallion seemed far too old and frail to wrestle a younger one to the ground and murder him so it wasn’t likely that he did it.

“Thank you for coming by, I don’t really have any more questions for you at this time, but can you stop by again if we need to talk to you again?” I said as I got up.

“Of course I can, and I’ve been needin to ask ya. Are you that same Vixen that saved Rubyton about a week ago?” I froze, and tried to maintain an amiable smile.

“You heard about that huh?” I said turning back to him.

“Well I just knew it. I have to thank ya for that, my daughter lives out in Rubyton and if it weren’t for you I just don’t know what coulda happened to her. Of course, I will make time to talk to ya whenever you like.” He approached the door with a smile and was about to leave before I called out to him once more.

“Can you tell me how long it is going to take to reach our destination?”

“Well I figure it will take about five more days before we get to the next stop,” he said turning back to me.

“Anyway that you could push that back a little farther, and give us more time to catch this killer before we get there?”

“Sorry, no can do. This train has run on time for the past twenty years and I am not about to have that record blemished. Thank ya for what you did back in Rubyton and let me know if I can be of any more help.” With that he exited the car leaving me alone with Deciduous once again. I walked back over to the couch and sat down, motioning for Deciduous to let the next one in.

“I don’t understand why you are asking me questions.” Said the stallion across from me with his hooves crossed in front of him. It was the same guard that I had trouble getting along with earlier, and had asked to come in to answer a few questions. I had learned previously that his name was Stern Hoof.

“Isn’t it protocol to go over the responding officers to the scene of a crime?” I asked, I was still piecing together how the justice system in Equestria operated.

“Of course it is, what I am saying is I don’t understand why I am talking to you. You have no position or authority here so why are you the one asking the questions. I wouldn’t even be going along with this if it weren’t for Diligence wanting your help so much,” He replied coldly.

“And the fact that I could actually solve this thing,” I added.

“You know what, that is it.” He stood up and hastily made his way to the door. “If you find anything take it up with Diligence, I will be doing the real police work on my own.” With that he slammed the door to the car after making his exit. I sighed and sat back in the couch one more, rubbing my temples. I was starting to get a headache at asking all of these questions.

“I only got one more in me today, Deciduous. Can you send the last one in please?” I sat forwards and poured myself another bit of scotch as I waited for the final interviewee to come in.

The final interview that I had today just so happened to be with Diligence, and the mare sat across from me at attention answering all of my questions with lightning speed. She was a unicorn with the stark white coat that I had seen all of the other guards having. She was perfectly controlled in the way that she sat there in front of me, waiting for the questions to be asked.

“Okay Diligence, tell me what you saw when you first arrived on the scene.” I said.

“After hearing the scream coming from the car me and my partner Stern Hoof raced to the car in order to see what was the matter. When we arrived we found Expensive Taste dead on the floor in a pool of his own blood and Pleasant View crying to herself in the corner. She had her face buried in her hooves and was rocking back in forth.

“My partner and I hurried over to her after checking to make sure that Expensive Taste had no pulse to find out what the situation was. She told us that somepony had murdered her husband while the lights were out, and we began to immediately take her statement. We hadn’t even noticed the onlookers gathered around until you interrupted us talking with Pleasant.

“At that time you began to take the lead, and we relinquished control of the investigation to you despite my partner’s protests. We kept looking around the train during the interim, but found nothing suspicious going on. You called me into this interview sometime later, and that is all that happened since we first heard the scream.” She finished.

“That was very…professional. Can you tell me what you and your partner were doing before you heard the scream?” I asked, hoping to establish an alibi without too much trouble.

“We were playing cards in the guard’s car. Both of us can corroborate the other’s whereabouts at the time of the murder,” She added.

“Good, this was mainly just a follow-up since I already have your written report here. Keep doing a good job and I am confident that we will catch this killer in no time.” I said moving to let her leave.

She got up from her seat and patiently made her way to the door. She didn’t bother saying anything to me as she left like the others had, and I had to respect her a little bit for that. With the last interview of the day complete I sighed and walked over to the bed where I flopped down, feeling exhausted.

It seemed that my time in the hospital had done a number on my stamina and I was already wiped out from all of the excitement that went on that day. The door opened once again, drawing my attention, and I watched as Scarlet entered the room with a clipboard held in her mouth. She walked over to the bed that I was lounging on and dropped it on the mattress next to me before hovering over to the couch where she sat down and also let out a tired sigh.

“If I knew getting a manifest was going to be so difficult I would have stayed behind and done the interview thing,” she said glancing at Deciduous. I picked up the list of names and started flipping through it. It only contained basic information, but at least it was a start.

“Being a stenographer is no picnic you know,” Deciduous shot back. “No matter how fast they are talking I have to write all of it down, and make sure that I don’t miss anything. Even the slightest thing could be the clue we need to bring this whole case down.” He tossed the legal pad that he had been using so far onto the table next to the chessboard.

“Still probably easier than running around and getting every single ponies info,” Scarlet said as she stretched out and grabbed the bottle of scotch. I was actually surprised that I hadn’t been feeling any of its effects with how much of it I had been drinking through the day. It was probably watered down significantly to save the rail company money. “So how are we doing these sleeping arrangements anyways?”

Deciduous put a hoof to his chin for a while before replying, “I think you and I get the couches, unless you want to share the bed with Vixen. She is bigger and just got out of the hospital after all.” Something on the list in front of me suddenly jumped out at me and brought a smile to my lips.

Scarlet hummed to herself before looking back over at me. “I am fine with taking the couch, but I would prefer the bed. You don’t mind if we share do you?”

I looked up from the list at my companions that were discussing what I might have considered trivial. “Forget that, and listen to what I just found.” I said turning the list around towards them.

“What is it?” Deciduous asked, getting up from the couch and walking over to me before taking the list.

“Third from the bottom. Do you know who that pony is?” I asked, sitting back with a smug grin plastered on my face.

“I says its some mare named High Class.” He looked at me confused for a moment before taking a look back at the list. “What about her?”

“Take a look at who it says her husband is,” I urged him.

He looked back over the list and studied it for a while before he also had a smile on his lips. “High Born,” he said after a moment.

“Exactly.”