Advent of Victory

When I finally made it back to our car I threw the door wide before hurrying inside. I was actually surprised that my breath wasn’t very heavy, had I been back in my old human body then I would be hunched over after having sprinted all the way here from the other car that I had found the paper in. Decidious and Scarlet both stopped whatever they had just been doing to look at me in surprise. Deciduous had a spoonful of some kind of soup held in his grasp and his mouth was still open, whereas Scarlet was holding a magazine of some kind and peering at me over the top of it.

“I figured out everything!” I exclaimed before ducking back out and heading towards the guard car. Behind me I caught wind of an exasperated sigh and a metal object clattering against porcelain. Good it looked like they were going to follow me.

The guard car wasn’t actually very far from our own, only about three of four doors down towards the dining car. I saw the door up ahead and spurred myself into a sprint once again in my excitement before throwing this door open as well. Admittedly, that wasn’t exactly the best move.

Both of the guard ponies that had been napping inside were in my face in an instant, moving to pin down the intruder. I barely had time to move out of the way before Stern Hoof, the one that had taken a personal dislike to me, barreled through the open doorway. He rolled back to his hooves and crouched low one more in what looked like him getting ready for a strike. I caught movement from his back hoof just before everything stopped.

I once again found myself unable to breath, and was very disturbed. It seemed that I had gone into this strange time stop ability on reflex again. I continued to hold my breath as I looked the pony over, his back hooves we pointed to me and a few inches off of the ground at this point. It was obvious that he was aiming to kick me straight on, were guards supposed to strike out without assessing threats first?

I coiled the muscles in my own legs, being very careful not to actually move before letting out my breath and jumping back simultaneously. The fur was blown from my face as the two hooves whipped past me.

“Hold on, hold on. It’s just me,” I said as I took a few more steps backwards. Stern Hoof stopped for a moment before turning around to face me, a scowl evident on his face. Diligence chose that time to take a step from the doorway and look at me too, she did not look very happy either.

“What business do you have throwing the door to our car open,” Stern nearly shouted as he took a few steps forwards.

I looked between the two guard ponies for a few seconds before straightening myself up to my full height and staring him down. “I was going to tell you about how you arrested the wrong pony and now the real killer will be getting away once we stop in the next town, but now I don’t know if I want to,” I huffed.

Now Diligence decided that she too should step forwards, “Wait, what do you mean by that?” she asked.

I produced the paper that I had at some point taken the time to tuck into my saddlebags, and handed it to her. She looked the paper over for several seconds before looking back up to me with a blank expression. “What is this supposed to be?” she asked once more.

I sighed and rolled my eyes as I pushed past the two and back into their private car. The guard car was admittedly much smaller than my own had been, but was still decently sized considering that there was a mini-jail in the far corner of the room. High Class sat alone in the cell with chains now around her hooves and that silver ring still on her horn.

“I had spent so much time trying to figure out why she would have possibly done it or tried to hide the evidence of her doing it on the train. The only real piece of concrete evidence we have had in this entire case was the handkerchief with her initials on it,” as I spoke the two guard also followed me into the room and High Class looked up at me from her cell. Good, now I had an audience.

“I thought we had been over that already,” Stern retorted, “she killed him so that her husband could be the new head of the house.”

I spun quickly to face him “Wrong, High Class only had an empty titles to gain from that. She is the head of many charities and would have to give up that position were she to become part of the aristocracy.”

Now Diligence decided to add her input “But we still have her handkerchief with the victims blood on it.”

“Yes, but High Class isn’t the one that put it there. She was framed by the real killer.” I had honestly expected a gasp, but unfortunately received none.

“If it wasn’t her then who was it?” Stern asked.

“Pleasant View.”

“What!” this time it was High Class gasping from her jail cell. Stern shot her a look and she immediately settled back down.

“Yes Pleasant View is the real killer behind this entire plot. The timeline just didn’t make sense to me at all, how did High Class here turn out the lights, make her way to the car in the darkness, kill the stallion, and then make her getaway before the lights came back on? Then it suddenly came to me, she didn’t because she couldn’t have. The only thing that we have really marking the time of the victims death was the scream from Pleasant View that established the beginning of the known timeline.

“That scream happened because she wanted us to come to the private car. The first thing she did was kill her husband, and make it look like a robbery before she made her way to the back of the train and cut the lights. Once that was done she hurried back to her car and waited for the lights to come back on so that she could scream.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Diligence cut in before I could continue. “Where does the handkerchief and the pocket watch come in then?”

I smiled back at her “I was just about to get to that. If you haven’t noticed the floors of the train are not cleaned on a regular basis, or at least they haven’t been cleaned for as long as we have been here. How could High Class have possibly made it all the way back to the end of the train before cleaning her hooves of blood without leaving a single print on the floor? For that matter why would she even do it? She could have just cleaned her hooves and chucked all the evidence off the side of the train if she wanted.

“No those two pieces were planted by the same pony that gave us the High Class lead in the first place, none other than Pleasant View herself. Once we had caught on that this was no regular robbery and interviewed her she pointed me at High Class for the number one suspect. At some point she snuck away once again and planted the evidence in a place she knew we would look. It is the only thing that makes sense.” I had seen reveals like this on cop shows before, and was a little disappointed that I didn’t actually have Pleasant View here for it.

Stern decided that it was his turn to speak once more “Okay, lets say all of this crap you are trying to shovel us is true. Why would she do it? She was about to become a member of the aristocracy along with her husband, and she never worked a day in her life. What reason could she possibly have to kill her husband when she was about to get this big break?”

And finally we were getting to the crescendo, with a smirk I replied in a single word, “Money.”

“Money?” he parroted.

“Yes, one of the oldest and truest reasons for murder. Motive was the hardest thing about this case, and once I finally figured out hers all the pieces fell into place. She had to kill her husband before he could actually become the head of the household and step down from CEO of his company. Diligence if you would be so kind could you take a look once more and tell me just how much Pleasant View will be collecting from the company’s life insurance policy on her husband?”

The mare looked over the paper a few more times before her eyes went wide “Five hundred thousand bits!” she exclaimed.

“Exactly, if he had succeeded in stepping down from the company she would get nothing. The mare married early to a rich bachelor who was only going up in the world. After he would have become the head of the house he wouldn’t have nearly as much money for her to blow all over town, only being able to use the families money for family things.”

Stern looked back and forth between me and High Class who sat silently in the cell behind me a few times before letting out a long sigh, “I hate to say it but…this all make perfect sense.”

Diligence turned her eyes from the paper to her partner “You believe her Stern?”

Stern put off answering to walk over to the cell instead and unlock it. “Yes, I believe her and have to admit that I had been feeling something off about this whole thing from the start. I couldn’t exactly put my hoof on what was wrong, but she hit the nail on the head and is right. Everything just seemed to fall into place just now.” He unlocked the door of the jail and started undoing the chains that were on High Class’ hooves.

I was actually pretty shocked by Stern Hoof being so level headed about this now since he had seemed like a pretty big asshole the entire time I had known him. Admittedly, that had only been a few days and that is usually not nearly long enough to get to know someone, but still, this was a new side of him. I actually found myself smiling as the last of the restraints fell away from High Class. My ears flicked towards the sound of approaching hooves, I still felt extremely unsettled whenever that happened, and a few seconds later Scarlet and Deciduous were looking through the doorway at all of us in the room.

“What did we miss?” Scarlet asked.

“Nothing, things are just about to get interesting.”

When we finally found Pleasant View she was eating alone in the dining car. We made out our way into the car with myself at the head of the entourage, which was a hard one battle in and of itself since Stern Hoof really wanted to take lead. Behind me were the two guards and behind them were my two companions, Scarlet let out a bored yawn as we reached our destination while Deciduous looked to still be going over everything I had just told him a few minutes prior. High Class had even opted to join us in our search though she mostly kept to herself at the back of our little pack.

Pleasant View noticed us as soon as we entered the car, probably due to the not so subtle way I had of opening doors, and dropped what she was eating immediately. She was halfway across the car staring at us with side eyes as all six pairs of our own locked onto her immediately, I think it was about then that I realized we were kind of giving ourselves away here. It seemed that Pleasant realized the same thing and bolted for the door on the other side of the car, and what happened next was the most ridiculous accidental dog pile that it has ever been my displeasure of being part of.

As soon as the mare ran from her table I tried to immediately take off after her like any person impersonating a police professional would, but tripped over a bag on the floor that I wasn’t able to feel due to my numb paws. Stern has been just behind me and tried to take off at the same time only to trip over me and fall atop my lithe form. Diligence met the same fate as her partner and soon I was crushed beneath the two guard, who by the way were clad in that heavy looking (and feeling) golden armor that you see them wearing in the show.

Next up in this display of pure incompetence was Scarlet who was walking to the front of the group laughing her ass off. “You guys look like such idiots,” she managed to choke out between her fit of laughter…she never saw the banana peel coming. It was incredibly acrobatic of her to somehow slip into the air sideways and land square atop Diligence.

Crack

I let out a literal howl of pain as I felt one of my ribs crack from the combined weight being put on them. They had been mending so well too. At the actual sign of me being in pain the whole stupid fiasco seemed to end and the three ponies quickly hurried and got off of me, apologizing profusely all the while, except for Stern of course who maintained that it was my fault in the first place. I unsteadily made my way back to my paws and looked back at the bandages around my chest, they were still in place and I could still walk, though breathing would be difficult for a little bit.

“Okay let’s get her,” I said as I started to walk towards the door that Pleasant had fled through what seemed like five minutes ago.

My pace proved to be too slow for the two guards that raced ahead of me and through the door before I was even halfway across the room, but I didn’t let that deter me. I was actually in a chase on a train, and I wasn’t going to let something like a broken rib stop that. Scarlet and Deciduous kept pace with me, the former still apologizing and the later looking at me with worry evident on his face. I was not exactly sure where High Class had decided to run off to, but she was now gone.

We reached the door, which opened into an open air railing that connected the dining car to the coach set of cars, just in time to see the two guards taking off down the long corridor in front of us. I was about to follow them but was stopped by Deciduous by tapping my shoulder.

“Vixen look at this?” he said pointing to a horseshoe that was lying under a ladder that led up onto the top of the train. I looked between the two for a couple of seconds before it dawned on me what he was implying, and I felt my face pull into a large smile despite the good amount of pain I was in.

“Alright,” Scarlet butted in, “I will just fly up there and…”

“Scarlet,” I swiftly cut her off while doing my best attempt at big puppy dog eyes “just…just…okay?”

She looked at me long and hard “You are hurt even more now and it would be easy for me to just...”

“Oh my gosh can you just be cool, once, please. Just once. Can you just once be cool? Once. Please.” There wasn’t really a valid response she could even make to that other than just to look at me with that deadpanned stare she was giving me.

I took that as all the permission I was going to get and immediately started ascending the ladder. It was incredibly difficult to do, and I am still not even sure why ponies build ladders in the first place when they have to do this with hooves, but just a little while later I was looking over the top of the dining car at the tracks behind us. Just a couple more seconds after that I was all the way on top of the train and admiring the view. I didn’t see Pleasant View down that side of the train so I turned around to look the other way, but was swiftly laid low as the blinding pain hit me.

“Oh god my eyes! My eyes are on fire!” I covered said eyes with a paw, which allowed me momentary respite from all of the dirt that was being blown into them at the speed of a train. I peeked out momentarily from behind my paw to see Pleasant galloping down that end of the train.

After having come this far I wasn’t going to let a little something like potential eye damage stop me. I took a few steps back while angling my head down to help shield my eyes before getting a running start and jumping across the gap. Apparently the gravel in the eye had helped me forget the pain in my ribcage and I quickly took off after the mare that was still trying to escape.

I was faster than her by a good bit and quickly started closing the gap as we raced atop the train cars. I felt like I was in the train scene of my favorite Indiana Jones movie, except that there were no deadly animals in each car trying to kill me. The mare arrived at the front of the train and came to a stop just as I landed on the car behind her.

“Give it up Pleasant, we figured it all out and you running from the guard pretty much sealed your fate. Now come along peacefully and nopony has to get hurt,” I said as I started to inch towards her.

She spun around to face me as soon as I started talking, slowly moving to one side of the train. “You don’t understand, I could never have been an aristocrat, not really. I am an earth pony for Celestia’s sake, the unicorn nobles would never allow it.” She kept moving slowly to the left side of the train, it was at that time I realized that we happened to be traveling along a mountainside and how bad this situation might turn.

“You don’t have to tell me I know how ponies can be, but you need to come with me now,” I said, trying to calm her down.

“I can’t go to prison, I won’t! I’ve heard what happens to mares in prison, I won’t let that happen to me.” She put a hoof over the side of the train car.

“Now just hold on let’s talk about this. Don’t do anything crazy now,” I urged, taking a step forwards.

“Stay back!” she screamed, causing me to freeze.

“Look Pleasant, you killed your husband so you are going to prison, but we can probably get you protection from those kinds of things.” I took another hesitant step towards the mare.

She looked back at me as I tried to make my slow approach with big sorrowful eyes. If I hadn’t known better I would have guessed that she was actually sorry for what she did, but I did know better. She had killed her husband in cold blood and made his death look elaborate so there was little chance that she would actually feel remorse over this. Still, she did look sad, and she continued to look at me sadly as she jumped over the edge.

“No!”