The Muffin Mishap

"Alright my lowly assistant, what do you think we should do first when investigating a crime?"

"Hmm......." thought Derpy.

"Well?"

"Oh! I know! We should get some snacks so that we don't starve to death during our investigation."

"Exactly!" confirmed Pinkie with a puff of her pipe. "Which is why I brought some emergency cupcakes and muffins for us, just in case."

Pinkie scrounged around in her mane a bit, searching for her muffin supply.

"Now where did I put those muffins. Nope, not there. Whoa, definitely not there. Oh hey! I've been looking everywhere for this!" Pinkie laughed as she pulled out a rubber chicken. "How did you get in here? Ok I found it. Chocolate or vanilla?"

"Vanilla please."

Pinkie handed Derpy a tasty vanilla muffin, full of carbohydrates. Guaranteed to keep you energized while you solve crime!

"Brilliant thinking Pinkie!" complimented Derpy with a mouthful of muffin.

"Thanks!" replied Pinkie with a mouthful of cupcake. "Alright, what should we do next my lowly assistant?"

"I dunno, you're the expert."

"Guilty as charged," Pinkie bragged, "Well, if I learned anything from Twilight during the MMMystery on the Friendship Express, the next thing we should do is look for clues."

"That sounds like fun!" commented Derpy.

"It sure is Derpy," Pinkie agreed, "Although, it's probably not as fun as baking apple fritters with Applejack, or helping Twilight with her experiments, or watching Rainbow Dash perform a new trick, or critiquing Rarity's dresses, or helping Fluttershy care for her animals, or—'

'Pinkie, we're getting off topic," interrupted Derpy.

"I am? Oh right! Sorry about that."

Pinkie took a moment to compose herself. This was a serious matter after all.

"Alright Pinkie, focus. We need to find Derpy's muffin. The consequences would be dire if it fell into the wrong hooves. I can only imagine what would happen if Princess Celestia or Princess Luna got a hold of it somehow."

"Alright Derpy, listen up!  We'll spread out and take turns searching every room to maximize our chances of finding good evidence. Leave no inch unexamined. After all, Muffin is counting on us."

Pinkie drove her point home with an extra long blow on her pipe.

"Am I understood?"

"Sir yes sir! Err... ma'am yes ma'am!"

"Good! Now let's find some evidence."

"Uhh... Pinkie?"

"Yes my lowly assistant?"

"What is evidence?"

Aside from the occasional villainous attempt to overthrow Celestia or bring about eternal chaos, not much happened in Ponyville on a daily basis. Any grand opening of a shop would not go unnoticed by anypony, which is why one shop in particular had a generous helping of customers today.

It was the grand opening, or shall we say renaming, Of Joe's Doughnuts into Joe's Muffins. How exciting!

Joe's Doughnuts was quite the popular bakery. It was the go-to place for, well, doughnuts. It also didn't hurt that the doughnuts were pretty damn delicious. Once Doughnut Joe's shop had been renovated, the residents of Ponyville were eager to see what new tricks Joe had up his sleeve, and boy did he have some tricks up his sleeve. Already being a jack of the baking trade, Joe took to muffins like a duck to water. However, quite a bit of his new-found knowledge had been gifted to him by none other than Muffin. Once Joe's mind had surrendered, his brain was overloaded with all things muffin.

Rarity, still feeling ashamed from her earlier mishap, decided to see how Joe's new store was doing, as well as apologize. She entered the shop, and immediately noticed the incredible muffin which was on display by the register. It would without a doubt attract more customers. If one were to look carefully though, they would notice several bite marks disturbing the otherwise perfect image. One or two in particular looked recent. After waiting in line for a few minutes, she finally made it to the register. Instead of being greeted by Joe though, she was greeted by someone else.

"Hello and welcome to Joe's Muffins. How can I help you?" asked a middle-aged mare.

"Good day miss. I was actually wondering if I could speak with Joe, if that's alright." replied Rarity.

"Really? My my, such a fine young lady wishes to have a 'chat' with my little Joey! How exciting! Come on then, follow me."

"Thank you miss."

"Honey! Could you mind the register for me? Our son has a 'special' visitor," shouted the mare, with a little too much emphasis on special.

"A visitor you say? Well well, it's about time!" replied the mare's husband as he took over the register. "May I have the next in line please?"

Rarity was led into the rear section of the shop. This was were the magic happened. Feverishly slaving away over several high quality baking ovens, was none other than Joe. He appeared to be in quite the disarray. His mane looked like a mini tornado had hit it and one of his pupils was larger than the other. He was covered in sugar, batter, sprinkles and other random ingredients. Several muffins were strewn about the floor for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Joe's mother quickly trotted over to him and did her best to make him a bit more presentable for the nice young mare. There wasn't much she could do though, aside from straighten his mane a bit.

"I'll just leave you two... 'friends' alone for a bit," joked the mare as she scampered out of the room.

"Wow, she really is desperate isn't she?" thought Rarity. "This will make for excellent gossip material later on."

"Hello Doughnut Joe. Err I mean... Muffin Joe," greeted Rarity.

"Hi muffin," replied Joe.

"I just came to say that I... wait... did you just call me mufffin?"

"Yes muffin," confirmed Joe.

"Well, I am flattered, but I regret to inform you that I do not return your feelings."

"Aww... muffin."

"I'm sorry Joe, but you can't just force love upon somepony," explained Rarity. "Love needs time to grow and develop."

"Ahh...muffins," agreed Joe.

"Exactly Joe, it's like a muffin! You can't just make a muffin appear out of nowhere. You need to mix the batter, add the ingredients, etc. Anyway, I didn't come to talk about making muffins. I came to apologize for my eavesdropping on you earlier. It was quite unbecoming of a lady such as myself. I do hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me," whimpered Rarity.

Joe looked at Rarity's innocent pout and quivering eyes. How could he refuse?

"I forgive muffin."

Once hearing that Joe had forgiven her, Rarity trotted up to Joe and gave him a quick hug.

"Thanks for being so forgiving Joe. You are quite the gentlestallion."

"Aww...muffins muffins muffins."

"Yes, that. Anyway I'll be going now. Bye Joe!"

"Muffins!"

"He sure is acting strange. Why does he keep saying muffin all the time?" thought Rarity as she trotted away.

Rarity exited the room, and after buying herself a muffin, began making her way for the door. As she was about to reach for the doorknob, she was interrupted by the same mare from before.

"So... when am I gonna get some grandfoals?" she chuckled. It was quite obvious that she was nervous due to her sweating and odd breathing patterns.

"No no no. Our relationship is nothing like that ma'am. Now if you'll excuse me I must be going now."

Rarity left the building, leaving a disappointed mare behind.

"Dammit, there goes another one." she seethed internally.

"Alright Derpy, what have you got so far?" asked Pinkie.

"Well....... I found this old toothbrush behind a wardrobe. Does that help?"

Pinkie face-hoofed. Things weren't going as planned. Then again, when do they ever?

"No Derpy. We are supposed to be looking for things that are related to the crime. Things like hoofprints and hairs lying around are what we should be keeping an eye out for."

"Well, in that case, I did find some weird stuff by the window over there."

Pinkie inflated like a balloon.

"Really? Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy! This is sooo exciting!" she beamed. "Well what are you waiting for Derpy? Show me show me show me!"

Pinkie bounced behind Derpy as she was led to the window near the cardboard chandelier.

"Alright my lowly assistant, this may very well be the scene of the crime. Look for anything that might be labelled as suspicious."

"Yes ma'am!" saluted Derpy.

After ten minutes of sweeping the crime scene. Both Derpy and Pinkie had discovered a few clues. Pinkie had found a few crumbs on the floor which hadn't come from neither her nor Derpy. She collected them in a small plastic bag and labelled it as evidence A. Derpy had found a brown hair on the floor, once again not being from either of them. She collected it and labelled it as evidence B. Finally, the duo had both discovered a stick hidden from view. It was most likely brought in by the thief. Pinkie bagged it and labelled it evidence C.

"Alright Derpy, now we should examine this evidence to see if it gives us any suspects."

Both Pinkie and Derpy piled their evidence together and checked to see if it could link them to anypony. There wasn't much they could conclude from the crumbs, other than that the thief was probably hungry. As for the stick, there wasn't anything they could deduce. Maybe the thief had a strange obsession with sticks? The most promising piece of evidence was the hair which Derpy had found on the floor. Now, they could limit their search to ponies with brown manes. Still, it wasn't much to go by. There were quite a few ponies in Ponyville with brown manes.

"Oh I have an idea!" exclaimed Derpy.

"Lay it on me Derpy."

"Maybe we can have Twilight examine the evidence for us!"

"Derpy that's a great idea! I'm sure Twilight could use some fancy magic to tell us everything we need to know! Good job my lowly assistant."

"Just doing my duty ma'am," responded Derpy.

The duo had spent so much time investigating that they didn't realize how time had flown by. The sun was starting to set and ponies could be seen heading back to their homes.

"Alright Derpy, I'll meet you back here again first thing in the morning. We'll head on over to Twilight's place and see if she can help us. It's a good thing I don't have to work tomorrow. Not that I'd mind working though. Working at Sugarcube Corner is the best job ever! Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow Derpy. Oh boy this is soo exciting! Isn't this exciting Derpy? Can you imagine how the culprit's face is gonna look when we catch him!?"

"He'll probably be like 'oh no it wasn't me! Please don't turn me in to the police! I have a wife and three foals!' And then we'll be like, 'Ya ya, tell it to the judge ya filthy thief.' It's gonna be awesome," fantasized Derpy.

"We shouldn't really have him put in jail though should we?" asked Pinkie. "It seems a bit... I dunno... cruel?"

"You're right Pinkie," agreed Derpy. "Maybe we can let him off with a warning then? We can make him swear to not steal ever again. That way, no muffin will have to suffer such an ordeal in the future. Maybe we could also report it to the police?"

"Good idea! That way we don't have to feel guilty afterwards for letting him go unpunished," praised Pinkie.

The pair was interrupted by the reminder that the sun was going down and it was getting late.

"Alright Derpy, I best be going now. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight Pinkie! Thanks for everything. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Oh? Pffft. That's what friends are for silly!"

Pinkie booped Derpy's nose and began her bounce back to Sugarcube Corner. It was nice to have such good friends to help you out in times of need. However, even she couldn't fill the void left by Muffin's absence.

Derpy sat on her haunches and looked up the orange sunset. A single tear rolled down her eye as she though about the horrors which Muffin must be going through.

"Don't worry Muffin. Mommy's coming soon."