Deduction is Magic-The Final Chapters

“And then I ran to find Pinkie.” Twilight continued. “She said she would be at the library with another detective that liked punch or something. And she was the closest one.”

“Well, now that your back...” Sherlock said to Pinkie Pie, who had just entered the room with Applejack. “How about you tell the story.”

“... Do... Do I have to?”

“It would be best.” he said, either ignoring, or not realizing that the subject was making her uncomfortable.

“W, well... okay... Well, I just got back to Sugar cube corner...”

“How's the numbers thing working out?” Pinkie Pie asked as she entered the Library and trotted towards Abigail Horscuito. The mare was white with a black mane and a cutie mark of a spiders web. On another desk was a large globe with pins in it, which immediately took Pinkies attention.

“I've tried everything!” Abby said, using magic to write down three or four codes at once all around her. Her eyes frantically searched the letters and numbers. “I thought it was just a simple number to letter code, but it's all gibberish. Even the higher level sequences...”

“Anything I can do?” Pinkie asked excitedly, spinning the globe on it's axis very quickly.

“Well, I've tried everything I can. This code needs a key. And I can't make any progress until we find one.” She frowned and sat down.

“Well, I was going to make you a cake, but then I heard you like Punch better,” Pinkie turned and placed a very large beverage on the table. “I made it CAKE flavor.”

“...Does it have refined Sugar.”

Pinkie shook her head.

“... is there caffeine?”

“LOTS of caffeine!”

“Thanks!” Abby took it graciously and took a sip. “I'm beginning to like you” Pinkie smiled. Abby continued, “ ... well, maybe I just need another pair of eyes. You take a look.” Pinkie peeped down at the original paper,

Red Dot-

23-9 28-10 13-6-27-10 6 21-23-20-7-17-10-18 24-25-6-30 6-25 13-20-18-10

18-20-20-23-14-6-23-25-30

5

“Any thoughts?” Abby asked.

“Through the powers of my Pinkie deduction skills” Pinkie said with a hoof on her head. “Those are definitely, unarguably, 100% genuine numbers.”

Abby sighed. “Well, thanks for your input...” she stopped. Gasped and kissed Pinkie on the cheek.

“Huh...” Pinkie flinched. Abby spent a brief moment with her quills before jumping up and down ecstatic.

“Deduction! You're Brilliant! The number at the bottom isn't part of the code, it's the key! Translate the numbers to letters and you get nothing. But if you 'deduct' five from every number, and THEN convert them into letters...” she showed the new text, no longer gobbledygook,

Red Dot-

“RD we have a problem stay at home

Mooriarty”

“Wowza.” Pinkie commented.

“That was very clever.” a dark voice began.

“Who's that?” Pinkie turned. There was nothing there.

“Mooriarty came up with that code... it's no wonder you got through it so quickly. He can be so thick at times...” the voice now came with a wind swirling about the inside of the tree. “But he did open a few doors for me...”

“You work with Mooriarty!” Pinkie went down into a battle stance as Abby continued to look for the source of the voice. “That means you've been helping him hurt ponies!”

“On the contrary.” The voice began as the darkness started to seep in through the walls. “He's the one helping me..” Pinkie felt a powerful entity force it's way into her mind. She gasped for a moment, and then she heard the voice speak to her...

“The light in the dark and the wanderer off mark,”

She remembered the day she met Twilight, and the scary trees. She remembered as she laughed at them and made them disappear.

“What songs you sing, what dreams you bring.”

The songs. She remembered them. Every day. She began to think of another one, and another dream. She thought of the faces of all her friends with her, with her in this darkness she was in now...

“But you hop around in circles, and you cannot leave.”

They were gone. She panicked and looked around. She couldn't see Abby anywhere. No Twilight, no Dash, nopony.

“For every pony is a party of one.”

She panicked. She ducked down and covered her head. Where where they? Why were they gone? Why couldn't she see anything? She screamed out but there was no reply. She felt so cold. So alone. So dark. She tried to look up, but there where no stars in this darkness. No stars, No sun, No...

And then it came to her.

“A planet?” She said.

Abby was beside her now and the darkness began to recede. Pinkie was out of breath, but suddenly felt so much warmer.

“You ponies have such a way with riddles.” The dark voice continued as the darkness slunk back into the walls wince they came. “But you all can't be so lucky. I'll see how strong your kind is soon enough.”

Just as the voice stopped and the darkness left, the door slammed open and two Ponys charged in.

“Pinkie!” Twilight led Stable into the library. “Are you okay?”

“We were just attacked.” Abby answered from the shell shocked Pinkie.

“And you are?” Stable asked.

“Abbigail Horscuito, Forensic annalist. And you?” She responded.

“Richard Stable, Uh... Crime Novelist...” Stable admitted. “Have you seen a big... dark... thing recently?”

“YES” Pinkie replied. “It was just here! And it was like, 'I'm in your head' and I was like 'Nooo' and it was like 'Yes! Now I will tell you a riddle' and then I was like, 'who turned out the lights, it's really dark' and then it got real scary, and... and...” she began to stumble over her words and slow her speech.

“She answered the riddle and it left.” Abby continued. “But I never would have guessed the answer, and it seemed like Pinkie here had a powerful reaction to the words...”

Twilight nodded “This thing is very powerful. It can force it's way into your mind, with ease. But for some reason it doesn’t just take you over... it has a limit. ” Twilight thought aloud. “So long as we answer it's riddle, it cant harm us. We need to find the others fast!”

“But Rarity is all the way in Manehatten, Dash and Applejack are still looking for clues at the crime scenes, and Fluttershy is up on that Mountain remember?” Pinkie said. “They're all too far away...”

“Then we need to find out where it will strike next...” Twilight said. “... It said to me that it didn't have all day. It has a schedule to keep. Did it say anything to you?”

Pinkie paused. “Well, it said that it would see how strong our kind really is.”

“Our kind?” Twilight asked. “So it's not a pony... Strong...” Twilights eyes went wide. “We saw it in the forest, then it went to ponyville... It's not going to Manehattan or The Dragons mountain. It's going to Canterlot!” She looked out the window, at the castle far away.

“It's going for Celestia!”

“I thought you were with Clopson.” said the bone marked pony to Applejack as she entered.

“We jus' got back, an Dash said she could handle it, but ah don't think Clopson's the murdern type, so it ain't much use keeping an eye on him. Better if we keep our minds on findin out who did this.” She said. “Pinkies tellin her story in there, You found anythin Ms, er...?”

“You can just call me Bones.” She said. “And yes, I found something strange... um,” Bones looked at Applejack. “Your uh... your not squeamish are you?”

“Not in the least Bones.” Applejack responded.

“Not many ponies are used to seeing sights like this, so I have to be sure.” Bones said, getting back to work examining the corpse.

“I've certainly seen my fair share of sights.” Applejack said.

“Well, here's the weird thing...” the bones were arranged into a body like shape. Some were broken, some were missing, but all of it was charred black “First, I can't see any injury that would have kept her from just walking out of the house. Also, You see this...” she pointed at the rib. “It's broken.”

“...Yea, seams pretty broke...” Applejack responded quizzically.

“Well, this one has a mark on it, see...” she pointed to it. It was a curved indentation knocked into the bone.

“Well shoot, looks like Big Macintoshes rib after he busted it.” Applejack said. “Ah got to see the the fancy X rated pictures of Big Mac after he came back form the hospital.”

“... X Ray pictures?”

“Yea, what I say?”

“...” Bones continued without another remark, “How did he brake... or, 'bust'...”

“Oh, He was just horsing around with the family, you know, wrastling with one of the cousins, an one of em bucked em a little too hard. Got em right in the gut. Had to keep a bandage on for a whole month...”

“Wait...” Bones looked at the mark again. “You mean this injury came from a hoof...”

“Well, I ain't no expert...” Applejack continued.

“That means...” Bones was putting the pieces together.

“What?” Appleajck asked. Bones blinked in astonishment, and pointed to where the rib was. “What does that broken rib have behind it.”

“Er, ah reckon...” Applejack stopped with widened eyes. “She couldn’t walk out...” Applejack said slowly.

“Cause someone kicked her rib into her heart.”

“And then?” Sherlock asked Pinkie.

“Well...” Pinkie continued.

“I think I can explain better from there.” Celestia cut in. “By the time they reached the palace, It had already broken through...”

The lawn was littered with guards nursing their injuries when Twilight and her gang arrived. They ran through the open doors to find Celestia herself, starring down a dark figure made of shadows, and next to the figure was Mooriarty. He looked back at the newcomers with a smile.

“Celestia!” Twilight shouted.

“Get back.” Celestia said, without averting her eyes for a second.

“But Princess...”

“Gather the Elements of Harmony.” She said. “Get your friends and get back here as quickly as possible.”

“But...”

“Now.” Celestia horn began to glow. “I'll hold her off until you arrive.”

“You don't have to tell me twice.” Stable commented. “Come on, Celestia can handle herself, we need to get out of here.”

“We will come back! I promise!” Twilight shouted.

“Go!” Celestia yelled. A bright light began to shine and Twilight and her party rushed out of the entrance just as the heavy doors slammed shut.

“Celestia!” Twilight screamed.

“We need to go!” Pinkie said sorrowfully. “The faster we can get everyone here, the faster we can help her.”

Twilight wiped away a single tear and nodded. “Split up. Pinkie and Abby, go get Rarity, Stable and I will find Dash and Applejack. Then Dash can go get Fluttershy.”

“Got it!” said Pinkie with a salute.