Midnight Belle (and the Case of the Vanishing Foals!)

Sweetie hadn’t told too many other ponies about the costume. She’d found it her sister’s closet originally—more than that, she’d found several of them—and as such had rationalized that nopony would notice if one went missing. One was enough to work with for design purposes, in any case. Sweetie Belle had never imagined herself to be a seamstress on Rarity’s level, or to even aspire to such a thing, but she knew her way around a sewing machine well enough that she’d been able to come up with a passable replicant—after several false starts, anyways. She’d forgotten on the first and second drafts that ponies had four legs, not three.

Of course, as a testament to some universal law, she’d never had a chance to use any of them. She’d mentioned the costumes in passing to the rest of the Crusaders, but neither of them had seemed particularly keen on the idea. There were always plenty of pursuits and things to attempt without having to dress up in fancy costumes, and those always made it to the top of the list first, leaving Sweetie’s ambition buried at the bottom of their future cutie-mark finding ideas. Sweetie seemed to think the idea of costumed crusading was much more appealing than either of her friends did; and so, as a result, the purple and black outfits she’d sewn together herself lied buried at the bottom of her own closet, gathering dust as they sat in unused squalor.

But not anymore.

The idea had come to Sweetie in the middle of class. Between her shared stares with Diamond Tiara, she’d recalled the conversation she, Applebloom, and Scootaloo had shared on the last day before the pair had disappeared. There was speculation about what could be causing the disappearances as they’d happened so far—though, at that point, qualifying two missing ponies as a rash of ‘disappearances’ had been jumping the gun a bit. Now, Sweetie was prepared to call the vanishings an epidemic, in a word she’d heard her sister use long before things had developed properly. She remembered what Scootaloo had theorized was the cause of the missing ponies, aside their leaving of their own free will.

Sweetie Belle wasn’t sure griffons were the answer, but something was definitely up.

And, who better to investigate a case of multiple kidnappings than a superhero?

Sweetie had been swept up in the Mare-Do-Well ruckus as much as everypony else in town had been. She’d stood in awe as the costumed pony performed feats of derring-do and saved the day on more than one occasion. She’d never imagined she’d be capable of any of the things she saw—super fast flight, predictive premonitions or unbelievable strength—but she didn’t need any of those things to be a hero now. All she needed was her costume, and the lead she had secured before arriving home.

The cape was her favorite part.

The limbs of the costume seemed a little tight at first, but after several tugs, Sweetie convinced them to fit, as poorly-sewn as they might have been. She had always liked the black and purple colour scheme—in retrospect, it was obvious her sister had designed the costumes. Design sensibility like that was something she shared with her sister, though perhaps not to a greatly transferable extent.

Sweetie studied herself in her room’s full-length mirror. She got half-way down her head before she started suddenly and dashed back to the closet.

Couldn’t forget the hat.

With the giant purple headpiece on, Sweetie looked almost exactly like the Mare-Do-Well she watched from afar. It was hard to believe it was still just her behind the costume. But of course, that was exactly the way it should be—if she found whatever evil doer was responsible for Ponyville’s fast-developing crimewave, she needed to keep her identity secret at all costs.

The grown ups hadn’t been able to do anything. They’d wandered about and turned up no results. But Sweetie Belle knew she could do better. She knew her friends, and she knew that she’d already collected more information than any of the ponies who had gone looking the day before.

She was the hero that Ponyville needed.

“Cutie Mark Crusader Crime Fight—oops.” Sweetie stopped herself with a hoof on her mouth. The usual chant stung on her lips. It sounded hollow without the other two voices needed to bring it to its full weight.

“Crusader Sweetie Belle Crime Fighter,” she said to herself, nodding at her substitution. Flying solo, it would have to do.

But, she couldn’t just be Sweetie Belle. Not as a costumed hero. And Mare-Do-Well was already taken...

Sweetie Belle looked towards the window. It was late, later than it had been when she got home, and avoided her scolding from Rarity with her carefully crafted alibi. The sun was long since gone, and night was coming in proper, ushering in a wave of blackness that would consume Ponyville wholly, the way it did every night, until the sun peeked out from the horizon and welcomed back the visibility of daylight.

The same darkness that had given Sweetie her first clue. The darkness that she was about to set out into in search of a discovery that would bring Ponyville to a collective gasp of astonishment.

Not Sweetie Belle.

“Midnight Belle,” she whispered to herself. She grabbed her cape with one hoof and threw it in front of her face with a swish, striking a dramatic pose in the mirror.

That would do.

Midnight Belle was alone in the upstairs of her hideout. The black of night outside her window crept over the houses of Ponyville like a lurking shadow, hiding criminals and miscreants from the illumination of daybreak.

The streets were filled with n’er-do-wells, and there was only one pony in town capable of stopping them—

“Sweetie Belle! Quit playing and come downstairs! Dinner’s ready!”

Shoot.

Sweetie Belle caught herself halfway through her dramatic overlook out her window, almost tumbling to the ground as she struggled to yank her costume off. Dinner had gotten off to a late start thanks to her questioning disguised as dawdling.

After a few minutes with a particularly stubborn leg, Sweetie managed to weasel out of her crime-fighting apparel. She could smell the scent of supper wafting up the stairs: something with hay-fries on the side, by the smell of it.

Cleaning up the streets of Ponyville could wait a little bit, if hay-fries were involved.

“Do you want me to read you a bedtime story, Sweetie Belle?”

Sweetie let herself lie back and be smothered by the decorated quilting that lined the bed of the guest-room. Rarity always insisted on tucking her in, which Sweetie Belle put up with only because she knew a protest would only mean further difficulty. It was better to simply lie limp and let Rarity coo and fuss with the sheets before leaving Sweetie to adjust them to a more proper size and sleep comfortably.

“No, that’s okay Rarity.” While Sweetie had to admit she’d given in to the temptation of a bed-time tale more than once, tonight was not the night. There was clue-hunting to be done.

“Well, if you’re sure. Did you remember to brush your teeth before bed?” Rarity furrowed her eyebrows as she tucked in the corners of the sheet, forming a make-shift cloth prison for her sister.

“Yes, Rarity,” Sweetie said. It was a response she’d rehearsed steadily over the last few days.

“Did you do your homework for tomorrow?”

“Yes, Rarity.”

“And did take your dishes downstairs like I asked?”

“Yes, Rarity.”

“Good. And, did you remember to take down the description of any suspicious looking ponies in town so I can file a police report for their investigation—”

“Rarity!”

Rarity batted her eyes bashfully. Perhaps that was a bit much.

“Alright, alright. I’ll leave you be then, as I can see you’re eager to get to sleep. Have sweet dreams, and make sure you’re bright-eyed and ready for school tomorrow.”

“I will, Rarity.”

Rarity leaned in close and gave Sweetie Belle a kiss on the forehead, which brought a contented giggle from Sweetie in spite of herself. Rarity answered it with a smile, and lingered with her hoof on the nearby desk-lamp before she flicked it off. She made her away across the room in a similarly languid fashion, and held the door for a moment, looking back on Sweetie’s bed, where Sweetie was already lying with her eyes closed, ready to begin snoring peacefully.

Rarity sighed to herself and shut the door delicately as she stepped out into the hallway.

Sweetie counted to ten before she pulled the sheets off her chest as quietly as she could muster. It was dark, but the costume wasn’t far away. Sweetie wasn’t exactly practiced at sneaking out the window, but she imagined it couldn’t be too difficult—at worst, she’d take a tumble down a floor, and she was squishy. She’d certainly hit the ground from greater heights in the past, and come out with not much more than a scrape.

Besides—even a few bruises couldn’t deter Midnight Belle from her true calling—a rescue of her friends, and the defeat of whatever nefarious villain had locked them up in the first place.

The costume came on more easily this time. As Sweetie donned the hat, a flicker of moonlight caught her reflection in the mirror. She stared at it through her mask.

She couldn’t believe how cool she looked.

Time to go crime-fighting.

Midnight Belle pulled open the upstairs window with an almost silent creak. Her hooves moved across the metal bar holding it shut with familiarity—it wasn’t her first time being locked up here. As she pushed the window into place at the height of its opening, she leaned over to get a good view of the descent awaiting her.

It may as well have been fifteen stories, but that didn’t stop her for a second. She barely paused before pulling herself from the window and moving to collect her tools.

The bed-sheet that had been given to her as a means to keep her quiet would make a perfect rope. She chewed her lip as she tied the ends together, then coiled the whole length into a long, slender climbing apparatus. Just like she’d done it a million times before, Midnight Belle fastened one end to the window, tying it around the metal bar that normally held the glass in place. It was firm.

Midnight Belle smiled to herself in the moonlight.

She eyed the ground one last time before propping herself up on the window-ledge. The wind whistled as it blew past, shrieking into the empty night like a devil’s whisper. Midnight Belle didn’t even flinch as she held herself against the side of the house, grasping at the tied-up bed-sheet like she was a practiced rappeller.

After what felt like only a few hops, she reached the ground. The dewy grass bristled under her hooves.

That was step one. It had gone by without so much as a forced breath—but the night was still young, and Midnight Belle wasn’t about to rest until she had it held up by its neck against the wall, spilling whatever secrets it held and letting her finally put an end to this whole ‘kidnapping’ business.

The investigation had to start somewhere, of course. So, without even a glance back, Midnight Belle took off into the night, slipping through the darkness like a shadow, her cape billowing softly in the breeze.