Gun, with occasional Pony

Chapter One
In Which the victim is identified.

This world is a funny old place. That’s the first thought that came to my mind when I saw the body. Perhaps the whole thing was just a massive joke, some prank pulled by a God with a weird ass sense of humor. In anycase this poor colt ain’t laughing anymore. He had his last laugh, about five hours ago judging by the rigor mortis. It was a gruesome scene, the mod who brought me here had left as fast as he’d come, weak stomach poor kid. I wish I’d had the same luxury, to go out and retch my guts into the sewer drain, but somepony had to do this job, and it certainly wasn’t the newbie turning green in the hall. I looked over the body carefully. Trying to avoid getting blood on my hooves. He’d spilled his guts, quite literally. Somepony had harbored a terrible grudge against this guy, he was carved up finer than a thanksgiving turkey. It was so bad I almost didn’t recognize him.

He was Ragingingsemi, I remembered him from the billboards in the FIM district on the outskirts of the /co/mpound. He was a fic writer, not unlike myself once upon a time, but he wrote fics of different nature, a dirty nature. Fapfics were a thriving business here, RagingSemi’s house of Fapfics was one of the most popular places for the trade all along the /co/ast, encompassing the /co/mpound all they way down to the /b/ay. It’s main place of operations was in the the FIM district, not too far from the motel, in an otherwise clean cut, easy going area. He’d made a lot of enemies, apparently some of them were going to be very happy now.
I’d had nothing against the guy, he was just trying to make a living in this place, same as the rest of us. Who could blame him if his methods were a bit....eccentric to put it mildly, he certainly didn’t deserve to be here, in this dump of a motel, split open like a fortune cookie on new years.
“Squeak.” called the mod from the hall. He lurched back into the room looking like a dead fish. “You got anything?”
“I’ve got a few things.” I gazed around the room. It was your regular cheap motel on the east end of the /co/mpound. It smelled of cigars, mold and thanks to Semi, roadkill. He was on the floor, several feet from anything in the room. The decor, what little there was, lay untouched. The tables and chairs lay undisturbed and the bed was perfectly made, right down to the mints on the pillows. It was strange, aside from the blood slowly pooling around the former author, the room was immaculate. “It looks like the body was moved, this room is far too neat to be the scene of the crime. No blood spatter on the walls, no sign of a struggle, this whole thing stinks to high heaven.”
“You’re telling me.” said the mod, holding his nose. I didn’t know his name, no one did. He was one of several who patrolled the /co/mpound, making sure everypony obeyed the rules. They weren’t very good at their jobs. Most of them hated us, and encouraged trouble more than they helped. But a few of them were on our side. Still I didn’t think I’d be getting much help on this case.
“Thanks for bringing me.” I nodded to the kid. “It’s just as bad as you said on the phone.” I pointed to the bed. “The way I see it, they brought the body into this room to set up a false scene. But they must have been interrupted, if they were smart enough to move the body, there’s no way they would have left without messing up the room a little.” I walked over to the window, it was open, a gentle breeze rustled the curtains as it came in from the street. “They probably went over the fire escape and into the city. Whoever it was they’re long gone now.” I looked back at the poor sucker sprawled on the carpet. “But they won’t be for long.” I marched past the mod, mumbling my thanks again, and made my way to the street level. It was late, I was never quite sure of the time, ponies don’t wear watches. But I was sure it was at least a little past midnight. Still the taxis drove through the streets like clockwork. I hailed one and quickly boarded.
As the cabbie started the car, I thought to myself again about this funny old world, The OC, the place I called home. They say everything, when it gets big enough, spawns a world like this. A world where ideas are power, where every thought of the fans takes shape, no matter how incipid or superfluous. The kind of place where you don’t have to tell the cabbie where you want to go, because they never do that in the movies, inner monologues are done with a slight echo and a pony can drive a car even though they lack opposable thumbs. Everything around me was a thought, a construct of nonsense built upon an original foundation, My Little Pony: Friendship is magic.
It had surprised everyone when it’d come to popularity, it seemed harmless at first, but grew in a surprisingly short time, before we knew it, we were here. None of us more than seven months old, based on a cartoon. Everything was pony based, mixed in with the often warped, strange ideas of The Fandom. Even the cab in which I now rode was pink with large curly hair.
I myself was the idea, the facsimile, of a fan. A rather small idea, just an image here, a mention there. But an idea nonetheless. I don’t know who from, none of us did, but almost every pony with a name has the same story. One day poof, you’re here, in The OC, no warning, not a lick of sense, just the whim of some writer, artist or random person. But you learn quick, you have to. Apparently Semi hadn’t learned enough. I had a few suspects in the case, a few leads I needed to check. But first I needed to head back to the office.
The building I was housed in was themed after Doctor Whoof, a large hourglass for a door and a spiky hairdo for a roof. I payed the cabbie. I didn’t have pockets, but the money always just seemed to be there, in my hoof when I needed it, exact change. That’s just how things worked.
Inside it was a bit run down, but it was home. My office was on the ground floor, behind the door with my name on it. “Squeak” it proclaimed in large boldface type, Arial by the looks of it. Below that the word “Writer” had been hastily crossed out, and replaced with Private Eye, spelled in Comic Sans. I hated Comic Sans. The words had simply popped up after the ‘incident’ and I had followed them. I wasn’t a writer anymore. I thought as I walked past the door into my office. The only stories I needed now were real stories, stories from the streets.
As I sat in the chair behind my desk, everything turned black and white. I don’t know why. It’d been happening ever since I’d first seen that hastily scrawled Private Eye on the door. Beside me, a cigar burned in my rubber duck shaped ash tray. I didn’t smoke, but the cigar was always there, always burning. I’d tried to put it out several times, but it just ended up back in the tray, smoke slowly rising same as always. I’d long given up, and just let it sit there and look cool.
I mulled over this case that’d fallen in my lap. What’d happened to poor Mr.Semi? Where had it happened? Who had done it? All these questions burned in my head. I had some suspects lined up in my head, but in the OC new ponies came and went like so much salad at a buffet. It would be a hard case to solve, but I had nothing but time. I needed someone to ask, a trampoline off which to bounce my theories. I needed to go see someone with connections. I needed Pacce, or maybe Madmax.
A knock at the door shook me from my thoughts.
“Mail” came a voice from the door. A voice I could never mistake, no one in the OC sounded quite like that.
“Come in, Derpy.” I called. “It’s open.”
She stepped in, her blond mane wild as usual, her eyes staring of in opposite directions.
“Mail.” she said again.
Derpy was an odd case. Here in the OC, the occasional background pony from The Cannon ended up popping into existence when the fan speculation on them became too much. They were often treated like minor celebrities. But Derpy was an odd case.
She had started out as an animation error, as far as I’d heard. Then the fandom ran away with her. Comics, pictures, stories, theories, all poured into one idea, the idea of Derpy, or Bright Eyes, as she sometimes liked to be called. All of this was just fine and dandy, and in fact how most BP’s ended up in the OC, but she was something different. Her idea had gotten so big, it bled it’s way into The Cannon. The creators took a thought from the OC, and made it “Real”. She popped up in episodes, and derped her way around the actual ponyville. Yet at the same time, she was a fan construct. Most of her personality was just the whims of fans and fic writers, subject to change and sway at the drop of a hat. So she was in between. Her eyes had been crossed before the shift, but now ponies said they seemed even more so. They said she had an eye for each world. One eye in The Cannon, one eye in the OC. It made her a bit funny in the head. Her voice was made of the theories of what she might sound like. So as a result it sounded like everything, from a sweet country girl, to chain smoking Spaniard, it was all there. The general effect was like putting a television in a blender.
“What have you got for me Derps?” I asked kindly. I liked the kid, she was a kind enough pony, despite her issues.
“Mail.” she said a third time.
“Okay, put it on the desk.” I cleared a space. I really did need to be neater if I ever got the time.
She reached her head into her saddlebags, and retrieved a small envelop. I’ll never quite figure out how she kept them all straight, the mail always looked tossed around at random in that bag to me. But she always pulled out the right one nonetheless. She sat it down.
“Who’s it from?” I asked. A lot of ponies never signed letters, you always had to ask the mailmare if you wanted to know. It didn’t make much sense, but it made exposition a lot easier.
“Slywit” she said. Then she turned and left.