Day 3, 09:37

Flailing and writhing… the life being choked from my body…

White sheets stained red… in blood… my blood...

The sun’s setting… no surprise… I couldn’t last forever…

The twilight couldn’t last forever…

She couldn’t live forever…

My friend…

“TWILIGHT!” Pinkie screamed, sitting bolt upright, causing the ponies around her to jump back in shock. Pinkie looked around wildly, ignoring the anxious stares of the ponies standing around her, looking for the one face she longed to see most… the one face that was missing.

“Twilight, where is she?” Pinkie asked, sure she was imagining the pained looks on their faces. Redheart knelt down beside her, her eyes filled with pity.

“Pinkie…” she began, her voice hesitant, “you fainted, do you remember why?”

“Where is she?!” Pinkie demanded, her voice trembling from rage and fear. Vinyl sighed, sitting down next to Pinkie.

“Pinkie…” her voice lacked any semblance of its usual upbeat tone. “Twilight’s dead.”

Day 3, 10:12

Pinkie wasn’t sure how long it took her to calm down. Amidst the screams, tears and throwing of chairs, time seemed to lose all meaning. Somewhere along the way Redheart asked everypony besides her and Vinyl to wait outside while they try to calm Pinkie down. In the end Pinkie was sure she only calmed down because she didn’t have the energy to keep up her wails, and she allowed Vinyl to sit her down in one of the still standing chairs.

“I came running when I heard you scream,” Vinyl said after a long period of silence, her voice hoarse. “Most of us did. I saw… her. I’m so sorry Pinkie.”

“Was it you?” Pinkie whispered looking down at her lap.

“No!” Vinyl exclaimed, horrified at the suggestion. “Pinkie, look at me!”

Pinkie tilted her head up as Vinyl threw her sunglasses away, revealing Vinyl’s deep purple eyes, the whites of which were heavily bloodshot and shiny with her own tears.

“I swear to you, I did not kill her,” she stated, sincerity dripping from her tone. Pinkie nodded before looking over to Redheart who was standing back to give the pair some space.

“You can let the others back in now, I think I’ll be okay,” Pinkie said quietly. Redheart nodded solemnly, walking to the still open door and calling out for the rest to come back in. As they marched back into the dining room, a few cast Pinkie a mix of pitying and worrying glances, most however just avoided eye contact all together.

“So now what happens?” Cloudchaser asked once they were all gathered in the room.

“We wait,” Fleur replied, her voice bare of all emotion, “with the first body found, the Mastermind will no doubt wish to address us.”

“How right you are,” the oh so familiar voice echoed out, the screen crackling to life for the third time. “Remind me what it was you all said about not playing this game?”

“You have a lot to answer for buddy!” Soaring exclaimed, thrusting an accusing hoof at the screen.

“Me?” The Mastermind replied in mock surprise, “I didn’t do anything, if you’ve forgotten; Twilight Sparkle could only have been killed by someone in this room.”

“Come on, who was it?” Lightning Dust demanded, “You got your freedom, now own up so the rest of us can kill you!”

“Actually,” The Mastermind cut in, “I’m afraid for my little killer, that their freedom isn’t quite as… instant as I may have indicated before.”

Everypony in the room looked up at the screen, confusion etched into their faces.

“You see,” the Mastermind continued, “In order to earn your freedom, you must be found innocent of your crime in a trial, held this afternoon.”

“A trial?” Vinyl repeated, having put her sunglasses back on at some point while nopony was watching.

“The actual process will be explained at the time,” the Mastermind explained, “but until then you all have free reign to gather evidence and compile a case to present. If you can prove the culprit’s identity, they will be punished for their crime. If you can’t…”

“They go free,” Fleur finished.

“More or less,” the Mastermind agreed. “I will give you a few hours to conduct your investigation. Good luck.”

The screen flicked off, the Mastermind’s last condescending note hanging in the air.

“Great,” Gizmo said at last, “how are we shupposhed to figure out who the culprit ish?”

“Would it be too much to hope they’d just own up?” Vinyl asked, half-jokingly, she was met with complete silence. “Figures.”

“There’s no point standing here pointing hooves,” Trixie cut in, “If we are going to get to the bottom of this, we need to conduct a proper investigation. And I think we all know where said investigation must start…”

A grim silence descended upon the room as Trixie’s meaning became apparent.

“I’ll go there now,” Redheart spoke up, “I suppose someone needs to… examine her.”

“I’ll go as well,” Pinkie said blankly, standing up. Everypony stared at her in shock.

“Hey, you can just sit this out you know,” Vinyl insisted, “You don’t have to go back up there.”

“I do have to Vinyl,” Pinkie replied determined, “Twilight was my friend, I have to figure out who did this.”

“We shouldn’t waste any time,” Trixie stated, seeing Vinyl had no more objections, “we only have a few hours and we need to make the most of it.”

Day 3, 10:25

The group stood outside the bedroom door, which had been drawn across, leaving only a slight gap open.

“Was anything touched?” Pinkie asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“No,” Trixie replied just as curtly, “after you passed out, we brought you downstairs, nopony else came up here after that.”

Pinkie nodded, looking once around the group. Vinyl’s glasses hid any feelings she may have had about the situation, Trixie looked as coolly confident as ever, Redheart looked as if she was trying to remain professional but struggling, and finally Braeburn looked downright terrified.

Trixie swung the door open slowly in her pale pink aura, the whole group taking a collective breath, readying themselves for what lay beyond.

Pinkie wasn’t sure what she had expected to find, maybe Twilight sitting on her bed reading a book, confused as to why everypony was so shocked to see her. But when she saw Twilight’s mutilated body exactly as it had been before she fainted, she definitely felt a tinge of disappointment. Redheart was the first to enter the room, bracing herself against the smell that had started to develop. Trixie followed her, flinching slightly.

“Are you ready?” Vinyl asked. Pinkie nodded, and together they walked in, Vinyl resting a comforting hoof on Pinkie’s back.

Pinkie recalled a moment from her childhood as she entered the room. It was getting late as she had entered the quarry, as a result she didn’t notice when the ground gave out beneath her and she went tumbling into a pit, all light extinguished around her. She knew something was wrong as soon as her senses returned to her. The air was thick and warm, a foul stench of rotting meat invading her nostrils making her entire head spin. Once her eyes adjusted to the dark around her she made out the body of the unfortunate pony who had fallen down the pit the same way she had, and had not been discovered.

Luckily for Pinkie Pie, her father had been close enough at the time to follow the sound of her screams, and with the rest of her family’s help she was out of that pit and home before midnight. But she would never forget that smell; it was the same smell that was filling Twilight’s bedroom now as she walked in and looked down at the body of her dearest friend.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Braeburn gagged, bringing Pinkie back to the present.

“Well do it in the toilet,” Trixie snapped in disgust. Braeburn didn’t hesitate, rushing past them to the open bathroom door, the sound of vomiting following shortly after.

Pinkie moved a little closer, Vinyl constantly at her side. Now that she was taking a good look she could see black hilt of the knife, jutting out of Twilight’s ribs, as well as several other puncture wounds around her back and right side.

Twilight is on top of the covers, so she wasn’t in bed at the time of the killing, maybe she fell on to it after being attacked. If Twilight was facing the end of the bed, and the killer approached from the door, they would have been at the perfect angle to stab her in that side as well as her back. But approaching from that angle wouldn’t have gone unnoticed, so why didn’t she turn around?

Pinkie moved away from the body and approached the door. Vinyl followed her curiously. Together they crouched down so they were facing the inside of the door; the key was still in the lock.

The door wasn’t forced; Twilight must have unlocked it to allow the killer to come in. That would explain why they were able to approach her from behind without her being alarmed. But who would she trust enough to let inside her bedroom?

“This door doesn’t look forced to you does it?” Pinkie asked Vinyl, seeking confirmation of her theory.

“Nope,” she stated flatly, “plus remember what Trixie said, we aren’t allowed to force doors open.”

“So Twilight must have let them in,” Pinkie whispered, more to herself than Vinyl.

“Could she have just forgotten to lock her door?” Vinyl asked unsure.

“We heard her lock it though,” Pinkie reminded her, “after we left her last night.”

Meanwhile Trixie was still looking over Redheart’s shoulder.

“Any thoughts?” she asked, her eyes never leaving the knife in Twilight’s body.

“Well it looks like she died from the stab wounds,” Redheart began uncertainly, “but as an Alicorn Twilight would have had increased physical resistance, so this shouldn’t nearly be enough to kill her.”

“Can I take the knife out?” Trixie asked. Redheart looked up at her, surprised at Trixie forgetting to refer to herself in the third person, but nodded anyway.

Trixie slowly slid the knife from Twilight with her magic, she held it in front of her eyes, turning it over, examining every inch of it.

“Hey girls, I think that toilet’s blocked,” Braeburn said, re-entering the room, causing Trixie to nearly drop the knife out of surprise.

“Trixie is trying to examine the murder weapon,” she snapped at him, causing him to shrink back in fear, “and you interrupt her to say that the toilet is blocked?”

“Um…” Braeburn began, “yes.”

“Good,” Trixie said reverting to her calm demeanour instantly, thrusting the knife into Braeburn’s hooves causing him to freak out. “Take this, see if you can find where it came from while Trixie examines the toilet.”

With that she pushed past him into the bathroom, leaving a very bewildered Braeburn holding a bloody knife.

“Ugh!” Trixie exclaimed, revolted at the sight of toilet bowl splattered in sickly yellow liquid. Reaching out with her telekinesis, she felt down through the pipe for something solid she could latch onto, praying her suspicions were right. Grasping something, she smiled and pulled in loose, launching a crumpled ball into the bathroom, dripping with toilet water and sick.

Picking the wet ball up once more, she held it out before her. It was difficult to identify, but she began warping and reshaping it, hoping to figure it out. As she did she began to have a good notion of what it was she was holding, and after a few restoration spells to remove the various liquids from it, her suspicions were confirmed and she left the bathroom and departed into the hall without a word to the others.

Day 3, 11:18

“Alright, I think I’ve reached a conclusion,” Redheart said, approaching Vinyl and Pinkie who were sitting on the floor in Twilight’s room, waiting for the nurse to conclude the cause of death. “I believe she was poisoned.”

“You mean like food poisoning?” Vinyl asked in a worried tone.

“Not at all,” Redheart corrected, “I’m guessing there was a poison on the knife, and that it got into Twilight’s bloodstream when she was stabbed.”

“How can you tell?” Pinkie asked in awe.

“Well it would have been easier had I been able to examine her earlier, but she’s still displaying some symptoms,” Redheart explained, “For starters her eyes have been tinged with yellow, her blood is very dark, and judging from the way her limbs are twisted and the bedcovers beneath her, I believe she went into spasms, when really being stabbed should have paralyzed her from shock.”

“So poison was involved,” Vinyl repeated thoughtfully, “didn’t Trixie say yesterday there were labs on the third floor?”

“If there are, the killer could have found something there,” Redheart concurred. Pinkie nodded and stood up, readying to leave, Vinyl close behind her.

“Thanks Nurse Redheart,” Pinkie said sincerely, “We’ll go check there now.”

The pair left the room, making for the end of the corridor they knew led to the staircases. As they walked Vinyl noticed something. A familiar terracotta plant pot lying collapsed, a large mound of soil pouring from it.

“Hey that’s the plant pot we almost knocked over last night,” she pointed out, picking up her pace, “looks like it didn’t matter that I caught it, but I don’t see why anyone would knock it over and not bother to put it back up.”

“Unless when they knocked it over,” Pinkie began, the gears in her mind whirring, “they were in too much of a hurry to set it back up.”

Vinyl met her eyes, both of them reaching the same conclusion. Crossing the last several feet they looked down at the pot and the pile of soil, one feature standing out to them both. A single defined hoof print.

Day 3, 11:26

As Vinyl and Pinkie carried on walking, they picked up a sound emanating from one of the rooms, the sound of someone crying. In that brief moment Pinkie forgot about the investigation, her own kind nature returning to the forefront.

“You head on to the lab,” Pinkie said to Vinyl, “I’m going to check that out and then catch up with you.”

Vinyl nodded, carrying on towards the staircase. Pinkie instead turned right and entered the laundry room. Inside Coco sat scrubbing furiously a something, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Coco…” Pinkie said tentatively, creeping into the room, “what’s wrong?”

“I… just… can’t…” Coco murmured angrily, scrubbing harder and harder in the basin to the point where she was at risk of tearing right through the clothes.

“Can’t what?” Pinkie asked, getting closer, “What can’t you do?”

“Anything!” Coco screamed, throwing the shirt across the room, its stubborn yellow stain mocking her from where it lay. Coco put her head into her forehooves and began weeping uncontrollably, Pinkie sighed, sitting down next to her and putting a comforting hoof around her shoulder. “T… Twilight was so nice t… to me,” she blubbed, “I just wanted to help fins who did this, b… but I didn’t know what I could do, so I came here to do some washing to stay out of everypony’s way, but I can’t even do that r… right!”

She continued wailing into Pinkie’s coat; all the while Pinkie rubbed her back in a comforting fashion.

“Don’t feel bad,” Pinkie whispered, causing Coco to quieten a little. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this, but in the mean time we need everypony to be there for each other. You might not realise it, but knowing other ponies care this much about Twilight really helps give me the strength to keep going.”

Coco pulled away from Pinkie, sniffing slightly but no longer crying. “I’m sorry, she was your friend, I can’t imagine how hard it is for you.”

“It is hard,” Pinkie admitted, “but I can’t give up just because things get hard, Twilight wouldn’t want me to do that. She wouldn’t want any of us to do that.”

Day 3, 11:31

Vinyl opened the door to the alchemy lab, breathing in the aroma of countless herbs and chemicals lining the walls in jars and bottles on dusty shelves. It only now occurred to her as she walked around the tables littered in test tubes and other random pieces of chemistry equipment, that she had no idea what she was looking for. It was a shame Redheart couldn’t have mentioned what chemicals might be used in making poison, but then, they did run off kind of abruptly.

Her train of thought was halted by a tinkling sound and something gentle knocking against her hoof. Looking down she saw a broken bottle at her hooves, the ground ahead of her coated in chips of glass and the same powder that coated the inside of the bottle remains. Levitating it up in front of her she examined the label. It was old and faded, but she could just about make out the words ‘Tartrazine’.

Day 3, 11:58

Pinkie walked alongside Coco as they approached the alchemy lab. Pinkie had filled her in on what they had figured out so far.

But what do I know so far? Twilight invited the killer in, so she probably trusted them. The killer stabbed her as she moved back towards the bed. The knife was poisoned, that’s what killed Twilight. As they left they knocked over that plant pot leaving a hoof print in it. It’s not a lot, certainly not enough to make any accusations. Maybe Vinyl will have found something useful…

Pinkie was pulled out of her thoughts by the very unicorn she was just thinking about running out of the lab and nearly knocking the both of them over.

“Oh hey Pinkie,” Vinyl said, looking between her and Coco, “I was just coming to find you.”

“Well we found you first,” Pinkie replied, laughing for the first time in what felt like forever. True it had only been a day, but she was sure she was already suffering from withdrawl symptoms. “Did you find anything?”

“Yeah actually,” Vinyl said, reaching into her saddle bags, “I’m not sure if it’s important, but I did find thi…”

Vinyl didn’t get to finish her sentence, or show Pinkie what it was she found. At that moment a voice echoed throughout the corridor they were standing in, and they reckoned throughout the rest of the house as well.

“Your time for investigating is up,” the Mastermind announced. “Please report to the entrance hall so that we can begin the trial. Anypony who does not show up will be punished.”

Pinkie and Vinyl looked at each other, Vinyl’s discovery momentarily forgotten.

“Well…” Pinkie began nervously, “let’s go.”

Day 3, 12:14

Trenderhoof hurried down the wide staircase, joining the crowd gathered at the bottom.

“Sorry I’m late,” he apologised breathlessly, “this place is like a maze.”

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve got these for,” Soarin reminded him, pointing to his hoof computer.

“I know, but…” Trenderhoof said, his voice trailing off to a murmur, “those things are hard to use.”

“Is this is?” Blueblood exclaimed, drawing everypony’s attention. He strutted through the entrance hall examining his surroundings, “When they said trial, I expected something a little more…”

What he expected they didn’t find out, as his words were cut off by a low rumbling, the floor beneath their hooves trembling slightly. They all looked around wildly, looking for the source of the disturbance. Pinkie’s eyes finally landed on the staircase that Trenderhoof had just come down, which were now collapsing, clouds of dust rising as each individual step sank lower and lower until the whole staircase was levelled out. But it didn’t stop there, the steps instead descending further, the higher the step previously, the lower it sank so that when it finally ceased moving, the entire staircase had been inverted.

The group of ponies stared in silence at the newly formed staircase to the basement they didn’t know existed. Only brought out of their awe by the voice of the Mastermind echoing once more through the entrance hall.

“Please descend the stairs. It is time for the trial to begin.”

Author's Notes:

Much shorter part, much less waffle.
Feel free to propose possible solutions, all will be revealed in the next part.