“Hey! Open up!” Rainbow Dash pounded on the double doors that led out of the waiting room. Morning Dew and Derpy had passed through the doors moments before, chasing after some unicorn that had kidnapped a bunch of ponies. Now the stupid thing was locked tight. What the hay was going on? Why had somepony shouted something about the end of Equestria? Rainbow Dash looked around the room. Some of the ponies looked quite frightened and began asking questions.

“What’s going on?”

“Are we trapped?”

“Was that a kidnapper?”

“Looks that way,” Rainbow Dash said. “But don’t worry. Morning Dew and Derpy got out before the doors shut. I’m sure they’ll go for help. And we still have a bunch of us being tested out there. Once they get back and find the doors locked, they’ll know something’s up. It’s only a matter of time before we get out of here, and then we’ll put the hurt on whoever locked us in! For now, we’ll have to wait, so we might as well get comfortable.”

The ponies turned away and went back to what they had been doing before the lights had gone out. The once loud chatter had quieted down to a few nervous conversations. Rainbow Dash paced back and forth in front of the doors. She was the champion. Everypony would be looking to her for guidance. She looked around the room. Several sets of eyes were on her. Rainbow Dash knew she should say more to help put their fears to rest. Get some ponies working on an escape plan, maybe? Anything to help takes their minds off the situation they were now in.

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to speak. Suddenly, a section of the wall rotated in a circle and the five ponies standing near it were gone.

“Everypony away from the walls!” Rainbow Dash yelled.

The ponies rushed to the center of the room and shot nervous glances at the walls.

“What if the floors are booby-trapped too?” somepony said.

The pegasi took to the air.

“What if the ceiling is trapped?”

The pegasi landed again.

“Everypony stop!”

Every pony did stop and turned towards the new voice of command. Trixie stepped forward. “Panicking will get us nowhere. We need to remain calm and stick together. There’s been a kidnapping. We don’t know who did it or why, but—”

“I’ll tell you why!” Rainbow Dash said, getting attention back on her. “They felt there was too much competition this year, and that they had to thin out the numbers! Whoever did this is another contestant! And they are still in this room!”

The crowd gasped and began whispering to one another. Trixie sighed and shook her head. “Really, Rainbow Dash? They’re still in this room? And just what clever observation leads you to believe this?”

“Simple. How would the kidnapper have known there were ponies against that wall, unless they were still in here?”

The crowd began nodding and commenting in agreement. Rainbow Dash grinned. It was time to let her detective skills shine.

“The kidnapper made a mistake, though!” Rainbow Dash announced once the crowd had quieted. They were hanging on her every word. “With this many ponies in the room, some of us must have seen the kidnapper in action before he ran away! We just need to combine our memories to recreate the scene of the crime and, whammo, kidnapper is caught.”

“This... is the most ill-conceived plan I have ever heard,” Trixie said.

“You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first! Now then, did anypony notice anything suspicious just before the lights went out or just after they came back on?”

“I did,” a pegasus said. When everyone was looking at him, he continued, “Right after the lights came back on, I saw a unicorn standing in the doorway. He was wearing a black mask and cape. I think his mane might have also been black, but that might have just been part of the mask. His coat was definitely blue, though.”

Rainbow Dash tapped her chin. “Interesting. So it seems our kidnapper is a blue unicorn with a dark mane.”

“And it seems you were wrong about him still being in this room,” Trixie said.

“What?”

“Actually try to think about the order of events. The kidnapper ran away, those two ponies chased after him, and the doors locked shut. There are no other exits to this room. There aren’t even windows. How could the kidnapper have possibly gotten back inside?”

“Well... what... what if he snuck back in through a trap door? You all saw the rotating wall, so you’re wrong about no other exits. How many other secret ways are there into this room?”

“I still think you’re using an incredibly big assumption tha—”

“There he is!” somepony yelled. “Get him!”

What followed was a scuffling of ponies that ended with a unicorn stallion being held down by many hooves.

“Unhoof me!” the unicorn said. “I’m not the kidnapper!”

“Well, well, well,” Rainbow Dash said as she walked toward the unicorn, her eyes narrowing. “If it isn’t my old nemesis, Royal Blue!”

“Nemesis?” Royal Blue said. “What in Equestria are you talking about?”

“Admit it, RB! You kidnapped those ponies in an attempt to get me out of the finals this year so that you would have a shot at the trophy.”

“What? Listen to yourself, Rainbow Dash. How would me kidnapping random ponies prevent you from competing?”

“Well… ah... don’t ask me! I don’t know how the criminal mastermind works!”

“That’s quite obvious,” Trixie said. “Let him up. Rainbow Dash is wrong, again.”

Rainbow Dash growled, but Trixie didn’t give her a chance to speak. “If you really want to go down this path,” Trixie said, “then you need to do it right. A blue unicorn is not an accurate enough description to accuse anypony. A quick glance around the room and I see five other unicorns that are also shades of blue. Even I am a blue unicorn, and—”

“She’s a blue unicorn! Get her!”

Trixie yelped as a pile of ponies landed on her.

“I know you were the one that said that, Rainbow Dash!” Trixie yelled.

Rainbow Dash laughed as the ponies let Trixie go. “Okay, Okay. So we need more information. Sorry about that, RB. No hard feelings?”

Royal Blue harrumphed. “Just don’t make a habit of it,” he said.

“So, did anypony else see something?” Rainbow Dash said to the crowd.

“I saw something,” a voice said. The group turned and looked at an orange earth pony with a long red mane. She was doing her best to turn invisible now that the room’s attention was on her. “I saw... that is to say, I think I saw... I saw his cutie mark. It was a bunny.”

“Aha! So it was you, Royal Blue!”

Royal Blue’s mouth hung open. He tried to start speaking several times before he just lowered his head and sighed. He turned so that his flank was showing towards Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow Dash,” he nearly growled, “my cutie mark is of a jar of ink and a bundle of quills. It is not, in any sense of the word, a bunny. Now stop it with this ridiculous game of yours.”

Rainbow Dash squinted her eyes. “It kind of looks like a bunny.”

“It does not!”

“No seriously! Everypony come over here and look,” Rainbow Dash said, waving everypony over.

The group came near Rainbow Dash and stared at Royal Blue, who was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with so many ponies staring at his flank.

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash said. “Everypony tilt your head a little to the right and look at the quills. Squint if it helps.”

The crowd obeyed. Many ponies had looks of confusion of their faces but, one by one, a look of recognition came over them.

“Oh, wow! It does look like a bunny from this angle!”

“That’s so cool!”

“I wish my cutie mark could change shape like that!”

Royal Blue stared in disbelief. He didn’t like what he was hearing. This had to be some kind of prank. He turned so the ponies could no longer stare at his ‘obviously not a bunny’ cutie mark.

“It does not look like a bunny,” Royal Blue repeated.

“It totally does!” Rainbow Dash said as she flew up to Royal Blue and placed her hooves on his head. “Here, just turn your head like so... now squint and focus. It’ll look like the profile of a rabbit. Imagine that the quills are the ears and that the little glint on the ink jar is an eye.”

Royal Blue rolled his eyes but obeyed. He stared for a minute, but his cutie mark didn’t magically change shape. “I don’t see anything. My cutie mark does not—Oh my word. It does look like a bunny. I’m never going to be able to un-see that.”

“A cutie mark that looks like a bunny when you turn your head, doesn’t make it a cutie mark of a bunny,” Trixie said. “We need more information.”

“You’re right,” Rainbow Dash said. She turned back to the earth pony that had spoken before. The earth pony was looking relieved that she was no longer the center of attention, then she noticed Rainbow Dash staring at her and resumed her attempt at invisibility.

“You got a good look at his cutie mark,” Rainbow Dash said. “What color was his coat and tail?”

The earth pony looked around frantically. “I... I couldn’t tell,” she said.

“What? How could you have seen his cutie mark but not be able to tell what color his coat and tail was?”

“Well... I-I’m...” The pony lowered her head as tears began to flow. “I have monochromatic color blindness. I can only see in greys.”

Rainbow Dash’s mouth hung open. The ponies near the crying mare were giving comforting words while other ponies in the room were shooting angry glances at the cyan pegasus.

“Nice going, Rainbow Insensitive,” Trixie said.

“How was I supposed to know she was color blind?”

“You have been making a mockery of this investigation from the start. I think it’s time you stepped aside and let Trixie show you how it’s done. What we need to do is create a list of everything everypony saw. We then take any similarities between stories and use that as our basis for what the kidnapper looks like. We’ll need this information for the authorities once we’re rescued.”

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. Already Trixie was trying to show her up.